“Is that rain?” she said.
I nodded.
The camera now focused to show Cornelius Winston do that old-man fast-paced hobble, a run without using his knees, which looked less comfortable than actual running. He stumbled under the shelter. Barely a few drops had fallen, but where there was one, there were thousands, and around here they didn’t arrive over a course of days. In Florida, rain really gets about its business. It dumps hard, and then it stops. No messing around.
“You got someone over there?” I asked Agent Marcard.
He shook his head. “He’s got to come to the ground, surely?”
“Not if it rains.”
Marcard looked at me. He knew what I meant. Kerns didn’t. She was from the Northeast, where they got their fair share of rain, but not the biblical stuff we got in Florida.
She smiled. “You guys get so much sunshine here that you’re afraid of a little rain?”
Marcard didn’t respond. He banged the wire mesh between him and the front of the van. “Get us around to the back of the stadium.”
“I think that road’s on the inside of the park,” said the agent in the driver’s seat.
“So?”
“So, we’re outside the park, sir.”
“So get us inside the park. Now!”
I looked at the screen as the van started. Winston was standing under the shelter, watching another car pull up. It looked like a Lincoln Town Car. A man got out of the back and dashed across to the shelter. He reached Winston, brushed himself off, and they shook hands. The van wobbled as it turned a corner, and we all held onto the shelving. It was like watching television on a rollercoaster.
“You recording this?” I asked.
Marcard nodded. “Video and audio.” He hit a button and sound filled the van. We heard the rat-tat-tat of fat raindrops on the roof of the shelter like a slow drumbeat.
“What are we doing here, Cornelius?” asked the man.
“Precautions, Howard. Precautions.”
We all went flying as the van hit the brakes.
“Dawkins, are you trying to kill us?” yelled Marcard.
“Sorry, sir. The gate is blocked.”
“So crash through.”
“It’s blocked by concrete barriers. I’ll need to go back and use the main gate.”
“Then do it!”
I had hit the floor, so I stayed down. I grabbed my phone and called Danielle.
“MJ, the players are coming off. It’s raining. What’s happening?”
“Winston is out in a picnic shelter behind the outfield. It’s going down, but we’re stuck outside the ground.”
“I’m there.”
I looked up at the monitor. The man called Howard was handing a briefcase to Winston.
“The athletes of Jamaica thank you,” said Winston.
“Yes, of course,” said Howard. “And you’ll be in position?”
“Absolutely. This will ensure my friends put me in charge, and soon. When the vote happens, well, let’s just say the athletes of Jamaica look forward to competing in Miami.”
The van skidded but everyone was hanging on now, and it came to a halt. Dawkins wound down the window and yelled at someone outside.
“FBI! Get that gate open. Now!”
There was a wait as I assumed the gate was being opened. Then Dawkins hit the gas and we were thrown about again. On the monitor the man called Howard shook hands with Winston and turned to the edge of the shelter. A man got out of the front of the Town Car and hurried across with an umbrella, and he ushered Howard back to the car. Winston watched him go.
Then the heavens really opened.
More than once I had been on a freeway where every vehicle came to a complete stop from the rain. It came down so fast and so thick we lost the picture. It was like shooting video in a glass of milk. Dawkins slowed down and moved cautiously. I got up and looked through the wire mesh to the windshield. There was nothing to see. It was as if we had driven off the edge of a quarry and landed in a lake at the bottom. The whole view was murky gray, and the sound was deafening. The van shook from the force of the rain, and the noise was like dropping gravel from a plane. We couldn’t see anything in the monitors, and Dawkins had slowed to about two miles an hour. He was driving like a pilot flies in a cloud, using the GPS screen stuck on his windshield to guide our passage. I hoped it was more accurate than mine. We all stood in the back, hanging on, all looking up at the roof of the van, like submariners waiting for the torpedo to hit.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it was gone. There are no geographical anomalies, aka mountains, in Florida, so there is nothing for clouds to gather around. Weather moves across the state pretty much unfettered, so it doesn’t hang around. The sheets of rain moved across the ground, clearing at the picnic shelter first. The monitor showed doused grills and no sign of Winston or the Town Car.
“Dammit,” said Marcard. “He’s gone.”
We were still in rain, so we couldn’t go any faster, until the downpour swept away from us as well, and the vision started to clear, like driving out of a carwash. Dawkins hit the gas and we were thrust backwards, and then we all slammed forward as he jumped on the brakes.
“Dawkins!” yelled Marcard. I was with him. They needed to redraw the straws on who did the driving.
“It’s the Town Car, sir,” said Dawkins as he leaped out of the van. Kerns moved fast too, pushing up and over me and out the back door. I flipped out and Marcard followed. We dashed around the van. The road was an inch deep in water, the curve of the asphalt running it off toward the grass. The Town Car was head on to the van, inches separating the bumpers. Dawkins had his weapon out, pointed at the driver. The driver had his hands on the top of the steering wheel as directed, and he wasn’t moving. Kerns ran to the back door and pulled it open and dragged the occupant out. He was in a great coat and charcoal suit. The sun burst out from behind the clouds and hit the wet ground, and instantly the humidity rose and the whole park turned into a bain-marie. I was uncomfortable as I was, and I wasn’t the one wearing a coat designed for Fifth Avenue.
“What is the meaning of this?” said the man called Howard. “Do you know who I am?”
“Howard Peeskill,” said Kerns. “You are under arrest.”
I saw the driver get out and get cuffed by Dawkins, and I turned to Marcard as he looked at me.
“Winston,” we said at the same time.
Agent Marcard was a better driver, but in Dawkins’s defense, the rain had stopped and it was bright and sunny again. He pulled around the Town Car and screamed along the road that ringed the entire park. The two tech guys in the back were holding on for dear life again. I preferred the front seat, and the comfort of a seat belt. We got to the picnic shelter and Marcard skidded to a stop. All four of us jumped out, and the three FBI agents had weapons out. My gun sat in a locker in my office. It was the safest place for it. I didn’t think old Winston was armed. It didn’t matter, because he was gone. We looked around the shelter and saw nothing.
“Maybe he headed back to the main gate?” said Marcard.
“Maybe.”
We got back in the van and sped back around the perimeter road, stopping to collect Kerns and Howard, leaving Dawkins and the driver for a backup unit. We got to the main gate, expecting the chaos of a crowd leaving the ground, but finding only a few people venturing out for a corn dog or jerk chicken. Marcard stopped the van and we marched into the ground.
“Should we split up?” asked Kerns.
“No,” I said.
Marcard frowned. “Why?”
“Because.” I pointed toward the side of the stand and the two agents turned their attention to Danielle marching a very unhappy Cornelius Winston ahead of her. He was cuffed and moaning. Danielle had hold of his wrists by one hand, and his briefcase in the other. She was so wet her clothes looked like a second skin. Steam was rising from her. She brought Winston to us with a sly grin.
“Not bad, Deputy,” said Marcard
, nodding.
“I’ll say,” said Kerns. “You ran over there in that rain?”
Danielle nodded. “No, ma’am. I swam. He’s all yours.”
She pushed Winston to Kerns, and Winston growled.
“You can’t do this. Do you know who I am?”
There seemed to be a bit of that defense going around.
“I do, Mr. Winston,” said Kerns. “And I have no doubt that Deputy Castle has already Mirandized you, but I’m going to do it again, just for kicks. You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.” Kerns dragged Winston away to the van, and I turned to Danielle.
“We need to get you home,” I said. “Let’s go find Markus.”
We left Agent Marcard at the van and wandered back into the stand. The players were warming up as a man on a tractor drove around the edge of the field, a large rope being held in the middle of the ground, like a hand on a clock, pushing water off the grass. We scanned the stand. Not many people had left. They knew Florida weather, and I suspect they saw the cricket as an excuse to party anyway.
“I can’t see him,” said Danielle.
“Me, either.” Then I stopped, my eyes on the back of the stand. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“I don’t see Richmond.”
Danielle turned and took two steps up, scanning the crowd. Then a kid racing down the steps caught her attention.
“Miss, miss.”
It was one of the student-athletes from the university.
“Miss,” he said again.
Danielle grabbed the young guy by the shoulders. “Where’s Markus?”
“He’s gone.”
“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
“He’s gone. When the rain come.”
“He left when the rain started?”
“No, miss. One of Mista Richmond’s guys come and get him. Mista Richmond take him.”
Chapter Forty
I KNEW WHERE Richmond had gone. At least I thought I did. I’d know for sure soon enough, but I didn’t want to wait for confirmation, so I told Agent Marcard what I knew would get him moving. Kidnapping was the key word. It was a crime that got the FBI instantly involved, regardless of state lines or anything else. I told Marcard to follow me, and Danielle and I jumped in the Boxster and sped out of the park.
We weren’t going far. The Sixteenth Street Shopping Center was only a couple minutes from the stadium. It was a journey from the bright, recent-build Florida of wide sidewalks and fresh stucco to old Florida, of boarded-up windows and strip malls and businesses long gone bust. I pulled over outside a boarded-up storefront a street over from where Richmond’s print shop was. The FBI van stopped behind me, and Agents Marcard and Dawkins got out of the front. The two techs got out of the back. Marcard had assured me they were agents first, techs second, and they seemed to know what they were doing at Howard’s arrest, so I went with it.
“What are we doing here?” asked Marcard. “Where’s Richmond?”
I looked to the roof of the storefront. It had once been a vacuum supply store, and the word clean had been rusted on the wall by a sign that had been removed a long time ago. I called out.
“Lucas.”
There was nothing in return, and I looked at Marcard and he frowned, so I tried one more time. “Lucas.” I waited, and then a familiar face appeared over the edge of the roof. His dirty blond hair was matted to his head and his t-shirt clung to him.
“How are ya, mate?” He smiled and looked at everyone in the group.
“Been better. You get wet?”
“It was a good one, alright. Needed a shower anyway.”
I nodded. “You see anything?”
“Yeah,” he said. He spun around and dropped his feet off the edge of the roof. He wrapped his feet around a drainpipe and rappelled down to the sidewalk. Lucas gave everyone a smile, his white teeth beaming from well-tanned skin. “How are we all?”
“Who is this?” asked Agent Marcard.
“Agent Marcard, this is Lucas,” I said. “Since you didn’t have the probable cause to look into Desmond Richmond, Lucas has been watching him for me.” Lucas was the only guy I knew who would consider an afternoon lying on a rooftop in torrential rain a good time. “So?” I asked.
“Your man arrived a while ago, with a little posse.”
“Did he have a kid with him?” asked Marcard.
Lucas frowned. “A kid?”
“A teenager,” I said. “The kid from Jamaica I was helping.”
“That kind of a kid. Yeah, there was a young guy, maybe late teens. Didn’t look happy about being helped inside.”
“We need more than that,” said Marcard.
He was a real stickler, old Marcard, and if he kept it up I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep my trap shut for Danielle. I took out my phone and showed Lucas a picture of Markus that I had taken back in Jamaica.
“Yeah, that’s him alright.”
I raised an eyebrow at Marcard, which I thought was very restrained.
Marcard nodded. “Okay, where is he?”
Lucas began to shimmy back up the drainpipe. Marcard wasn’t doing that in his nice suit. “Bring the van forward,” he said. Dawkins moved the van up and one of the tech guys opened the rear door. He used the end of the steel shelving as a ladder and climbed up onto the roof, and then jumped up onto the top of the store. Lucas went up the drainpipe anyway. I took the van route. One of the techs stayed with the van and the rest of us got up for a look. We could see clear across the wet parking lot, to where a couple large recent model sedans were parked haphazardly. I couldn’t decipher the make or model of the cars. They looked like all the other large sedans on the road these days.
“Ways in?” Marcard looked at Lucas. He hadn’t bothered asking how Lucas fitted into everything, but Lucas had that wiry look about him. A look that said he’d seen more than you ever wanted to, and you’d best let it rest. And Marcard had.
“Not much. They went in the roller door, and that unit has nothing but boarded-up windows. There’s a glass front to the print shop on the other side, but I can’t say whether that’s connected to the unit they went in.”
“So the boy is in there, but we don’t know where,” said Marcard. “Should we assume these guys are armed?”
“Don’t assume it,” said Lucas. “I saw one handgun and two shotties, for starters.”
Marcard sat back from the edge of the building and looked at his guys. He was drawing blanks. “It’s a fortress,” he said. “With a minor in there. We should contact hostage negotiation, and then make contact with Richmond.”
“Hang on,” said Danielle. “He doesn’t know you’re here. Let’s not lose the element of surprise until we have to.”
Marcard shrugged. “You have a better idea?”
“He’s got to expect that Miami and I are going to notice Markus is gone, and plenty of people saw Markus leave with him. So he’s got to think we’ll come here.”
“So?”
“So we should give him what he expects. One of us should go in. Then we’ll know where Markus is.”
“Are you volunteering, Deputy?” asked Marcard.
“I am.”
“No,” I said.
Danielle frowned. “You don’t think I can do this?”
“Of course, you can. But he knows you’re a sheriff. He’s not going to believe that you wouldn’t call backup. And at least until we’ve got Markus, I’d rather he not focus on that.”
“So who’s going to go?” she said. “You?”
I dropped my shoulders. I wasn’t keen about walking into a warehouse full of armed men, and I didn’t get any more enthusiastic about it by considering that I would be unarmed. But that was the rub.
“Yeah, I guess I draw the short straw.”
Chapter Forty-One
AGENT MARCARD HAD the opposite opinion to me. He wanted a law enforcement officer to go in, not a civilian. The FBI top brass didn’t take too kindly to civilians ge
tting killed during FBI operations. I appreciated the point. It was nice to know they felt that way. But it wasn’t working any other way, so he relented. He insisted that I wear a wire, so if things started to go bad, they would know. Marcard gave Lucas a radio so he could act as eagle eye, and the FBI guys and Danielle took positions around the building we were in, across the lot from Richmond. I got in my car and pulled out onto the street, and then took the long block around to Richmond’s unit.
I came in fast. The Boxster purred as if this was what she was made for, and I screamed into the lot like I was a man in a hurry. I was planning on skidding to a stop outside the roller door, announcing my presence loudly, but the Porsche’s antilock brakes kicked in and I just came to a sudden stop that almost had me head-butting the dashboard. I jumped out, strode to the roller door and banged on it with an open palm.
“Richmond, I know you’re there. Come on, man. This has gone too far. Let’s talk. Let me in.” I waited for a moment, hearing nothing. So I banged again. “Richmond!” The door rattled in waves, and it was loud on my side. It had to be deafening inside the warehouse. I waited a moment again, then I heard a rattle in the access door, and with a creak it opened. A black face popped out, squinting in the sunlight that had now permeated the day. The face blinked its eyes, looked around the lot, and then focused on me. He nodded his head, urging me in his direction. I wandered over, keeping the pace slower now, not wanting to spook anyone and get shot.
I stepped through the small access door into the dark warehouse and was immediately pushed against the roller door with a metallic thud. The access door closed with a bang and I was searched for weapons in a very unfriendly manner. Convinced that I was unarmed, I was flipped around and pushed back into the door. I looked around the room. It looked like they were moving. Pallets had been moved to the side of the space to allow room for a small truck, like the kind people hire to move from one apartment to another. There were four men I could see, carrying boxes of shoes. Plus the guy at the door and the guy who had searched me, there were six. Richmond wasn’t in the room, but he made seven.
And then there was Markus. He was in the midst of the guys carrying the shoes, and had an armload himself. They were carrying them from a pallet, plastic wrap ripped open, to the van. They had used a pallet truck to put the shoes in the warehouse, but with the door closed there wasn’t enough room to operate it, so they were working by hand. I nodded to Markus but he didn’t nod back. He didn’t look scared exactly. If I had to guess, and it was a guess, I’d have said he looked resigned. Resigned to the fact that his life had taken a brief, wonderful turn into the land of hope, but then had snapped back to the despair it was always supposed to be in.
Dead Fast Page 21
