by Allen Eskens
Rider continued. “He's a mercenary now. My contact said that they've found his stench around a number of assassinations, mostly in the Middle East. They've never tied him to anything specific, and some of his best handiwork involved killing some bad men that the United States wanted swept under the rug anyway.”
“So what are you saying?” Max said. “The Beast works for the US government?”
“As best we can figure, he works for the highest bidder, but that seemed to be Patrio, and Patrio supposedly works for us.”
“Do we know what he looks like?”
“Yes,” Rider said.
Drago slowly covered his face with his hand, trying to pass the gesture off as mere boredom.
“Here's where I have to trust you boys,” Rider said. “My friend at Homeland scored me a couple pictures of Drago Basta. My source can get fired for giving these to me, so for now these stay out of the official files. Agreed?”
“Absolutely,” Alexander said.
Rider pulled two photos from her pocket and laid them on the table. “I'm working out a secondary source so that our information can't be traced back to my friend. Once I have that, Basta officially becomes the face and name of the man who killed Richard Ashton.”
“That's the man Michelle Holla described,” Alexander said.
“Same as Captain Rodgers,” Rider said. “Right down to the scar on the cheek.”
Drago looked at the book in front of his face and wondered how long it had been since he turned a page. He licked a finger and continued his pretense while his mind churned.
He heard Alexander Rupert use the name Michelle Holla as being the prostitute from the Domuscuta, the one who should have died in Brooklyn but now lived in Iowa. If they don't have the flash drive, then the only evidence of what happened on that yacht is the whore and her secondhand tale. It would be a case based on hearsay. And if she were to die, they wouldn't even have that much.
Too many people were learning his name. His secret had grown roots and now threatened to sprout from the earth in search of the sun. He would need to move fast, get the flash drive and get out of the country. He would kill the whore on the way out. His objective could still be achieved, although the mission was becoming more precarious with each passing hour. Stay calm. Think—don't react. And find that flash drive.
Alexander sipped his beer and took a moment to savor his brother's interest in the Putnam case. It had become the big deal he had hoped it would be—the kind of a case that could erase so many wrongs—maybe even overshadow a momentary lapse in judgment like stealing money from a drug dealer. If Alexander could find that flash drive, and if the flash drive showed the murder of Richard Ashton, it would deliver him from those few indiscretions that haunted him—the ones that the prosecutor would skewer him with in the morning. He could feel the tease of redemption washing over him as real as rain.
“So how do we find the flash drive?” Billie wondered.
“We start with a search of Jericho Pope's apartment,” Max said.
“I've been in contact with his girlfriend, Ianna Markova,” Alexander said. “She's cooperating. I'm sure she'll let us search the apartment.”
“And if not,” Max added, “we certainly have enough for a search warrant.”
“She'll consent,” Alexander repeated.
“And if the flash drive's not there?” Billie asked.
“I have the computer hard drive,” Alexander said. “I've looked it over, but I didn't find anything like a video. If we take it to Forensics, they can dissect it and see what might be hiding in the hidden files.”
“Should we bring the girlfriend in for a formal sit-down?” Max asked. “Maybe throw the word conspiracy around and put the fear of God into her?”
“I don't think that'll be necessary,” Alexander said. “I'm convinced that she had no idea who Jericho Pope was or what he was up to. Besides, she's out of town at the moment.”
Max and Billie shared a glance. Max said, “And you know this how?”
Alexander shrugged off the question. “I told you, I've been in contact.”
“I was hoping to talk to her while I'm in town,” Billie said.
“I can call her and see if she'll be back by tomorrow.” Alexander pulled out his phone and began to go through his call log.
“You have her number on your phone?” Max said.
“Get off my back,” Alexander scowled at his brother. When Alexander heard the defensive edge in his own voice, he grinned and said, “I'm going to step outside so I can hear. It's too noisy in here.”
Alexander walked out the door with his phone in his hand. Once outside, he turned and looked back through the window. He could see Max talking to Billie Rider. Max was smiling, and not one of those pretend smiles of a bored host, but the kind of smile that pushed past his cheekbones and gave him a squint in his eyes.
Alexander mentally patted himself on the back as he dialed Ianna's number. The home number went to voicemail as it had done earlier. He dialed the cell phone number and she answered on the first ring.
“Hi, Ianna, this is Alexander. I hope I'm not interrupting anything.”
“Not at all.”
“How're you doing?”
“I'm doing okay…better now. I'm glad you called.”
“I need to talk to you about the case. That detective from New York I told you about—the one who's looking into Jericho's past—she wants to meet with you.”
“I should be home in less than an hour,” Ianna said. “I'm crossing the St. Croix as we speak.”
Knowing that she was on her way back pushed a smile across Alexander's face. “Would you be okay with meeting her tomorrow?”
“Can you be there?”
“I can't. I have this thing I have to do. You'll be alright. Billie's nice. You have nothing to worry about. I told them that you didn't know about Jericho or what he was up to. Speaking of which, I have a lot to tell you about what happened back in Brooklyn. It's a long story, but you should at least know that Jericho wasn't as bad of a guy as I first thought. He didn't kill James Putnam.”
Alexander heard Ianna let out a tiny sigh of relief. “Do you have time to see me tonight?” she asked.
Now it was Alexander's turn to pause as he considered the churning sensation he felt in his chest.
“I'm sorry,” Ianna said. “I shouldn't—”
“No. That's not it. I'm meeting with Billie and my brother Max right now.” Then, like a child jumping into the deep end of the pool for the first time, he closed his eyes and said, “Call me when you get to your apartment. I'll come by.”
“I will,” she said.
As he made his way back to their booth in Delancy's, he saw Billie laugh and pat the back of Max's hand. She let her touch linger for a second or two longer than what might be a casual gesture. Alexander thought about not returning to the table for a while, to let the two get acquainted, but then he decided that they were adults and could work things out for themselves after they left the bar.
“Ms. Markova will be able to meet with you tomorrow,” Alexander said.
“Great,” Billie said to Alexander. “Can you set up a meeting for me?”
“I can take you,” Max interjected. “Alexander has a court appearance in the morning.”
Billie looked at Max. “Perfect,” she said with smile. “I'll put myself in your hands.”
Max appeared to blush a bit but recovered with a smile of his own. “What time should I pick you up?” he said.
“I'm flexible,” Billie smirked.
“Let's see if we can arrange something for around nine o'clock?”
Max picked up the tab, and they shuffled out of the booth and headed out the door. Once outside, a cold evening breeze filled their jackets. Billie said to Alexander, “Maybe we could meet up again after you're done tomorrow and compare notes.”
“You got it,” Alexander said. Then he asked Billie, “Where'd you park?”
She pointed at the parking garag
e about a block away.
“Ah, the Halsey Ramp,” Max said. “Did you bring your ticket?”
“My ticket?”
Max said, “That garage has a kiosk on the first floor where you pay. People are always getting jammed up at the exit because they think they can pay at the gate.”
“Oh, crap,” Billie said. “I feel like such a tourist.”
Alexander could see his brother contemplating something. If Alexander had to guess, he'd bet that Max wanted to walk Billie to her car. Max carried that Boy Scout gene, more than any man Alexander knew, and walking Billie to her car would have been the gentlemanly thing to do. But, in the end, Max let the moment pass, saying, “Don't worry, it probably happens a hundred times a day.”
Billie shook hands with Alexander, then turned to Max and shook his hand, again holding the connection a beat or two longer than necessary. Then Billie turned and walked one way and the Rupert brothers the other.
Drago Basta watched through the window of the bar and waited for the three detectives to part company. When they finally left, he paused a couple more moments before stepping through the door of Delancy's Pub and onto the sidewalk. He glanced up and down the empty street, waited again and listened. They were gone.
The world had taken on an unfamiliar hue in the hours since he entered Delancy's Pub. People—detectives—knew his business. They knew his name. They knew his crime. They couldn't prove their case yet, but they were on the right path. He didn't like this version of the world, and as he made his way back to his car, he shuffled and stacked hypotheticals in his mind, playing each out to conclusion before starting down the next path. The sidewalk seemed to be quaking beneath his feet, but he knew that the quake could be managed if he found the right plan.
He fed his parking ticket into the machine and was told that he owed eight dollars. He inserted the credit card bearing the name Walter Trigg into the slot, keeping his face turned away from the security camera and his cap pulled down over his eyes. The cop named Max and the female detective planned on meeting with Ianna Markova in the morning. Drago knew that the meeting wouldn't take place at her apartment—not after she came home to find it destroyed. He knew that he could follow Ianna using the tracker in her car to find their meeting place, but what if she didn't take the car?
Drago pulled his receipt from the machine and made his way to the elevator.
He would need to find a way to plant a bug on one of the two men—maybe both. If he could hear their conversations, he would know if and when they found the flash drive. They would lead him to it, and if he could find the flash drive in one of their hands, all the better. He could kill them, take back his property, and be one dead body closer to flying home to Costa Rica.
As he neared the elevator, it dinged and the doors opened. And there, a mere ten feet ahead of him, stood Detective Rider, examining a small parking-ramp ticket in her hand. Drago felt his body pull as if trying to turn away, to hide his face or run, but he knew that any such reaction would draw the attention of the cop. Instead, he willed himself to stand still and wait. Maybe she would be too distracted to notice him.
Detective Rider looked up as she stepped out of the elevator, glanced at Drago, then went back to her ticket. Drago still wore his tinted glasses and had his cap pulled down—an excellent screen from the security cameras, but it couldn't hide his scar or the contour of his nose and chin from the sight of a passerby. He stepped toward the elevator with the calm gait of a man walking down the cereal aisle at a grocery store.
As they passed each other, he saw it—a glint of recognition, a tightening of her lips, a twitch of her brow. She looked again at Drago as they passed each other, her eyes locking on the scar on his cheek. He stepped into the elevator car and listened as her footsteps stopped behind him. He could hear the grind of grit under her foot as she pivoted to face the elevator. With his back still to her, he reached out his left hand to the panel and pushed the button for the third floor. That movement caused him to turn slightly, blocking her view of his right hand as it snaked beneath the front of his jacket and wrapped around the grip of his gun.
With a final glance over his shoulder, he saw her right hand follow the command of her training and move to her right hip. If she'd been in New York, she would've found her service weapon holstered there. But she wasn't in New York, and she had no weapon.
Drago pulled his Glock from his shoulder holster, the silencer gleaming like the teeth of an animal. He watched her eyes grow large, registering the gun pointed at her chest. He saw the first twitch of her knees as the impulse to flee overtook her, but she didn't flee. She didn't have the time to react. The first bullet pierced her chest before she could move. The second and third followed in such close order that one might swear that there had been only one shot. Blood painted the wall behind Billie Rider, and she fell, dead.
This was not the plan, but it had to happen at some point. The chess pieces in Drago's mind shuffled into all new positions. The detectives would not see this as a mugging—not with the security camera showing him shooting from the elevator. Soon, Ianna Markova would arrive at her apartment to find it destroyed. The two events would be tied together. They would soon know that Psoglav the Beast had arrived in their quiet city. They would know that he was there to find the flash drive.
As the doors of the elevator closed, Drago picked up the shell casings from the floor and contemplated a thought that had crossed his mind often over the years: Did Detective Rider know that he had killed her? When the three bullets ripped through her chest, they would have stopped her heart from beating, but what about her brain? Would the blood that already fed her brain be enough to allow an extra second or two of thought? Would she be alive in her head long enough to understand what had happened? Would she know that she was dead in that split second after her heart left her body in shredded bits?
He hoped that she would. He hoped that Detective Louise Rider knew that she had been killed by Psoglav the Beast. He hoped that she retained just enough clarity of thought to feel the cold concrete crack against her cheek as she fell to the floor.
Max pulled his unmarked Dodge Charger out of the parking lot reserved for City Hall employees and headed north for his home in Logan Park. As he crossed the Third Avenue Bridge, the river valley parted the curtains of the cityscape and exposed a rising moon, full and bold on the eastern horizon. It was one of those tangerine moons that demanded attention. Max slowed to a crawl, watching the view before it again disappeared behind the concrete and brick of the city. The chatter on his police radio hummed in the background, beyond the reach of his attention, until he heard the dispatcher say: “Possible deceased female, first floor of the Halsey Parking Ramp, near the entrance.”
It was as if a sheet of thin ice beneath his feet splintered and plunged him into icy water. That was the parking ramp where Billie had parked. He hit the emergency lights on his unmarked car and made the U-turn with one hand on the steering wheel and the other grabbing his microphone. “This is seven-seven-two-nine. I'm in the area and responding. Do you have a description?”
Dispatch came back with: “No description beyond female lying by the elevator doors on the first floor, covered in blood.”
“I'm two blocks away.” The air in Max's squad car fell thin as he talked. “I'll be on scene in one minute.”
He skidded to a stop within five feet of the door. As he ran from his car, he could see the lights of three marked squads converging on the parking ramp from different directions. Two young men stood just inside the door to the ramp, one of them pointing to the body on the floor—Billie Rider, piled in a red heap like stained laundry. She lay facedown on the concrete, her face turned to her left, and her lifeless eyes staring ahead as dull as dried tar. Max bent down onto one knee and felt her carotid, knowing that he would find no pulse.
The first patrol officer stepped through the door and began to usher the two men out. Max knew this officer, an old-timer named Mickie Halverson, who had a good head o
n his shoulders and wouldn't get unnerved at the sight of a dead body. “Mickie, secure those witnesses and have the other officers hit the exits and set up a perimeter around the building. No one comes or goes. I want this ramp sealed.”
“You got it, Max,” Mickie said.
Max could hear more squad cars pulling up and Mickie shouting orders to watch for anyone trying to slip out of the parking ramp.
“Jesus Christ!” Max recognized Alexander's voice behind him. Alexander had put one hand on the wall to steady himself. “Is she…”
Max slumped his shoulder and nodded. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Dispatch. “Tracy, Max Rupert here. I want to get a message to the shift commander, and I don't want this going out over the radio.”
“Go ahead, Max.”
“We need crime scene at the Halsey Parking Ramp. One deceased female. Cause of death appears to be gunshot wounds to the chest. Victim's name is Billie—”
“Louise,” Alexander interjected. “Her real name is Louise Rider.”
“Correction. Victim's name is Louise Rider, aka Billie Rider. She's a visiting police detective from Manhattan. Tell the shift commander that we have the garage in lockdown and are beginning a car-to-car search. Have all responding units be on the lookout for anyone leaving the area of the Halsey Parking Ramp in a hurry.”
Alexander nodded to Max and then signaled for two patrol officers to join him. The three pulled their weapons and disappeared into the parking ramp, looking in, under, and around every car in the ramp.
Officer Halverson came back to Max after organizing the lockdown, and Max asked him to secure the scene where the body lay until the mobile crime lab and medical examiner showed up. Max then stood and made his way to the garage office.
The office, a toll-booth-sized cube near the exit, housed a single desk, a single chair, a single computer monitor, and a young man with the name Jason pinned to his shirt. Jason stood beside the desk, careening his neck to watch the bustle of police activity lacing through his garage.
