China Strike

by Matt Rees

  “I just sent them an e-mail telling them to have a car waiting for me in the pool.”

  “And they agreed?”

  “They’re cool with it, sure.”

  “They didn’t ask why?”

  “I guess law enforcement in the Motor City is busier than even we are today. They’ve got other things on their mind.”

  He locked his laptop and went to the door. “Frisch already got us one step along in figuring out this mess on the roads this morning. As soon as he ceases to be helpful, he’s gone. Okay? I’m not going to take any unnecessary risks with him.”

  “He’s a liability. What kind of manpower are we going to need to watch him?”

  “I’ll hold one of his hands. You hold the other.”

  His real intention dawned on her. “You’re kidding me. You think they’re going to let us take that guy out of here with just the two of us as escort?”

  “I don’t plan on asking them.”

  “Well, aren’t you full of surprises.”

  “On casual Fridays, I go to the field office in spats and calfskin gloves.”

  “You’re going to break him out?”

  Verrazzano moved close to Jahn. “We. We are going to break him out.”

  “Yeah? Why am I going to do it?”

  “Because you’re my partner now. And because you know I’m right.”

  Jahn’s eyes flickered. “You’re serious?”

  “I told you already about the guy who died just after I found him in Queens this morning. If I don’t take this seriously, Anthony Gibson’s going to come back to life and run me over next time I cross the street.”

  “When Frisch ceases to be helpful, as you put it, what’re we going to do with him then? We can’t just walk into an ICE detention center and drop off a fugitive.”

  “No one’s going to know he’s gone.”

  “Get real. They’ll figure it out?”

  He was pleased to hear her use the word they. Despite her scowl, she was on board. Maybe she even trusted him. “I’m sure they won’t figure it out.”

  The heavy door at the end of the corridor reverberated as the guard drew back the bolts. Bill Todd walked through and hurried toward Verrazzano.

  “He’s in there,” Verrazzano said.

  Todd opened the door to the interrogation room, stripping off his jacket. Jahn followed him inside. Todd took off his tie and shirt. At the interview table, Frisch grinned through his beard. He pulled off his T-shirt.

  “You sure you’re ready to go through with this, buddy?” Frisch said to Todd. “The food’s for the birds and the waterboarding smarts.”

  Todd kicked off his shoes and handed his shirt to Frisch. “Don’t get stains on it.”

  “Man, I’m not even going to have to break a sweat. I’ll leave all the rough stuff to Sergeant Major Verrazzano and Sarah Palin’s ugly big sister here.”

  Jahn shook her head. “You’re insane, Verrazzano.”

  In the doorway, Verrazzano smiled. “So you’re in?”

  “Do I sound like I’m in?”

  “You haven’t stopped me, which suggests you’re kind of into it. Soon enough you’ll be an accessory to breaking Frisch out of here. I’d say you’re in, whether you like it or not.”

  Verrazzano slapped his hand on her shoulder and went out into the corridor. He ducked into the observation room to pick up his laptop and took the elevator down to the basement.

  Along the corridor from the elevator, he found the staff gym. It catered to the ICE agents and auxiliary staff who watched over the illegal immigrants awaiting a hearing or deportation. It was a large room behind glass doors with mirrored walls and bright white Nautilus machines. At midmorning, the room was empty, except for a trim, middle-aged trainer at the reception desk. He wore a blue polo shirt with the Stars and Stripes sewn onto the left breast like a corporate logo. He stared at a television that was suspended above the juice bar beside his desk, watching with a strained look.

  “The president’s just coming out.” The trainer sounded grateful for Verrazzano’s arrival. Something momentous was happening. He wanted to share it.

  On the TV screen, the president came to the lectern in the White House press room. “Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. We do not yet know the extent of this morning’s massive car crash, but we do know that it has affected every state of our Union. We expect that many thousands of people will have lost their lives and many more are injured. I have asked FBI and other law enforcement agencies to devote their full resources to an investigation.” He paused and looked gravely around the room. He lifted his hand, making a fist. The camera lenses snapped, and flashes flickered across his face. “We can already conclude, however, that this is an act of terrorism. It will not go unpunished. Whoever is behind this attack on our way of life, on our economy, on the lives of our citizens, will pay the price. Let me reassure you—”

  Verrazzano flipped his ICE badge out of his wallet and flashed it at the trainer. An ID card dangled from the man’s neck. He was an external consultant, not an ICE agent. That would make him easier to impress.

  “Got to get this done before the lunchtime rush, Kip.” Verrazzano gestured toward the president on the screen. “Sorry to interrupt.” He took his laptop from under his arm and laid it on the desk. “We’ve got a breach.”

  “A breach?” Kip had the guilty look in the presence of authority that only the truly innocent display. He glanced up at the television, seeming to expect the president to reprimand him or order his punishment for joining with the terrorists.

  “A breach.” Verrazzano tapped Kip’s desktop computer. “From this module here.”

  “No way. I only use that for scanning IDs and issuing gym cards to the private contractors.”

  “Show me.”

  “Up here’s the monitor, see. Down on this shelf under the desk, I’ve got the hard drive and a laminator for the membership cards.”

  “Internet connection?”

  “Wireless. But I turned it off.” He touched his fingers lightly to Old Glory on his shirt. An unconscious gesture of fear. “You know, for security.”

  Verrazzano opened his Toughbook. Twice the thickness of most laptops, designed to withstand three hundred pounds of pressure on its closed lid or a drop from six feet, its dimensions made it appear substantial and intimidating. “Would you give me a couple minutes to check it out, Kip?”

  “Sure thing, sir.”

  Verrazzano leaned over the desk. Kip stood beside him, glaring at the monitor of the desktop computer. Verrazzano lifted his hand. “Kip, step away for a few minutes, please.”

  “Sure, sure.” The trainer wandered over to the Nautilus to wipe it down with a paper towel.

  Verrazzano unraveled a USB wire and connected it to his laptop. He bent below the desk and slipped the other end of the wire into the laminator. He called up Todd’s ICE card on his screen, identified the laminator as his printer, and hit print. The card stuttered out of the laminator with Frisch’s photo on it. Verrazzano ran his thumb over the bar code on the front of the card. It had come out clean, without any bumps that might make it unreadable in a scanner.

  He put the card in his breast pocket, twirled the USB wire around two fingers, stashed it in his pocket, and shut down his laptop. He knelt under the desk and opened the laminator. He yanked the rollers out of their sockets. “Kip,” he called. The trainer came back to the desk. Verrazzano waved the rollers. “The problem was in the laminator. I have to take these. Quite possibly the compromised material could be read from them.”

  “Wow. Really? How in hell did anyone get access?”

  “You’d be surprised what those bastards can do.”

  “What bastards?”

  Verrazzano looked hard at Kip.

  “Sure, sure,” Kip said.

  Verrazzano left the gym. He cut into the men’s room and cracked the laminator rollers in two against a washbasin. He wrapped them in a wad of wet paper towels, dropped them in a trash can built i
nto the wall, and buried them under more wet towels. Documents could, indeed, be read from discarded laminator rollers, but no one would find the doctored ID card on these. He left the men’s room and headed for the elevator.

  Frisch was pacing the interrogation room when Verrazzano entered. He wore Bill Todd’s dark-blue suit and pale-blue tie. Todd was at the table in Frisch’s denims, his T-shirt, and orange Crocs. Verrazzano gave Todd a questioning look.

  Todd glanced at his watch. “Ninety seconds.”

  “Be ready.” Verrazzano beckoned Frisch toward the corridor. He held up his wrist watch and counted off the seconds to the change of the duty guard at the turnstile. “Go.”

  Jahn hit the buzzer beside her. Within thirty seconds, a uniformed guard came to the door. He held a cup of coffee and a white paper bag with his breakfast bagel inside.

  Todd stepped forward. Jahn gestured toward him and spoke to the guard. “Take him back.”

  The guard put his bagel and coffee on the interview table. “Let me just set these down here. Sorry, I just got on shift.” He jerked his head for Todd to move. “Let’s go.” They went along the corridor and through the metal barrier to the cell block.

  Verrazzano set off toward the security checkpoint. Jahn came along behind him with Frisch.

  The corridor came to an end at a ceiling-height turnstile and a bulletproof screen for the guard booth. As they approached the security check, Verrazzano slipped the doctored identity card into Frisch’s hand. Frisch read the card cupped in his palm. “Todd? Wait, he was one of the guys who booked me after the UN job went to hell. That guy back in there?”

  “You like the irony?”

  “You should’ve told me. I could’ve beaten him to death. I’m an ICE agent now.”

  “If we did things that way, you’d be at the bottom of the East River right now and your nuts would be in the Hudson.” Verrazzano dropped his ICE identity card into the tray under the security glass and gestured for Frisch and Jahn to do the same. The guard stared at Frisch’s long beard. Verrazzano wished he had let the guy shave.

  “He’s going undercover,” Verrazzano murmured.

  The guard seemed glad to have an explanation for the shabby appearance of the man whose ID said he was an ICE agent. He slipped the cards back into the tray. “You have a nice day, gentlemen.”

  “I’m having a great day so far.” Frisch turned to Verrazzano. “So you don’t beat people to death?”

  “As long as you’re helping me track Wyatt and his Chinese connections, you’ll be cool.”

  “And when that’s done?”

  “You’ll be taken care of.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Remember what Mao said about how hard it is to do good and keep doing good? You help me do something real good, and maybe you won’t ever have to wear those stinking Crocs again.”

  “You’re going to kill me as soon as I can’t help you anymore.” Frisch appeared unconcerned at the possibility.

  “And you’re going to run off as soon as you get a chance. But not with this.” Verrazzano reached into Frisch’s jacket and took out the fake ICE identity card.

  “What if I get stopped?” Frisch said. “You should really let me hold onto that ID.”

  Verrazzano juggled the card and gave a thoughtful smile. “Forget it. Okay, now it’s time for you and me to go do what we do best.” He put the card into the side pocket of his jacket.

  “We’re going to kill some people?”

  “Sure. But only the ones that try to kill us first.” They followed Jahn to the elevator.

  “Someone is going to try, though.”

  Verrazzano hit the up button. “Count on it.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Haddad dropped a list of names printed in small type and three pages thick onto Kinsella’s desk. Kinsella set aside her coffee and took her eyes off the live feed of Eyewitness News she had running on her desktop. The East River was filled with rescue boats searching for a woman whose kids had died in the crash as she drove them across the Queensboro Bridge that morning. Emergency services couldn’t clear away the bodies on the roadway, but the mother had refused to leave her children. When the cops tried to carry her off, she escaped and jumped. Kinsella sighed and shook her head. She leaned close to Haddad’s list. One of the names was circled in the same lurid purple as the print her lips made on the disposable coffee cup. “Tom Frisch?” she said.

  “I have an alert programmed on the name of everyone arrested by Homeland Security in this field office,” Haddad said.

  “And Tom Frisch popped up?”

  “Like a penny so bad it’s nuclear.”

  Kinsella touched the list. She needed to figure out how to free Bill Todd from Frisch’s cell at the detention center. It had been two hours since Verrazzano made the switch. She had to get Todd back on the job, but she didn’t want Haddad to know what Verrazzano had done. “So what does this tell you?”

  “That he’s dead.”

  “How come? He’s supposed to be in a cell at the detention center in Brooklyn.”

  “I guess he must’ve gotten out of the detention center.”

  “Well, how in hell would that have—?” Kinsella halted. Haddad grinned at her. “Okay, what’ve you figured out, smart ass?”

  “Dom went over to see Frisch this morning because Frisch claimed to be able to help us with the Darien crash investigation. Bill got a call soon after on his mobile. He told me Dom wanted him to get over there too. All air travel is suspended because of the terror threat, but Dom’s got himself onto a government flight to Detroit. Now Bill isn’t answering his phone.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “If I was Dom Verrazzano and I needed Frisch’s help, I’d do a deal. Frisch wants to get out of jail. So that’s the deal. I get him out, and he helps me. Bill takes Frisch’s place in jail, until someone figures out how to get him released.”

  Kinsella tapped her false nails on the desk. “So how does this list help us?”

  “It’s a record of the first confirmed and identified deaths from the Darien crash.”

  “Frisch was still in jail when the crash—”

  “Our Tom Frisch isn’t dead. He’s out there with Dom Verrazzano. This Tom Frisch, the guy on the casualty list, was a sixty-two-year-old insurance clerk who got run over on First Avenue by an out-of-control Darien this morning. He was killed right outside NYU Medical Center, which is why he’s already officially recorded as dead, unlike thousands of others who’re still lying at the side of the road.”

  Kinsella frowned at the list of the dead. An idea came to her—just the outline for the moment, but enough to light up her features when she turned them again toward Haddad.

  Haddad smiled. “Okay, go to it. I’ve got to track this Bitcoin trade from China.”

  A half hour later, Kinsella entered the detention center on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. She headed for the office of Special Agent Vincent Lyons. He had the deep fake tan of a pro wrestler and a carefully tended strip of white-gray beard running from his lower lip to his chin. He greeted Kinsella with a resentful pout. At the field office, the Special Agent in Charge didn’t think much of Lyons. So Callan had sent him to hold the keys to the cells in Brooklyn, while Kinsella and Verrazzano got the most challenging cases.

  “Special Agent Kinsella, what can I do for you?” Lyons didn’t stand.

  Kinsella didn’t sit. “You could try not to screw up again. Think you can manage that?” She slapped a single printed form down on the desk in front of Lyons.

  He picked it up. The hair on his fingers was black, curled into little pubic triangles above each knuckle. “This is a death certificate. What the hell do you mean, ‘not screw up’?”

  “Read the name on the death certificate, Vinnie.”

  Lyons mouthed the words as he read them over. “Thomas Frisch? So what?”

  “Thomas Frisch. The guy who tried to kill the president and the entire United Nations at the General Assembly
. The guy who’s supposed to be in a cell in your detention center—”

  “Supposed to be?” That got Lyons on his feet.

  “The guy who got hit by a runaway truck in Manhattan this morning.”

  “How the hell did—?”

  “My partner, Bill Todd, came over here this morning to pick up Frisch. To bring him over to the field office for questioning.”

  Lyons sat back down in relief. “Todd lost him on the way?”

  “Todd didn’t leave your detention center, Vinnie. He came in. He didn’t go out. But evidently Tom Frisch did.”

  “What’re you telling me?”

  “Apart from the fact that you screwed up? I’m telling you that Bill Todd is somewhere in your facility.”

  “Where?”

  “Jesus Christ, Vinnie. Well, let’s start with your office.” She turned a circle, examining the small bare room. “I guess he’s not in here. How about we try Tom Frisch’s cell?”

  “You think Frisch—Maybe he—?”

  “That’s exactly what I think, Vinnie. Frisch turned the tables on Bill Todd somehow. Then while your crack guards were dunking their donuts, Frisch just waltzed out of here.”

  Lyons rushed past her into the corridor. Kinsella followed him through a nauseating minty cloud of Le Mâle by Jean Paul Gaultier. “Let’s hope Frisch didn’t kill Todd,” she barked. Lyons’s meaty shoulders shuddered.

  They went down a metal staircase into the cell row. Lyons yelled for the guard to open up Frisch’s cell. He burst inside when Kinsella was still five yards behind him. “God damn it,” he bellowed.

  Kinsella got to the door of the cell. Bill Todd sat on the cot in denim pants, a gray T-shirt, and orange Crocs. Lyons reeled around the cell cursing. Kinsella measured the pitch of the agent’s panic. He was beyond anger, spiraling into despair.

  “Let’s go, Bill. You’re coming with me,” she said. “Agent Lyons, you want to stay in the cell? We’ll just lock the door, and you can call it time served before you come up for trial on this one.”

  Lyons didn’t argue with her. His wet eyes were pleading in his orange face. He looked like a jack-o-lantern in a dumpster the day after Halloween.