by Chris Culver
“How much surveillance have we done on this place?” he asked.
“Enough,” said Havelock, barely glancing at him. He took a two-way radio from the car. “Are all units in place?”
“Give us five.”
Ash didn’t recognize the voice, so he didn’t know if IMPD or the FBI had taken the lead. It didn’t matter either way; they both would know what to do. Bowers came around from the other side of the car carrying a pair of field glasses. He looked around the complex and then handed them to Ash. The hangar had metal walls painted white and a roof reddened with rust. Three men wearing tactical vests and carrying assault rifles stood on each of the two corners that he could see, while another eight stood in front of a windowless metal door near the street. Assuming Havelock had positioned an equal number of men behind the hangar as he had the front, Palmer would have to get past twenty men to escape.
“We’re ready.”
The voice came on the radio again. Havelock looked to Bowers for confirmation before speaking.
“Go on your mark.”
Bowers didn’t ask for the binoculars back, so Ash watched the events unfold. Two of the men in front of the hangar door picked up a portable battering ram while a third man counted down from three with his fingers. As soon as the man counting reached one, the men on the battering ram slammed it into the door hard enough that the sound carried all the way to their SUV. Those two men then got out of the way and the man who counted down lobbed a pair of flash bangs into the building. They went off like a firecracker, and the men rushed inside. Ash held his breath, preparing himself for gunfire that never came.
“Building’s clear. They’re not here.”
Havelock put the radio to his mouth. “Check again. Look for lockers, closets, or anywhere big enough to hide. All units outside, stay in position. We’re on our way.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Havelock climbed into the SUV and pounded on the dashboard. The driver took off, leaving Bowers and Ash where they stood. Neither officer said anything for a moment.
“I love interagency cooperation,” said Ash.
“Shut up, Ash,” said Bowers, already walking toward the hangar. Ash caught up in a few steps but didn’t say anything. When they reached the hangar, Havelock had already walked inside. The interior was big enough that it could have housed two or three dozen full-sized busses. It was also empty and dark, the windows near the ceiling having been painted over.
“See if we can get some lights on in here,” said Havelock. A couple of IMPD officers pulled open the hangar’s main door, spilling sunlight inside and illuminating the interior. Exposed metal beams supported the ceiling and walls but left few hiding places. There was no sign of Rebecca Cook or Palmer. In fact, only one thing in the entire building stood out: a wooden desk in the middle of the room.
Ash walked without saying a word and found Bowers and Havelock beside him. The desk appeared ordinary in all respects save a handwritten note taped to the top.
Twenty grand. Tonight. I don’t want to hurt anyone if I don’t have to. 213 Parkview.
“What’s at 213 Parkview?” asked Havelock.
Ash glanced at Bowers before speaking. “It’s Rebecca’s home address. He’s threatening her family.”
13
Havelock stepped away from the desk and called in a forensic team to check out the warehouse. Bowers and Ash stayed where they were.
“You think this Palmer guy would be stupid enough to take his phone with him?” asked Bowers.
“Not if he knows we can track it. I doubt it’s here, though. Even if he just used it for this job, it’d have call histories, maybe text messages from his employer, possibly fingerprints. If it were me, I’d burn it.”
“I’ll tell our guys to look for burn marks. I’m also going to get some divers for the lake.”
Bowers walked back to their portable command post at the SUV. Palmer had done a lot of work so far, and none of it made sense yet. The Cooks seemed like nice people, but they also seemed average in almost every way. Ash had met a lot of criminals, and Palmer was anything but average. When he murdered John and Kate Doe, he used a round that disintegrated in their skulls, negating the possibility of a ballistics match to his firearm. When he left their car, he wiped away his fingerprints and took the victims’ wallets. After that, he called IMPD but used a phone they couldn’t track. Ash rarely found that degree of professionalism and forethought among ordinary criminals, so it boggled the mind that Palmer would get away with a double homicide only to abduct the first woman he came across and demand a twenty-thousand-dollar ransom. It didn’t make sense unless there was something else going on.
Once the forensic teams started working on the desk and warehouse, Ash, Bowers, and Havelock drove back to the station downtown. The two administrators went upstairs to the deputy chief’s office, while Ash went to the conference room their task force had been assigned to. Reddington may not have wanted him there, but as long as Palmer wanted a familiar voice to talk to, he’d have a part of the case. So far, his department’s investigation had focused almost entirely on Rebecca and Palmer. It had another side, too, though, and they would be foolish to ignore it. They needed to start looking at John and Kate Doe.
Ash took out his cell phone and called Greg Doran’s desk phone. Instead of Doran, he got Detective Tim Smith.
“Hey,” said Ash, surprised. “I thought I called Greg’s desk.”
“You did, but he’s taking a piss. What do you want, Rashid?”
Ash paused for a second. “I wanted to talk to Greg. That’s why I called his desk.”
“Don’t you have something better to do than to bother us?”
“Not really.”
“We’re working, okay? Don’t call this number again unless it’s important.”
Smith hung up the phone. Their relationship remained consistent at least. Ash gave Doran a few minutes to get out of the bathroom before dialing his personal cell phone. The detective picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, Doran, it’s Ash. If you ever consider beating your partner with a rubber hose behind the building, let me know. I’ll pay to watch.”
Doran grunted. “You were the prank caller he talked to, huh?”
“Yeah,” said Ash. “I’m calling to see if you found anything about the Mercedes.”
“We got lucky. Dealership gave us his name without a fight. Daniel E. Elliot. He bought the car two years ago.”
Ash slumped into his seat, glad to hear some good news.
“That’s great. Were you able to ID John Doe?”
“Not officially,” said Doran. “But I looked up his driver’s license. The picture and our corpse are a match.”
“Good. We’ll see if we can track down his next of kin for an official ID. You find anything else about him?”
“A couple of things. He’s a lawyer with a license to practice in Indiana and in the federal court system. No arrest record.”
“Are you near a computer?”
“Yeah, I just got back to my desk. Tim’s with me.”
Ash wanted to ask him to give Tim the finger, but he decided that wouldn’t help their working relationship.
“Look up Elliot on the marriage license database. He was with his wife when he died. If we’re lucky, they got married in Indiana.”
“I’m on it,” said Doran, already typing. Ash took his notebook from his pocket and flipped through its pages until he came to a clean one and waited. “We’ve got four potential records. Do you have anything to narrow it down?”
“The woman’s name may be Kate.”
“I don’t have a record with a Kate, but I’ve got a Kara,” he said. “Give me a minute or two. I’ll look her up and see if I can get a picture.” He paused again and Ash heard typing. “That’s our vic. Karen Konstantinovna Elliot. Bet that was a pain in the ass to spell in elementary school.”
Ash didn’t recognize the name, but after taking a Russian literature course in college, he recogniz
ed the type.
“It’s a patronymic. It means her father was named Konstantin. Does the marriage license list her maiden name?”
“Bukoholov.”
It took a second for that to sink in, but when it did, it felt like Ash had been slapped.
“Kara Elliot’s father was Konstantin Bukoholov.”
“Should that mean something to me?” asked Doran.
“It means I need to talk to Captain Bowers.”
“When you talk to him, can you ask him if Tim and I are still part of this case? Other than my trip to the morgue and Tim’s trip to the Mercedes dealership, we’ve been sitting around all morning while you guys work. As much as I like goofing off at work, I like earning my paycheck even more.”
“I’ll talk to him. In the meantime, we need to get into Kara and Daniel Elliot’s house. Have Tim secure the scene, and while he’s doing that, I want you putting together an affidavit for a search warrant. I’ll ask Bowers to send some men your way.”
“Sounds good. As soon as you get me a team, we’ll hit the house.”
“Good. I’ll talk to you later.”
Ash hung up and jogged to the elevator. Reddington’s office was just a couple of floors up, but it felt far removed from the rest of the department. The lobby outside the elevator had wood-paneled walls and a uniformed sergeant behind an oversized wooden desk. Ash introduced himself to the sergeant, who made a phone call to the chief before leading him back. Chief Reddington, Agent Havelock, and Captain Bowers met him inside Reddington’s palatial office.
“I’m glad you’re here, Rashid,” said Reddington. “I just got off the phone with the Cook family. Their bank has agreed to loan them twenty thousand dollars cash. Are you comfortable making the exchange?”
Ash hadn’t thought about the actual exchange yet, but even without serious thought, he didn’t like it. The Central Library had a concrete slab in front of it big enough to host a circus. Buildings surrounded it on all sides. A shooter could hide near any of those buildings and take potshots at him. Worse, he wouldn’t even have cover.
“If I do, what’s the plan?”
“It’ll be a straight-up swap. We’ll drop off the money where he wants it, we’ll get the girl, and then we’ll follow Palmer until we can safely apprehend him.”
Ash inhaled deeply. “What if Rebecca isn’t there? I highly doubt it’s going to be that easy.”
“Whatever we do will depend on the situation. Our first priority will be your safety. We’ll suit you up in a bullet-resistant vest, and we’ll have officers in full tactical gear near the cathedral ready to pull you out if need be. We’ll also have shooters placed on top of buildings nearby. If your life is in imminent danger, they will shoot. The key here will be overwhelming force. We will bring enough men to overcome whatever he does.”
Ash didn’t like the ambiguity of the plan any more than he liked the location of the swap; unfortunately, it sounded like the best they could do without more information.
“I guess I don’t have anything better to do tonight.”
“I’m glad you’re so enthusiastic,” said Bowers.
Chief Reddington glanced at him before looking back at Ash. “I assume you came up here for a reason. What do you need?”
“I do have a reason,” said Ash, thinking back to why he actually came up. “Greg Doran and Tim Smith found out who our victims in the Mercedes were.”
“Good,” said Reddington. “Tell them to follow up. We’ll give them whatever resources they need. Until we get Rebecca back, though, she’s our focus up here.”
“One of the victims was named Kara Elliot,” said Ash, glancing at Bowers. “Her father is Konstantin Bukoholov.”
Bowers tilted his head back and exhaled heavily through his mouth. He swore while Reddington’s eyes shot to Havelock.
“That’s interesting,” said Havelock. “We’ll have to look into it.”
“Bukoholov is the biggest drug trafficker in the region, and I just told you that his daughter has been murdered,” said Ash. “I’d say that’s more than interesting.”
“Bukoholov may have ties to criminal groups, but our sources say he’s a bit player at most,” said Havelock, shaking his head. “We had him under surveillance, but we dropped it when we didn’t find anything.”
Ash narrowed his gaze. Bukoholov wasn’t a bit player, and anyone who had done even a little research would know that.
“When did you cut your surveillance on him?”
“About a year and a half ago. It was right after we arrested Karen Rea for trafficking cocaine from South America. If I recall, you were involved in that investigation, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. She abducted my wife and daughter. Captain Bowers helped me get them back.”
“Then you know about the drug trade in this city. We don’t have organized groups. We’ve got thugs, and Bukoholov happens to be one of them.”
Ash crossed his arms. “About the time we arrested Karen Rea, an FBI agent I worked with told me that the Agency no longer considers drugs a priority. You seem pretty well informed.”
Before Havelock could say anything, Bowers put his arm around Ash’s shoulders.
“I think you’ve said enough, Ash,” he said, steering him toward the door. He looked over his shoulder. “I’m going to escort Sergeant Rashid to the elevator. I’ll be right back.”
Once they exited the room, Bowers dropped his arm and pulled the door shut behind him. “Whatever you were going to say to Havelock, drop it,” he said. “This isn’t a fight you want.”
“Maybe I spoke out of turn, but Havelock is either lying or he’s an idiot. Bukoholov isn’t a bit player, and you know it as well as I do.”
Bowers glanced at Reddington’s door. “If the FBI had Bukoholov under surveillance, would they have ever seen you together?”
Ash felt his shoulders dip. “Yeah, but—”
“Thank you for being honest,” Bowers interrupted. “If you had surveillance video of a gangster visiting the home of a detective as well as video of that same detective visiting that same gangster at Military Park a couple of weeks later, would you trust him?”
Ash blinked several times. “They have video of that?”
Bowers nodded. “Yeah, and Havelock showed Reddington and me the video this morning.”
“It’s not what it looks like.”
“I should hope not because it looks like a police officer and a gangster are colluding.”
“Bukoholov has come to me with information in the past. A couple of months back, he came to my house and told me about a hit-and-run accident involving a woman I knew. After that investigation, I met him in Military Park to tell him not to contact me again. That’s all it was. It’s no different than meeting with a confidential informant.”
“Except that in this case, your confidential informant isn’t just some kid caught buying weed from an undercover police officer. He’s a drug trafficker with his fingers in city government. Let me ask you this: What did Bukoholov get out of that hit-and-run investigation he tipped you off to?”
A solidified power base.
“I don’t know.”
Bowers crossed his arms and stared. “After showing me the video, Havelock told me something else. Bukoholov is funding a political action committee supporting Leonard Wilson’s campaign for prosecutor. Didn’t you do some campaigning for Wilson?”
Ash ground his teeth. “Not intentionally.”
“But I bet you’ll get something out of it,” said Bowers, raising his eyebrows.
“Wilson has offered me a position in the prosecutors office if he’s elected. I haven’t accepted.”
Bowers swore under his breath and started walking down the hall. He pulled Ash into the executive conference room and shut the door, giving them a bit of privacy.
“You’re climbing a mountain without a lot of safety gear, Ash. Reddington wanted to turn this over to Internal Affairs. He already thought you were reckless for what you did during th
e Thomas Rahal trial last year, and now he’s questioning if he can trust you. That’s not good.”
Susan Mercer, Ash’s old boss, tried Thomas Rahal for murder eight months ago. It had looked like a simple case. She even had a confession. During an investigation into a related crime, Ash found out Susan’s case was anything but simple; by the time he finished, he had sent a well-respected detective to prison for the rest of his life and a number of other officers to their graves. Nobody came out a winner.
“I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“You’ve done plenty wrong,” said Bowers. “You’re working today because Palmer wants you, and I vouched for you.”
“What would you have me do? Ignore information because I don’t like the source?”
Bowers sighed and looked out the window. “I’m not telling you to ignore anything. I’m just telling you to consider what your source gets out of talking to you. Did you know Wilson used to be a cop?”
Ash’s posture softened. “Somebody told me. He left the department to go to law school, though.”
“That’s the official story. You want to hear the real one?”
“Sure,” said Ash, feeling disquiet build within him.
“Understand that I don’t have firsthand knowledge of this because it was before my time. My dad was a cop for forty years. He sat on a committee that investigated complaints against officers. It’s what the department had before the Internal Affairs unit was created. Wilson was a detective in vice back then, did lots of prostitution cases. Dad says he got close to some of the girls he arrested. Real close. Some of them were fifteen, sixteen years old.”
“I’m sure if your dad could prove Wilson was involved in wrongdoing, he would have.”
“Right,” Bowers snorted. “You know how often the prostitutes vice detectives bring in claim the arresting officer offered to let them go for a freebie?”
“I’ve never worked vice.”
“Well, I’ll fill you in. Every other time, I’d say. Dad couldn’t ever bring a case against him, but Wilson was dirty, even back then.”
