by David Hosp
Kozlowski held up the glass. “To truth, justice, and the American way?”
The smile disappeared from Macintyre’s face. He thought for a moment. “How about just to the job?”
Kozlowski said, “To the job,” and the two of them drained their glasses. Kozlowski put his down and looked at Mac. “So what happened?”
Macintyre leaned back into the sofa and closed his eyes. “I don’t even remember how it started.” He rubbed the butt of his revolver against his forehead. “It starts small, y’know? Fuckin’ spics invade the country in waves, right? You can’t fight it. Not really. There’s too many of them. They come in and they take up space, and they take up jobs, and they fuck up the system, and they don’t pay their taxes or nothing like that, so we gotta pay for them, right? But there’s too many of them to kick them all out; it’d be like trying to empty the Atlantic with a fucking spoon. So you see a chance to make a buck or two off ’em, and you figure, what the fuck? Ain’t like you’re cheating real Americans.”
“You were on the take,” Kozlowski said.
“Not for much.” Macintyre laughed. “Back in the early nineties, VDS started bringing in the illegals. Smuggling them across the border and trucking them up here and dumping them. So what, right? Shit, it’s the land of opportunity, right? So yeah, they were giving me a piece in exchange for a little protection. Everybody wins, right?”
“Wrong,” Kozlowski said.
Macintyre looked despondently at his navel. “Yeah, wrong. Very wrong. Not with these people. They’re nasty fuckers. Nastiest I ever seen.”
“Why were they smuggling illegals? Wouldn’t drugs have been more profitable?”
“Not even fucking close. Don’t get me wrong; occasionally, they’d bring in drugs, too. And guns. But the real money was in smuggling human cattle. Anyone with a little bit of money south of the border will give it all for a trip to the promised land. I swear to God, people down there must think we shit money and everyone is given a Corvette just for living here. They give a little bit of money, and the gang takes an IOU for the rest. When they get them up here, VDS sells them to employers who pay the illegals almost nothing for the worst jobs. The gang gets an up-front payment from the employers; plus, because the poor immigrant suckers aren’t making any real money, they gotta keep paying the interest on what they owe for the trip up here. It’s as close to slavery as you can get without chains—and sometimes they use those, too.”
“Why don’t the immigrants just take off?”
Macintyre’s expression grew serious. “You don’t know what these VDS fuckers are capable of. No one crosses them. Their leader is this sick fuck named Carlos. They call him the Padre, for Christ’s sake. The Father. He’s got tattoos all over his body—I swear, every single inch— and I’ve never seen such a cold, sick bastard. A couple of people tried that. Just took off. They were found later, hacked into tiny little pieces.
Carlos left the heads alone, so they would be recognized and everyone
else would know exactly what happened to anyone who ran.”
“What happened with Steele?” Kozlowski asked, leaning in.
Macintyre shrugged. “Just bad luck for her. Everything was fine until she got assigned to that fuckin’ INS task force. She was all gung ho on showing her daddy how good a cop she was, and she started getting too close. Before she came along, everyone just assumed that the illegals made it up here on their own. Anyone who knew about VDS’s racket pretended they didn’t. Not her, though. She started pushin’ her fuckin’ snout into other people’s business. I guess they decided she needed to go.”
“You guess?”
“You think they’d actually admit to me they were involved? But I knew. And I also knew that if the investigation ever got any traction, it would lead back to VDS and Carlos. He’s not the kind of a guy who would take that very well. At a minimum, my involvement with them would’ve been discovered, and I’d have lost my job—maybe even gone to jail. I had an ex-wife and two kids to support back then; I couldn’t let that happen.”
“So you framed Salazar.”
“Yeah. I knew Steele was assigned individual illegals to target for deportation. I did a little checking to find out who was high up on her list and who she had been focusing on. Salazar’s name popped up, so I figured, what the fuck? Good as anyone else. So I went to Fornier and told him that Steele had said he was the guy, but without fingerprint evidence, we’d never get the guy. Once Fornier had done his magic, I went to Steele and told her that we had a match on a fingerprint but that it wouldn’t be enough unless she testified, too. Like that, bing, bang, boom, we had an open-and-shut case. Solved all my problems, right?”
“It’s never that easy,” Kozlowski said.
“For fifteen years it was just that easy. The only downside was that now Carlos and his boys had more on me than I had on them, and they’re not the shy, retiring types. As they expanded their operations, they wanted more and more from me, and there was nothing I could do about it. Now that all the shit’s coming down, they’ve decided they don’t need me around anymore. So I’m sitting here in the dark, waiting for them to come. I feel a little like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, sitting in that shack at the end of the movie, waiting for the entire fucking Mexican army to open fire.”
“It was the Nicaraguan army,” Finn said.
Macintyre looked up at Finn for the first time. Then he turned to Kozlowski. “Where’d you find this fuckin’ guy?”
Kozlowski shook off the question. “What about Dobson?”
“The other lawyer?” Macintyre put his head down again. “I tried to warn him off, but he wouldn’t listen. Somehow he found out Carlos and his boys were operating out of this little church down near Logan in East Boston, and he went there.” All of the blood was gone from Mac’s face. “I was there, Koz. I’ve never seen anything like it. You don’t want to mess with these people.”
“Will we still find them at this church in East Boston?” Kozlowski asked.
Macintyre nodded. “They would’ve moved on, but they’ve got a major delivery coming in tomorrow night, and they couldn’t get a whole new operation set up in time.”
“Major delivery?”
“Yeah, they’ve expanded their smuggling. They used to bring in just your average everyday illegal looking for a better place to live. In the last few years, they’ve discovered a tidy little business in smuggling in Arabs.”
“Terrorists?”
Macintyre shrugged. “Don’t know for sure. It’s not like they wear uniforms, but I’ve got to assume.”
“And they’re bringing in some of these people tomorrow night?”
“Yeah. Along with a few others who were ‘lucky’ enough to scratch together the money to buy a ride up here into bondage.”
Kozlowski thought hard about this. “How many men does Carlos have?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” Mac said. “For a delivery, he usually has four or five guys with him.”
“Armed?”
“Heavily.”
“How many illegals will there be?”
Macintyre squinted, trying to remember. “I think he had four Arabs and maybe five or six regular suckers.”
“Will the Arabs be armed?”
“You kidding me? Carlos’ll do business with these guys, but he doesn’t trust them enough to give them guns. He’s smarter than that.”
Kozlowski sat there staring at Macintyre, as though making up his mind about something. Then he switched off the Dictaphone. “I have one more question, Mac,” he said.
“Like I haven’t given you enough?” Mac said. “Not that it matters; I’m a dead man already.”
“It matters to me,” Kozlowski said. “Were you involved in the attack on Lissa Krantz last night?”
“Who?”
Kozlowski watched the man closely, and Finn knew he was trying to pick up any tells. “Lissa Krantz. She works with us, and she was attacked last night. You know nothing about it?”
<
br /> “Look around, Koz,” Macintyre said. “Does it look like I’ve been spending much time out socializing over the past few days.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Kozlowski stared at him for a few more moments before he stood up.
“What now?” Macintyre asked.
“Now we go clean up your mess,” Kozlowski said, heading to the door.
“No, I mean for me. What the fuck do I do now? They’re coming to kill me; you know that.”
“Yeah,” Kozlowski said. “I know that.”
“I can’t go to the cops.”
“I know that, too.”
“So what the fuck do I do?”
Kozlowski gave Macintyre a cold stare. “You dug your own grave, Mac. If I were you, I’d make peace with it.” He started to open the door and then looked back. “And Mac?”
“Yeah?”
“I wouldn’t waste any time.”
z
Walt Piersall was walking his wife’s Scottish terrier down the block of his quiet Quincy neighborhood. It was freezing outside, and he rued the day he’d allowed her to get the stupid pooch. He was too old to be walking around outside in December with a plastic bag in his hand, waiting for the annoying little creature to take a crap.
As he passed the darkened house up the street, he saw two men emerge. One was a hard block of humanity with a thin raincoat flapping off his back. The other was tall, thin, well dressed, and at least ten years junior to his companion. There was something foreboding in their demeanor as they trudged across the snow-covered walkway, heading up the block toward an old European convertible. Walt watched them get in the car and sit talking to each other.
Suddenly, the sharp, unmistakable crack of a gunshot rang out from within the house, making Walt jump. He took a few quick strides toward the place, unconscious of the fact that he was dragging the dog behind him. Then he stopped, thinking better of it. He was too old to get involved; he’d call the police from the safety of his kitchen.
He looked down the block again. The two men had started the engine and flipped on their headlights. If they had heard the gunshot, they gave no indication that they cared. Then the car was slipped into gear, and the two men pulled away from the curb and onto the neat little street.
Chapter Thirty-five
Finn and Kozlowski were back at the tiny office in Charlestown. It had started snowing again, and a quiet had settled over the city as its residents huddled in their homes and apartments, waiting for Christmas to begin in earnest. Colored lights blinked on and off in windows up and down the street, and muffled strains of Christmas carols could be heard coming from many of the buildings.
Finn sat at his desk; Kozlowski was in the chair against the wall at the conference table. “You’re crazy,” Finn said.
“Maybe,” Kozlowski replied. “I don’t care. I’m doing this.”
“He said there’d be five of them. Heavily armed. And that doesn’t count the people they’re bringing in. You like those odds? I don’t like those odds.”
“I’m going,” Kozlowski said simply.
“Of course you are.”
“As long as Carlos is breathing, Lissa’s in danger. That means there’s no decision to make.”
“You wanna trade your life for hers?”
“That’s not my goal. But yes, if it came down to that, I’d trade my life for hers in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even need to think about it.”
Finn scratched his ear nervously. “We should at least tell the police. Maybe we could get some help with this.”
Kozlowski laughed. “You think the BPD would listen to us? It’d be better for the department if we didn’t come out of this alive. Less mess. Besides, these guys had Macintyre in their pocket, and they gave him up. They wouldn’t do that unless they had someone else in the department already in place. If we go to the police, not only will we not get any help, we may tip Carlos off. You like those odds any better?”
“So what do we do? Just go in there shooting?”
“No, we take aim first. Shooting doesn’t help unless you hit them.”
“Funny. That’s very funny.” Finn put his forehead down on his desk. “This would take a fucking army; you know that, right?”
“Like I said, I don’t have any options.” Kozlowski stood up. “Look, this isn’t your fight now. You don’t have to come.”
Finn looked up at him. “Not my fight? They put my client in jail. They tried to kill me, and they attacked one of the few people in the world who will speak to me with any sort of civility.” He thought about Lissa. “Well, maybe ‘civility’ is the wrong word, but how can you say this isn’t my fight?” He picked up the phone and started dialing.
“Who are you calling?” Kozlowski asked.
“I’m trying to get us an army.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Saturday, December 22, 2007
“How many?” Linda Flaherty asked.
“You asked me that already,” Finn said. “Several times.”
“And I’m asking you again. How many?”
“Five, we think.”
“Five, you think. I should have my head examined.” Flaherty, Finn, and Kozlowski were huddled in the back of a nondescript industrial van up the street from St. Jude’s. Max Seldon, the head of the federal Homeland Security office in Boston, was in the front seat, loading a shotgun. Two similar vans were parked strategically on different blocks, close enough to the church to mount a rapid assault, but far enough away to be discreet.
“That’s five of Carlos’s guys,” Kozlowski interjected. “There will probably be four or five of the al Qaeda types and another five or six South Americans. The South Americans shouldn’t be a problem, but you never know about Osama’s boys.”
She frowned. “We don’t know that they’re al Qaeda,” she said. “We just know they shouldn’t be here. And you said they won’t be armed.”
“That’s what Mac told us.”
“Just before he blew his brains out?”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
She rubbed her hands together. “Like I said, I should have my head examined. What do you think, Max?” she asked the man in the front seat. “You could always pull the plug.”
Seldon loaded another shell into the shotgun. “What, and miss a night out like this? I don’t think so.”
“Right,” Flaherty said. She turned back to Finn. “So you’re pretty sure there are only five of them who’ll be armed, right?”
“You’re really asking again?”
“Ease up on her,” Kozlowski said. “It’s part of the job.”
“Annoying me is part of the job?”
“I don’t know, you guys still dating?”
“Listen,” Flaherty said sharply, “we’ve been keeping tabs on VDS for three years; these assholes are for real. Our information is that half of the terrorist cells active in the U.S. today have used these guys to enter the country. You call me up at one o’clock in the morning and give me eighteen hours to put together an operation like this on a Saturday three days before Christmas. Well, I’m here, but with me and Seldon and the two FBI teams in the other vans, we’re going in with only six, and that means we’re way understaffed for this kind of a raid, so you’ll excuse me if I keep going over it.”
“Can’t you call in more agents?” Finn asked.
“Not on this schedule. And not when the only information we’re operating on is from a dirty cop who ate his gun last night, a lawyer who’s looking to free an attempted cop killer, and an ex-detective whose only goal appears to be to piss off every law enforcement officer in New England. If my boss finds out that I’m in the field on a lark like this, he’ll put my ass in a sling. As it is, Seldon and the four others in the vans volunteered for this as a personal favor to me.”
Finn kept his eyes on her face as she spoke. She still had the ability to mesmerize him; he felt a rush of excitement just being in her presence.
The fact that she also ha
d the ability to annoy the hell out of him only
made her more alluring.
“You’ve got seven going in,” Kozlowski said.
She looked at him. “What?”
“I’m coming in with you.”
“Eight,” Finn joined in.
Flaherty rolled her eyes. “Koz, you’re not a cop anymore. And you, Finn . . . hell, you’ve never been a cop before. A criminal once, but hey, why should we worry about that.”
“That was when I was a kid,” Finn pointed out.
“Great, I feel so much better. No, you two stay here. This has to be purely a law enforcement operation, which means you two aren’t involved.”
“I’m coming in,” Kozlowski repeated. “You don’t have a choice.”
She frowned at him. “No?” She turned around. “Seldon, give me your radio.” He passed a handheld unit back to her. “Blandis, Grossman, you in place?” she said into the radio.
The unit crackled two “Rogers” back at her.
“Okay, hold your positions. We may be aborting.” She looked at Kozlowski. “Your call, Koz. Either you stay here or I pull our men out right now. What’s it going to be?”
Kozlowski glared at her. Then he dropped his head and spat on the metal flooring of the van. “I guess you’re the boss, boss,” he said. “My, how the world has changed.”
“Got that right,” Finn said.
She picked up the receiver again. “Okay, we’re on. Stand by.” Just then two midsize cargo vans rolled by, through the intersection by the church. “Sit tight,” she said quietly. The vans pulled into the church parking lot and disappeared around the back, down by the garage underneath the rectory. “This is it,” Flaherty said into the radio. “Team two, you approach from the rear of the property; team three, you’ve got the side driveway. Seldon and I will come in from around by the church. Everyone wear your vests and jackets; I don’t want us shooting each other.”
The other teams acknowledged her order, and then the radio went silent. Flaherty looked at Seldon, who had already strapped on a Kevlar vest, and now pulled on a bright orange jacket marked fbi over it. He was holding the shotgun at the ready, and he nodded to her as he opened the door. Flaherty slid out and looked back at Finn and Kozlowski. “I mean it,” she said. “You two keep your asses in the truck, or I’ll have you arrested when this is all over, you understand?”
