The Shadow Broker (Mr. Finn Book 1)

by Trace Conger

  Bishop shifted in his seat and took another drink from his water bottle. “I sent a runner to Rollo’s office to drop off a payment. Fat Sam usually makes the drop, but I needed him here, so I sent Mr. Finn. He’s a new guy that’s been working for me. Only been with me a few weeks. I told him to call me after the drop, so I know everything went okay, since he’s new. He calls me, and he’s all jacked up, and he tells me that he took Rollo out. As if that’s something I wanted him to do, which it wasn’t. Said we wouldn’t have to pay him off anymore. More money for us. I asked what the fuck he was talking about, asked him what went wrong. And he said nothing went wrong—that he just saw a chance and took it. I only sent him there to make the drop as usual. I have no idea why he up and pulled this shit.”

  “Then what?” said Dunbar.

  “Then, I tell him he really fucked up. That it was an unsanctioned hit. That there’s a hierarchy to this thing, and you can’t just go fucking with that. I told him he’s got to get his ass back here—that we have to call Hickman and sort this shit out. But he never showed up. Never came back. He must have realized what he did. Realized that there were other people involved in this. Higher up. People like you. He must have figured out this went south and disappeared, thinking we’d turn on him.”

  Dunbar inhaled. “That the story you’re going with?” he said.

  “That’s the truth.” Bishop tipped his water bottle again.

  Dunbar slid a chair from the wall, placed it in front of Bishop’s desk and sat down. “Now, let me tell you what I think happened.” He paused. “I think you sent Mr. Finn to take Rollo out. I think that was the plan all along ...”

  “No, that’s ...”

  “Don’t you fucking interrupt me.” Dunbar leaned forward in his chair and Bishop inched backward. “I think you got tired of cutting Rollo in on your take. Thought you could cut him out and go into business for yourself. More money in your pocket. But cutting him out means cutting me out.”

  “No way,” said Bishop. Why would I do that? Rollo and me ... We had a good thing going. Everyone was making money. I got no reason to move on him. I needed Rollo. He made connections I couldn’t make on my own.” Bishop reached for his water bottle, but it was empty. He raised it to his lips anyway.

  Dunbar was silent.

  “Look, I’m a computer guy. I manage the technology end. Rollo handled all the other shit. Finding data resellers, identifying targets and keeping people in line. I had no reason to fuck with that, Dunbar. It was Mr. Finn. I don’t know what he was thinking, but all of this is on him. I tried to contact Hickman, but I couldn’t get hold of him.”

  Dunbar raised a thick eyebrow. “Hickman’s MIA,” he said. “If he were around, your story would be a bit more believable. But he ain’t. Which means I’m suspicious as fuck.”

  Fat Sam groaned into the couch cushion, and Mercer knocked the handle of his .45 into the side of his head.

  “Where’s Mr. Finn now?” said Dunbar. “I’m gonna get his side of the story, and if he tells me something different from what you just told me, I’m coming back here and I’m gonna gut you and your tubby friend here.”

  Bishop rolled the empty water bottle in his hand, and it crinkled under the weight of his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know where he is. He never resurfaced after the drop, but I’ve got people on it. I’ll find Mr. Finn and bring him in.”

  “You’ve had your people on it and you ain’t found shit,” said Dunbar. “Now I’m gonna put my people on it.” Dunbar signaled Davy Bill without taking his eyes off Bishop.

  “Where’s he live?” said Davy Bill.

  “I don’t know. I met him at a coffee shop on Eighth Street. Winans. I’ve got eyes on it, but he hasn’t shown up yet.”

  “We’ll find him,” said Dunbar. “In the meantime, you two are staying the fuck put. I don’t want you going anywhere until we have a chance to sort this shit out.”

  Bishop looked at Fat Sam, who was still buried in the couch. “Sure,” he said. “We’ll stay right here.”

  “Good,” said Dunbar. “My boys here are gonna sit on your place. If you step outside to take a smoke or check your goddamn mail, they’ll put a hole in you. Nobody leaves until this is sorted out. We clear?”

  “We’re clear.”

  “I’ll tell you right now, Bishop, this whole thing reeks of shit, and I could smell it all the way from Detroit.” Dunbar motioned to the door and his crew walked out.

  DUNBAR’S CREW WALKED BACK TO the SUVs.

  “This is a goddamn clusterfuck,” said Dunbar. “Mercer, watch the house. Either one of those two takes a step outside, you kill ‘em.” He motioned to Davy Bill. “You two come with me. We’re going to pick up this Mr. Finn fucktard and find out what’s really going on.”

  I DROPPED OFF BECCA AT Brooke’s home and headed to Winans to down my first cup of the day and knock out the rest of Vanilla Ride. I’d hit Bishop’s place in an hour to pick up my fee for Rollo and then consider more permanent living options for Albert.

  Spending the weekend with Becca and Albert on the boat helped to put Rollo behind me. A voice in my head tried to convince me I should still get out of Cincinnati in case there was any blowback from the Rollo job. Another voice argued that since I had anonymity on my side, there was no rush. All they had was an alias, and that don’t get you much.

  The line at Winans broke through the door, so I grabbed my usual seat near the front window and cracked the book, waiting for the caffeine addicts to thin out. Monday morning meant banana-nut muffins in the case. I hated bananas, but I couldn’t resist banana-nut muffins. Or banana-nut bread. Anything banana-nut. The line couldn’t die down soon enough.

  I’d only read a few of Joe’s pages, when two men sat down across from me. Both were dressed sharply, but only one wore a tie. I really needed to use a smaller table.

  I looked up from my book. “Plenty of seats in here, fellas,” I said. “No need to crowd me.”

  “You’re a tough guy to find,” said the man with the tie.

  “That’s no accident,” I said. “But whoever you’re looking for, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I’m not the type of guy people look for. Just a John Doe with a book, waiting to get some coffee and a muffin.”

  The man in the tie crossed his hands and set them on the table. “Well, I’d wager you are the guy we’re looking for, Finn Harding. Or do you prefer Mr. Finn?”

  That got my attention. “Okay,” I said closing the book. “You here to take my order?”

  “Nope,” said the tie. “But we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “You seem to know who I am, but I’m at a loss as to who you two are. How about we remedy that?”

  “Fair enough,” said the tie. “Special Agent Scott Allen. This is Special Agent Brian Tipton.” Allen opened his wallet on the table, revealing his badge. It was the real deal.

  “As in FBI special agent?” I said.

  “That’s right,” said Allen.

  “Those questions you have require me to have a lawyer?”

  “No lawyer needed,” said Allen, standing. “But this place isn’t going to work. You’ll need to come with us.”

  “I’d rather stay here. I haven’t gotten my coffee. Or my muffin. It’s banana-nut day.”

  “No dice,” said Tipton, also standing. “It’s better if you come with us.”

  “Oh, good,” I said. “For a minute there, I thought you might stay quiet the whole time. That was kinda creeping me out.”

  Tipton stepped next to me and grabbed my arm. He was a small guy, but he had a grip like a python with a pair of Little Freddie’s pliers.

  “Ease up, turbo,” I said, keeping my voice down. “I haven’t passed the bar, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have to do a goddamn thing you say. Unless you’re arresting me.”

  Special Agent Allen waved his hand like a player turning down a hit at a blackjack table, and Tipton released my
arm.

  “You’re right,” said Allen. “You don’t have to go with us, but it’s better if you do. At this point, we’re still friends, but if you make us go out of our way to talk to you, we aren’t going to be friends anymore.”

  “I’ve got enough friends,” I said.

  “Don’t make this difficult, Finn. Let’s go.”

  Part of me was curious to know what these guys wanted, and the other part wasn’t, but they could make my life hell, so I went along. I stood up, grabbed my book and the three of us walked outside, past the line of morning zombies and past the case with the banana-nut muffins.

  ALLEN AND TIPTON HAD A sedan parked across the street. I climbed in the back and we headed up I-71 to the Montgomery Road exit. Fifteen minutes of silence after leaving the coffee shop, we pulled into a parking lot in front a building that looked too modern for a government office. I’d been inside two FBI offices before, and they both looked like outdated post offices. Small brick buildings with paint peeling on the walls and mismatched hand-me-down office furniture from some more important government building. The Cincinnati field office was different. It was four floors with equal parts tinted glass and concrete. Modern. Boxy. A gray-and-blue exterior, surrounded by a white security fence.

  We pulled up to a keypad. Allen punched in a five-digit code and the white fence slid to the left, letting us drive into a parking garage. Allen parked the car, and the two agents escorted me to a side entrance. Allen pulled a laminated ID card from his pocket and waved it in front of a sensor next to the door. It beeped and the door opened automatically. Inside, a short hallway led to the lobby, which was small for such a large building. There were a dozen thick padded chairs and four low tables. An attractive receptionist was seated behind a shoulder-high desk. The FBI seal, embossed on glass, looked over the lobby with an approving eye. A tile-floor perimeter surrounded the carpeted lobby and underscored the modern shape of the building.

  After crossing the lobby, Allen and Tipton led me down another hallway, past a kitchenette, a copy room and into a small conference room.

  “Wait here,” said Allen, as they both walked back out into the hall and closed the door.

  “I’ll take a coffee. Black,” I said, hoping coffee was an option and that they heard me through the closed door.

  The room didn’t look like an interrogation room. No large one-way mirror, but there was a small video camera in the upper corner of the room. No attempt to hide it, but someone could easily overlook it. A flat-screen television hung on the wall. A few cords ran from the television, down the wall and up to the table, where I took a seat. The only uninviting aspect was the waist-high metal bar bolted to the wall. The perfect height to cuff a seated suspect.

  I sat in the room for about fifteen minutes before Allen and Tipton came in with a third man. None of them had coffee.

  “You didn’t hear me about the coffee?” I said.

  “We heard you,” said Allen.

  “I don’t know how helpful I can be without my morning caffeine,” I said as I tapped my head. “It usually takes two or three cups to get the blood flowing up here.” I waited for them to introduce the new guy, but everyone was silent.

  Tipton sat at the end of the table, plugged a laptop into one of the connections and used a remote to click on the flat screen.

  I set my hands on the table in front of me. “So … someone want to tell me why I’m here?” I said.

  Allen leaned against the table, still standing. “You’re here because we have reason to believe you’re involved in a homicide,” he said. “You might want to check that attitude because you’re in some serious shit.”

  “My life is a sequence of serious shits and, no offense, but you guys are the absolute least of my concerns right now.”

  “Let’s see what we can do to get to the top of that list,” said Allen, motioning to Tipton. Tipton smacked some keys on the laptop and a series of color photos appeared on the flat screen. The first was a photo of Justin Banks’ plastic-encased body. The second was a close-up of Banks’ face, the teeth fragments still stuck to his cheek. The third was a photo of a bloodstain about the size of a basketball on a concrete floor.

  “Know who that is, Mr. Harding?” said Allen.

  “No,” I said.

  “We think you do, but for the record, it’s Justin Banks. He turned up dead in Westerville, Ohio, last week. That making anything clearer for you?”

  “No, but I assume I’m here because you think I had something to do with it.”

  “We know you had something to do with it, but you’re here for another reason,” said Allen.

  My mind flipped through the events of the past few days to find the slip-up. There had to be one somewhere, or I wouldn’t be sitting in the FBI field office with these three staring me down. Little Freddie and I left Hoover Dam as clean as an operating room. Where was the slip-up? Nowhere. They didn’t have dick. I looked up at the new guy, who stood against the wall, arms crossed. He wore a gray suit with a red- and gray-striped tie. More official looking than Allen and Tipton. Maybe their supervisor. He also had a laminated ID on a zip cord clipped to his belt, but it was turned around, so I couldn’t make out his name.

  I leaned back and crossed my legs. “I’ll bite,” I said. “What is it?”

  “Justin Banks was a CI,” said Allen. “He was helping us with a case.”

  “Is that right?” I said. “I still don’t know what that has to do with me.”

  A criminal informant. Perfect. I fought the urge to uncross my legs and shift in my seat. No visual cues.

  The new guy stepped forward. “I’m Special Agent William Anders of the FBI’s cybercrime division,” he said. “Justin Banks was supporting our investigation into the criminal activities of Charles Bishop. We have reason to believe you’re working with Mr. Bishop.”

  “Charles Bishop?” I said. “Never heard of him.”

  Anders nodded to Tipton, who slapped more keys on his laptop. The three photos of Banks disappeared, replaced by a crisp photo of me standing at a table with Bishop and Fat Sam. Our first meeting before we moved to the back of the coffee shop. From the angle, someone took the photo across the street from the coffee shop. If they had me at the coffee shop, they probably also had me at Bishop’s home.

  “You can cut the bullshit anytime,” said Allen. “We know you’re working with him.”

  “I was doing some investigative work for Bishop,” I said, still fighting the urge to shift in the seat. “But nothing illegal.”

  “He have you looking into Justin Banks?” said Anders.

  “My work is between me and my client.”

  “Let me tell you what we have on your client,” said Anders. “We believe he’s involved in several data breaches that cost the American taxpayers quite a bit of money. He’s also involved in electronic money laundering and tax evasion, electronic funds transfer fraud, personal data theft and the sale of illegal information over the Internet.”

  “That’s a long list,” I said. “And you have evidence to support that?”

  “We’ve got evidence,” said Anders. “But Banks was helping us build an ironclad case. Helping us uncover Bishop’s connection to an organized-crime syndicate in Detroit. We think Bishop works though someone in Cincinnati.”

  They were right about that, but I wasn’t about to tip them off to Rollo, if they didn’t already know about him.

  “You think Bishop is a crime boss?” I said.

  “Bishop? No, but organized-crime groups have started using people like him to tap into new illegal opportunities,” said Anders. “The old guard doesn’t have the expertise, but someone like Bishop does. He can make a lot of money for a larger organization. We’ve got a lot of intel on the locals he might be working with. We’re just not sure who his boss is.”

  Allen walked over to Tipton. “Banks said he had collected a comprehensive user list and several pages detailing illegal transactions on Bishop’s website, but someone popped him befo
re he could get us that information,” he said.

  I uncrossed my legs and leaned back in my chair. “I’ve already been clear on this, but again I’m not sure what this has to do with me.”

  “We know you work for Bishop,” said Anders. “And we’re pretty certain that he contracted you to kill Banks, though we don’t know how he fingered Banks as a CI.”

  Bishop didn’t finger Banks as a CI. Banks played both sides, gathering intel for the FBI and blackmailing Bishop at the same time. He probably figured he could get a few hundred grand from Bishop during the investigation and then when the well dried up, he could turn over the evidence to the FBI and walk away. Bishop goes to prison, Banks keeps the cash, and the FBI is none the wiser. That’s why he held onto the intel he had on Bishop and didn’t give it to the FBI. The longer the investigation, the more money Banks pocketed.

  “So you’re accusing me of murder?” I said. “Of murdering your CI?”

  “That’s right,” said Allen.

  “So why aren’t you arresting me?”

  “We could arrest you,” said Anders. “But we’d rather you work with us instead. I’ll be honest with you, with Banks gone, our case against Bishop takes a big hit. But since you’re working with Bishop, you’re in a unique position to pick up where Banks left off. You can corroborate Bishop’s activity and help us close him down.”

  I pointed to the laptop. “It’s not very comforting that your last informant ended up wrapped in plastic,” I said.

  “By your hand,” said Allen.

  I slid my chair closer to the table and set my palms in front of me. “About that ... I saw this episode of ‘Law and Order’ once, and they were really big on this thing called evidence. Spent like half the show talking about it. The way I see it, you’re shaking trees. So far, all I’m getting from this conversation is you have the inability to wrangle your CI and someone offed him. You haven’t given me any reason to believe you got shit on me. You say I killed this Banks fella, and I’m calling bullshit.”