“I hope so,” said Arturas.
“So do I,” said Volchek.
I hadn’t realized he was in the dark limo. They must’ve picked him up while they were waiting for me. If I’d known Volchek was in the car, I might have thought twice about Jimmy’s idea of breaking out the heavy artillery.
“Don’t worry. The prosecutor is about to have the day from hell,” I said.
And so are you, Olek, I thought.
“Put this on. This should be a better fit,” said Arturas, handing me a white shirt still in its packaging. Even the knot in my tie felt wet through with sweat. I changed in the limo. The fresh shirt felt good, and this time the collar was a good fit. Arturas gave me another tie, blue this time, and an electric razor. The detailed thought that he had put into this plan continued to surprise me; he didn’t want me going into court looking like a guy who’d slept in his clothes.
The conversation dried up, for which I was thankful. I put my head back and closed my eyes, but no sleep came; my brain worked overtime. From the first moment I’d met Arturas, I’d sensed he was a killer, but a very different killer from Volchek. While Arturas seemed methodical and cold-blooded, Volchek indulged his passion for suffering. In my time as a con man and a lawyer, I’d met both types before. The men like Arturas were few and far between. Men like Volchek were more common. When I thought about it, Volchek had a lot in common with Ted Berkley—the man who finished my legal career almost a year ago.
Berkley tried to grab seventeen-year-old Hanna Tublowski as she got off the subway late one evening. Before she got to the exit, she felt strong arms grab her around her waist, lift her, and carry her toward the cold, black tunnel. There were no commuters at her stop at that time of night. The man who grabbed her timed it so that he made the grab while she was midpoint between security camera views. When she tried to scream, he put his hand over her mouth and whispered that if she made a sound, he would kill her.
A homeless man heard her cry out and he raised the alarm. The attacker fled. Subway cops arrived and managed to calm the young woman. They had found a monthly subway ticket on the ground, in the area where she had been grabbed. One cop bagged the card out of routine more than any genuine insight. It turned out the subway had been cleaned ten minutes beforehand. That meant the card was more than likely from the attacker. The subway pass had been bought on a credit card—Ted Berkley’s card. I picked up Berkley in night court as he didn’t have a criminal lawyer, and I even managed to get him bail.
At the trial, it was the card and the girl’s evidence that she recognized Berkley in a lineup that formed the basis of the prosecution’s case. NYPD raided Berkley’s office, his apartment, and his summer house and had found nothing. Ted Berkley was in his early thirties, rich, had a great-looking girlfriend and a house in the Hamptons. Not your typical kidnapper. As a client, he couldn’t have been better; he was polite, paid his retainer in full, and trusted me to save him. I thought, like him, that the girl just got it wrong, mistaken identity. Berkley said he lost his wallet, which included the subway card, about twenty-four hours before the attack happened.
Hanna Tublowski was a music student who had been taking the subway home from a recital. A talented cellist, she had been working toward a scholarship. She had long brown hair, pale skin, and as she sat in the witness box at trial, I saw her fear. Appearing as a witness in any trial is scary, and there is no more nerve-racking a situation than a young woman facing her attacker in court.
Deciding to remain seated, and therefore less threatening when I cross-examined Hanna, I cleared my throat and gave her a reassuring smile before I asked my first question. Just before I opened my mouth, Berkley had whispered to me, “Destroy the bitch.” In all our meetings leading up to trial, he had never spoken like this before or shown any hostility toward the victim.
Ignoring him, I decided instead to take a different approach. The jury had liked the girl. I risked everything if I went in aggressively. Instead I approached it like a father, teasing out her answers and quietly, but maturely, displaying the inconsistencies in her evidence in order to show that she wasn’t a liar; instead she was the victim of an attack but she had mistakenly and understandably confused her real attacker with my client.
Give the people what they want.
Juries like empathizing with victims. This way—my way—they got to empathize with her and with the nice young man in the Brooks Brothers suit whom I represented.
When I had finished cross-examining her, even though I’d gone softly, Hanna cried and looked desperately at the jury. I had felt like shit, and as I turned to my client, I saw the look on Berkley’s face was one of disgust and something else. At that moment I took it to be nerves or fear. But when I looked more closely, I could see the true nature of that feeling—excitement. Seeing a seventeen-year-old describe the all-consuming panic of being grabbed and hauled away toward the dark had produced profound excitement in Ted Berkley. The jury were sent away to consider their verdict. After I saw Berkley’s reaction to Hanna, I knew Berkley was guilty. In the months afterward, as I plowed through the bars of Manhattan, drunk, I’d told myself that there was nothing I could have done before the verdict came in.
The jury unanimously acquitted Berkley. Hanna, although a victim, had not properly identified her attacker.
An hour after the verdict, the IO called me and told me that Hanna had gone missing and would Berkley consent to another property search. He agreed. They found no trace of Hanna.
The following day, a Saturday, I paid a visit to Berkley’s home. The IO had given me Berkley’s laptop, which they had seized in the initial search. NYPD techs had found zero evidence on the laptop and were now giving it back. I told the cop I’d return it personally; I wanted Berkley out of my life ASAP because at that time I was not convinced that the jury had brought in the right verdict. My instincts told me Berkley was dangerous, that he was hiding something behind his perfect life.
He wasn’t at his apartment, and I took the liberty of driving to his summer house, which he visited on weekends.
I knocked and waited. His Porsche was parked in the driveway. I heard the shower. After two or three minutes, he opened the front door, his hair and chest wet, a towel wrapped around his waist. Just below his navel, the towel bore fresh, reddish brown stains.
“Something wrong, Eddie?” said Berkley, breathing hard.
“The cops gave me your laptop. I’m just returning it.”
“You didn’t need to come all the way out here. I could have picked it up from your office.”
I didn’t want Berkley near me or my office.
“It’s okay, I…” Before I could give a lame excuse for driving out there, I heard a cry.
Berkley smiled and said, “I left the TV on.”
“I didn’t ask you anything,” I said, as I put my foot in the doorjamb.
He tried slamming the door. I pushed back, threw my shoulder into the door, and it caught Berkley square on the head, busting open a cut above his eye and sending him to the floor.
The cry became a scream.
I ran into the hall and kicked Berkley in the face as I passed by.
The scream seemed to echo around the house. Downstairs was empty. On the first floor, I saw a bedroom door open. On the edge of the bed I saw a foot, bright red, tied to the corner post.
I opened that door. I had done it many times since; almost every night I opened that door in my dreams and saw her again.
Hanna Tublowski’s hands and feet had been tied to each corner of the bed with wire that bit deeply into her flesh. A ball gag had slipped from her broken jaw and hung loosely below her neck. My guess was that Berkley had tried to knock her out when he heard me at the door. He hit her too hard. With her jaw broken and dislocated, the gag had fallen from her mouth, allowing her to scream. Droplets of blood stood on her blue lips.
She was naked.
Dried blood covered her crotch and belly. Bite marks blossomed over her breasts and neck. Eac
h mark surrounded by purple and black bruising and blood where Berkley’s teeth had broken the skin. Her left eye was completely closed; her right eye was wide and wild in panic.
I couldn’t untie her. The wire would need to be cut. Instead, I knelt beside her and told her she was safe and that the police were on their way.
Dialing 911 from the phone in the kitchen, I guessed that the police response time in this area would be superfast, maybe five minutes. Turned out to be less. The cops arrived at the house in less than three minutes. If they had arrived any later, I had little doubt that Berkley would have been dead by then.
He still lay in the hall, although he was starting to come around. Straddling him, pinning his arms down with my knees, I began pounding his face. When I felt my left hand break, I started using my elbows, throwing my body forward with each blow and crushing his skull between my elbow and the tiled floor. At the time, I couldn’t feel the pain from my broken hand. I could only feel the wisps of hot blood that splashed my face after every blow. I don’t remember the cops dragging me off of him. I don’t remember being arrested. But I remembered seeing Christine’s face when she bailed me out. The DA’s office didn’t prosecute me; the only reason Hanna had survived was because I’d saved her. But in my mind, I’d let her be tortured and raped because I had not acted on my instincts about Berkley.
The state bar was ready to pull my license and disbar me for beating a client half to death. Harry represented me at the hearing before the disciplinary committee. Instead of telling them how good a lawyer I was, he read out the list of injuries that Hanna had suffered. She lost an eye; her jaw, despite having been rebroken and reset a number of times, would never properly heal, leaving her face permanently disfigured. She was scarred for life both physically and mentally.
Berkley had caused so much internal damage that Hanna would never be able to have kids.
Although Harry was saving me, for the second time, I could feel my world slipping away; I was just as responsible for those injuries as Berkley.
Berkley got twenty years. I got six months’ suspension.
I had to live with the fact that he had been able to do that to Hanna because I had gotten him off. It was my fault. No amount of booze would ever change that.
Before the jury acquitted Berkley, I knew in my heart that he was guilty and that he could do this again. I tried putting my faith in the fact that he would be unlikely to try to grab a young girl a second time, considering his last attempt failed so badly. My gut told me otherwise, and that same feeling brought me to his house on that blood-red day.
I would not make the same mistake again. Guys like Berkley, Volchek, and Arturas had to be stopped or they would go on destroying lives.
Sitting in the limo with my eyes closed as we raced toward the courthouse, I knew that I had made the right move; taking down the Russians was the only way to keep my family safe. I’d set my phone to vibrate, and even though I felt sure that I hadn’t felt it go off, with the movement from the car and the sound of tires rolling on rippled streets, I couldn’t be certain. I opened my eyes to see Volchek cross his legs, close his eyes. Was he thinking about the day ahead? I wasn’t sure. The scarred one looked out of the window, unable to fix his gaze on his boss. My hand almost reached for my phone. Just to check. Just to make sure. Adjusting my tie, I cleared my throat and forced myself to look at the street and think about my next move. Arturas was playing his own game, and I felt that it was about time I found out what it was.
The closer we got to Chambers Street, the more I was convinced that my answers lay inside those vans in the basement parking lot.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
We arrived at Chambers Street just after seven thirty. The sun had already begun to warm the cold courthouse steps.
I had less than eight hours left before Volchek fled the country. I had to get whatever I could on Volchek and find a fed I could trust before four o’clock.
Volchek, Arturas, and Victor all got out of the limo with me, and together we headed toward the entrance.
“After you,” said Arturas, and I walked in front, skipping up the steps to security.
As I got higher, I was able to see the lobby entrance. I didn’t recognize a single security guard. They all looked new to me. I didn’t have a briefcase, or the usual lawyer trappings. This time I wasn’t concerned about security discovering the bomb. I didn’t have it on me, but I had an illegal secure-water spray, what I believed to be the actual detonator for the bomb, the UV flashlight, and a cell phone. If the Russians saw any of those items, it was all over.
Once I got within twenty feet of the entrance, I did recognize a guard. He was blond, young, and eager—Hank, the same kid who’d tried to search me yesterday morning before Barry called him off.
Hank saw me coming. He stood in front of the security door, cracking his knuckles. If he could, he would’ve given me a cavity search.
Just then I heard quick footsteps coming up the stairs behind us. I turned and saw Special Agent Bill Kennedy jogging toward me, accompanied by the two agents I’d seen yesterday.
“Glad I caught you, Mr. Flynn. I wanted to apologize for yesterday. But I do need to have a talk in private. Let’s take a ride. It won’t take long. I promise.”
Volchek looked at the agents and then looked at me.
“All right, Mr. Flynn. You can go with the agent. We will wait for you in the upstairs office,” said Volchek. “Just don’t be late for court. You wouldn’t want me to have to make a call, now, would you?” said Volchek. He leaned close and whispered, “If you try anything, I will cut your little girl.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t be long,” I said.
As I walked away from Volchek, I could feel his eyes upon me.
The other agents didn’t speak at all. The short, squat agent with red hair walked ahead of Kennedy and the tall agent with the athletic frame fell in behind me.
“Are we going anywhere nice?”
“We’re going to the river, Pier 40. By the way,” he said pointing to the tall, elegant agent behind us, “this is Special Agent Coulson.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said. We shook hands.
Kennedy pointed at the red-haired man ahead of us and said, “This is Special Agent Tom Levine.”
Levine didn’t extend a hand; he just nodded. I nodded back, more in knowing than anything else. Now I knew why all of a sudden Volchek was happy for me to take a ride with the FBI: I was also taking a ride with Volchek’s dirty fed, and everything I said would go straight back to him.
“Why are we going to Pier 40, Agent Kennedy?” I asked.
“You’ll see, Mr. Flynn … You’ll see.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
There was little conversation on the way to the pier. Levine drove and didn’t say a word. Coulson sat up front, and I lounged in the back beside Kennedy.
“So what’s at the pier that’s so important?”
“You seen the Times this morning?” he asked.
“Haven’t had the chance yet,” I said.
He handed me a copy of the New York Times. My picture was on the front with the headline RUSSIAN MAFIA TRIAL CONTINUES.
“Look at the story below the fold.”
I turned over the paper and saw the picture I’d seen on Sunday—a cargo boat called the Sacha moored along the riverbank. The same boat that sank on the Hudson on Saturday night with all her crew. The article in the paper thanked all the crewmen from neighboring boats for their help trying to locate the lost crew and the ship.
“We found a crewman who saw the Sacha go down near Pier 40. The Hudson is a big river, but we found the ship last night and some of the crew. We’re here now. You can see for yourself.”
We pulled up at a set of tall, iron gates. A cop waved us through, and we parked behind an NYPD patrol vehicle. Coulson and Levine got out and waited at the pedestrian entrance to the pier. In the distance, beyond the gates, sunlight glimmered on the river. The muscular Hudson looked choppy. Ke
nnedy came close to me before we reached his colleagues and kept his voice low as he spoke.
“If there’s anything you need to tell me, now’s the time.”
“I don’t have anything to tell you,” I said, looking over his shoulder at Levine, who was pretending to exchange small talk with Coulson but secretly keeping an eye on me.
“Fair enough,” said Kennedy with a sigh.
A single question ricocheted around in my mind; why hadn’t I heard from Jimmy? Something must have gone wrong. Maybe Amy wasn’t in the apartment. What if the Russians took down Jimmy’s guys? I gripped the phone in my pocket, squeezing it, willing it to vibrate. Stress often hit me physically, like a python twisting itself around my spine, and at the first spike of pain, I breathed and stretched to help loosen my neck and tried to organize my thoughts. I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept, and my body was ready to quit.
Kennedy’s stiff-soled shoes crunched on the gravel that led to the boat house on Pier 40. I kept my head down and let my feet follow Kennedy’s. When I heard his footsteps come to a rest, I lifted my head just in time to duck underneath a length of yellow crime-scene tape that stretched across my path.
A low murmur, my cell phone vibrating.
A text. Either Amy was alive or still missing—or dead.
Blood rose to my face and I struggled for breath. I had an answer, but I couldn’t risk taking a look with Levine around.
Ahead, Coulson and Levine put their backs to the boat house and Kennedy spoke to two CSIs in white plastic coveralls. I saw a coast guard boat anchored to the pier and divers in the water. Kennedy called me over to a tent, and I knew what kind of tent it was and what was likely to be inside. It was the same kind of tent that the police use all over the world, to keep the elements from interfering with the bodies they’ve found.
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