Venice Black (Alex Polonia Thriller Book 1)

by Gregory C. Randall

  Asmir tapped lightly on the rear door off a narrow, dark alley. Above, a small CCTV camera watched them. He held up two fingers, heard the door unlock, and slipped inside. It closed silently behind them.

  “Are we safe?” Asmir asked.

  “Yes, no police,” was the answer from the woman who opened the door.

  The walls of the narrow corridor were bare stucco, and the floor was covered with a long, threadbare Oriental rug. The woman led them to a small room in the rear of the building. No additional words were offered, or responses made. Everything had been said earlier that day.

  On the floor of the room was another nylon athletic duffel bag identical to the ones that had carried their laundry. Cvijetin unzipped the bag, removed a cell phone taped to the top of a plastic-wrapped box, and slipped the phone into his pocket. He then removed the package; it was about the size of a large shoe box. It was encased in a rubberized compound, making the interior mechanisms waterproof. For its size, it was heavy. Wrapped around its middle was a nylon strap; a large steel ring was secured to the center of one side. Also in the bag was a length of thin, black nylon rope, a stainless steel clip attached to one end. He zipped up the blue duffel bag.

  Cvijetin looked up at Asmir and nodded.

  Asmir turned to the woman. “Shukran.”

  The woman nodded in acknowledgment of his thank-you and replied softly, “Allahu Akbar.”

  The two men then left the building and walked through the cold alleys of the Dorsoduro district to the Ponte dell’Accademia, one of the bridges that crossed the Grand Canal. After crossing the bridge, they headed north to the San Samuele vaporetto stop, by the Palazzo Grassi. They talked about soccer and who would be in the playoffs. To any bystander, they were two good-looking men out on the town or coming home late from the gym.

  At the San Samuele vaporetto landing, they took seats in the waiting area of the floating dock, as if expecting the next boat. They knew this late at night the stop was closed. Asmir unzipped the nylon bag as Cvijetin watched the empty campo. They had thought there might be guards, but as with most cash-strapped Italian agencies, the guards that had been stationed at the campo several hours earlier had been recalled.

  Cvijetin tapped Asmir on the arm. Asmir reached into the bag and secured the rope to the ring on the package. Then he took the bag, exited the open door on the canal side of the dock, quickly secured the unattached end of the rope to an iron ladder built into the dock’s side gunnel, and in one movement removed and then dropped the heavy waterproof package into the canal. It was quickly swept under the structure. He watched as the line jerked tight, then changed its angle as the package sank to the bottom of the canal. It was under the stop and would not be lost to the canal’s current or the backwash of the vaporetti that would resume their stops in the early morning.

  When Asmir returned, Cvijetin slipped the bag over his shoulder. They walked through the campo, past the Palazzo Grassi with its large sign proclaiming the European conference the next morning, and disappeared into the labyrinth of Venetian alleys.

  CHAPTER 34

  The clock radio next to Alex’s bed read 23:25. She did a mental calculation: 5:25 in the late afternoon in Cleveland. It had been two hours and twenty minutes since she’d read Ralph’s e-mail. Two hours and twenty minutes of torture. It wasn’t that she would not call; it was what she would say when she did.

  Only a few minutes had passed since Javier called and said he’d see her at breakfast in the hotel’s small dining room. She was disappointed—she would have preferred her room—but understood and agreed. He needed to report back to Milan and Washington about everything that Jurić had said. He’d asked her what she was going to do about Ralph’s e-mail. She had said she would call her partner and tell him.

  “Dammit, Alex, I told you not to call,” Simmons said. “You miss me that much? I’m sure this phone is safe, but you never know.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Driving home. There’s another massive storm coming in. The captain sent some of us home early. I’m bushed, it has been a long day.”

  “Lucky you. Did you talk to the captain?”

  “Yes, he told me not to talk with you. He said he wants you where you are. You can’t cause any trouble from there.”

  She paused, trying to compose her thoughts.

  “Alex, you still there?”

  “Bob, I have a serious problem.” She told him about the e-mail from Ralph.

  “Why would Ralph risk contacting you? He knows you’d tell someone.”

  “Yeah, and that someone is you. I’m totally at a loss about what to do. And even though he tells me he’s in Geneva-on-the-Lake, he could actually be on the far side of the moon. Damn, I really hate that man.”

  “If he’s at this Aunt Pat’s house, I can have a team there in less than two hours, full Special Response Team. This will then be over, no looking over your shoulder. The escape cost him the twelve-year sentence. Now he’ll never see freedom.”

  “In case you’ve missed it, Simmons, he’s tasting freedom now. My guess, he’s not going to give it up. He’s prepared. He may have stashed guns, clothing, everything he needs to disappear. What he didn’t count on was getting caught so early in his game.”

  “You want me to send a team?”

  “It is not my call,” she said. “Pass it on to the captain. He wants me here, not there.” She took a deep breath and thought for a few seconds. “If it were me, I’d drop a bomb on him. I remember the house; it’s a block off the main drag, at the east end. The building backs up to the lake. That’s the best I can do. Can’t remember the address.”

  “I can work with that. I’ll check with the locals. By the way, there’s a goddamn blizzard here. On the east side, they may get two feet of snow. You are not going to have many friends, throwing the SRT people and the troopers out in this storm.”

  “You know this can’t wait, but be careful. That son of a bitch is up to something. I know it.”

  “I know. And you?”

  “I should have stayed home,” she lamented. “Venice has not been fun, really. Call me after this goes down. And by the way, thanks.”

  “Thanks? That’s all I get? It’s freezing here, and I have to go find some asshole in a snowstorm. You owe me big time, Cierzinski.”

  “It’s Polonia. Remember?”

  She clicked off, rummaged through the minibar, and discovered a few gin bottles and a can of California pistachios. Thankfully, they weren’t the ghastly pink color. The clock said 00:52 when she crawled into bed. She didn’t know what time it was when she finally fell asleep.

  THURSDAY

  CHAPTER 35

  The bedside clock read 05:45. Alex’s cell phone would not stop ringing. It rang four times and went to voice mail, then started all over again.

  “What?” she yelled into the device. No ID showed on the screen, just “Anonymous.” This had better be good. “You know what time it is?”

  “Yes, I fucking do know what time it is!” Bob Simmons yelled back. “It is the end-of-the-fucking-world time, dammit.”

  “What?” she repeated, dragging her brain into the present.

  “It’s all screwed up here, upside down, in the fucking ass, fucked up.”

  “Simmons . . . Bob? What is happening?”

  “The house, it exploded all to fucking hell. I have one dead SRT member and three others severely burned or injured. The house, well, it exploded all to fucking hell.”

  Her hand shook as Simmons told her what had happened.

  “After our conversation, I turned the car around and called the captain. When I told him what you said, he told me to meet him at the station. By the time I got there, a BOLO was focused on the north end of the state, and Cuyahoga and Ashtabula Counties had been broadcast to look out for Ralph Cierzinski. He also told me that Cierzinski had been spotted by a Geneva-on-the-Lake cop at a grocer on the east side of town. The cop had tried to arrest him but was wounded in the leg when Cierzinski pu
lled a pistol and opened fire. Cierzinski took the officer’s weapon and escaped in a blue pickup truck. The captain was already in contact with the Cleveland SRT and the Ohio State Patrol’s SRT when the shooting in Geneva took place. A half hour later, the local sheriff for Ashtabula County reported that the truck had been spotted at a house just east of the city limits.”

  “Dammit, Bob. Couldn’t they wait?” Alex said.

  “One of their men was down, they wouldn’t hear of it. I also heard that county records made a family and ownership connection to Ralph and the house where the pickup was parked. It would be a full SRT operation. It was snowing like hell.”

  “Don’t tell me they tried to take the house?”

  “Yes. I arrived at about 9:30. Traffic was the shits. SRT and the sheriff were set up like a military operation. The pickup had stolen plates on it from near the prison. After the search warrant had arrived, they stormed the house. All hell broke loose from the inside, automatic gunfire shredded the door. Then the house exploded. The SRT team on the front porch was tossed into the air and the ones at the back were hit with shrapnel.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “The gale-force winds pushed the flames toward a nearby house. The smell of propane gas mixed ferociously with the snow, now blowing almost horizontal off the lake. By the time they were able to get to the injured officers, one was dead, one severely burned and bleeding internally, the others had been cut by wood shrapnel embedded in their legs and lower torsos.”

  “This is wrong, so wrong.”

  “You telling me? The fire died down when the fire department found the propane tank that was feeding the fire, and shut it off. The debris from the upper floors that had fallen into the basement became a sea of black slush. By morning this will become hell’s own frozen swimming pool.”

  “Is Ralph dead?” Alex asked.

  “I have no idea, no one came out. I hope the son of a bitch is frozen in a block of shit in the basement of that house.”

  “Goddamn, Bob, I’m so sorry,” Alex said. “So, they think Ralph’s dead?”

  “Yeah, looks like it. No one got out of that house. We know there was gunfire from inside; in the after-action search, we found two rounds that hit one of the perimeter vans, could not have been from our team. It’s still snowing here, now more than two feet. We won’t be able to find anything for days. The blue truck’s owner has been missing since Monday. He also lived in Warren, near where the plates had been stolen. Had to be Cierzinski. This is all so wrong.”

  “I’m coming home tomorrow. Everything is so screwed up here.”

  “Look, there’s no reason for you to come back to this shitstorm. Stay away; this will be the final reason they need to fire you. They will want a head, and your pretty one would suit them fine. Stay there, and don’t give them the satisfaction. Your info was good—I know it. It may take a few days to figure out, but it will get there.”

  “Thanks, Bob. I’ll let you know later today. It would be difficult to get a plane out anyway, and besides, it would cost me a fortune.” She paused. “Bob, don’t tell anyone we talked, but between you and me, I know that Ralph’s not dead—I just know it. He’s too clever to be caught like this. I think this whole thing was a diversion to buy himself time. He could have set this up more than a year ago, just in case. He walked me right into it. It smells exactly like something that shit would do.”

  “I’ll keep this between us as long as I can. Let me know what you decide.”

  “Good night.”

  “There is nothing good about this night.” Simmons clicked off.

  Alex and Ralph had each come to their marriage late in life—relatively speaking. In a time when most of Alex’s friends were getting married in their twenties, she didn’t find Ralph until she was thirty-two, he thirty-five. They had been stationed in the same district, but never as partners. The rumor around the station was that the two officers, both of Polish background, deserved each other. Alex wasn’t sure what was meant by that remark. Ralph had his sharp edge, she knew that, but his biting humor was something she liked.

  She had never been one for all the touchy-feely New Age police programs being rolled out of command, downtown. The street was a lot more dangerous than what was talked about at the training seminars. Cleveland’s streets were a battle zone between gangs and cops. The job was never easy, particularly for a woman. When they both passed the detective exam, they had celebrated by going to Geneva-on-the-Lake, and for three days they had thought only about each other. That was the last time we actually spent more than a weekend together.

  She considered herself smart, not book smart or test smart, but street and people smart. She called it her cop instinct, and more than once it had served her well. But the last year had turned it all upside down. She should have seen what was happening; she should have seen the signs. Driving the city streets she could spot dealers and pimps; she could see the drugs and the fear; she knew the boundaries between safety and danger. And she could see people on edge. For some reason, she did not see Ralph walking that line.

  She knew that Ralph was alive and this was all an elaborate setup to give him time to escape. The man had twenty million reasons hidden, but where? How? The snowstorm raging in from Lake Erie had been about as good a cover as anyone could wish for. She thought it wouldn’t have been a surprise that Ralph had waited for such a storm. Every hour since the house explosion, Ralph could have been forty miles farther away; several hours from now, he could be four hundred miles clear of Cleveland. Chicago was fewer than four hundred miles away; New York City and Charlotte, North Carolina, around five hundred. They all fit in the time window. After all, he’d been caught heading to Mexico, so maybe he would try that route again. Too many options and too much time.

  At this point after the prison break, the only way Ralph Cierzinski would be caught would be by doing something stupid. She was certain that, at least for the next few weeks, he would retreat into a cocoon somewhere and wait. He had time, and he had means, and he had something she didn’t—a future that he controlled.

  CHAPTER 36

  Later that morning, her head hurting from lack of sleep, Alex stood in the shower, trying to wash away everything that had happened. She knew it was hopeless. Ralph was all she could think of. Ralph in a truck, driving through a snowstorm with a big fucking smile on his face. Damn, she hated that man.

  After dressing, she removed the Glock from the safe, checked the magazine, found it fully loaded, and slipped it into her backpack. She found Javier waiting in the lobby. She tried to smile, but the look on his face told her that she didn’t pull it off.

  “Coffee” was the only thing she said, and steered him toward the small dining room off the lobby.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Give me a minute,” she answered and watched as the waiter filled her cup. She looked at Javier over its rim; a tear ran down her cheek.

  “What happened?”

  She told him.

  “My God, and the state police think he’s dead?”

  “Yes, but I don’t believe it. It will be days before they confirm anything, because of the storm.” She drained her coffee, waved to the waiter, and pointed to the cup. “I am so hungry.”

  They ordered breakfast. Alex had scrambled eggs, Javier a cheese omelet.

  “Better?” Javier asked as she finished.

  “Yes, some.” She looked at Javier, her eyes moist. “This is all wrong. I know Ralph planned this from the beginning. The son of a bitch probably had himself stabbed just to escape.” She paused and took a long, deep breath. “What’s the latest with Marika?”

  “She’s holding a press conference in the campo outside the Palazzo Grassi at nine thirty. She has journalist friends who will give her a fair hearing.” He laid a manila envelope on the table, opened the end, and extracted a couple of pages. “These came in during the night, dossiers on Ehsan’s two friends. Seems they have traveled quite a bit during the last few months, both
separately to Saudi Arabia, as well as Dubai and Cairo. The reports also say they met with Wahhabi religious clerics while in Riyadh.”

  “Wahhabi?”

  “Ultraconservative Saudi sect of Sunni Islam. During the Bosnian War, they sent fighters to oppose the Croats and Serbs. Many young Bosnian men were radicalized and trained in military operations by Saudi missionaries. Not too great a leap to think that Asmir Fazlić and Cvijetin Radić are in the Wahhabi camp. Those are their full names.”

  “Ehsan?”

  “Maybe—his travels, the ones we tracked, are not so radical. He even went to moderate countries, including Turkey. All for business reasons, according to Italian passport controls. But there are a hundred ways around that. Just ask Marika.”

  “Marika? Why?”

  “There is no record of her entering Italy from any country during the past week. It’s my belief she slipped in, maybe by boat across the Adriatic. That way she avoided customs or passport controls, as well as any of Kozak’s people. Why, I don’t know.”

  “Like the thousands of refugees trying to cross into Italy?”

  “My guess, she had better connections and accommodations. Nonetheless, she shows up here with documents on Kozak, then Ehsan added his, most particularly the film. I received an e-mail on Saturday, while I was in Milan, that she was on her way. We couldn’t trace the e-mail back to a specific location.”

  “All this to get someone to arrest Kozak?”

  “Yes, but there is something else going on now, especially after yesterday’s fiasco at the campo. These friends of Ehsan make the whole thing, to use your term, hinky. Very hinky.”

  The walk from the hotel to the Campo San Samuele and the Palazzo Grassi was one of the first opportunities that Alex had had to actually walk the historic passages of Venice. On the way there, Alex turned to Javier, took his arm in hers, and said, “I’m glad you know where you are going. I have no idea where I am. I’m enjoying it, but lost would be an understatement.”