Fatal Exchange (Fatal Series Book 1)

by Russell Blake

  He threw his lunch bag on his desk and rifled through a stack of message slips. There was one from the forensics lab. He figured he should start his day with some good news; maybe they’d figured out what had killed their Jane Doe. He dialed.

  “Forensics, Amy Silva.”

  “Hi Amy, it’s Ron. I saw you called. What have you got?”

  “Well, it’s strange. The cause of death is indeterminate. We can’t figure out what killed her. It looks like natural causes but we both know that’s impossible. We’ve run a complete panel, concluded the autopsy, and so far, it looks like she shouldn’t be dead.” Amy stopped.

  “Great. Of course the sawed-off breasts and scalp kind of make me doubt the natural causes thing—not to mention the eyes…” Ron was feeling playful today.

  “That’s the other unusual thing. She was already dead—her heart had stopped for some time before she was butchered. And I was right about the implement, it was razor sharp, very efficient. She had a lot of alcohol in her system and some trace elements of Klonapin, but not nearly enough to kill her—and it could be she had a prescription for that.” Amy said.

  “When did she die?” Ron asked.

  “Tuesday night. Late.”

  “Okay, so where does that leave us?” asked Ron.

  “A healthy Hispanic female in her mid-twenties, who shouldn’t be dead according to all our tests. Sorry. Wish I had better news.” Amy did sound sorry. “But my hunch is we’ll see more like her—this isn’t a boyfriend faking it. However she was killed, it was done carefully, and it was obviously premeditated. She died in that alley; she wasn’t moved. He did the cutting right there, brought the tools and something to carry the trophies away in, and he was strong enough to throw her into the dumpster. Although she only weighed ninety-six pounds.” Amy was finished.

  “So the perp knew what he was going to do and came prepared. Nice. And killed her mysteriously. Thanks. You just officially made my day terrible, and it just got started.”

  “Sorry, Ron. I’ll call you if the toxicology report gets any hits.” She disconnected.

  Great. He had a nut job with a scalping mania roaming the streets, able to kill without leaving a trace. Ron flipped over the case file and saw a note stuck to the inside with some writing. Name: Angelina Cortez, age twenty-four, last known employer Red Cap Courier.

  At least he had somewhere to start.

  Chapter 5

  Robert Gideon wheeled out of the apartment building to the waiting automobile. One of the few luxuries he indulged in was a car to and from his office, to spare him the indignity of dealing with public transportation with his wheelchair. He didn’t spend money frivolously, and he could more than afford it. He wasn’t rich, but he was certainly comfortable enough to splurge when he felt like it. The car, the weekly fine dining experience, and the occasional rare wine—all within his means.

  “Good morning, Mr. Gideon,” the driver said as he assisted him into the back seat of the Town Car.

  “Good morning, Inder,” Robert responded. Inder was a very fit Indian gentleman who’d been driving him for the last six years. His vehicle had a lift on the back for Robert’s power chair.

  “Let’s stop at the bank on the way to the shop, okay?” Robert requested.

  “Very good.”

  They parked outside the Exxon building on Avenue of the Americas, and Inder helped Robert get into his chair, clutching his paper bag. He told Inder he’d be only a moment, then rolled into the branch, informing the manager that he needed to get into his safe deposit box. The manager escorted him to the back, where he held his hand up to the scanner that approved him for entry; once inside the vault he eased down the ramp to the rows of hinged compartments. He slid his key into the slot and turned it, then removed and opened the box, and dropped the bag next to his important papers and several ultra-expensive watches. All told, a three-minute, million-dollar moment.

  Back at the car, Inder got him secured and they proceeded to his shop on West 47th Street. Gideon Watch Gallery was his livelihood and his passion, one of the few things that brought him pleasure. He’d had the business for twenty-five years, and he still looked forward to going to work every day.

  He specialized in only the rarest and most sought-after timepieces, and had several customers who’d been coming to him since he first opened. He was now at the point where he was buying back watches he’d sold two decades earlier, from the estates of clients who’d passed away. One thing that never changed was the demand for Patek Philippe and other extremely rare watches.

  ~ ~ ~

  Mr. Kiu touched down in Seoul, having concluded his transaction in San Francisco and boarded a return flight the same day. There’d been no delegation; he’d made the trip of his own accord, using vacation time.

  He was exhausted from all the hours in the air—but given that his slice of the profits would be three hundred grand, he was willing to put up with a little discomfort. Exiting the arrival terminal, he hailed one of the ubiquitous taxis standing sentry-like in a queue. He gave the driver his address and dropped into the back seat gratefully, happy to be on land.

  Now that he had the watches he could sell them in Seoul or Japan. He already had two interested parties in Tokyo, well-to-do acquaintances from the diplomatic corps. A quarter million bucks per watch, wired to his offshore account, would do nicely.

  He’d hold the funds for his brother’s friend, still in Myanmar, and once he was able to arrange for his family to be smuggled out the friend would have a nice nest egg waiting: five hundred thousand dollars. His brother would take a hundred, the Seung fellow would take his hundred, Kiu would keep three hundred, and life for all of them would be good.

  He’d been advised to swap the cash for commodities that could be re-converted into different currencies, and the watches were the perfect vehicles. There was no hurry to sell them—they appreciated every day, so he could just keep them in his safe and they were as good as gold.

  Summer in Korea was a hot and wet affair, the air heavy with the smells of exhaust, fish, and industry. The taxi pulled up to Kiu’s Hanok house, a renovated old-style Korean home on the outskirts of Seoul, and he paid the driver from a wad of won. He was glad to finally be home, and was looking forward to seeing his wife. They’d had an interesting life together; their children were grown and his career as a mid-level member of the diplomatic corps had provided a comfortable lifestyle.

  He considered what he would do once he retired in a few more years, maybe six or seven. Seoul had its good points, but he couldn’t help looking forward to moving away from the city. An hour or two away, in the countryside, where peace and tranquility prevailed—maybe in one of the little fishing villages they would open a bed and breakfast to keep occupied. The watch money would make their retirement significantly more secure.

  It was still muggy out in the early evening, and he was sweating after being in air conditioning for the last twenty-four hours. The flight to the U.S. had taken just over ten hours, and the return trip about twelve, and he’d been on the ground all of three hours.

  He was out of it from all the Xanax, jet lag, and sleeplessness—he could never get a minute’s rest on an airplane, and was looking forward to a long night's sleep.

  What a whirlwind.

  He climbed the steps and opened his door, and stopped at an unfamiliar odor in the air. Cigarette smoke. That was strange. He wondered who had visited his wife Hea and smoked in their house.

  “Honey? I’m home. Do we have company?” he called into the hall from the entryway.

  Nothing.

  Very odd.

  “Honey?” He walked into the empty living room; she must have been in the bedroom. He noted the ashtrays on the table—they had definitely had company in his absence.

  “Honey?” He entered the bedroom and froze. Two men were sitting on the small couch, and his wife was tied spread-eagle to the bed, naked, bound and gagged. She looked terrified. One of the men was smoking; the other held a small pi
stol. The man with the cigarette stood up slowly and stretched. It had been a long day for everyone.

  “Where is it?” he hissed.

  Kiu’s heart sank. So they knew, and had sent a team. It was over. He’d read enough intelligence briefings to know he and his wife were dead.

  “I love you, honey. Please forgive me. I’ve always loved you, I swear,” he whispered to her. It was true. He’d married her as soon as she’d turned eighteen, and had never been with, nor desired, another woman. And now he’d killed them both, just as surely as if he’d held the gun himself. He turned to the men. “I have no idea what you’re doing here. I’m a diplomat of the Republic of Korea, and any robbery or violence will carry with it the swiftest and most severe of consequences.”

  The two men exchanged a glance and started laughing. The one holding the cigarette picked up an old ball-peen hammer that Kiu kept in the shed and casually swung it down on Hea’s shin. She writhed, her scream stifled by the gag. He spoke as he regarded her agonized thrashing.

  “I see. You are a very important man. But you don’t seem to understand. We know everything, and we need our property back.” He paused, took a step, and struck her other leg. “She’ll never walk again, thanks to your lies. But she’s at least alive, yes? So let’s try again. Where is it?”

  Kiu threw his bag at the man with the cigarette and lunged at the gunman. They would torture them both regardless of whether he told them anything, he knew, so he might as well do some damage.

  They wrestled, and the gun went off just as the second man swung the hammer at Kiu’s neck. Kiu sank to the floor, shot in the chest, blood staining his shirt in a crimson blossom.

  The smoker leaned over and probed Kiu’s neck for a pulse. Nothing. He picked up the bags Kiu had been carrying and systematically dismantled them. His partner walked over to Hea, put a pillow over her face, placed the barrel of his pistol against it, and pulled the trigger.

  “I think we have something here. No cash, but look at this,” his partner exclaimed.

  He was holding the airline tickets and the bag with the four watches in it, complete with a receipt from Gideon Watch Gallery, New York, NY.

  He pulled out a newly-acquired cell phone and pressed speed dial.

  “We have a serious problem. Our boy’s been busy.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The stifling Manhattan streets were suffocated by the exhaust from the nonstop procession of cars. Tess was zigzagging in and out of traffic, slicing her way from stop to stop with almost mechanized efficiency. Summer was hard, but not as bad as winter, when the pavement was slick with ice and the wind chill could easily drop the temperature below zero.

  In the messenger world time was literally money. It was simple—the more packages you delivered, the more money you earned; the system rewarded efficiency and speed. She liked that aspect of the job, the challenge of always pushing herself, demanding more from her body, constantly trying for an edge against the clock.

  After her breakdown, she’d thought a lot about what was really important to her, and being active and physically fit ranked high. She’d realized she hated working in a rigid, controlled environment—while she enjoyed the intellectual challenge of writing code, the lifestyle had sucked away her will to live.

  Her therapist had prescribed Zoloft, and then Lexipro, in an attempt to manage her mood so she wouldn’t step in front of a bus. Tess had weaned herself off and stopped seeing the shrink once she’d gotten out of programming, and so far, so good—two years and counting.

  She supposed that like half the city, she was screwed up and neurotic. But no one had ever promised her that life would meet her every expectation, and at the end of the day, she couldn’t complain. She knew a lot of others had it harder, and she’d come a long way from being the depressed girl who’d wanted to end it all because life had disappointed her. She’d sucked it up and gotten tougher, and the challenges of the job had helped her develop a new, confident self-sufficiency.

  So Tess raced down the battered and sweltering thoroughfares of the lower East side, contented and exhilarated by the ride, driving herself to the limits of her endurance as she raced from her demons.

  ~ ~ ~

  Gordon Samuels was perched on the edge of his desk, contemplating a currency hedge against a rise in the Australian dollar, when his private line rang. Few had that number. He lifted the handset.

  “Yes?”

  “We have a situation.” Gordon recognized the Asian singsong lilt.

  “A situation? What happened?”

  “It seems that a million of the test batch found its way into the U.S. We have a good idea who is in possession, and are taking steps to rectify this.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. I thought you had it all under control. Now you tell me we’ve got flawed bills here? Where?” Gordon was fuming. The whole scheme was endangered, but he’d be damned if he’d put up with a mistake at this stage. He was too committed on the oil futures to extricate himself now, and they were losing value even as he spoke.

  “We believe they’re in New York, with a watch dealer. Our team is in the air. I’ll call if there are any developments.” Gordon stared at the phone, the call terminated.

  This was going from bad to worse. From just a minor glitch in the middle of backwoods Asia, the situation had deteriorated to a million bucks of counterfeits in New York. The only good news was the bills were so good that nobody would be able to detect them as fake. But if someone did… He had everything he owned on the line in a complex series of oil derivatives, betting on a sudden spike driven by Myanmar ’s new buying ability starting exactly one month from now. And he’d made an even more complex bet on a number of companies he’d identified as strong targets for upward price manipulation, buying call options to create gains while the common stock was purchased from offshore using bogus cash. If someone spotted the flawed bills, however unlikely that was, he was screwed.

  Gordon didn’t know what to do next. He’d have to wait until he heard back. They were ordinarily quite efficient, so he wasn’t panicked. After a moment’s consideration, he dialed his contact at the Treasury Department, the man who’d gotten rich providing Myanmar the data they’d needed. The Asians had introduced him to Gordon several years ago to get help in setting up an offshore account. Gordon had been happy to do it, and figured it couldn’t hurt to know all the players if he was going to risk his fortune on a gambit of this magnitude.

  “Hello.”

  “It’s Gordon. Would you keep me in the loop if you hear anything strange coming out of New York?”

  A pause. “Such as?”

  “Rumors, oddities, anything besides your usual routine.” Gordon didn’t want to alarm him, but he needed an early warning system.

  “Uh, okay. Sure. Does this have anything to do with our deal?” The man was wary.

  “No. Everything’s fine. This is something else, for one of my clients.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  Chapter 6

  Detective Stanford entered the dingy offices of Red Cap Courier and approached a porcine woman behind the small reception window. Flipped out his badge. She regarded it suspiciously.

  “I’m Detective Ron Stanford. Can I speak to your manager?”

  “What’s this about?” She didn't seem like the most warm and inviting soul. He figured he’d clear up any confusion on her part.

  “Let me speak to the person running this place right now, please, without any questions from you. Okay?” He smiled, ever the diplomat.

  “Well, all right. But the only people here right now are the dispatchers. I’ll get one.”

  A heavy-set older man came out and introduced himself as Frank Meyer.

  “Mr. Meyer, I’m looking into the death of one of your employees. Angelina Cortez. When did you last see her?”

  Frank looked shocked. “Loca, dead? Sorry—everyone here has a nickname. Hers was Loca. I guess the last time was three days ago, at the end of the Tuesday shift.”

>   “Was there anything unusual in terms of her demeanor or her attitude?”

  “No…You should ask Stu. Hey Stu, didn’t you talk to Loca on Tuesday?” Frank yelled into the back area.

  “Who wants to know?” A voice answered.

  “Police.”

  A head popped out of the rear office, and then a thirty-something geek in shorts approached them.

  “I talked to her. She was fine. That’s why we were all surprised when she didn’t show Wednesday.”

  “And you are?” Ron asked.

  “Oh, sorry. Stu Giblett. Dispatcher.”

  “I'm afraid Angelina is dead—we suspect foul play, and I need to ask you some questions. Did she have a boyfriend? Anyone close to her?” Ron inquired.

  Frank shook his head.

  “Not that I heard. She was kind of wild. I think she dated around, know what I mean?” Frank gave him a cheerless smirk.

  “I think I know what you mean. Who was she closest to here?” Ron asked. And so on. Standard questions.

  Ron asked them to keep Loca’s death confidential until he could notify her next of kin and interview the messengers. He wanted to talk to them on Monday, first thing, before they hit the streets.

  No closer to a solution than when he’d arrived, Ron was frustrated. There was nobody besides Frank and Stu to talk to; everyone was out on their routes.

  Apparently Loca slept around. No steady, probably banging some of the other losers on the crew, in addition to half of Manhattan.

  What a mess.

  He had the feeling he’d be looking at more bodies like hers, sooner rather than later.