“You really are making me hungry. Thanks. You gotta know this is a team, don’t you? Some sort of 007 shit?”
“Yup. I’m with you. They make the Russian mob look understanding. There are a lot of bodies piling up at the watch store. Did you know that your boy Stan was a coin dealer?”
“No. What’s the connection? Did the dad have a military or ex-government background? Did Stan?” Ron was toying with the hypothesis they were being taken out because they knew something, some secret from their past.
“Nope. Nothing there. Whatever this is about, it’s in the here and now. Does your girlfriend have any information for your old buddy Barry, maybe make my life easier?”
“She’s not my girlfriend. I’ll ask her and see what she knows, but I wouldn’t bet on anything immediately. If my dad, and now my uncle and boyfriend, had all been tortured and murdered inside of sixty hours, I’d be cracking up.”
“And there’s a serial out there going after bike chicks, seems I heard on TV or something. Isn’t she a bike chick?”
“Oh, that. Huh. Maybe I should try to do something, you know…catch him or something? You think that would be good?”
“That could do the trick. Best of luck, Ron. I’ve got my hands full right now.”
“I know the feeling.”
Ron looked at the selection of sandwiches at the deli next to the precinct, and realized he’d lost his appetite. He grabbed a couple of breakfast bars, paid, and walked out. He really hated to be the bearer of this news to Tess, but someone had to do it.
~ ~ ~
Ken had a team assembled and was waiting for Secret Service to arrive. He’d notified them that they had a confirmed counterfeit. He didn’t want to botch this. He called the NYPD detective running the watch dealer investigation again. This time the man picked up.
“Childen.”
“Detective Childen, this is Ken Pritchard at Treasury in D.C.—I called you earlier today.” Ken sounded annoyed.
“Yes, Ken. Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you, but it’s been a busy day. I’m dealing with the city’s fourth homicide in the last twelve hours, two of which are mine. What can I do for you?” Barry asked.
“I understand you’re handling the Gideon case,” Ken said.
“Gideon? You mean the watch guy? Yeah, that’s me. What do you need?”
“There may be a matter of national security involved, Detective…” Ken started in his best government bureaucratese.
“Right. So what do you need?” Barry wasn’t responding well to the gray-suit runaround.
“Have you heard or seen anything on the case that was odd?” Ken asked. He couldn’t tell Barry anything, or even ask any questions that would hint at counterfeiting, because Secret Service might want to clamp a lid on it until they could develop a strategy. But he needed to know what was happening with the NYPD’s investigation—how much they knew.
“Odd? Odd? Well, Ken, given that the Treasury Department is calling about a tortured and murdered watch dealer, your call is odd. The fact the watch dealer’s friend, a coin collector here in the Big Apple, came in as another torture/murder today, well now, that’s odd, don’t you think? Or maybe the fact that someone just boiled the watch dealer’s assistant in oil at his shop—while it’s still wrapped in crime tape—would you say that was a trifle odd?” Barry clearly wasn’t responding well to the suit trying to milk him with vague national security gibberish and one-sided Beltway speak.
Ken digested the information. The coin dealer who Saul told him about was dead, and now the assistant was dead, and everyone had been tortured. He was way out of his league at this point; Secret Service would need to figure this one out.
“Detective, it sounds like you have a full plate. I’m sorry if I disturbed you. I had no idea you had all that going on. My questions can wait. Thanks for your time.” Ken hung up.
Barry stared at his phone. He supposed he’d given the Treasury wonk enough info to make him leave him alone, which had been his purpose in telling him about all the murders.
But that still left the question as to why Treasury was calling in the first place.
“What was that all about?” asked Darren.
“Treasury wanted to know if I was happy with the new quarters,” Barry quipped.
“Oh. I got one of those calls yesterday. I told them they tasted fine, had a hint of minty freshness,” Darren deadpanned.
“I’d love to hang out and chat, but I have to go back down to the watch store and scrape a guy off the carpet. Enjoy the uncle,” Barry said, leaving his partner with the Stan crime scene.
“Have fun at the shop. You might want to consider one of those $250K Pateks—might lift your spirits. Take out a second on the house,” Darren suggested.
“I’ll look into that. Or coin collecting.” Barry glanced at Stan’s corpse one last time. “Or not.” He pushed past the technicians, and made for the elevators.
~ ~ ~
Ron patiently sat through another meeting, this time a task force orientation. Everyone wanted a piece of the action. The mayor’s office had sent a representative, the chief was there, the FBI was arguing for jurisdiction because it was a serial; all the usual suspects were positioning for covering their asses and taking as much credit as they could.
Ultimately, the session had gotten down to brass tacks and all the bigwigs had lost interest and departed, leaving Ron as the task force head and free to run the investigation his way, for now. The bright side was that he had whatever resources he needed; his first action was to requisition the five best detectives he knew for interviewing and fact-checking his hot list of suspects—half of Red Cap.
They agreed they’d interview everyone again the following morning and do more in-depth checks on the star list, as well as run backgrounds on the rest of the crew.
Ron was drained from the day’s meetings as well as from the distraction of Tess’s case. He’d put off calling her about it until he got out of the task force love-fest, but he couldn’t stall any longer.
“Ron. Is there any news?” Tess was outside; he could hear cars in the background.
“Yeah, there is. Tess, where are you?” Ron wanted to make sure she was stationary when he told her.
“I’m hanging out in Central Park,” she said.
Here it goes. “Tess, it isn’t good.” He waited, gave her a few seconds to get prepared. “We found Stan. He’s been killed at his apartment. We believe it’s the same group responsible for your father’s death.”
He heard a sharp intake of breath. But no screaming or crying.
“I was afraid of that. I thought about it a lot while I was riding, and figured he was probably dead when he missed our breakfast.” She sounded detached, distant. “What about Nick?”
“Tess, the news there is just as bad. Whoever tried to assault you must have gotten to Nick first. He didn’t make it. You’re lucky to be alive.” Ron listened for her reaction.
Tess was sitting cross-legged on the grass in the park, her bike lying beside her, the tears silently rolling down her face. She’d had a terrible feeling about Nick when she’d seen the Asian man in the shop, and had steeled herself for the worst. She’d decided to stay strong and not cave, not collapse, which is what she really wanted to do. But hearing it hit her hard.
“Ron, was he tortured too? Was Uncle Stan?” He could tell she was crying—her voice was trembling and tentative, and he could hear the strain, the effort she was putting into holding herself together.
“I won’t lie to you. They were both subjected to terrible ordeals. My friend is heading up the investigations and he believes, as do I, that this is a professional group. I’m so sorry, Tess. This has got to be the longest week of your life.” Ron couldn’t even imagine what she was feeling. Everyone she knew and loved had been killed in the space of two days. Some people never made it back after that kind of trauma. Others became harder and stronger. You saw it in warfare, with the survivors of massacres: one personality type became ba
sket cases, and another picked up weapons. Tess could go either way.
“I need to call you back, Ron. I…I can’t talk now.” She was crying. He understood.
“Call me whenever you want, Tess. Anything I can do, I will. I can’t tell you how sad I am you’re going through this.”
Ron wondered how much of his sorrow for her was driven by her beauty, and how much by genuine compassion. Equal amounts, he was surprised to admit. He thought he’d lost most of his compassion after years of seeing victims of serials and tracking the animals that waged war on the unsuspecting. He wondered why Tess affected him as much as she did.
“I will. Later.”
Tess hung up and cried; cried for her father, her uncle, her lover; cried because the world was so unfair, and because the good were slaughtered by the bad. Her sorrow was bottomless and she cried for a long, long time. She needed to do this, because once she was out of tears, she was going to be done crying until it was all over and someone had paid.
And so she sat, a tiny figure on a huge expanse of grass in a sweltering city teeming with people, as alone as anyone could ever imagine being, a small speck of raw pain and anguish in a field, crying, as women have cried for their fallen since time immemorial.
Chapter 27
A meeting was in full swing at the Treasury Department. Ken was in attendance, along with Mark from the lab, the Director of the Treasury, several high-level Secret Service agents, a Deputy Director from CIA, and a gentleman of indeterminate rank from the National Security Agency. Everyone had been briefed on the level of sophistication of the fake, as well as the ramifications of its existence, and the discussion was not an optimistic one.
“How certain are we these bills came out of Korea?” This from the NSA guy.
“We aren't. All we know is that they came from a South Korean diplomat, and we only have the word of the dead watch dealer. But he had no reason to lie about the transaction.” Ken figured that was obvious.
“But they could have actually originated anywhere, right? I mean, a South Korean slips them to the watch dealer, but that doesn’t mean that North or South Korea are necessarily involved,” opined the CIA man.
“Correct.”
“And there’s no telling how big the threat is,” the Secret Service man said.
“Look, we have a bill that could only have originated from a state-sponsored effort,” Mark pointed out.
“Wait a second. How do we know that for sure?” asked one of the Secret Service agents.
“The level of finesse and accuracy, the paper, the security strip, the watermark…the color-shifting ink. Look, I could go on, but to accomplish what’s being done would require at least a billion-dollar investment, and access to classified information from inside Treasury. This isn’t the mob, it isn’t some terrorist camp, and it isn’t amateur. It’s another government.” Mark wanted to make sure they completely understood that. He didn’t like the way the discussion was going.
The Director of the Treasury spoke up. “Gentlemen, I’ve been listening to this for half an hour, and it seems like two central points are getting lost. One, we have a spy working here, selling or giving our most precious secrets. Two, we have a level of sophistication that spells sovereign nation, nothing else.” He stood up, took off his bifocals, and stretched his arms out over his head. “Now, the question is not whether the threat exists, or whether it’s another government. It is. These bills came from a Korean, ostensibly a diplomat, if Ken’s account from Saul is accurate. It could be any of the Asian or Middle Eastern countries hostile to our interests, or even China or North Korea. Given the bill’s history, I’d start in Korea, but we should consider any governments in the region suspect.”
“Now, hold on a minute—” the NSA man started.
“No, you hold on. I’m not going to sit here and debate possibilities. I want to hear how we’re going to locate the person or persons who sold our secrets. And I want to hear how we’re going to stop whoever is printing these. Clear?” The Director wasn’t interested in a mid-level brainstorming session.
“I think we need to look at the bank accounts of every employee with access to the classified info, and we need to track the ink sales from the manufacturers. And that’s just for starters.” The second Secret Service agent, apparently the superior, was speaking for the first time. “We also need to put out feelers to our intelligence-gathering apparatus in Asia and see what surfaces. And we need to scan the records and identify who the Korean was—there couldn’t have been many Korean diplomats flying into San Francisco last week.”
The NSA man looked at Ken. “This Saul fellow. How much did he say was brought in on the watch transaction?”
“One million.” Ken didn’t need to refer to his notes.
“Well, we have our work cut out for us. This is the biggest currency threat we’ve ever faced, and it needs to receive the highest priority from every agency involved.” The Director wanted to ensure everyone appreciated the gravity of the situation. “I’m headed over to the White House in an hour to brief everyone. You’d better come up with a plan to contain this, quickly.”
“Where are the rest of the bills?” the first Secret Service agent asked.
“We don’t know,” Ken admitted.
“We need to find them. And we don’t want this getting out to the general public, ever. So add that to the list.” The Director looked around the room. “Gentlemen.” He walked out.
The meeting went on for another forty minutes, and action items were agreed upon and delegated. The mention of the White House eliminated the philosophizing and departmental jockeying.
CIA would circulate to the field that it wanted info on any new factories or plants that could be used for large-scale money production, or rumors of activity. There wasn’t a lot of hope there, but you never knew. Treasury would compile a list of all employees with access to the classified information, and run bank scans for unusual deposits. The NSA would interface with NYPD on the murders, and check on the airplane records for the Korean. Secret Service would follow up with the ink and paper and strip manufacturers. Everyone had their marching orders, and as the meeting broke up, the mood was glum. They were behind the curve, battling against an unknown adversary, and the stakes had never been higher.
~ ~ ~
Tess had worn herself out, her grief exhausted for the moment. She needed to find somewhere safe to stay. She was a loner by choice, didn’t require the company of her fellow man to feel satisfied. So she didn’t have a lot of friends in the city who weren’t female bicycle messengers. And they were on the endangered list at present.
She thought about Stan’s apartment, and her dad’s, and realized that those places were just as safe as hers, which was to say, not at all. Any team savvy enough to track Saul and Stan and her dad, and even Nick, would know where she lived.
It wouldn’t be hard now that they undoubtedly knew she had the cash. She had to disappear.
She called Duff on her cell.
“Whassup?”
“Hey, Duff, it’s Tess.”
“Hey, how’s it going? Did you see all the stuff in the paper this morning?”
“Yeah. Hey Duff, I need a huge favor.”
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Duff, Nick was murdered today, and so was my Uncle Stan. The killers almost got me, too. I need someplace to stay for a few days.” Tess hated to ask, but she didn’t have anywhere else to turn.
“Whoa. You kidding? That’s messed up. I mean, really messed up.” He hesitated. “You can stay on my couch if you don’t mind cockroaches. I’ll let Shaneese know what’s going down.” Shaneese was Duff’s girlfriend, and the mother of his little girl.
“Thank you so much, Duff. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
“Just get here safe. This isn’t the best neighborhood, you know? Call me when you get close, and I’ll come out and make sure you get in okay.” Duff had always been protective of Tess, almost since they had first met. She w
as glad he was a good guy. There was no way he was the Red Cap serial killer. No way.
The idea gave her pause. Are you sure, Tess? I mean, a hundred and ten percent? Maybe your buddy is a little loco, ex-gang, maybe angry about the bullets in his back? Maybe likes to take his aggressions out on the ladies?
Tess thought about it. He worked hard, didn’t get high, had always been straight with her and was doing right by his daughter. That was way more than she could say about most of the other dudes at work, white, brown, yellow or black.
So she supposed that yes, she was a hundred and ten percent on Duff. She knew him. He was one of the good ones.
She pointed her bike uptown to where Duff lived. It wasn’t the best area—in fact it was terrible—but right now it was the safest place for her to go.
~ ~ ~
Gordon prepared to call the minister to let him know he’d gotten the box set up and was ready for the next round. The day was winding down, and he’d stayed late at his office. He had his feet up on the desk, glad the whole dangerous part of the adventure was almost over.
He’d lit up one of his fine Cuban cigars, and breaking every law in Manhattan, was puffing away in a self-satisfied manner, looking out over the city, savoring a glass of Johnny Walker Blue scotch. He activated an outbound line and dialed the number.
“Mingalaba.”
“Hello, it’s Gordon.”
“Ahh, Gordon, I was expecting another call.”
“I just wanted to let you know I got a box at the bank. So whenever you need me to go in, I can.” Gordon was feeling expansive—why not appear eager to help?
“We have a little problem. We still do not have the key or box number. But we are very close.”
“A problem? Nothing serious, I hope.” Gordon didn’t like hearing about “little” problems. He sat up, alert.
Fatal Exchange (Fatal Series Book 1) Page 21
