Burke's Gamble

by William F. Brown

  Bob was the last to arrive. When he did, he found the Geeks already busily at work. Ronald lay on the plush living room carpet furiously typing on his laptop, while Jimmy sat in one of the overstuffed leather armchairs typing away on his. A smiling Patsy Evans sat behind him in the chair, giving Jimmy a vigorous shoulder and neck rub. From the expression on his face, Jimmy was in heaven as Bob walked over and asked, “How’s it coming guys?”

  “Not as well as we expected,” Ronald answered, embarrassed, as he looked up and suddenly began to run his fingertips across his scalp like a wild man.

  “Don’t mind him,” Jimmy said. “That’s the way he gets when he is working.”

  “When we hack a system, we use a step-by-step process with a lot of trial and error,” Ronald ignored him and went on. “We’ve already blown through the easy options and grabbed at the ‘low hanging fruit,’ if you will.”

  “And no luck?” Bob asked.

  “Not much, but if it was easy, you wouldn’t need us, would you?” Jimmy laughed.

  “The people who put this security system together weren’t complete dweebs,” Ronald conceded. “They’ve set up some good countermeasures and took away our usual paths, but we’ll get in. They’re just making it more of a challenge.”

  “Can you do it without setting off any alarms or tripwires?” Bob asked.

  “We aren’t total virgins, you know, Mister B.,” Jimmy laughed.

  “Not anymore,” Bob heard Ronald mumble as he turned back to his computer.

  Patsy kissed Jimmy on the side of his neck, and he grinned.

  Over the next two hours, the recon teams began returning to the Holiday Inn, grabbing a beer in the kitchen and flopping on one of the couches. By and large, they all told the same story about the building security and physical layout.

  “The personnel office was closed, as we expected,” Lonzo reported. “But Chester and I will go there first thing and get the job applications going.”

  “Dorothy got one of those new Gold Cards,” Ace said as he flipped it to Talmadge. “Maybe you guys can get some codes off them. We walked up the service corridor and tried the office doors, but they’ve got cameras everywhere and one of the Risk Management goons chased us out of there.”

  “Our room is on the top floor in the big tower,” Dorothy said. “The guest elevators only go to the guest floors, 1 through 6; and there’s a separate express elevator in the service corridor that goes all the way to the penthouse on the roof. We couldn’t tell if it goes to the basement or any other floors, since we couldn’t get inside.”

  “However, the emergency stairs do go to all the floors,” Ace added. “That’s required by the fire code. You can always pretend to be walking up and down or exercise, so Dorothy and I walked up to the sixth floor. Fortunately, they went cheap and didn’t put any cameras in the stairwells.”

  “That could be useful to know,” Bob said.

  “The stairs go to a mechanical room on the roof, but they have big magnetic locks on the fire door, and a card reader. Same thing down on the basement doors.”

  “Same at Tuscany Towers,” Bulldog said, “and those mag locks are big suckers. No way you’ll get them open without the key card or some C-4.”

  “Ditto for the Siesta Cove,” Chester added. “A rogue elephant couldn’t pull that mag lock open.”

  “When we get the cleaning jobs, I’m sure they’ll give us cards that provide access to a lot of areas, but I doubt that’ll include Carbonari’s penthouse at the Bimini Bay. Maybe we can get into the basement, if that’s where they keep their cleaning compounds.”

  “When you get the cards, let us scan them,” Ronald said. “Maybe we can adapt them to give generic access to all the doors.”

  “That could work,” Ace said. “And for future reference, our room on the top floor at the Bimini Bay looks straight across to Tuscany Towers, so without actually getting up there, it looks like the Tuscany Towers roof has a clear view of the Bimini Bay penthouse and helipad. Using my rangefinder from our balcony, it’s right at 2,000 meters. Piece of cake.”

  “Piece of what cake?” Linda frowned and asked suspiciously.

  “One other thing,” Bob said as he handed Linda a piece of paper. “Here’s the deal on the boat rental. It will be ready tomorrow afternoon, so you and I can drive down to Cape May and pick it up.”

  Linda looked down at the piece of paper and her eyes bulged out. “Wow!” she said. “$75,000, plus a $100,000 deposit? What is it, the Queen Mary?”

  “Just about,” he laughed. “You’ll understand when you see it.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Martijn Van Gries waited until midnight to phone his brother. There was a seven-hour time difference between Atlantic City and Kuwait, but as a former Royal Dutch Marine Corps officer, Theo had always been an early riser. He could also be anywhere in the world, but Kuwait was where he was working the last time Martijn called. Theo kept trying to get Martijn to relocate to the Gulf. It was tempting, but he had not yet succeeded.

  “Money really does grow on trees over here,” Theo kept telling him. There were several high-end resorts in the region that would pay Martijn three or four times what Carbonari paid him; and despite their conservative rhetoric, the Arabs were more than tolerant of wealthy foreign men with “unusual” sexual proclivities. So far, Martijn had resisted the temptation. The heat and the dust of the Middle East always seemed a bit off putting to him, but so was working for the rude louts in the American Mafia.

  After five rings, he heard the familiar, accented voice answer, “Van Gries here.”

  “Have you had your morning coffee yet, brother?” Martijn asked in Dutch, and the two men began conversing in their native tongue with little fear of anyone listening in. Dutch was difficult enough, but theirs was a colloquial, guttural dialect only found in the ethnically mixed Asian and Middle Eastern neighborhoods around the docks in Rotterdam, where they grew up. It was incomprehensible to anyone but another native.

  “Actually, I just returned from my morning run and am sitting on my balcony, looking north across the city and the bay before the heat comes up, enjoying that first cup.”

  “How nice. But you are up on the twenty-seventh floor, and I bet the stench and the flies of the city never get much higher than ten.”

  “Ah! I forgot you have been here, but money does have its advantages.”

  “No taxes, no government interference, and no questions. I doubt you miss the Marines very much.

  “That depends on the day, Martijn, but why are you calling? Are you coming to visit me again?”

  “Actually I would like to have you and some of your men come visit me — perhaps for a week — it should not take much more than that.”

  “Work, then? We are not inexpensive, you know. What is it you need?”

  “Let us say, we have a bothersome pest that needs to be eliminated.”

  “When it comes to the Russians, the Corsicans, the Sicilians, or the American underworld, I have always tried to avoid your intra-family spats.”

  “This is not intra-family, Theo. It involves an outsider, an American Army commando of some type, who blames my boss for the death of one of his men.”

  “Ah! I see your problem. Those groups are very tightly knit. If they think Donatello was responsible… well, they can indeed be very difficult. What is this fellow’s name?”

  “Burke. He is a former American Army major.”

  Theo paused, thinking. “I may have heard the name, but their special operations people typically operate under a nom de guerre. I’ll have to do some checking. There is a fellow I employ from time to time who was in Delta. Perhaps he knows him.”

  “Excellent, but I need you over here. How much for the week?”

  “Well, we would need to drop several other things we are working on…”

  “I can hear the wheels turning, Theo. How much?”

  “To employ me and seven of my men for a week, I would require €300,000, say $400,000
of your dollars, plus expenses. We can usually bring in our own weapons and equipment, but there are costs associated with doing that.”

  “Understood. Send me a list of anything else you need, and when you will arrive.”

  “Meanwhile, I shall see what I can learn regarding this pest of yours.”

  Donatello rarely got up before nine o’clock. The next morning, Martijn gave him an extra five minutes before he took the elevator up, opened Carbonari’s office door and slipped confidently into one of the armchairs in front of his desk. “Do you remember that better idea I had about security?” he began.

  “You mean that I should hire your brother?”

  “I called him, and he and seven of his men are available.”

  “That seems like a lot, this isn’t the Middle East. Does he know what he’s doing?”

  “He is a gun for hire, Donatello, and the coldest and deadliest man I have ever met. If you want to get rid of Burke, Theo is who you need.”

  “Corliss was a Marine, you know.”

  Van Gries shook his head. “To the same extent a used Ford Fiesta and a Maserati are both automobiles. The Royal Dutch Marines, the ‘Black Devils,’ as the Germans called them in the Second World War, are an elite commando unit.” Van Gries paused, determined not to let this stupid Italian get under his skin. Italians! They are as incompetent in warfare as the French. “With the wind-down of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the breakup of the Soviet Union, Europe and the Middle East are full of special operations soldiers from many countries who are willing to contract their services to the highest bidder.”

  “Like those samurais, after their lords are dead. Yeah, I saw that movie,” Carbonari grunted. “So what’s that mean in English? Is he a merc, or a hitman, or what?”

  “A bit of both, I expect. More importantly, he has worked with the American Rangers, the SEALs, and even the Delta Force in Iraq and Afghanistan. He thinks Burke might have been one of those. If that is true, he is exceedingly dangerous.”

  “And what will he cost me?”

  “$400,000, plus expenses, for a week.”

  “Jesus Christ! Four hundred grand? Are you kidding me?”

  “It is a lot, but much less than your funeral would run.”

  Carbonari glared at him. “All right,” he reluctantly agreed. “But I’m calling Brooklyn and see if I can get some of their men too.”

  “You know what they say about letting the camel get his nose under your tent, you’ll have hell to pay getting him out.”

  After Martijn Van Gries left, Carbonari sat back in his desk chair, debating some really bad choices. Reluctantly, he picked up his telephone and made the call he knew he must make to Brooklyn. When a familiar female voice answered, he said in his smarmiest voice, “Barbara, my dear, this is Donatello Carbonari. Is Angelo in?”

  “Nice to hear from you again, Mr. Carbonari. It’s been a while. Let me see.”

  He fully expected to be left on hold for a few minutes. It was the little game Angelo Roselli played to remind him who was boss. When the wait continued to a full five minutes, he knew the conversation was going to be a ball buster.

  “Yeah,” the big man finally answered. “Dat you, ‘Donnie?’ What the hell’s going on down dere? I been hearin’ stories.”

  “Stories? What kind of stories?” Carbonari asked, trying to sound confident.

  “Cops, ambulances, guys falling off freakin’ roofs…”

  “That was an accident. A man climbed out on a ledge and fell, that’s all.”

  “What? Suicide by casino? Dat ain’t the way I heard it. Anyway, how’d the weekend go? Business startin’ to pick up?”

  “Some,” Carbonari answered, shaken that Roselli seemed to know everything that was happening. “The slots have picked up, but that’s a lot of local trade. The rooms and shows are holding their own, but the tables are still way off. Those discount flights to Vegas out of LaGuardia are killing us.”

  “Yeah, well, we all got problems that are killing us, don’t we?” Roselli replied, his voice devoid of any sympathy or humor. “Speakin’ ’a problems, wit dat guy takin’ a header off da Bimini Bay, and now dis business in Chicago, I told you months ago you shoulda brought in some of our Brooklyn guys to help you wit security. Dat gorilla Corliss thinks he’s freakin’ Mister T, and those football players he hired are useless.”

  “They were useful, given the clientèle we get down here.”

  “Dey ain’t good for nuthin', you ask me, Donnie. And you can’t trust ’em. You’re running a serious business down dere; you need some serious help. And if those three chamokes end up back in jail in Chicago and start talkin’…”

  “That won't happen. The problem has been taken care of.”

  “Taken care of?” Angelo paused for a minute, knowing how he interpreted that answer, and wanting to verify what he just heard. “Taken care of? All of ’em, permanently, you mean?”

  “All of them. Permanently. That’s why I called you, to let you know and to tell you that you were right. And I would like to get a couple of your men down here, temporarily, perhaps two or three for a week or so, until I can get Corliss and the others replaced.”

  Angelo grunted. “Smart move, Donnie. You’re finally catchin’ on. I like a man who can admit he made a mistake, so long as he don’t make too many more of ’em. You know what I’m sayin’?”

  Carbonari bit his tongue and said, “Yes, I guess we all live and learn.”

  “No, you got dat ass backwards, kid. We learn and we live,” Roselli laughed. “But I’ll tell you what, I’ll call Cheech and tell him to take a few of his boys down dere and help you out for the next week or so.”

  “Cheech?” Carbonari cringed. “Good, he’ll be perfect,” knowing that Roselli could not have possibly made a worse choice, at least for him. Cheech Mazoulli was a crude lout who was one hundred percent loyal to Angelo Roselli. He wouldn’t stop to piss on Carbonari if he was on fire.

  “I have plenty of private security guards, the guys in the blue blazers who keep an eye on the floor and handle drunks. But with three casinos and three hotels to look out for, I need some guys to keep an eye on them. As I said, two or three guys should be plenty. Have them call me when they get here and I’ll meet them in the lobby.”

  “They’ll be down dere tonight. Normally, I’d charge you two hundred large a week for a crew like that; but to show how understanding your partners up here in Brooklyn can be, I’ll even pay half. All you gotta do is pick up their room and meal charges.”

  “Whatever you say, Angelo,” Donatello answered, trying to sound happy, but knowing full well how much the food and bar bill for Roselli’s men would run.

  “Good,” Roselli said. “By the way, how much you wirin’ up here tomorrow?”

  “I haven’t seen the final numbers. Let me talk to Van Gries and I'll call you back.”

  “No need. We been gettin’ eight, sometimes eight and a quarter. That’s the size ’a golden eggs da boys are expectin’ to see up here — call ’em extra-large eggs! — and you don’t want to disappoint, do you, Donnie?”

  Angelo Roselli’s office was at the back of his large Italian restaurant located on Cristoforo Columbo Boulevard, or 18th Avenue to the ethnically challenged, and 70th Street in the center of Bensonhurst's "Little Italy" neighborhood on the southwest side of Brooklyn. The decor inside harked back to the 1950s and 1960s, but so did Bensonhurst and most of his clientèle. Back then, the area used to be a lot nicer and a lot more Italian, Roselli lamented, but he guessed everything had to change; even those chickens down the coast in Atlantic City. They’d laid gold for a lot of years. Unfortunately, as his Sicilian grandfather used to say, “Even da best hen’s gonna stop layin' sooner or later. Dat's what Sunday dinner's for.”

  Angelo put out a marvelous plate of veal scaloppini, and everyone in Brooklyn knew his cannoli were to die for. He usually spent his evenings in the kitchen, making his signature dishes himself, giving rise to his mob nickname, "The Baker."
Cooking was only a hobby for him, however, because Angelo Roselli was the underboss of the Lucchese crime family in Brooklyn, one of the original five Mafia families that still ruled New York.

  Like the vast majority of the other bosses and underbosses, he had been in and out of one state or federal prison after another for most of the past fifty years. He did time in Sing Sing, Attica, Dannemora, Lewisburg, and Allenwood, for labor racketeering, loan sharking, illegal gambling, extortion, soliciting bribes, bribery, bid rigging, corrupting union officials, prostitution, bookmaking, hijacking, and bank fraud. Those serious charges aside, ‘going inside’ as a renowned cook and baker always got him assigned to the prison kitchens. Everyone inside liked to eat, including the baddest Latin, Black, and White Supremacist gangs, the guards, and the wardens; and providing good food and desserts was better protection than any bulletproof vest. “Soft time” or not, prison had made an old man out of him. Angelo had no intention of ever going back inside again, which was why he became very cautious in all of his dealings and very circumspect with everyone he spoke to.

  Roselli had his key people closely watched, and he even had the watchers watched. His secretary, Barbara, was his sister, and undoubtedly the largest single purchaser of one-time, “burner” cell phones in Brooklyn or the Bronx. She would spend one entire day each month driving around Long Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and even New Jersey visiting discount stores and drugstores to purchase dozens of cheap cell phones with pre-loaded minutes for him and his key people. Angelo had a desk drawer full of them, and his cardinal rule was to use them only once. Before Barbara left each day, she picked up his used ones, took them down to the restaurant basement, and personally tossed them in the furnace.

  After he hung up on Carbonari, Roselli reached in his bottom desk drawer, pulled out a new cell phone, and tapped in a number.