Bob Burke and Ernie Travers remained up top on The Enchantress’s flying bridge watching the video feeds from the casino’s front and side doors, scanning the harbor and the Bimini Bay’s perimeter with the Zeiss binoculars. Bob looked down at the face of his iPhone to make sure no text messages had come in. The screen showed 6:40 p.m., and he should be seeing one soon from Chester and Lonzo that the last of the flash drives were installed and were uploading, and that they were now retracing their steps to retrieve them. So far, however, there was nothing.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you this nervous,” Ernie commented.
“It’s the waiting. That’s the way it always is. The last time you and I worked together, back in Chicago, it was different. I’ve probably got twice as many people involved here, including the women, the Geeks, and my men, and I still don’t have a good feel for the ground. I knew Chicago, Indian Lakes, and that big park. I’d been living there, and they were the strangers, not me. But here? New Jersey might as well be the other side of the moon. And look at that monstrosity,” Bob said as he waved his hand at the huge Bimini Bay hotel and casino complex and the other two hotels off to the left. “We’d need an infantry company to take that place.”
“I know what you mean,” Ernie nodded as he pulled out his Glock automatic and rechecked the load for at least the third time since he had come up to the bridge.
“Mr. B.,” he heard Jimmy call to him from the aft deck. “Come here a minute. You gotta see this.”
“Speaking of nervous,” Bob laughed. The Geeks were still working away on the laptops, digging deeper into Martijn Van Gries’s files. “Hold down the fort while I see what Jimmy wants,” he told Ernie.
Bob slid down the railings of the narrow staircase and landed on the lower deck. As he did, the Geeks were pointing at Jimmy’s laptop and laughing hysterically. Bob bent over and they rotated the screen so he could see, and he found himself looking at a torrid love scene featuring two men going at it on a large, round bed with silk sheets. Bob blinked. As the two men rolled over and the smaller one got on top, he immediately recognized it was none other than Donatello Carbonari and Martijn Van Gries. Bob blinked and his mouth fell open, which made the Geeks laugh even harder.
“You want to know the really good part?” Jimmy asked.
“There’s a ‘good’ part?” Bob quickly asked.
“Iz real good, Meester B.” Sasha vigorously nodded his head.
“There are dozens of videos with those two ‘doing the nasty,’ ” Jimmy told him.
“Eef you want, I sell these for ‘big money’ back in Moscow,” Sasha offered.
“There are hundreds more of these,” Jimmy continued, “and most of the others have audio feeds, too. Most feature other people — middle-aged men with young women, boys, other men, you name it. I have no idea who any of them are, but the others appear to have been taken in hotel rooms.”
Bob thought it over for a moment. “I think our boys have a little blackmail and extortion scam going here. That’s what I think.”
“What’s so funny?” He heard Linda’s voice directly behind him as she put her hands on his back and tried to look around him at the screen.
“I’m not really sure you want to do that,” Bob warned, as the camera really got up close and 'personal.’
“Oh!” Linda exclaimed. “Isn’t that…”
“In the flesh… so to speak,” Bob chuckled.
“I can see that!” Linda also began laughing and shaking her head as Patsy and Dorothy stepped over and joined the group.
Dorothy cocked her head and looked at the screen. “Party time at the monastery?”
“Yuck! Those two? Figures!” Patsy said as she stared at the screen for a moment.
“Something tells me his Italian friends up in Brooklyn wouldn’t look very kindly on a few of those videos, would they?” Jimmy said.
Bob straightened up and smiled. “You know, that’s a great idea, Jimmy. We have some e-mail addresses associated with the notifications on those accounts.” He looked at his watch and saw it was 6:50 now. “After the files and accounts are transferred, pick out a couple of the best ones, and do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When Bob returned to the flying bridge, he was still laughing, and Ernie cracked up laughing too. The humor break did not last very long, however. Ernie suddenly sat up and pointed at the monitor screen. “Check out those three guys headed for the rear door of the casino. Wherever they’re going, they’re in a hurry,” he said.
Bob bent over the monitor and immediately saw trouble. Martijn Van Gries was in the lead. Behind him came his younger brother, Theo. It had been a few years since Bob met him in Afghanistan, but when the two brothers stood side by side like this, and you could see both of their faces, Bob had no doubt it was him. However, the worst news came in the shape of the third man trailing the other two. As he hurried toward the casino door, he turned his head for the briefest of instants and looked back across the water at The Enchantress. He could grow a beard down to his knees and wear any kind of baseball hat he wanted, but Bob immediately recognized his old executive officer, Randy “Gramps” Benson, and he felt his heart sink.
“Problems?” Ernie asked.
“Looks that way,” Bob replied. That was when his cell phone finally beeped. He looked down at the screen and saw a text message from Lonzo. It was 6:50 p.m. About time, he thought. Lonzo and Chester were supposed to be wrapping things up, getting out of there, and rendezvousing with Ace and Koz at the other two hotels. That was the plan, anyway, until Bob saw Lonzo’s message.
“Two Gumbahs nosing around computers,” the text message said. “Already found one flash drive. Looking for more.”
Ernie had seen the screen too. “Why don’t you tell them to get out of there. They’ve already uploaded the Trojan horses. Do the flash drives even matter anymore?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It isn’t even 7:00 yet, and we just got into their system. There’s a lot of work to do to download and clean out the accounts.” Bob looked at the cell phone screen again and debated before he picked it up. “Be there in Five. Stall,” he texted back and quickly sent a second text to Ace and Koz. “Go up to roofs. Lonzo and Chester delayed. Get ready.”
“What are you gonna do?” Ernie asked him.
“I’m going over to the casino and get Lonzo and Chester the hell out of there,” he said as he checked the magazine in his Beretta.
“Want me to drive?”
“No, I’ll take the CRRC, the rubber boat, across. It’ll be a lot faster. The Batman and Bulldog are down in the lounge. I’ll take them with me, too. You stay here. With the girls and the Geeks down below, I need someone here to hold down the fort.”
“And miss all the fun?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get your share before this is over. We’re not done.”
“I’d complain that you’re discriminating against old farts, but you’re right. Your guys can move a lot faster than I can.”
“Yeah, but you can shoot just as straight.”
Bob slid down the banisters to the lower deck, grabbed the CRRC, and flipped the rubber raft into the water. He called for The Batman and Bulldog to join him. Turning to the Geeks, he said, “If you guys are in the system, I need all three of you to start downloading the files and hitting the bank accounts right now. We may have problems so there’s no time to waste. I’ll be back as quickly as I can. Work with what you got, but get it all going, now.”
When Martijn and Theo Van Gries and Eddie Benson reached the hotel lobby, Theo’s two Royal Dutch Marines, Eric Smit and Lucas Baker, plus Reggie MacGregor, the lone Brit, were already there leaning against the front desk, waiting and looking bored. Theo was in the middle of explaining the situation when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen and saw the call was from Joost DeVries, his third Dutch Marine. He debated for a moment, and then turned aside and answered the call. As usual, the conversation was brief, except for a series of “Ja�
�� Ja…” and “Ja,” plus several grunts and a final, “We’re on our way.”
When he hung up, he turned back toward Martijn. “That was Joost. He ran into several of your New York ‘friends’ down by the elevators several moments ago. You remember that ignorant lout Cheech Mazoulli? The one who was so impressed with himself? Joost said it was him and two of his gunmen.”
“What did they want? Martijn asked. “We are a little busy right now.”
“They had just come from the office wing and were waiting for the elevator to go up to Carbonari’s penthouse. He said they did not look very happy, especially that Cheech fellow. As they got in, he told Joost we should start packing before they threw us out. As the door closed, he saw Mazoulli pull out his pistol.”
Martijn stood there for a moment, debating what to do. “Did Joost follow them upstairs?” he asked.
“No. He is waiting for us in the elevator lobby.”
“Burke will have to wait…” Martijn began to say.
“No!” Benson cut him off. “He can’t wait. We may never get this opportunity again. You two go upstairs with Joost. The three of you should be able to take care of those Brooklyn greaseballs. Meanwhile, I’ll take Smit, Bakker, and MacGregor with me and visit the boat across the harbor. If we move quickly, Burke will never know what hit him.”
Theo quickly nodded. “Benson is right. That is what we must do.”
“Will your guys do what I tell them to do?” Benson asked.
Theo turned toward them and said in Dutch, “Doen wat hij zegt te doen,” Do what he tells you to do, and then looked back at Benson. “Now they will, captain.”
“Then let’s get this done,” Benson said as the group broke up. He led his three toward the parking garage while the Van Gries brothers headed for the elevators.
Even with three large men sitting in the CRRC, its powerful Yamaha 200 hp outboard didn’t seem to know the job was any tougher. In less than five minutes, they had rocketed across the darkening harbor to the dock at the Bimini Bay marina. As they bumped up against the pier, Bob pulled out his cell phone and managed to type a one-handed, one-line question to Lonzo.
“Where R U?” he typed.
Ten seconds later, as Bulldog tied the boat to the first marine cleat he could find, Bob read the reply, “Business Office,” and jumped out. He and the other two sprinted toward the casino’s side door, ignoring the vocal complaints from the marina attendant. Boardwalk Investments’ administrative offices would all be closed now. Bob had been there before, on the last trip, and knew they were located down that nondescript side corridor across from Van Gries’s office, halfway around the casino toward the hotel. He knew not to run inside. That would immediately draw the attention of security, so he slowed to a long-stride walk. It would get him there almost as fast but not look dramatically different from a gambler in serious need of a restroom.
When they reached the hallway to the administrative offices, he took a quick left and continued down the corridor until he saw the small black plastic sign above one of the doors which read “Business Office.” A janitorial cart was parked outside, and Lonzo had been clever enough to block the door open with a trashcan. He heard men arguing inside and stopped. He signaled for Bulldog and The Batman to remain behind him, and pulled out the Beretta tucked in the rear waistband of his pants. Quickly, he screwed a silencer to the end of the barrel, and stepped through the doorway, holding the automatic down the seam of his pants leg out of sight.
He found four men standing in the center aisle of the large open office, arguing. Two of them were Chester and Lonzo, still dressed in their janitor uniforms. Lonzo had been pushing a vacuum cleaner while Chester had been emptying trash cans. He held one against his chest as they argued with the two Gumbahs standing in front of them. Bob immediately recognized them as Marco Bianchi and Selmo Lombardi from the photographs on their New York driver’s licenses. They were the two who had had their pockets picked and their other toys taken away by Ernie’s fast-fingered Chicago pickpocket friend, Dimitri. Lombardi had an old Colt .45 automatic in his right hand, and he was holding it under Lonzo’s nose, threatening him. In his left hand, he held up a mini-flash drive, one which looked suspiciously like the ones the two janitors had been installing in the desktop computers around the office.
Bob didn’t wait. He pushed the door open and walked right in. He plucked a piece of paper off the first desk he passed and acted completely unaware that anything unusual was going on inside the office. “Maybe you can help me out,” he called to them as he held up the sheet of paper. “We have a delivery of stationery and envelopes for a Mrs. Johnson,” he said as he pointed back toward the lobby, continuing to walk toward them.
Bianchi turned and glared at him, irritated by the disruption, and snapped, “Get yer ass out ’a here!”
“Look, I know the office is closed, but it was a bitch to get down here from Philly with all the traffic. You don’t suppose anyone would mind if we drop them off in her cubicle, would you?”
“You hear what I said? Get out ’a here, now!”
“Hey, come on, it’s just stationery,” Bob said, getting still closer.
“You deaf or somethin’! I ain’t telling you again,” Bianchi said as he swung the big Colt around toward Burke. As he did, Lombardi also turned and looked at him, which was when Lonzo grabbed Bianchi’s gun arm and pushed the Colt out of the way, stepped forward and drove the palm of his hand up and under Lombardi’s nose. Normally, that was sufficient to drive the cartilage in the nose up and into the brain, and prove instantly fatal. Apparently, that didn’t apply to thick-skulled Sicilians, however.
Lombardi screamed and stumbled backward, bringing his hands to his face as the Colt went off with a loud Blam! Even inside an office with an acoustical tile ceiling, carpet squares, and upholstered office cubicles, the booming gunshot was loud. The bullet caught Lonzo in the thigh. Enraged, Lombardi shook his head and tried to bring his gun hand around toward Lonzo again. That was when Bulldog stepped through the office door and shot Lombardi three times in the center of his chest. His eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed on the floor, with Lonzo falling on top of him. By that time, Marco Bianchi had drawn a long-barreled .38-caliber revolver from his shoulder holster and began turning toward Bob. Chester shoved his trashcan into Bianchi as Bob raised his own silenced Beretta and shot Bianchi twice in the forehead. The Brooklyn street soldier collapsed on the floor next to Lombardi.
Chester immediately bent down and rolled Lonzo onto his back. Bob knelt next to him and checked out the bullet wound in his leg. It appeared to have struck the thick part of his thigh and had gone completely through. Lonzo was bleeding steadily, but it did not look as if the bullet had hit bone. All in all, Bob realized it could have been a lot worse. There wasn’t a man in his unit who didn’t have considerable experience treating bullet wounds, often their own, himself included. Working together, he and Chester grabbed some towels and trash bags off the cart and quickly got Lonzo’s leg bandaged and the bleeding stopped.
“I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine,” Lonzo kept telling them. “We gotta get out of here.” That was no doubt true, Bob thought, but first he and Bulldog dragged the two Gumbahs into one of the cubicles where they would be out of sight from the door and the main aisles. As he did, The Batman wheeled the janitorial carts inside the office and placed them, the vacuum, and some trash cans on top of the worst of the bloodstains on the carpet.
“All right,” he said as he turned toward Chester, as the two men got Lonzo to his feet. “Your car is parked in the lot, isn’t it?” Chester nodded. “There’s an emergency exit at the end of the hall. You know where it opens out?” Chester nodded again so Bob said, “Go get your car and bring it around to that door. We’ll walk Lonzo down the hall and go out there. You drive him around to the boat, and I’ll call Ernie and have them meet you in the marina parking lot and get him aboard. There’s a large medic first aid kit on the boat. The wound doesn’t look that bad. We can get
him to a doctor soon as we get down to Cape May, or we can call our friends down in North Carolina for a pickup. We can decide that later, but let’s move.”
“Got it,” Chester answered as he got up and sprinted away.
“I’m totally copacetic,” Lonzo added through clenched teeth. “Just get me the hell out of here. I’ve seen all the vacuum cleaners and trash cans I want to see for a long time.”
“Did you manage to pick up all the flash drives?” Bob asked him as he and Batman got Lonzo to his feet and headed for the door.
“Hold up a minute,” Lonzo said as he leaned up against one of the cubicle walls and rummaged through his pants pockets. “There were eight when we started. Here’s three, and Chester has two more.” He dropped his in Bob’s hand. “They’re the ones we retrieved here and in data processing, before those two morons saw two in personnel and came looking for us. I don’t know what tipped them off. Maybe they saw what we were doing, or maybe they’re smarter than I thought; I don’t know. Whatever, the one you shot has one, and I don’t know where the last one is. Maybe we can look around…”
“No. We’re out of time, and I’m not worried about one. Jimmy can figure out some way to disable it remotely.”
“That kid’s pretty smart, isn’t he?” Chester asked.
“Smarter than you or me,” Bob answered. “But I guess that’s why he’s doing what he’s doing, and why you and I ended up in the Army doing what we’re doing.”
“And bleeding,” Lonzo managed to laugh.
“You got that right. Now let’s get you to the car.”
The first hint that Donatello Carbonari got that he had a problem was when Cheech Mazoulli, Eddie Costa, and Pete Moretti — three of the Lucchese goons who had driven down from Brooklyn — kicked in the front doors of his penthouse. Those twin doors were made of hand-carved teak with ornate brass hinges, locks and a large, decorative door knocker on each side. They were some of Donatello’s fondest possessions. Breaking them like that, when all Mazoulli had to do was knock, really pissed Donatello off. What pissed him off worse, however, was the fact that he was a Don, albeit a minor one, and they were showing him no respect. Street soldiers, even a minor underboss like Mazoulli, weren’t supposed to be rude like that to their betters, even ones from Atlantic City.
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