The tall man is familiar with my boxing skills and leg kicks, Westlow calculated. Suicidal to sludge forward with the same futile bag of tricks. Westlow figured he could stomach dying, but one thing he couldn’t stomach would be losing to this sinister prick. Time to switch it up, change tactics. Westlow danced a counter-clockwise arc around the killer, circling the arena as though stalling, making the tall man pivot, his back now to the building corner. Fiorella’s assassin held the straight-edge out in front of him, shoulder level, adopting a wait and see posture, taking great pleasure in Westlow’s predicament, knowing that with each passing second his opponent was weakening.
Westlow peeked down as though looking for the dropped Beretta, knowing full well he’d be dead long before he could pull the trigger, but wanting to flip diversions at the tall man in real time—steer him in other directions, keep him busy processing alternate scenarios. Have him prepare for the obvious, and then attack from left field.
Westlow tossed a glance backwards, make the tall man think that he might be getting ready to turn and flee, however one-sidedly lethal that footrace would be. Westlow feigned a short step left, and then charged inside the tall man, broadcasting a right hook. Once inside, Westlow dropped to a crouch, switching from boxing to wrestling. Both arms circling inside the tall man’s right knee, Westlow shot up like a rocket launch.
The tall man slashed at empty air where his opponent had been. He realized a split second too late what move the man in the white muscle shirt had made, knew he’d committed a fatal error, and brought the straight-edge downward even as he felt himself begin to rise. The razor sliced at the back of his opponent’s neck and then deep into his shoulder blade before the tall man was spun hopelessly backwards over the edge of the high rise, airborne, and out into the midnight air.
Westlow slid to the ground, breathing heavily.
I think I’ll just sit here and rest a moment. Westlow’s thoughts ebbed in slow motion. Take a quick coffee break. He stuck a palm to the back of his neck. It came back covered in blood. He felt like a fish fillet. Nothing that a couple thousand stitches and a quart of O negative couldn’t cure. Just a little siesta before I commandeer that JetRanger and head for parts unknown.
Just a little siesta is all I need.
“What do you think, Marly?” Westlow didn’t know if he’d spoken aloud or simply imagined that he had. A dense fog wrapped his thoughts. “Agent Cady can take it from here, can’t he?”
It was nap time, like in elementary school, but floating through the haziness and shade, Westlow felt a familiar presence. As suddenly as the feeling appeared, it was gone. She was gone. And Westlow was left with the singular notion that Agent Cady was indeed in deep trouble.
“No, I didn’t think so, either.”
Somehow Westlow pushed himself to his feet.
Chapter 47
Cady’s right eye was swollen shut. He’d need an ENT to determine what percentage of hearing loss he’d have to live with. Right now life sounded as though he lived in a vacuum cleaner. Worst of all, his right hand looked like something the cat had screwed. Cady couldn’t bear to look at the mangled mess and dropped a flap of his suit jacket over it as he marched the Hartzells back to the helicopter pad.
Clutching the Glock in his one good hand, Cady had identified himself as a federal agent to father and daughter Hartzell, and then tossed his last flex-cuff at Lucy. “I don’t feel safe on this building top,” Cady had informed the duo in perhaps the understatement of the decade. “You need to place these cuffs on your father or I’ll be forced to do something else in order to feel safe again.”
The hint of something else—possibly an impromptu kneecapping—hurried the young lady along.
Ciolino remained exactly as Cady had left him minutes earlier, tethered to the far side of the copter. Never having heard St. Nick scream before, the mobster’s jaw dropped as the realization sunk in that it was his friend who had made that horrible shrieking noise, that it was his friend who would not be joining them tonight or any other night.
There was no sign of Jake Westlow. Or the tall man in black. Cady considered digging out his cell phone to contact Agent Preston, but with only one hand, he didn’t dare put down the 9mm in case the tall man re-emerged from the shadows. He hung near the front of the JetRanger, back to the mess in the cockpit, and constantly swept the darkness on both sides of the stairwell enclosure, playing mental gymnastics as to when Agent Preston and the team from Federal Plaza would ferret their way to the rooftop. Cady had a bad feeling about prancing the Hartzells headfirst into the stairway. If the tall man had returned, that would be the perfect spot to set an ambush from a hidden corner or even pick them off from the midlevel where the final flight of steps banked upward.
He hoped he was still recognizable, as it would be a damn shame to go down in a hail of friendly fire after all he’d been through that evening. Liz Preston had not been happy with him at all—another major-league understatement. He’d dumped a ton onto her shoulders in two abbreviated phone calls, leaving Agent Preston holding the bag to roust a team of agents and consult with the AD as well as coordinate with NYPD at the scene.
“You’re not looking too hot, Agent Cady,” Drake Hartzell said. He and Lucy stood together a few feet back from Cady, adjacent to the tail of the helicopter. A certain phobia hung thick in the air as they kept enough distance between themselves and the man called Ciolino. “Are paramedics on the way?”
Cady shot him a glance, then raised his Glock at the figure now standing in the roof access doorframe.
“Agent Schommer,” Cady said, breathing a sigh of relief and lowering his weapon.
However, Special Agent Beth Schommer did not reciprocate in kind as she stepped out into the night, her weapon never wavering from Cady’s chest—and suddenly it became clear. Their first conversation flickered through his mind.
Go Bears.
They’re not going anywhere with that quarterback.
“So you’re Fiorella’s man on the inside.”
“Drop your weapon, Agent Cady,” Schommer instructed. “Don’t force me to kill you.”
Cady dropped the Glock. He noticed what Schommer gripped in her hand was far from Bureau-issue. It looked to be some kind of Saturday night special, a junk gun like a Jennings 22 or a Raven 25. Something clean that she could toss.
Cady shook his head. “Why?”
“Sticks and carrots in an insane world.” Schommer took in the Hartzells and then looked beyond Cady at Ciolino, who squirmed on the other side of the helicopter, his neck twisting as far backward as possible without snapping.
“Federal Plaza’s going to be here any second now.”
“Stop fucking around, Beth!” Ciolino shouted over his shoulder. “Blow this cocksucker’s head off and get me out of this goddamned straitjacket!”
“The stewardess works for Moretti,” Cady said, his eyes never leaving Schommer.
“Moretti’s in this?”
“That’s fucking bullshit!” Ciolino screamed back. “Kill this motherfucker right now!”
“If the stewardess is planning your trip, don’t blow money on a return ticket.”
As though flicking an off button, Ciolino deflated without another word. The man known to the Hartzells as the Coordinator ceased lobbying for Cady’s immediate extinction, his head slumped forward, chin to chest, adrift amongst his own private demons. Cady could not have hoped for better.
“Moretti’s been tracking them since they arrived in New York.”
“That’s not good.” Evidently, Agent Schommer was a master of understatements herself.
“It gets worse. We got tipped about a leak. Jund’s held all the cards to his chest this past week. We know about Fiorella and Hartzell.”
At that point Cady could not believe his eyes—or, his one eye not swollen shut. Westlow, steeped in the shadows as though dipped in black ink, stepped from the side of the stairwell enclosure, yards behind Agent Schommer. And if Westlow looked like hel
l warmed over, that had to mean that the tall man was out of the picture. Cady was momentarily grateful that his face looked like a used piñata. It helped him give nothing away to Schommer. And he prayed that any looks on the Hartzells’ mugs would follow suit.
“Turn and walk,” Cady continued, wanting to keep her attention focused solely on him as Westlow crept forward. “Badge your way out of the building and just keep walking.”
Westlow was a dozen feet behind the agent from Chicago. Now ten.
“You’ll call.”
“Take my phone.” Cady pointed at his jacket pocket. “Take all our phones and jam the door shut. That’s a hell of a head start.”
Then Cady, a lifelong student of human nature, read Special Agent Beth Schommer’s eyes. Her eyes read simply: dead men tell no tales. Four shots with the non-traceable. A couple more in the back of the head to take care of any medical marvels, wipe off, and then a quick toss under the seat in the helicopter or over the side of the building before sneaking back down to the security desk on the first floor with a bullshit story for Agent Preston. By the time Liz or Jund got suspicious, it’d be too late to test her for gunshot residue and by then she’d be wrapped tight in attorneys.
Westlow was now six feet and edging forward.
“Don’t do it, Beth,” Cady interjected, playing for time. “You run to Fiorella, you’ll have the life expectancy of a housefly.”
Westlow, a look of fierce determination on his brow, must have come to the same conclusion as Cady, that Schommer was ginning herself up for the wet work that lay in front of her. He stepped hard, planting a boot on the rooftop before him, distracting her. Schommer turned simultaneously with Westlow’s swing, a mammoth left hook to her jaw. The junk gun went off as Westlow’s blow connected, point blank, and both flew backward and down as if they were bowling pins.
Cady kicked at what turned out to be a Jennings J-22, sent it spinning into the stairwell. Unlike the bald monster, Schommer had a glass jaw. She’d gone down hard, a smash to the face and then another blow to the back of her head on impact with the roof asphalt.
“If she moves,” Cady screamed at Hartzell while running toward Westlow, “kick her in the head.”
“What?”
“She comes to, she’ll kill your daughter.”
Nothing more needed saying, as Hartzell rushed over and stood above the fallen agent like a placekicker.
Cady knelt over Westlow.
“Let the record show…you caught me.”
“Don’t try to talk, Jake.”
The bullet had entered Westlow’s lower ribcage and done its damage. Cady pressed down on the wound with his good left hand and tried to ascertain the depths of Westlow’s other wounds. He was badly cut up. Cady was astonished that the man had been able to make it back here at all.
“Where’s…” Westlow coughed. “Where’s—”
Cady read his mind, knew he was referring to the threat they called St. Nick. He tilted his head toward the Hartzells. “They threw him off the side of the building.”
Westlow took a string of short gasps.
“Forecast…didn’t call…raining Mafia.”
“You need to save your breath, Jake.” Cady continued to apply pressure to the wound, his hand now covered in Westlow’s blood. Westlow’s eyes dropped out of focus and Cady knew he was losing him. He placed his crippled hand on Westlow’s shoulder.
“Marly!” Westlow lifted his head, staring forward.
Cady, startled, twisted around to see what Westlow was seeing. Nothing but the night sky in front of them.
“She’s here, Jake,” Cady said. “Marly’s here.”
Westlow’s head sank slowly back down to the ground.
“Marly,” he whispered.
And died.
Epilogue
“The forensic auditors are already analyzing the—”
Cady stopped in midsentence when he spotted Terri Ingram standing in the doorway of his room at St. Vincent’s Hospital. The two agents at the guest table, stellar intellects that they were, mumbled inanities about grabbing a late breakfast long enough to snap shut a laptop, then left to give the couple some privacy.
Terry arched her back and did a skillful impersonation of Special Agent Drew Cady. “Just a couple of scratches, Terri. The doctors are all over it. Makes no sense for you to fly out right now—Jund and the attorneys won’t let me up for air until next week.”
“I didn’t want you to see me like this, Terri.”
The swelling had decreased dramatically, but the area encircling his right eye was still a palette of yellows, blues, and dark black. His right hand was elevated, propped up and enmeshed in a sling. Cady was being prepped for a third operation in as many days.
Terri walked across the room, held his free hand in both her palms, leaned forward and kissed him full on the mouth. “Roland said you’ve got this stoic-dipshit thing going and flew me out.”
“I’m surprised you caught hold of him between TV interviews.”
“He called me back.” Terri scootched Cady over so she could sit up next to him on the hospital bed. “He let me know how you’re really doing.”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“So my G-Man thought he’d show up in Cohasset looking like the Frankenstein monster and this small-town gal would be none the wiser.”
Cady opened his mouth, but then decided to cut his losses and shut it.
“I saw your colleagues drag Fiorella out of his house while he was still in his jammies. They’re looping that footage on CNN.”
“I suspect a certain AD made damn sure the press would be there.”
“I suspect a certain AD is going to fight me for you.”
“My money’s on the small-town gal.”
“Good answer,” Terri said. “Anything new, G-Man?”
“The accountants are going into Witness Protection. Schommer’s trying to cut deals, but that may not be in the crystal ball.”
“I see they got that poor boy back from Guatemala.”
“They used the kid to twist a New York Deputy AG, some drip named Stouder, into providing Fiorella with daily updates. Stouder’s talking. Drake Hartzell is talking. The only person not talking is Rudy Ciolino—Hartzell’s Coordinator. He hasn’t said one word since we had our chat on the rooftop.”
“Cat got his tongue?”
“Something’s got his tongue, all right.”
“What about the daughter? Is she tied up in any of this?”
“Hartzell claims not. Claims Lucy never knew what he did with investor finances, and that she only came into play as Fiorella’s tool to extort Hartzell into playing along.”
“Do you believe him?”
Cady thought some more. “Lucy’s only twenty. Any involvement in Hartzell’s scam would have been a recent development. Jund will watch her, though, see if she leads him to any hidden treasure.”
They sat together, holding hands for several minutes.
“Can I come with you to see Dorsey?”
“I’d like that.”
“What are you going to tell her?”
“Everything.”
They sat for several more minutes.
“I think you need some serious R&R, G-Man. And I happen to know just the place where you can sit back, rest your dogs, and cast a line in the water.”
Cady glanced at his elevated hand. “I won’t be able to reel anything in for quite a while.”
“Well, if that’s the case, I know something we can do instead.”
Cady smiled. “Good one.”
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Prologue
BooK One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Washington, D.C.
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
BooK Two
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
BooK Three
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Epilogue
The Chessman Page 27
