by Andy Straka
All at once, a side door leading from the kitchen to the driveway flew open and Farraday came out hurrying toward the garage. He went to the side and pushed a button. I could hear one of the heavy garage doors begin to open. A moment later I caught the scent of exhaust smoke, and when the door stopped moving on its rollers, the purring of a car engine’s idle floated through the air.
“Oh, Christ,” I heard Farraday exclaim. He entered the garage, a car door clicked open, and it sounded as if he were fumbling with something. A few seconds later, he came back out, walking quickly, with a large canvas bag slung over his shoulder. He went to Warnock’s Navigator, opened the driver’s door, heaved the large bag inside, jumped in, and backed out of the driveway.
As he roared off down the street, I took off running, detouring around the front of the garage on the way back to my car. There was no doubt about what was inside. Tony Warnock’s dead body slumped in the seat of a silver Mercedes coupe, its engine still running. A pack of what looked like hundred-dollar bills that must have fallen from the bag Farraday took also lay on the pavement next to the car. I moved in to check on Warnock. No pulse. He’d been dead for some time. I also noticed a contusion the size of a dime behind his left ear.
Suicide? That’d be up to the M.E. to decide.
I needed to stay on Farraday’s tail. Leaving Warnock, I raced to my car.
Back in the Buick, I made a quick three-point turn and floored it toward the entrance to the luxury subdivision. I caught sight of the Navigator’s taillights ahead, just as they turned onto the highway. I followed, still careful to stay at a distance, although Farraday seemed to be in much more of a hurry now.
I pulled out my cell phone and punched in the number for Agent Grooms. He answered his cell on the third ring.
“Agent Grooms?”
“Ahh, the man of the hour. You know I’ve just been sitting here twiddling my thumbs since you hung up on me. Got nothing else to do, you know. Have you managed to screw anything else up for us since we last talked, Frank?”
“You and your people must not be too happy with me at the moment,” I said.
“That would be the understatement of the decade so far. This is your final warning, Pavlicek. You’re interfering with a federal investigation. …” He went on, but I cut him off.
“Listen, I was just up at Tony Warnock’s house in the South Hills. Warnock’s dead in his car in the garage. He either committed suicide or someone tried to make it look like he did.”
“What? What are you, a shit collector? Dead bodies seem to have a habit of following you around.”
“Right now I’m following Damon Farraday, whose real name, as I’m sure you know, is Drew Slinger.”
“Where are you? And how do you know about Farraday?”
“How do I know I can trust you, Grooms? Why are you people working with someone like Farraday?”
He said nothing.
“Who is Colonel Patrick Goyne? He’s the guy who’s helping you sting the Stonewall Rangers, isn’t he?”
“You know I can’t … if you would just come down here or tell us where you are we can help each other.”
“The way you helped Jake?”
“That’s not fair, that’s—”
“Do you know where he is?” I asked.
“Who? Toronto? No.”
“Me either.”
“Maybe, just maybe, Pavlicek, this means you should go back to investigating accident scenes or taping lustful husbands, or whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing instead of investigating terrorists.”
I said nothing, concentrated on keeping the Navigator in sight.
“We’re on top of this situation, believe me. The last thing we need is you going around talking to more people. Pretty soon we’ll have some kind of panic on our hands. Don’t try to be a cowboy, Pavlicek. You need backup.”
“I do have backup.” I checked my side mirror as I switched the phone to my other hand and changed lanes. “I just don’t know exactly what he’s doing right now.”
“You’re only making things worse for yourself,” he said.
“Oh, by the way. When you go to Warnock’s, make sure you have your people keep a lookout for any more money. I saw a stray pack of hundreds lying around and Farraday’s carrying around an oversized canvas bag I’d just bet is full of cash.”
“Oh, that’s just great—”
“Sorry, Grooms,” I said. “Gotta go.”
He was swearing as I hung up on him and turned the phone off for the second time that night.
33
The entrance road leading into the Tri-State Racetrack & Gaming Center, just over the ridge a couple of miles from Nitro, glowed in the dark with the faux sense of cleanliness and prosperity only gambling brought. The Navigator kept right on moving. We passed a Wal-Mart and other retailers, a couple of busy fast-food outlets. A race was taking place under the lights at the greyhound track—sleek muzzled animals battling in the turns around a man-made lake on a finely groomed dirt oval. The parking lot was about half full.
A quarter mile beyond the track, the Navigator sped up a freshly paved roadway that led to the newly opened—at least according to the sign—Balthazar Hotel. The hotel itself sat high and fortresslike on its own knoll ringed with huge white spotlights illuminating the massive building. Fake stone columns buttressed an impressive arched entryway whose centerpiece was a fountain tinted in the dark by smaller, multicolored spots. Clearly a place for would-be high rollers.
I drove slowly up the hill until I saw Farraday, carrying the large bag again, enter through the front door. I edged around the circle as he crossed the lobby and entered an elevator at the side. As I came around the side of the building, I noticed the elevator was one of two in an external glass bank. I quickly pulled into a parking space between a van and a huge Silverado pickup towing a trailer bearing a couple of snowmobiles and watched in my side mirror as Farraday exited the elevator on the top floor.
Penthouse or Presidential Suite, no doubt. Was he meeting Goyne? I scanned the row of windows along the top floor, waiting. Sure enough, a few moments later a light popped on behind the curtains of one of the windows on the end of the building. Either he himself or someone else was letting him into the corner suite, but I didn’t know which.
Should I wait things out, call for reinforcements, or go in after him? A hotel room takedown by one man alone was risky. Could I count on Toronto being somewhere here now too? I pulled out the phone again and called Nicole.
She’d just arrived at the Carews’. I told her exactly where I was and what I was about to do. She tried to talk me out of my plan. I tried to reassure her and gave her some instructions of her own, but somewhere in the back of my brain another tale was emerging. It hadn’t quite taken shape just yet. It spoke of small pieces of a trail missed, elements of risk. At the same time, I realized the time had come. My best shot of taking Farraday was now.
Inside the Balthazar, the lobby was as impressive, in its own gaudy way, as the exterior of the hotel. A massive and modernistic interpretation of a chandelier took up a huge chunk of the ceiling while the floor was a combination of attractively laid tile and thick carpet of a Middle Eastern design. There was an open-air atrium and a restaurant with water burbling through rocks and lots of fake plants everywhere. A few partiers, maybe taking a break from the casino across the way, were laughing at an Eddie Murphy movie on the television at the bar.
I stepped across to the bank of elevators. After a short ride to the top floor, the doors whisked open to reveal an elegant corridor along which were four doors on either side. A panoramic picture window in the hall displayed an impressive view of the casino and racetrack. I casually strolled down to the comer suite and noted the number on the door. Then I returned to the elevator and rode it back downstairs.
Back in the parking lot, I made sure the area was clear, then went and retrieved the Mossberg from the Buick, concealing it as best I could beneath my coat. I searched until I found
Warnock’s Navigator parked near the back of the building, an old Plymouth Voyager beside it. Pretending I was fiddling with my keys for a few moments, I managed to trip the lock on the Voyager.
The inside smelled like a combination of baby food and dirty diapers, but I climbed in back anyway, sliding the door shut behind me. I waited a few moments and nothing happened. So far so good. I plucked out my cell phone again, punched in the main number of the hotel, and asked to be connected to the suite number Farraday had entered.
“Hello.”
It was Farraday’s voice.
“Is Damon Farraday there?” I asked.
A pause. “Who’s this?”
“This is Damon Farraday, isn’t it? Or should I say Drew Slinger.”
Another pause. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who the hell is this?”
“Frank Pavlicek.”
“Frank. I… uh … I mean, what’re you calling for?”
“Why don’t you come on back outside by the Navigator and we can talk about it,” I said.
A pause. “Outside? Sure, okay. That is, uh … I’ll be right down.”
Three or four minutes later, I watched as he emerged from around the side of the building, walking quickly. I couldn’t tell if he was carrying or not, but under the circumstances, I had to assume he was. He kept looking around, as if he were afraid an entire swat team might descend on him at any moment. The parking lot, though full of cars, was still empty of anybody else. I ducked farther down below the window with one hand on the door handle and the other holding the shotgun. I let him come along between the Navigator and the van.
Just as he reached my spot, I jerked open the sliding door and thrust the barrel of the shotgun in his side.
“Howdy, Damon … I mean Drew, that is.”
He put his hands in the air. I stepped out of the van, checked again to make sure we weren’t being seen, and prodded him to move around into the shadows of a line of pine trees behind the vehicles.
“What do you want, Frank? I think you must be making some kind of mistake.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. I probed the large lump in his side with the tip of the Mossberg. “Lose the handgun. With your left hand, two fingers.”
He was wearing a hunting jacket similar to my own. He reached inside with his left hand as I’d instructed and pulled out the gun with his fingers. It was a .454 Taurus Raging Bull.
“Nice little cannon,” I said. “Toss it lightly, and I mean lightly, into the trees. I want a soft landing and no accidental discharges.”
He did as I instructed. The gun made a low thump as it came to rest in among the branches and pine needles.
“Good. Now turn around.”
He turned to face me. “Want do you want. Frank? Like I said, this must be some kind of mistake.”
“I don’t think so.”
But I immediately found out how wrong I was when I sensed movement behind and beside me. I turned, but too late, feeling a strong arm pulling the barrel of the shotgun down as the tip of a sound suppressor attached to a Beretta pistol jammed against the side of my head. It hurt. Not as bad as the slugging I’d taken from Caleb Connors’s own Mossberg, but I was growing weary of having firearms bashed into my cranium.
I twisted my head to see who had bested me and caught a brief glimpse of none other than Kanawha County’s own public information officer, the pipe-smoking Hiram Jackson, minus the pipe now, of course. But that might have just been my imagination. Before the lights went out.
“A little too hot for you back there, Franco?” Farraday asked, raising the rear hatch of the Navigator. I smelled oil and water. My head felt sticky. Apparently I’d vomited as I was waking up. I was lying in my own waste.
“Don’t you worry about that. We’ll have you in a nice cool place in just a minute,” he said and chuckled.
The winter air he jerked me up into was cold enough. The side of my head felt like someone was still pounding it with a hammer. There was another man with him. Not Hiram Jackson, but a short Hispanic-looking young man pointing the shotgun at me, grinning, and saying nothing. He had a bandana tied around his head and a toothpick in his mouth.
We were next to a small warehouse along the bank of the river. A puddle of light illuminated a large dock, and moored to it was a black-and-white-walled tugboat, the kind that pushed the barges up and down the river. Out beyond, the dark Kanawha flowed smooth and silent.
“Not exactly the Balthazar or the Charleston House, but I’m afraid it’ll have to do,” Farraday continued. He must’ve felt the need to keep up the chatter. I’d have just as soon he shut up.
They led me onto the dock. A bright array of white lights and steam became visible across the water. One of the area’s chemical plants. I wasn’t sure which one.
There were no lights on the boat, but there was plenty of noise. A deafening roar came from the stern, where some kind of large engine driving a fan or something—not the boat’s diesels, but something else—chunked away in the blackness. Farraday switched on a bright-beam flashlight. We stepped across a gangplank with chain-link railings onto the deck. It smelled of mildew and oil and chlorine.
“He’s in the bow,” Farraday said to the other man.
They pushed me around the high hurricane deck surrounding the navigating bridge toward the stubby front of the boat, where there was a hatch fastened shut by heavy releases that were padlocked and bolted to the deck. Farraday fished a key from a pocket and unfastened the locks. Then he worked open the latches and pulled open the hatch, shining his light below.
“Hey, Indian brave. Brought you some company,” he said. He pulled me roughly forward to the edge of the hatch.
No one answered.
His light searched out a compartment about fifteen feet square. In one corner, the beam caught the edge of a pair of brown cowboy boots, smeared with grease, then climbed upward to reveal the rest of a figure hunched over in a seated position. He stared straight up at us, rather than shielding his eyes from the light, as you might expect. He seemed to want to draw strength from what for him must have been the sudden brightness.
“Howdy, Frank,” Jake Toronto said.
34
The hold in the boat was so dark I couldn’t even make out the form of my hand when I held it up in front of my face.
“Some dungeon, huh?” Toronto said.
“Yeah.” It felt good to see him again and to be temporarily free of our captors, even if my stomach heaved with nausea and it felt like someone was dribbling a basketball in my head.
“And at least it’s not too cold in here,” I said.
“Right. Be a shame to freeze to death in the dark.”
“Be a shame to freeze to death in the light too. Smells like piss though.”
“You gotta go, you gotta go. There’s a little hole over there goes down into the bilge. Hard to aim when you have to feel for the opening.”
I couldn’t help snickering. My turn would come.
“You tried yelling, making some noise?”
“For a few hours. Didn’t do any good.”
“That engine they’ve got running back there drowns out everything,” I said.
“Man, and here I was thinking you were gonna come rescue me like Prince Valiant or something.”
“Right,” I said. “Don’t think I wasn’t trying. And where the heck have you been? Grooms called me and said you escaped custody.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And I went after the guy I was telling you about and that’s how I ended up in here.”
“This guy who set you up.”
“Yeah.”
“Colonel Patrick Goyne.”
“That’s right. Very good. Feds have helped set him up here as Hiram Jackson.”
“He must be very good if he got the jump on you to put you down here too.”
“He is very good.” There was no shame in his voice, only clinical assessment.
“But you’re still ali
ve.”
“Still here.”
“How’d you first get onto him?”
“Saw him talking on TV and I wondered what he was doing here.”
“And Farraday, I mean Slinger, is working for him?”
“You got it, muchacho.”
“Who is Goyne working for?”
“Who may be too big a question to answer right now.”
“But they’re planning to do something with a bomb. The whole sting deal with the Feds and the Stonewall Rangers and pigeons and the nerve gas is just a front.”
“Yup,” he said. “I’ve been sitting here thinking about it. Goyne’s running a false flag operation. I should’ve known it when I first saw him on the tube. It’s the way he likes to work.”
I told him all about what I had learned regarding Chester and the ANFO and the cave, and about Tony Warnock and the cash. Then I said, “Tell me more about Goyne.”
“Nice little setup, don’t you think? With the Feds’ help, he must have gotten himself hired by the county here a few months ago just so he could do this job. Colonel Patrick Goyne. Former Navy SEAL, former special ops commander and CIA station chief somewhere in the Far East. I met him about fifteen years ago, soon after you and I were given our walking papers by the NYPD. He was working for the CIA then. I’ve worked with him a couple of times since. Trusted him almost as much as I trust you … till now, that is. Oh, and one more thing about him. He’s a world-class sniper.”
“Then he’s the one who put the bullet in Chester?”
“Nope. Actually, that was our boy Farraday—what did you say his real name was, Slinger? I got that much out of them before they stuck me down here in this hole. He lured poor Chester into a trap, poisoned Elo.”
“Some falconer.”
“Right,” he said.
“And Elo?”
