Full Ratchet: A Silas Cade Thriller Hardcover

by Mike Cooper

  “Of course, Detective Short. I’ll check in with her right now.”

  “Like I told her, Mr. Brinker did say he was planning to return to the office, but I don’t know.”

  “I’ll try later, then, but have him call me as soon as possible.” I gave some imaginary contact details and hung up.

  Then I called zone two. This one I routed through the Canadian proxy, for obvious reasons.

  “Pittsburgh Police Department, you’re being recorded.”

  “Detective Short, please.”

  “Do you know which station he works from?”

  “She, and I think she’s in your zone two.”

  “There’s no detective by that name here. May I ask your reason for calling?”

  “I’ll try later, thanks.” I hung up.

  Well, well, well. Harmony and I seemed to be on the same trail.

  I hadn’t seen any obvious stakeouts when I circled the company thirty minutes earlier, but that didn’t mean much. I started to feel paranoid and exposed.

  But wait. Harmony was looking for Brinker—not me?

  Or was she following Brinker in the hope that he’d lead her to me? I closed my eyes for a moment. Too many possibilities here.

  I had the advantage, having stumbled into someone else’s surveillance, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Harmony was better than the Russians—at least we spoke the same language—but for all I knew they were here, too.

  I looked around quickly, but still didn’t see anyone. What the hell—I could give it another thirty or forty minutes. If everyone showed up again, we could continue the discussion that had been cut short at Brinker’s barn.

  The time dragged slowly past. Now and then a vehicle drove down one side of the canal or the other, heavy trucks mostly. Clay Micro sat blank and silent until five-thirty, when a woman came out. Through the binoculars I confirmed it was Sharon, and she went straight to a small silver car, got in and drove away.

  I was hungry. The sun set and dusk settled in. I didn’t have any better ideas, so I continued to sit there, watching security lights buzz on as darkness fell. Finally, around seven-fifteen, I’d truly had enough. I checked my phone once more, put it away and turned the ignition.

  Clay Micro’s CFO walked out the front door.

  I didn’t need the binoculars—Nabors’s slicked-back hair was clear, even in the sodium glare of the parking lot lights. He was wearing a dark sport coat over a white shirt. I watched him walk to the Porsche, taillights blinking as he beeped it on from thirty feet away.

  As long as I was leaving, I could see where Nabors might be going. Also, he might attract the attention of any other surveillants, and bring them out where I could see them.

  I started the car and waited while the Porsche eased through the exit. Then I waited longer, as long as I could without losing Nabors completely.

  Nothing else happened. No cars, no vehicle sounds, no lights clicking on or off in nearby windows.

  I saw Nabors’s turn signal at the far end of the block, and moved out to follow.

  A complete mismatch, you’d be thinking, and you’d be right. Nabors was driving a machine German engineered to go seventy mph in first gear, and I had a six-year-old economy car with a hinky transmission. Also, I had to keep an eye not just on him but behind me, too, in case another team dropped into the train. But Nabors stayed well under the speed limit. The roads were cracked and potholed and generally of post-deindustrialization vintage, true, but he was being even more cautious.

  We crawled along, past raggedy commercial buildings and undeveloped land run to seed, stopping at every yellow light, pausing before every turn. Even after we’d got on the Parkway, busy with homebound commuters, the Porsche stayed in the far right lane. Not too slow, not too fast.

  People have criticized my audit methods, but one thing for sure: you don’t see this kind of deep, newfound respect for the law after PricewaterhouseCoopers walks out the door.

  It was like tailing a driving-school student. I kept a hundred yards back, occasionally switching lanes and drifting closer or farther—the best you can do solo. But if Nabors noticed, he didn’t let on, just maintained a nice grandmotherly pace.

  At the Canfield exit he pulled off the highway, waited through a red light at the ramp’s end, and turned right onto a wide avenue. Then the turn blinker came on again, he slowed, and we entered a strip mall.

  “Mall” might be generous. A badly paved parking lot fronted a row of small stores bookmarked by Frank’s Discount Liquors at one end and Mighty Dollar at the other. Night had fully overtaken day while we were driving, and of three light poles in the lot, only one was working. Fluorescent tubes under an overhang illuminated the sidewalk in front of the store. The Toyota dealership across the street, already closed for the day, was better lit than the mall.

  The lot was maybe one-tenth full but Nabors, a busy man with important things to do, parked on the fire lane directly in front of Frank’s and got out, leaving the engine running. He was inside only for two or three minutes and came out with a clinking paper sack in one hand and a six-pack in the other.

  Then he drove the Porsche about fifty feet to stop again, this time in front of a dry cleaner’s. Inside, engine running.

  The laundry had sheet-glass windows covered in painted signs—SHIRTS IRONED NO CHARGE, DOWN COAT SPECIAL, and so forth. The view was further obscured by racks of clothing inside. I could barely see the top of Nabors’s head.

  Hmm.

  When Nabors emerged two minutes later, he held a stack of plastic-sheathed suits and shirts by their hangers, using both hands. He strode to the sidewalk’s edge, stopped abruptly and stared around, mouth open.

  The Porsche was gone.

  I coasted the Aveo to a stop in front of him. The passenger window was rolled down, Nabors about two feet away. I leaned over the seat so he could see me.

  “Yo, Nabors, need a lift?”

  “Wha—you! Y-y-you . . . where’s my fucking car?” So angry he was tripping over the words.

  “Hop in.” I pointed the Sig at him. “Get in right now, or I’ll shoot you and drive away.”

  He hesitated. Still keeping the pistol aimed at his face, I used my left hand to yank the door handle and shove it open.

  “You’re not a runner, Nabors. Try it and die, or get in.”

  He did as told. I switched the pistol to my left hand and held it cross-body—I’m not a lefty, but you don’t need precision aiming from three feet away, and I didn’t want the handgun so close he could think about grabbing for it.

  “Close the door.” The pile of clothing was slippery in the flimsy plastic bags, sliding around on Nabors’s lap, which kept his hands occupied.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  I drove slowly away, one hand on the wheel, one holding the gun. Really, this was about as stupid a position to put myself in you could imagine—a professional would have either killed me or bailed in about two seconds.

  Fortunately, Nabors was no professional.

  “Follow-up interview,” I said. “Dotting the i’s, crossing the t’s.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  Of course not. As we exited the lot I glanced across the street toward the Toyota dealership—the Porsche was parked at the end of one row, close to the showroom, nearly invisible among all the other shiny cars. It was still running, because I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off with no key in the ignition—those all-electronic remotes make things complicated. But I’d left the lights off, and the slight exhalation of exhaust from its tailpipe was unnoticeable.

  Nabors didn’t even look in that direction, instead hypnotized by the barrel of the 226.

  “When we talked earlier,” I said, “you forgot to mention something.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “The acquisition?”

  “That’s secret!” He actually looked shocked.

  “Secret? Secret?” I shook my head. “Nabors, I’m your auditor. I’m like a
doctor. You have to tell me everything.”

  “You’re not—”

  “Or the relationship just doesn’t work.”

  I drove back the way we’d come, toward the highway. Halfway there I’d noticed an out-of-business car wash, weeds in the paving, fixtures stripped from the vacant bays. The only light came from a street lamp across the road, leaving plenty of shadow. I killed the headlights and drove around back. I didn’t switch off the engine.

  “I know, I know—Consumer Reports says you shouldn’t idle more than thirty seconds.” I twisted around to face him directly. “A waste of gas. Not to mention kind of foolish if you get out of the car. Anyone could come along and steal it.”

  “I don’t know what you want.” His voice was strained.

  “Aren’t you listening? I’m the auditor, and that’s all. I don’t even work for Clayco. This should have been a simple little job.”

  “You got what you needed.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. But suddenly people are pulling out automatic weapons and RPGs.” I lowered the pistol and pointed it at Nabors’s groin. “Tell me about the fucking acquisition.”

  He caved immediately, just like our last interview. “I don’t know! Brinker never lets us in on anything—I might as well be an invoice clerk, for all the responsibility I have.”

  “You must have heard you were on the block. Not even the Chinese would buy a company without talking to the chief financial officer.”

  “Chinese?” He looked puzzled. “They weren’t Chinese.”

  The oldest trick in the interrogator’s book. “You did meet them.”

  “Only for an hour. They wanted to go over the statements. Especially cash flow—they were real interested in cash flow.”

  That didn’t necessarily mean anything. The income statement is notoriously easy to rig, and even the balance sheet can be less than useful if someone’s playing games. If you really want to understand a company’s books, cash is king. As always. But there are reasons other than fundamental stock analysis to be primarily interested in cash flow.

  Tax avoidance, for example. Money laundering. Misappropriation.

  Absconsion.

  “Did they notice your missing seven mil?”

  “No.” Disdain mixed with defensiveness in Nabors’s expression. “They walked right over it. Never saw a thing.”

  Kind of suspicious that Clayco headquarters hadn’t noticed either—not until the serious due diligence was queued up. But that happens in private companies. Without the sunshine of public-market oversight, as flawed and compromised as the regulators are, the corporate chiefs can run their fiefdoms any way they want.

  “So who were they?”

  “I don’t—” His voice squeaked and cut short when I shoved the pistol barrel into his lap. “Two accountants, that’s all! We sat down, went through some ledgers, I showed them some reports. Like any inspection.”

  “How good was their English?”

  “What?” His mouth opened.

  “They were Russian, right?”

  “I don’t think so.” Either he was a far better actor than he looked, or my question had truly come out of the blue. “Russian? They were as American as you and me. We talked about the playoffs. One guy had a Carnegie Mellon ring.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment. If secretive and mysterious Russians weren’t trying to buy Clay Micro’s seismographic technology . . . then why were secretive and mysterious Russians trying to kill me?

  “Are you sure?”

  Nabors must have sensed my uncertainty, for his own self-assurance began to return. “Yes, I’m sure. When we were finishing up, one said something like, hurry up, we’ve got a long drive back. And the other was like, just throw everything in the briefcase, we can sort it out on the road, Cheryl’s gonna be pissed if I’m late again.”

  “Cheryl?”

  “Whatever. His girlfriend.” Nabors shrugged.

  Zeke and I had come to Pittsburgh by car, but we had reason to avoid airplanes. Anyone else would fly—unless they were within a hundred miles.

  Maybe a hundred fifty.

  “Were they independent?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  I raised the pistol to his nose—just a little reminder. Nabors swallowed hard.

  “Were they company employees? Or outside accountants, hired for one task?”

  “I don’t know! We just talked about the statements, they asked some questions.”

  “But they were CPAs?”

  “They knew what they were talking about, sure.”

  Another ten minutes, but I couldn’t get anything else useful out of him. Deliberately or not, Brinker’s fault or otherwise, Nabors really was a mushroom.

  My hand had tired, holding the pistol. The Aveo’s interior smelled of Nabors’s sweat. Time to move on.

  “Give me your phone,” I said.

  “Wha—?”

  “Now.” I prodded him in the sternum. He quickly reached inside his jacket and handed over a smartphone of some sort. I glanced down long enough to power it off and put it in my own pocket. “Can’t have you calling 911 two seconds after you get out of the truck, that’s all.”

  He breathed out abruptly, relief obvious. “You’re letting me go?”

  “Sure.” I switched the pistol to my left hand again and shifted into drive. “I’m even going to take you back.”

  Yes, it would have been better to leave him behind as quickly as possible, but wandering down the avenue on foot he might attract attention. As carefully as before, I turned out of the car wash and drove back to the strip mall. Inside the parking lot I stayed at the edge, near the exit, ready to depart.

  “Out you go.” I watched Nabors scrabble for the door handle, not looking away from my face as he pushed the door open and scooted onto the pavement. The pile of dry cleaning fell in a tangled mess to the ground. “Nabors!”

  He paused, about to slam the door and, probably, run.

  “Go back to one of these stores,” I said. “Borrow a phone, call a cab. Keep it simple.”

  “Yeah, right, good idea.”

  “Keep me out of it.” I paused. “Or we’ll be talking again. In person. Understand?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I put the Sig away, finally. Nabors swung the door closed and bent to pick up his shirts. I put the car in gear, and when Nabors stood up, the clothing a heap over both arms, I looked through the window.

  “I really don’t want to see you again,” I said.

  “No sir.”

  I exited onto the avenue. Nabors stood and watched me go. His plastic dry cleaning bags reflected the streetlights, flickering in my rearview mirror.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Someone else was watching the Clay Micro offices.

  I’d driven back, the same route Nabors had led me out on, figuring I’d give it one more try. Maybe Brinker would have returned. I could do one more interview and still get dinner before midnight.

  The parking lot was emptier now, maybe five vehicles left. Security lights were on at the corners of the building. Small floodlights illuminated the sign at the lot’s entrance. I continued along the canal, past the lot, headed for my spot opposite the iron bridge. With the windows down, I could smell the canal’s dank, brackish water.

  But the spot was occupied.

  I didn’t notice until I was almost there—the new vehicle was as small as the Aveo, and concealed behind the half wall. Four doors, light-colored, not too old. Only one person visible inside, a shadow in the driver’s seat.

  I kept the car’s speed steady and drove past. At the end of the industrial row, where windows were broken and dock bays boarded over, their renovation still long in the future, the canal road ended in a T with another street. I stopped, signaled and turned right, around the corner and out of sight.

  Now what?

  Whoever was in the sedan had chosen the spot same as I had—for covert surveillance. They couldn’t be responding to a report from Nabors.
It was too soon, and in any event he didn’t know I’d picked him up here. So whoever it was, they were watching Clay Micro for some other reason.

  It wasn’t the Russian’s panel van. Odds were running strong on Harmony’s team.

  No reason they’d have recognized the Aveo, which Dave and I had bought six hours ago, and I’d kept my face turned away after the first glimpse. Their attention would have been on the Clay Micro doors anyway. I could assume I was unnoticed.

  No reason to go rushing in. I turned the car around, crossed a bridge farther down and drove back on a parallel road, one block away from the canal. Low buildings—empty garages, deserted warehouses, decrepit light industry—blocked my view across to Clay Micro’s mill block. When it felt like the right place I parked, rolled the windows up and locked the car, then continued on foot.

  I came to the canal’s edge between a chain-link fence and a blank cinderblock wall, dark and unlit. The iron bridge was in front of me. Two hundred yards right, Clay Micro’s few lit windows shone over the lot. Across the bridge I could just make out the mystery car, sitting still and quiet in its own shadows.

  Not perfect, mostly because I’d had to leave the Aveo. But I couldn’t see anywhere else to park that the new stakeout wouldn’t notice—the canal’s service roads were empty, the parking lot lit. I was confident of my own invisibility, and if either Brinker or the sedan drove away, I could probably get back to my own car quickly enough to follow.

  The night had cooled and dampness drifted off the canal. Grime crusted the rough brick wall beside me. I checked my handgun once more, kept it out and sat on a rusted metal box at the base of the fence. It might have housed a transformer or some electrical connection once, for two heavy conduits ran from it into the ground. But that was decades ago.

  A flash of light in the sedan caught my eye. Behind the windshield, something glowed before the driver’s face, then winked out.

  A phone?

  I stood up. A minute passed, then another. A tractor trailer drove past, somewhere behind us, its diesel engine echoing off the deserted buildings.

  Brinker walked out, pushing through both glass doors and letting them swing shut behind him.