by Matt Lincoln
I scratched an itch that had crept up under the top edge of my vest.
“We’re experienced negotiators,” Holm told him. “If there is a snowball’s chance that we can get him out peacefully, we’re the best bet.”
I didn’t bother to point out that our negotiation tactics involved fists as often as words. With all the kit we expected to find in the former meathouse, it’d be better for everyone if we brought Jones in without a fuss.
“I don’t like it,” Birn said from his perch on the hood of his department car. “You don’t want to be in that place if it blows.”
I scrolled through the file highlights Warner had sent me from Cyber. Jones was formerly based in New York City, which made sense since our main suspects were also from up that way. He was caught once, but he didn’t try to blow his place until after he was out. There were other indications that he loved his skin too much to throw a suicidal Hail Mary. On the other hand, there was always a first time.
“We’ll stay on our toes,” I promised.
Minutes later, Holm and I approached the low-slung, white, brick building that used to be a distribution point for a meat-packing company. Assuming the coolers still worked, it was an ideal location for Jones to store some of the less stable items on his list.
“Looks lovely, just right for a vacation spot,” Holm muttered.
Brown ivy leaves had shrunk against the brick, where the white paint had been chipped away through years of neglect. The information Warner sent had suggested that the meathouse hadn’t been used for its original purpose in years. From the cracked, weedy parking lot and rusting metal roof, I was not surprised. Even the old lawn had long gone to seed.
A chain-link fence with a padlocked gate surrounded the lot. The nearest buildings were old factories with minimal crews, if any. I was about to call for bolt cutters when Holm shook the rusty lock. It fell open.
I heard a distant ringtone from the direction of the building.
“Down!”
I tackled Holm as the first explosion blew the meathouse walls outward and peppered us with dust and bricks. More explosions thumped against my eardrums, and something seared my leg. When the shockwaves ended, I lifted my head. I couldn’t hear past the brain-grinding ringing, and Holm signaled that he couldn’t hear either. Great.
A dust-covered figure moved at the corner of my eye. He had the build and bald head that matched Jones’s description. I pointed in his direction, but Holm pointed at my leg with both hands.
Two feet of quarter-inch rebar pierced my leg through the calf. I could flex my leg, which meant I was a lucky son of a bitch.
“Go after him,” I yelled even though I couldn’t hear my voice. Holm’s brow creased, but he could lip read. “Go!”
As soon as he took off, I pulled myself up against the jagged fence remains. I relaxed my leg as much as it allowed and pulled. I think I screamed, but hell, I couldn’t hear, so it didn’t count. Blood flowed out, but it didn’t pulse. No hit arteries. That would have ended my chase before it began. My sleeves already had tears, so I made quick work of a temporary bandage.
My leg hurt like hell, but it worked. I gritted my teeth and took off after Holm and Jones. No way was I letting that bastard get the best of us.
Half a block down, Holm sped around a corner. I hauled ass, which meant half speed at best. My damn leg wasn’t having it, and my shoe felt wet. By the time I reached that corner, I felt light-headed. I looked back and saw a rather impressive blood trail. Birn and the others were on my tail, and I gestured for them to go ahead. O’Neil took the lead when Birn halted at my side.
Birn yelled something. His voice slipped in under the ringing, but not enough to understand. I pointed at my ears and shrugged. He tried to get me to stay where I was, but I had to help my partner. Besides, I’d caught my second wind.
I moved around the corner and stopped. Jones burst out of a side door in the building the others had just entered. He saw Birn and me and held up a gun. His mouth ran so fast I couldn’t focus for a lip-read, but he pointed to a car parked across from the building and started in that direction.
“Don’t you move,” I shouted. My voice mulled against the ringing as I drew my gun. “We don’t want to hurt you.”
Not too much, anyway.
Jones jabbed his finger toward the remains of the meathouse and gestured with both hands. He looked at the gun in his one hand and pointed it at the ground. Whatever he was saying, he was pissed. He was pissed enough to not notice Holm and O’Neil worked their way toward him from behind. At a few feet away, they surged forward and grabbed him by the arms. His gun hit the ground and spun under the car. I walked up and appreciated the especially thick layer of gravel where his face had landed.
Birn and O’Neil hauled Jones’s ass to MBLIS while paramedics patched up my leg and ordered me to the hospital for proper care. Although my hearing returned well enough that I understood them, I pretended not to have a clue as to what they were saying.
“You need to get that cleaned out before infection sets in,” the older one protested as I tossed my keys to an agent who’d stayed behind to drive for us. “Both of you might have concussions, too.”
I got out of there before the medics could get around to writing all the warnings and showing me their lists. I knew full well what could happen to my leg, and that’s why I ordered the agent who drove us to the office to get the MBLIS nurse practitioner up to our floor.
When we got back, Diane, the nurse, and Birn waited for us in the parking garage. I could hear again, and the ringing was down to the dull roar of my tinnitus at its worst. Diane opened my door as soon as the car was parked.
“Molly, get that leg patched up,” Diane told the nurse. “Ethan, I have mixed news.”
I flinched, partly because a cramp seized my leg as soon as Nurse Molly touched it, and partly because mixed news was never good.
“Speak up,” I told Diane. “I’m listening as best as I can.”
“Jones gave me a name before we got here,” Birn said. His brow furrowed. “Then he told us he was having a heart attack. He’d dead.”
“I’d have had a heart attack, too, if all my stuff went up like that.” I hissed as Nurse Molly rewrapped the wound to staunch the oozing until I could get inside for treatment. My head got fuzzy as I remembered how much blood I’d already lost. I took a slow, deep breath, and my vision cleared. “You said he gave you a name. Who?”
Diane stepped back as Holm and Birn helped me to my feet. She crossed her arms and frowned for her announcement.
“He sold TNT, Ethan,” she said. “He sold it to Pete Patrone, and he said it was a lot more than they used to bring that building down. We need to find him before he bombs anyone else.”
CHAPTER 34
“That heart attack was mighty inconvenient,” Holm said when we gathered in the conference room. “Or convenient. However you want to look at it.”
I winced as Nurse Molly probed the wound to make sure nothing had been left behind when I yanked the rebar out. She worked harder than I thought necessary, but I couldn’t blame her. I’d pulled a stupid and did exactly what a guy wasn’t supposed to do with a puncture wound and pulled the thing out. Now, she was forced to work in the middle of a planning session.
“He didn’t say anything about his heart until that moment?” I had a hard time believing Jones randomly had a heart attack and didn’t seem bothered up to that point.
Birn shifted in his seat. “He was hurting the whole way. I thought maybe he had a concussion or something from the blast. If we’d known it was that serious, we would have got him to a hospital.”
“At least someone knows when people should go to hospitals,” Molly grumbled. She scowled up at me. “Don’t you so much as twitch, Marston.”
“No offense, ma’am, but I’m surprised MBLIS has a nurse instead of a doctor here,” O’Neil said from across the table.
“Nurse practitioner,” Molly huffed. “Most of the qualifications, half the
pay.”
O’Neil frowned. “You’re being underpaid, and MBLIS is cutting costs? Sounds par for the course.”
“It’s a job,” she said. “It’d be easier if these geniuses were a little more careful.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed. She repaid me with a harder tug. I’d been through worse, but there was something undignified with this situation.
“Agent Birn, he probably didn’t know he was having a heart attack,” Molly suggested. “He could’ve dropped dead without knowing what hit him. I thought everyone knew that happens.”
Birn worked his jaw muscles but made no response.
“Did he say why he gave you Patrone’s name so easily?” Diane asked Birn and O’Neil. “In his line of work, that would be a career breaker.”
“He didn’t go into a lot of detail,” O’Neil answered.
“Nah. He carried on about someone blowing his stash.” Birn leaned his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. “I don’t think he triggered the explosion. Hell, the guy was beside himself because he would’ve been inside the building if he hadn’t seen Marston and Holm walking up to it. So he said, anyway.”
“No wonder the guy had a heart attack,” Muñoz said from the doorway. I turned to see her enter the room. She had a way of getting around in silence, even with creaky doors like the one to the conference room. “Sorry I missed all the fun.” She raised a brow when she saw my leg. “Or maybe not.”
“Jones named Patrone,” I told her.
Muñoz pursed her lips. “Alice is going to be really upset at that.”
“Yeah.” I hated the thoughts going through my head at the moment. “We need to take another look at their connections.”
Diane shook her head. “While I admire your willingness to look past your belief in her, I don’t think it’s necessary.” She clicked through a few things on her laptop. “What is the one thing that makes Patrone unique among the Zhu and Liu organizations?”
I straightened in my seat a little. “He’s the only one who’s worked for both.”
Diane nodded. “We should’ve taken a closer look at those ties. I have to admit that I’ve been taken in by the situation with his family.”
Holm leaned back in his chair. “He’s a player, then. The guy used his baby’s condition as a sympathy card and played on his history as being married to Alice’s friend.”
“What’s his motive?” I shook my head. “It’s not adding up.”
“He’s playing both sides,” Muñoz offered. “Think about it. He’s the middle man who greases wheels for his employers. Schmooze with potential business partners or their representatives and maybe make a little scratch on the side.”
“Right, but why get involved in bringing down the hotel?” I stifled a grunt as Molly finished the hard part of cleaning my wound. “He was working for the Lius.”
“We’ll have to find out.” Diane gave Molly an appraising look. “Is he good to go?”
“Not by my standards,” Molly scoffed. “By his? Sure. Why not?”
I grinned. Now she was getting it.
“Ethan, Robbie, you two bring in Patrone.” She nodded at Birn and Muñoz in turn. “You’re backup for the chuckleheads. Try not to let them rack up any more injuries.”
Muñoz snorted. “Right.”
Diane shuffled through a folder that sat next to her laptop. She pulled out a handful of freshly faxed sheets.
“These are the reports on the architecture,” she told us. “Our experts put a rush on it, and their analyses agree with their prelims and Alice’s opinion. The hotel’s pilings were grossly insufficient. In fact, two of the three experts believe the hotel would have either collapsed or needed to be demolished within five years. They all agree that there is no way the hotel could have been saved.”
“We already believe that Zhu was aware of the updated drill tests,” I said. “If he knew it was this bad, then he had a hell of a motive.”
“He may even thank himself for saving lives in the long run,” O’Neil pointed out. “If that building came down with over a thousand people inside, it would’ve been a far bigger disaster.”
“I doubt he cares about lives as much as all the lawsuits and prison time he would’ve had,” I contended. “This way, he gets to think of himself as a hero while limiting the impact on his business. It’s bad enough that Bellows and Watts submitted fraudulent test results at the time of sale, but Zhu would’ve overcome that in no time. It’s all spin.”
“Do you have enough to arrest Bellows and Watts for their roles?” O’Neil asked.
“Yes,” Diane answered. “Their warrants are going out today.” She turned to me. “Patrone’s warrant goes out within the hour. Keep Alice out of the loop until we know what’s what.”
“Absolutely.” I looked at the schedule on my phone. “There’ll be agents with her all day, and we can have them monitor whatever calls she makes on the burner phone Sylvia gave her this morning.”
Diane stood and clapped once. “Okay, folks, you know what to do. Let’s get on it.” She turned to me. “Keep me updated. If you feel even an ounce of suspicion about Alice’s connection to Patrone, you call me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I promised.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Alice so much as I wanted to keep her out of trouble. Patrone’s involvement made me question my perspective. Yeah, I was biased in favor of her, but rose-colored glasses weren’t my style.
CHAPTER 35
The Patrones had moved to a suite at the local extended stay. When Pete welcomed Holm and me into their new space, he introduced us to his wife and daughter.
“This is Maria.” He put his arm around the young woman’s shoulder. Patrone smiled at the young baby cradled in Maria’s arms. “You’ve heard about Penelope.”
The baby looked up with large, dark eyes that any grownup in their right mind would fall in love with. Her pudgy fingers wiggled in the air as her mama played Nose-Boop by, well, booping noses together.
“You have a beautiful family, Pete,” I acknowledged. I hated having to take suspects away from small children, but that came along with the job. The least I could do was keep it quiet. “Mrs. Patrone, we need a minute with your husband.”
Maria’s forehead creased. “I can handle anything you have to say.” She looked me in the eye. “I know what I married into.”
Patrone looked down. I wondered how much he’d told his wife and prayed that he hadn’t.
“I have to go with you, don’t I?” he asked in a soft tone. It was hard to believe this was the same man who bought enough TNT to bring down a high-rise.
“Yes,” Holm answered. “We have a warrant.”
Patrone nodded. “I knew it’d come around eventually.”
Maria’s face paled. “What are the charges?”
“First-degree murder of John Liu and David Zhu.” I pulled out the paper and showed her. “Other charges are pending, but they’re related to the destruction of the Seascape Tunnel and rooms, as well as the hotel’s collapse.”
Maria gasped and shrank away from her husband. “You said you were only involved in the white-collar stuff,” she accused. “You promised me that you weren’t hurting anyone.”
“Penelope needed this.” Patrone held out his hands. “She got the surgeries, Maria. The worst is over.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Patrone stepped toward Maria, but she moved aside while clutching the baby to her chest. “They paid for the surgeries. They said she’d be taken care of for the rest of her life. I had to do what I did.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Let’s talk about this at our office. You don’t want to give her too much right now.”
“Or ever.” Maria stood straight. “I don’t want to see you again.”
“Maria, don’t do this,” he begged. “Please. Penelope would’ve died.”
Maria shook her head. “There’s always a better way. I shouldn’t have trusted you.” She turned to us. “Please, take
him before I do something I’d regret.”
“I hope that’s not a threat,” Holm told her in a gentle voice.
“Only if he’s not out of here by the time I get packed.” She stalked into one of the suite rooms and slammed the door. The baby started crying, and by the sounds of it, Maria did, too.
Patrone clammed up and held out his hands. Holm cuffed his wrists behind his back, and we led him out to the Charger. Birn and Muñoz followed in their department car, although Patrone never knew we had backup on hand. It was one of the saddest but smoothest arrests I’d made in a long time.
Given his absence of a police record and his compliance, we uncuffed him in the interview room and offered a glass of water that he didn’t touch. I stopped in the observation room for a word with Diane before going in to get Patrone’s story.
“He pretty much confessed when we picked him up,” I told her. “He kept saying ‘they’ promised to help the baby if he did what ‘they’ told him to do.”
“Did he say who ‘they’ were?”
I shook my head. “I cut him off before he told his wife more than she needed to know.”
Diane nodded. “Good. It sounds like she has more on her plate than any of us right now.” She studied Patrone through the one-way window. “Will his cooperation compromise the baby’s care?”
“That’s what I intend to find out. If they threaten her, he might clam up. As long as we keep him talking, I think we’ll get what we need to go after the people who pushed Patrone to do this.”
“Good luck,” she murmured. “You may need it.”
Holm and I went in and had seats across the table from the humble-appearing mob secretary. I set a digital recorder on the table and got it going.
“My name is Pete Patrone, and this is my confession.” Patrone took a deep, shuddering breath. “I only ask that you people help make sure my wife and daughter are protected from the tong.”
“We can’t make promises like that,” I told him. “What we’ll do is talk to a few people and do our best. The thing is, we have you dead to rights, so your cooperation is what’ll make a difference. Right now, you’re standing alone for murder and domestic terrorism charges connected to the collapse of Dragon Tide.”
