Silver Justice

by Russell Blake

  After what seemed like an hour, Hank hesitantly approached. She heard her voice, sounding distant and eerily foreign.

  “Stay back. Do not approach. Hank. Stay back. Stay where you are!”

  Her eyes instinctively roamed over the other vehicles, searching for any additional threat. It appeared that it was just Hank in the immediate vicinity. She rose unsteadily to her feet, gun clenched in front of her with both hands as she’d been taught, muzzle still locked on the inert attacker. Hank had frozen twenty yards from the carnage, eyes glued to the spectacle.

  She took several cautious steps towards the body, and after detecting no danger, closed the distance, kicking the assailant’s pistol five feet further from his outstretched hand. He wasn’t moving, so she sidled behind him, and she saw three exit wounds in his back. A small voice in her head noted that it was a nice grouping considering the circumstances — rolling through glass while trying for an erratically moving target with no real time to aim.

  The pain from where she’d been hit flared into her consciousness. She lowered her pistol, changing from a two-handed grip to single so she could probe her injury. Her left hand came away shining with bright red blood, which she wiped on her jacket before reaching for her phone. She thumbed the speed dial and got Seth on the third ring.

  “Seth. I’m in the garage by the office. Shots fired. I’ve been hit. I got the shooter — he’s down, but I need backup and an ambulance.” Silver was surprised how calm her voice sounded, still as if from a distance due to the gunfire-induced tinnitus.

  “How badly are you hurt?” Seth asked.

  “I’ll live. But get me some backup and an EMT. I’m bleeding and don’t know how long I’ll be conscious…”

  “Done. I’ll call right back. Keep the line open once you answer.” Seth hung up.

  She registered the wail of distant sirens competing with the ringing in her ears.

  A wave of dizziness washed over her, and then her knees gave out, and she slumped against a nearby car, Glock still pointed at the man’s bulk, her hand clutching the telephone as she sank to the floor. She laid the handset on the ground, pulled out her badge and slipped the nylon cord that dangled from it over her head, smearing blood on her face in the process.

  When the first squad cars arrived, followed by a group of FBI at a run from the building, they found her still alert, weapon steadily pointed at the shooter’s corpse, sitting in a small puddle of her own blood and looking like she’d fought her way through hell.

  It took three tries to get her to lower her weapon.

  She blacked out a few seconds later.

  Chapter 11

  The bouncing movement that woke Silver made her wonder if she was being tossed in the air by a group holding a blanket. She squinted open her eyes to find a concerned male face staring down at her. There was a mask over her nose and mouth. She raised her hand, and the man gently pushed it back to her side.

  “You’re on your way to the hospital. In an ambulance. Don’t take the mask off until someone does it for you.” He winked. “Insurance rules.”

  Silver shook her head. “But I feel better. I don’t need help breathing. I got shot in the ass, not the throat.”

  “You lost a lot of blood and have been through a very difficult ordeal. Just play along, and it won’t be my problem in another five minutes. We’re almost there.” He gave her a friendly look. “You don’t want me to get fired, do you?”

  “What a con artist. I know it’s harder to fire you than it is a congressman. Who are you kidding?”

  The ambulance swung right, and they bounced a few more times before pulling up outside the emergency room entrance.

  “Weeeee’re Heeeeeere,” the paramedic announced as he ceremoniously swung the rear doors open.

  Silver was on a gurney with a small oxygen tank mounted on one side and an IV bag on the other. Quite a fanfare for a grazed butt, she thought, but the fight had gone out of her. The gurney was hauled from the back of the ambulance, and then she was being rolled through the doors to the emergency room, where she was clearly a high-priority patient. Within seconds she was in the rear of the ward with a curtain pulled around her, and a concerned, tired-looking doctor who looked like he was all of twenty-seven took her vitals as they shifted her to a hospital bed outside of one of the staging rooms that led to the operating rooms.

  The doctor narrowed his bloodshot eyes. “Gunshot. She’s an FBI agent. Let’s keep the line going and get a look at the wound,” he barked at the two nurses on either side.

  “I got hit in the butt. It’s not the end of the world. Hurts, though…”

  “I’ll bet it does. Let’s get these pants cut off, and we’ll give you something for the pain.”

  “Do you have to cut them? Really? Can’t I just take them off?”

  “Lady, you’ve been shot. Don’t worry about the outfit, okay? Just let me peek at what we have and assess the damage.”

  Silver acceded and shifted over onto her side. “Can you take the mask off me?”

  The doctor nodded at one of the nurses, and she removed it.

  “That’s better. Thank you.”

  Another pair of hands efficiently cut away her pants and panties, while a third pulled off her jacket and put it into a plastic bag. Soon, she was in a gown, her modesty a non-issue to the medical staff who saw naked women and gunshot wounds on a regular basis.

  “You’ve been lucky,” the doctor said. “It looks like the bullet creased the top of your buttock but missed the lion’s share of the muscle. Still, you lost a lot of blood.”

  “I told you it was no big deal.”

  “I didn’t say that. You’ve been shot. What I need to do is clean the wound and stitch you up. I’ll put you out, and within no time you’ll be running marathons.”

  “No. Just use a local. I have work I need to do today.”

  “It’s your call, but I’d go for the general if I were you.”

  “You’re not me.”

  “How’s your pain tolerance?” he asked.

  “I gave birth to an eight-and-a-half-pound daughter. Have you?”

  “Fair point.”

  The doctor swung around to the staff. “Get her into OR number three, and I’ll be in shortly. Prep her.”

  He turned back to Silver and offered a fatigued smile. “This will probably leave a scar. Maybe not much, but it will be there.”

  “There goes my pole-dancing gig. Although maybe I can get some sympathy cash for it?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. Maybe I’ll get a marijuana leaf tattoo to cover it up.”

  He regarded her.

  “I’ll see you in about ten minutes,” he said and moved to the foot of the bed. “I charge extra for the tattoo. The nurse will bring you a book of designs. I like the Kanji script ones for this type of scar. Says something like ‘I wonder what the hell this says’ in Japanese.”

  Silver sighed.

  She was in good hands, even if he did look like he should be in class somewhere instead of working in a hospital.

  Once the short procedure was over, Silver was wheeled to a private room.

  Within half an hour Seth, Richard and Brett appeared.

  “I’m going to need some new clothes. They cut mine to pieces,” she grumbled by way of greeting.

  Seth nodded. “Monique can pick up whatever you need. What are you thinking?”

  “A pair of pants, and some, er…underwear. She knows about how big I am.”

  “Size…four?” Seth guessed.

  “Nice try. Given where the bullet hit, let’s go for more like a size ten to twelve. Little more room. You can tell her the problem, and she’ll figure it out.”

  “I’ll sign off on the expense report,” Brett said. “Definitely line of duty.”

  Seth moved to the window and made a hurried call to Monique, then gave Silver the thumbs-up sign.

  “It was nice of everyone to come down, but I’m afraid it’s anti-climactic. It wa
s really just a scratch. That’s why I want some clothes — so I can get the hell out of here.”

  Brett and Seth exchanged glances.

  “You should probably rest, Silver,” Seth advised her. “We’ve got it handled. The latest victim is still dead. The scene is being processed. Not a lot for you to do.”

  “Guys. Please. A bullet grazed me. It was nothing. I could have put a few Band-Aids on it, and it would have been fine.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” Richard said. “A lot of your blood was left pooled on the garage floor, from what I could see — I stopped there on the way over.”

  “Right. Which was replaced by the IV fluids and the frigging orange juice they’ve had me drinking like it’s holy water. It’s been three hours. I got a scratch. On the battlefield, I’d be back shooting by now. Give me a break.”

  The door opened, and the doctor entered holding a chart. He looked at the small group assembled in the room and then focused on her.

  “You’ll be good as new in a little while.”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell them. Now let me out of here.”

  The doctor shook his head. “Not quite so fast, I’m afraid. We still need to keep you for a few more hours before I can let you go. Purely routine. Once you’re discharged, try to take it easy for a few days. People process shock in different ways, and you just underwent a trauma.”

  “A few more hours? You’re kidding me.”

  “Just doing my job. That’s all I have for you. The nurse will be in shortly to take you off the drip, and then you’ll need to sign a stack of forms — that should burn through the time and keep you occupied.”

  “Thanks a lot…”

  “Look at the bright side. No charge for the tattoo. My treat.”

  The three men stood silently as the doctor left the room.

  “What? It’s an inside joke,” Silver said, enjoying the expressions on their faces.

  Brett cleared his throat. “You’ll need to do a psych evaluation first thing in the morning, Silver. All part of the drill following a shooting, as you know.”

  “I hear voices.”

  “Then you should have no problem,” Brett assured her.

  “Since I can’t go to the scene, what do we know about the shooter? Who was he? Any info?”

  Seth shifted uneasily. “Name was Leonid Sudenokov. Thirty-six years old. A driver for a meat wholesaler — at least that’s what his work papers claim. Based on the extensive body art and a few older wounds, we can safely assume he was Russian mafia. Likely ex-military. A few of the tattoos were consistent with their special forces group — spetsnaz. As you might have surmised, he was dead on arrival.”

  “The wrong end of a Glock will do that for you,” Brett observed.

  “I don’t get it. Why would the Russian mob be trying to take me out?” Silver asked, and then her face changed. “Oh my God. Andy. My old partner in Organized Crime was shot to death…”

  “It was all over the news,” Brett said, “but there’s no way of knowing for sure whether these cases are connected, although I’ll admit the timing is awfully coincidental.”

  “What about the shooter’s cell phone? Anything?”

  Seth shook his head. “It was a burner cell, so nothing there. But he wasn’t planning on dying today — he had his wallet with him, all his ID and credit cards, and six hundred dollars cash.” He paused for a moment. “We’re already putting out feelers in the underworld. Don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “I’m just going through the cases I worked,” Silver said. “There were three involving the Russian mob, but one never went anywhere, and in the other two I wasn’t a major player. Just part of the team. So no reason to single me out.”

  “We’ll know more over the next few days,” Brett said, “but I’ve asked for NYPD help. I want stepped-up security, including the garage. We had the bomb squad go over your car, by the way, and it wasn’t touched. Still, I’m going to assign a different vehicle until we have more information. And I’ve requested some uniforms at your building for a few days when you’re coming and going, just to be safe.”

  “Great. On top of everything else, now the mob is gunning for me?”

  Nobody had much to say to that.

  “Well, I’ll let you get on with it,” Brett said. “I just wanted to see how you were and let you know that we’re a hundred percent behind you, Silver.” He moved to the door. “Don’t push yourself. That’s an order. Oh, and we have your service piece. Need to process it. Again, procedure. You have another weapon?”

  “Yup. Another Glock.”

  Richard eyed her.

  “What? They’re like dogs. Keep each other company.”

  Brett almost smiled. “All right. I’ll see you at the office tomorrow for the evaluation. I’ve got to issue a statement to the media today, but I’m going to be deliberately vague. Just that there was a shooting, with one casualty. No names, no details. I think we can get away with that for a while.”

  Brett left, and Seth and Richard fidgeted.

  “Pull up chairs. I want to know everything about the latest victim.”

  They did as instructed, and Seth took her through what they knew on the latest killing.

  “Another one with an SEC settlement,” Richard revealed. “Seven years ago. His brokerage was sanctioned for improperly segregating client accounts. Looks like they were co-mingling margin and cash accounts, which is a big no-no.”

  Silver cocked her head at him.

  “Okay. Put simply: with margin accounts, the broker is allowed to lend out any shares in them and collect a fee even though they aren’t his property. It’s a nice loophole so brokers can make money off assets that aren’t theirs.”

  Seth frowned. “I don’t understand. They can take their clients’ stock, lend it, make money off it, and they’re allowed to? Isn’t that the clients’ property? What other business operates like that?”

  “Yes. It’s in the fine print of every agreement in the industry. That’s one of the reasons all the discount brokers will execute a trade for next to nothing. The industry gave up making money off commissions a long time ago. Now, they want your account because if it’s a margin account, which most are, they can lend your shares out and collect fat loan fees, and not tell you.”

  “But who do they lend to?” Silver asked. “Who wants to borrow shares?”

  “Short sellers. The irony is that you own the shares of a company because you’re hoping the share price goes up, while your broker is lending your shares to short sellers who are trying to drive the price down.” Richard noticed the look on Silver’s face.

  “And that’s legal?” Seth demanded.

  “It is. But anyway, with cash accounts you aren’t allowed to do that. There’s supposed to be a wall between the margin accounts and the cash accounts. The theory that allows them to lend from margin accounts is that they’ve extended you credit and the shares are therefore their asset, to collateralize the credit. But with cash accounts, you own the assets and there is no credit, so they have no claim on your property. They’re just acting as custodians, holding your shares as a courtesy so you can trade more easily. Apparently our victim was playing fast and loose with the cash accounts too. Or at least that’s what the SEC contended. He settled with them, without admitting or denying guilt, of course.”

  “What is that now?” Silver remarked. “Three out of five victims with SEC actions?”

  “Yes, but for our purposes, that’s two out of five without. In terms of predictive value, I’m not sure it will help us figure out who will be next.”

  “Great.”

  “I know. It’s just information.”

  Seth’s face was a picture of indignation. “Didn’t I read somewhere about the ex-governor or someone doing exactly what you described with over a billion dollars of his brokerage’s money? The firm went BK and the money’s gone?”

  “That’s the general idea. But nobody has been prosecuted.”r />
  “You take over a billion dollars of someone else’s money, it’s gone, and nobody gets charged?”

  “Welcome to Wall Street.”

  They considered the ramifications in silence for a few seconds before Silver asked, “Does the latest victim have any connection to any of the other victims, Richard?”

  “We’re still digging, but it looks like there’s a link with the second and third victims — the hedge fund. This was one of the brokers that they used to process their trades.”

  “One?”

  “Hedge funds will often have a variety of brokers. Usually one prime broker — their main broker — but larger funds will have more than one prime broker, as well as secondary brokers. Depends on the fund and their trading strategy. In that hedge fund’s case it was largely short selling, or what they call short-biased.”

  “Meaning they made their money by stocks going down?” Seth tried.

  “You’re getting the hang of this. It’s more complicated than that, but yes, that’s essentially it. But there’s an even more ominous connection I’m still trying to get to the bottom of.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It looks like the latest victim could have been associated with some of the funds that come up when you look hard at the software guy’s partner. This broker handled several of the larger suspect investment funds that have been targeted for scrutiny because of terrorist ties.”

  “Really,” Silver said.

  “While it’s too soon to get all excited, my cronies back in Financial Crimes also flagged the broker as being rumored to be mob-connected. I’m trying to get more information on why that is, but if it’s correct, we have mob and terrorist money moving through him. I’m going to run all the brokers he has working for him to see if any of them have been sanctioned elsewhere. When you look at the mob on Wall Street, many of the same names keep popping up again and again. So it’s worth a check. I might get lucky. You never know.”