A Touch of Torment, page 4
part #7 of Nick Bracco Series
“How do you know?”
“Because that blue canopy has been in the shed all week. They just removed it, getting ready to hide their delivery from overhead surveillance. I’m guessing we have less than an hour.”
“These guys aren’t always as dumb as they seem,” Matt said. “Where are these images coming from?”
“The Smartbird 550,” Stevie said. “Our latest bird drone. Right now she’s hovering at three thousand feet. She’s safe. Looks like she’s gliding on a headwind.”
“Incredible.”
The room dimmed momentarily as a low-lying cloud passed overhead and the interior lights automatically compensated for the sudden darkness.
Stevie spoke into his headset. “Kremlin three, put the coffee down. We’re almost ready to roll.”
Nick understood the prompting. Surveillance like this went on for days, even months sometimes, and an agent could be lulled into complacency. They needed to gear up for combat.
“Kremlin?” Matt asked. “Where’d that come from?”
Stevie pointed to a dark-haired woman across the room, wearing a headset and staring at the same image on her monitor. “Abagail,” Stevie said. “She’s the one who spotted the operation, so we allowed her the call names. She studied Russian History at Moscow State.”
“Nice.”
Stevie pulled his headset down around his neck and pressed the speaker button so Nick and Matt could hear the agents in Shreveport.
“They’ll be exiting off of Market, so look for them on Addison,” Stevie instructed.
“We’re on it,” an agent said.
“How long have you been tracking this?” Matt asked.
Stevie looked up at Nick and Matt. “A couple of months. I’ve been waiting for the final delivery so we could reverse engineer this thing back to its source. I didn’t care about the launcher and the cylinders. We need to find the source of the warheads.”
Nick patted Stevie on the shoulder. “Smart.”
Matt moved over to Abigail’s cubicle and introduced himself, leaning over and pointing to her screen as they discussed the situation.
“Really?” Stevie said, watching Matt.
“Leave him alone,” Nick whispered. “He’s in between relationships right now.”
Stevie grinned, then pressed his mouse as the image on the screen zoomed in on the house. Three guys in jeans and jackets came hustling out the front door and began unpacking the canopy and setting up the frame.
“All right, folks,” Stevie said to the Shreveport agents. “This is happening. Let’s start creeping toward the target.”
Nick couldn’t see the agents moving toward the home, but his heartrate began to rise as the operation commenced. Even a thousand miles away, Nick understood the danger those agents were about to face and he never took their sacrifice for granted.
The White Brigade crew was now assembling the canopy on its frame over the driveway to avoid any overhead surveillance. It was becoming a popular theme whenever dealing with the transfer of large material in urban areas. Big Daddy was watching overhead.
As soon as the canopy was upright, the crew milled around on the front yard, lighting cigarettes and checking their phones. The yard was mostly dirt with a few clumps of grass and a lone oak tree covering the middle of the yard.
“You guys almost there?” Stevie said into the microphone.
“Kremlin three, two blocks away.”
“Kremlin two. We’re at the end of the block.”
“Kremlin one. Around the corner.”
“Okay,” Stevie said, hunching over and squinting at the oversized monitor. “Wait for my signal.”
“Stop!” Matt yelled from across the room.
Stevie and Nick both looked at him as Matt scurried over and jabbed a finger at the screen. “You see that?”
A black metallic device could be seen between the branches of the oak tree by the front door. It was long and seemed to have appendages by its side.
“What is it?” Nick asked.
“Oh shit,” Stevie said, just as a fourth guy came out of the house and picked up the metal device. “Get away from there, Kremlins. Everyone move away. Go in the opposite direction. Now.”
“Roger,” came the response from three separate voices.
“They have their own drone,” Matt answered. “They’re going to surveil the vicinity before their delivery arrives.”
Stevie was furiously pounding his keyboard while the guy handling the drone stepped back with the controller and watched the mechanical device take flight.
“You going to disable it?” Nick asked.
“I’m going to do better than that,” Stevie said, moving his mouse over the newly airborne drone. My Smartbird 550 will allow it to fly, but I’m going to jam the visual frequency. Let’s hope those guys will see their drone flying normally and just figure it’s a glitch in their camera.”
On the monitor, a green circle appeared around the White Brigade’s drone, then Stevie clicked his mouse a couple of times and the circle turned red. They all saw the guy holding the controls talking to his crew as the group began to form a semicircle around their tech guy.
“C’mon now,” Stevie whispered to the monitor. “Nothing to be concerned about.”
One of the White Brigaders moved away, waving the back of his hand dismissively and the rest of them followed him back to the driveway.
“Yes.” Stevie gave a short fist pump. “Kremlins one, two, and three, get back into position.”
On the monitor, the drone guy was staring at his handheld screen trying to see something but coming up empty. He shook the device, frustrated by its lack of surveillance. The rest of the White Brigade crew stood next to the driveway anxiously looking down the street.
“Kremlin one, call locals to back up the perimeter,” Stevie said. “I don’t want any neighbors getting hurt.”
Nick stood behind Stevie and watched the operation unfold. On the monitor, a dark blue delivery van pulled up to the driveway, then aimed its nose toward the street and backed into the White Brigade’s driveway, the rear of the van disappearing under the blue canopy.
“Red Dog,” Stevie shouted into the microphone. “Red fucking dog!”
A couple of members of the White Brigade glanced around suspiciously at a noise. Maybe several noises. Before anything showed up on the monitor, the crew began to scatter. One pulled out a pistol as he ran and ten steps into his journey, he was down.
At the bottom of the screen a large gray panel truck came into view. Five FBI SWAT officers rushed out of the truck with dark green fatigues, helmets, and assault rifles, and the experience to know exactly how to handle this type of high-risk event. They had Stevie’s drone camera displaying images inside of their truck, so they knew exactly where to go.
One of the SWAT teams would be in the backyard to capture any stray White Brigaders trying to escape. The third team was already covering the perimeter. Within ninety seconds of their arrival, the operation was over. A handful of bodies lay on the ground and a few other White Brigaders stood with their arms straight up in the air.
“This is Kremlin one,” a voice said over the speaker. “Operation is complete.”
A loud cheer erupted throughout the basement, high fives, and fist bumps. Another successful mission.
Nick ruffled Stevie’s hair.
“The way it’s supposed to be,” Stevie said with a big smile.
Chapter 6
Walt Jackson sat on the front of his desk and watched the operation on his wall monitor as the FBI’s SWAT team swarmed the White Brigade crew. Walt was the Special Agent in Charge of the Baltimore Field Office and a proud black man who watched with great satisfaction as the group of white supremacists rolled on the ground. Not so much because of their innate bigotry as much as the fact that he was the head of the domestic terrorism division and this mission was months of hard work realized.
Walt’s size alone would normally intimidate agents who entered his office. There was a noticeable formality to their posture. Back straight. Head up. Legs uncrossed. It was out of respect for Walt’s stature as well as his unrelenting support for his team. This formality, however, did not pertain to Nick Bracco or Matt McColm. They were constant occupants in Walt’s office and had earned their privileges over the years. So when Nick barged in with Matt in tow, he gave Walt a fist bump before he went over to the mini-fridge and pulled out two bottles of water and tossed one to his partner.
“Stevie did a great job,” Walt said, still watching the arrests on his monitor.
“He always does,” Matt said, pulling out darts from the dartboard on the back of Walt’s office.
“Except for Fresno,” Nick said with a grin.
“Ah, you blow up one vacant school and right away you’re a screwup,” Matt added, tossing a dart at the board with his back to Nick and Walt.
Walt sighed, then walked around his desk and twisted his blinds shut to the bulletproof window overlooking the employee parking lot. He sat down in his black leather chair and crossed his legs. “Okay, so let’s talk about what happened in Arizona.”
Nick sat in a chair across from Walt’s desk while Matt threw one last dart and stood behind Nick with his hands in his pocket.
“I can handle it,” Nick said. “I’ll need a little help from the Phoenix branch.”
“So where is Tommy in all of this?”
Nick glanced up at Matt, then seemed to come to a decision. “He’s on a plane to Phoenix right now.”
“With Cara?”
“He needs to be at the funerals.”
“With Cara?”
“What are you getting at?”
Walt shrugged. “I just want the lay of the land. How much of Tommy’s visit is due to respect and how much is due to revenge?”
“I’d say half and half,” Matt answered for his partner.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Listen,” Nick said, “Tommy has always been an asset. You know that. Since when is he a problem?”
Walt leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “I know how this works. You tell me what you need, then I stop asking questions for deniability. The difference this time is there are dead Sicilians in Arizona, so this is personal for Tommy.”
“Yeah, well, it’s kind of personal for me too,” Nick said. “I knew Sal.”
Walt looked up at Matt.
“What?” Matt asked.
“This isn’t just another operation,” Walt said. “There’s a lot of emotion involved.”
Nick made a face. “Walt, the Chechens just slaughtered the Perrino family. Of course there’s emotion involved.”
Walt clasped his hands together. “Guys, we need to do this right. I don’t want any reports leaking out that we were using vigilante tactics. If Tommy gets involved, he’ll be on his own. I can’t cover for him with his Sicilian ties.”
“Is this coming from you?’ Matt asked. “Or Louis?”
Walt didn’t respond, so they knew it was the FBI Director making the call.
“Okay then.” Nick said. “What about Stevie? Can we take him with us?”
Walt kept still and looked down at his immaculate desktop.
“Crap,” Matt said.
Walt’s demeanor softened. “Look, we can’t have Stevie on a manifest to Phoenix, but that doesn’t mean he can’t help you remotely.”
Nick sighed. “We’ll take what we can get.”
“Now, the Phoenix office is working the scene, but nothing has linked anything to the Chechens.”
“Of course not,” Matt said.
“So we’ll need to have a deft touch down there,” Walt said. “Work with the Phoenix team.”
“We live ninety minutes from the Phoenix branch. We’re in there twice a month.” Nick cocked his head. “What’s going on? Why are you acting like this?”
Walt looked down at his desk once again. “I’m afraid I’ve taken a few hits over the years trying to protect . . . the way we’ve done business in the past. The brass isn’t so happy with me and our methods.”
“You mean using Tommy?” Matt asked.
Walt nodded.
“You know he saved the president’s life down in Columbia, right?”
Walt looked up with a solemn expression. “Yeah, well, this will never get above Louis’s head. With all these blogs and podcasts, everyone’s a journalist now. If it was known the president supported these methods, it’ll threaten his administration.”
Nick tapped his knee a couple of times, then stood up and paced. “Okay, so Matt and I operate alone. We leave the investigating to the Phoenix office and we stay covert.”
Walt spread his hands on the shiny surface of his desk as if cleaning up any past indiscretions. “There’s something else you should know.”
“Yeah?”
“The Chechens finance company, Entertainment Resources, uses a cryptocurrency called Timeless. It’s a closed system, so even Stevie can’t track its movement. We were told there’s been a large deposit made within the past week. Around $20 million worth.”
“So?”
“So we can’t trust anyone. In the digital age, these guys appear powerful.”
“All the more reason for us to stay covert.”
Walt kept nodding. “That would be good.”
Nick headed toward the door and Matt followed. “We’ve got your back, Walt.”
“What are you going to do over there?” Walt said.
Just before the door shut behind him, Nick said, “I’m going to make a bad situation better.”
Chapter 7
Tapo Pashkov rode the elevator to the top floor by himself. It was the twelfth floor of the downtown Phoenix office building that housed Entertainment Resources. Floors ten and eleven were occupied by the customer service employees surrounded by cubicles with laptops and headsets, taking orders for new credit cards and solving problems. The top floor, however, was strictly for top-level employees. And somehow Pashkov had worked his way up the ladder to actually confer with the boss, Khasi Zelman, CEO of Entertainment Resources.
Pashkov saw his reflection in the shiny steel doors and couldn’t believe what he was seeing in return. He looked like an investment banker with his gray suit, greasy black hair and finely trimmed beard. It was the image he was trying to portray, but he had a hard time growing accustomed to the look. Just three years earlier he was digging graves in the Chechen suburbs for the equivalent of ten dollars a grave. He would read the obituaries each morning, anxious to see how much money he would make that week. Now he was actually going to the top floor to discuss strategies with Mr. Zelman.
Pashkov’s aunt was Khasi Zelman’s ex-lover. Someone who Zelman wanted to accompany him to America almost a decade ago. But Pashkov’s aunt was too attached to her homeland and couldn’t imagine leaving her family behind. When Zelman sent word to his aunt that he was looking for hard-working Chechens to help with his business in Phoenix, Pashkov jumped at the chance to move to America.
At first, he was doing mundane jobs like picking up clients from the airport, or walking the boss’s dog, but soon he’d learned the art of intimidating soft American businessmen with their manicured nails and conditioned hair. Eventually, Pashkov graduated to extortion, where he became known as the Enforcer. His low forehead and thick eyebrows left him with a permanent glare. Even when he was happy, he seemed intense. His co-workers would joke that when Pashkov came home, even the fish looked busy.
He stepped out of the elevator and walked to the reception desk, where a thin brunette smiled from behind a high counter.
“How can I help you, Mr. Pashkov?”
“Mr. Zelman asked to see me.”
The woman glanced at the computer screen. “Yes, I see.” She pointed to a row of black leather chairs against the wall. “Have a seat and I’ll let Mr. Zelman know you’re here.”
Pashkov sat down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. The reception area was a long narrow strip of glossy floors with modern circular lights hanging on thin wires from the tall ceiling. There was a large fern on each side of the reception desk and big neon letters spelling out ‘Entertainment Resources’ on the wall behind the receptionist.
Pashkov wondered about the meeting. Normally Zelman had handlers who worked out of the off-site campus where all the criminals hung out. All the hardcore Chechens who did the dirty work. But Zelman rarely showed up there. He always maintained a professional persona which kept law enforcement at bay. With a team of lawyers on retainer, Zelman had played the game perfectly.
“He will see you now,” she said.
“Thank you, Gillian.” Pashkov then instantly hoped that was her name. He’d only been to the main office a couple of times.
He turned the knob on the giant wooden door, but nothing happened, until it buzzed when the receptionist pushed a hidden button to access the boss’s domain. And that’s what it was. A domain.
A massive room filled with live plants, avant garde lights, and all forms of entertainment paraphernalia. A pool table, ping pong table, and multiple large screen TVs hanging from the walls. There was a jukebox and a poker table and three slot machines. Pashkov had never been to Las Vegas, but he imagined this is what it looked like. And this was just the lobby.
A large, bearded man stood in the corner of the room with thick arms hanging by his side. He gestured to an open door and said, “He’s waiting for you.”
Music emanated from the open door. As Pashkov approached the office, the large man extended his hand and gave Pashkov a friendly expression.
The man’s name was Ropa. That sounded right, Pashkov thought. The Russian word for mountain. He shook the beast’s hand and entered the boss’s office.
Once inside, he found the chubby, bald guy sitting back in his chair, feet up on the desk. Zelman had his eyes closed and listened to the music with a smile in his face. It sounded more like a jumble of sounds than actual music. Pashkov was raised on traditional Chechen folk songs with an accordion and a bouncy beat and the familiar sound of a phondar, which consisted of three strings in a wood casing. This, however, was not bouncy or bright or even mildly entertaining.
