Undercover Connection, page 16
Jasmine’s gun was in her purse, but she couldn’t reach for it then. So was her phone. She believed that the man would slit Helen’s throat.
As she slid into the car, she kept her bag clutched tightly in her hands.
* * *
FROM THE OUTSIDE, it looked like any other house. It sat off 122nd Avenue and Southwest Eighth Street—the Tamiami Trail there and farther west—or Calle Ocho when you headed way back east toward downtown Miami.
Built in the 1970s, it was a ranch-style home like many of the others surrounding them. It had a large lot, but so did several other houses in the area. This house, however, had a little gazebo out front, covered with vines—a fine place for an agent to keep guard—and a large garage and a few storage sheds out back.
The living room was like any other living room. It had a sofa and some plush chairs and a stereo system and a large-screen TV. The windows were all barred—but then, so were many of the other houses in the area, a deterrent to would-be burglars.
Just like so many other houses, there were signs on the fence that warned Beware of Dogs, and the dogs were the kind for which people should be wary. Signs also warned about the house being protected by a local security company, one used by many of the other residents of the area.
There was a kitchen, usually well stocked. There was a well-appointed gym, but then again, other people had home gyms. A dining room sat between the living room and the kitchen. The house boasted four bedrooms.
One of those bedrooms had no bed.
It had a table and chairs, and it was where guests were often required to engage in conversation with those who had brought them here.
Kozak sat in one chair. Jacob sat in another. Also at the table was Dean Jenkins—the man Josef Smirnoff had first approached in fear for his life.
One other man had joined them, Carl Merrill, a prosecutor from the United States Office of the Attorney General.
“As I told Jacob—before I realized how determined my would-be murderer was—I have never killed anyone,” Kozak said.
“Your actions have resulted in the deaths of many,” Merrill said.
“I can give you so much,” Kozak told him. “But I must have a deal. I must.”
“What is that you think you can give me? We’ve got you, head of an organized crime gang, and enough evidence of your activities to prosecute,” Merrill asked.
“Names. I can give you the names of men who look squeaky-clean, who are working with the cartels out of South America. There are bigger fish than me in Miami.”
“Victor,” Jacob said, “you can’t even give us the name of the man who wants you dead, who wants to take over the Deco Gang. Let’s see—he’s been working for you. And we know he forced a lethal dose of cocaine into a young woman who was a model for you. And he’s likely responsible for at least three corpses in oil drums in Broward County and three headless corpses in the Everglades.”
Kozak spun on him. “I don’t kill. And I don’t order executions!” he said angrily. “If I knew, could a murderer have come so close, would I have been about to drink poison?”
“Deals have yet to be made, Victor. We need help now. Who locked the door to the balcony on the day that Josef Smirnoff was killed?” Jacob asked.
“Josef.” Kozak sighed. “I can’t go to a federal prison...not in the general population. We had reputations. There are too many men who might think me guilty of crimes I did not commit. A man in my position does not deny violent acts to others of his kind. A reputation is everything. I let mine grow as it would.”
Jenkins leaned forward. “Victor, let’s start here. Did you know that Smirnoff contacted me?”
“No, I did not.”
“Had he been acting nervous in any way?”
Kozak appeared to think about that and slowly shook his head. His voice was husky when he spoke. “If he was afraid, he would not have shown it anyway.”
“Do you believe he suspected you?” Jacob asked.
“If so, he shouldn’t have.”
“Was he sleeping with Natasha—were they a real couple?”
Kozak hesitated on that one. “Yes, she was...strong. And good.”
“So, you inherited Natasha along with the leadership,” Jacob said. “She had the key to the balcony yesterday.”
“There is only one key. She had it because I would not be present.”
“Do you think it is Natasha who might be trying to kill you? Would she be hard enough to have one of her girls killed—and to order the execution of those men?”
Kozak smiled. “Natasha, she is a woman. But in business...this business? Natasha serves,” he said softly.
Jacob had to wonder at that.
But Kozak was convinced of the truth of his words. He shook his head. “I don’t know, I really don’t know. As they say, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. I have kept my people close. I don’t know how they can be hiring these killers, desperate people.”
There was a knock at the door. The agent who was the house’s “owner” stepped in. “Special Agent Wolff, a word.”
“Now?”
“Yes, sir. Now.”
Jacob politely excused himself. Outside the room, he realized the agent was anxious.
“It’s a call from Captain Lorenzo, sir, MDPD. Our men on the beach were following a car out of the club, but they lost them on the causeway. I—”
He stopped talking and handed Jacob the phone.
The man on the line quickly, tersely, identified himself as Captain Mac Lorenzo.
“I don’t know how she did it, but Jasmine managed to contact this number and leave her phone on. She’s in a car—they’re headed west somewhere. Jorge is driving, Jasmine is in the front. There’s a man in back, and from what I can hear, he’s taking them somewhere. It sounds as if they’re headed for an execution. We’ve got men on it, but they keep losing them. I’ve already asked the Feds to hop on it as quickly as possible, but you were close to that group. I’m hoping you might know where they’re being taken.”
Jacob froze for a split second; he felt as if the life had been stripped out of him.
“I need the exact location those headless bodies were found,” Jacob said. “Speak fast, I’m already moving. And keep the others back. If the killer feels cornered, he’ll kill whoever he has close out of spite. Get me backup, but keep the backup back.”
Lorenzo kept talking. Before he finished another sentence, Jacob was in a car and heading west down the Tamiami Trail.
* * *
“NOT SO SLOW that the police notice us. There’s no need to risk another of the city’s finest.”
Hearing the voice of the man in the back, Jorge cast a quick glance toward Jasmine. His eyes were filled with agony. She knew how he felt.
A quick look in back assured her there was already a fine line of blood creating a jagged necklace along Helen Lee’s throat.
Jasmine and Jorge would both fight, play for time, for the life of another, as long as they were both still breathing.
There was no way to let him know she’d gotten her hand into her purse, and that she was pretty sure she’d hit the number one; a priority call that would hit the phone Lorenzo had just for communication with her.
But would Lorenzo know where they were going? How could he know when she didn’t know?
West. They were headed west. Jorge was driving as slowly as he could reasonably manage without drawing the man’s ire or suspicion. He was in no rush to bring them to their destination. They were off the beach now, across the causeway on a long, long drive that seemed to be taking them out to the Everglades.
It was a land a few of the hardiest knew well, where airboat rides could be found, where the Miccosukee kept a restaurant and reservation lands, where visitors could find out about their lives and their pasts.
A place where, no matter how many hearty souls worked and even lived, there were acres upon acres that was nothing but wetland, part of the great “river of grass,” filled with water moccasins and alligators, even pythons and boas.
“To the Everglades,” she said aloud, as they whipped past the Miccosukee casino.
She turned around and stared at Ivan Petrov.
“You want to kill Jorge and me. Why?”
He eyed her coldly and then smiled. “I don’t believe that Kozak is dead. He’s the one who brought Marensky in. You did something with his drink. Marensky called the ambulance, and now...now they do not report that Kozak is dead.”
“Whatever your argument with me, why Helen?” she asked.
His smiled deepened. “She happened to be there,” he said.
Ivan Petrov. They should have figured; they had looked at Kozak, at Natasha, at the goons... They would have gotten to Ivan. He was never off the list.
“I need some guarantee you’re going to keep Helen alive,” Jasmine said. “Then Jorge and I will do as you ask.”
“You are with the government,” Petrov said.
“I swear to you, I am not an FBI agent. Neither is Jorge.”
“Then you are trying to take the lead, playing up to Kozak. Well, they have cold feet. The enterprise will never be what it should be under Kozak. He is a weakling—he doesn’t know how to remove what festers among us. Drive, Jorge. And turn around, Miss Jasmine.”
The casino was behind them. Minutes were counting down. They were coming up to Shark Valley when Petrov told Jorge to slow the car down.
He couldn’t be going to Shark Valley! There were trails and bike paths, tourists and rangers all about. Unless he meant to kill anyone in his way.
They didn’t turn into Shark Valley. They passed the entrance, and the Miccosukee restaurant to the right on the road.
Then suddenly, Kozak said, “Here.”
Here? She knew of no road here...
“Now!” Petrov commanded.
Helen let out a scream as the knife pierced her flesh.
Jorge turned.
* * *
JACOB WAS MET by Mickey Cypress of the Miccosukee Police. The man was in his early forties, lean, bronze and no-nonsense. He’d been waiting for Jacob right outside the entrance to Shark Valley.
“You don’t want to go exactly where the bodies were found,” he told Jacob. “The Everglades is literally a river, and the bodies were carried until they were snagged by the mangrove roots.” He had a map out on his phone and he pointed to a spot that seemed to be just beyond a canal where they stood.
Jacob glanced at the map. Suddenly, two giant male alligators went into some kind of a battle in the canal.
“Leave them alone, completely alone,” Cypress told him. “There’s a marshy trail we can take through here, and a small hammock. That’s where I think we’ll find their killing grounds. There was no road there before, but some fairly solid ground. I think they created their own way.”
Cars drove up next to them. Men in suits got out—the backup.
Cypress looked at him. They were probably good agents; they just didn’t look ready for a trek into the water and marshy land.
“Special Agent Wolff!” one of them called.
Jacob looked at Cypress.
“I’m with you,” Cypress said. “Um, if you’re trying for stealth...”
Jacob nodded and headed back to the agent calling to him. He asked him to hold their position and keep a line of contact open. He walked back to Cypress.
The local cop told him, “Trust me, I know how to get there. I was the first on call when the bodies were found. I’ve been on this.”
“I trust you,” Jacob assured him. “We need to hurry. I got after them right away, but they still had a head start.”
“Then we move.”
Cypress started over a small land bridge, just feet from the male alligators defending their turf. Water came cascading over them from a massive flip of a tail.
They kept walking.
* * *
IVAN PETROV HAD his knife—and a gun on his belt. He kept the knife at Helen’s throat.
Jasmine clung to her purse.
“Drop it!” Petrov commanded. His knife moved ever so slightly.
Helen gulped out a cry. Tears were streaming down her face—silent tears. She tried not to sob and stared at Jasmine—any movement would cause a great chafe of the knife against her throat. Her eyes were both imploring and hopeless.
“Go!” Petrov commanded. Jorge walked ahead; Jasmine behind him. He sheathed the knife and drew his gun.
“I don’t understand, Ivan. Who were the people in the oil drums?” Jasmine asked.
“Well, I will tell you,” Petrov said. “The first, his name was Terry Meyers. He thought he should manage the club—and the women. That was long ago, when Smirnoff had barely begun to settle into South Florida. Smirnoff was, in fact, surprised when Meyers failed to arrive for a meeting. The second, well, he failed to show with a payment. He made me look bad. You can’t deal with people who don’t deliver on goods or who don’t make their payments. It’s bad for business if you don’t follow through. Same deal for the third loser.”
“The three who weren’t in the drums,” she said. “They were the ones who killed Josef.”
“Yes, actually, they were very good. I was sorry to see them go. But you see, they couldn’t live. If they had been apprehended, well... I did hire them personally.”
“You admired them so much, you beheaded them,” Jasmine murmured.
Jorge glanced back at her; she was doing the right thing, keeping him talking. There were two of them. They could survive this. They had to get Helen in a safe position, and then they could rush Petrov—he couldn’t shoot them both at the same time.
But they had to get Helen away from him first.
Jorge suddenly stopped, letting out a shout.
“Move!” Petrov commanded.
“There’s a gator ahead in the path,” Jorge said, falling back by Jasmine.
“That’s fine,” Petrov said, dragging Helen around and waving his gun at the small gator on the trail. “We’re almost there.” He fired the gun toward the gator. The creature moved off into the surrounding bracken.
There was some kind of a structure there, a broken-down shack, a remnant, Jasmine thought, from the time when various Florida hunters had come out and kept little camps.
It was now or never—Petrov had just fired the gun, he was looking away, he was holding Helen, but the gun wasn’t directly at her throat.
Jasmine didn’t let out a sound; she made a silent leap for the man.
She bore him down to the ground. Helen slipped free, screaming hysterically. She began to run back in the direction from which they had come, screaming all the while.
Petrov’s gun hand was flailing; in a second, the barrel would be aiming at Jasmine’s face.
But Jorge was there, stomping on the man’s wrist, kicking at the gun. It went flying into a gator hole, filled high with water.
But Petrov wasn’t going down easily. He caught Jasmine and flipped her down to the muddy earth.
Jorge kicked his head.
Petrov had the knife on his belt now; Jasmine went for it. Seizing it from Petrov, she sliced his hand. He cried out as blood gushed.
And then, a gunshot fired. They all went still.
The knife still tightly in her grip, Jasmine turned to the sound.
Standing casually now before the rotting wood of the old shack was Natasha. She shook her head.
“Men. They are worthless, eh? They continually think they are in charge, and they have no idea. Ivan! A silly girl and these two. You have a gun, you have a knife, and they best you. What would you have done without me, Ivan?”
She shook her head again at Ivan, but then smiled at Jasmine. “Yes, you are one who knows how to manipulate a man, eh? It’s the only way, until you have seized the position of real power. And then they will bow down before you, and they will become your toys, and you will command them. It’s a pity you must die. It will be hard for me... Oh, maybe not so hard, because now Ivan and I will have to crawl through this wretched swamp looking for that silly Helen. If she doesn’t kill herself first. Maybe it will not be so hard. I will kill your friend first, so you can watch him die, and he will not have to watch you die? How is that?”
“I should have known you were the one with ice-cold blood running in your veins—right from the beginning,” Jasmine said.
Natasha shrugged. “Me? I am not so much the killer. I like others to do the killing.”
“And then you kill the killers.”
Natasha smiled. “Ivan killed the killers. I simply cut off their hands and their heads...and fed them to the swamp. Enough talk.” She took aim.
But Natasha couldn’t have known what hit her.
He came from behind. His arm came down on hers and Natasha screamed with shock and pain as she lost her grip on the gun, as she was tackled to the ground.
Jasmine stared.
Jacob was there. Impossibly, Jacob was there. He’d slipped around silently from behind the hut, and he was now reading Natasha her rights and handcuffing her, heedless of the fact that he was on her back and pressing her face into the mud.
He looked at Jasmine, his recitation breaking. He nodded toward Petrov, who was trying to turn and escape.
Jasmine turned to Petrov, but another man—never before sensed nor seen—went sliding past her.
“Not to worry. I’ve got that one.”
Jacob yanked Natasha to her feet. He spoke into his phone. Jasmine and Jorge were still just standing there, incredulous to be alive, when men—a little ridiculously dressed in fine blue suits and leather loafers—came running through the brush.
“Got her, sir,” one of them said to Jacob, taking Natasha. He was young, younger than Jasmine. A brand-new agent, she thought, but ready to do whatever was asked of him, including running through a swampy, mucky river in his office attire.
