Cut Out (14 page)

“Hey,” Riley interrupted, “don’t try to second-guess what happened. It’s done with.”

“No,” Lisa disagreed. “It’s not done with. If it was, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Riley and Hammer remained silent and she continued her story. “Philip did quite a few things for the Torrentinos—most of them illegal. But he started off with things that, while not illegal, were shady, and that’s how they hooked him in—besides the presence of Jill Fastone, that is.

“Philip put the names of some of Torrentino’s people on his business ledger as sales representatives—giving them the appearance of legitimacy and allowing them to claim that as the source of their income. He juggled the prices of properties he bought and sold and covered the kickback to the Torrentinos in the commissions. It was all very complicated, but Philip had enough of a paper trail to get the Torrentinos indicted and convicted once he himself was caught.”

Riley’s eyes were scanning the parking lot across the street. “Why did the Torrentinos try to kill your husband in Chicago? That’s what started this whole thing. Did he ever tell you?”

“Not really,” Lisa said. “Philip never came right out and said it, but I got the impression that it was because of Jill Fastone. I think one of the two of them, or maybe both, took it too far, past what Michael Torrentino could accept.”

“You think that’s why she showed up in Charlotte?” Riley asked. “That she was really in love with your husband?”

“I don’t know—but I think he must have been in love with her. Why else would he have called her?” Lisa said bitterly. “Maybe he was just trying to end it cleanly before he moved on to our new life. Who knows.”

Riley shifted his gaze from the window to Lisa. “Jill Fastone is dead. They found her body in Chicago this morning.”

Lisa’s expression didn’t change. “Do they know who killed her?”

“No. Donna said that they suspect the mob.”

“That doesn’t make sense if she set Philip up for them,” Lisa commented.

“It does if she set him up only in terms of being followed down to Charlotte,” Riley said. “The strange thing is that you said it looked like they were carrying two bodies out of your motel room, right?”

“Yes.”

“If that second body was Fastone, why did they—whoever they are— take it all the way back to Chicago to get dumped?” Riley’s question went unanswered and he switched directions. “If the Torrentinos really wanted to get to Philip and you, they’d keep tabs on those closest to you. For your husband, that would have been Jill. For you, it’s your brother.”

“Oh, my God!” Lisa exclaimed. “I hadn’t thought of that. Is he in trouble?”

“Don’t worry,” Riley said. “When I talked to Donna a little while ago, she was going to check up on him.”

CHICAGO

30 OCTOBER, 4:38 p.m. CENTRAL TIME

Tom Volpe’s house was a small two-bedroom “fixer-upper” nestled in a neighborhood of similar lower-middle-class dwellings. Giannini pulled her car into the driveway, relieved to note that Tom’s old Mustang was parked there. She had fond memories of cruising in that car north along the shore of Lake Michigan into Wisconsin and to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

As she walked up the sidewalk to the front door, she remembered the last time they’d been together—the long drive to the Upper Peninsula, a picnic in the sand dunes that lined the water’s edge, and Tom pleading with her to follow him to San Diego and wherever else the navy might send him. Giannini thought it was interesting that she still had her job and he was back in Chicago. He might have been better off accepting her counterproposal that he settle down in the city and go back to school to get the advanced degree in engineering he always wanted while she stayed at her job and supported them. She imagined that idea was too radical even for someone as open-minded as she had thought Tom was. He’d gone into the navy within the month, and that was the last she’d heard of him until the phone call the other day.

Giannini pressed the doorbell and heard the muted chimes ringing inside. She waited a minute, then rang again. She opened the screen door and tried the doorknob; it turned freely and the door swung open. She slipped her right hand inside her jacket and pulled out a revolver.

She slid into the foyer, back pressed against one wall. Her nostrils were immediately assaulted by a strong odor—something she couldn’t quite place—that caused a wave of nausea. She darted across to the opposite wall and scanned the front room; nothing there except worn furniture. The corridor split the front of the house—living room on the right, two closed doors, leading to what she presumed were bedrooms, to the left. A swinging door at the end must lead to the kitchen and the rear of the house.

Giannini carefully pushed open the first door. A weight bench and cardboard boxes occupied the floor. She shut the door and moved on to the second door, all the while trying to recognize the smell.

This door revealed a bedroom with a double bed, unmade, in the center, and a bureau against the near wall. She turned and faced the swinging door, then pushed it open with her foot. The stench washed over her. She moved in, propping open the door, and forced herself to keep from gagging at the odor and the sight that greeted her. Tom was secured to a kitchen chair with duct tape around his arms and legs. On his naked chest was a random pattern of round blackened marks. The smell was charred flesh.

“Oh, God!” Giannini groaned and stepped forward. She knelt on the linoleum and checked the vein in his neck—he was dead. His blue eyes were frozen open, his face contorted. Giannini had once seen marks similar to the ones on his chest at a homicide scene: someone had used a blowtorch to elicit information.

A puckered black bullet hole in his right temple indicated how Tom had been finished off by whoever had done this. A rag was tied around his neck, securing a rubber ball in his mouth to muffle his screams. How long had he endured this? Giannini wondered. She had no doubt that he had talked—who wouldn’t as the blue flame touched flesh? His skin was still warm; he hadn’t been dead long.

She reached into her purse, pulled out her portable phone, and rapidly punched in Riley’s number. It rang four times and she heard his voice on the answering machine. She cursed to herself before speaking—maybe he would check the machine from a pay phone.

“Dave, it’s—”

A noise startled her, and as she spun around, bringing her gun up, the sap caught her above the left ear. She crumpled to the floor unconscious, phone and gun sliding out of her fingers.

FORT BRAGG

30 OCTOBER, 7:48 p.m. EASTERN TIME

The car had arrived in the parking lot at 1755 and turned its lights on exactly at the hour and every fifteen minutes since then for the designated minute. The car had tinted windows, so it could not be determined who was inside.

Riley pressed the transmit button on the radio Martin had given him and spoke into the small boom mike, his back to the bar. “Eagle One, this is Bear One. Status report. Over.”

“This is Eagle One. All my people report in clear. Over.”

Riley handed the second radio across the table to Hammer. “I want you to do a sweep of the area on foot. All around the parking lot. Get a feel for it. If you report in clear, we’re going to go make the meet.”

Hammer nodded and slipped the radio in his fatigue pants pocket. He hid his .44 magnum revolver in the holster under his fatigue shirt and left the NCO club bar. Riley keyed the radio. “Eagle One, this is Bear One. Alert all your units that Bear Two is going to be out there walking around. Over.”

“Roger. I’ll pass the word. Over.”

Hammer departed the NCO club and made his way across Reilly Road, angling away from the old PX parking lot and into the large stand of pine trees that extended from Reilly across to Community Access Road, eighty yards away. In the darkness, his camouflage uniform merged with the green and brown background. He worked his way from the edge of the woods facing the parking lot, until he was halfway between the two roads. Then he cautiously moved forward and knelt behind a fallen log, where he could scan the parking lot.

The Fort Bragg main post office was on the far side of the lot, and it was closed for the day. A few cars were pulling up to it every so often as patrons checked their post office boxes. Hammer made a mental note to check the inside of the post office when he made his way around. It would be a good surveillance location.

He spotted two other cars with two men in each one and checked them off—O & I students trying to be surreptitious as they pulled surveillance for Riley. The old post exchange was along the right flank, and nothing was moving there. A pizza place was the only thing open in the long line of stores. On the hill overlooking the parking lot were Moon and Hardy Halls. Hammer knew that Martin had a team in each one, checking the hallways and stairwells for unwanted watchers.

Hammer left the woods and made a beeline for the sidewalk fronting the closed PX. He walked swiftly along the concrete until he reached the pizza place, where he stepped inside. Several soldiers with maroon berets and distinctive AA patches, identifying them as members of the 82d Airborne, were inside, eating or playing the video games. Hammer looked them over and decided they were no threat.

He ordered a Coke and went to an empty table at the front window, checking the scene from this perspective: Riley and Lisa across the street in the NCO club, the car still sitting there, the two surveillance cars with the O & I students, the post office, Moon and Hardy Halls out of sight to the right.

Hammer finished the Coke in a long gulp and threw the empty cup into the garbage on the way out. He crossed the parking lot toward the post office.

The lights were on in the front part of the post office, illuminating the area where the post office boxes were. Hammer was about ready to walk up the stairs to the building when he spied a figure in the far left of the post office box area, peering out into the parking lot.

Hammer spun on his heel and headed across the grass toward Moon Hall. He pulled open the fire door to the staircase on the side of the building and stepped in. Almost immediately footsteps sounded on the concrete stairs above, and two O & I students, looking conspicuous and uncomfortable in their civilian clothes, came clattering down.

“I’m Bear Two,” Hammer said, holding up the radio. They nodded and returned to their perch on the third floor.

Hammer slipped on the boom mike. “Bear One, this is Two. Over.”

Riley replied immediately. “This is One. Over.”

“Abort the meet. I say again, abort the meet. Over.”

“Roger. Abort meet. Break. Eagle One, pull in all your little birds and go home. Over.”

Martin had been listening in. “This is Eagle One. I copy. Out.”

Chapter Nine

FAYETTEVILLE

30 OCTOBER, 8:27 p.m.

Riley drove down Yadkin Road, negotiating the kamikaze traffic. “Anyone following?” he asked Hammer.

“No sign. I think they’re still sitting on their asses waiting for the meet to go down.”

“Why’d you call in the abort?” Riley asked. Immediately upon the radio call from Hammer, he and Lisa had slipped out the back of the NCO club. Hammer had met them there, and they’d hopped in Riley’s Bronco II and driven away without a word spoken until now.

“I spotted someone pulling surveillance from inside the post office, where the boxes are. He wasn’t one of ours, and if he was with the Program, then they weren’t following the rules you laid down.”

“You sure it was someone watching?” Lisa asked, obviously disappointed. “Maybe it was just someone waiting for a ride.”

“It’s your life” was Hammer’s brusque reply. “You want to take the chance, be my guest.”

“All right, everyone calm down,” Riley said as he turned off for his townhouse. “It’s better to err on the safe side in something like this,” he explained to Lisa.

“Is this ever going to end?” She slumped down in the passenger seat, her face slack with despair.

“The key question is, who was the person in the post office working for?” Riley mused out loud. “If he was additional security laid on by the feds, despite our asking them not to—I think they’re very capable of doing that—then we just set up another meet and tell them not to blow it again. But if it was the mob, how the hell did they find out about the meet? We’ll know when we call Simon,” Riley added as he pulled up in front of his house.

He led the way in the front door. The first thing that caught his eye was the red flashing light on the answering machine. He hit the playback button as Hammer shut the door behind Lisa. The machine whirred and then beeped.

“Dave, it’s—” Giannini’s anxious voice stopped in midsentence, then there was the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. “Turn it off,” a male voice hissed, then a dial tone sounded. A mechanical voice spoke: “Five-forty-four.”

There was a slight pause and the tape came on again, this time with no sound for almost three seconds. The phone went dead: “Five-forty-five.” Someone had called, listened to Riley’s message, and hung up.