Driving Heat (33 page)

“Clear,” called Heat. Then she rolled him and cuffed him.

As the others rushed up, Nikki stood, bent over her prisoner, repeatedly shouting, “Where is he?” Feller and one of the officers manhandled the guy to his feet, and he gave Heat a
stony glower over his swelling nose, but no reply.

“Let me to take this shithead for a ride,” said Feller. “He’ll talk.” He meant it, too. There was a street side to Randall, a part of him that was capable of
anything under the right circumstances.

“We don’t do that here.” Lieutenant Marr’s comment came out as an observation rather than a reprimand. Like everyone else, he knew the stakes and understood the need to
get information—and quickly; however, the field commander’s ethics were not situational. Even so, Detective Feller’s eyes probed Heat’s in silent appeal. Before she could
reply, everyone’s two-ways crackled.

“K-Nine Four. Hostage located.”

Heat was already sprinting back up the sidewalk and making her turn at the gate by the time the transmission was repeated by the dog handler. Ahead she saw officers starting to gather around the
farther of the two barges, and seconds later Nikki bypassed the gangplank, leaping from the dock to the gunwale, and disappeared down the open hatch into the bulkhead below deck. ESU officers had
lit halogen lamps to illuminate the metal hold that rimmed the cargo box like an underground tunnel, with about the same dimensions of a mineshaft. She moved forward, ducking her head under the
crossbeams, to where the K-9 sergeant was moving his dog out of her way. When the German shepherd moved aside, she gasped.

Rook was sitting on the deck with his legs splayed out in front of him and his head slumped forward over a bloody shirtfront. His hands were behind him, handcuffed around a steel truss, and one
of the officers was crouched there setting to work on the lock. Relief swelled inside Nikki when Rook heard her footsteps and brought his face up and smiled. “Guess I’ll need to change
shirts,” he said. “This definitely falls outside the P. J. Clarke’s dress code.”

He made her laugh, as he always did, and she brought her fingers over her mouth in case the emotion welling below turned into a wail. “Are you hurt?”

“You mean all the blood? My bad. I made the mistake of going heroic and trying to head-butt one of my captors. The one who looks like an Orc.” He pointed with his chin over his
shoulder at the cop. “Sir, are you going to get me out soon, or do I have to rip these shackles off so I can hug my fiancée?”

Heat could no longer restrain herself. She knelt and pulled herself to Rook, squeezing him, then pulling back for a deep kiss. When they parted, he said, “Um, a little
Fifty
Shades
, wouldn’t you say?”

“No,” she said firmly with a side-glance at the other cops. And at the dog. “I definitely wouldn’t.”

“Oh, right.” He arched one brow and nodded toward his lap. “Awkward.” Then he turned to the others. “But you guys have seen just about seen it all over the years,
right?…No?” Then the cuffs came off and he folded his long arms around her. They clung to each other while his rescuers wordlessly left them alone for their reunion.

Topside, while Rook refreshed his lungs with sea air and let his eyes
adjust to the sunlight, Detective Feller took Heat aside.
“What are we going to do with Beckham?” The goon who soccer-kicked Heat now had a nickname. Across the wharf, paramedics called in from the staging area were bandaging razor-wire cuts
from his failed escape.

“Kidnapping’s federal,” she said. “FBI’s going to want jurisdiction.”

“What do
you
want?”

“To interrogate him myself, of course.”

The detective turned to face her. “I don’t see any wrinkle-free suits around here, do you?”

“Then I think it’s time you hustled Becks across the river and let him wait in our interrogation room. I’ll be right behind you.”

Randall set off, then turned to her as he walked backward. “Should I red-card him?”

“Enough. Just go.”

When she felt she had a sufficient head start on the Bureau, Heat phoned Special Agent Jordan Delaney to inform him of the raid. Vying for first dibs on an interrogation was one thing;
Nikki’s sense of responsibility wouldn’t let her ignore protocol and allow agents and resources to remain tied up on a case she had already closed. Delaney thanked her for the
information and asked how she had managed to locate him.

“The New York Public Library,” she said, then waited for his long pause.

It came. Then the agent said, “No, really.”

“Really.” Heat explained that her frustration with the cyber attack had led her to resort to a very low-tech data search. “I didn’t just go old school. I went old
schoolgirl.”

Delaney laughed and congratulated her on the safe rescue of her fiancé. “I’m guessing Mr. Rook came out of it OK?”

“Yes, he did, thank you. As we speak, I’m outside a Banana Republic near Lincoln Center watching him pay for a shirt. One that doesn’t have bloodstains.” Back in Red
Hook, Nikki had offered to have a patrol car drive Rook to his loft for a shower, a change, and a nap. His response was to call shotgun and ride with her to the Twentieth so he could dive right
back into their investigation.

“Nothing serious, then.”

“Nosebleed. He says they didn’t abuse him. Except for poking him with a hypodermic sedative on the way to the hideout.”

“I want some one-on-one with him. A debrief.”

“Of course.” In an attempt to hasten an end to the call before the subject of her prisoner came up, she added, “I’m ten minutes from the precinct. I’ll have him
call you when we get there.”

“Wait. Captain Heat?” She could tell by his tone that her ploy had failed. “You said one of the kidnappers survived. I want to speak with him, also. Immediately, in
fact.”

“You bet. Like I said, back at the precinct soon. I’ll call.” She hit End before that went any further.

The good news about doing the right thing by the Bureau was that they were busy running checks on the kidnapper killed in the raid and on Beckham, whose real name was George Gallatin. The
not-so-good news was that Special Agent Delaney didn’t wait for Heat to make contact on her schedule. By the time she and Rook entered the homicide bull pen, he had already been in touch with
her prisoner, who was manacled and waiting in Interrogation One.

Rook enjoyed a round of handshakes and backslaps. Detective Ochoa said, “You’re showing me something, homes, coming right from your rescue to this place.”

“You kidding?” said Rook. “Wouldn’t miss it. Since my kidnapping, the entertainment value of this case has increased dramatically.” He then turned to Randall
Feller. “Detective, I can’t thank you enough for your part in my rescue. Above and beyond. And, as a token of my appreciation…” He held out a Banana Republic shopping bag.
“I want you to have this. It’s my bloodstained shirt.” Even Feller had to laugh.

Before she lost her prisoner to the feds, Heat asked Rook to brief them all on his experience, so the squad could pitch in on what to ask Gallatin when she got in the box with him. Raley handed
him a cup of coffee, and he took a seat on Heat’s old desk to recount all he could remember from street snatch to rescue. “I have no idea how they knew I’d be at that restaurant.
Either they were tailing me from Times Square where I’d been at my editor’s office at
First Press
, or they were following you, Nikki, and just hoped I’d come along to
snag. The grab itself was pretty undignified.” He tipped his head toward Heat. “I could hear you coming for me, but clearly neither of us was a match for that much goon power. They
shoved me in the minivan and, after I smashed my nose into one of them, they put a needle in my shoulder. Before I went out, I heard one of them say, ‘You’d better check in with Black
Knight.” The detectives exchanged side-glances with each other. “What?”

Heat said, “Rook, are you making this up, because it’s OK, it was already an excellent adventure without you—”

“Turning it into a Monty Python remake?” offered Raley.

“OK, first of all, in
Holy Grail
, it was
the
Black Knight, not plain ol’ Black Knight. And I feel no need to embellish. It’s obviously a code name. Once,
while I was cuffed in the barge hold, I watched the big one, Gallatin, dial Black Knight on his cell. I used an old reporter’s trick to memorize the phone number by following which digits he
tapped on his screen. It’s this talent I have, like being able to read somebody’s memos upside down on a desk.”

Heat turned to a clean page in her notebook. “Great. Give me the number.”

“One sec.” He smiled weakly. “I forget. Gah! It’ll come to me.”

“Did you ever see this Black Knight?” asked Feller.

“A guy visited a couple of times to ask me questions, but they put a hood over me for that. Considering my circumstances, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to ask if he was
Black Knight.”

“Weenie,” said Feller.

“So all I heard was his voice. It was deep, kind of Southern, but not quite Heart of Dixie.”

“Like Oklahoma,” said Heat.

“Yes! Or Texas panhandle. How did you know?”

“I think I may have encountered him in a parking garage.” She glanced at the wall clock. “Later for that.”

“And you were never beaten or threatened? Waterboarded?” asked Ochoa.

“Don’t sound so disappointed, Miguel. No. The guy, Black Knight, or whoever he was, just kept asking me a bunch of questions.”

Hoping for a link to Tangier Swift, Heat asked, “Was it about the SwiftRageous whistle-blow?”

“Ish,” said Rook. “Questions like, Did I ever see Swift meet with anyone other than the whistle-blowers? Was I aware of his recent travel? I don’t know what he was
digging for.” He swirled the coffee in his cup and took a sip. “By the way, let the record show, I gave them nothing.” Then he smiled at Nikki. “I don’t know if you
noticed, but I’m very good at keeping secrets.”

Nikki didn’t like the way George Gallatin had made himself feel at home
in the box when she strode in. The muscleman had
lounged backward in his chair as far as his restraints would allow and was balancing on the two back legs while he enjoyed his view of himself in the mirror. “I’d say be careful,
you’re going to take a fall, George—but we both know you’re already set up to take one.” She let her paperwork drop to the tabletop at her place and took a seat. Becks
seemed underimpressed and concentrated on his balancing act.

She kept at it, trying to find the pressure point. Heat didn’t want to lose sole possession of her captive before he gave up who he was working for. “Kidnapping is a Class B Felony
carrying five to twenty-five in this state. Add to that resisting arrest and battery of a police officer. And I’m going to hazard a guess that you have a number of other warrants out, which
would fill up your date book deep into this century.”

He let himself fall forward on the front legs of the chair, unfazed. “That guess you’re hazarding? It’s because you don’t even have a way to look me up on your fucking
computers, do you? Don’t bullshit me. You have no levers to pull.”

“Mr. Gallatin—”

“You can pull my dick’s what you can pull.”

Comments like that rolled off Heat. Years in that room had inured her to abuse. But not prevented her from giving it back. “From what I’ve seen, I’d have to find it first. Why
do you think I kicked you in the head instead of between the legs?”

Amused, he hunched his shoulders and made a primal yowl that shook the windows and, for a second, did make him seem like the
Lord of the Rings
Orc Rook had described. She flipped open
her manila file and continued, “Your macho posturing will serve you well where you are going. But I am prepared to talk deal with you in exchange for information.”

“You could offer me a lap dance right now, and I wouldn’t tell you the color of my shit this morning.”

Heat had witnessed such posturing many times before. Sometimes they meant it, sometimes it was a pose to keep the upper hand in the negotiation. She proceeded, assuming the latter. “I am
willing to call the DA and ask for their best deal. But first I want to know who told you to kidnap Mr. Rook.” When he had settled down and folded his hands in his lap, she gave a little
nudge. “Think about it, George. You’re stacking a lot of years.” He gave his chin a ruminating stroke. She could hear the rasp of his stubble six feet away. “It’s as
easy as answering a few questions. Who is this Black Knight?”

She waited while he considered. Then his shoulders began to shake. Nikki wondered if he was starting to weep—but no, he was giggling. A raspy,
gotcha
giggle. “Wanna know how
I’m going to cut a deal?” He picked up his manacles and bit at the chain. “With my teeth.” His laughter came harder, in hoarse bursts. He dropped the restraints and the
laugh. “You can save your shit to feed some fool. Which I am not.” Gallatin leaned forward, speaking casually. “You know who I liked? I liked the FBI dude. He seemed like a nice
man. Think I’ll take my chances with him instead of whatever bone you and your DA decide to throw me.” Then he leaned back in his chair again. “Changed my mind. I’ll take
that lap dance now.”

Special Agent Delaney was on hold in the Observation Room when Heat came out. He was not too pleased with Nikki for dragging her feet but surprised her by not coming at her too hard.
“Look, Captain, I’ve played Hide the Hood plenty of times myself over my career. So I get it. I know you think you can get something before we can. But you’ve had your fun. Tag,
I’m it.”

Heat agreed to deliver George Gallatin personally to Federal Plaza within the half hour, but asked if, in exchange, she could take part in the interrogation. The agent sighed and said,
“I’m going to agree. But I want something from you then.”

“Name it.”

“I want to know how the hell you managed to locate that hideout using the damn public library.”

While they prepped Gallatin for transport downtown, Heat made a stop in the homicide bull pen for the latest. Detective Feller reported the results of his preliminary inquiries with the Coast
Guard and the Port Authority about the barge company. “Channel Maritime, LLC, has a history of safety and immigration violations—all of which just sorta went away.”