Gamma Blade (16 page)

“Tough one,” said Fil. “I’ll need to think about that. Let me get back to you.”

The morning dragged, painfully. Estrada had sent the few cops she trusted to go hunt around the neighborhood where Fuentes’ kid had been snatched. They were undercover guys, experts in discretion, so they had a good chance of not tipping off Brull’s network. But neither Estrada nor Brull expected much in the way of results.

Estrada sent out for pizza at lunchtime, and they ate it in her office.

“It’s O’Reilly,” said Venn. “He’s the key. We can assume those guys on the pier last night, Brull’s men, were either waiting for something that was coming off the
Merry May
, or they were waiting for Brull to arrive so they could escort him on board and keep a lookout for him. We know this because O’Reilly’s two goons claimed not to have seen the men on the pier, when there’s no way they could have missed them. Maybe Brull is dealing with O’Reilly in some way. Maybe he’s threatening him. Either way, O’Reilly’s involved. Bust him, and we’ve got Brull.”

“Maybe,” Estrada allowed, around a mouthful of cheese and crust. “But we’ve got nothing to bust him for.”

“We could harass him,” suggested Venn. “Break his balls a little. Do it discreetly, so there’s no witnesses, nobody who’d back him up if he complained.”

Estrada shook her head. “He’s the kind of guy who’s got where he is by keeping his nose clean. If he’s involved in something big, he’s not going to give it up unless he’s sure we have a case against him. We can slap him around all we like, and we probably won’t get anywhere.”

“So let’s go with my plan,” said Venn. “The one I told you about earlier.”

Back in the car, Estrada had listened to Venn’s idea and said: “No.”

Now she said: “My answer’s the same. It’s too damn risky.”

“You got a better idea?” asked Venn.

Estrada chewed pizza. “Not yet. But there’s got to be another way.”

Venn checked his watch ostentatiously. “It’s one fifteen. That kid has been missing almost thirty hours. Every second that passes, his odds of surviving shorten. Brull will probably kill him in the end, anyway. He sounds like that kind of asshole. So: our priority is to get him out. And the quickest way is to offer an exchange.”

Estrada gazed into the middle distance, her brow furrowed. Without looking at Venn, she said: “Talk me through it again. Just so I can be clear how dumb it really is.”

Venn pushed away his empty pizza box and wiped his mouth. “Brull wants me. He wants me because I insulted him, in front of his henchmen. And because he knows I’m right, that he should’ve killed me last night when he had the chance, and he blew it. It makes him look stupid. So he wants me dead – and probably
tortured
and dead – for personal reasons.”

“Okay so far,” said Estrada.

“But what I also told him,” Venn continued, “is that I know about the
Merry May
. That touched a nerve, when I mentioned it. He’s cool, but he’s not that cool. I saw it in his face. So quite apart from any personal reasons of revenge, he needs to find me because I know something. I actually know very little, but that’s beside the point. I represent a potentially fatal threat to him and whatever operation he’s involved in.”

Estrada nodded.

“So we propose a swap,” Venn said. “I contact Brull and tell him I’ll give myself up in exchange for the release of the kid.”

Estrada finished her own pizza and took a swig of soda from a can. “See, that’s the problem part. First, as soon as you tell Brull you know he’s got the kid, he’ll know Fuentes ratted on him. He could kill the boy then and there, just to punish Fuentes. Second, he’ll know you’re up to something. He’ll suspect you’re trying to lure him into a trap.”

“So we set it up that he can be confident he holds all the cards,” said Venn. “We arrange the transfer in such a way that he’s guaranteed to take me into custody without any immediate repercussions.”

“But in that kind of a set-up, why would he let the boy go?”

“We arrange the rendezvous in some remote place, where Brull can be reasonably sure there aren’t hordes of cops hiding nearby, ready to jump on him,” said Venn. “But we let him know there’s a single sniper, covering the exchange. If the boy’s safely transferred, Brull gets me. If he reneges, the sniper takes him out.”

Estrada thought about it. Then she punched the desk in frustration.

“Venn, that’s bullshit,” she said. “Cops don’t arrange hostage transfers that way. And Brull will know it.”

“
Regular
cops don’t,” Venn said. “But I’ll persuade him I’m a maverick, working outside the rules. Which I am, of course, like you are. That’s why we’re doing it this way. If I was a regular cop, and I knew Brull had taken a kid captive, the first thing I’d do is arrest him. He’s easy enough to find, after all. The fact that I haven’t done that will suggest to him that I really am an outsider.”

“Jeez.” Estrada rubbed her eyes. “There’s so much that could go wrong.” She looked at Venn. “What if he flips when you mention the kid? What if he acts irrationally, just orders the boy killed?”

Venn said, “I don’t believe he will. Think about it. What would make a guy like him angrier? A vain, grandiose little gangster? To have an insignificant grocery store owner disobey orders and tell somebody that his little boy had been kidnapped? Or to know that a man who insulted him to his face, in front of his minions, is out there, taunting him?”

“Still a hell of a goddamn risk,” said Estrada.

Venn’s phone rang just then. It was Beth.

She told him she’d just been to visit the unconscious man, James Harris, in the hospital, after he’d woken briefly and asked after ‘the woman’.

And she told Venn about the man’s scars. And the fact that the address on his driving license was bogus.

Venn told Beth he loved her, and that their dinner plans were still on.

He wondered if he was lying to her about the second part.

After they’d hung up, he relayed the information to Estrada. “You should call the DMV about this Harris’s driving license.”

“Already did that,” she said. “It checks out.”

“Tell them to take another look.”

Estrada rolled her eyes. “They don’t make mistakes about things like that. Either somebody has a legitimate license, or they don’t.”

Venn thought for a moment. “Hold on.”

He called Fil in New York. “Got another job for you.”

“A straightforward one, I hope,” said Fil. “I’m still trying to find somebody who can get me into Britain’s police databases.”

Venn said, “Yeah, this one’s easy. I want you to search the births and deaths lists for a James Harris.”

“Where?”

“All of them,” said Venn. “The whole of the US.”

“James Harris?” Fil paused. “Boss, there must be like a million guys with that name.”

Fil was getting more and more like Venn’s other sidekick, Harmony, with his whinging. It wasn’t in his nature.

Venn said: “I’ll make it easier for you.” And he gave the date of birth from Harris’s driving license.

“Ah. Yeah, that helps,” said Fil. “You think this license is using a dead man’s name?”

“Possibly.”

Venn ended the call.

“Still haven’t figured out who that guy in the hospital is,” said Estrada.

“And we won’t, until he finally wakes up,” said Venn. “So. My idea. You willing to give it a shot?”

Estrada sighed, raised her hands. “Okay. But I have a feeling we’re both gonna regret it.”

Chapter 25

The call came through on Brull’s cell phone at four twenty pm.

It was Maria, the receptionist at the office.

“Guy wants to speak to you, sir,” she said. “He’s quite insistent. He sounds like the one who came to the office this morning. Says his name’s Joseph Venn.”

“Son of a
bitch
.” Brull gritted his teeth.

The guy had called to mock him again.

“Tell him to go to hell,” he said. “And this time, don’t be nice about it.”

“He said he thought you’d say that,” said Maria. “And so he wants you to know that he’s prepared to discuss giving himself up to you.”

“What?” Brull hadn’t been expecting that. The guy was full of shit, of course. But did he think Brull was so dumb as to even consider what he had to say?

All afternoon, and for most of the morning, Brull had been trying to track Venn down. He’d considered having him followed from the office that morning, but Venn would be wise to that. He’d Googled the guy, found a few mentions in news reports from New York. There was never much detail on the man, but he’d apparently busted a serial killer in Manhattan earlier this year.

No mention of what department or division he worked in, either.

Well, he guessed there was no harm in hearing the guy out. If all he wanted to do was abuse and threaten Brull, then Brull could easily hang up on him. Equally, if Venn tried to goad Brull into saying something incriminating, like he had back in the office that morning, Brull wasn’t going to fall for it.

He said to Maria: “Put him through.”

There was silence for a couple of seconds. Then Venn’s voice came: “Brull?”

“What do you want?”

“To trade.”

Brull said nothing. He was in his Dodge Challenger once again, headed downtown. In his car he felt a power, the same power he felt behind his desk in his office. Venn didn’t scare him.

Venn continued, “You have a little boy. Hector Fuentes. You snatched him from the street yesterday.”

Brull froze, almost forgetting to brake at a red light. He gripped the steering wheel with his other hand.

Fuentes. That weasely, little...

“I’m calling to offer you an exchange. You let the kid go, and in return I’ll hand myself over to your custody. No strings attached. No tricks. I know you want me. And you want me alive, at first. Not just so you can have a little fun with me. But also because I know about you and the Merry May, and what your guys were doing on the pier last night. And you need to find out just
how
much I know, and how I know it.”

Brull laughed. “What? Once again, Detective, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t expect you to say anything on an unsecured line like this,” said Venn. “But listen up. I was originally going to take you down. And I could still do that. But I can’t guarantee the safety of that kid if I do. And that is a price I’m not willing to pay. Somebody else will get you, eventually, Brull. Sooner rather than later, I hope. But not me. So. The offer is this. A boat named the
Sea Stealer
will be two miles out in the bay at ten o’clock tonight. The exact location is the following, and I hope you’re a nautical man and can understand it.”

Venn gave the co-ordinates. Without thinking too much about it, Brull grabbed a pen from his pocket and scribbled on the leg of his pants, the first thing he could find to write on.

“I won’t ask if you got that, because if you didn’t, it’s tough luck,” said Venn. “If you want to make the exchange, have a boat of your own approach at exactly ten pm, but keep a quarter-mile away. Watch for a flashlight. It’ll flash ten times. That means we’re ready to roll.”

Brull took in the details, though he didn’t yet know what to think of it all. How much to believe.

Venn went on: “Oh, and make sure your boat has a rowboat on board. Once you’ve seen the signal, the flashing lights, launch your rowboat. The kid has to be on board, with no more than two men. At the same time, I’ll start rowing from the other boat. We’ll pass one another, and reach the opposite vessels. On board my tug, a sharpshooter will be aiming at your rowboat, at the men in it. If they try any tricks, try and double back without handing the boy over, my sniper will kill them. Similarly, if you try attacking my tug after I’m in your hands, the sharpshooter will take you out. Even if it means sinking your boat and killing me along with it.”

Brull ached to say something. To point out the most glaring hole in the idea. But Venn did it for him.

“You’re thinking, what’s to stop me double-crossing you, and, when the kid’s safely delivered, having the coast guard come swarming all over your vessel? Well, the answer is, there’s nothing to stop me, really. But here’s the thing.
You don’t even need to be on the boat.
You can send your lackeys along to do the job. Sure, we could storm your boat afterward. But all we’d get is the monkeys. Not the organ-grinder. And you’re the one we want. You could be tipped off that it all went wrong, and be long gone before we found you.”

Brull listened to the silence for a few moments.

Venn said, “Give it some thought. The boat will be there at ten o’clock tonight. I hope you will be, too.”

And he hung up.

Brull held the silent phone to his ear for a second. Then he dialed Maria again.

“Sorry,” she said. “The caller withheld his number.”

Of course he had. But it was worth checking.

Brull tossed the phone on the seat beside him. He clenched and unclenched his hands on the steering wheel, noticing that his palms were sweaty.

He saw Joseph Venn’s big, mean face in front of his eyes once more.

Laughing at him.

Laughing.
At
him
. Ernesto Justice Brull.

Damn it. Venn had something up his sleeve. He
must
have.

Did he plan to have Brull’s vessel stormed, after the kid was released, just as he’d suggested he might? And try to take prisoners, so that they could be coerced or bribed into giving statements against Brull? But that seemed a clumsy way to go about getting him. And it also seemed so
obvious
.

Whatever. Brull knew there was no turning back.

He had to make that rendezvous.

*

There was another problem, one that would need to be addressed way before the meeting at ten o’clock. Like,
now
.

The Irishman, O’Reilly, wasn’t answering his phone. In fact, each time Brull had dialed the number, he’d gotten dead air at the end.

Did that mean Venn, or the Miami PD, had O’Reilly in custody? Had the guy been killed? Either way, it meant Brull couldn’t set up a new meeting.