Greed: A Detective John Lynch Thriller (25 page)

“Not like they can get into Lee’s system now, change anything,” Lynch said. “Maybe they panic, make a move to cover their asses on something we don’t know about yet. The more shook up they are, the better.”

 

In the back seat of Corsco’s caddy, Corsco turned to Ringwald.

“Two questions, Gerry. First, what might Lee have that could point to us? Second, why isn’t Fenn dead yet?”

Ringwald didn’t answer, just nodded. The questions weren’t rhetorical exactly, he just didn’t have answers. The caddy pulled into Corsco’s building, dropped Ringwald at his car. He headed home.

CHAPTER 57

 

The Wilson cunt was Sandoval’s sister. Hernandez knew that as soon as he saw her. And he could have killed her easily, years ago. Why hadn’t he? Just another
puta
, that’s why. Just another warm, wet hole that caught his brother’s eye.

The kid hanging from the engine hoist was moaning again. Miko knew. He’d seen Hernandez like this before, and he knew. Until the boss blew off his rage, he wouldn’t be able to focus. So he’d talked to the head of the LK crew, got a name. Just a street dealer, dropout who ran a couple corners in Aurora near one of the high schools. But he’d gotten a little greedy. They all skimmed something – almost couldn’t trust them if they didn’t. But they had to know where the line was. This kid had crossed it. Maybe only put a toe over it really, kind of thing usually you just throw a scare into him. But the boss needed a punching bag, so the kid’s wrists were cuffed together, the cuffs over the hook for the engine hoist, the hoist holding him a couple feet off the floor. The LK crew was lined up in the back, bearing witness.

Hernandez picked up the bat again. He’d started with the kid’s legs, but those were pretty well pulped now. And Hernandez’s head was clearing, most of the poison sweated out. The kid was conscious again, looking at him, face streaked with dirt and sweat and tears. Hernandez felt something like shame, just for a moment – he knew the kid wasn’t that far out of line, knew what Miko was doing – and then just pity.

“
Jefe
,” the kid blubbered. “Please,
Jefe
–”

Enough
, thought Hernandez.
End this here
. Hernandez drew the bat straight back over his head, all the way back until he felt the fat end tap his back, and then snapped it down hard onto the crown of the kid’s skull. Heard that crunching, slushy sound he knew too well. The kid hung limp from the chain, blood coming from his ears, his eyes, his nose. Hernandez dropped the bat to the floor, turned and walked from the garage, out into the parking lot, waited while Miko came around and opened his door, sat in the back of the new Mercedes the local crew had provided. Miko got in the front and started to drive.

“Thank you, Miko,” Hernandez said.

“
De nada, Jefe
.”

“Let’s get to work on Sandoval. We find the bitch, we find them both.”

“Wilson,
Jefe
,” said Miko.

“Whoever gets to bury her can decide what name to put on the stone. Just find me that bitch.”

CHAPTER 58

 

“Downers Grove, Illinois, my friends. Downers Grove, Illinois.” Hardin and Wilson were driving back south through Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee, Hardin poking around the radio dial, looking for something to listen to. The town name caught his attention. One of those right-wing radio hosts, the guy who liked to dress like a Nazi on his book covers.

“That’s not Juárez, people. That’s not Tijuana. That’s not even El Paso or Nogales or some other border town. That’s a real nice place. I’ve been there. Folks like you, real Americans, church-going people, just trying to raise their families, hoping they can still make their house payments and pay their kids’ tuition after Washington’s through picking their pockets. Folks who are living by the rules. This isn’t some slum, these aren’t bottom feeders, these aren’t the miscreant offspring of some welfare queen who’s cranking out kids with every brother on the block to pad her government check. These are honest, hardworking, patriotic Americans. And now they’ve got the drug gangs turning their quiet little burg into a free-fire zone. If you don’t get it yet, let me spell it out for you. I don’t care where you are right now. I don’t care what you paid for your home, trying to move away from this kind of stuff. If this can happen in Downers Grove, Illinois, then it can happen anywhere.

“And I wish it was just about the drugs, people, I really do. I’m hearing things. I have sources. You know I have sources. There are people inside the wire on this, honest folks like you and me who still know what the flag means, people still in the belly of the beast – that bloated, voracious Leviathan we call a government – and they get word out to me when they can. And you want to know what I’m hearing people? Are you sitting down? Are you ready for this? It wasn’t just the drugs. This was a Mexican drug king having a dispute with Al Qaeda over money. That’s right. The two greatest threats to our Republic are teaming up. So the next time you hear some bleeding heart talking about immigration reform, you better ask yourself just who they want to let over our borders. You think dope is the only thing they might carry across our joke of a border? How about a chemical weapon? How about a dirty bomb? How about a real live nuke?

“It’s time to get real, people. You are at war, and the enemy is bringing the battle to you. And every one of those people who violated our trust, who wiped their feet on the Statue of Liberty by sneaking in the back door when all they had to do was ring the bell like our ancestors did, well every last one of them has always been nothing but just another criminal, just another lazy punk who won’t do the work to follow the rules. Sure, they always could have been the slime bag outside your kids’ school, the one trying to get your children to throw away their lives for a nose full of crap. But now they may just be something more. Every last one of them could be Al Qaeda’s trigger finger. Every last one of them could be the bastard with his finger on the switch that’s going to turn one of our gleaming alabaster cities into a radioactive crater. That’s right, people, that poncho might just as well be a burqa. And if this doesn’t have your attention, if this doesn’t have you ready to take your country back from the liberals and the apologists and the diversity freaks and the live-and-let-live, let’s legalize-every-damn-thing hippies, then I don’t know what will. Back after this word.”

Hardin flicked off the radio. “Seems a little worked up,” he said.

“Yeah,” she answered.

“That make any sense to you?”

“The immigration stuff? That’s just right-wing radio noise. But the other stuff, tying Al Qaeda and the cartels together? Even that fat-ass whack job wouldn’t make that up. That came out of somebody on Hickman’s team. Somebody fed him that story.”

They drove for a minute, radio off, tires humming on the pavement. “Something doesn’t add up,” Wilson said. “We know they want to keep this thing quiet, that’s why they haven’t gone public on us. But somebody’s got America’s favorite dickhead bloviating about it on the radio. If they want to sweep it under the rug, why raise the profile on the whole mess?”

Quiet for a minute, passing by a pasture full of Holsteins.

“We queered their play,” Hardin said. “They were supposed to have me in the bag last night. Me and the diamonds. Would have given them all the window dressing they needed on the Al Qaeda front. Probably leaked this BS ahead of time. A little public positioning to back their play on the cartels. Question is who’s doing the leaking? That Hickman guy, you think?”

Wilson shook her head. “He might be the mouthpiece, but this feels a little above his pay grade. That last meeting we had, there were some mysterious DC suits in the room, and all of a sudden we got the DEA and the FBI playing kissy face, coordinated raid to grab you, lots of background on money movement everywhere from Switzerland to Vanuatu. That wasn’t our intel, and I don’t think it was the Feebs’ either. That smelled like Agency.”

“Makes sense,” Hardin said. “If somebody was going to pick up some chatter out of West Africa after I knocked over that load, those would be the guys, them or Mossad.”

“And they’d know who the diamonds belonged to,” said Wilson. “And they know who you are. And they know about Hernandez. So this is their chance to tie all that shit up in one nice, neat package.”

“But without the diamonds, they’ve got no story.”

“And without you, they’ve got no diamonds.”

“And,” Hardin said, “with this BS story already out there, they’re running out of time. I think we just found our lever,” Hardin said.

“Something else to think about, though.”

“What?”

“Who else was shooting back at the condo?” Wilson asked.

“What do you mean?”

“That shit inside?” Wilson said. “Radio said what, two druggies and an old lady dead in the hallway? Who did that?”

Hardin thought for a moment. “Agency maybe? SOG guys?”

“I don’t think so,” Wilson said. “Hickman and whoever is pulling his strings, they were looking to get everything official, had a joint raid task force ready to bust you at Lafitpour’s office. If they’d known you were at my place, they would have had me in a box and they would have had enough shooters in raid jackets running around Downer Grove to invade Iwo Jima. You never would have made it out of the building.”

“Already had the mob after me once,” said Hardin. “Maybe Corsco took another shot, ran into the cartel guys, things went bad?”

“Possible, but Hernandez and Corsco? They have to coordinate shit to run their drug territories, so they’ve got channels, they talk. Seems like they would have talked about this.”

“That leaves Al Qaeda. I did steal their diamonds.”

Wilson’s face went still. “Ah shit. The guy from the briefing.”

“What guy?”

“Quick slide they threw up on the screen, some Al Qaeda hotshot. Husam something. I kinda lost focus there for a second, after they announced they were set to bag you.”

“Al Din?”

“Yeah, Husam al Din.”

Long exhale out of Hardin. “Fuck.”

“You’ve heard of him?”

Hardin nodded. “In the Legion. If the DGSE needed muscle in Africa, my unit was usually it. So I played ball with them a bit. Some after I was out, too. This al Din guy, he’s the best the Al Qaeda types have. If that was him up in your hallway, I’m glad we weren’t there.”

Wilson sighed, sank down in her seat a little, a long look out the window. She talked without turning her head. “So we’re dodging a drug cartel, the mob, the cops, the Feds, and some hot-shot terrorist guy.” Wilson said.

“Don’t forget the mysterious suits,” Hardin answered. “Somebody’s playing the man behind the curtain. Whoever the Great and Terrible Oz is, he may well be our biggest problem. But he’s also probably the guy who might want to buy our lever.” Hardin flicked back on the radio, scanned looking for some music. “We should be back in Chicago in a couple hours.”

“There’s no place like home,” said Wilson. “There’s no place like home.”

 

“Screwing you, my friend?” Fouche shouting into a phone somewhere across the Atlantic.

Hardin and Wilson were heading west on 90 toward Elgin, big enough town, not one either of them had ties to, close enough to Chicago to operate, far enough out to keep some of the eyes off of them. Hardin put a call in to Fouche to see if he could reopen channels with the other side.

“Screwing you?” Fouche’s voice still raised, but calming down a little. “A day ago, I’m expecting my cut on this deal. Now I’ve got the Russians I roped in making angry Russian noises. And these are the wrong sorts of Russians, those
Eastern Promises
types, gonna show up in the sauna, cut my schlong off for me. And you wanna know am I screwing you?”

“Sorry, man,” said Hardin. Reaction he needed. He knew Fouche. If Fouche had played it cool, Hardin would know something was up. “But I had to ask, you know? And I’m getting a little short-tempered over here myself. Second time in a couple of days I’ve had somebody trying to kill me.”

“Somebody’s trying to screw you, it’s that fucker Lafitpour,” said Fouche. “Maybe you should pay him a visit.”

“I already know about Lafitpour,” Hardin said. “But he’s fronting for somebody. I need to know who. I want you to get back to him, tell him I know he tried to fuck me over. Tell him I know he’s playing ball with somebody at Langley or thereabouts. Tell him that’s a nice story they’re selling, this drugs and terrorists bullshit. Tell him I got no problem with that, I love a good story. Tell him I get my money and get out, they can tell whatever story they want. But if I don’t, and quick, then I’m gonna start telling my own story.”

Pause on the line, some transatlantic hum filling the void.

“Drugs and terrorists?” Fouche said. “You want to fill me in here?”

Hardin gave him the quick version.

“So you have some leverage,” said Faust.

“Yep,” said Hardin.

“You don’t mind, then, if I look to move that ten million figure a little, bump up both our ends.”

“Don’t mind at all. Oh, and Pierre?”

“Yeah?”

“Since this is supposed to be some cartel-and-terrorist circus now, if they need some coke, you know, to lend a little verisimilitude to the enterprise, let them know I’ve got a kilo of Hernandez’s blow.”

 

CHAPTER 59

 

Munroe admired the view across Adams Street from Lafitpour’s office in the Rookery Building. “Burnham designed this place,” Munroe said. “Pretty revolutionary in its time. Metal framing, elevators. One of the first high-rises, the start of the great architectural Renaissance after the Chicago fire.”

“Who’s Burnham?” asked Hickman.

“The man who was quoted as saying ‘Make no small plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood,’” answered Lafitpour. “Large or small, however, we need plans. Hardin’s Frenchman has been back in contact.”