The Mafia Trilogy (29 page)

Just like he tried to do with a pencil to that guy in Rome.

Everyone had heard about Darwin Kostas and his fight with the Fuccini Family. Everyone at the Bureau bugged Greg Stinsen about it constantly. How he should hire Darwin to go after the bad guys. Clean up the city. Greg always insisted that Darwin was harmless and that he just got lucky.

Yeah, right, and the people who deserve it the most win the lottery all the time.

No way what Darwin did in Rome and Toronto was luck. He was a killing machine, plain and simple. The evidence lay on stretchers on the property where Darwin and his wife had been living in secrecy. Only four agents knew where the safe house was, excluding the rotation of agents who acted as guards for the Kostas, and two of them were dead now. Nick Johnson and Lee Michaels worked with Greg and Carson, and they were pivotal in making the safe house safe.

And Darwin repays them as any psychopath would.

Carson entered the front door of the house and walked the length of the front hall until he reached the kitchen where he saw Rudy and a crime scene team.

Cameras flashed and men sifted through items on the floor while Rudy talked on his cell phone. Carson caught Rudy’s eye.

“Okay … yeah … I got to go. Get back to me with that report.” Rudy slapped his phone shut and dropped it into his jacket pocket. “This is a clusterfuck, isn’t it?”

“Fill me in. What have you got?”

Rudy picked up a notebook that had been on the kitchen counter and flipped back four pages. “Looks like the three men on duty, Simmons, Ouellette, and Baron, were attacked by the same aggressor in a similar manner. We can tell by how all three men were beaten systematically without putting up much of a fight. I have a theory.” Rudy raised his right finger in the air.

Rudy’s theories drove Carson nuts, but today he was all ears. He needed to listen and digest everything. Talking and acting would get him in trouble on a day when five of his friends, FBI men, were executed. He waited for Rudy to continue.

“I think the three men on duty were held at gunpoint as they were beaten. Or at least there was something preventing them from fighting back. These weren’t men who would go down that easily. It also looks like they were beaten so bad that whatever they were strangled with only sped up their deaths. Not even one of them has a bruised knuckle or a shred of skin under their nails. That means they didn’t fight back when being strangled either.”

“What about the other two?” Carson asked as he moved a few feet into the living room to make way for a CSI photographer.

Rudy stepped ahead of him and sat down on one of the dining room chairs. Carson followed suit. To his credit, Rudy didn’t look at Carson’s shirt with the stained underarms.

“The other two were murdered with a different MO. Nick Johnson had eaten breakfast and was stabbed in the kitchen. He had his gun in his hand, but the safety was still on. He still had french toast in his mouth when he died. Whoever attacked him was seriously fast and good at what they do. Either that or extremely angry. The kind of rage that sets men apart.”

“What do you mean?”

“The stabber hit so fast that he had no real aim. He used a kitchen knife from the set on the counter. His first jab went in Nick’s cheek and the second one in the side of his throat. That was the killing blow. A first look at the blood splatter pattern indicates Nick was sitting at the kitchen table minding his own business when he was hit. That’s fucked up.”

“What about Lee? What have you got on him?”

Rudy flipped another page. “Lee Michaels was found on the property out by the woods. It was like he was doing a security check of the perimeter. He got a bunch of blows in, which by the way, makes him the only one to have scuffled with his attacker. His hands were seriously bruised and covered in blood. But somehow, whoever he beat to a pulp got a hold of his pen and jammed it into his neck like he was trying to do an amateur tracheotomy and missed the whole point about it helping someone breathe and not hear better.”

“Not funny,” Carson said.

“Sorry.”

“Where’s the couple they were protecting?”

Rudy looked at him, frowning. “Do you mean Darwin and Rosina Kostas?”

“Yes. Who else was in this safe house? I don’t want to say their names right now. Not after what happened here.”

“We haven’t found them yet. Whoever attacked the safe house and killed our guys must’ve kidnapped them.”

“We don’t know that. What we have is five men down and the couple on the run. We all know what that boy can do. Nobody, in decades, went up against Fuccini, and this kid did it on his own and walked away. That makes him dangerous. Very dangerous. Just look around the house where he was living and what do we see? Five dead Bureau men.”

“We don’t know
that
. They could’ve been kidnapped.”

Carson shook his head. “I guess we’ll see when we find them. Any leads?”

“None, but we’re pulling the camera feeds as we speak and I’ll be watching them myself.”

“What part of the house did the cameras catch?” Carson asked, wondering why he had forgotten that particular detail about the house.

“There’s a camera on the front gate and two covering the perimeter but they don’t cover everything. Then we have three on the inside of the house. One of which we have in the kitchen covering the back door.”

“Show me.”

Carson followed Rudy back into the kitchen where he stepped around Nick’s body, crossed himself and said a quick prayer under his breath. The CSI team was in the act of cleaning up their tools, but blood remained on the floor and cupboards below the sink.

I’m going to spill your blood before this is over, Darwin.

Rudy pointed to the clock on the wall.

“It’s in the clock?” Carson asked.

“Yup. At the little dot where the six is. See here.” Rudy pointed.

Carson nodded. “Where are the discs?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.”

Rudy led him outside to the police van. He opened the back door and stepped in, gesturing for Carson to follow. The van had a raised roof, but at six foot two, Carson had to duck.

“I had my guys going over the discs here to give me a preview of whatever they found.” He smacked the back of one technician’s chair. “That’s your cue. What have you found?”

The tech pushed a couple of buttons, and security camera footage from that morning began to play.

“Cameras three and five had nothing for us. But the gate camera shows Nick and Lee coming inside the property. After that, we don’t see them again until the kitchen. The three men on duty were executed off camera, as was Lee out by the perimeter fence.”

Rudy slapped the back of the tech’s chair again. “Show us what you do have then.”

“This here is the kitchen.”

The screen changed and on the little TV everyone saw Nick Johnson eating french toast and smiling as he talked to someone off camera.

“Wait, here it comes. Three seconds.”

Carson eased closer. He recognized Rosina Kostas as she appeared on the screen. The camera caught her knocking over the knife set on the counter. Then Carson watched as Darwin rose from the floor with a knife in his hand so fast that he was at the bottom of the screen one second and attacking Nick the next.

No wonder Nick couldn’t get his weapon off safety fast enough.

The camera picked up two fast jabs of the knife, although Darwin’s back obscured most of the detail. Then Darwin stepped away and Carson watched as Nick grabbed at his face, his mouth jammed with food, before he toppled off the chair, where he bled out and died on the kitchen floor.

“Holy shit,” Rudy said. “That’s the first time I’ve seen that.”

“Yeah,” the tech said. “I just watched it myself a minute before you came in.”

“Seal everything up tight,” Carson said. “No mistakes. When I catch Darwin, I refuse to lose him on a technicality. That camera’s footage is absolute proof of what happened here. Come outside,” he said to Rudy.

Both men stepped down the two stairs to the driveway.

“Make sure no one else sees that. Lock it up. I want everyone looking for this Darwin kid, but I want to be the one who brings him in. He’s my collar. Got it?”

He waited until the stunned Rudy nodded.

“Good. Make sure when one of your men spots Darwin or his wife that they call me. Understood?”

“Yeah …”

“You okay?” Carson asked.

Rudy wiped his face and ran a hand through his hair. “Nick and I played a round of golf last week. He took me to Vegas to play Shadow Creek. You know how Nick loved to gamble. He got these two passes for free rounds at Shadow Creek through the New York New York Hotel. They even had us taken to the course in limousines.” Rudy paused to collect himself. “I just watched a snuff film in that van. My friend was killed by the guy he was protecting. Stabbed in the face. I refused to believe it when I got here. I kept telling myself that Darwin and his wife needed our help. That they had been kidnapped or something. I would never have guessed that Darwin did all this.”

“Well, now you know. Don’t worry, we’ll get the bastard. He’ll pay.” Carson grabbed Rudy’s shoulders and gripped them tight. “Hold it together. Do this right and we’ll get him, okay? Now, I have to go and issue a statement to the press. When I’m done, I’ll be heading back to the office to learn everything I can about Darwin. I’ll find out where his parents are and Rosina’s parents and I’ll talk to Greg Stinsen. We’ll nail him. He’ll make a mistake. We’ll get him. But I need you to keep it together.”

“Okay, okay, I’m good.”

Carson let him go and started for his car.

“Wait, Carson,” Rudy called after him.

“What is it?” Carson asked without turning around. He reached his car, opened the door and stood waiting.

“Why were Nick and Lee here in the first place?”

“What?” Carson shook his head. “What are you talking about? They’re FBI. They know about the safe house. It’s their job.”

“Yeah, but why were they here? They weren’t relieving the guys on duty. They know about the safe house, but they don’t work it. Too much official traffic coming and going would raise questions with the neighbors. They know that, so I find it confusing that they would just show up for breakfast.”

“Look, Rudy, just do your job. Don’t worry about that. They were here and now they’re dead. You saw for yourself how Darwin stabbed Nick. It doesn’t matter why they were here. They’re dead and we have a murderer to catch.”

Carson got in his car and drove away to meet the reporters, wondering why everyone was so fucked up.

“Why were they here?” he asked out loud. “It doesn’t fucking matter,” he shouted in anger.

The rookie guarding the gate had done a fine job. Carson pulled up to the inside of the gate and was relieved that he didn’t have to shoot the guy’s thumb off.

He got out of the car, put his jacket on and turned to the rookie.

“Good job. I’ll put a word in for you.”

The rookie’s face was pale as he forced a smile.

Carson turned to the media assembled near the gate and said loud enough for the rookie to hear, “Fucking maggots.”

Cameras flashed in multiple succession as the mass of at least a hundred reporters surged forward for a statement.

Carson understood what it was all about. He hated it, but he understood it. They were itching to get the details of his friends’ deaths for the evening news. They all wanted to be the first to air the dirty laundry. This would be the story of the year. Five agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been killed in the line of duty at the same location.

Fuck, it’ll be the story of the decade.

Questions shot out at him. Reporters talked over one another, hoping for him to answer them personally. He waved both arms in the air to signal quiet.

“Okay, okay, we’ll get to the questions in time,” he said.

“How many dead are there?” a pretty brunette from CNN shouted from four feet away.

“We have five dead, all federal agents.”

“Can you give us names?”

“Not at this time. You know the drill. Not until the next of kin are notified will any of these men be named.”

“Was this a crack house? Were they making a bust?” a man with three letters on his microphone Carson didn’t recognize asked.

“Listen, I’ll tell you what I can but there’s still a lot of investigation to take place.”

The throng jostled closer. Over twenty black microphones crowded Carson’s face. At that moment, all he felt like doing was smacking the microphones away. He didn’t want to talk to the media. It was Darwin he wanted to talk to. The public information had to be managed. The five men lying dead behind him deserved better. He would do it his way and he
would
find Darwin and his wife.