Untraceable (42 page)

“
I know better; Giovanni
wasn’t a gift. I’ve been racking my brain trying to think what she
had that would be so valuable that you’d loan her someone like him.
And then I realized she has the top supply of premium,
hundred-percent pure, Columbian cocaine coming into the
U.S.—courtesy of my brother and me.”

There was a stretch of silence so long
that Micah wondered if Caprizio hung up on him, but he waited
patiently to see if he was still on the line.

“
It’s not easy,” Caprizio
said guardedly, “to find anyone willing to take out a diplomat in
another country. She said she was able to get you to do it once,
and she was sure that with the right leverage in her possession,
she could get you to take out Martinez’s replacement, Ambassador
Tocovara, and reopen the line—a fifty-fifty split if I helped her.
I offered Giovanni, she didn’t ask.”

“
If she told you the line
was closed, she lied to you. It was never about the drugs; she
wanted her father dead so she could become the Boss.”

“
Can you prove the line
was never closed?”

Micah lifted a recorder near the phone
and pressed a button.

“
Let me speak to
Jaime.”
Came Sharon’s voice over the
phone.

“
Senorita
Moretti?”

“
How far out is the
shipment?”

“
The boat is less than
1,500 kilometers from New Orleans. They should make port Wednesday
night.”

“
Good. I’ll have my men
ready to unload at one a.m. Thursday morning. What did they mark
the crates this time?”

“
Coffee—they said you were
angry when they crated the last load as sugar.”

“
Sugar is just a little
too cute. Besides 5,000 kilos of sugar is small enough to be
suspicious and when we’re talking a street value of ninety million
dollars, one cute screw-up could cripple my operation. Give me the
name of the ship.”

Micah pressed the button to stop the
remainder of the conversation. “That was about three weeks ago. She
has it in a storage yard. She doesn’t have to pay you a cut of what
you don’t know she has, now does she? I’m sure she wasn’t going to
try to cheat you—much. Once she had two Families under her control,
I’m certain she would have told you the line was re-opened, but I
doubt you would have gotten a cut from what she stored.”

“
Then am I to assume you
want to trade Sharon’s coke for your wife?”

“
No,” Micah stated rather
bluntly. “My wife deserves so much more than being a pawn in a drug
deal. I have something else to trade, but I’m not willing to
discuss it now. I want a private meeting, and your word that you
won’t have me shot before I present the deal.”

“
I’ll have to give this
matter a little thought.”

“
I want to know my wife,
her mother, and her sister are safe—now.”

“
You’re not going to get
to talk to her.”

“
Why not?”

“
Remember who you’re
playing with Gavarreen. I didn’t blindfold her to get her here, and
I’m not going to allow her to say something that would lead you
directly to me. You’re going to have to trust me when I say they
are fine. Call me back in twenty-four hours.”

“
Make it three or no
deal.”

“
Gavarreen,” he stated
icily, “I don’t make deals. I give opportunities—don’t blow this
one.”

“
Three hours,” Micah
replied giving no ground to the most powerful man in the U.S.
mafia. “And don’t call Sharon.”

“
I’ve already spoken with
her.”

“
And?”

“
I told her that her men
shouldn’t have pushed Giovanni. What happened was her fault, and
she should have trusted my man enough to let him hold the
collateral on his own. Her move to strand him at that house showed
a lack of confidence in me; I made sure she knew I was
disappointed. I said I would be the one to hold the bargaining chip
now.”

“
Don’t tell her you know
about the drugs. She’ll dump that coke in the sewer before she’d
get caught hiding it from you. She’s going to need to be involved,
but not right now and she can’t know why.”

“
Three hours,
Micah
,” he stated as if
he detested his name, “I’ll let you know my decision.” And the call
was disconnected.

David pulled into the driveway fifteen
minutes later. Micah guessed he must have done about a hundred and
twenty all the way. He wasn’t in any mood to listen when he climbed
out of his car. He was ranting about getting on a plane to New York
and killing every mafia member he could find until someone took
them to Caprizio. His only momentary pause was when he noticed
Micah taking aim at him with the biggest gun he’d ever
seen.

That was the last thing David
remembered.

“
Hey, wake up,” Micah
said, patting David’s face.

David grimaced, evidently unaware, for
the moment, why he was lying in the gravel. “Son-of-a-bitch, my leg
hurts!” he grumbled. He sat up, one hand rubbing his upper leg and
his other brushing the small rocks from his hair. “Did you freaking
shoot me?!” he asked sounding thoroughly disgusted.

“
Don’t get riled up again.
Are you ready to listen?”

“
What was
that?”

“
A modified coil gun with
a taser cartridge.”

David blinked a few times as if his
brain was trying to decide if that was even possible. “Crank?” he
finally asked.

“
Yeah, I bought you one,
too; twenty-five grand a piece.”

“
No coil gun is worth that
much.”

“
You haven’t seen this
gun.” Micah stood up from kneeling over David and offered him his
hand.

David accepted and rose, rather
wobbly, to his feet, “Damn, I’ve got a hell of a Charlie-horse
now.” He limped toward the front door, “You know I’m gonna shoot
your ass when I get my hands on mine, right?”

Micah gave a small laugh, “At least
let me give you the safety talk so you don’t push the wrong button
and kill me.”

“
Why’d you shoot me,
anyway?”

“
First, you were about to
come unglued, so I figured it would calm you down—which it did. And
second, I had to test it on somebody,” he chuckled.

“
Damn, bro, next time you
need a test dummy, I’ll drive you to the freakin’ homeless
shelter—those idiots will do anything for a couple
bucks!”

The mood which had, strangely enough,
temporarily lightened after Micah shot David, returned to serious
once they were in the house where Micah had his gear laid
out.

“
So tell me what the hell
is going on, and why we need some futuristic stun gun shit instead
of using our Glocks?”

“
You knew I promised Leese
that I’d change and I wouldn’t kill anyone ever again.”

“
You shot that to hell,”
David snapped.

“
No, I didn’t. I haven’t
killed anybody.”

“
I think Moretti and
Botachelli would disagree if they could.”

“
They aren’t
dead.”

David stared at Micah as if his words
had been rubber balls that bounced off his ears. “They’re dead.
They found Vitale’s body in that storage tanker, you—”

“
They found
a
body; it wasn’t
Vitale’s.”

“
Well then you killed
somebody!”

“
No I didn’t. I stole a
body from a hospital morgue in Virginia. It was a John Doe, so I
knew no one at the hospital would report it as missing. Why go
through all the media attention and embarrassment over someone no
one knew anyway?”

“
Then where the hell are
they? I can’t believe they’d both agree to go into hiding for
you.”

“
You’re right, neither one
would have agreed to that so I’m holding them until this is
over.”

David looked around as if the men
would suddenly appear, “Where? They aren’t here; who is watching
them?”

“
I have them at a house in
Florida.”

“
With who?” David
repeated.

“
Ryan.”

David’s head tipped back and his eyes
rolled toward the ceiling, “My God you are crazy! Either that or
you’ve wanted Ryan dead all along!”

“
No, I don’t, but I had to
have someone who wasn’t in the Family. Anyone else would have caved
under the pressure. Ryan, unfortunately, doesn’t know enough about
those two to be freaked out.”

“
Why did you do this?!” he
asked sounding exasperated.

“
Because it’s the only way
I’m going to be able to prove that Sharon was the mastermind of
this whole freaking thing!” Micah said with his volume rising. “She
wanted her father dead so she could take his place! She wanted
Botachelli dead, and Rizzo sufficiently scared shitless so she
could take-over our Family, too! No one would have believed she
planned something this big. She’s already blamed me for her dad’s
murder, and I’m sure she’s going to try to say Botachelli’s was all
my fault, as well.”

“
How the hell did Caprizio
get involved in all of this?”

“
Sharon told him her nice,
fat, revenue-making coke line had run dry. She also told him we
killed Martinez. She said she was pretty sure if she could get me
to kill Ambassador Tocovara, her shipments would resume—but
only
if
she had
the right leverage. He offered Giovanni to help hold the collateral
for fifty percent of her future shipments. Of course, once she was
the Boss of two clans, she wouldn’t mind splitting the coke
fund.”

“
Do you know where the
coke is at?”

“
It wasn’t easy tracking
all her electronics; she has three different cells and two
laptops—but nothing scrambled.”

“
It amazes me that she’s
lived this long. So are we trying out the new guns?” David asked as
a grin began to replace his serious expression from a moment
earlier.

“
No. I don’t want her to
know the coke is gone from Jeffrey’s Store-n-More, yet.”

“
It’s still here,” he
asked with surprise, “in New Orleans?”

“
Yeah, evidently she
didn’t want to chance moving it very far. It’s sitting inside a
small box truck in the storage yard. Her boys are across the street
at the Super 8 on the second floor with the perfect
view.”

“
I don’t know how you’re
planning to get it out of there, but even if they don’t see us,
someone is surely going to notice when the truck is
missing.”

“
Not the way we’re going
to do it. I have two and a half hours before I call Caprizio back
so we need to hurry if we’re going to get this done.”

Thirty minutes later, David was
checking into room 214 of the Super 8. Micah had been paying for
that particular room ever since he discovered Sharon’s men were in
215. With the curtains drawn, he quickly lifted the mattress and
box spring, and then pulled the wooden pedestal frame away from the
wall. Cutting the drywall on his side was easy and silent with the
heavy duty razor knife, but going through the wall in the
neighboring room would have to be done very carefully in case his
measurements were off. He pushed a small hole with an awl. He
expected to be in darkness behind one of their beds, but judging
from the amount of pale light, he was off a bit and actually was
behind the nightstand between the two beds. He threaded his small
flex-cam into the hole and stared into their room. This was better
in his estimation because he had been concerned that the mattress
and linens would have slowed the release of gas into the room. It
wasn’t as easy cutting the dry wall on their side because David had
to work in the tiny opening and space between the walls. He could
hear their television and the muffled sounds as they conversed
about a ‘talented’ stripper at one of the clubs. Once the two-inch
round hole was cut, he had to restrain from laughing as their
conversation became clearer. They were getting pretty raunchy as
they talked about her ability to do the splits and pick up cash,
hands-free.

David placed the end of the gas
canister into the opening and then packed it with plumber’s putty
to secure it—and to keep from knocking himself out.

“
Goodnight, guys,” he
whispered as he pressed the gas-release lever and put the last
piece of putty in place. From start to finish, including putting
the bed back together he was done in twenty minutes. He called
Micah as he walked out of the room.

One ring and he answered, “How’d it
go?”

“
I walked past their
window and looked inside; they are out cold. Thank God they were
both on their beds watching TV while they were jabbering; that
stuff works pretty damn fast. Are you sure they won’t know they
were gassed?”

“
As long as they were in
bed and don’t wake up on the floor, it pretty much just leaves you
feeling rested instead of woozy.”

“
Well then I’d say they
are going to have a damn good rest, bro,” David laughed and then
said he would meet Micah across the street in a matter of
moments.