Blown (17 page)

K
aplan and Moss
sat at a table outside the
quiet room
drinking coffee. Earlier, Kaplan let Moss talk to Tony alone, a conversation lasting less than ten minutes. When Moss left the sealed room, he took the palm of his right hand and hit his forehead.

"What a pain in the ass," Moss said in exasperation. "I don't know how you kept from shooting him."

Kaplan stared into his coffee and smiled. "I almost did…more than once. Instead, I busted his nose after the old codger thought he could pull a gun on me."

"How'd he get a gun?"

"I gave it to him."

"Why the hell would you do a fool thing like that?"

"I couldn't drive a motorcycle
and
shoot at the helicopter at the same time."

Moss responded, "That explains a few things."

Kaplan swirled the dark liquid around in his cup. "There is something Cox said that has been bothering me. And before we go any further, I want some answers."

"Like what?"

"Like, what did Cox mean when he said the Little Rock PD would only get Tony killed?"

"Little Rock PD means well," Moss explained. "But the Marshals Service has had a couple of jurisdiction issues with them. They aren't the most cooperative department when they think our witness is a criminal. It's that Southern, good-ole-boy mentality, I think. I worked at our Little Rock field office for several years. Matter of fact, I've been gone less than three weeks, so it's like I never left. A year ago or so there was an incident caused by a lack of communication between the departments. A young undercover detective with LRPD recognized one of our witnesses as a wanted criminal, but didn't realize he had entered the WitSec program. It was messy. The detective yelled out the witness's real name and drew a weapon. Thinking his witness's cover had been breached and not realizing he was looking at a plain-clothes cop, the escorting WitSec inspector drew his weapon and fired. The deputy put two rounds in the detective. Fingers were pointed. Blame and accusations flew back and forth. LRPD refused to accept blame for any wrong doing on the part of their officer. Ever since then the relationship between the Marshals Service and Little Rock PD has been…strained, for lack of a better word."

Kaplan looked up for the first time. "How could that happen? Local law enforcement is briefed, right? Didn't he identify himself as a cop? He should have known about the witness, right?"

"She," Moss said. "In this particular instance, she would have been briefed but she had just returned from two weeks leave. First day back on the job. She had stopped at the diner for breakfast before going into the station. That's where she ran into the witness. Eyewitness statements along with the WitSec inspector's testimony claim she never identified herself as a police officer before she was shot. The politics ran all the way to the governor, the director of the Marshals Service, and the Department of Justice. Ultimately the deputy was removed from WitSec and reassigned to another field office."

"And the undercover cop? What happened to her?"

"She didn't make it. Died enroute to the hospital."

Kaplan studied the big man. His next question was sure to get a reaction, but he never got the chance to ask.

Dick walked into the room while Susan stood in the doorway. It seemed an odd match to him. Dick was six-five and Susan was barely five feet. Dick was all business and Susan was not.

"We got company," Dick said. "Four cars. Eight men, maybe more. They've driven by at least a half a dozen times over the past two hours. Our surveillance cameras spotted a couple of men walking the perimeter. Could have been the same man twice, hard to tell in the shadows."

"Gregg," Susan said. "This is new territory for us. This safe house has never been compromised. We have contingencies in place, of course, but have never had to use them. Somebody has gone to a lot of trouble to get to your man."

"Martin Scalini," Moss interjected.

Kaplan looked back at Moss. "Tony said it was Scalini, but this doesn't seem like wise guy M.O."

Moss hesitated, and then finally said, "Scalini is powerful and highly respected in the Mafioso. Tony is the one man who can single-handedly bring down Scalini's entire operation along with all the drug cartels he does business with. And the human traffickers. And the gun traffickers. The list goes on and on. Scalini's top two button men are Angelo DeLuca and Bruno Ratti, aka Bruno the Rat. We don't know much about Ratti except that he disappears for a few years at a time and then reappears. Rumor is he spends his time in the Caribbean somewhere. DeLuca is a different story. Angelo DeLuca's got a rap sheet as long as your arm. He's extremely loyal to Martin Scalini. Been with him since he was a teenager. He has a reputation of violence. There is only one person I can think of who is more ruthless and sadistic than DeLuca. And that's Martin Scalini.

"If Scalini takes Tony alive, he will take him to his
room of death—
we don't know exactly where his torture chamber is, only that it exists. There, Scalini tortures his victims. Some are rumored dissolved alive in an acid bath. Some are dismembered. First he starts with the fingers and toes. He breaks them all, one at a time. Slowly. Then, for violating the code of silence, Scalini cuts out the tongue as a symbolic gesture."

"Okay. Enough for me." Susan's face was ashen. "I'm leaving. I don't need to hear this." She turned and left.

"Is this really necessary?" Kaplan watched Susan leave the room. "I'm more than a little familiar with torture."

"Not like this. You know torture when information extraction was the objective." Moss pointed his finger at the man sitting inside the
quiet room
. "This isn't water boarding, this is different. When a member of the family flips and cooperates with law enforcement, a violent message must be sent. Whether it is sadistic torture or being buried alive, the message rings loud and clear throughout the criminal underworld—you don't snitch on the Scalini family. If you do, he will make you beg for death."

T
he
crow's
nest
was a ten-foot by five-foot rectangular parapet on the roof of the B & B. With its rhythmic breaks in the wall to create a protective pattern of embattlements, the crenellated parapet offered an unobstructed 360º view of the B & B's property. To Kaplan, it looked like a tower on a fortified medieval castle with its notched walls to ward off attackers. Only manned when the safe house was active, it provided high ground so the two armed guards had an advantage against unwelcome intruders.

Kaplan opened the metal hatch and climbed onto the
crow's nest.
Behind the reinforced brick wall, he joined the two men guarding the fortress. According to Dick, both men were former Marines. One was an easy ten years older than the other. Both were dressed in full black tactical uniforms with smudged faces. They had rifles with infrared scopes, night vision goggles, as well as standard binoculars.

"Okay, give me a SitRep," Kaplan said in a hushed voice.

The elder of the two leaned over and gave Kaplan the situation report. "Two cars and two SUVs. Looks like a light colored Buick, maybe a LaCrosse—"

"That's the car with the two goons from Francesco's," said Kaplan.

"It drives by about every fifteen minutes. There is also a Lincoln Town Car and both SUVs appear to be Suburbans. With the exception of the Buick, all the vehicles are dark colored with black out windows. Infrared indicates two men in each vehicle." The guard pointed to the end of the block. "One Suburban parked at the end of the street hasn't moved in forty-five minutes. About every eighteen to twenty minutes, someone from the Suburban gets out and walks down the street and back."

"What about the others?" Kaplan asked.

The man turned and pointed through a break in the trees behind the safe house. "The other Suburban is parked one street back. You can just make out the front grill through there."

"And the Town Car?"

"Wild card. We have no idea. Last time we saw it was over an hour ago. It drove down the street and hasn't been seen since."

"Any chance it's not part of this group?" Kaplan asked.

"No chance, sir. Before its last pass it stopped there." He turned and pointed to the first Suburban at the end of the street. "One man from each vehicle got out and talked for two and a half minutes, both looking in this direction the entire time, then they got back in their vehicles and the Town Car drove down the street and disappeared."

"You think they know you guys are up here?"

"It's possible, but not likely. Heavy cloud cover, no moon, no streetlights on this end of the block. It's pretty dark and we're well hidden behind this wall. Tonight they'd need night vision goggles to know we're here."

"Great." Kaplan opened the metal door and descended three steps, stopped and turned to the guard. "If anything changes—"

"Yes, sir. You'll be the first to know."

Thirty seconds later Kaplan was standing in front of the
quiet room.
Senior Inspector Moss was back in the room with Tony. Kaplan knocked on the glass and motioned to Moss. The deputy came outside the room. "How long before you can get Marshals protection here to transport Tony?"

Moss looked at his watch. "Three hours. Maybe a little less if traffic isn't bad." He looked up at Kaplan. "Change your mind?"

"Yeah, but three hours is too long. We need to get him out of here ASAP." Kaplan turned and looked at Tony. The old man, with a Band-Aid on his neck, was sitting at the table inside the room glaring at him. "This turned into more than I bargained for."

"What do you want to do?" Moss asked.

Kaplan turned back to the deputy. "All that stuff you said earlier about what Scalini will do to Tony…how sure are you that he'll keep him alive long enough to torture him?"

"It's Scalini's style. Everyone who double-crosses him is tortured first and then killed. Almost without exception. And he's going to want to talk to Tony first. Find out what all he'd told the feds."

"And you know how to find Scalini?"

"More or less," Moss said. "OCRS has plenty of intel on almost all of Scalini's holdings. Putting the finger on him has been the hard part."

"OCRS?"

"The Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U. S. Marshals Service."

"How would you like to be known as the man who single-handedly brought down Scalini?" Kaplan asked.

"In a perfect world, what deputy wouldn't?" Moss said. "But right now I'm tasked with bringing in my assigned witness alive." Moss paused and gave Kaplan a perplexed look. "Why? What'd you have in mind?"

"I have a plan," Kaplan said, as he turned and looked at Tony through the window. "It'll give you the chance to kill two birds with one stone. But we'll need Tony's help to pull it off."

Moss followed suit and also looked through the glass. "I'll bet I'm not going to like it."

"No, Inspector Moss, you're going to hate it."

A
ngelo DeLuca parked
his car around the corner from the safe house giving him a limited view of the front gate. Dark clouds hung in the sky and with no streetlights it was difficult to see anything in detail, but he could still make out the metal gate sandwiched between the two brick abutments of the perimeter wall.

"Boss," Bruno said. He was holding binoculars to his eyes. "You're not going to believe this."

"What is it?"

Bruno passed the binoculars to DeLuca. "Take a look for yourself."

DeLuca twisted the focus until the safe house came into view. Bruno was right; he didn't believe what he saw. The gate had opened a few feet and stopped. The silhouette of a man walked from the opening with hands on top of his head to the middle of the street and stopped. DeLuca zoomed in on the man's face. "Holy shit, it's Tony Q."

The radio crackled and a voice said, "Boss, are you seeing this?"

DeLuca replied, "I'm watching."

The voice said, "Is that Tony Q?"

"Sure looks like him."

The voice asked, "What do you want us to do, Boss?"

"Nothing," Deluca said. "It has to be a trick."

Bruno interrupted, "There's someone else. He's standing at the gate. He's motioning for us to come to him."

"What do you think, Bruno? Think it's a trap?"

"It's that asshole Tony Q. I can smell that two-bit snitch from here."

"It could be a setup," said DeLuca. "Using Tony Q for bait."

"If it is, we whack 'em." Bruno grinned.

DeLuca stared at Bruno. "The boss said alive, you moron."

"Geez, Angelo. Lighten up, I was just kidding. Think logically about this for a second. Of course it's not a setup. Whoever is inside doesn't want to start an all out war in the middle of this neighborhood. It's too risky. The safe house cover would be blown and that's the last thing they want. Besides I'll keep my gun trained on the man at the gate."

DeLuca pulled the car from the curb and crept forward. He rounded the corner and let the Buick roll forward at idle speed until it was only inches away from Tony. The old man hadn't moved. "Tony Q, is that you?"

"Of course, it's me, you dumbass," the old man replied.

Bruno opened his door and got out, keeping his gun trained toward the man at the gate. The man stepped from the shadows. The glow from the headlights outlined the man's face. DeLuca recognized him as the man who escaped with Tony in Nashville.

"I have a message for your boss," the man said.

"Yeah? What kind of message?" DeLuca said.

"Tell Scalini this favor is on me. Also tell him I plan to collect real soon."

"You think you're some kind of tough guy, huh? Why don't I have Bruno do a number on you right now?" He looked at Bruno and laughed.

"I don't think you'll do that because there is only one scenario where you end up alive and that's you taking Tony back to Scalini unharmed. Go back empty handed, Scalini kills you." Kaplan motioned to the crow's nest. "Make a move on me, we kill you. Your call."

"The boss won't deal with a weasel like you. You show up, he'll kill you on the spot."

"My problem, not yours. All you have to do is leave with Tony and relay the message to your boss."

"Come on, Angelo," Bruno said to DeLuca. "We got Tony Q. Let's get out of here."

DeLuca paused. "Have it your way, tough guy. I'll tell him. But if you do something stupid, like come after Scalini, you better come heavy." Deluca motioned to Bruno. "Put the old man in the back…and make sure he's not wearing a wire."

K
aplan watched
the Buick drive off with Moss's witness in the back seat. Neither Tony nor the inspector was initially onboard with Kaplan's plan. It took a lot of convincing to bring Moss around. The idea of handing over his witness to the very man who wanted to kill him went against everything the Marshals Service stood for…until he understood the plan. Then Kaplan, with Moss's help, finally convinced Tony that his cooperation would be in his best interest.

The Suburban at the end of the street turned around and both vehicles disappeared from sight. One street over he heard another vehicle start and accelerate away.

Across the street a figure emerged from the shadows. He was dressed in full black and walked up to him.

"GPS device in place?" Kaplan asked.

"Yes sir," the man said. "Virtually undetectable and you can track it with your phone."