Denouement (13 page)

I tossed my suit jacket on the roof of my unmarked cruiser and pulled one of the vests from the open trunk of the car. I loosened the body armor’s straps, pulled it over me, and snugged it tight. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hank doing the same. I pulled my jacket from the roof of the car and put it back on. Officer Collison was giving his men orders.

“Collison, are you set?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He waved Hank and me over to the patrol car he and his men stood behind.

We walked over.

Collison handed each of us a radio and earpiece. I took mine and wiggled it into my right ear. “I spoke with the building manager,” I said. “The twenty-seventh floor has just three other condos—sorry,
junior penthouses
is what he called them. The guy said he would call up and make sure everyone else was cleared off the floor immediately.”

“Good idea,” Collison said.

“How are we doing this?” Hank asked.

“Our group here will get over there and go up. Sergeant, you and the lieutenant will wait and follow us in once we give you the all clear. I have a couple of patrol guys that are going to meet us there and watch the lobby and entrance of the building. Do you have the warrant?” Collison asked.

I pulled it from my jacket pocket and handed it over.

He opened the folded piece of paper, glanced at it, and jammed it into his shirt’s front pocket. “Let’s roll. The wife is making a pot roast tonight, and I don’t feel like eating it cold,” Collison said.

“Fair enough. Lead the way,” I said.

Hank and I took the few steps to our unmarked cruiser and hopped in. The luxury condos were just a mile from our station. While the ride would normally take five minutes, with cutting back and forth down city streets and obeying the speed limit, we went full lights and sirens. Collison radioed over to us on the way that we had a patrol car parked at the northern building of the twin high-rise complex. Our three cars pulled into the U-shaped entry just a minute or two after we left. We parked behind Collison’s car and stepped out. Collison and his team gathered with Officer Henry, who’d been waiting for us. Hank and I walked over. To our right was the building’s main entry. Residents of the building were coming and going. They all flashed us concerned looks.

“Who wants to hoof it up?” Collison asked.

Hank’s eyes went wide. “Stairs? To the twenty-seventh floor?”

“We need to be sure no one comes down while we take the elevator, or elevators, up,” Collison said.

“Um, I’m out. Old knee injury from my football days in college,” Hank said.

I peered at Hank standing next to me. “Nice try. You didn’t play football in college.”

“I meant high school,” he said.

“You’ve never played football, period,” I said.

Hank shrugged. “Did I say football? I meant basketball.”

I shook my head. “We’ll take the stairs, Collison,” I said.

“Shit,” Hank mumbled.

“Okay. Russell, Lapone, York, you’re with me. One elevator, and we’ll all hop in—two, we’ll split up.”

The officers nodded in confirmation.

“Henry, I want you in the lobby, stationed by the elevators. After we get up there, we’re going to shut the elevators down. You’ll have to explain to the residents that they should remain in the lobby area until we’re clear upstairs.”

Officer Henry pulled his chrome aviator sunglasses from his eyes and slipped them into the breast pocket of his dark TPD shirt. “Got it,” he said.

“Do we have another patrol officer here?” Collison asked.

“Telwan should be pulling up any second,” Officer Henry said.

“Radio him. When he shows, let’s get him stationed at this entrance here.”

“I’ll let him know,” Henry said.

“I’m going to call more people,” I said. “This complex probably has twenty points of entry, plus I want someone searching their parking garage for the car the feds have him on video driving.”

“Sure,” Collison said.

I walked over to our unmarked cruiser and made the call over the radio before rejoining the group. “Are we set here?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Collison said. He looked at his men. “Let’s gear up. Lieutenant, Sergeant, why don’t you guys start tackling the stairs. We’ll group in the stairwell on the twenty-sixth floor and then head up. I’ll radio you when we’re getting on the elevator.”

“Got it,” I said.

As Collison led his group to the trunks of their two patrol cars, Hank and I headed into the building, quickly made our way through the lobby, and found the stairwell. We began our ascent. We weren’t up two flights when I noticed Hank fiddling with his cell phone a couple stairs behind me.

“What are you doing?” I asked over my shoulder.

He was punching away at the screen of his phone with his finger. “The last flight of stairs took us eight seconds. I’m trying to figure out how long this is going to take.”

“Probably like five minutes if we stop a few times,” I said.

Hank jammed his phone back in his pocket. “No word from Faust?” he asked.

“I haven’t heard from him, no.”

“Did you give him the address?”

“Yeah. I left it on his voicemail.”

We continued. Up the flights of stairs we went, three steps on each floor’s landing, a right turn followed by another flight—and again and again. We stopped for a breather on the tenth floor.

Hank leaned against the wall and sucked in breaths of air. “I need to get my ass back in the gym,” he said.

I rested my hands on my knees and hunched over. “I know. I’ve been slacking the last few months,” I said.

Hank let out a big breath. “Better get back in there before you start looking like Bostok. He was thin before he made captain.”

I thought for a moment about my stomach overlapping my belt—getting old and fat sitting behind a captain’s desk. “Come on, almost halfway there.”

We continued up.

Collison radioed us when we were rounding the landing on the twentieth floor. He said they were ready and waiting on twenty-six. Hank and I jogged the last six flights and pushed open the door onto the final floor.

I spotted our team by the pair of elevators. Each elevator door stood open. Collison and his men wore their full SWAT gear, goggles resting on their helmets. Each man had on body armor with SWAT patches across the front and back. A curved, rectangular ballistic shield with a notch in the side for a rifle was leaning against the wall. Lapone rested a door ram on his shoulder. They all carried M4 carbine assault rifles. The team was ready.

Collison spoke up. “The elevators are locked out. We’ll take the stairs up,” he said. Collison looked at me. “We’ll clear the hall, and you two enter the hall. We’ll clear the property, and you two enter the property. Not before. Got it?”

“Yeah, okay,” I said.

Collison pointed toward the stairwell. “Let’s go.”

Hank and I removed our service weapons and followed the team up the flight of stairs to the twenty-seventh floor.

Collison rested his hand against the metal door’s pusher. “Shield,” he said.

York passed the ballistic shield to Lapone, who passed it up to Collison. Collison got low, pushed the door open, and put the shield to the floor. He stepped behind it, and the metal door rested against his back. The barrel of his rifle pointed down the hall in the shield’s cutout.

“Clear,” he said from the corner of his mouth.

Lapone took a position over Collison’s shoulder with his rifle pointed down the hall and his foot propping the metal door.

Collison spun with the shield around the doorway to get eyes on the hall in the other direction. “Clear,” he said again. He jerked his chin toward the end of the hallway. “The condo is the last on the left. Let’s go, single file against the wall. Kane, Rawlings, hang back and watch our asses until I radio you.”

“Got it,” I said.

Hank and I stepped into the hall. I held the door’s handle and closed it as quietly as I could. Collison led his men down to the condo’s doorway. Hank and I covered them from our position. Collison stopped his men a few feet short of the door. Lapone, who was holding the door ram, set it on the floor and brought his rifle to his shoulder. I took a position on the other side of the building’s hallway so I could get a better visual. The door they stopped short of appeared to be cracked open. Collison gave his men a couple hand signals. Russell moved to the opposite wall of the hallway. York passed the condo’s doorway to the far side. Lapone stayed at Collison’s back. Collison stopped at the doorway of the condo, planted the ballistic shield in front of the door, and took a position directly behind it. He gave a finger wave to his men. From my position, I could see the door was standing open about six inches.

York reached out and pushed the condo’s door the rest of the way open.

“Tampa police, search warrant!” Collison yelled.

I didn’t hear a response.

Collison entered behind his shield. Their rifles pointed into the condo, his men funneled in behind him. Within seconds of them vanishing from my view, I heard Collison and his men yelling for someone to get on the floor. Then their voices went silent. A blip of static crackled in my ear from the earbud radio, followed by Collison giving Hank and me the all clear to enter.

We walked down the hall and entered the front door of the condo. I saw no one. White marble floors stretched before me. The room appeared to be some form of sitting room. The right wall was entirely windows looking out over Tampa. To our left were three matching leather chairs positioned facing the windows and a couple of small tables. Past the sitting room, the condo opened up into what looked like a living room filled with black leather furniture. Hank and I kept our service weapons ready and walked through. We entered the living room. My field of vision shot left to our men and a couple other guys standing in the kitchen. A large granite topped bar shot out from the wall. Two men sat on the barstools—leaning against the bar was Agent Faust.

I ran my hand over my forehead and holstered my weapon. “Faust,” I said.

“Azarov isn’t here,” he said.

I walked over. “Did you get my message or already know the address?”

“I got your message, and we headed out,” he said. “I tried calling you back a few times, but you didn’t answer.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket. It showed three missed calls. I pressed the button for the ringer on the side of the phone, and it showed on the screen that the ringer was set to silent.

“We’ve only been here for a few minutes,” Faust said.

I looked at the men with Faust. They wore tactical pants with firearm holsters secured to their thighs. Both of the men were large in stature and wearing sand-colored body armor free of any insignias or patches. Both had thick beards and short hair. The one on the right had a large knife in a sheath attached to his chest. They were dressed more like mercenaries than FBI agents.

“Did you guys look around?” I asked.

“Not yet. We entered and cleared the property. We were just about to start digging through the place when you guys came in,” Faust said.

“See anything of interest on first pass?” I asked.

He pointed to a phone on the bar. “That cell phone was sitting here. We have a smashed safe in the master bedroom. About it,” Faust said. “Like I said, we just did a walk-through.”

“I suppose your federal search warrant trumps ours?” Hank asked.

I saw one of Faust’s men smirk.

“Yeah,” Faust said. “But let’s just have a look around and see if we can come up with anything.” He motioned for his two men to stand. “You guys can head out. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

They said nothing and headed for the door.

Hank flashed me a sideways glance.

I looked at Faust. “Hired muscle?” I asked.

“Just a couple of guys I have at my disposal. You have your SWAT guys. I have something else.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Let’s take a look around.”

We split up and spread out. I took the master bedroom and began going through drawers, closets, and the master bath. I spent a good half hour leaving nothing unturned, but I found nothing anywhere that didn’t belong to Yury Sokoloff. I headed from the master bedroom back out to the kitchen.

Faust sat on a barstool next to Pax at the breakfast bar. Hank was rummaging through the kitchen garbage can just beyond them.

“Anyone get anything?” I asked.

“Nothing in the living room or spare bedrooms. The kitchen here is the last room left. It looks like the place is a bust aside from whoever this belongs to.” Faust nodded toward the cell phone Pax was lifting prints from.

“I got a set of prints from an empty glass in the sink as well,” Pax said. “I’m going to head back to the station and run both sets. At least we can get confirmation if the prints belong to Azarov or not.” Pax slipped the phone into an evidence bag.

“We need to check the call log and get the number from that phone so we can get in touch with the phone company,” Faust said.

“Here, it has power,” Pax said. He slid the phone, sealed in the see-through evidence bag, over to Faust.

I stood over Faust’s shoulder as he clicked the buttons and brought up the log, which was empty. “Erased,” he said.

“If the phone has a SIM card, my tech guys can get the deleted history,” I said.

Faust nodded and then went into the phone’s settings and brought up the number assigned to it. He plugged the number into his cell phone and dialed. The phone rang. He hung up his phone and then dialed another number. After the call connected, he rattled off the number for the bagged phone and told the person on the other end of the line to get everything. He hung up and looked at me. “I have my guys working on getting the phone records. I should have it before the end of the night, and we can go from there.” He handed the cell phone to me. “Have your guys do their SIM-card recovery as a backup.”

“Will do,” I said.

Faust stood from the barstool. “I’m done here. I’ll call you as soon as I hear something. Let me know if the prints on the phone are Azarov’s, and let me know if you get anything from the SIM card.”

“Sure,” I said.

He left the kitchen.

Hank pulled off the gloves he’d worn to dig through the trash. “There’s nothing in here other than garbage. Coffee grounds, food scraps, and random trash.”