Gamma Blade (17 page)

They couldn’t meet on the Merry May. That was clear. O’Reilly had proposed it for last night’s get-together, but the boat was radioactive now. So the final exchange of cash, the last settling of contractual terms, would need to take place in altogether more improvised circumstances.

But Brull needed to get hold of the goddamn Mick first.

And sooner or later, the Turkmen, Abdu Popok, would be calling. Brull had assured him that the meeting, and the subsequent despatching of the product, would take place tonight. But Popok was apt to call before then, to check that it had been arranged.

And Brull didn’t think he could continue to bullshit the guy.

If Popok decided to terminate their agreement, Brull would be in a heap of trouble. Not just because he’d miss out on the substantial fee. A fee which ran to the tune of ten million US dollars. A  life-changing sum of money, but pure gold dust to an underworld businessman like Brull, who was only at the beginning of his career.

No, the bigger problem was the advance Popok had already paid. The Turkmen had been crystal clear: in the event of either party pulling out of their arrangement, the advance was required to paid back in full. With no interest attached, but still. It was a straight one million dollars.

And Brull had already spent the money.

Well, he’d spent half of it. The remaining five hundred K he’d been keeping back, to pay O’Reilly at their final meeting. He understood O’Reilly would receive the rest of his fee from Popok, upon delivery of the product.

So Brull had five hundred grand to give back to Popok. But he simply didn’t have the remaining 500,000 to hand.

Popok would want it back immediately. And Brull had some idea of what was in store if he didn’t pony up. There wasn’t a Turkmenistan mob here in Miami. But there were Russians, plenty of them. And Ukrainians. Brull had no doubt that the debt collectors would be drawn from their ranks.

And those Eastern European gangsters were
bad
.

Brull floored the accelerator of the Dodge in frustration, cutting up a monster-wheeled pickup truck in the process. The driver made a panicking jerking-off motion with one arm out the window as he swerved to avoid a collision.

Blind rage surged through Brull, and for a moment he considered turning and shooting the driver through the windshield.

But he got a grip. Steadied his breathing. Eased back on the gas a little.

He was Ernesto Justice Brull. He was the Gamma Blade.

And he was in complete control of himself, and of his world.

Even if, as a small but shrill voice in his head told him, that control was starting to slip just a little.

Chapter 26

Brull’s fortune turned twice in the next three hours, and both times for the better.

The first time was at a quarter of six. By that time, he was prowling the streets on foot, his cell phone hot in his hand from all the calls he was making: to Elon, his right-hand man, and to assorted other guys, and to O’Reilly’s number, which by now appeared stone-dead.

No leads on Venn’s whereabouts.

No progress on finding the guy in the hospital.

And no word from O’Reilly.

Brull told Elon to make plans for the ten pm rendezvous out at sea. He had a couple of suitable boats at his disposal. When Elon asked how many guys to send, Brull had already made his decision.

“Just four,” he said.

Elon sounded doubtful. “The boat will hold many more than that.”

“Four,” repeated Brull. If Venn or his people attacked the boat after the exchange, there’d be fewer of Brull’s guys to take prisoner. With luck, they’d all be killed. That would reduce the risk of blowback on Brull.

Though he itched to be there himself, on the boat, just for the satisfaction of seeing Venn hand himself over.

At five forty-five, Brull’s phone rang. No caller ID.

He said, “Yeah.”

A familiar voice said, “Can you talk?”

A harsh accent. Irish, or Ulster, or whatever the guy called himself.

It was O’Reilly.

Relief made the breath catch in Brull’s throat for a moment. He said, “Where you been?”

“Out of contact,” said O’Reilly.

“Yeah. I gathered that. What happened?”

“The police interviewed me. They got nothing. They
know
nothing.”

“You sure about that?” said Brull.

“I left town for the day,” O’Reilly said. “No-one tried to stop me. No-one followed me. My men have been on the
Merry May
all day. They haven’t been hassled.” He paused. “What happened last night?”

“Somebody was watching the boat,” said Brull. “Somebody else. White guy. Tall. One of my men got behind him and hit him. Would have dragged him away and got to work on him, but this off-duty cop intervened.”

“That would be Venn,” said O’Reilly.

Brull was surprised. “You’ve heard of him?”

“He was the one who questioned me this morning,” O’Reilly said. “He doesn’t know anything, as I say. My alibi was that I was in Orlando last night, and he had no way of proving otherwise.”

Brull wasn’t so sure. He said, “You have any idea who this guy was, watching the boat?”

“Maybe he wasn’t watching the boat,” said O’Reilly. “Maybe he was watching your men.” The implication being,
maybe the security was lax on your side, not mine
. “You get a detailed description of him?”

“Even better,” Brull said. “I got a photo.”

“Send it to me. In the meantime, we need to arrange an alternative rendezvous. If the deal is still on, that is.”

“Sure it is,” said Brull. “Tonight. There’s an empty warehouse out west. I’ll send you the details. Make it nine pm.”

O’Reilly seemed to think about it. “Yes,” he said. “That suits me.”

“Sending you the guy’s photo now.”

Brull texted the profile picture of the man.

His phone rang again, ten seconds later.

There was something new in O’Reilly’s tone. Something urgent.

He said: “You have to find this man immediately. Find him and kill him.”

“We’re already looking for him,” said Brull. “Who is he?”

O’Reilly told him.

Holy shit
, Brull thought.

Now things really were getting complicated.

*

Brull’s second break came at seven-fifteen.

He’d spent the last ninety minutes pulling every single remaining available one of his men out of whatever they were doing and sending them to the city’s hospitals. Even the smaller ones. Anywhere that had an ER, or a neurosurgical, or neurology unit, because he figured that if the guy was still being kept in, that was the kind of ward where he’d be.

More useful medical tips he’d learned from his nurse cousin.

When the phone rang, Brull saw it was Pedro, the big dumb one. Except, as it turned out, he wasn’t so dumb.

“Boss,” Pedro said, his normally unemotional voice betraying an edge of excitement. “I just saw her. The woman from last night.”

“Who?”

“The woman who was with the cop. Venn. Looked like his wife or girlfriend. She was the one who took care of the guy after Elon hit him.”

“What? You sure?”

“Yeah. And Ricky’s with me now. He was there on the pier last night, too. He swears it’s the same girl. Auburn hair. Kind of hot. She’s just gone into the hospital through the main doors.”

“Which hospital are you at?”

“St Ignatius’s.”

“Okay.
Okay.
” Brull felt his blood rising. This was a lead. If the woman was going into the hospital, she might be visiting the injured man. At the very least, she might know where he was. “Get after her. Take her. If you have to be rough, do it. Just take her. Call me when you got her.”

He hung up, checked the GPS map on his phone. There was a smaller hospital four blocks away. He scrolled down his list of contacts till he found the men he’d posted there.

He called them. Told them to get over to St Maria’s XXX ASAP.

Pedro called: “Lost her. She’s not in the main lobby.”

Brull said, “Check the wards. Neurology and neurosurgery.”

Damn it. They
couldn’t
lose her.

Chapter 27

Beth stumbled, her legs barely able to support her, but the man’s arm around her waist kept her upright. She didn’t dare pull away, because she knew she’d fall.

Beyond the doors of the ward, a knot of confused people filled the corridor. Ahead of them were two patients who’d managed to drag themselves out and were trying to get away, but mostly it was staff who’d arrived to see what was going on.

The man beside her, Harris, yelled: “Get back,
get back
. There are men with guns in there.”

Together he and Beth barged through the crowd. She glanced at him, saw he’d tucked the gun into the waistband of his pajama pants and was keeping it pressed there with an elbow. He looked like just another patient, fleeing a ward which had become a charnel house.

They turned the corner of the corridor, passing two security guards who were lumbering in the opposite direction.

In her ear, Harris said: “Stick with me. Stick with me. Don’t do anything stupid, like shout out that I’ve got a gun, too. I’m your best hope of getting out of here alive. Those gunmen were after
you
. There may be more of them.”

In her shock and disorientation, Beth noticed a curious thing.

Harris’s voice had completely changed. He spoke with an
English
accent.

Beth pressed her hand instinctively to her belly as they ran. With a sense of terrible dread, she imagined she could feel warm blood running down her legs. But that was all it was: her imagination.

They neared a bank of elevators and the doors started opening and Harris stopped and pushed Beth behind him and laid a hand on the gun at his side. But it was more security men, four of them, and they rushed past without giving Beth and Harris a second glance.

“The stairs,” said Harris, and he grabbed her wrist and pulled her along after him. She slipped on the way down, tripping over a couple of steps and twisting her ankle. A bolt of pain shot up her leg.

He knelt beside her. “Can you stand?”

Beth hauled herself upright with his help. The pain flared again, but she could bear weight, and realized she’d barely sprained her ankle.

They went down one more flight and reached the first floor. Already the sirens were approaching, and the flashers from police cars were strobing through the windows.

A crowd of people surged toward the main doors, jamming into them, increasing the panic. Harris looked around, said: “Over there,” and dragged Beth in the direction of a fire exit. The door there stood open, as if people had already pushed through, and Beth and Harris emerged onto a walkway running along the side of the main building.

He said, still moving, “Do you have a car?”

Beth nodded.

She guided him across the parking lot toward where she’d left the Prius. The lot was a tangled snarl of people and vehicles and blaring horns. More police cars were pouring through the main gates of the hospital grounds.

Beth fumbled the keys, dropped them. Harris snatched them up and unlocked the Prius with a
beep
and pushed Beth into the passenger seat. He got behind the wheel.

It wasn’t till they were out on the street that she turned to stare at him.

In  profile, his face was taut, drawn. The bandage was still around his head, though it was loose by now. As if her gaze had made him aware of it, he tore it free.

“Who are you?” Beth whispered.

“A friend,” he said curtly. “Though I’ll understand if you don’t believe it, in the circumstances.”

Again, Beth noted the English accent.

“What’s your name?” she said.

“James Harris,” he said. “That’s good enough.” He turned his head to look at her. “Those men in there are part of a criminal organization. I don’t know much about them. Last night, members of that organization were meeting with the owner of a boat on the marina, the
Merry May
. The man’s name is Mark O’Reilly. He’s the man I’m after. I was watching his boat, waiting for O’Reilly to appear. The men crept up on me and knocked me unconscious, which is when you stepped in.” He’d looked back at the road, but now he glanced at her again. “You probably saved my life. Thank you.”

Beth suddenly remembered she’d been about to call Venn when the men had appeared on the ward. She groped about for her phone, and realized she’d left it behind in the confusion.

“My fiancé,” she said. “He’s a police officer. He was the one who saved you. He chased the man who hit you.”

Harris considered this. “A police officer?”

“From New York. Not Miami PD.” She wondered why she’d felt the need to say that. Realized she was rambling, not thinking straight.

Beth gazed out the window at unfamiliar streets. She realized she had no idea where she was.

“Please,” she said, suddenly close to tears, and embarrassed about it. “You have to let me talk to my fiancé.”

“Call him,” Harris said.

“I don’t have a phone.”

“I’m afraid neither do I.”

He appeared to be driving purposefully, yet there was a randomness to the turns he took. He kept watching the mirrors. Beth thought he was making sure they weren’t being followed.

She checked her watch. The glass had been smashed, probably when she’d flung herself to the floor, but the watch was working.

It was ten after eight. Venn would be getting worried, because Beth
always
called if she was late. He’d be calling her phone, getting no reply.

“Please,” she tried again. “Mr Harris. Let me go. Stop the car, and I’ll get out, and you’ll never see me again.”

He seemed to be lost in thought, and didn’t reply.

For a moment, Beth thought about popping the lock and diving out onto the road. But she couldn’t subject the baby inside her to any further shocks.

At last, Harris said, “All right. Can I drop you somewhere?”

“Just here,” she blurted. “Just let me out.”

He waited for a convenient moment, then pulled in at the curb. Beth grabbed at the door handle, found it locked. Panic set in as she realized she couldn’t open it unless he unlocked it.