Marked Man (16 page)

Jordan pushed
Zhadanov along until they reached his Honda CRV which was the only vehicle left standing in the parking lot. So that he would not present any difficulties while Jordan was driving, he clipped Zhadanov across the face with the butt of his gun and knocked him out cold. Then he stuffed Zhadanov into the passenger’s seat, fastened his seat belt, and drove away.

…

Bollier got a call from the burner she bought for Jordan Ross. He sounded like he was out of breath and driving very fast. He gave her directions to a monthly storage warehouse in Borough Park along with a locker number. This was something that neither she nor Agent Clemons had set up. To what end Jordan would be using a storage facility she had no idea. After all, he had no possessions to speak of. The house and all of the items were sold at auction after his untimely death. 

By the time she arrived at the warehouse Bollier was imagining all sorts of uses Jordan might have for t
he space, and none of them were wholesome. She parked and paced up and down the rows of bright orange doors, looking for the number Jordan gave her. When she found the locker she put her ear against the metal then knocked politely. The door rolled up and Jordan pulled her inside. She almost screamed when she saw what Jordan had been hiding.

Petyr
Zhadanov had duct tape bound over his lips, his wrists, and his ankles. He was propped up against the wall in a sitting position like a stiff-legged action figure. Cuts and bruises were all over his face and every inch of skin as far as Bollier could see.

“Holy shit. What did you do to him?”

“Exactly what you wanted, detective. I asked him some questions. Hey Petey boy!”

The lanky blond Russian flinched when Jordan spoke and tried to angle his body as far away from him as possible. He looked to Bollier, practically pleading for help. Jordan
loomed over him and pointed a finger in his face. With the exception of his left thumb all of Zhadanov’s fingers appeared to be broken.

“
Petey. I’m going to take the duct tape off of your mouth now. Are you going to scream?”

Zhadanov
shook his head.

“Are you sure? You remember what happens when you lie to me,
Petey.”

Zhadanov
nodded his head so fast Bollier thought it might pop off. Jordan could have stripped the paper off of the Russian’s face with one swift yank, but he pulled slow and steady, dragging it out. Zhadanov’s eyes were watering but he kept his teeth clenched shut and did not yell even when the tape took part of his pale moustache off.

“Alright. I’d like you to introduce you to Detective Leslie Bollier from the NYPD. Bollier, this is my good friend
Petey Zhadanov.”

“You are police?”

Bollier answered that she was in fact.

“You must help me. You have sworn to serve and protect.
Zis man is crazy. He breaks my fingers. He breaks my toes, he sreatens to cut off my Peter. Please you must save me.”

Coolly, Bollier walked over so that she was standing directly above him. Jordan had done quite a number on
Zhadanov, no doubt.

“
Save you? Well I certainly could, but that all depends on your cooperation. If you give us something that we can use then maybe I can get you out of here. Has he been cooperative?”

Jordan ran a hand through
Zhadanov’s hair like he was a well-heeled, potty-trained pet.

“He was a bad boy at first but he’s cleaned up his act.
Petey. Tell her what you told me.”

“Ze drugs. Yes! I know about ze drugs.
Shirokov has big shipment coming in. BIG shipment. You will not believe how big.”

“How big?”

“Hundreds of kilos. Maybe soundands even. All coming in Wednesday night by ship.”

“Wednesday? What the fuck that’s two days away. Wednesday?!”

Zhadanov repeated the information as Bollier prodded him for more details. A ship that set sail from Kaliningrad was already making the trip across the Atlantic and would arrive late Wednesday night at Riis Landing. The ship would be carrying pure heroin fresh from the poppy fields of Afghanistan. Zhadanov did not know exactly how much, but he estimated the total value to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe even more.

“Alright. We’ll have people there. If what you’re saying is true…”

“You’re going to need army, miss police woman. Zis not dime bag in park. Hundreds of million, perhaps billions of dollars. Shirokov will have at least dozen armed men.”

“Right. If what you’re saying is true then we’ll talk about getting you testifying in court and going into witness protection. If you’re lying to us though… I’m going to let him do whatever he wants to you. Whatever. He. Wants.”

Zhadanov made a flurry of promises that he was telling the truth, that he may be a bad man, but that he was not a liar and that she would see. Then he pleaded with her not to leave him alone with Jordan Ross again, he begged, but she would not hear of it.

“I’m going to call Clemons and we will have a team there. As soon as I can confirm one way or another I’m going to give you a call.
Don’t let him out of your sight until then. Do you have everything you need?”

Under a tarp in the warehouse locker Jordan had a week’s worth of bottled water, cans of baked beans, and bags of potato chips that would see him and his captive through. Bollier left the warehouse and dialed Agent Clemons at his FBI office right away. The phone rang. The phone rang again. After several more rings the answering machine picked up and Bollier screamed a recording demanding that Agent Clemons answer the phone immediately. When Clemons picked up she practically accosted him.

“Hello?”

“Jesus how long does it take you to answer your phone?”

“Woah. What is it? What’s wrong.”

“I have some news. Are you sitting down?’

…

The first big rain of the season came on the Wednesday night when Special Agent Clemons and detective Bollier were staked out on the roof of a dry dock facility overlooking Riis Landing. Already Bollier could feel the rain soaking into her socks and felt a slight tickle in the back of her throat. Catching a cold would be a small price to pay if it meant catching
Shirokov’s men red-handed with an enormous shipment of heroin. But if Zhadanov’s information was wrong or he had lied she just might tell Jordan Ross to wait until she got to the warehouse so she could extract some personal pleasure.

Several black SUVs were parked along the dock. No one had gotten out yet, whether because of the rain or because the boat had not come in yet Bollier did not know. Two SWAT teams were hiding around the corner waiting for
word from the feds to move in. With so little time to prepare for the sting, Agent Clemons had been forced to play every card available to him. He called in every favor, twisted every arm and stepped on every shoe he could find to get as many bodies out to Riis Landing as possible. Agent Clemons did his best to convince a judge to sign a warrant but the best he could get was a promise to sign one after the fact if they actually found something.

She was an idealist in a past life
. Coming up in the academy detective Bollier could not stand to hear of cases when cops played fast and dirty, but years of watching the Russians operate had changed her worldview. You had to break the rules to beat them, and everyone in the know understood this. As long as the bad guys got locked up nobody asked how the sausage got made. And fuck them if they did, but this was pushing it.

Next to her Agent Clemons rolled over onto his side and peeked at his watch.

“I really hope your boy comes through, detective.”

He had been on edge ever since Bollier had called him to relay
Zhadanov’s information. Normally for an operation of this size the FBI would spend weeks of time on surveillance, corroborate the story with several more sources then carefully plan the bust, down to the tiniest last detail. Since they could not be sure who to trust in the NYPD, Agent Clemons had cobbled together a haphazard strike team made up of DEA agents, FBI, Customs and Coast Guard folks. All of them had promised to follow Agent Clemons’ lead, but they all had their own bosses to answer too. The source was untested. No one could verify Zhadanov’s claims in time for the sting. Nobody knew how many people would be on the boat, where the drugs were, or how much. The number of things that could go wrong was almost incalculable.

“Me too.”

Agent Clemons brushed at his nose which was growing red from the cold.

“If there’s no boat my ass is going to be hanging out in the wind. I can’t even believe I let you talk me into this.
We don’t even have a warrant for fuck’s sake.”

“He who dares wins.”

“Yeah, but even if we win tonight we could lose. Assuming that everything goes well, what happens when a judge asks how we got our information? You really want Zhadanov spilling his guts in front of a Kings County jury? Any lawyer worth their salt is going to get the case tossed if they find out that we let a crazed vigilante torture it out of him. Then we’ll have our own trial to deal with.”

“
Kyle, you don’t need to remind me how hairy the legality is. Whatever happens tonight the chance to stop half a billion dollars’ worth of dope from hitting the market was worth it, right?”

Agent Clemons shook his head.

“I suppose. But if one of these guys doesn’t roll up on Shirokov I’m going to be sincerely disappointed. That’s if we’re both not in prison.”

“Let’s just worry about that bridge when we get there.”

From out of the fog over the Lower Bay came the low whistle of a tanker ship. Below at the dock level, several men climbed out of the black SUVs and mingled out towards the pier. Agent Clemons used his radio to signal everyone to hold their positions but keep their eyes peeled.

The tanker had the name
Côté Gauche painted on its hull. As the enormous vessel slowed and slid in alongside the pier, some of the Russians approached and began waving to others on board. When the Cote Guache came to a complete stop, Agent Clemons gave the signal for the first stage in the operation to proceed.

“Echo One. This is
team leader. You are cleared to go.”

“Roger that.”

A lone customs official marched out of the shadows by the dry dock and walked straight up to a handful of the Russians. The idea was to shore up their probable cause by having him ask questions about the boat that they wouldn’t be able to answer without giving the game away. Once the customs official could suspect something was wrong he would call in the dogs to search the tanker.

When he got up close to them the Russians stopped in their tracks. From his soaking raincoat the customs official pulled out his credentials and showed them. One of the Russians looked at the badge, said something, and then reached into his own coat for a handgun and shot the customs agent in the head.

Bollier felt her lungs being squeezed as if by the claw of some vast and ancient invisible demon. She couldn’t even gasp. Agent Clemons instinctively jerked to stand upright and shouted into the radio. The Russian in the trench coat who had killed the customs agent glanced up and fired in the direction of the voice.

“All units! Converge on suspects we have a man down! All units repeat man down! Converge on suspects and use deadly force as necessary.”

Floodlights filled the docking area from three different spots. Spooked, the Russians looked up and then scattered like roaches in a 19
th
century Bronx tenement fleeing the light. Two SWAT vehicles roared out onto the pier and the heavily armored men began exchanging fire with the Russians. DEA Agents in bright yellow vests streamed in, guns waving and demanding that the assailants stand down. When she caught her breath, detective Bollier shot up from the roof and sprinted to the ladder she’d climbed to get up, Agent Clemons trailing behind.

Voices screamed and barked incomprehensible orders over the radio. The collective clamor of the gunfire drowned out all other so
unds. Bollier dashed madly down a stair case and into the dry dock, pointing her .38 in front of her. She could not hear herself think. Had she been able to hear herself think, Bollier would have been distressed by the ugliness echoing up from her subconscious. It was a horrible thing what happened to the poor customs agent, but as far as she was concerned it confirmed the contents of the ship. They would get the heroin. Bollier felt an inkling of guilt for the dead man’s family, but it was buried beneath her elation for what it meant to the investigation. They would be vindicated when the case came to trial. Nobody needed a court order anymore. The Russians had seen to that by shooting first.

But now, now, it was open season. For months Bollier had been running and hiding and sneaking around, fearing for her life. Now she was free to meet the great bear on an open field of battle.

Bollier felt an incredible rush coming on. During his training Jordan Ross called it the runner’s high, and it was the main reason why he’d been able to avoid the temptation of booze after a few weeks of the program. When it came over him Jordan would punch at the buttons on the treadmill machine, forcing the incline to the highest setting and cranking up the speed to the max, and he would call to Shannon to turn up the music louder and then start yelling THIS IS NOT FAST ENOUGH THIS IS NOT HARD ENOUGH.