The Bricklayer (18 page)

He took out his lock-back knife. Opening it, he handed it to her. “Be careful, it’s like a razor. You go to him slowly, and I mean slowly. I’m going to walk backward right behind you. Once you get to him, cut him loose.”

“Do you think they’re here or down a floor?”

“I wish I could tell you a floor down.” He pushed the button and the doors opened. Vail grabbed Kate by the arm, pulling her into the relative darkness. She felt his back against her. She tried to slip her finger onto the trigger but realized she was gripping her gun too tightly. She loosened her grip until it felt more familiar. With the knife in her left hand, she started toward the gagged man. Vail followed gently against her back.

After a few steps, she remembered the garlic and tried to see if the odor was present, but she couldn’t smell it. In fact, she couldn’t smell anything, not the mustiness of the
building or the distinct smells of construction and its crews. Apparently, her sense of smell had shut down. She hoped that the myth about the loss of one sense increasing the others was true. She turned her head to one side and then to the other trying to see into the darkness surrounding them.

Now she was close enough to see the man’s eyes. Although his mouth was covered she tried to recognize him from around the office. He didn’t look familiar. She watched his eyes closely, thinking that if the others were around, he would signal her by shifting them in their direction, but they were locked on her.

Once she got through the office door, she moved quickly to him. Vail stood in the doorway searching the black stillness behind them. She held the knife up to indicate to the man that she was going to free his hands when she noticed that his feet weren’t bound to the chair.

He burst upright and she could now see his hands were free. In his right hand was a revolver. Instinctively she slashed at the hand with the knife in her left hand. The sharp blade tore through the tendons and muscles of his wrist, paralyzing his hand. She felt the sickening resistance as steel struck bone. The gun now hung precariously, dangling from his useless trigger finger, which was caught in the guard.

He started to transfer it to his left hand, but Kate’s right hand was faster. She shoved her automatic against his chest and pulled the trigger twice. He fell to the floor dead.

A burst of automatic-weapons fire raked the office, exploding the windows. Kate felt something slam into her. She spun to the floor and felt the coolness of blood escaping
from her side. At the same time, Vail dove to the floor, firing a single shot over her head, putting out the desk lamp. Everything went black. She heard him crawling to her through the shattered glass.

“Are you hit?” he asked in her ear.

“I think so. My side,” she said a little louder than she wanted to.

He slid a little closer and gently put his hand up under her blouse, his fingertips immediately finding the entry wound. Although it stung a great deal, she was reassured by Vail’s hand exploring it. She felt him reach back, identifying the exit hole. “It’s through and through. The bleeding isn’t bad. Looks like it may have bounced off a rib.” He took out his handkerchief and opened it. “Just keep this pressed against both holes.”

She did as instructed, and as with any traumatic wound, her touch made it less threatening.

Vail dragged the dead man over to the wall and leaned him against it on his side. He then pulled Kate over and had her lie next to the body. “That’s an assault rifle. It’ll shoot right through this wall, but I don’t think it’ll get through him too, so stay right here.” He handed her the flashlight and took a coin out of his pocket. “When you hear this quarter land out there, stick your arm straight up and snap the flashlight on and off over the top of the wall. Then pull your arm down even faster.”

Silently Vail maneuvered back to the corner of the office and stood up invisibly in the deep shadows. Kate held her breath, not wanting to miss the sound of the quarter hitting the floor. She understood it was her job to draw fire. It
seemed like it was taking Vail forever, and at the same time she hoped she’d never hear the coin land.

But then the quarter struck something metallic. She held the light straight up, even rising from behind the corpse to ensure that the light went over the bottom half of the wall. She snapped it on and off and then pulled herself close behind the body. Immediately automatic fire raked the wall. She felt at least two rounds thud into the body in front of her. Then, illuminated by the flashes of his Glock as he fired three times, Kate saw Vail’s face, stoic, workmanlike, as if he were at the range. She heard a body fall, and then there was nothing but more of the black, horrid silence. She waited a few seconds before asking in a strained whisper, “Is that it?”

“One more,” he answered.

Had Vail seen another man during the exchange? Kate thought back. The door had been jimmied when they arrived, meaning someone was already inside. They had then watched two more arrive, including the “agent.” Two of them were now dead.

Vail took a quick step out of the shadows and dove through the shattered office window. Three gunshots skidded after him. During the brief bursts of light, he was able to locate the gunman and the obstacles that lay between them. He still couldn’t tell whether it was Radek. The shooter was barricaded behind a large wheelbarrow used to haul cement. Vail doubted that one of his rounds would pierce it, especially because of its curved surfaces. But he had spotted something immediately off to the gunman’s left side, a steel beam exposed by the construction work. He needed to get another look at it to confirm the angles of its surfaces. He
decided on a position to move to and fired another burst in the general direction of the last gunman to keep his head down.

Once there, he fired again, moving behind a three-foot-high pile of drywall and at the same time noting the steel beam’s details. He was now in a better position for what he was going to attempt.

In the vague blue light coming in the windows, he could see exactly where the beam was and the angle of its surfaces in relation to the final gunman. Quietly, he slid a full magazine into his Glock and stepped from behind the Sheetrock pile. Standing up tall, he took a two-handed grip on the Glock and sighted it on the beam. He started firing slowly, watching the sparking impact of each round on the steel beam, adjusting his aim slightly after each one. The slugs ricocheted closer and closer to the man’s position. Finally one hit him, causing him to grunt deeply. Somewhere in the torso or legs, Vail judged. He moved his point of aim higher on the beam, and the gunman, realizing he had nowhere to go, reached his hand up over the wheelbarrow and fired blindly, trying to get Vail to stop shooting. Vail took aim at his hand and fired one round, striking either the hand or the arm. He stepped back behind the drywall stack and shoved another magazine into his automatic. The sound of sirens racing toward them now penetrated the building. For once, the troops had arrived at the right time.

He knew that with his quarry wounded, he could simply walk toward him and shoot intermittently until he was safely over him, then take him into custody if he chose to surrender. If not, killing him was not a disagreeable alternative.
Vail took a single step and then heard a shotgun racking a shell into the chamber. He turned and dove back behind the drywall. The gunman fired three blasts and then Vail could hear him moving toward the elevator. He started to look over the stack of building material when another explosion of double-aught buck slammed into the front edge of Vail’s concealment.

The elevator opened and Vail stood up to fire. He caught a glimpse of the man dragging his bleeding leg into it and fired one more shot into the car just before the doors closed. Vail didn’t know if he had hit him. He considered looking for the stairs, but by now the building was surrounded. And running around with a gun in his hand didn’t seem like a good idea. More important, Kate needed attention. Her wound hadn’t looked bad, but he had examined it in the dark. He hurried over to her. “He’s gone,” he told her.

Kate stood up, still pressing Vail’s handkerchief to her side. He took the flashlight from her and checked the wound. “Will I live?” she said, forcing a smile.

He dabbed at the wounds analytically and then had her again hold the handkerchief against them. “Unfortunately, deputy assistant directors are not that easy to kill.”

Suddenly the floor shook with an explosion. Vail shined the light over at the elevator. Dust and debris billowed out from the crack between its doors. Kate said, “I guess that was meant for us. Good thing you never pressed the Down button.” She looked for a reaction from Vail, but his mind was once again racing ahead.

V
AIL LEANED ON THE FENDER OF THEIR RENTED CAR AND WATCHED
Kate come out of the hotel entrance. Her gait was measured and she listed a little to the left. He opened the passenger door for her. “Did you check your stitches?”

“No more blood on the bandages. How did you make out with LAPD last night?”

“They were pretty decent about it. I was there two, two and a half hours. They want to get your statement today.”

Once she was in the car, Vail went around and got behind the wheel. “How’d you sleep?”

“Off and on. I was pretty wired up,” she said.

“I’m usually the same way when I knife and shoot a guy.”

She tried not to laugh. “How’d you sleep?”

“Fine, until the two a.m. messenger arrived.”

“The two a.m. messenger?”

“It’s when I go to bed with something on my mind. Sometimes my brain does the work and wakes me up, usually at two a.m.”

“With the answer?”

“Always with an answer; sometimes it’s even the right one.”

“Can’t you make your mind do that during daylight hours?”

“Usually not. It has this obstinacy. I know, I know—where could that possibly come from?”

Kate held her side. “Please don’t make me laugh.” She straightened up. “And what problem did it resolve this time? Was it the same one that was bothering you when that elevator exploded last night?”

“Actually, the elevator exploding was my problem.”

“You don’t think that was meant for us?” she asked.

“Only if we survived the shoot-out. I think there’s a high probability it was meant to take out whoever survived. Otherwise, why didn’t it explode on the way up?”

“I don’t understand. I thought it was Radek who was killed in the explosion.”

“The legal agent met me over at LAPD last night so I could give both statements at once. He said that the body was so badly damaged that they might have to go to DNA to identify it. If they can even come up with Radek’s DNA from other sources. He wanted to know if I had any ideas, which I didn’t.”

“So it’ll take a while, so what? It’s not like he’s going anywhere.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what? You don’t think it’s him?”

“We have to consider the possibility. You have to admit he’s no dummy. Why would he get in an elevator knowing once it started down, it was going to blow up?”

“Maybe it was an accident. You shot him twice. Maybe he’s not as smart with a couple of bullets in him.”

“Maybe.”

“Do you ever get the feeling that the two a.m. messenger is just screwing with you?”

“Almost always,” Vail said.

“I got a call first thing this morning,” Kate said. “There’s a briefing in the major-case room at ten a.m. Maybe it’ll put some of your demons to rest.”

“Who called you?” Vail asked.

“Some clerk. It wasn’t Kaulcrick, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I imagine your boss is not pleased with our lack of
sharing
.”

“A deputy assistant director wounded in a shoot-out with murderers? He can’t land on me with both feet. Not today anyway.”

“You know what your real sin is? When you guys go back to Washington, you’ll have the better stories at cocktail parties.”

“And all I had to do was get shot.”

“But do I get thanked?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And since you’re being gracious, what do you say I take you out to dinner tonight?
Out
out, not something that comes in cardboard containers.”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“Do you want to take
me
to dinner, or is this something you do for all the women who get shot around you?”

“Usually I just drop them off at the emergency room and keep going.”

“When you make me feel that special, how could I not accept.”

They pulled up to the federal building and could see that both the front and garage entrances were swarming with reporters and their news vans. “If I let you off at the corner, do you think you can sneak by the media without stopping to show them the bullet holes?”

“I’d be lying if I said yes.”

WHEN VAIL AND KATE
walked into the major-case room, a smattering of applause erupted. There was nowhere left to sit, but a couple of agents got up and offered Kate their seat. Vail said, “This is typical. Where’s my chair? I shot somebody, too.”

Kaulcrick and the SAC were at the front of the room. “Okay, if we could have everyone’s attention,” Hildebrand said. Everyone turned toward them. “As I’m sure most of you know, last night, Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon and Steve Vail were involved in a shoot-out with three of the individuals who were responsible for the murders of five people, two of whom were our own. Assistant Director Kaulcrick and I feel that these three men along with Lee Davis Salton, who was recently killed, and Vince Pendaran
made up the group calling itself the Rubaco Pentad, which was responsible for extorting five million dollars from the United States government. Sewed into the lining of the jackets of two of the men were false IDs. Through prints, we discovered their true identities, Wallace David Simms and James William Hudson. Both of them, along with Lee Davis Salton, were convicted bank robbers who served time together in the federal prison at Marion, Illinois.

“We believe the fifth man, the one killed in the elevator explosion, was Victor James Radek, the leader of the group, also incarcerated with the others at Marion. Unfortunately the body was so badly damaged by the blast, we’re having trouble positively identifying him. Along with the phony identification, we found about ten thousand dollars on both Simms and Hudson. All hundred-dollar bills. The serial numbers matched those from the extortion. Also in the lining of their coats, Simms and Hudson each had deposit slips from a New Hampshire bank in the amount of six hundred thousand dollars. After we recovered three million dollars two days ago, that left two million to be split three ways, since Pendaran is in custody. Which, with the amounts already recovered, would come to roughly six hundred thousand a man.”

Don Kaulcrick stepped forward. “As you can imagine, we were pretty excited about finding out where the bulk of the remaining money was, so we contacted the Boston office, who rousted out the bank’s president in the middle of the night. He found that the slips were indeed from his bank, but the account numbers were phonies. It turns out the slips were forgeries. So it seemed we were back to square one.
But we did have some good fortune. Tracing phone numbers that were called from a cell phone we found on Simms’s body, we were able to locate an apartment Victor Radek was using. A search of that apartment revealed the blank deposit slips that he used in preparing the forgeries. There was also another cell phone in the apartment. We’re presently pulling those records. Keep your fingers crossed. We have two evidence teams there right now processing the entire place. Radek was originally from New Hampshire, so he could have had connections at that bank. The Boston office is looking into it. We are working under the assumption that Radek was looking to eliminate his partners, and at the same time, a couple more FBI agents. We figure he gave the members of his gang the deposit slips to convince them that their share had been deposited for them. Then whoever survived the gun battle, whether it was his people or ours, was supposed to die in the elevator.”

Someone asked, “Then why did he use the elevator?”

Hildebrand said, “We asked the same question. So we had Sergeant Mike Henning from the LAPD bomb squad give us a hand at the scene as he did at the tunnel drop. Mike.”

Henning stood up from a front-row seat. “The device was really overkill, so we’re having trouble reconstructing the triggering mechanism. It was wired to the floor-button panel, so we think there may have been a way to disarm it from inside the elevator car, something as simple as a three- or four-digit code typed into the panel. Either it malfunctioned or the person we believe is Radek, having been shot in the leg and hand, forgot the code, or maybe he simply panicked and punched in the wrong one. Steve Vail fired a shot
into the elevator just as the doors were closing. Maybe the shot fatally wounded him. It could be a week or more before we have a better idea.” Henning wrote his pager number on the board. “I strongly suggest you call me before executing any more search or arrest warrants in this case. These people have a history of booby-trapping everything. You’re aware of the tunnel and the elevator. And I understand that Kate and Steve ran into a car that had its trunk rigged, so don’t hesitate to call.” Henning shot a smile at Kate as he sat down.

“One other thing we found at Radek’s apartment,” Hildebrand said, “was a complete set of identification in the name of William Thompson, no middle initial. Since Radek convinced the others that the money had been deposited in a bank under aliases, we feel there’s a possibility that he has all of it stowed in a bank under that alias either in accounts or in a safety-deposit box or boxes. So ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to wear out some shoe leather. We’re sending out instructions to every office in the Bureau to contact every bank. Our division will be searching most of Southern California, unless someone feels they have a better idea.” When no one spoke up, Hildebrand said, “Okay, see your supervisors for assignments.”

Kate looked back at Vail and sensed that the briefing had not answered all his questions. Kaulcrick walked up to them. “Kate, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, Don.”

“LAPD homicide is in the SAC’s conference room. They’re going to need your statement.”

She got up slowly and said to Vail, “I hope you didn’t rat me out.”

“Yeah, like you’re not about to give me up.”

When she was gone, Kaulcrick said, “I need to talk to you, Steve. How about in Kate’s office in a half hour?”

Vail couldn’t tell what the assistant director had in mind. That he wanted to talk to him alone was probably not a good sign. At least it had never been in the past. There usually came a point with Vail when enough had been accomplished, and the unfinished balance wasn’t worth the disruption of having him around. That time may have arrived.

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

WHEN KAULCRICK WALKED IN,
he found Vail sitting behind Kate’s desk, pushing 9mm rounds into a magazine for an older-model Sig Sauer automatic that was sitting on the desk beside him. He had just drawn it from the firearm vault. Kaulcrick sat down and Vail set the clip aside. “So what’s up?”

“I’m wondering why you and I are never on the same page.”

“Don, if you’re going to cut me loose, I understand. I’m the one who predicted it, remember? So let’s skip the hand-wringing search for the reasons.”

“Nobody’s cutting you loose. I am genuinely curious why you don’t come to me when you find something.”

“We told you about Pendaran, and we called you last night, but things just got out of hand when it looked like an agent was in trouble.”

Kaulcrick smiled and shook his head slowly. “In both
instances, you were conducting your own investigation and called only when you couldn’t take it any further. Steve, I just want the truth.”

“Do you want me to be honest? Before you answer, think about it.”

Kaulcrick was sitting with his legs crossed and tapped his index finger on his thigh in brief contemplation. “Yes, I do.”

“Okay,” Vail said. “The FBI’s large bureaucratic structure, especially in this case, is what the Pentad targeted. Knowing how you did things, they were able to use it to their advantage. Recognizing this, I let you follow the Pentad script of false leads to lull them into a false sense of security. With them thinking the Bureau was falling for it, I was able to work behind the scenes and find a few of their weak spots.”

“So we were nothing more than a decoy for you.”

“You were following the logical leads. Which had to be done.”

“I don’t like being a decoy.”

“No one does.”

“And given the least provocation, you’d do it again, wouldn’t you?” Vail shrugged, implying he wouldn’t contest the assistant director’s assumption. “Can you think of any circumstance that would allow us to work together to find this money?”

“I was brought into this precisely because I am not a team player.”

“What if I found a way to make you want to work with me?”

“I’d be interested in hearing it.”

“What if I developed the best lead to recover the money?”

Vail laughed. “Then why would you come to me?”

Kaulcrick smiled caustically. “I said ‘developed the lead,’ not that I had figured it out completely.”

“You found something at Radek’s apartment.”

“Yes.”

When Kaulcrick didn’t say anything else, Vail said, “Am I supposed to guess?”

“No, I’ll tell you on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“I’m with you every step of the way.”

“How good a lead is it?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, I guess not,” Vail said. “Agreed.”

Kaulcrick handed him a clear plastic evidence envelope with a slip of blue paper inside. On it was written: “2M-8712.”

Vail looked at it and turned it over, finding the back side blank. “Is that the same paper as the death notes, the tablet that was planted at Bertok’s?”

“It looks the same. We found it hidden in a book that was on a shelf over his desk.”

“And no one has any idea what it means?”

“None. But it’s got to be important. Why else hide it like that?”

Vail didn’t answer right away. “The first demand note had the amount written out in numbers. The second note shorthanded the three million dollars as a dollar sign with
a 3 and an M. The 2M could mean two million dollars.”

“What about the four numbers? Could they be an address, like he knows the street but wants to make sure he remembers the numbers correctly?” Kaulcrick asked.

“Possibly, but he knew how to get there, and it’s unlikely that he would trust anyone else enough to send them to get the money.”

“On the off chance it is an address, I could get some analysts to start running through the reverse directories just looking for those four digits.”