The Operative (29 page)

‘I hear what you’re saying,’ Hobart said.

‘A micro-SX det is Star Wars, Nate. The people who use that kind of explosive get a government pay cheque and work out of an office that’s a long elevator ride underground.’

Hobart did not outwardly respond but Phil had his full attention. The revelation was more than just fascinating. Hobart did not for a second doubt Phil’s evaluation of the specialised explosive and its non-availability on the street. The inference was the explosive was either given by a person in government to someone to use or was used by a person who themself had direct access to it – and that, as Phil was saying, implied that the hit was carried out by a government organisation. But then, when the quality of the targets was considered there was an instant erosion of that notion’s credibility since Ardian and Leka were essentially nobodies.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Hobart asked. ‘I mean, I’m not questioning your analysis of the explosive, but what about its availability? What about the Chinese, or the Russians? If they have this stuff then it’s possible it could have found its way into the marketplace.’

Phil was shaking his head in frustration well before Hobart had finished his sentence. ‘That would be like Microsoft’s latest software leaking onto the street. Yeah, there’s a million-to-one chance that it’s possible, but there’s something else that throws up a red flag here. The technique. The hitter used it to perfection, like he had training. It was surgery, Nate. That coin through the back of Bufi’s head was genius. Ask yourself this. In all your years in the business, how many IED hits worldwide have you even heard of
anywhere near as sophisticated as this? I haven’t, and I’m in the goddamned business.’

Hobart was slowly becoming convinced and with that came a growing anger. The question, then, was not
if
Leka and Ardian could be a target of a government agency but
why
? And if it was true, someone from government, his own or someone else’s, had made a hit on his turf. Skender and his organisation were exclusively Hobart’s to control and monitor and anyone, no matter who they were, from the President down, had to go through him about anything to do with the Albanian syndicate in Los Angeles.

If there was one thing that really pissed Hobart off it was the blatant flouting of protocol and the circumvention of government-ordained authority. It was a primary corruption of the system that was unprecedented in the US. If he could do anything to prevent it happening he would do so in a heartbeat, even if it meant taking those responsible to the Senate and exposing them publicly, no matter who they were. This sort of subversion tore into the very principles of governing authority that the country was built on. If Phil was right, and Hobart found him all too convincing, Hobart would get to the bottom of this if it took all the resources he had at his disposal. This was not just a double homicide: it was an invasion of his case and therefore personal. The Bufi-Cano file had just found itself reclassified and at the very top of his list.

Hobart took his cellphone from his pocket, punched in a number and put it to his ear.

The phone rang in an office on the same floor as Hobart’s, two doors along the corridor, and was picked up by his young assistant. ‘Agent Hendrickson,’ he said as he held the phone with his chin and continued tapping the keys of his computer keyboard.

‘It’s Hobart.’

‘Sir,’ Hendrickson said, stopping almost immediately and taking hold of the handset.

‘What are you doing right now?’

‘The Chaves case, sir.’

‘Give it to Mendez or Stefanowitz. I want you on the Bufi-Cano murders.’

‘The Bufi—’ Hendrickson started to say with some surprise. This month’s cases were already outnumbering last month’s with a week to go and only yesterday morning Hobart had told the office to put the Englishwoman murder case on the bottom of the pile and keep putting it there until its hair started falling out.

‘That’s what I said,’ Hobart reiterated. ‘I want you to crawl all over it. You’re looking for anything that doesn’t fit.’

‘Like what, sir?’

‘Well, that’s the thing about something that doesn’t fit, Hendrickson. You’ll know it when you see it.’

‘I’m on it, sir,’ Hendrickson said, but Hobart didn’t hear him. His phone was already closed and dangling in his hand by his side. He looked at Phil, only because the man was staring at him. Hobart’s mind was still racing through the consequences of a government agency being responsible for the killings. At that moment it didn’t matter which one.

‘This is bad, isn’t it?’ Phil said.

Hobart didn’t answer.

‘I mean, this is
real
bad. This kind of stuff went on all the time in the seventies and eighties, but not now.’

‘I don’t need to tell you not to say anything about this to anyone, do I?’

‘You kidding? I may be an old conspiracy theorist but I’ve watched all the movies and I know what happens to the first guy with the hot info. Tell you the truth, I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’

‘This isn’t a movie, Phil. No one’s coming after you.’

‘What about when the report goes out? I’m supposed to send a copy to New York and another to the pool.’

‘Give me a hard copy. Don’t email it to anyone yet. Label the
pool copy confidential then post it onto the site empty.’

‘But that’s going to throw up a flag. These people will be waiting for the report.’

‘Refer all enquiries to my office. And take it easy. It’s past you now. It’s in the system. Okay? Like I said, no one’s coming after you.’

Phil nodded and visibly calmed down. ‘You’re right,’ he said. Hobart was making perfect sense as usual. ‘I guess I got a little wound up when for a while there I was the only person who knew. I’m okay now. What are you going to do?’

‘You’re going to have to forget it and leave it with me, okay?’ Hobart said in a fatherly manner.

‘I’m already there,’ Phil said, allowing a smile of relief to grow on his face. ‘I’ll wait and read about it in the papers.’

‘You do that,’ Hobart said, knowing that it might never get that far. Like any bad news, if it could be kept in-house that was as far as it would go. His only concern about Phil was that the man was in the winter of his career in a business he believed to be corrupt and there was that distant possibility that he might decide to do something that he’d consider heroic while he still had the chance. As Hobart stared at Phil he decided that was probably unfair of him and he patted his old friend on the shoulder.

‘Come on,’ Hobart said. ‘Let’s go back and see this report.’ They headed across the parking lot towards the building while Phil began to explain the various chemical make-ups of different types of plastic explosive and how it affected their performance and dictated their different uses. Hobart tried to listen with some interest but his mind kept flicking to the new problem at hand. This case was now possibly one of the most important he’d handled in recent years.

A shiny black stretch limousine slowly pulled off the road and onto an uneven patch of sun-baked mud on the edge of a large bustling construction site. It came to a stop outside a chain-link security fence and a grey Cadillac sedan pulled alongside it. Three dark-skinned Caucasian Neanderthals in expensive suits climbed out of the sedan with muscle-bound slowness and spread out around the limo, checking in all directions, hands hovering close to pistols and sub-machine guns hidden inside their jackets. One of them nodded to the passenger in the front of the limo and he climbed out and opened one of the rear doors.

Skender eased out of the spacious interior, buttoning up the jacket of an immaculate cream suit, the collar of his shirt turned down outside it in a style that would provoke feelings of nostalgia in any who enjoyed the fashions of the 1970s. He walked over the hard ground in his patent-leather shoes and in through the security gate, followed by two of his men. The security guard, a redneck type who had never seen proper military service, saluted Skender and bid him good afternoon as he passed his sentry box. Skender ignored him and walked several yards onto the site before stopping to look up, a smile growing on his craggy face.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he said to his thugs without looking at them, not that he was addressing them in particular but he wanted to say it to someone. ‘I love watching it grow day by day.’

Skender was gaping at a huge new office building near completion, a startling design emulating ancient Egyptian pyramids.
Shimmering plates of dark green glass locked into copper-sheathed steel frames covered all four steeply sloping sides from the second floor to the sixteenth. The seventeenth or top floor was also glass but was gold in colour. Two smaller pyramids were located at opposite corners of the site, creating an overall impression like a typical picture postcard of Giza. The ground around the building was paved in Italian marble that continued out several metres from the base of the building, with towering newly planted palms springing from it in places.

To some critics the edifice verged on the kitsch but it was eye-catching nevertheless. Hundreds of workers were busy operating cranes, earth-movers and dumper trucks as the exterior cosmetics – landscaping, lighting and pathways – were well under way. Lorries ferried their loads in and out through the main entrance where kerbstones were being laid in preparation for the tarmac fill that would connect the lavish drive to Washington Boulevard that ran along one side. The site took up an entire block in Culver City, a modern development of Los Angeles a couple of miles from Beverly Hills and occupied by the likes of Sony and MGM studios, fine restaurants and expensive art shops. The business premises were interspersed with middle-class residential buildings.

Skender traced the steep, imposing façade with his eyes from the pinnacle down to a magnificent main entrance of bronze-coloured glass and copper and steel supports. As his gaze rested on a pair of massive eleventh-century wooden doors twenty feet high and with heavily inlaid carvings, an import from India to maintain the impression of the ancient shrouded in the modern, Dren Cano stepped through them and into the pillared portico.

Skender headed off through the site towards Cano, followed by his men. ‘Is it gonna be ready in time?’ he shouted to an engin -eer who was perusing a stack of plans laid out on a table.

The engineer looked around and immediately grinned with
forced enthusiasm on seeing who had posed the question. ‘Hey there, Mister Skender. You betcha it’s gonna be on time.’

Skender smiled thinly as he continued on without a pause, confident of the answer before he had heard it. Before the first bulldozer had moved in to demolish the old houses and apartment blocks that had previously occupied the site every contractor, supplier and union involved had been subtly warned that it would be most unwise if there were to be any sudden price hikes, cancellations or delays of any nature for any reason, including Acts of God such as weather or accidents. Similarly gilded threats as well as lavish gifts were bestowed upon certain members of the city authority to persuade against any unforeseen problems with the various planning permissions that would be required.

Only one company failed to heed the warnings, one of the two cement suppliers contracted to deliver the thousands of tons of concrete required. It was an oversight on their part: apparently they had not researched the client thoroughly enough to take the threats seriously. When one morning the cement trucks did not arrive due to a reprioritisation by the company concerned in favour of another client across town Skender’s retribution was swift and decisive. The company’s owner happened to be on holi -day in Hawaii at the time with his wife and two sons. The morning following the non-delivery they were all found in their rooms with their legs broken and the arms of the owner himself painfully fractured above the elbows as a bonus. Rumours spread swiftly among the workforce with some help from Skender’s people and there were no further obstructions to the site’s progress. In fact the general cordiality of the contractors and workers increased to a sycophantic level. When, after three weeks, construction was a day and a half ahead of schedule Skender rewarded every worker with a thousand-dollar bonus that sealed their devotion to the task.

Skender stepped onto the marble-floored concourse in front
of the cathedral-like entrance and stopped to scrutinise the intricate inside roofing of the portico.

Cano looked like hell: his left eye was covered by a silk patch and there were stitches all over his face. He had lost the use of the eye, which had been removed, and he was waiting for the plastic surgery on the tattered eyelid to heal before having a false eye put in. Words could not describe the hatred he felt in his heart for the person who had killed his brother and done this to him. It was greater than any he had experienced in his life and was so strong that when he thought of Stratton – Klodi had told Cano of his sighting of Stratton at the restaurant – when the memory of the man’s image loomed in front of him, Cano’s facial expression physically changed and he looked as if he were growling or about to snarl.

Skender had told his senior security manager to take a few weeks off to rest and to heal his body as well as soothe his heart, aching for the loss of his brother. Cano refused. There was only one thing that could come even close to dulling his pain and that was to see – literally – Stratton’s head on a plate.

‘They’re waiting for you in the penthouse,’ Cano said sombrely.