Ultimate Betrayal (12 page)

When Toney’s pistol hit the carpet, the older man kicked it out of the way, and the man with the pistol took three steps toward Toney and cold-cocked him.

Toney felt like he had the mother of all hangovers. Even before he opened his eyes, he remembered he’d messed up in a big way. For a moment, he considered not opening his eyes, hoping blindness would protect him from reality.

He drew a huge breath and slowly opened his eyes. He was in an unfinished basement with one small boarded-up window. A light bulb hung from the ceiling on an electric cord. He couldn’t see the entire room because he was tied at the wrists and ankles to a metal chair and his head was strapped to the high back of the chair with tape. He could only look straight ahead and a bit to the left and right. He shuddered when he realized he was naked and the chair had been placed inside a shallow metal tub with a couple inches of water in the bottom.

Gino watched through a one-way window and saw Toney had a “deer in the headlights” look. Now that the man was conscious, he would let him sweat it out in the basement. An hour passed before he sent in two of Galupo’s enforcers. Gino watched Marco Siracusa approach the killer and take his head in both of his hands.

Marco bent over, almost nose-to-nose with Toney, and said, “Monty . . . you don’t mind if I call you Monty, do you?”

Toney seemed confused, as though he wasn’t sure if the man expected an answer, but was too scared to say anything anyway. He just stared back at him.

Marco stepped back from the chair, looked at his sidekick, Vinnie Rosario, and said, “Vinnie, I don’t think Monty likes me.”

Vinnie stepped on a floor switch next to the metal tub, which delivered an electric current into the water at the bottom of the tub. The electric charge shocked Toney and caused his body to spasm. Gino knew from previous such sessions with traitors and enemies, the pain that shot through the man’s body was horrific and would cause his body to go rigid, his jaws to clench. After a few seconds, Vinnie released the switch. Toney’s gasps for breath sounded like a bull moose in rut.

He seemed to gather his senses and screamed, “Monty’s good! Call me Monty!”

Marco looked at Vinnie. “See, sometimes you just gotta remind them that good manners are important.”

Vinnie grunted.

“Now that we got your attention, Monty, I want you to know how bad you screwed up this time. When you messed with the Hood family, you made some of their closest friends very angry. You understand?”

There was no hesitation this time. Toney quickly tried to nod his head. When that didn’t work, he yelled, “Yes.”

“Good,” Marco said. “Now, I’m gonna to ask you some very easy questions. You gonna answer each question and you gonna tell me exactly what I want to hear. You hesitate or give me an answer I don’t like, Vinnie here hits the juice.”

Toney answered one question after another. Gino didn’t believe he held anything back.

When David returned to his father’s home, Peter told him about a guy named Montrose Toney who’d showed up there and wanted to see him.

“What happened?” David asked.

“A few of Gino’s friends were here. They took the guy away.”

“Where to?”

Peter shrugged.

“When did all this go down?”

“While you were with Gino at the market.”

“You were here when this happened?”

Peter shrugged again.

“Sonofabitch!”

David called Gino’s cellphone.

“Yeah, David,” Gino answered.

“What’s going on?”

“Maybe you should come by my house.”

One of Gino’s bodyguards met David at the front door of Gino’s row house and escorted him to a basement office. He sat down for a minute, but became too antsy and paced.

The bodyguard stood in a corner and stared.

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me anything,” David said to the man.

“I’ll tell you one thing. Your old man’s got bigger balls than an elephant. I hear he looked that killer in the eye and never blinked once. Guy coulda plugged him and he just stood there like he was a visiting neighbor.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” David demanded.

The bodyguard smiled and said, “You better ask the Don.”

An hour later, Peter was escorted into the room.

“What’s been going on?” David said.

“Gino and I played a little game and—”

“I thought we agreed I’d call the shots,” David shouted. He then turned on the bodyguard and said, “Where’s Gino? I want to talk to him. Now!”

Peter didn’t let David continue. “Son,” he said, “I appreciate your concern, but I’m a grown man. I can make my own decisions.”

“What did you do?” David asked.

Peter explained in detail what had happened back at the house. “We caught the guy who chased us from the cemetery.”

It took David a moment to come up with a response, but finally he quietly said, “I love you, Dad, but sometimes you really piss me off.”

“Yeah, I know,” Peter replied. “That’s my job.”

Then Gino entered the basement room. The old Mafioso smiled as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

But his smile disappeared when David said, “That was one stupid stunt you pulled.”

Gino ignored David’s insult and said, “I want you to listen to this.” He took a DVD from his suit coat pocket and inserted it into a player built into the wall. He fast forwarded the disk. Then a man screamed.

“That’s the guy in the Camaro,” Gino said.

David heard a man set down the rules for Toney, and then:

Man: “You come to our neighborhood with a gun, and you gonna kill two of our friends, the Hoods. Why?”

Toney: “I got orders to kill the son. If the father is in the way, I gotta kill him, too.”

Man: “Who hired you?”

Toney: (Hesitation. Screams. Thirty second pause, then gasps.) “Rolf Bishop.”

David stiffened. That makes no sense at all, he thought.

Man: “Who’s this Bishop?”

Toney: “A former Army officer. The guy who’s been picked by the President for a top job at the CIA.”

Man: “You shittin’ me?”

Toney: “No, it’s the truth.”

Man: “Vinnie, find out if this guy’s blowin
’ smoke up my ass.”

Toney’s screams of agony were so intense this time David was about to tell Gino to stop the torture, forgetting for a moment this was a recording.

Man: “Jesus, Vinnie; what you tryin’ to do, fry the son-of-a-bitch so he can’t tell us squat? Get your damn foot off that switch.”

“Right here the tape machine was shut off for fifteen minutes,” Gino said. “Until Toney could talk again.”

Toney: (Weakly) “I’m telling you the truth, I swear. I’m not lying. Please don’t hurt me anymore.”

Man: “Okay! You still saying this CIA guy told you to kill David Hood?”

Toney: (Gasping) “I swear, I swear. He told me to do it.”

Man: “Why?”

Toney: “Please don’t hurt me again. I give you my word, I don’t know why. He just said, ‘Go kill Hood.’ ”

Man: “Did you bomb Hood’s house in Maryland?”

Toney: “I didn’t do that. It was a guy named Francis, Jim Francis. He was a crackhead. He planted the explosives. Fucked up the job real good.”

Man: “How do you know this Francis guy blew up the house and killed the woman and her two kids?”

Toney: “Cause I was the one supposed to kill Hood, but I let Francis do it instead. All he had to do was shoot him or run him off the road into a telephone pole. Whatever. The stupid bastard wasn’t supposed to use explosives.”

Man: “You got any idea why Bishop wants Hood killed?”

Toney: “No!”

Man: “So where do we find Francis?”

Toney: “Probably in the D.C. morgue. He died of an overdose.”

Man: “Well, Monty-baby, you did pretty good. Anything else we should know?”

Toney: “No, except Bishop ain’t gonna quit ‘til Hood’s dead.” (Brief pause)

“We gotta assume,” Gino said, “that this
moulie
, Toney, has been missed by now and that Bishop is unhappy and worried about it. I know what I would do if I was in Bishop’s shoes and wanted someone dead badly enough—send out a hit team with a lot of firepower.”

“We can’t just sit here and wait for someone to get lucky and kill David,” Peter said.

“You got that right,” Gino responded. “First of all, neither of you can stay at your house.” Gino paused for a moment. “I figure Bishop thinks he’s going after a business executive and his elderly father. He probably knows nothing of my involvement. That’s to our advantage. I think you both should stay here today. Tomorrow morning we’ll all move out to my place in Chestnut Hill.”

Then Gino looked directly at David and said, “Why would Bishop want you dead?” The question was asked in an even voice that broached no equivocation, no holding back.

David heard Gino, but he absentmindedly shook his head as though he was overwhelmed with what he’d heard on the tape.

“What’s on your mind?” Peter asked. “You look like you’re off in Never-Never Land.”

“It makes no sense. I don’t have a clue why Bishop would want me dead. The last time I saw the guy was in early 2004, when I was assigned to his unit.”

“Okay,” Gino said. “We’ll find out about this guy Bishop. And then I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch.”

APRIL 19

CHAPTER 19

Marine Gunnery Sergeant Sam Collins was usually glad to help a fellow Marine, whether he was on active duty or a veteran. But Chicago Lieutenant Dennis O’Neil had tried his patience. Collins thought it was great O’Neil wanted to organize a Marine reunion, but his job in the Marine Corps Personnel Office was a full-time affair. So, when O’Neil called again, at 7:30 a.m. sharp this time, Collins snapped, “Look, I’m pretty busy right now. Maybe you could call back later.”

“I know you’re busy, Sam. But I wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t really import—”

“You’re going to get my ass in trouble if anyone discovers I sent you copies of those three files,” Collins whispered.

“Sam, I badly need your help. Look, I’ll catch the first flight out of Chicago for D.C. I need to see you tonight. I’ll call you at your office when I get there.”

Before Collins could respond, O’Neil broke the connection.

Dennis O’Neil called his boss and told him he needed a couple “personal days.” Then he booked a seat on a flight that would put him into Ronald Reagan National Airport in the middle of the afternoon. He had a couple hours to burn before he had to drive to O’Hare and used the time to make a few more calls.

Elizabeth Perkins, in Anaheim, answered the phone on the seventh ring. Her voice was tremulous, almost frightened-little-girlish.

“Mrs. Perkins, this is Dennis O’Neil from Chicago. Your husband and I served together in Afghanistan.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. O’Neil, I remember. You’re putting the reunion together.” She paused a moment and said, “Zach would have loved so much to get together with all of you. What a shame that . . . .”

She began to cry. Dennis waited.

“I’m sorry about that, Mr. O’Neil. I can’t seem to do anything but cry about Zach.”

“That’s understandable, Mrs. Perkins. I really am sorry to bother you, but I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Questions? What kind of questions?” she asked, suspicion suddenly in her voice.

“First of all, I need to inform you that I’m a detective with the Chicago Police Department. When I read your note about Zachary’s murder, I looked into the circumstances of his death. There are a couple things that concern me. I should also tell you I have absolutely no authority to investigate a crime in Anaheim, so if you hang up on me now I’ll understand.”

“Mr. O’Neil,” she said with sudden strength in her voice, “if you can help find whoever killed my Zach, I’ll talk with you until hell freezes over.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Perkins. Were you and Zachary married when he was in Afghanistan?” Dennis asked.

“First, please call me Beth,” she said. Then she expelled a quick laugh and said, “Well, I should hope so, Lieutenant. We already had two kids and I was three months pregnant with Amy when Zach shipped out. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Do you recall if he ever mentioned a unit in Afghanistan called the Special Logistical Support Detachment?”

“No, I’m sorry. My husband never told me anything like that. He would never really talk about any of his assignments, especially if they were classified. In fact, the only thing he ever talked about was how much waste he saw over there.”

“I can relate, Beth. I saw a lot of young men get wounded or killed in Afghanistan.”

“Oh, I’m sure that must have been awful. But that wasn’t what I meant when I referred to waste. You see, Zach was transferred to a unit in Afghanistan after he got wounded. He spent the last four months of his tour with that unit. I can’t tell you how happy and relieved I was when he wrote that he wouldn’t be in the field anymore and would be in an air-conditioned office. The waste Zach referred to concerned things he saw after he was wounded and transferred. I don’t know what he did. I was just glad he wasn’t getting shot at anymore.”

“Thanks for your help, Beth. I promise I’ll try to find out who killed your husband.”

O’Neil made two more calls, to Eric Carbajal’s widow in Belen, New Mexico, and to Fred Laniewski’s widow in Wildwood, New Jersey. Neither could shed any more light on her husband’s murder or his involvement with the SLSD. But there were common strands in their stories. Each of their husbands had been transferred to an office job near Kabul after being wounded in the field, to a unit that had something to do with logistics. They remembered their husbands had written about their new assignments and, after they returned to the States, reminisced about the tons of stuff that came into Afghanistan. One widow mentioned that her husband had thought someone at the Pentagon had lost his mind.