Untraceable (43 page)

Micah drove up to the gate in a rented
box truck—a rental truck identical to Sharon’s. He punched in his
code and drove inside. It would have been too suspicious to
transfer the drugs between trucks in the open lot, but to simply
replace one truck for the other was no problem. David was the one
who was skilled at locks. He rarely had any problem using anything
from a bump key to a screw driver; it only took him a couple
minutes to have the other truck cranked and pulled forward as Micah
pulled into the parking space. They swapped out the license plates
and drove out of the lot, unobserved, with multimillions of dollars
worth of Columbian cocaine.

When they reached where they’d left
Micah’s car, he gave David his keys and told him to follow him. He
had one more stop to make before they drove back to his house. He
would eventually tell Sharon that he had her coke, but he certainly
didn’t want her men on the road between New Orleans and Pensacola
looking for a plain white, sixteen foot box truck—but he had a
solution.

Although he was on the outs with his
own mafia Family, there were still a few business connections of
his father’s willing to do him a favor or two. One of those was
Kirk Svenson who ran a custom auto wrap shop. Micah told him he
needed a standard box trailer covered quickly, and that it didn’t
matter the advertisement or design. Kirk said he’d been doing a big
ad campaign for FTD and had plenty of panels on hand. If Micah
didn’t care that it was an ad for flowers, and if it didn’t need to
be perfect, he could have his men get the job finished in an hour.
When the workers pulled the truck out from the building, Micah’s
jaw dropped and David burst into laughter; Kirk forgot to mention
what the background color was for the FTD advertisement—the truck
box was now vivid pink!

Once David composed, he looked at
Micah and, with all seriousness restored, said, “I’m not driving
it.”

Micah grumbled, but didn’t object as
he drove the truck home.

CHAPTER thirty-three

Exactly three hours after his first
call to Caprizio, Micah sat in the quiet stillness of his
bedroom—out of David’s hearing—and placed the call.

Caprizio dispensed with the greeting,
“I’ll meet with you here. I expect—”

“
Not in New York, that’s
too big of an advantage for you.”

“
Do you really think I’m
going to give you the upper hand?”

“
No, so it won’t be New
Orleans, either. Although Sharon doesn’t know it yet, I’ve taken
her drug shipment; I’ll bring it. The other items I have stored for
you are in Pensacola; I’d prefer not to have to move them, so we’ll
meet there.”

“
But you don’t mind moving
your pregnant wife? Who are you more concerned about, Micah, your
wife or your son? I get the feeling she’s unimportant to
you.”

“
No,” he barely got out
before his feelings caught mid-way in his throat, “she’s everything
to me. And this,” he said with a bit of anger overtaking his
quivering emotions, “is why wives are
supposed
to be off limits. She
shouldn’t be in this situation. I should be in her place, and you
know it. When you found out who Sharon wanted taken, you should
have told her no. My parents, my brother, my sister, any of them
would have understood being used for leverage, but not my
wife—she’s innocent,” he said, trying hard to suppress his raw
emotions; showing any weakness to this man wasn’t good.

“
I agree,” came the
surprising reply. “But what’s done is done. I’m at least impressed
that you care about
some
of our rules—rules that you’ve broken in the
worst possible way.”

“
I can’t change the past,
but I
can
give my
wife and son a future.”

“
In the mob?” he
scoffed.

“
No. I only want her
freedom; I don’t care what happens to me afterwards. I was wrong to
go back to her the first time, and I won’t make that mistake
again.” Then he stressed, “With me out of their lives, they’ll be
safe.”

The silence was long. Micah was used
to this with Caprizio now, so he waited for the man to
speak.

“
Where are we meeting in
Pensacola?”

“
There is a small
municipal airport where we can meet without attracting too much
attention. Be there tomorrow morning by ten a.m. Expect Sharon to
call you in a little while; go along with whatever she says. She
has no clue you know about the coke shipment. I’ll meet you at the
airport. If you don’t have them or if they’ve been hurt,” he
stopped for a moment wondering should the next words come out of
his mouth. He made his decision and he would stick by it, promise
or not, “I’ll kill you.”

“
Good luck with that,”
came the insincere reply, and Caprizio hung up.

Micah’s next call was to Sharon. She
answered quickly and was talking before he could say
anything.

“
She’s safe. I can get her
back for you. I’ve made a deal with Caprizio for—”

“
Half your drug
shipments?” he finished for her. “I’ve talked with him and I know
about Tocovara. What do you think he’s going to do when he finds
out you lied to him, Sharon? What will he do if he knows you sent
me to kill your father?”

“
He’ll never believe you,
Micah.”

“
Really? Would he believe
me if I had a truck with two pallets of pure white cocaine
inside?”

“
Don’t
fuck
with my business,” she
growled.

“
It’s pretty uncomfortable
to have someone yanking you around, isn’t it?”

“
I’ll tell him to kill
her,” she warned.

“
He’d never do that and
you and I both know why; I’ll tell him about the drugs, and then
he’ll want to see which one of us is telling the truth. You’ve got
a dead father, and I have your coke—you lose.”

“
You’re good, Gavarreen,
but you’re not that good. My coke is safe.”

“
Why is that? Because your
boys in room 215 haven’t called to say they watched me steal it?
You of all people should know I
am
that good, baby—or is your memory too
short?”

“
What do you want?” she
asked, suddenly willing to deal.

“
I want what you wanted; I
want to be the Boss of my Family. You keep the lower east and I
keep the south. You call Caprizio and tell him we have a new
arrangement. Tell him I’ve agreed to get the shipments going if
Giovanni delivers my wife, and I’m allowed to be a
boss.”

“
He’ll kill you, Micah,”
she said, sounding a little bit torn on his plan. “As soon as I
tell him the shipments are moving again, he’ll send someone to wipe
you off the face of the earth—probably everyone in your immediate
family, too. The only one he might let live would be your wife
since he’ll have to agree to let her go unharmed.”

“
I don’t care anymore. You
said I was the source of all her troubles so what does it matter if
I’m dead? Who knows, maybe you’ll end up with the southern Family
after all.”

“
You don’t have to do it
this way. Give me back my drugs and I’ll tell him the line is
moving again without interference from Tocovara. I’ll ‘gift’ him
this first shipment in exchange for your wife, but I want you,
Micah. She’ll be out of this mess and
I’ll
eventually put you in
power.”

“
No,” he said bluntly,
“She goes free and I take over my side.”

“
Why, you stubborn
bastard, why?!”
she practically screamed
at him.

“
Because I love her—and I
hate you! Deal or die; it’s your choice. I’ll have the drugs in
Pensacola by five p.m. tomorrow. I need a call from Leese by four,
or else I call Caprizio and tell him what you’ve done.”

She was blowing off a string of
obscenities and telling him she would be glad when Caprizio finally
put a bullet in him.

“
Are you done?” came his
unemotional question.

She blew up again, but this time she
finished by saying he had a deal. “Enjoy your victory now because
it won’t last long.” She hung up.

Micah put the phone on the nightstand
and stretched out on his bed. He had told David to get some sleep
in the guest room. They would pull out and head for Pensacola at
midnight. It wasn’t quite six p.m., but he needed all the rest he
could get. The trip would only be about four hours, but he wasn’t
going to take the chance of a flat tire or some other unforeseen
problem making him late for the most important meeting of Leese,
Nadia, and Kimmy’s lives.

By eleven-forty-five the men were
packing their gear. They cut the padlock off the back of the box
trailer and replaced it with their own. Micah put his coil gun and
cartridges in the cab of the truck, and David put his in his car.
Micah didn’t want David to bring his real guns, but he understood
his reasons. He hadn’t made the same promise, and if it came down
to the women’s safety, David said he needed his advantage—guns in
the hands of a Gavarreen were one hell of an advantage.

The streets of sleepy Pensacola were
practically desolate when the bright pink box truck and the BMW
rolled through town heading south for the beach house that Micah
rented over a year ago when he came here to kill a young woman. He
checked with the property management company and found out it was
vacant once more. He thought about Leese’s belief that God does
everything for a reason, so it seemed appropriate to him that this
is where it would end.

He placed two additional calls in the
wee morning hours while he was driving, one was to Ryan to tell him
to expect them around four a.m. and the other was to Bev and Matt.
He had a story to tell them that sounded a bit unbelievable, but it
wouldn’t be the first time they’d been involved in this families
unusual problems. Once he calmed them down after explaining that
Leese was alive, he asked if Matt would go to the Holiday Inn up on
I-10 and check-in, just as he’d done the day of the shooting at the
school. He asked for Bev and Matt junior to remain at home, this
was too dangerous to bring them any closer, but he needed someone
to be there for Giovanni to turn the women over to. Once Matt had
Leese, Nadia, and Kimmy in his possession, he was to call Micah and
tell him they were safe.

It was his hope that once Caprizio saw
the drugs and the two bosses, he would help him set up catching
Sharon in her web of lies. What happened to her at that point would
be out of his hands.

Ryan was waiting when Micah and David
pulled in. He motioned them inside and told them to be very quiet
because his charges were sleeping. “Those old bastards are the
biggest pair of pansy pain-in-the-asses I’ve ever met,” he
whispered. “The only peace and quiet I get is when they finally
fall asleep.”

“
Where are they?” David
whispered back as they walked into the living room.

“
Master bedroom,” he
answered, pointing to the door that wasn’t far away.

“
Together?” Micah asked
with disbelief.

Ryan grinned, “Yeah, after you left I
found that it was a whole hell of a lot easier if I handcuffed them
together. They get into a lot less trouble, and they are starting
to learn to cooperate with each other.”

“
Cooperate with each
other?” David repeated, his eyes getting larger by the minute. What
had Ryan done?

“
Shhh!” Ryan reminded him.
“Yeah, they have to help each other; like eating, drinking, going
to the bathroom—”

“
You
don’t
make them do that together,
Ryan.” Micah stated, praying the whole time he’d misunderstood what
he said.

“
Hell yeah they do—I’m not
wiping their asses.”

“
Ah shit,” Micah stated in
absolute exasperation; neither boss would forgive them for this.
Micah was pretty sure they’d have both preferred a bullet to this
humiliation.

“
And this,” David said,
giving Micah a hard stare, “was your brilliant idea, to have
Ryan
watch
them?”

“
Hey,” Ryan said sounding
a little bit insulted, “I did good; neither one of them got away,”
he pointed out. “And instead of threatening to kill me every two or
three minutes, they only say it four or five times a day
now.”

The door to the bedroom cracked open
as Vitale Moretti peeked out.

“
Ah, now see what you’ve
done?” Ryan stated at normal volume. “You woke them up! Come on out
guys, I’ll put on the coffee.”

They could hear the two men arguing
behind the door, but they refused to open it. Botachelli’s face
appeared in the sliver of an opening and told Micah to make Ryan
give them back their pants.

“
You didn’t take their
pants away, Ryan—please, tell me you didn’t.”

Ryan got a big grin on his face and
then winked at Micah, “I caught them a few days ago trying to slip
out the glass doors through the pool, so I took their pants away
and told them we were on a gay beach, and if they wanted to go
outside, handcuffed and naked, to go for it. They finally stopped
trying.”