Steven Gore - Final Target

“That’s not unusual. It happened all the time.”

Zink raised his eyebrows. “Guess who his cousin is?”

“I couldn’t guess.” Peterson frowned, not in the mood for game playing.

“Scuzzy Thomas.”

Peterson sat up. “No fucking way!”

Peterson slammed his fist on Zink’s desk. Pens and notebooks jumped. The computer monitor shook. “Are you telling me that we’ve got a relative of a mobster who’s in the joint for jury tampering sitting on a federal grand jury? Rose is gonna go nuts…Did you look at his juror questionnaire?”

“No, they’re under seal. We’ll need a court order.”

Peterson stood up. “I’ll get an order for all of them. This is a fucking can of worms.” He looked at the chart, shaking his head. “I’m starting to wish I never opened it.”

He started toward the door, then hesitated and looked back at Zink. “Did it cross your mind that whoever wants all these other guys dead also wants to keep Matson alive?” He then turned away and marched down the hallway.

W hy is somebody keeping Matson alive?” Gage wondered aloud when Alex Z walked into the office kitchen where he was making a pot of coffee.

“Keeping or leaving?”

“Leaving means he’s harmless, keeping means he’s got something somebody wants.”

Alex Z reached into the cabinet and pulled out two cups. “If I was him, I’d get a bodyguard.”

“He must have a krysha, a roof.” Gage held his hand above his head, palm down. “Somebody is protecting him.” Gage lowered his arm. “Slava thought that Gravilov would squeeze Matson for money and it was Alla Tarasova’s job to keep an eye on him.”

“Protecting him so they can squeeze him?”

“That’s what a protection racket is all about. They protect you from other crooks so you can keep paying.”

“Why not just put a gun to his head?” Alex Z formed his hand into the shape of a revolver. “You know, ‘Gimme all you got.’”

“What would you do if somebody did that to you?”

“I’d need to run out and sell my guitars and stuff.”

“So would Matson. We need to figure out where his money is.” Gage flicked his thumb toward Alex Z’s office. “Why don’t you go over Matson’s phone records and the ones I got out of Fitzhugh’s house? See if you can tell who they were calling. Maybe we can find a pattern.”

Alex Z brought a computer printout with him into Gage’s office a few hours later.

“It’s pretty clear Matson only used his office phone for SatTek business calls,” Alex Z reported. “In fact, all the overseas calls were to companies on the sales leads or customer lists or to suppliers of manufacturing equipment. Germany and France. I checked a bunch of the numbers. Almost all were listed. But his cell phone records show calls to a bunch of unlisted and disconnected numbers in places that haven’t even been on the horizon. Like Singapore. Why would he be calling Singapore? Or Taiwan? Switzerland I can understand. Liechtenstein, yeah. UK, sure. But Singapore?”

“Any pattern?”

“Pattern? Yes. Explanation? No-but whatever it was, Fitzhugh was in the middle of it. Calls to him kept crisscrossing all the others. Switzerland, Fitzhugh. Singapore, Fitzhugh. Taiwan, Fitzhugh. He’d get a call from Matson, then right away call a bank or a law office in Lugano, or Guernsey, or London. Bang, bang. Just like that.”

Gage turned his head and squinted toward the light coming into his office window, then back at Alex Z with the barest hint of a smile.

“There’s something we haven’t thought much about,” Gage said. “Matson’s exit strategy. How does he think this’ll end? He knows the government will make him forfeit all the money. Peterson isn’t a fool. A jury asked to convict Burch wouldn’t be too pleased if he let Matson keep any. But Matson’s not a fool, either. He’s got to have a stash. He doesn’t want to come out of this thing broke. And the best place to hide money is where nobody would think to look.”

“You think maybe Alla is part of his exit strategy? Dump the wife and disappear?”

“If Slava is reading this correctly, he’ll disappear, all right.”

“I don’t know, boss, her name is just too pretty for a crook. Alla Tarasova. It’s musical, even lyrical. It sort of floats in the air.”

Gage remembered someone else who’d talked about her in almost the same way, as a butterfly with a beautiful name.

“That’s what Mickey thought, too.”

M ickey took it. He just lay there and took it. He didn’t scream. He didn’t yell for help. He knew if they’d intended to kill him, he’d already be dead.

The giant kicked him one last time in the ribs as he lay sprawled in the shadows of Azenby Road in Southeast London, then lumbered into a waiting Mercedes and sped away.

Mickey didn’t remember passing out. He just remembered the message and the pain when a constable passing by just after sunrise mistook him for a vagrant and shook him back into consciousness.

The Metropolitan Police officer who followed the ambulance down Peckham Road and up Denmark Hill to the King’s College Hospital recognized Mickey as soon as the blood was washed off his face. Superintendent Michael Ransford was a legend whose retirement picture hung in the station to which the officer was assigned.

The officer winced as he inspected the superintendent’s shattered face, for a moment imagining it was his own infirm grandfather lying there. But then he caught himself. Ransford was a pro. The best. He’d remember the details that civilian victims forget. He felt lucky to be the officer assigned to do the interview.

“Superintendent?”

Mickey opened his eyes.

“What did he look like, Superintendent?”

Mickey squeezed his answer out through his fractured jaw. “Never saw him.”

“Would you recognize his voice?”

“No.”

The officer hesitated, almost bewildered. Of course he should recognize a voice…unless he was senile.

“What did he say to you?”

“Don’t remember.”

“What about his accent?”

“Cockney.”

Finally. At least the superintendent remembered something they could build on later. He pushed ahead.

“What were you doing on Azenby Road, sir?”

“Walking. Just walking.”

The officer watched Mickey’s eyes close, then shook his head while gazing down at the battered man, wondering why one of the top detectives in Metropolitan Police history had deteriorated so quickly in retirement. He thought again of his grandfather, and an answer appeared: Alzheimer’s. Perhaps he should call the superintendent’s wife, offer to help keep an eye on him; maybe even gather up some other officers and take turns. Clearly the old man shouldn’t be permitted to wander the streets alone.

The Russian was smart, Mickey thought as he listened to the officer’s footsteps fade toward the door. If they’d killed me, Peckham would’ve been swarming with police. No one gets away with murdering a retired superintendent. An assault case with no leads? Well, that’s an altogether different thing.

“Uncle Mickey’s hurt.”

The grim voice of Hixon Two followed a ringing that startled Gage and Faith as they sat on the couch near midnight watching the last embers in the fireplace turn dark.

“What is it?” Faith asked. “Jack? Did they take Jack back to the

Gage shook his head, then placed a hand on her arm.

“Will he be okay?” Gage asked Hixon Two.

Hixon Two took in a short breath, trying to maintain her soldier’s composure. “He’ll live. But they beat the bloody hell out of him.”