Rice froze the image and zoomed in on the frame. “Jackpot,” he said. “Locker number nine twenty-five. How much you want to bet it’s not filled with cheese?”
Chapter 23
RICE UNFROZE THE image, and Zelvas slumped to the floor. A wet circle fanned out from his body, slowly turning the white marble bright red.
And then wisps of smoke crept into the corner of the screen.
“Shit,” Benzetti said. “We’re going to lose the picture again.”
“Relax,” Rice said. “He’s a good two hundred feet from the blast.”
They watched as the smoke cast a pink haze over the picture, then lifted.
“Look at all those people run. They’re practically tripping over the poor bastard, and they don’t stop to help him,” Rice said.
“As far as they’re concerned, some terrorist just set off a couple of bombs. It’s every man for himself,” Benzetti said. “Wait a minute. Here comes Mr. Good Samaritan.”
The preppy-looking young man knelt down and tried to comfort Zelvas.
“Who is this guy?” Rice asked.
“Who knows? He looks like some latte-sipping pansy who was running for his life and decided to stop and smell the dead guy.”
“Zelvas is telling him something,” Rice said.
“Short conversation,” Benzetti said, as they watched Zelvas die. “He just cashed in his chips.”
“Now what’s this guy gonna do?” Rice said.
“If the kid is smart, he’ll move his ass out of Grand Central.”
But the kid didn’t move. He was staring up at the blood-smeared lockers.
“Uh-oh,” Rice said. “The monkey sees the banana.”
The young man stood up, reached into the open locker, and taking out a small leather bag, looked inside.
“The monkey is about to crap in his pants,” Benzetti said.
“He looks like a Boy Scout,” Rice said. “Maybe he’ll turn it into Lost and Found. I know I would.”
Benzetti laughed. “He could be as honest as a full-length mirror, but we all have our price.”
The young man shut the bag in a hurry and snapped the latch.
“My instincts tell me this dude just found out what his is.”
And then the cop showed up.
“This guy is NYPD,” Rice said.
“He must be from the Idiot Squad,” Benzetti said. “Why would he pull a gun on a civilian?”
The kid ignored the cop’s gun and tended to the dead Russian.
“He’s smart,” Rice said. “He’s using Zelvas’s bag as a prop and playing doctor.”
“And Officer Dumbass is buying it,” Benzetti said as the young cop holstered his gun.
They watched the scenario unfold. Finally the kid dug into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and started talking.
“How convenient,” Benzetti said. “A phone call.”
“It’s a ruse,” Rice yelled at the cop on the monitor. “And you’re buying it, Officer”—he paused the video and zoomed in on the cop’s name tag—“Kendall.”
He hit the play button and watched as Kendall listened to his radio. The call was brief but it seemed to energize the cop.
“Oh, crap,” Benzetti said. “I think I know how this movie is going to end.”
Kendall spent a few more seconds with the kid, then took off toward the Forty-second Street Passageway. The kid waited another ten seconds, then cut and ran in the other direction.
“Track him,” Benzetti said.
Rice followed the action from camera to camera as the kid made his way to the Lexington Avenue exit. The final camera caught the drama outside as three men haggled over a cab and the kid bummed a ride with the winner.
Rice froze the frame. “The hack number is six J four two,” he said, writing it down. “I’ll call the TLC and hunt down the driver.”
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Benzetti said. “It’ll probably be some towelhead who won’t remember anything because he was too busy gouging people that night.”
Rice hit play, and the cab, the kid, and the leather bag with the diamonds were gone.
“He wasn’t carrying any luggage,” Rice said. “So he’s either a regular commuter or he works in one of the shops here at Grand Central. I’ll pull a screen shot of his face. We can find this guy.”
“And when we do, I will personally put a bullet through his head and bring the diamonds back to Chukov,” Benzetti said.
“Y’know,” Rice said, grinning, “there really ought to be a finder’s fee for something like that.”
“There will be,” Benzetti said. “A fistful of diamonds.”
“Two fistfuls,” Rice said.
A close-up of the young man filled the thirty-inch screen, and Rice froze the image. “And if the Russians notice that any stones are missing,” Rice said, “we can just blame it on Pretty Boy.”
Benzetti nodded. “LOL, baby. L.O. Fucking L.”
Book Two. The Chase
Chapter 24
NATHANIEL PRINCE SAT on his bed, his eyes fixed on the cordless phone beside him.
“You can’t make it ring by staring at it,” Natalia said.
“Chukov should have called hours ago,” Prince said.
“Then call him.”
“It’s not my job to follow that incompetent prick around with a broom and a dustpan,” Prince said. “Chukov is the underling. He’s the one who should be calling me.”
Natalia looked at her watch. “It’s getting late. Pretty soon he’ll be too drunk to dial.”
Prince couldn’t argue with the logic. He picked up the phone and pushed a single button. Chukov didn’t answer until the fourth ring.
“Nathaniel, I was just going to call you,” Chukov said. “I have good news. We zeroed in on the guy who has our diamonds.”
“It’s about time,” Prince said.
“I e-mailed you his picture.”
“His picture? I want his head delivered to my front door with his balls stuffed in his mouth,” Prince screamed. “Who is he?”
“He’s just some asshole kid who was at the right place at the right time. Zelvas stashed the diamonds in a locker at Grand Central. This guy found them and took off.”
“You told me the diamonds were in Zelvas’s safe,” Prince said. “Why did he move them to a locker in a train station?”
Because Natalia knew the combination, and Zelvas didn’t trust a whore who would bed down with her own father, Chukov thought.
“I don’t know, Nathaniel,” he said.
“What do we know about the guy who has the diamonds? What’s his name?”
“We don’t know his name yet,” Chukov said, “but he probably either works at Grand Central or is a regular commuter. Somebody has to know who he is. We definitely will find him.”
“Who’s we? ”
“Me, Rice, Benzetti, and the Ghost,” Chukov said.
“Not enough,” Prince said. “I want more people on it.”
“I have a dozen of my men…”
Prince cut Chukov off before he could finish. “I don’t want foot soldiers. I want a professional. A hunter. A killer.”
“The Ghost is a professional…”
“He’s one man,” Prince said. “The Syndicate is going to blame me for the missing diamonds. I don’t care how good this Ghost guy is. He can’t be everywhere. I need insurance, backup. Somebody smart. Somebody we’ve worked with before. What about the German?”
“Krall?”
“That’s the one.”
“I don’t know,” Chukov said. “These killers for hire are like prima donnas. They don’t like to be in competition with someone else. They want an exclusive contract.”