Only total quiet.
He pulled off the headphones.
Still nothing.
He flicked the switch back to off and shook his head.
He could feel a headache coming on. Little wonder, considering the way things had gone since Sokolov had come to see him two days earlier. And now his blood brother, the boyfriend of a cousin who was more than a sister to him, was dead, and he was in the crosshairs of the feds. Now that his brother was no longer running things, Jonny was supposed to be keeping everything ticking over while his boss was in Miami, not dragging the gang into an unwanted spotlight.
He cut himself a couple of lines and snorted them. One of the benefits of being so high up the supply chain was near-constant access to high-grade product, and this was certainly a privilege he didn’t want to lose.
He took a few breaths and let his heartbeat go back to normal after the initial hit of the powder.
The whole thing was ridiculous. Surely the switch had to do something.
He had the key in the ignition and there was definitely power to the electrics.
Then he realized that he still hadn’t looked properly inside the van’s main compartment. He’d been so preoccupied-first with Sokolov, then with his wife-that he hadn’t even opened the back for a good look.
It was time to remedy that.
He climbed out of his seat, opened the cabin door, and squeezed through the narrow doorway.
The rear compartment was neat and tidy. It was lined with a hard white plastic surface, like the inside of a fridge. It was mostly empty, apart from a big metal storage box that was bolted to the cabin’s floor. Along the opposite wall were four low black boxes that were also firmly attached in place. These looked like old PC towers, but they seemed new and had small panels with red and green LEDs and digital displays on them. A thick but tidy stream of wires linked everything. More wires ran up the inside of the van and into the refrigeration unit, while others disappeared into the base of the partition behind the driver’s position.
The storage box was secured by a bar and a large padlock, but there was no key for it on the van’s key ring.
Jonny left the van and went looking for something with which to force the padlock.
It didn’t take long. A length of rebar was lying on the ground about twenty feet away, probably from the waste-management yard.
He brought it inside the van and used it to bust the padlock. On the third attempt and to the soundtrack of him cursing out loud in Korean, it popped open.
The box was stuffed with elaborate electronic gear. It was like some kind of mega-stereo that someone had built themselves, a metal rack covered with dials, meters and sockets. An abundance of wires crisscrossed between them.
Apart from a laptop secured to the top of the stack, he had absolutely no idea what any of it was. Whatever it was, it was complicated.
After a few minutes spent staring at the boxes’ contents and trying to divine what they were there for, he decided to bring in an expert.
He took out his cell, dialed, and waited.
A sleepy voice answered.
“Shin,” he said, “get your ass over to the chop shop. There’s something you need to see.”
38
I was back at Federal Plaza, feeling on edge and antsy. Not a great feeling, especially when it’s coming up on one in the morning and I’m still at the office instead of annoying Tess with my alleged snoring.
On one level, it felt like the game had been played out, and we’d lost. Our mystery Russian-who we’d all started referring to as Ivan-had Sokolov and had pulled back into the shadows. Maybe that was it. Sokolov seemed to be what Ivan was after. Now that he had what he wanted, maybe they were gone for good. But if so, it left a lot of unanswered questions. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t help feeling that this was just a lull before the real storm.
As you’d expect, everyone was burning the midnight oil on this. We’d had three incidents with a total of eleven deaths in less than seventy-two hours. No one was going home just yet. I’d texted Tess to say I didn’t know when I’d be back and not to worry. That last bit was, of course, kind of pointless. By now, she knew it meant we were dealing with something seriously nasty and worrying was entirely reasonable. But what else could I say?
Information was streaming in from various corners. All five of the dead Russians, as well as the one at the hospital, were confirmed to be part of Mirminsky’s outfit. The Sledgehammer had lost seven men, with another out of action and in custody. We’d picked up a couple of calls informing him of this, but rather than going ballistic over it as you’d expect, he seemed oddly subdued. This lined up with the unexplained reverence he showed toward Ivan.
I wanted to know how we’d missed tracking the other two bratki, the ones who’d been at the real meet with Ivan. We’d put as tight a lock on all of the Sledgehammer’s comms, and yet Ivan was still able to get through to him and arrange for his escort. Our surveillance guys were reviewing all the video, audio, and data from Mirminsky’s club to try to figure out how Ivan had bypassed us. Ultimately, I doubted it would lead to anything. The key, as it always was, was Sokolov. Which was what the more intriguing bit of information that came in was about.
A background search on Leo Sokolov-or Lev Sokolov, to use what would have been his real Russian name according to our resident guru Joukowsky-didn’t turn up much. His prints were clean. The little on record confirmed that Sokolov lived a straightforward, uncomplicated life. Then the search threw us a major curvebalclass="underline" it kicked up a Lev Nikolaevich Sokolov who was born on the same day as our Leo, back in 1952-but who died nineteen years later. Which could be an incredible coincidence. Or, and this was far more likely according to my finely honed detective intuition, Leo-our Leo-wasn’t really Leo Sokolov at all. He’d somehow got hold of Lev’s birth certificate and used it as a breeder document to get himself a social security card and build a fake identity from it.
Which threw everything into question.
Leo Sokolov wasn’t really Leo Sokolov at all.
JONNY ARRIVED AT THE chop shop on Cross Island Parkway fifteen minutes after he’d broken into the metal locker. Shin was already there, leaning against the double doors, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. He was dressed in a tattered old tracksuit and faded sneakers, with the hood of his top almost obscuring his entire face.
As the van turned onto the lot, Shin slapped one of the big doors three times with the flat of his hand. They both swung open with the grating sound of metal being dragged over concrete, then Jonny drove the van straight into the large space inside. Shin followed on foot and the doors immediately creaked shut behind him.
The chop shop was a twenty-four-hour operation. At present, there were four guys remodeling a Porsche Panamera and a Bentley Continental, readying them to be shipped out to Moscow or Beirut, where they would end up with new owners who weren’t particularly bothered that their new cars had been stolen from someone a couple of continents away.
As Jonny jumped down from the cab, one of the crew working on the hot cars pointed at the van with his wrench.
“Hey, Jonny, nice wheels. You want us to drop a five-seven-two and some nitrous tanks in it? Or just fix your eight-track player?” He cracked up, as did his friends.
Jonny’s face didn’t even crease into a smile.
“Jachin’s dead. Some Russian gaejasik took him out.”
The laughter died instantly.
The team’s top dog, a muscle-bound Kkangpae called Bon, wiped his oily hands on a cloth and walked over toward Jonny.
“That’s rough, man,” he said, running a finger along one of the bullet holes in the front windshield. “So what are we gonna do?”