The World in Reverse (42 page)

“Please be quiet,” Dmitry said, voice low.  He massaged his temples. 

“Help!” she screamed again. Her shrieking voice carried through the garage and wounded Dmitry’s ears.  “Someone help me!”

“Please…” Dmitry took a deep breath. “Stop yelling.”

“Help!” she screamed again. “Someone, please!”

“Shut! Up!” Dmitry growled.  His voice boomed and scared her. Oddly enough, it wasn’t even a scream, but his baritone was so forceful and so deep until the base sent chills through her spine. 

Immediately, Roxie quieted down. 

Gathering his composure, Dmitry put his hand on the side of the car and tried to speak in a low, calm voice.  “Cane couldn’t have found you if you had hid under his ball sack.  I sent for you.”

“Who are you?” Roxie asked, looking b
etween him and Vasily.  “And what do you want with me?”

“That depends,” Dmitry answered.

“On what?” she asked, trying to raise her head to talk to him.

“Are you going to stop screaming? If not, I’m going to leave you out here until you start to stew in your own urine.  However,
if you behave and keep in mind that there is no reason not to
, then Vasily will take you someplace where you can have a hot bath, fresh clothes, and something to eat.” He raised his long index finger.  “In exchange for that kindness, I want to know what you saw the night before you fled the city.”

Roxie’s face changed and Dmitry knew right then that she knew a hell of a lot more than she should have.

“I’m waiting,” he said irritated.

“How do I know that you won’t just kill me as soon as I tell you?” She rolled her eyes.  “Uh uh. I gotta get something out of it.”

“How about a chance to get out of the trunk, you rude little bitch,” Vasily snapped.

“That’s enough, Vasily,” Dmitry ordered. “Roxie, that’s your name right.”

“What difference is it to you?  Last time I checked you didn’t need to know a person’s name to pop a cap in their ass,” she screamed. 

Vasily shook his head.
Like he had told his boss, she was a handful
. 

“Roxie,” Dmitry said, heaving a deep sigh.  He pointed his long finger at her.  “I don't have time for this shit. Okay, so don’t take my kin
dness for a weakness.  Tell me exactly what you know
right now
.  If you’re worried about Cane, I can assure you that he’s the last of your worries.” His eyes narrowed.  “But you do need to worry about me.  You have some information that I want, and I get what I want.  Do I make myself clear? You’re in the back of a Bentley in my garage.  If I wanted you dead, you’d be in a hole out in the desert that I just spent time and money extracting you from.  Now, if you want to push me, then I’ll just hand you back over to Vasily and he’ll harvest your organs and sell them so that I can recoup my money.”  That last part was a joke but Roxie didn’t find it to be funny. 

Just then the garage opened and Nicola, A
natoly, and Gabriel came pulling in from the trip out to Cane’s house.

Dmitry looked up and waved them over as they got out of the SUV.

“What’s this?” Anatoly asked, looking at the girl with a stone face.

“This is Roxie,” Dmitry said, cracking a smile.  “Evidently, she has bigger balls then the men that we pick up.  Won’t say a word…yet.”

Nicola walked up to the truck with a bottle of water and his flak jacket thrown over the side of his shoulder.  He instantly recognized her.  “You found her!” He said, amazed at Dmitry’s abundant resourcefulness.

“Who are you?” she asked, still fidgeting in the back of the trunk. 

Nicola caught a whiff of her urine and bucked his eyes.  “I’m…I’m Nicola Agosto,” he said, stepping back a few feet. 

“So you brought me back here?” Her eyes blazed with fury.  “All you had to do was answer the fucking phone when I called the first time.”

“Better late than never, right?” Nicola said, reaching to pull her out of the truck. 

Dmitry stopped him.  “No, not until she tells us what we want to know.  Now it’s about principle.”

Nicola let go of her bound hands.  “Well…” He waited just like the rest of them.

“It’s here, okay. I still got it but…” She paused and huffed.

“What’s here?” Nicola asked.

“I have the real jump drive with the recor
ding of the cop, the politician, and Cane meeting earlier that day, and I recorded Twist getting shot by Cane that night on my phone. It’s all on the fucking jump drive.”  Wiggling again, she growled in frustration. “I have to piss again.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Nicola said asto
nished.  She really was the key to the case.  “Where is the drive?”

Roxie cleared her throat. “In me?”

“Excuse me?” Nicola said with a frown.

“In me.  I use a plastic receptacle like the drug mules do to keep it up in my pussy.  I knew it would be my only chance at staying alive, so I keep it close.”

“On that note, I’ll leave you gentlemen to it,” Dmitry said, turning and walking back to the entrance of the house. “You men come and see me when you’re done.”  He threw up his hands.

Gabriel couldn’t help but laugh.  With his balled up fist to his mouth, he hit Nicola on the shoulder.  “You can fish it out if you want to, but I’d use gloves though.”

“Let her up,” Nicola said to Vasily. “She told us what we wanted to know.”

Vasily cut his eyes at Roxie. “You help her out.  I went and got her.”

Shaking his head, Nicola pulled the little woman out of the back of the Bentley and stood her up on her own two feet. However, two much time in the car had her nearly too weak to stand on her own.  Grabbing her before she collapsed, Nicola picked her up in his arms.

“Don’t bring her in the house,” Anatoly said, walking away.

“Well, what am I supposed to do with her?” Nicola screamed out.

Gabriel passed him the keys to the SUV.

“Take her to the stash house. Let her get a bath, some clothes, and food and then Gazelle, the girl who runs the house, will put her back on a commercial plane to Oklahoma.  Don’t forget to get your precious jump drive from her,” Vasily said, headed back towards the house. He was absolutely exhausted.  All he wanted was something to eat and a bed for himself. But Anatoly quickly stopped him.

“Turn around.  You’re going with him,” A
natoly said, stepping in front of Vasily. “You did a good job, and I appreciate it, but I need one more thing.  Well, two things actually.  At the stash house, there is one dead body of a cop that I need you to get rid of and there is one man still alive that I need you to mirror.”

Vasily dropped his shoulders. “Boss, that’s going to take all night. I’m exhausted.”

“Get something to eat and grab a nap there then.” He hit Vasily on the shoulders. “Just get it done tonight. Tomorrow will be too late.  And Nicola and I have some things to handle.  He’s going to drop her off, we’re going to regroup and go back out to finish this shit.  I’ve got a fucking wedding the day after tomorrow.”

“
Da da
, boss. I’ll do it,” Vasily said obediently.  “But I’m not getting in the car with her.” He looked over at Roxie as Agosto loaded her in the back of the SUV.  “I’ll drive another car.”

“What you don’t like the smell of piss?” Winking at Vasily, he turned and walked into the house with Gabriel who was waiting at the door.

35

Late in the afternoon, a young black man in his early thirties
with dreads pulled back, wearing a navy polo shirt and pair of crisp dark jeans rang the doorbell of the stash house and waited with a techy backpack thrown over his arm. Without a word, Nicola opened it quickly, stepped out to make sure that no one was following him, escorted him inside, and then closed the door behind them.

“I’m Rah,” the man said, taking off his shades and replacing them with black thick-rimmed glasses. 
He offered his hand. 

“Agosto,” Nicola said,
shaking it. 

“Yeah, I’ve seen your work online,” Rah said flatly.

“Don't believe everything you see on TV. Come with me,” Nicola said, leading the man down the long corridor passed the bodyguards who sat in the living room watching television to the office at the end of the hallway.  Opening the door to the study, he pointed at the computer on the large oak desk.  “The jump drive is already in the computer.  From what I’ve been told, the laptop is not traceable.  So, you can do your magic without it being traced.  How long will it take?”

Rah sat down behind the desk, opened the MacBook Air and typed in his password. “I’ve worked on this computer before.  From time to time, Dmitry or Anatoly has me leak something to media
when they want someone to know something.”  He didn’t elaborate any more than that.  “With regard to the information on the drive…” He tapped his fingers on the desk as he contemplated something.  “How far do you want it to go?” He turned his lip up.

Nicola shrugged. 
“Well the ass beating that I gave DeMario went at least nationwide.” He huffed in frustration of the thought. “Can you match it?  I need every major network, all social media…the works.”

“Can I?” Rah smiled arrogantly. “I can make you popular in Egypt by midnight.  They’ll be begging you for interviews in New York in an hour.”

“Just give me thirty minutes to give a friend here the heads up and you can make me famous in Calcutta for all I care,” Nicola said, turning to walk out.  He stopped abruptly.  “Can I get you anything before I go? Water? Red Bull?”

Rah didn’t look up from the compu
ter. He was already typing. “Nope, thanks. I’m good.”

Leaving Rah to his
Internet magic
, Nicola headed to the dining room where the weapons were being brought up from the basement, unboxed and loaded on the elaborate rectangular table. 

“Don’t scr
atch the wood,” Gabriel ordered, passing off a long, black zipped bag to Boris.  “Take this and get in position.  Don’t let anyone out the front.”  He passed the other bag in the corner to Maurice.  “Are you good with sniper rifles?” he asked, pausing before he placed it in his hand.

“Are you trying to insult me?” Maurice asked, snatching the bag.
  “I’m a fucking Marine, dude, not a DEA agent.”

Gabriel smirked.  “Don’t let anyone out the back.  There are no windows so they only have a couple of options.  Whoever bu
ilt this place was a real idiot, but it works in our advantage today since Nicola plans to go all
Sparta
on their asses.”

Nicola walked over to the table and looked at the sniper rifle it the open hard case.  “How did you get your hands on a Stealth Recon Scout?” he asked impressed.

Nicola didn’t know it, but Gabriel’s second love in life was hard-to-get,  high-powered sniper rifles;
the first love was a secret to everyone accept him
.  He gave a big bright, toothy smile and walked over the weapon.  With his hands on his hips, he sighed.  “Well, the short answer to your question is, we stole a few thousand off the back of a secured train coming through Chicago.  But the real question is why?  You see, the SRS is the most versatile sniper system in the world.  It is nearly a foot shorter than conventional sniper weapons, maintains ½ MOA or better accuracy and can easily be adapted to individual missions, like yours, where you need to change the weapon’s caliber and length.  This bitch can shoot 50 yards or one mile.  So the question is who wouldn’t have one?” 

Maurice rolled his eyes.  He had heard the speech literally a hundred times before. 

“The Medlov family specializes in getting the shit in built that your local gun man can’t even pronounce yet and all of it is completely un-fucking-traceable.  We’ve got these and Hard Target interdiction rifles and anything that you can possibly dream up in our arsenal for just this little mission alone.”  Gabriel picked up the weapon and passed it to Nicola.  “Now, I wouldn’t recommend this one for you for this evening’s
party
but in the future, I suggest that you take it out for a dance.  You might like it.”

Nicola held the sleek rifle in his hands and looked it over.  It was portable and lighter than most sniper rifles, but he was nowhere as giddy about it as Gabriel was.  “You really get a hard on with these things, huh?” Nicola asked G
abriel, passing it back.

“Dude, I’m toting a boner right now,” G
abriel said with a wink.

Nicola stepped back a few inches.  “Nice to know.  So, what would you suggest that I take with me tonight?”

Gabriel walked over to the far corner where stacks of weapons were piled on a dark gold satin upholstered chair.  “This is the SRS Covert, purposefully designed for police and military snipers needing ultimate conceal ability.  It's the shortest sniper rifle in the world with a quick caliber conversion feature.  So you have the option of either suppressed subsonic ammunition or full-power standard ammunition with ½ MOA accuracy.  Now each hard case has the six magazines, attached bipod, scope, suppressor, and secondary kit.”  He picked up a case of smaller, machine guns.  “When you get a chance to get up close and personal, we have two options. This one is your standard Israeli Mini UZI SMG.”

“These are self
-explanatory,” Nicola said, knowing he would need both.

“Easy enough for a ten year old to operate, though that’s not our demographic,” Gabriel said, pulling out an even smaller case.  “And these are your best friends.  Glock 19s. We’ve got more of them than the MPD has bullets. So help yourself.”  Pointing over to the stash on the buffet, he raised a brow.  “Concussion grenades, the regular grenades, night vision goggles, radios,
flak jackets, K-bars… it’s all over there.”

Nicola turned up his lip.  “Damn.  I’d say that we’re ready.”

“When you are.” Gabriel looked at his phone.  “What time is this shit kicking off?”

“I need Boris and Maurice to head on over and set up.  Once they are in place, they need to radio in,” Nicola said, going back to the map.  “We need to cut off the two road ways that head into the small warehouse and we need eyes 360 around the perimeter.”

“I can handle all of that with Boris and a few guys that are already here,” Maurice said ready to get this over with. He did have a life outside of Nicola Agosto and Dmitry Medlov, regardless of what they thought. His oldest of four girls had a ballet recital in the morning and his wife was nagging the shit out of him about being gone so much over the last week.

“Alright.  Well, the brave team should head out of here at
the most in an hour,” Nicola said, looking at his tactical watch.  That should give us enough time to…” He stopped, hearing blood-curdling screams come from the basement.

Gabriel motioned to Boris.  “Close the door to the basement,
please
.  I don’t want to hear that bastard scream all night. Damn.”

Boris got up from his chair and
stalked down the corridor toward the kitchen and basement. 

“Is that Vasily working?”
Nicola asked, hearing Ferris scream again. 

Gabriel hated that part of
his job.  “Yep,” he said, disgusted. “I don’t know why he doesn’t just cut the tongue out first.  It’s so annoying.  I think the sick fucker likes to hear them scream all the way up to the end.”  He shook his head.  “Vasily needs a girlfriend.”

Nicola continued, trying not to think of what parts Vasily was cutting off of Councilman Ferris at that moment.  “We should be able to get suited up and out there in an hour.”

“Anatoly will be here in about ten minutes. I’ll get him up to speed.  After that, I’ll see you when I see you,” Gabriel said, offering his hand. 

“Thanks.” Nicola shook his hand sincerely.  “I appreciate it all.”

“Oh, my uncle never does anything for free. You’ll see.”  Gabriel winked at him.

This wasn’t Nicola’s first time hearing that.  Still, he couldn’t let that bother him for now.  When it was time to pay the piper, he would.  “Give me a minute. I need to make this call,” he said, pulling out his non-traceable phone. 

***

“Hello,” Steele said, hesitant of answering a blocked number on her cell phone.

“Steele, it’s Agosto,” Nicola said, walking out of the living room.  He knew that he could trust her to handle what needed to be done in the eleventh hour of this push.  But he hoped more than that that she could keep her mouth shut about how she did it. 

Steele froze.  “One second,” she said, pu
tting her hand over her phone and popping up from the table. 

Director Amway looked up at her and frowned. “Who is it?”

“My…” Steele didn’t know how to answer and lying to the Director wasn’t an option.  “Give me just a sec, okay. I’ll be right back.”

She was in a meeting with Amway and ten other men about the connection between the bombing of Cane’s house in Eads and his pharmacy in Memphis.  They were promptly putting the pieces together with the Bomb Squad and knew that whoever was responsible for the bombing of Agosto, Johnson, Ferris and her house using Molotov cocktails was not the person or persons responsible for the profe
ssional bombing the buildings that day that had used C4.

Their bomb guys had referred to the two bombings as Amateur Night at the Apollo versus Beirut.  Obviously the MO led them all to believe that the latest one was in retribution of the previous.  The question now became who did it? 

There were no fingerprints and no witnesses at either location. Ferris was missing and up until this very moment the entire Agosto family was gone.  People were still demanding answers, only now they were louder, speaking to the media every half hour.  They wanted to know who was responsible for the Baby Boys murders, the bombings, the riots and they now believed that Agosto could be innocent. 

And reporters were creating a complete frenzy over the downtown riot the night before, which could have potentially been a lot more destructive if Amway had not had his men prepared.

Plus, everyone was still talking about Ferris announcing his decision to run for the city mayor’s job after Johnson stabbed him in the hand and shot him in the knee. 

What the media did not know was that Co
llin Magnelli had vanished into thin air.  The Deputy Director had come in just this morning and put out a missing persons report on him after he got drunk at Mother Russia the night before and bolted out of the restaurant, demanding to be simply left alone.

Going into the adjoining bathroom of A
mway’s office, she closed the door and whispered into her phone. “Are you and your family alright? We’ve searched everywhere.  The fucking FBI is involved.  Where are you?”

“I’m fine,” Agosto said, pulling out a small piece of paper.  “Something is about to hit the air.  You need to know that,
but when it does
, I suggest that you already be at 555 State Street claiming that your unit cracked the Baby Boys case.”

“What?” she said in raised voice.  “How?”

The men in the room next door curiously turned their direction to the bathroom.

“It was Ferris all along, Steele.  And there isn’t going to be an easy fix for this.  You have to trust me.  Go to 555 State Street, with or without a warrant and raid the place before the news hits, which will be in 30 minutes or less.  In the back room of the building there is a latch to an opening in the floor.  Open it and go downstairs.  It’s a pedophile playroom with drugs, DNA, video…God only knows what else.  The building is registered to Ferris.”

“How did you find out?” she asked, pulling out her small notebook to write down the address.

“You don’t want to know.  Also, conside
ring I just gave you a career case, you have to hold me as a confidential snitch. No one can know that we spoke.”

“If this Intel is correct, you don’t have to worry about that.  You don’t say anything and I won’t.”  She looked at her watch. “I gotta go if I’m going to make your timeline.”

“Good. Make sure you take care of Johnson. He’s a good honest cop.”

“I will,” Steele said, opening the door. “Take care of yourself.”

***

The panic in Cane’s eyes could not have been more pronounced if he had been at his house when it was bombed.  Hanging up the phone on one of his men who had been able to get through the traffic to see the destruction for himself, he turned to his men standing around in his office looking at the news and screamed.

“What the fuck are you going to do just standing there looking at that damned television?”  He hit the table with the fat fingers balled up into a frustrating fist.