‘None other.’ Broker passed the bottle around, leant back and narrated his story.
A couple of hours and a second bottle later, Bear frowned. ‘So we have this gang, 5Clubs, giving Roger and Bwana a gentle workout, and over here on the East Coast, they just might have cultivated a mole in the FBI. But if all the intelligence and computer shit at your disposal isn’t able to find that mole, how exactly are we going to help?’
Broker leaned back in his chair, the light catching his shaggy hair, Surfer Dude with a halo.
‘You know, Robert Hanssen was caught because the FBI went about trying to buy informants who knew his identity? They couldn’t identify him as the mole through all their conventional investigation.’
‘So we’re going to buy this mole’s identity? Shit, that’ll require truckloads of the stuff. I know you’re rolling in it, but do you really want to go down that route?’ Bear was incredulous.
‘Nope, I thought we would take a simpler approach.’ Broker paused theatrically and sipped his wine slowly.
Chloe rolled her eyes. ‘Out with it, Sherlock.’
Broker chuckled. ‘Why, we’ll just ask them politely.’
The pregnant silence lasted a few minutes, and then Bear guffawed as it hit him. Coming off his frame, it sounded like rolling thunder.
Broker looked searchingly at Roger and Bwana, who weren’t displaying any particular reaction.
‘You guys okay with this? This could get nasty, for a very long time. In fact’ — he turned to Chloe — ‘are you both on board with this? Me, I don’t have anything to lose, but you guys have each other, and Roger and Broker have been partners for far longer than all of us have been working together for Clare.’
Another silence fell in the room, and this time Bwana broke it with a growl. ‘I haven’t known you to ask before, Broker, what gives?’
‘I think I’ve become wiser ever since we lost Zeb and hence asking you guys to jump into this fully knowing that taking on 5Clubs will be a war, not a battle, and a war that we cannot win. We will never put out any gang. At the most, we’ll put a dent in their operations.’
He passed the bottle around. ‘And know this. It’s perfectly okay to back out of this. There’ll be other assignments — hell, there’ll be a lot — which we will work on together.’
Chloe looked at him in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe this is the same Broker. We have always worked together, have never backed out of any assignment, never refused an assignment, however dangerous, whatever the threat… even if it meant we lose one of ours. So what the fuck has changed now?’
She slammed her palm on the table so hard the bottles jumped.
Broker smiled. ‘Cool down, Chloe. I’m asking, because we lost Zeb and we never lost anyone before. I’m also asking because this is the first time we have assembled after Zeb, and I wanted to get a feel for your thinking on this assignment.’
Chloe snarled at him, her petite frame quivering with anger. ‘Nothing’s changed, Broker. We were a team, we are a team, and we’ll always be a team. If Zeb’s loss means anything, it’s that we never fight alone. We are the best elite black-ops team in the world, which is why Clare employs us. We are fucking proud of that.’
Bear mumbled in his glass, ‘Remind me never to piss her off,’ and winced as Chloe slugged him in the shoulder.
Bwana cracked a wide grin. ‘You’re getting old, Broker. That’s what this is all about. You can’t handle the stress of working with us on an assignment anymore. Stress-related fear happens to many in the field. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You were a good operative once; you can be proud of that. Why don’t you tend to your machines here and let us do all the heavy lifting?’
Broker gave him the finger. ‘I’ll stop to smell the roses and dawdle next time your sorry ass needs rescuing. All right, guys, it looks like your stupidity levels haven’t diminished, so let’s get serious. Clare doesn’t have anything for us and knows we’ll be helping Isakson on this.’
Roger pinched his nose as if to ward off a stench and said nasally, ‘Keep that pile of shit away from me, will ya, Broker? Else I just might have a go at him.’
‘You’ll be joining a long line, believe me, but let’s put aside what we feel for him for the time being. If there IS a mole in the FBI, and all signs do point to there being one, then let’s uncover the bastard and stamp him out.’
He went to his study and returned with a sheaf of papers and laid out the six photographs in front of them.
‘Agon Scheafer is the chief badass, the guy who put together 5Clubs. Scumbag was some hotshot commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army, but with a penchant for torturing women, raping them, raping kids too, driving stakes through people… that kinda shit. He became too hot for the KLA to handle, and just as they were going to put a bullet in him, he fled to our shores, adopted a new identity, and started this gang.’
He looked down at the dark eyes staring back from the photograph. ‘He makes Holt look like Snow White.’
Chloe placed her hand over Broker’s, bringing him back to the present, back from Zeb. ‘Doesn’t matter how ruthless he is. We’ll get him to hand over the mole.’
Bwana raised his glass in a silent toast. ‘Who’re the other fuckers?’
Broker laid out the images in a row and pointed to each one of them. ‘Jose Cruz, heads the Brooklyn arm; Martin Kelleher, Queens; Jorge Sancada, Bronx; Dieter Hamm, Manhattan and New Jersey; Pancho Morales, Staten Island. Agon looks after the activities on the West Coast himself. He’s got some hood on the ground, who’s chief hood there, but he’s not a chapter head. Scheafer is based somewhere in New York, but never stays in the same place for more than a couple of nights… the usual shit these guys follow just to stay invisible.’
‘We going to knock out all these guys?’ Bwana asked hopefully.
Broker laughed, shaking his head. ‘Let’s not lose sight of what we want to achieve. We want to find out the identity of that mole — that doesn’t mean we’re going to start offing these assholes left, right, and center. If we did that, we might never find the mole.’
Bear looked up from his glass, which he had been looking at thoughtfully for a while. ‘Is this the only way?’
Broker nodded. ‘Werner’ — he pointed to his desktop — ‘has been running on this ever since I met Isakson and so far hasn’t come up with anything. I’ve gone through the FBI investigation, and I can’t fault it. Our way is an unconventional way, which no one will expect. But if you guys have other ideas, I’m listening.’
The five of them went quiet, and then Bear shook his head. ‘You’ve had the most time to think this through. If you can’t come up with any other way, then how the hell would we?’
‘What I thought,’ Broker said and handed slim dossiers to all of them. ‘Those have more details on the gang. Go through them, memorize them, and get a feel for the top dogs. How are you guys for kit?’
‘We have a cache, but we’re open to topping up. There’s no such thing as too much kit,’ Bwana replied as he skimmed through the file.
‘Right, we’ll go to Bunk’s for kit. You all know him, right?’
‘Heard of him, but never had the pleasure of meeting.’
Broker noticed Roger frowning heavily. ‘Something on your mind?’
‘Yeah. How is this going to work? Which chapter are we going to go after? We going to stay together or split up?’
‘We’ll try the Manhattan bastards first. As for splitting up, nope. You both should be known to them by now, so safety in numbers and all that shit. Also, I don’t want to pass up on any opportunity to keep your sorry ass from being shot.’