He inspected his window, a round hole in it surrounded by spidery cracks, the exit on Bear’s side similar, the holes large. Large caliber. Shooting like this is iffy; deflection, angles, speeds all play hell. Gunman probably thought of pumping several shots to make at least some count but didn’t get an opportunity.
New York blew in through the holed windows, horns baying, drivers cursing, fingers sticking up in the air as the traffic bent and straightened around them. Some of them slowed; drivers rolled down their windows to swear at Broker, saw something in his face, and sped on to home and a beer.
The first of the NYPD cruisers came and then another and another, and the night became flashing red and blue.
Chang and Pizaka came. They checked on Rocka and the kids, who had moved to the second Tahoe. Lisa had gotten over her fear and was drinking it all in, Millie would die when she heard; Shawn kept looking around him, then at Bwana and Roger, and kept pulling on his serious face, but it fell and the grin came back on, it was all one big thrill for him. Elaine Rocka opened her eyes just once to look at Pizaka and say simply, ‘This is why,’ and closed her eyes and shut them all out.
‘Got a description?’ Pizaka asked Broker as he looked over the vehicle. Bear, removing shards of glass from Broker’s face, glanced in Pizaka’s direction and answered, ‘Black. All black and hooded.’
‘We didn’t ask his name,’ Bear added, sarcasm dripping.
Pizaka was as immaculate as ever, not a hair out of place, the crease sharper than a Jimmy Lile blade. He must have cloned himself.
‘Number plate?’
Roger recited a number, not that it would do much good. It would be a throwaway, and the bike was probably already in some scrap heap somewhere. ‘One of the sergeants said he would put a BOLO out.’ Roger nodded in the direction of the police who were the first to the scene.
The detectives kept quiet. Broker and his companions knew how the system worked, how investigations such as these worked. Seven out of ten times, a hit-and-run such as this was never tracked down, not if false plates were being used, there was no workable description, and no credible witnesses or camera footage.
Broker patted his face with a wet tissue gently and inspected the tissue in the light. No glass. Satisfied, he asked the two detectives, ‘This guy, Shattner. Was he one of yours?’
Both shook their heads simultaneously.
Chang said, ‘We don’t have anyone inside with that name. Heck, we don’t have anyone inside the gang. Tried it a few times, and lost a few good guys. First time we heard his name was today. We ran him through the system when you guys left, and got arrests for dealing — unlicensed firearms, narcotics — that sort of thing. Strictly small time, and this was soon after his release from the army. After that, nothing. We haven’t heard back from the FBI yet, if they have anything on him. We requested his army file, but that’ll take time. You got anything to tell us?’
Broker briefed them, but there wasn’t much more to Shattner. He was what it said on the tin. One of life’s losers who got caught in a gang’s grip. His children were now paying the price for that.
‘You mentioned a journal. What’s in it?’ Pizaka asked them.
Broker faced him squarely, the two of them filling his vision. ‘Now that. There isn’t a journal. I mentioned that to get a rise out of you guys… to see your reaction.’
They looked at one another a long time, silent but for the traffic and the police working to keep the crowd and the television vans at bay. Roger and Pizaka digested what that meant, and their faces tightened, but they didn’t say anything else. The attempted hit went down just hours after mentioning the journal to the cops.
Pizaka jerked his head back at the second Tahoe. ‘You’re aware you’ve put that family in danger by mentioning a nonexistent journal?’
‘Yes,’ Broker replied shortly. He didn’t need reminding about it.
They had a long discussion about this before going to the Rocka home and had all felt that this was yet another way of piling pressure on the gang. So long as Elaine Rocka and the children stayed with them till the heat died down.
They had looked doubtfully at one another when that animal raised its head. Knowing Elaine Rocka, they had decided it was best to be upfront with her and see whether she would be willing. Chloe had told her everything about themselves — their investigation, their course of action, their preference and the rationale behind it. To her utter surprise, Elaine Rocka had agreed to go along with their proposal.
Seeing Chloe’s bemused expression, she said fiercely, ‘I want to make him a hero in their eyes. No child should think less of their dad. Not one. If this can help…’ She walked out of the room without another word.
Maybe we’ve misjudged the battle-axe, thought Chloe as she looked at her departing form.
‘Ms. Rocka? She’s aware of the danger?’ Chang dug out a toothpick from his rear pocket, tore the paper wrapper, and started chewing away, his eyes as hooded as ever.
‘Yeah. And before we start, we know you won’t be able to spare bodies for their protection. We’ll take care of it.’
‘Well,’ drawled Pizaka, ‘we never said that. Of course we can spare a warm body or two. We have many trained in close protection, and most of the time they’re just going to fancy dos. This’ll be real work for them.’ The NYPD close protection division had the best trained close protection agents in the business, who were assigned to visiting heads of state and politicians of a certain rank. The division’s reputation had ensured it had a growing ‘private sector’ business, VIPs and celebrities, that earned it a good revenue for far lesser risk involved.
Broker laughed and declined the offer with a polite shake of his head. No way are they going to place a CPO, Close Protection Officer, with us. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, we’ve done this before. They’ll be safe with us.’
Pizaka looked at the controlled chaos around him; several cops were taking witness statements, a few others were clearing the asphalt of shards, making the street ready for the usual onslaught of traffic. The legwork would begin now, going through the witness statements, seeing if any cameras had captured the bike, following various stolen bike reports, chasing down ‘bike found’ leads. They needed a lucky break, but he wasn’t confident this time they would have much luck.
Broker read their body language. ‘Perhaps you should focus closer to home.’ Meaning the possibility of a mole in the NYPD.
Chloe asked quietly once they were on the way again, ‘Pizaka and Chang, how’re they?’
Broker met her eyes in the mirror, knew what she was asking. ‘Not them. I’ve heard of them and have looked at them myself, in the past, for another assignment. It would be too obvious in any case.’ In Broker-speak, look meant extensive background checks. ‘The gang has either a dirty cop or has hacked into their system. No other way could they have mounted an attack so quickly. Once they knew we were all at One PP, it would have been easy to have a hit team follow us.’
‘That wasn’t a very professional hit team.’ Chloe chuckled.
‘I think what happened was they knew we were with the cops, didn’t have a hit team ready, got someone to tail us, and that someone, a low-level guy desperate to earn his stripes, took a shot,’ Bear rumbled from the front, keeping his voice low.
‘Been thinking about it,’ he said defensively when they all turned to look at him. His reasoning made sense, and they didn’t have any other ideas, so they went with it.