She looked curiously at him and turned to Broker.
‘Eric’s taking them.’
‘To Oborski.’
Chapter 38
‘Five of them, hundreds of us, and look where we are,’ the speaker said softly. He didn’t need to raise his voice, not when he was Agon Scheafer. Scheafer’s hawk eyes surveyed the four of them seated in front of him around a small conference table in the dim lighting of a hotel room.
The room had hitters outside the doors, in the corridor, and a few of them in the lobby, looking just like hitters should, reinforcing the message to guests and onlookers that the hotel wasn’t a place they should spend too much time in.
A fifth chair was empty, which Cruz would have occupied. Cruz had dropped off the grid for more than a day. The last they knew was him heading to New Jersey for a deal. And then silence.
The gang had scoured all parts of Gloucester City and within a radius of a hundred miles, but had come up empty-handed. The New York chapters had banged doors, knocked heads, and hadn’t had any success either.
‘Is HE worth all this?’ Hamm ventured, choosing his words carefully. He had seen Scheafer disembowel another chapter head in front of them and sip delicately on a glass of claret as the man died.
The full force of those eyes turned on him. ‘That’s not for discussion. You haven’t answered me. How have five people done this to us?’
Hamm had once been in a firefight with three SWAT agents and, after running out of ammunition, had taken them on with just a blade. He had come out on top. Just. His entrails tied back in with his shirt, he had walked a mile to the nearest residence, killed the occupants, and had called for help.
Feeling that gaze on him, he preferred taking on that SWAT team again than sitting in that room, answering to Scheafer.
‘Our size doesn’t count for much when you consider their abilities and that they’re always on the move. They attack directly, and our men aren’t used to that. They’re used to cops crashing down doors, other gangs picking them off at night, but these guys attack swiftly, in the open, disappear before our guys have woken up, and when they do, they’re dead or dying. They use lures and decoys, and our guys get sucked in. We tried taking them down at our sites, but they attacked us so fast and so unexpectedly that they got away.’
‘All I’m hearing are excuses. You know how I view failure.’ Scheafer looked intently at each one of them. ‘We’ve recruited guys with military experience. These tactics shouldn’t be a surprise to them.’
Kelleher, Sancada, and Morales fidgeted in their seats but kept quiet, happy for Hamm to take the heat and continue talking for them now that he had the ball. In any case, their chapters hadn’t been hit so far.
‘Their military experience doesn’t count,’ Hamm said, biting back the for jack shit that nearly slipped out of his mouth. ‘Except a few, including us, none have served more than two years, and they were the worst soldiers. Against other gangbangers, their experience counts, not against these guys. These guys… you blink and you’re dead. You don’t blink, that’s because you’re already dead.’
He considered his words for a moment. ‘I warned you this might happen, many years back.’
‘You seem to be full of admiration for them.’ The hawk eyes burned, sighting prey.
‘They’ve ruined my chapter, brought heat on me, made a fool out of me,’ Hamm replied savagely. ‘I want to rip their hearts out and drink their blood. Admire them? Fuck no. But I have respect for them.’
The eyes didn’t move, staring at him, and he wondered if those were the last words he’d utter.
‘We should go nuclear, but there’s a risk,’ Hamm suggested cautiously. If he had to die, at least it would be after having his say.
‘Speak.’
Hamm outlined his plan, and they considered it silently. Scheafer looked at it from different angles and then finally nodded.
‘Set it up. I shall warn our friend.’
As they were leaving, Scheafer said in a silky voice, ‘I hope, for your sake, this plan works. If it doesn’t…’
He didn’t have to complete his sentence. They all knew the price of failure was death, and not an easy one. Scheafer had many ways to cause a slow, painful death and enjoyed inflicting them.
‘We’ll hit Hamm’s garage again; it’s reopened now,’ Broker announced.
Chloe looked at him skeptically. ‘Won’t they be sorta expecting that? For us to retaliate for taking me.’
‘Yup, and that’s why we won’t hit immediately. We’ll wait a week. Let them stew.’
They were back at their base, relieving Pieter and Derek, Rocka and the kids able to have some kind of normal life as the kids had started going to a nearby school. Broker had thought about moving base again, but this house was so well located that the benefits outweighed the risks. They had decided that the five of them would spend the least time in the house. Tony, when he was ready, Eric, Pieter and Derek would provide protection for the family.
Broker made another announcement, more triumphantly. ‘My boy’s come up with something more.’
They looked at him, puzzled. Broker scowled back at them. ‘You think Werner doesn’t have feelings just like us? It responds to motivation just like us.’
Bwana whispered, ‘Next he’ll be feeding spinach to the computer.’
‘I heard that.’ Broker waggled a finger at him.
‘You were saying something.’ Roger brought him back to the subject. Broker could go on for hours extolling the virtues of Werner, giving it human traits, if he was allowed free rein.
‘Floyd Wheat changed a pattern about three years back. He started going to a café on the way back from his station.’
He paused, waiting for them to congratulate him. He got astonishment.
‘That’s fucking it?’ Bear, normally not given to swearing, asked him.
Roger rolled his eyes, and Bwana went further. He threw his hands up and mentioned something about a straitjacket.
Broker sighed. ‘How can I expect you guys to connect dots the way I do. Any change in pattern is what we look for since that could be a clue to something that’s a life change, a motivation change, a behavioral change.’
‘We get that, Broker.’ Chloe played peacekeeper. ‘Hard as it might be for you to believe, we are able to think for ourselves.’ Chloe defending a couple of Mensa members.
‘But this is so insignificant… it means nothing. He could’ve just liked the look of a barista there… you mentioned he was divorced and single. I remember I used to frequent one, back in the day, because the server had a nice smile. Just as I was nerving myself to ask her out, I got deployed. Maybe he liked their brew. There’s no way of extrapolating a coffee-drinking habit into a mole’s activities,’ Bear rumbled.
Broker, his arms crossed across his chest, sat back and listened to them protest. When all of them had their say, he waited another beat. ‘You guys done quibbling? Well, hear this…’
He stopped when Bwana raised a hand. The sight of the six-foot-plus hulk behaving as if he was back in school made him smile. He erased it, got in the groove, and pointed at Bwana. ‘Yes, boy?’
‘You got that because he used a charge card, right? Or a credit card, at that café.’
‘Yes, boy, and before you go further, Wheat used plastic everywhere. Newsagent, McDonald’s, cafés, grocery stores, home furnishing, car… wherever he had to spend, the card came out. He always used cards right from since when time began.’
Bwana deflated and gestured at him to carry on.
‘Thank you, boy. Now what I was going to tell you before you questioned my deduction was that all those transactions are within a day or two of the bad busts the FBI was involved in. All of them.’