Authors: Gary Ponzo
The first kid handed over his gun, but the second kid still held his out, backing away as Matt approached. “Hey, wait a minute,” the boy said. “If we give you our guns, will you let us go?”
“No,” Matt said, flicking his fingertips impatiently. “If you give me your gun I won’t shoot you.”
“Crap,” the boy said, finally relinquishing his weapon over to Matt.
“Great negotiating,” Matt said, while snapping a handcuff to the kid’s wrist, then motioning the first kid over. He snapped the other end of the handcuff to the first boy’s wrist, then handcuffed the first boy’s free hand to the door handle of their car. Matt snatched the keys from the ignition and threw them across the street. “Nice talking with you.”
Nick pulled his cell down from his ear as Matt drove off to the hospital. “Denny’s on his way to take them in.”
“You know what?” Matt said. “You’re an enabler.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re always defending these young hoodlums like they had no choice.”
Matt turned onto the main road and hit the gas. His tires spit the remaining gravel from Nick’s driveway, pinging the undercarriage of his SUV.
“Speaking of hoodlums,” Nick said, “I need to call Tommy.”
“Tommy’s no hoodlum,” Matt said, defending Nick’s cousin from the calloused remark.
“Listen to you, coming to his defense. Look how far you’ve come.”
“Yeah, well, Tommy has done some good things for a lot of people.”
“Sure,” Nick said. “Like when we were twelve and he stole a
Playboy
magazine each month to cut out all the promiscuous pictures and sell them to our friends for fifty cents apiece. He made like forty bucks an issue.”
“Just providing a service to the community,” Matt said.
“Exactly what he said at the time.”
Matt approached the hospital and saw the helipad lit up and a helicopter’s blades beginning to turn. The sight made them both remember where they were going and why.
Nick pulled out his phone and pushed the proper button for his cousin, hoping he was just waking up on the East Coast.
Chapter 9
Tommy Bracco sat at the table in the basement of Lloyd’s Poker House
with a collection of cards he couldn’t believe. Four Aces and a King. They stared back at him, almost gleaming in the dull overhead lights. It was practically seven in the morning, but Lloyd’s didn’t have any clocks to alert anyone of the oncoming new day, so most of the diehards kept the meter running as long as their luck kept going.
“Your bet, Tommy,” a gray-haired man said. He sat slumped over with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a long ash curling from the tip.
The night before there were twenty tables full of lawyers, plumbers, electricians and a variety of business people all there to scratch their gambling itch. Now, there was only one table left. Six players who managed to navigate the pitfalls of card sharks and lady luck.
Tommy bit on a purple toothpick and casually dropped three thousand in chips into the pile in the middle of the green felt table and said, “You’d better run for the hills.”
“Very funny,” a small, round female said while feeding the pot. She was the owner of a very successful chain of dry cleaners around the Baltimore metropolitan area.
One other guy, Richard Olbert, yawned while placing his bet. Everyone else folded.
“How’s your dad, Rich,” Tommy asked.
“Bad,” Rich said, staring at his cards. “He fell and hit his head. He needs a procedure which will probably save his life, but he doesn’t have insurance.”
“You serious?” Tommy asked, putting his cards down in front of him.
“Yeah. His head swelled up and he needs a shunt to alleviate the symptoms. But we’re trying of find some way of financing the procedure.”
Tommy jabbed his toothpick into a back molar and said, “How much is the procedure?”
“Ten grand.”
Tommy looked at the pile of chips in the center of the table. “This pot probably has twenty thousand in it right now.”
Rich looked at Tommy under the glare of the fluorescents and through the cloud of drifting smoke. “What are you saying?”
“I’m just making conversation, that’s all.”
Tommy’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he smiled when he saw who was calling. “Hey,” Tommy said. “Isn’t it like three in the morning in Arizona?”
“Yeah,” Nick Bracco said. “I wake you?”
“Tommy,” the grump with the curled ash said. “Get off the phone and bet.”
“Oh,” Nick said into the receiver, “you spent the night at Lloyd’s.”
“Bingo.” Tommy matched the five thousand dollars that the dry cleaner lady had just dropped into the pot, then added another five thousand in chips.
Rich frowned at the bet. He glanced at his cards, then back to the dwindling collection of chips in front of him. A pure sign of weakness.
“I need some help,” Nick said.
“I’m listening,” Tommy said.
“Work-related help.”
“Yeah?” Tommy said, watching Rich decide how much he should invest in his losing hand.
“Do you have any contacts in Colombia?” Nick asked.
“Hmm,” Tommy said, understanding the need to keep the conversation confidential. “As in the country or the city?”
“The country.”
With a sour look, Rich finally placed chips in the pot to match Tommy’s bet. Then he relinquished his remaining chips to raise the bet another five thousand, leaving nothing but green space in front of him. He looked like a man walking to the gas chamber.
“Of course,” Tommy said on the phone. “I know people everywhere. What kind of help do you need?”
There was a long pause. The dry cleaning lady looked at her cards as if they were disobedient children, then placed them face down and slowly slid them under the large pile of chips announcing her resignation from the hand.
“This is really important,” Nick said. “And really classified.”
“Okay.”
“The president’s brother had been kidnapped. I need to go down there and find him before he’s killed.”
“Whoa,” Tommy snapped back in his seat. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish I was.”
It was Tommy’s turn to bet and he was receiving glares from everyone at the table. He was breaking the first rule of Lloyd’s Poker House: No cell phone conversations at the table.
Tommy said into the phone, “Hang on for a second.” Then he put the phone down on the table, pulled the toothpick from his mouth and pointed it at Rich. “You have a losing hand there, pal. You know it. They know it. The Pope knows it. The police know it. The only way you win is if I fold.”
Rich licked his lips with apprehension.
“So, here’s my proposition,” Tommy said. “I’ll fold my hand if you promise to cash in right now and drive to the hospital and pay for your father’s procedure. I know what he has. It’s called Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus. NPH for short. I had an uncle with the same condition. Every hour you wait can destroy more brain cells and keep him from making a full recovery.” Tommy held out his hand for a handshake.
Rich examined the pot of chips, probably trying to decide how much profit he’d have left over after paying the hospital bill.
Tommy cocked his head. “Last chance, killer.”
Rich must’ve known he had a losing hand, so he did the only reasonable thing. “Okay,” he said, shaking Tommy’s hand. “You have a deal.”
Tommy turned over his four Aces and watched Rich’s eyes go wide in shock. “Go,” Tommy pointed to the door. “Now. Take care of your father.”
Rich greedily swiped the pile of chips toward him and nodded.
Tommy looked over at a bulky man who handled the security at the poker house. “Cash me out, Phil. I need to get going myself.”
The man began the process of stacking and counting chips, while Tommy grabbed the phone and moved to the back of the room where a dozen empty tables stood bare in the dark. The fluorescent lights were turned off so Tommy couldn’t see the cigar and cigarette smoke, but he could still smell it.
He sat at the farthest table, pulled out a purple toothpick and dug it between two back molars. “Okay,” he said, putting the phone to his ear and crossing his legs. “What’s going on?”
“We need contacts down there. Anyone,” Nick Bracco said, suddenly in a whirlwind of background noise.
“Where are you?”
“I’m about to get into a helicopter to go to Sky Harbor. We’re flying to Miami to pick up some technology for the trip. Then on to Colombia.”
“Nicky, I’ll make a couple of calls, but how much time do you have?”
“Very little. I doubt this will last beyond tomorrow night. You think you can find someone who can help us track down a cartel in the Amazon?”
“Shit,” Tommy said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I got people all over the world, even in Colombia. But the Amazon?”
“This is important,” Nick said, the helicopter blades picking up in pitch. “The president is willing to do just about anything to get his brother home alive.”
A man came out of the shadows of the poker room and dropped a stack of bills on the table where Tommy was sitting.
Tommy took a couple of hundreds from the top of the stack and handed them to the guy. “Here you go, Phil.”
Phil took the money and nodded as he left.
“Tommy,” Nick said, “I need something. We’re desperate.”
In the stillness of the dark something came to Tommy. “Actually, I do know one guy who is familiar with that part of the world.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Well,” Tommy said, digging out stale pretzels from his teeth with his toothpick. “The guy’s not exactly a boy scout.”
“What are we talking about, some muscle?”
“More than just muscle.”
There was silence for a moment. Nick was smart enough not to pry. Tommy could practically see Nick running a hand through his hair while his partner, Matt McColm, waved at him to get in the helicopter.
After a few seconds, Nick said, “I need you to meet me in Miami. I’ll have a Department of Justice plane waiting for you at Dulles Airport. Go to gate 1C and ask for Martin. He’ll take you to the plane. Call me once you’re airborne.”
“Got it.” Tommy stood up to gather his money. “Hey, how’s Julie?”
“Not happy.”
“I can’t say I blame her. I mean, for crying out loud, Colombia?”
“Yeah, well . . . this is different.”
“All right,” Tommy said, stuffing cash into his pocket. “We’ll talk soon.”
“Hey,” Nick said, a little too loud. “Don’t take any chances. Okay?”
Although Nick couldn’t see him, Tommy smiled at his cousin’s concern. “All right, chief. Will do.”
Chapter 10
The Executive Residence in the White House is located between the East and West Wings. There were three floors to the complex and the second floor contained the private living quarters for the current president and the First Family. In order to gain entrance to this section of the building one must secure a name on the qualified visitor list, which includes FBI background checks, a fingerprint match, and a verbal approval from either the president or the First Lady, or First Man, depending on the residing president’s gender.
The only exception to this rule was Samuel Fisk, who simply strolled past the security check without ever exchanging even a greeting with the four person crew of Secret Service agents who manned the entrance. He was more family than the president’s own in-laws.
Fisk was clutching a memo e-mailed from the chief of staff to the department heads about the president’s upcoming schedule. He strode through the halls of the president’s residence with a purpose and didn’t stop until he found Ann Merrick in the master bedroom suite. The room was renovated by President Truman and included closets which were wallpapered and disguised as the rest of the wall.
A Secret Service agent was guarding the doorway to the bedroom when Fisk zoomed past him. On the oversized master bed sat an open suitcase. Ann Merrick was standing over the suitcase with a handful of clothes in her hand mumbling something to herself when Fisk entered the bedroom and held up the memo.
“Where is he?” Fisk said in a short burst.
The First Lady turned and Fisk saw the trembling lips. The best she could do was shrug.
Fisk let out a breath and realized she was more upset about the agenda than he was. She turned and headed to the master bathroom, dropping a trail of clothes on the carpeted floor along the way. Once inside, she slammed the door shut.
Fisk shook his head and returned to the corridor, looking up and down for a sign of Merrick. Finally, he said to the Secret Service agent standing guard, “Where is he?”
The agent nodded toward a sitting room across the hallway. In the far corner of the room, on an antique sofa, sat President Merrick and his young daughter, Emily. He was reading a book to her with his legs crossed. The wall TV was turned to CNN, but muted.
Fisk came halfway across the room, then cleared his throat to gain Merrick’s attention. The president turned. Fisk held up the memo. Merrick lowered his head and said something to Emily. He handed her the book and she offered a little resistance, but a small kiss on her forehead seemed to calm her down.
Merrick got up and appeared ready for Fisk’s assault.
“I’m well aware of the risks,” Merrick said in a low tone.
“Really?” Fisk said, holding out the memo as if it were a poisonous snake. “Because there aren’t enough Secret Service agents to keep you alive in this environment.”
Merrick pulled Fisk away from Emily and opened the side door to the Lincoln bedroom. A larger chandelier hung above Victorian-style furniture centered by a ten foot by eight foot rosewood bed against the south wall.
Once inside, Merrick shut the door behind them. “What’s the real problem here, Sam? I’m making a diplomatic visit to a South American country with a democratically voted president.”
Fisk pursed his lips. “I’m telling you, Santoro is psychotic. You have no idea how dangerous he is.”
“Sam, I’m flying with a plane full of Marines. They’ll be securing the area before I ever step foot outside of Air Force One.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand better than you think. The press already knows about Trent. When a US president goes to a country like Colombia, the media follows. They will be scattering like termites, looking for a story. We can use that type of scrutiny down there. Santoro’s presidency has never been studied with the sort of searchlight focus a hungry press corps will bring. We can use that type of examination. They may uncover things we can’t.”