Among Thieves (48 page)

By the time Wright turned to Ciro, he had been working nearly two-and-a-half hours without a break.

Whatever piece of the SUV that hit Ciro had ripped past his left eye and taken a narrow slice out of his eyebrow as it passed across his forehead and temple. Bandon cleaned the wound, pinched it closed, and used butterfly bandages to seal it.

“You'll have a nice line through your eyebrow once this heals.”

“Good. Chicks dig scars.”

Brandon Wright pictured the end result and decided Mr. Baldassare's scar would most likely make him look even more intimidating than he already did.

Brandon sat and drank coffee with his surgical nurse while Demarco, who had emerged completely unscathed from his battles, cleaned up the bloody cotton, gauze, used syringe tops, and packaging that littered the floor around the dining room table.

Beck stood next to Wright putting on new clothes that Demarco had brought down when Brandon started working on him.

Wright said nothing, watching Beck gingerly step into fresh jeans and slip on a well-worn flannel shirt.

Wright nodded toward the bloody clothes he had cut off Beck, and his sliced-up bloody shearling coat on the floor and said, “Do me a favor and burn those clothes in case the cops show up and notice that bullets made those tears.”

“Will do,” said Beck.

Demarco was already stuffing everything into a black construction bag.

“D, can you go through all the pockets before you get rid of that stuff?”

“Sure.”

Beck turned to Brandon. “I really liked that shearling coat.”

“Be that as it may, you want to hear my lecture on what you should do right now?”

“Not really.”

“I'm giving it to you anyhow. You've suffered significant trauma. Knife wounds and bullet wounds like that are no joke. I just put a couple dozen more stitches into you. There's a ton of shock and trauma to your body. Not to mention blood loss. Not to mention risk of infection. Not to mention all the contusions and hematomas and other assorted damage on you. My point is, you should get into a bed for the next forty-eight hours before you collapse.”

“Right.”

“But you're not going to.”

“I will. But not just yet.”

“Do you realize how idiotic that sounds?”

Beck didn't answer.

“Will you make sure to take the antibiotics I'm leaving for you?”

“Of course.”

Wright started to say something more, but lapsed into silence. He shook his head in frustration.

Beck sat down slowly in the chair opposite Brandon Wright on the other side of the dining table.

“Brandon, you've kept all of us alive, and risked going to jail for it. There's no way I can express my gratitude, except to assure you without any doubt or hesitation that nothing we are doing, nothing I am doing is being done without it being absolutely necessary. We all risked dying tonight. You think I do that casually? Recklessly?”

Brandon Wright raised his hand. “All right. All right.” The doctor paused. “Can you tell me one thing?”

“What?”

“How much longer will this go on?”

Beck looked at his watch. “It's a matter of hours. You have something that can help keep me going?”

“Absolutely not. In your situation there's nothing safe. The last thing you should do is stress yourself with amphetamines. Or unnecessary pain meds. Try coffee. Keep those wounds clean. Sleep. Get out from under this as soon as you can. I don't want to go to your funeral.”

Beck nodded. He didn't press it.

The doctor stood, rolled his neck, flexed his big hands, stretched. He helped Ruth pack up the remaining supplies and instruments, grabbed his Carhartt coat off the back of a chair, and left.

Beck watched the tall man walk across the second floor and disappear down the back stairway without another word, including good-bye.

Beck took a deep breath, exhaled, carefully stood, bent his arm, lifted his leg, testing the feel of the new sutures, hoping he wouldn't have to do anything to make them open and bleed for the next few days.

This was the endgame. Better get to it. He checked his watch. The market would open in a half hour. Time enough to have the conversation with Manny Guzman that he had to have.

As if on cue, Ricky and Jonas Bolo appeared, coming up the steps with Olivia. They'd probably passed the doctor on the way up.

Good timing, thought Beck. Better she didn't see all the blood and wounds.

Beck wasn't in the mood for small talk. He just nodded at the Bolos and said, “There's coffee and food in the kitchen.”

To Olivia he asked, “Did you eat?”

“I will.” She looked at Alex, then back at Beck. “Anything important happening?”

“Check with Alex.”

Olivia nodded and headed toward the desk and computer monitors. Beck noticed she was beginning to look a little haggard. But as usual with her, it just made her appear attractive in yet another way.

She wore the jeans she'd been wearing, but now instead of the black knit top she wore a striped formfitting shirt. She hadn't tucked in the shirt so it hung outside her jeans.

Seeing her reminded him of the half hour they'd spent in bed together. How long ago was that? Twelve hours? It seemed like twelve days.

Beck followed her over to Alex and as she took a seat next to him he asked, “You ready, Alex?”

“Ready.”

He said to Olivia, “We're getting set up for the end. Alex, how many accounts you got set up inside that HSBC Cayman Bank?”

“Fifteen.”

“How long will it take you to move the money around?”

“Only as long as it takes me to type and click. It's all internal. It should happen right away. Seconds.”

“And the wire transfers?”

“Nobody guarantees anything except same business day. But we've got it covered.”

“You do?”

Alex paused. Beck watched him go through it, rehearsing it in his mind. They both knew how complicated their next moves might be.

“Yes.”

“Are we ready with Belize like we planned?”

“Yes.”

“You have the SWIF numbers and all the routing stuff you need?”

This time Alex stopped answering Beck. He gave Beck a look that said he was too tired to answer him. He simply couldn't waste the energy.

Beck nodded, said, “Don't start the snatch until I tell you, okay?”

And then Beck went to Manny Guzman and said he had to talk to him. They headed for the downstairs kitchen and the most painful conversation of Beck's entire life.

 

75

Even though Alan Crane had secretly sold his loft, the presence of Markov's mercenaries sleeping on his couches and bed, heating up takeout food in his kitchen, stinking up his bathroom, made him want to set fire to the place.

And now Markov had arrived, looking as bad as Crane had ever seen him. He clearly hadn't changed his clothes in a long time. He stank of a weird smell that Crane was convinced had to do with the drugs he imbibed.

The first thing Markov did when he stepped off the elevator was hand three envelopes, clearly stuffed with cash, to the mercenaries. For a moment, Crane wondered if his murder was included in the payment. He immediately dismissed the thought. This next hour or so was going to be crucial. He had to put everything out of his mind and execute his plan.

Crane smiled. Nothing like the possibility of snagging a hundred million or so to focus the concentration.

Markov dragged a chair from the dining room area over to Crane's computer desk.

Crane cringed as the chair scraped across his precious Calamander wood floor. Still not saying a word, Markov set the chair next to Crane and tried to set up his laptop computer on Crane's desk.

The stench of the man was bad enough, but having him try to crowd into his work space was too much.

“Leonard, please. Don't put that there. I need room.”

“I want to watch.”

“Fine, have your men bring a table over for you. Sit where you can see, but you can't be on my desk. It's too distracting. Come on, the markets are about to open.”

“I want to see my account. How much money is in it?”

Crane clicked and expanded a screen on one of his four monitors that showed Markov's bank deposit account. “A hundred million and change in the bank. The rest is coming into the brokerage as soon as I close out the last holdings this morning.”

“A hundred!? Where's the fucking rest?”

“In the goddamn brokerage account. For God's sake take it easy. There's a lot more to bring over. I warned you that there would be losses, but I've worked miracles here. Just relax, will you? I have to make these trades. The markets are open now.”

“I want to start moving it.”

“So log on and move it. I don't give a shit. Just leave me alone.”

Markov bent over his laptop. He tried to get online. He couldn't.

He barked, “What's your Internet password?”

Crane was already clicking and scanning candlestick charts displaying values in one-minute intervals. The charts also showed moving average lines and blossoming Fibonacci radials.

“Aw for fuck's sake, Leonard. Don't you have it on that computer?”

“It's not remembering it. Did you change it? What is it?”

Crane screamed, “Shit.” He clicked on another file. A screen opened on one of his monitors. Markov yelled at the mercenaries, “Get me a fucking table.”

Crane yelled back, “There's a worktable in the back.”

Markov leaned closer to the screen, expecting to see the passwords, but all that appeared was a small screen asking for a password to unlock the encrypted screen. “What is the fucking password, Alan?”

“It's in this file. But the file is encrypted. Hold on.”

The tension in the room had ratcheted up to a nearly unbearable level. Harris and Williams hustled to the back of the loft looking for the table. Markov loomed over Crane. Crane had to resist the urge to shove the fat, sweating, stinking man away from him with both hands.

Crane typed in the password that un-encrypted the page that displayed his passwords. It seemed to take forever. Finally, a screen opened on his monitor. It contained pages of passwords and IDs, all of them with complex series of upper-and lower-case letters, symbols, and numbers.

“Where is it?” demanded Markov.

Crane started scrolling through the pages. “God fucking dammit, I should be trading, not holding your fucking hand with this shit. There! There it is. And the Cayman passwords are above it. Everything is alphabetical.”

“I have those passwords.”

“Congratulations,” said Crane, as he immediately returned to his mouse and keyboard.

Markov leaned into the screen and started laboriously typing in the access password to Crane's Internet connection on his laptop.

Crane tried to ignore everything. He opened trade tickets on his platform and started executing trades, routing each one to whatever exchange gave him the best price.

The two mercenaries came in carrying a heavy wooden table, much larger than Markov needed, but they set it up in front of him. It distracted and delayed him, making Markov even more frustrated. He placed the laptop on the table and continued typing in the router access number from Crane's screen.

He entered it.

Nothing.

Markov yelled, “It's not letting me in.”

Crane didn't even look in his direction. He had calmed himself down, determined now not to deal with Markov. He told him, “You probably didn't type it in right. It's case sensitive. Do it carefully.”

Markov started muttering Russian curses. He retyped everything. Nothing.

He pulled out a small gun from the voluminous pocket of his sport coat, walked next to Crane, and held the pistol against Crane's temple.

Crane flinched away from the gun. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I want my money.”

“You have it goddammit.” He pointed to the screen. “It's in the account. I'm bringing the rest over as we speak. You want to lose millions because you won't let me finish this?”

“Fucking shit. How much is in the account?”

Crane pointed at the screen. “Including what's left to bring over, one-hundred and seventeen million.”

“What?!”

“And that's better than you deserve. Your losses will be under sixteen percent. Sixteen fucking percent. That's half the thirty-plus percent you should be eating by forcing me to close everything out like this.”

“There was one-hundred forty-eight million.”

“When I'm finished there should be about a hundred-twenty, maybe a bit more if we get lucky. And I'll say it one last time, Leonard, that's more than you fucking deserve, making me close out my trades.”

Markov snarled. “Why can't I fucking get into the account? Did you change the passwords?”

“No!”

Crane stopped, leaned over to look at Markov's laptop. He opened the control panel and told the computer to search for network connections. A series of connections appeared that were scattered around Crane's building and the neighborhood, but not Crane's.

“For fuck sake, you're laptop isn't finding my network. I don't know what's wrong. It's your goddamn computer, not mine. And I'm not fucking rebooting my router now. Just watch my screens. When I'm done, sit down and use my computer to transfer the money wherever the fuck you want. It's stupid to do it while everything is still coming in anyhow. Just relax for chrissake.”

Markov yelled, “I'm not leaving you the only one in control. I want to transfer a hundred right now.”

Crane had anticipated this. If he could pull off the next move, he could make everything work the way he and Olivia had planned.

“Hold on, hold on. I have to watch these positions. You want me to stop this and let you use my computer? Are you insane?”