Blood Passage (43 page)

“
But you and Melton have been exchanging information,” Hank said. “If this drive contains evidence that you paid off a law enforcement officer you’ll be putting yourself in jeopardy. And Melton will certainly want to turn on you if IAD puts the screws to him.”

“
I’m a simple businessman who believes it his civic duty to cooperate with the police whenever he can. There’s nothing he can say that will harm me in any way.”

Hank closed his eyes for a moment. “Look, Peter, I’m not quite on my game here, the medication’s wearing off and I don’t feel so shit-hot, but I don’t understand why you’re giving Melton to us instead of killing him like you did Gregg and Thatcher. No offense, but I don’t get it.

“
None taken,” Peter replied mildly. “Let’s just say I’ve given my word that I won’t harm this man.”

“
Your word.”

“
My word, Lieutenant.”

Hank opened his eyes. “I’ll hold you to it.”

“
Besides,” Peter added, “he’s a cop. Way out of bounds.”

“
There’s that, too,” Hank agreed.

On Wednesday morning Hank was discharged from hospital. Karen helped him get his right arm into a sling after he’d dressed, then they slowly walked down to the nurses’ station.

“
Donaghue,” Hank said. “I’ve been discharged.”

“
Oh, you can’t just walk out,” the nurse said, “you’ll have to wait a moment.” She consulted a sheaf of papers on a clipboard. “Yes, here you are. I’ll just call the volunteer to take you down.” She looked behind her. “Bob! Chair!”

It was the same volunteer who’d taken Josh Duncan downstairs when he’d been discharged a week before. He brought a wheelchair around to Hank. He looked at Karen and smiled.

“
Hey there, Miss. Finally bailing your friend here out of jail, are you?”

“
Might be a better idea to leave him in here a while longer,” Karen said. “Keep him outta my hair.”

Bob guided Hank into the wheelchair. “He’s been a bit of a handful, but then again he’s a policeman so you got to expect that kind of behavior sometimes, don’t you?”

“
I’ve been fully cooperative,” Hank protested mildly.

Bob patted him gently on his good shoulder. “Sure you have.” He looked at Karen. “Not very often we get a VIP like the Lieutenant here. Should have seen the steady stream of visitors. Some came in limousines, mind you.”

“
My mother,” Hank grimaced at Karen, not wanting to mention Peter Mah.

At the elevators Bob pressed the button. “By the way, my brother-in-law and nephew both send their regards. They’re sorry they couldn’t stop by to see you.”

Hank frowned. “Oh?”

“
Sure.” Bob wheeled him into the elevator, which was empty, and turned him around to face the doors as Karen moved in beside them and pressed the button for the ground floor. “Adolphus is out of the country right now, but I was talking to him on the telephone and he said to send his best. And Cedric, he’s just been appointed by the Governor to District Court as Associate Judge and he’s been down at the Capitol for the last week getting things organized. He said he’d be home in the next few days and will give you a call.”

Hank was surprised. “Adolphus Post is your brother-in-law?”

“
Yep.” The elevator stopped and Bob wheeled him out into the hallway on the ground floor. “I married his sister, Belle.” He stopped just short of the sliding front doors of the hospital. “Here you go.”

Hank stood up and turned around. “What’s your last name, Bob?”

“
Jacobs,” Bob said.

The name registered. “Robert Jacobs,” Hank said. “You’re a lawyer. Criminal defense attorney.”

“
Was,” Bob qualified. “I retired three years ago. I do volunteer work and what not to keep busy.”

“
Good lord.” Hank held out his left hand. “I know of you. Very glad to meet you.”

Bob clasped his left hand, smiling. “It goes without saying I know of you, too. The entire family holds you in the highest regard, and it just so happens I knew your father, as well. A little better than I knew your mother. Robert and a few of us would meet for a beer every now and then in a place behind the court house. It’s gone now, torn down years ago, but it was a good place at the time. Your father was a fine man. Didn’t surprise me that Robert’s son became such a hero to the Posts.”

“
Thank you,” Hank said simply.

“
You’re welcome. Take care, now.”

Karen led the way through the sliding front door and out onto the sidewalk that wrapped around the hospital. “Must be nice to have friends in high places, Lou.”

The sun felt good on his face. He was alive, walking on his own two feet, breathing the air of the city he loved.

Karen’s cell phone purred. “Stainer.”

As she listened, her lips parted in a feral grin. “Got it. We’ll be right there.” She put the phone away and grinned at Hank. “There’s a party going on and we’re invited.”

“
I thought you were taking me home.”

“
I am, Lou, but you’ll want to check this out first. Don’t whine.”

They drove downtown and Karen parked the Crown Vic in a tow-away zone in front of an office building. She led the way to a small group of people standing in the mouth of the alley between the office building and the bank next door. Hank saw that the alley behind them was blocked off by several black Suburban SUVs with federal plates.

A stocky bald man in a cheap green suit stepped forward and shook Karen’s hand. “Hey, Stains, you’re just in time. Lieutenant Donaghue, how the hell are you?”

Hank nodded at Detective Ellis Edwards of the Financial Crimes Unit. “I’m all right, Ellie, thanks for asking.”

“
Stains wanted in on this one,” Edwards explained quietly, “and seeing as we go way back, walking a beat together, I told her I’d oblige.”

“
What is it? What’s going on?”

“
You didn’t explain?” Edwards shook his head. “She’s such a bitch. It’s Barry Melton, Lieutenant. Stains passed us the USB drive and when I got a look at what was on there I called the Feds right away. We put a tail on Melton and here he is, emptying out a safe deposit box. He’s already got a plane ticket to Bermuda under a false name and this is his last stop before skipping out. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

He turned and caught the attention of Marie-Louise Roubidoux, who stepped forward, smiling.

“
Lieutenant Donaghue, how are you feeling? Detective Stainer.”

“
You’ve met already,” Edwards said, a little disappointed.

“
I understand, Lieutenant,” Roubidoux said, “that the information on Melton came from you. Mind if I ask where you got it?”

“
A confidential informant.”

“
Inside the Triad?”

Hank shook his head. “I’d rather not say.”

“
All right, I understand. Maybe I can buy you a coffee sometime and we can talk about it.”

Hank looked over her shoulder and made eye contact with IAD investigator Warren Cox, a fat, balding bulldog who leaned against the wall next to one of the Suburbans, by himself, smoking a cigarette. “Maybe,” he said.

“
This is a Federal bust, Lieutenant,” Roubidoux went on as Will Martin joined them. “I assume you understand that. Will and I are participating in an ECTF.”

Hank nodded. An ECTF was an Electronic Crimes Task Force operating under the auspices of the Secret Service as authorized by the
Patriot Act
,
one of the purposes of which was to investigate crimes against the nation’s financial infrastructure.

“
We’ve got big plans for Mr. Melton,” Will said. “He’s going to be busy for a long time talking to us before you’ll get a crack at him.”

“
I get it,” Hank said.

“
Son of a bitch can kiss his pension goodbye,” Edwards chipped in, looking over at Cox.

Hank had wondered why Peter Mah would put Melton into the hands of investigators who would pressure him for information about the Triad in exchange for leniency, but now it occurred to him that as soon as Melton was in federal custody he’d follow a completely different process than he would have if Hank had arrested him for Martin Liu’s murder. The Feds would immediately take him out of the city and sequester him somewhere that he could be interrogated at length by people with no connection to Glendale, its police department, or any other potential source of local taint. The matter was out of Peter’s hands, Hank suddenly understood. It would pass to some other Red Pole in some other city whose responsibility it would be to silence Melton for good. In this way Peter Mah could keep his word, in letter if not in spirit.

“
Here he comes,” Will said suddenly. “Let’s go.”

It happened quickly. Melton pushed through the glass doors of the bank onto the sidewalk. He lifted his eyes from the aluminum Halliburton briefcase in his hand and stopped dead in his tracks, gaping at the ring of firearms pointed at him. He took a step to his left and found himself locking eyes with Karen Stainer.

“
Make a run for it,” Karen grinned, motioning with her gun. “Come on.”

Melton took a step backward, dropped the briefcase and raised his hands. “Keep her away from me.”

As federal agents swarmed him, Roubidoux looked at Karen in surprise. “He’s afraid of you.”

Karen snorted. “He wants to be.”

She was on a roll. Back in the car, her phone buzzed again. The call was short, and this time her grin was even wider. “We found Tommy, Lou. Ahead of the Feds this time. Let’s rock.”

They met SWAT around the corner from a building in Strathton that was surrounded by a high chain link fence topped with barbed wire. Two blocks from the waterfront, the buildings in this area had been used as warehouses for more than a century. This one belonged to a company named Yan Yee Trading. The SWAT commander, Lieutenant Pearson, had chosen an approach from the rear. A wide alley provided access to the enclosed paved area at the back of the building. Pearson dispatched snipers to the roofs of surrounding buildings and set up a command post around the corner on Chatham Street.

“
The Hummers are inside the compound,” Pearson explained as Karen handed Hank her jacket and put on a protective vest over her t-shirt. “There are also two white vans that the targets are currently loading with what looks like electronic equipment, armaments and other stuff. They’re bugging out. We’ve done our sweeps and we’ve got eleven heat signatures and an electronic security system that’s been cut down by about sixty per cent since we got here.”

“
They’re dismantling it and taking it with them,” Hank said.

“
I’d say.” Pearson tapped a finger on the display of his tablet to enlarge the satellite photo of the enclosed compound. “We’ll stage here,” he said, pointing at four dumpsters side by side just outside the gate. “Recon tells us the targets left the gate unlocked, so we’ll just waltz in and take the vehicles first, along with the targets loading them. Then we’ll sweep the building and clean up the trash. Exit points here at the front,” he tapped the photo, “on this side and this side. My men will seal them off.”

“
Looks great,” Hank said.

Pearson gave him an earpiece, glancing at the sling on his arm. “I take it you’re going to sit this one out, Lieutenant.”

Hank put on the earpiece and nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“
All right,” Pearson said, obviously relieved not to have to worry about playing babysitter. “Detective Stainer?” He handed her an earpiece. “Let’s move.”

“
Do your worst,” Hank said to her.

“
That’s what I do best,” she grinned back.

The team rounded the corner and moved up the alley to the staging area behind the dumpsters. Karen found herself sandwiched between two team members as the entry team went to work. They passed through the gate, flooded the compound and secured four targets loading the vans. Karen heard the All Clear over her earpiece and followed the others across the compound to the rear door of the building.

One of the men lying prone on the pavement with his hands secured behind his back was a bodyguard who had accompanied Tommy outside the warehouse gate last Tuesday when she and Hank had interviewed him. Karen grinned. “Hey there, Dog Biscuit.”

The point man looked at her and put his fingers to his lips. Pearson’s voice came over the earpiece directing them to proceed through the door and into the hallway. The elevators were inoperative. The stairway door opened before they could reach it and two men stepped out. They opened fire and were cut down by the team. Karen looked at the bodies as they filed quickly into the stairwell and saw one of the three men who had attacked her at the alley the day before yesterday.

Taking out the trash
. She followed the team upstairs. Pearson directed them to the second floor, where the remaining five heat signatures were clustered near the northwest corner. As they reached the door to the second floor they heard Pearson saying that two of the heat signatures appeared to be shifting position while the other three remained static. Karen followed her team through the door and down the hall.

This is it, she thought. She wanted that bastard Tommy Leung so badly she could taste it. She wanted the other guy even worse, the one Hank had identified from photographs as the punk who’d shot him in the alley. She was hoping the guy would make the fatal mistake of pulling on her. He’d quickly follow Tang Lei into whatever next world was waiting for pieces of crap like them. She held her weapon at high ready as the team stacked up in front of her. Three guys, she thought. Tommy Leung and two others, hopefully. Four guys in front of her. She’d have to move fast to get in a shot. She controlled her breathing and damped her excitement.