Side by Side (9 page)

17

Clayton Able’s top-opening valise was so jam-packed with file folders he had trouble at first prying enough of them out to free the stack. He piled the entire stack on the bed, opened one of the folders, and started flipping photographs faceup on the coverlet like playing cards.

The first picture Clayton flipped was that of a thin individual wearing an expensive suit and carrying an overnight bag. The shot had obviously been taken in an airport and, based on the angle, by a fixed security camera.

“This is from airport surveillance yesterday,” Clayton told Winter and Alexa. “A little out of focus for my taste, but it’s been blown up and had gone through a couple of generations before I acquired it. The face triggered some flags in the NSA mainframe. They sent the information to another computer at the Homeland Security center, and because of the location of the individual involved, my friends plucked it out of the stacks. Thank God for biometrics.”

“Nice suit,” Winter said.

“Serge Sarnov.” Clayton tapped the photo with his finger. “He works for Intermat Ltd., an investment firm with principal offices in L.A., New York, London, Paris, Moscow, and with smaller and unlisted offices in cities not known for political stability or ethical behavior.”

“Russian mob?” Winter asked, frowning.

“Mobs,” Alexa answered.

“You know him?” Winter asked her.

“I’ve been briefed already,” she intoned. “This one’s for you.”

“A dozen mobs united by a need to move and launder large sums of money safely. The firm, Intermat, is made up of the leadership of each group, with the president selected by them from among themselves. Just like the Pope’s selection by a vote of fellow cardinals. There are at least ten major criminal organizations with links to the firm. Once they put their funds in Intermat’s accounts, the money is as safe as it would be in a bank. Intermat invests the pooled currency in deals that promise a healthy profit, and all members share equally in the profits.”

“And if our government is aware of this, how does this firm stay in business?” Winter asked.

Clayton took his pipe out of his mouth and smiled. “Isn’t a poisonous snake in a glass case less dangerous than one running around the house loose?” he asked. “Serge Sarnov runs Intermat’s department of policy enforcement. Ex-GRU, where he specialized in handling tricky state problems. This picture was taken last night at Douglas International Airport, a few miles from here.”

“Where is he now?”

“In the wind,” Clayton said. “You should keep an eye out for him.”

“He’s involved in the kidnapping?”

Clayton shrugged. “Not directly, but he has a stake in its success.”

“And his connection to the Dockerys?” Winter pressed, growing low on patience.

The next picture was of a man who stood shaking Sarnov’s hand in the airport’s baggage area. A third shot showed the second man putting Sarnov’s bags in the back of a dark Tahoe. The pictures were all taken from different security cameras.

“Here is the connection. Lt. Maxwell T. Randall, twenty-seven. Ex–Special Forces. Randall is one of Colonel Bryce’s associates—served with him the last two years Bryce was active military. You don’t want to mess with either of these men. The government is actively pursuing them and they are connected to continuing investigations beyond this. If you tangle with these two, the consequences could be unpleasant no matter the outcome of the meeting, if you get my drift.”

“If they don’t bother me, I won’t bother them back,” Winter said, seriously. “What’s Sarnov’s involvement with Bryce?”

“Intermat was dealing for the weapons that Bryce’s arrest short-circuited. Bryce is the only one who knows where the shipment is. The only other man who may have known is a dead undercover agent who got killed before he could pass the intelligence to his handlers. The firm has millions invested in the shipment Bryce has. They won’t walk away from it.”

Alexa said, “Bryce had to have figured that if he told Intermat where the container was before they sprung him, he’d either do life, get the needle, or the firm would kill him to keep him from talking.”

“So, if Sarnov didn’t do it, who grabbed the Dockerys?” Winter asked. “Randall?”

Clayton sucked loudly on his Falcon pipe. “Randall was in Atlanta when the Dockerys were snatched. M.I. ran the voice of the person who phoned Judge Fondren after the snatch for a matching print. They got one the FBI had filed as that of an unidentified female doing business with a local syndicate.”

“At the Bureau, we call them the Cornpone Mafia,” Alexa told Winter. “They are made up of small southern groups that are hooked up to a larger syndicate based in Kansas City.”

“That female voice has showed up several times on taps on people doing business with this local bunch,” Clayton said. “This one is a particularly challenging one. Stanley Smoot, who goes by ‘Peanut,’ is at the top. Peanut pays the best legal firm in the region a healthy retainer, and they have managed to extricate him from every crime he’s been charged with over the past twenty years. He’s street-smart, a classic psychopathic personality, and he keeps his books in his head. His lawyer of record is Ross Laughlin, the senior partner at Price, Courtney, Laughlin, Vance and Associates. Of interest is that Ross Laughlin also happens to be Colonel Hunter Bryce’s attorney. Laughlin’s firm has fifty top attorneys in Washington, D.C., ninety-seven in Charlotte, and seventy in Miami. The old boy has some very impressive connections.”

“Ross Laughlin knows everybody in Washington worth knowing, and contributes to all of the right people of both parties,” Alexa said.

“Got a picture of Peanut Smoot?” Winter asked.

Clayton found one in a second file folder and put it beside the one of Randall.

Winter studied it.

“Should be easy to spot,” Alexa said.

“Peanut’s family has been involved in criminal enterprises as far back as records go. He’s got a rap sheet goes back to his teens, but like I said, last twenty years he’s been golden. He is the highest up the chain anybody’s charted, and I’d say he is the top guy. Peanut’s crew deals in hijacking, running untaxed cigarettes, prostitution, selling stolen firearms up North to gangbangers, extortion, car theft and chop shops, insurance fraud, loan-sharking, pawnshops, stolen credit cards, gambling, counterfeit sporting-event tickets. Not sure what the connection to Colonel Bryce is. Maybe Peanut does business with him or maybe he was just hired to do the heavy lifting on this kidnapping. But the Smoots took the Dockerys. The woman’s voice is all the connection you need. The voice belongs to one of their own, and it shares definite regional accentual similarities with the rest of the clan. A female, probably mid-twenties to early thirties, who wears dentures, is all the description I have. Called the judge from a pay phone outside a convenience store on Central Boulevard. Her voice has never been caught except on pay phones and disposable cells.”

“And Laughlin is the connection,” Winter said.

“No proof of that,” Alexa said. “Big risk for a man at his social, economic, and professional level.”

Winter frowned but held back comment. Of course Laughlin was the connection between Bryce, the Smoots, and Intermat. He couldn’t believe Alexa questioned it. An attorney being a crook wasn’t a stretch in Winter’s mind. The more powerful he was, the more above reproach he felt, the easier it would be to go bad. A man like that could see himself as smarter than anyone in law enforcement and feel bulletproof.

“How large is the Smoot crew?” he asked.

Alexa said, “Peanut’s crew is made up of fifty to sixty uncles, aunts, cousins, even his own children. It’s a tribe that settled in the forties in remote northern South Carolina, about an hour from here.”

“Will
they
kill the Dockerys personally?” Winter asked.

Clayton nodded. “Killing a woman and child would be easy money.”

“Then we have to get to the Smoots,” Winter said.

“They’re our starting place,” Alexa agreed.

“I’ll put together a field file for you with all the appropriate intel on the Smoots,” Clayton said.

Winter stared at Peanut’s wide-apart almond-shaped eyes, the smug arrogant smile belonging to a man who’d enjoyed a long successful run.

Winter knew that he and Peanut would meet sooner rather than later.

18

Ross Laughlin took the first-aid kit from Rudy, located and broke the cotton-sleeved vial of smelling salts, and held it under Peanut’s nose. The big man came to life immediately, kicking and cursing.

“Ga-damm!” he yelled. “What happened?”

“You fell,” Ross said.

“Fell hell. Fell where?”

“Were felled,” Rudy offered.

Peanut sat up, put a hand to the back of his neck, and moved his head side to side. “Damn it all. My back and my neck hurts. And my chin. Was it Randall? He get behind me?”

“Sarnov,” Ross said as he tossed the vial into the trash can. “Rudy, help Mr. Smoot to his feet.”

“That little commie dick-smoker,” Peanut growled. “I’ll blow his head off.”

Peanut pulled a handgun out from his belt and Ross Laughlin shuddered at the sight of it. All he needed was for this fool to start brandishing a gun, and somebody calling the cops to the building. All that mattered was getting past Monday morning.

“Calm down, Peanut,” Ross soothed. Smoot had always had a temper that was very difficult to get the lid back on. “That’s all, Rudy.”

“Yes, sir,” Rudy said instantly. He took the first-aid kit and left the room, closing the door behind him.

“Put that weapon away,” Ross ordered. “You can’t do anything to Sarnov.”

“That little Lenin-loving queer—”

“Peanut,” Ross said, infusing a hint of fatherly disapproval and concern. “Calling him names won’t help us. Even if what he did was unforgivable.” The lawyer fought back laughter when he remembered seeing Peanut crash-landing on the floor after going through a very expensive coffee table.

“If I’d been paying attention, he’d a got the ass kicking of his potato-drinking life. I’m lucky the glass didn’t slice my damn head off.”

“I guess your coat saved you,” Ross said, lifting the coffee table’s scratched walnut base and setting it away from the glass. Luckily, the wood hadn’t been shattered by the big lummox’s weight. “Unfortunately, my vintage Noguchi wasn’t wearing a leather NASCAR jacket.”

“A three-thousand-dollar coat.” Peanut turned so he could see his backside in the mirror behind the wet bar. “Hellfire!” He tugged off his jacket and looked at the cuts the glass had made in the smooth surface. “Damn,” he bellowed. “My number three’s destroyed!”

His language, more so even than his appearance, had once made Ross’s skin crawl. But over the years, the hick had brought in a fortune. Of all the groups Ross had earning for him, the Smoots made more than all the others combined. And Peanut wasn’t a slouch in the instincts department. He had more street smarts than any criminal Ross Laughlin had ever known. He kept complicated deals in his head, and his mental numbers were never wrong. He had, as best as Ross could figure, a genetic disposition toward criminality. Were the man normal, he could have been successful at any legitimate business venture, but Peanut Smoot couldn’t think about a situation without viewing it through a filter of greed and larceny.

Gun in hand, Peanut started from the room. There was an explosive-temper aspect to the Smoots, which sometimes made problems. They got to a point and they lost it, acting rashly and worrying about the consequences later.

“Peanut!” Ross said sternly. “Listen to me. This is almost over. We need to maintain our relationship with the Russians. If you touch Sarnov, we both know what will happen. We can do profitable business with them for a long time, but if we make a stupid move, they’ll take everything.”

“They’re going to take it all anyway if they can, and this is a test we’re seeing. Those changes to the deal are to see if you’ll blink, and you did. From this day on out, the Russkies are going to be chipping away, taking bigger and bigger bites. If you don’t send them a message back, we’re history anyway. Why didn’t you tell him we’re partners, that I’m not hired help?”

“Because,” Ross said, his mind whirring in search of an explanation Peanut would buy. If only for a few hours, and then it wouldn’t matter. “You just deal with the collateral as we discussed,” Ross told him.

Ross knew that the Smoots were finished. Sarnov had stood over Peanut’s unconscious form and told Ross that the Russians were in for good and that they were taking over the Smoots’ territory and rackets. Laughlin hadn’t argued. In fact, the prospect of Intermat taking over was appealing to him. All of Peanut’s holdings were in accounts Laughlin owned with Peanut. And he had Peanut’s power of attorney in his safe.

“The Dockery part has to be done right. When the time comes, I’ll handle the Russians. We’re partners. Trust me.”

“I do trust you, Mr. Laughlin.”

“Please call me Ross,” Ross said, smiling warmly and placing his hand on Peanut’s shoulder paternally. “We are so much more than mere business partners.”

“I won’t let you down, Mr. Laughlin.”