City of Ice (45 page)

“No problem there.”

“Except the Machine arranges dynamite in a different hill. I just found that out this morning.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I hope you appreciate this, Émile—this is pure powder from the Wolverines. They’ve got the cutest filing clerks, by the way, you should’ve joined them. Okay, Angels load the casing with their blow sticks in a pyramid. Each stick fits in the grooves formed by the two underneath it. Consequently, each layer is not as wide as the one below.”

“The Machine?”

“Straight up. They put the bomb case up on its narrower end and pile rows that way, so when they lay the bomb flat again, each row sits directly on top of the one below. Not in the grooves, but right on top.”

“And in that blast?”

“Outside the car, like a Rock Machine hit, but the hill was like the Angels do. Two more things. The casing was unique. But here’s the big one. Both the Angels and the Machine either use remote control to detonate or they hot-wire to a timer. This one was a combination of both. It could only blow on timer ignition, but it also carried an on-off receiver. The bomber could decide to make the timer hot, or make it go cold if he suddenly chose not to ignite.”

“What do the Wolverines make of that?” Cinq-Mars was driving with one hand on the wheel and managing a road surface that had improved considerably now that salt and sand were down. Crumpled cars from the morning nightmare abounded, waiting their turn for tows.

“They worked a theory that makes sense. The last Rock Machine member to die prior to that particular blast was their own bomber. The Wolverines think they hired from outside for the blast until their own personnel got up to speed.”

“Has the theory held up? The Machine’s bombed since.”

“That’s what’s so interesting. It looks like they went
back to the old bombing practices without changes. That tells me they always had somebody trained to take over. Émile, come on, is there a third player? What do you have? If that bomb wasn’t a biker hit, I can take back the portfolio. This should be my investigation!”

“You’re on suspension, André.”

“You know what I mean, Émile. When I’m off suspension.”

“I can’t say anything right now, André—”

“Émile! Come on. Give me something. I’m giving you prime stuff. Is there a third gang?”

Who do you tell if I tell you?
“The Angels could’ve bumped off one of their own, made it look like a Rock Machine hit, but hired people outside,” Cinq-Mars proposed. If André knew better he wouldn’t like the suggestion.

“Why bother, Émile?”

Cinq-Mars was stopped at a red light. He preferred to do his thinking in motion. LaPierre had to be handled with care.

“They don’t want gang members knowing they’re bumping off their own. It’s a messy world, André.”

LaPierre offered him dead air, mulling it over. The light turned, and the cars, nervous about ice, started moving slowly. Cinq-Mars, impatient, drove on, looking for a way to get past them.

“That’s possible,” LaPierre allowed. “But is there a third player, Émile?”

Did he detect a note of desperation in that voice? Did LaPierre depend upon a third player to validate himself in the Police Department, so he could take over the case, or to validate himself within the Hell’s Angels? LaPierre was anxious for a way out, Cinq-Mars believed, and whatever reason might be motivating him, he was willing to toss him a bone. “André, I think there could be a third player.”

“Who, Émile?” His voice sounded breathless. A blip
in the quality of the cellular service, or was LaPierre hungry and dependent upon a response?

“Could be their old Mafia pals aren’t as chummy with the Angels as they think. I’ve got my reasons to say that. Another possibility, well, I hate to say it, André.”

“Tell me.”

“Not over the phone. Meet me back at HQ. Say, two hours?”

“You got it.”

“See you then.”

They signed off, and Émile Cinq-Mars turned up Mountain Street to meet the man who had been directing his life for so long.

Cinq-Mars parked across the street from Detective Déguire’s Jimmy and shut the engine. For a few moments he followed procedure left over from his days as a uniform whenever he yanked someone over to make an arrest. He remained perfectly still. He waited. The ploy gave the other person time to get nervous or make a break for it or start shooting. This time, he ended the brief delay by doing something he had not done before. In the Jimmy sat the man who had manipulated his existence, to their mutual benefit, for so long. He was also the agent whose activities had caused the death of one young man, possibly others, and was probably the man behind blowing up George Turner. In the car sat an emissary of a powerful, covert organization. Cinq-Mars had nothing on him. Everything from here on would be negotiation. Skill. Ploy. Tactics. He rolled down his window. Rather than go over to the man that Bill Mathers had captured, identify himself and display his shield, and commence a formal discussion, the detective merely put out his hand, crooked one finger, and signaled the rogue over to him.

Cinq-Mars wanted to watch him cross the street. He wanted to observe his expression, his body language from the comfort of his own car. He did not want to give this professional that opportunity himself. Lives were at stake. He had to embark upon an exchange, a session of horse trading, that would summon the depths of his abilities. Given that the other guy possessed the bulk of information, there was no advantage too slight, no hedge too insignificant, no psychological link too weak not to be deployed.

The captive waited for a line of cars coming down the hill to pass. He gazed up the incline, as though he was thinking too, and stepped back from the salt splash the vehicles were bound to create. The gesture drew the detective’s attention to the man’s clothes. Fine threads. He drove a distinctive car. He had family money to call upon. Did this work not for the paycheck but for the charge. Cinq-Mars held up his cellular to make sure that Mathers had his turned on. He called him. Their prey had crossed the street halfway, where he waited for a truck ascending.

“Bill, you said you caught him in the foyer. Did he have his coat on?”

“Sitting on it.”

“He didn’t return to the apartment?”

“No, sir.”

“Good work.” He hung up and put the phone away.

The man jogged to cross behind the truck and ahead of a speeding taxi. He came around to the side of the policeman’s car, and for the first time, before he got in, their eyes met. Cinq-Mars noted the gentle smile, a certain smugness, a conceit of superiority his source could not suppress for trying. He opened the side door and bundled himself into the front seat, arranged his coat, and removed a glove before extending his right hand.

“Émile Cinq-Mars,” he said. “It’s an honor.”

“An overdue meeting,” Cinq-Mars told him. He tugged at the fingers of his driving glove, peeled it off, and gave the man’s hand a firm, brief shake. His source had been the first to offer his hand, and Cinq-Mars was the first to withdraw.

“Everything in its own time, Émile. The timing for this meet leaves a lot to be desired. From my perspective, it’s premature.”

“What’s your name?” Cinq-Mars recognized that the man was seeking to control the conversation. He wasn’t going to let him.

“You know how it goes, Émile.”

“Sir, what name do you commonly use?”

“Selwyn Emerson Norris, to my friends and colleagues.”

“Who do you work for?”

Cinq-Mars treated his captive as he might a minor felon. He glanced at him, took in a lot, but most of the time he checked the street and his mirrors as though this entire process was routine and something of a nuisance. His attitude differed greatly from their telephone conversations. He was severe, critical, impatient, and remarkably indifferent, whereas previously he had hidden his emotional state.

“I am a public relations officer with the American consulate.”

“No, sir, who do you work for? You’re CIA, or there’s a remote chance you’re FBI. Which?”

To Cinq-Mars, it seemed that Norris was doing his best to swallow a smirk. “I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”

“CIA, then. Exposure won’t sit well with either of our governments.”

“Émile, get serious. You’ve got nothing of substance. Don’t stick your neck out. Too many bureaucracies and jurisdictions are only too willing to chop it off. Including mine, if push comes to shove.”

Cinq-Mars shifted his weight behind the steering wheel to confront Selwyn Norris more squarely. He had offered a feeble threat and been roundly snubbed. He deserved that loss. But in horse trading, he was often willing to stumble early and cause his competitor to feel more secure, thereby weakening his defense.

“Here’s the deal, Mr. Norris.”

“Please, Émile, call me Selwyn.”

Cinq-Mars burned his glare into him, tilting his head back to present the austere slope of his nose to full advantage. “Mr. Norris, we are not friends, and you shall not refer to me as Émile again.”

“I can assure you, there’s no need—”

“The only assurance I need from you is that you understand, fully, what must be done here. This is the deal—I want the young woman out.”

In the face of the policeman’s righteous ire, Norris took a deep breath, letting the air expire slowly. He faced forward now, studying the street that Cinq-Mars had abandoned, no longer quite able to stare him down. “I’m afraid, Sergeant-Detective, that that will not be possible.”

“Wrong answer,” Cinq-Mars warned him.

“You have to understand the situation,” Norris told him.

“Explain it to me,” Cinq-Mars said with a voice like a drill bit.

Norris rubbed his chin. “I don’t know how much you’ve cobbled together, how much you have discerned, or how much you’ve speculated upon—”

“No, you don’t,” Cinq-Mars confirmed.

“But I do know that this is bigger than you can imagine. What we’ve done is infiltrate the world’s most notorious gang right at the moment when it’s making a move to a larger stage. We are working at the gang’s core, where the money is. How it’s moved and buried and spent and invested will be known to us. Are you
telling me that that’s not important news? Are you telling me, as a police officer, that such information is negligible? Do you think it can be traded away in a simple barter between you and me?” He met his glance again, his eyes going back and forth as though looking into the eyes of Cinq-Mars one at a time.

“What I’m telling you,” the detective persisted, “is that the young woman comes out.”

“You’re making this unnecessarily difficult. You have nothing on me, Sergeant-Detective. I’m under no obligation to speak to you.”

“If you don’t, I’ll arrest you.”

“For what?”

“For driving with a burned-out bulb above your license plate.”

Norris laughed. “You haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

“Too slight a charge?”

“Somewhat,” a bemused Norris agreed.

“I could arrest you for driving a vehicle with illegal plates, and for tampering with police computers. In a pinch, I could arrest you on suspicion of murder.”

Norris continued to chuckle. “Are you absolutely certain that I cannot call you by your given name? I’d prefer if we were friends.”

“You don’t think murder is a serious charge?”

“I don’t think you’re serious about concocting the charge.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Cinq-Mars warned him.

“Whose murder?” Norris asked.

“George Turner, the original Hell’s Angels’ banker.”

There, a nick. The response had not been expected, and his captive underwent a turn before recovering. The evidence was slight, but the minute waver behind the eyes, the quiet swallow, the failure to immediately indicate incomprehension, were revealing. He had touched him, Cinq-Mars was certain.

“Who?” Norris asked.

“Too late,” the policeman scoffed. “Don’t bother.”

The agent shook his head. “What are you up to, Émile?”

“Sure, go ahead, call me Émile. Don’t think I won’t hang you out to dry.”

“We’ve been through a lot. We’ve worked together to put perps away.”

“None of which was any of your business.”

“You didn’t raise an objection at the time.”

“I want the woman out, sir. I don’t want to find her as I found Hagop Artinian.”

His nod came from a serious place this time. “Allow me to explain.”

“Go ahead.”

He seemed to be looking into himself, as though he knew that he had to appeal to the highest instincts of this detective. Cinq-Mars was known for his ethics. To entertain him with falsehood held no promise. What Norris had to do, what Cinq-Mars expected him to do, was to explain his position from a moral core.

“The Hell’s Angels, as you know, are making a move on Montreal against the Rock Machine. Through their puppet gangs, they’ve already secured most of the country. Quebec’s a battleground, and once the dust settles, Ontario becomes the next war zone. The result is predictable. The Angels will control crime from coast to coast. That makes them your nemesis, not mine. So what does that have to do with me or other Americans? We’ve got our own troubles. Well, I’ll tell you. Relationships are forming that involve us.”

The car was not warm, but Selwyn Norris paused for effect and to undo the top buttons of his overcoat.

“A new organization has been created in Russia that combines former and current members of the KGB—which is now called the FSB—with traditional Soviet
gangsters. They used to be enemies. Politics put them in bed together, and I have to tell you, as someone with knowledge of these matters, they will provide a formidable enemy. What’s going on in the former Soviet Union has allowed gangsters to prosper as never before in world history. The speed of their rise, the virulence of their methods, the value of their enterprises—Émile, it’s something to behold.”

“I’m aware of the challenge, Mr. Norris. But the young woman comes out.”

“Émile, this is not a question of jurisdiction. It involves domestic crime, yes—but national and international crime as well. We happen to know that a Russian has gained influence over the upper-level leadership of the Hell’s Angels.”