Dance With the Enemy (29 page)

The streets of Paris were quiet as Logan walked the short distance to the safe house – it was, after all, early morning on a weekend. The weather had returned to its seasonal self and there was a bitter wind picking up, making it feel colder than it really was. Logan hunched down into his shirt, which was the only clothing he had on his upper body.

It had been hard to leave Grainger. He wasn’t even sure what he had just said to her. The words had come straight from the heart – there was no premeditation in that, no ulterior motive. It was like someone had opened him up and pulled out everything that he had been wanting to say but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.

But for all of his heartfelt words, they still hadn’t confirmed one way or the other whether they would ever see each other again. He couldn’t understand why it was such a fraught subject. He’d tried to remain relaxed about it, although his offhand approach had only seemed to rile her. As far as he was concerned it was a no-brainer. He didn’t know where and when, but what was to stop them seeing each other again?

For some reason she seemed to have got it into her head that that wasn’t the case.

In a way, he could understand why the training he’d gone through all those years ago, when he’d first met Mackie, had been so concerned with trying to suppress emotions. The truth was, they were hard to deal with. He would even go so far as to say that they were a big hindrance. When you should be concentrating on catching a sadistic terrorist and all you could think
about was when you might get to kiss your woman next, that could make the difference between success and failure. In a way, it already had. And when you were kissing your woman and all you could think about was how the hell you were going to find the baddies, that was equally likely to result in failure.

Feelings got in the way. Right now, he needed to focus on the investigation. Fagan had said that Logan would be going to America. The only thing he could think was that someone had found a lead on the originator of Modena’s kidnapping.

Logan reached the safe house and walked in, heading for the lounge. Mackie was there as he entered, dressed casually and standing by the desk next to Evans. Evans was on his feet too and Logan saw that he was tall and wiry; it didn’t look like there was an ounce of muscle on him.

‘You’re looking pretty dapper there, Logan,’ Mackie said, gesturing to the clothes that he had arranged for Logan at the clinic. ‘Much better than that normal crap you wear.’

‘You could’ve got me something warmer,’ Logan responded, taking a seat.

Evans came around and sat next to him. Mackie stayed standing.

‘You can sort yourself out at the airport,’ Mackie said without sympathy. ‘How’s the shoulder?’

Logan still had his shoulder heavily strapped but he hadn’t bothered to wear a sling; it would just get in the way.

‘It hurts like hell. But the drugs are helping.’

Mackie shrugged. ‘We’ve got a very good lead,’ he said, jumping on topic. ‘And with the twenty-four hours extra that we’ve had to dig, we think we may be getting to the bottom of this now.’

Logan’s interest perked up at hearing Mackie’s words, and all of a sudden his thoughts of the awkward conversation with Grainger were banished.

Mackie carried on. ‘As you suggested, everything points to Selim just being a hired gun in this. But that means we’re still looking for the missing link.’

‘By the missing link, you mean those who put together and funded this thing in the first place,’ Logan said. ‘Right?’

‘Exactly. Go ahead, Evans.’

‘This is just preliminary,’ said Evans, turning to face Logan,
‘but we’ve identified money coming across to Blakemore. Eight million dollars was transferred into his account two days ago, right about the time you stormed his farmhouse, I’m told. A few minutes later the whole lot was wired out to another account in the Cayman Islands. From there we don’t know where it went, if it went anywhere at all. We’re still looking into that.’

Evans pushed some papers across the desk towards Logan. He glanced at them without picking them up, determining that they were financial records of some sort. He didn’t need to inspect them any further than that. He was sure Evans and Mackie were about to tell him all he needed to know.

‘But you don’t think the money just went on to another one of Blakemore’s accounts?’ Logan asked.

‘We don’t know yet,’ said Evans, shrugging.

‘Why? What do
you
think?’ Mackie asked Logan, eying him almost suspiciously.

‘I’d bet my hat on it having gone to Selim. I think Blakemore was supposed to distribute part of the money to Selim and the others. But Selim had other ideas – he killed Reggie Graham, tortured Blakemore and transferred all the money to himself.’

‘Well, that would make sense,’ Evans said, picking up another piece of paper. He handed it over to Logan, who took it but didn’t look at it. ‘We can see a cancelled transfer for two million dollars to an account in England held by a Reginald Graham.’

‘Just one cancelled transfer?’ Logan queried, putting the paper on the table.

‘No, there’s another for the account which ended up with the whole lot. That was also for two million dollars. Straight after the cancellation, the transfer for eight million was made.’

‘That account has to be Selim’s then,’ Logan said. ‘So the eight million was transferred a couple of days ago? To Blakemore, I mean?’

‘Yes,’ confirmed Evans.

‘So something
did
happen in the farmhouse. They weren’t paid anything before that?’

‘We can’t identify anything unusual, no,’ Evans said.

It all seemed to fit with what Selim had said.

‘Well, that brings us back to the question of why they nabbed Modena,’ Logan stated, looking at Evans then Mackie. ‘They
hadn’t even been paid anything up front. A few days in and all of a sudden they’re eight million dollars richer. Selim said it was for a name. But what name, and why was it worth so much money to someone?’

‘Which is exactly why I’ve called you in,’ Mackie said, finally taking a seat.

‘What? You know the answer?’

‘No, not yet, but we think we know where the eight million came from.’

Mackie looked over at Evans, indicating for him to continue.

‘We traced the eight million back to an originator. There was quite a paper trail behind the transactions. There’s money coming in and out of accounts all over the world. For many of the transactions we don’t know who the bank accounts actually belong to – it’s all obscured by the use of trusts, shell companies, fake names and the like. But we’ve found that the origin of the eight million dollars is a client account of a lawyer in New York. Alan Rosenberg.’

‘A lawyer? Well, that’s unexpected,’ Logan said.

‘Not when you find out who’s on his client list is, it isn’t,’ Evans said, pushing more paper Logan’s way. ‘And it wasn’t eight million. It was ten. The account that paid the eight million to Blakemore is with a bank in Bermuda. We’ve traced ten million dollars being transferred
in
to that account. Like I said, though, it’s a whole catalogue of transactions, but the ten million definitely came from Rosenberg in the first place.’

‘So two million has gone to someone else?’

‘It would seem so.’

‘But we don’t know who owns that account? The one in Bermuda?’

‘No. We can see the money, but we’re working on who the account actually belongs to and we need to do some more work to unwind the other transactions.’

Mackie stepped in. ‘It’s the link to Rosenberg that we want you to check out.’

‘You said something about his client list?’ Logan said.

‘Yeah, this guy has a penchant for representing high-profile figures,’ Mackie said, ‘Usually pretty controversial figures as well. His biggest case was representing Tony Carlucci. That was
also his biggest failure, as the guy is currently serving five life sentences for everything from racketeering to aggravated homicide.’

‘Tony Carlucci?’ Logan broke in. ‘The mafia boss?’

‘Yeah. Old-school Mafioso. Alleged to have headed up one of the East Coast’s biggest crime families. How much of that stuff is actually real is anybody’s guess, but he was certainly a pretty powerful guy.’

Logan’s brain was racing. This was a lot of information to take in, but things were starting to click into place now.

‘Lucky,’ Logan recalled. ‘That’s what Modena said to me.
It was lucky
. That’s the guy’s nickname, isn’t it? You know what these gangsters are like. Louis
Mad Dog
or whatever. Tony Carlucci is known as Lucky Tony. I remember reading about it when he went to trial. Modena was telling me who it was, giving me the answer.’

‘Jesus. Modena
knew
who was behind his kidnapping?’ Mackie said. ‘How did he know?’

‘Because Selim and Blakemore were trying to get a name out of him,’ Logan said. ‘They got their money when they got the information Carlucci needed.’

‘So you don’t just think this Tony guy’s got a beef with Modena and that’s why they nabbed him?’ Mackie suggested. ‘You know, he could hold Modena responsible for his being in jail. He wasn’t the presiding judge, but who knows what kind of role Modena had to play in the investigation, the trial, even the sentencing.’

‘It could be that,’ Logan conceded. ‘But the timing of the transfers doesn’t work for me if that was the case. And wouldn’t they have just killed Modena if it were? It’s more than that. Modena had a name that was worth ten million dollars to Carlucci.’

‘Okay. You need to go and pay Rosenberg a visit.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Logan said, remembering something. ‘Does anyone else know about this lead? The Feds, I mean?’

‘Of course not,’ Mackie said, offended. ‘This information is ours. No-one else will know about this until they need to.’

Logan thought back to the house in Dunkirk – holding Modena in his arms, the look on Grainger’s face when he’d recounted what Modena had said. Had she known about Carlucci?

Logan got up to leave. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go.’

Mackie stood up. ‘Logan, where the hell are you going? Your plane leaves in two hours!’

‘I have to check something out. I’ll be on the plane. I promise.’

When he was outside he took out his phone and called Grainger’s number, but it didn’t even ring out, just went straight to voicemail. He tried again twice more but the same thing happened each time. Frustrated, he stuffed the phone back in his pocket. He thought about heading back to the hotel to find her, but he wasn’t sure he had time.

What did Grainger know about Carlucci?

Maybe she had been right about him not really knowing her. He didn’t know what was going on, but Grainger knew something and she had kept it from him.

But there was nothing much he could do about it now. He had a flight to catch.

Logan was driving the short distance from JFK airport to Manhattan in a rented Saturn, heading for Alan Rosenberg’s office. He’d taken a flight from Paris just after noon, landing in New York mid-afternoon. It’d taken him longer than expected to pass through immigration and it was now early evening. He’d toyed with the idea of paying a personal visit to Rosenberg, but in the end opted for the safer course of heading to his office in the first instance. It was the weekend, and Logan was banking on the office being close to empty. He wanted to go through the man’s belongings and his files, see whether there was anything in there to link Rosenberg and Carlucci to Blakemore.

Coming out of the Queens–Midtown Tunnel into Manhattan, Logan turned onto 41st Street, heading west He called Mackie as he drove. It had been a number of hours since they’d spoken in Paris, and given how quickly the investigation seemed to be moving, Logan wanted to make sure he was fully up to date.

‘Is there anything else I need to know?’ Logan asked.

‘Yeah, actually there is. We’ve got another angle to look at,’ Mackie said. ‘Have you come across the name Jimmy Kennedy?’

Logan racked his brain but he hadn’t. ‘No.’

‘Well, if we’re looking for a name here, that one might be it. Jimmy Kennedy used to be a henchman for Carlucci. He turned state’s witness and was one of the biggest assets the prosecution had in Carlucci’s conviction.’

‘And he’s now in witness protection,’ Logan said, putting the pieces together. He had wondered what name Modena could
know that would be so valuable and that of someone with a new identity was an obvious answer. ‘Carlucci was paying for Jimmy Kennedy’s new identity.’

‘That’s the conclusion we’re coming to. Although it all sounds pretty elaborate that they would snatch Modena, one of the most powerful men in the country, for something like that.’

‘I guess to Carlucci ten million dollars probably isn’t that much to off the man who put him inside.’

‘Yeah, you can pretty much believe it.’

‘Something that still doesn’t add up, though,’ Logan said, pulling the car to a stop at a red light before turning right onto 3rd Avenue. ‘What I still don’t like is the missing two million dollars. If Carlucci paid ten, but only eight found its way to Blakemore, then where did the rest go? It’s like there’s a middle-man bringing it altogether, linking Carlucci to Blakemore.’

‘I agree with where you’re going. We’re still looking into it. And hopefully the answer will become clear when you’ve been through Rosenberg’s files.’

‘And what about Kennedy? He’s either already dead or he soon will be. Do you know his new identity and where he lives?’

‘We’re working on it,’ Mackie said. ‘When I get anything you can use, you’ll be the first to know.’

Logan ended the call. Two minutes later he pulled up to the kerb on Park Avenue, just a few buildings down from the offices that housed Rosenberg Associates. Logan got out of the car and battled his way across the bustling pavement where throngs of tourists were travelling in force in each and every direction. On the road yellow taxis darted over lanes and pulled in and out of cross streets. Skyscrapers loomed all around, windows lit up high into the sky. Even with Logan’s mind focused on the task at hand, it was hard not to feel the buzz of the city.

The busy street was a stark contrast to the building itself, which from the outside Logan could tell was relatively empty given the general lack of lit windows. Whether that was because some of the offices were untenanted or because it was quiet with it being the weekend, he didn’t know. The building had eight storeys. Not a big structure, at least not by New York standards, but what it lacked in size it certainly made up for in extravagance. Logan walked in through the single set of revolving doors which opened out into an expanse of gold, marble and chandeliers.

There was a security desk at the far end of the lobby, next to two lifts. As he walked towards the desk he spotted a large notice board behind which were displayed the names of the building’s occupants. Rosenberg Associates was one of two firms that took up the eighth floor.

The only problem now was how to get up there and into the office. Not only would he have to contend with the security guard sitting at the desk in the lobby but he needed a way to access the doors on the eighth floor, which he had to assume were in some way secured.

Logan reached the desk and smiled at the security guard. He was an overweight man, middle-aged, with thinning grey hair and puffy red cheeks. He had a protruding belly that hung over and completely hid the top of his trousers. Logan wasn’t sure exactly what this guy would be good at keeping secure. He certainly wouldn’t be a fast mover.

‘I’m visiting Alan Rosenberg,’ Logan said.

The man stood up, eyeballing Logan suspiciously.

‘Are you? I don’t remember seeing him here today. Do you have an appointment?’

‘Actually I do. Henry Foster is my name. Maybe the appointment was with one of his other lawyers. It was set up by my assistant.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ the guard said in a manner which told Logan that he wasn’t buying the story. ‘Just wait there while I call up.’

The guard picked up the phone. Logan smiled at him, trying his best to appear unflustered by the situation. He really didn’t want to hurt the guard, but he knew that there might not be another option. At least his calling first would tell Logan whether anyone was there or not.

The guard put the phone down without having spoken at all.

‘There’s no-one answering,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve actually seen anyone from that office today. It’s probably best if you rearrange your appointment and come back during the week.’

‘Look. I’ve travelled a really long way to get here. England, actually. I really need to get up there.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. But I’m not going to let you do that.’ The guard puffed out his chest as he spoke. ‘Unless you want to leave a message of some sort I suggest you leave now.’

‘I tell you what: you let me go up and I’ll give you a hundred dollars. If you don’t let me go up then I’ll just go up anyway and you won’t get anything.’

‘Last chance, sir!’ the guard hollered, voice raised. He moved around from behind the desk so that he was directly in front of Logan. His hand reached to his holstered pistol, but he didn’t pick it up. It was definitely a signal of intent, though.

‘Don’t make this into a scene,’ the guard said.

Logan really hadn’t wanted to do this, but he wasn’t sure he was left with much choice. He stepped towards the guard, who, on sensing that the situation was about to go awry, began to draw his weapon. Logan reached out and grabbed the guard’s hand, which was wrapped around his still-holstered gun. With his other hand, Logan threw a straight forearm at the man’s throat. He let go of the guard’s hand and he stumbled backwards, hands up to his neck, gasping for air. Losing his footing, he fell to the ground, slumping against the desk.

Logan reached down and took the man’s walkie-talkie and gun.

‘I … I can’t breathe!’

Logan put the walkie-talkie in his pocket, took the gun in his left hand and pointed it towards the man. He left the safety on; he had no intention of shooting him.

‘You’ll be fine. Unless you want any more, that is.’ Logan reached out for the guard with his free hand, pulling him up to his feet. ‘Come on. Let’s get you over to the lift.’

The guard shuffled along, coughing and spluttering, unsteady on his feet. Logan had to take most of his considerable weight as he dragged him along. Taking the guard with him wasn’t ideal, but he couldn’t leave him downstairs in the lobby. Hopefully the guard wouldn’t try to be a hero as Logan really didn’t want to have to hurt him any further.

When they reached the lifts, Logan pressed the up button. He heard the tinkle of the left-hand lift, dragged the guard towards the opening doors and dumped him inside. He pressed the button for the eighth floor but nothing happened. He pressed it again, but still there was no movement.

‘Why won’t it go?’ Logan said.

‘You need a card.’

Logan bent down and took the man’s ID card from around his neck. He inserted it into the slot in the lift wall and pressed for floor eight again. The doors closed and they were on their way.

When they reached the eighth floor, Logan lifted guard man again and began to drag him out of the lift. But the guard surprised Logan with a show of strength, flailing his arms at Logan and trying to reach for the gun that he had lost. Tired of the man’s resistance, Logan took out his own gun – a Glock which had been handed to him outside the airport by a courier arranged by Mackie – and with one sweeping move he smacked the guard in the head with the metal butt. He went down in a heap. A line of red began to trickle down from the guard’s thinning hair onto his face. He was going to have a pretty sore head in the morning but Logan knew it wouldn’t be serious. Logan hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but some people just didn’t know when to give up.

He pulled the guard out of the lift and looked left and right to find the direction of Rosenberg’s office. The lift bank opened up into a short corridor. There were toilet facilities in the middle, a door leading to the stairwell and a single set of double doors at each end, one for each of the floor’s occupants.

A sign on the door off to his right told Logan that was where Rosenberg Associates was located. He began to pull the guard over to the door. When he reached it, he saw that there was another card slot and he used the security guard’s card again to unlock the doors before dragging him inside.

The lights in the office turned on automatically to reveal a room just as spectacular as the downstairs lobby. There was marble flooring, big leather sofas, oversized paintings on the walls and bizarre coffee tables that looked more like modern art sculptures than something you would rest a hot beverage on.

Logan dragged the guard over to the reception desk and handcuffed him to the railing that ran along its top. Disarmed, restrained and out of sight, he posed no threat.

The office, which was at the front of the building, adjacent to Park Avenue, wasn’t particularly big. There were just a handful of rooms off the main reception area. All but one of them were glass-fronted and contained small, open-plan spaces with modern but expensive-looking desks. The one exception was the
room at the far end, which was the only room that had frosted glass.
That must be Rosenberg’s
, Logan thought.

He went over to the door. It had a key card slot. He pushed in the guard’s card, but nothing happened. It was definitely Rosenberg’s office. He was a cautious old weasel. Not even building security had access.

But Logan didn’t have time to sit around thinking about how he was going to get in. He walked back to the reception area, picked up the receptionist’s chair and carried it to Rosenberg’s office. He swivelled his hips sideways and flung the chair into the glass door. There was a loud bang as the chair hit and rebounded off the door. It bounced a good couple of feet away from the door, which wobbled some, but didn’t smash or even crack.

Maybe all he needed was a bit more oomph.

Logan tried again, this time with a bit more venom. The door came crashing down in thousands of evenly sized pieces. He was in.

But the door had also been security-enabled. No sooner had the chair hit the ground than a deafening alarm began to wail.

Cursing under his breath, Logan hurried on into the room and began his search.

It was hard to know how much time he would have, but he had to be strict about this. The temptation would be to keep on giving himself extra seconds each time he got close to his limit.
Go on, just a few more seconds won’t do any harm
. But he couldn’t allow that. He would give himself three minutes only. Then he was out of there. No ifs and no buts.

The room he was now in had a large mahogany desk at its centre and a matching shelving unit that covered one entire end of the office, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, mostly filled with photo frames and fancy ornaments rather than files or books. What Logan wanted was at the opposite end of the room where there was a plain-looking gun-metal-grey filing cabinet.

He opened each of the drawers in turn, quickly filing through the contents and trying to figure what documents were in there and what kind of order they were in. There appeared to be various client files, arranged alphabetically. He went through the Cs, found one labelled
Carlucci
, a brown paper folder, and took it out. It was only about half an inch thick, so it couldn’t possibly
contain everything on Carlucci’s relationship with Rosenberg. But Logan didn’t need everything. He just needed
something
.

He checked his watch. Shit. Time was almost up. Only twenty-one seconds to go.

He opened up the file. It contained various correspondence: invoices, payment details, letters, emails. He would have to hope that this file was enough.

But as he headed back to the door, he had another thought. He looked at his watch. Three seconds to go.
Shit
, he thought –
just one last look
.

Pushing the screaming voice, the one telling him to just get the hell out of there, to the back of his head, he rushed back over to the filing cabinet. He flipped through the other drawers. No. There was nothing for Kennedy or Modena.

It had been worth a shot. Or at least he hoped it had. It had cost him an extra minute.

He glanced out of the floor-to-ceiling windows which overlooked Park Avenue and saw police cars already pulling up outside, their lights flashing.

It was time to go.

With the Carlucci file in his hand, he raced back out to the main doors. The guard was still by the desk, still out cold. Logan went right past him with barely a glance, swiped the card at the door and exited into the corridor.

He noticed that the alarm wasn’t sounding out here. It must have been localised to Rosenberg’s offices. Not that it helped the situation much, but at least it meant the whole building wasn’t on lockdown. At least not yet. In any case, the stairs would be a better option than the lifts now. They would at least give him a chance to plan his approach once he reached the lower floors.