Legally Dead (31 page)

“I don't like it,” Venturi said.

Danny smeared camo paint on his face and the backs of his hands, then passed it to Venturi.

“Didn't think I'd be using this stuff again.”

“It's the new one. Repels insects, too.” Danny picked up a pair of night-vision binoculars. “I'll see how many are out there.”

Venturi was still donning his gear.

From a room above them Danny looked down on the jungle paths between the lodge and the observation deck.

“I'm seeing six armed between here and the deck,” he said softly into his radio. “Two moving around on either side of the main path halfway up, at that huge ficus. One stationary at the front foot of the tower, two others at three and eleven o'clock along the path, another at five o'clock about a hundred yards up. I'll take him first.”

“Roger that,” Venturi said. “What about the tower?”

“I only make out two up on the deck, one overweight, the other about our size.”

Danny ran down the stairs taking two at a time. “I always knew we'd be shooting at Russians someday,” he said as they met in the hall. Locked and loaded, they slipped out into the night.

“Like old times, bro,” Danny whispered. He drew his knife from the scabbard. “You and me against the world.”

“Watch yourself,” Venturi said. He adjusted his night-vision goggles, looked up, and realized he was talking to the dark. Danny had already disappeared into the steamy night like a ghost.

Venturi moved stealthily up the hill, listening for sounds and movement in the jungle, most alert for what he didn't hear, insects and native wildlife reacting to intruders with sudden silence.

Danny's quiet voice spoke in his earpiece. “One down.”

Danny was the best. He hadn't heard a thing.

He didn't see the man who should have been on his side of the path halfway up the hillside. He stopped to listen, then heard whispers in the dark and smelled cigarette smoke. The two were together on the far side.

Before he could take action, he heard the
thup thup
of gunfire from a silencer-equipped weapon.

He heard Danny's whisper in his earpiece.

“Three down.”

Three to go. Venturi accelerated his pace toward the deck.

A brief, low cry in the night stopped him in his tracks, unsure if it came from man, bird, or beast.

Someone else heard it, too.

He heard a murmured exclamation. He didn't know much Russian but believed it to be “What was that?”

As if in answer, the whisper in his earpiece said, “Four down.” That had to be the man at eleven o'clock. The exclamation had to have come from the one at three o'clock. He moved toward the sound and saw him holding an assault rifle, staying low.

He fired once, and the man fell. He moved up, crouched beside him, took his gun, and checked his pulse. Weak, erratic, going, going, gone. He couldn't be sure, couldn't risk a light, but the dead man appeared to fit the description of Ivan Kazakov, the burglar who had triggered all of this.

“Five down,” he whispered into his radio.

“Roger that. About time. Can't see six. Go see the Russian.”

Venturi circled through the undergrowth to the rear of the tower and threw his rope up to one of the metal supports. The hook caught, with a metallic
click
that resounded like an echo. He froze for a moment, then heard muffled words less than fifty yards away, a one-sided conversation as though on a cell phone.

From sixty feet above, someone on the observation deck must have called the lookout down below.

He began to rappel, hand over hand, up to the deck, hoping that Danny had his back if he was spotted from below.

He pulled himself up onto the wooden platform and lay still, listening for a moment, then began to inch forward, toward the small, slightly elevated screened-in room at the center.

When he and Danny had checked it out earlier that day there was only a rough, round wooden table and a few chairs inside.

Now a Coleman lantern, its light turned down low, and a pistol—it looked like a Russian-made GSh-18—were on the table, along with a bottle of whiskey and paper cups. An AK-47 rested against one of the chairs. Two men inside spoke in low voices as they peered down into the darkness through binoculars. Both wore suits, strangely out of place in the wilderness setting. The Russian—a bald, shorter, mustachioed man—was overweight and looked rumpled. The taller man's attire was expensive and well tailored. His voice sounded sickeningly, gut-wrenchingly familiar, but in that moment more than two thousand miles out of context, Venturi couldn't instantly place it. Then he did.

He kicked the door open easily and burst into the room, gun in hand.

Both men looked astonished, as though he'd dropped from the sky.

“Surprised?” he asked. “I thought you expected me.”

The paunchy Russian dropped his binoculars and lunged for the pistol. Venturi upended the table. The lantern hit the floor and went out. The whiskey bottle and the weapon spun across the wooden planks just out of the Russian's reach. Venturi snatched up the rifle.

The other man never moved.

He and Venturi stared, their eyes locked for a long moment.

“Why?” Venturi finally asked, outwardly calm, reeling inside. It all made sense now. How could he be so wrong about someone he trusted?

He remembered Keri saying: “If it involves sex or money, trust no one.”

“Don't move,” he said.

“As you can see, Michael, I haven't. I know you too well.”

At gunpoint, Venturi ordered the two men to right the table, pick up the lantern, and sit down.

The Russian sat quietly, still breathing hard from his recent exertion.

“We're here to talk,” Venturi said, his heart weary. “Tell me, Jim. You owe me that much.”

“I owe you a helluva lot more,” said his former FBI colleague, friend, and financial adviser. Jim Dance smiled ironically, lowered his head, and massaged both temples. “I wish you hadn't spilled that good whiskey. I could use a drink right now.”

“Talk to me, Jim.”

“Obviously, you're now aware that my career path, from the bureau into business, failed miserably.

“My wife is young and likes to live large. She wants…wants, wants bigger, better everything. Her lust for life, her enthusiasm, her acquisitiveness was contagious. She knew how to make me feel successful, as though I could work miracles. So I quit government work to do so, for her. Unfortunately, I was a better FBI agent than a financial adviser.”

“But you were successful,” Venturi said. “The big office, the assistant, the new house in Connecticut.”

“All for show. If you want to be a millionaire, live like one, look like one, act as though you are one, and it will happen. That's the theory. That's what the book said. Unfortunately, I gave bad advice and made worse investments.

“When I had nowhere else to turn, I laundered money for the Russian mob—our friend, Vasily, here. When things got worse I was forced to use a great deal of their money. Soon they wanted their cash or my head.”

Vasily nodded in agreement.

“Tiffany liked going to Vegas. I tried to win the money back. Remember what a good poker player I was?

“A losing streak coincided with my attempts to recoup. The cards can sense desperation. I couldn't do anything right and lost more. Now I owed money to the casinos, the Russian mob, my creditors, and the IRS. Only one way to stay afloat. I dipped into your portfolio, over and over. Based on your prior disinterest, it seemed safe.”

“So, all those positive financial statements…”

“Bogus. Faked.” He sighed. “Right about that time Tiffany decided she wanted a baby and we got pregnant. She also wanted a lake house for weekends. I was out of my league, under pressure, with an expensive lifestyle to maintain. Remember, I still pay alimony and child support to my first wife. My oldest is starting college.

“Your money saved me, Michael. I thought I could replace it eventually. My luck had to change. But it got worse. Suddenly, out of left field, you began to draw on the money. Again and again. Spending like a drunken sailor. A house, a boat, God knows what else. I couldn't let you keep it up. I needed that cushion. Only one way to stop you—destroy your reputation, send you to jail, frame you for the murdered witnesses.”

“Now I remember,” Venturi said. “We did work on two of those relocations together before you left the bureau. But what about the third witness, Cuccinelli?”

“Not difficult to find. My ex-brother-in-law, still with the bureau, worked with you on it. He has the proverbial loose lips after a few drinks.”

“You killed them?”

“Of course not, Michael. I'm not that off track, wouldn't have the stomach. That's where Vasily and his organization stepped in.”

Vasily nodded modestly, as though proud of his role.

“They agreed to assist if it meant complete restitution with interest of their laundered money and future use of my services in their various enterprises. When I heard from a friend in the Marshals office that you'd apparently weathered the storm, Vasily sent one of his people to take your computer. We had to learn precisely what you were doing, where the money was going, in order to stop the bleeding.” He frowned. “I'm still puzzled. My best guess is that you were relocating individuals at your own expense for reasons that totally escape me. I was sure you'd stop if they were killed. It worked, temporarily.

“I didn't expect you to react so aggressively, or swiftly. Frankly, Michael, I liked you better when you were drinking—numb, grieving, and somewhat ineffective. We were friends,” he conceded, “but things change.” He shrugged, his pale eyes suddenly wet. “Love happens. My God, Michael,” he said passionately. “You know what love is! You had it and lost it. I didn't want to lose my wife. You of all people should understand that.”

Venturi noted Dance's use of the past tense. “How is she?”

“The financial pressures severely strained our relationship.” His sigh was ragged. “She changed the locks and hired a lawyer. She's seeing someone. But I'm hoping everything will settle down after this, and I'll be able to go home.”

It was all about the blood money, Venturi thought, the settlement he'd refused to touch for so long. Sex and money.

“How can you believe that now,” he asked Dance, “with blood on your hands? You think Tiffany will visit you in prison?”

Vasily smugly raised an eyebrow.

“No,” Dance said. “Because I won't be there. Sorry, Michael.”

Vasily smiled, eyes moving to the face of his watch.

The truth hit Venturi with sudden clarity.
Jim Dance isn't quietly confessing because it's good for the soul. He's buying time.

Reinforcements. They were killing time until the reinforcements arrived.

He tried without success to raise Danny on the radio and saw the knowing glance the two men exchanged.

“Concerned about your driver?” Vasily inquired, his pudgy hands folded on the table in front of him.

“He's not my driver. He's a U.S. Marine who is neutralizing your people as we speak.”

“I'm sorry, Michael,” Dance repeated, his expression maudlin.

Several bursts of automatic-weapons fire erupted below. Venturi could tell they came from a number of weapons fired from different distances.

Dance and Vasily perked up and exchanged smiles.

“Surrender, Michael,” Dance said. “You have no way out.”

“Call them off,” Venturi told the Russian. “Pick up that phone and call them off right now or I'll kill you.”

Vasily's mouth opened and closed like that of a fish yanked from the sea. He stared at the phone and considered his options.

Several sniper shots cracked down below.

“He won't do it,” Dance told the Russian confidently. “He can't. I know him.”

Venturi slammed Vasily on the side of the head. Hard, with the gun. “Call them. Now! Now! Now!” He struck another blow with each word. Blood trickled down the Russian's pale forehead as he tried to shield himself. The final blow knocked him off his chair. Venturi towered over him, menacing in his face paint and camouflage gear, jerked him to his feet, and sat him back down.

“Now!”

Rapid gunfire rattled the jungle below.

Vasily clutched the phone, hands shaking.

“Tell them to cease fire!”

He did. They heard shouts below. Within seconds, the gunfire stopped. The jungle was quiet.

Dance began to look uncomfortable.

“And you,” Venturi told him. “Use your phone, call your partner in New York. Call him at home. I don't care what time it is. Instruct him to wire the entire balance left in my account to my Miami bank at once.”

He raised the gun as if to bludgeon him, as well.

Dance quickly snapped the phone open. “I'm disappointed in you, Michael. You were more likable when you considered it blood money and refused to touch it.”

He licked his dry lips and punched in the number. Venturi took the phone to verify to whom he was speaking. “I have Mr. Dance on the line,” he said. “Hold please.”

Venturi handed Dance the phone with one hand while the other nestled the barrel of his .45 automatic against his forehead, his finger on the trigger.

Dance followed orders. “That's right,” he concluded. “To the same account as the prior dispersals. ASAP. I'll explain when I get back.”

As Venturi dismantled both phones, Dance lunged for the gun.

As they struggled for the weapon, Vasily hit Venturi with a sloppy tackle that threw him off balance. He and Dance fell over a chair as they fought. The Coleman lantern toppled off the table and went out again.

“Get the other gun,” Dance shouted to Vasily. “Get that gun! Shoot him! Shoot him!”

His bald head reflecting faint light from the moon and stars overhead, the Russian began an unsteady creep like a giant baby, huffing and puffing, reaching out, groping blindly in the shadows for the gun on the floor.