“He will,” he promises, and in a few seconds we reach the top floor and walk directly into a library, with bookshelves lining the walls and several gray leather chairs with ottomans sitting at various locations. In the center of it all is a long wooden table with a half dozen MacBooks on top, and Nick is behind it, talking on his phone, his military-style buzz cut as extreme as the set of his jaw.
He looks up as we step into the room. “I need to call you back,” he tells his caller, ending the connection as he stands, allowing me a view of the Harley-Davidson bloodstained-skull graphic on his black T-shirt, the FBI conservative logo announcing his past nowhere to be found. “I have no excuse to offer you,” he says, pressing his hands on the table as Seth and I stop on the opposite side of it. “But Cody Rodriguez is leading your team now, and he’s not only damn good, this is his world. He was born and raised in Mexico, and he was undercover in a competing cartel at one point.” He slides a folder across the table. “That’s his file.”
I ignore the file and focus on him. “Do we know how this happened?”
“No,” he says. “And that’s as honest as it gets, but I will find out, and people will pay for it.”
“What about your man?” I ask. “Is he still missing?”
“Yes. Ted is still missing, and I’m here now to reassure you that I’m dealing with this, but I need to be somewhere else, helping my team find him.”
My mind goes back to my meeting with Martina and every one of the many conversations I’ve had tonight on strategy. “You won’t find him unless Martina wants you to find him,” I say, reaching into my pocket and removing my cell phone, and the business card Martina gave me. “I’ll handle this,” I add, glancing at the number on the card, playing the game Martina wants me to play but doing it my way.
“Handle it how?” Nick asks.
I punch Martina’s number into my cell and toss the card onto the table. “I’m going to the source of our problems.” The line rings twice.
Martina answers on ring three. “Shane Brandon,” he says, a smile in his voice, his identifying greeting no doubt meant to let me know that he already has my number, though I never gave it to him. “Miss me already?”
“Ted Moore gets returned alive and well or that deal we discussed is no deal at all.”
“I’m always happy to aid a friend. Who exactly is Ted Moore, and who do I need to kill to get him back?”
A threat. And not even a subtle one. “Alive, Adrian.”
“I don’t know Ted, but I own this city and I believe in the return of favors. You’re going to get my drug into a trial and I’m going to get your man back to you.”
Favors. Quid pro quo. I get Sub-Zero into the drug study. He returns Ted. And how I respond to that clear setup, right here and now, will set a precedent for our future interactions. In other words, I have to gamble on Ted’s life and just how much Martina wants this drug study, or risk many others.
“I’m going to look at the information your consortium sends me,” I say, establishing that I still control this relationship. “And I can promise you only one thing during this phone call. If Ted were to die, I would be too distraught and shaken by the death to even consider looking at the information for months. In fact, I might have to take time off for therapy.”
There is a beat of silence, then two, then five, before he laughs. “I’d love to be a fly on the wall in one of your therapy sessions. I’m putting word out on the street that this ‘Ted’ has my protection. I’ll be in touch.” The line goes dead, and I slip my phone back into my pocket.
“Tell me whatever you just did got me Ted back alive,” Nick says.
“If he’s not already dead, then it did.”
“When will we know?”
“He isn’t going to give us Ted back without a wait. That would make it seem like I said jump and he asked how high.”
Nick scrubs his lightly shadowed jaw and presses his fists to the table. “I need a gut instinct here. Is Ted alive?”
“Yes. I believe he is.”
He gives me a several-second hard look and then nods. “Then thank you, man. Because I really don’t want to tell his wife otherwise.”
Seth gives the table a quick knuckle knock. “What did Martina want tonight?”
My cell phone rings, and I remove it from my pocket to find Emily’s number, my jaw setting, and after a ten-second hesitation, I press decline. I can’t talk to her right now, not without risking my decisions being swayed by her moral compass, not Adrian’s, and Adrian’s is the one that could get us all killed. Again I slide my cell back into my pocket to find Seth and Nick staring at me.
“It wasn’t him” I say, and force us back to Martina. “Everything about this night, including Ted’s disappearance, is about Adrian Martina letting us all know he’s in charge. I suggest we sit down, I fill you in on my conversation with him, and then we come up with a way to ensure he’s not right about that.”
There are some grumbles and exchanges about shutting Martina down, but the conclusion is that Seth and Nick are sitting at the table, with me directly across from them, while I fill them in on my conversation with Adrian. When I’m done, Seth narrows his stare at me. “You don’t really think he’s trying to go legitimate, do you?”
“I believe there’s some part of him that believes that’s what he wants,” I reply.
“I’ve studied this man,” Seth says. “And I agree. He believes that’s what he wants, and ironically, he justifies one bad deed after another as a means to that end.”
“And he thinks with his Ivy League education and expensive suits, he’s better than the rest of his family,” Nick adds. “But he’s no better than them, or my man wouldn’t be MIA right now. He’s just a gangster in a suit.”
My e-mail beeps on my phone, and I remove it from my pocket and glance at the screen. “A gangster who just e-mailed me,” I say, tapping the screen to open the e-mail and read it out loud.
Shane:
I’m stepping ahead of my team and sending you the list of our consortium members. Now you have time to vet them and be appropriately impressed. We can help each other. Still looking into your problem. Nothing yet.
Adrian
“I have a good mind to go to that bastard’s restaurant and point a gun at his head until he gives me Ted,” Nick says.
“He’s giving us something to do while we wait on Ted,” Seth comments.
“That’s right,” I say. “It’s part of him controlling us. Everything is about him.” I grab one of the computers sitting on the table. “But be careful where you shine the spotlight,” I add. “Someone might see something you don’t want them to see. If this consortium really is all-powerful and untainted by the Martina clan, we have to make sure they know who he is.”
“It won’t matter,” Nick says. “He owns them, or he wouldn’t be in business with them.”
“He’s right,” Seth says. “Like we made sure we owned our stockholders, he’s made sure he owns them. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Let’s hope that’s true,” I say. “Because powerful people don’t like to be owned, and they will look for an escape.”
“And we’ll be the escape,” Seth adds. “I like it.” He pulls a computer to him. “Let’s give the man what he wants. Let’s look at the list of consortium members.”
“Are you going to reply to that e-mail?” Nick asks.