closed. And as usual on Sunday nights, Nick had been at the office to meet with his captains, receive his skim, give them instructions, mediate their disputes, and so forth. Most had grumbled about having to come out in the storm, but they didn’t have any idea what it was like to stand in his shoes. He believed in keeping tight control of all his projects. Anybody who didn’t was asking for chaos.
That, of course, was the problem with his participation in what had been done New Year’s Eve. So much of it had been out of his hands from the beginning. And then there was the business of the satchel charge, the one that hadn’t gone off. He had suspected even before the press leaks that something like that had happened. The earliest stories on the news had mentioned only three explosions following the initial blast, and at the time he had optimistically hoped they were wrong. But he’d had his lingering doubts, and day by day the hard evidence had mounted, eventually becoming conclusive. Three explosions. Not four. This according to every eyewitness, every inch of video footage, every photograph taken at the scene. When the story surfaced that an undetonated bomb had been discovered and given over to the FBI for testing, he’d known it was all true. And had gotten to thinking. Could that possibly have been what Gilea and her people wanted? And if so, why? He’d been aware that they meant to throw a wrench into certain political developments between the United States and Russia… but his biggest mistake had been to distance himself from the intricacies of their plan, and therefore remain half-blind to its intended outcome. Had he been caught up in a scheme that was more devious than he’d guessed? And if so, might it be that he was to be sacrificed as part of it?
It seemed like a lot of wild imagination… but before the first of the year, the same might have been said about a bombing on the scale of what had occurred in Times Square. Suppose he’d been set up to take the heat? He had to wonder about that, in spite of how Gilea had acted toward him the night of the attack, and what they had done together afterward, done right here in his office… or maybe because of it. She had been all over him that night. It had been as though she were on fire. As though the flames that had killed those hundreds of people had brought about an unquenchable heat of a different sort inside her body. He didn’t know how else to describe it. Gilea, Gilea. Here and then disappeared. What was he to make of her? A woman like that was capable of anything. Anything in the world.
And say he was getting carried away with his suspicions? Admittedly, he’d been on edge for the past couple of weeks. Say he
The wind thumped against his window, pelted it with sharp crystals of snow. The sound was loud enough to give Nick a start. Frowning, he cast off his thoughts with a visible shake of his head and returned to his desk.
He had done all that he could — for now, at any rate. He had his own men out, trying to discover what the Feds had learned — and throwing up smoke screens wherever they could. And if that wasn’t enough… well, he had his insurance, his films of Gilea fondling the plastique. He was sure he’d be able to cut a deal if he had to.
He picked up the phone again, called downstairs, told his men to get his car warmed up. He wanted to forget his concerns for a while, wanted to sink himself deep into Marissa, wanted to relax.
Otherwise he might go crazy thinking about what might lie ahead.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“There’s Nicky and his Zoo crew,” Barnhart said.
Nimec sat beside him in the front passenger seat of the station wagon, looking out the windshield in silence.
“Like clockwork,” Noriko said from the vehicle’s rear section.
Nimec gave her a small nod but remained silent. They were in a parking space a half block down from the Platinum Club. Their engine and headlights were off. There was no heat issuing from the vents. A film of snow had formed on the glass, making it difficult to see through, but for the past few minutes they had refrained from clearing it with even intermittent swishes of the wipers.
They were being careful to do nothing that might draw attention.
His face intent, Nimec watched Roma walk toward the curb in front of the Platinum Club, the folds of an outback coat whipping around his ankles, a pair of hulking bodyguards on either side of him. Two more men were waiting on the street. The guards hung there until Roma got into the first of two large sedans that had pulled in front of the entrance, and then went back to the second car and crammed themselves into it.
Nimec and his team watched and waited. Snowflakes blew around them in tight little clots that burst apart like milkweed pods as they struck the hood of the wagon.
“He always surround himself with that much manpower?” Nimec said, breaking his silence at last.
Barnhart shrugged.
“The muscle’s a little thicker than usual,” he said. “Could be Nicky’s feeling a little paranoid these days. He likes to be prepared.”
Nimec thought about that. Barnhart, a former member of the FBI’s Organized Crime Task Force, had assembled an extensive file on Roma that went back years. In the past week Nimec had read every word of it, and learned nearly everything there was to know about Roma and his criminal network… very significantly including information about his behind-the-scenes control of Mercury Distribution, an all-purpose clearinghouse for transport cargo, both legal and illegal, that he was moving into, out of, and around the country.
On November 28, Mercury had obtained delivery of a shipment of combined articles, marked generally as “theatrical effects,” the ultimate purchaser of which was Partners Inc., yet another of Roma’s multitude of shell companies, and the nominal owner of the Platinum Club.
The merchandise had arrived at the Red Hook shipyards aboard a freighter that belonged to the Zavtra Group.
Click-click-click.
“Rain, snow, sleet or hail, Nicky heads on over to his girlfriend’s crib every Monday night,” Barnhart said now, watching the automobiles carrying Roma and his crew swing away from the curb, make U-turns on Fifteenth Avenue, and then glide off in the opposite direction along the two-way street.
“Either he’s a creature of habit or she’s something else,” Noriko said.
“Probably a little of both,” Barnhart said. A smile touched his lips. “You jealous, Nori?”
“I’d rather mess around with an electric eel,” she said.
Nimec had been watching the taillights of the vehicles recede into the snow-clogged night. He waited for ten minutes after they were gone, listening to the snow rasp and rattle across the roof of the car. Then he glanced over at Barnhart, met Noriko’s eyes in the rearview, and nodded so both of his companions could see him.
The three of them pulled their Nomex hoods up over their heads.
“Here we go,” he said, and reached for the door handle.
TWENTY-NINE
Nimec waited in the mouth of the alley, standing lookout as Noriko and Barnhart moved through the shadows in back of the Platinum Club. Barnhart had a pair of cable cutters in one hand, a MagLite in the other. His Benelli pump gun was slung over his shoulder. They were leaving footprints in the snow, but there wasn’t much they could
