A Touch of Deceit (Nick Bracco Series #1) (23 page)

Nick hung up wondering how long his wife could put up with all the stress. He tried to remember the last quiet moment they had together without the threat of interruption. Nick sincerely felt he was the luckiest man on the planet to have found someone as compassionate and patient as Julie. He didn’t have time for these sentimental thoughts right now, yet there they were, hanging around the fringes of his mind like bees buzzing around honeysuckle.

Walt shouted, “Time,” signaling the groups to switch corners. The announcement snapped Nick back to his task—training gangsters to eliminate terrorists. The ultimate exterminators.

* * *

Julie packed an overnight bag while Agent Ford remained in the rain, pacing on the porch. She trusted no one, even if his credentials were valid, and Nick vouched for him, she wasn’t allowing any margin for error.

There was a knock on the door and the strained voice of Agent Ford came through the solid oak slab. “Mrs. Bracco. How much longer?”

“I’m just about packed,” she shouted from the bedroom.

Julie pulled a large suitcase on its casters across the tiled foyer to the front door. She set the alarm before quickly exiting the house. She locked the dead bolt behind her and hustled through the rain to Agent Ford’s sedan.

The FBI agent followed her to the car and opened up the back door for her. “Throw your stuff in here,” he said. “The trunk’s lock is jammed.”

Julie hesitated, sensitive to every deviation from the norm.

Agent Ford looked puzzled, his shoulders hunched over in the downpour. “What?” he asked.

“The trunk is jammed?” Julie asked, gripping the handle of her suitcase tighter than necessary.

Agent Ford opened his palms. “Mrs. Bracco, is there a reason you’re acting this way?” He showed her an embarrassed smile. “I could give you the phone number of my Kindergarten teacher, she’d vouch for me.”

Julie realized she was overdoing it. Too many years married to a cynical FBI agent. She managed a tight grin. “I’m sorry, Agent Ford. I’m a little tense, that’s all.”

She tossed her suitcase in the back seat and slid in beside it. Agent Ford shut the door and hurried into the driver’s seat. Pulling his hands over his scalp, he squeezed the moisture from his hair. Looking over his shoulder he said, “Ready?”

Julie nodded. She looked back at her home, getting smaller as the car drove away, and wondered what kind of world she occupied. Her own residence was no longer considered safe.

It was almost ten o’clock and Nick was working his last group of mobsters. They stood with their arms folded, taking in the information with nods and smiles. A hit man’s dream come true, Nick thought. The government was not only sanctioning their occupation, but they were actually getting targets to choose from.

The fax machine rang to life and Walt pulled out the first page. Everyone stopped to see his reaction. Walt scanned the sheet and looked up. “Ohio,” he said, leaving out the emotion. “They left a garbage can full of Semtex in front of an apartment building in Cleveland. No one noticed it. It killed twelve, including three kids.” Walt crumpled the paper into a tight ball and tossed it into the trash.

The room remained silent for a few dreary moments. Grown men looking at each other with sorrowful eyes. Suddenly, the unethical cloud that hung over the assortment of criminals and policemen seemed to lift. Opposite sides of the law began to merge like in-laws for a family crisis. Nick made eye contact with Don Silkari and the both of them shook their heads at each other in disbelief of what was happening to them. To their country. Their homes.

Finally, Sal Demenci broke the silence. He cemented the accord with a sentiment that connected every man in the room. “Kids,” he said, with a mouthful of disdain. “The bastards are killing our kids.”

Louis Dutton’s mobile chirped. He answered, spoke a couple of brief words and hung up. “We’ve got a lead,” he said. He looked at Sal with something approaching a grin and said, “Let’s go do something with it.”

Julie looked at her watch. It was ten-thirty and the rain was slapping the windshield so hard visibility was a chore. She’d made little conversation with Agent Ford. This seemed to suit the man since he made no attempt at small talk. Julie spent her time gazing out of her window as residential streets turned into tree-lined corridors. She’d lived in Maryland all of her life, but wasn’t familiar with the roads she’d seen tonight.

“Just out of curiosity,” she said, “where exactly are we going?”

Agent Ford kept his attention on the obscure dash in the middle of the road. “Someplace where you will be safe.”

“How far away is it?”

Agent Ford sighed. “Not much longer,” he said.

He was evasive, which was typical for an FBI agent, but he seemed to get edgier with every question she asked. The deeper into the wilderness they got, the less cordial he became.

There was a faint knock from under her seat. It sounded like a tire had flung a rock into the undercarriage of the car. She listened intently for a few minutes, but there was nothing more.

There were very few cars on the road and it disquieted her, although she wasn’t sure why. The car slowed as Agent Ford appeared to be searching for a marker of some sort, peering back and forth as if he’d become lost.

“Can I help you find something?” she asked.

Agent Ford ignored her, maintaining a hyperactive inspection of his surroundings.

Then, the knock again. This time it seemed to come from behind her.

“Did you hear that noise?” she asked.

Agent Ford sounded annoyed. “No, I don’t hear anything.”

Again a thump sounded, only louder this time. “That noise,” she said. “You can’t hear it?”

Agent Ford made eye contact with her through the rear view mirror. It was a look that forced her into a quick breath.

Another loud thump sent her nerves into overdrive. It wasn’t the thump that unnerved her as much as the reaction from the FBI Agent driving the car. He seemed annoyed, as if Julie was causing the noise.

“Certainly you heard that,” she insisted.

“Yes,” Agent Ford said with a perfunctory nod.

“What do you think it is?”

“I know what it is,” he said. But he stopped there. Why was he being so coy?

It dawned on her that she was locked in the back seat of an FBI vehicle. Which meant she was locked inside the car without any means of escape. The man was leering at her now through the mirror. This was not the way an agent treated another agent’s wife. Something was very wrong.

There was one way to find out if her worst fears were being realized. “Listen,” she said, “I . . . uh, what was your first name again?”

A hesitation, then, “Wesley.”

“Wesley,” she continued, casually, as if she hadn’t caught the misnomer, “is there something wrong with the car?”

He mumbled something about a wheel bearing, but she didn’t hear a word. Instead, she heard her husband’s voice telling her the Agent’s real name. William. Her world seemed to stop. She thought about Nick, about how they would never get to have a child together. How she’d never be a mother and watch her husband push their kids on the swing in the backyard, as promised. Nick was going to leave the Bureau and they would be safe, and everything was going to be all right. But not anymore and she knew it.

When her eyes met the stranger’s again in the rear view mirror, she thought she saw uncertainty. He wasn’t sure whether she had made him or not. She remembered something that Nick had told her years ago, when they were still dating. He was worried about her teaching in a public school in a rough section of the city. If she was ever in a situation where she was about to become a victim, strike the first blow. An attacker is never prepared for a woman to be aggressive. It sets them back. She thought it was peculiar advice from a law enforcer. She’d always read the best method of survival was to acquiesce.

But Nick was used to dealing with a different type of criminal, and she had a feeling it was exactly the sort of assailant she was dealing with now.

She stealthily removed her belt and re-looped it in front of her, low and out of sight. She slid her cell phone from her purse and glimpsed down at it just long enough to see where the redial button was, then quickly returned her attention to her driver. She knew Nick was the last person she had called and she was sufficiently frightened enough to call him back.

When her thumb pressed down on the redial button, the tiniest of beeps sounded. The man swiveled his head, saw the device in her hand, and snatched it from her with adroit swiftness. He rolled down the window, tossed it out, and shut the window.

“You’re not supposed to be using that thing. It could be traced.” The man said, searching her face for a reaction.

The banging became louder. Before she could think about what she was saying, she asked, “What in the world is that noise, really?”

He heaved a reluctant sigh. She thought she saw relief on his face. “It’s Agent Ford. He’s locked in the trunk.” The man shrugged, “I guess he’s no longer unconscious.”

Julie tensed. Her stomach began to cramp up. The thumping was constant and had developed a desperate cadence. The car was on the shoulder now, spitting up gravel. The man masquerading as Agent Ford, searched for an opening in the trees. With the rain pounding the hood, Julie couldn’t tell if there was a dirt road ahead, or just a path in the woods.

The man’s eye’s briefly smiled back at her through the narrow slit of the reflection. This time she could detect a slight accent. “You’re going to be our hostage, Mrs. Bracco. Stay calm and you won’t be hurt. Do something stupid, and I’ll cause you pain that you couldn’t imagine in your wildest nightmare.”

Julie knew she had to act now or become a casualty. His threat was meant to buy him time. He expected her to be paralyzed with fear and she knew the minute the car was away from the road, she was a casualty.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

The man paid no attention. She could see the opening he was searching for a mere fifty yards in front of them. A pair of headlights peaked over the horizon, blurring the view of the road ahead of them. Julie took a deep breath, slipped the belt over the man’s head and pulled it tight around his neck. One hand held it taut to his skin, the other pulled the excess strap with every ounce her hundred and twenty pound frame could muster. The car skidded sideways while the man dug his fingers at the restraint around his neck. They found themselves fishtailing in the middle of the road, the man frantically turning into the skid with his knees.

The approaching car swerved dramatically to miss them, the horn wailing as it passed the out-of-control vehicle. Julie didn’t relent. The car made a full circle and Julie hung onto the belt as the momentum flung her back and forth between the headrests.

The man desperately rummaged through his jacket. Looking down over his shoulder, she saw him pull a gun from his inside pocket. She could feel the car slowing.

The man tried to get a shot off without hitting himself. Julie felt the bullet whiz by her head and heard the blast of glass shatter behind her. A second bullet immediately followed. This time she felt it burn into her shoulder. She let go of her grip to see and feel the gravity of the wound. She touched the opening with her finger and felt the warm moisture escaping the site. Her blouse absorbed the oozing fluid like a tissue soaking up spilled tomato juice. She turned away, unable to deal with the reality of the hole in her body.

The man gasped a critical breath of air. He snatched the belt from his head and leaned back against the headrest, rubbing his neck.

The car had stopped in the middle of the road and Julie found herself crouched in the back seat, an easy target. When she looked up, she noticed the broken back window behind her. Jagged triangles of glass framed the opening like a menacing jack-o-lantern. She didn’t hesitate. She flung her body through the aperture, scraping her torso with razor-like tears as she shimmied her way out of the car.

She slid across the trunk, hit the slick asphalt with open palms and rolled onto her back with a thud. In her peripheral vision, she could sense the brightness of headlights approaching. She turned and crawled for a couple of yards until she could get to her feet. She ran toward the light. Her legs felt weighted down as she waved her arms. She was only upright for a couple of wobbly steps when she heard the shot and felt the bullet hit her in the back of her head. Then the lights disappeared, and so did Julie Bracco’s world.

Don Silkari, Jimmy “Fingers” Ferraro, Tony “the Butcher” Florio, and Sal Demenci, sat on a bench in the back of the FBI’s high tech van in amazement. Across from the awe-struck Italians was a wall of flat screen video monitors, radar screens, dials, and blinking lights. So many that even Nick Bracco had to strain his memory to recall the purpose of all of them.

Three FBI Agents sat on bolted stools in front of the screens wearing headphones and playing with knobs and switches. Nick and Matt sat in the front portion of the van familiarizing themselves with a detailed map of the surrounding streets. Nick looked up from the diagram and watched as Don Silkari stretched his neck to see the young FBI technicians at work. They were the new breed of agent. In the old days they would have been analysts, looked down upon as nerds who didn’t have the nerve to make it in the field. Nowadays, they were revered as sophisticated agents. The ones who used technology in the field to outmaneuver the enemy, making it safer for field agents to go places where they had previously avoided. In the past, the FBI went in heavy with SWAT teams and snipers. Now they surprised their opponents with small groups of prepared agents who were already informed about the obstacles they would face. Preserving evidence, and saving lives.