False Witness (John Steel series Book 3) (33 page)

“So what’s next for you, John?” Agent Lloyd asked him. “Are you coming back to do some real work?”

John Steel reached into his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper that Crazy Gus had given him. He unfolded it and read the note. “No, Cat, I have a promise to keep.”

Cassandra looked at John as he put away the note and pulled his coat tight around him as the night breeze began to pick up.

“It’s funny how you said friends help one another out,” John Steel remarked.

Lloyd gave Steel a curious look, not quite knowing what his point was going to be. “What do you mean? We were, we are friends.”

Steel smiled as he saw that she had missed the point.

“I thought you were family,” he told her. “After all, you were his wife’s kid sister.”

He walked away, leaving her shocked and open-mouthed.

The dark of the
night brought with it a biting wind from the west. The city was silent, or as quiet as it could be at midnight. Cabs drove slowly here and there, hoping to pick up lost tourists or anyone who had missed the last train.

The Bronx at night was not the safest place to be, especially if you were alone, but he paid it no mind. The figure dressed in black made his way through the dimly lit streets towards the address on the piece of paper.

John Steel stopped and took note of the street names. Earlier he had looked up the route on the computer and memorised details such as the location of 7-Eleven stores and street names as much as he could.

He was heading for a house that belonged to some player named
Bulldog.
Steel had checked up on this guy Bulldog to see what he could expect.

The man was twenty-six years old and had spent most of his life running around with gangs or serving time. His rap sheet read like a shopping list: drugs, prostitution, attempted murder. All in all he was a lowlife.

Steel was dressed in a three-quarter length leather military style black coat over a black polo neck shirt and black trousers and boots. Leather military style gloves with carbon knuckle protectors covered his hands.

He soon found the place. Men and women were hanging around at the front, playing loud music and drinking. Steel stayed in the shadows as he assessed the situation and thought through a plan. They would be armed—he would be surprised if they weren’t. Two large men guarded the front, each of them around six-three and built like brick walls, and as if they had spent too long in the prison gym. The alleyways probably had men stationed further inside, in order to discourage people from entering.

Normally Steel tried to find a way in that wouldn’t involve bloodshed.

Normally.

His only concern was the girl inside, he didn’t care about any of the scum who surrounded her.

Steel walked straight up to the front door. He watched as the men closed together to create a barricade to stop him, but he was ready for that.

The guard on the left reached out to grab Steel.

Mistake.

The Englishman grabbed the man’s fingers and bent them back before he had time to react, then gave a sidekick to the man’s knee which brought him down. The second man swung for Steel with a massive swipe of his huge fist, only for it to make contact with his colleague, as Steel grabbed the injured man and pulled him up by his belt.

The now-battered guard spat blood and swung at the other man for hitting him. Steel watched as the two men battered each other in the street, forgetting about the man who had caused it all.

So the ex-army man moved inside, hoping that the largest of the men were outside. He made his way down a long corridor that had four doorways leading off it. A man stepped out of one of them and got a flat palm to the throat, and so stumbled back inside before Steel closed it after him.

Red low-intensity light bulbs gave the whole place the feel of an evil lair. As if a demon ought to live there, not a lowlife nobody. Another door opened and a man stepped out doing up his belt. He saw Steel and began to cry out. John kicked high into the man’s ‘crown jewels’, and as the guy creased up, just as Steel brought his knee up into his chin. He stumbled back into the room, and John carried on down the corridor.

At the end were three doors: one to the left, one to the right and one straight ahead. Steel knew he didn’t have time to search all of them, what’s more one mistake could cost the girl her life. Behind him a door reopened, and the blooded man came out, spitting red plasma. Steel turned and slammed him against the wall.

“Where’s Bulldog and the girl?” he demanded.

The man—who was only in his late teens—shook his head, an expression of abject fear on his pale face. Steel grabbed the man’s jacket and, backing him against the wall, lifted him off the floor.

“Don’t make me ask again!” he warned him.

The terrified young man looked at Steel’s stony expression, and saw his own face reflected in the sunglasses.

“He’s in the middle room.”

Steel put the man down and pushed him forwards.

“Show me!” Steel ordered.

The man looked up at Steel with fear in his eyes. John figured that there could be two reasons for such an expression. Number One: he was lying and Steel would kill him. Number Two: he was telling the truth and his boss would kill him.

“No, please! You can’t make me!”

Steel looked down at the kid who was playing the part of a man, and wondered how many people had pleaded with him before he had done something brutal to them.

“Sure I can,” John told him. “Now open the door or I’ll feed you to the nice people in Harlem.”

The man looked down at his tattoos and knew he wouldn’t last two seconds there. He walked slowly towards the door, his hands shaking with fear, and sweat pouring from every pore in his body. His steps were slow and deliberate as he moved, all the while hoping that this was just a dream. His hand touched the doorknob and he opened up the door.

Inside a brightly lit room the man called Bulldog sat on a leather couch surrounded by four women, each of them dressed in bikinis. Bulldog was a large man with black hair and a football shirt that hung outside his baggy jeans. A sleeveless denim jacket covered his back and a red patterned bandana stretched over his head.

“What the fuck do you want?” he yelled as he looked up at the young man who’d entered, not noticing the blood streaming from his mouth and nose, just the fact that he was standing there in his room. It wasn’t until the girls screamed that he noticed the blood, and he made for the back door.

As the door opened he was greeted by a smash to the face with a flat punch, and then an elbow to the chin for good measure. The stunned man in the doorway suddenly looked round to see the empty corridor. The man in black was now right in front of him, beating the hell out of his boss.

The bleeding man turned to run, but was disturbed by a cough from the man in black.

“If you run and tell the others, I won’t chase you but I will find you,” John told him. “Now shut the door and sit down.” He obeyed without question.

“Which one of you is Naomi Sanchez?” Steel asked the girls as he bound the bleeding Bulldog with some rope he’d found. A sweet looking girl with dark hair and eyes that sparkled with innocence raised her hand shyly—she looked to be around nineteen years old. Steel stood up and walked over to her.

“I am here to take you home,” Steel told her as she nodded.

“You’re dead, you hear me? Dead!” yelled Bulldog as he struggled on the ground. Steel walked over to him and knelt down and removed his sunglasses. Bulldog froze in fear as he stared into those cold soulless emerald eyes.

“Been there, and I didn’t like it. If you make a move on this girl or her family—and I promise you this—you will
want
me to kill you.” Steel put his glasses back on and led the girl out, using the back door, leaving a shivering Bulldog lying in his own blood.

*

Garry Sanchez sat with his wife in the motel that Steel had put them up in. They sat with only the sound of the television breaking the silence. His wife was holding a photograph of their daughter, a pretty girl in a prom dress. Her tears had run dry hours ago, and the food that Garry had ordered sat undisturbed on the trays on the small table.

Sanchez stood up and looked out of the window. It was a dark night with no stars above, and no moon to brighten the city streets. He breathed out a deep sigh of disappointment. The stranger had promised him that he would find his little girl, and so far they had heard nothing.

Garry turned round to his wife, who was sitting there, feeling lost and alone. He wanted to comfort her and tell her it would be okay, but how could he? How could he make that promise to her?

There was a knock on the door. Garry looked in its direction, expecting the waiter to come in to collect their plates but nobody called out from the other side. Again, there were three knocks on the door, but no words were spoken.

“Who is it?” Garry shouted, suddenly feeling in fear of his wife’s life.

“Hello, who’s there?” Garry repeated, moving forwards towards the door. His wife grabbed him by the arm, trying to hold him back.

“It’s fine, it’s probably a waiter who can’t speak English or something,” Garry said, beckoning his wife to retake her seat while he sorted everything out. Garry stood up and headed for the door.

“Okay then, what’s the problem?” he asked as he pulled the door open.

Lara Sanchez watched as her husband just stood in the doorway, not moving. She got up, and fear ripped through her body as she walked towards him. Then as he moved to the side she saw the most amazing sight.

Her little girl had come home.

The next morning there
was a blood-red sunrise.It hadn’t taken long for the news of the Chief’s arrest to be all over the tabloids. He had wanted to have his face all over the media and he had got his wish.

The Chief sat in an interrogation cell. He had been there for some time, an hour maybe two.

He knew this trick well, and what its purpose was, for he had done it so many times before himself, but never in such an elaborate place. He sat back and waited a little longer. He was bathed in shadow, with just a silhouette to show that he was there, but the white of his teeth and eyes stood out like a Cheshire cat who was waiting to appear.

He looked up at the sound of a loud click as the door was unlocked, then heard the squeal of metal hinges as the heavy door was opened. Then Steel walked in.

The room was dimly lit to give it a more intimidating feel. Steel liked this room, not because it was way down below ground level and soundproofed, but because the lighting was adjusted perfectly to grate on your nerves.

Steel pulled out his chair and sat down without a word. He placed a large A4 notepad on the metal table. Doyle looked around, confused, thinking that if this was supposed to be an interrogation why wasn’t he asking any questions?

“I know exactly what you’re doing, Steel,” the criminal said. “Trying to make me talk. Well I got news for you, you arrogant prick.”

Steel just sat there in his all-black pinstriped suit, a high collared shirt around his neck.

Chief Doyle smiled and sat back in his chair. He knew he could do this all day. The ‘deadly silence’ trick was meant to provoke a response, even a small one. Interrogators had learnt that people had to talk. Nobody could just sit together with someone and not talk, even if it was only one word.

The Englishman just sat there as still as a Greek statue. Motionless and staring straight at the Chief—or so the other man imagined, since Steel’s damned sunglasses hid his eyes.

The Chief started tapping on the desk to break the silence. Steel smiled as could tell that he was close to breaking.

“I know you don’t have the brains or the balls to think up this operation,” Steel broke the silence at last. “Which means you work for someone. The kind of people who can change careers or cover up indiscretions.”

The other man sat there, eager to hear Steel’s theories.

“If it’s not me, who then?” Doyle said, happy that it hadn’t been him who had spoken first.

“Do you work for Santini?”

Chief Doyle laughed out loud at Steel’s sudden shot in the dark.

“Who? Sorry, I never heard of him,” Doyle replied rebelliously.

“The organisation called SANTINI. You work for them. They helped you get up the ladder, you couldn’t do it by yourself so you got your powerful friends to help you.”

Steel remained deadly calm, his voice firm and threateningwithout him having to raise it a decibel. The Chief remained silent, and just smiled and shook his head.

“I have heard that that organisation is the main runner, that all others answer to them,” Steel said, leaning back in his chair as if to humiliate the other man.

“So tell me. How long have you been working for SANTINI?” Steel’s words hit a nerve in the other man.

“I do not work for anyone or anything called SANTINI,” he replied. “They are weak, they have no vision. We work to expand our business, whereas they just wait and then die. We want to rule while they hide in the shadows and trade quietly. They are almost extinct while we expand.”

Steel had come across this organisation once before: on the Neptune cruise ship some months ago.

These people were thugs and bullies.

“So who do you work for?” he repeated.

The Chief just sat back and said nothing, but then he didn’t need too, Steel already knew.

Steel sat quietly, looking through the man’s old arrest records. “You were a good cop once. What happened? Did they offer you power and control?”

The crooked cop just smiled and sat back. He was older now, and he’d had lots of cosmetic surgery, mainly for the cameras, for nobody likes an old-looking chief of police. His whole life had been planned, starting from twelve years ago. They had seen potential and offered the apple of knowledge like the serpents they were. But all Steel saw now was a puppet that had its strings cut. Chief Doyle was the sacrificial lamb.