Wild Card Read online

  "Who has the key to the cuffs?" Belasko asked as he checked her for injury.

  "Him." She pointed to the dead man.

  Still holding the big pistol, he checked the body and found the key. He released her from the cuffs and urged her toward a parked Jeep Cherokee.

  "Hold it right there, mister," a warning voice called, "and put the gun on the floor."

  Silverman looked around to see a gray-haired security guard pointing a four-inch .38 at them.

  "It's okay, guy," Belasko said as he extended his hands upward and smiled easily.

  Silverman watched him display a badge in his left palm, feeling better that the man had been with some agency after all, that it might help in explaining the Judson situation. Then she recognized the badge as her own. She struggled to keep her mouth shut, realizing that if she called Belasko's bluff, they'd be stuck for at last an hour trying to get it all sorted out. By then it would be too late to help Ryan.

  "I'm an American drug enforcement agent operating through the RCMP," Belasko said, "and I'm pursuing the other part of the team these two men are with. I need you to call the Toronto PD and get somebody down here to seal off this area. I don't have much time. Tell them we may need a bomb squad, too."

  "Bomb squad?"

  "Maybe," Belasko said as he lowered his hands and tucked the badge and gun away. "We should know more in just a few minutes. Now, get a move on it."

  The security guard leathered his gun, saying, "Yes, sir," then reached for the walkie-talkie on his hip.

  Belasko helped her into the Jeep. "Are you okay?"

  She nodded, still amazed at how quickly he had taken control of the situation. Just as he had back at the Miami marina. Yet he fit the mold as a man of action, someone others would turn to for leadership instinctively. "A few bruises, but nothing that's going to keep me from going with you after Corsini."

  Belasko flashed a quick smile, and she thought it odd that at such a strange time and under such strange circumstances she should find that she liked the smile.

  He got in on the other side and drove toward the entrance.

  "That's my badge you have."

  He handed it back to her without a word.

  She felt it cold and hard and heavy in her hand, made even heavier by the promises she'd made when the DEA had first given it to her and by the compromises she'd made since then.

  Belasko pulled out on the street. "Do you know where Corsini is going?"

  She nodded. "A record shop called the Plumrose Passion."

  "Is Thornton going to be there?"

  "Yes."

  "What's the address?"

  She gave it to him, bracing herself as he drove.

  "I know Judson's on Corsini's payroll," Belasko said as he shifted on the fly into four-wheel-drive and powered the Jeep onto a sidewalk to get around vehicles waiting for a traffic light, "but I need to know the rest of it, too."

  A sick, cold knot formed in Silverman's stomach, fighting against the adrenaline letdown from the events in the parking garage. God, where to begin? She wished she didn't have to tell him, but knew she had no choice. For Ryan's sake. Belasko, unknown but not unproven quality that he was, seemed to be her only ally.

  She took a deep breath and launched into the story.

  * * *

  Vincent Corsini leaned forward and said, "Do a drive-by, Tommy, and let's see if we can spot any friends Thornton might have brought along for this little shindig."

  The driver nodded as he made the gentle turn onto Yonge Street off College.

  Corsini looked out the windows, scrutinizing both sides of the street, taking in the neon lights advertising books and records and XXX-rated features. He didn't like doing business in that location, even though the Plumrose Passion was a successful enterprise. It made him feel dirty. But maybe that was just a result of the upbringing his father had given him. You are better than other people, his old man would tell him, clapping him on the back in a manly way while scraping nickels and dimes together from other places just like this area. Father and son, working the same areas for the same kind of illegal business, except for the drugs Corsini had introduced to the street people or taken over from those who were involved in private enterprise. And the other difference was the fact that Corsini planned to let his career begin here, in these dirty streets, then use it as a stepping-stone to propel himself to heights his father had never dreamed of.

  "You're wasting time," Judson said. "Thornton's gone rogue. He's operating independently."

  "I hear you, Frank, but for all you know, you may be getting suckered, too."

  Judson appeared to be uncomfortable with the idea. He turned away and looked out the window.

  "If I remember correctly, you told me this operation would be a piece of cake a month ago. In fact, it was your idea to use Thornton on the drug buy in Miami. Great coverage, you assured me. Transportation guaranteed by the DEA because everyone thought Thornton was getting close to a big bust against the growing Corsini empire. You even painted me as a big fish to some of your supervisors so they'd let you have a free hand in Florida. Now I have to go out on the streets looking for a property that should have been in my hands by now."

  "What happened back in Florida to all those bikers?" Judson demanded. "I may have sold Thornton to the DEA as the guy who pulled the trigger, but I don't buy that myself."

  "That was insurance," Corsini said, unruffled.

  "Bullshit," Judson said. "You went off half-cocked and got the shaft for your trouble. If you hadn't pulled that play, maybe Thornton would have already dropped into our laps by now."

  "And maybe he would have been even farther away than he is now, Frank."

  Judson had nothing to say to that.

  "I didn't have as much trust in your boy as you obviously do. You say he's rogue — I say the fact of the matter remains to be seen."

  "He didn't tell Silverman anything about this," Judson replied, "and she seemed surprised as hell to learn that I was working with you."

  "Maybe I should be wondering if you are," Corsini said with a thin smile.

  "Bullshit, Vincent. I got too much invested in you to help sink you now."

  "And I have too much on you," Corsini agreed. He pulled out the Sig-Sauer P-226 leathered under his arm and made sure the chamber was filled, then rested it on his thigh. He noticed Judson's eyes widen at the appearance of the pistol. "Partners in crime, Frank, that's what we are."

  Corsini turned his attention to the driver. "What did you see, Tommy?"

  "Looked good to me, Vincent. Maybe a handful of customers inside the place."

  "What about the perimeters?"

  "I'd know an unmarked car if I saw it," Tommy assured him. "There weren't any there."

  Corsini lifted the car phone and dialed. "Okay, Carmine, talk to me."

  "Alleys are clean, Vincent. We've cruised them twice and only turned up street trash."

  "Good man, Carmine. Now get ready to sweep that trash. We'll be going inside in fifteen minutes." He hung up. "Tommy?"

  "Yo."

  "Let's make the meet and see if the Swiss guys showed up with the artillery." Corsini sat back, watching the street filled with neon signs flash by, feeling his pulse rate increase with the coming confrontation, knowing there was no way he was going to allow Thornton to walk away from this. And maybe not Frank Judson, either.

  * * *

  "Ryan Thornton was the deep selected to penetrate Death's Enforcers," Silverman said. "He had a lot going for him — he was good with motorcycles, knew the counterculture, had worked drugs before, knew the kind of business he'd be dealing with. What he didn't plan on was having to stay deep for eight months."

  Bolan listened as he drove, hearing the pain that underscored the words. He couldn't help but wonder, with the intensity of emotion that was involved, if he would get the whole story.

  "Originally Thornton was on semiloan to the RCMP from the DEA to bust the bikers for deals being conducted between Toronto and New
York. Drugs, white slavery, insurance fraud, the usual gamut you can expect from the biker gangs. Then everything assumed a larger scope when Vincent Corsini started using the Enforcers for little things that quickly grew into larger things."

  "Like a ten-million-dollar shipment of cocaine from Miami."

  She glanced up at him, skin looking milk pale in the silvery moonlight, the pent-up frustration and inner turmoil inscribing taut lines around her mouth. "Yes."

  "I saw Judson with Corsini," Bolan said as he negotiated a turn on Adelaide Street East. "Where does he figure in this?"

  "The agency put him in charge of what suddenly became the Vincent Corsini operation."

  "There were no rumors about Judson's link with Corsini?"

  "As far as I know, there never was a link until this case."

  "Is Thornton in on this?"

  She looked away from him and he knew he'd hit a nerve.

  "Piper," he said gently, "the time for bullshit and hesitation is gone. If you haven't noticed, it's only you and me now. There won't be any backup for us. I need to know what's going on." He watched tears fill her eyes.

  "I don't know anymore, Belasko. Really, I don't. This whole thing is my fault."

  "Tell me about Thornton."

  "Ryan's a good cop. A good man. They shouldn't have kept him deep for so long. I started noticing him slipping away a couple months ago, but I didn't say anything."

  "What do you mean you noticed him slipping away?"

  "He was in too deep for too long. He was beginning to identify with the bikers, was beginning to think of himself as belonging more to them than to the DEA. He didn't want to keep gathering evidence against them. Just Corsini. He became especially close to a member named Skeeter Davis. Do you know what I mean?"

  "Yeah. A type of codependency. I've seen it on the battlefield and in relationships that have developed between terrorists and their hostages."

  She banged her fist on the console. "What you don't understand is that I was supposed to be his safety, his anchor to the reality that was his real life. Not the one he was playing. I fucked everything up."

  "How?"

  She bit her lip as he watched and knew she was forcing herself to go on. "Ryan was having trouble with his marriage. When you're deep, it isn't easy to get home on a regular basis. And he was uneasy about the relationships he'd had to develop with the bikers' women. Casual sex in the line of duty is one thing for a single man, but not for someone who's married. And to play the part, he had to live the part. Things began to come apart at home. Alice, Ryan's wife, wanted him home. He couldn't turn away from the assignment, because he believed in what he was doing. He turned to me for help. Instead, I gave in to emotional feelings of my own. I was weak when I should have been strong." Her voice broke and seemed to freeze.

  "You had an affair?" Bolan asked, trying to sound soothing.

  She nodded.

  "It happens, Piper. You and Thornton were sharing a world that had no one else in it. It's hard to escape that kind of reality when no one else even admits it exists."

  "What do you know about it?"

  "I've seen it happen. I've been there. Over half my life has been spent on one battlefield or another, Piper. You learn to take life when and where you can, between heartbeats, because that's the only refuge you have when you can't lay the battle down." Old memories twisted through Bolan's mind, beginning with the girls and women he'd known in Vietnam, shifting to Val Querente, Toby Ranger, moving on to others he'd known and loved in the hours allotted to them during his wars. Luckily his war had kept him moving, leaving him no time for regrets. He was glad none of those relationships had been as messy psychologically as Silverman's and Thornton's. But then, in his life, he never had time to consider the future, any future, the way Silverman and Thornton had. Nor time enough to judge his past.

  "We tried to stop ourselves," she said. "Honestly, we did. But it seemed like the more we tried not to, the sweeter what we shared became. And Ryan's movement up in the Enforcers and the ties to Corsini started taking up more time, making it harder for us to be together." She swallowed with effort. "A month ago Ryan and Alice had a fight, and she said she was going to leave him. He didn't know what to do. The night he left to return to Toronto, Alice's car was hit by a tractor-trailer in upstate New York. She and Thad were killed instantly."

  "Thad?"

  "His son. He was nine years old."

  Bolan experienced a wave of empathy for the undercover agent and quickly made himself shelve it — an emotion like that had no business going with him into the hellzone he was headed for.

  "Judson gave orders that Ryan wasn't to be pulled out of the field till everything seemed safe. The higher-ups agreed because doing so might have caused Ryan's death. He never got to attend the funerals, and I had to tell him. I tried to get Judson to, but he refused, saying I was the contact officer and it was my duty. So Ryan had to hear it from me, the woman he'd been committing adultery with." She paused. "Needless to say, after that it was hard to speak with each other. But I felt him slipping, and I couldn't do a damn thing about it except go over Judson's head."

  "But you didn't."

  "No. 1 knew it might result in getting us both fired or demoted. I don't think Ryan could have handled that on top of everything else. See, his work means a lot to him. He lives and breathes and believes in what he does. He's a damn good man, Belasko, despite everything else that has happened to him."

  Bolan didn't try to dissuade the challenging light in the woman's eyes. "So where to do you think Thornton stands now?"

  "I think he's lost himself."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I think he's submerged his real identity under the deep cover. I think he believes he really is Ryan Thornton, road captain of Death's Enforcers, Toronto chapter. I think he's using the deep to hide from everything that has happened to him."

  "What leads you to that conclusion?"

  "The things I've seen. The things I heard Judson say earlier. Corsini was going to use me as a bartering chip to get the cocaine from Ryan."

  "Thornton has the cocaine?"

  "Yes."

  Bolan kicked it around in his mind as he made the left onto Yonge Street, checking street numbers. It was a ten-million-dollar jackpot on the table with Corsini, the DEA and him sitting in.

  And Ryan Thornton was the wild card in the deck.

  "He's got to be running, Belasko. He's scared, hurt, confused, and he's running for his life."

  "Why hasn't he turned to the DEA for help?"

  "That's what convinced me he's submerged himself in the deep. With everything else that's happened to him, he would have checked in with somebody. He's convinced himself he has nowhere to turn."

  "What happened back in the Everglades?"

  "From the way the locals pieced it together, it was a double-cross. Two bikers operated the Uzis that killed the rest of the members, only to be killed by a .45. Ryan carries a .45. One of those bikers believed to be in on the double-cross was Skeeter Davis."

  "Leaving Thornton no one to trust."

  "Yes."

  "Is Thornton salvageable?" Bolan watched her try to squirm away from the question.

  "I want to say yes, Belasko, because I want to believe it. I screwed Ryan's life up. I don't want to be the reason he loses it. But I don't know how far under he is. He's living and running on animal instinct now, hurting and not knowing why. With the proper help and time, I think he can be."

  Bolan nodded. "I'll buy that." He pulled off Yonge Street and found an alley that led to the rear of the Plumrose Passion a few blocks away. He cut the lights and coasted, watching the rooftops, marking the distance mentally. He stopped the Cherokee about a block and a half away from the record shop.

  "I might be wrong," Silverman said. "I have to tell you that because I don't want to lie to you or to myself. Not anymore. I don't want that on my head, too."

  Bolan looked at her, looked at the swelling on her temple that partiall
y closed her eye. "You've got a lot of recovery to go through yourself, Piper, and you don't have time for a damn bit of it before this thing goes down. Until the situation is contained, you're going to be a cop. A damn good cop, or you're not going to be any good to anyone and may help get all of us killed. Do you read me?"

  She leaned her head back against the seat and nodded.

  "Afterward you'll have to pick up the pieces as best as you can. Thornton will need help there, too. Provided we get him back. You've both got a lot to get over, and you can help each other as long as you're willing. You put yourself down now, fault yourself for doing one thing you consider wrong, and you may blow whatever chance we have to patch things up."

  "I need a gun," she said. "Judson took mine."

  Bolan handed her the Beretta. "Have you seen one of these?"

  She inspected it professionally. "Beretta. 93-R. I'm familiar with it."

  He showed her the settings. "Single shot. Three-round burst. Use whatever the situation calls for, but remember we've got civilian activity in this area, too." He gave her a half-dozen extra clips, then reached into the back of the Cherokee for the Uzi and the bags of ordnance he had ready for the assault.

  Outside the vehicle, he stripped out of the suit to the blacksuit he had on underneath. He hung the ordnance around his waist from military webbing, then pulled on a trench coat over it. He gave Silverman the bomber jacket, knowing it wouldn't draw much attention in the neighborhood they had just entered.

  "Keep the pistol in your hand under the jacket," he advised, "because when this goes down, it's going to go down fast."

  She nodded. "You look like we're heading into a war zone."

  "Make no mistakes about it," Bolan said as he started toward the building. "We are."

  * * *

  Vincent Corsini dialed the number again, still getting a busy signal. He was annoyed. Georgie should have answered by now. The phone shouldn't have been off the hook. He looked back at the front of the Plumrose Passion, knowing something had somehow gone terribly wrong.