Blood in the Water Read online

  As the 747 drew closer and lower, the noise from the engines became deafening. She looked up, and it felt as though she could reach up and touch it. It reminded her of the one trip that she took with Ollie before he was killed. She and Dillon had surprised him with a trip to Disneyland in Florida. It was a discount package that they could barely afford, but it had been worth it. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him as excited as he was when he first saw Mickey Mouse in person.

  ‘You all right?’ she heard Agent Martin ask.

  She realized that her eyes were closed. She opened them, and she could see the 747 land safely. The squeal of the brakes was off in the distance.

  Agent Martin’s radio bleated. He took it off his belt and stepped away, talking low into it. She looked down at the blood sprayed on the snow, and wondered what she had gotten herself into.

  ‘It’s a war,’ Martin said.

  She looked at him, still slowly coming back to reality. ‘What?’

  ‘They just found one of O’Connell’s men slumped over in a car in the South End. His throat was slit ear to ear.’

  ‘MS-13,’ Steele said quietly.

  ‘They’re good with their knives.’

  Martin was right, she knew. It was a war. And it wouldn’t end until one side won and the other side lost. If MS-13 and the Carpios won, the impact would be greater than she could even contemplate. It would increase the odds that Vincente Carpio would eventually make his way out of prison. If not in the immediate future, then maybe down the line, when other monsters and other mass killings had taken over the headlines, and no one could even remember who Vincente Carpio was.

  But Steele would never forget him, and she would never allow that to happen. ‘Thanks,’ she said to Martin. ‘This is probably gonna get ugly. Any information you’ve got, it’d be helpful,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘As long as it goes both ways.’

  ‘It goes both ways,’ she lied. ‘You have my word on it.’

  Forty

  Cicero heard about Joe Konicki first. Cormack and his men had taken over the back rooms of one of the fisheries along the waterfront in South Boston. The place smelled so bad, Cicero had trouble breathing, but the owner was in Cormack’s debt, and it was the sort of place they would not be disturbed. There were fifteen of them gathered, enduring the stench of fish guts as Cormack and Cicero mapped out a plan.

  The call came in from a cop that Cicero had on his payroll. Cicero was in a room with Cormack and three others at the time, so he kept his half of the conversation short, asking one-word questions: Where? When? How? When he hung up, he told everyone other than Cormack to leave the room.

  ‘I got some bad news, Boss,’ he said once he and Cormack were alone.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s Joe Konicki,’ Cicero said. ‘Cops found him in a parking lot out by UMass.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about? Konicki’s with Diamond. He’s watching her.’

  Cicero shook his head. ‘Not anymore. He’s dead.’ Cormack’s face still registered his confusion, so Cicero continued. ‘He was in his car. They slit his throat.’

  ‘What the fuck was he doing out by UMass?’

  Cicero shrugged. ‘The parking lot was by an office full of medical offices specializing in women’s issues. Maybe he took Diamond there.’

  Cicero watched as the full range of implications dawned across Cormack’s face. ‘Where is she?’

  Cicero shook his head. ‘She wasn’t with him in the car when they found him. Who knows, maybe this has got nothing to do with her. But maybe it does.’

  Cormack grabbed his phone and dialed his daughter’s number. The phone rang four times. Then, just before it would normally go to voicemail, someone accepted the call. They said nothing, though.

  Cormack held the phone to his ear, waiting for the person on the other end to say something. Finally, he couldn’t help himself. ‘Diamond?’ he said. ‘Is that you?’

  The line stayed silent for another moment. Then a voice came over the line. It wasn’t Diamond. It was a male voice, somewhat high pitched, with a thick accent. Cormack recognized it as Soh’s voice immediately.

  ‘Diamond can’t come to the phone right now,’ he said. ‘Can I help you, Cormack O’Connell?’

  * * * * *

  Buddy walked along Allen Street, toward Boston Harbor. His hands were stuffed deep into his jacket pockets against the cold, his mind churning through the excuses he might offer to explain his absence the previous Friday. He had no family to speak of, but he could still claim that he’d had to attend to a sick relative. It seemed far-fetched, and he wasn’t sure he could pull off the deception effectively. He tried to imagine some work-related task he might have been diverted by, but that would be too easy for the union officers to check up on.

  It occurred to him that he might be best off telling a form of the truth – he missed work because he had the chance to get laid. That was an excuse that most of the rank and file would accept, perhaps even applaud. But it probably wouldn’t be countenanced by the upper managers. Besides, he didn’t want to answer the explicit and vulgar questions that would then be asked. It was odd, but that felt disrespectful to Diamond, and even though he was certain that it was a doomed relationship, he couldn’t deceive himself that he wasn’t in love with her. He shook his head at the absurdity of it.

  He’d hoped that his absence wouldn’t have been noted or remarked upon. It wasn’t unusual for longshoremen to miss a shift or two. They could be, by nature and temperament, a transient and sometime unreliable crew. It had occurred to him that perhaps no one would have even noticed.

  He knew now, though, that wasn’t the case. There had been two messages on his phone from Toby White, the gimp who assisted Cormack with harbor scheduling and administration. The first was a message indicating that Buddy and Nate had been reassigned to a lobster boat for the morning. The second was a call to make sure he’d gotten the first message.

  This was bad news. If Nate and Buddy had been assigned to the offload of the Greek ship, he wouldn’t have been missed. Dozens of workers would be crawling over the ship, working the giant cranes and moving the enormous shipping containers, and the absence of one man wouldn’t have made much of a difference. But because he and Nate were supposed to have been on a small lobster boat, his absence would have caused a significant inconvenience. Buddy knew that was the cause of the annoyance in Toby’s voice in the second message.

  The union office was half a block away, and as nervous as he was about his weak excuses, he was eager to get inside. His jacket was old and poorly insulated, and the cold was cutting through him now. He could feel the steam in his nostrils freezing as he exhaled. He doubled his pace as he drew closer to the office door.

  The union offices were on the second floor. The first floor was an open warehouse area that was sometimes used to hold union meetings. It was large and bare, with concrete floors and no windows. Folding chairs were stacked in one corner. It was often bustling with men in between shifts, waiting to go out to a job, or just shooting the shit. As Buddy stepped in, he saw that the room was nearly empty, which was odd. There were only four men milling around, and Buddy sensed nervous tension in the room. He recognized John Hall, one of Cormack’s most loyal soldiers. They all seemed shocked to see him.

  ‘Shit, Buddy Cavanaugh!’ one of them exclaimed.

  ‘Yeah,’ Buddy responded. ‘What’s going on?’

  Hall looked at Buddy like he was a ghost. ‘You showed up,’ he said. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘There’s a freighter coming in,’ Buddy said. ‘I’m scheduled to work the offload.’

  Hall looked at one of the other men and gave a laugh. ‘He thinks he’s working today. You hear that?’

  Buddy looked at the other man, confused. When he turned back to Hall, he saw the iron rod in the man’s hand. Buddy didn’t have the time to react before it connected hard on the back of his knees, buckling them, and driving him down onto the concrete.<
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  ‘What the fuck!’ he shouted.

  The iron rod came down on his back, smashing into his ribs, driving the wind from his lungs. He gave a pained cough and fell over on his side, gasping for breath.

  Hall was looking down at him. Buddy tried to talk, but there was no air in his lungs to work his voice. He wanted to ask what was happening – after all, he’d only missed one shift. He would have understood if he’d been given a reprimand, or even had his pay docked. But he never expected a beating. Finally, he regained his wind enough to squeak out a word. ‘Why?’

  Hall just shook his head, raised his giant fist and punched Buddy in the face. Buddy could feel the blood pour forth from his nose, and his eyes squeezed shut against the pain. As he gave himself up to unconsciousness, he heard Hall speak one last time.

  ‘Call Cormack,’ he said. ‘He wanted to deal with this personally.’

  Forty-One

  Diamond had no idea where she was. She’d been blindfolded in the van when she was taken off the street. As near as she could tell, there had been three men in the van, but the man who had pushed her into the van hit her hard on the back of the head as soon as the door closed, and everything went black for a time.

  When she woke, she was in a panic. Everything was dark, and she thought for a moment that the blow to her head had left her blind. As she thrashed, she felt coarse fabric scratching her face, and she realized that they had pulled a sack over her head. The knowledge that she still had her sight eased her fear, but only slightly. They had bound her wrists and ankles with duct tape, and she was unable to sit up or get her bearings. It was a utility vehicle with a gritty metal floor, and she slid back and forth, slamming into the sides with each turn.

  She thought about trying to keep track of the turns so that she might be able to figure out where they were taking her, but she was so disoriented that it was no use. Besides, she had no idea how long she had been unconscious, so she had no starting reference even if she had been able to keep track.

  She called out in fear once, begging to know what was happening, but one of the men kicked her hard in the leg. A moment later, he pulled the bag that covered her face up high enough to slap a length of duct tape over her mouth. Then he pulled the bag down again. She struggled to breathe through her nose, and had a moment when she thought she might actually suffocate right there on the floor of the van. She managed to calm herself down, though, and with a little focus was able to take in enough air to keep herself alive. All she could think about was protecting the baby she was carrying.

  Eventually the van stopped on a rough, uneven surface, and the door opened. Two men pulled her out and carried her by her arms some distance. Her feet dragged on the gravel. They were speaking Spanish to each other, and she could hear the soft sound of water lapping on the shore. The gravel gave way to concrete, and then she was pulled onto a boat and pushed onto the floor of a cabin. She had spent most of her life on or around the water, and based on the wooden floor and the angle of the hull’s roll, she guessed that she was on a commercial fishing boat. She could smell diesel fumes and the sickening stench of fish guts, and for a moment she thought that she was going to throw up. With her mouth taped, and her head covered by the bag, she knew she would have drowned in her own vomit within a matter of moments, and she fought to keep the bile down.

  The engines gave a low rumble, and the boat pulled out away from the dock, rising and falling with the swells. The cold air cut through her clothes, even as she felt herself suffocating in the heat of the bag over her head. She thought she could still hear men talking, perhaps in English this time. The cadence of the discussion no longer seemed foreign, but the engines were humming now, drowning out any chance for her to catch specific words.

  Time stretched out without measure, and she had no idea how long they’d been on the water. Maybe twenty minutes, maybe forty … maybe an hour.

  Eventually, the engines quieted, and the boat slowed and swirled in a great arc that caused the hull to pitch back and forth in an uneven tempo. She could hear the voices again, now, some in English and some in Spanish. The English voice called out to grab hold of lines, and the Spanish voices chattered back and forth in response. Then she felt the boat bump into some hard object, bouncing twice off what she assumed was a dock before the lines held the hull still.

  The door to the cabin opened, and men grabbed her and hoisted her up on their shoulders like a marlin – a trophy fish, landed after a long battle at sea. She was careful not to squirm like a fish, lest they drop her, or throw a shoulder into her abdomen, harming the baby.

  They handed her up onto a stable surface, and two men took hold of her again, pulling her along by her shoulders, her feet dragging behind her. This time, it wasn’t gravel or concrete. Instead, her feet beat out an uneven rhythm, ticking over the wood slats of what she assumed was a long pier. The pier gave way to stone, and then to grass and briars, up a hill. She thought her shoulders might dislocate as she was dragged, and she flexed her muscles to take some of the strain off the joints. If her shoulders gave out, her chances of escape would be severely limited.

  Then they were back on concrete, clearly high up on a hill. The icy wind blew so hard, even her face was frozen under the bag. The condensation from her breath iced over, and the fabric fused to her face. She had to move her cheek against the bag to clear space to breathe.

  That lasted only a few moments, though, as she heard a great steel door swing on heavy rusted hinges, and she was pulled into a shelter. It was cold and dank, but not nearly as much as the boat ride had been, and the break from the wind was a welcome relief.

  They dragged her down what seemed like a long corridor, her feet sliding across a concrete floor covered in dirt and leaves. Once, in school, she’d been on a field trip to the crypts of the Old North Church in Boston, where 1,100 settlers from colonial times had been buried. It was said that their souls inherited the ground underneath the church. The place she had been taken felt and smelled very much like those catacombs.

  She had no idea for how long they dragged her, and it felt like they passed through several doors. At one point, they missed a door and her head slammed into the jamb. She let out a small cry of pain, and they pulled her harder, so that her head hit the wood again, and her neck snapped forward as she cleared the threshold.

  After what seemed like an eternity, they stopped and tossed her into a corner. The floor was cold and hard, and the place smelled like stale sweat and gunpowder. Every sound echoed off the walls and it felt like she had been brought to a medieval dungeon.

  Someone crouched down and spoke through the hood directly into her ear. He was so close, she could smell his foul breath, and his sweat was sickly sweet. He spoke with a heavy accent. ‘Do not talk,’ he said. ‘Do not say a word, understand? We will kill you, and send your body in pieces back to your father if you make a sound. Nod if you understand.’

  Diamond nodded. She could feel the tears running down her face.

  ‘Good,’ the man said. Then he withdrew, and she was alone. At least, she felt alone. For all she knew, there was someone in the room with her, but if so he remained silent.

  She extended her arms so that she could feel the wall. It felt like it was made of cement, and it was cold and damp. She curled into a ball, facing the wall, protecting her abdomen. If they wanted to kick her now, at least it would start with her back or her extremities, and that might protect her baby.

  As she lay there, fighting off the demons her imagination conjured, she knew now that her only hope was that Cormack was actually even more dangerous than the animals who had grabbed her.

  Forty-Two

  Cormack gripped the phone so tightly his hand began to hurt. He knew he had to remain calm. Soh was looking for him to get angry – to lose control and make a mistake. Now, more than ever, he had to make sure that he was rational and in control.

  ‘Can I talk to her?’

  ‘No,’ Soh replied.

  ‘How do I know s
he’s alive?’

  ‘I have said she is alive. She will stay alive as long as you do what I say.’

  ‘What is it that you want?’

  ‘You took one of my men. Is he alive?’

  Cormack looked at Cicero, who shrugged. ‘Yes, he’s still alive,’ Cormack confirmed.

  ‘I want him back.’

  ‘Are you suggesting a swap?’

  Soh laughed. It was a high-pitched cackle that pierced Cormack’s eardrum, and he had to hold the phone away from his head. ‘Oh no, Cormack O’Connell, a daughter is worth much more than a single soldier. You will release Suarez by tomorrow. But that is just the beginning.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘You will give me control over the union. You will give me control over the harbor.’

  Cormack’s head was swimming. ‘The union? You could never run the union.’

  ‘Not me,’ Soh said. ‘There is someone else I will put in your place who is capable. You will resign your position and appoint the person I will choose. Then you and your daughter will disappear.’

  ‘That’s it? I give you control over the union, and I go … where?’

  ‘That is up to you. As long as it is far away enough that I can be sure that you will not interfere ever again. Your time is over. It is best that you recognize that and retire. Most people in your position never get that chance. I am giving it to you so that you and I can avoid a war. You will get your daughter back, and you can live on. Do we have an agreement?’

  Cormack was looking at Cicero. The man’s expression was inscrutable. He took a breath before answering, to control his voice and keep it from breaking. ‘Yes, we have an agreement,’ he said at last.

  ‘Good,’ Soh said. ‘I will call back to tell you where to drop Suarez. Then you and I will discuss how you will leave the union. Once you have resigned, I will release your daughter.’ The line went dead.