Gatac

  Sean didn't know whether to be comforted by the ck of sirens outside; he wasn’t, to be clear, he just wondered if he should be, if he should learn to breathe easy when inadequate police response was to his momentary personal advantage. He saw red-blue lights fshing at the front gate, but just one set. Having taken that morsel of information to heart, he walked toward Anne's car. No sudden moves when he unlocked the door and slid in. He started the car up. The driveway wasn't that long, objectively speaking, but Sean made sure to roll the car slowly, not wanting to invite any rash gunfire. He held onto his badge in his left hand, squeezed it tight. That was his ticket out of this mess. A single patrol car was stopped in front of the gate, wasn't even really blocking it, and when the Nissan was almost at the gate, Sean spotted the shotgun barrel poking over the hood. It did its best to evoke a feeling of circling the wagons with only one wagon.

  “Huntington Bay PD!” the cop behind the shotgun shouted. “Stop the car, turn off the engine and keep your hands on the wheel!”

  Sean did as he was told. He turned off the headlights and switched interior lights on, too. After a few seconds of Sean sitting there without making another move, the cop rose from the cover of his patrol car and walked around it, closing in on the Nissan. No partner with him, no backup around. For a moment Sean wanted to be the guy next to that cop, covering him on the approach. Wasn’t it always easier to imagine himself as the hero than to be one?

  “Roll your window down!” the cop shouted. “One hand only!”

  Sean reached for the door with his left hand. Fortunately, although Anne had gone with the absolutely least exciting engine option, she had sprung for the better interior trim package, to include electric windows. The gss came down, but the cop outside already lowered his shotgun when he saw the light glinting off Sean's badge.

  “NYPD!” Sean heard himself shout. “The shooting's over!”“Sonuva!” the other cop said, fully lowering the gun. Don’t be so fucking naive, Sean wanted to shout. You don’t know who this asshole in the car is and what he’s got in reach. Get him out onto the ground before you listen to anything he’s saying. Take charge. “Are you okay?” the cop continued.“I'm okay,” Sean confirmed. “Detective Collins, badge 4572 with the six-four. And you are?”“Miller, Bay PD,” the cop said, walking over to the side of the Nissan to talk to Sean face to face. No thought to checking the surroundings, exposing himself to anyone who might be shooting from the mansion — fucking amateur hour. “What the hell happened in there, Detective?” Miller asked. “I swear to Christ I thought I was going to have to go in and start shooting myself.”“You tell me, officer,” Sean said. “I was just coming around to have a little chat with this Russian guy —““Mr. Ignatyev?” Miller crified.Sean snapped his fingers. “Yeah, him,” he said. “I was just coming around when I heard the shooting start. Grabbed my vest” — he patted the Kevr — “and my gun, then I heard the boom, so I got in my car and drove it up to the house. By the time I got there, there were only corpses left. I thought I saw somebody running east — heading for the shore to catch a boat or something, I don't know. I didn't pursue, still had to check for survivors, but — ”“Gotcha,” Miller said. “Okay, can you…I need to call this in.”Sean tried to look like he wasn't panicking. He thought he did a pretty good job, all things considered, as he coolly stuffed the badge into his pockets. “Look, I hate being a jerk, Officer,” he said, “but those bodies aren't gonna get up and walk away. My report will have to wait. Right now we need to catch the shooters. You go and tell your Chief about this, I have to go and call in the big guns — my Captain needs to be informed so we can roll out uniforms to anyone who might be connected to Ignatyev, and we need to catch a boat so that means the Coast Guard on Staten. We have to move fast on this, Miller. You get me?”“Right,” Miller said. “Right! Christ.”“Good!” Sean said, smiling up at Miller. “You take care of things here, I'll go and get the manhunt rolling. We'll sort out the paperwork when we've got our shooters. Okay?” Miller had little time to disagree before Sean continued. “Okay, let's do this, Miller. I'll see you!”

  Sean turned away.

  “Detective, wait!” Miller said. Sean turned to face him again, not having to work very hard to fake his impatience. “You better call the coasties from New Haven!” Miller said. “They're closer!” Sean cpped his hands together and gave Miller a point.“Got it!” Sean said. He cranked the engine, put the trans into first and sent the car roaring out of the gate onto the main road.

  Sean was pretty sure he broke the 30 mph speed limit a couple of times leaving town. But that was okay — the cops were too busy to write tickets. What wasn't okay was where this was going. Sean missed the onramp to the Long Isnd Parkway and instead pulled over, through the gravel and onto the grass by the side of the highway. There, he killed the engine and did some thinking, which looked like he was sitting up ramrod straight and staring ahead while his hands tried to twist the steering wheel into a pretzel. He took a short trip down memory ne for the day, trying to plumb the depths of how screwed he was with a short review of the day's events, and as it turned out, that metaphorical sounding line just wouldn't stop reeling off. He needed help, and —

  Anne had told him she just repced her phone.

  It was a desperate idea, but not a wrong one: Sean looked down at bottom of the dashboard, finding a beefy plug sticking out of the cigarette lighter socket, quite aside from the permanently installed wiring that ran up to the charging dock for her MicroTAC. He followed the plug’s curly cable — taped down to avoid it getting tangled in the parking brake or the gear shift — to the back of the center console, opened the storage compartment, and found himself staring at st week's phone, still sitting there ready to go. Always prepared, God bless her. Sean grabbed the brick and unfolded the mouthpiece. If he had been any less desperate, he might have hesitated, but as it was, he punched in the number to Detective Berkovitz's desk phone without a second thought, despite the teness of the hour.

  It rang once. Then it rang again. Then it kept ringing.

  “Pick it up, Joe,” Sean mumbled. “Pick it up. Pick it up, partner. You pick up your damn phone right now.”

  It rang again.

  “Oh come on!” Sean cried. Finally, a click on the line.“Yeah, this is Detective Berkovitz,” Berkovitz said. “Who's this?”“Joe!” Sean said. “Joe, it's Sean! Don't hang up!”“Oh, kid,” Berkovitz said. He sounded relieved. Superb, that made one of them. “I was this close to sending ESU to your pce —““Joe, listen,” Sean said. “Sidorov's starting a fucking war right now! He tried to kill me and he hit Ignatyev and —”“Are you safe?” Berkovitz said. “Are you safe, right now?”“Yeah, but they killed —”“Sean!” Berkovitz barked. “Stop. Take a breath. Now you don't hang up, I'll transfer this to a pce where we can talk, I'll just be a moment. There's gonna be a shitton of questions I need you to answer in about thirty seconds. Okay?”“Shit,” Sean said. “Yeah. Yeah.”“We’ll get you out of this,” Berkovitz said. “Stay on the line.”

  Sean didn't know who had created the department's hold music, but within a second or so he wanted to punch them in the face.

  “Sean?” Berkovitz said when the line cleared up again. “You still with us?”“I'm here!” Sean said. Wait, us? he thought, straining to hear what took him a few seconds to recognize as a faint echo of his own voice. “Am I on speaker, Joe?”“That's right, Detective,” came Captain Whitton's voice.

  Sean felt himself come closer to a potty accident than pretty much any other moment since that terrible sleepover at little Paul Braden's pce in the year of our Lord 1963.

  “Captain?” he asked. It wasn't a good question, but anything to dey getting raked over the coals for just a few more seconds.“I need you to fill me in,” Whitton asked. “Are you still with Simmons?”“No…” Sean said.

  The line was silent for a few seconds.

  “We’re past secrets here,” Berkovitz said. “The Captain knows exactly what happened at the warehouse. I had to read him in after you didn’t return from your lunch break. Forget about the perjury crap for a second. Right now we need to keep you alive.”“Start talking, Sean,” Whitton said.“Okay,” Sean said. If this was a trap…it didn't matter. He was already screwed. “Okay, Captain, so, Simmons…”

  It took five minutes to retell the day's events, according to the dashboard clock. Sean noted this wasn't that much time needed to expin how his life had turned to shit in the span of a few hours. Sean didn’t like what that said about the distance between his regur life and the current situation. Berkovitz was silent throughout, while Captain Whitton's questions were few and to the point. Sean soon ran out of story to spin, and so he shut up and listened to the line go silent for a few more seconds.

  “Okay, here's what we do,” Whitton said. “Joe, you get out there and handle the Coast Guard thing. We have to support the story any way we can. When you're done, call over to Huntington Bay PD, tell them we're handling the investigation and to stay away from the crime scene. If they try the jurisdiction line, tell them we're heading up the inter-agency taskforce on a reted case on the DA's orders — and if they give you any static, I'll give them a call myself.”“Don't worry, I'll sweet-talk them,” Berkovitz said.“Go and do it now,” Whitton said. Ten seconds went by where even their breaths seemed on pause. Berkovitz was the first to stir again when he left the office. The door creaked open and shut again behind him. “Detective?” Whitton prompted.“Yeah?” Sean asked.“I told you to take care of this damn case, not to blow it wide open,” Whitton said. “But here we are. Time to look for a way out of this mess. Did anyone ever give you the line that the Chinese use the same word for crisis and opportunity?”“I've heard that one, Captain,” Sean said.“I've heard it's crap,” Whitton said, “but I like the sentiment. Now the way I see it, this is going to get worse, but we have a choice what happens next. You can either pull out of this dive or crater, and I think we’re all agreed cratering is not what we want. Simmons seems to trust you for now. Do you remember where her safe house is?”“Of course, Captain,” Sean said. “It's at —““Don't,” Whitton said. “You know it, I need you. We both know it, I don't need you. You're adrift in a sea of shit, start swimming. This one's free, don't make me regret it.”“Yes, Captain,” Sean said.“And congratutions, by the way,” Whitton said, “that's now officially the closest we've ever gotten to Simmons and her associates. Too bad about Ignatyev, but right now you've got an 'in' with what's left of his crew, and that's an opportunity that doesn't drop into our p every day. You've already seen a lot of what we can use to nail these guys to the wall, but that's very much Pn B. I think we both know who we should be going after right now.”“Ilya Sidorov,” Sean said.“Exactly,” Whitton said. “Nice, juicy target. When the mayor calls the commissioner and the commissioner calls me, we need to have a pn. Now, you don't seem so bad at handling yourself out there, Detective. You’re still in one piece, at least. I don't have to spell out which way your career is pointing right now, but there might be a way to brush that off and save a few lives in the process. We've been after Ilya Sidorov for a while, but we don't have the evidence to take a swing at him — and while it looks like his sloppiness is finally gonna catch up with him, there will be too many dead bodies before we have what we need if we py by the book. That won't make anyone look good. So here's my idea — and it's okay if you say No at the end, but hear me out first. What do you say I keep you on paid suspension while you stick with Simmons and her friends for the moment and use them to go after Sidorov? I'll cover for you as best as I can from here, give you a little breathing room to handle this situation with the flexibility it requires. If you get the colr and bring me evidence we can make stick in front of a jury, there'll be nobody asking how you did it. If you get it.”“And if I don’t?” Sean said.“I don't think you'll like that outcome,” Whitton said. “You'll probably lose your badge, I'll be damned if it goes as high as a jail sentence but I can't guarantee they won't bring the hammer down on you. I don't want to sugarcoat this. It's risky.”“Double or nothing,” Sean said.“Pretty much,” Whitton said. “I know it's a lot to ask.”“It’s my case,” Sean said. “I'll do it.”“We’ve got your back, Detective,” Whitton said. “You don't worry about a thing here, you just focus on staying in one piece and take in as much as you can. Go out there, meet up with Simmons and if there's anything shady going down, let the crooks get their hands dirty. What I need is for you to keep your head above the water. Got that?”“Got it,” Sean said. “Captain, while I’ve got you — I don’t know when I’ll get another chance and there are a few things I would like to get research on. Can you write this down?”“Give me a moment,” Whitton said. Sean barely heard him rummaging around on his desk. “Okay, go.”“First, I need everything you have on Mary-Anne Simmons,” Sean said.“That's not a lot, I can tell you right now,” Whitton said. “But I'll get her file. Associates, too.”“Viktor, Mikhail, and the Ignatyev boy, Alexander,” Sean said. “Anyone else we know of?”“Some street-level operators, from what I remember, but we'll cross-check,” Whitton said. “You'll want our files on Sidorov and his crew — not a lot there either, I'm sorry to say. The Soviets don't share criminal histories with us and getting anyone to snitch on them is like pulling teeth with a pair of tweezers.”“Yeah, can you also get me everything you have on a Doctor George Washington Walker of Jackson Heights, African-American, looks to be in his 30s to 40s?” Sean said. “He's got this runaway girl, Caucasian, mid-teens, bck hair, goes by the name of 'Ky' — said her mother died of OD and she's an addict herself, she's probably got a juvie record from supporting her habit.”“You’re gonna leave them out of this,” Whitton said. Not a question.“…of course,” Sean said.“Is that all?” Whitton asked.“Not quite yet,” Sean said. “I also have a few ptes I'd like you to run, and when we're done here I need to talk to Joe again — he can bring me the files, I’ll set up a meet ter, and I snapped up some Russian I need transted…”

  After three minutes of sounding out everything he remembered, Sean said his goodbyes and waited to hear the other end of the line drop. Click. It was a click that seemed to indicate a process running, cavalry saddling up, everything pretending to make sense again, if only for a moment. He saw a way forward, at least, even if he couldn’t guess where it would lead. He still had the phone in his hand. Looking at it, he arrived at a different thought. Not a pn, not just yet, but maybe a piece of the puzzle. He punched in ‘*82’1Caller ID was a retively new feature at the time; in fact I have to admit I’m not entirely certain it was rolled out to New York at the time the story takes pce.Now, not everybody wants to transmit their phone number when making calls. (We’ll leave aside spoofing a different number, that’s a whole different discussion.) So you can apply for phone service that doesn’t transmit caller ID. On the other hand, some phone services refuse calls without caller ID. Entering *82 before dialing sends a command that enables caller ID for that call even if it’s usually turned off. Sean doesn’t know how Anne’s service is set up, so this might be unnecessary, but he is trying to hedge his bets here. and a different number, remembered from back in the day. It rang four times.

  “Yeah?” a woman answered. A TV blubbered on and on in the background, with a couple of kids shouting over it. It made Sean smile, despite everything. “Who’s this?”“Hey, Ada,” Sean said. “It’s Sean. I hope I’m not interrupting —”“Nah, it’s cool, it’s cool, didn’t need those five minutes to myself,” Ada said. Sean chuckled. “What’s up, cowboy? Haven’t heard from you in a while.”“Yeah, sorry about that,” Sean said. “I meant to call more after the transfer but I’ve been just…crazy busy.”“Wow, you weren’t kidding about the six-four,” Ada said. “Guess they are grinding you up, then?”“Yeah,” Sean said. He didn’t continue from there.“Okay, either they beat the smartass outta you or you’re in some deep…trouble,” Ada said. “Don’t get a lot of social calls at this hour, either.”“Yeah,” Sean repeated himself again. “Listen, just…do me a quick favor. Sixtynine2Nice! But not what you’re thinking.Last-call return, more popurly known as Star Sixtynine by the code *69 is a phone service that, when called, returns the number of the st caller to your line. Just mentioning that for the readers who are too young to have used a phone that doesn’t just dispy caller ID. this call and write the number down. I’ll be in touch again…don’t know how and when yet.”“You got it, cowboy,” Ada said. “Anything else?”“Yeah, uh,” Sean said, “give my best to…uh…”“Aisha and Chris,” Ada helped him. “And you better have some gummi bears next time you show, cowboy.”“I’ll try to remember,” Sean said. “Thanks, Ada. I mean it. Thank you.”“It’s all good,” Ada said. “Good night. And stay safe out there, yeah?”“Trying,” Sean said. “Good night, Ada.”

  Half an hour ter, Sean drove the gray Nissan straight past Hotel Superior, cornering it just a little too aggressively into the driveway to the backyard. His Mazda was nowhere to be seen here or in front, but Sean wasn't too worried about that yet — given Anne's driving style, he hadn't expected her to get here faster than him. That left him with more time to go over the car, then, or at least the interior. He leaned over to the passenger side and popped the glovebox open, half expecting to be met with the grip of another gun, but what he found instead was a book — Dostoyewsky's Notes from Underground, with a faded bookmark stuck in about a third of the way through the text. Sean briefly weighed the surprisingly slim volume in his hand, assessing its merit in the field of Russian literature by way of its suitability as an improvised weapon. He put it back, closed the glovebox and leaned back in his seat while he folded his arms. What exactly was he hoping to find, anyway?

  Something to take his mind off the man he'd killed?

  Sean tapped his hands on the steering wheel, rapidly spiraling into thinking about how he hadn't been thinking about it until he did and whether he should have been thinking about it, and what exactly he was supposed to feel about it, because right there he wasn't feeling a lot. He would never forget the broken face of Danny Medina, but already had trouble recalling the features of the home invader that had caught a point bnk bst from the borrowed shotgun. He had been neither monster nor victim in Sean's eyes, just a threat. Emotion only entered the picture when Sean idly thought, good thing it's smoothbore, there's no way they'll trace the ballistics.

  Sean wasn't anywhere near done hating himself for that thought when he saw his red Mazda pull into the back lot. Anne was first out of the car, and Sean joined her outside. They swapped looks and car keys while Viktor helped Alexander climb out of the car.

  “So,” Sean began. “You got out.”“Thank you for the help,” Anne said, nodding to him.“You're welcome,” Sean replied. “Just so you know, I had to involve Joe and my Captain to take care of this.”“Captain Whitton?” Anne asked.Sean just had to smirk. “Let me guess, you go bowling Wednesday evenings?”“We have never met,” Anne said. “Detective Berkovitz mentioned him once or twice.”“Yeah, well,” Sean said, “he all but told me you guys are small fry in his eyes, compared to bringing in Sidorov, so I figured, what the…heck. Maybe we can help each other.”Anne raised an eyebrow. “You want to arrest him,” she said. “I am not sure how we could possibly help you with that.”“Yeah, I'm not sure either,” Sean said. “But I figure we could at least try to come up with a clever pn before you have to settle for another bloodbath.”Anne nodded. “I like that notion,” she said. She looked over to Viktor, who was steadying Alexander on his way to the hotel's back door, with Mikhail already there to hold the door for the two of them. “But it is out of my hands.”

  Alexander's hands shook as he stared down at his pte. The hotel had what amounted to a staff room near the kitchen, with the biggest table in the building, and there they all were — Viktor next to Alexander, opposite Sean and Anne. Mikhail stood to the side of Alexander with a big stack of blini on a porcein pte, of which the boy had gotten the first, steaming hot pancake. The smell of butter and apples wafted through the room, and Sean felt his stomach grumble in anticipation. His eyes, like everyone else's, were on Alexander's right hand, which trembled its way toward the neatly lined-up utensils to the side of his pte. He fumbled for the knife, shifting it in his hand for a few seconds as if trying to grasp a twitching fish, then pulled his hand over to the pte, where he set the knife's edge down on the blin and dragged it an inch toward himself. The blin stuck to the pte and tore. Alexander let go of the knife, and in a deathly quiet room, it cnged all the louder against the pte and the floor.

  When Mikhail knelt to pick up the knife, Alexander started sobbing again.

  By the time Mikhail was through the swinging door to the kitchen, tears were rolling down Alexander's cheeks. Sean broke the silence by scooting his chair backwards, but before he could get up and walk to Alexander, he felt Anne's hand firmly on his shoulder. Sean saw Viktor reach out simirly to Alexander, but it quickly turned into an embrace, and whatever Viktor whispered into Alexander's ear during that time must have been well-chosen, because the boy's sobs soon slowed down. Hand still shaky, he picked up a napkin from the table and used it to dab his eyes dry.

  “Thank you all for being here with me,” Alexander said. “There is” — he took a breath — “there is nothing we can do to change what has happened. My father is dead by the hands of cowards…cowards that answer to the bastard Sidorov. I have no time to mourn him. We must ensure this madness ends swiftly.” He looked down at his pte. “I know I am no Thief…if anyone deserves to take over for my father, it is Uncle Viktor. However…however, he is a better man than that. He has agreed to represent me to the community and to help me run this organization while taking his orders from me, as he says my father would have wanted.” He looked up to Anne. “I would never ask Viktor to compromise his principles, but it has become clear to me we have little to gain from clinging to our past in this city. It is time we develop past the confines of the old country's rules and start to recognize the valor and merit of those who have always stood by this family. I wish to stand in front of these old men and tell them with pride that you are my trusted lieutenant, Anne, and that it does not matter one whit what you are when we all know damn well who you are. Will you stand with me there?”Viktor said nothing, but Anne nodded. “Of course, Alexander,” she said.“Detective Collins,” Alexander continued, turning his look. “I don't know you. But you came through for us when it counted, and I hope to be a man who remembers his debts. If there is anything I can offer you, please tell me.”“That's…good to hear,” Sean said. “Uh, can I be frank?”

  Anne said nothing, but Alexander nodded.

  “You've earned that much,” Alexander said.“I know you're going to watch what you say in front of me,” Sean said, “but let's get one thing straight: everyone here wants Ilya Sidorov out of the way. If it's not vengeance, then it's simply good business. People need to be reassured there's a line and Ilya's on the wrong side of it. If you don't handle him now, he'll force us to come after him. And at that point we won’t care who we have to go through to get him.”Alexander stared at Sean. “I'm sorry, Detective, you want us to 'handle' him?” he asked.“I didn't say I wanted you to do anything with him, did I?” Sean said. “I'm just pointing out some things. Like my reasonable assumption that at least one of you has a very good idea of a shady operation Ilya's running and where proof of it can be found, and the fact that I have the badge that lets me arrest him. I know a hotshot ADA who's just begging to take a bite out of organized crime. If I bring her enough evidence, I'm sure she'll be able to put him away. What happens after he’s gone is no longer my problem.”Viktor cracked a smile, but left it to Alexander to reply. “And you gain the fame of stopping him,” the Ignatyev heir said. “Your partner would approve.”“Just so we're clear on this point,” Sean said, “I'm not like Berkovitz and I don’t intend to come to any long-term agreements with you. This is not about how much I can profit off this shitty situation. I can't be bought, I'd sooner give myself up than be bckmailed into anything and if anyone so much as looks at my family I’m gonna come at you with everything I got. That said…this city has plenty of rger problems than you right now. I'll be very busy for a while cleaning up this mess, and if I stay busy, well, I have to set priorities.”Alexander nodded. “I appreciate your position, Detective Collins,” he said. “But I hope you understand that if we ever come into conflict, the only recourse you've left me is to escate straight to the logical end result.”“Delivered by Anne here?” Sean asked. “Not like I could stop her. It's just, well, the only way this mess could get worse for you is if you add a dead cop.”Alexander cracked up, ughing even as it squeezed the st bits of wetness from his eyes into small tears. “Ice cold!” he said. “I like you, Detective. And I like your ideas.” He turned to look at Viktor. “How can we help him?”Viktor focused his gaze on Sean, weighing the situation for a moment. “I'll make a few calls,” he said.“Great,” Sean said. “And I’ll get some air.”

  Evening had given way to night in Sean's quote-unquote fancy hotel room. It was a good thing he hadn't paid a deposit, because he'd pinned up the contents of half a dozen files on one of the walls and turned the lengths of antique wallpaper into the world's unwieldiest punchcards in the process. He was on his fourth cup of steaming hot bck tea, while the porcein pte and the st applesauce-covered, half-eaten blin on it had long since reached room temperature. He had entered the dangerous twilight zone of meal pnning, up too te after dinner but still trying to stave off a midnight snack. Not that he'd been pnning to sleep much, but this was going to make for some uncomfortable insomnia. Good thing the bathroom had multiple toilets.

  The door to his room was left half-open, yet Anne still knocked on it. He turned to see her standing at the threshold, and she took his turned head as permission to enter.

  “Well, we confirmed one thing,” Sean said. “The pte from the car outside the precinct was reported stolen two days ago. Good eyes.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t help us with the car, though. ‘Gray sedan’, that’s all you saw? Picked up the pte but can’t even guess the marque?”“…I am not much for cars,” Anne said. “I am sorry.”“Yeah, it’s…don’t worry about it,” Sean said.“I do have some new information,” Anne said. “Good and bad news.”“I'm listening,” Sean said, but turned back to inspect the files hung up before him.“Ilya is on his yacht now,” Anne said. “They put to sea a few hours ago. No word on where he was hiding out before.”“Right, the Volk,” Sean said, hovering his fingers over the wall until he found the thumbtacked photograph of the ship. “Super subtle. Was 'SS White Power' already taken?”“It means 'wolf' in Russian,” Anne said.Sean tapped the photograph. “I'm pretty sure this means 'small dick' in any nguage,” he said. “So, where does that leave us?”“Our advantage is he left in a hurry,” Anne said, “and the yacht isn't fueled up or provisioned for any major trips. I am told he likes to take her around Long Isnd, so he is likely doing the same route again. Our source also confirmed he left his escort behind at the pier.”“Okay,” Sean said. “Catching him at sea sounds like the best option, then. Just one minor snag: I didn't see a speedboat in your closet.”“I seem to remember the NYPD having boats,” Anne said.Sean shook his head. “We're on our own for this one,” he said. “Ideas?”Anne shrugged. “I can procure a vessel,” she said. “I don't know anyone who can drive one, though.”“Pilot, and I can handle a fishing boat or something like it,” Sean said. “Dad used to take me to Montauk, we hauled in a sea bass or two in our time.”“That gets us close, but how do we get onto the Volk without alerting them?” Anne asked. “Unless you want to try to paddle your boat the rest of the way.”“Shadow the yacht from a distance until it stops,” Sean said. “When it does, we swim for it. Drysuits should keep us from freezing to death long enough, and if he moves away we just swim back and reset. So, uh, can you get us some drysuits, too?”“I suppose I could,” Anne said.“Good,” Sean said. “See? Pn.”Anne shook her head. “But that is nowhere near the whole of it,” she said. “The tricky part is everything after getting on board.”“We can handle it,” Sean said. “His goons aren't on the yacht. What's the problem?”“So his men might not be on the yacht, but we don't know who is,” Anne said. “Crew, friends, guns, explosives, what are we going up against? We don't even know where Ilya will be on the yacht, and it is too big for us to just search it top to bottom without giving him a chance to slip past us. We don't know for sure whether he keeps ledgers on the yacht, nevermind he could just chuck everything overboard if he sees us coming, so there goes the evidence you need to make an arrest stick. And past all that, the arrest isn't looking too easy. If you put cuffs on him, how do you get him from his yacht to your precinct without catching bullets? What if he doesn't surrender? What if something else goes wrong? Are you prepared to kill him and everyone else on the yacht if they decide they aren't afraid of your badge?”

  Sean weighed Anne’s words for a moment. His shoulder slumped, and he sat on the bed and buried his face in his hands.

  “Fuck this case,” he muttered, hands dropping into his p as he let his head tip backwards. “I mean, you’re…I get what you’re saying, it’s crazy but it felt like…I feel like he's so close. But I just can't do anything. I can't do a fucking thing.”“Sometimes the best we can do is walk away from a situation and look for a better angle,” Anne said.Sean scoffed. “And what would that be?” he asked. “You think killing him is easier?”“In a sense,” Anne said. She turned away. “I will leave you to your thoughts.”“Wait!” Sean called out. “Please, wait.”

  Anne said nothing, but she didn't walk away, either.

  “Just to be clear, you're talking about murder here,” Sean said.“I am,” Anne said. “Cold and calcuted.”“Okay, Miss Nitpick, let’s hear your pn,” Sean asked. “How would you do it?”“A yacht this size can't go everywhere,” Anne said. “Regardless of where it might cruise to, the Volk usually moors at Sheepshead Bay.”“You know that how?” Sean said.“It is our business to know,” Anne said. “And I am familiar with the harbor there as well. There is residential just across Emmons Avenue. Four floors isn't much as far as elevation goes, but it is enough to see every part of the marina. It stands to reason Ilya will return at some point, so we wait for him there. When he steps off the yacht onto the pier, he will be on what passes for solid ground, no cover to get in the way, no crowd to consider. Pop him from the roof with a rifle, go down the fire escape on the back, have a car standing by at the Parkway. Merge into traffic, you are halfway to wherever you want in three minutes.” She turned around to face Sean, who was now looking up at her with a frozen expression. “It is messier than I like, and when you work at a distance you always have to consider the killshot might not be your first,” she conceded. “We would also have to canvass the area before, make sure we can get in position without being noticed and vacate the roof after the shot, see how the traffic actually runs, all presupposing Ilya’s return falls within a useful timeframe — I suppose you can think of a few more wrinkles on your own. But these are all things we can reconnoiter now, while we won’t know what is happening on the Volk until we are close enough to board it. I do think as far as assassination pns go, it doesn't get much simpler.”Sean said nothing for a moment. “That’s what Viktor is doing, isn’t he?” Sean said. “I walked past his room when I came in. Saw him brooding over a rifle.” He snorted. “I thought you’d want to be the one to wrap this up.”“I hate to think I couldn’t, but just this summer I saw his Mosin3The Mosin-Nagant M1891 is a bolt-action rifle second only to the Mauser 98 in production numbers across all variants. Infamous in the US due to mass import of surplus weapons, getting them a rep as a dirt cheap ‘beater rifles’, but you don’t get to 37 million guns manufactured without doing something right. bag a hare at three hundred yards,” Anne said. “Iron sights only.4There are various types of iron sights from the most basic to fancy Vernier sights and the like, but given they have neither optical magnification nor light intensification to work with, it should be pretty clear from context this is not an easy shot to make — particurly on small and quick target like a jackrabbit. I should want to spot the target and call the shot, but I have no illusions my marksmanship is his equal.” She considered the issue for a second. “As we are short of manpower, we would also need you with us to cover our exit.”“So that’s what it is,” Sean said. “Talking me out of my pn because you’re already halfway through yours.”“We are considering contingencies,” Anne said. “No decision has been made.”“Okay,” Sean said. “Okay, I guess I just…I just wanted to hear you say it. How you kill.”

  Anne sighed and turned around. She walked over to him and sat on the bed.

  Sean looked over to her. “Just to be even clearer,” he said, “that's not happening. And not just because we don't know when he'll be there.”“I didn't expect you to jump for joy over the idea,” Anne said. “Viktor is against it as well, you should know. Still, what you said in the kitchen wasn't wrong. One way or another we need to take Ilya off the table. If all else fails —”“Yeah, but this…” Sean shook his head. “This…all of this…it shouldn't be happening.” He took a breath. “You know what? I don’t like saying it, but we need to go to Grandpa.”“Mr. Dolzhikov was the first one we tried to call,” Anne said. “And he is not picking up. He might be out of town, he might be lying low after the attack on us…or maybe he is dead.”“Or he’s working with Sidorov,” Sean said. “I mean, you’d know him better than I do, but with Sidorov pulling all these strings —”“I don’t believe he would betray us in this manner,” Anne interrupted.“But?” Sean said.Anne sighed. “I don't know.”“Right,” Sean said. “Whole lot of not knowing going around today.”Anne got up from the bed and went to inspect the wall, scanning the pinned-up paper sheets and photos. “So, where is my file?” she asked.“I'm not hunting you,” Sean said.“That makes you either a bad cop or a worse liar,” Anne said. She turned to face him again. “Which is it?” she asked.

  Sean gred at her, silently trying to push her off track, but she held eye contact and Sean blinked first. He stood from the bed, took a knee beside it and reached under the mattress. When he turned his back on Anne, he imagined her smiling at her little victory, but when he had the thin file in hand and turned around, he found her actual expression decidedly more neutral.

  “Here you go,” he said, looking down. “Knock yourself out.”Anne took the file and flipped it open. She snorted again. “I have seen more hard facts on Enquirer front pages,” she said.“Apparently you're a very private person,” Sean replied. “Your file's thin, but it's not the only one. I'm starting to think my colleagues are soft on you and your friends.”“Imagine my surprise,” Anne said, looking at him. “Well, I am sure you have seen a few things you could add to this.”“Oh, believe me, the first thing I'd add is an arrest,” Sean said, looking directly at her. “Get some good pictures and fingerprints from all of you, even if we have to let you go right after.”Anne nodded. “If you had a say in how your department does things,” she said.“If I did,” Sean said.“Well, after you bring down Ilya, you just might get your way,” she said. “A new broom sweeps in a new way, after all.”“Yeah, well,” Sean mused, pacing around the room. “Apparently we can't do anything to Sidorov except for killing him whenever he finally decides to step off his little boat. As long as he's there — ”

  Sean had an idea. This was obvious because he pyed it up for all it was worth and then some, freezing in his steps, slowly swiveling his head toward Anne while a self-conscious grin settled onto his face. He didn't shout “Eureka!”, but it wouldn't have been much less subtle if he did.

  “If Sidorov's out there,” Sean said, “that means he's not home.”“I suppose it does mean that,” Anne said. “What are you trying to say by it?”“No, think about this!” Sean said, taking a step toward her and letting his sweeping arm point toward the file-pstered wall. “He's not home. And I imagine the same thing is true for his goons.”Anne folded her arms in front of her chest. “You imagine?”“Oh, there might still be a few guards,” Sean said. “But I’m getting a read on this guy. Ilya Sidorov doesn't waste people on babysitting an empty house. No doubt they're already moving on whatever their next target is.”“They think we are on the run and out of their way,” Anne threw in.“Exactly,” Sean said, nodding to her. “There'll just be a skeleton crew left to watch the hideout. The best time to go in and search his pce. You're right, he probably doesn't keep a ledger on his yacht — it'll be right in his office.”

  Anne shook her head.

  “Assuming your imagination is right,” she said.“We can go over there and check it out,” Sean replied. “Same deal as scouting out the harbor, yeah? If I'm wrong, we just leave them alone and fall back, but if I'm right — well, what do we have to lose?”“Our lives in a nasty little shootout, when somebody catches us in there,” Anne said. “Look, Sean, I appreciate you are in a tight spot here, but this is the time to call your boss and tell him to get a warrant and an ESU team to execute it.”“Not gonna happen, it’s pretty much the only thing I’m sure of at this point,” Sean said. “Let me fill you in on a little secret, Anne. You and your friends are radioactive. Judges won't make a move until we've got solid evidence to show them. Witnesses won’t talk. Nobody wants to paint a target on their back for arrests that won't stick. There is no backup. There is nobody willing to rock this boat. That's why we've been treading water with this shit, and that's why we need someone to go out there, bend some rules and get it done.”“Now there is a funny chicken-and-egg problem,” she said, “because without a warrant I don't see how anything you find would ever survive contact with a court room. Fourth Amendment viotion, if I don’t miss my guess, so that dog won't hunt.”“Ah, but there's the good part!” Sean insisted. “It doesn’t matter how we get the ledger. I don't need it as big-E evidence. I need names and a prop for the interviews.”“You just lost me there,” Anne said.“Yeah, interviews, confessions, they are the real meat of this,” Sean said. “We find out who he’s doing business with, we can just have those guys hauled in. We drop the ledger on the table, it doesn't matter it won't hold up in court — the confessions it'll get us will.”“I don’t see how they could,” Anne said, “Fruits of the poisonous tree, isn’t it?”5Fruit of the Poisonous Tree is a legal doctrine established in US criminal w. In yman’s terms, it holds that evidence gathered as the result of illegal actions by w enforcement officers is to be excluded from trial, to discourage LEOs from taking said illegal actions to get evidence they couldn’t get legally. So far, so simple.That said, most judges don’t like excluding otherwise solid evidence from trial, so generally speaking only really btantly illegal search and seizure gets hit by this. One of the bigger exceptions to the doctrine is good faith, e.g. if the LEO acted on a warrant that they reasonably believed was wfully issued, the evidence will most likely still be allowed at trial, regardless of the actual validity of the warrant.“I would argue inevitable discovery,”6Inevitable Discovery, as id out by Sean, is another big one. Basically, this argues that while the evidence was gathered illegally, it would have come to light soon anyway, one way or another. You probably don’t want to stake your case on it like Sean does, though. Sean answered. “Nix v. Williams, '84. But yeah, we’ll find a way. If we get those confessions.”“Which the ledger will compel for you,” Anne said.“The best way to get a confession is to convince your man you already have him dead to rights,” Sean said. “All we have to say is, hey pal, your name is in this book we got from Ilya Sidorov's office — talk to us or don't, but we've got you by the balls and good. If you want to cut a deal, now's the time. I mean, we could try to doctor up a fake as a prop, but these guys might know what the real thing looks like, so that's what we'll serve them. If we get enough names and talk to enough people, I guaran-fucking-tee you we can flip two or three.” He smirked. “These guys don't know chain of custody from their custody hearings, and anyway, we don't really have to tell them how we got it, do we. We'll cross our t's and dot our i's when it comes to all the formal stuff on the interviews, Miranda and all, but when it's said and done we'll be looking at a few bulletproof signed confessions. Everything our crusading DA needs to send Sidorov upstate.”“If you say so,” Anne said. “I can’t rightly say I like your pn, but I like sitting around here even less. I will go gear up, then. Now, if someone gets in our way — ”“No more bodies,” Sean said. “When you showed me the shotgun, you said you had some teargas shells?”Anne nodded. “They might be of use,” she said.