Blast

Blast

Ilya Bushmin

© Ilya Bushmin, 2016

© Susan Welsh, translation, 2016

ISBN 978-5-4474-0966-1

Created with intellectual publishing system Ridero

Prologue

When a butterfly hit his dirty windshield with a disgusting squish, Jerry shuddered. He reflexively turned on the wipers and pulled the washer knob, before remembering that the windshield wiper tank had been empty for a week. Once again he made a mental note to fill it, knowing full well that he would forget it again. Jerry took a sip from his beer can and, belching loudly, switched the radio to another station.

The dirty pickup made its way along the night road toward the city, the dim light of its dusty headlights illuminating the pavement ahead. The city lights ahead were almost impossible to make out through the dirty windshield. But somewhere in the east there was a glow: Soon it would be morning.

There was some kind of ridiculous comedy program on the radio. Through the wheezing old speakers he could hear a girl laughing, with an amazingly vile, squeaky voice:

“What? Don’t you know, a wedding in Vegas is no joke! That’s a real wedding!”

“That was funny when you weren’t even born yet, you idiot,” Jerry grumbled, belching again, and tried another station. The old speaker coughed out country music. Nodding with satisfaction, Jerry – a corpulent, bearded man under 50, almost as unkempt as his truck – reached for the beer.

His pickup drove past a brightly lit construction hypermarket that had opened a few years ago, three miles outside the city. He had heard on the radio that the city government had quarreled with the county over this site, since a hypermarket would be a tasty morsel for both of them. In the end, the city won and the city limits were formally extended along the highway to the hypermarket. Then the suckerfish, as Jerry called them, started to appear – smaller shops for construction supplies, eateries, offices of construction firms. But life in these prts was in full swing only in the daytime; in the pre-dawn hours it was as deserted as a cemetery. Only the street lights, devouring hundreds of dollars for nothing, and emptiness. And Jerry’s lone pickup truck crawling toward the city.

Taking the last swig, Jerry crumpled up the can, tossed it onto the back seat, and reached for another beer. With his peripheral vision, he thought he noticed some movement ahead.

He frowned, squinted, trying to peer through the dirty windshield.

Fifty yards away, to the right along the ramp to some sort of office or construction goods store, a shadowy figure was running, discernible against the brightly lit building. The shadow waved its arms and seems to be shouting something – Jerry thought he heard a voice over the blare of the music.

“What the hell?”

He slowed down a bit and craned his neck, trying to make out what was going on. A man was careening toward the road, waving his arms. The dim headlights showed him running to the curbside. A suit, tie, face contorted, eyes wide from horror. Over the wheezing of the music, Jerry clearly heard the cry: “Help!”

Screaming and waving with one hand, the man seemed to be grabbing at his throat with the other. Jerry frantically glanced from side to side (where’s his car, for crying out loud? Is this a trap? How did he get here?). He tried to gather his wits, decide whether to slow down or drive past. The man was just ten yards ahead when Jerry suddenly noticed, in the dim light of the headlights, his gleaming metal collar. A circular pipe a couple of inches thick. Jerry looked in amazement at the stranger running towards him, screaming with holy terror in his eyes: “Please! Help me! Take it off…!”

“What the…?!” Jerry was thunderstruck.

But he never got as far as “… hell.” Because the collar around the neck of the suit, who was by then practically under the wheels of Jerry’s vehicle, exploded with a deafening roar, blinding Jerry, shattering the dirty glass of the pickup, and leaving its driver stunned. Amid the roar of the explosion, he was peppered with debris traveling at the speed of a bullet, ripping into his face, piercing his skin, stabbing his eyes and throat.

The pickup zoomed past the man, flew onto the shoulder, flipped over, and crashed, wheels up. But Jerry didn’t feel it. He was already dead.

The suit, with his head blown off, kept running a couple of yards out of inertia, then also collapsed on the asphalt.

And then there was silence, broken only by the wheeze of Jerry’s radio from the wrecked, upside-down car.

Chapter 1

Troy Brown was not completely against moving to Perte. Shelley’s main problem was not with him, but with their daughter Carol. Which meant they had to explain at great length that the school girlfriends of a seven-year-old are not the most important thing in the life of a family. But hell, when Brown couldn’t even find his favorite coffee mug in the morning because Shelley had already packed it – now that was too much.

“Shelley, don’t go off the deep end,” he grumbled, rummaging around in the box for the mug. “We’ve got a whole week ahead of us, so there’s no need to pack dishes, clothes… and my mug! What am I going to drink my coffee out of? Plastic cups?”

“We don’t have any plastic cups,” she smiled, pushing Brown away from the box. “Cut it out, before you get all steamed up. I’ll find it.”

In the kitchen, Carol was finishing breakfast, drinking juice and chattering:

“When will we get there? Are we going on vacation? I promised my classmates.”

“You will have other classmates,” Shelley muttered, fumbling in the box.

“Mom!” Carol whined.

“What? We’ve already discussed this a hundred times. Hell, where did I put it? Wait. Maybe the mugs are in the other one.”

Shelley left the room. Seeing his daughter’s skeptical look, Brown patted Carol on the head.

“Eat up. If you like, I’ll drop you off. And everything will be fine. You’ll like the new house.”

Carol did not think so, and stared sullenly at her plate. Shelley returned, triumphantly handing Brown his mug. And while he poured his coffee, Shelley said, with a dreamy smile,

“I can’t believe it. You’ve started your last week. Five days, and you’re free.”

That was when Brown’s cell phone rang.

As he drove along, Brown counted six patrol cars on the highway. Only one lane was open, with two patrolmen directing traffic, letting the cars by in one direction at a time. The yellow tape of the police cordon was tied to the cars” mirrors, blocking off a solid stretch of road. Crime Scene Investigation people were milling around on the pavement, inspecting something. The corpse had been covered with a cloth, with just a pair of expensive boots sticking out.

When Brown got out of the air-conditioned car, the heat slammed him. That’s really what he wasn’t going to miss in the cooler climate of Perte – this scorching heat. Nodding at the patrolmen, one of whom obligingly lifted the cordon for him to pass, Brown walked over to the corpse. A puzzled and somewhat confused DiMaggio appeared.

“Good morning.”

“I don’t know about that, Troy.” DiMaggio was already soaked in sweat. He squinted wistfully along the road, where a sparse line of cars stretched toward the city. “Just our luck. Half a mile further ahead, and the state would be dealing with this, not us.”

“Killers don’t give a damn about geography, didn’t you hear?”

“Want to take a look?”

DiMaggio motioned toward the corpse. With a frown, Brown stepped toward the sheet covering the body and, after lifting it for a second, instinctively turned his head in revulsion. The corpse looked as if some giant had just torn off the guy’s head. Brown couldn’t get the image out of his mind.

“What the fuck…”

“Have you ever seen anything like it?”

“Who is he?”

“Eric Pickman, age thirty-eight.” DiMaggio checked his notebook. “Owner and director of Plate Build Construction. That’s the office, over there.”

DiMaggio motioned toward the two-story building along the side of the road.

“That’s what it looks like, I guess, when your job blows you away.” Brown tried to joke, not having regained his composure.

“Only it wasn’t work that blew him away, but a bomb or grenade. Did he stick it in his mouth, or what? Can you imagine? The guys from the lab have already collected fragments, and promise to give us the information as soon as possible.” DiMaggio nodded at the overturned pickup which had been moved over to the shoulder, where the patrolmen and CSI guys were checking things out. “That guy was just passing by. And then, kaboom! Bummer.”

“Uh-huh, in the wrong place at the wrong time. When did it happen?”

“The 911 call came in at 5:40 a.m. A patrol car was here in five minutes. The body was still warm.” After a pause, the usually swaggering macho DiMaggio could no longer contain himself. “Troy, Pickman’s head just exploded! And the explosion was so big that we have two corpses instead of one. This is… Damn, how could this happen?”

It was a rhetorical question, really. Moreover, Brown was now interested in something else.

“At 5:40? What the hell was the boss of the company doing around the office at 5:40 on a Monday morning?”

The Plate Build Construction office was a two-story building made of glass and concrete —Pickman had clearly been trying to impress potential customers. Several detectives from Brown’s department had interviewed staff who were just coming to work. Brown went into a room with one of them, Sergeant Chambers.

“There was no security at the office at night, only an alarm,” said the security guard apologetically, “and also a surveillance camera.” There was a picture on the monitor. At Brown’s request, the guard fast-forwarded the recording to the relevant time.

A black van was driving toward the building, but stopped suddenly, 20 yards away. The numbers in the corner of the screen recorded the time: 5:27. The man in the suit, Eric Pickman, got out of the van. Like a zombie, stumbling as if in shock and clearly not seeing anything in front of him, Pickman made for the office door. The van disappeared around the corner of the building.

“What’s that thing around his neck?” exclaimed Brown, looking at the monitor. When Pickman arrived at the office, the camera showed not only his face, contorted in horror, but the strange contraption around his neck. A metal collar a couple of inches thick, with a tiny, square mini-camera fastened to the front.

“I’ve never seen the boss wearing anything like that,” the guard confessed.

“It’s a bomb.” Chambers was impressed. “Pickman came to the office with a bomb around his neck!”

Meanwhile Pickman disappeared from the monitor’s field of view and entered the building. Brown gestured at the monitor, asking the guard: “And the van? Is that your boss’s car?”

“No, sir. He drives a BMW. I’ve never seen this van here, sir; it’s not from the company.”

“They turned the corner. What’s over there?”

“The dumpster, that’s all,” Chambers replied. “The guys from the lab are trying to find traces of the tread.”

“We should send them this clip. Maybe they’ll be able to make out the van’s license plate.”

For seven minutes the camera didn’t pick up anything else, but then headlights flashed and the van came around the corner again, pulling onto the freeway at high speed. And less than a minute later, Pickman came charging out the door, slamming it open so hard that the image on the monitor shook. Stumbling, waving his arms, and tugging at the collar, Pickman raced after the van. Brown and Chambers stared at the screen, waiting for what was about to happen. And after half a minute came the answer: Something blazed up brightly for just a moment, somewhere over on the side, and the image shook again.

“The blast save,” Chambers muttered. The security guard involuntarily closed his eyes and whispered, “Oh, my God…”

“They put that damn thing on him to make him do something for them in the office.” Brown hesitantly began to put together an argument. “But why the hell did they leave? Why did he run out empty-handed?”

“And why didn’t he call the police, if he was alone in the office?” Chambers added.

A patrolman looked into the room. Seeing Brown, he announced, “Lieutenant, they’ve found something on the second floor.”

One of the shelves in the safe was full of papers, the second completely empty. A pale woman in a suit, upset and confused, looked at Brown and Chambers.

“There was cash in there, nearly $500,000. It was just there on Saturday. And now…”

“$500 K, not bad,” whistled Chambers. “Did Pickman have the combination?”

“Of course, he was the owner of the company.”

Brown went over to the window, taking a glove out of his pocket just in case, which helped him to open the sash. He looked outside. The front office. An asphalt walkway around the building, with the dumpster at the corner. Under the windows, one of the crime scene guys was studying the pavement. Brown nervously wondered what Pickman had been through in the last minutes of his life. Emptying out the safe in a panic, throwing the money into a bag or package. Opening the window, throwing the money out. The people in the black van seizing it and racing off. Realizing that they had left him with the collar on, Pickman in a panic rushes downstairs as if he might have been able to catch up with the van… Guided by instinct. Brown imagined that the only thought in Pickman’s head as he careened toward the road, was “TO LIVE!” But the guys in the van had other plans. BAM! And Pickman’s head burst, like a watermelon falling from a skyscraper.

“Pickman did everything to get them to take that collar off,” Brown said grimly, closing the window. “But they had other plans.”

They’d been working at the crime scene for almost half a day. With a tow truck, they pulled away the dirty pickup truck of the poor bastard who had just happened to be driving by. A CSI crew gathered up all the fragments of the collar and what was left of Pickman’s head, which were scattered about the road within a forty-yard radius. Then the road was opened to traffic. The detectives interviewed all the company’s employees. Pickman was single and lived alone in a house outside of town. A police cruiser immediately headed there. The patrolmen and DiMaggio found the owner’s BMW in front of the house. When DiMaggio climbed into the car, he noticed the driver’s door ajar. Automatically putting his hand on his holster, he noticed something on the front lawn. He bent over: It was the car keys.

DiMaggio turned to the patrolmen. “They waited for him here. When he arrived and got out of the car, they stuffed him into the van,” DiMaggio inferred.

Brown had already found this out on the way to the Police Department, where he had gone with Chambers. When DiMaggio called him to report, Brown had just arrived at the underground parking lot.

“Get on the horn and get the CSI guys,” he ordered. “And go canvas the neighborhood with the beat cops. Talk to the neighbors. Hopefully, someone suddenly saw a black van. Dave?”

Instead of a reply, a kind of croak came from the telephone. Repeating DiMaggio’s name and not hearing anything, Brown looked at the screen of his phone and saw no bars at all. The connection was lost.

“Fucking wireless. Why do you always lose the connection underground?”

“Because we are right under the evidence repository here,” Chambers said as he got out of the car. “It’s got thick walls. Directly above us.”

Brown still had no idea that the repository would save his life. There was a lot more that Brown still didn’t know.

Together they walked to the elevator. Chambers looked at Brown.

“Is Carol still on strike?”

“She is positive that her friends are friends for life,” Brown replied, pressing the elevator button.

“Did you explain it to her what life in a new two-story house with a swimming pool is going to be like? That there’s not going to be any shortage of new friends?”

“She is not yet such a callous, cynical pig as you are, Rick,” Brown chuckled, stepping into the elevator. “At the age of seven, we all think that classmates and friends are the most important thing in life.”

“I don’t know about seven-year-olds. At forty, I’m more concerned that we have a good going away bash to celebrate your transfer. Booze’s on you, of course.”

“Rick, Shelley wants us to go to Perte on Friday. We are supposed to spend the entire weekend settling into our new home. You know, unpacking the stuff. Trying out the grill in the backyard. That kind of thing.”

“Never mind, we’ll get wasted on Thursday. Troy, you just can’t wiggle out of it, buddy! You’ve been head of the division for almost a decade. An important milestone in life, and all that.”

“Do I have to explain to you that life in a new two-story house with a swimming pool is much cooler than boozing it up with a bunch of losers like you?” Brown laughed.

“Oh, may the termites eat your house,” Chambers retorted.

Brown and Chambers had worked together for eight years, since right after Chambers was hired by the homicide division, where Brown was a sergeant. After six years as partners, Brown was promoted to lieutenant and head of the division. They spent a lot of time together, and such conversations had become a sort of tradition long ago.

When they got to the floor where their division was, Brown met the youngest detective, Tommy Porras.

“Troy, the captain wants to see you.”

“The Plate Build Construction Company had closed a large deal,” reported Brown, sinking into an easy chair. “They built a motel in the next county over. At the end of the week, their account at Rentier Bank had 700,000 bucks in it. The accountant and two guards cashed a check for $500,000 on Friday. The guys with the collar somehow found out about it. They nabbed Pickman in front of his house. Now we are trying to find out exactly when.”

Captain Tierney listened to Brown with a scowl, tapping a pencil on his desk. The city’s Deputy Chief of Police was going to have a tough week, and had already had a headache since morning.

“What the hell? Wouldn’t it have been easier to go with him and take the money out of the safe? Why these tricks? And this collar… Fuck, I’ve been in the police force for twenty years, and I’ve never even heard of crap like this.”

Brown nodded grimly. After a pause, he delicately approached the main point:

“Captain, who are you going to refer the matter to? The Organized Crime Division or the Robbery Division?”

Tierney frowned, peering intently at Brown, as though trying to imagine his reaction to what Tierney was about to say. During his years on the job, Brown had learned very well what that look meant, so he immediately protested:

“No! Don’t even think about it!”

“Troy, wait, don’t you get all pumped up about it.”

“Bob, this is my last week! Five days! More precisely,” Brown demonstratively checked his watch, “four and a half. I’m almost not here at all, get it?”

“Troy, there’s no one else I can trust with this.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Mack from Organized Crime is in the hospital. Henry from Robbery is too fucking stupid…”

“Bob, what do I care?!” Brown resisted. “My wife has already packed everything! Even my mug, damn it! Now I am just closing out all my old cases! The Perte police are expecting me next Monday! Forget about me, do you hear?”

Waiting until Brown stopped talking, Tierney raised his cheerless eyes, showing that he was not about to change his mind.

“Almost half an hour ago I spoke with the Mayor. The press is grabbing this story and tomorrow information about exploding heads will be in every newspaper and on every TV and radio channel. Do you do realize that this is the number one news item?”

“What’s it got to do with me, Bob? It’s my last…” But Tierney brusquely cut him off:

“The Mayor and the chief of police want the best person on this case. And you’re my best. You know it, Troy. So, do what I ask. Take the case. Just consider it a favor to the old man who has covered your ass a hundred times.”

“Fuck me Freddy,” said Brown fatalistically, imagining what Shelley would say when she heard about it.

“I called Perte.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“They are willing to wait. As long as necessary, if you aren’t finished by the end of the week. And they wish you good luck. Would you like to be a captain in Perte? If you solve this case, that cushy chair will be yours. So it’s in everyone’s interest. What do you say?”

“My wife is going to kill me,” said Brown gloomily, getting up to go.

Fifteen minutes later, he called his detectives together for a quick briefing. Trying to be optimistic, Brown realized that if he tried hard and solved the case by the end of the week it would be the best-case scenario. Shelley would be happy, and so would Tierney – and Brown didn’t want to let him down.

“Our main lead is the money. The guys with the collars somehow learned that Pickman had a large sum handy. Therefore, the number one question is, who told them?”

“Someone working for the company. That would be the most natural explanation,” said Porras.

“Okay, you take care of that. Check them all out, each and every one of them. Convictions, rap sheets, parking tickets – everything. Get their call logs too, both business and personal.”

“Got it, boss.”

“Dave, go see the owner of the motel that Pickman’s company built. Check him out fully. Find out what the local police have on him. DiMaggio, you take Pickman’s personal relationships. His whole social circle: who he slept with, who he drank with – everyone. Gilan, you take Rentier Bank. There may be a leak there. On Friday, the accountant withdrew cash from the company account.”

“I’m more worried about the explosives,” Chambers said. “The collar wasn’t big. But did you see the flash from that explosion on the video?”

“Contact the Feds, maybe they know something,” Brown agreed. “Now everybody pay attention. As you know, Friday is my last day at the office. So by Friday we have to get these guys.”

“By Thursday,” said DiMaggio cheerfully, with a nod at Chambers. “Rick said on Thursday we’ll go boozing.”

Brown grinned, then became serious again.

“We’ll see about that later. That’s what I wanted to tell you, guys. Pickman was killed, even though he had done everything they wanted, and paid them. Why?” The detectives, apparently not quite sure of what to say, simply looked at each other. Brown answered for them: “Because they need people to start talking about them. They need everyone in town to know they are serious and that you can’t mess around with them. And that means, they’re going to do it again.”

It was about six o’clock in the evening when Brown’s car rolled around the corner and past the old houses on Thurmont Street. A kid pushing drugs at the crossroads clammed up, sensing the police presence. But Brown had bigger fish to fry. Taking notice of a car at the curb with three tough-looking guys inside, following the uninvited guest to their neighborhood with suspicious eyes, Brown drove up alongside. He knew one of the guys – he worked for Hash, and was known as Basso. Lowering his window on the passenger side, Brown barked out: “I’m looking for Hash.”

Basso, exchanging glances with the others, nodded: “Wait around the corner. Hash will be there.”

Brown drove on. Reaching the corner, he got out of the car, sat on the hood, and waited, toying with the knife he always carried with him. An old Spyderco, one of the first. Brown remembered his delight as a teenager, when he received the gift from his late father. A heavy, impressive, deadly sharp knife that could be opened with just a flick of the thumb.

Hash showed up five minutes later. He had an imposing and unhurried stride, afraid of nothing, and was sipping a cocktail through a straw. This was his turf.

“Long time no see. Problems, boss?”

“Not exactly,” Brown replied, hooking the knife to his belt. “Have you been listening to the radio?”

“Yup,” said Hash with a grin. “The guy with no head? They really blasted it right off? We’ve been arguing all day about how it could have happened. Were the explosives taped up to his noggin?”

“Hash, six months ago you passed me some information on those guys who were selling grenades. Do you still have any contacts with arms dealers? I’m interested in C—4.”