Chapter 5 - Shadows in the Syndicate
The gray utility van didn't stop at the curb. It jumped the sidewalk, smashing through the green wooden display stands outside the bakery and crashing directly through the front plate-glass window.
The sound of shattering glass, splintering oak, and tearing sheet metal echoed down 108th Street like an explosion.
Through the pulverized storefront, four men dressed in tactical black combat gear and Kevlar vests poured out of the side doors of the van. They weren't street thugs holding handguns sideways. They moved in military-style stacks, carrying suppressed submachine guns with tactical flashlights mounted to their barrels.
"Clean the upstairs!" a voice barked with a thick Eastern European accent. "Find the girl’s room! Take every computer, every notebook, every phone! Leave no witnesses in the beds!"
They had come to finish the job. Cruz had sent a Russian hit team to exterminate Mateo and Maria Vasquez and scour the apartment for whatever drawings or evidence Elena might have left behind.
The Maybach collided with the rear bumper of the gray van at forty miles an hour.
The impact buckled the Russian van's frame with a deafening screech of steel on steel, throwing the two rear lookouts onto the wet asphalt. Before the smoke from our deployed airbags could even clear, I hit the door release.
"Bruno, go!" I commanded.
The door swung wide, and one hundred and twenty pounds of fury exploded into the rainy night.
The first Russian soldier was scrambling to his feet, bringing his submachine gun up to bear, when Bruno struck him at full sprint. The sheer kinetic energy of the dog hit the man’s chest like a bowling ball hitting a pin. The soldier was thrown backward against the brick facade of the neighboring dry cleaner, his weapon skittering away across the pavement.
Before the man could scream, Bruno’s jaws clamped onto his right shoulder, crushing through ballistic nylon, muscle, and collarbone in a single, devastating crunch. The man’s shriek cut through the sound of the rain, only to be abruptly silenced as the dog violently whipped his head, tossing the grown man into the shattered display window like a rag doll.
"Drop them!" I yelled, stepping out into the rain with my Kimber raised.
Tony was already firing. His heavy Glock barked three times in rapid succession. The second Russian lookout, who was frantically raising a suppressed MPX, took two rounds to the center of his chest plate and one through the base of his neck. He crumpled instantly into the gutter, dark blood mixing with the rushing rainwater.
Inside the bakery, gunfire erupted.
*Crack-crack-crack-crack!*
The sounds came from upstairs—from the small four-room apartment where Mateo and Maria were sleeping.
My two men who had been stationed at the rear stairwell were already engaging the intruders. I heard the unmistakable thunder of Dominic’s .357 Magnum, followed by a heavy crash that sounded like a body falling down a flight of wooden stairs.
"Tony, cover the street!" I yelled, sprinting toward the ruined front entrance of the bakery. "Frankie, watch the perimeter!"
Bruno was already ahead of me. The dog leapt over the twisted hood of the utility van, ignoring the jagged shards of window glass that sliced into his flank, and tore through the pulverized interior of the shop. Flour covered the floor like fresh snow, kicked up into a choking white fog by the crash.
I followed him through the swinging kitchen door, stepping over broken baking trays, shattered porcelain bowls, and the smell of sweet sugar mixing with hot copper.
At the foot of the back stairs, Dominic lay slumped against the wall, clutching his leg where a bullet had grazed his thigh, his revolver smoking in his hand.
"Upstairs, Boss!" Dominic gasped, his face twisted in pain. "Two of 'em went up the fire escape! They kicked the bedroom door in!"
I took the stairs three at a time, my Kimber held high, my heart hammering against my ribs with a rage I hadn't felt in thirty years.
Bruno was a brown-and-black streak ahead of me. He didn't bark. He didn't growl. A Caucasian mastiff in combat does not make noise; they hunt in terrifying, absolute silence until the moment of the kill.
At the top of the landing, the door to Elena’s bedroom hung off its hinges, splintered inward.
Inside, the room was bathed in the soft, pink glow of a nightlight shaped like a crescent moon. Colorful posters of horses and fairy-tale castles covered the walls. A small white wooden desk was overturned, its drawers pulled out, colored pencils and storybooks scattered across the pink carpet.
Mateo Vasquez was on his knees in the corner, his arms thrown over his wife Maria, shielding her body with his own.
Standing over them was a towering man in a black tactical jacket. In his left hand, he held a pink plastic backpack. In his right hand, he held a heavy-caliber pistol fitted with a thick sound suppressor, aimed squarely at the back of Mateo’s skull.
"Where is the book, old man?" the Russian hissed, his finger tightening on the trigger. "Where did she put the sketchpad?"
"She was just a baby!" Mateo wept, not looking up. "She didn't know anything! Please, God, just spare Maria!"
"God is not on this street," the killer replied.
He never got to pull the trigger.
Bruno hit him through the shattered doorway like an avalanche.
The dog didn't go for the gun arm; he went for the center of mass. The sheer weight of the mastiff drove the Russian into Elena’s small white wardrobe, the wood splintering into kindling upon impact. The gun flew from the man’s hand, clattering against the wall.
The Russian let out a guttural curse, reaching for a combat knife strapped to his tactical vest. He pulled an eight-inch serrated blade and plunged it downward toward Bruno’s neck.
"Bruno!" I roared, bursting into the room.
I fired twice.
The heavy .45 hollow-point rounds struck the Russian’s right shoulder and collarbone, shattering the bone structure and deflecting the downward strike of the blade. The knife missed Bruno’s neck, slicing harmlessly through the fur of his shoulder.
In the next heartbeat, Bruno’s jaws closed around the man’s throat.
There was a sickening, muffled crunch. The Russian’s legs kicked once, twice against the pink carpet, scattering a collection of plastic horse figurines, and then went limp.
Silence fell over the small bedroom.
The only sound was the frantic, choking gasps of Mateo and Maria, the heavy panting of the dog, and the steady drip of rain through the shattered window that opened onto the fire escape.
I lowered my Kimber, smoke curling lazily from the barrel.
Bruno stood over the dead hitman for five long seconds, his chest heaving, his muzzle stained with dark crimson. He looked down at the dead soldier, then slowly lifted his head and looked at me.
Then, he turned around and walked over to the corner of the room.
The dog did not look at Mateo. He did not look at Maria.
He walked over to a small white nightstand beside Elena’s empty bed. With an astonishing, heartbreaking gentleness, Bruno used his massive, blood-flecked nose to nudge open the bottom drawer of the nightstand.
He reached inside with his teeth and carefully pulled out a thick, spiral-bound sketchbook with a glittery purple cover.
He carried it across the room and laid it down at my feet.
I knelt down in the ruined bedroom, my gloved hand trembling as I picked up the child’s sketchbook.
I flipped it open.
Past the drawings of horses. Past the drawings of ice cream cones and sun-drenched parks.
On the very last page, drawn in crude, brilliant, seven-year-old detail, was a scene that cracked the entire conspiracy wide open.
It showed the rail yard. It showed a black SUV. It showed Marco taking a briefcase from a man with a gold tooth.
And standing beside the black SUV, drawn with terrifying, unmistakable accuracy, was a tall, silver-haired man in a gray suit, holding a silver medical scalpel between his fingers. Beneath the figure, in Elena’s innocent, clumsy lettering, was written:
*The gray doctor who gave Marco the box.*
Gabriel Cruz had not just ordered the hit from a penthouse in Manhattan.
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The Scalpel had been standing on the asphalt himself.
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