“Hey, hey, you guys, what is this?”
Farther and farther into the abandoned mine.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Deeper and deeper they dragged him, flashlight beams bathing the tunnel in a ghostly light. On and on they went. Hundreds of yards into the mine. Way out of sight.
Nicoletti shivered. He was bleeding in the cold, fetid water. “Sweet mother of God, what are you doing? Where is Henry? Does he know you’re doing this? When he finds out, you guys are dead!”
Jack punched him twice in the jaw. The sound of bone cracking resonated in the cave.
Nicoletti began to wail, his mouth twisted.
“Just so you know, pal, we’re only just getting started.”
“Are you out of your goddamn minds? Do you know who I am?”
Jack bent over and pressed a gun to Nicoletti’s head as Peter frisked him. He found a set of car keys and a cell phone. “Where’s your weapon?”
“In the trunk of my car, man,” he said with a groan.
“What’s your passcode for your cell phone?”
“What?”
“You heard!”
“11131114.”
Jack tapped in the numbers and unlocked the contents of the cell phone. He put the cell phone in his pocket. “11131114, you got that, bro?”
Peter nodded. “Got it.”
Nicoletti shook uncontrollably, wincing in pain when he spoke. “What the fuck you guys want? You working for Henry? Did he send you?”
Peter pressed his foot onto the bleeding knee.
Nicoletti screamed again and scrunched up his eyes. “Motherfucker! What do you want?”
“You’re gonna talk. And then we’ll let you go.”
“Man, I’ve done everything Henry asked me to do. What the hell is going on?”
Jack grabbed Nicoletti by the hair and pistol-whipped him. Blood spurted from his nose and mouth. The pent-up fury was starting to unfurl. “Who told you to kill Caroline McNeal?”
Nicoletti spat out blood and a broken tooth. “Henry did,” he mumbled. “I don’t operate without his say-so.”
Jack stomped on the man’s head three times. Nicoletti spat out more teeth. He screwed up his eyes in pain.
“Who are you, man?” he gasped.
“You’ll find out soon enough. How did you kill her?”
“Man, what is this?”
“You talk, and you might live. Stay silent, and you will die. Your choice.”
“Fine . . . I broke into her place. I waited until she came home, and I jabbed her with drugs. Huge amounts of barbiturates and a morphine solution.”
“Why?”
“To make it look like suicide. And then I took her body down to the river. And that was it.”
Jack’s mind flashed to his wife on their wedding day. The smile on her face. He bent over and pressed the gun tight to Nicoletti’s head. He needed to maintain control. At least for now. “How about Sophie Meyer?”
“A simple break-in. Sprayed some synthetic opioid into her ear. It’s known on the streets as Pink. Then fentanyl in her carotid. She collapsed and died. I sprinkled some pure coke around her lips. And I dropped a variety of sleeping pills around her body.”
“You did it?”
“I did. But I was only following orders.”
“Whose orders?”
Nicoletti winced, as if not wishing to divulge any more. “I don’t know . . .”
Jack punched him twice in the face, blood spurting onto his shirt.
“Graff! Henry Graff!”
“Graff gave you the go-ahead?”
Nicoletti spat out some more blood, one of his eyes blackened, swollen, unable to see. “Yes and . . . no.”
Jack pressed his foot down onto Nicoletti’s face, partially submerging it in filthy water. “Don’t fuck with me!”
Nicoletti spluttered and spat out the water.
“Let’s try again. What does that mean?”
“Meyer was Henry’s wife, man. Don’t you understand? Sophie Meyer. He was married to her.”
“I know that. But he wasn’t the only one that wanted her dead.”
“A lot of people wanted her in the ground. She was a threat. She fucked everyone in DC if they had money and influence. A lot of people wanted her out of the way.”
“What kind of people?”
“Important people!”
“People in high levels of government? Who? Give me names!”
“I don’t know exactly who,” he mumbled. “But that’s right. Look, man, I’m just a guy that does wet work. I don’t know the big picture. I’m just a foot soldier.”