Liu’s destruction was complete. She stared at the table and sobbed.
We headed for the door.
Moore shouted, “Wait!”
CHAPTER 102
Manhattan
ON THE SCREEN, BREE watched the assistant district attorney and Detectives Thompson and Salazar return to the hospital room where Dusan Volkov and his boyish-looking lawyer Sergei Andreyev were waiting to hear the Russian mobster’s fate.
“They agree?” Volkov asked. “No life in prison?”
“We haven’t agreed yet,” ADA Ellis said.
Andreyev protested. “My client’s going to be straight with you about many things. You should take life in prison off the table.”
“He does minimum twenty-five or no deal whatsoever,” Ellis said. “And this information has to be solid as concrete.”
Andreyev started to counter, but Volkov waved him off. “I start,” he said. “When you think you hear enough, you take these things off the table, yes? And fifteen years minimum, because I know many, many things about many, many people.”
The ADA folded her arms, said, “I’m listening.”
The Russian said, “One day—I have the date somewhere, but I don’t remember now, maybe six months ago?—I get text on private cell phone and e-mail in private, secure e-mail. Same message saying Duchaine and Watkins are taking over high-end prostitution in Manhattan.”
“Who sent the message?” Ellis pressed.
“He calls himself Maestro and M.”
Bree’s heart started to pound. She sat forward, riveted, and started filming the screen with her phone to show Alex later.
“Who is he?”
“I told you,” Volkov replied. “Maestro and M. That’s it. He uses burn phone and messages through Tor. You know this Tor?”
Ellis sounded irritated when she said, “An anonymous messaging system.”
“Yes, but you are government, you can look at pictures I took of every message he sends me. FBI traces him.”
Arms crossed, Salazar asked, “How do you know this Maestro is behind the killings at Paula Watkins’s house?”
“Because he tries to hire me to do the killings at Watkins’s and I refuse. You will see from pictures.”
“Why did you refuse?”
“Too risky. I mean, eleven people at one time?”
“Who did M hire for that?”
“I have no idea.”
Thompson said, “But you agreed to kill Duchaine for M?”
“After he said money was no object, that he had someone with deep, deep pockets who wanted to make sure Duchaine never corrupted anyone ever again, and then proved it, yes.”
“How much?”
“Twenty million in Bitcoin. Half up front. Half on finish.”
Sergei Andreyev said, “This is enough?”
Ellis shook her head. “Not until I know if Maestro even exists.”
“He doesn’t,” Salazar’s partner said. “It’s bull.”
“I agree,” Salazar said. “And I’m out of here.”
“No deal,” the assistant district attorney said.
“I’m telling you the truth!” Volkov cried.
“I don’t care what you call it, life in prison is what we’re seeking,” Ellis said and she left the room while the two Russians shouted at each other.
Thompson shut off the feed. Bree turned off the camera on her phone, ran into the hallway, and intercepted Ellis, Salazar, and Thompson, who shut Volkov’s door to muffle the shouting.
“Can you believe that nonsense?” Salazar asked Bree.
“Actually, I can,” Bree said.
“What?” Ellis said.
“Maestro exists,” Bree said quietly. “It’s a vigilante group run by someone who calls himself M.”
“C’mon,” Thompson said.
“It’s real,” Bree insisted. “M sent men in helicopters to kill my husband and his partner last year deep in the Montana wilderness. They’d gotten too close to Maestro operators who were assassinating corrupt federal and local law enforcement agents and destroying the Alejandro drug cartel.”
Ellis said, “I remember reading about those killings and the cartel, but I don’t recall any reference to an M or Maestro.”
“The government wanted to keep it quiet,” Bree said. “They didn’t want to glorify a vigilante group, figuring it would bring out the crazies.”
“Especially when they’re killing law enforcement,” Salazar said. “Corrupt or not.”
“Exactly.”
“Well,” Ellis said. “Even if M and Maestro exist, I certainly don’t have enough to give Mr. Volkov the slightest leniency. And I do have other things to do. We’ll let him stew, see if he remembers more in a few days.”
“C’mon,” Salazar said to Bree. “We’ll go find you a ride to Penn Station and me a ride home to my baby.”
Bree was about to agree when she remembered something Alex had asked her to do while she was in New York.
“Can I go ask Volkov a question for my husband first? It’s about the Family Man murders in DC.”
Ellis shrugged. “Fine by me. If he’ll talk.”
CHAPTER 103
Alexandria, Virginia
ON THE SIDEWALK OUTSIDE the federal detention facility, I kneaded the knotted muscles in my neck with one hand and held my phone tight to my ear with the other. “You’re sure that’s what Volkov said?”
“Hundred percent,” Bree replied. “I recorded it.”
“Volkov know you were recording?”
“He did.”
“Send me a copy?”
“Of course. Guess who Volkov said hired him to kill Duchaine.”
“No clue.”
“M.”
“What?”
“I’m serious. M offered him twenty million in Bitcoin to do it.”
“Does Volkov know who M is?”
“No. He was always contacted through Tor encrypted messages, just like you. And he said M tried to hire him to kill the people at Paula Watkins’s place, but he refused.”
M was behind the Duchaine killings. How had that happened?
I was about to ask that when Bree said something, but her voice faded in and out like it was coming in over a shortwave. “Say that again, Bree.”
But the reception was even worse.
“One of us is having phone issues. I’ll see you at Union Station at seven thirty.”
“Love you” was all I understood before she broke the connection.
I pocketed my phone and looked up to see Mahoney and Sampson waiting. “Anything yet?” I asked.
Ned said, “Agents went into Haps Premium ten—”
His phone buzzed with a text; he looked at it, then nodded at us. “Cold/cold.”
We were soon in one of the rooms the detention facility set aside for law enforcement and attorneys to meet with prisoners.
Tull came strolling in wearing irons and a smirk on his face, which was less swollen but still black-and-blue.
“I saw on the news they were arrested,” he said, his words sounding clearer than the last time we’d spoken. “I told you they were framing me, and you’re finally coming to your senses, Dr. Cross. Finally seeing the light.”