40SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND
Nicky Velasco kept his hands in his pockets as he walked home along Dartmouth Avenue, watching golden leaves drift to the sidewalk.
Dinner had been perfunctory, a sandwich from Chick-fil-A. He’d wanted something more substantial and had planned to go to a nice steakhouse, lift a credit card from the first blowhard he ran into and run up a tab.
But Bob’s warning about keeping a low profile had stuck with him. There’d been something in his tone. Real worry, perhaps, a sentiment Nicky was unaccustomed to experiencing.
The six-hour search for information on The Big Cheese had yielded little. It was owned by a holding company, which had purchased it and another outlet in south Bakersfield a year earlier. He’d run searches on dairy providers and matched up its suppliers, then dug deeper and found a reference in a government inspection report.
That had led him to a classified report on Gerry Tucker’s inspection team, a county crew going over the operation with a fine-toothed comb.
And… nothing. Nothing except that one anomaly.
He’d been extra cautious, pulling street camera images from the city’s traffic network around the factory, then satellite images from every government agency he could access. There had to be something out of place if Alpha thought something was wrong. The man was rarely wrong.
Bob. Feels weird treating him like a mortal. Singleton had saved him from a homicidal co-worker at the CIA, even if it had cost him his legit career.
And all I’ve got for him is a tanker truck.
It had pulled up and parked behind the cage-like backyard. The satellite image didn’t show a brand or marker, but the white dots around it indicated a small crew of men running what looked like a long, wide hose into the back of the building, two weeks prior.
Curious, he’d searched the traffic database for red-light camera images around the property that night. After nearly an hour of looking through images, he’d found a tanker truck of the same size, and had a plate number. The courts database had found the plate associated with a speeding ticket, unredacted, in the name of Jenkins Racing.
Jenkins was Thomas’s employer. So I’ve got him a tie. I just have no idea what it means.
Hopefully, it would be enough. Eventually, Alpha—Bob—would come good and offer his services as payback. And Nicky had big plans.
At home, he felt the quietness immediately. The apartment was silent, empty and large.
He hadn’t ever been a social person, not particularly, although there had been a time before high school when he’d wanted to be. Instead, Nicky had found himself pushed into the geek clique in school: the game nerds, the Dungeons and Dragons kids, the non-jock members of the computer club.
He’d discovered in his early twenties that he had a pain fetish and enjoyed being walked on by a woman in high heels. It had been an exciting discovery, a whim to try something suggested by a sex worker during a visit to Atlantic City. But it had gradually soured his already meagre attempts at finding a normal relationship.
But he tried not to think about that. Instead, he focused on the positive: self-enrichment at the expense of bad people, proving his mettle as an information broker and, in his spare time, leading an online guild in a turn-based fantasy roleplaying game.
He tossed his keys onto the telephone table by the door. In the adjacent living room, he headed directly for the computer desk under the back window.
“Hello, Mr. Velasco. You’re not supposed to be here.”
The man had an accent. South African? Nicky’s training kicked in—as much as it ever did—and he glanced to his right, towards the bookcase.
“If you’re wondering about the Ruger you had in the cigar box, it’s presently in the side pocket of my jacket.”
He turned around. The man in the armchair was older, maybe late fifties. He had scar tissue by his left eyelid and a thin line across his Adam’s apple. In his right hand, he held a Glock 19.
“I think you’ve got the wrong apartment, sir,” Nicky said, trying to keep his voice as wavering and uncertain as possible. “I’m Ray…”
“No, that’s your cover. Why persist? I clearly know exactly who you are.” Van Kamp gestured towards the opposite sofa with a shake of his gun. “Sit.”
Nicky did as ordered. “How much?” he asked.
“How much what?”
“How much for you to go away and forget you saw me? I have access to a lot of money.”
That piqued his captor’s interest. “Really? How much?”
“Hundreds of thousands,” Nicky said. “Like, within twenty-four hours, I can strip two dozen credit accounts for at least that much.” Use the delay. Find a weapon. His eyes flitted back and forth across the room, looking for something obvious.
Van Kamp tilted his head, a curious expression washing over him, like a child trying to understand a puppy. “That much? So… how much could you steal in… say… two hours?”
Why is he asking me that? That’s not good, is it? “Not sure. Maybe twenty thousand?”
Van Kamp smiled. “So… you’ll do that for me, then.”
“And you’ll let me go?”
“No. But I will stop torturing you until you complete your work. That alone should make it an enticing offer.”
He’s going to kill me. Nicky felt a swell of panic, the realization like driving into head-on traffic. Go. Run. Now. Before he gets out of the chair.
He turned abruptly and sprinted towards the door.
At the last second, Van Kamp’s foot shot out sideways, hooking Nicky’s ankle. The hacker tripped, crashing face-first to the floor.
Before he could rise, Van Kamp was up, standing over him, a foot on his back. “I’m not going to kill you quickly. But I’ll speed it up if you give me something that helps me find Bob Singleton.”
In the end, Velasco had been a weeper.
