OUTCAST Ops: Red Ice

CHAPTER EIGHT

Naomi took one look at the building they were about to enter and shook her head. “This isn’t one of those hidden gems, is it?”

Vessler grinned. “Not by a long shot.”

Tanner frowned. “Are you sure this Alec W is here?”

“First place to look. If he isn’t here, there are a couple of other rabbit holes I know of.”

The North Bayside Hotel took up four floors of the five-story building, with a topless bar on the ground floor. The building was on the edge of San Francisco’s Financial District, within sight of the iconic Transamerica Tower. Despite the closeness to the city’s financial heart, the structure had a rundown look and feel to it. The light blue paint on the walls was faded and many windows had clothing hanging from them to dry.

They walked past the topless bar, its loud music grinding from within, to a rough wooden door with a steel kickplate. Faded letters on the wood named the hotel.

Inside, the smell of urine mixed with old cigarette smoke, body odor, and other less identifiable smells assaulted their nostrils. They found themselves in a hall six feet long and five wide, with unwashed walls and a dirty linoleum floor. At the end of the hall a flight of worn stairs led up.

“Okay,” Vessler began in a soft tone. “Alec Wong, alias Alec W, is a low-level pusher and Triad wannabe. He’s the one who told us about the pier pickup, and we think he’s the one who sold Dyachenko the Red Ice.” She glanced at her watch. “He should be awake by now — he usually hits a few spots where his regulars from the Financial District go for lunch. He acts tough, but he’s nothing but talk. Follow my lead, they know me around here.”

They climbed the stairs, the boards creaking alarmingly under their feet. At the top of the stairs was a lobby the size of a large living room. The front counter lay to the left of the stairs, surrounded by a cage of heavy steel mesh with only a small slot set in front. A few old chairs, a couple of ancient side tables and some dust-covered fake plants were scattered around the rest of the room. The reddish carpet was threadbare, and on the other side of the lobby, another set of stairs led up.

Tanner eyed the two occupants of the lobby. One was a gaunt woman with lanky brown hair, a vacant expression, wearing a faded flower dress. The other was an old man in a suit two sizes too large sprawled in one of the chairs, sound asleep. Tanner dismissed him as the man they were looking for.

Vessler went to the front counter. “Cordo,” she said to the man behind the counter.

The clerk, thin with little hair and a bulbous nose, glared at the three newcomers with watery blue eyes. “Agent Vessler,” he said in a flat, unfriendly tone. “What brings you here today?”

Vessler smiled. “Need to talk to Alec W. He in?”

Cordo turned to look at the room slots on the wall behind the desk. “Key ain’t there, so I guess so.”

“Still 203?”

“Yeah. You see him, tell him he’s two weeks late with the rent.”

“Thanks.”

The three crossed the lobby and trotted up the stairway. Like the stairs from the street, these steps creaked under their feet. Tanner felt the banister wobble under his hand.

Room 203 was the next floor up, two doors down from the stairs. Alec’s door, like the others they passed, was faded blue, cracked around the panels and sported a door handle tarnished to near blackness.

Vessler stood on one side of the doorway, while Tanner and Naomi took the other. Vessler rapped on the door, the sound echoing in the empty hall. “Alec? Special Agent Vessler. We need to talk.” Seconds passed. Vessler knocked again. “Alec? I just want to talk.”

Tanner motioned to the door handle with one hand while drawing his Heckler and Koch SOCOM pistol from a hip holster. Naomi pulled her own HK, while Vessler released her own Glock 22. Carefully, Tanner reached for the door, gripped the knob with his free hand, turned it, then released it. The door opened with a slight creak, then swung all the way open until it gently impacted the wall behind it.

Tanner slowly eased around the door jamb, his pistol up and sweeping the room. Vessler moved into the unit, staying below Tanner’s pistol as she traversed to the right. Naomi stepped around Tanner, to the left.

The room wasn’t large, and it matched the rest of the building’s faded decor. The walls were cracked and hadn’t seen new paint in decades. The furniture was cheap to begin with but now also quite old. The full-size bed was unmade, the filthy sheets more gray than white.

But the focal point of the space was the bruised and bloody man tied to the high-back wooden chair in the center of the room.

Tanner pointed to a closed door on Naomi’s side. The former ATF agent nodded and crept toward the door. Tanner surveyed the room, then joined Naomi. She was flat against the wall next to the door, pistol held in both hands, pointing at the door. Tanner flattened himself on the other side and nodded. Naomi stepped back and kicked the door in. The door slammed open. She darted in, low and quick. Tanner stepped around the door jamb and pointed his pistol into what was a dirty bathroom.

“Clear!” Naomi called.

Tanner relaxed and holstered his pistol. He turned to see Vessler checking the body. She had a hand on the man’s throat. Looked up and shook her head.

“Is that Alec?” Naomi asked, holstering her weapon.

Vessler nodded. “It was. Body’s cold.” She took out her phone.

“Someone worked him over good,” Tanner observed.

Vessler reached into her pocket and produced a bag of latex gloves. “We need to preserve the crime scene. Put these on.”

Once they were all wearing gloves, Vessler dialed the San Francisco Police Department and requested they send investigators. She pocketed her phone and said, “Figure we have about fifteen minutes to look around before the locals show up.”

“Looks like they caught him asleep.” Naomi motioned to the boxers and bloody T-shirt Freddy still wore. “They beat him badly.”

Tanner nodded. “Systematically, and took their time. A lot of broken bones and severe bruising.”

“Possible disagreement with a customer or his supplier?”

Tanner exhaled slowly. “Doesn’t have that type of vibe to me. It took more than one person to do this. They wanted him to suffer.”

“Alec was pretty much a nobody,” Vessler said. “He knew what was happening on the local streets, but not much more than that.”

Naomi circled the corpse. Alec hadn’t been a large man to begin with, and years of hard living and hustling and had worn him away even more. His hands were tied behind his back, and his chin rested on his chest. His arms, shoulders, and legs were black and blue. “Something like this should have brought the cops. There’s no way a beating like this could have been done quietly.”

Vessler shook her head. “In this place, even the bedbugs mind their own business. Cordo has the ‘I don’t see, hear, or know anything’ attitude down to an art form.”

“Naomi, check for his drug stash,” Tanner said.

Naomi walked over to a chest of drawers near the bathroom door. “Vess, what was Freddy into dealing?”

Vessler shrugged. “A little bit of everything. Grass, uppers, meth…”

Naomi opened the top drawer and grimaced at the cockroach that scuttled away under an old porno mag. “Anyone he worked for regularly?”

“The Black Dao was his main connection for some drugs, and a Mexican cartel for the rest.”

Tanner stood up. “How long was he a confidential informant?”

“Two years. Gave us just enough to keep him useful and out of jail. He probably knew more, but he never said anything until Dyachenko went off the deep end and we hauled his ass in for questioning.”

Naomi closed the first drawer and opened the second. “Sounds like he set you up.”

Vessler nodded. “It looks that way.” She stared at the dead body. “And afterward, they killed him.”

Tanner went over to the nightstand and opened the drawer. A few wrapped condoms and a baggie of weed occupied the drawer. “Not much of a life.”

“Same old story,” Vessler said, averting her gaze from the deceased to lean against the door. “Hopes and dreams brutally crushed by reality.”

Tanner tipped the bedside lamp forward and examined it. He spotted something the size of a button attached to the lamp, just under the light bulb. “I’ve seen it enough times myself.”

He replaced the lamp carefully back into place. “Do you think Cordo will tell us anything?”

“Doubt it,” Vessler replied. “It’s how he keeps his job.”

Tanner moved silently to Naomi, who had finished looking through the second drawer and was opening the third. He tapped her on the shoulder and when she looked up, cupped his hand behind his ear as if he was listening for something, the pointed to the lamp. She nodded.

“What are you—” Vessler began, but Tanner put his fingers to his lips in a gesture of silence.

“There are a lot of vermin around here,” Tanner said, walking toward Vessler.

“Tell me about it,” Naomi said, sliding open the third and lowest drawer of the chest. “Oh!”

Tanner spun. “What’s wrong?”

“Damn big cockroach.” Naomi motioned for them to get out as she rose. “Any bigger and ISIS would be using them for suicide bombers.”

“What in the hell—” Vessler began, but Tanner tackled her, their momentum carrying them out of the room and into the hallway. He rolled them both off to one side of the doorway. Naomi reached the door and threw herself in the opposite direction just as the room exploded in light and flame.

Out on the street, the suddenness of the explosion caught everyone by surprise. The window of 203, along with a large chunk of the wall around it, exploded outward, showering people below with glass and chunks of debris. Passing cars were damaged and fender-benders occurred as panicked drivers slammed on their brakes. Shouts and screams rent the air, soon accompanied by the wail of sirens.

Amid the confusion, no one noticed the three Asian men sitting in a pizza parlor across the street from the hotel. They stood, threw some money on the table and left. They watched the scene for a few moments, and then walked away into the thick crowd. The tall man with the long scar on his face looked unmoved by the disaster, but was inwardly pleased.