Chapter 1 - THE TICKING BENEATH THE CARS
The men had already started the engines when a barefoot little girl ran into the underground garage and screamed, “Don’t start the cars!”
Nobody moved at first.
Then ten armed bodyguards reached beneath their jackets at exactly the same time.
The girl could not have been older than seven. Her yellow dress was stained with dirt, her dark hair hung in tangled waves around her face, and both of her bare feet were bleeding from running across broken pavement.
Yet she did not look at the weapons pointed toward her.
She threw herself directly in front of the lead SUV.
The driver slammed on the brake even though the vehicle had barely begun to move.
Vincent Torino stood beside the open rear door, one hand resting against the black frame. At forty-three, he controlled most of the private shipping terminals along the East Coast and enough legitimate companies to make journalists call him a businessman instead of what everyone in New York knew he truly was.
Vincent was not a man people interrupted.
Not in boardrooms.
Not in church.
And definitely not inside the private garage beneath his Manhattan residence.
“Get her away from the vehicle,” Luca Moretti ordered.
Vincent lifted one hand.
Every man stopped.
The little girl remained on her knees, breathing hard.
“There’s something underneath it,” she said.
Vincent studied her. “What kind of thing?”
“I don’t know.”
Her voice trembled, but her eyes did not.
“It’s ticking.”
Luca immediately dropped to one knee. He pulled a flashlight from his coat and lowered his head beside the SUV.
For several seconds, only the engines could be heard.
Then Luca’s expression changed.
“Shut them down,” he said.
The drivers killed all three engines.
“Everyone back away.”
Two security specialists slid mirrors beneath the first vehicle. One of them cursed under his breath.
A small metal device had been attached near the rear axle.
They checked the second SUV.
Same thing.
Then the third.
Same thing again.
Three black vehicles.
Three hidden devices.
One terrified child who had somehow discovered them before Vincent’s highly trained security team.
Luca stood slowly. “We need the bomb unit.”
“No,” Vincent said. “Seal the garage first.”
Heavy steel doors descended over both exits. Security guards spread through the chamber, checking behind support columns, inside maintenance rooms, and along the emergency stairwell.
Vincent looked down at the girl.
She was no longer watching the vehicles.
She was staring toward the red stairwell door in the corner.
Not glancing at it.
Watching it.
As though she expected someone to come through.
Vincent lowered himself until they were nearly eye level.
“What’s your name?”
“Sophia.”
“How did you get inside, Sophia?”
“The stairwell door was open.”
“That door is never open.”
“It was today.”
“Did someone bring you here?”
She shook her head.
“Then how did you know about the devices?”
Sophia looked around at the armed men surrounding her. For the first time, fear appeared in her face.
“I saw the man put them there.”
Luca stepped closer. “What man?”
Sophia hugged her arms around herself.
“He was tall. He had dark hair. And there was a scar on this side.”
She traced one finger from her temple to the corner of her mouth.
Nobody spoke.
Vincent did not react immediately.
He did not need to.
The men around him already recognized the name forming inside his mind.
Marco Santini.
Once, Marco had been closer to Vincent than blood. They had grown up on the same street, fought the same enemies, and built the Torino organization together.
Fifteen years earlier, Marco had betrayed him.
Money disappeared. A federal witness escaped. Two of Vincent’s men died during a raid that should never have happened.
Marco vanished before Vincent could discover the full truth.
The scar across his face was the last thing Vincent had given him before he escaped.
Now he was back.
And he had placed something beneath all three of Vincent’s vehicles.
Luca’s technicians carefully removed the devices and carried them to a reinforced inspection table.
Minutes later, one of them looked up.
“These aren’t explosives.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened. “What are they?”
“Transmitters. GPS, audio collection and signal relays. Military-grade encryption.”
“Federal?”
“Could be.”
The technician turned the device over.
“Whoever planted these didn’t want to destroy the convoy. They wanted to follow it. They wanted to hear where you went, who you called and what you said after you discovered them.”
Vincent looked back at Sophia.
Someone did not want him dead in the garage.
Someone wanted fear to make him run.
The vehicles were bait.
His escape route was the real target.
Sophia reached for the sleeve of his coat.
“The scared man said the FBI lady was coming today.”
Every man in the garage went silent.
Vincent’s voice became very soft.
“What scared man?”
“The one who came to my apartment.”
“Was it the man with the scar?”
“No. This man was younger. He was crying.”
“What did he want?”
“He gave me twenty dollars. He said I had to watch the black cars. He said if the man with the scar put something underneath them, I had to stop the cars from leaving.”
Luca crouched beside her. “Why didn’t he warn us himself?”
“He said bad people were watching him. He said they would hurt him if he failed.”
Sophia looked back at the stairwell.
“He knew exactly when the cars would leave.”
Vincent rose.
Only eleven people knew that morning’s departure schedule. Nine were in the garage. One was waiting at the destination.
The last person was inside Vincent’s home.
Someone close to him had provided the time.
“Where is your mother?” Vincent asked.
Sophia’s lower lip began to shake.
“She went to work last night.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
Vincent stared at her.
Sophia pointed toward the ceiling.
“My mom cleans the big apartment. She said she would come home before breakfast, but she didn’t.”
Vincent turned toward Luca.
Every cleaning employee assigned to the residence had been screened, photographed and entered into the security system.
There were no employees with children living in the neighboring blocks.
At least, there were not supposed to be.
“Find her mother’s identity,” Vincent ordered. “Now.”
Luca spoke into his radio.
No answer came from the security station upstairs.
He tried again.
Static.
One by one, the lights above them turned red.
The ventilation system stopped.
Then the steel door behind the convoy locked with a mechanical thud.
“They’ve cut the internal network,” Luca said.
Sophia suddenly grabbed Vincent’s hand.
“He came back.”
The emergency stairwell handle began to turn.
Ten weapons rose.
The door opened six inches.
A thin man stumbled through. His shirt was soaked with blood, and a phone was clenched in his shaking hand.
Sophia pointed at him.
“That’s the scared man.”
He collapsed to one knee.
Luca rushed forward, but the man pushed the phone toward Vincent.
On the screen was a live security feed from the lobby upstairs.
Men and women wearing federal tactical uniforms were entering the building.
At the front of the team was a silver-haired woman in a dark blue coat.
The injured man looked up at Vincent.
“The devices weren’t meant to track where you were going,” he whispered. “They were meant to prove you were still down here.”
Vincent’s blood turned cold.
“What are you talking about?”
The man coughed, leaving blood across his palm.
“The FBI already knew you wouldn’t take the cars.”
A warning alarm began screaming throughout the garage.
On the security feed, the silver-haired woman looked directly into the lobby camera.
Then she smiled.
The injured man grabbed Vincent’s coat with surprising strength.
“They’re not coming to arrest you,” he said. “They’re coming to bury everyone who knows what they did.”
A sharp electronic sound came from beneath the garage floor.
Not ticking.
Counting.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Vincent pulled Sophia into his arms.
May you like
And the injured man whispered the final words before the lights went out.
“The real device is under the building.”
