Thirteen Million Dollar Pop Read Free

ever need anything.”
    Behr nodded and went back to watching the cops work, when the squealing of tires on the cement announced the arrival of another vehicle. It was a blue Cadillac STS adding its headlights to the party. Behr recognized the car as belonging to Karl Potempa, the head of Caro’s Indianapolis office. The Caddy jerked to a stop, and out jumped Potempa, looking oddly casual in a velour tracksuit with an FBI crest on the left breast. Behr had never seen the man without a necktie, but the absence of a business suit didn’t diminish his authority any, and his silver gray hair was perfectly combed. After just a handful of months on the job and no real interaction, Behr wasn’t close with Karl Potempa but knew him well enough to see he was shaken.
    “Karl,” Kolodnik said.
    “Bernie, Jesus H.” Potempa crossed to Kolodnik and wrapped him in a brief but intense embrace. “I’ve got a team reporting here, and another on your house right now. Cops were already there—all’s quiet.”
    “Good, good,” Kolodnik murmured.
    “Why don’t you wait in my car,” Potempa suggested, and Kolodnik made his way toward the Cadillac. “I’ll drive you home myself.”
    “Find any blood trail over there?” Behr asked Breslau as the lieutenant rejoined him.
    “Nope,” Breslau answered. “So twenty rounds, no confirmed hits.” It hung in the air like an allegation.
    “You notice there were none on our side either,” Behr said, indicating that he and Kolodnik were standing there, healthy as hogs, “dumb ass,” Behr finished, half under his breath. Even as it came out of his mouth, he wished he hadn’t spoken.
    “What’d you say?” Breslau demanded, his gum finally stopping for a moment.
    Behr quartered toward him. “I guess you heard me or you wouldn’t be asking.”
    “It wasn’t ducks on a pond here, Gary,” Potempa jumped in, using his command voice, a varnished baritone, as he strode closer to Breslau.
    “I know, I know,” the lieutenant said. Potempa shook Breslau’s hand in greeting, then he turned to Behr and pumped his hand with vigor.
    “Congratulations, Frank. Hell of a job tonight.”
    Behr just nodded.
    Breslau, brow knit, was already on to the next topic on his mind. “No casings on the shooter’s side. What do you make of that?”
    “Brass catcher,” Behr said flatly.
    Breslau nodded quickly. He’d either had the same thought or was quick at looking like he had.
    “Brass catcher
and
a flash suppressor. That’s a tactical weapon. Military,” Behr added.
    “Well …” Breslau said, “let’s not get too excited. It might be. Might be something jerry-rigged at home, too.”
    “Is that right?” Behr said.
    “I’m looking at the shot patterns here, and I’m not reading ‘professional.’ ” Behr glanced at the Toyota and the door of the Suburban and the wall behind it. Breslau wasn’t wrong: it had been some messy shooting, and he was alive thanks to it. Breslau put a hand on Potempa’s shoulder and steered him away into the police activity. “We’re pulling up security tapes and entry tickets on the garage …”
    Behr remained standing there, alone.

3
    The bloody cunts in America had bollixed it. One of ’em was even sicked up and crying over there now
.
    The Welshman, Wadsworth Dwyer, circled with his training partner, his mind far away from what he was doing. But he didn’t need to think in order to grapple. He’d been doing it for too long. He held black belts in judo and Japanese jujitsu—the kind the samurai had invented to use when the battle was to the death and the sword had been lost—and that’s how Waddy Dwyer used it. But that was just the beginning of his schooling. He’d been a striker growing up in the pubs in Merthyr and had learned military hand-to-hand at Hereford, before practicing it in piss-smelling beer holes the world over. He’d studied sambo when he was “working” in Russia just after the wall came down and liked it for its