Page 31 of Billion-Dollar Ransom
VIRGIL TIGHE HAD refused to enter Rubin Padilla’s bungalow until his four-man team of Capital operatives had completely cleared it and declared it safe from any hidden threats. He’d thanked them for their swift work.
And then he’d started cracking skulls.
“Will someone tell me why this man, our best possible witness in this kidnapping plot, is dead?”
Capital operative Neal Perry—the man who’d unloaded a shotgun into the ceiling of the Rubin Padilla’s bedroom—responded to his boss while watching the blood drip down from the massive hole in the ceiling.
“We knew the suspect was on the premises, Mr. Tighe, and we gave repeated verbal warnings, as you heard on the comms.”
“Yeah, go on.”
“We heard movement in the crawl space above the bedroom, and I believed our team to be at imminent risk. I chose to neutralize that risk.”
Virgil Tighe did not respond to Perry’s statement, not even with a nod or a grunt. He strolled away and began inspecting the ex-con’s little Vegas hidey-hole.
The place was filled with the usual lowlife accoutrements—video-game consoles, 4K HDTV, empty vape cartridges, fast-food containers, booze bottles. Virgil didn’t care about any of that. He was looking for the items that didn’t belong.
Like the glossy brochure from a certain Beverly Hills beauty salon tucked between a couple of shoot-’em-up video games.
This would be the same salon where Boo Schraeder was last seen one day ago.
He alerted another Capital op—Steve Rollie—to make an extensive digital record of the discovery and upload it to their servers.
Virgil made his way to the bathroom, which was surprisingly clean, and found some high-end makeup and a box of tampons in a wicker basket beneath the sink.
“Padilla had, or has, a woman living here with him,” Virgil announced to no operative in particular, knowing they’d all be paying close attention.
“I want you to pull this place apart until you know who she is,” he said. “And then I want you to determine her current location. Right away, people! This is where we go on the offensive.”
“What do you want us to do with Padilla?” Rollie asked.
“Finish our work as quickly as possible, then alert the Las Vegas police. He’s their mess to clean up. The man is of no use to us now.”
Virgil reached out and grabbed Perry’s shoulder as he tried to walk past. “Your penance is dealing with the LVPD when they arrive,” the boss said. “Give them the usual, Perry, and keep them off our backs.”
“Understood, Mr. Tighe.”
Virgil clapped Perry’s shoulder. “Good man.”
Then he went out the broken front door to the street. He pulled his personal cell from his jacket pocket. Only two people on the planet—Virgil Tighe and James Haller—had access to the top contact in his list.
The billionaire answered right away. “Mr. Tighe.”
“I have promising news, Mr. Schraeder. I believe we have located potential conspirators involved in the kidnapping plot against your family.”
“You’re not going to hand them over to the Feebs, are you?” Feebs —Schraeder’s right-wing-news-friendly nickname for the FBI.
“Of course not,” Virgil said. “But, sir, you should be aware that—”
“I want you to squeeze those sons of bitches you found until they burst,” Randolph Schraeder said. “Do you understand me? No cops. No Feebs. They can have all the bleeding-heart lawyers they want… after my family is safe.”
Virgil Tighe swallowed. There was no easy way to deliver disappointing news, so he just said it plainly. “One of those suspects is gone, and the other is dead.”
“What? Who killed him?”
“The suspect was cornered and quickly became a threat. Our men had no choice but to neutralize that threat. But there is plenty of evidence tying him and the woman he was living with to your wife’s abduction. And we will locate the female suspect very soon.”
Schraeder was silent, no doubt processing this stream of intel. He had made it very clear to Capital that he wanted to be notified of every single development, no matter how inconsequential it might seem.
“You’d better,” Schraeder said, then disconnected.
Virgil let the insult linger for a moment, then pushed it away. He was about to head back to his car when another thought occurred to him. This time he used his Capital cell phone to send a text: Nicky, we located Rubin Padilla in Las Vegas but he resisted our operatives…