Page 48 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

BY THE TIME Mike Hardy arrived at the Van Nuys station, the man in the green ball cap had been cooling off in interview two for about forty-five minutes.

Though cooling off wasn’t quite the right term.

Ever since his arrest, their witness had been working himself into a hot and angry lather, a performance worthy of any local improv theater.

“What am I even doing here? What, now it’s a crime to go to the mall? At the very least, this is entrapment!”

All sound and fury, right up until the moment Mike stepped into the room with a manila folder in his hand. He used his foot to close the door behind him.

“How’s it going, Ian? Been a while.”

“Oh, man,” Ian said, visibly deflating. “Why are you here? I thought you were promoted or given a medal or something.”

“I thought the same about you. Clearly, you’ve been keeping yourself busy and moving up in the world of crime.”

“Crime? Come on. I was just doing some shopping.”

“Time is short, Ian. I’m not here to play games with you. I know you’re part of this kidnapping plot. I didn’t want to believe it, but there you were, in your green baseball cap.”

Mike Hardy did know Ian Coughlin pretty well.

Before his promotion to captain, Mike had headed up an LAPD task force dealing with follow-home robberies—thieves who looked for victims with expensive jewelry or vehicles, then literally followed them home to see what else they owned.

It was thought there was some kind of criminal mastermind behind these robberies; in the span of a single month, there had been more than forty follow-home robberies on LA’s west side.

But after months of investigation, Mike Hardy and his task force realized there was no mastermind. It was simply an idea that had gone viral in the underworld, and soon you had small-time opportunists like Ian Coughlin here offering to spot potential victims for strong-arm gangs.

“I’m no kidnapper,” Ian said. “Wouldn’t know the first thing about it.”

“And I believe you. The Ian Coughlin I remember was this frightened little creep who liked to find victims for real criminals.”

Ian shrugged. “Yeah, I’m just a frightened little creep. May I leave?”

Mike Hardy smiled, then opened his manila folder. He plucked out a printout and placed it on the table in front of Ian. More printouts—black-and-white stills from a surveillance camera—followed in quick succession.

“There you are, watching an abduction take place behind a Beverly Hills salon. We have other cameras placing you at the scene, like this one.” Another printout.

“And this one”—another printout—“where you’re just standing by with your thumb up your ass while some thug grabbed a woman, drugged her into unconsciousness, then placed her in the trunk of her own vehicle. ”

“Uh-huh.”

“You did absolutely nothing to stop him.”

“LA is a strange place,” Ian said. “For all I knew, they were practicing a scene for a TV show or something.”

“You had a phone in your hand. You didn’t even call for help.”

“Like I said, it was none of my business. I didn’t want some assistant director chewing me out for ruining a take.”

“Except you did make a call. I have to presume that you were up to your old tricks, playing the spotter, only now you’re doing it for a band of kidnappers.”

“You said it yourself. I’m no kidnapper.”

“But you’re working for one.”

The witness frowned. “I didn’t know that at the time.”

Finally. The crack in the armor Mike had been waiting for. Maybe Ian was smart enough to realize that at this very moment, he was the lone suspect dangling on the hook for these brazen crimes. Whatever he was paid, it wasn’t enough for him to take the fall for this.

“Look, I know you’re not a bad guy,” Mike said, softening his tone a little. “Just tell me what happened.”

Ian appeared to be weighing his options. Mike knew this was a face-saving move. There were no other options.

“They came to me anonymously,” Ian finally said. “At first I thought it was a scam. I mean, all that money for doing nothing?”

“Nothing being what, exactly?”

“Standing on such-and-such a corner, waiting for something to happen, then calling a number when it actually happened. Then I was supposed to say three words: ‘One hundred percent.’ That was it.”

“Back up a minute,” Mike said. “How did they come to you? Who’s your contact?”

“It doesn’t work like that. They reached out to me anonymously.”

“And you just trusted them? What, do you fall for every internet phishing scam too? Come on, Ian.”

“Well, phishing scams don’t usually drop five large into your bank account.”

Mike Hardy considered this. “And you just gave them your account number?”

“They already had it. They knew all about me. Another reason I took them seriously.”

“Then give me the number they called you from.”

“There wasn’t any number! When they texted, the contact was completely anonymous. I did what they wanted, and I got paid.”

“And you have no idea where the money came from.”

“Like they’d give me a receipt? Come on, Hardy. You want to track some routing numbers, have fun.”

Ian had an answer for everything. That was concerning. The last time Mike and Ian had done this dance, this little twerp had cracked quickly under pressure. What if the task force had gone through all this trouble to corner this creep—and he was no use at all?