School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,116
the gunmen and not just Siderov’s rooms.
About twenty minutes after Jackson had gotten the Dobrevks out of the complex, SWAT, with Christie riding point, had managed to round up three of Siderov’s lieutenants and three guys who’d been gunning for Siderov’s apartment.
Neither Siderov nor Ziggy Ivanov were in the numbers of those arrested, but there’d been zero civilian fatalities, so Christie was calling it a win.
“Both of them?” Jackson muttered. “Both of them got away? Were they even there in the first place?”
“From what we can gather, Siderov had an exit strategy, and his guys are loyal. The basic gist of all our questioning was ‘Good luck catching him—he’s got people everywhere.’”
“What about Ziggy?”
Christie’s noise over the phone was unpleasant. “Well, from Siderov’s people we got ‘That little rat bastard better not show his face in this state again!’”
Jackson grunted. “That’s promising. I’d be happy to find his body in a river somewhere, and I’m not gonna apologize. What about the guys he was running with?”
Christie made a sound like he was sucking air through his teeth. “That’s a little more complicated. Like you said, their boss got blown up this afternoon. They’re counting on Ziggy to lead them to the promised land. They were like, ‘Ziggy who? We don’t know any Ziggy, but if we did, we’d guess he was far away from here.’”
Jackson let out a low grown. “Which probably means he is still in the city, waiting to see what Dima’s going to do.”
“It’s worse than that,” Christie said grimly. “One of the guys—you might know him—was maybe sixteen and was lying in a room with a shattered door and a doctored leg wound. Ringing any bells?”
“None whatsoever,” Jackson said flatly.
“Yeah. Fetzer said she and Hardison took him down. I showed that woman the fucking news footage, and she said she and Hardison took him down. Son, I am not sure what you do to inspire such loyalty, but we wrote in the report that Fetzer and Hardison took down an armed intruder in the Dobrevks’ house before the SWAT team launched its assault, and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
Jackson let out a breath. “Good. Fetzer and Hardison are good cops. The Dobrevks were primed to be either used as pawns or shot in revenge, depending on who was winning. I didn’t want to get in the way, but….”
“But you wanted to get them out of there.” Christie blew out a breath. “I get it. I mean, zero civilian casualties and theirs was the only apartment with innocent people in it that had been breached. I just wish you would have trusted us to—”
“I did!” Jackson protested. “I got help. I stayed out of most of it. I swear, I was being good like I promised.”
Christie chuckled mirthlessly. “You sound about six. I hope you’re going to bed later.”
“If by later you mean tonight, yes,” Jackson said on a yawn. “But tell me about the kid.”
Christie grunted. “Sure. And then you need to tell me what you’re doing now because you seem to have access to the best parties. Anyway, the kid. He was scared shitless, and…. God, Jackson. I don’t even want to know what his life was like. He said, ‘Nobody’s safe from Ivanov. Not even Dima’s product.’”
“Product?” Jackson sucked in a breath. “That was his exact word?”
“Yeah,” Christie replied. “It was sort of weird. Do you know what that means?”
“Product is the word people have been using for trafficked children,” Jackson said, his chest like ice. “We’ve got someone bringing in a busload of kids that Ziggy tried to ship to Dima Siderov’s late boss-slash-enemy. Two of them might have incriminating evidence against Ziggy himself, and even if they don’t, their deaths would be a big signal to anyone who wants to write Ziggy Ivanov off as just another flunky.”
“Oh no. When’s this bus getting to town?”
Jackson looked at the readout on his phone. “Anytime in the next hour, but I think he was aiming for 6:00 a.m. so he knows we’re ready for him.”
Christie grunted. “So, ten minutes? That’s where you’re going? Where’s the meet?”
Jackson fell silent for a moment, sudden suspicion—and protectiveness for the children and for Burton’s CO—assailing him. Christie seemed to be a completely clean and a stand-up guy, but last night he’d run a raid on the very group of people Jackson and Ellery had been poking with a stick for the last two days. How could he be sure Christie wasn’t being followed?