Last Chance to Die by Noah Boyd (good books for 8th graders TXT) 📕

refused, their only option left would be to make her disappear, along with her computer files.”

Bursaw turned around, and the anger he was trying to suppress was obvious. “So she was just doing her job.”

“Her problem was that she was doing more than her job. Don’t worry, Luke, we’re going to settle this, I promise. But right now we all need to be cool.”

Bursaw took a few seconds and then nodded. “I’m okay.” He opened his briefcase and removed a stack of papers. “I had those plates run and got only a couple of hits.” He smiled more calmly now. “But I had an idea. The few plates that came back to them all listed the club’s address, so I had this gal I know at DMV security run an offline search for all vehicles registered at that address for the last three years.” He handed Vail a sheet of paper. “Everyone from Alex Zogas on down. Eight altogether.”

Vail scanned the list. There was Algis Barkus, who’d had the cuts around his eyes at the club, and one other that Vail found very interesting. “Jonas Sakis.” Vail turned the list so Kate could see it. “The guy who tried to kill me in Chicago.”

She said, “Then two of them are probably the guys you and John shot in Annandale.”

“Which would mean we’re down to five.”

“So what do we do now? Sit on the club?” Bursaw asked. “We don’t have a home address for any of them.”

“They’ll be looking for us there. No, I was thinking that my car needed washing.” Bursaw looked at him questioningly. “Zogas owns car washes. His machines have money in them. You don’t think a good businessman would leave them full overnight, do you?”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Let me change into some surveillance clothes,” Vail said. “Kate, you want to come along?”

“Surveillance? You mean me watching you sleep? As enjoyable as that would be, it’ll be slightly less boring if I get back to the office and put another dent in that paperwork. You’ll call me if you get anything?”

“Only if there’s going to be shooting involved.”

Alex Zogas had been brooding since the FBI left, and he hadn’t said a dozen words. The other four men knew not to say anything when he was like that. At the moment he was playing chess against Algis Barkus, and Barkus could tell by his distracted play that Zogas was planning something. Although he’d told the agents that all the men of the Lithuanian Chess Society were chess masters, only Zogas was, and right now Barkus was playing him even. It was part of Zogas’s planning process. There was something about the discipline of the game that he used to unravel and reassemble the most complicated problems. Finally he shifted in his seat, redirecting his concentration to the board, and almost immediately made a brazen move, straightening up and smiling confidently. Whatever the problem was, it had been solved, and Zogas was now less than a handful of moves from checkmate.

It was Zogas’s fourth move that caused Barkus to tip his king over in surrender. Zogas got up and went to the office. The men could hear him typing on the computer. A couple minutes later, he came back and gave Barkus a slip of paper with an address on it. “Nine o’clock. Meet me there.” Zogas nodded at a second man playing chess, Bernard Mindera, to go with him. Short and powerfully built, Mindera seemed pleased to be chosen and started picking up his chess pieces from the board.

It was after 8 P.M., and the temperature had fallen well below freezing. Vail and Bursaw sat parked at a discreet distance from one of Alex Zogas’s Sunshine car washes. “Man, I can’t believe that in the dead of winter so many people stand out in the cold to wash their cars,” Bursaw said.

“It does seem like a license to steal.”

A silver Lincoln pulled in and parked in an out-of-the-way spot that precluded the possibility of its being there for a wash. The two agents watched the well-dressed man get out and tug up the collar on his topcoat. “That’s Zogas,” Vail said.

There were three washing bays, and they watched as Zogas emptied each of the machines of the day’s receipts and put them into a canvas bag. “I had my doubts,” Bursaw said, “but you were right about him not wanting to leave the money overnight.”

Zogas got back into his car and waited for a break in the traffic. Vail said, “I assume you can follow him without getting made.”

“Although I should never bet against you when food is at stake, dinner says I can.”

“Why do I get the feeling that my supper tonight is going to be at some drive-through?”

The Lincoln pulled into traffic heading north.

“Any idea where he might be going, Steve?”

“I’m just hoping he leads us to where he lives. We have no background on this guy at all. With a residence we can get a phone number and all kinds of other information.”

They followed him to a second Sunshine Car Wash, and Bursaw, once again, set up down the street.

After a third car wash, Zogas drove to a bank and parked in the lot. He sat in the car for a while before Bursaw said, “Looks like he’s counting money and filling out a deposit slip.”

“I do believe we have found where he does his banking. Those records should be interesting.”

Finally Zogas got out of his car and walked over to the night depository, using a key to open it. On the way back, he checked his wristwatch. “Looks like he’s got something scheduled. It’s after eight thirty, kind of late. Maybe it’s spy stuff,” Bursaw said.

“Wouldn’t that be nice?”

The Lincoln pulled back into traffic, and Bursaw waited for a couple of cars to get between them before easing into the same lane. “He’s driving too slow. Think he’s early for an appointment?”

They had been traveling southeast for almost twenty minutes when they reached Temple Hills.