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Amongus dialed him on his cell. Kava answered. Amongus got straight to it.
“Get a pen and paper,” he said. “I have the wire instructions.”
“I’m not paying you a cent,” said Kava.
“Bad mistake. Every dead pirate cuts your website traffic in half. I’ve already got my eye on the next one.”
“There won’t be a next victim.”
“There will be if I don’t get my money.”
“Seventy-five million was Shaky’s money, not yours. Though I do give you points for demanding the exact sum that Shaky lost on his stock options due to piracy. For a minute, I even considered the possibility that Shaky was my blackmailer. Until I realized it was you.”
“You have no idea who I am.”
“You haven’t been online in the last twenty minutes, have you... Amongus Sicario?”
He wasn’t sure how Kava had figured out it was him, but he could deal with it. What was a Russian oligarch going to do? Run to the U.S. attorney and say he was being extorted?
“There is no more Amongus Sicario.”
“That’s funny. Because his face is all over the internet. The FBI just issued a BOLO.”
Amongus was left speechless.
“Goodbye, Amongus. Or should I say, ‘goodbye girl.’ Whatever that was supposed to mean.”
The line went silent. Kava was gone.
Amongus quickly googled his own name—his old name—on his cellphone. The results hit him like a tsunami. Ironically, it was what he had once dreamed about: a simple name search yielding countless hits from virtually every corner of the worldwide web. This was a nightmare.
be on the lookout for a new top ten fugitivethe headline read. Below it was his photograph with the caption, “Amongus Sicario, formerly known as Ronaldo Concepcion, also goes by the name Derek Brown and the nickname ‘Judge.’”
Derek Brown was his witness protection name. Ronaldo Concepcion was the name his mother had given him. The name he’d taken to prison with him. His name before he became Amongus Sicario. It had been a very long time since anyone had called him Ronaldo. More than a decade. The last person, in fact, had been Imani.
They were on a trip to the Bahamas. Imani had taken a look at his passport, which was under his old name. She’d made fun and called himRrronaldo the rest of the trip, trilling the “r” in a very affected accent. Shaky had also been on that trip. They were on Kava’s boat. It was the same trip on which Amongus—Rrronaldo—had brought up the Johnny Depp movie and pointed out the spot in Nassau where ten pirates were hanged and gibbeted in real life.
Imani told the FBI.
The thought hit him with as much force as the BOLO.
Judge Cookson had dismissed all charges against her, so her cooperation with the FBI was without risk. She could say what she wanted about the trip to the Bahamas—the trip that no one waseversupposed to talk about. Amongus had brought up the movie. Amongus had pointed out the site of execution. It was Amongus who’d said they should try it on music pirates. Imani had thought he was joking.
It was no joke.
Amongus squeezed the wedge of lime into his rum and Coke and drank until only the ice remained in his glass. A plan was forming in his head.
Imani lived nearby. Practically within walking distance from Ocean Drive. She owed him. The executions in Boston Harbor and Jamaica had done her a favor. If the charges had not been dismissed, surely Swyteck would have told the jury that Shaky and Imani were innocent, that it was the “pirate killer” who’d killed Tyler McCormick. Yes, Imani owed him big-time. Most of all, she owed him an explanation. Why did she have to tell the FBI about the Bahamas trip? Why did she throw him under the bus?
Why shouldn’t he make her pay for it?
Amongus rose from his table and started walking north, toward the island residences of the rich, the famously rich, and, in Imani’s case, the richandfamous.
Chapter 58
Jack rang the bell and looked straight into the security camera outside Imani’s front door. Her voice came over the intercom. “Jack, what’s up?”
“I have to talk to you,” he said.
