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“These guys are locked up tight, boss.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
He sags in his chair, like his spine got too heavy to bother lifting. “One of ’em, Klaus. He’s disappeared off the face of the earth.”
That’s literally true, thanks to Best’s clean-up crew. But Asher doesn’t need to know that.
“Disappeared?” is all I ask.
“He’s got a place in New Castle County, forty-five, fifty minutes from here. Looks like a haunted house, some place the Addams family lives in when they take a trip to the country.” Asher digs in his folder and hands over half a dozen color photographs. “These are from a drone. There’s a brick fence around the joint, ten feet high, with razor wire on top. The gate’s got biometrics and a kill zone. Whoever built it means business.”
Whoever built it is dead. But I want to know what else Asher learned, so I ask, “What makes you say Klaus disappeared? How do you know he isn’t just holed up in there?”
Asher plants a thick index finger on one of the photos. “I had one of my guys surveil the place, while I looked into the rest of this shit. No one’s gone in or out of the property for forty-eight hours. And see these lights? They’re on some sort of timer. Came on in the same order both nights, same time. Stayed on for exactly four hours and fifty-three minutes.”
Rookie error, the first I’ve heard Herzog make. Pity, he won’t have a chance to learn from his mistake.
Asher taps the photos together. “It’s not just that. He’s got eight cars licensed with the state, and none of them’s hit a toll point in over six weeks. He flies in and out of a private airfield, keeps a long-haul Lear there, along with a Sikorsky S-76B. Over the past ten years, there’ve been a few months where he hasn’t used the plane. But there isn’t a single week the helicopter hasn’t gone up—until June. His last trip was June 18, to Long Island.”
I’m impressed with the records Asher pulled, especially given my time limit. But I’m also tired of the cat and mouse game; I already know Klaus Herzog’s out of the equation.
“And the other two? Jonas and Ansel?”
“They’re living on Long Island.” Asher pulls out another sheaf of photos. As he spreads them on my desk, I wonder if I’m looking at New York or some place in Europe.
The main building looks like a castle, with three floors and two sweeping wings and sculpted stairs that lead to a garden bigger than the entire state of Delaware. There are two swimming pools and a pair of tennis courts and nine fucking holes of golf. One massive outbuilding is clearly a garage, and another looks like stables. There are half a dozen smaller buildings—guesthouses, I guess, each of them big enough to sleep twenty. And a helipad, of course.
“So the illegal drug trade pays well,” I say, grudgingly impressed.
Asher taps one of the photos. “The illegal drug trade pays a fucking private army.”
I’m staring at a guard tower built into the five-foot-thick stone wall. It’s hard to estimate the height, but judging by the length of the AK-47 in the uniformed soldiers’ arms, it’s got to be twelve feet, at least. Two guys man the station, one facing in and one facing out. There are eight towers on the perimeter and two at the front gate. Add in security at the main house, and there are at least twenty armed guards.
No way in hell I’m waltzing in there to demand the Herzog brothers drop their claims.
But I say, “They can’t live behind the walls full time.”
Asher shrugs. “Past six weeks, they’ve gone to Berlin. Abu Dhabi. Kabul.”
“What the fuck are they doing in Afghanistan? Not exactly the Ritz.”
“My money’s on dealing arms. But they could be there for the opium trade. I might be able to find out, but not by your forty-eight-hour deadline.”
Cute. He’s feeling put upon. Poor Harry Asher.
“Where are they now?” I ask.
“Home, near as I can tell. A pair of Mercedes limos arrived last night around five. Left around midnight.” He shuffles through the photos. “Looks like some lady friends. Can’t tell if that’s security with them or maybe their pimps.”
I can’t tell either. Asher doesn’t have shots of them leaving. Given what I already know about the Herzog brothers’ taste in entertainment, I hope the women walked out under their own power.
I don’t have time to think about the stained chair Mac burned. I can’t be distracted by Alix’s reaction when she saw it. By the knowledge that those motherfuckers had her under their control for years.
Asher’s waiting for me to say something. I stack the photos and add them to the report he delivered two days ago. “Here’s what I don’t get,” I say. “Your first report didn’t say anything about this Long Island fortress.”
He’s immediately defensive. “My first report was delivered in twenty-four hours.”
“Seems like a pretty big thing to overlook. Especially if this is where the assholes are actually living.”
