Papa Jack Chapter 37

"What the f* do you mean he never came back with the money?" Bracken screams into the receiver of the phone by the bed in his DC apartment. With his wife and children safely cloistered in their house on Manhattan's Upper East Side, he can handle his business here without mincing words.

"That's what happened, boss," the caller explains. "The delivery went out on schedule and he should have been back an hour ago. I tried that new cell phone he has. He didn't pick up. I was afraid of leaving a message in case the cops got it."

"Did you try to contact Simmons?" Bracken demands.

"Five times before I called you. No answer. I called our eyes on the street, too. Nothing there either. They could have taken off to avoid being swept up by whatever happened. I think this is bad, boss."

"You think it's bad?" Bracken mocks. "It's a f* sh*tstorm. We need to close down tight right now – Montauk, the labs, everywhere."

"In Jersey, too?"

"If the DEA or the FBI are involved, state lines won't matter. Get the boats in and move everything offshore beyond the limit. I'll get the ship in close enough for transfer. As soon as you're finished, head offshore yourself. I'll meet with you on the ship. Get going, now!"

The walls of Bracken's apartment ring with the sound of his slamming receiver. The ship is close enough to the coast to reach by helicopter, but he's going to have to hurry. The cops will look for him at his official residences, but his family is all they'll find. He's a good enough lawyer to have made sure they've never known anything that would work against him in court. He has more than enough money offshore to live in comfort. When he gets settled in the island retreat he's been preparing for years, he might send for them. But he's in no hurry for that. The island has plenty of women, and his kids should at least finish out the school year in New York. Any decent father would want them to do that.

Kate stirs sugar into her first cup of coffee on returning to the 12th Precinct Saturday morning. She can usually do without the sweetener, but after less than four hours of sleep can use the extra boost. "Detective Beckett," a uniformed officer calls from the breakroom doorway, "Captain Montgomery wants to see you."

Mug in hand, Kate walks as quickly as she can, without sloshing, to Montgomery's office. He looks even more sleep-deprived than she feels. "Sir, did you ever get any rest last night?"

"It would have taken too much time to go home and come back, but I grabbed a couple of hours on my couch. Listen, Beckett, about an hour ago, the Coast Guard intercepted boats coming out of Port Elizabeth, Red Hook, and Montauk."

"From WH Enterprises' drug labs and headquarters?" Kate queries.

"Right," Montgomery confirms. "The boats from Port Elizabeth and Red Hook contained drugs and drug production equipment. The one from Montauk had mostly computer discs. No one's had the chance to try to read them yet. The thing is that nobody can find William Bracken. He's not at his home here, and he's not at his DC apartment."

Kate feels her gut clench. "He must have been tipped off to run."

"DC is under federal jurisdiction, so the FBI will be working with the cops from all the local jurisdictions to track him down. The Coast Guard will be checking on boats, too."

"How about flights?"

"That's the thing. If he had access to a helicopter…."

"He could have literally flown below the radar," Kate realizes. "And once he was over international waters, he could have been put aboard a craft headed anywhere."

Montgomery strokes his unshaven jaw. "Unfortunately, right again. We smashed the web, Beckett, but it looks like the spider got away."

"I still need to interrogate Simmons," Kate declares. "Everything I've found so far indicates that he's been working with Bracken for a long time – back to when my mother was killed. He might know where Bracken would go. And even if he doesn't, he oversaw all the local drug dealing. With Bracken gone and his cash impounded, Simmons doesn't have the resources to wriggle out again. Giving up his network is the only thing he has left to try to save his ass, and I'm going to make sure he knows it."

"Fine, Beckett. After the feds are done, have at it. But you need someone from Narcotics in on it with you to make sure that whatever you get tracks. There's a guy, Kevin Ryan, who just came off of undercover. He was primarily responsible for taking down Bobby D's operation on Staten Island. He was never burned, but if he stays in his old assignment, he could be. So, I'm bringing him into homicide here. I'm partnering him with a cop who just transferred in from the 54th, Javier Esposito. Esposito has a lot of street smarts, but neither one of them has worked a homicide before, so they'll both be consulting with you. And you will be consulting with Ryan on Simmons. He has a lot of insight into the inner workings of drug dealing operations. If Simmons starts giving you bull about that, Ryan can help you pick up on it. But anything Simmons can give you about where Bracken disappeared to is all yours."

"Thank you, Sir, but if Bracken flew off somewhere, that may not be much help."

"Beckett, after what you got from the rings and the wax, you should know by now that what looks like the most insignificant clue can bring a bad guy down."

"Thank you again, Sir, but that was more Castle than it was me."

"But you listened to him, Beckett. That's what counts. Keep listening to Simmons, to Ryan, to Castle, to anyone who can help you put the pieces together."

"Yes, Sir. I'll do that."

The moment Richard approaches the bullpen with a warm bag of burgers and fries, and a drink carrier, he can see from Beckett's expression that something is wrong. "What happened?"

"Bracken's gone, took off. He could be anywhere by now."

Richard drops into his chair. "Not anywhere, Beckett. Unless he had an invisible starship parked in Central Park, he's still on the planet. In the universe, that's still a very constrained location."

"Castle, that's very sweet, but it doesn't help me slap the cuffs on him or find out how he arranged my mother's murder."

"Not this minute, it doesn't," Richard admits, "but he can't have vanished into thin air. He'll need food, clothing, shelter, and no doubt desire a lot more than that. All of those wants and needs would leave some kind of a trail – liaisons, purchases, something."

"Unfortunately, detectives on the NYPD don't have the resources to follow that kind of trail much outside our jurisdiction, Castle."

"Are you still going to question Simmons?" Richard asks.

"Eventually. The DEA took a shot, and the FBI is there with him now. But the interview shouldn't take much longer. I've looked in every few minutes. Simmons hasn't been doing much except smirking."

Richard holds up the burger bag. "Until eventually arrives, you might as well fuel up. Burgers, double fries with…."

"Extra ketchup?"

"Absolutely. And," Richard says, nodding toward the drink carrier, "I got you a strawberry shake. You can take out all your aggression by trying to suck it through the straw."

Kate reaches for the tall container of thick, cold liquid. Since she was last called to Montgomery's office, it will be the first thing that doesn't suck.