by Tom Haase
That same thought raced through Chuck’s mind. He didn’t know how this had happened when he thought they would be alone to conduct this operation. Something or someone had messed up his plan. He was right; nothing of a plan survives first contact. Perhaps a precinct captain took action on his own against what he thought might be drug smuggling going on in the area. On the other hand, the Thunderbolt police may have acted by themselves because the Savannah Police must not have coordinated any of their plans with them. This was turning into a royal screw up. Wrong, already a screw up.
Bullets whizzed by Chuck’s head and his companions headed for the hillside and protection behind buildings at the top. As Chuck started to turn to get off the dock and retreated to the hill, a round hit him on the outside of his right shoulder causing him to swivel in the direction his shoulder took him. In so doing, he tripped and fell from the dock into the water.
When he surfaced, he heard the whoosh of two arrows flying through the air. The two guards on deck who fired at them fell overboard, but more emerged to take their place from below deck. They began firing at the police officers on the hill and at their vehicles with their light aglow. The cops now assaulted down the hill. They employed their small arms to engage the men on the boat.
Chuck’s arm hurt like a thousand bee stings, and he realized he had swallowed a mouth full of river water. The taste was disgusting and almost made him throw up. He started to dog paddle and assess his situation.
Roberto, who had escaped injury from the initial volley from the guards on the sailboat deck, fired at the new group emerging onto the deck. He scampered away from his exposed position on the floating dock and reached relative safety by climbing the hill off to the right of the action. He huffed his way to the top. The uppermost thing in his mind was why hadn’t they received a warning from his men who were on guard protecting their rear. He had instructed them to give an alarm if something out of the ordinary occurred. Something had gone wrong, but no warning had reached him.
When he reached the crest of the hill, two police officers stood there with guns pointing at him. He raised his arms and they moved him across the street to where more police surrounded his Cuban friends, the ones entrusted with providing early warning. He recoiled at the sight in front of him.
All of his Cuban friends, the former Marines, were handcuffed and sitting on the ground.
“What happened?” he asked the nearest one after the officers forced him to sit. Rifle fire could be heard in the distance. A few rounds of automatic weapons fire also pierced the night air. The police must’ve been executing their final assault on the vessel.
“The cops were already here when we arrived,” the nearest Marine whispered. “They remained hidden behind the restaurants until you started down the steps. We were looking for a threat coming in from the road or up from the dock. We didn’t realize the threat was already here and behind us. Then they moved on us with total surprise.”
“Shut up,” roared an officer.
“Are we under arrest?” Roberto asked him.
“You want to be under arrest?” came the reply. He waited, then said, “I suggest you shut your trap until the captain makes a decision.”
He saw Emma running toward the steps leading down the hill to the dock.
“Emma, what the hell is going on?” he shouted.
She looked scared and continued to rush toward the sound of the gunfire.
53
Emma plowed through the uniformed officers before her. She managed to make her way through the group of police at the top of the steps leading to the dock. Her mind raced with the thought she needed to warn Chuck, but she realized it was already too late. The gunfire told her that, this whole thing should have happened without any weapons firing. She wanted to see him, to tell him what had happened. As a result of her actions, she owed him that much.
She remembered how before she left Chuck’s place, she got hold of Qing and wrung Chuck’s plan out of her old roommate with the threat of legal action. Qing swiftly caved to her threat and offered the info she then used to set up the police raids. The ones on the dealers were taking place as the one here at the marina took place against the leader of the Nassau gang. When she told the captain he decided to do both raids and not rely on Chuck, who was after all only supposed to provide intel.
Her attention refocused to the here and now as a volley of automatic rifle fire sprayed the area near where the police had gathered around her to stop her from going down the steps. When bullets hit nearby, they all dove for cover. Emma hit the ground and then crawled to the edge of the top step to see down to the boat. She desperately wanted to spot Chuck, to see him, to make certain he had stayed alive.
She saw water splashing beside the floating dock and it caught her attention. Possibly the movement couldn’t be seen from the deck of the vessel as the men standing there were concentrating on the police presence up on the hill. The light around the boat wasn’t great, but she felt confident the person she saw had to be Chuck. At least, he was alive and appeared to be trying to make as little noise as possible in the water. Yes, she now saw that it was him and she could make out his head as it appeared barely above the water.
A movement to her right and a little more down the hill caused her to look in that direction. She spotted Sam and his men escaping from the area. They moved with the practiced hunting stealth of their ancestors. In short order, they had disappeared from the scene using the natural cover offered by the foliage on the hill making themselves for all practical purposes invisible. The police didn’t see them and took no action against them.
Emma returned her attention to the spot where she had observed Chuck. She searched the area and then the dock area straining to find him.
She could no longer see him. He had vanished.
Chuck’s shoulder hurt like someone had applied a branding iron and then rotated it. He gingerly moved by dog paddling, trying to get to the backside of the boat. He sought to avoid the line of fire from anyone on deck, who might look over the side and spot him. He felt he would be safer at the stern of the vessel. With his head barely out of the water, he struggled to keep it there and paddled so as not to make any noise. He thought his arm hurt too much and would be useless in an attempt to swim under water.
Even if he made small splashes, they wouldn’t be heard over the sound of the guns, but he didn’t want to take a chance with anything other than a dog paddle or maybe a breaststroke. The knife on his belt remained his only weapon. His gun took a swim when he plunged into the water. He stopped to feel his shoulder, his first thought–the bullet had passed through, and he would survive. The wound might get infected in the river water, but he’d worry about it later. He still focused on capturing the leader of this gang as his mission.
He reached the stern. Carefully peeking around the right side of the vessel, he could see along its starboard side. He saw a rubber craft, a small runabout, tied to a stanchion on the sailboat. A metal ladder hung over the side allowing easy access for climbing in or out of the tender secured to this side.
“Keep them busy.” The loud order came from a man climbing over the side and getting into the smaller inflatable boat.
“Catch this. It’s the entire product we have on board, and we can’t let them get it. Without this onboard, we aren’t doing anything illegal.”
Chuck watched as the man received the dropped package and placed it in the boat. The one on the deck was untying the line when a spray of blood shot out of his neck. A bullet had penetrated that vital area, and he dropped the rope from his hands when he fell overboard. He splashed a few feet away from the side of the boat, barely missing the runabout.
“Get going.” Came another voice from the deck of the vessel. “I’ll meet you in Nassau.”
Chuck paddled as fast as he was able toward the motorized rubber boat. He wasn’t fast enough. The man pulled the cord on the motor. After a short snort it came to life. The boatman pushed away from the sailboat with his ha
nd and began to steer the boat away by angling the motor’s propeller to take him into the main river.
Chuck thought all was lost. The boat was getting away and he could do nothing to stop it from his position in the water. The man in the boat was without a doubt the leader of the gang. He would be the individual who had ordered him killed. That fateful decision had resulted in Darlene’s death. The runabout’s engine roared as it moved on the water and passed inches from Chuck’s head.
As the boat sped past, the line that was released by the man who had suffered the neck wound and fell overboard into the river scraped his face. The boat picked up speed and it moved away from him. Chuck instinctively reached for the rope with his good hand before it could disappear forever. His left hand quickly clutched the rope, and he speedily moved his right hand over to clasp it on the line.
Screw the pain, he thought.
His weight was like an anchor as far as the vessel was concerned. The boat slowed as he slammed into its side, pulled there by the motor’s forward effort.
He clenched the rope with all his strength and reached to grab onto the gunwale. In one swift movement, he swung a leg up and over the side, and rolled aboard the vessel. The man driving the boat ultimately realized something wasn’t right with the speed of his boat’s getaway. When he turned to examine for a reason, he saw Chuck. The man started to reach behind his back for a pistol.
Chuck had released the line from his grip when he managed to get both legs over the side and land in the center of the boat. He was trying to get his feet under him to attack the man. Too little too late, he thought. The man’s hand moved from behind his back. The weapon came into view. As he brought it around and took aim at Chuck, the boat suddenly experienced an abrupt change in speed. The man tumbled backward, and the weapon discharged into the air.
Chuck took advantage of the forward momentum of his body as a result of the boat’s sudden decrease in speed. In an instant, he realized the line he released had floated to the rear due to the forward momentum of the runabout, then slipped under the keel and entangled itself on the engine’s prop. With the line wrapped around the propeller, the engine couldn’t continue to rotate, and the speed of the vessel rapidly dropped throwing the boat occupants forward toward the bow.
Without wasting a second of the forward momentum, Chuck reached for the gun. He grabbed the man’s arm with his left hand and slammed the man’s gun hand against the boat’s side. The impact of his arm caused the weapon to fall into the water.
The pain in his right shoulder became borderline excruciating when his attacker slammed his fist into is arm after his gun fell. The searing bolt of agony shot straight to Chuck’s brain. He stopped in mid-breath to stymie the pain. It didn’t work.
The next second, Chuck felt the hammer-like punch to his midsection. He gasped for air as his adrenaline spiked.
“You must be the McGregor bastard I’ve been trying to kill. I guess I’ll have to do it myself,” Kareem said and delivered the second punch.
“You killed the wrong person. She didn’t deserve it, but you do,” Chuck said. He felt strength return to his body triggered by the furor of his pure hatred he nurtured for this man.
With regenerated strength, the product of the increased adrenaline, he used his knee to strike upward and between the legs of his attacker. He heard a loud groan go out of the man’s mouth causing a foul smell to reach his nostrils and watched as his attacker bent in pain. His hand-to-hand combat training taught him this was the moment to destroy the attacker.
In an automatic reflex, he clasped his hands together, raised them over the bent man and came with all his might on the back of the neck as he simultaneously brought his other knee up into the man’s face. He heard the cracking of the nose as the pain sped through his knee from the contact.
Kareem fell backward and slammed his head on the wood bench of the boat. Chuck pulled his knife and knelt beside the man with the tip of the blade against the neck of the helpless, unconscious man.
He aspired to kill this scumbag. He categorically did. The man needed killing. A trickle of blood flowed from the pressure exerted by the tip of his blade against the carotid artery.
Why the hell did he hold back?
54
Chuck waited for a few more seconds, trying to justify in his mind why he shouldn’t go ahead and take this man’s life. Was it the right thing to do? What did his moral compass say? This drug lord had killed his Darlene. Was it right to pay him back, an eye for an eye? In the time it took for him to ask these questions, the answer rushed through his mind.
He rolled his captive over onto his stomach and reached for a piece of rope that he found in the bottom of the boat. He tied him up and then sat back and waited. He had to tell himself that he had done the right thing. Inside, he recognized that he wouldn’t kill a defenseless man. The rules were clear in his mind, the man had tried to kill him, but once he was unable to do that the situation changed to one of capture rather than kill.
A police boat came alongside in less than five minutes.
“Is that you, Chuck?”
Chuck recognized the voice of the captain.
“Yes, and I have a present for you.”
“I see him. Nice work, but we have to get better at telling one another what’s going on. You tried to pull this off without letting me know what you intended to do. That’s not what we agreed. Remember, I’m the law and you are not. Got it?”
Chuck understood he was in the wrong. The captain had correctly assessed the situation. In his mind, he did not lie to the officer, because he simply hadn’t told him everything. That proved to be a mistake.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. But I did capture the gang leader which must be worth something?” He laughed as he said this. He hoped the captain would lighten up and forgive him.
“We must have a come to Jesus meeting on future cooperation. I believe we will be doing that soon. Like, be in my office tomorrow morning. Now throw us a line, and we’ll tow you back to the dock and get him in proper cuffs.”
The ride back took another ten minutes. At the dock, the police took charge of his prisoner. Before he could race up the steps to find Sam or Roberto to find out if they had survived, a hand landed on his shoulder.
“Got time for a drink soldier?” Emma asked. “I must apologize to you. I’m buying.”
“You will do more than buy. I’m pissed at you for messing up my plan.”
“I didn’t mess up your plan, I implemented a rescue plan for saving you. Don’t go macho on me. You are supposed to only collect information, right?”
She had him. He decided to switch tactics.
“How did you get here with the police? Did you lead them here? How did you know I’d be here?”
“Slow down. With so many questions, we’ll require more than one drink to answer them all.” She gave a chuckle and took him by the arm. “Remember, we work together.”
They ascended the steps to street level. When they reached the road, Chuck looked around for his friends. Roberto walked toward him and hugged him.
“We’re all okay. They released us after they captured all the ones on the boat. See no bullet wound.” He pointed at his body and then looked over Chuck’s shoulder and waved. “Here comes Sam.”
Chuck rotated to see his friend, accompanied by his Seminole buddies, strutting toward him.
“What a night. We had a great plan. Too bad the cops messed it up. We’re all safe. Any problem on your part?”
“No, just a smooth boat ride down the river with a drug lord trying to kill me,” Chuck said.
“Sounds interesting,” Sam smiled. “I didn’t know you ever learned how to swim. You look soaked,” he finished his joke. “Hey man, are you wounded?” he said after he noticed the blood on Chuck’s shirt.
“Only a scratch,” Chuck grimaced as he spoke.
“Listen, all of you,” Emma said. “I’m glad you are all safe, but you can’t engage in this vigilante thing again. Wo
rk with us from now on. You guys make a great team and together we can do awesome things for the community. Do you hear me?” Emma waited for an answer.
“I hear you,” Sam said as he turned to look at Chuck. “I’ll have our doctor come over to your place to be there when we get there. Someone has to patch you up. Forgot to duck did you?”
“Okay. Carelessness in the face of the enemy can get me shot,” Chuck said.
“I agree,” Roberto added in response to Emma.
“With the raids on the dealers, which succeeded due to Qing’s text messages and the police coordination, combined with the operation here, I have faith we have wiped out, at least temporarily, major drug trafficking here,” Emma said.
“I owe you all. Come on, let’s go to my place and unwind. I’ve got about every beverage you could want to drink. See you there.” He walked with Emma toward her car.
On the ride to his house, she took out the first aid kit and tried to clean his wound. “This needs a doctor. I’ll stop it for now and Sam said he’d have a doc there to fix you up. I still think we should go to a hospital,” Emma said.
“No hospitals. People die there,” he laughed. “I hate the smell of them.”
“Speaking of smell, you stink like a sewer. The hospital would be the place to go.” Emma continued to clean his wound as he gave he a negative shake of his head.
“Tell me what happened back there to have the police at the scene of my operation at precisely the time we planned to take them down.”
She took her time in detailing the phone conversation with Qing and the coordination with all the police elements in both districts to make it a successful night for the police.
“You must understand. We did this to protect you. Your efforts led us to conduct these successful raids, and we didn’t want you involved in the takedown. You’re a civilian now. You have to stay on the sideline. Now if you want to come to work for an agency…”