Crossfire

by James P. Sumner

  Hyatt sighed loudly with relief.

  Jericho gestured to Silva. “Well?”

  Silva hesitated briefly before speaking.

  “I am a businessman,” he began, looking at Julie and Jericho in turn. “I have powerful and influential associates with whom I have cultivated strong and profitable relationships over many years. One of my associates is having some… difficulties, and they turned to me for help. A cargo ship coming from the South China Sea will be docking at the Port of Halifax in approximately…” He paused to check his watch. “…five hours’ time, at which point a shipping container owned by one of my many legitimate enterprises will be loaded onto it. The container will not be registered on the ship’s manifest. Inside it is sixteen million U.S. dollars in cash, belonging to a powerful and lucrative friend, who is paying me a nice percentage to launder it through my bank in the Caymans. However, should anything happen to his money while under my protection, he will become a powerful and well-funded enemy. As I am sure you will appreciate, I can ill afford to have this happen.”

  “So, that’s what this shipment is?” asked Julie. “Millions of dollars in cash?”

  Silva nodded. “In crisp, hundred-dollar bills.”

  “And that’s why someone is trying to take it from you?” asked Jericho. “To turn your friends against you, which will weaken you and leave you vulnerable.”

  “Exactly,” confirmed Silva. “So, can you see why this is so important?”

  Julie nodded. “I can, but I don’t understand why you need to involve Mr. Hyatt.”

  Silva shrugged. “He is my accountant. He is coordinating with the port and the bank to ensure the shipment is delivered securely. He also needs to check the bills in person to make sure they’re not tagged, and to make sure the serial numbers are logged in such a way that suspicions aren’t raised should the deposit be noticed by any federal agencies. He is invaluable to this entire arrangement.”

  Julie glanced at Hyatt, who smiled humorlessly and waved. “Hi.”

  “And you have no idea who could be behind this?” Jericho asked Silva. “Who could be working with the cartel?”

  Silva thought for a moment and then shrugged. “Honestly, it could be any number of people. It’s not uncommon for someone like me to make enemies.”

  “I can’t imagine why. Once this is over and the ship leaves, we’re getting Hyatt back on this jet ASAP and flying straight back to California. I’m sure you won’t mind making your own travel arrangements?”

  Silva smiled. “As frustrating as it may be, I have to admire the tenacity with which you approach your jobs. Were you anybody else, I would’ve had you killed and disposed of days ago for the way you’ve treated me.”

  Julie smiled back. “Lovely. Just so you know, if we weren’t here protecting Mr. Hyatt but knew of your involvement in the Mexico incident, I’d have put a bullet in your head from a mile away days ago.”

  Silva laughed. “I find you rather pleasant company, Miss Fisher. I really do. Very well. The ship will be arriving at Pier 9, where it will remain docked for two hours. A small window of concern for you both.”

  Julie looked over at Jericho, silently asking if he had any further questions. When he nodded his acceptance of the situation, she looked back to Silva. “Thank you for your cooperation. It will be considered, should our paths ever cross again.”

  Silva got up and moved to sit with his men. Jericho and Julie spent the remainder of the flight updating their own strategies with the information Silva had given them, triple-checking every eventuality they had planned for to ensure they’re prepared for whatever might happen before the ship leaves for the Caymans.

  The flight passed by quickly, and they were soon taxiing across the runway at a small, private airstrip not far from the port itself.

  Julie stood and stretched before turning to Hyatt and tapping his leg with her foot. “Let’s go, sunshine. Make sure you wear your big boy pants.”

  Jericho rolled his eyes and smiled at Hyatt as he stared blankly ahead. “What my colleague means is, it’s time to go to work, Mr. Hyatt. This is where we earn our money. Just focus on what you need to do, so we can get you out of here and back to your daughter, okay?”

  He nodded absently and headed for the exit, following Julie’s lead. As Jericho stood, Silva stepped alongside him.

  “You don’t strike me as a natural diplomat, Mr. Stone,” he mused.

  Jericho looked down at him, his expression firm. “My colleague and I work well together because we take turns being nice and being cranky.” He paused to crack his neck and flex his shoulders out to his full width. “My turn at being nice is almost over.”

  Sensing there was little benefit in responding, Silva quick-stepped toward the exit. He caught up with Hyatt as his men caught up with him, leaving Jericho at the back of the line, with a slight smile on his face.

  16.

  Collins continued to gaze patiently through the scope of his rifle, not so much searching for his target but for a moment of inspiration that might get him off the roof of the parking garage alive.

  He had yet to find one.

  His babysitter was clever. He was far enough away to get a shot off should Collins lunge for him but close enough that he wouldn’t need to aim for the shot to be fatal.

  Collins knew he had to stall. His target could show up at any minute, and despite the fact the world would most likely be better off without Darius Silva in it, he didn’t want to be the one to remove him from it. He was a good soldier and a bad gambler, but he wasn’t a killer. His desperation forced him to offer his services to Velasquez in exchange for his life. However, given how unlikely it now appeared that he would remain alive anyway, he saw no reason to take the shot at all.

  He didn’t want to die with innocent—or at least unjustified—blood on his hands.

  He had to stall.

  He sat back on his haunches and rolled his shoulders, loosening the muscles to relieve some of the tension that had built up.

  “Hey, don’t take your eye off the target, asshole,” said the man beside him.

  Collins stared at him as if he had scraped him off the bottom of his boot. “Watch your tone, sunshine. My target ain’t even here yet. I’m aching like ya wouldn’t believe. Been an age since I sat behind a long gun, ya know?”

  “I don’t care. Do what you’re being paid to do.”

  Collins chuckled. “Heh. Technically, I ain’t being paid, so…”

  The man raised his gun, putting the barrel level with Collins’s eye. His finger tightened on the trigger. “Don’t get smart. I ain’t Patty, all right? I will not hesitate to shoot you and just do the job myself.”

  Collins grinned. Got ya.

  “I tell ya, buddy, I don’t think Miss Velasquez would appreciate ya callin’ her Patty. Only people with special privileges get to call her that. If she finds out, there’s no tellin’ what she’ll do to ya. Trust me.”

  The man smiled back. “I’m pretty sure she won’t find out. Trust me. Now…” He pointed to the rifle. “Back to work.”

  Collins sighed and took up position behind the rifle again. He adjusted the focus of the scope and did another slow swipe, left to right, of the port.

  Two Suburbans were parked at the end of the airstrip, nose to nose, their engines idling. Each one had a guard standing beside it. Jericho, Julie, Hyatt, Silva, and his three men made their way across the tarmac toward the vehicles. It was a short distance, which they all covered in a hurry, hastened by the nervous tension that had woven itself around them.

  Without a word, Silva and his men climbed into the one on the left. Julie slid in behind the wheel of the other. Jericho got in beside her, and Hyatt took the rear seat. Silva’s car reversed into position and then sped toward the exit. Julie did the same and kept pace as they headed for the port.

  “You okay?” asked Julie, not taking her eyes off the road ahead.

  “Yeah,” replied Jericho. “Just running through everything.”

/>   “We got this. Did Buchanan get a hold of Ray?”

  Jericho shook his head. “He hadn’t the last time we spoke.”

  “Could’ve done with him on this one.” When Jericho didn’t respond, she glanced sideways to see him staring at her with a raised eyebrow. She rolled her eyes. “You ever tell him I said that, I’ll deny it and shoot you. Maybe not in that order.”

  “My lips are sealed,” he said, smiling.

  Behind them, Hyatt allowed his head to roll back against the seat as he let out a long, pained breath.

  “Oh, God, I’m going to die…” he whispered.

  Kim Mitchell burst into Buchanan’s office holding a small pile of papers in her hand. He had his head buried in paperwork but looked up, startled by her entrance. He quickly noted her expression. Her eyes were wide, her brow furrowed. She was breathing quickly. He could tell she came bearing something of grave importance.

  “What is it, Kim?” he asked apprehensively.

  “Sir, I think we’ve found Ray,” she replied, slightly out of breath.

  She moved to his side and placed the papers on top of the pile he had been reviewing, spreading them out. He glanced at them briefly.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “We were able to track the last location where his cell phone pinged a local tower,” she began, sorting through the papers as she spoke. “Which was outside a hotel in Miami yesterday morning. The signal disappeared, but we… acquired access to the security feed of the hotel, which gave us this image.”

  She moved a black and white screenshot to the front, showing Collins standing beside his rental, surrounded by three men, with a fourth, much larger man on the ground.

  “Who are these people?” asked Buchanan.

  “We don’t know, but we pulled the license plate of the vehicle they took Ray away in from another feed. We used traffic cameras and satellite footage to track them to a private airfield. A different vehicle left the airfield approximately thirty minutes later, but it’s unknown if Ray was in it.”

  “So, where is he now?”

  “Well, I asked the analysts to check all airports in the city, including private ones. I figured whoever he was with wouldn’t keep him inside a private plane all day and night, so he must have gone somewhere. They ran facial recognition software through all airport security servers in Florida. That’s when we found him.”

  She shuffled another picture to the top of the pile, showing Collins walking away from a ticket desk at Miami Airport, holding a cell phone in his hand.

  Buchanan stared at the image. “When was this taken?”

  “Thirteen hours ago. We used the time stamp of the security footage to cross reference the airport’s booking systems, to see if we could find the ticket he purchased.”

  “And?”

  “And this part I can’t really explain.” She paused to take a deep breath, unsure of the consequences of what she was about to say. “Sir… he was travelling to Halifax, Nova Scotia.”

  Buchanan looked up at her, his eyes wide with disbelief. “But that’s where…” He stared at the photo again, giving himself chance to think clearly. “Right, this can’t be a coincidence. But we know he’s had no contact with Jericho or Julie as they would’ve said so.” He tapped the image with his finger. “That cell phone he’s holding… it can’t be his.”

  Kim shook her head. “No, his number has been turned off for a while.”

  Buchanan flicked back to the picture taken outside the Miami hotel. He ran a trained eye over every inch of it before tapping it.

  “There. By his feet. That could be a cell phone, right?”

  Kim leaned in close and squinted, trying to make out the small detail in the photo.

  “Hmm, possibly. You think someone destroyed his, then gave him a different one?”

  “Maybe, yeah.”

  “But, why?”

  “That’s what we need to find out.” He gathered the papers together and handed them back to Kim. “Try to trace the owner of the plane Collins was taken to after the hotel. That might give us some idea of who’s behind his trip north of the border. Until we have proof to the contrary, we have to assume he’s intending to rendezvous with Jericho and Julie in some capacity, but we can’t rule out the possibility he’s been compromised.”

  Kim gasped. “Sir, you can’t think—”

  He held up a hand. “I don’t think Ray’s gone to the dark side. Relax. But I do think he’s travelling under duress. He didn’t know the details of Hyatt’s protection gig because he took some vacation time. The fact he’s travelling there at all means that whoever has something over him might be involved with whatever Hyatt’s got going on in Halifax.”

  “I’ll get on to the analysts right away, sir.”

  “Good. Thank you. I need to get in touch with Jericho, give him a head’s up before whatever shit is heading his way starts to hit the fan.”

  Kim left with the same urgency with which she entered. Buchanan reached for his phone and began to dial a number from memory.

  Jericho’s cell phone started ringing. The shrill tone filled the inside of the Suburban. He reached inside his jacket to retrieve it and answered on the third ring.

  “Jericho.”

  “It’s Buchanan,” came the deep, gravelly response.

  Jericho glanced sideways at Julie, who was staring questioningly at him, and mouthed Moses to her.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Right now? We’re following Hyatt’s client, en route to the port.”

  “Okay. You might have a problem.”

  “Another one?”

  “Collins landed in Halifax sometime in the last four hours.”

  “How is that a problem?” He paused, smiling to himself. “Beyond the obvious…”

  “He’s been compromised. My guess is he’s there to kill Hyatt.”

  “I didn’t catch that, sir. Say again?”

  “You heard me, soldier,” said Buchanan. “He was taken from his hotel in Miami yesterday. We think whoever took him is making him kill Hyatt. I can’t think of any other reason why he would be travelling to Halifax.”

  “We’ve not had any contact with him.”

  “Neither have we. His cell phone was destroyed. He was given a burner phone by whoever took him. That’s why we’ve been unable to reach him.”

  “What does this mean, sir?”

  Buchanan sighed. “It means you and Fisher better watch your asses. I have no doubt Ray will do what he can, but if he’s acting against his will, he may not have any options but to engage.”

  Jericho was silent for a moment.

  “Understood,” he said and hung up.

  “What’s going on?” quizzed Julie. “Is Ray coming to help?”

  Jericho turned to her, a reluctant grimace on his face. “Not exactly.”

  Through his scope, Collins saw the large, electric gate guarding the entrance to the port slide open. A moment later, two black Chevy Suburbans rolled in. They moved across his view, past the warehouses and the container yard, before stopping outside the foreman’s office.

  “Aye, aye… this could be it,” he muttered.

  He glanced to the side and saw his babysitter kneeling beside him with a pair of binoculars held to his face.

  “Is this the target?” he asked.

  “Maybe…”

  Collins watched him, sensing perhaps now was the time to make his move. He could secure his weapon and incapacitate the guy before he realized what had happened. He wouldn’t need to fire a shot, and he could get away before Velasquez knew he was gone.

  But he didn’t make a move. Instead, he found himself questioning why the guy was suddenly so careless after being so calculated for so long.

  The man lowered the binoculars and turned to Collins, smiling at his visible hesitation.

  “I hope you’re not getting any ideas?” he said. “Let me guess. You figured I’d let my guard down?”

  Coll
ins grinned sheepishly. “Heh. How’d ya guess?”

  “Because you’re the worst kind of transparent.” He pointed over at the entrance ramp to the roof of the parking lot. “And because you don’t see the bigger picture.”

  Collins looked over his shoulder to see three men standing across the mouth of the entrance, at the top of the ramp. Each one held a submachine gun that was strapped over their shoulders.

  “Ya sneaky bastard…”

  “Indeed. Now take your shot, Mr. Collins.”

  “Shite,” he muttered under his breath.

  He looked through the scope once more, refocusing on the two Suburbans. The first one stood with its doors open. Four men idled near the hood, seemingly deep in conversation. Collins looked on as the men shuffled together. Finally, they separated, giving him a clear view. His sights rested on Darius Silva.

  “I see him,” he announced.

  “So, take the shot already.”

  “Just gimme a minute, would ya? There’s another vehicle down there. I wanna see who’s in it.”

  The man sighed. “Why?”

  Collins looked across at him. “Because, dipshit, I’m a professional. The moment I pull the trigger, everyone who’s down there and still alive is likely gonna start firing in our general direction. There’s five of us now, right? Well, there could potentially be eight of them. Seven, not counting the guy I’m about to shoot. In the interest of avoiding being shot for as long as I can, I’d rather take out this douchebag once I understand what the consequences will be. Is that all right?”

  The man gestured with his gun for Collins to hurry up. “Just get on with it.”

  Collins sighed and looked back through the scope. The other Suburban had stopped a little bit behind the first one. The driver’s door stood open. He saw the back of a woman. Long hair. Trouser suit.

  He squinted in the scope.

  That ass looks really familiar, he thought. It can’t be…

  He watched as the passenger door opened, and Jericho Stone stepped out. He moved to the rear door and opened it. A moment later, Ulysses Hyatt emerged from the back seat, carrying a briefcase.