False

by U. E. Wynn

  “It’s cool,” said Nasir, letting the shit go.

  “My contact is scanning the video footage as we speak so I should hear something by tonight.”

  “Speaking of which, some of our men went back to one of the old spots to remove a few stashes from the walls and they said that they noticed some narcs watching them from across the way.”

  “Must be those same bastards from the tapes. Where are they now?”

  “Waiting for my order to move.”

  Malik started pacing his office. He was thinking about what he should do. He contemplated whether he should wait until his contact sent him the information or have his men move to the next location. He continued pacing around the office fighting with his thoughts.

  “A Malik.”

  “Hold on man, let me think.”

  “Nah, listen I just got word tha-.”

  “Nasir chill man, just give me a minute.”

  Nasir walked over to Malik and forced him to look at the screen of his cellphone.

  “Read it.”

  Malik stopped pacing and read the message.

  Narcs are gone.

  “You see? Everything’s good. I’ll tell the men to move out quickly and watch their six.”

  Nasir could see Malik starting to relax a little. Before leaving, he made sure that Malik was straight and assured him that he would go to the new spot and make sure that everything was good.

  ~~~~

  “Sergeant it looks like they turned down that alleyway up ahead.”

  “Yeah, I saw the bastards. Vladimir, give it just a little more gas. We don’t want to lose their trail.”

  O’Malley leaned over the seat. “This is a different area, unlike their usual locations. Where do you think they’re heading?”

  Not taking his eye off the road, Brandon says. “I’m not sure, but we’re about to find out.”

  They followed the men for another half a mile and ended up at an old abandoned shipyard. They all sat in silence as they watched the muscle car, full of Malik’s men, drive through an opened gate and stopped shortly after. The back passenger door pushed open and one of the flunkies emerged from the car wearing baggy black jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt. The guy jogged back towards the entrance of the gate and pulled it close. He retrieved a chain from the ground and attached it to the gate to lock it.

  “I knew my gut was right. I told yall they were up to something.”

  “So what’s the plan now?” O’Malley asked, He was sitting in the back seat with both knives in hand.

  “We know where their new location is now so it’s time to do a house call.”

  Devon spoke as he peered out the tinted window. “How sure can we be that they don’t have any other men in there?”

  “Look around the gate. There’s no security. That’s a clear sign that they aren’t expecting anyone to find their location.”

  “But we did,” Vladimir said in his thick Russian accent.

  “I’m always ready to fuck shit up,” said Zane. “I think it’s long overdue. This has been a hell of a week for me and I am ready to make some people hurt and bank some cash.”

  “In that case men, load up and let’s shut this shit down,” Brandon ordered.

  Each man dismounted the SUV and met up at the rear end of the car. Vladimir did the honors of opening the hatch door and they all picked their weapon of choice. Brandon gave them a few minutes to check their gear and then they all hopped back into the SUV.

  “Vladimir, you know what to do.”

  “Gladly,” he responded, smiling evilly.

  He mashed on the gas and the SUV’s engine roared as it sped towards the gate. Everyone braced themselves as the front end of the SUV collided with the gate, pulling its metal frame off the hinges. Still moving at full speed, Vladimir raced the SUV down the dirt road that showed previous tire marks from when Malik’s men entered. It was almost as if they had left a breadcrumb trail just for them to come and toss up their whole operation.

  “I guess these boys never got briefed on covering their tracks,” said Brandon.

  He noticed a building up ahead that looked like an old trailer. He smiled to himself because he knew that this was going to be the quickest shakedown that they would ever do. There was no security and there was only one way in and one way out. Brandon had Vladimir stop a few meters away from the trailer and they covered the rest of the way on foot.

  “Vladimir and O’Malley come with me. Devon, Zane and Brock; I want you to cover the perimeter in case any of them tries to hop out a window. If I recall correctly, there were only four of them that got into that car. I’m sure the three of us can take them all out easy enough.”

  “Roger that Sergeant,” said O’Malley, pulling his shades from the top of his head and down over his eyes. “Let’s move.”

  “Alright men. You have your orders. Let’s make this quick. Remember, watch your six.”

  Brandon, O’Malley and Vladimir took off in the opposite direction from the other men. They ran across the dirt lot and surrounded the door. Brandon gave a three count signal to Vladimir and O’Malley, then they kicked open the door and started shooting. Two of the men inside were sitting on the sofa playing video games. They were the first to be hit. The other two men took cover and started busting back.

  “It’s those motherfucking narcs again,” one of them called out to the other.

  “These niggas don’t give up. Kill ‘em!”

  Shortly after that, bullets started flying again. Brandon took cover behind a file cabinet and tried to peek out to see where each man was hiding. He spotted one in the doorway of what seemed to be a bedroom. He gave word to Vladimir, who happened to have a better shot, and he took action.

  Vladimir fired off a few rounds in the man’s direction and waited for the guy inside to fire back. When he did, Vladimir sent one more round his way and it landed directly in the center of the guy's forehead. Grayish-pink matter painted the wall behind him as his lifeless body flopped to the floor.

  “Oh shit!”

  That panicked cry came from the last man that Brandon still hadn’t been able to pinpoint yet.

  “You got two options; surrender or die. It’s up to you.” Brandon called out.

  A few silent seconds passed and Brandon assumed the guy was thinking about his next move. Instead of emerging and surrendering, the guy shouted. “FUCK YOU,” and sent more rounds their way.

  “I’m tired of toying with this fool. Swap out with me, Sergeant,” yelled O’Malley.

  Brandon traded places with him and watched as O’Malley placed both of his guns up near his head as if he was praying. He then emerged from behind the file cabinet and started sending nonstop rounds in the direction that he thought he’d heard the voice come from. O’Malley shot and walked until he had emptied both clips. He stopped and listened for any movement. Instead, he heard nothing but silence.

  Brandon and Vladimir waited by the door quietly. When O’Malley finally found the last guy, he was slumped over in the tub. He had been hiding in the bathroom. O’Malley pulled the man from the tub and let his body hit the floor. He was still alive.

  “We got a live one here gentleman,” O’Malley called out giving them the signal that it was safe to enter.

  “Good,” Brandon said, walking up to the bathroom entrance. “Tie his ass to a chair and grill him. Do what you must.”

  O’Malley looked down at the injured man. “Your ass is mine.”

  Brandon and the other men began probing the rooms in search of any money or drugs that the men had stashed inside. Meanwhile, O’Malley had moved the injured man from the bathroom to the center of what would be the living room. He had him tied tightly to the chair while he questioned him.

  “I’m gonna ask you once more…where is your headquarters?”

  The man looked up at the ski masked covered face that was leaning towards him. Drenched in a mixture of sweat and blood, he panted heavily. The pain from his wounds was etched all over his face. �
��I’m telling you man I don’t know.”

  O’Malley shook his head. “Wrong answer.”

  He drilled one of his sharp knives into the bullet hole on the man’s right leg. When the guy screamed out in pain, O’Malley howled like a wolf and laughed hysterically.

  “We found about eighty grand and a shit pile of blow,” Zane reported.

  “Well would you look at that?” O’Malley said sarcastically turning his attention back to his prisoner. “You boys must be putting in some major work in order to end up with loot like that. You look too dumb to even know how to run anything by yourself.”

  O’Malley circled the chair and pulled a second knife from its sheath. “Listen, I’m in such a great mood today that I am willing to give you one final chance to tell me what you know.”

  Beat down and weak, the man struggled to lift his head. “Please man, I really don’t know. I’ve never been there before. None of us have.”

  “Is that your final answer?”

  “Man, I swear I don’t know.”

  “I guess you’ve left me with no choice.” O’Malley looked over at Brandon, who nodded. No words were needed. Brandon, Zane, Brock and Vladimir gathered up what they had found and left the trailer.

  When the door closed behind them, O’Malley frowned down at the man in the chair, flipping his knives in both hands. “This is going to hurt…a lot.”

  The painful screams of a man being carved alive was all the other men could hear as they walked back to the SUV.

  CHAPTER 18

  Brandon and his crew shut down another one of Malik’s houses. Nothing made Brandon smile harder than knowing that he was the reason for his own brother’s demise. After they stripped Malik’s men of all of their cash, they waited outside in the car for O’Malley to finish turning one of Malik’s men into a carved turkey.

  Brandon had seen the damage that O’Malley could do with his knives and it wasn’t an easy act to watch. In all of his years being in law enforcement, Brandon had seen many things occur. He had stood witness to all sorts of horrific scenes, but none of them topped watching a man be carved alive.

  This may seem like a successful mission for Brandon and his men, unfortunately their fortune would also become their misfortune. They never realized that they were being watched the entire time. There was no security at that particular location because Malik had rigged the place with enough cameras to see every inch of the inside and outside of the trailer. No room or corner was left without video surveillance.

  ~~~~

  “A creepy ass looking Russian named Vladimir Fedorov. A red hair, bushy eyebrow faced bitch name Chris O’Malley and a wannabe thug nigga named Devon DeMamp!” Malik slammed the manila folder that held the information of each man on his desk. Pissed off was an understatement.

  “You mean to tell me that these are the fuck boys, that’s been hitting my shit up?”

  Nasir sat in the chair in front of Malik’s desk in silence. He knew that was a rhetorical question. He just was waiting for Malik to finish tripping so he could hit him with more bad news.

  “How in the hell did these mark ass niggas get by us with this shit? Seriously man I need to know. All that tells me is our security isn’t worth two cents if niggas like this are slipping through the cracks right under our own noses.”

  Nasir looked on as Malik blew off steam and continued on with his rant. When he finally went over to the mini bar in his office and poured himself a glass of Rémy, Nasir decided that it was time to lay the bad news on him.

  “Yo, Malik.”

  Malik stood with his back turned to Nasir. He looked over his shoulder, but said nothing.

  “I got some more information for you and it ain’t good man.”

  Silence.

  “When I left from here, I went over to the new spot to check things out and make sure them little niggas was doing what they were supposed to be doing. When I got there the gate was torn from the hinges and there were several tire marks in the sand. I heard gunshots the minute I rolled through, so I parked my ride in the darkest area I could find.

  A few minutes later I saw about five niggas running towards an SUV that was parked a little down the block. They were carrying our cash. They killed all of our men, and tortured Country bad.

  I checked all the hiding spots for the cash and everything was empty. They cleaned the house out, but luckily they didn’t fuck with the computer. I searched the tapes and saw their faces.” Nasir reached in his back pocket and pulled out the USB he was carrying. He placed it down on Malik’s desk.

  Malik said nothing yet again as he walked over to his desk. He retrieved his MacBook from one of the drawers and powered it on. He placed the USB into one of the ports and waited for the video to open up. He skimmed through until he saw some activity and watched from there. Nasir sat off to the side, watching him. He knew that once Malik saw what he needed him to see, he was going to go off the deep end.

  Twenty minutes into the video, Malik was leaned back in his seat watching everything unfold. He recognized the red head and the Russian right away. They seemed to be with another guy that he couldn’t see because his back was turned.

  Malik watched as the unknown man gave orders to the red head and the Russian. He was obviously the one in charge. The six mini screens on the laptop all lit up at the same time from the gunfire that started the moment the three men kicked open the door.

  Malik watched as his men were taken down one by one. The unknown man was taking cover behind a file cabinet and looked like he was talking to the one man in Malik’s posse that was left standing. Then the red head stepped in and started busting as he moved through the house. Moments later, Malik saw three other men come rushing in with the Russian. He recognized the Devon dude, but the other two weren’t familiar.

  The mini video screens showed the men scouting the house. Malik sat up abruptly in his chair when he recognized who the unknown man was in charge when he happened to look in the direction of one of the cameras. He replayed that part of the footage and slowed it down so he could get a better look at the guys’ face.

  His heart just about stopped beating and he felt a large lump in his throat as he tried to swallow the doubt that he felt. He shook his head and looked away from the screen. He had to have been seeing this shit wrong. It just couldn’t be.

  Malik stood up and walked over to his bar again, grabbed the entire bottle of Rémy, and drunk deeply from it. He knew that what he had just seen was a mistake. It had to be. He paced around the room a bit and looked over at Nasir, who looked at him and then shook his head as confirmation that Malik’s eyes weren’t deceiving him.

  This can’t be real. Maybe there was a glitch that screwed up the image and made him look like that. Malik slowly walked back over to his desk and replayed that part of the video again, but it was the same person. It was him. It was his baby brother. His own blood. It was Brandon.

  Nasir watched the anger and hurt etched in Malik’s face. He knew that a million and one questions were running through his mind. A million and one questions that needed a million and one answers. Malik was the kind of man that never let anything go unhandled. Situations like this is where the uncivilized Malik would resurface. Once that side of him showed up, that was it. No one ever knew their fate or when it would happen. He was always swift with it and by the time a target realized anything, it was too late. However, this was different. This was his baby brother. A brother that he loved and cared about.

  Nasir cleared his throat to gain Malik’s attention and asked the inevitable question. “How do you want to do this?”

  Shaking his head, still in disbelief. Malik held up his hand, he needed time to think. But Nasir knew that time was limited and if they planned to do anything they would need to do it now.

  “Yo, Malik man. I know you’re upset, but we gotta handle this now. Just tell me how you want everything to go down and it’s done.”

  “No.” Malik closed his eyes and tried to fight back the tears th
at started to whelm in his eyes. He knew that Nasir was right, but he wasn’t about to allow him to do anything to his brother. If anybody would handle Brandon it was going to be him. “You do what you must with the others, but leave him to me.”

  “You sure about that? I know he’s your...”

  Malik raised his hand. “I don’t need a reminder. Take care of the others and leave him to me. He is off limits, understood?”

  Nasir nodded his response and stood up to leave. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.” He walked towards the double doors and knocked twice. The men standing guard on the outside opened the doors and Nasir walked out, leaving Malik to his thoughts.

  ~~~~

  Brandon and his men were all in the conference room discussing their recent hit. They had scored big and now they were all ready to reap the grand prize…taking down the nest.

  “I still feel like that shit was way too easy. They had to know that we were still surveilling their old spots. I mean, come on ya’ll. You really think these guys just randomly picked that last location?”

  Devon was sitting at the end of the table leaning back in his seat. His size thirteen feet were covered with steel-toed boots that rested on the edge of the table. “They are up to something. For all we know they could know who we are and be putting a hit out on us.”

  All the men looked at each other. The room was quiet for a few minutes until someone burst out laughing, causing a domino effect amongst the rest of the group. Devon shook his head in frustration at the reaction that his team members responded with. All the men laughed and cracked jokes, but not Brandon. He actually took in what Devon was saying and realized that he could be right.

  “I don’t find anything funny,” he interjected. The laughter ceased and all eyes were on Brandon as he stood at the front of the room. “We shouldn’t take anything lightly. Most of us have families that we care about. Our next move is to bring these thugs down permanently and in order to do that we must all have our heads in the game. Until that happens, it would be best for all of you to send your wives and kids somewhere safe until this is over.”