Devil's Brigade (Trackdown Book 3)

by Michael A. Black

  “They won’t budge,” he said.

  “Shit,” Smith said, scaling the ladder. He swung up next to Cummins, clinging with a seeming prehensility to the side of the ladder and banging the slide of Riley’s weapon against the knobs of the hasps to force them back. The pungency of his sweat was highly noticeable in the close proximity of their bodies. Cummins felt a revulsion welling up from his stomach again but it subsided.

  Smith grabbed the lever and pulled, then shoved it upward. The hatch of the trap door sprang open.

  “Go on up through there,” Smith said. “And here.” He handed Cummins Riley’s weapon. “Take this. Charlie ain’t got no need for it no more.”

  Cummins grabbed the gun and edged up through the opening. It was dark inside and he wished he had a flashlight. As he worked his belly through the opening and then his legs, he fell over onto his side and panted. Smith’s head appeared in the opening, lighted from below.

  “Here,” he said. “Take these.”

  Smith disappeared and the end of one of the duffel bags came up through the opening. Cummins grabbed it and set it aside. He heard the sounds of Smith descending and then ascending the ladder again and another bag was thrust up through the opening. Cummins set that one aside too, and Smith paused, his head visible once again.

  “Jack, take these keys. Go get Charlie’s car and pull it around to the other side of the building by that big door. I’ll get the other bags up here and help Cherrie and the kid.”

  He handed Cummins a set of car keys.

  For a brief moment, Cummins considered aimed the pistol at Smith’s head and pulling the trigger. It would be an easy, can’t miss shot. That would leave him an unencumbered path to grab the kid and maybe even Cherrie, and take off. But there were complications. He would have to catch them both, although the kid still seemed out of it, and then carry or force them up the ladder, not to mention carrying all of those five heavy duffel bags to the car. Jamming the gun into the front left side of his belt where he could get to it with a cross-draw, he set aside any thought of dissolving their partnership.

  No, for the time being anyway, he and the hillbilly king were still buddies.

  Cummins accepted the keys and got to his feet. He picked up the two bags and started moving as cautiously as he could toward the front entrance, recalling the door to the outside they had to push open leading to the outside but it had already been removed. Had they left it that way?

  He couldn’t remember. The moonlight streamed through the vacant door frame as well as through the empty portals where the windows had once been.

  He made his way toward the door, his boots making gritty, crunching sounds as he walked along the wooden floor.

  He went through the door to the outside and the street, hoping to catch a cool breeze but instead the wind was hot and dusty. Cummins looked around to try and get his bearings.

  Where did they leave that damn car?

  Then something caught his eye … Something in the middle of the street about fifteen feet away with nothing else around it.

  Cummins staggered forward, the image not quite distinct in the moonlight.

  It was about a foot and a half tall and was suddenly illuminated by a flashlight beam.

  The smiling, mustachioed face under the Mexican sombrero seemed to be staring back at him with a mocking insouciance.

  The bandito.

  Wolf was here.

  Cummins turned to run back into the building but Wolf emerged from the shadows on the side, pointing a big Glock pistol.

  “Cummins,” he said. “Don’t fucking move.”

  Wolf moved forward and ripped the gun from Cummins’s beltline. After snapping on the safety, he stuck it in his own belt, off to the side, then grabbed the fat man’s ear and tugged him back into the shadows, holding the barrel of the Glock to Cummins’s temple.

  “Where’s Chad?”

  “Shoot me and you’ll never see him,” Cummins said. He felt the vomit roiling in his gut again. “I’m sorry, I have to throw up.”

  With that, he spewed forth a gusher of puke. Wolf stepped back just as a figure burst through the window, his one hand striking Wolf’s head, the other seizing his gun hand. The momentum carried them both forward and into the street, Wolf landing hard on his side and his opponent landing on top. It was Roger D. Smith, from the trailer park.

  Wolf felt the Glock slip from his hand as a series of punches struck his abdomen and worked downward seeming intent on striking his groin. He kicked with his legs and managed to flip his body to the left. Smith was bringing up a gun, a blue steel semi-auto, and Wolf grabbed it with both of his hands.

  Smith tried to twist away but Wolf managed to wrench the pistol out of the man’s grip. The sweat on the weapon made it impossible to hold, and it went skittering away as Wolf’s Glock had. Rising, Wolf caught a glimpse of Cummins running past them. He grabbed the bandito and trundled off at a jiggling run.

  He called out to Mac, who rushed past him yelling, “She’s got Chad.”

  In the split second Wolf took to see a woman jumping through one of the vacant windows and running while clutching something to her chest—a tiny human body, he realized it was Chad. The running woman was Cherrie with an I E.

  Kasey shot by him running full tilt after her dad.

  Then the spinning kick caught him in the gut. Stumbling backwards, Wolf tried to take a breath but his opponent shot forward with another jumping kick.

  This time Wolf was ready and blocked it, countering with a quick punch to the other man’s side. He landed as nimble as a cat.

  Looks like the gang’s all here, he thought, and raised his hands into a guard position.

  “Oh,” Smith said. “You wanna fight?”

  He grinned and assumed what appeared to be a karate kumite stance.

  Wolf’s breathing was coming in ragged gasps. Just as he was hoping that Mac and Kasey had caught Cherrie, Smith danced forward and shot out a back-fist. Wolf blocked the blow, brushing it away with his right hand and shooting out a quick jab with his left. The jab caught Smith flush on the mouth and his lower lip opened up and sent a stream of blood down his chin. Grinning, Smith licked at the wound and moved forward again, this time flipping up a double roundhouse kick to Wolf’s abdomen and then his head. The body blow made Wolf drop his guard slightly and the second kick bounced off his right temple.

  The black spots swarmed in his eyes for a second, then vanished. Wolf danced back a few steps and when Smith’s leg dropped as he completed the kick, Wolf thrust a front kick into Smith’s exposed left side. His lips curled back exposing crimson-covered teeth. As he straightened up, Wolf moved forward, as lithely as a ballet dancer, and sent a double jab into the other man’s face. One of the telephone pole jabs smashed into Smith’s nose, causing a new torrent of blood. He seemed to blink twice and Wolf came across with a straight right that sent Smith staggering back and then to his knees, dropping down toward the street.

  Wolf searched in vain for that extra shot of adrenaline that would allow his sleep-deprived body to follow up but felt a few seconds too slow.

  A few seconds was all it took for Smith to recover, exhibit another sly, bloody grin, and stoop down to pick up one of the fallen pistols.

  “You’re pretty good,” he said and pointed the gun at Wolf’s chest. “Ain’t sure I can beat ya.”

  Wolf’s anticipation of the round ripping through his body went unfulfilled. Instead, the distinctive, loud, piercing sound of an automatic rifle set on full auto thundered through the otherwise silent night air.

  Was it Mac’s Jammin’ Jenny?

  No, he realized. It was a Kalashnikov.

  He’d heard that sound too many times on the other side of the world to mistake it.

  Smith’s body arched forward and twisted in a gyrating whirl, his face registering a grimace with the striking of each round.

  Wolf hit the dirt.

  A big man in camo BDUs stumbled out through the open doorway holding an AK-4
7, red blood staining the front and side of his blouse. His mouth drooped open and he seemed to be gasping for air, the same as Wolf. The man’s eyes glowed with a look of madness. He placed his left hand on the door jamb for support and raised the rifle, redirecting the muzzle at Wolf.

  The equally familiar zipping pops of an M-16 rang out at an oblique angle from Wolf’s left side and the AK-47 drooped as the man in the doorway tumbled forward.

  McNamara ran up, a wisp of smoke still filtering from the end of his rifle’s barrel. He flattened against the wall and peered through the window frame. Wolf stooped down and grabbed his weapon, then ran forward and plucked the one out of Smith’s hands. The other man’s vacuous eyes stared unblinking from his expressionless face.

  “Any more of them?” McNamara asked.

  Wolf moved to the window and shook his head.

  “Don’t know,” he said.

  “What about Cummins?” McNamara said.

  “He took off,” Wolf said. With the bandito, he added silently.

  “Well, go after the son of a bitch,” McNamara said. “I’m good here.”

  “Let’s clear this building first,” Wolf said, thinking this new one had probably come through the tunnel. “You never leave a residual force on your flank.”

  Mac grinned.

  Cummins ran between the buildings, holding the bandito close to his chest and hardly believing how perfectly things had turned out for him.

  Well, not too perfectly, he thought. He still had to get the hell out of here but from the sound of the gunshots, he’d be able to pull it off if he could find that damn car. Keller’s sudden reemergence had given him the break he needed to escape the kill zone and the fire fight would keep any of them from following him, at least for the moment. He kept trundling forward, each breath feeling like it was littered with razor blades.

  And suddenly there it was: the Caravan.

  He ran the remaining steps and tore at the camouflaged netting with his free hand.

  It came away easily and he shifted the precious bandito to his left hand and pulled out the car keys. His foot bumped into something as he moved around toward the driver’s door and he saw the flat tires—both the left front and left rear.

  Tears came to his eyes as he thought how close he’d come to making it all work. It would have all been so perfect.

  Straightening up, his mind raced, trying to figure out his next option. There was always another option.

  Wolf had to have come here in a car. If he could find it and somehow get it started … Maybe the keys were in it …

  Maybe he could just hide here or bury the bandito and surrender when the FBI eventually came. He’d call and tell Fallotti that he had the statue hidden and if they got him out of jail and gave him a reward, he’d tell them where it was.

  Would they go for it?

  They had to. It was the only option he had left but in the meantime, he had to find a good hiding place for both of them, him and the bandito.

  Cummins dashed through the building to the next street. He heard no more sounds of gunshots, which meant that they were either dead or coming for him.

  A sudden flood of light blinded him for a moment and then he saw that it was a car’s headlights. The silhouette of a big man appeared at the edge of one of the beams. He raised his arm and Cummins saw that he was holding a gun.

  The jig was up. He was caught.

  “You from the FBI?” he asked.

  “Wrong agency,” the man said.

  “Wait,” Cummins said, pausing and starting to strip off the neoprene brace with the money-belt inside. “I’ve got money.”

  The next second he felt the round pierce his gut before he heard the noise.

  The sound of the gunshot told Wolf that it was on the next block, right down from where they’d seen Riley’s vehicle. He moved quickly through the piles of debris and saw the Caravan, the netting partially ripped off.

  He moved past the vehicle and up to the edge of the building. A big black guy holding a gun stood in the center of the street standing over a fallen Cummins. Next to him, a white guy with feathered back blond hair stood next to a bronze Blazer holding something. Wolf looked closer and saw that it was the bandito statue and the white guy was Richard Soraces. Cummins was on his back, his arms and legs moving like a big crab that had been upended on the beach. The black guy leveled the pistol at him and fired another round. Cummins jerked and then lay still. As the black guy stooped down and started to undo something from Cummins’s supine form, Wolf brought his weapon up and acquired a sight picture on the black man’s chest.

  “Don’t move,” he shouted. “You’re surrounded.”

  The black man froze but didn’t drop his weapon.

  “Wolf?” Soraces said. “That you?”

  “The FBI’s got the area surrounded,” Wolf said. It was a total bluff but he hoped the lawyer and his associate would buy it.

  “I think not,” Soraces said. He ducked down out of sight and the black guy’s pistol exploded with a muzzle flash.

  Wolf squeezed off two rounds and saw the black guy fall.

  The Blazer accelerated backwards down the street, its lights extinguishing as it went.

  Wolf thought about firing in that direction but didn’t.

  No sense shooting at someone you can’t see, he thought, and began moving up on an oblique path toward the fallen assailant.

  Keeping his weapon trained on the fallen man, Wolf stepped close enough to catch a glimpse of one open, glazed eye. He kicked the black man’s gun away and knelt to check him, pressing his finger against the man’s exposed eyeball.

  There was no reaction.

  He shoved the dead man off Cummins, who was also obviously dead. Something dark and long was in the black man’s hands.

  Wolf studied it and saw it was a neoprene back brace of some sort but there was something protruding out of it made of brown leather. After managing to pull the back brace free, Wolf saw it contained a leather money-belt. He unzipped one of the pockets and saw a thick bundle of greenbacks, all hundreds.

  McNamara appeared at his side, holding the M-16 and shining his flashlight down on the two bodies.

  “You get Chad?” Wolf asked.

  McNamara nodded. “He’s okay.”

  Wolf felt a flood of relief. “Thank God.”

  “Who’s the guy that took off in the Blazer?” McNamara asked.

  “That lawyer, Soraces,” Wolf said, momentarily wondering if they could go after him in the Escalade. But what would be the point? And they now had Chad with them.

  “That Cummins?” McNamara motioned toward the bloated corpse.

  “Yeah.”

  “Who’s the other dude?”

  Wolf shook his head.

  Down at the intersection, the Escalade drove past and McNamara waggled his flashlight. The vehicle jerked to a stop, backed up, turned, and drove down to them.

  “It’s Kasey,” McNamara said. “We got Chad and that Cherrie gal in the Caddie. She’s hog tied.”

  Kasey honked the horn. McNamara waved.

  The beam of his flashlight swept over the money belt and Mac whistled.

  “Looks like whoever that dude was, he was rich.”

  “This was on Cummins.” Wolf said.

  “Shit, then it’s yours then.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “I do.” McNamara stooped down and grabbed the belt. “We gotta get Chad to the hospital,” he said.

  Wolf stood up quickly. “I thought you said he was all right?”

  “He is, but he’s unconscious.” McNamara’s clenched jaw twitched. “That stupid broad said she give him one of her sleeping pills to quiet him down. Seems he saw his daddy buy the farm back in the fort.”

  “Shit,” Wolf said, wondering what effect that would have on Chad. He’d been through so much already ... But kids were resilient. He handed his gun to McNamara. “You go ahead. I’ll stay here and call the FBI.”

  “You think y
ou oughta do that?”

  “Somebody’s got to,” Wolf said. “And we’re going to have to explain some things anyway.”

  McNamara made a slight jerking motion with his head. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m through running,” Wolf said. “And I gave Franker my word.”

  McNamara stared at him.

  “Don’t worry,” Wolf said. “I’ll keep you out of it as much as I can. Tell them you and I came here because Cummins called with the ransom demand. We exchanged the bandito for Chad and the bad guys shot it out with each other. I’ll tell them you’re at the hospital.”

  “This is sounding an awfully lot like Mexico. Think they’ll buy it?”

  “What choice do we have?” Wolf clapped him on the shoulder. “But I suggest you look around for a good, temporary place to stash all the weapons real quick, especially Jammin’ Jenny.”

  “Hell, if need be, I can still dig a pretty good foxhole, and I got my entrenching tool in the Caddie,” Mac patted his rifle. “I ain’t gonna let nothing happen to this old gal.”

  Kasey honked again, twice this time, and McNamara turned and ran to the Escalade.

  Wolf watched as they drove away and then walked over to the side of the street. He sat down on the curb, wishing he had something to wipe the sweat and blood off his face and hands. As he took out his cell phone he felt the exhaustion creeping over him once more and longed to be anyplace but here.

  But they’d saved Chad and that was all that mattered.

  Now, it was time to call Special Agent Franker.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Pima County Jail

  Tucson, Arizona

  72 hours later

  Wolf walked out of the county jail lockup wearing the orange uniform they given him during his brief 72-hour stay. Although he hadn’t been given a chance to shower, the deputies had allowed him to wash his face and hands. The food hadn’t been that bad either and compared to four years at Leavenworth, this place was a snap. He saw two cars parked by the curb. One was the Escalade with Mac, Kasey, and Chad all waving. The other was the familiar navy-blue sedan with the U.S. Government plates. Special Agent Franker got out of the passenger side of that one and walked over to him.