by J. T. Patten
“What?”
Drake pulled open the stairway door to find two thirty-something men, lightly bearded wearing sweaters and pocketed sweatpants. They looked more like college grad students and stood in the landing on their way up to his location. Drake paused, unsure of their intent.
“Are the other two Archangel dudes here?” Drake asked Mojo as he raised his weapon. He had lost count of the rounds, which didn’t matter since he never knew how many he started with. It was better to raise a weapon and not pull the trigger than wait and die with a pistol tucked in your pants.
The other two members of the Hezbollah cell, too, went for weapons, shocked to see a bearded homeless man drawing down on them. This they hadn’t counted on after being called over to help hunt for Gebran the scientist.
“Never mind.” Drake got off one shot before hearing the gut-dropping empty click. It bought him a moment as the bullet found one of the Hezbollah soldier’s arms, causing him to drop his weapon. Not a bad result for what was supposed to be a head shot.
The other man aimed and fired.
Drake heard the combo crack and whiz, not sure which came first, but it just missed his head. As the shooter kept pulling the trigger in a one-handed grip, the bullets rose higher. This Woolf could only tell by the firing succession through recoil.
Woolf launched low, kung-fu-poster style, down a dozen stairs. He was off his mark and needed to make a hasty transition to land on both feet, letting his body ride the momentum. He threw a shoulder into the second Hezbo soldier, crushing him into the wall, then pulled back just enough to come back with an elbow to the man’s breastbone.
The first man was fumbling for his weapon on the ground. Drake stomped the man’s lower back and refocused back on the next. Another gunshot fired, and Woolf felt the side punch of the bullet.
“Motherfucker!” Woolf gritted, struggling to catch his already winded breath. Drake head-butted the man and thrust his hand to the man’s open throat and squeezed.
The man was trained and swung up and over, hammering Drake’s arm down and breaking the lock. From the corner of his eye, he saw the other guy crouched and ready to fire. Woolf man-handled his standing adversary with all his strength and leverage, yanking him backward into the partner. The bullet cracked, and Drake saw the sparks hitting the metal stair rails.
Gotta end this fast. Drake’s strength was failing, and he was feeling light-headed from lack of oxygen. He bent and threw wild and loose punches. The metal bar in his back pocket slipped some, triggering a final option in Drake’s mind.
From decades ago, he envisioned his father in that scorching kitchen of Tunisia holding the metal ice pick. “Drake, when you do this, don’t use one hand like me. Use both hands around and interlock the fingers.” Drake had done that to try to kill the men who attacked his family. Drake reached back now and grabbed the steel in his palm. Dad was right, but in the years of military training learning the art of ungentlemanly warfare, Drake had learned new tricks. He slammed the steel down into the side of his adversary’s neck. He hammered it back and forth to the neck, to the temple, and when that man went limp, he went for the struggling man below.
The sirens had multiplied, and now shouting was coming from the stairwell below. Drake shoved the bloodied metal bar up the back of his body armor plate and flopped to the ground face down. Hoping both guys he just fought were finally goners.
“Up here,” a voice called out. Police radio calls joined in to the climbing ruckus sounds. “One man down! Make that two. Oh shit. Three. What the fuck?”
Drake felt a hand tugging on his shoulder.
“Joe, don’t touch that junkie without gloves. You’ll get the hiv.”
“Shit, you’re right. God, it smells like shit in here.” The officer pulled Woolf over, and Drake prayed he wouldn’t notice the body plate or the fake beard.
“Aggghh!” Drake’s eyes popped open.
“Holy shit!” The officer jumped back and stumbled off the first stair.
“Fucker’s alive!” his partner yelled, catching and stopping his partner from a fall.
Drake wrapped his arms around himself. He slurred, “Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me.”
“Buddy.” The officer snapped his fingers in front of Drake’s wild eyes. “Hey, are you in there? What happened?”
“Up here,” another other officer called back to those climbing up from behind. “Holy crap. This looks like a fucking gang hit. What happened up here?” The voice faded as the CPD officer took in the rest of the massacre.
“Hey, Mahoney, forget the bum. We’ll take him and get him cleaned up and see if he can talk. You see if you can help up here at this fucking mess. Detective Neil and I will call a bus and have the techs check out these other guys.”
“Thanks, Daniels. I appreciate you pros giving us first look.”
“Hey, consider us helping a friend.” The detective smiled.
Chapter 33
Drake tried to brush off the detective who was grabbing fistfuls of his clothes. Drake flopped around, protecting his Teflon secret and playing the ruse through as long as it could take him out of the long arms of the law.
Detective Daniels leaned in. “I’m supposed to say ‘Old Yeller was a cougar.’”
Drake’s eyes nearly popped from his head, and he stopped struggling.
“Are you okay?” Detective Neil asked with a nod. “Can you get the fuck outta here?”
Drake turned back to Daniels, still not saying a word.
“We’re going to put you in a car. We need to move quick. Anything we need to know or that you need to do? God, you smell like piss.”
“Bag.” Woolf croaked. “I have something downstairs with the cans.” He coughed. “I need a duffel bag that’s under cans in the cart.”
Daniels glanced back to his partner. “Go check it out. Throw it in the trunk.” The detective pulled at Woolf. “Let’s go, soldier. Sean Havens just called in another chit. This one better not get me shot.”
* * * *
Within the rows of storage containers in the Self-Stor facility, Gebran unlocked the vault where he had stashed the vehicle and compounds just days before. He lifted the rolling overhead door and let out a breath of relief at seeing the van still there.
Entering the facility, he headed straight to the passenger-side door to access the glove box. Within it was a white handheld radiation detector that he snatched and powered up.
Gebran toggled the menu settings to display the dose rate and history in the same view as current radiological levels.
In the back of the vehicle were two storage containers with yellow block lettering. One was full of the radioactive powder and the other full of radioactive waste materials such as gloves, wipes, throwaway compounds, as well as two stolen radioactive cobalt 60 seeds that had been written off as packed and transported. Signed off by Dr. Planck.
Gebran scanned the van and the area with the device. The difference in radioactivity was significantly lower than it was days prior, which meant the container was holding fine and residual contaminants outside of the boxes had lost their effective life due to exposure with open air. The readings calmed Gebran, knowing any government air sniffers wouldn’t be able to locate the stolen materials.
“You’re an ambitious man,” a voice suggested from behind.
Gebran dropped the device, rattled by the sound. The radiation detector shattered its plastic frame on the concrete floor on impact. A shard shot across the ground and was stopped under the foot of Dexter Woolf, the Modarris.
“Foolish, but…ambitious,” Dexter said.
“Your voice. You’re the Modarris. But you’re American?” Gebran’s voice was more breath than sound.
“Are you going somewhere?” Dexter put down a large brown-and-gold Louis Vuitton duffel that made a solid thud when it hit the floor.
“No, Mo
darris. How did you find me?”
“Have you communicated with anyone else?”
“No, Modarris. My guards wouldn’t allow me to use a phone.”
“This is not the location you provided me with earlier.”
“I’m sorry, Modarris. I needed to be sure that your assurances would be true. I needed leverage if I—”
“It is not yours to leverage.”
“I’m sorry, I just wanted to have Hezbollah’s word that I would be promoted to a leader.”
“Where? Where do you want to lead?”
“I don’t know.” He paused. “America? I could develop cells and plans.”
“You’re a wanted murderer in America. Too dangerous. You would expose any activities. This is your own burden, as we never wanted you to harm your professor. Where else could you be of value?”
“I could go home to Venezuela and plan activities in South America.”
“Same scenario. Your country, as corrupt as it may be, will just welcome you back after stealing radioactive material and killing someone while on a visa? You would be extradited. Perhaps denied a return. You would be hunted even in your own country to gain favor with the Americans and Venezuela’s own neighbors.”
“Then Lebanon.”
“Where you have never been and know no one?”
“I have family. My grandfather was legendary.” Gebran raised his chin with pride.
“Yes, he was. But you are not. The Party men in Lebanon are war-hardened. They have fought the Israelis, fought in Syria. How do you expect to lead such men?”
“I’m sure I—”
“You have already made your contribution, and you too shall be a legend.” Dexter Woolf slid a boxy integrally suppressed Maxim 9mm handgun from behind his back and fired its subsonic ammo twice.
Gebran stood in shock. He saw the weapon but heard about as much sound as a nail gun would make.
He dropped his eyes to his belly and fell to his knees at the sight, not understanding what had just happened or why. He clutched his leaking stomach and fell back in initial faint from the sight of his own blood. The dark wetness slowly creeped from under his back as he stared at the fluorescent light above. “You promised,” he groaned.
The Modarris gave Daouk a swift kick to the temple, silencing the egotistical young scientist. Dexter then weighted his foot on Gebran’s neck, shifting weight forward and collapsing the throat to ensure the deed was done.
He reholstered his weapon within the small of his back and thumb-flipped his mobile device screen to the Telegram app. Dexter sent an unencrypted message through an unencrypted network connection, as ordered, to Major General Soleimani, confirming that Gebran Daouk had been found and terminated. However, he added that Daouk had been interrogated prior to his demise, and the information gleaned indicated the Venezuelan had sold the materials to an unknown buyer. If the international community ever investigated Iran’s involvement, Soleimani and Gebran had just broadcast their efforts as evidence that IRGC attempted to thwart any hostile acts against America. At the very least, NSA would collect the info within its secret data coffers.
His next text was a closed communication using Signal, an Edward Snowden–endorsed private messenger mobile application, through a VPN network tunnel to Drake Woolf to share the location of the storage unit.
Dexter heard the footfall from behind, and the baseball bat smashed his ribs as he turned. A metal pipe hammered down in a glancing blow to his head, swirling him into the blackness.
Chapter 34
Mena’s role, aside from being a weapon mule, was to contact the Chicago-based Venezuelan embassy in person and say that she was there to meet the Modarris. Once she had made the inquiry, she contacted Mojo, who started monitoring new embassy communication instances and their links that may have gone active upon Mena’s message. After thirty minutes of waiting on a small sofa in the embassy waiting area, a receptionist came back out to inform Mena that, regrettably, there was no one there by that name.
Mojo’s display lit up like a Christmas tree as Waleed El Aissami started to panic and General Shirazian was not to be contacted directly by phone.
Chapter 35
“Ocean, this is Neptune, do you copy?” Drake murmured under his breath.
He contemplated in the moment maintaining radio silence without knowing who these guys were. It went a long way that they mentioned Havens’s name, which even folks in the community wouldn’t drop. The way they swept in at the scene to bug him out was classic Havens. Still, he was out of his element and didn’t want to announce his broadcasting before the detectives came inside the unmarked Ford Explorer shorty squad car.
Drake heard a radio call and knew it would be for more “busses” to transport dead and wounded. He tried to drown it out when they entered the vehicle.
“Guys, I just wanted to thank you for coming and getting me. When did you talk to Havens?”
“He pinged us earlier today saying we may need to help one of his people out. Few hours later, we heard it was ‘go time,’ so we busted our ass to get to you,” Daniels said.
Neil added, “No questions asked. Sound like you got blindsided in there by a couple guys. You lucked out. Some of those places could empty out and give a guy a lot of trouble. Let’s just pull out of the area, and we can talk.”
Drake said nothing and contemplated for a moment just what had happened. He had target objectives, but the people he had also killed or injured trying to get out were likely US citizens. He wasn’t in a war zone, and most of those people responding could have been innocents just helping a neighbor. Even if they had differing beliefs, he was on their turf. America. He murdered them.
Woolf let his head flop back as he recited in his head the Oath of Enlistment’s first affirmation, “…to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Maybe they were enemies and maybe he was obeying orders of the President of the United States, but this was not constitutional, nor did it adhere to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Once again, he had just become black with rage and survival instinct.
Drake, they deserved it. The dark voice didn’t miss a beat. As soon as the radio call comes in that there are multiple deaths, they’ll have to bring you in. You’ll bring the whole op and task force down.
Another radio call.
Drake tried to jump the gun again over the dispatcher and responding remarks. “Hey. Is there a convenience store or something around here where I can get a Gatorade or something?”
“Yeah, we can pull into one just around the block,” Daniels replied. “I’ll go over to that one on Clark.”
Neil gave an approving nod. The detective turned his head for a moment, listening to the calls. “How many guys were in that building?”
“A lot. I came across a crime scene that was pretty disturbing. National security situation. Seems they beat me to the punch then came at me when I tried to get away. I’m just surveillance. If you can’t tell by the smell.”
“Trust me,” Neil assured, “we know.”
And there it came. As they stopped at a traffic light, over the radio more calls started coming about the missing homeless man who according to witnesses had killed unarmed men.
Both detectives turned around.
Drake shrugged while looking at his mobile phone and the street map. “I think some of the locals thought I was stealing things from the pockets of the fallen. I was checking to see if they had weapons that could fall into the wrong hands.” Drake pointed toward the front of the car. “Is this the place?”
“Yeah,” Daniels replied, slowly indicating to Woolf that he was processing the load of crap he was being fed.
“I’ll jump out and grab something,” Neil offered. “Then I think we need to have a chat. What flavor?”
“Anything. Mind if I get ou
t too? I need to get a phone out of my duffel and send something to Havens.” I could also use my meds.
Both detectives looked at one another and gave a shrug of indifference in the moment. They needed time to get their heads around what Havens had just dumped on them.
“You go get the drinks. I’ll have a Gatorade Ice, too,” Daniels suggested.
“Got it. I’ll see if they have anything for this guy to eat in there, too.”
Daniels recalled a time when they interviewed Havens as a suspect after the apparent murder of his family. Things didn’t add up with Sean at the time either. In truth, it had become a bloody shit show, but Havens had saved lives. A friend of Havens was a guy they’d give a chance, but the line only went so far. Daniels and Neil were vets, but they were also good cops. “I’ll get him his stuff.”
Woolf watched Detective Neil enter the small convenience store, and swiveled his head checking out any visible cameras or pedestrians. It was a good spot.
Daniels exited the car, heading for the trunk.
“Ocean, do you have my location?”
“Yeah, good to hear from you. I wasn’t—”
Drake cut Mojo short. “Ocean, I need a ride out of here. Get me an Uber, or whatever. Hopefully, you have a PCard or something. Or see if you can see a cab on the opposite side of the street as me. I need to move quick. Just tell me where I need to go. You’ve got four or five minutes max.”
Daniels came around to Drake’s side and opened the door, holding the duffel.
“Let me get out for a sec, my calf is seizing up like a bitch.”
As Woolf exited the car, he awkwardly maneuvered around Daniels and snatched the detective’s handgun from a shoulder holster.
Chapter 36
“Open the box, man. I’m not calling Two-bags until we make sure we got the stuff,” snapped a thug who had just knocked out the bearded man in the storage unit.
“Motherfucker, don’t you see that triangles picture on that thing? It’s got those nuclear bomb Hiroshima don’t-open-this-shit logos on it. Like the shit’ll melt your face off. He has the same thing in his bag. Shit’ll fuck you up and blow up the whole hood.”