by J. T. Patten
“Sir, I can’t make heads or tails of half the people coming at me, and don’t have much time to check them out before I’m either running away or running to the next shit show. And as much as I’d like to give you a good sitrep and brief you on my full battle damage assessment, I’m kind of in the thick and ready to go dark. Can you put Ocean back on the line so I can get back to work?”
“Is it okay?” Drake could hear Mojo asking Sebastian in the background.
“Hey, Neptune, I’m sending you to an old auto shop where your Alpha One’s signal burst for a bit and then went down again. It was in the same direct location of communications with Venezuelans from Caracas and their Chicago embassy. Not real good tradecraft, but maybe that’s why Venezuela is so shitty, anyway.”
“Make that signal Bravo One. I’ll put both in my feed so it shows me current status and historical.” A roaming security guard walked past Drake. Neither said a word, both just gave a slight hand lift hello under the light of the hospital entrance’s glowing awning. Drake glanced in the direction from which the lackluster guard came. There was a small security service company’s branded car curbside. The hazards on. A dome light still illuminated. Drake got up from the bench for a little recce.
“Roger that, Neptune. There is another one that’s popped up from time to time. It’s actually registered to a name. Oswald Robinson. Petty crime and narcotics record. But signals that just left the area of Alpha and Bravo are heading to him. You may be able to figure something out.”
After a long pause of no response, Mojo spoke. “You there?”
Sebastian chimed in. “How copy, Neptune?”
Drake Woolf slipped into the idling vehicle, turned off the headlights and interior, headed west on Polk back into Lawndale. He knew Sean Havens would be steaming right now, but with the man limping around like a busted-up Avengers leader from S.H.I.E.L.D., just having him in the city gave Woolf the extra boost he needed.
Chapter 62
Oswald Robinson turned back to the young Zarielle, shooting her a terrifying glance before shutting and locking the door. Oz, as he was called on the streets, entered his apartment living room where his girlfriend Shawnay lay passed out on the couch, her fix lying on the beat-up table to her side.
Oz checked his pants fly, then pulled a chicken finger from the brown fast food bag also on the table along with Fritos lying about, catsup and hot sauce packets in small piles, and four full two-liter plastic bottles of RC cola. He walked to the window, sliding the moldy beige curtains to the side, and looked below in the small entry courtyard three floors down. Music was playing from the alcove entryway. A glass bottle broke, and laughing erupted.
Oswald raised the thin window and popped his head out. “Y’all shut the fuck up down there.” He threw the last of his chicken finger at a kid smoking a joint against the wall.
“Whatchu throw at me, Oz?”
“Dinner, bitch. You better not be all fucked up in the morning. Two-bags, he fuck you up if you ain’t on the bus.”
“I ain’t wearing that leppa’con shit anyway.”
“The fuck you say,” Oz called down.
“Baby, shut the fuck up,” Shawnay said, roused from her high. “Git me some French fries.”
Oz pulled his head back in. “Bitch, shut the fuck up. I’m doin’ bi’niss.” He kicked at her, hitting the table and knocking the two liters over on end. “They’s still fries in the bag, bitch. Put ’em in the oven you want ’em hot again.”
“Baby, why you kickin’ at me?” she slurred, rolling over to face the cushions.
“Pssht. Bitch.” Oz peeked back out the window into the relative darkness below.
A glass bottle shattered against the brick wall, just missing his head.
“What the fuck!” he shouted. Oz ducked in and looked around the room for something to throw back that was of no value to him. He snatched one of Shawnay’s high-heeled shoes from the floor, jettisoning it down to a small group of three to four laughing on a stair stoop.
They laughed even harder. One girl called up from the group. “I’d axe you to throw down another so I gots a pair, but I know that ho Shawnay took these from the trash. They Laquisha’s ole shoe.” She muttered, “Garbage pickin’ bitch,” to the others.
“Fuck you, bitch. I pulled them out myself. Perfectly good shoes so she don’t need to be spendin’ my money.” Oz spit down below, losing sight of it as it fell.
Two pairs of two dark figures approached the hoods in the courtyard. Oz craned his neck, then leaned out the window more to see who was coming around.
The pleasantries they exchanged were just out of earshot to Oz, until one shouted up. “Oz, they comin’ up. Best get that bitch of yours shit straight.”
“Fuck,” Oz cursed. He closed the window and started pushing on Shawnay. “Bitch, get the fuck up. Two-bags sent some homies up. Get your shit awake.” He slapped her ass.
“Hey, baby, you come to be getting some of this?”
“Ain’t want none of your nasty—”
Oz fell silent as the pounding interrupted his attempts to show anyone coming in that his shit was in tow.
“Hey, yo, comin’ right away. Comin’ now. Don’t be beatin’ the door in.” Oz opened the door to see two teens waiting, another two holding back.
“What up, Oz,” the smaller of the two boys greeted, his dark hoodie bobbing back.
“Hey, my young hustlers. What do I owe the pleasure?” he inquired nervously, his own junk having recently left his body, bringing him down.
“Two-bags want the boxes. Says we takin’ them so you don’t fuck it up.”
Another boy spoke up, “Yeah, he don’t want you tryin’ to sell ’em and shit.”
“Boy, shut the fuck up,” Oz scolded. “How’m I supposed to make any money off a orange beard?”
From the shadows one of the punks stepped forward. His stainless-steel revolver emerged from between the other two boys in front. “Get us the boxes, bitch. And you ain’t drivin’ no busses tomorrow. Stay the fuck out, and shut the fuck up.”
Oz backed up with a nervous laugh. “Hey, my little man. Okay, okay, no need to get impersonal here.” Oz laughed again. “I need to roll the busses so I makes the dough. Surely, Two-bags knows that.”
One of the boys reached into his pocket and outstretched a hand, which Oz accepted. The kid dropped a small yellow rubber-band-wrapped baggie. “Two-bags said you get this. He say if you stay away tomorrow, you get your bus back the next day. So go get the boxes. We gotta bring them back to the car shop before he move the busses.”
A slap came from nowhere, hitting the boy from behind. “Shut the fuck up, Twon. You ain’t supposed ta be sayin’ none of that shit.”
Chapter 63
Drake’s map directed him through the dark zombieland neighborhood. Figures walked aimlessly around while others sat or stood from recessed alcoves, the only light emanating from glows of yellow-white flames or glowing embers burning at head level or sparking as they rolled across the ground.
Woolf couldn’t see stop signs and really saw no reason to slow at street corners where wraiths of the night bent for a closer look at the driver in a white rent-a-cop sedan. He did jam on his brake as four figures crossed the street from nowhere carrying what Woolf assumed to be old television boxes given their size and his pre-judgment. Since televisions were flat now, maybe microwaves or boxes of clothes. They had to be kids, judging by their size, but their nighttime activities looked even more desperate and suspect than what he had seen across the globe.
“You have arrived,” his phone announced, startling Drake. Clearly, Mojo had left some commercial features. His heartbeat was raised and his shallow breathing rose high in his chest. This was an unfamiliar environment to Woolf. A new battlefront. In the Middle East, at this time of the night, people scurried around like rats running in and out of the darkness. H
ere, there were ever-present eyes. It was more like his experiences in Somalia, but here, the buildings felt darker and more dangerous. Partly because he felt that most everyone in Somalia was out to kill him when he was operational. Here, it was a different vibe. He couldn’t see the weapons. He didn’t know the people. And he didn’t know if he could intimidate the locals here at night to back down.
As Drake pulled in along the curb of South St. Louis Avenue, he could hear the crunching of broken glass under the tires. That sound wasn’t nut shells. At that point, he also realized that with no backup and no one to stay by the car, it was a slim chance that it would be there when he came back. At the very least, he was certain that the glass would be broken across the seats.
Drake turned off the headlights and took a deep breath. To his left was 1809. It was exactly as it showed on the map. A large three-story building in 3D view with a narrow courtyard entryway that would have Woolf surrounded on all sides, and deep alcove entryways to conceal attackers. He had to assume that the first entry to his left would be the one. Then he only needed to climb the flights of stairs to get to his objective. Whatever that may be.
He took another breath, knowing it was time to move.
They’re all combatants. Kill them all if they pose a threat. Kill every fucking one of them if they get in the way. Kill your way in. Kill your way out. No police will be coming. You get a free pass.
Drake’s father started to chime in with usual warnings and encouragement to abandon going it alone and to forgo his hazardous approach to finding answers.
The Man from Orange was focused, though, and as he exited the car, navigated the broken sidewalk and turned into the low-fenced area past the high bushes and into whatever lay ahead, he feared nothing, because no one in this godforsaken neighborhood had killed as many men as he. And no one in this darkened labyrinth had as hard of a heart and black of a soul as Woolf, he thought as he brushed past person after person without even a word, not even a glance.
Yet from behind began a chorus of whistles and claps and shouts to warn—someone.
That all came to a screeching halt by the time he rounded the staircase on the second floor.
Chapter 64
“He’s still not responding to voice comms or the mobile,” Mena said to Havens.
“And Mojo?” Sean asked, then turned to Halliday, realizing he had just outed one of his crew again.
If she caught it, her poker face gave nothing.
“Do you have any clue where he would have gone?” SA Halliday posed to the group as they entered the gated parking garage to load up.
Mojo relayed to Sean, “His location display is turned off, not exactly sure how he found that feature, but whatever.”
Mena put Mojo on her device’s speaker as they slalomed between parking stalls and wide concrete supports. “But regardless of location display, do you know where he was heading? He’s off on his own, and I’m sure he’s going back to the target lists that you developed,” Mena probed further. She turned back to see if Sean was able to keep up as she and Tresa speed-walked to one of the few SUVs in sight. He gave her a wave.
“I gave him an address of one of the targets. And since then, that immediate area lit up with signals.”
“He’s going to be doing the Mogadishu Mile in a few minutes,” warned Sean. “Not the best area in town, and it’s a nice night out. That’s not good.”
* * * *
As Drake bounded up the stairs, on the second-floor landing a fire door burst open. From a dim hallway light a dark man rushed at Woolf. “Who you, five-oh?” the big man asked, his hand hitting Drake’s vested chest. The momentum, if not checked, could have sent Woolf through the wall.
Bad move.
Drake raised his left arm and spun inward, crashing his forearm down. He intended to punch the man’s throat next, but the big man folded with the arm strike. Drake hammered the back of the big man’s neck, sending him to the ground. Woolf stomped the man’s lower back. A low-pitched snap and the feel through Drake’s strike confirmed the dude would not be getting up on his own.
Another man who stood watching mustered enough courage to come at Drake next.
Drake saw the young African American man come at him. The guy wore a black ball cap, but Woolf’s mind saw the yellow eyes of a Nigerian Boko Haram jihadist who tried to overrun the small military outpost he was stationed at nearly three years ago.
The Bokos were pouring in on the one-story barracks from every unblocked opening. Windows, doors, a hole in the wall made from a vehicle that broke through the dried clay blocks. They scurried in like insects, never looking back as their colleagues fell. Each one whacked out on anything ranging from cough syrup codeine to diazepam or tramadol or whatever they could get their hands on for a high.
Drake and two of his unit men just kept shooting, two in the chest, one in the head, as best they could. The hands grabbed at him.
Kill him, Drake. They’re going to overrun the base.
Still transported mentally to a time back in Africa, Drake pulled the Glock from its holster, raised it up under the young Chicago man’s chin and fired twice. As he fell, another coming up from behind reached for a weapon stuffed in the front of his pants. Drake outstretched his weapon to the next thug’s forehead and double-tapped the trigger. In the flash of the discharge, Woolf saw the fear in the young boy’s eyes, and the golden sticker under the kid’s hat. A Wu-Tang Clan yellow logo on his black sweatshirt.
Shadows behind the falling young men fled for their lives.
Drake stood frozen. Half his mind was half a world away in Nigeria, the other half returning to present and looking at murder. His arm and weapon still raised. His breathing got faster, and he struggled to slow it down. Woolf tried to reorient himself between where he was and where he was supposed to be going, but the walls were spinning, his ears ringing from the shots. He looked down at the first man who came after him whose spine he had stomped on. The dark heap was whimpering with fluttering hands. Drake knew the man was in panic. His back was broken. Probably now paralyzed from the waist down.
Woolf eyed the pistol grip peeking from a dead man’s waistband.
Put him down, Drake. He tried to kill you. He’ll never walk again. Just do it. Quick.
Go, Drake. Stick to your objective. He can do you no harm.
Woolf pulled himself up the stairs, struggling to focus while clearing his mind from images of the present and past. They all had the same last looks before they died.
It was the same everywhere. People attacked their attackers. Whether defending their lands or their turfs. You couldn’t blame them. Today, like every other day, Woolf was the invader. But unlike any other day, Woolf had continued to invade America.
Chapter 65
Drake opened the third-floor landing fire door. The sight before him was surreal. Two young girls, maybe five or six, were playing in the hallway, an apartment door cracked slightly ajar to cast some light in the blacked-out corridor. They were dancing to music, a tinny sound playing from a phone on the floor. Had they not heard the gunshots? What time was it?
“Are you the po-lice?” a little girl asked Drake, staring nearly three feet up at him without the slightest bit of fear.
Someone shut the door behind the girls, and the hall went completely dark.
Drake heard the scratching and click of a lock, keeping the kids and whoever was in the hall out. He couldn’t even tell them to go hide inside.
Woolf then heard muffled shouts and noises from behind in the closed-off stairwell. They were shouts not of anger but of disbelief. Clearly, they were shocked by what they had seen of their crew or whomever they were or whatever they were called.
“Girls, I’m not the police. Can you call the police and get some help?”
“We don’t need help,” the little girl said in the dark, until her sister or friend lifted the phone
and turned on the flashlight. She shone it in Drake’s eyes. “Do you need help? Your coat says you’re po-lice. FBI po-lice.”
“Girls, you need to get away some place. Fast.” They’re going to be expecting you, Drake. You lost the surprise. You’re a dead man. Screw it. Screw this place. Just leave. They can’t always put stuff on you.
“We’re playing,” said one.
“Yeah, we’re playing,” repeated the other.
“Girls, you need to get into your apartment. It’s not safe.”
“We can’t go.” The girl moved the light around, trying to get a look at Drake’s face. He tried to shield it with his hand. “Mama has a guest. We can’t be inside when she has her guests.”
“Stand back.” Drake could see in the lighting where the door was. He edged the girls to the side and kicked in the door. “Get in!” he barked.
The girls screamed and ran in, yelling for their mama.
“Fuck!” Drake hated himself, if possible, more than ever. He raced down the hall, pulling his device with a free hand, trying to read apartment numbers. The magic one was 306. There’s 302 to the right, 303 to the left, 304 to the right, 305 to the left, 306 to the right. “Of course.”
Drake stuffed the phone back in his pants, withdrew the second Glock and readied himself for a solid breaching kick.
These were criminal groups. They weren’t waging a war, technically. They couldn’t be judged as war criminals, nor could they be treated as enemy combatants. However, the whole reason that Drake was here was because they were colluding with terrorists. Colluding with hostile nation states.
The dark voice prodded, Get in there, Drake, if you’re going to do it. You have no time left.
Woolf fingered his sweaty hands in the pistol grips.
Warren. The name shocked Drake. He could see his father standing in the kitchen. Feel the Tunisian heat across his face. Sweating in that sticky kitchen. His dad never called him by his first name. Warren, he called again. This isn’t you.