by J. T. Patten
“Tell you what,” Havens said, ready to make a deal, “we drop you off but stick around out of sight. There’s a side road in the park just a block east. We can get some shut-eye but be there if you need to call in backup. You guys already have counts for murder, and I’m an accessory, so let’s finish this together.” The gallows humor was heavy. “We’re the good guys, right?”
Drake nodded and turned to Halliday, who was still staring at him with a look of concern.
“Okay. Lincoln Park we go,” Sean said. “Eat that bar and grab a water out of the back if you can reach it. And Drake.”
“Yeah.”
“When was the last time you had your…antibiotics?”
Drake looked down at his feet to avoid anyone’s gaze. He knew Halliday wouldn’t buy that Sean Havens carried Drake’s wound-related meds.
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday, when?”
“Morning.”
Havens didn’t respond, but Drake could hear a rattle as his mentor drove and fumbled for something in a small bag on the passenger seat. He handed a bottle back to Woolf. “You don’t want that infection to come back.”
Tresa turned to her left, appearing to look out the window. Drake knew she wasn’t an idiot.
“Hey.” He nudged her. “You don’t happen to have a Taser on you?”
Chapter 77
“No, I don’t have a Taser. Why can’t you tell us exactly where you’re going? That’s ridiculous. You’re either going after the bad guys, or you are on some hired assassination that’s not involved, which means I can’t allow you to do that.”
“I’m glad you have your limits, Halliday.” Drake mocked the absurdity of her remarks. “The congressional committee that investigates and interviews us will want to know that. If you must know, one of the locations I need to go to shows my target on the first floor of a walk-up. The second is on a high rise. I can’t tell if he’s within about five floors. That means I need to get answers from either the first guy, which is unlikely, or a doorman.”
“I think Halliday is right, Drake. Out with it. We’re going after targets. No secrets.”
Drake didn’t resist any further. “The two Venezuelans that trailed Mena in their SUV.”
“Forget it,” Halliday rebuked. “They’re diplomats.”
“They’re covered for status and action by the Venezuelan embassy. Venezuelans are selling passports and visas out of their embassies, but many of the Lebanese diaspora with Hezbollah ties got them through the former Venezuelan vice president, Tarik El Aissami. If they’re new, they probably came from their foreign minister. Chick named Rodriguez.”
“You’re not killing someone for bogus passports. They aren’t directly tied to the bomb threat.”
“I’m going to kill them because they killed a guy who gave me a ride. I got him killed by getting him involved. It was on the news when we got to the field office. It’s all part of this triad of partnerships. They may have intel, and at the very least, they’re murderers. That’s my charter, Halliday. It was sanctioned by the President of the United States, whether he disavows it or not. That’s why this unit exists. Shit’s happening on our turf, and the law prevents us from stopping it.”
“You’re saying that if you have proof of a national security threat, you can act on it.”
“Yes,” Drake confirmed.
“Including drug dealers, murderers, even mafia?”
“All are within the mandate if they pose a clear and present threat to other Americans or our country’s infrastructure.”
Havens slapped his head at Halliday’s mention of mafia. “I know what you’re doing Halliday. No way.”
“I can get you past the bellman, Drake,” she suggested.
“No way.” Woolf folded his arms like a stubborn child.
“Like you said, I’m already knee-deep. My career is dead. This is the purest mission I could ever be involved with. Not to mention, I want in because I want your help.”
Havens turned. “Drake Woolf, meet Francesca Delaurentis. Well played, Tresa, but you’re not getting our task force’s cover for family vengeance.”
“What are you talking about? Who’s Francesca Delaurentis?” Drake turned to Halliday. “Wait. What’s going on here?”
“I’d say our little Girl Scout Halliday is looking to get her hands dirty in the near future and is going with you now.”
“What’s with everyone throwing chicks at me when I just need to do what I do on my own.”
“The hell?” Halliday responded, annoyed.
Woolf refocused on his smartphone. “Forget it, Halliday.” Drake turned his device outward to Havens and Halliday. He showed three red dots heading south of the city in their general direction. “One vehicle. Two hit-man ambassadors. Thanks for your offer, but they’re coming to us.”
Chapter 78
Two-bags’s car pulled up to the gate. His sentries opened the door and gave a wave to the closed windows. The vehicle rolled up to the Modarris and the three parked busses.
Dexter stood but didn’t move from his place when he heard the power windows lower.
After waiting and seeing the white Arab dude wasn’t moving, Two-bags exited the car annoyed. “Man, you best show me some respect. You all done fixin’ your shit together?”
“I am.”
“I tell you, you best not be blowin’ up any kids and my homies I’m givin’ you to drive.”
“If everyone does as they’re told, you will be that much closer to controlling this city. I want the children here by nine in the morning to paint the busses with decorations. Have the kids and your men ready to leave for the parade area by eleven in the morning. Have them take three different routes, but have them stop at Michigan Avenue across from the Art Institute. All the children should be dressed in the costumes and ready to go to work. I will be with them. When the commotion starts, I want you to have them come up Roosevelt to Balboa and offer the busses as emergency vehicles to transport people to the crisis area at Soldier Field. I can instruct your men, but I need you to make sure they fully understand so there is no confusion. Timing is everything. I need to ensure you have good drivers with current driver’s licenses and clean records in case you are stopped.”
“All good on my side,” Two-bags assured. “I want my stuff now though.” He pointed to the duffel lit by the headlamps.
“Yours is on its way. Your usual partners will be delivering ten kilos of street-ready heroin, as promised.”
“Brick or G-packs?”
“You asked for G-packs, you will receive G-packs. We’ll deliver them to you, and I will come back tomorrow.”
“Nah, man. You workin’ tonight. You show my boys tonight how to make your bombs. I ain’t taking no chances that you ain’t blowin’ your shit up before you get back.”
“Your men will need to be well rested and in a good mind when working with explosives. I’ve already made the blends in the container they took in the van from this yard.”
“These motherfuckers don’t sleep. They my dogs. I need you to show them what they need to do next.”
“I sleep. And I need rest so I’m ready. What they need to do is stay away from that mixture until I say so, or you blow your theater sky high.”
“Then you sleepin’ on the bus. You ain’t going nowhere ’til I get my bombs. And your boys ain’t coming here. They go where I tell them it’s safe to hand off. We goin’ to the railroad that we sometimes use. You stayin’ here. Tell them to drive inside the gray open garage on 1500 South Blue Island and Throop. They seen it before. They got fifteen minutes to pull in, unload, and get the fuck out.”
Chapter 79
Drake kept his eyes on the signals reporting on his map. “Sean, take us south on a street called Cermak.”
“I know exactly where that is,” the Chicago native confirmed as he accelerated back onto t
he desolate street. “What makes you think they’re headed that way?”
“Trust me.”
“Why do I think there’s something you’re not telling us?”
Drake’s tongue began to click. He checked his weapons and rebalanced his magazines.
* * * *
General Soleimani was escorted in to meet with the supreme leader.
Soleimani crossed the room where the supreme leader sat on an immaculate but small white love chair. As the spy master neared, he was instructed by an offering hand to take a seat next to Iran’s chief holy man.
“Tea?”
“Thank you.” Soleimani strolled back to the opposite side of the room, rolling his eyes for a cup of hot tea. “May I offer you another cup?”
“Please, General, if you wouldn’t mind.”
The general didn’t mind and wasn’t surprised, as this was a pattern going back for years.
Carrying both cups back, Soleimani awaited the supreme leader’s next move where he moved to the side and then offered his intellectual hit man a seat on the demure sofa.
“Come. Sit. I’m anxious to hear the news.”
“I believe you will be pleased. We have done everything we can to assure the Americans that we were not involved with the radiological threat. Similarly, we have cleaned all trails leading back to any perceived links of involvement, covered by the blood of our own martyrs.”
“But did they succeed in their task?”
“Of sorts. We had a contingency, which worked in our favor. One I had suspected, which also signified to the Americans our commitment to eliminate the threat that was attributed to the regime.”
The supreme leader sipped his tea.
“The Hezbollah agent responsible for the theft has been eliminated, our Venezuelan Party counterparts recognize their responsibility in failing to secure the materials as planned initially. We have engaged an American criminal group in Chicago who will be leading the initiative. All responsibility will fall to them. We can then focus on our Mexico connections and let South America’s politics be a focus for our investments. My colleagues will then have time to reposition our businesses in the region and vacate Venezuela without losses.”
“The aim of terrorism is to sow disorder. Violence for politics to achieve policy goals. The Americans will know this is our resistance to their policy views and actions to the Islamic Republic.” The supreme leader gave Soleimani an approving pat on the leg. “And yet, they will be impotent to retaliate, constrained by other foreign powers. You have served your country well. But the strike remains as planned.”
“Indeed, but the pieces have been put in place where the world would see a strike or further sanctions against us as unjust.”
“And you have something else planned?”
“I do, but that will be their own Americans. It will occur in the weeks to come.”
Chapter 80
Drake leaned up to the front seat.
“Still hanging in there?” Sean asked.
“Yeah. Usual, but I’m managing. This thing have emergency lights?”
“I nicked it from DHS when I landed up at the Great Lakes Naval Station. I assume blue and whites.” Havens maintained the steering wheel with his club-wrapped hand and reached across his body to the switch.
“Not now. I just want to make sure we have some.”
Halliday leaned forward to hear the conversation.
“Mojo gave me an app that allowed me to hack their devices and read communications they were receiving.”
“What app?” Halliday challenged. Clearly, as a decent surveillance technician, she thought he was full of shit.
“NSA proprietary,” he lied. “They’re heading to a train yard storage unit. Dropping some drugs then bugging out. Both guys live in the area they just came from, so I assume they’ll head back by the quickest route. We need to position ourselves so we can head them off.”
“Won’t they just ram us or start shooting? We won’t win any firefight if they have automatic weapons.”
“They shouldn’t. I assume they’ll have handguns only. That way they can get them in via diplomatic pouches and claim to be security. They’ll know they have diplomatic immunity, so if we approach the car from both sides, I can see what they know.”
Halliday was suspicious. “You really think they’ll tell you what you want to hear?”
“I’ll get everything I need in a matter of minutes.”
* * * *
Fadi and Nour bobbed their heads to Chance the Rapper’s “I Might Need Security” as they rolled south on Lake Shore Drive in the Venezuelan embassy’s SUV complete with consular license plate and the “LC” country designation.
Nour changed the music selection to Teyana Taylor.
“No.” Fadi reached over to the AUX tuner on the dash. “We need gangbanger music,” he suggested in Lebanese Arabic. “Pull my playlist. DMX or Ice Cube.”
Nour scrolled through the old-school hard-core rap artists. “Ludacris?”
“Brother, we are doing drug drop.”
“Eminem.”
“Yes. Eminem.”
As the two drove, they hand-gestured the rap beat, slinging lyrics to the windshield along the way to the turn-off.
Nour switched back to the map, navigating his partner to the destination.
The two men were assigned to the embassy’s security office, but their normal duty involved facilitating the thousands of tons of cocaine coming from Venezuela through covered and concealed Hezbollah-affiliated operatives. While the security duo’s bosses and supervisors way up the food chain maintained the relationships with Mexican and Colombian cartels, Nour and Fadi were the bag men of facilitated drug deals with locals at the gang and criminal cartel levels. Similarly, for discerning clients in the Chicagoland area, they could provide any number of visas, passports, birth certificates, etcetera, to citizens of the Middle East who were granted temporary travel through the states. And if a hit was required that could be protected by diplomatic provisions if discovered, assassinations also fell into their job description.
The two continued their hip-hop car karaoke, passing the Shedd Aquarium, going over the Dan Ryan Expressway, and turning under a tunnel to the rail yard.
Fadi pointed to the gray abandoned trailer-loading alcove just ahead.
Nour held out his flattened hand, laughing. “I always get a tremble. Oh, wait, no I don’t, because I’m a gangster.”
Fadi jumped in, and the two sang in chorus, “These triggas we’s killas; Sittin’ on the porch in between legs; Wit a bitch French braiding my head; Leave ’em—”
“What’s a French braid?” Nour asked.
“Those little rolls.” He demonstrated on his head while opening the car door.
“Wit a bitch French braiding my head,” Nour repeated again, drawing the next lyrics down to a whisper as he continued on to the back hatch.
Each man gave a casual look around, and Nour lifted the trunk mat and pulled a large diplomatic duffel from a locked and concealed compartment in the SUV.
Fadi could see a car idling about fifty meters away. He gave a wave and checked the rear of the open garage. An empty diplomatic pouch was folded, waiting for its return to the bag handlers. Nour set the new bag down, gave a wave, and both men headed back to the truck.
Fadi started the chorus, “The killa, the gangsta—”
“No, the gangsta, the killa, and the dope dealer.”
“That’s right.” And the two sang the refrain repeating four times as they cut a turn and drove down the railroad access road where they rattled over the gravel path until making the next sharp turn onto the road.
From behind a towering stack of China-bound rail boxes, a large SUV pulled out, blocking Fadi and Nour from further forward movement, their back now angled in such a way preventing a reverse.
Still, they had no drugs or monies, and their weapons were sanctioned while they drove the diplomatic vehicle.
The SUV’s blue-and-white lights turned on, illuminating the narrow industrial corridor. Nour reached back for his weapon.
Fadi reached across his colleague’s chest. “There’s no need. No gangster today.” He laughed. “Passports and Spanish only.”
Nour nodded. “No habla, mister policeman.” Both Lebanese-born thugs chuckled as two officers approached each side.
“FBI?” Fadi asked Nour, their windows still up.
From the front of the car, Drake instructed Halliday, “I want you to stop at the passenger wheel.”
“Better protocol is behind the passenger at the side. I know what I’m doing.”
“Please don’t go past the wheel.”
The FBI agent approached the driver’s-side window and tapped on the glass.
Fadi pushed the window button down, lowering the glass halfway.
“Good evening,” the agent said. “Sorry to trouble you. We are assisting the Chicago Police with some railroad thefts.”
Fadi smiled. In broken English with a Spanish accent, he replied, “We were just leaving the area and got lost. I made a wrong turn. What a maze.”
Nour watched as a female officer stood diagonal from his position, the car frame blocking most of her from his view. Nour put his hands on his lap, relaxed that all would be okay.
“Yeah,” the FBI agent said. “We got all twisted up too. Hey, you have diplomatic plates. What embassy? I’m guessing from the accent maybe El Salvador?”
“Venezuela.”
“Ah.” The agent snapped his fingers. “Shucks. Are you sure?” He smiled, then made a slicing gesture to someone in the FBI’s SUV. The light-flashing stopped. “Sorry. Don’t need all that fanfare. Can I see your passport, then I’ll let you guys be on your way. Hope you’re enjoying this great city.”
What an idiot, Nour thought. There was a reason he and Fadi could get away with everything in this country.
Fadi reached into his leather jacket’s front pocket. His fingers felt the outline of his shoulder holster, and he grabbed the passport. He lowered the window all the way, extending his passport.