by Rick Reed
For an extra twenty dollars the snitch’s memory got better. He came up with the location of the abandoned warehouse and the exact guard shack where he had heard the two cops. For another ten he remembered they had said something about a delivery, but they didn’t say when. He’d heard them say the word “explosives,” and that was all he needed to hear to get the hell out of there.
Killian didn’t know if any of this crap was real and not the product of too much alcohol, but it had to be checked out. That was his job. This is the second day in a row he’d done surveillance on the guard shack and so far it had been a waste of time. He hadn’t seen a single police car. Not even one coming through on routine patrol. There was nothing left to steal, and no one seemed to care about vandals or homeless people unless they started a fire.
He had thought about taking this information—not quite what they called a lead—to his chief and doing things up right, but that would mean briefing several other agents and notifying the FBI’s tactical squad. Before that, he would have to send the information to regional headquarters and get the green light, and that would take too much time. Plus there could be the problem of accidental leaks of information. That was always a risk when information involved the government in any way.
He’d considered asking his buddy Jack Murphy to help him out on this one while he had him on the phone, but Murphy was up to his gonads in this bank robbery thing. He and Jack had attended the police academy together. They remained friends over the years, even when Killian joined the ATF and was posted in Atlanta for a few years. Jack had kidded him for becoming a Fed, but it didn’t stop them from fishing together when they had a chance. He didn’t want to see Jack in any more hot water. The news media was already questioning Jack’s methods. So Killian would have to go it alone. As Jack would say, “Better to ask forgiveness than permission.” He grinned at the idea of what Murphy would really say. Probably something like “Screw a bunch of brass.” Jack was good with words.
He opened the glove box and took out the pink digital camera that his wife, Barbara, kept handy for opportunities to stuff their photo scrapbooks. He brought it from home because he didn’t want to raise any flags by checking one out at work. He switched it on to check the battery and a picture came up on the viewer. It was a “selfie” of him and Barbara, cheek to cheek, her laughing and him making a goofy face. He put the camera in the top pocket of his fatigue jacket and checked his handgun. Time to go.
He exited the car, quietly shut the door, and walked to the back of the warehouse. He’d scouted the area and this was by far the best place to watch from. It had been no problem getting inside. Vandals had already pried the back door open back when there was still something to steal. Homeless people still stayed here sometimes, but it was empty right now. The warehouse sat cavernous and dark with all the windows painted over. The smell of machine oil and the stench of old urine and feces permeated the air. He was swallowed by near darkness as he felt his way across the floor to the stairs that ascended to a metal catwalk. He paused and listened, then made his way to the top, where metal-framed painted-out windows ran the length of the catwalk.
Something rustled behind him. He ducked and drew his gun. A pigeon had somehow found a way inside. He holstered the gun and moved down the catwalk to the window he’d left unlocked. The window was already pushed open. He wondered if he had left it that way. Or maybe someone had been up here. He opened the window. Across the street was a wooden shack guarding the entrance to a parking lot. A six-foot-high chain-link fence had once surrounded the lot, but now all that remained were posts, sticking up like broken teeth.
Two vehicles were backed up to the guard shack. One was an Evansville Police Department marked unit. The other, a white Chevy panel van, was backed in, back doors open almost touching the open front door of the shack. He didn’t see anyone around the vehicles and nothing moved on the street.
He was about twenty yards from the shack but he could hear indistinct voices drifting across the space. He lifted the little digital camera, pushed the zoom knob to its limit, and snapped some shots of the vehicles. It actually had a better zoom lens than his iPhone. He then zoomed back slightly and took a shot of the shack and warehouse. The distance shots wouldn’t be great, but the FBI’s lab could enhance them. If only he’d gotten there an hour earlier. Shit. Shit! He reached for his cell phone to call in the reinforcements. He shouldn’t go down there by himself. But he would if he had to.
The van’s back doors shut. A man, maybe Indian or Pakistani, or perhaps Middle Eastern, walked around and got in the driver’s side. The van pulled onto the street. Killian put his phone on the window ledge, grabbed the digital camera, and took several shots of the man. The van drew closer. He snapped a few shots of the driver and several more as the van drove out of his field of view. He was excited now. If the pictures could be enhanced, he could run the driver through the federal databases. If that didn’t work, he would request Interpol assistance. If he was lucky, he might have gotten a clear photo of the license plate.
Talking and laughter drifted from across the street. He turned back in time to see the back of a gray-haired man in a police uniform. The man was standing in the shack’s doorway but from the man’s posture, he wasn’t the one laughing. Killian listened closely. He couldn’t hear what was said, but the voices were plainly angry. He was about to get on his phone again but the gray-haired policeman turned around facing the street.
Well, I’ll be damned!
He raised the camera and snapped away until the “low battery” warning blinked on the screen. Damn! He turned it off and back on, hoping to get one or two more shots. It worked. He zoomed in and was so fixated he didn’t hear a man come up behind.
* * *
The van had unloaded two wooden crates, one the size of a suitcase, the other the size of a cereal box. Both bore the mark of the U.S. Army with CAUTION and EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE stenciled on them. The larger crate sat on the floor in the empty and dilapidated room. The top had been pried off and the younger policemen, known as Moon Pie, stared anxiously at the crate as if it were a living thing. Moon Pie was short, heavily muscled, seemingly with no neck, and had a too-big head with overly exaggerated features. Describing him as ugly was like describing the sky as blue. His eyes darted from the crate to the open doorway as he stood; feet spread, one hand on the radio mike clipped to the epaulet on the shoulder of his uniform shirt.
The other policeman, Shirl, was older, with short gray hair that stood out from his pink scalp like a wire brush. He wore small, round, wire-rimmed glasses and stood almost two feet taller than Moon Pie. He was less muscular, but he was lean and hard with lips that stretched into a perpetual sneer. Shirl was the senior partner and the sneer became more pronounced when Moon Pie opened his mouth to speak.
“What are we waiting for?” Moon Pie asked. “Let’s see if the camel jockey left the right stuff and then get the hell out of here. Man, if we get caught with this in our car, we are royally screwed.”
Shirl knew the contents of the crate were the real deal when he pried it open with his knife. That wasn’t why he was hesitant. So far they had only talked about doing the job. But his muscle-head partner was right. This . . . they’d reached the point of no return. They were police officers. They would normally arrest someone for doing the very thing they had done just now. His mind sought a way out. He could still call police dispatch. Say he saw a suspicious van leaving the building. Say he went in, found the crate and opened it. It sounded like a story—even to him. And once they drove off with this stuff . . .
If they were caught he’d go to federal prison . . . if he were lucky, that is. Cops don’t do well in state prisons.
Shirl had picked the guard shack for the delivery because there was nothing moving for ten blocks in every direction. He and Moon Pie had come down hard on every vagrant or homeless person they’d found in the vicinity. They had taken all of them to jail on trumped-up charges and given them a personal warning not to re
turn. So far no one had.
“Man, we’re gonna kick ass,” Moon Pie said and his hands mimed a bomb exploding. When he did this the new tattoo on his right forearm glistened like raw meat topped with Vaseline. The tattoo read “Harly Davison.” Under the misspelled logo was a likeness of a chopped bike with flames roaring from the tailpipes. Unlike the atrocious spelling, the art was pretty good. Moon Pie was quite proud of the tattoo he’d done himself.
“Shut your pie trap, Moon Pie,” Shirl ordered.
“You know I don’t like that name,” Moon Pie bristled. “Call me Skip. You should stand up for me. I’m your partner.”
“Quit talking. Get to work.”
“I’m just excited, Shirl. Ya’ know.” Moon Pie’s voice shook like a ten-dollar whore seeing a Corvette rolling to the curb. “Two million dollars does that to me. Shit, partner! Two million bucks each!” Moon Pie threw his head back and literally howled in delight.
Not for the first time Shirl questioned the little muscle head’s sanity. The steroids had disturbed more than his features. But Moon Pie was right about the money. Maybe Shirl’s luck had changed. In the past, all he could see in his future was finishing his forty years at this glorified babysitting job, trying to keep people from killing each other, directing traffic until his whole body was numb from fatigue or cold, or both. For all of that he could retire with a piss-pot pension that would barely pay for a roof over his head. If this job went as planned, his future held the promise of wealth and power and something else he hadn’t had for years. Respect.
Shirl produced a KA-BAR knife from his gun belt. Inside the crate were several small square blocks wrapped in wax paper—each about the size of a stick of butter. The word SEMTEX was printed on the wrapping, and under that, DANGER! EXPLOSIVES! He stabbed one of the blocks with the point of the knife and held it up, causing Moon Pie to run several steps away in a crouch, arms held up to shield his face.
“What the hell ya’ doin’, Shirl?”
Shirl knew the Semtex was safe without a detonator. It was highly flammable, but malleable like children’s clay and could be cut and shaped. Back in his army days, the guys in his unit had used chunks of it to cook with. But apply a small electric charge and one stick of this stuff was like ten sticks of dynamite. BOOM!
“Where are the timers?” Shirl asked.
“Why are you asking me?” Moon Pie whined.
“Because that was your job. Didn’t you get everything out of the van?” Shirl stabbed another brick and tossed it to Moon Pie. Moon Pie fumbled the block of Semtex and it fell to the floor. The look of panic on his face was comical.
Moon Pie carefully picked the Semtex up and put it back in the crate. He hated it when Shirl treated him like a fool. He hated it even more when he called him Moon Pie. His real name was Skip Walker. He was a bodybuilder and had competed all over the state. He hoped to go to the national competition. The steroids he’d used to build muscle had made his features swollen, his face puffy and round, with an exaggerated nose and thick lips. The other guys he lifted weights with had nicknamed him Moon Pie, and he’d made the mistake of complaining about it to Shirl. At least Shirl hadn’t spread the nickname around police headquarters.
Moon Pie went outside where the smaller crate still sat and picked it up. He stopped in the doorway, a concerned look on his face.
“Well, bring it over here.”
Moon Pie stood perfectly still. “The camel jockey said not to put these with the explosives until we were ready for the fireworks.”
“Who?”
“The camel jockey,” Moon Pie said. “He said not to put these things together.”
Officer Shirley West hated it when Moon Pie opened his mouth and denigrated entire races of people. Not that Shirl was comfortable with Iranians or Iraqis or whatever the hell nationality the guy was who had delivered the crate—9/11 had made everyone distrustful.
“Give me those,” Shirl said and yanked the box out of Moon Pie’s hands and pried the top off. Inside were several items wrapped in wax paper and then bubble wrap. He unwrapped one, revealing a small brass tube the size and shape of a pencil, with a flat piece of metal protruding from one side.
Shirl said, “This is a pencil timer. Think of a blasting cap with a time delay switch. The Semtex is sticky, kind of like clay. You unwrap the Semtex, press it against whatever you want to blow up, then you stick this timer in it, and pull this tab off.” He mimicked pulling the metal tab out of the timer.
“And then run like hell,” Moon Pie added with a snort.
“Yeah. You run like hell.” Shirl wrapped the timer up and placed it back in the box. He pounded the lids onto both crates. “Put this in the trunk and let’s get the hell out of here. We’ve been off the air long enough.”
Moon Pie picked up the crates and there was the sound of a loud pop. Moon Pie almost dropped the crates, then realized the sound came from outside. It was a gunshot. Getting to his gun, Moon Pie juggled the crates, and the top came off the one with the pencil timers. He pulled his gun and went into a shooter’s stance, pistol shoved in front, swiveling his body and pointing the gun in every direction. Shirl had barely moved; he was just listening.
“Put that away, dummy!” Shirl growled and shoved Moon Pie’s gun down. He scanned the street. Then the surrounding buildings. Shirl then moved to the other side of the doorway and repeated the procedure. Nothing was moving. It was a gunshot, but it was muffled. Maybe it had come from the warehouse across the street, or down the street.
“Sounded like it was close,” Moon Pie whispered, still in a shooter’s stance, but the barrel remained pointed toward the ground.
“No shit, genius! Now put that away.” Shirl’s voice had a sting to it.
“Screw you, man,” Moon Pie mumbled and holstered the gun.
“Aw, look what you’ve done now.” The pencil timers were scattered across the floor. “If those are damaged, I’m gonna stick ’em up your ass.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Moon Pie said, but he dropped to his knees to gather them up.
Shirl watched and listened in the doorway, and said, “Be sure you got it all and then put the crates in the trunk.”
Moon Pie grumbled and tried to stand, but his legs went weak at the unmistakable hardness of a pistol muzzle being jammed behind his ear.
“Hello, Moon Pie,” Mr. Smith said and pulled the trigger. The hammer dropped on an empty chamber.
CLICK!
Moon Pie’s head jerked so hard he bit his tongue.
“Next time you mess up . . . Do you understand?”
Moon Pie’s head bobbed up and down, but Smith didn’t think Moon Pie understood. It was tempting to go ahead and rid himself of this one, but there was a better use for him.
Shirl had turned when he heard the unmistakable sound of the trigger being pulled and his hand had instinctively gone to his own sidearm. He saw Mr. Smith with a gun up against Moon Pie’s head and lowered his arm to his side.
Smith said to Shirl, “I thought you would have checked out the surrounding area.”
Shirl threw an angry look at Moon Pie, whose job that had been.
“The delivery went without a hitch, Mr. Smith. It won’t happen again,” Shirl said.
Moon Pie licked his dry lips, but remained kneeling. “We thought we heard a gunshot,” he said.
“How perceptive of you.”
The gun barrel moved away from Moon Pie’s head and pointed at the pencil timers. Moon Pie hurriedly picked them up.
Smith said, conversationally, “Someone was in the building across the street.”
Shirl glared at Moon Pie but said nothing.
“An ATF agent, according to his credentials.” The pistol disappeared inside Smith’s suit jacket and his hand came out with a tiny blue piece of plastic, flat and less than one-inch square. “He was taking pictures of you.” He handed Shirl the SD card from Killian’s camera. “A souvenir of your incompetence. I suggest you burn it. Completely.”
&nbs
p; A quiet “Oh shit!” escaped Shirl’s lips. They were part of a murder now. And not just any murder. The murder of a Fed. If they were caught, they would face the death penalty.
“We have two days, gentlemen,” Smith said. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you what’s at stake.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Smith,” Moon Pie said.
Shirl studied his partner’s moronic face and, not for the first time, had the feeling he’d gotten himself into something that might get him killed.
“We’ll be ready,” Shirl said. He hoped it was true.
Chapter Six
The pier at Two Jakes Restaurant and Marina was designed for river travelers to tie off and enjoy fine dining and an assortment of wines, imported beers, and whiskeys that would make an Irishman weep with joy. The walls of the restaurant were mostly floor-to-ceiling tempered glass so the visitors could keep an eye on their boats and have a scenic view of the Ohio.
Jack jumped from the MISS FIT to the dock, and Vinnie, the bartender and part-time cook, came down the dock to help him tie off.
“How’s it hanging, Jack?” Vinnie asked.
“They don’t call me Peter Gunn for nothing, Vinnie,” Jack said.
Vinnie laughed and followed Jack inside. “Hey, Jack. Who’s Peter Gunn? He a rapper?”