Showdown in the Keys

by Matthew Rief

  She pressed the button for the twentieth floor, then folded her arms and waited patiently.

  When the doors opened, she stepped out and pressed a button on her earpiece.

  “You get what you need, Murph?”

  She heard a few clicks on a keyboard as Murph worked quickly.

  “That’ll work, Ange. You’re now a ghost.”

  Ange smiled. She turned left down a hallway. Opening her bag, she removed her holstered Glock 17 midstride and secured it to her belt. She also grabbed her black Converse low-tops and quickly changed out of her heels. Once emptied, she stuffed the bag into a trash can and stormed into the stairwell.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Scott Cooper watched the two guards’ every movement and listened carefully to their conversation. It was mindless chatter. Each just kept running their mouths about what they’d do with their share of the money that they were never going to receive.

  Scott reached up to his earpiece, held down the talk button, and whispered into the microphone.

  “Kyle, are you in position?”

  He waited a moment. Kyle had snuck to the outboard and climbed down through a narrow space between the outer edge of the starboard fuel tank and the hull. If Scott had timed his movements correctly, he should’ve been nearing the base of the stairs.

  “Roger that,” Kyle replied.

  “Any other guards down there?”

  “Negative.”

  Scott eyed the two guards. They were standing beside one of the planted explosives under the starboard fuel tank. A third guard leaned against a pipe near the port tank.

  Two against three. Been a while since I’ve had such friendly odds. Even if they are armed.

  “Stand by, Kyle.”

  Scott grabbed his briefcase, silently released the two brass clasps, and lifted it open. He pulled out the top section with the folders and other usual business stuff. Underneath it was a secret compartment with a rectangular black box that had buttons, a pair of LEDs, and a row of small antennas.

  “Powering on the jammer, Kyle,” Scott said. He looked at his watch. “Fifteen seconds to entrance on my mark.”

  “Roger.”

  “Three… two… one… mark.”

  With a quick flip of a switch, Scott turned on the jammer. Leaving the briefcase and device on the ground under the tangle of pipes beside him, he crawled back from the space and moved quietly toward the top of the stairs. He got there just as the fifteen seconds passed.

  Keeping hidden and listening carefully, Scott heard loud footsteps coming from the base of the stairs. The metal steps rattled all the way to the top, and the sound echoed across the spaces between the fuel tanks.

  “Hey, is anybody up there?” Kyle shouted. He’d adjusted his tone to sound more innocent and less in control of the situation.

  Scott peeked through the machinery as the two closest guards moved toward the stairs. They spoke amongst each other, but it was too quiet for Scott to hear a word of it.

  “I got a report that someone was down here,” Kyle continued, raising his voice even more. “Aren’t supposed to be any personnel or visitors on this level right now.”

  The footsteps grew louder. Kyle was practically stomping his boots, not skipping a step. Scott watched as a beam of light rose up from the staircase and scanned back and forth.

  The flashlight’s a nice touch. He must’ve found it on the level below.

  It made his act look more official, even though it was the most well-lit engine room either of them had ever been in.

  “Come on out, whoever you are,” Kyle said.

  The two guards stopped just shy of the top of the stairs. They looked flustered and argued for a brief second. Then they agreed with each other, and one stepped forward while the other hovered his right hand over a Ruger handgun holstered to his waistband. It was clear that they weren’t looking to ask Kyle how the party was going or what he was doing after his shift ended. They had more aggressive intentions in mind.

  Scott glanced over again toward the third guard back near the port fuel tank. He couldn’t see him behind the rows of pipes and machinery between them. Seeing that he was clear, Scott used Kyle’s distraction to move in right behind the two unsuspecting guards. When Kyle’s body popped up into view, he froze and shined his light straight into the guards.

  “What are you guys doing down here?” Kyle asked.

  The lead guard answered. “We got the same call you did. We were investigating, and we found something interesting over by the fuel tanks.”

  Kyle continued to climb up the stairs.

  “Come on,” the guard added, stepping toward Kyle. “We’ll show you.”

  The guard in the back wrapped his hand around his Ruger.

  Not tonight, bud, Scott thought.

  Scott lunged toward the nearest guard and wrapped his left arm around the guy’s neck. He pulled back while jerking the handgun free. Spinning, Scott kicked the lead guard just as he turned around to see what the hell was going on. His body flew forward, slamming hard into the metal stairs. Kyle finished him off while Scott threw the guard in his grasp to the ground and knocked him out.

  It had been quick—less than three seconds from pounce to two sleeping bad guys on the stairs. Scott had the Ruger in his right hand. Kyle grabbed the lead guard’s handgun as well, and they both closed in on the third guy.

  They popped around the corner and watched as the final guard looked up at them like a deer caught in the headlights. He immediately hit the deck and crawled under a large valve. These weren’t experienced fighters. They were clearly entry-level security guards who had been hired by the ship and lured by dollar signs.

  As they moved in, they heard him speaking into his radio. He was panicking. Didn’t know what else to do. But his words were useless. His radio blurted out nothing but loud static thanks to the jammer.

  Kyle moved around back while Scott closed in head-on. When the final guard finally rose up, he shook as he aimed his handgun toward Scott. Before the barrel was leveled, Kyle grabbed him from behind and knocked him out as well. Three guys down in under ten seconds and no shots fired.

  With the level clear of tangos, they went to work on the explosives. Carefully, they grabbed the ones under the port fuel tank and lifted them out. Kyle quickly looked them over.

  Generally, explosives aren’t difficult to dispose of. It’s not like in the movies with the complicated triggers and wires. For electrically primed explosives, all you need to do is remove the blasting cap or cut the wires that channel the electrical charge to the blasting cap.

  But Kyle quickly realized that they were dealing with high-end bombs.

  “The explosives are fully sealed,” Kyle said. “I’ll need tools and time to get into the blasting caps or the priming sources.”

  As part of his specialty training, Kyle had attended Explosive Ordnance Disposal School at Eglin Air Force Base. He’d been trained extensively to handle and disable various forms of explosives. But they didn’t have the time to deal with each of the explosives.

  Kyle looked over at Scott. They’d both come to the same conclusion. They needed to get the bombs off the ship and far away from everything. And they needed to do it fast. With the jammer up and running and the three inside men sleeping on the job, they had no way of knowing how long it would be before Wake decided to flip the switch.

  They quickly went to work rounding up all of the explosives. They emptied a large tool bag, loaded it up with the C-4, then headed topside. With the handguns hidden under their waistbands, they tried to move as quickly and cautiously as possible up to the main deck. They didn’t want to draw any suspicion just in case the three guys weren’t alone in their get-rich-quick endeavor. But they also didn’t want to be blown to pieces.

  With the bag over his shoulder, Scott followed Kyle out into the warm evening air. They hid behind a row of stacked shipping containers, moved nearly all the way forward to the bow, then cut to the starboard railing. They looked left,
then right. The nearby deck was clear, so they waved a hand at the dark waters of Fisherman’s Channel.

  Within seconds, they heard the distant sound of two powerful groaning engines, pushing their trawler out of the shadows and into view. Kyle grabbed a life ring and tossed it over the side. The rope tied to the ring went taut as it splashed into the water below.

  They quickly climbed the forty feet down and reached the water just as Jack motored right up alongside the ship. The second their feet hit the deck, Jack accelerated them quickly toward the middle of the channel.

  “You guys look like a couple of bank robbers,” Jack said from the pilothouse. He motioned toward the black bags. “You guys keep the disabled bombs as mementos?”

  “They’re still live,” Scott exclaimed.

  Jack’s eyes widened as he looked at them over his left shoulder. His mouth dropped open and he shook his head.

  “What did you say?” Jack said, thinking he’d misheard them.

  “We can’t disable them,” Kyle said.

  Scott motioned for Jack to crank it. “Full throttle, Jack,” he said. “Get us into open water, fast!”

  Jack didn’t need to be told twice. In fact, before Scott had finished his sentence, he had the throttles all the way forward. The top-of-the-line 800-hp engines roared, pushing them quickly up to forty knots, thundering them into the channel.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Wake stared back at me unfazed as the fire poker rattled and sparked at my feet. He raised his hands dramatically, clapped a few times, then chugged the rest of his drink. He laughed as he set the empty glass on the table beside him.

  “You don’t disappoint, Dodge,” he said. He motioned toward his guards and added, “Get him out of my sight.”

  It took three of the guards to drag Darius’s unconscious body out of the room. When the guards returned, Wake looked toward Brier.

  “Alright, you’re up,” he said.

  Brier hesitated. I’d expect any sane person to after seeing what I’d just done to the big bad Darius.

  “You said you wanted a piece of him,” Wake said. “There you go. You can have the whole thing. Again, just don’t kill him. Not yet.”

  Wake rose to his feet and strode over to me. He bent down and grabbed the still-red-hot fire poker.

  “Here,” he continued, “I’ll even make it easier on you.”

  He ordered two of his guards to close in behind me and hold me down. I struggled to break free of their grasp, then Brier stepped toward me and aimed his Colt .45 straight at my forehead.

  “What did I say, Dodge?” Brier snapped.

  Wake put his cigar between his teeth, then slowly brought the scorched metal toward my face like the evil Nazi guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He glared at me, then lowered the red tip, lifted up my shirt, and touched it against my abdomen.

  I tried not to show the pain. Tried with everything I had to contain it and not give Wake any gratification. But it was too much. The scorching metal melted my skin, causing smoke to rise as it singed my flesh. My eyes bulged, and I yelled in a low powerful voice that burst forth from deep within me.

  Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Wake pulled away the poker. As I groaned and struggled to catch my breath, he pulled me close and kneed me twice in the gut.

  Upon Wake’s order, the two guards released me, and I collapsed into a crouched position. The throbbing pain from the burn seemed to be getting worse, as if the true extent of the damage was being transmitted to my brain.

  I coughed a few times from the blows to my gut. I clenched down and fought to hide the pain.

  Looking up, I rose to my feet and eyed Wake.

  “You’re a tough guy, Dodge,” Wake said. “I’ll grant you that. It’s a shame you never worked for me.”

  He stepped away from me and handed Brier the poker.

  “You’re up, Brier.”

  After all the fighting over the past few days, the tussle with the big guy, and Wake’s burn and blows to my chest, I wasn’t exactly a hundred percent. But making excuses wasn’t going to get me out of it. Thinking about how stacked the odds were against me wasn’t gonna help me hold Ange again.

  I bent my knees, narrowed my gaze, and prepared for Brier. I didn’t have to wait long. The hot-headed former Special Forces sailor charged at me like a threatened grizzly. He swung the poker in a wide, powerful arc, swinging it straight for my face. I dropped out of its path at the last second, watched the poker blur past just inches from the top of my head.

  Brier grunted, shifted his body, then brought the heavy metal bar back for another blow. This one came at me from above, like a logger chopping a fallen tree. I lunged for his wrists, grabbed them tight, then spun around, dropped down, and pulled hard. His body flew over the top of me, and I slammed him hard into the floor.

  Before I could blink, let alone attack again, he rolled and jumped to his feet. We exchanged a handful of blows, before he grew frustrated and tackled me. We rolled and fought for the dominant position. He soon forced me into a chokehold, then squeezed hard.

  He had me. It was over. We were too evenly matched, and my battered body was nearing the edge of its limits. I could feel my consciousness begin to fade.

  In a last-ditch effort, I grabbed hold of the ring and middle fingers of his right hand. Squeezing as hard as I could, I quickly rotated my hands. The fragile bones snapped, and Brier let out a loud yell.

  His right hand shook, but he didn’t let up. The pain caused him to squeeze harder. He was seconds away from ending it, seconds away from putting me down for the count.

  “Dammit, Brier, I said don’t kill him!” I barely heard Wake’s words.

  The other guards closed in. They grabbed Brier and had to force him off me. He was yelling and cursing and thrashing about. I gagged and coughed, trying desperately to catch my breath.

  I forced myself up onto one knee and looked up at Brier. He snarled at me as he held his broken fingers. A wave of emotions came over me as I flashed back to the first time I’d met him. Years ago. A different time and a vastly different setting. I thought about all of the things we’d been through, and what he’d done to throw it all away.

  “We were brothers, Brier. Remember?” I said between gasps. “You fought alongside me. You bled with me. You conquered sheer exhaustion in that Coronado surf. You were my brother. I would’ve died for you.”

  He grunted and shook his head. “I fought for ideals that don’t exist, Dodge,” he grunted. “Patriotism? Duty? It’s all bullshit. The government never cared about any of us. None of the higher-ups ever cared about anyone but themselves.”

  I pressed my planted heel into the ground and rose to my feet. “You’ve been twisted, Brier,” I said. “You’ve let a few bad apples tarnish your view of the whole damn orchard.”

  He laughed. “You’re a fool, Dodge. Always have been.”

  “And you’re a murderer. You planned to have us killed. Our entire platoon.” I paused for a second. “Your entire platoon.”

  “To send a message that needed to be sent. To—”

  “That’s crap, Brier. You were—”

  I was cut off by the sound of Wake tapping his knife hard against his glass.

  “As much as I’ve enjoyed listening to you two catch up,” Wake said, interrupting me in a loud and powerful voice, “the show’s about to start.”

  Brier and I stared at each other for a few more seconds. For a brief, nearly unnoticeable moment, his eyes displayed something other than anger. It was like a shooting star. There one moment, gone the next. It was a look I hadn’t seen on his face in a long time—a twinge of regret.

  His anger quickly returned, and he straightened himself up. He looked away from me only when his radio crackled to life on the table beside us.

  “Sir, this is Cruz down in the lobby,” a low voice said through the speaker.

  Brier strode over and snatched the radio. “What is it?” he fired back right away, trying his best to hide the intense pain from
his broken fingers. “And this better be good. We’re busy up here.”

  There was a short pause.

  “Yes, sir,” the guard said. “I’m sorry to bother you. There’s an Angelina Dodge here. She says she knows Mr. Wake and that he’s expecting her.”

  Brier’s mouth dropped open. He looked over at Wake, who was just as astonished. The billionaire businessman shifted to a stern gaze, then swallowed hard. My lips unconsciously formed a smile despite how banged up I was.

  In an instant, Wake stormed over and ripped the radio from Brier’s hand. “Take her out, now!” he ordered.

  When there was no immediate reply, he repeated the order. Nothing but silence again. No response whatsoever from the guard down at the main entrance.

  Wake turned and pointed a finger in Brier’s face. “Bring up the feed of the lobby,” he barked.

  Brier quickly motioned toward one of the nearby guards. He said something into his radio, then nodded back to Brier, who’d grabbed a universal remote with his only good hand. He rapidly pressed a few buttons. Up on the wall across from the fireplace, a massive flat-screen turned on.

  After a brief moment, the screen displayed footage of what looked like the tower’s main entrance. There was a large reception area and a security checkpoint. Two guards lay sprawled out on the floor. A terrified guy stood at reception, looking across the room toward something beyond the camera’s line of sight.

  My smile grew. It had probably taken fifteen seconds for Wake to give the order and for Brier to bring the security feed up for them to see. That had been more than enough time for Ange to take down both guards and make her move out of the lobby.

  Wake stared at the screen for a moment, then snarled and snapped his head to look at Brier.

  “Find her,” he said.

  Brier grabbed his radio from Wake and contacted their main security room on the forty-third floor. After telling them to find the intruder, they replied instantly that she was in Wake’s private elevator, and that she was heading up.

  They brought the feed up onto the large screen without needing an order. It went from showing a nearly empty lobby to displaying a ceiling view of the inside of an elevator in a flash.