All I was taking were my two briefcases, one with cash and the other mainly for my laptop. I had the sat phone and the regular cell.
“Let’s get this asshole,” Lenny said.
I lost my breath for a moment. This was not mouse clicking. This would be real action. If I constantly questioned myself, I would be ineffective. I took two deep breaths, which helped, and reached my fist out to Lenny, and we bumped fists.
“Action time,” I said, moving to open the door for my best friend and most important associate.
As he walked out, I turned and surveyed my suite. I hoped I would see this again, I thought as I closed the door. And I wanted Lauren to be here waiting for me when we returned.
21
Lenny insisted that we take his BMW X5, which he still had from the Hertz rental at the hotel. It was bigger and heavier and offered more protection, in his opinion. I was not the leader on this op, Lenny was, and I was glad that he willingly and aggressively took the lead. We were going into a dangerous situation, for sure, and much of it was unknown at this point. How many men would be at the warehouse, what sort of force might we encounter—known unknowns, as they say. I was out of my element, which was behind a keyboard. A plus was that we had the drone to do our reconnaissance. All in all, I was tense, and I expected trouble, but I was comforted to be with my best friend, who was really good at this stuff.
The warehouse was located in an industrial area to the west of the Miami airport. James had given us military photos of the building and the area. The building was a one-story standalone building of twenty thousand square feet. It was owned by an LLC with a registered agent in Panama, as usual, the Fonseca Law Firm. From the photos, we had been able to choose an initial observation point about a block away; it was partially shielded by some sidewalk bushes but had a decent view of the building’s front entrance.
We entered the area and drove around to get a better understanding of the building, the general terrain, the neighborhood, and possible escape routes, the usual pre-battle moves to enhance chances of success—mainly to enhance our chances of coming out alive.
I called James on the sat phone. “Hey, we’re almost there. What do you have?” I asked.
“Okay,” he started, a little breathless. “That damn DHS guy… I’ve got people here today,” he said, clearly angry at the government’s failure to help him. “I told our team to give me some space this morning.”
“So, what do you have now?” I cut in.
“Lev was there about an hour ago. His phone is off, same with the other hoods around him. All off. Here’s something though. The general turned his on this morning, about thirty minutes ago. And get this: he was heading toward Miami from about sixty miles out.” He paused, waiting for my reaction, then shouted, “Wait! Look at this. Lev just lit up. He’s there! He just called the general. Holy shit.”
“Hold, James; right back in a minute,” I said, reaching for my cell.
I tapped Pablo, who answered immediately.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“We about fifteen minutes away. What you want now?” he said in his usual all-business tone.
“We want you here. We’re at the warehouse. The guy we want is in there; we just confirmed. Call when you’re here.”
“You got our money?”
“Yeah. Cash okay?”
“Okay, gringo, we coming,” he said and clicked off.
Lenny drove slowly through the neighborhood. I tapped in Agent Ross, who answered on the third ring.
“Agent Ross, Derek Randall,” I said, introducing myself because his phone skills were so limited.
“Yes, Mr. Randall,” he said in government mode.
“Agent Ross, Lev Lavorosky is in the warehouse… right now. The address we gave you. How soon can you get people here?”
“I just got an update: they will be there by three p.m. This is a really good team.“ He started to give me some government crap, so I cut him off.
“What about other people, like police or sheriffs or whatever?” I said, getting upset.
“I can’t countermand the SWAT orders at this point. We have rules about—”
“Rules! What about getting the job done?” I said, even more upset.
Lenny reached over and grabbed my arm, nodded his head don’t.
Okay, don’t get upset with Ross. He’s just another lame government official. I cut back in.
“Understood. Let us know when they’re coming.”
“Sorry, Mr. Randall. Working in the government has its limitations.”
“Right. Well, here’s something else for you. The Chinese general is heading toward Miami on a ship.”
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“Gimme a break, please. Just pass it along and do something. You guys let him get away. C’mon, man,” I said.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said.
I clicked off before I could give into the temptation to unload further on him. Trying to work with the government was a complete dead end. It was nearing noon, his crack SWAT team was three hours away… and we were in position to actually do something.
I went back to James, who was holding, told him to stay put and keep his phone open, and clicked off.
* * *
Lenny parked us at the spot we had chosen. It had a pretty good view of the front of the building, although partially obscured by a few bushes. Good enough. There was a parking lot in front of Lev’s building, and there were four cars parked in it, close to the entrance doors. We sat for a few minutes and observed. A truck passed by, then a car, then another car from both directions. All seemed normal for an industrial section of Miami. After five minutes, we felt comfortable enough to get moving. Well, Lenny felt comfortable. I was doing everything I could to stay calm and focused, to be fully in the moment and not up in my head worrying.
I got out of the car, walked to the back, and took the drone out. Its shape, black paint, and Truth From Above name produced an evil feel about it. Was it a friend or a weapon or what? I set it on the ground a few feet from the car and then positioned myself on the other side of the car so as to be hidden from Lev’s building. A car drove by, something commercial looking, then another. Nobody seemed to care about us or what we were doing there. Just another day in industrial Miami.
Lenny started the propellers, and the drone lifted off gently, straight up into the sky with a mission and a gentle buzzing sound which got more faint as it gained elevation. After one minute, I could not hear it.
I got back in the car. Lenny was working the controls. He angled the control unit display in my direction, and I saw the view from the drone, moving upward and over toward the building.
I’m good at technical stuff, especially computers, but I had no drone experience, so I was surprised at how clear the picture was and how much control Lenny could exert over the drone’s movements, position, and speed.
Lenny had the drone flying at three hundred feet of elevation. He was able to adjust the camera lens to get closer, clearer views of whatever he wanted. He started at the front of the building, then flew a circle around it, slowly, with control. We got a good look at the front doors; the few windows the building had; the back of the building, where there were three large, ground-to-ceiling garage doors; and a smaller, empty parking lot. The roof of the building was flat. Lenny paused the drone.
“This is a good situation,” he said. “Only two in-and-out points. These guys are trapped… once we get Pablo’s guys here.”
We didn’t have to wait long. My cell chimed; it was our help.
“That you, amigo, in the black BMW?” he asked.
“Yes,” I responded.
“Flash your lights.”
Lenny did, and we saw two cars coming from behind us. Two black Escalades, heavy and awesome-sized. They parked just beyond us. The passen
ger doors on each opened, and two guys got out—one was carrying a duffel bag—and approached our car. Both had a Latin look. The guy from the first car carrying the duffel bag looked to be in his late twenties and about my height, and had blond streaks in his hair. They opened the back doors and got in.
“Hey, gringos,” the blond man said, offering his fist. “I’m Pablo. Who’s Derek?” he asked, looking between me and Lenny.
“I’m Derek,” I said returning his fist bump. “This is Lenny.”
“You got our money?”
Right to business; I liked it. I reached into my briefcase, pulled out a packet, and handed it to him. “Ten thousand, cash,” I said.
He fanned through it as if he could count it based on the sound, then handed it to his friend.
“Okay, what we got?”
Lenny lifted up the control unit and had the drone take another tour of the building for Pablo to see. He studied the display with serious concentration and seemed to take in every detail.
“No problem. You want these men dead? Alive? What you want?”
“We want the leader, a man named Lev Lavorosky. He was in the newspaper.”
“What about the others?” he said.
“We don’t care. We don’t want any problems. A SWAT team is supposed to be here at three.”
“With us, you don’t need SWAT.”
“Probably right, but it’s already in process. Is that a problem?” I asked.
“Not for us, gringo. If you don’t want, we take the men… Different business.” I wanted to question what kind of different business he was referring to but held back. I did my best to subdue my nervousness. He would take the men? For a different business?
“Okay?” he asked, looking at me and Lenny like all the talk and negotiations were completed, and like he had obtained all the information he needed for the job.
“Yes, okay,” I said. He brought up the duffel from the floor, reached in, and pulled out something with wires.
“This for communication. Just you two?” he asked.
“Yes, just us.”
“Okay, put these on. Headsets. Let’s check.” We put them on. He pulled out another unit and spoke into it, crystal clear in my ear. Lenny nodded the same.
“This military stuff; you give back after,” he said. This guy was about as professional as they get compared to Agent Ross, whose crack team would “maybe” arrive hours after the fact. Pablo was not finished with his prep.
“You gringos got weapons?” he asked us.
Lenny handled it. “We each have a Glock, and I have this Diablo,” he said, taking the .12-gauge handgun from his holster and showing it.
Pablo visually checked it and smiled. “Okay, that one good,” he said. “Keep those other toys down. We got Uzis for you. You know how to shoot Uzi?”
Lenny nodded. I had shot one years ago. I nodded too. I did not want to break up the momentum Pablo was creating. In truth, I was amazed at the professionalism and competence Pablo brought to the table. I was suppressing fears about what was going to happen in mere minutes: an armed assault on armed men, one of whom had threatened to kill me. Lenny was right: this had to end today.
“Okay, listen up. I got eight men. Two stay in car. Six of us plus you two. Five in back and three in front. I be in back, Jaime here be in front. We have shape charge for garage doors. They blast open, we go in. We shoot first. Where you want to be?” he asked, looking at me.
“Wherever you want me,” I managed to say.
“I’m in the back with you, Pablo. Derek, you’re in the front,” Lenny answered for me.
“Go to our car now, get ready. Bring drone control and leave with my man.” Pablo opened the door, then said, “If you no want, we take drone after.”
“When we finish the job, it’s yours,” Lenny said as he got out carrying the control unit—the drone was still hovering at three hundred feet on the backside of the building. Lenny locked the doors to the BMW with the key fob as we walked over to Pablo’s lead car. The door opened as we got there, and a young Latin man got out and handed Lenny, then me, Uzis. “They’re loaded and the safeties are off. Here are mags if you need,” he said with no accent. He handed two mags to each of us, which we put in our pockets.
Pablo and his men had on camo-style clothes with lots of deep pockets for this kind of equipment—apparently, they did operations like this frequently. They were certainly the highest-level private professionals I had ever worked with. Just that realization allowed me to suppress most of the fear I’d been building.
Pablo formed up his men and Lenny and me in a circle and gave some instructions in Spanish. He exuded a charisma and a leadership energy that were as powerful as any I had ever seen up close. His men just nodded in agreement, eyes and faces serious, all in top physical shape, Uzis at the ready and comm units in place—there was no question about their loyalty and trust in Pablo. A car drove by, seeming not to notice eight men standing with guns on the side of the road.
Lenny gave the driver of the first car the control unit to the drone. When he started to explain how it worked, the guy said, “No problem, I’ve got it.” That was that.
Pablo broke into a run toward the building. His men were right next to him. Lenny and I joined the group of mercenaries—what else would you call them? Action time with real action people on a real mission.
We ran as a group up to a property wall, about four feet high and separating Lev’s building from its neighboring building, which fortunately had no windows facing front. The wall was easily jumpable. We heard over the comm unit something in Spanish, something about un hombre.
Pablo gestured for our attention as we held firm against the wall. “There’s a man coming out the back. The garage door is open. We move now,” he said, pointing Jaime toward the front; that was my group.
I followed Jaime and another man to the right while Pablo and Lenny and the other three men moved to the left. I noticed that Pablo and most of his men walked with a kind of military precision, perfectly balanced with total control of their movement, speed, and position. Lenny moved like the NFL lineman he had been: speed times weight equals force. All held their Uzis with both hands in a ready position at their chests. I tried to do the same.
I felt strangely confident. I knew Lenny was up to the job. It appeared that Pablo had done this sort of thing thousands of times before, and the same with his men—they exuded supreme confidence. My nervousness and fears dissipated to a hardly noticeable level as we moved closer to an encounter with Lev and his men. Game on.
* * *
Pablo stopped his men along the property wall at a place where he could see the back of the building. A lone man was standing near the open garage door, smoking a cigarette and walking away from the building. He was wearing a suit and tie and had no weapon in his hand. He was smoking rapidly as if he had to get that task done and get back inside, or maybe he was just the nervous type; hard to tell. Pablo looked to one of his men, then pointed to his own shoulder. Pablo’s man nodded, then pulled up a long gun with a mounted telescopic sight and a long silencer on the barrel. He eased up over the wall, aimed his gun, and a pfft sound, inaudible to the walking man, signaled the shot. The man’s shoulder exploded into blood and tissue and bone. He fell to the ground. Pablo was the first one over the wall.
As they were running the fifty yards or so of distance to the back of the building, the man on the ground yelled something in a guttural-sounding language. One of the men with an Uzi stopped and raked him with a burst. His body kicked up as the silenced bullets riddled him mid-chest. The group reached the back of the building and stood against the wall next to the open garage door. They heard voices from inside the building. The garage door started to close, and Pablo signaled his men back against the wall. The garage door closed to the ground with a loud thump. They heard voices inside, some yelling, some panicking.
<
br /> Pablo pointed to one of his men, who reached into a small kit bag he had strapped over his chest and pulled out the shaped charges. He moved along the wall to the front of the group ahead of Pablo and started his work on the closest door. Pablo pointed to another man, who did the same with the kit bag on his chest, then sprinted across the three garage doors to the other side. It would be an explosive breach. Lenny remained next to Pablo.
The two explosives men worked with military precision to attach their charges on the two outside doors. It took two minutes. When the furthest man signaled that his charge was ready, Pablo tapped one of his other men and sent him to the other side: two on that side, three on Pablo’s side, including Lenny. Pablo and his men pulled eye-and-nose–covering masks from somewhere else in their body compartments and put them on. Lenny would be without a mask. It was action time at the back of the building.
* * *
I moved behind Jaime and the other man along the property wall toward the front of the building. When we could clearly see the entrance and the parking lot with its four parked cars, Jaime and the other man jumped over the wall with ease. I did the same, with concern about how I would land. As I was, fortunately, carrying the automatic weapon slung around my neck, I landed on my feet and kept my balance.
Jaime and the other man squatted next to the wall; I got down next to them. They scanned the area and waited for a minute while two cars passed in front, then a truck. Then they moved. I stayed with them, which was safer than being by myself along the wall. They sprinted to the four cars, which were parked right next to each other. Jaime and the other man pulled knives out of pockets somewhere on their clothes, long hunting knives, and started puncturing the tires on the cars. Each car got two tires punctured on the same side. The cars as escape vehicles were eliminated. Very kind of Lev’s people to park so close together and give cover to the work of these highly efficient mercenaries.
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