The Warriors Series Boxset II

by Ty Patterson

  No progress was made.

  A late entrant, Knuckles, pushed through the crowd, grabbed a drink and flipped through the photographs.

  He frowned. ‘This ain’t her.’

  No one heard him.

  He withdrew his handgun and thumped its grip on the bar. It went silent.

  ‘This ain’t her. His bitch looked different.’

  They stared at him as if he was crazy. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Knuckles protested. ‘Here, check her out yourself.’

  He dragged out his cell phone, flicked through several photographs, and pointed to one.

  It was of Knuckles and Cezar, back in the day, but it was the third person that Knuckles was pointing at.

  ‘Lookit her hair, her eyes, her nose. She’s similar, but all you dumbasses missed one thing.’

  He waited for the penny to drop and when it didn’t, he rolled his eyes. ‘Cezar’s woman is taller, by at least half a foot.’

  Big G’s crew pored over the photographs and one by one, they sheepishly handed them back to Knuckles.

  Knuckles was right. Cezar’s woman was taller than Parker’s woman.

  Loud chatter broke out. Parker wasn’t Cezar. But dang, didn’t they look alike? They could be twins.

  The couple of men went back to the snitch and this time they broke a finger.

  The snitch squealed and said the details he gave were correct. He couldn’t help it if the computer had the wrong details.

  He could prove it.

  They met him the next day and he showed them a printout from his computer.

  It showed Cezar was Herb Parker, living at the address in Damascus.

  ‘This is clearly shit. You got a junk address in your system.’

  ‘That’s what I said yesterday,’ the snitch cried.

  ‘So we killed the wrong man?’ Big G said slowly.

  The underling nodded, his insides knotting in fear.

  Just the week before, Big G had kneed a gang member in the groin. That dude wouldn’t have kids. Ever again.

  Big G thought about it, how it could have happened. The killing of an innocent didn’t bother him.

  His gang could have killed fifty more innocents and that still wouldn’t have bothered him.

  Maybe the Marshals used a dummy name and address without knowing such a real person existed.

  He pushed the thought away from his mind. It wasn’t important. Tracking Cezar and the stolen money, was.

  ‘This Zeb Carter?’

  ‘Boiler thinks Parker threw out a random name.’

  Big G nodded slowly. He had seen it happen. People babbled whatever you wanted to hear when you were killing them slowly.

  ‘So we’re back to zero?’

  The underling shuffled his feet.

  ‘Boiler thinks we should track down men in small towns on the east coast. Who came there seven years back, have families similar in age to Cezar’s. Small towns because that’s what the Marshal’s snitch said. They placed Cezar in a very small town. Boiler said chances are high he will still be in some small town. He won’t break cover.’

  The underling drew breath. Maybe it would be the last one he would draw if Big G didn’t like what he had uttered.

  Big G mulled it over in his mind and relaxed when the reasoning made sense. Boiler was thinking on the right lines. He spotted something in the underling.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Boiler thought a man in New Jersey might be Cezar. Turned out, he wasn’t. The man died.’

  Big G shrugged. People died whenever they came in his or Boiler’s way. No big deal.

  ‘Keep looking.’

  The underling nodded rapidly, knowing the conversation was almost over and he could escape Big G’s burning eyes.

  He started to leave when Big G’s voice stopped him.

  ‘Have someone watch Parker’s house.’

  Chapter 5

  Boiler listened when the news was relayed back to him in Miami by a complex network of couriers and information bearers.

  He was in the bar the gang owned, in an upstairs office that previously had been a booth in which the bar’s strippers could get closer to male patrons.

  Boiler glanced at the door when the hood had finished relaying Big G’s orders; that was sufficient incentive for the hood to leave.

  Not many of the gang were comfortable in Boiler’s presence.

  He was lean and tall, and his pale complexion made him look taller than his actual height, which was just a couple of inches over six feet.

  He was bald; his green eyes glittered like marbles whenever they rested on an object or person of interest.

  A scar on his left cheek, left by a knife wound, hadn’t healed well and twitched whenever Boiler was angry. Or in the act of killing.

  Boiler was seldom angry, however. He had an icy calmness around him that went very well with his catlike movements.

  None of the gang members knew where he was from.

  He never volunteered information, and the hoods didn’t dare to ask him.

  They all agreed that he was one big badass who was an asset to the gang. He was the second in command and ran the gang efficiently and ruthlessly in Big G’s absence.

  He was the only one who didn’t sport the G tat. He didn’t need to. Everyone in the criminal world knew who Boiler was and which gang he belonged to.

  Big G had found Boiler, bleeding and close to dying in Miami, when the two were teenagers.

  Big G, then, ran a street gang that stole parts from the cars parked on the street.

  He also ran a small amount of drugs, but those weren’t his main business at that time. Boiler had been propped against a car’s wheel, his face cut, his stomach slashed.

  Big G dragged him upright, ignored the hiss of breath from the wounded youth and half carried, half dragged him, a couple of blocks away to his crib.

  His crew surrounded him and the parade wound its way slowly through wet, slippery pavements, past corners and under streetlights.

  In his crib, Big G stripped the shirt off the wounded youth, washed him, applied whatever little medical knowledge he had and left him alone.

  Boiler took two weeks to recover; days during which Big G wondered at himself. He didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body and he wondered what had prompted the impulsive action.

  On the fifteenth day, Boiler uttered his first word.

  ‘Karel,’ he said, holding out a hand.

  Big G took it, but was flummoxed. He didn’t remember his birth name. He had grown up on the streets of the city.

  He grinned through dirty teeth and shook Karel’s hand. ‘Big G.’

  Over the days, Karel revealed a little of his story.

  He was Ukrainian, had smuggled himself in a container ship from Odessa to Miami, when the heat in his native city had become unbearable.

  He ran a few girls in Odessa and had added blackmail to his repertoire of services very recently.

  He had picked the wrong man to threaten, a rival thug, head of a gang bigger and more powerful than Karel’s.

  That rival hood had ordered a hit on Karel, forcing him to flee the city.

  In Miami, Karel had gotten into a knife fight with muggers and they had left him for dead.

  Big G saw something in Karel’s eyes and offered him sanctuary in his gang.

  Karel killed his first man in his new home country, a couple of months later.

  One of Big G’s hoods was stealing from the take on the street and had to be punished. Big G thought of shooting him dead, but Karel had a better idea.

  The Ukrainian had some thugs bring an enormous vat, had them fill it with oil and when the liquid reached its boiling point, he turned silently to the bound hood, lifted him easily and threw him into the oil.

  Without uttering a single word.

  The gang gave him the name, Boiler.

  It suited him to a T.

  Boiler brought a silent viciousness to the gang; every killing or hit had to be ruthl
ess, graphic and had to convey a message – Big G and his crew were not to be messed with.

  With Big G’s permission, he recruited gangbangers himself.

  All similar to him, tall, heavy men who walked with a silent tread.

  No one questioned Boiler’s ascension in the gang but to avoid disharmony, Big G created an inner sanctum, a council, in which the heads of his various chapters, were members.

  This inner sanctum ran the daily operations of the gang, with Boiler and Big G’s oversight.

  Big G brought a different style of management to running his gang.

  Extreme ruthlessness where needed, but also profit sharing. Each chapter head was allowed to take home an agreed percentage of the monthly profits with a caveat – those profits had to be shared with the chapter members.

  The gang’s reputation spread and street thugs beat a line to Big G’s door to join him.

  Just before Big G had to flee to Mexico, his gang was a mix of ethnicities. East Europeans, Hispanics, a few Chinese and Blacks and Caucasians.

  His gang’s annual profit was in eight figures.

  ‘No different than them fancy global corporations,’ Big G often used to say.

  Big G and Boiler brought not just a different management style but also a different operating style.

  They used outsourcing.

  Any hit that was contracted to the gang went through a qualification criterion.

  If the hit had to be graphic, then the gang members, Boiler primarily, executed it themselves. If the hit had to be low key, the gang outsourced it to trusted contractors.

  The Parker murders had been outsourced to such contractors, a bunch of three East European assassins based in Chicago.

  Big G’s gang didn’t have anyone in the vicinity of Damascus and Boiler was occupied with carrying out another hit, so he couldn’t go to that city. It made sense to use the contract killers.

  Big G and Boiler had used them several times before and knew the men would do a professional job.

  There were two advantages to using the assassins in tracking down Cezar. They helped the gang distance themselves from the hunt; let them focus on running their business.

  The second advantage was that the assassins didn’t rat. Even if they were caught.

  They had even extended an offer to the assassins to join their gang. The assassins had declined. They valued their independence.

  It was a code unique to them and in return, they charged extortionate fees. Fees that Big G and Boiler were glad to pay.

  There was a third advantage that only Boiler and Big G were privy to. The assassins had a hacker in Ukraine who could work miracles and extract data from many secure sites.

  Unfortunately, the U.S. Marshal’s system was one the hacker hadn’t been able to get into and hence the gang had to cultivate the snitch in that organization.

  The Parker killings had been unique. They were meant to be low key, but given that Cezar/Parker wouldn’t spill his secrets readily, the killings had become graphic.

  Boiler and Big G had known that risk.

  Boiler met Ajdan, the leader of the assassins, in a café in Chicago that was filled with Big G’s men.

  Ajdan looked like any other person; there was nothing special about him. Black hair, black eyes, dressed in a dark shirt and jeans. He wouldn’t stay in anyone’s memory.

  Boiler passed Big G’s regards, Ajdan nodded in acknowledgement. Boiler updated Ajdan on what they knew.

  That Parker was a false trail. That the name he had thrown out was a waste of time.

  He updated Ajdan on the cops’ progress on the investigation.

  Over the years the gang had cultivated snitches in police departments of the cities they operated in and they had a good information flow.

  ‘FBI has taken over. They have nothing.’

  Ajdan swallowed a mouthful of black tea and said nothing. The FBI wouldn’t have anything. He and his men were that good.

  Boiler gave his shopping list to Ajdan. He needed a list of men, with families, who had come to small towns on the East Coast in the last seven years.

  ‘Why?’

  Boiler told him.

  Ajdan stared at him. ‘That’s a lot of ground. Could be millions of people.’

  ‘Not necessarily. They have to be homeowners.’ The Marshals would have set Cezar up with his own home. ‘We know how Cezar and the woman look. We are looking at specific age groups.’

  Ajdan looked thoughtful. That narrowed it down, but not by much. Cezar and his woman had average looks and seven years was a long time. People aged, wrinkled, lost hair.

  ‘The towns should have no less than a hundred people and no more than a thousand.’

  Ajdan looked askance at Boiler.

  Boiler shrugged and repeated what the snitch had told them.

  Small towns of those sizes had strong communities in which Cezar would blend in; their sizes acted like radar. Strangers were noted and watched. The Marshals had placed Cezar in such a town.

  ‘He would be anonymous in larger cities.’

  Boiler’s smile was more of a grimace. Children cried when he smiled. ‘We are active in large cities. We work with other gangs. We would have found him.’

  ‘He could go to the west coast.’

  ‘He didn’t like it. His woman loved the east coast.’

  ‘Did they have families? You could ask them?’

  ‘We did.’ The grimace came on again. A girl on a nearby table looked away quickly. ‘They didn’t know.’

  Town council records, property records, driving licenses, passports. Ajdan ran the databases in his mind. His man could hack them. He had hacked some of them previously.

  ‘It’ll cost.’

  ‘You’ll get it.’ Boiler said indifferently. ‘Parker’s home needs to be watched.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Someone might come visiting the Parker home. Someone who might know Cezar. We don’t know how Parker got swapped for Cezar.’

  ‘I can put someone there. He won’t know why, or who he’s working for.’

  Boiler liked that. It was one reason Big G and he used the assassins. Their work was compartmentalized. One box might get opened, but it wouldn’t lead to another.

  They left separately. Ajdan first. A couple of Big G’s hoods fell in behind him discreetly. They would make sure Ajdan wasn’t tailed by anyone.

  Boiler rose, glanced at the family at the nearby table and grimaced in politeness.

  Just because he was a killer didn’t mean he didn’t have social graces.

  Back in his apartment in Jackson Heights, Zeb commanded Werner to dig out everything on Hank Parker.

  Werner, housed in a supercomputer on Columbus Avenue in New York, could perform such searches in its sleep.

  It didn’t sleep of course. That was for humans.

  It sent back a file to Zeb and his printer spat out neatly printed sheets.

  The file didn’t add much more to Zeb’s knowledge of his mentor that he wasn’t aware of.

  After leaving the army, Hank, then in his late forties, had moved to Damascus with Emily and Cody. Petals had been born in Damascus.

  Hank had used their savings to buy out a family run home repair business and had grown that into a thriving business that employed twenty people.

  He built small homes, erected greenhouses, garden sheds, and small offices. He sometimes landscaped gardens and built swimming pools.

  Zeb asked Werner to look into Hank’s and Emily’s finances. They were clean. They would be. Hank had his code.

  His fingers tightened on the sheets of paper. He consciously relaxed them, dropped the sheets on his desk and wandered to a window.

  An ambulance raced by, its wail coming to him dimly through thick sheets of glass. Its lights cast red and blue shadows in his living room and then they died.

  He went to his kitchen, opened shelves, heated water, and spooned coffee. The first sip went deep inside and steadied him.

  He returned to
the papers. He got Werner to search for Hank’s business associates and his employees for anything out of the ordinary. There wasn’t.

  He went online and checked out their social media profiles. Hank didn’t have one, but Emily had an active one, going by the comments and posts on her pages.

  He asked Werner to look into all those who had posted on her pages. Werner came back a few minutes later, reported nothing suspicious about them.

  Was either of them having an affair?

  Nope. That didn’t feel like a revenge killing. He brought the photographs of the killing in his mind and examined them.

  Someone wanted information.

  What did Hank know? Did they get it?

  He looked out of the window. Not yet dark. He calculated distances and times in his mind.

  I can sleep in my ride.

  Damascus was close to six hundred miles from his apartment. Zeb went to the basement parking lot and pressed a button on his key fob and heard a satisfying growl from the cavernous interior.

  A Suburban’s lights guided him to the vehicle and the door closed after him with a satisfyingly heavy thump.

  It would. The vehicle was armored with sheets of steel and could stop all but tank shells.

  Its interior bristled with equipment that didn’t come from the dealer. Under its hood were a couple hundred more horses than the manufacturer had built.

  An hour later, Zeb was free from the long reaching grasp of the city.

  He skirted Philadelphia, and entered Maryland, by then it was dark and the universe had fallen silent. The soft radio in his ride carried him relentlessly over the ribbon of road, concrete that flowed like a smooth river beneath his wheels. He stopped once at a rest area and the solitariness of the land reminded him of Libya.

  I hope Omar and Abdul are fine.

  After killing Umkhayey, Zeb had returned to where the herders were still sleeping off the drugs in their system.

  He had bundled them in the terrorists’ vehicle and driven them to Taknis where he left them with their pockets bulging with currency.

  I couldn’t leave them on the plains. Umkhayey’s men would have suspected them and wiped them out.

  A truck roared past, its wash rocking his SUV and blowing away the tendrils of the past.

  He gassed the vehicle and continued his drive past Martinsburg and Winchester and when exhaustion was creeping up on him, he drove through the town of Harrisonburg, named after an early settler, Thomas Harrison.