Chapter Twelve
Stone's team arrived at the safe house and assessed the damages.
Aside from various bruises and contusions, everyone was in good shape. They went to the kitchen to eat sandwiches made from the cold cuts that were in the refrigerator and to plan their next move.
Carol spread a map of Miami on the table to locate Crazy Charlie's place, which turned out to be in a somewhat less ritzy area than Don Vito's.
"This time," Stone said, "we go in hard. Nothing fancy. We'll hit it with everything we've got. If Wofford's there, we'll find him and get him out. That's all there is to it."
"No more sewers?" Hog mumbled around a mouthful of bread and lunch meat.
"No more sewers. We go right through the front door."
"Just the way I like it," Hog mumbled.
Loughlin had a question. "What if Charlie finds out about the raid on Don Vito's, as he must? He'll be ready for us."
Stone disagreed. "Not for us. He doesn't know who the hell we are, or even that we're here. He'll know something happened, but he won't know what or why. We're the X factor in this equation."
"What about all the bodies that are piling up?" Carol wondered. "Won't the police be really itchy?"
"I imagine so, and the D.E.A. too. That damned Williams is obviously the one who traced us and gave our number to the cops that chased us earlier. Have I told you what a great driver you are?"
Carol smiled. "Not often enough. Does this mean I get a raise?"
"Sure." Stone laughed. "Just as soon as I do."
They finished eating. Stone gave them their orders. "I said an hour. Let's make it thirty minutes. If Crazy Charlie is antsy, we don't want him to have time to make too many plans."
Crazy Charlie was not pleased.
Fox had done his best, which was very good indeed, which was in fact the best that could be done, but Wofford had told them next to nothing.
"Shit!" Charlie snapped. "The bastard don't know hardly a damn thing!"
Wofford lay on the bed, still under the effects of the Sodium Amytal. His face was smashed and his lips pulpy.
Fox looked at the D.E.A. man. "It's not my fault, let me assure you. I've used all the latest and best techniques."
"Hell, I know that. I've seen what you can do. It's just that he don't know dick about what's going on. Just that one lousy drug buy, see where that leads, get 'em to trust you, maybe you'll learn something big."
Charlie shook his head in disgust. "It's no wonder the fucking feds never catch anybody except by accident. They got no concept about how to go about things."
Fox was curious. "What would you do if you were one of them?"
"Same thing we're doing right here. Snatch a few guys, run them through the wringer, and see what squeezes out."
"What we're doing here is not exactly legal," Fox reminded him.
"No shit. Well, that explains it. As long as those federal doggies play real nice and follow the rules, guys like me don't have to worry."
"True," Fox said. "But one wonders what might happen if you were ever to go up against someone as ruthless as yourself. The drug trade might then be stopped cold."
"What a laugh," Charlie said sarcastically. "The D.E.A. is as big a bunch of pussies as there is in the world. The only ones as tough as us are the Cubans, and after tonight the Colombians may just wipe them out for me."
Fox had no idea what Charlie was talking about, and so he said nothing.
The telephone in the bedroom rang. Charlie walked over and picked it up. "Yeah?"
As he listened, the blood drained from his face. "Fuck!" he yelled. And a few minutes later, "Goddamn motherfuckers! Shit! Shit!"
The curse of a limited vocabulary, Fox thought.
Charlie slammed the phone down, then grabbed the whole set and ripped the cord from the wall, throwing the phone across the room and smashing it against the paneling on the opposite side.
"Some fucking assholes raided my old man's place! He's dead and so is every other sonofabitch there! Give that bastard on the bed something to knock him out and keep him that way. But don't kill him. Kill him and you're a dead man too. We're getting him and us out of here."
Well, well, Fox thought as he prepared the injection. It seems as if someone else is not playing by the rules . . .
The theory of the predawn attack is that your enemy will have been trying to rest, that his energy will be at its lowest ebb, and that his mind will not be functioning at its highest level.
This theory had nothing at all to do with Enrique Feliz's plans. He simply wanted to hit Charlie as hard as possible, and as soon as possible, so that the value of his "lesson" would not be weakened by the elapse of too much time.
His Marielitos, the toughest, meanest men he had, were loaded into the back of a special moving van, armed with Uzis, and ready to go. The early morning hour was good for one thing. Not too many residents would be awake to see the van moving through the streets.
The trailer section of the van was fitted out with seats along each wall and illuminated with electric lights. The Marielitos sat on the hard benches and checked their weapons. Most of them were looking forward to the coming battle. They had not been told its purpose or its reason, but that didn't bother them. A fight was a fight. It was what they were paid, and paid well, to do.
Feliz rode in the cab with the driver. He did not often go out on the streets these days, but he felt a personal interest in the teaching of this particular lesson. He wanted to be present to be sure that it had its full effect.
The cab had a special reinforced bumper, and Feliz's mechanics had increased the power of the engine considerably. The doors were armored, and the glass was bulletproof. Aside from those improvements, the van looked perfectly normal. It was painted in orange and black, and on the sides of the trailer were painted the words FLORIDA MOVERS—WE TAKE YOU WHERE YOU WANT TO GO.
Feliz smiled when he thought about where he would be taking Crazy Charlie Lucci, whether he wanted to go or not.
Allbright couldn't sleep. It wasn't all the killing that bothered him so much as the idea that something was wrong. Something that he couldn't quite identify. His mind kept going back over the events of the night, the raid at the Black Pussy Cat, the drug deal that went sour, the attack on Don Vito.
There had to be a connection, but what was it?
Allbright lay in the bed and looked at the ceiling, trying to get his thoughts to lead him to the solution to the puzzle. It's a good thing I'm not married, he thought, no one would be able to put up with the hours I keep—I can't even get to sleep when I'm not working.
Of course, he was working. Or his mind was. He was just doing it on his own time.
When the answer came, he sat upright in the bed, feeling like a fool for not having thought of it earlier. He grabbed the phone and dialed the number of Bill Rosales.
Rosales picked it up on the first ring. He hadn't been sleeping either. "Rosales here."
"Allbright. I know what's going on. Or part of it. How soon can you get a team together?"
"Soon. What is it?"
"All the dope and money just lying there at that ambush, that's what. There's no way anyone would leave it, not unless the ambush had an entirely different purpose from the usual one. It wasn't a rip-off. No one ever wanted the money in the first place."
Rosales didn't get it. "Not want the money?"
"Not primarily," Allbright explained. "I don't doubt that they would have taken it if the opportunity had presented itself. But what if someone just wanted to stir up trouble? To get the Cubans and the Colombians at each other's throats?"
"Crazy Charlie," Rosales said.
"Probably."
"No, no. You're right. I'm sure of it. There's been a rumor on the streets for weeks now that the Mob guys are ready to get back into drug distribution in Miami, and this is just the kind of thing that Charlie would try. Put both sides against the other and then step in to take control. I'm sure you're right. You must be."
"If I am, then we need to get a move on."
"But why?"
"Because Enrique Feliz is just as smart as I am. Maybe even smarter. When he puts this together . . ."
"I see what you mean. I'll get some men and pick you up in an hour."
"I'll be ready." Allbright hung up the phone and got out of bed. Where the hell are my shoes? he wondered.
Jesús Blanco sat in his sterile office at the Colombian drug lab deep in the Everglades. He had gone there shortly after receiving the report about the ambush to meet with the other kingpins of the drug operation. Blanco was the leader, but he did nothing without the advice and consent of the others.
Blanco was a thin, storklike man who seemed a highly unlikely person to be running a huge drug operation, but he was the one whose expertise made the lab where the paste was converted to cocaine possible.
His opposite was the beefy Jaime del Rio, the enforcer, whose anger at the night's events was burning hotly. "The fuckin' Cubanos double-crossed us! I lost good men, and that fuckin' Feliz has gotta pay! I ain't gonna be jerked around by no two-bit dope peddler like that!"
Blanco raised a thin hand. "We do not have the human resources that our friend Feliz has. We cannot afford the loss."
Del Rio bridled. "Loss, hell! Who says we're gonna lose?"
"Wait," Diego Gomez put in. "Let us hear what Jesús has to say." Gomez was a money man. He didn't like fighting, and he nearly always functioned as a peacemaker at these meetings.
Blanco nodded in Gomez's direction. "Thank you. It is quite simple, really. If we commit ourselves to a battle, and we lose, then we lose it all—the laboratory, our livelihood, everything." He paused for effect. "And not only we. Our families lose. Everyone in Colombia loses, even the little men and women who sell one bundle of paste a year to make their entire income."
Jaime sat back. He saw the logic of it. "I still say we won't lose," he muttered.
"Perhaps not," Blanco went on smoothly. "But consider. What if we commit our manpower to a war with Feliz? Where will our men be? One place they will not be is here. We will not have the proper force to guard our laboratory. What if Feliz should realize that and choose to lead us on to the outside, then send his men here to attack and take over? Where would that leave us?"
"But he doesn't know where we are," Jaime protested.
"He might," Gomez said. "You should never make the mistake of underestimating him. Others who have, lived to regret it."
"There is another consideration as well," Blanco informed them. "What if the fighting was initiated by a third party?"
"Who?" Jaime was immediately interested.
"It doesn't matter. Someone who might profit if we were to go to war with one another. Someone who might want a share of our profits."
"The fuckin' D.E.A.," Jaime yelled, slamming a fist down on Blanco's steel desk.
"They would be glad to see us wipe each other out," Blanco conceded, "but the method seems a little crude for them."
"Who else?" Gomez asked.
"As I said, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that we respond in the right way. What I suggest is that we simply treat this attack as an opportunity."
Jaime's face contorted in what passed for a thoughtful expression. "Huh?"
Blanco smiled at him. "An opportunity. A chance for us to profit even more than we do now."
Gomez leaned forward with interest. Whenever more profit was mentioned, he was sure to perk up. "What chance are you talking about?"
"The chance to go into business for ourselves. To take over the distribution of the finished product."
Gomez leaned back, rubbing his hands together. "Is it possible?"
"Of course. Since we no longer trust the Cubans, we establish our own network. We can do it with the contacts we have now. Cut out the middleman."
Gomez smiled with pleasure. "What an excellent idea. I'll get to work on it right away."
Even Jaime del Rio smiled. He understood that economic revenge was almost as good as bloodletting, if not always quite as satisfying. "Fuck 'em all," he said.
"Exactly," Blanco replied.
Stone awoke after exactly thirty minutes. He had the ability to rest deeply in a short span, and he felt almost as refreshed as if he had slept the night away. He was ready to go.
Carol met him at the door to the room. "I used our Bragg connection. There's a van waiting outside."
"Great. Let's check on Loughlin and Wiley."
Hog's voice came from the next room. "If you're waitin' on us, you're left behind. We're ready."
They got into their gear. This time, they would be going in hard. They were taking the heavy ordnance. Each man would be armed with an Ingram Model 10 submachine gun, chambered for .45-caliber ammo, in addition to his usual hand weapons. They would also be taking an M-16 equipped with an M-203 grenade launcher. There wasn't time to sneak in by way of a storm drain, and Stone didn't want to have to stop long for walls or gates.
"The important thing," he reminded his team, "is that we get Jack Wofford out. Everything else is secondary. Carol will be driving, and she'll be going in with us."
There was no objection. Both Hog and Loughlin knew that Carol Jenner was a fighter to equal nearly anyone.
"Any questions?"
There were none.
"Then let's go."
Enrique Feliz got there first. After all, he had a head start.
Crazy Charlie's estate was even larger than his father's, as if to make up for its inferior location. It covered an entire block, with the house approximately in the middle. The grounds were surrounded by a brick wall, and a curved drive ran from the house to a reinforced wrought-iron gate in the front. The gate was the weak point.
It was still shortly before dawn, but it didn't seem that the sky was getting any lighter. A low-pressure system had passed through the Miami area an hour or so before, bringing with it a heavy cloud cover that further darkened the sky and threatened rain.
Feliz sat in the cab of the moving van and directed the driver. "We can't hit the gate straight on, but if you get up a good head of steam you can turn into it and ram it hard. That is what we will do. Break it down, then go on through."
The driver nodded. They were two blocks away. He pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor.
"Hurry it up, goddammit!" Spittle flew from Crazy Charlie's lips as he urged his men to greater speed. There was a rumble of thunder and a flicker of lightning, briefly outlining the men who were trying to load the unconscious Wofford in the back of a car.
"Shove his ass in there! We gotta get outa here!" In the darkness, Charlie for the first time began to look like he was really crazy. His men knew that he did odd things, but they had never seen him act this way before.
"Let's get the fuck outa here!" Charlie screamed. He climbed into a car on the passenger side and slammed the door behind him. "Step on it!"
It was hard to believe, but Charlie was scared. Someone was breaking the rules. Could it be that the pussies from the D.E.A. had finally caught on? Could it be that they were going to use his own methods against him? It didn't seem possible, but there was no doubting the report he had received on the telephone.
Someone had actually broken into his father's house and killed him. That same someone might now be after Charlie. Surely not the D.E.A. The Cubans? The Colombians?
It didn't matter. Charlie was getting out, and he was taking his bargaining chip with him.
Gravel flew from beneath the tires of the three cars in the convoy as they started out. Charlie was with Wofford in the middle car. If it was the fucking D.E.A., Wofford was history.
The orange-and-black van crashed into the gate, mangling the iron and tossing the two pieces of the gate backward into Charlie's estate. The driver backed up and straightened the van, then drove it through the gate.
Alarms began sounding, but there was no one to hear them in the house.
Charlie's convoy came around a bend in the road and met
the van. The driver quickly pulled the van across the road, blocking it. Feliz spoke into an intercom, and his Marielitos opened fire with their Uzis.
Charlie's men came out of the cars. They were equally well armed.
The Uzis on both sides opened fire.
The Marielitos had not been able to get to both flanks of the convoy, so Charlie's men crouched behind the cars and exchanged fire with the enemy.
Charlie's car was armored, so he decided to stay inside. He was not going to kill Wofford. As a last resort, it was possible that he could trade him for his own life.
Charlie lay on the floor of the car, afraid to look up. He could hear the breaking of glass as headlights popped, the bullets thudding into the sheet metal of the cars, the screams of wounded and dying men.
Like Charlie, Feliz stayed inside. There was really no need for him to step into the fighting. His men were doing just fine, though many of them were dying. There was little natural cover, and they were having to hide behind the borders of flowerbeds and small ornamental statues.
One man stood up and charged the cars, firing wildly through the windows. Glass shattered and flew all around.
The man was brought to a halt by the stitching of a machine gun across his midsection. He was cut in half. Feliz could have sworn that the man's legs took another two steps after his torso fell backward.
Then Feliz heard a hard, whuumping sound. The gas tank on the third car had exploded.
Charlie heard the explosion too. He stuck his head up and saw the fireball behind him.
It was time to get out.
He tugged at Wofford, but the D.E.A. man was deadweight. To hell with him. Let him lie there and burn. Charlie didn't give a shit. All he wanted now was out.
He slipped out the door of the car on the side with his men. They kept up a steady fire. A man beside Charlie raised up, and his head seemed to explode, three bullets hitting it at once.
Charlie looked to the other side and saw a man dancing backward, gobbets of flesh being ripped from his chest.
M.I.A. Hunter: Miami War Zone Page 11