by Julia Payne
Nyke was in the building, that was for certain. I just needed to find a way to get in. If they knew I was coming, they would have all the obvious points of entry covered. That means the front entrance was out of the questions. The construction site next door was a possibility I thought as I crouched beneath the snowbank. A small gap in the snow gave me a view of the street across. This part of the street had been plowed. The plow now sat at the end of the street; its driver slumped over the steering with a bullet in his head.
The snow was covering it fast. Nothing there either, I tell myself. At this rate, I have to consider myself ambushed. There was no way out and not many places to hide. In the distance, I begin to hear voices. More like one voice, and he's yelling commands in Greek.
"That can't be Nyke," I tell myself. It must be one of his goons. The voice continued to give out instructions in a short burst as it got louder. He was moving in my direction. It was clear by the speed he was approaching where I was. He had no idea I was alive; I was hoping. Just in case my comm erupted, I turned it off. It was the one thing everyone sees in movies that give away one's position. What a cliché, I think.
"I could lay down and play dead," I whisper. That would be another cliché. No. Think, Sam. Think. I had no other choice but to risk getting to the construction site and jumping over the wood hoarding. I didn't know how much attention I would attract once I got up and ran for the fence. But there was no more time for calculations. I needed to move, and so I did. The good thing about all that snow was that my boots hit the ground in silence. No one heard a peep as I made my way to the six-foot plywood hoarding and leaped. Using my momentum, I swung over the fence and landed on the other side. The snow was heavy on the other side, and I fell in waist-deep. At least the landing was soft.
I stopped just to tune my ears to the chill of the ambient surroundings. I needed to pick up any sound from the street-side of the wooden fence. There were faint sounds – ones that I couldn't make out. My ears picked them up, but my mind couldn't process them. It was then I realized, too, that I could feel the pounding of my heart in my head, and it dominated what my ears were picking up. I had to calm down. But, how could I? How could I expect to calm down? Everyone around me, and everyone, presumably, at the end of the com channel back at the 34th Street safe house, were dead.
"This was not a time to ask someone to be calm."
I tried to listen for anyone banging up against the fence, but there weren't any. I was hoping the snow would cover my tracks before anyone found them. That would be the only way I escaped. So far, my luck had been holding. There was no burst of excitement on the other side.
The construction side of the fence was a mess. The crew had stopped work, it seemed like, since the week before Christmas. The snow had homogenized and visually sterilized the equipment. It was now an undulating blanket of white. Serene. But beneath, I knew, they held hazards that could prove more lethal than the men on the street. I had to tread carefully.
The radio in my ear had turned eerily silent. Not only were the men in the SWAT team neutralized, the men at the command center were also gone. The chain of command had been severed. I did not know how to get in touch with anyone at the Bureau. Cell phones were not allowed on raids.
Hugging the perimeter wall, I made my way to the edge of the building. The darkness inside would give me the cover I needed, and the falling snow would obscure my tracks within no time. Pushing through nearly waist-high snow was exhausting, but I had to push through the pain. It was my only salvation at this point, and I had to keep that in mind.
Whatever ambient light that fell on the features of the cityscape fell into darkness as I entered the old structure. If my New York history serves me correctly, this was in the old tenement areas. This commercial lot with accommodations upstairs was probably some kind of a sweatshop. There has got to be a basement or a substructure, and that's what I have to find.
It was not time for me to liberate my flashlight, and my Glock sat in its holster. For now, I needed both my hands to feel my way through the dark maze. It was beginning to get uncomfortable as well. The snow that had been all over me had melted, soaking through my jacket and gear. I could feel my skin pruning underneath it all.
Making my way a little faster now, as my eyes acclimated to the total darkness, I found the rear of the premises and the stairs descended into the basement. Stepping on the side of the steps reduced the creak that otherwise did its best to announce my arrival to the furthest corners of the property. I couldn't have that and so took a little more care in making my way down. Once below, I was certain that no one would see the illumination of my flashlight. I wish I hadn't lost my night-vision goggles. They would have been convenient right now, I thought as I clicked the high-powered led flashlight that bathed the dilapidated basement in white light.
I looked around and processed my surroundings. The work crew hadn't started doing anything down here. I was right. It was an old building and some of the weaving machines dated back to the turn of the twentieth century. I looked down the path and around to my rear. Another set of stairs beckoned. Another flight of stairs, I thought, relishing the stroke of luck that had now decided to visit me.
These stairs were made of brick which afforded me the freedom to move faster and not worry about the creaking wooded stairs were notorious about. As I descended, I noticed a smell that was not there on the upper floors. I am not sure at first what it might be. As a Special Agent with the FBI for just over a decade, I've been introduced to smell most people wouldn't come across their entire lives. Yet, even then, this one was beyond my ability to recognize it. The frigid air mixed with the heating oil hurt the tender lining of my nose. On top of that, I could detect a layer of smell that indicated wood that had rotted over the years – moldy and familiar. On top of that was the smell of old brick.
Everything my nose detected, my eyes could pick out. The kerosene tanks stood silently in the southeastern corner of the building while the beams that held the ceiling up looked like something from a mine in an old Western. The underground cavern was a large area with no rooms or partitions, just pillars to hold up the structure above. The perimeter was covered in old brick and mortar.
Most of the floor was covered with a layer of concrete – no doubt done just a few years ago. In areas where they had eroded and cracked, they exposed the earth. The recent owners must have laid a concrete floor to cover the bare soil and prevent a pest problem.
But there was still another feature to the smell that I could not detect. "Is it essential? I asked myself if I was getting distracted by something that would not yield a path to the objective. Orienting myself, I Figured which wall marked the boundary of the property. The wall directly beside me was the rear of the property. The alley was right behind the building, so behind that wall was probably where the sewer line ran.
The wall that connected to that behind me was where the side street ran. There was a good chance that's where the water main ran. That was a brick wall, too, and it looked like it might have been the same brick that had been used in the original construction. A strong arm could push through a chunk of it since the mortar holding it together was almost just clumps of dust. I walked along that east wall to find the north wall that now faced me. That was the front of the property. Above that, on the street level, would be where the newly erected wooden fence was. Beyond that would be where Bleecker street ran. That smell I couldn't identify at first still lingered. It had just altered the smell of wood rot, and the kerosene was significantly less. It gave way to a better perception of the unidentifiable smell. It was a lot stronger now, and I finally put my finger on it. It was the smell of break dust mixed in with all the other scents of the old building. I knew the smell of subway brake dust – every New Yorker does. But when it mingled with the brick, the earth, and the old kerosene in the tanks, it came off differently. This was where the Subway line passed, and if I could smell the subway from here, it meant that the wall was porous.
That gave me an idea.
Chapter 3
Second Generation in Service
My family, the Winchesters, are all about service. My father was a colonel in the army, having been through the hell they called Vietnam. As a young soldier, his boots first hit the tropical soil of the Southeast Asian country early in its long and deadly lifespan. He served a total of three tours, was shot twice, and received a Purple Heart for his service.
In his last tour, his unit took on heavy fire and was trapped in a swampy marsh. For three days, they held out as Charlie surrounded them. The fighter squadron that was supposed to napalm the area and cleared a path for his unit could not fear that they would hit his men. For three days, they held out without supplies – just what they had carried out that morning when they set out to secure the underground network that Charlie used to navigate the rainforest.
The thoughts of her father were triggered, no doubt, by the sensation of being in one of those musty underground networks – or at least, that's what she imagined them to be when he told her stories growing up.
Every once in a while, she would stop just to make sure that there were no other sounds to indicate the presence of the enemy. She had solved the puzzle of the unfamiliar smell, but it occurred to her that she had not heard a train go by in a long time. If the subway line was indeed behind that wall, she should have felt the rumble of one pass in the time she had been in the basement.
"They must have shut the line down because of the blizzard," I whisper to myself, somehow carrying on a conversation with myself felt comfortable, as though I was not alone. I may have been one of the few female front-line agents in the Bureau, but no one likes being alone when there is a threat vector just over your head and one that is brutal enough to have taken out the entire highly trained FBI SWAT team in under a few minutes. Plus, I had already read about Nyke. I never felt the fear of facing him since I had the tactical team's entire might. They've taken down some really nasty pieces of work, and as long as they were on my six, I had nothing to fear. But they were no longer on my six. Now the fear had found its way to the surface, but as much as I felt the weight of grief press down on me, I also realized those men were dead, and if I didn't focus, I would be next.
Time was not on my side, Nyke's meetings, according to Interpol intelligence usually only lasted about two to three hours. Not only were the exchanges done at nighttime, but it was also the only time in the year he met with his lieutenants on the continent. The men assembled upstairs had come from Chicago, L.A., Miami, and Phoenix. They represented the leadership of the syndicate that Nyke had created over the last fifteen years. When they had arrested him in London, all the lieutenants from his British operations had assembled.
Money laundering was just the most visible part of the syndicate. They had other significantly illegal operations. They needed to launder the money because of all the illicit cash that flowed into their coffers from their activities. You name it. Prostitution, counterfeit goods, slave labor, drugs, alcohol, organ harvesting, and contract killing were just some of the things they did worldwide, and all of it generated billions every year.
Putting Nyke away was a high priority for the FBI because the U.S. Treasury had calculated that the total economic impact of the Nyke Crime Syndicate on the global economy was nearly a trillion dollars annually. Interpol saw it that way, too, but they could never pull it off.
As I thought about all the factors that were at play two floors above me on the streets of downtown New York, I found myself staring at the west wall of the basement. It looked like a solid push could break through and, if my calculations were correct, it would open up the basement below the building Nyke was currently in.
I looked around for something I could use. I couldn't see anything. Well, at least I couldn't see anything I thought I could use. I put my wet shoulder into it. It moved a little but not enough to break through. I was confident I could find the tools I needed to penetrate the wall. It was, after all, a construction site. I hurried back up the brick staircase and got to the floor just below the ground floor. Looking around, it didn't take long to find a sledgehammer. It must have weighed about fifty pounds and would be the perfect tool.
Within two minutes, I had managed to make a hole about the size of a melon. It was enough to look inside the space behind the wall. A rush of cold air washed over me as I looked in to see if there was any light or any sign of life. There wasn't any. It was then the moment of truth. I placed my flashlight in the hole and looked around. It was a clean basement. No furniture. Just a cement floor and plastered walls. At the end of the large space was a door. It showed promise.
I decided to pull more of the bricks apart. I realized that they had been plastered on the other side from where I stood, and that was the reason they didn't come down when I put my shoulder into it. If it was in the same condition as my side of the wall, pushing on it would have caused it to come tumbling down.
I climbed in and made my way to the door. From a distance, I could hear voices coming from beyond, but they sounded like it was coming from just one man. He was on his phone, most likely. I could not understand a word he said but knew he was speaking Greek. Reaching for my holster, I retrieved my gun. Its silencer was in my utility belt, which I retrieved and screwed it on. If he was alone, I needed to neutralize him before setting off some kind of alarm or notified his comrades.
Reaching the door, I turned my flashlight off and pushed it back into its place on my belt. It took a couple of minutes for my eyes to acclimate to the darkness, but once they did, I could see that there was a sliver of light under the door.
Silently I approached. It was beginning to become apparent that it was the guard deployed to safeguard the basement. But it was just an empty room. Why would it need guarding? I thought, turning one last time to look at. Only darkness stared back.
It was another mystery I didn't need to solve at this point. Right now, I needed to get to Nyke and get him to Federal Plaza, just four blocks south. Locked and loaded, I held the Glock firmly in my right hand. With my head cocked to the right, my aim traveled down my right arm and across the muzzle of my weapon. I reach for the door with my left hand and open it as quietly as I could. The click was perceptible but barely. The Greek on the phone was still talking and focused on his call. It wasn't bad-guy stuff from the sound of it. Groveling sounds the same in any language, I guess. It had to be a girl on the other end he was chatting up.
From the crack in the door, I could see the back of his head. Before I squeezed the trigger, I looked downrange. There was no one else in the hallway to the end. I wasn't sure what was behind him. That would be to the right of the door. I had to take the risk. I stuck my head out and looked to the right. No one.
Back in my position behind the door, I looked at the Greek through the sights and squeezed the trigger. A direct hit straight into the base of his neck. Most T.V. shows love to portray headshots where there is splatter and brain matter all over the surrounding architecture. I liked going for the base of the skull. Almost no splatter and the kill are instantaneous since the spine, and spinal cord are instantly shattered. Most people hit the head or center mass because the chances of a hit are much greater. My instructor in sniper school told us that only real shooters would even dare aim for the base of the skull and not miss. Most shooters aimed for center mass because it was an easier hit. Missing by even an inch, on either side of the intended point of impact, and the victim would still receive a bone-crushing blow. But in a neck shot, an inch to the left or right could mean that the bullet just grazed the target.
I slid out of the door and walked over to the man whose friend on the other end of the line was still talking, unaware that the guy was already dead. I looked at the body and realized that his phone would be useful. I disconnected the call he was on and blocked the number, knowing that whoever was on the other end might try to call back. I also silenced the ring tone. I needed the phone to call for assistance but now was not the best time to
do that. The more the night went on, the more I started to get the feeling that it was all an inside job.
I pick up his phone – an iPhone 12. All these gangster types have the latest gadgets. I should just stake out the launch day and bag all those people in line on the first day. I would probably be able to bag several mafioso types. I think to myself in a moment of levity. I realize his latest phone was a boon for me. Most of the other phones in this range had facial scanners to unlock. This one had an in-screen finger-pointer reader. I kneel and place his dead thumb on the screen, and the phone lights up. Good. It works, I think to myself as I remove the six-inch blade from my ankle holster and a slice of his thumb. I needed it to activate his phone.
Calling the Bureau was not on my immediate list of things to do. Besides, even if I did and brought it back up, they would probably be gunned down by the snipers on elevated positions. The last thing we needed was a Christmas Eve blood bath in downtown Manhattan. The FBI had already been on the receiving end of poor publicity, and this would just aggravate it.
I slid the phone into my inner breast pocket and its owner's thumb into my utility pocket by my right knee. I realize that I am still soaking wet on their inside, but no longer as cold as I was just a few minutes earlier. As I begin to move forward, it occurs to me that listening in on their conversation might be helpful, so I pull out the long-range communicator the man has clipped to his belt and disengage it from the earpiece wire that is plugged into it. I find that it accepts the same plug that's at the end of my earpiece, which means I can plug his communicator into my earphones.
As soon as I do, I hear chatter on the other side. I enter midstream of a conversation between the men, presumably on the street level looking through the dead bodies littered on the streets and hanging out at the SWAT van. I catch a break; the conversation is in English, and the accent is American. Not everyone in this band of gangsters is Greek. I think to myself as I pay attention to the conversation and move forward cautiously. From the bottom of the stairs, I look up to see a well-lit upper basement. The lack of shadows and voices tells me that it's safe to ascend. This triggers a familiar thought – one that I had when I first encountered the groveling Greek. Why was he guarding the lower basement?