The Reluctant Warrior (Warriors Series Book 2)

by Ty Patterson

  Broker looked over at Bwana and frowned. Bwana and Chloe were looking up at the ceiling. If you looked hard enough, you could just make out the concealed camera. Bwana stuck his finger up and grinned silently.

  ‘Cut that shit out, Bwana. This is a public place.’

  Chloe gave a last look at the camera. ‘Maybe Bear and I should wait in the Rover?’

  Broker nodded in their direction, their ride had to be secure, and settled down to wait, Roger and Bwana leaning against the opposite wall. An hour later they were unmoving, all three of them, with their eyes shut. They heard various customers drift in and out of the office, the clunky sounds of the garage at work, and then the inner door opened.

  ‘Come.’

  Broker opened his eyes to see Quinn beckoning at him. He flowed out of his chair and approached Quinn, Bwana and Roger falling in behind him.

  ‘Not them. Just you. This is not a fucking convention.’

  Bwana and Roger resumed their Zen meditation as Broker disappeared behind the inner door.

  It was a simple office. There were millions of such offices in millions of garages around the country. Untidy piles of paper littered the desk and the filing cabinet in the corner, posters and certifications hung on the wall, a coffee pot bubbled away in the corner.

  Millions of garages around the country did not have Dieter Hamm, chapter head of 5 Clubs, seated lazily behind the desk. Hamm was wearing a blue shirt hugging his muscular body, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing veined, hairy, tattooed forearms. His eyes were dark and hooded as he watched Broker cross the room and seat himself after being expertly patted down by Quinn.

  He tossed Broker’s card across the desk. ‘You demanded this meeting. What do you want?’

  Broker leaned back in his chair and contemplated him, and a broad smile split his face, a chuckle coming from deep inside.

  Hamm’s hooded eyes didn’t change; his expression didn’t change. ‘Something funny?’

  Broker waved his hand to encompass the room. ‘Yup. This. You. You’re just a punk. All right, a punk who dresses well and speaks well, but still a punk. And look at your airs!’

  Quinn shifted on his legs behind him, his shoes creaking above the muted sound of the garage. Hamm blinked. ‘You’re wasting my time. What do you want?’

  ‘I want the mole you guys have in the FBI.’

  Hamm regarded Broker curiously. ‘Mole? FBI? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would I have a mole in the FBI? What does a garage have to do with them?’

  Broker smiled, but no mirth reached his eyes. ‘Look, Hammy. I’m so glad you didn’t pull that I’m-just-a-small-business shit with me. I know who you are, and doubtless you have done some research on me. Let’s not act virginal about this FBI mole crap. I know you have one there, you know it, and the Feds know it. All I want is the scumbag’s name, and I’m out of your life. I am least interested in your gang and your activities.’

  Hamm continued regarding him curiously. ‘Is this where the threats come in? Where you say you’ll destroy us if we don’t give up this hypothetical mole?’

  Broker’s sunny grin filled the room. ‘Hammy, don’t be dramatic. You guys are what, three, four hundred at last count. How can three or four of us destroy you? Nope. I think you’ll listen to reason.’

  Hamm’s brow furrowed. ‘What might that reason be?’

  Broker had to restrain himself from rubbing his hands together. ‘Those guys outside, they’re the reason. See, two of them are known to you. They came across your guys on the border… you’re short a few hoods over there, aren’t you?

  ‘You might want to check their faces against the news bulletins from Tucson,’ he added helpfully.

  He heard Quinn leave the office and allowed the silence to build.

  ‘Those two don’t like hoods. Hell, none of us do. You guys are parasites. But as you know, I am a businessman. Live and let live is my policy.’ Broker believed himself. Almost.

  He nodded his head, indicating the guys outside. ‘I had a tough time restraining those two. They not only share my dislike for hoods, they carry a torch for the vulnerable. Like young girls. Women. Children. They wanted to start a war in Arizona and California and take down all your guys there. The Border Patrol talked them out of it. Luckily. For you.

  ‘So, they’re the reason. Them and the other two.’ He sat back, case made.

  Hamm held up a calloused hand, the fingers slender and rock steady. ‘I’m trembling. Wetting my pants.’

  ‘I didn’t think you would be. You’re a shit. But you’re a shit that’s survived the toilet paper. But I also think you, and all you cruds and your chief crud, Scheafer, are businessmen and understand risk and reward, cost and benefits.’

  ‘You really thought you could come here, insult us, demand this nonexistent mole, and we would bend over?’

  Broker smiled genuinely this time. ‘Nope. This is exactly the reaction I was expecting. My guys will be glad. They’re getting fat and lazy.’

  He headed to the door and pulled it open and turned back. ‘You’re lucky. Bwana wanted to take you out today.’

  Hamm stared at the door as he heard muffled voices from behind it. It swung open abruptly.

  Bwana and Roger took a step inside silently and looked back at him.

  Roger finally spoke. ‘We’ll save you for last.’

  Chapter 21

  ‘What now?’ Chloe demanded as they reached the Rover. She had to shout to be heard over a power hammer and compressor.

  All of them were wearing shades, the specially modified Ray-Ban Aviators Broker had outfitted with rear cameras. Broker turned on his shades and noticed the hoods bunched together watching their departure.

  ‘Any trouble?’ he asked Chloe in return.

  ‘Nope. They would be stupid to do anything in broad daylight,’ she replied impatiently.

  ‘Hey, no one said hoods were geniuses.’ He rolled outside the exit, and once they hit Nicholas Avenue, his eyes met Bwana’s in the mirror.

  ‘Let me know if you can spot them.’

  Bwana nodded silently and went back to watching through the darkened rear window.

  Broker glanced sideways over his shoulder at Bear and Chloe and answered her finally. ‘Now we sit tight for a couple of days and then hit one of their warehouses. We rinse and repeat. We remain on the move always.’

  Bear broke his usual silence. ‘You know where they stash their drugs?’

  Broker grinned. ‘I can find some of them. But let’s not go just after the drugs. They run a whole lot of operations, drugs, girls, porn video shops, you name it. Let’s distribute the pain.’

  Roger looked at the rearview mirror on his door, and no vehicle stood out. ‘Why wait a couple of days? We’ve warned him already.’

  Broker nodded as Chloe cut in, ‘Yep, but waiting will dull their alertness. That’s assuming they take us seriously.’

  ‘They will if they’ve got enough intel on us.’

  Silence descended on them, a comfortable silence born out of working together, fitting perfectly, and knowing that each of their lives could, and had depended on the others.

  ‘Five o’clock, tan Toyota Camry. Been with us for a while now through the lights and traffic. I make two in the front. Driver and passenger. Can’t make their faces,’ Bwana said, looking at the tiny images on his shades, then looking out the back.

  Roger removed his Aviators and adjusted the mirror on his side. ‘Got them.’

  ‘We lose them?’ he asked Broker.

  Broker looked at the series of traffic lights strung out ahead of them in the distance and sped up a notch, keeping in the outer lane.

  The Toyota followed and cut across the lanes lazily and positioned itself a couple of cars behind them.

  Broker drove steadily, following the weight of the traffic, and as he approached the third light, he slowed down and then punched the gas as it turned red, cut across the lanes dangerously, and pulled a tight illegal U-turn, leavin
g rubber and furious honking behind.

  The Toyota was stuck at the light, its driver burning holes through their glass as they headed in the opposite direction.

  Broker punched a button on the wheel for a number.

  ‘Yeah?’ a laconic voice answered.

  ‘Tony, we’ll be there in twenty. Everything set?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  Broker hung up and relaxed back.

  ‘We switching?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘Yup. Switching where we stay too. We’ll keep changing locations now.’

  Broker drove to the financial district and into a basement parking lot of a towering office block. The lot was empty except for a black Ford Taurus in the far corner.

  Tony, skinny and with thinning hair, jumped out of the Taurus and approached them when Broker parallel parked. He stroked his thinning hair. ‘I swung by your apartment and got all your kits packed in separate go bags.’

  He blushed as he turned to Chloe. ‘Uhhh, ma’am, I put together some stuff for you too.’

  Chloe smiled at him reassuringly. ‘We’ll do just fine, Tony. Thanks for your help.’

  They transferred their weapons from the Rover to the Taurus, and Broker tossed its keys to Tony. ‘Get it back to the basement, Tony. I’ll be on my satellite phone; we all will be on ours, from now on. Hold the fort and run past my apartment every now and then. You know the drill.’

  Tony nodded and gave them a salute as he drove the Rover away.

  ‘Good guy. He’s my number two. Don’t let his appearance fool you. Ex-Ranger. He’s ice cold under pressure and a master marksman who’s seen combat.’ Broker nodded in his direction. ‘All my guys are either ex-police or ex-military… cool heads when things hit the fan.’

  He noticed Roger rummaging through his go bag. ‘Problem?’

  Roger shook his head. ‘On the contrary. How the hell did he know my favorite stuff?’

  Broker was incredulous. ‘I am in the intelligence business, Rog.’ He shook his head in despair as Roger disappeared behind the Taurus to change into a pair of jeans.

  ‘Why’re you changing?’

  Bwana jumped in disgustedly, ‘Hell, he’s like that. Changes four or five times a day. Has to look as if he’s stepped out of GQ.’

  Roger folded his discarded clothes, stuffed them in the bag, and approached them.

  ‘What?’ Bwana asked him, seeing the expression on his face.

  Roger held out a phone. ‘I found this in my jeans. I was wearing them in the valley.’

  Bwana frowned as he inspected the phone. ‘This must be from one of the bandits. We were searching them, and you must have slipped it in your pocket and then forgotten about it.’

  He powered it on. ‘Nada. No juice.’

  Broker took apart its battery and put it back again and powered it up. He shook his head. ‘Deader than that frog in my biology class in high school. This is a pretty basic phone. We’ll power it up later and see whether we can retrieve any numbers or messages off it.’

  Roger looked at him doubtfully. ‘I think there was one number on it, but I don’t remember it.’ He looked at Bwana, who shook his head. ‘Shouldn’t we ship it to the Border Patrol?’

  ‘We will. After we have played around with it.’

  He clapped Roger on the shoulder. ‘Good find, even if it was a late discovery. Now let’s hope it yields some dirt.’

  Chloe had been inspecting her bag and looked up impatiently. ‘Can we get out of here now? Broker, I presume you’ve arranged digs for us?’

  ‘You presume right, Chloe. A seedy place – an hourly hotel, between Little Italy and Central Park, will be our palace for a few days. Not exactly the Mandarin Oriental.’

  He drove out of the basement lot and merged into traffic, which was moving slowly, dragged down by the after-office commuters.

  The hotel was as seedy as Broker had promised. A wad of cash flashed by Broker ensured that the desk clerk didn’t glance at them, hardly looking up from the lurid magazine he was thumbing through.

  Broker pulled out his iPad once they had settled in and assembled in his room. ‘One of their stashes.’ He enlarged a section of the map of Harlem. ‘About half an hour drive from the garage, the other end of Harlem, near the river. The gang bought a dilapidated plot having a couple of semi-detached houses a few years back and converted it to a storage and distribution center. They deliberately let it run down on the outside and on the inside demolished the separating walls and made it one large warehouse.

  ‘They receive drugs here, unpack them and pack them into smaller units for street distribution. They usually have fifty Ks there, and that’s just coke. They have other nasties there, meth, PCP, 2CP, all kinds of stuff people inhale, inject, and consume.’

  He pulled up a series of images of the warehouse. ‘The warehouse is basically a long rectangle with one of the smaller sides facing the street. It’s surrounded by a wall, and there’s a gated entrance at street level. Front door is solid oak, a few inches thick, opens outward. Has a sliding slat that covers a peephole. A couple of barred windows either side of the door, a bit high up, and three windows each on the side walls. The rear is exactly the same as the front. Just the two exits, front and back. All windows are barred. Four corners of the house have CCTV cameras. As far as Joe Public is concerned, this place is some sort of civic or community center. A couple of heavies always at the gate to discourage Joe Public and to ensure that the right community enters the warehouse. Not that it’s a street Joe Public would frequent. It’s gang territory, and they know enough to keep away.’

  Chloe frowned at the images. ‘What about the surroundings?’

  ‘Low-income apartment blocks, where a lot of single-parent families, broken families, reside. This is not exactly the neighborhood where you’ll find moms and kids or couples going for a stroll. If there’s anyone loitering on the street, chances are they’re hoods.’

  ‘How come the police haven’t pulled this place down? If you know of this, surely they do too? In fact, how did you know the chapters operate from all those places, that garage, for example? If it was so easy to find where the gang holed up, surely the cops would have been on them like a ton of bricks,’ Bwana asked him.

  Broker counted on his fingers. ‘One, the cops cannot act until they have probable cause, for which they have to mount surveillance, monitor various gangbangers, all that shit, which can take days, weeks, months or years. Just because they know that the garage is Hamm’s office isn’t worth jack.

  ‘Two, the chapter headquarters are properties owned by the gang through a series of shell companies, which have offshore accounts. The cops need warrants and have to cut through international red tape to tie all those together and lead it back to the gang. Werner’ – he nodded at his computer – ‘doesn’t need all that shit. Werner goes where he wants to’ – the program was a living being for Broker – ‘does what he wants, and leaves no trace. I have some incredibly smart guys all over the world, like the Ukraine for example, who put the pieces together. There’s a lot of technology that goes into gathering such info. Using gangbanger sightings at various places, correlating street chatter, drawing radii of influences, running facial recognition programs, analyzing Facebook posts, reading financial statements… lots of geeky stuff.’

  The middle finger came out. ‘I shared my dossier on the gang with the cops a long time back, and I’m sure the intel in it has helped their organized crime task forces, but like I said, they’ve got their constraints.’

  Broker made a disgusted face. ‘One of my analysts came across this warehouse by accident when he was gathering juice on illegal arms shipments in the city. I fed the NYPD this intel, and they never did anything about it. I took it up with Clare, and she said the NYPD had politely told her that I should mind my own business. So I did.’

  Roger looked up at him. ‘Are you sure the gang still uses the warehouse?’

  ‘Yup. Tony has been watching it for a few weeks now. In fact, there’s poss
ibly a stash there; he saw stuff being unloaded. Came two days back and the gang hasn’t shipped out whatever came in yet.’

  Chloe scrolled through the various images. ‘How many bandits?’

  ‘About eight heavies work inside the warehouse and cover it, two or three park their asses on the street usually. But Tony says now there are anywhere from twelve to fifteen inside and five outside. Guess Hamm must have told them about us.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we tip the cops?’ Roger asked.

  Broker grinned. ‘Done. I’ve a friend there who’s pretty high up; I’ve told him. Have also asked him to give us a few hours before they hit the warehouse. We go a long way back, plus Clare has pulled strings. Dunno what yarn she has spun, but he knows juice when he hears it.’

  Bear cracked his knuckles. ‘What’s the plan?’

  Broker grinned. ‘We do some distribution ourselves.’

  Chapter 22

  They hit the warehouse at noon the next day.

  Bwana cruised down the street, driving a bright red Ford SUV with dark windows, wearing a red cut-off tee that showed off his heavily muscled arms, a black bandana covering his head. His windows were rolled down, and music blasted away, audible at the next planet. Not exactly a gangbanger look, more like dad-banger.

  ‘Five hoods outside, three to the left of the gate, two to the right. All wearing our favorite gang tats. Gate is wide open. No signs of activity outside or inside,’ he murmured into his collar mic.

  ‘Roger,’ came Broker’s voice through the flesh-colored earbud.

  Bwana glanced disinterestedly at the hoods and drove slowly on. Once past them, he arranged his inside mirror and made eye contact with Roger and Bear, who were in the rear of the vehicle. They gave him a silent thumbs-up, having heard his call to Broker.

  Bwana drove around the block and re-entered the street again, driving slowly. ‘All clear, except for the hoods.’

  ‘Roger. You can see us now.’

  From the other end of the street an identical SUV approached, heading his way.