by Sam Cade
“Oh, oh, oh. One more thing, Lucky. Abbottabad. May 2nd, 2011. Now, that was an interesting evening.” Zeus let it hang for a few moments. Dead silence.
He continued. “If this thing works out between us...I gotta know what it was like coming in hot on those choppers right into Bin Laden’s compound. That’s some balls out shit, man!”
Lucky said nothing.
“You sit tight, Lucky. Focus on one thing. A lawyer paid me to help him kill your daddy...that’s all you need to know. Watch your email. I’ll call you in one week.” Zeus rang off.
ZEUS SMILED TO HIMSELF WHEN THE PHONE WENT DEAD. He knew he got under Lucky’s skin. He stepped out of the Subaru, left the door open, placed the new phone in front of the left front tire. He got back in the car, drove forward over the phone, heard the plastic crunch, and proceeded out of the parking lot. He drove across the bridge to Ocean Springs, then out to the interstate, and headed east on I-10.
LUCKY STARED PAST THE TELEVISION, through the sliding glass doors into the black windy night. He chugged a couple more beers after the phone call. After getting a little drunk deliberately, he threw on a fleece and Crocs and stepped out into the cold California night. A breeze blew into his collar. He crossed his arms to hug himself. Stars sparkled in the sky like tiny diamonds on black velvet. Clouds raced across a three-quarter moon. It was gorgeous, the vastness of the universe. The beer melted his brain open.
Looking at the sky, he screamed out loud, “How did this happen? How in the fuck did all this happen?”
He stood outside for forty-five minutes while the cold and the heavens flushed the mellow buzz from his head. His white-hot desperation abated. A roadmap was starting to appear. His blood flow began to trickle again, battlefield cold and determined.
Indecision time was over.
Fuckin’ right he’d look at what the man had. Lucky was ready to get back what he was owed. And then some.
They killed my father.
HITTING THE SACK, HE THOUGHT ABOUT Zeus’s request. It was the day in which Lucky made the history books, the most exciting hours of his life.
Two radar-evading MH-60 Blackhawks blazed through the moonless Pakistani night twisting and banking through the mountain ridgelines heading towards the tall man in white robes. Code name, Geronimo. He’d been a ghost for ten years.
The birds were stealth-optimized to mask heat, noise, and movement. Army Night Stalkers manned the sticks flying lights-off peering through sixty-thousand dollars-a-pop night vision goggles. Twenty-three SEALS and one combat dog named Cairo on board holding on tight. Engine vibration rattled through their bones like white noise in the background. Everybody hyper-focused. Eyes closed, brains retracing every step of the plan. Over and over and over. Adrenaline jacked through their arteries like runaway storm wash. Same exact feeling that barbarians felt centuries before.
Lucky’s bird came over the compound wall ready to maintain a hover, let the men fast-rope down. Night heat was higher than expected. The chopper found itself caught in an unexpected air vortex which blocked the downwash of the rotor blades. No lift. The chopper twisted and smashed its tail rotor on the compound’s wall. It crash landed hard.
We’re fucked now! That’s what Lucky thought.
But he emerged through the wreckage with a night vision set, a short-barreled, suppressed Heckler and Koch 416 assault rifle, C4 charges in a vest pocket, a suppressed Sig P226 handgun holstered to his thigh, a pocket-sized Olympus point-and-shoot camera, packets of energy gel, and a booklet stuffed in a vest pocket containing photos and descriptions of the expected suspects inside.
Then the party began.
2
SEVEN MONTHS LATER
Black Point, Alabama.
Monday, June 3, 2019
WILD BILL’S WHITE ’68 ROLLS ROYCE EXPLODED into a blizzard of steel, glass, and rubber at 5:37 a.m. in the morning darkness.
Nothing about it slow. Not a thing like a cartoon. The doors didn’t slowly bulge. The roof didn’t swell. No. It was quick. BOOM. Then it was gone.
Street level storefront windows on both sides of the street obliterated inward from the concussive shock wave. The hood blasted into Wild Bill’s waiting room spraying a hurricane rain of deadly plate glass shards. One of the car’s front tires landed on the second story roof over Wild Bill’s head sounding like a stove thrown out of an airliner.
The vintage automobile had been parked fifteen feet from the front door of Wild Bill Burnham’s law office, smack dab downtown Black Point, Alabama.
THREE HOURS BEFORE THE BLAST, AT 1:28 A.M., a blue mid-size Chevy rental drifted to a slow stop on the side of Great Bay Road nine hundred yards past the landmark Magnolia Hotel, three miles south of downtown Black Point. The driver doused the headlights a quarter mile earlier, dropped it in neutral, and began a slow coast to a stop on the empty road. The early morning was moonless, black, as the Chevy slithered to a stop. When the driver’s door opened the interior remained dark, roof dome light disengaged.
Lucky was six feet, lithe and nimble and dressed head to toe in black. Green camo paint was smeared on his face, a small polymer framed High Point .380 was in a right ankle holster and a black nylon fanny pack was strapped at his right hip.
He eased the door closed
He gathered his bearings before moving while his pupils dilated. The air was thick with wet night heat. The damp roadside ditch smelled of water weeds. A band of mosquitos lit around his eyes. He blew them away with a puff of air.
Not a hint of traffic. Dead Still. Tree frogs and crickets. Nothing but night music.
Ambient outside light from Wild Bill’s bayfront mansion sifted through a thick stand of oaks, pines, and magnolias. Surrounding ground cover near the road grew untouched, lush and wild. This was estate territory. Nothing sitting on the Point Clear bayfront for less than two million.
Lucky glided through seventy-five yards of dense foliage hugging tight to shadows until he reached the Rolls Royce. Intel said he didn’t need to be concerned about a dog. He dropped flat on his back to the white Bahamian rock drive, slid under the rear of the car, removed the compact mass of C4 from the fanny pack, attached the plastic explosive to the gas tank, placed the detonator, looked at the luminous dial of his combat watch, set the timer and slid out from under the car.
He blended into blackness as he speed-walked south to his car. Thought it a shame about that beautiful British classic.
TWO MINUTES BEFORE THE EXPLOSION, an incoming email pinged on Wild Bill’s Dell as it sat lopsided in his lap. He was comfortable on the second floor of his two-story building, leaning back in his executive chair facing parallel to his desk, his polished crocodile belly cowboy boots resting on a three-foot tall black mini fridge next to a Trump bobblehead, his hero. Within hands reach on his desk were six slices of microwave bacon and a cinnamon raisin bagel overloaded with cream cheese.
He was sifting for internet dirt on a shifty backroom deal maker, the CEO of a New Orleans commercial paving contractor who Bill understood to be bid-rigging state highway contracts. Wild Bill loved the dear folks of Louisiana. Corruption came hard boiled in their DNA, leaving honesty just out of reach of their twiddling fingers.
Wild Bill glanced at the sender, thought nothing of it, at first.
[email protected].
Spam bullshit.
It was titled: U GOT 90 SECONDS
The email was sent encrypted through the sophisticated Tor data transmission process, seven thousand relays concealing the location and identity of the sender. The final layer decrypted the initial email so the intended receiver could read it.
Panic? Ninety seconds? Well, heck, Wild Bill couldn’t resist. He clicked the message open.
Please Insert Ear Protection Devices at This Moment. Time for Lift-off.
Then the whole building rocked.
Wild Bill hopped in the chair as his ass muscles seized. His computer hit the floor. His heart jolted into a racing rhythm, deep and hard. His eyebrows scrunc
hed. His eyes suspiciously glanced across the walls. What in the fuck?
Then the tire crashed to the building roof. Bill ducked while his hands flew up to cover his head.
Running his mug on 126 billboards and counting, from Houston to Tallahassee, Wild Bill was the biggest billboard bottom-feeder on the upper Gulf Coast. His fleshy bourbon-flushed head was stuffed up into an oversized black Stetson with his leech-bait tagline on monster highway signs:
Go For The Kill
Call Wild Bill!
1-800-ALL-CASH
His phone rang more than the New York Police Department.
3
MORNING LIGHT EMERGED BY 6:05. Downtown Black Point swarmed with fire, police, and paramedics; no one sure what happened with Bill’s car. Temps hinted of the blast furnace heat that would smother the town by noon. Each end of the block was cordoned off with yellow tape, a passel of police cruisers, and cops complaining about missing breakfast.
Strewn debris with some blown out storefront glass littered both sides of the street. A mangled half frame of an automobile sat in the middle of the street in front of Burnham’s law office. Black smoke snaked skyward through the acrid stench of burned rubber.
Blue and red lights strobed off the remaining intact storefront glass delivering a surreal acid trip effect, the kind you paid for at an old Dead concert. Bomb sniffing dogs were en route from Pensacola and Mobile. Nobody was too anxious to go strolling around until the K-9s gave the okay.
Within twenty minutes of the blast, Wild Bill was lying back forty-five degrees on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance with a silver pocket flask of Old Grand Dad in his left hand. Both ears buzzed with the hum of what sounded like an industrial generator he couldn’t shake out just yet. An IV tapped into a fat vein in his right inner elbow area. Sweat beaded on his forehead while his pulse jackhammered. The lawyer’s body shook like a paint mixer even after paramedics pumped in two milligrams of IV Ativan over his six hard slugs of straight bourbon.
But he didn’t have a single scratch on him. That was the plan. The bomber was a pro.
Most days Wild Bill packed an attitude that was invincible, brash, overbearing, loud, red faced, and argumentative, all blaring from a squat, paunchy, five-feet seven-inch fire hydrant frame that came with a swagger that screamed you don’t fuck with The Man. After downing half a beer in a bar and grabbing a jump on the conversation, Bill would casually let you know he bagged more supermodel snatch than Tom Brady and his two best friends.
The world-class Napoleon carried no swagger today.
FORTY-THREE MINUTES AFTER THE BLAST, a roaming CBS affiliate news truck hit the scene, parked, and quickly shot its transmission antenna into the sky. Kate Dallas, thirty-one, brunette, dark eyes, finished applying her lipstick, then hopped out to see if anyone had the slightest clue as to what was happening.
Kate ignored the yellow police tape, ducked under it, and strolled up to a tall guy outfitted in dark military-style cop fatigues.
“Whatcha got, chief?”
Pike Tatum turned, let his eyes take a slow walk over Kate. Sexy black heels. Tanned runner’s legs. Skirt painted on. His first thought was how can a woman pull off late night allure at six in the morning. Well, that may have been his second thought.
“Got a dead Rolls Royce and twenty-four donuts on death row. Wanna interview one?”
“Got chocolate glazed?”
“Course we do.”
“Then, hell yeah, I want one.”
“Sounds good, Kate. I like a woman that can enjoy a donut and not rage into a dang panic attack and call for the government to regulate sugar, ban Oreos, Ding Dongs, that kind of nonsense.” Looking away, Pike hollered, “Hey, Edgy, run that box of donuts over here.”
Pike hadn’t seen any dead bodies. He knew Burnham was still breathing. But one thing he knew for sure. Any nut job that can make one bomb can make two. No need to crowd the scene just yet.
Pike was rangy, six-four, broad shoulders, thick dark hair with a little gray teasing the temples and rimless glasses over striking blue eyes. Twenty years ago, he was a hot-handed shooting guard on a mediocre Ole Miss basketball team. Having never married, he was still scoring. He stayed fit playing pickup ball four times a week at the city rec center.
A thought came to him as Kate stood a hint into his personal space after touching his forearm with her fingertips. Close enough for him to pick up a delicate scent. It was clean, soft, feminine, like cotton sheets dried outdoors on a cool, sunny day with a tinge of jasmine and orange. Coco Mademoiselle? He wondered. In his peripheral vision he saw the beginning cleavage in a blouse skewed open just below a jade necklace. It took every bit of his strength to keep looking her in the eye, a look that Kate held more than a moment.
Pike relied on first instincts, and Kate’s cleavage was all the instinct he needed. He’d kick things around here for twenty minutes, bark some orders, ask about ten people if they saw anything, and tell his officers and the firemen to stay well away until the dogs cleared the scene.
But first he needed to check on Bill. He made his way over to the ambulance, hopped in the back door.
“What the hell’s going on here, Bill? Who’d you piss off?” Pike saw the IV and the liquor flask. Wild Bill put his hand up, shook his head. Voice weak. “Not now, Pike. Gotta settle my nerves.”
Pike scampered out of the ambulance and thought this was a good time to answer his instinct. He’d slip over to Greer’s two blocks away, grab a couple thick filets and a fifteen-buck bottle of red. Run it down to his condo overlooking the bay. Whip up his special marinade, plop a couple steaks in the concoction, and find a spot in the fridge to meld the flavors.
In an hour or so, after kicking a little more dirt and discussing some crime rationale, he might just slip a mention to Kate that he had a couple steaks marinating that were gonna hit the grill while he watched the sun set over the bay this evening.
Pike knew it was a rigged invitation. Kate was desperate for information. He’d just wink, insist Kate list her sources as anonymous. He’d come up with some little newsy tidbit for her even if it was mostly made-up.
SITTING FORTY-FIVE DEGREES ON A STRETCHER in the boxy ambulance, a chemical tranquility began to massage Wild Bill’s brain. He wrestled his phone out of his tight pants and forced his fat fingers onto the keypad.
Needed to call a guy. He found the number. Punched speed dial.
An alpha dog answered in the nation’s capital.
4
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
JAKE MONTOYA WAS LAUGHING OUT LOUD when his phone rang like an old rotary model. He was deep into an article in the Washington Post’s D.C Politics section while he ate a lazy breakfast on his porch. A lean muscled Belgian Malinois named Rowdy slept next to him with a lemon-yellow cast on his rear left leg, covered with a good dozen swirls of Sharpie signatures.
The morning broke crisp and cool, and low humidity gave it an extra snap while the smell of just mowed grass filtered through the air from the landscaped grounds. With a little imagination, he could still catch a sniff of the sweet lawn mower gasoline the yard men burned eighteen hours ago.
The Post rested folded open to an article recounting some testimony in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal from years back. The headline read Midnight Pizza. He broke the laugh when he got to the part where Clinton’s secretary tells him late one night, “Sir, the girl with the pizza’s here.”
Jake had heard that Clinton joked that the pizza wars in D.C. were so cut-throat you now got a free blow job with the large vegetarian. Jake laughed as he thought he’d ask him about that. They jogged together occasionally when Clinton was back in Washington.
“Hello, this is Jake.” He leaned forward, spoke fast, concern in his voice. Something with my mother?
“Jake, the hot damn crazy fuckers found me. Blew my car apart, a damn collector’s Rolls Royce.” Jake first heard that voice almost forty years ago in kindergarten. Wild Bill Burnham.
“Bill, slow d
own. What guys?”
“Those crazy ass lawyer killers. They’re trying to bleed me. Jake, I’m just a small-town redneck hack, but somehow those bastards found me. They’re here. I’m a dead man, Jake. Ya gotta come home. Bring some Feds, anybody. All Pike’s got going is a crew of dimwits who couldn’t find their dick starting with one hand on their balls and a road map in the other.”
Bill’s call was perfect timing. Jake was serving a ninety-day paid suspension after an unexpected confrontation in a Virginia Beach suburb. Three men were dead, thanks to Jake and his dog. All bad guys.
A New York Times reporter cited unnamed sources in reporting the fact that Jake Montoya was the current leading killer in the FBI. Even speculated he brought a particularly violent psyche to the job stemming from “aggregational NFL head damage.” Suggested he submit to undergo psychiatric evaluation, brain scans, the works.
Jake didn’t care. He didn’t need a job. He didn’t need money. Years ago, he invested most of his NFL salary into Grade A commercial real estate and hot biotech companies.
He lived rent free in a Georgetown carriage house keeping his eye out for Ms. Sarah Bradley, who lived in the estate’s mansion. She was a rich old lady that filled her days donating her money to needy animal causes and throwing hot piss and shade on every liberal Democrat she could find.
She also owned seven-point-five percent of the Washington Redskins.
JAKE MET MS. SARAH AND HER HUSBAND TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO at a Redskins Christmas party held at their Georgetown mansion. He was twenty-one and drafted with the ‘Skins second pick as an All-American defensive back who played for the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Jake, holding a glass of eggnog with a heavy spike of bourbon and a plate of Georgia cheese straws, was talking to Tommy Malone, a third string free agent quarterback who starred for the football powerhouse Delaware State Hornets. Malone flicked his head backwards towards his right shoulder. “Check out that guy behind me, over in the corner. Buck Bradley. That badass runs the CIA. Before that he was a navy admiral.”