“The engravers?” Mustafa wasn’t sure if he was talking about them or his accomplices.
Jerome nodded.
“They are in the basement. In the soundproof room we built.”
“Very good. When I leave, you are to eliminate them.”
“I’m sorry?” Mustafa couldn’t believe what he just heard. Jerome wanted him to kill the engravers. He could have done that at the Mint. Why build the room? Mustafa was confused.
“I need you to take care of them. They are no use to us alive. If it’s a problem, I’m sure one of your associates would be more than happy to take care of it and I’ll split your payment with them.” Jerome didn’t have time for this.
“No, no. I’ll take care of it. I just wanted to make sure I heard you correctly.”
“Good! Then it will be done.”
“Yes. Consider it done.”
“Alright! Is my van loaded?”
“No, I thought you wanted us to wait until you arrived.” Mustafa was starting to worry. He had thought Jerome wanted him to wait until he got to the house.
“No, but it won’t take us long.”
He walked into the living room. “Let’s go,” he announced. “We need to load the van in the garage.” Mustafa led the men out the side door. He instructed one of the men to open up the van in the driveway while the rest entered the garage. They immediately began transferring the bags containing the dies into the other van. When they were finished emptying the first van, it was traded out with the other van on the street.
As they were unloading the second van, Jerome stopped cold. He could only stare toward the front of the cab.
Mustafa saw what he was doing, but didn’t understand. “Is everything okay?”
“No. Come here Mustafa!” Jerome ordered.
Mustafa walked over to the back of the van where Jerome was standing, Jerome still staring toward the front. “Did you instruct your men to come right here and not stop?”
“Yes. Of course. I told them not to stop for anything.” Mustafa still didn’t understand what was bothering Jerome.
“Do you see it?” Jerome asked, the tone of his voice rising. He raised his hand and pointed.
Mustafa followed the pointed finger and finally saw what had drawn Jerome’s attention. In the cup holder on the console sat a paper soda cup. The condensation on the outside of the cup proved it was recently used and still held the remnants of a drink.
Jerome turned and walked to the back of the garage. “Mustafa, who was driving that van?”
“It was this man.” Mustafa pointed to one of them.
Jerome had instructed from the beginning that they would never use these men’s names. Jerome walked right up to him. He was inches from the man’s face. The man held his eyes down.
“Look at me!” Jerome demanded. “Did you stop on your way here?”
“Yes. I was thirsty. It was only for a minute.”
“Were you told not to stop? Not to stop for anything?”
“Yes.”
“You choose to disobey. I cannot tolerate someone not following orders.”
“It won’t happen again. I’m sorry.” The man still averted his eyes, but he was clearly pleading.
“You are right. It will not happen again! Let this be a lesson to all of you.” Jerome looked at the other men. “Let’s finish moving the bags. I need to get out of here.”
The men turned to return to the van outside to unload the rest of the bags. Jerome reached to his waistband, a Walther PPK .380 coming into his hand. From his jacket pocket, he took a suppressor, screwed it to the threaded barrel which protruded past the front of the slide. Jerome raised his silenced automatic and fired two rounds into the back of the thirsty man’s head. The man slumped to the concrete, blood and brain spattered against the side of the garage. The other men stopped and stared in shock, each speckled with red and gray bits of the murdered man’s skull and brain. When they looked at Jerome, he hoped his expression told them all they needed to know was that they were to get back to work.
In ten minutes, the van was loaded. The last van in the driveway was moved out into the street.
“Mustafa, send the men inside. I need to talk with you.” Jerome turned and walked to the van as he spoke.
Mustafa gestured for the men to go into the house. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” When they entered the house, Jerome walked up to Mustafa. “They have served their purpose. It is best to eliminate them. They can only cause us harm if they are captured. You can keep their share of the money.”
“I think they now know better than to talk,” Mustafa said as he looked down at the body in the garage. “But, I understand your point. Consider it done.”
“Use this. I have another.” Jerome handed Mustafa the gun he’d used to kill the man in the garage. He had never touched the gun bare-handed, nor any of the cartridges without wearing gloves. “This way, when they find the bodies, it will look as if one killer did all of them.” He handed Mustafa three loaded magazines. “Use it also to kill the engravers, too.”
Mustafa nodded and took the gun and ammunition.
“You have done well my friend. I look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks.” As part of Mustafa’s reward, Jerome was providing him passage to Mexico and a villa in which to live.
“Thank you. I’ll see you soon.” Mustafa waved as Jerome jumped in the van. He slowly moved out of the driveway and turned left onto the street.
Mustafa closed the garage and walked into the house. The remaining two men were in the living room, watching TV. Mustafa raised the gun and shot the man who was across the room in the recliner. Two shots through the forehead with the second shot startling Mustafa for the silencer no longer seemed to be muffling the shots. It startled the other man, who tried to get up off the sofa.
He wasn’t fast enough.
Mustafa regained his composure, turned and fired off two more shots, both creating loud reports from the gun, but finding their target and dropping him on the floor. Mustafa moved back to the kitchen. He changed the magazine. Then he would go down in the basement and kill the engravers.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
“There’s a van leaving the house.” William radioed from his vantage point in the back yard. He’d arrived a few minutes earlier and had joined Jordan.
“He’s coming our way. It looks like it’s the new arrival.” Max was slumping down in her seat so she wouldn’t be seen as the van passed, but was still trying to get a good look at the driver. “Stan and I will follow.” Stan had arrived on scene right after the loading of the vans had begun.
Jordan and William watched Mustafa walk back into the house, carrying a gun with a suppressor and what looked like extra magazines. “Let’s get ready. Looks like maybe something’s about to go down.” Jordan whispered to William.
As Mustafa entered the house, Jordan and William moved closer, but still stayed in the shadows of the back yard. They heard a noise, not sure of the sound. They exchanged glances just as more of the same sounds were heard. Definitely shots being fired. They raced toward the side door. “Shots fired inside!” William called over the radio.
Jordan was looking in the door as Mustafa came back into the kitchen with the gun. Jordan saw him drop the magazine out of the gun and he looked at William and mouthed. “Let’s go!”
Jordan bounded through the door with William right behind.
“Drop the gun!” Jordan commanded. “Federal Agents! Don’t move!”
Mustafa was startled but his reflexes forced him to keep the gun and finished jamming a new mag in as he sprinted from the room in a low crouch. Jordan fired a double tap, but his bullets lodged in the cabinet as Mustafa spun around the corner. Jordan pointed for William to go around through the living room as Jordan followed Mustafa. Mustafa couldn’t go far.
Jordan turned the corner into a dark room — the dining room — and scanned the room, trying to detect any movement or shape. Slowly, he passed through.
“Stop right there
, man! And, put the gun down!” He heard William command.
Jordan hurried around the corner. Mustafa was pinned against the front door like a butterfly in a collection, shifting the muzzle of his gun from Jordan to William and back.
“Give it up, Mustafa. There’s no way out of here.” The screech of car tires out front confirmed Patterson and Kate had arrived. Jordan could see Mustafa realized others had reached the house.
“Just put the gun down. It’s over, Mustafa,” Jordan directed, gesturing for Mustafa to place his gun on the floor.
Mustafa couldn’t believe this was happening. Had Jerome set him up? Maybe these weren’t Federal Agents, but Jerome’s men? Then he realized that, either way, the outcome would be the same. He wasn’t going to Mexico and the life about which he had dreamed was never going to be more than that — a dream. He knew it was over, so he began to slowly bend down and started to place his gun on the floor. But, at the last instant, he brought it up to his open mouth and pulled the trigger.
“Shit!” Jordan snarled, closing his eyes and turning his face as the room filled with a red mist when the back of Mustafa’s head exploded and there was blood and brain all over the door and anything near it.
William keyed his mike. “All clear in here, suspect down. Enter through the side.”
Jordan walked over and crouched beside the body. “Warn them this gun is hot.”
They’d leave it for evidence techs, he knew, but it was never a bad idea to warn someone about playing it safe. “God, what a hell of a mess. Hope he didn’t have something or we might get it too. Don’t touch your eyes or nose until we can clean up.” He looked up at William. “We need to see who else is here. The engravers must be somewhere. Tell Kate to search the vans with Patterson before they come in.” William radioed to Kate as he and Jordan walked back into the kitchen and searched for a door to the basement.
As they moved down the stairway, they found an abnormally clean basement with no junk or piles of anything. At the far end was a well built wall with a steel door, secured by a massive padlock. Jordan walked over to the door. Like so many people, Mustafa had chosen convenience over a higher level of security. He’d hung the keys on the wall next to the door. Jordan took them down and stared at the lock. It didn’t look to be booby-trapped, so he held his breath and inserted the key into the padlock and it fell open.
With one hand, Jordan took the lock from the hasp, with the other his gun from his holster. William took one side of the door, his pistol in both hands. .
William tapped Jordan on the shoulder and held up his index finger, indicating Jordan should hold. William was listening to his radio. He leaned into Jordan. “Kate said the vans are clean.”
Jordan nodded and proceeded to open the door. As it opened, light entered the darkened room, illuminating several people inside. Jordan threw the door open all the way and went through from left to right, scanning the room as William came in behind him, right to left. Neither saw any threat. A quick count revealed seven people, one female and six males.
“I assume you are the engravers from the Mint?”
“They sure are!” Jordan looked behind him to see Patterson standing there with Kate. He had a big grin on his face as he entered the room. The recognition was mutual and the hostages applauded.
Jordan smiled at Kate. She walked up to him. “Great work today, cowboy!”
Jordan smiled. “We’ve still got some work to do. The dies are gone. I’ve gotta get that rotten terrorist bastard’s blood off me.”
Chapter Eighty
Stan and Max did their best to keep the van in sight. The van was navy blue and the night was moonless. It had been easier when they were on the main roads with street lights, but those roads were behind them and they found themselves on side streets and rural roads with little traffic and no street lighting. The man in the van had gotten a good head start and they had to let him get several blocks down the street when he left the house before they could turn around and pursue.
The driver seemed to know his way or was using a navigation system, since his turns were fluid, without any hesitation. Stan and Max had gotten caught behind a car which had stopped at an intersection when the traffic light had just turned yellow. Stan had almost rear ended the car stopped
Max noticed the van turning right farther down the road, so as soon as the light turned green, Stan veered around the car, passing it in the intersection and causing several other drivers to honk their horns, shout their anger or give them the finger.
They turned right and found themselves on Ark Road. No taillights of the van or of any vehicle were visible in front of them. Stan drove about a mile and a half and then pulled over to the side of the road.
“What do you think Max? I haven’t a clue where he might have gone?”
“I know. He could have gone anywhere or known we were following and pulled off and hid. Damn! We were so close.”
They both looked at each other as a low rumble began to vibrate the car. It increased in intensity rattling the plastic interior of the car.
“What the hell is that?” Stan shouted.
“We’re not on railroad tracks, are we?” Max called out as both she and Stan looked out the windows to assure themselves a train wasn’t bearing down on them.
There were bright lights flooding the driver’s side of the car, reminding Stan of the train signal scene in “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.” And the noise became deafening. It wasn’t a UFO it was a small business jet, streaking into the night sky. As it cleared the car, the glass still vibrating, Stan and Max looked at each, realizing full well that the aircraft almost certainly carried their suspect and whatever he’d had in the van.
Stan threw the car in gear. “Let’s find the damn airport.”
A quarter mile down was a side road. Stan turned left and quickly came upon the entrance to the South Jersey Regional Airport. Stan and Max ran from their car and into the office, startling the sole person behind the counter.
Stan flashed his badge. “The plane that just took off, where’s it going?”
“Uh, let me look at the flight plan.” The man grabbed a pile of papers and sorted through them. “Headed to Hartford.”
“Can you make me a copy? You get many jets taking off here?”
“Nope. Runway’s kind of short and he almost didn’t make it. I’m not sure what they had in that plane, but it must have been awful heavy. He had to sit at the end of the runway and rev the engines with the brake on. You know. Kind of like a catapult? And, he still almost didn’t get up.”
Looking at the documents, something didn’t seem right to Stan the amateur pilot. “Look at this. Seems like a lot of fuel to fly to Hartford? I figured he wasn’t going there. This confirms it.”
The man looked at it. “Wow, you’re right. He could get a lot farther. Matter of fact, he likely would still be too heavy to land in Hartford. I better call them and let them know.”
“You can do that, but my guess is they aren’t headed to Hartford, son. You have a direct line to the FAA?”
“Yep, but it’s for emergencies only.”
“Guess what this is, buddy,” Stan said and he tapped his badge with his finger. It took only a few moments to alert the FAA and Stan found Kate outside. “I’ve got the FAA tracking the flight. Their flight plan was filed for Cincinnati, but they’re heading south. They’ve got more than enough fuel to get anywhere in Florida. Fortunately, they don’t have enough fuel and the plane doesn’t have the ability to fly anywhere outside the U.S. Maybe Cuba, though. Damn. Did you find anything?”
Max shrugged. “The van is a rental and it’s clean inside. We’ll get Crime Scene out here, but my guess is they won’t find anything. William called. They found the engravers and they’re all right.”
“Well, that’s the best news. I’ve got people going to FAA in D.C. to monitor the flight. We’ll see where they go.”
Chapter Eighty-One
As each minute went by, Jerome was becom
ing more assured of his success. He thought back to the take off with the pilot screaming his head off and cursing Jerome about the weight of the bags and he wasn’t sure they were going to clear the trees. They needed the small jet to get in and out of the airport, but they were going to push the machine to its operational limits both in weight and distance. The pilot had pulled back on the yoke with his knuckles white and the climb out was steep. Jerome could no longer look out ahead of the craft, but rather looked down, not sure they would make it. But they had.
After two hours in flight, they had just descended into the Miami area and had clearance at the Tamiami airport, even though they had no intention of setting down there. They would descend to below five hundred feet and buzz the airport, then head out over Homestead, Florida, and into the Gulf. They would stay below one thousand feet – below scanning altitude for most of the radar in the area — until they reached their final destination.
Jerome loved Key West. His only regret was that today’s visit would be short. He enjoyed coming to the island and just being able to blend in with all the zaniness and irreverence that characterized the place. He owned a house a few blocks off Duval Street, but he wouldn’t be visiting it today. The trick would be getting in and out of the airport without drawing too much attention.
Even trickier was landing without permission at a commercial airport. Fortunately, they would be landing when no commercial flights were scheduled and what they had been told was a slow time for the airport. Also, as was the case with so many of the citizens of the Conch Republic, a few dollars in cash could cause them to look the other way at the right time. Today, Jerome had the two air traffic controllers along with the airport manager on his payroll. Even if someone had figured out what he was doing, Jerome felt it would be hard for them to get to the airport in time to stop him.
After another thirty-five minutes the pilot looked back through the open cockpit door of the Lear 100. “We’re getting ready to land. I’m making my approach.”
Enemy Among Us-A Jordan Wright Thriller Page 27