by Mike Dagons
They were both conveying their willingness to respect my decision, so it was on me. The other kills had been done stealthily. I had taken them by surprise, but this time would be different. Luther was probably waiting for me with an army. I had to decide if I was going to risk walking into his camp knowing that. It only took me a minute to decide that we needed to press forward even if it was only to check out his numbers.
“Let’s go to Ohio, but first I need to warn Bender.” I took out my very special encrypted phone and typed, you’ve been hacked. I sent the message to Bender, and then put the phone away.
“You’re not throwing the phone away?” Ceylon asked.
“No need to. Once Bender knows communications have been compromised, he’ll fix the problem, and get the word out to the others,” I answered.
We bunked down for a few hours of shut eye, and arrived at our destination early the following morning. Leaving the boat docked at port, we rented a truck and headed for East Cleveland.
Luther’s oldest son, twenty five year old, Kevel Scott, was the top drug distributor in East Cleveland. Luther had only been seventeen years old when he had him. He hadn’t stayed with any of the women he had children with, but he had played an active role in raising his children. And he had done a great job of corrupting them.
None of his baby mamas had children by other men, so I wasn’t leaving any orphans. It was reported that Luther was the reason why they didn’t. He controlled the lives of his ex’s. Casual dating was permitted, but having another man’s baby was not.
Kevel’s mother had been the only one to dare to defy him. A year after Luther left her. She had gotten pregnant by someone else. When Luther learned about it, he forced her to have an abortion, and then he fixed it so she’d never be able to conceive again. The twenty year old man who had impregnated her was found with his testicles removed and his eyes burned out.
We cruised around the rough eastside neighborhood near E. 71st and Central Street looking for the house Kevel and his mama ran his heroin business out of. Walking into what was probably an ambush was a bold move. I only hoped I wasn’t leading us into a situation that was too hot to handle.
We found the house, and then let Ceylon out on the next block where he was going to get into position on the roof of one of the abandoned apartment buildings to watch the place.
Anakin found a safe place to park the truck, so we could give Ceylon time to stake out the location and observe the activity around the house before we decided if we were going in.
I’d experienced some reservations about the other killings, but this one was not going to bother my conscience a bit. Kevel Scott was as ruthless in business as his father. According to the information Bender had supplied on him. He had one of his ten year old runners torched for being fifty dollars short. His mother ran the business with him, and it was reported that she was just as evil.
It was the middle of the morning, but the local cops were controlled by Scott, so we didn’t expect anybody to respond to a shots fired call. If by some miracle the call was ever made. The locals were too afraid to cross them, so I expected them to steer clear of any trouble at the house.
“I got five guys standing in plain sight on the roof, and a van parked four doors up the street,” Ceylon reported through his walkie. “I also see another van parked at the corner that I would have missed, if a woman hadn’t come out the house and strolled up to it carrying a big tray of sandwiches and drinks, dumb muthafuckas,” he hissed.
“Jeff Basin’s shit ain’t this shabby, so this must be one of Luther’s solo operations,” I commented.
“Maybe Jeff decided to stop working for Luther,” Anakin said. “I could tell he wasn’t too happy with their arrangement when they were holding me. Jeff openly expressed his concerns about Luther’s crew and their ability to handle a simply snatch without fucking it up.”
“The men huddled in one spot on the roof are clearly fools, but if Jeff has a hand in this, we can expect the muthafuckas in the house to be top notch operators,” Ceylon said. “All the windows have closed blinds, so I can’t tell you how many in there waiting for you.”
“Then we assume it’s a small army and go in hot,” I said because I wanted to get the shit over with. However, I wasn’t willing to treat Anakin and Ceylon’s lives like they didn’t matter because I didn’t feel like mines did. “Ceylon you’ve got eyes on them, so you call it. Do we hit them now, or abort?” I asked.
“Do you know why they call me the California Viper?” he asked.
“You live in California, and you a snake,” I answered, and Anakin laughed.
“HA! HA! Real funny, muthafucka,” Ceylon chuckled. “It’s because I live in California, and I’m as quick and as deadly as a viper.”
“Nigga ain’t that what I said?” I laughed.
“Hell nah, that ain’t what you said. You said I WAS a snake, muthafucka,” he scolded me playfully, and I noted how calm he sounded.
The fact that he was able to joke when we were possibly about to go up against insurmountable odds, told me that he was damn near as cold as me. “I’d like to go for it. If you think you can handle the perimeter,” I said.
“Seriously, those vans can’t hold enough people to cause me any problems from up here. I can handle anything on foot within a hundred yard radius. The men walking the roof, hold up,” he paused for a beat. “I see two more men on the neighboring roof. They were standing behind the chimney. They will not be a problem,” he reported. “The automatic weapons they’re toting don’t have the range to hit me. I’ll take them out first, so you won’t have any obstacles going in. The others will have to lend over the edge to see you. It’ll make them easy pickings. I haven’t seen many people coming and going. If they’re cooking, that’s not as unusual as it would be if they were selling. Do you know what’s what?”
“Nah, I don’t, so I’m going to assume foot traffic is slow because they’re expecting trouble,” I replied because it was best to be prepared for the worst. “Give me a minute,” I said, and then looked over at Anakin sitting behind the wheel.
At a glance, he looked like an unimposing white man. He wore his brown hair short, so you couldn’t tell it was black people rusty, and he had cool gray eyes when they weren’t morphing to reflect his mood.
I didn’t look as dangerous as some operators, but I was not a nigga who was likely to go unnoticed in a crowd. Anakin was just the opposite. People generally discounted him, and it gave him an edge when going up against superior numbers.
Unfortunately, Luther and Jeff had already had a run-in with him, so he wasn’t going to be able to rely on that element of surprise. They knew he was an extraordinary man with super extraordinary powers. And if they suspected he was alive, they would not be taking him lightly.
“You’re having reservations, why?” he asked.
“I don’t want to get you killed,” I replied honestly. “Whoever is waiting for us behind those doors will probably be heavily armed and antsy.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m voting to crash their party,” he replied.
“I’m with him,” Ceylon said.
“Alright then, let’s do it.” I climbed over the seat and got in the back so we could exit at the same time on the same side of the truck. We checked our dragon skins, and then rechecked our loads.
Anakin pulled out the parking space, and I got down low. We drove over to the block where the house was located, and then cruised the block like he was a white man looking to score. When he pulled to a stop in the middle of the street in front of the unassuming house, I instinctively knew Ceylon already had one of the men on the roof sighted in his scope.
“Go,” he said.
We both jumped out the truck leaving the doors open and the motor running. A man tumbled off the roof before we got to the door, and a second man fell before the first hit the ground.
We were sprinting, and Anakin reached the front door first. He didn’t slow down. He leaped into a fly
ing jump kick and hit it, both feet first. The reinforced steel door fell down like it was made of cardboard, crushing the man behind it.
He rolled in low, shooting with his right, and throwing blades with his left. I went in high right behind him, rapid firing a Sig in each hand. In a continuous flow of uninterrupted movement, I crossed a stream of gunfire, once, twice, three times. We were dropping men like they were flies at a Raid convention.
“It’s more of them than I thought, but don’t worry,” Ceylon reported. “I’m picking off shooters as fast as they appear, even though I had to redirect my attention twice to shoot people trying to get in the truck to steal it. How long is it going to take these muthafuckas to realize its anti-theft device is a killer?” he chuckled, and it made me smile.
Four minutes after we went inside, the smoke was settled, and there were dead men everywhere, and several seriously wounded. One of the wounded was Kevel Scott. He was sitting propped up with his back against a wall. Like his brothers and sisters, he had the brown skin, kinky blonde hair, and the frosty blue eyes of his father.
I walked up and stood over him. “Do I need to say don’t move?” I asked.
He pinned me with a murderous stare. “My father will kill you for this. You have no idea who you’re fucking—”
Anakin threw the knife, and it landed in the center of his chest stopping him from finishing his threat. “We don’t have time for a fucking monologue,” he said, stepping over fallen bodies to get to him.
I had been beating Luther’s women the way his men had beaten Monique, and then I had cut their hearts out because Luther had cut mine out by killing Monique.
Anakin understood the reasoning behind it, but clearly he was not willing to spend too much time there and risk being pinned down by reinforcements. “I hear movement upstairs, but I don’t want to take the time to go up there,” he said, as he dropped to one knee beside the body. He gripped the handle of the knife with two hands, and then sawed through his ribcage to his heart. He pushed a hand into Kevel’s chest, and pulled his heart out, and dropped it on the floor.
I’d had the exact same thought, but he beat me to it. “I know you wanted to do it, but it needed to be done quickly,” he explained as he wiped the blood off the blade.
I watched him dropped jawed while he walked around retrieving his knives, and sheathing them in his thigh holsters. “We’re going to burn the house down!” he announced in a loud voice as he pulled an incendiary device out of one of the thigh pockets in his pants. “If you want to live, come out now!”
A side door opened, and a bunch of women wearing only their underwear and breathing masks came running out, but nobody came down from the upper floor. Kevel’s mother had an identifiable tattoo on her right shoulder, and I looked for it on the women who ran by me.
When I saw it, I fired a shot into her thigh. She fell to the floor screaming, and I kicked her hard enough to roll her across the floor. When she stopped rolling she fired a single shot at me with the revolver she had been concealing in her hand.
I fired three shots into her chest before I felt the blood wetting my arm. “Bitch, I heard you don’t have a heart,” I said, and then shot her in her head.
I was already on my way out the door when Anakin threw the fire grenade into the room they were using to package the drugs. It lit up like a roman candle, and we rushed out the house, and got back into our waiting truck.
“How bad is it?” Anakin asked as he took off down the street.
“It caught me in the shoulder. I’ll live,” I replied. “On our way to get you,” I spoke to Ceylon.
“I’ll be waiting,” he replied.
Chapter 6
After Melvin had been thoroughly debriefed, he decided that the best way to beat Jeffrey Basin was by playing the shell game with the targets, and keeping them moving.
Melvin Ryan was not only a strategic planner, like Basin. He was prepared for an epic battle. He had laid the groundwork to make sure Genesis had the resources necessary for a long term fight. So, even though they were short on manpower at the moment, they were not short on cash, equipment or determination.
Luther Scott was only considered a threat if he was still working with Basin. Otherwise, he was all brawn and no brains. He’d come at them like a bull in a china shop. They’d hear his approach, so defending against him would not be hard.
Not knowing for sure if they were still partnering meant they needed to move. Doing it in separate groups would confuse the enemy because it’s harder to see a single bird than it is to see a migration.
Cynthia Jawlins was a direct link to his family, and she was visible, so he was certain they were coming for her, and they would send their very best. It’s why he planned to send Valow to get her. The phantom killer was his very best, and he was already in a neighboring city so it wouldn’t take him long to get to her. The problem was, he didn’t know if the Basin team was in position to get to her first.
Melvin texted Valow Cynthia’s location while Sam called the Office of the Superintendent of Police, not her cell. “It’s raining fire,” were the only words Sam spoke when Cynthia came on the line. It was their family’s immediate danger warning signal.
Melvin had implemented the use of the code words after Tyler Basin’s man, Maverick, had his father kidnapped a few years back. Even his kids understood the importance of those three words, and the warning of imminent danger it signaled.
A code red warning meant drop everything, and then go through a series of practiced evasive steps before going to a predetermined destination to wait to be picked up by him or someone he’d send. Someone who would know the code word he had given each of them.
He figured the shit that happened to Genesis had been all over the news, so any team members who weren’t in that explosion were operational and following similar code red protocols. Cynthia and Curtis did not work for Genesis, and they would not assume they were in danger unless somebody told them they were.
As soon as Cynthia got the danger alert, she left her phone and her tablet on her desk and walked out of the downtown office in the middle of the day without saying a word to anyone. She had seen the news reports about the explosions, and as the Superintendent’s Assistant, she’d received first hand information, and frequent situation updates, but she didn’t call her sister because if she was involved, a ringing phone could get her killed.
What she was expected to do was go about her regular routine until Sam contacted her, and she would if she was in danger.
When she got the code red call from Sam, she knew that the situation was more serious than the reports CPD was receiving, and even in a building surrounded by men with guns, she wasn’t safe.
Cynthia didn’t go near the parking garage, or take a taxi. She went into the first clothing store she saw and purchased new clothes, and changed there. She trashed her old clothes, and then walked out the store looking like a different woman. Her next stop was the bank where she had a safe deposit vault in a fake name. She used the fake driver’s license that she carried with her at all times to access the box. There she retrieved fifty thousand in cash, and another fake identification package, which included a driver’s license, and passport. The box also held a canvas shoulder bag, and a sensible pair of walking shoes.
Cynthia stuffed the things in the canvas bag, and left her purse and everything in it, in the vault box. She left the bank carrying only the canvas shoulder bag.
She walked a few blocks over to the State Street Macy’s department store, and purchased jeans, a shirt, a lightweight jacket, and a new leather shoulder bag with cash. She changed clothes in the bathroom, and put on her sensible shoes. She stuffed her other new clothes in the bathroom trash bin, pinned her hair up, and draped a silk scarf on her head. Constantly changing clothes and her appearance meant anyone watching and waiting for her to exit the store would be looking for a person dressed differently. Exactly twenty minutes after she walked into Macy’s, she walked out the store looking like a di
fferent woman.
Cynthia walked the crowded streets for a few blocks, and then she got on the CTA bus and rode it to Lurie’s Children’s Hospital on the north side. Bender had supplied the necessary credentials to get her pass security and to the eleventh floor cafeteria. She took the elevator to the cafeteria, got her lunch, and ate it while she waited for the man from Genesis to pick her up and take her to a secure location.
Chapter 7
Melvin talked his father into staying out of the fight by convincing him that he’d be more useful protecting his mother and the kids. So he and Isabel took Chanay’s two year old son, Trevarid, his daughter, Melvina, and his son, Kendall, to Disney World in Florida. No one was looking for grandparents vacationing with three grandkids, and vacationing was the last thing Jeff Basin would expect Ethan Cole to be doing while Genesis was under attack.
Chavez had heard the news reports, and had immediately shut down Anakin’s clubs. The workers had all been bused to a secret underground compound Anakin had constructed after their first run-in with the Basins.
D’Agon hadn’t reported in, so it was assumed that he was either dead, severely injured, or in the Genesis safe room waiting to hear from one of them, which was protocol.
Choc and Rayce went to retrieve Curtis Gladstone, and Sam, Chanay, Severe, and Kenyah were off to Paris on a commercial flight with new identification.
Melvin thought the smart thing to do was to allow Ice to handle the offensive team, since he’d already taken lead, and he was going to defend the people they loved by keeping them running and hiding in plain sight.
With everyone safely on their way, it was his turn to move out. He was going back to Chicago with Blue, Bender, Trent, and Roc. The City gave them the home field advantage, and they needed every advantage they could get.
They needed someplace safe to stay, so he was going to set up their base in a nefarious south side neighborhood. Ice was the only other member of the Genesis team who knew the safe house in Englewood even existed, so he was pretty sure it hadn’t been compromised.