Burke's War: Bob Burke Action Thriller 1 (Bob Burke Action Thrillers)

by William F. Brown

Ace laughed. “Bob, wake up. We don’t need to worry about cop cars; we are one.”

  Bob slapped his forehead. “Jeez, am I stupid, or what?” he said as he looked around the dashboard, flicked on the SUVs rooftop emergency light bar and siren, and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The big engine roared and in less than a minute, he reached the entrance ramp to Route 53. The big, black, Chicago Police Department SUV accelerated to 120 miles an hour, blowing through the express I-Pass tollbooth lanes without slowing down.

  “This is fun!” Ace laughed as the rearview mirror on the passenger side clipped the backside of the tollbooth and went flying across the road. “We gotta come back and do this again.”

  Patsy kept her arms around Ellie and kept herself between the little girl and Greenway’s gun as the doctor dragged them up the sidewalk to the front door. He punched his access code into the keypad with his index finger, pulled the door open, and shoved Patsy and Ellie inside.

  “Let us go,” Patsy screamed. “I won’t say anything. I promise.”

  “Shut up!” he said as he dragged her across the lobby.

  They were halfway to the elevators when two of Scalese’s security men ran into the lobby from the side corridor with their guns drawn. From their expressions, they had been taking one of their usual long breaks in the employee lounge, and had been startled by loud voices arguing in the front lobby. Greenway rarely came to the building at night, but from the bad haircuts, cheap, ill-fitting blazers with “S-D Security” logos on the breast pockets, he recognized them as two of Tony Scalese’s newer hires. If he looked closer, he’d probably see their prison tattoos, as well. What they weren’t, however, were older, experienced thugs from one of Salvatore DiGrigoria’s regular crews, who might not listen to him. The nametag on the man in front read “Costanza.” The one in back read “Bitaglia.”

  “What are you cretins looking at?” Greenway snarled as he pulled Patsy and the little girl toward the elevator.

  “Uh, sorry, Dr. Greenway,” Bitaglia stepped forward, clearly uneasy about what was going down. “We heard a bunch of noise out here and… Hey, is that a gun you got there?”

  The two guards looked back and forth between Greenway, Patsy, and the little girl and frowned, until Costanza, the other guard, said, “Yeah, it’s a .357 Mag, ain’t it? Big sucker. Jimmy DiCiccio’s got one like that.”

  “It is Jimmy’s!” Patsy screamed at them. You’ve got to help us, he’s…”

  “Shut up, I told you,” Greenway hissed as he squeezed her arm hard and pulled her toward the elevator. “And you two guard the doors,” Greenway ordered.

  “Uh, wait a minute, Doc,” Bitaglia apologized, clearly uneasy about the situation.

  “Do what I said. Tony’s coming back here any minute now, and we’re expecting big trouble. You two know what to do with those things?” Greenway asked, looking at their pistols.

  “You bet we do, Dr. G., Tony himself gave us these here Glocks,” Costanza grinned as he held up his boxy semi-automatic. “But what’s this about trouble?”

  “Tony and his men were ambushed in that park tonight. He’s coming back here, and trouble might be coming right behind him, trying to finish the job. Your job’s to keep them out. You got that?”

  “Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir, Dr. Greenway. We won’t let anyone…”

  “There’s only two of you on duty here tonight?” he asked as the elevator door opened.

  “No, Freddie Fortuno’s here, too. I, uh, I think he went upstairs to check on…”

  “You mean he’s taking a nap, don’t you? Well, get him down here. I want all three of you keeping a close eye out, or I’ll have you fired. Understand!” Greenway ordered as he shoved Patsy and Ellie into the elevator car and waited impatiently for the doors to close. “I’ll be in my office, and I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  Three minutes later, the black SUV passed the white Indian Hills water tower and entered the Hills Business Park. Bob cut the emergency lights and siren, while Ace and Vinnie checked the magazines in their weapons. As they approached the office building, Bob pulled into the parking lot of the building across the street, where the well-lit façade of the CHC building was clearly visible through the fringe of small trees.

  "That’s Scalese’s Lexus," Linda pointed. "Greenway's here, what are we waiting for?”

  “Hang on a minute,” Bob quickly answered as he detached the night vision telescopic sight from his SCAR sniper rifle and scanned the parking lot. “Looks like he was in a big hurry.” Greenway had left the Lexus sitting at an odd angle near the building’s front entrance, spilling over the white lines on the two adjoining spaces. Its driver’s side and left-rear door hung wide open, the engine was running, and the lights were on, further illuminating the building’s lobby.”

  “But he has Ellie in there!” Linda pleaded.

  “His office is on the third floor, on the back side to the right?” Linda nodded as he turned the scope on the building itself, scanning it slowly, floor by floor. “The lobby is lit up as usual, but the second and third floors are dark, at least this side.” Looking more closely at the first floor, Bob said, “I see two guards on the first floor, but there could be more. Here,” he said as he handed the scope to Linda. “Recognize them?”

  “I think so,” she answered as she focused on their faces. “I’m not positive, but they look like a couple of new hires on the night crew.”

  “I assumed Scalese took his best men to the forest preserve, but you never know.”

  “It don’t make no never-mind,” Vinny commented as he snapped a fresh magazine in his M-110. “We’re takin’ ’em out no matter who they are, but Linda’s right. Let’s get this done, before they get any more ready.”

  “Agreed,” Bob answered. “Greenway’s arrival must have shaken them up. They’re standing in the back of the lobby, looking none too happy.”

  “Like I care,” Ace said, as he put on his headset.

  “True. Ace, you set up here with the SUV. You have a clear shot at the front of the building and can cover the entry roads. Linda, you stay here with him. Prepare to engage in two minutes. Vinny, work around back and find a spot where you can cover the rear — the lobby and Greenway’s office if you can. I’ll head for the side employee entrance. Chester left me a small piece of Semtex, so when you two have clear shots on the guards, take them out and I’ll blow the side door and head up. Vinny, when I get the girl, bring the SUV around to the side door, and I’ll meet you all there.”

  “There’s not going to be any ‘I’ in this thing,” Linda leaned forward and glared at him. “I'm coming with you. It’s going to be ‘we,’ or I’ll go by myself, you got that?”

  Greenway kept a firm grip on Patsy’s arm as he dragged her and Ellie out of the elevator and down the third floor corridor to his office. He opened the door, turned the lights on, and threw them on the couch.

  “Stay there!” he said as he pointed a long finger at Patsy. “That is, unless you’d like me to come over there and visit with you for a while?” He watched as Patsy pulled Ellie close and shrank away from him. “I didn’t think so,” he leered at her, pausing for a brief moment to consider what a luscious young thing she was going to be. Unfortunately, there had to be some business before pleasure, he realized as he returned to his desk.

  Earlier, he saw that bastard Scalese had broken into his desk and credenza and searched the drawers. Greenway shook his head and laughed. Well, the dumb, musclebound Italian could have torn the entire desk apart, for all it mattered; but he wouldn’t find Greenway’s “good stuff,” because Greenway no longer kept it there. He turned around, pulled the credenza away from the wall, and saw an innocuous 18” x 18” louvered AC vent. One weekend when Scalese was off on a “business trip,” drinking and whoring with his boys in Las Vegas, Greenway brought in his own contractor who installed a high tech safe there. He bolted it into the building’s structural steel, and it featured a nearly un-crackable six-digit combination lock. He opened it and pulled out
a thick, hand-tooled leather briefcase made in Florence. Ironically, it was a gift from old Sal DiGrigoria himself, and using it to hide his “getaway” stash was the perfect way to get even with the senile old bastard.

  The briefcase was his “travel bag.” Greenway set it on his desk and turned the lock dials to his preset code and popped the top open. He raised it far enough to take a quick look inside. There was no time to count everything, but he saw that nothing appeared to be disturbed. His three foreign passports still lay on top — one British, one Canadian, and one Dutch, his personal favorite. Given the sudden downturn in his prospects here in Chicago, the briefcase would be very helpful for his imminent long-term retirement plan.

  He snapped the case shut. The past few years had been very good, but everything was unravelling now, all because of that nosey bastard Burke. Scalese and his men must have taken some losses in the Forest Preserve tonight, but surely they had eliminated that meddlesome young man by now and would be heading back here. Greenway knew he must be long gone before Tony and his thick-skulled Mafiosi returned, but with his stash, Jimmy DiCiccio’s revolver, Tony’s Lexus, and a soft “squeeze” to keep him company for a few nights, it would be a nice trip. No one was looking for him yet. As long as he had the little girl, Patsy would be far more submissive and do whatever he wanted; and together, they would make excellent hostages if trouble should rear its ugly head along the way.

  Yes, it was time to say goodbye to Indian Hills and head north. Montreal was worth an extended stay. There were a dozen ways to sneak across the border through the back woods of upper Maine, and a hundred places to get rid of two slightly used dead bodies. Greenway licked his lips. After that, perhaps Rio de Janeiro, Copenhagen, or Bangkok. Those were progressive cities, where a gentleman of means could indulge his fantasies and minor peccadillos without being interrupted by little men with narrow minds.

  “Time to go, Patsy,” he said as he picked up the briefcase and motioned her toward the door with the big revolver.

  “Where are you taking us?” she glared up at him.

  “On an adventure,” he said with big eyes and a crocodile smile. “And, oh my, but we shall have so much fun; won’t we, Ellie?”

  “Ghost, Vinny. I have one target at the rear lobby door.”

  “And I have the other one at the front door.”

  “On my mark then, Five… Four… Three… Two… One… Mark.”

  With almost simultaneous precision, the two sniper rifles fired, emitting muted ‘coughs.’ The high-velocity, specialty bullets struck the building’s thick, floor-to-ceiling, reflective-glass windows with what sounded like one loud Palang! Small, round, spider-webbed holes appeared in both the front and rear exterior glass of the lobby, knocking both guards backward. They now lay motionless on the lobby floor, as Bob heard “Target one down,” and, “Target two down,” in his earbud, in voices so calm, the speakers might have been reading the local weather report. He immediately pressed the button on his remote detonator and the ounce of Semtex blew a large hole in the reinforced metal door of the employee entrance, destroying the heavy, magnetic lock with a loud Bam!

  Bob ran forward and pulled the outer door open with Linda following right behind. The fire stairs were inside and to the right. He yanked the emergency door open, but Linda didn’t wait. She held her Beretta in a two handed grip, cut ahead of him, and ran up the stairs. She was fast, and the best that Bob could do was to reach out with his free hand and grab her by the seat of her pants and stop her.

  “No! Stay behind me!” he ordered.

  “But it’s my daughter!”

  “This is no time to argue, Linda. Stay back. I’d rather you weren’t here at all, much less carrying that handgun; but if you are coming with me, keep it at your side and pointed down,” he told her as he pushed the barrel aside. “If you can’t do that, wait downstairs.” Reluctantly, she nodded, so he sprinted ahead of her up the steep flight of stairs, taking them two at a time.

  Both M-110 sniper rifles carried noise suppressors, and the “Palang!” of a high-velocity bullet hitting the plate glass window followed by the faint ‘tinkle’ of small shards of glass falling on the lobby’s hard travertine floor was all that could be heard inside the building’s first floor atrium lobby, until Bob detonated the Semtex charge on the rear door. It shook the building and even rattled the windows on the third floor. Greenway felt the explosion through the soles of his shoes. It caused him to pause halfway across the office floor and listen intently for any other sounds. His hearing was excellent, and he immediately detected the sound of doors banging in the emergency stairwell several floors below. Tony and his guys? That made no sense.

  “Go, out the door!” he growled as he grabbed Patsy by her arm. “And keep a firm grip on that brat!” he said as he shoved them out the office door and down the hall toward the elevator, “

  As he passed the metal door to the emergency stairwell, Greenway heard footsteps running up the stairs toward him. They hadn’t gotten this high yet, but Greenway knew he had to slow them down if he hoped to get away. He pointed the big Colt at the metal emergency stairwell door and fired three shots, Blam! Blam! Blam! The .357-Magnum slugs punched holes through it as if it weren’t there, and he heard the big slugs ricochet off the stairwell’s bare concrete walls below. Hopefully, that would scare the hell out of whoever was coming up, he thought.

  As Greenway turned and headed for the elevator, he found himself face to face with yet another of Scalese’s security guards, who came running out of one of the empty offices with his gun drawn. From the panicked look in the man’s eyes, it was obvious the gunshots woke him from a sound sleep.

  “What the hell… Who…?” The guard tried to ask as he waved his gun around.

  “You!” Greenway shouted at him. “You’re Fortuno, aren’t you?”

  “Uh, yeah… Freddie Fortuno, Dr. Greenway, what…?”

  “No time for that now. Men are coming here to kill Tony and me. While I get these girls to safety, you keep that fire door covered and shoot anyone who tries to come up here. You got that?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure. I can do that,” Fortuno said as he crouched down in the corridor and pointed his gun at the fire door. “You can tell Mr. Scalese, they won’t get past me.”

  Greenway ran on to the open, third-floor elevator lobby, where Patsy picked up Ellie and held her in her arms. The lobby was like a narrow bridge that connected the left and right wings of the building and gave him a clear view into the front and rear sides of the first floor atrium below. He ran to the railing, looked down, and saw one of the security guards he had talked to only moments before — was his name Bitaglia? — sprawled on the floor with a large pool of blood around his head. Greenway turned to the rear railing and saw the other guard, Costanza, lying in a similar state. In that instant, he realized it wasn’t Tony. It was that bastard Burke again!

  Greenway backed his way to the elevator doors as more gunfire erupted at the end of the hall and the emergency door flew open, and crashed against the sidewall.

  Like Wyatt Earp at the O.K. Corral, Freddie Fortuno stood in the hall outside Greenway’s office. He dropped into a classic, knees-bent, two-handed, shooting stance with his Glock pointed across the hall at the center of the stairwell door only ten feet away. When Freddie saw the emergency door fly open in front of him, he closed his eyes and opened up, pulling the trigger and firing off all ten rounds in his magazine until the Glock clicked empty. When he finally dared to opened his eyes again, he saw he actually put most of the bullets through the open doorway. Yep, he shot that sucker dead, he grinned.

  Experience matters, in cards, horseshoes, and being shot at with semi-automatic weapons. Bob Burke had run up two flights of stairs and turned the corner toward the third floor, when three bullets ripped through the metal fire door up ahead. He pulled Linda down and ducked as the slugs ricocheted back and forth off the concrete walls. From the sound of the gunshots, he guessed them to be from a .357-Magnum, probably a revolv
er, fired “blind” to slow them down while the shooter ran away. So, Bob immediately got to his feet and took the remaining stairs, two at a time. When he reached the third-floor landing, he pulled Linda behind the concrete sidewall with him, and kicked the door. It crashed against the opposite wall with a loud, echoing Boom! He expected to hear several individual shots from a .357 Magnum; instead, he was greeted by a fusillade of bullets flying in through the open doorway.

  Those shots bore the distinctive sound of a 9-millimeter, most likely a Glock. Bob had fired enough rounds with one of them to know what they sounded like, and had had enough bullets of every size and shape fired at him over the years that the counter in his head immediately switched on. Most of the rounds smacked into the concrete wall on the other side of the stairwell and lost their energy. A few ricocheted around the stairwell, but none came close to him or Linda. The standard Glock magazine held ten bullets, which is what he counted. If that was the case, the shooter was now empty, Bob thought, as he dropped to the floor and rolled into the open doorway, ready to fire before the shooter reloaded. However, if the guy carried an extended 17-round magazine, then he was screwed.

  With his head on the floor and his Beretta out in front of him, he acquired a target — a man standing not twelve feet away across the hallway in a solid, knees-bent, two-handed shooting stance. His Glock was still pointed at the open doorway and he continued to pull the trigger with an audible Click! Click! Click! Before the guy figured out he needed a fresh magazine, Bob put three quick rounds in the center of his chest. It was a tight shot grouping, the kind the instructor at Bragg would have laid a quarter over on the paper target and smiled. These shots, however, punched Freddie Fortuno back through Greenway’s doorway, where he collapsed on the floor.

  Bob stuck his head an inch or two farther out and looked down the corridor toward the elevator lobby. Greenway had reached the elevators and was now standing in front of the polished brass doors. That, and the other emergency stairwell at the far end of the hall, were Greenway's only way out now, and they both knew it.