The make-up plastered woman behind the desk was staring now. He finally moved forward.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I’m looking for Allen Green.”
“He doesn’t work here anymore,” she snapped. Nick figured he wasn’t the first to stop by and ask about him.
“Well, can I speak to one of his good friends?”
She squinted at him, looking disgusted, but picked up a phone. She dialed a number and asked a “Mike” to come to the front desk.
Mike showed up a couple minutes later. Nick knew he wouldn’t get along well with Mike. Mike had curly, long hair and some kind of designer glasses with really small lenses. Lenses barely larger than his eyes. He also had a notepad and pen in his hands.
Nick hesitated, his paranoia returning, but then realized this momma’s boy couldn’t possibly be anything other than just a reporter. He for damn sure was too soft to be an agent waiting to take Nick out.
But if he were, Nick had the .45 tucked in his back, and two more magazines in case Mike brought reinforcements.
“Did you need something?” Mike asked, his voice too educated for Nick’s tastes.
“I called you, didn’t I?”
“You sure did, but I’m busy, so if you don’t mind?”
“Lead the way, hoss.”
Mike glared at Nick’s blue jeans and shook his head in disgust. This guy had definitely strayed too far north of the Mason-Dixon Line. He better have something good to say, Mike thought, as he led him through the cramped and crowded newsroom.
Nick surveyed Allen’s old work-place. Cubicle after cubicle dotted the interior, like islands. The cubicles were low, maybe four or five feet high, and heads popped up and shouted across the room intermittently. Nick figured it would be stressful as hell working here.
Mike stopped off at a glass room and stepped inside. Nick followed, and Mike shut the door behind him. The room consisted of a conference table, ten chairs, and a shoulder high tree of some kind growing out of a basket in the corner. Amazingly, the room was well insulated from the noise outside in the news room once the door closed.
“What’s your name?” Mike asked, opening up his notebook.
“I don’t think you need to know that,” Nick said.
Mike groaned and dropped his reporter’s notebook on the table.
“Look, we’re not going off the record. I only do that with people I know, that I approach because I have to.”
Nick shrugged. He’d need to do some good acting here. “Sorry. I’m not talking.”
Mike looked intrigued like he was on the verge of giving in, but --
“All right,” Nick said. “You win, but not today. You get me Allen Green’s new address or phone number. I don’t care which. I’ll talk to him alone and get him to vouch for my military background and service. If he doesn’t, then you’ll never see me. If he does, then you’ll have one of the biggest stories of your career.”
“This better be good,” Mike said.
“Well, I’m not sure what you consider good, but when you get what I’ve got to tell, it’ll be worth the wait.”
Mike picked up the pad, wrote down something, and tore off a sheet.
“Here’s his number,” he said, pushing the paper across the table. “Call him and then call me.”
With that, Mike reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card. He slid that across, too.
Nick accepted both, nodded, and said, “Thanks, Mike. You’ve been most helpful.” He tried to hide his smile, but couldn’t. He had scored a major accomplishment, finally finding a way to contact Allen.
Nick rushed from the building to find a payphone. He finally located one inside a bad-smelling section of the subway seven and a half blocks away.
He dialed Allen Green’s phone number, looking for anyone suspicious around him. No doubt, things would soon get dicey.
It rang three times before it was answered.
“This is Allen,” Nick heard.
“Allen, hi, uhh, how are you?” Nick said. “Look, I need to meet you.”
“I don’t even know who you are,” Allen said. “Who am I talking to?”
“Uh, I can’t say over the phone.”
“Then I’m not interested in whatever it is you called me about. Besides, I’m not in the news business anymore.”
“Look, this is really important.”
“I don’t meet strangers,” Allen said.
He hung the phone up, perplexed. That had been weird. He replayed the experience of meeting the “source” who had brought a couple of friends for a friendly elevator ride a few days ago. Not to mention a couple of paramedics.
Nick listened to the dial tone in the phone. Shit.
He should have planned the phone call better. He reached into the front pocket of his blue jeans for some more change. He only had a dime and a nickel -- not enough.
Well, he would be forced to think about what to say this time, since he needed to get some change. He hung the phone up and stepped from the booth.
On the other end of the call, Allen remembered the paramedics strapping him down and waking up to meet Mr. NFL Linebacker and Whitaker.
They had broken him so easily. Whitaker asking for a radio and giving a command. Someone already waiting at Allen’s apartment to burn it down.
The fire being reported over the radio minutes later. Then, it hit Allen. Those guys were professionals, duh. But, whoever had just called had hardly been a professional.
He had been a tongue-tied idiot and a Southern one at that. At least, that was how he had sounded.
It might have been an act by someone who was not a tongue-tied idiot, but couldn’t Whitaker and his professional thugs come abduct Allen whenever they wanted anyway?
They could pick his locks in the middle of the night or show up impersonating a cop. They were so good that probably nothing was beyond their capabilities. But this guy had been none of those things.
Allen punched the menu button on the cell phone and looked at the number on the caller ID. He punched the talk button and hoped he hadn’t waited too long.
Nick had made it close to twenty feet from the payphone when he heard it ring. Could it be Allen? He ran back to it.
“Hello?” he said, somewhat stupidly.
“Hey, it’s Allen Green. I’ve changed my mind. Let’s meet.”
“Okay. Well, that’s great. I don’t know the area, so you’ll have to pick somewhere. And it needs to be really public, lots of people around if you know what I mean.”
Allen did, but he played it off. “No, I don’t know what you mean. Well, how about O’Mally’s diner. It’s just off --”
“No,” Nick said, “I’d rather meet at a busy bus stop or somewhere near the subway.”
“Okay, let’s meet at Luzio’s. It’s a pizza shop just half a block from the substation on 46th street.”
“Done. I’m on my way,” Nick said, digging out his recently purchased map of New York City.
Chapter 35
Whitaker drove down a waste barren street, deep in one of the worst ghettos he had ever seen. He was still in Los Angeles, preparing for the strike against the rival drug-running gang called the Hands of Death.
Empty warehouses with graffiti-covered walls flanked the street, and Whitaker shook his head in disgust. A plastic bag blew across the street in front of him. Spray-painted dumpsters and trash-covered alleys seemed to be the only noticeable landmarks.
This was the new frontier, Whitaker thought. For centuries, it used to be the oceans until men like Columbus broke them, and then later, the Wild West, which Calvary troopers and unflinching, gritty sheriffs tamed. Then came outer space, but man had mostly conquered it as well, putting a man on the moon and a space station in the air.
Some said outer space hadn’t been conquered, that the U.S. should now try to put a man on Mars. But, that was all bullshit, Whitaker knew. The real frontiers resulted from lost ground, where once beautiful towns had turned to busin
ess-deserted, drug-infested inner cities.
The days of negotiating with the likes of Sitting Bull and Geronimo had been replaced by worried police chiefs trying to control large numbers of barely educated, unmotivated groups of people. These groups of people were of all colors, including white, but they shared a common tendency: they were beat down and mostly uninterested in education or self-improvement.
They would riot, burn, and loot what few valuable buildings they still had, given the smallest reason.
With every sensory gland screaming out warnings, Whitaker felt very much alive as he traveled deeper into the deserted no man’s land of this ghetto. No different than it was a good hundred and fifty years ago, he thought. He was the lone gunfighter riding through town scoping out the enemy, his posse just behind him.
He had passed three groups of thugs, each standing on street corners. These were the black type, not Hispanic or white. Not that it mattered. They were all trash, Whitaker knew.
Armed, the men had eyed him and his black BMW with suspicion. Even Whitaker, the daredevil that he was, knew he was pushing his luck. Whitaker was certain they were all members of the Hands of Death. He figured they were packing pistols, maybe an automatic Uzi or two among them.
But, he was armed, too. Underneath his right leg, a fat Glock pistol lay packed with seventeen rounds of hand-loaded, 9 mm hollow-point ammo. The rounds, crammed to the limit with powder like some mid-Western silo stuffed full of corn, dangerously pushed the limits of safety as to what could be fired without his pistol exploding.
But, Whitaker trusted his unit’s hand loader, one of the best in the country. More important than safety, he wanted the additional knockdown power of the super-powerful bullets, as well as the higher magazine capacity of the smaller nine-millimeter round.
He was watching the last group of thugs in his rear view mirror when his cell phone rang. Few had his number, so he answered it. “Yes?”
“Sir,” a woman said, “Sherlock Holmes reports a likely contact between their target and Lone Wolf. Please advise.”
Shit, Whitaker thought. Sherlock Holmes was the code name for two agents keeping an eye on the reporter Allen Green back in New York. The two agents, a man and woman, were pulling murderous twelve-hour shifts, taking turns relieving each other while everyone tried to guess what Allen Green would do. Thankfully, the shifts had been boring and mundane to date.
But that must have changed since the term “Lone Wolf” was the code name for Nick Woods.
Shit, shit, shit. There was no way the two strung-out agents could take down Nick Woods. Not likely anyway. Nick would have selected the rendezvous and scoped it out to his advantage. It was routine sniper procedure. But, damn it, he couldn’t allow the two men to make a connection either. Allen and Nick together, if working in collaboration, would pose the most serious threat that Whitaker’s unnamed unit had ever faced.
He had no strike teams within range. Two of the eight-man teams were still in Pakistan, and one was prepping for the bloody raid planned for tonight against the Hands of Death. As for the last two groups, one was doing desert training in the Mojave Desert, and the other was practicing building assaults in a rough part of Seattle.
Who else was available? He thought there might be a retired member of his unit in upstate New York, but that man probably couldn’t make it to New York City in time. For that matter, the man probably couldn’t even make a successful hit on Nick.
It didn’t matter. There was a chance of success, and unfortunately, freedom demanded a heavy price. He would order an immediate hit on both of them.
“Sir, are you there?”
“Yes!” Whitaker snapped. He practically screamed.
Distracted, he never noticed the stop sign he ran or the black and white police cruiser that pulled out from an alley between two buildings. The car immediately flipped on its flashing lights, which caught Whitaker’s attention.
“Shit, got to go. I’ll call you right back,” he said, slamming shut the folding cell phone before his agent on the other end could reply.
Whitaker’s heart was throbbing, his hands shaking. He knew running was not an option. Too many other cruisers and helicopters in L.A., not to mention he didn’t know the area. He pulled the car to the curb, easy-like. No, his only option would be an ambush. A brutal, cowardly ambush.
The officer watched him warily from inside his cruiser once they were both stopped. He bent his head to the side and said something into a radio. Whitaker was not worried about that. His license plate was authentic, as was the car’s registration. Both to a retired U.S. Army officer.
The retired officer got paid good money for the small risk of letting Whitaker borrow his car while he was in L.A. Whitaker would warn him to report the car stolen as soon as he took care of this piece of business.
The officer got out of the car, remarkably slow. Wary. Standing behind the opened police car’s door, he looked about him, eyeing the thugs from the Hands of Death standing on the corner behind them two blocks away. Satisfied all was well, he shut the door.
The officer was Hispanic and young. Probably early twenties. Of course, that made sense. No veteran officer in their right mind would be patrolling this part of town. They’d have earned safer patrol zones.
The police officer was slim and wore thick black leather gloves. His short-sleeved shirt revealed strong arms, not like a body builder’s, but more like a runner or soccer player. His belt had the usual pistol, pepper spray, radio, and extra magazines. He left his baton and shotgun in the car.
The officer looked about again as he walked toward the car. His eyes remained hidden behind reflective, aviator sunglasses. That would make it more difficult for Whitaker. No doubt about it.
The cop approached Whitaker, his body closely hugging the car providing practically no target. Damn, he was good, Whitaker thought. In a different time and place, Whitaker might have recruited him.
By now, Whitaker knew a conversation followed by a distraction and a takedown was impossible. This guy was just too good. And that sucked for him because Whitaker would prefer to immobilize him and handcuff him, keeping him alive.
But this officer had probably been patrolling this part of town long enough to know that you didn’t think about sex or football when on duty in this area.
Whitaker braced himself. This was the hardest part. One of them was going to die, or at least get hurt badly.
Fuck it, Whitaker thought as he grabbed the door handle and swung the door open.
The officer, the consummate professional, was raising his hand, but not his voice. “Sir, please stay in the car.”
Whitaker knew the officer was thinking, “Nothing uncommon happening here. He had control of the situation. Besides, the man was well dressed.”
But, something very uncommon was indeed happening.
Whitaker’s shoes hit the pavement and he stood, but his movements were slow and smooth, very non-threatening. His left hand, purposefully visible.
Then, things changed, everything moving too fast for the officer to do anything about it.
Whitaker twisted to face the man frontally and moved at a speed that screamed death. The officer, only three feet away, realized he was in serious trouble. His right hand was reaching for his pistol on his duty belt while his left moved toward Whitaker to shove him off balance.
Whitaker ignored the officer’s attempt and fired one-handed, his right hand holding the pistol low near his beltline and out of reach of the officer. The shot connected, hitting the officer low in the belly, but not penetrating the bulletproof vest or knocking him down.
It did stop both the shove and the draw of the man’s pistol. Instead, the officer’s hands clutched his stomach, and his body tried to comprehend the extreme blow.
Whitaker fired again from his hip. The round hit in the chest area, twisting the man and knocking him backward. Whitaker’s pistol extended and he aimed this time, firing four shots into the officer’s back.
The shot
s were fast, machine-gun like, and the officer had no trauma plate to spread the shock along his back. The vest also probably couldn’t stop that many shots that close together. It wasn’t designed for that.
Whitaker didn’t care whether any had penetrated. As the officer jerked painfully and further lost his balance, Whitaker kept shooting, walking the rounds up into the neck and back of the head.
The time for trying to take the man alive was long past.
The man jerked with each shot and landed hard on the pavement, his head leading the way. He jerked and shook in spasms on the ground.
Whitaker, without even thinking, fired a final round into his head.
His ears screamed from the shooting, a loud and annoying whistle. He hated shooting without earplugs in.
He glanced around, checking his blinds spots and eyeing the thugs two blocks away. Convinced it was clear, he calmly changed magazines.
Whitaker scanned the area one final time and climbed back into his vehicle. He refused to squeal the tires as he pulled away.
Behind him, the thugs from the Hands of Death looked on, impressed by the well-dressed, white man in the BMW.
Whitaker regretted killing the cop. There were not many of his killings he regretted, and he was already certain this one would be the worst. Thankfully, he had mentally prepared himself for it.
The arguments were many. His unit’s mission was too important strategically for the country when compared to what one good cop might accomplish. Not to mention, the cop’s death would only improve the police force, making them train harder and play it safer.
Crime-wise, no doubt the death would create outrage, and the community would rise up with the cops, determined to exterminate the vermin responsible for the man’s death. That was good, except it would hurt his own drug trafficking efforts. Of course, he could shift his boys and focus in some other city for the short term. The crackdown might even break the Hands of Death for good.
He was four blocks away now and certain he would get away. Probably in another two or three minutes, dispatch would radio the officer inquiring why he hadn’t checked in, as was standard for even routine traffic stops. They would scramble their forces moments after that, and dispatch would know his license plate.
Sold Out (Nick Woods Book 1) Page 11