by Ty Patterson
The second hitter scanned the other end, saw nothing, and whispered at Driver to inspect the barrel and recce the front of the factory.
Driver stepped forward cautiously, edging wide to have an early look inside the barrel. It was empty. He whipped his rifle up and called out softly to the men inside, briefing them.
The second hitter stepped away from the building and edged to the back, taking short steps.
His rifle poked its snout around the edge of the building, then one eye appeared, followed by his forehead; the rest of his head showed itself as he detected no threat.
The Watcher lay prone, hugging concrete and cold steel, another dark stain in the darkness carpeting the shadow of the site.
His hands were stretched in a pistol shooting stance, arm and fingers melding into pistol, eye becoming front sight, front sight becoming forehead, finger depressing in response to a brain command.
The hitter’s head exploded. The Watcher didn’t wait to watch.
His left leg and arm sprang down, powering him up, right leg taking a long step, left leg another, right leg taking him to flight, left leg bracing against the cold metal of the side, launching him.
The Watcher flew out of the side of the structure, legs spread wide, body bent forward, his gun arm straight and steady, searching and finding Driver, who was looking eye height and down for threats. The Watcher’s first bullet went wide, the second hit Driver in the left shoulder, the third tapping him in the back, and the fourth caught his head.
The Watcher landed, took three steps to slow and turn and ran back down the side of the building. Stopping in its shadow, he pulled another gadget from his backpack, an audio playback device with a timer setting, scrolled down its list of recordings and selected one. Setting the timer, he hid it under a metal overhang at the foot of the building and ran.
The hoods inside saw the men outside being blown away, and one of them stuck his rifle out and started firing blindly in the direction of the attacker. The other, older and more experienced, shouted at him repeatedly till the shooter stopped, and signaled at him to stay quiet. They needed to know how large the attacking force was without revealing their positions.
Twenty seconds of deep silence followed, broken by the creaking of metal, and then the first shot rang out, loud and echoing in the empty factory, making them duck for cover. A barrage of shots followed, pinging off the metal frame, making them step deeper in the cover of the side walls. The older guy ducked low, took two steps back, frowned hard, and he whirled round suddenly as realization hit him.
His forehead blossomed and disappeared before he could shout a warning.
The Watcher stood inside the shadow of the entrance, trained his gun on the second man, and then lowered it.
The woman had taken advantage of the distraction to run behind the second hitter, kicking him in the groin from the rear, another kick smashing his face against the metal wall. He fell heavily and stayed still as she kicked him in the head again for good measure.
The Watcher’s lips twitched, his muscles unused to smiling, as he tossed a knife on the concrete and disappeared.
Chloe turned around, saw the entrance was empty, checked outside, ran back to the side entrance, past the corner, peered low, and saw the device. She’d realized the shots were phony, yet in the heat of battle, they’d sounded realistic along with the metal pings and impacts.
She went back inside to the knife and, lying down awkwardly, picked it up with her fingers, fumbled with it, and headed to Tony.
Half an hour later she was leading Tony out, away from the site to where the hum of vehicles could be heard.
Vehicles meant people. She kicked up the pace.
Harry’s Diner, its faded sign swaying limply in the sky, was in a gas station and, despite the shabby exterior, was richly warm inside, the smell and sound of food, coffee, and people comforting.
She marched to the counter, where a bearded and heavily tattooed mountain stood chewing on a plug.
‘Phone,’ she demanded.
The mountain ran his eyes over her and jerked his head at a far wall where a pay phone hung.
Chloe picked up loose change, tips from tables, on her way, lasered the waitress’s indignant, ‘Hey,’ with cold eyes, and dialed.
‘They must have followed Chloe and somehow got the drop on her and Tony.’ Bear broke the silence at last.
They were hurtling down the highway toward Gloucester City, following a weak signal emitted by a transmitter sewn in Chloe’s jacket. They all had such transmitters, put there for just such circumstances.
Broker nodded, didn’t comment, his foot down hard, cold rage and fear turbocharging the vehicle.
Bear glanced at Bwana, who had just smashed a massive fist against the window.
‘They need her alive, Tony and her,’ he said mildly. ‘Till they know what’s happened to Diego and Cruz, they need leverage to negotiate… and they don’t know since we have their phones and have ignored their calls.’
Bwana looked at him and away, the truth in Bear’s words not reducing the urge in him to strike hard, reducing the hoods to fine dust.
Roger gripped his shoulder, knowing exactly how he felt.
Silence fell over them again, their thoughts drowning the rush of rubber on asphalt and sounds of occasional passing traffic.
A silence that was broken by Broker’s phone ringing shrilly. He looked at it, not recognizing it, and took it on his headset.
‘Yes,’ he grunted, then sat straighter, letting the vehicle slow.
‘Where?’ he asked and thumbed directions on his GPS system. ‘Hold tight. We’ll be there in half an hour.’
He hung up and turned on the gas again, ignoring the inquisitive looks the others gave him till Bwana punched him in the shoulder, a light punch by Bwana’s standards, that nearly threw him into the windshield.
He grinned broadly. ‘That was Chloe. She’s out and safe.’
He held his hand up to silence them. ‘Nope. I don’t have anything more than that. All she said was she was taken to Southport in Gloucester City, and now she’s free and safe. She said we should haul our asses and get her.’
‘That sounds like her,’ Bear said and leaned back, relaxing, little springs and nerves in him uncoiling.
They didn’t spot her outside the diner, just a whole load of cars, trucks and drivers of various shapes and sizes. No Chloe. No Tony.
Bwana didn’t wait for Broker to stop, lunging out of the Escalade before it had even come to a halt, covering the ground in long strides, other drivers scampering to get out of his way.
Broker shook his head at his departing back. ‘Surest way to get ulcers, or give someone a panic attack.’
Bwana flung open the double doors to the diner and stood there, ignoring the scowls from the tattooed mountain behind the counter and scanned the diner. No Chloe. No Tony.
He scanned again, now joined by the others, blocking the door. No sign of them.
He walked to the counter. ‘There was a guy and a woman here, half an hour back. She used the phone. Seen her?’
The man looked at him dismissively. ‘Bud, do I look like someone who keeps tabs on who comes here, does what? So long as I’m paid, I don’t give a damn.’
Roger joined Bwana, the others staying by the door, and smiled widely at the man. ‘My friend here is not a man to rile. If you know where those two are, it’s best you tell him.’
The man opened his mouth to retort, saw something in Bwana’s eyes, and closed it, his eyes moving past their shoulder.
‘Those two are here,’ came Chloe’s voice from behind them.
They turned round to see her supporting Tony, handing him over to Bear and Broker.
‘Any need to barge in here and threaten violence?’ she asked Bwana icily.
‘I didn’t. I asked politely,’ he growled back, enjoying the relief the back and forth provided.
‘Hell, Bwana, you walk like that without even saying a word, and mothers take thei
r children and run to the hills,’ she threw back at him.
‘How’s he?’ she asked Bear once they were driving back. Bear was tending to Tony in the rear.
‘I was a Ranger, ma’am. I’ll be fine, just some flesh wounds,’ Tony mumbled through cracked lips. ‘Should help me land the girls now.’
Broker snorted. ‘I can just imagine the stories that you’ll spin out of that, Tony. Enough fodder for a few years, I reckon.’
Women fell for Tony, finding something in his average appearance and shy demeanor. It helped that once he lost his reserve, he was an incredible raconteur.
Bwana, driving, glanced balefully at Roger. ‘You never told me that bruises will help with women. You always said all I had to do was dress sharp and the women would come running. I did, and none came.’
Roger looked pityingly at Bwana. ‘Nothing can help you, Bwana. You’ve seen those Hulk movies, haven’t you? You figured out that there’s a reason for Hulk not having a mate?’
Chloe and Bear, listening behind them, knew this was their way of letting off their tension, helping the needle move from red to normal. She squeezed Bear’s arm, conveying all that she felt in that small gesture.
Broker let them have their moment and then asked her, ‘What happened? How did you get out?’
Chloe shook her head, puzzled. ‘I’ve been trying to figure that out for some time. Those goons took us to that place and started on us when they couldn’t raise Cruz. Well, both of us were going to hold out as long as we could, and then someone joined the party.’
She told them what she’d seen and heard. Which wasn’t much.
‘But I retrieved these.’
She dug into the pockets of her fatigues and brought out the knife and the playback gadget.
Broker inspected them for a long while and then sighed. ‘The blade… millions like it sold in Walmart and Target. We won’t get anywhere with that. The device is more interesting. Home-made with components from RadioShack, but those components are fairly common, and we won’t be able to track the source store.’
He went silent, thinking, and finally gave voice to what had been going through his mind for a long time.
‘You know, if this is our same ghost, he isn’t your ordinary vigilante or gun nut who’s developed a Batman syndrome.’ He held the playback device. ‘This is an amateur device, but sophisticated enough to have hundreds of recordings in it that play back authentically. There’s shooting in a desert, shooting in a corridor to give echoes… he’s got shooting on a mountain, for crissakes. The way he appears and disappears, the way he took those guys out – the first time he’s shown his hand. If it’s him, of course.’
‘He’s a professional. Like us.’
They digested his words, nodding in acknowledgement. They had reached the same conclusion.
‘Better not be one of those navy boys,’ Bwana muttered.
Roger waved a hand dismissively. ‘Question is, why is he helping us?’
Broker got there before them and waited for their light bulb moment.
‘Clare?’ Chloe asked.
‘Well done. She’s the only one I can think of who’s got a vested interest in looking after our hides.’
‘If it was her, why wouldn’t she tell us? And looks like this guy is so good, how about bringing him in our fold?’ Bwana broke in.
‘All in good time, Mr. Patience. As long as this ghost isn’t in our way, he’s not hindering us in any way.’
Chloe twisted around to peer in the back of the Escalade. ‘Where are those two? What did you find out from them?’
Broker sobered. ‘They had suspected Shattner of being a plant after several of their deals went down badly, and after the cops had barged in on their last deal, which was there’ – he nodded in the direction of Southport – ‘they were even more sure.
‘They hadn’t plugged him till then because he fit into their façade perfectly, good mechanic, white guy, all that shit. And get this – they were thinking of using him as their own double! However, when the deals started going south, they couldn’t risk having him around anymore and decided to lift Shattner.
‘They brought him here, maybe the same place that you were held in, going by what he mentioned in his journal, their description of it, and your mentioning it.’
‘Shattner didn’t break.’ Broker’s voice softened and slowed, his words hanging heavy in the air.
‘They shot out his knees, but he stuck to his story. Diego went to work on his insides, and by then he was screaming, calling out his kids’ names. He must’ve lost his senses by then.
‘But he didn’t break.’ Broker wiped his face with his hand, slicked back his hair, and took a deep breath.
‘Of course, everyone breaks. Cruz and his sidekick knew this. So did Shattner. When Diego was cutting him, he lunged inside not away, and the knife went too deep. Diego said he was smiling as he died. They were kicking him and screaming at him as he lay there, asking him to confess.’
Chloe shut her eyes, willing her imagination to stay silent, not throw up images of Shattner broken and bleeding, the deep driving urge in him not to escape, but to die before the truth spilled out. She drew a deep breath and looked at the men around her, the cold, hard light in their eyes comforting her.
She rested her head against Bear’s shoulder, which was hard as a rock. ‘The kids. Elaine Rocka. They need to know he wasn’t a loser.’
Bwana’s voice rumbled in the vehicle. ‘They will. We would’ve been proud to know him.’
‘What’ve you done with them?’ she asked after a long time.
‘They’re alive, but Broker came up with a unique disposal system,’ Roger deadpanned, lightening their mood.
She looked curiously at him and turned to Broker.
‘Eric’s taking them.’
‘To Oborski.’
Chapter 38
‘Five of them, hundreds of us, and look where we are,’ the speaker said softly. He didn’t need to raise his voice, not when he was Agon Scheafer. Scheafer’s hawk eyes surveyed the four of them seated in front of him around a small conference table in the dim lighting of a hotel room.
The room had hitters outside the doors, in the corridor, and a few of them in the lobby, looking just like hitters should, reinforcing the message to guests and onlookers that the hotel wasn’t a place they should spend too much time in.
A fifth chair was empty, which Cruz would have occupied. Cruz had dropped off the grid for more than a day. The last they knew was him heading to New Jersey for a deal. And then silence.
The gang had scoured all parts of Gloucester City and within a radius of a hundred miles, but had come up empty-handed. The New York chapters had banged doors, knocked heads, and hadn’t had any success either.
‘Is HE worth all this?’ Hamm ventured, choosing his words carefully. He had seen Scheafer disembowel another chapter head in front of them and sip delicately on a glass of claret as the man died.
The full force of those eyes turned on him. ‘That’s not for discussion. You haven’t answered me. How have five people done this to us?’
Hamm had once been in a firefight with three SWAT agents and, after running out of ammunition, had taken them on with just a blade. He had come out on top. Just. His entrails tied back in with his shirt, he had walked a mile to the nearest residence, killed the occupants, and had called for help.
Feeling that gaze on him, he preferred taking on that SWAT team again than sitting in that room, answering to Scheafer.
‘Our size doesn’t count for much when you consider their abilities and that they’re always on the move. They attack directly, and our men aren’t used to that. They’re used to cops crashing down doors, other gangs picking them off at night, but these guys attack swiftly, in the open, disappear before our guys have woken up, and when they do, they’re dead or dying. They use lures and decoys, and our guys get sucked in. We tried taking them down at our sites, but they attacked us so fast and so unexpectedly that they got
away.’
‘All I’m hearing are excuses. You know how I view failure.’ Scheafer looked intently at each one of them. ‘We’ve recruited guys with military experience. These tactics shouldn’t be a surprise to them.’
Kelleher, Sancada, and Morales fidgeted in their seats but kept quiet, happy for Hamm to take the heat and continue talking for them now that he had the ball. In any case, their chapters hadn’t been hit so far.
‘Their military experience doesn’t count,’ Hamm said, biting back the for jack shit that nearly slipped out of his mouth. ‘Except a few, including us, none have served more than two years, and they were the worst soldiers. Against other gangbangers, their experience counts, not against these guys. These guys… you blink and you’re dead. You don’t blink, that’s because you’re already dead.’
He considered his words for a moment. ‘I warned you this might happen, many years back.’
‘You seem to be full of admiration for them.’ The hawk eyes burned, sighting prey.
‘They’ve ruined my chapter, brought heat on me, made a fool out of me,’ Hamm replied savagely. ‘I want to rip their hearts out and drink their blood. Admire them? Fuck no. But I have respect for them.’
The eyes didn’t move, staring at him, and he wondered if those were the last words he’d utter.
‘We should go nuclear, but there’s a risk,’ Hamm suggested cautiously. If he had to die, at least it would be after having his say.
‘Speak.’
Hamm outlined his plan, and they considered it silently. Scheafer looked at it from different angles and then finally nodded.
‘Set it up. I shall warn our friend.’
As they were leaving, Scheafer said in a silky voice, ‘I hope, for your sake, this plan works. If it doesn’t…’