by Ty Patterson
He didn’t have to complete his sentence. They all knew the price of failure was death, and not an easy one. Scheafer had many ways to cause a slow, painful death and enjoyed inflicting them.
‘We’ll hit Hamm’s garage again; it’s reopened now,’ Broker announced.
Chloe looked at him skeptically. ‘Won’t they be sorta expecting that? For us to retaliate for taking me.’
‘Yup, and that’s why we won’t hit immediately. We’ll wait a week. Let them stew.’
They were back at their base, relieving Pieter and Derek, Rocka and the kids able to have some kind of normal life as the kids had started going to a nearby school. Broker had thought about moving base again, but this house was so well located that the benefits outweighed the risks. They had decided that the five of them would spend the least time in the house. Tony, when he was ready, Eric, Pieter and Derek would provide protection for the family.
Broker made another announcement, more triumphantly. ‘My boy’s come up with something more.’
They looked at him, puzzled. Broker scowled back at them. ‘You think Werner doesn’t have feelings just like us? It responds to motivation just like us.’
Bwana whispered, ‘Next he’ll be feeding spinach to the computer.’
‘I heard that.’ Broker waggled a finger at him.
‘You were saying something.’ Roger brought him back to the subject. Broker could go on for hours extolling the virtues of Werner, giving it human traits, if he was allowed free rein.
‘Floyd Wheat changed a pattern about three years back. He started going to a café on the way back from his station.’
He paused, waiting for them to congratulate him. He got astonishment.
‘That’s fucking it?’ Bear, normally not given to swearing, asked him.
Roger rolled his eyes, and Bwana went further. He threw his hands up and mentioned something about a straitjacket.
Broker sighed. ‘How can I expect you guys to connect dots the way I do. Any change in pattern is what we look for since that could be a clue to something that’s a life change, a motivation change, a behavioral change.’
‘We get that, Broker.’ Chloe played peacekeeper. ‘Hard as it might be for you to believe, we are able to think for ourselves.’ Chloe defending a couple of Mensa members.
‘But this is so insignificant… it means nothing. He could’ve just liked the look of a barista there… you mentioned he was divorced and single. I remember I used to frequent one, back in the day, because the server had a nice smile. Just as I was nerving myself to ask her out, I got deployed. Maybe he liked their brew. There’s no way of extrapolating a coffee-drinking habit into a mole’s activities,’ Bear rumbled.
Broker, his arms crossed across his chest, sat back and listened to them protest. When all of them had their say, he waited another beat. ‘You guys done quibbling? Well, hear this…’
He stopped when Bwana raised a hand. The sight of the six-foot-plus hulk behaving as if he was back in school made him smile. He erased it, got in the groove, and pointed at Bwana. ‘Yes, boy?’
‘You got that because he used a charge card, right? Or a credit card, at that café.’
‘Yes, boy, and before you go further, Wheat used plastic everywhere. Newsagent, McDonald’s, cafés, grocery stores, home furnishing, car… wherever he had to spend, the card came out. He always used cards right from since when time began.’
Bwana deflated and gestured at him to carry on.
‘Thank you, boy. Now what I was going to tell you before you questioned my deduction was that all those transactions are within a day or two of the bad busts the FBI was involved in. All of them.’
He smirked as they fell silent. ‘Still doubting me? Here’s another. He went to that café only when there was a bust coming up.’
‘That still isn’t conclusive, Broker,’ Chloe protested, though with less steam.
‘Agreed, and Isakson will want to have everything covered before he can make a move, all the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed and all that. Now I’m speculating here, but I think the café was either a meeting place or some kind of dead drop. For all we know he could have used the disposable cup to write a message that got picked up later.
‘I’m more inclined to think it was a dead drop,’ Broker said after a pause.
Bear caught on. ‘Because if he had met anyone, then Isakson would have known. He had all these guys shadowed for a long while.’
‘So, we check out the café and ask them if they remember his habits? If he was a regular over three years, chances are he’ll be remembered,’ Roger added.
‘Exactement,’ Broker beamed.
He brought up a map of the city and pointed out the café’s address. ‘Just off Hell’s Kitchen. I have no idea if that’s significant, but let’s assume it’s not and was on his way home. He’s renting in the Upper West Side and drives a rather noticeable Camaro, purple in color with afterburners and vanity plates.’ He recited the number.
‘The café might, just might, have CCTV cameras inside and outside,’ Bwana mused.
‘Yeah. I knew my brains would eventually rub off on you guys.’
He produced postcard-sized photographs of Wheat, different angles, and handed them over to Bwana, who passed them onward.
They drew straws on who would go to the café, and it fell to Bwana and Roger.
They took the same Escalade again, which now featured new number plates and sporty white streaks running down the doors on both sides. Makes it a different car, Broker had commented when he tossed the keys to them.
They set out in the evening, Batman time, bright light and golden hue in the city, and finally their luck ran out on Ninth Avenue, the law of averages working for the gang.
At the Garment District, the traffic had slowed due to a bottleneck created by a police cruiser stopping another car, lanes narrowing to two, their ride in the outer lane. They passed the slower-moving vehicles on the left, Bwana rolling down the window on the passenger side to get a better look at the offending vehicle.
They passed a rusted brown Ford, its windows down, driver and passenger nodding their heads as they talked with each other. Roger overtook them slowly, and it was the sudden double take of the driver at Bwana that registered on him through the corner of his eye. He raised the tinted window and tracked them through the mirror, saw the passenger pointing at them, the driver slapping his hand down, talking furiously.
The Ford slipped in their lane, a car behind, and matched their pace.
‘Rog,’ Bwana warned him, Roger needing no warning. He had noted Bwana’s stillness and had caught the car in his mirror.
‘Nix the café. Let’s give them a tour of the city and see if they have any more friends.’
He swung left at the next set of lights and headed to West End Avenue, and the wheels behind followed them, making no effort at concealing themselves. Half an hour of weaving in and out of traffic, sudden turns and using trucks and buses as cover, luck was still evading them.
‘They’ve been on the phone,’ Bwana said, pulling out his phone and donning his headset and mic.
‘Maybe they’ve ordered pizza.’
Bwana punched a number. ‘Broker?’
Broker responded immediately, ‘What’s up?’ and listened without interruption. They could hear him punching keys, bringing their trackers up on a real-time map.
‘You need backup?’
‘Nope,’ drawled Bwana, ‘we’ll see what happens, but you just might want to leave that place and find other digs.’
Broker was silent, knowing what Bwana meant. If they were captured, the gang could find out where they were holed up.
‘We’ll be out in half an hour. I’ll get Rolando to get a couple of cruisers to run interference, but you guys… give them the slip and get away. If they get more hitters, you’ll be in a tough place.’
Roger nodded, accelerated, looked in his mirror, and saw the Ford had disappeared. It appeared in the corner of his eye and
overtook them slowly. The hitter closest to them was staring at them, his fingers made into a gun aimed at them.
Roger looked back in his mirror – a silver car had slipped behind them, its driver boring holes at them through the darkened glass of the Escalade.
There was one passenger up front, and another in the rear, both of them armed, automatic rifles visible through the windshield. These were harder looking men with short hair, and even in the distance, through the traffic, Roger could make that aura.
‘These the A-team?’ Bwana ventured.
‘Possible. Certainly seem better than the military dropouts we’ve come across so far.’ He opened the glove compartment and tossed a cap and gloves to Bwana. The black balaclava cap was tight on Bwana’s head, the gloves snugly fitting. He supported the wheel as Roger donned his, and they bumped fists.
‘Evade first, action a last resort,’ Bwana commented, and Roger nodded.
The Ford slipped ahead of them, boxing them in, but he ignored it. A box worked only if it covered all sides and you respected them, and when he swerved in an alley, the car ahead was left with its occupants looking back at them.
The silver Nissan was a different proposition, handled by an experienced getaway driver. He followed them through all their tricks and turns, a determined wasp up their tail.
On a narrow street temporarily empty of any traffic, its windows rolled down, a hitter loosed off a few controlled shots aimed at their tires, all of them missing.
Roger headed back to traffic-heavy streets and noted the way the hitters concealed their weapons when they passed close to other traffic. Professionals. Don’t want to invite unnecessary attention.
He joined West End Avenue, glanced sideways, and saw Bwana taking another gun, its steel frame and barrel glinting dully in his lap.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ he asked, keeping an eye on his mirror.
Bwana nodded, checked the magazine, and slipped it in his shoulder holster.
Roger drew on, passing several traffic lights, slowing at each of them, the Nissan closing the distance whenever Roger decelerated.
Their ride was the fifth vehicle from the next red light, and he inched forward as the cars ahead wheeled off at green. Bwana waited for amber, ignoring the honking from the long line of vehicles behind him, and just when it turned red, he floored it.
Horses lunged forward under the bonnet, surging their car ahead, raising another chorus of honking as vehicles from the sides came to a sudden stop furiously. He dropped speed once the junction was crossed, and in the distance he saw the Nissan move to the head of the line at the light behind.
Traffic flowed around them, ignoring their slow amble, and then six cars behind, he saw the flash of silver.
Timing was everything now.
In the distance he saw the next set of lights, about five minutes away, and six cars behind, the Nissan. He steered sedately, scanning the cars behind him, a white van and a people carrier behind it visible in their immediate wake. They followed him for a while, impatiently wheeled out and overtook him, and others slipped in their place. The flash of silver was now four cars closer.
Roger crossed the light, steered to the slow lane, allowing them to narrow that down to three cars, and then maintained enough speed to keep the train of cars in line.
They had their next break when a harried executive cut in behind them driving a Land Rover Defender, its tall body filling their mirrors temporarily. Roger gassed it to make space and saw that the Nissan had used the opportunity to fall behind the Defender.
He sped up and maintained a steady pace and the two cars behind followed suit. The business executive was oblivious to those ahead and behind him, oblivious to the weapons visible in the hitters’ hands.
Roger nudged their ride to the side, bringing the driver side of the silver car into their mirrors. Now that side of the Escalade was visible to the heavies too.
The light ahead was green, and he slowed, taking his time, and then it turned amber, and Bwana slipped out, opening the door a crack.
He ducked beneath their sight line, ran back, slipped in front of the Defender, and tapped the Escalade to let Roger know he was in position.
Roger opened his door and climbed out, his hand going near his shoulder holster, drawing his gun, capturing their attention, their windows rolling down, doors opening, weapons straightening at him, passersby screaming, shouting, ducking, cars swerving.
Bwana climbed on the Defender’s bonnet, ignoring the executive’s shouting, raised his balaclava-clad head above its roof, his Grach leading his eye, felt time and space slowing as the driver and passenger swung their eyes and rifles back to take this new element into account. That split second costing them as the Grach in his hand bucked, its armor-piercing bullets punching large holes in the windshield, fissures decorating the holes, punching through the first two hitters, a third shot going in the back. Bwana flowed down the Defender, glided back to the Escalade, and Roger gunned it through the lights and away from the Nissan, which was slumped tiredly to a stop.
The city’s traffic and honking came back into focus and moved swiftly under their wheels. Roger drove hard, cut through several lanes, circled several blocks to shake off any possible pursuers and finally slipped into a garage that Broker guided them to.
Wheeling into it, they jumped off, shut the metal gates behind them, and spent the next hour stripping the seats out of their vehicle. They would be incinerated, and new seating would be installed. The car would be fully valeted, spray painted with a new color, new plates, and back at Broker’s service the next day.
Chloe swung by in the late evening to pick them up.
‘Were they good?’ she asked.
Bwana shrugged. ‘We’re still here.’
Chapter 39
‘We’ll go tomorrow to the café,’ Roger told them when they joined Broker and Bear. This time Broker had found them a couple of rooms very near Hell’s Kitchen.
‘Nope.’ Broker clapped him on the shoulder, swiftly running his eyes over both of them. They had said they came out uninjured, but the two often carried minor injuries that they never declared.
He saw Bwana scowl. ‘It’s not the first time you’ve uttered an ethical lie.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d never heard that term till you coined it.’
‘The café – it’s not improbable that the gang is watching it. They aren’t stupid, and if Wheat is their guy and all that coffee drinking was a cover for passing messages, they might have some hoods hanging around it.’
‘So we just give up?’ Bear growled, his voice filling the small room they were in.
Chloe looked at him impatiently. ‘Let’s go to Isakson with this. They can put feet and eyes on the café.’
Broker’s phone rang just as he reached out for it.
‘Speak of the devil.’ He thumbed it, accepting the call, holding a finger up to hush them. ‘Isakson?’
He listened for a minute without interrupting. ‘No, not there. Somewhere else.’ He held the phone away as a torrent of words poured out.
‘I can’t confirm or deny that,’ he said, winking at the others. ‘Don’t waste our time. Find a neutral place for us to meet, and we’ll be there in an hour.’
He shook his head mournfully at them when he’d hung up. ‘Isakson is a good agent; he’s just too bureaucratic.
‘Let’s move. He’s got some news of some meth changing hands, the gang buying.’
They separated, took two cabs, and met Isakson at a midtown Starbucks, Broker liking the anonymity offered by it.
‘Easier to detect a hitter carrying an Uzi,’ he said when Isakson asked him about the location.
He made a ‘give’ motion with his hand. Isakson sighed, looked around, and leant forward.
‘Two million dollars’ worth of ice is to change hands in two days; the gang is buying from a Puerto Rican outfit. Ice is–’
‘A purified form of meth. We know. Carry on,’ Bear interrupted him.
Isaks
on glanced at him, swallowed his retort, and soldiered on.
‘We’ve been watching a gang safe house for the last week and have seen the Puerto Ricans slowly build up a stash there of meth. We were planning to raid the place but held back when we heard talk of a deal happening. Three days back, we caught a couple of gangbangers talking on their mobiles, and using lip-reading experts and long-distance electronic surveillance, we know they’re selling the stash to 5Clubs. That deal is happening midday in two days’ time.’
He leant back in satisfaction. ‘This time no snitches, no intermediaries. Good policing and persistence has brought this to us. We aren’t going to screw it.’
‘You’ve cross-checked this with any chatter?’ Roger asked him curiously.
‘You don’t get a lot of gang chatter. It’s not as if gangbangers hit the Internet the way extremists do. However, from the street, we haven’t got a lot of talk from our snitches. I’m not surprised. Given the way you guys have been going hard at them, I fully expected both gangs to keep this as quiet as they can.’
‘How many are in the know?’ Broker asked him casually.
He grimaced. ‘The joint task forces, my team… a lot of folks. This came up through the task force; there was no way we could restrict the information flow.’
‘Your thirty guys been involved?’
‘Twenty-six. Four of them have been away for more than a month for various reasons.’
‘Which four?’
‘Santiago, Wheat, and two others. Santiago is expecting another child and is on maternity leave. Wheat plays basketball with a bunch of guys, dislocated his knee, suffered a hairline fracture, and will be out of play for some time. The other two had personal stuff come up.’
‘How does this work? Are these four kept in the loop even if they’re out of action?’
Isakson shook his head. ‘Nope. We don’t drown agents in stuff if they’re not able to do anything with it. Not one of them knows about this deal.’
He looked at them keenly. ‘Any of those four on your shit list?’