Sons of War 3: Sinners

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

She unlatched the door and forced it open. Stumbling out onto the sidewalk, she tried to orient herself. She was somewhere south of the Four Diamonds, which meant she wouldn’t be alone for long.

  Headlights shot over the bridge, and several voices rang out. She had to get out of here fast.

  “Fucking puta,” slurred a voice.

  The guy with the skull tattoo was still alive. Half his body was through the windshield, and his skin smoked on the hot hood.

  “Who are you?” he choked.

  She wiped off her lipstick, feeling the fresh cut over her eye. It would leave another scar, but for a good cause.

  “I’m Camilla Santiago, but you can call me Saint.”

  She bent down and took off her shoe. His pinned eyes widened as she swung the stiletto heel into his neck. Twisting the shoe, she tried to yank it out, but it was stuck.

  The voices grew louder, and the car, a police cruiser, shot over the bridge. Camilla Santiago left her heel jammed in the man’s neck, kicked off the remaining shoe, and ran away barefoot to catch a bus home.

  -6-

  Dominic Salvatore checked his wristwatch. Thirty minutes to midnight.

  Go time.

  The workers at the Port of Long Beach changed shifts soon. The window gave the Saints the perfect opportunity to strike at the head of the snake. And not just any snake. Dom and his undercover team were going after the anaconda.

  The undeclared king of the concrete jungle, Don Antonio Moretti, head of the most powerful syndicate in the city.

  To defeat evil, we must embrace it.

  It was a twist on his father’s motto, which Marks had warned him about. The Saints followed the law most of the time, but he knew that the time would come. And tonight could very well be that occasion.

  “Button up,” he said.

  “Relax, boss,” Moose said, patting his armored vest. “I’m good to go, baby.”

  “You got our IDs?” Dom asked, twisting around to the back seat.

  Rocky pulled the badges out and handed them around. “We’re good to go, boss.”

  Tooth laughed. “Dude, I look high as a kite in this pic, but hey, at least my hair looks good.”

  “You’re a vain son of a bitch, you know that?” said Bettis. Clear tactical glasses covered his brown eyes, which were now focused on the rosary in his gloved hands.

  “Got to look good at all times, Chaplain,” said Tooth, playing up his Irish lilt. “Never know when I’m going to meet Miss Right.”

  Rocky broke out in his contagious chuckle. “By ‘Miss Right,’ do you mean ‘lady of the evening’?”

  Dom reached for the radio and flipped through the dozen stations broadcasting from the city. “Good evening, all you sinners and saints,” said the announcer. “Got a few classic tracks coming up in a few minutes, but first we have a report from the sexiest meteorologist in the world, our own Regina Díaz.”

  Rocky chuckled in the back seat. “I love that woman.”

  “Hi, all you beautiful angels, this is Regina Díaz, bringing you another shitty forecast of alkaline dust with a chance of acid rain . . .”

  Dom changed the station to some old-school rock as they sped toward their target. Nothing like some Led Zeppelin to get the blood flowing.

  They passed a gas station with a line of vehicles snaking away almost a quarter mile. Horns blared, and people shouted as they waited hours for the precious fuel to run their aging vehicles.

  Moose pulled down another street. A pharmacy on the corner, in the old Walgreens building, specialized in handing out RX-4 rations. A line of over a hundred waited outside, stretching into the adjacent city park.

  Teenagers on scooters and motorcycles zipped around the streets, honking their horns and blaring music from rappers long dead and decomposed. In a way, it seemed as if the world had time-traveled back to the early 1990s. But plenty was different out here.

  Technology had advanced in some countries, such as Japan and China, which had recovered from the economic collapse. They provided water desalination plants, radio and cell towers, and RX-4, the lifesaving antirad medicine.

  “There she is,” Rocky said. “The fortress in the wastes.”

  Dom turned for a view of the Moretti compound. The former Commerce Hotel and Casino. The Saints hadn’t been able to get within half a mile of the modern-day castle. Don Antonio took his security seriously. He hired former military forces, spent millions on drones from China, and bought weapons off the black market in Mexico and Europe.

  “Watch out!” Tooth yelled.

  Moose slammed on the brakes as a shadowy figure darted in front of the vehicle. The man crouched down and bared his teeth. The headlights captured a face covered in open wounds and lesions.

  “It’s one of the freaks,” Rocky said.

  The guy took off running down the road, bent down, and climbed through an open storm sewer grate.

  Bettis crossed his chest as Moose accelerated down the road.

  “I haven’t seen someone lookin’ that bad for a while,” Rocky said. “Amazing that guy is still alive.”

  “He won’t be for long,” Moose said. “If he doesn’t get a dose of RX-Four soon, the virus will turn him mad.”

  Moose knew all about it because of Ray’s youngest daughter. A tenth of the city now had the virus brought on by the Second Civil War.

  They drove through the slums, heading west toward the ocean. An old pickup clunked along ahead, its bed full of migrant workers with masks and scarves wrapped around their faces.

  Six men and three women all looked over as the Explorer passed them by. They were covered in dirt and dust from a day spent working construction.

  The grit got in everything: hair, eyes, lungs.

  These were the people Dom was trying to save. They were the honest, hardworking people trying to survive in the postapocalypse.

  “Check your gear, check your buddy’s gear, and get ready,” Dom ordered.

  The banter ceased, replaced by the clicks and clacks of preraid preparations. The men were all business now. Dom was extra alert from popping speed, because you didn’t take a dull sword to fight a lion.

  “All right, listen up,” Dom said. “We stop this shipment of drugs, and we’re going to sever an artery into the Moretti bank account.”

  “And we’re also going to get more RX-Four to the people who need it the most,” Moose added.

  “And you’re sure we can trust Marks?” Rocky asked.

  Bettis and Tooth glared at the youngest guy on the team.

  “I trust Marks with my life,” Dom said.

  “Me too,” Tooth said. “And I damn sure trust him with yours.”

  Bettis slapped Rocky on the side of his head in an uncharacteristic show of frustration. “Marks would never sell us out, kid.”

  The SUV headlights slashed through the inky darkness, capturing the cracks in the road and the few other brave souls traveling at this hour.

  Moose took the next left and drove toward a cluster of lights in the west. They parked on the side of a gravel road and shut off the lights.

  Dom clipped his fake name tag onto his shirt, pulled a baseball cap over his thick hair, and secured his breathing apparatus.

  A dozen massive silos rose before them, abandoned like the junkyard next door. The view confirmed that the Saints were on the east side, not far from the oil refinery where he had once fought the Apache.

  That night, Marks had lost half his task force in an ambush by the Morettis. Tonight, Dom would get his revenge.

  He looked at his watch again. Camilla would be hunting now, and Namid and Pork Chop were moving in to take the shipment of RX-4. Everything was in motion.

  “Pray with me,” Bettis said. He crossed his chest and whispered the Lord’s Prayer. When he finished, Dom added the team motto. “To defeat evil, we must embrace it.”

  The men bowed their heads.

  They got out of the car, and Moose opened the back to pull out two Russian RPG-7 launchers. They each took on
e, and Bettis grabbed the extra rockets.

  Dom tried not to think of Camilla as he flashed the signal to advance toward the scrapyard. He led the Saints into an area of flattened and stacked auto bodies. Shipping containers, three high, blocked the view beyond, but they were close to the water now. The night reeked of dead fish and the sour scent of garbage.

  Sneaking into the port wasn’t going to be easy. Everything worth a damn in Los Angeles had to pass through the massive port, and everyone knew that it was really controlled by the crime families.

  Dom took point, and the team fanned through the metal graveyard toward a block of abandoned warehouses. Graffiti marked the slanted carmine walls.

  They walked down an alleyway between the structures. A ten-foot fence topped with razor wire greeted them on the other side. Beyond that, a field of weeds separated them from the Port of Long Beach, where cranes moved containers off ships from countries all around the world.

  Just beyond the fences, in the center of the fields, was their first contact. A guard with a shotgun patrolled the area, his flashlight dancing across the ground. He stopped to light a cigarette on the other side of the fences.

  Moose joined Dom behind some empty oil drums. This was the place he had scoped out a few nights ago. He pointed at the fence to their right, and Moose pulled back a panel they had already cut open. Dom slipped through and held it open for Moose, who unslung the RPG and passed it through first.

  When they were through, they took up position behind a brick wall. Dom crawled over left of the wall and raised his carbine to the back of the man’s head.

  The Saints weren’t in the business of killing people in cold blood, but this guy was going to get one hell of a headache in three . . . two . . .

  Moose let out a low whistle, and the guard turned into a right hook that he never saw. He crumpled like a drunk after too many beers.

  “Damn, baby,” Moose said, rubbing his hand.

  “Help me move him,” Dom said.

  Moose bent down, and together they dragged the unconscious man behind the wall, where they disarmed him, zip-tied his hands, and slapped duct tape over his mouth.

  A minute later, the team was moving again.

  Another guard stood in front of a shack overlooking rows of stacked shipping containers. He was too far away to sneak up on, so Dom improvised.

  He handed Moose his rifle and removed his night-vision goggles.

  “Rocky, you know the drill,” Dom said. “Moose, cover us.”

  Moose nodded, readying his weapon.

  “Hey, you know where pier ten is?” Dom asked as he walked across the yard, Rocky flanking him in the shadows.

  The guard turned. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Dom held up his fake badge just as the guard brought up a rifle. He went down from a whack to the back of the head from Rocky’s pistol.

  They zip-tied and duct-taped the unconscious guard before moving to the edge of the field, where they took cover behind a retaining wall. On the other side, mercury-vapor lamps left few shadows to hide in, and searchlights from the guard towers played over the terrain.

  Port authority employees ran the derricks lifting containers off the freighters, and huge forklifts stacked them in place as armed guards hired by the mob stood watch. But the Saints wouldn’t need to get up close to complete their mission.

  Dom split them into teams.

  Moose and Rocky went left; Tooth and Bettis went right with Dom.

  Keeping low, they continued toward the docks, using containers and vehicles for cover. The main road accessing the ten piers and nearly seventy berths lay between them and the first of the ships.

  Tooth found the target first.

  Dom followed his finger toward a ship with a red stern and stripe on the side, docked at pier nine. Holding the spotting scope to his NVGs, he confirmed that it was the Goomah.

  But something was wrong.

  A gangplank had already been extended, and crates were being unloaded on hand forklifts.

  “Shit, they’re early,” Dom muttered.

  He clenched his jaw. The Saints were still in the game, but they would have to move fast.

  Dom had considered a dozen ways to infiltrate the docks and take out the Goomah, from commandeering a small fishing vessel and ramming the ship with C4 to using scuba gear to mine the hull manually. But such heavy-handed methods would sink the ship at its berth, disrupting activity at the port, slowing commerce, and making life worse for the people of Los Angeles, whose lives the Saints had sworn to protect.

  Dom had chosen a far easier option: the old-fashioned Russian rocket-

  propelled grenades that Moose and Tooth carried over their shoulders. They would leave one of the weapons behind to point a finger at the Nevsky family. If they pulled this off, it would keep the peace treaty between the LAPD and the Morettis while pitting two crime families against each other.

  Dom directed the Saints to an abandoned warehouse with a view of the port and the ships. Rocky and Bettis remained outside, guarding their escape route, while everyone else moved to the rooftop.

  The groan and clatter of diesel engines muffled their steps as they climbed a ladder to the top. Dom was the first on the flat gypsum roof. He took up position on the north side and peered down at the road, where a convoy of garbage trucks had rounded the corner—ten of them, headed right for the Goomah.

  “Shit,” Tooth whispered. “That’s the cavalry, and it’s early.”

  A forklift drove the first stack of crates down a platform to the road as Moose and Tooth moved into position with their RPGs. Dom used his spotting scope to glass the area, focusing on the lead garbage truck, now parked beside the Goomah’s berth.

  The Morettis were known for hiring muscle to help move their product.

  Tonight, they had sent their bulldog, Mexican Mikey, or Mikey the Mutant, as some of his enemies called him.

  Dom zoomed in on the psychopathic former MS-13 banger. He was the perfect example of what happened when people stopped taking RX-4 but continued using recreational drugs. Mikey and his men were well known for their barbaric violence. Some were even rumored to be cannibals.

  Mikey yawned and hiked his pants up as he watched the crews work. Dom resisted the urge to blow his fat face off.

  “Check out nine o’clock,” Moose said.

  Dom moved to look at a van driving toward pier 9. An hourglass symbol with a twisting strand of DNA inside—the logo of Horizon Bio-Limited, the Chinese company that manufactured RX-4—marked the side panel.

  The van, like the garbage trucks, was just a front. The Morettis would move the shipment in the stolen van to a secret location, crush the drugs up, and sell them at a premium.

  The van parked alongside the ship, and the Moretti soldiers loaded the back with the stolen crates of RX-4. Two SUVs followed the van out of the port, but they weren’t going to make it far. His guys would intercept it before it ever made its destination.

  Dom sent Namid a text message: Package is heading to the party. Two of their friends are tagging along. The reply flashed across the screen.

  “Get ready,” Dom said.

  Moose and Tooth aimed their RPGs at the superstructure. Several well-placed explosions would destroy the bridge and badly damage the weather deck. They would then unload a few magazines into the other Moretti soldiers, shoot up Mikey and his men, and book it back to their Explorer.

  Dom wiped the sweat from his brow with his upper arm, then pressed the scope back to his optics. He moved his finger to the trigger as Moose lowered his RPG.

  Lights shot down the road to the east. Dom lowered his rifle and watched a dozen black armored LAPD cruisers race around the corner of the port entrance and onto the main road along the front of the piers.

  “What the hell . . .” Tooth whispered.

  Mikey and his crew didn’t seem concerned at the sight of police. He walked toward the cruisers.

  Dom centered his rifle scope on the men Stone had sent to collect,
stopping on the pockmarked face of Lieutenant Billy Best, a corrupt cop who had been on the wrong side of the law since the Second Civil War. He limped away from his cruiser, using a cane.

  Not shooting Mikey was hard, but resisting the urge to pull the trigger and erase that smug grin from Best’s face was even harder.

  Dom scanned the other officers, but they all wore masks. He moved the sight back to Mikey, who took a duffel bag from one of his men and then tossed it at the lieutenant’s gimp leg.

  “Piece of shit,” Tooth mumbled.

  “What do we do, boss?” Moose asked.

  Dom deliberated for several seconds. They could disable the ship from here and make it back to the Explorer without getting gunned down, but the ensuing bloodbath could leave cops dead on the road, and it would break the treaty between the Morettis and Stone.

  He didn’t care about Best, but there were other men out there who didn’t deserve to die. Men who were just looking after their families and trying to make a living in a corrupt system that rewarded evil men.

  The Saints could still get the RX-4. Tonight could still be a victory.

  “Son of a bitch,” Dom said. “Fall back.”

  “You serious?” Tooth said.

  Moose didn’t move. “Boss, we can’t just leave this shipment.”

  “Yeah, and that’s Mikey the Mutant down there, man,” Tooth said. “Please, please, let me cap that motherfucker.”

  Dom cursed under his breath. This was the best opportunity to hit Don Antonio where it mattered most. Aside from his family, his pocketbook was all he cared about.

  “Wait until the cops are out of here,” Dom said. “Then we open fire and haul ass home.”

  “Hell yeah,” Moose whispered.

  Tooth pushed the RPG launcher back up on his shoulder. Dom targeted the trucks with his rifle as the Moretti soldiers pushed crate after crate of the hybrid opiates down the ramp and loaded them into the garbage trucks.

  Best took off with the money—his cut for turning a blind eye to one of the biggest drug shipments in the history of postwar Los Angeles.

  “You bag of shit,” Dom muttered.

  The cars sped away, and as soon as they rounded the corner, he gave Tooth and Moose the green-light nod.