Bird Dogs: A John Crane Novella
Page 8
Josh sat at a desk and gestured for Georges to take the chair beside him. He tapped a few keys on a wireless keyboard and nodded toward the wall monitor.
The screen woke up to an aerial tracking shot of shipping containers. Acres of them stacked high on an enormous cement plain with spaces marked and numbered in yellow paint. Georges saw traffic control arrows on the pavement and huge cranes in the background. The camera was mounted on a drone, he realized after a moment.
The shot closed in until it picked up a figure running fast beside a row of containers. He was tall and lithe, wearing black pants studded with pockets and a gray knit shirt. A small pack was strapped between his shoulders by a leather harness.
“Where is this?” Georges asked. “Who is he?”
“His name’s John Crane,” said Josh. “He works for me. Sometimes. Sort of. This was shot at the Port of Oakland a little over a week ago. This is kind of special really, having real-time contact and being able to record footage. Usually he’s halfway around the world somewhere, out of touch for days.”
Crane turned and ran down a narrower space between two rows of containers, and the drone kept pace. He crossed an access road and hurdled a metal railing without breaking stride.
A voice—Sulenski’s?—crackled over a radio channel. “Two more rows, then right. You’re clear to the intersection.”
“We’re tracking a group of angel investors who’ve been laundering money for Asian organized crime groups,” said Josh. “Chinese mostly, but others from Vietnam, Thailand, all over. They pour money into risky tech startups, turn it into stock, which then gets used to collateralize loans that are reinvested into new startups, on and on. Eventually, it becomes untraceable. Only problem is getting the money back out. Government’s pretty good at tracking accounts and wire transfers these days.”
On the screen, Crane stopped at a corner then took off to his right.
“I don’t understand,” said Georges. “How does that relate to this?”
“If you can’t move your laundered money electronically, you just have to move it physically. Bulk cash smuggling. It’s huge. More than three billion dollars a year, and that’s just to Mexico. I’m not sure this operation’s even on the radar yet. But we’ve been trying to disrupt the VC group, and we got a line on a shipment back to their customers in Taiwan. So we thought we’d interfere.”
On screen, Crane altered course to avoid being seen by an approaching forklift driver. He veered down another passage, then turned back toward his original course. Finally, he approached a container sitting alone on a numbered pad.
“Okay, watch,” said Josh. “Here’s where things start to go wrong.”
Crane checked the code numbers on the container, verified it was the one he was looking for. Then he took something from his pocket and leaned over the door latches.
“This thing’s not working,” he said after a moment. “This isn’t the standard mechanism.”
“Hang on, coming in,” the radio voice replied, and the drone descended. Crane stepped aside as the camera zoomed in on the device that secured the container’s heavy locking rods. It had a ruggedized display with keypad and what Georges took to be a signal indicator.
“It’s communicating with something,” said the voice on the radio. Georges was certain now that it was Josh.
Crane turned and checked his surroundings. “So there are watchdogs nearby,” he said. “In case someone tries to do just what we’re doing. Eyes on the perimeter please.”
The drone climbed back up for a wider view. Crane studied the device for a few more seconds, then announced, “I got no way around this. Can we pull back and work on something?”
“No time. It’s scheduled to lift out in a little over three hours.”
Georges heard Crane sigh. Then, “Okay, guess I’m going through it.”
He pulled something from a pouch on his leg. A moment later, the camera picked up a bright flash. It was a portable cutting torch, Georges realized. He watched as Crane cut through the security bands and then burned through the steel locking rods. He was trespassing at the port, and he was breaking into a shipping container. What had Josh gotten him into? Georges remembered his mother’s words: “Is he legitimate?”
“That’s problem one,” Josh was saying. “We didn’t have the right equipment. We’ve just been buying whatever we need off the shelf. Sometimes that’s fine, but sometimes we need more. We need our own workshop and people who can improvise special gadgets.”
On the screen, Crane turned off his torch and jerked the locking rods free.
“What’s he going to do?” Georges asked Josh. “You said there’s money in there. Is he stealing it?”
Josh grinned. “That was my first thought. It’s untraceable, right? I was going to take it downtown and spread it around. But, you know, it’s a whole shipping container full of money. The main thing was making sure it didn’t get to Taiwan, so we decided to destroy it. There are two phosphorus grenades in John’s pack. But it’s a moot point,” Josh added with a gesture toward the screen. “We’re about to run into problem two.”
On the screen, Crane pulled the huge double doors open. He stopped and was still for several seconds, standing outside the container with his arms holding the doors apart.
“Uh, guys,” he said at last, “this is not a hundred and twenty million dollars in small bills.”
“What do you mean, John?” Josh’s voice asked over the radio.
“You need to see this.”
The drone dove until the camera could see over Crane’s shoulder into the container. The interior of the container wasn’t the rusting steel and stacked bundles Georges had expected. It was bright white plastic with flush lighting panels and rounded corners. It looked like a spaceship, Georges thought. It looked sterile.
In the center sat a raised platform of what appeared to be heavy foam blocks wrapped in plastic. Georges could just make out where they latched into the floor…
There was a person strapped to it.
“What the hell?” Josh’s voice said on the radio.
Crane stepped inside. “He’s alive,” he said. “There’s a heart monitor here, respiration, oxygen saturation. He’s on IV drips.”
As Crane moved, Georges noticed tanks fastened to the rear wall, and tubes connected to the platform.
“They’re shipping a person?” Josh’s voice said. “On a container ship?” The drone inched slowly forward.
“Asian male,” Crane said, leaning over the foam barriers. “Maybe thirty-five. About five foot eight, one seventy five.” He ducked down. “Come in and get some pictures. See if you can ID him.”
The camera zoomed in on the man’s face. Georges was struck by how helpless he was, lying in a foam and plastic cocoon inside a container lost among thousands just like it. When the camera pulled back, Crane was detaching one of the foam barriers from the floor. He threw it aside to reveal a wheeled gurney, also latched to the floor.
Crane stood up. “How long since the alarm tripped?”
“Thirty-eight seconds.”
“I can’t get him out of here,” said Crane. “I don’t even know if it’s safe to remove these drips.”
“Get out, John!” Josh’s voice said on the radio. “This is pear-shaped.”
“No,” said Crane. “Get the drone back up. Call 911. Give them this lot number and tell them you’ve got multiple RTS 3 trauma injuries. That should get a response.”
Georges heard Josh’s voice telling someone, “Do it,” as the drone edged back out of the container and flew up into the afternoon sun. The camera caught a crew cab pickup speeding down the access road.
“John, you need to get out.”
“Keep me informed on that ambulance.”
Crane reached out and pulled the doors of the container nearly closed as the truck braked to a stop outside. Four men climbed out. They wore uniforms and carried nightsticks on their belts and pistols in their hands. They fanned out around the broken d
oors, moving in slowly. As they approached the container, one moved ahead to pull the doors open.
Then everything erupted into a whirlwind of motion. Georges couldn’t follow every move from above. The door flew open, and he heard the crack of gunshots, saw Crane roll and sweep a guard’s legs from under him. As another moved in, Crane locked his arm somehow and spun him. Crane flipped the man onto the pavement and did something that seemed likely to break his arm. He pulled the man’s nightstick from his belt and used it to disarm another.
The details didn’t matter. Georges stared enraptured at the screen. He watched Crane standing between the four attackers and the helpless man in the container, a storm of energy and motion. He did things Georges knew he could never do, but in his mind Georges saw machetes flashing in the sun, and he saw himself transformed into someone powerful and strong.
When it was over, all four men were on the ground, and Crane stood over them. He looked up at the drone. “Ambulance?”
“Just cleared the main gates. Less than a minute.”
“Get the drone out of here.”
As the camera pulled away from the scene, Crane ran in the opposite direction.
The video ended and Georges sat in silence for a long moment. “What happened?” he said at last. “To the man in the container?”
“EMTs got him out and transported him to Highland Hospital,” said Josh. “An hour later, he was checked out and moved to a private hospital in Marin County. We still don’t know who he is, why someone put him in a shipping container bound for Taiwan, who took him out of Highland, anything.”
Josh got up and made his way around the scattered furniture to a dorm refrigerator in the corner. “Water?”
Georges nodded absently. He was still struck by what he’d seen. He remembered Officer Makoun’s words. “If you’d been there, your mother would still be in that room. And you’d be in the room next door.” He couldn’t argue with that. But if this John Crane had been there…
A water bottle came sailing at him. Georges snatched it out of the air as Josh returned with his own.
“So now you know what I’m doing behind the curtain,” Josh said. “And I need help. That was a debacle I don’t want to repeat. So I need people who can improvise solutions to weird technical problems. But more than that, I need people who can help sort out what’s going on out there. Because we’re groping in the dark. We got away with it this time, but sooner or later that’s going to end badly.”
He looked at Georges expectantly. “So you can have an easy job writing actuarial software, or you can be part of the team I’m putting together behind the curtain. What do you say? Can you help me?”
Georges remembered officer Makoun once more. “If you want to help your mother, do something smart.”
Georges gestured to the screen. “Him,” he said. “John Crane. I want to help that man.”
Josh shook his head and sighed. “Yeah, he’s okay, too.”
As Josh’s Mercedes drove him home, Georges imagined his parents’ reaction to his new job developing software. That would be the official job description anyway. He didn’t think his parents would approve of what he would really be doing.
Myria Group’s HR department was already looking for a new apartment for them, somewhere out of their rundown neighborhood. There would be a signing bonus to get them moved in. There would be room for Carine if he could find her and talk her into coming home. There would be therapy for his mother. There would be everything they needed to start putting their lives back together.
Georges saw his parents peering nervously from behind the living room curtains as the car pulled up. They’d suffered, and there was nothing he could do to change that. But now he could help keep it from happening again. John Crane would be his champion, and Georges would arm him for battle with ingenuity and skill. Josh had no idea of the things Georges could do.
Once he had compared his life to the swing of his pendulums. They swung up, but only so far before gravity dragged them back down to the bottom again. But they didn’t stay at the bottom either. It was time to swing back up again.
The End
AFTERWORD
Bird Dogs exists in large part because I’ve always wanted to visit Argentina. So far that hasn’t been in the cards, but I could have John Crane hit the town in style. The places described in Bird Dogs are mostly real. There is a Recoleta neighborhood in Buenos Aires with a Palacio Duhau hotel and an upscale shopping mall called the Patio Bullrich. The Estancia de Santa Esmeralda is my own creation, but is modeled after any number of real resort ranches dedicated to equestrian pastimes, and especially to polo which is an Argentine obsession.
Unfortunately, the villas miserias are also very real, including Villa 31, tucked under an elevated highway just steps away from one of the city’s wealthiest districts. The gulf between rich and poor is especially stark in Buenos Aires, and that was another good reason for setting Bird Dogs there. As those worlds collide, they offer plenty of opportunity for tension and conflict, and situations that don’t resolve themselves quite the way any of the players expect.
Giving Tamarind close ties to Villa 31 hints that perhaps he comes from there. Perhaps using his looks and charm to prey on wealthy women gave him both a path out of the slums and a way to reassert his own power over people who had controlled his life. Until, of course, it turns out that he serves at the whim of ruthless masters, to be discarded when he is of no more use. Sometimes you can’t escape destiny…
Finally, thank you for reading Bird Dogs, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. As always, I can be reached at inbox@markparragh.com with comments or questions. I look forward to hearing from you.
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ALSO BY MARK PARRAGH
Rope on Fire
The origin story that first brings together former agent John Crane and idealistic billionaire Josh Sulenski. Suddenly out of work when the Top Secret Hurricane Group is shut down, Crane agrees to take on a side mission protecting one of Josh's charitable projects. Crane soon finds himself in deeper than he planned, and must follow the trail of danger from Puerto Rico to the Czech Republic, where an unexpected discovery will change his life forever. With exotic locations, beautiful women, deadly enemies, and heart-pounding action, Rope on Fire is the John Crane novel that started it all!
Buy now at Amazon.com.
Wrecker
In Baja California to check in on a friend’s daughter, Crane becomes involved in the search for a missing girl and crosses swords with the narcissistic American expat suspected of taking her. Meanwhile, back home, Josh Sulenski’s kindness to a former mentor draws him into a dark conspiracy that strikes closer to home than he ever expected. Josh will discover that, if you set out to fight evil, eventually evil hits back. Wrecker blows the doors off John Crane’s world with new friends, new enemies, and a mysterious blue-haired woman who wants everything John Crane has to give.
Buy now at Amazon.com.
Sneakernet
Sneakernet takes John Crane and tech expert Georges Benly Akema to Iceland to retrieve a data recording device from a supercomputing facility that threatens cybernetic infrastructure around the world. But when Crane is discovered, his mission goes from simp
le breaking and entering to a desperate manhunt across the barren Icelandic back country. A relentless enemy and a landscape that offers no place to hide will test John Crane’s skills and determination to the limit. And when Georges risks everything to save his hero, he’ll learn that, in the field, courage can only take you so far.
Join the Hurricane (Reading) Group to get Sneakernet free.
Table of Contents
Copyright & Credits
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
John Crane will return
Pendulums
Afterword
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Also by Mark Parragh