Liberation Day

by Dustin Stevens

  Not one word of that could be shared with the people before him though. As far as Turner knew, he was a guy from upstate New York, fresh off the farm. He doubted the others knew even that much.

  Putting the huckster routine back on, he exhaled slowly and said, “Truth is, it was the voices. I got there just as the container was being lifted into the air and the sound of those people, the fear they felt...”

  Much like Cardoza, he left his statement open-ended, allowing the men before him to extrapolate what they might.

  On his right, Turner continued to stare at him, though Thorn forced himself to remain focused forward. To his left, Tallo nodded, glancing between the two sides.

  Across from him Cardoza matched his look, his forehead dipping just a fraction of an inch. “You seem to have a sense of almost sadness about you as you say this.”

  Raising his eyebrows in concession, Thorn nodded. “Had I not gone in, more people would have died. Had I stayed on the pier, perhaps my partner would be alive.”

  Silence fell around the table, each of the men chewing on what had just been shared.

  To the left, Tallo sipped at his cafecito, his slurps audible over the sound in the adjacent room. “I had no idea your men have continued to be under attack, Billy. How many is this now?”

  “All told?” Turner said, his voice low, even. “Half a dozen.”

  “Not to offend you,” Cardoza asked, “but do you need help on the docks?”

  Thorn cast a sideways glance to see Turner’s face solidify a tiny bit, the skin around his eyes drawing tight. “No, but thank you. We have upped personnel and implemented extra measures.”

  Approving of the answer, Cardoza nodded, looking from Turner to Thorn and back again. “Tomorrow night I have a very important shipment arriving. I cannot afford to have anything happen to it.”

  “We’ll see to it everything is in order,” Turner said.

  “Associates of some very well connected people are on board this shipment,” Cardoza said, again passing a look between the two men across from.

  “I understand,” Turner said, matching the gaze.

  “Also,” Cardoza said, lifting his cafecito and raising it to Thorn, “I know it is far too soon for me to be requesting favors, but I would appreciate it if you were there.”

  Before Thorn could respond, Turner said, “He’ll be there. I haven’t checked the schedule, but I have a feeling he’s on it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Abby was asleep in the exact same spot she’d been in four hours earlier when Thorn returned. Her oversized eyes split open and her backside nudged itself to and fro in greeting at the sight of him, but no part of her fleshy body raised itself from the couch.

  Cracking a smile, Thorn shrugged off the blazer he was wearing and dropped it over the back of a dining room chair. “Give me ten minutes, girl,” he called out, unbuttoning the cuffs of his sleeves and rolling them to the elbow.

  Opening up the laptop residing on the island in the middle of his kitchen, he pulled the video conference system to life and dialed.

  The line rang three times before being picked up, Ingram on the other side, a trace of irritation in his voice. “Talk to me.”

  Thorn leaned in and rested his palms on the counter, glancing at the glowing digital clock on the stove reading it was nudging eleven.

  “Sorry for the late call. Just got in.”

  “So you had dinner at Cardoza’s?” Ingram asked, ignoring the apology.

  For a moment Thorn thought of pointing out that every other time they’d spoken recently was early in the morning before he’d been to bed at all, but opted not to comment. The odds were nothing good could come from it.

  “I did. Cardoza said he wanted to meet and thank me for what happened the other night.”

  “Tallo there?”

  “He was,” Thorn said, still leaning forward over the edge of the counter, giving an oversized nod. “He was pretty quiet, seemed like he was invited more to keep up appearances than anything.”

  The same tinge of irritation was still obvious as Ingram nodded. “Interesting. Anything useful?”

  A feeling mixed of amusement and chagrin arose within Thorn, but again he kept it tamped down, forcing an impending smile away from his face. The hour was nowhere near late enough to earn any enmity, meaning his call must have interrupted some sort of late night endeavors.

  Again he had to fight to keep down a smile.

  “Oh, yeah,” Thorn said. “After the cars didn’t attract attention, I was wondering what to try next. Cardoza answered that for us.”

  The tiny bit of annoyance fled from Ingram’s features, replaced by realization. He nodded slowly, his jaw working up and down as he processed. “There’s another container coming in.”

  “Tomorrow night,” Thorn confirmed.

  Any remaining bits of animosity were completely gone from Ingram as he stared back at Thorn. ”Are we ready?”

  “We will be,” Thorn replied. “Can you get me a few things before then?”

  Reaching out in front of him, Ingram pulled a pad and pen onto his lap. “What do you need?”

  “What do we have in the way of tracking devices?”

  Ingram’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch, his gaze rising to stare into the camera. “Tracking devices? What do you have in mind?”

  “Small, but strong enough to cover a fairly large radius.”

  “How small? And how large a radius?”

  The left side of Thorn’s face scrunched as he wagged his head in a non-committal gesture. ”Small enough I can plant it on them without it being noticed. A large enough area to monitor wherever they go afterwards.”

  Setting aside his pad, Ingram went to work on the keyboard in front of him. “You want something you can press on their person?”

  “No,” Thorn replied. “That can be removed. I was thinking more of tagging them.”

  Ingram’s hands stopped mid-air, floating above the keyboard. “Tagging...as in, internally?”

  “As in internally.”

  A trace of surprise crossed Ingram’s face before acceptance flooded in, his head rocking back an inch. “You’ve done this before haven’t you?”

  Thorn met his gaze a moment before glancing away, Abby’s moist eyes shining in the darkened living room. “More than once.”

  He remained focused towards the opposite room, hoping his boss got the message. What he had done before, what he intended to do in the near future, weren’t things he was terribly proud of. That didn’t change the fact that they had to be done, just that they didn’t need to be rehashed at length.

  “I shipped the image you sent me to our tech guys to see what they could do with it,” Ingram said, picking up the insinuation, drawing Thorn’s gaze back to the screen. “I’m emailing it over to you now.”

  Using a wireless mouse, Thorn dropped Ingram’s face away from the screen and pulled up the incoming file. It was based on the image he had pulled from the surveillance camera, a digital rendition filling in all the missing portions.

  Even with that, and the resolution enhanced, it still made for a rather generic composite.

  “Our database returned nothing, which isn’t that surprising,” Ingram said. “Off the books henchman, could be anyone.”

  Thorn shook his head, staring at the image. He had yet to see the man in person, but was fast becoming familiar with his handiwork. “I don’t think this guy is a run-of-the-mill henchman. More like a soldier of fortune.”

  His face still minimized from the screen, Ingram said, “As you can see, he’s clearly of Asian ancestry, most likely Chinese. I’ve already started in-roads into our contacts there, but so far nothing.”

  Thorn remained silent, trying to think back a few nights before, to jar something loose, some sighting of the man that he hadn’t realized before.

  As best he could tell, there was nothing there.

  “You recognize the guy at all?” Ingram asked, as if seeing the internal m
onologue playing across Thorn’s face.

  Shaking his head, Thorn minimized the picture, Ingram’s face replacing it on screen. “No. Not to sound like a racial bigot, but he looks like most every other Chinese man I’ve ever seen.”

  Ingram snorted back a laugh. “I said the exact same thing.”

  Silence fell between them a moment before Thorn pushed himself to full height, clapping his hands together in front of him. “With that, I think I might actually get some sleep tonight.”

  “Have fun with that,” Ingram said. “I’ll have those devices to you early tomorrow.”

  “Sounds good. And be on standby tomorrow night if you can. If I’m able to get them planted, I’ll need you to be my eyes on them.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Thanks, Coach,” Thorn said, the right half of his mouth twitching upward. “And sorry about interrupting whatever I interrupted tonight.”

  A rye look passed over Ingram’s face and for a moment Thorn thought for sure he was going to be on the receiving end of a middle finger. Just as fast it passed, Ingram signing off with a simple wave of the hand.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Thorn said, the smile growing full across his face.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The bell above the door jingled twice as Thorn passed through, once upon opening, another as it closed behind him. In a Pavlovian response conditioned from years of experience, the aging barista behind the character looked up at him as he entered, the look on her face bordering on hopeful, praying that something unusual would present itself to break up the monotony.

  Nodding once in her direction, Thorn shifted his attention away from her gaze, a bit of color flashing to his cheeks. For all the optimism she held behind the counter he wasn’t there for a shot of liquid caffeine, didn’t intend to stay long.

  “Well, if it’s not Thorn Byrd,” a familiar voice said as he stood on the foyer, surveying his surroundings. “I’ll be damned, he is smarter than he looks.”

  Drawing in a deep breath through his nose, Thorn let the ingested air lift his shoulders a few inches before dropping them down, turning to find Nio and Iggy seated together along the back wall. Both were dressed for the outdoors, jeans and pullovers, dark colors all around. Each had a coffee on the table in front of them, their beverages in to-go cups, lids already on.

  “Wasn’t hard to find you,” Thorn said, weaving his way through a handful of tables, most of them sitting empty. “All I had to do was go to the closest corner, and here you are.”

  Fire flashed behind Iggy’s eyes as she stared up at him, her right hand clenching into a fist atop her thigh. “I’m really starting to dislike you.”

  “I’m aware,” Thorn said, his voice dismissive as he shifted his attention to Nio. “Can we talk?”

  Using his foot, Nio pushed the chair between them out a few inches, motioning for Thorn to take it.

  “Not here,” Thorn said, twisting his head to the side. “You guys up for a walk?”

  A quick glance between them was the only reaction as they seemed to assent in unison, rising with their cups in hand at the same time. Heeding the cue, Thorn led them back out the front door, nobody saying anything as they crossed the street and headed away from the coffee shop.

  The riddle, if it could even be deemed that, was easy enough to decipher. At the far end of the docks was a single coffee shop, the only place within walking distance that wasn’t owned by Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. Despite having less than a week on the job Thorn knew it was the place Nio was referring to, the other joints too conspicuous for them to spend much time at all.

  “We missed you last night,” Nio said, his tone neither accusing nor condemning.

  “Yeah, I had dinner plans,” Thorn said, leaving his answer open-ended.

  “Poor girl,” Iggy commented, pretending to whisper, but making her voice loud enough to be heard.

  Pulling in another deep breath, Thorn steered the group from the sidewalk onto a wide footpath running parallel to the bank of the harbor. He positioned himself along the bank, Nio beside him, Iggy on the far end.

  “She always so pleasant?” Thorn asked, his voice hard, turning his head just slightly to look at Nio.

  A smirk pulled the younger man’s head back a few inches, the right side of his mouth curled upward. “Clearly you haven’t spent much time around Cuban women. It’s when they are being nice that you really have to worry.”

  A handful of barbs floated to Thorn’s mind as they walked on, each pointier than the one before. On another occasion he might have let them fly, but given his reasons for being there, he decided to let them pass.

  “Cuban, huh?” Thorn said. “In that case you should know I had a business meeting last night at a restaurant called La Rosa Negra where they served bistec de palomilla, tostones, and flan. How was your evening?”

  The comment did exactly as it was intended to, finding its target, hitting flesh without drawing blood. In the darkness he heard Iggy faux-whisper, “Really starting to dislike you,” a half smile pulling at his features.

  “The reason for the meeting,” Thorn pressed on, skipping right past her comment, “was to go over the schedule for tonight.”

  Beside him he could sense the Garcia’s both grow attentive, their body language growing tense as they waited for him to continue. Raising his gaze, Thorn scanned the ground before them, finding it deserted. Digging his chin into his left shoulder he glanced back, noticing an older couple walking a hundred yards back, oblivious to the trio in front of them.

  “Word is another container is set to arrive tonight,” Thorn said. “Which I’m taking to mean it’s here now, and he wants to make sure it is still here come morning.”

  To his left he could sense both his companions casting glances at him, though he refrained from matching their looks.

  “He?” Nio asked.

  Thorn nodded, the response pure reflex. “Cat name Luis Cardoza. From what I could gather he runs things for the Cuban operation here, owns La Rosa Negra.”

  “Hmm,” Nio said, processing the information. “Name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Thorn said, recalling his encounter with the man the prior night. “I got the impression he’s not really the kind to be putting his face out there any more than necessary.”

  He refrained from adding any additional comments about the line of work the man was in, knowing it would only offend, regardless of his intent.

  “Okay, so a new shipment is here,” Iggy said. “You can’t really believe our father is on it.”

  Thorn’s eyebrows tracked upwards on his forehead, the thought one that had not crossed his mind. “Not in the slightest, but I didn’t think that was the only point in you guys sticking around right now.”

  “It’s not,” Nio inserted. “So you think there’s a chance something’s going to go down tonight?”

  A long moment passed as Thorn aimed his attention out over the water, the lights of Boston behind them shimmering across its surface. In the air floated a pair of lazy gulls, the sound of their wings beating through the air audible in the silence.

  “I don’t know,” Thorn said, “but if you’re serious about sticking around, I could use your help in monitoring it.”

  Iggy started to comment, her words cut off by Nio, holding a hand out towards her, his attention still aimed at Thorn. “What did you have in mind?”

  Once more rotating at the waist to cheek their tail, Thorn extracted his cell phone from his pocket and extended it to Nio. “One hour from now I will place four fiber optic cameras around the container, their live feeds running back into this phone.”

  Nio accepted the device without comment, pocketing it away the moment it touched his palm.

  “Last night I did a dry run, so I know the feeds work, but it was a pain in the ass trying to keep an active eye on it,” Thorn said. “Tonight, knowing there’s a live target on the ground, it would be helpful to have somebody watching full time.�
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  In front of them the trail split in half, extending out in a short loop before depositing travelers back the way they had come. Drifting to the right, Thorn pulled the others along with him, slowing his pace.

  “How close do we need to be for it to work?” Nio asked.

  “About a mile,” Thorn replied, the range nowhere near some of the things he had worked with in the past, but still sufficient for his purposes tonight. “I figured since you guys are spending so much time hanging around here at the moment, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “It won’t be,” Nio confirmed.

  “And what happens if we do see something?” Iggy asked. “We whisper into your super cool, high-tech earpiece or something?”

  Another scowl flashed over Thorn’s face, just as fast disappearing, biting back the evoked response. “One of you will give me your phone. If you see something, you call me.”

  The last of the trail stretched out a few feet before them, the brown dirt and gravel looping back in the opposite direction. Beyond it was a few feet of grass in front of a waist-high barrier, the ocean just below.

  Thorn slowed his pace even more, drawing Nio and Iggy to a stop beside him. In the darkness Nio extended a small black square his direction, Thorn accepting and tucking it away before shoving his hands in his pockets.

  “I’ll meet you guys back at the coffee shop at seven,” he said. “If nothing transpires, we’ll swap phones back and be on our way.”

  “And if it does?” Nio asked, standing just a few feet away, matching Thorn’s pose, his gaze aimed out to sea.

  “Depends on what happens,” Thorn said, “but we’ll deal with it then.”

  For the first time Iggy refrained from comment, the trio standing in silence before Thorn turned and headed back in the way they’d just come, alone.