by JL Redington
***
Alexa’s head hurt, she still couldn’t see through her swollen eyes and her mouth was so swollen she couldn’t tell if it was open or closed. Breathing hurt, and she continued to float in and out of consciousness. This time as she woke, she heard a new voice coming from the other room. It was a voice of authority, one she hadn’t heard before, and his tone frightened her.
“Where’s Dixon?” demanded the voice.
“Uh, he went to pick up a shipment at the airport.” She only knew one name other than Dixon, and that was Hunter. But this voice didn’t belong to Hunter.
“I think they’re getting too close, and I don’t think Dixon is doing enough to keep this place hidden. He’s in and out too often and he’s going to blow the cover. He almost did getting the girl in here. It’s time to move.”
This time Hunter spoke up.
“Are you saying we’ll leave the country or just move to another warehouse in the city? The Feds are all over the city, this is the only safe area we’ve been able to secure.”
“Yes, I know,” came the reply. “You’ll know in the next twelve hours. Do NOT leave this building again. Stay put and keep a sharp eye out, you may have company in the next little while, take care of them.”
“What about Dixon?” Hunter responded.
“I’ll take care of Dixon.” The words were final and threatening.
Alexa wondered, as the footsteps came closer, what this turn of events meant for her.
“Your boyfriend is getting a little too close, Miss Menetti,” came the voice, softer than it had been in the other room. “But don’t worry your pretty little head. We’ll make sure he doesn’t find you.”
There was a sarcastic laugh from this new man and the rest of the group sniggered at his comment. Alexa said nothing, hoping they would just walk away and leave her alone, and that’s exactly what they did. Her heart skipped when they mentioned ‘her boyfriend’ and she worried for his safety. Did he know they knew about him? She wondered what use she was to them if they were getting rid of Dixon. Did they still want the picture? Would this new guy want the same thing? He didn’t say anything about it, or about the cipher. The cipher was the one thing Dixon had never mentioned. Maybe none of them knew there was a cipher. From what she’d heard on the DVD, without the photo, the cipher was useless. How could that be? What would the photo have to do with those useless numbers and underlined letters? Had any of it reached Truseau? Still so many questions, and hopefully a little more time to ponder those questions.
***
As the group filed out, Grantham made his exit from the front of the conference room. Once he was out of sight, Cayman grabbed Agent Winston and hurried him into the hallway and around a corner.
Winston was tall with dark hair and dark eyes. Well built and solid inside and out. He was a good agent, not accustomed to politicking and useless verbiage. He was a no nonsense agent, and he didn’t like the recent exchange with Grantham. He had a bad taste in his mouth.
“Your snitch,” Cayman said, “was he a user?”
“No.” said Winston firmly. “He was recovered, hadn’t used in more than ten years.”
“Could he have relapsed?”
“Not according to the last time I talked with him. Something’s not right…a bullet to the head? That sounds like a hit to me. I swear, this guy was ten years clean.”
“Thanks,” said Cayman, “Stay low.”
“Yeah,” said Winston as he walked away, “You, too.”
“I’m outta here, Patrick, and you’re staying put.” Cayman was determined, he knew what he had to do.
“Okay, well, then,” said Patrick, turning the tables on his brother, “you’re going to have to shoot me to keep me from coming with you, Cayman.”
“Don’t be a fool!” hissed Cayman angrily. “If this isn’t what I think it is, your career with the team would be over. This is my fight, and I intend to make it count.”
“You can’t head off without someone covering your back. I won’t let you do it. So, shoot me, because I’m going with you if you don’t.”
Cayman shook his head. “You always were the stubborn one. As soon as the team is gone, we’re gone.” He said.
“Me? The stubborn one?” Patrick laughed. “Now, that’s rich.”
Searching the parking lot directly below them they watched each car leave the lot, waiting to make sure Grantham left with them. He was the first one out, the other cars followed him, breaking from the line as they turned off and headed to the area they would cover. Patrick and Cayman watched them moving off until they were completely out of sight, lost between buildings.
“Let’s go.” Cayman’s voice was sure, determined.
They headed to their car and drove south instead of north as the others had gone. They wound through the shipping warehouses and parked in the shadow of one that allowed them a view of who came in and out of the area. It was a short twenty minutes and a car pulled in. It was Dixon. Just seeing him made Cayman want to jump out of the car and shoot him. That would be a foolish move, and logic told him to sit tight, Dixon would take him right to the warehouse.
As the car moved away, Patrick spoke up.
“Okay, Cayman, think this through. What are just the two of us going to do when we get to that warehouse? How many of the cartel are inside? Where is Alexa? Will she be in the line of fire when everyone starts shooting? We have to have a plan.”
There was crackling on the radio and the voice of Winston came through.
“We’ve brought the infrared. There are four men in the north side of the building. Hostage is on the south side, looks to be bound. If we keep it tight and strictly to the north, one of us should be able to get to the hostage while the others keep the north side busy.”
Cayman’s voice was firm, “Winston! What do you think you’re doing? Everyone that has a radio has just heard what you said. Get outta here! NOW!”
“Check your radio frequency, Agent Richards,” came the casual reply. “There are three cars with two agents each on this same frequency. We changed them before we left, and changed yours as well. No one hears us but who we want to hear us. And like I said, we’ve got infrared.”
Cayman smiled. “Remind me to buy you a big fat steak when this is over…all of you.”
“Roger that,” came three enthusiastic replies. Patrick laughed and clapped his brother on the shoulder. “What are you gonna call your new team?”
Cayman was smiling bigger than Patrick had seen for some time. He didn’t respond, but got out of the car to find three more SUV’s lining up behind him. They all left their vehicles and met together in the alley to plan their attack.
Chapter Twenty
Jonathan Truseau stepped off the airplane to a dry Arizona heat. It was so different from the heat and humidity in D.C., but this time of year that wasn’t so bad there either. At five feet seven inches tall, Jonathan wasn’t a tall man, and he knew it. However, scanning the area with his deep brown eyes, his dark hair waving in the wind, he knew for a twenty seven year old (or any age really) he was good at what he did, and what he did…his specialty…was codes.
Currently, his head was trying to sort through the information given him over the phone by Cayman Richards. Cayman was an agent Jonathan knew to be pretty straight forward, one of the best the Bureau had. It wasn’t like him to spout off with accusations of tangled webs and double agents. Something was not right.
He hailed a cab and on the way to the Phoenix field office pulled out his laptop and began to make notes on what he knew so far. He would go directly to Agent Grantham’s office, retrieve the backpack and get to the bottom of this, hopefully, before anyone else got hurt.
The cab dropped him at the office and he walked in, prepared for anything. After showing his badge and ID, he headed to Grantham’s office. All agents were out and the office was quiet, with only the sound of ringing phones and clicking computer keyboards.
He stopped at a desk to get a key to the nee
ded office.
“I’m sorry, I can’t give you that key without Agent Grantham’s permission,” said the receptionist. She stared across the desk at him through frameless glasses, her graying hair in a tightly wound bun on the back of her head.
“Miss…” began Jonathan
“It’s Mrs…Mrs. Pickett.”
“Ah, yes, Mrs. Pickett. Please check my clearance level. You’ll see I have clearance to open any office I feel it necessary to open, in any Bureau run building on this or any other continent.” He smiled congenially.
“One moment,” she said, her annoyance at this young upstart apparent. She pulled up the appropriate screen on her computer. Her eyes widened.
“My apologies, sir, I’ll get those keys and meet you there.”
Jonathan smiled and gave her a polite ‘thank-you’ as he walked to Grantham’s office.
Coming around the corner, Mrs. Pickett walked briskly to the door. Slipping the key in the lock she opened the door and Jonathan walked through.
“Thanks, again,” he said politely as he shut the door.
Cayman had told him where the backpack was and he went right to the corner. Picking it up, he walked from the office and went back to Mrs. Pickett’s desk.
“I’ll need a private room to review this information. Can you direct me?”
“Certainly, sir,” she said.
She led him around the corner to a small conference room and opened the door for him. He walked in and Mrs. Pickett swiftly closed the door behind him.
For the next two hours, he was immersed in codes, pictures and Dr. Seuss. He worked from his laptop, comparing the information on the sheet written by Alexa and Cayman, with his own he, too, had written from the same books and pictures.
He worked feverishly, comparing to codes Max Menetti had used before, extracting similar code strings and placing them with the pictures. He also continued to compare each picture to the photo Max had said was the key to all of it. From what he could see from the original photo, there was nothing in it that would have anything to do with the other pictures.
He picked up the codes Cayman and Alexa had written and compared them to the code strings he’d found. There was a reason Max told Alexa to get this information to him. However, to his total and complete frustration, he could find nothing.
He sighed heavily and sat back in his chair, surveying all he had done so far. He remembered the words from the DVD he’d just watched.
“The picture is the key…without it the cipher is useless.”
“The picture is the key…” he mumbled to himself as he moved pictures and notes around on the desk.
Jonathan picked up the photo of the car in the desert again and stared at it.
He flipped it over and looked at the back as he had done a million times. Reviewing each book and page, nearly microscopically, he analyzed every inch. There was something he was missing, and he knew it.
Jonathan sat back again in the chair, clasped his hands on the top of his head and rested them there. His mind wandered to games he played as a kid. Hidden Objects games, where he had to find things in the picture, how many monkeys could he find, how many peaches, how many-
His mind screeched to a stop. He jerked forward in his chair, hands flying to the desk. He picked up the picture of the man leaning against the car and, like he’d done a dozen times at least, picked up the magnifying glass and combed through the picture.
This time, he made his eye see small, insignificant things, lines, pixels, colors where they didn’t belong, and suddenly, there it was, big as life.
He quickly picked up the recording and began writing down the first letter of every sentence. It took some time, but the recording wasn’t five minutes long, so in a matter of a few minutes, he had the letters. He picked up the pictures and placed the numbers on their backs alongside the letters from the recording.
Of course! Max hadn’t used the Dr. Seuss books for Jonathan! They were for Alexa and Cayman, to get them to look closer and figure something was there, but not give them enough to break the code. It was like a code within a code and that’s why he couldn’t break it.
When he looked closer at the body of the car he could see tiny lines on either side of the trunk lines. He had to go to a special lens to see what those lines said, and they were the missing number that would put it all together. The lines put together read “Twenty Seven”, and putting that number with the others in the code string, completed the fragment he’d been unable to see earlier.
Now, there it was, laid out on the table in front of him. The words were these: “Leader of the pack, Phoenix”. And who was the leader of the pack here in Phoenix?
Jonathan’s eyes grew wide with panic as he jumped out of his seat and ran to Mrs. Pickett’s desk.
“Where is Agent Grantham?” He asked, breathing heavily.
“He’s helping with the search. Shall I call him?”
“No, no, I’ll call him. I’ll call him right now.” The person Jonathan Truseau actually called was Cayman Richards, but it was too late.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cayman and the others laid out a plan to cover as many possibilities as they possibly could. The bulk of the team would head into the north end of the building, allowing Cayman to get to Alexa and get her out, hopefully before the shooting started. They positioned themselves along the back of the warehouse in question and listened as voices inside the warehouse began to rise.
It sounded like accusations against Dixon from what they could make out. There were shouts he’d put the whole operation in jeopardy; that he wasn’t who he said he was. He could hear Dixon yelling back at them, asking where they were getting their information. The anger continued to escalate.
“That’s not good,” whispered Patrick.
“Stay focused,” said Cayman into his radio.
“Heads up everyone,” came the voice of Winston, “We’ve got company.”
The transmission was immediately followed by, “What the--what’s he doing here?”
“Who, Winston? Who’s here?” asked Cayman.
“It’s Grantham! I say again, Grantham is on site. Oh, no…no…”
In that instant Cayman’s phone vibrated in his pocket, but there was no time to answer it.
A gunshot rang out and everything went silent. Agent Jason Barnes had been the unlucky one paired with Grantham.
“Agent down! Agent down!” Winston was trying his best to keep his voice quiet. “He got out of the car after Grantham and Grantham turned and shot him in the head!”
Cayman leaned back against the building. He knew Barnes. They all knew Barnes. Was this really happening? How could he do this?
Inside the warehouse the level of voices reached a peak, and it was clear when Grantham entered, the commotion suddenly ceased.
Cayman had a gut feeling this was going to escalate to an all out war within the drug organization itself. He motioned for the signal to be given just as gunfire broke out inside the building.
“Go! Go! Go!”
It was the needed sign to rush the warehouse, and they did just that. Cayman bolted around to the south entrance and worked his way to the door leading into the room where he saw Alexa taped to the chair. He gasped when he saw her face and all the blood on her clothing. He leaned against the wall outside the room, anger boiling inside of him, so much so it was hard to see through it.
There was someone kneeling beside her. Who was that? What was he saying to her? Cayman looked frantically to see if the man had a gun, if he was threatening her in any way. He wasn’t. Cayman had no more asked himself the question, when the man leaned forward and kissed Alexa on the forehead. Who was this guy?
***
Alexa felt the emotions rising in the other room. She feared their anger would be turned on her, that she wouldn’t be able to give them any more ‘useful’ information because she’d given them all she had.
Suddenly she felt someone kneel in front of her, though she’d heard no on
e moving toward her. Was she imagining it? Who was it? She tried not to panic as she waited for the gunshot that would end her life, but it never came.
“Cayman? Is that you?”
She could barely make her mouth form the words.
“Hey Princess. Sorry it took me so long to get here. You’re as beautiful as ever.”
“Daddy…”
Alexa saw stars dancing in her head. She tried so hard to open her eyes so she could see her father kneeling before her, but they were far too swollen. Instead she saw more stars, many, many more stars fading gradually to darkness. Her head fell to her chest and she heard nothing else.
***
When the shooting started in the other room, Cayman ran to Alexa, ready to fight whoever it was beside her. To his surprise, the man that stood and turned to Cayman, gun at the ready was her father. Her father, who was supposed to be dead.
“Max…you’re…” Cayman said, stunned and stopping in his tracks so he didn’t get shot.
He couldn’t think about her father, couldn’t think about the bullets in the other room. He could only think about getting to Alexa. He gave Max a nervous glance, walked quickly to Alexa and knelt down.
“Is she…” his voice trailed off.
“No, son, she’s not dead,” came the pressing reply. “But if we don’t get her out of here, we all will be.”
Max was frantically cutting the duct tape, but there was so much it was taking too long.
“Grab a side, let’s move her away from here and call an ambulance,” called Cayman over the gunshots.
As they were about to pick up the chair, Dixon ran into the room. Cayman spun and aimed his gun at Dixon’s head, ready to shoot. Suddenly he didn’t care if they ever found out what turned him. He wanted him dead for what he’d done to Alexa.
Max was at his side in an instant, lowering Cayman’s arm with his hand.
“Don’t do it, Cayman. He’s one of the good guys. Now, come on! We’ve got to get her to a safe place.”