Blood in the Water

by Jack Flynn

  ‘I’m not gonna shoot you,’ the man said, though there was still urgency in his voice, and Jackson wasn’t fully convinced. ‘You’re gonna put that goddamned boat in the fuckin’ water, and I’ll be on my way.’

  Jackson was on his feet now, working the crane to get the boat in the water. He looked at the canvas bag and saw that it was filled with guns of various sizes. Jackson gasped, and worked faster. The boat was hanging a foot or so over the water now. The man reached over Jackson’s shoulder and hit the switch that released the suspension cords from the crane and the boat fell to the water below with a loud splash. He threw the canvas bag into the boat. ‘Keys,’ he said, looking at Jackson.

  ‘In the ignition.’

  The man jumped down into the boat and started the engines. He hit the throttle hard, and the boat shot forward.

  ‘That epoxy hasn’t been sanded yet!’ Jackson called after him. ‘It may not hold at speed!’

  The man didn’t even acknowledge him. It seemed that sinking in the small patrol boat was the least of his worries.

  Sixty-Eight

  Kit couldn’t believe the size of the crowds. She’d anticipated some level of public interest – after all, Vincente Carpio was one of the most reviled criminals in American history. He was, to many, a combination of Jeffrey Dahmer and Osama Bin Laden. His crimes were both grotesque and anti-American, and inspired a mix of hate and curiosity that many found irresistible.

  And yet the number of people who had turned out to scream obscenities was shocking. There were so many that the van had difficulty passing down Northern Avenue once it got near the courthouse. The mob had spilled into the street, and the police and federal forces seemed powerless to control them.

  It took only a moment before some in the crowd realized that the convoy was carrying the object of their venom. At first, they simply shouted at the van and its accompanying vehicles. Quickly, though, the crowd pushed forward until it was up against the van on all sides. The police were fighting to keep people back, but it seemed hopeless. The van started rocking, as protestors pushed back and forth on the sides. They were stalled, with crowds in front of them now.

  Steele was sitting in the front seat and she looked back at Carpio. For the entire ride, she’d been tempted to take out her gun and shoot him right there. He was so close, she could touch him, and it would take almost no effort to blow his head off. It would be just, in her view. He’d killed Ollie. He’d killed so many more. No one could say that it wasn’t just.

  But it wasn’t justice.

  That was what she couldn’t let go of. Even in all her hatred and grief, she couldn’t let go of her sense of justice. And justice could only happen with a trial and a jury, and a process that ensured fairness.

  He sat there, staring straight ahead, his face impassive. He didn’t look to either side, and didn’t acknowledge the hate that was directed at him from the crowd. And then just for a moment, Steele thought she detected the shadow of a smile on his lips.

  She looked out at the crowds again, and she noticed a group of men with hooded sweatshirts and backpacks, the hoods pulled up over their heads. They weren’t chanting with the crowd, and they seemed not to be paying attention to the convoy at all. As one of them turned his head to scan the crowd, Steele caught a fleeting glimpse of his face, and was sure that it was covered with tattoos.

  ‘Move forward!’ she ordered the driver.

  ‘There are people blocking us, Ma’am,’ the driver responded.

  ‘They’ll get out of the way if you move forward!’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Just drive! Go slowly and blow the horn.’

  The driver grimaced as he leaned on the horn. The blare seemed to startle those at the front of the van, and they pulled back reflexively. That created a sliver of space for the van to move. The driver eased forward. For a moment it seemed as though the crowd might push back, but when the people saw the van moving, they cleared away even more.

  The van gained some momentum, and the crack in the mob’s resolve allowed the police to move in and shoulder people away from the convoy. As the van neared the turn onto Courthouse Way, Kit Steele thought they were home free.

  At that moment, all hell broke loose.

  * * * * *

  Buddy saw the boy explode. He was standing near the corner of Northern Avenue and Courthouse Way, watching as the federal corrections vans fought their way through the angry mob. The boy was across the street, up toward the courthouse entryway, standing near the police barricades that were set up to keep the crowds at bay. He stood out because he was the only one in the crowd who wasn’t paying attention to the vans that were transporting Vincente Carpio. Instead, he was milling about, head down, seemingly oblivious to the world around him. The backpack seemed heavy on his slight shoulders, and he looked out of place to Buddy.

  And then, all of a sudden, he was gone. The explosion rocked the area, and Buddy was thrown back into the building behind him. For a moment, it seemed as though the world went quiet and time slowed. Buddy watched as shrapnel tore through those standing in the crowd, and the wooden barricades rose into the air in slow motion.

  The second explosion was farther down on the other side of the street, and it seemed to bring the world back to reality. Buddy didn’t see that one, but he felt it, and it buckled his legs. All at once everyone was in motion, and the screams pierced the air. The crowd dispersed, running in every direction. The vans pulled forward, crawling around the corner onto Courthouse Way. Two armed federal marshals sprinted toward the vans and began pulling the injured out of the way to allow the vehicles to pass.

  Buddy gripped the gun in his pocket as his head cleared and he tried to focus on what all this could mean. Cormack had said that Soh and his men were planning to break Vincente Carpio out of custody. It appeared that his information was accurate, and the attack was now underway. That meant that Soh might very well appear at any second. Buddy decided to keep his attention trained on the vans. They would be the focus of any further attack, he reasoned, and if he could take out Soh and a few of his men, that might end the war with MS-13 for control of the harbor. He thought about Soh kidnapping Diamond – taking her when she was carrying his child – and the rage grew in him. For him, this wasn’t about business anymore. It wasn’t about control over the harbor or the power dynamics in the Boston underworld; it was personal. If there was any way he could take Soh out, he was determined to do it.

  * * * * *

  Diamond was almost at the courthouse when the explosions rocked the Seaport District. She needed to find Buddy. She didn’t know where else to go. Given all that was happening, calling the police didn’t seem an option, and she had no idea where Cormack was, but she knew that Buddy was somewhere around the courthouse. He was the only one she felt she could trust at this point. As she drove, she looked down at the blood on her hand. She couldn’t think clearly, but she forced herself to take a deep breath to try to compose herself.

  The crowds were so heavy along Northern Avenue that she’d detoured a block before and headed down Fan Pier Boulevard so that she could come up Bond Drive, where the crowds were much thinner. She pulled her car to the side of the street when it was clear that she couldn’t get any closer to the building. She was still a block or so away, and she got out and started running. She didn’t even know why – she didn’t know exactly where Buddy was.

  The explosions made her stumble, and all of a sudden everyone in the crowd was rushing toward her, headed away from the courthouse and the explosions.

  ‘Oh God, Buddy!’ she said under her breath. She knew that he was there – sent to take out Soh if he and his men showed up to free Vincente Carpio. She instantly feared that he was dead, and the thought deepened her disorientation.

  The crowd streamed past her, screaming in terror. Diamond saw a young woman carrying a small child. They were both bleeding, and Diamond wondered what could have possessed the young woman to bring a child to this kind of a scene.
Then again, she realized, she was pregnant and yet was there herself. But she was there because there was no other place she could think to go.

  Moving forward, against the flow of those fleeing the scene, was a struggle. It seemed that everyone was trying to escape. As she moved north toward the courthouse, though, she bumped into a slight man in a hooded sweatshirt who seemed to be the only person unfazed by the mayhem. He was holding something in his hand, pointing it toward the courthouse’s garage doors.

  Diamond stepped around him, still headed forward into the madness. She continually slammed into people streaming in the other direction. She was nearing Courthouse Way when she felt a strong hand grab her from behind. She turned, hoping against hope that it was Buddy.

  It wasn’t. Instead she was staring into the face of the Asian man from Fort Strong. He was staring at her as though he’d seen a ghost.

  ‘Diamond O’Connell,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  * * * * *

  Javier Carpio and his men were in the boats. The traffic on the water was crazy, and they had to weave in and out of the commercial ships that crowded the inner harbor. He could see the shocked expressions of those on the ships as they passed in the attack boats with guns mounted fore and aft.

  They were ready and waiting, and pulled out as soon as they heard the first explosion. Javier had given instructions for Soh to detonate the backpacks when the caravan carrying his brother was approaching the turn onto Courthouse Way. In the ensuing confusion, he estimated that it would take the vehicles another two minutes to make it to the courthouse garage. That gave them enough time to get more than halfway across the harbor before letting loose the missiles. As long as Soh was accurately painting the area above the garage doors, they should have a chance. Men on the ships they passed watched them closely, and Carpio wondered whether one of them might alert the authorities. It was a risk, but a small one. In light of the explosions near the courthouse, no one would be surprised to see Coast Guard attack boats headed toward the scene.

  Even from out on the water, Javier and his men could hear the screaming coming from the area around the courthouse. The sounds of civilian terror brought Javier back to his days in El Salvador, when every day brought violence and bloodshed to the people of his small country. He had contributed to that bloodshed, there was no doubt, but that had not been by choice. He had been forced into that life by the American-backed government forces. At least that was the way he remembered it. At some point he probably could have gotten out of that life, but by then it was all he knew. And it was all his brother knew. Their involvement in MS-13 was just an extension of their long-standing guerilla warfare.

  The screams grew louder as they crossed the harbor, and Javier nodded to his men. One of his soldiers hoisted the missile launcher onto his shoulder. Over on the second boat, another of his men did the same.

  Sixty-Nine

  The explosions at the front of the courthouse rocked the van carrying Kit Steele and Vincente Carpio. The attack was underway, she knew. Fortunately, they were ready for it. She was immediately on her radio giving orders, instructing all the manpower of the BPD, the FBI and the Federal Marshals to converge on Northern Avenue. Soh had said that that’s where all of Javier Carpio’s soldiers would be, and that was where the authorities had focused their planning. The first priority was to make sure that the van with Vincente Carpio in it made it safely to the courthouse garage. The second priority was to capture or kill as many of Javier Carpio’s men as possible. Steele had given Soh her assurances that he would not be intentionally targeted, but if he was accidentally killed that would be fine with Steele. Ultimately, she had already decided that she would never honor her bargain with anyone as evil as T’phong Soh. If that meant she would go to jail, she could live with it.

  As the van inched forward, several Federal Marshals swarmed them, moving injured and panicked members of the public out of the way so that the vans could pass. Kit was focused on identifying any possible threat, but even as she kept her mind on the mission, she could not help but see all those who had been killed or badly injured in the crowd. It was heart-wrenching. She could see people bloodied and unconscious, some of them unrecognizable as complete human beings. She felt the rage well up within her, and she hoped the task force would be able to take out as many of the MS-13 contingent as possible. It wouldn’t make up for the death and destruction they had caused, but at least it would be something she could cling to so that she might be able to go on without feeling useless.

  It took only a moment for the caravan to complete the turn onto Courthouse Way. There, they passed through the barricades formed by a phalanx of police cars and vans. Once through the gap, they were out of the crowds and safe, it seemed.

  Steele looked back at Carpio. ‘Your brother has failed,’ she said. ‘Did you think I would let you escape? Did you think I wouldn’t be prepared?’

  Carpio stared darkly at her. ‘Many people have underestimated my brother,’ he said. ‘You are just the latest.’

  ‘Let’s get this asshole into the courthouse and in front of the judge!’ Kit ordered.

  The garage was only a hundred yards ahead of them. There was no doubt that they would make it now.

  * * * * *

  The water in the harbor was flat and calm. The soldier carrying the launcher steadied himself, and with the aid of one of the other men managed to fire the weapon in the direction of the federal courthouse. Because the missile would be targeted by laser, all he had to do was send it in the general direction of its target. Computers would do the rest. A second later the second missile flew from the other boat.

  The missiles circled up into the sky, seemingly directionless, searching. but after a few seconds it was as though they made a decision, and they honed in on the courthouse with a sense of purpose.

  ‘They’ve got the target,’ one of Javier’s men said.

  ‘Yes,’ Javier said. ‘Let us just hope that it is the right target.’

  * * * * *

  Buddy was shadowing the caravan moving toward the garage at the federal courthouse. He was moving east along Courthouse Way, toward Bond Drive. Cormack had said that the real attack would be coming from the harbor, up ahead, so he kept his eyes moving between the vans and the shoreline. As he moved along Courthouse Way, though, a commotion halfway up the block on Bond Street caught his eye. A man and a woman seemed to be struggling with each other. The man had a hood pulled up over his head and he was holding the woman with one hand while pointing something at the courthouse with his other hand. She seemed to be struggling to get away.

  He recognized Diamond instantly, and it took only a second more for him to recognize the man as T’phong Soh. Buddy broke into a sprint toward them. Any thought of Vincente Carpio and the implications of an escape attempt fled his mind. All he could focus on was protecting the woman he loved.

  ‘Diamond!’ he called out. Soh recognized that Buddy was intent on attacking. A look of consternation came over his face, and he threw Diamond to the sidewalk. As he did, she lashed out and knocked something out of the hand that he had been pointing toward the courthouse. Just then, Buddy heard the deafening roar of what seemed like rockets echoing off the building as they flew up Courthouse Way.

  ‘No!’ Soh screamed, diving for the object he’d dropped.

  ‘Diamond! Stay down!’ Buddy screamed. It was instinctive, but he knew that whatever was about to happen wasn’t going to be good. If he could have, he would have thrown himself over her, but he wasn’t close enough. And then, all of a sudden, there was an explosion that made the attack at the front of the courthouse seem like firecrackers.

  Seventy

  Cormack had pushed the MEP patrol boat to its limits. He had no idea how much time he had. The police radio on the center console was already blaring with reports of the initial explosions at the front of the courthouse. Every emergency responder from every unit of every police, fire and rescue force in Boston and any nearby town seemed to be he
aded for the area to help, and to catch whoever was responsible. But Cormack knew they had no assets on the water. He was the only hope to keep Carpio and his brother from escaping into the harbor, and from there to safety.

  He barely slowed the boat down as he pulled into the pier by the World Trade Center, a quarter of a mile from the courthouse, to allow Cicero Andolini to jump on. He’d considered pushing the attack on his own – he was worried that even a slight delay in getting to the scene would allow Carpio to escape – but he knew that would be foolish. He couldn’t drive the boat and shoot at the same time, and he knew Carpio’s brother had two well-armed Coast Guard attack boats. Alone, he’d be useless. With Cicero he might not be much better, but at least one of them could drive and the other could shoot. That would give them a glimmer of hope.

  ‘What’s going on, boss?’ Cicero shouted as he landed on the deck. Cormack floored the engines again, and Cicero was momentarily thrown off balance.

  ‘Carpio’s brother’s got attack boats!’ Cormack shouted back. ‘They’re going to try to break him out from the water!’ He pointed to the sack on the deck. ‘There’s guns in there. I don’t know which are loaded, but take your pick!’ He was weaving around a cargo ship, and they were fast approaching the pier in front of the courthouse.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘We’ve got no choice, gotta fight with what we’ve got.’

  ‘We’ll be outgunned,’ Cicero pointed out, pulling out an assault rifle.

  Just then, they saw the missiles go up from the two boats in the harbor, off the shore near the courthouse. They wandered aimlessly for a moment before acquiring their target and heading toward land with purpose.

  ‘That looks like an understatement,’ Cormack replied.

  * * * * *

  Javier Carpio had instructed T’phong Soh to target the area roughly five feet above the garage doors so that the explosion would block the entrance and take out many of the police and federal marshals nearby without coming too close to the vans. He wanted to make sure that his brother wasn’t harmed in the explosions. Diamond O’Connell had knocked the laser guidance out of Soh’s hands seconds before the missiles hit, though. Without specific target acquisition, the missiles’ momentum carried them lower and slightly off course, hitting the area to the left of the garage doors, around five feet above the sidewalk. The van carrying Vincente Carpio and Kit Steele, as well as a driver and two other security personnel, was almost to the garage when the missiles struck the courthouse. As a result, the explosion had far greater impact on them than intended.