Lawyers, Guns and Money

by Bob Mayer

  He stopped at the personnel door set in the larger truck doors. He knocked once, hard, then pushed it open. Despite what Thao had said, the interior wasn’t that much better lit than the night outside so his eyes were adjusted.

  There were three men seated at a wood table and they all turned toward him. Kane took two steps in, letting the door swing shut behind him. Ceiling fans were pushing cigarette and cigar smoke about. A beer keg was set on cinder blocks and a cluster of bottles on another table. There were boxes stacked everywhere, not just booze but VHS and Beta recorders, stereos and more. The loot from various truck hijackings.

  “Get the fuck out,” one of the men snarled. He was closest to the door, half-turned in his chair. He wore a black leather jacket despite the heat, had a long scar on his left cheek, was mostly bald and looked like the proverbial trouble.

  “I’m here for Joe Mac,” Kane said.

  Scar turned to the man to his left, which was a sort of an introduction. Joe Mac was a short fireplug, thick black hair, and darker skinned; Black Irish, Conner would have called him.

  “Who are you?” Joe Mac asked. The third at the table was a balding man with piercing eyes. He was the one who had recently entered.

  “Name’s Brynner,” Kane said. “I’m from Fort Devens.”

  “So? I should give a flying fuck?” Joe Mac said. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t want anything. I have some things you might want.” He reached toward the map case.

  “Whoa!” Scar said. “What are you going for?”

  “Show you what I got,” Kane said. He pulled out a block of C-4 they’d borrowed from the hidden stash above Merrick’s team room. He held it up. “Government grade.”

  “You one of those fucking girl scouts?” Joe Mac asked. “Wears a green beanie.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bullshit,” Scar said. “Your hair is too long.”

  “It’s called relaxed grooming standards so we fit in,” Kane said. “I just got back from a six-month TDY tour overseas in a place we weren’t supposed to be. Had to look like the locals. Brought some goodies back with me in the team box. We don’t go through customs when we return to the States so I packed as much as I could in the box. Got some weapons too. AKs.”

  Joe Mac stood. “How do you know my name? Where’d you hear about this place?”

  “Sean Damon,” Kane said. “One of my uncles is a cop in New York. I asked him and he checked around and then I got contacted by Damon a few weeks ago.”

  The third man spoke for the first time. “Why’d you wait?”

  “I wasn’t in a rush,” Kane said, wondering how much of his two minutes he’d used. It wasn’t like he could do one-Mississippi-two-Mississippi like they used to as kids and carry on a conversation with a trio of psychos. “I got a friend with me. Also a Green Beret. He’ll be coming in shortly.”

  Scar stood, reached inside his jacket and produced a very large revolver. “Why?”

  “I wasn’t sure of the reception,” Kane said.

  “Are you sure now?” Joe Mac asked.

  “No,” Kane said. “That’s why he’s coming in. Just don’t want anybody to get twitchy when he does.”

  Joe Mac went to the keg, reached behind, and retrieved a pump action shot gun. “I’m feeling kind of twitchy. How about you Seamus? Whitey?”

  Scar appeared to be Seamus as he lifted the revolver and aimed at Kane. “I’m twitchy but my hand’s not shaking.”

  Whitey kept his hands on the table. “I think we should talk to the gentleman,” he said. “Hear his offer out.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’?” Seamus asked. “Since when you working with us? This is our gig. We’ll finish our business with you after this guy.”

  “You always want to talk, Whitey,” Joe Mac said. “Then when you’re done talking you get all twitchy. I like things the other way ar—” he paused as the door opened and he brought the shotgun to the ready.

  “Easy,” Kane said to Merrick as his former team sergeant slid in the door, the Swedish K submachinegun wire stock tight to his shoulder, finger on the trigger. Kane held his hands up. “Now everyone but Whitey and me are twitchy. We all need to calm down.”

  Merrick moved to the right, getting separation from Kane, forcing the two bad guys with guns to make a decision. They both tracked Merrick, which was bad teamwork. Whitey still had his hands on the table.

  Kane waggled the C-4. “Hey. I’ve got a bomb here.”

  “Not without a fuse you don’t,” Joe Mac said.

  Kane reversed the block, showing the fuse and the wire running into the sleeve of his denim shirt. It went across his back under the shirt and down the other arm. He held up his other hand, with the detonator that had literally, been up his sleeve. “It’s a bomb.”

  “You fucking nuts?” Seamus said, glancing at Joe Mac.

  But Kane was watching Whitey. His eyes were dead and he wasn’t afraid. The other two were trouble, but he was the danger in the room.

  “Can we talk?” Kane said.

  “Or what?” Joe Mac said. “You gonna blow yourself up?”

  “No,” Kane said. “You’re gonna blow all of us up if you shoot me, because I’m holding a dead man’s switch. I let go, we got a big boom. I don’t plan on blowing us up and would prefer not to.”

  “Fuck,” Joe Mac muttered, lowering the shotgun. “You girl scouts are crazy. Seamus, keep an eye the other guy.” He went to the table and sat down, indicating Seamus’s empty seat for Kane.

  Kane sat, placing the C-4 on the table, shaking out a little extra length of det cord so he could put that hand on his lap, close to the map case with the High Standard.

  “You’re saying Sean Damon sent you?” Whitey asked.

  “No,” Kane said, “I’m saying Sean Damon told my uncle the address of this place and the name Joe Mac.”

  “Why would he tell a cop that?” Joe Mac asked.

  “My uncle is a degenerate gambler and he does jobs for Damon.” Kane had been taught to stick as close to the truth as possible in this kind of situation. Lies were harder to keep track of. “I can give my uncle a slice if we make a deal and he can pay off his debt to a friend of Damon’s. Everyone makes out.”

  “Damon doesn’t make book,” Whitey said.

  “No, but a friend of his does,” Kane said. He was beginning to see the flaw in Merrick’s plan, because Thao’s entrance was going to be one too many. His back itched, since the door was behind him. But two of the potential problems were in front of him and Merrick was focused on the third.

  “How many AKs?” Joe Mac asked, which earned a frown from Whitey.

  “Twelve,” Kane said. “And the C-4.”

  “Ammunition?” Joe Mac asked. “They fire a weird round.”

  “Seven-point-six-two by thirty-nine,” Kane said. “I don’t have any, but it can be found on the open market. Nothing illegal about bullets.”

  Joe Mac laughed. “Depends who they end up in.”

  “They have full automatic capability,” Kane threw in.

  “Damon hasn’t been heard of for a while,” Whitey interjected.

  “Who am I making the deal with?” Kane asked, focusing on Joe Mac, worried the door was going to open any second and Thao was going to set off a bloodbath. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Whitey’s face go cold.

  “What do ya think?” Joe Mac asked Whitey, but he was buying time as he struggled to come to a decision.

  “I think this guy is full of shit and working for the cops,” Whitey said, giving the extra push the situation didn’t need.

  Kane recognized the decision in Joe Mac’s eyes as he started to bring up the shotgun. Kane shot him in the elbow with the High Standard. There was a quick pop-pop-pop behind him: the Swedish K, followed by a grunting sound.

  Kane shifted his aim under the table, but Whitey had his hands in the air, wanting no part of the battle he’d instigated. “I’m covered. I got insurance.”

  “Motherfucker!”
Joe Mac screamed; a pistol Kane hadn’t spotted in his off hand.

  A crossbow bolt pierced his neck from left to right, punching through, the barbed head dripping blood. Joe Mac dropped the gun and reached up, feeling it, first on the feathered side, then the point end, disbelief mixing with the death shading his face. His mouth moved as he tried to say something, but his vocal cords had been severed along with one of the carotid arteries which was spraying blood.

  Joe Mac keeled over, hitting the floor the hard way dead men do: Solidly.

  “Everyone okay?” Kane called out.

  “Never better,” Merrick said.

  “Thao?”

  The Montagnard appeared out of the shadows near the back door, a bolt loaded in the crossbow. “Sorry, Dai Yu. I did not know if you saw the pistol.”

  “I didn’t,” Kane said. “Thanks.”

  Whitey still had his hands in the air. “A fucking bow and arrow?”

  Merrick stepped past Kane, staying out of his line of fire and frisked Whitey, removing a semi-automatic pistol from his belt. Merrick tossed Whitey’s wallet on the table. Then stepped back, Swedish K covering him.

  Kane glanced over his shoulder. Seamus, Scar, whoever, had bullet holes in his face. Two in the forehead, the third in the center. “Three?” Kane asked. He inserted a pin in the clacker, then carefully removed the fuse from the C-4 and then the det cord from the detonator. He slid the det cord through his sleeves, putting all in the map case, relieved he was no longer a walking bomb.

  “My fingers slipped a little on the first two and they kinda came together,” Merrick said. “Been a while since I’ve used a K.”

  Kane picked up the wallet and checked the driver’s license. “James Joseph Bulger, Junior. Why do they call you Whitey?”

  “People started calling me that a long time ago when my hair was blond,” Whitey Bulger said with a shrug. “It kinda stuck. I’m not particular to it myself, but Joe Mac was an asshole and didn’t care if I was particular to it.”

  “Sit down,” Kane said. “Thao, check the front door.”

  “Yes, Dai Yu.”

  “Who are you guys?” Whitey asked. “You’re not here to sell guns or demo. Damon is dead. He died the night of the Blackout. You with the FBI? Or the military? CID?”

  “How do you know Damon is dead?” Kane asked, resting the High Standard on the table, aimed at Bulger’s ample stomach.

  “That’s the word floating about.” Whitey didn’t seem upset about the two bodies.

  “The alley is empty,” Thao reported. He moved past, going through the door he’d entered, to the back of the warehouse.

  “You said you had ’insurance’,” Kane said. “I’ve heard someone use that term before. That person was an FBI informant.”

  “That so?” Bulger said. “I think you and your buddies got a big problem. These guys are hooked up. Their people are gonna hunt you down and make you bleed and hurt a long time before they kill you.”

  “You’re not ‘their’ people?” Merrick asked.

  “I’m an acquaintance,” Bulger said. “We do business sometimes. But I don’t do weapons and I’m not related to either of them.”

  “They can’t hunt us down if they don’t know who we are,” Kane said.

  “Which they won’t, if we kill you,” Merrick added.

  Whitey Bulger believed Merrick. “What do you guys want?” he asked. “I’m sure we can make a deal?”

  “Some Provos went to Damon to buy weapons and explosives,” Kane said. “He refused. He told his weapons people in the New York area not to deal with them. So the Provos came here, didn’t they?”

  Bulger stared into Kane’s eyes. His lacked any sense of humanity, a psychopath evaluating how to play this to his own benefit, not overly concerned about the death threat. “Told you, guns ain’t my gig. Gets too much heat from the Feds.” He nodded at the cooling body next to him. “Joe Mac dealt with the Irish.”

  “What did he sell them?” Kane asked.

  “Some guns. Some explosives.”

  Kane sensed the lack in the answer. “What else?”

  “We all walk out of here and go our merry ways?” Bulger asked. “Nobody saw nothing? Nobody said nothing? Nobody heard nothing.”

  “Right,” Kane said. “Three fucking monkeys.”

  “A machinegun of some sort. Some M-16s. Some explosives. Three rockets. The army kind.”

  “Be more specific,” Kane prompted. “What kind of rockets?”

  “Is there a toe rocket? Why would the army name a missile after a toe?”

  “Fuck,” Merrick muttered.

  “TOW missile,” Kane said. “T. O. W.”

  “Still don’t make sense,” Bulger said.

  “What kind of machinegun?” Merrick asked.

  Before Whitey could answer, Thao called out from the open back door. “Dai Yu.”

  Leaving Merrick covering Whitey, Kane joined the Montagnard in the door. The lights were now on in the main part of the warehouse. There was a row of high-end cars, most likely stolen. But Thao was pointing at several wooden boxes. A long one was stenciled M-2. A cluster of smaller wooden boxes were next to it.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Kane muttered. He put a hand under the edge of the box and tried to lift it. The weight confirmed what the stenciling suggested. The smaller boxes were labeled .50 CARTRIDGES.

  “He said the Irish got three TOW missiles, explosives, some small arms and a machinegun. If they got a Ma-Duece, that’s some heavy firepower.”

  “Indeed,” Thao agreed.

  “Come on,” Kane said, leading Thao back to the room where Merrick looked ready to practice his trigger control on Whitey.

  “Did the Provos get a machinegun like the one in the warehouse?” Kane asked.

  “I don’t know what kinda gun they got,” Whitey said. “Joe Mac just boasted he sold them the stuff. He was always trying to act like he was more than he was.” He got up. “Time for me to be going before someone breaks up the party.” He walked over to the keg and kicked the back of it. A trap door popped open, prompting Merrick and Kane to bring their weapons to the ready. “Easy,” Bulger said. “Just getting my due.” He pulled out a burlap sack. “No point leaving this here for the cops to find. I say fifty-fifty split?”

  “How much is in there?” Merrick asked.

  “Should be one hundred thousand.” Bulger upended the sack on the table. “It’s what the crazies paid for the toes and the machinegun and the rifles.”

  “How many trackers were with the missiles?” Kane asked.

  “Huh?” Bulger was splitting the money into two piles. “’Trackers’? Told you, I wasn’t there for the deal. Joe Mac was dumb but not that dumb. I just know Joe Mac was saying he’d made a hundred grand for three rockets and some guns he bought off some National Guard loser for twenty-five g’s.”

  “When did this deal happen?” Kane asked. “The Provos buying the stuff?”

  “Last week,” Bulger said. “Tuesday, I think.” He frowned. There was one bundle of money left between two even piles. “Guess they spent some. Tell you what? For my troubles.” He put it in the pile closest to him.

  “We’re the ones with the guns,” Merrick said.

  “Ah,” Bulger groused. He tossed the bundle into the other pile. He put his into the sack. “I don’t know who you guys are and I don’t ever want to see you again here in Boston. Because next time it aint gonna be this easy. These two idiots were easy.”

  Merrick stepped in front of Bulger, inches away. “They come for us, they better bring a lot of body bags. Because there are a lot more of us than there are of you scumbags.”

  Whitey Bulger stared into Merrick’s eye, recognizing a kindred darkness. “I’m outta here.” He left them with two bodies, fifty thousand dollars and really bad news.

  “Are we covered on this?” Merrick asked. “Does the Agency or the FBI or someone got our backs?”

  “You were never with us,” Kane said to his former team sergea
nt as he glanced in the rear-view mirror, trying to see out the narrow, slanted back window. He checked the side mirror.

  “Are you covered on this?” Merrick asked, handing the Swedish K to Thao in the back seat after clearing it.

  “Yeah,” Kane said. “This is bigger than us. I’m meeting the CIA tomorrow. It will be their problem. The FBI’s too.”

  Merrick didn’t pursue it, but he didn’t look happy with the answer.

  “You okay?” Kane asked Thao.

  Before they’d exfiltrated the bar, after locking the door and with Merrick guarding it, the Montagnard had pulled his crossbow bolt through Joe Mac’s neck, cleaned it, and put it back in the quiver. Then he’d opened up his small med kit and gone to work on Joe Mac’s elbow. He’d retrieved as many of the fragments of the .22 bullet, working quickly while Kane shined a flashlight for him. It took a little longer to get the one 9mm out of the chest and the two slugs out of Seamus’s head. And it was a bit messier, involving a bone saw, a small hammer and a chisel.

  “TOWs,” Merrick said in a voice Kane recognized. His former team sergeant was mulling over the situation. Analyzing. It was what Special Forces engineers, Merrick’s original specialty before he made rank and became team sergeant, did. They were more commonly known as demo sergeants. Good ones looked at everything around them differently than normal people: ‘how can I blow that up?’

  Kane glanced over at him. “And?”

  “They got TOWs because they’re gonna hit a target they either can’t plant demo on without getting caught or can’t get to.”

  “Targets,” Kane corrected. “Three missiles. They could fire all three at the same thing, but I think they’d spread the impact. Make more of a splash.”

  “CARVER,” Merrick said. He was referring to the matrix Special Forces used to assess targets. Criticality, Accessibility, Recuperability, Vulnerability, Effect and Recognizability.

  “New York City is a big place,” Kane said.

  Thao spoke up from the back seat. “Are we certain they’re attacking the city? They could strike somewhere else. Washington D.C., perhaps?”

  “It’s New York,” Kane said.

  “Target rich environment,” Merrick noted, which was a way Kane had never looked at his home town before.