by Tom Haase
Never mind, they can’t do anything to interfere with this operation, he ruminated.
37
Eddie Gordon didn’t go back to the police station. He drove around for a good half hour before pulling over in the Home Depot parking lot off Victory Drive. More than halfway along the center aisle in the parking area, he found a free slot and pulled in. The time to make up his mind had arrived even though he'd already done it in all actuality. The resulting decision would now require drastic action.
If he was going to lead a raid on Ramon, his five percent partner, he certainly required knowledge about how many men were in the gang. Eddie understood Ramon didn’t have many, but he needed a number so his men wouldn't be outnumbered. Eddie decided the five percent he’d been promised didn’t cut it anymore and none of it had ever materialized.
“Ramon, I have bad news,” Eddie said when the man answered his phone. He used a burner as he suspected what Chuck might be doing. In his drive around, it occurred to him the ones involved in the takedown of the human trafficking organization must be participants in this new plan. They wanted him to be on a fifteen-minute call, and it could only mean they again used the woman with the NSA background. She must be the one who would manipulate the cell system to get all of Ramon’s men to arrive at one location at the same time. He couldn’t let Ramon discover any details about it, but tipping him off to a possible raid might serve his purpose for getting the information he needed.
“What’s the matter? You sound worried, my friend.”
“I’m not sure, but I heard a rumor of a raid being planned by one of the precincts against a drug operation off of DeRenne. Is that yours?”
“No, but tell me more. When and how did they find out about a drug operation in that area?”
Eddie had known Ramon for years. They had been together once upon a time, and Eddie understood him well enough to discern the man was lying. He’d always lie about everything as long as they were partners in order to keep Eddie from ever knowing the full extent of his operations. The five percent would always be whatever Ramon decided it would be.
“Overheard the captain talking with a precinct commander, and he mentioned a drug raid. That’s all. I thought you should know if it impacts your plans or is part of your network. By the way, how many men do we have in our organization?”
Eddie hoped the change in topic would get him the result he wanted by using the word “our” in the context of his five percent. He thought he’d never see a penny from it, not after the next two days.
“Only six distributors and seven more coming on soon. I talk with them all on a daily basis to keep them focused and ready to work when the goods arrive. We had not prepared for rapid expansion when you guys wiped out our opposition. I’m planning on moving more supplies and more people in a few days. We’ll be acquiring our new goods soon from Florida.”
“What goods?”
“Heard someone is bringing in a new shipment and I intend to take it.”
“What about the Nassau boys? Have you seen any of them?” Eddie asked.
“No, nothing from them. I don’t think they’re any problem. If those meatheads show up, I’ll handle them. They can’t have many people. What is going on with that McGregor guy? Did he learn I put the hit out on him? He’s a slimy one.”
“From what I understand, he knows, as he told me the man he killed fingered you as the one who sent him to kill McGregor.”
“What the hell is he talking about? I’ll have to deal with him. I owe that bastard for what he did to my men. I can’t let him get away with it. Wait a minute, you got it wrong. McGregor didn’t kill the man I sent to kill him.”
“I don’t understand. No matter, take care and prepare for a raid in the near future,” Eddie said. “I’ll give you a warning if or when it’s going down when I hear it.”
He ended the call and picked up his other burner and dialed the Tsarina. He must get something straight with her, and he had valuable information to relay.
After talking to her and relaying the events that were going down in Savannah, she asked, “Are you certain there will be a raid on that group? When?”
“It’ll take place in two days, and I’ll be on the raid. I want to make sure we will destroy the whole gang, including Ramon,” Eddie said. He understood if Ramon survived, the man would chase him and kill him because there would be no warning given like he had promised. The Tsarina had his loyalty now, and she paid handsomely for it. He recognized what he had to do and saving Ramon wasn’t in his deck of cards.
“I am impressed. Thank you for your work. I’ll have my people ready to take over after you handle the opposition. Look for a reward in your account tomorrow. Again, good work. I have a resupply going up by truck in two days to make a delivery to my people. My delay will now work in your favor. It’ll work out great after you destroy the competition.” The Tsarina ended the call, and Eddie asked knowing he had moved another step closer to having his early retirement dream come true.
Were the Tsarina’s supplies the same as the ones Ramon had mentioned? Even more curious.
What did Ramon mean about Chuck not killing his man?
38
After Chuck arrived back at his house, he dialed Emma. He needed her to come along with him because he planned on driving by the location on 71st Street. It would give her an opportunity to see the place. It might help her get the legal paperwork done if she had specific addresses and other details.
Qing, for her part, had determined the street location from the cell calls with a high probability it was the position of Ramon's operations. Emma regretted she couldn't go right then. She suggested an early morning recon when there would be little traffic. She would come to his place at six the next morning.
Emma arrived at six on the dot with two cups of coffee. Chuck thanked her for the wake-up liquid and led her to his Pilot. They headed south on the Truman Parkway. The traffic was almost non-existent at that time of morning. He took a right off the parkway at DeRenne Avenue and another right at the bottom of the exit ramp.
“So where are we going?” Emma asked and then took a sip of her coffee.
“We will do a drive-by at a location Qing triangulated for us. You comprehend nothing she gives you will do you any good in court. So, I thought you might want to do a little spooking on your own to get original intelligence, which might be admissible in a courtroom. If you find anything, you can use it in a criminal prosecution, as you will be the witness. Does that make sense?” Chuck said.
“Sure does and I appreciate you keeping your word on informing me of any new intelligence. I didn’t expect for you to include me in the action part of actionable intelligence.” She turned her head and smiled at him. “It's great to be working with you.”
“Same here.”
“I haven’t told you in person how sorry I was to hear of Darlene’s murder.”
“Thanks. Right now though, we’ve got another problem. I've noticed a caravan of big black SUVs turn the corner behind us. I'm going to pull over to the curb right here. We're a half block from the address. I have a gut feeling something is up because it seems unusual to me to see three SUVs coming on this street in convoy at this time of day. They are either part of Ramon's gang coming to work or part of the Nassau's boys. Let's sit and see which,” Chuck said and pulled to the side where he put his car in park. He left the engine running if they needed to exit the area in a hurry.
Emma swiveled in her seat to observe the oncoming vehicles. She took out her phone and started to video the approaching cars.
“Suggest we duck down,” Chuck said, and they both lowered themselves in the seats. Emma held the phone on top of the dash and continued to record as the three vehicles passed.
The three black SUVs passed, slowed, and pulled to the side of the street close to the address Chuck got from Qing. Men got out of two of the vehicles, and the third drove to the corner and turned right.
“I bet that one is going to the rear of the h
ouse,” Emma said.
“Possibly to cover the back. That answers our question of who they are. Now we need to discover what they are after.”
“This is the first time I believe we have positive sightings of the Nassau gang. There has been no reporting of any other organization other than Ramon’s guys trying to operate in this city. We think they have connections with the Miami Russian syndicate. We have no proof as yet,” Emma said.
Chuck observed the men who jumped out of the two vehicles in front of the house.
“Look, they are carrying rifles,” Emma said.
“Those are AK-47s. Call the police,” Chuck said.
“I’m videoing. You call them.”
Before he could make the call, the four men opened fire on the house. Hundreds of rounds impacted on the front, shattering windows and splintering wood on the windows. The noise of the assault would wake the neighborhood. Someone would call the police so he didn’t bother.
During a lull in the shooting, while the men in the front reloaded, Chuck could hear automatic weapons firing in the rear of the house. This confirmed his suspicion, one car went to the back to block any exit from that direction.
Emma continued to video as two of the men in front of the house rushed to the door and slammed into it. The door gave, and in less than a minute, each emerged carrying two large boxes.
When they reached their cars, they placed the boxes into the rear compartment where the driver had raised the back door. Stepping back, they slammed it shut. They raced to get into the vehicles.
“Move past them,” Emma commanded in a stern voice.
“What now?”
“Drive,” she again ordered. “I plan to get video from the side to see who is in the cars. Drive past as I hold the phone by the window and we won’t look at them as we pass. Just two people going to work.”
He put the car in drive and moved forward. He made sure not to speed, but not to go too slow. He passed the two SUVs and continued along the street. In his rear-view mirror, he saw the vehicles move onto the street and head off. At the corner of Waters and 71st, he turned right and then at the light made a left onto DeRenne Avenue. The black SUVs were no longer behind them.
“Did you get what you wanted?” Chuck asked in a forceful tone. He meant to make sure she understood he thought that last move was borderline stupid or even way off the charts.
“Hold a second, I’m viewing it now.” She took a few more seconds to examine her phone. “Yes, great, thanks for doing that,” she said in a soft conciliatory tone. “We need to go to the station where they have a large screen and enhancement capability.”
When Captain Kennedy saw the video, he ordered the pictures obtained by Emma sent to GBI for identification. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation had more capability than the police. Eddie also watched the video but didn’t contribute to the discussion as the captain controlled the meeting.
After taking their leave of the captain and saying he'd see Eddie later, Chuck escorted Emma outside the building intending to bring her back to his place to retrieve her car.
“Thank you for taking me with you.”
“You know, if they saw us as a threat, we’d be dead back there on that street.”
“Where’s your spirit of adventure?”
He looked at her and again and then decided not to let her beauty influence him. He shook his head in amazement as they walked to the car because she didn’t understand the real danger they had encountered or the lethality of those men were capable of if they spotted them.
39
Lieutenant Eddie Gordon didn’t need to wait for any facial recognition software to identify one of the occupants viewed in the vehicles. He recognized the principal in the lead vehicle from personal knowledge. Kareem sat in the front passenger seat of the second SUV. Now he wanted to decide what to do and when to inform the Tsarina, or perhaps even to contact Kareem, but he didn’t have his cell number.
A few days ago, the Tsarina had suggested he meet with her man in Savannah. The idea proffered by her would give Eddie an opportunity to see Kareem and could identify him if it ever became necessary. She thought it a necessary precaution for her man. Eddie had resisted and wanted no one in the Russian or Bahamian establishments to know who he was. He insisted on it, but she was adamant, and she paid the bill.
In the end, he had no choice and acquiesced. She agreed to have her man at any place and time Eddie requested. In theory, Eddie would remain anonymous and not recognizable. A theory, Eddie knew, is one thing and practicality another.
The meet took place outside the police headquarters. A place Eddie was sure Kareem didn’t want to be anywhere near and would be in a hurry to get away after it was over. He knew the man had been instructed not to look at him but to let Eddie see him.
After the meeting with the captain, Chuck and he had exited the building. Eddie had sent the agreed signal by text to Kareem indicating he’d be leaving the building in less than a minute. Eddie and Chuck left the building together, shook hands and Eddie moved hurriedly down the steps, as he had to be the first one to reach the bottom. There, he accidentally bumped into a man and started off in the same direction the pedestrian had been walking.
He took a quick glance at the man he had bumped into and after a few seconds moved away and crossed the street to his car. The man had not looked at him. Eddie saw his face but thought he could be confident the man had not glimpsed his face in the brief encounter.
Now, he thought Kareem might have seen him but only from a sideways glance. The lady in Miami should be satisfied, and he had taken every precaution not to have his face exposed to the man. It had worked, and he believed Kareem hadn’t gotten a good look at him. After visually searching the area, he crossed the street and had noticed no evidence of surveillance on him or of anyone taking pictures.
Sometimes theory works, he thought.
He headed for the house where the shooting occurred on 71st Street to see for himself what had happened there. He dialed the Tsarina and told her the police had a picture of her man taken when he attacked Ramon’s place. She must now take precautions, as he’d be the target of an intense police hunt in the area. Eddie didn’t have a way of getting in direct contact to warn him as Kareem had used a one-time burner phone for the accidental meeting outside the police headquarters. She thanked him and said she would make the necessary arrangements.
He didn’t know what those arrangements might be, and he didn’t care. The lady seemed pleased with his efforts so far, and she had paid well for his services. The money was what it was all about in the end. Without Ramon in the picture, he realized the money in the offshore account would also belong to his retirement plan. He smiled at this supremely happy thought.
Eddie arrived at the house on 71st Street where the Nassau boys had struck. He observed the destruction made by the automatic weapons fire on the outside and inside he saw two bodies on the floor. They had sustained multiple bullet hits in every part of their torsos. The Medical Examiner (ME) was there, and a crime scene tech was working on bullet trajectories.
“There are two dead here,” he told Chuck on the phone. “They shot up the place. You better be glad they didn’t spot you.”
“You got that right. I told Emma the same thing. Those boys were out for blood. I’m sure the boxes they took must have contained drugs or a list of his contacts. Do you have any new info on the attackers?” Chuck said.
“No, but I suspect they were not all local. This much firepower and methods look like outside muscle helping those guys.”
“Interesting,” Chuck responded. “Maybe a new dimension to the problem and something we need to take into consideration in any future planning,” Chuck said.
“I’ll be here for a while, so call.”
“I’ll tell Emma and stress how lucky we were,” Chuck said. He ended the call and again told Emma how fortunate they had been in escaping unharmed from the 71st Street attack.
He still owed both gangs for
the attacks on his home. They had each separately tried to kill him.
Payback would be a bitch, he promised, particularly if he delivered it.
40
Chuck drove to his place with Emma. They both remained silent, thinking of the events of the morning. Emma seemed to be in a good mood because she smiled occasionally at him, but she didn’t say a word until they arrived at his place.
“I need to get back and do a bit of work on who those guys might be. I agree, from the coordinated attack we witnessed, they are most likely not locals.”
“Come on in and have a cup of coffee and a pastry I bought yesterday. Let’s go over what we know,” he said.
Before she could answer, his cell went off.
“Listen, I thought you might want to learn that the dead guys were members of Ramon's gang. This revelation has the captain pushing us hard on the possible shipment of drugs if they are coming from Florida. He ordered me to drop everything and concentrate on that. I believe this attack on 71st Street might be part of the whole mess. Catch you later,” Eddie ended the call.
“You heard,” he addressed Emma as he had his phone on speaker on for the conversation. “What do you think?”
“We have to determine who those guys were who attacked the house. Then we also need to find out what were they after. Yeah, I know you assume it was drugs in the boxes, and I sort of agree. We don’t have that for certain.”
“Let’s take another look at your video. I can project it on the large TV screen.”
She handed him the phone, and he connected it to his computer, and with the click of a few buttons, the image began to appear on the screen. On the second viewing of the attack, the intensity and the ferocity were clearer than when they were sitting in the car. Chuck watched the part where they drove by the parked vehicles, and he could see the man’s face in the passenger window.
