Avenged in the Keys

by Rief, Matthew

“Not necessary,” Tate said. “This place closed years ago, and the guys at the station contacted the bank. We have permission to enter. I got the feeling that they’d forgotten about the place. Haven’t been on the property since it foreclosed apparently.”

  “Well, somebody’s been on the property.”

  Tate nodded. “Call in and see what’s the ETA on the others.”

  Blake did as his sergeant ordered, grabbing the radio from inside the vehicle and placing a call.

  Titus’s heart began to pound like a jackhammer. He felt the cold steel of the Taurus 9mm handgun in the back of his waistband. Reaching back, he pulled it free, held it with two hands, and swallowed.

  He needed to warn the others. But how in the hell could he make it back to the main building without being spotted? The two officers were less than fifty feet away from him.

  No, he needed to make a move. The cops had mentioned that backup was on its way. If a squad of police officers drove into the compound without Lynch and the others being warned, they’d have a hard time putting up a good fight. And Titus knew Lynch’s stance—everyone did. The white supremacist leader would rather die fighting than be dragged off to jail again. He wasn’t spending another second behind bars, and his men fully supported the idea of fighting to the death.

  Titus tightened his grip on his weapon. In the shadows of the thick brush, he lifted it to chest height, then rose just barely over the branch in front of him.

  “Five minutes out,” Officer Blake said.

  The sergeant nodded, then placed his hands on his hips and stared in through the gate. Titus put the man right in his sights. He held his breath and tried his best to remain steady.

  Tate continued to scan the inside of the farm. As his eyes hit Titus, they froze. The sergeant tilted his head forward for a better view. His eyes bulged, and he just had enough time to open his mouth before Titus pulled the trigger. The loud bang of exploding gunpowder tore across the landscape like thunder. Tate barely made a sound before the bullet struck his chest. He twisted from the blow, his feet shuffling in the gravel, then fell hard onto his side.

  Officer Blake dropped for cover and whipped out his service weapon in the blink of an eye. He took aim through the chain link, but the powerful boom had echoed out in all directions, making it difficult to pinpoint the source of the sound.

  The downed officer struggled, deep red blossoming from his chest and staining his uniform. He’d been hit through the heart. A well-placed kill shot. No chance of recovery, and the experienced cop knew it. It was only a matter of seconds before the blood loss would be too great and he’d breathe his last.

  Seeing his mentor and friend dying on the ground, Blake strode toward him while firing shots into the forest where he’d thought the attack had come from.

  Tate waved a hand. “Get to cover!” he yelled as best he could through clenched teeth.

  Titus popped back up as Blake froze, his face angry and conflicted. The white supremacist took aim and fired again, but his second shot was off the mark. The younger officer jolted back toward the cruiser just as Titus let loose, and the round struck the cop’s left upper leg.

  Blake groaned and fell, rolling behind the police vehicle. Titus didn’t let up. He fired off a barrage of gunfire, peppering the car with bullets and blasting holes in the windows.

  Blake fired back again, and the two engaged in a standoff until Titus’s Taurus locked back. He’d emptied his magazine and didn’t have a spare. Dropping into the shadows, he turned around and took off, pumping his arms like mad as he sprinted through the forest back toward the center of the farm.

  He heard a few more gunshots far back in the distance, followed by the sound of the officer yelling into his radio.

  Heaving and covered in a layer of sweat, Titus reached the main structures of the abandoned farm just as Lynch and the others were gathering in the parking lot.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” Lynch spat when he saw Titus appear down the winding driveway, still running like he’d seen a damn ghost.

  “Cops!” he grunted. “The bastards found us somehow.” He stopped, placed his hands on his knees, and caught his breath. “Two of them pulled up to the gate. I heard them call in to backup. More are coming and they’re gonna break in.”

  Lynch’s eyes grew massive. He fumed, then thought for a second and narrowed his gaze.

  “Like hell they are,” he barked. The white supremacist leader stepped forward, then turned around and addressed all of his men. “Any pig sets foot on this property gets gunned down, understand me?” His men looked at their leader in awe, trying to take in the magnitude of the moment. “Titus, get inside and open up the arsenal. I want everyone fully armed, with automatic rifles in hands. And I want everyone scattered and on full alert.” Titus did as he was ordered, running inside and unlocking a closet packed with rifles, bulletproof vests, and stacks of ammunition cases. He and the others handed out the weapons, then returned outside to where Lynch was standing with his shotgun held over his head.

  “They want a standoff,” Lynch yelled, “then we’ll give them a damn standoff!”

  FORTY-ONE

  An hour after we informed Jane of Lynch’s likely position, she called back with an update. Two officers had been shot outside the gate of the abandoned alligator farm and one of them had died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The compound was currently surrounded by over twenty police officers, the numbers increasing with every passing minute as more precincts got involved.

  She informed us that cops had been fired upon with automatic rifles when they’d tried to break into the gate. They were keeping their distance, waiting for the right time to strike or to try and negotiate a way out of the mess.

  The call only lasted a few minutes as she had to go. She was on her way north to provide whatever assistance she could. I thanked her for the intel, then hung up.

  “What the hell kind of Pandora’s box did we open?” I said.

  “The kind that isn’t contained without making a big mess,” Ange replied. “This guy Lynch isn’t going to go down easy. He’s not going to surrender.”

  I agreed with her completely.

  We researched the alligator farm more, kept up with the progress as best we could, and tried to come up with the best course of action. By the time the sun began to set, it was clear that the standoff could last a while. The governor of Florida made a statement that they’d never give in to the demands of radical organizations and that the Aryan Order would feel the full wrath of the law if they didn’t turn themselves over.

  Lynch replied to the governor in his usual style of homemade video and uploaded it to the internet. Local news stations got hold of it and played it for everyone to see again and again.

  The footage showed Lynch standing in a room with a Confederate flag draped across the wall at his back. He wore a bulletproof vest full of magazines, had a rifle strapped across his chest, and held a twelve-gauge shotgun in his right hand.

  “Any officer who steps foot into our domain will suffer the same fate as Sergeant Tate of the Homestead Police,” he said. “I have an army of well-armed, well-trained combatants ready to lay waste to whatever numbers are sent our way. You will be slaughtered and fed to the gators. We shall drench these swamps with your blood, and we will send a loud and clear message to this twisted nation. Please, try and test our resolve. This will be Waco all over again, only much worse for law enforcement. I say again, all who set foot on this land will die!”

  He ended the video with a quick Nazi salute and a pan over a group of masked skinheads yelling and raising rifles over their heads. Ange clicked off the television when Scarlett stepped in through the front door with Atticus.

  “I have the news on my phone,” she said, seeing the remote in Ange’s hand. “Pretty messed up what that guy’s doing.” Atticus said hi, then plopped down on the rug at our feet. Scarlett filled a glass with lemonade, took a sip, then moved over to us. “You guys think the police can handle it
?”

  “I have no doubt,” I said. “A few of my old friends from the Navy are SWAT. They’re some of our nation’s best. Lynch and his guys will be taken down, but I’m just worried about how many might be lost in the process. He’s not a man to be taken lightly.”

  Scarlett finished her juice, then stepped into the guest bathroom to take a shower. When the water turned on, Ange slid closer to me.

  “You’ve got that look in your eye, Logan,” she said.

  I shook my head. “I can’t help feeling responsible for this,” I said. My hands tightened into fists as I thought about all that Lynch had done over the past week. John Ridley, the security guard at the motorsports store, attacking us, and now murdering a police officer. “I won’t let him kill any more people,” I added, staring at Ange with ferocity and resolve in my eyes. I rose to my feet. “I’m going to that farm and I’m going to deal with the Aryan Order once and for all.”

  “We’re going,” she corrected me. “But in order to get the cops to let us sneak in there, we’re going to need help. Someone in a powerful political position.”

  I smiled and nodded.

  One of my closest and oldest friends, Scott Cooper, was currently finishing up his term as a senator representing the state of Florida. We’d served together in the SEALs, he as our division commander, and we’d had each other’s backs through dozens of dangerous scrapes ever since. If there was a man on Earth who could help us, it was him. I just hoped that we could get ahold of him. He’d recently formed a covert fighting force that he’d been planning for years. It kept him busy, and he was always traveling around the Caribbean lately.

  I tried his phone, and he picked up on the second ring.

  “Hey, Dodge,” he said. “I was wondering when I was going to get this call.”

  Being a sitting senator and up to date on current affairs, he’d obviously already been informed of the situation.

  “Ange and I are going, Scottie,” I said. “We’ve dealt with this Lynch character before. But we won’t be able to get anywhere near that compound without you.”

  My old friend didn’t hesitate. He’d always been sharp-witted and decisive.

  “I was just putting together a few people to send over and help,” he said. “You guys got the Cessna in Key West?”

  “Fueled and ready,” Ange said, listening in.

  “Good. Meet my guys at Homestead General Aviation Airport at zero hundred hours. The police aren’t moving on anything anytime soon, and that Lynch guy seems hunkered down at the moment. Best to go in late at night, when all his men are tired and the initial excitement has worn off for them. My guys will take you to the farm. I’ll handle the feds when you arrive.”

  “Thanks, Scottie. We’ll be there.”

  “Just be careful, all right? You know as well as anyone what lunatics like this are capable of. You’ve handled worse before, but just be aware that this guy’s probably got more than a few tricks up his sleeve.”

  We spent the rest of the evening mentally preparing and doing recon work, learning everything we could about the alligator farm. We looked at hundreds of pictures of the place from various online review and social media sites. We also studied every inch of the map via the farm’s old downloadable pamphlet and examined the site using Google Maps.

  It wasn’t a perfect place for a group of criminals to wage a police standoff, but it was close. There was only one road in or out of the center of the hundred-acre property. Most of the site was covered in forest and littered with swampland.

  We studied and examined and brainstormed possible infiltration plans until 2200, when Jack and Isaac arrived. We told them what was going on after letting them in, but we didn’t have to. They’d heard everything on the news. It was a big story.

  “The second I heard what was happening, I told Isaac we were gonna stay over at the Dodges’ again,” Jack said. “You sure you don’t need my help?”

  Despite being a charter captain by trade and a genuine beach bum, Jack was a good guy to have around when things went south. He was also one of the best boat captains in the islands. But for where we were going and what we were doing, Ange and I both knew that just the two of us should go.

  “Just one more week until summer vacation,” Scarlett beamed. “Then you’ll have no excuse but to take me along on these adventures.”

  Ange and I exchanged glances. Adventures? Raiding an abandoned alligator farm littered with fully armed and angry white supremacists? Our daughter had a strange definition of the word adventure.

  Ange and I grabbed a duffle bag full of our tactical clothes and night vision optics, as well as two hard cases. One housed her adjustable Lapua sniper rifle, and the other my M4 assault rifle.

  We said our goodbyes, and everyone wished us luck as we headed downstairs and loaded into the Tacoma. Five minutes later, I pulled us into Tarpon Cove Marina, where we’d kept our amphibious Cessna 182 Skylane for the past few years. Keeping it so close to our house allowed us to fly across the Caribbean or the continental United States at the drop of a hat.

  I loaded everything aboard while Ange performed her preflight checks and called into local ATCs. Once we were all set and the cove was clear of boat traffic, I untied the lines from the port pontoon, then jumped aboard. She soon had us in the air, lifting smoothly off the water and banking into a northeasterly course.

  As the black blotches of land with scattered patches of lights grew smaller beneath us, I turned my attention to the horizon and thought about Lynch. It’d been a nice break to get his position, and the last thing I wanted to do was to let it go to waste. We’d finish it that night.

  FORTY-TWO

  Just under an hour after lifting out of Florida Bay, Ange brought us down onto the tarmac at Homestead General Aviation Airport, located three miles west of the city.

  She taxied us to the far end in a row of various other privately owned small aircraft. After coming to a stop, she shut off the engine and we grabbed our duffle from the back and changed into our tactical gear in the cockpit. Black pants, waterproof boots, long-sleeved black shirts. We kept the vests off for the time being. Grabbing our weapons and night optics, we hopped out.

  The air was hotter and more humid than on our island home. It was dark, a patch of clouds having swept over much of the sky and blotting out the moon.

  As we waited for Scott’s guys, we checked the news updates on the situation. Though law enforcement’s presence had increased on site, no more action had taken place. It was a fragile situation, and no one wanted Lynch’s rage-filled words regarding another Waco to come to fruition. One officer was already dead, and more would surely be killed if they raided the farm.

  I blinked away from the screen of my smartphone, looked out over the flat, dark landscape, then checked the time. It was ten after midnight.

  “Where are these guys?” I asked, shaking my head.

  I was anxious to get going. As far as I was concerned, the sooner we could deal with Lynch and his crew, the better.

  I tried Scott on my cell, but he didn’t answer.

  “That’s strange,” Ange said.

  She was right. My old friend rarely didn’t answer, especially if it was me calling.

  I tried a second time but got the same result. Just a metronomic hum over and over, then a woman’s robotic voice asking if I wanted to leave a voicemail.

  Growing frustrated, I was just about to call a cab when a black Range Rover drove into the airport. The SUV pulled into the rows of parked planes, heading straight for us.

  It braked to a stop right in front of us and idled. Through the tinted windows, we couldn’t see its occupants. Ange and I took two steps toward the vehicle, then the passenger-side window rolled down.

  “You didn’t think we were going to let you two have all the fun, did you?” Scott said.

  My old friend pushed his door open and climbed out of the passenger seat. At just over six feet tall, lean, and strong, Scott had short dark hair and a clean-cut face w
ith a ready smile.

  Ange I grinned at each other.

  “I should know better by now,” I said, closing the distance between us. We shook hands and patted each other on the back.

  Then the driver’s-side door opened, and another familiar face stepped out.

  “We just happened to be in the area,” Jason Wake said. The wide-shouldered young man shrugged, then added, “Figured we’d stop by and see what all of the fuss was about.”

  I’d only met Jason once before. We’d all been surprised when we’d learned that he was nothing like his father, the corrupt billionaire businessman Richard Wake. After losing his fiancée in a tragic act of terrorism, Jason had flipped the script and spent a year being trained at a secret covert training facility known by most as Tenth Circle, as in Dante’s Tenth Circle of Hell. When the terrorists tried to pull off another attack, he’d relentlessly stepped in their way, and we’d done our part to help.

  Since then, Jason had been working closely with Scott on their new covert organization. Jason had an imposing but lean build. An inch taller than me, he had medium-length dark hair and piercing blue eyes.

  Given both of their abilities, I was more than happy to have them on board.

  Wanting to get down to business as soon as possible, we loaded into the Range Rover, and Jason drove us to the alligator farm where Lynch and his men were hiding out. It wasn’t far, just seven miles. We drove down a dark one-lane road with thick trees on both sides. Up ahead, we spotted a long hive of police vehicles alongside the road. They congregated beside a chain-link gate and had barricades set up. Armed and ready SWAT members were keeping watch over the compound.

  Jason pulled into a narrow opening between a police cruiser and two SWAT trucks. An officer held up a hand and approached the driver window.

  “This area is off-limits,” the officer said when Jason rolled down his window. “I’m gonna have to ask you to turn around and—”

  The man froze as he got close enough to see Scott’s face as the senator leaned over the center console.