by Rick Reed
“Shut up!” Moon Pie gave the door a vicious kick and then another.
“I’ll call security.” The voice said, but the was less angry, more scared.
Moon Pie pulled his gun and put three bullets through the stall door. There was a groan, and the sound of something heavy sliding to the floor. In a rage, Moon Pie kicked the stall door in and shot the dying man in the face. “Stupid jerk!” he yelled.
He pulled the Halloween mask from his pants and took the porkpie hat off. He pulled the mask over his head and checked himself out in the mirror. He put the porkpie hat on top and flicked the brim.
“Let’s get this party started.”
Chapter Forty
The third level of the casino was busy. There seemed to be more cocktail waitresses, and therefore, more drunks. The atmosphere was giddy. The whirring of the slots and the constant “bing-bing-bing” from the various machines were distracting and alluring at the same time.
Pons had been in the Southern Indiana district office for eight years and before that he worked in ATF intelligence gathering in D.C., but he’d kept in shape and qualified with his handgun three times a year. He felt he could handle this.
His left hand held the pistol inside his jacket pocket; the other he kept free to defend himself if needed. He moved aft, toward the restrooms and cashier’s cage, guessing Shirl’s actions would mimic those of his partner, Moon Pie. He saw Shirl sitting at the bar but he wasn’t drinking. The woman bartender said something to the man, and he silenced her with a look.
A waitress asked if Pons wanted a drink. He asked for a 7UP, no alcohol. She came back with it and gave him a big smile and waited as if she expected a tip. He just smiled back and took his drink to a seat by the craps tables. From there, he could keep an eye on the stairway and Shirl without being obvious. He hoped to seem like just another guy waiting to get into the game. If Jack was right about the timing of the robbery, it would happen in the next few minutes.
Shirl was watching the cashier’s cage using the mirror over the bar. Pons studied Shirl. The man was wearing a loose-fitting shirt, outside his waist, but there was no telltale outline of a handgun like he had seen on Moon Pie.
If Shirl pulled a gun, Pons was going to shoot him, but he would prefer arresting him before it got to that point. Then he started second-guessing himself. What hard evidence did he really have that Shirl was planning to rob the casino? If he grabbed Shirl too early, Shirl could say he was just another patron of the boat, and he was carrying a pistol because he’s a cop. If he didn’t act now, however, and waited for Shirl to pull out a gun, someone could get shot, and Pons would feel responsible.
Pons expected something to happen soon, but Shirl didn’t move. “Shit,” he said. Shirl was just sitting there, watching the cashier’s cage. If he knew how Jack and Stu had made out, and if they had already arrested Moon Pie and Ellert, maybe Shirl would just give up without anyone getting hurt. Besides, it would be crazy to pull a robbery while the boat was sailing. Chances were good they were waiting for the boat to dock before they made their move.
He made his mind up and headed for the stairwell to the lower decks.
* * *
Agent Crenshaw had donned the ridiculous cocktail-waitress outfit that was White’s idea. Her small automatic was held in place by a special leg holster near her crotch. The outfit was designed to show a lot of skin, and was almost too skimpy to hide anything. A touch of makeup, and she was good to go.
White’s orders were for her to take the top deck now. If she saw Quinn, she was to notify him. White was giving the orders but didn’t know that he wasn’t in charge of this operation. She wasn’t really FBI, and she hadn’t been loaned to these two goons. In fact, she outranked them both, but it was her plan to let them think she was just another dumb broad.
The three lawmen had split up. The state trooper was heading for the stairs leading belowdecks. He had the run of the boat, so he would be able to lead her places that only Quinn would be able to access. That left White to deal with Murphy and Moon Pie. Pons was headed upstairs toward the third level and top deck. Thompson would take the ATF agent and Shirl. She mentally flipped a coin and decided that Quinn would likely be belowdecks taking out the communication room and anything else that would ruin his plan. She went after the trooper.
She soon got lost in the maze of hallways but didn’t see the trooper or anyone else for that matter. Then she heard yelling and crying. She found Major Ellert in a back passageway, handcuffed to an overhead pipe. His front was soaked in blood and he was struggling futilely with the handcuffs.
“Thank God!” he said. “I’m Major Ellert, head of security. I need you to find a security guard upstairs and bring them here with handcuff keys.” When she didn’t move, he said, “I don’t know you. How did you get down here? Never mind. Just get one of the security people and hurry.”
Crenshaw reached under the bustle of her outfit and pulled out the small handgun. She shoved the muzzle in Ellert’s mouth and pulled the trigger.
Ellert’s head came apart, and his body went limp. She holstered the gun and started searching again. She found the door to the surveillance room. Of course it was locked. She stood a foot or so from the peephole, retrieved her pistol, and then unbuttoned several buttons on the blouse. She knocked and when the peephole went dark she put the pistol barrel against it and fired two rounds. She fired several more bullets into the lock and pushed the door open. Two men were sitting at a bank of monitors. They were both staring at a third man who had grown a third eye in his forehead. One of the men said, “We’re unarmed.” The other said, “Don’t kill me.”
She shot both men in the face, walked closer, and shot them again in the head. She had hoped to find Quinn here. She would find him. Right now she had to destroy any evidence. She walked behind the bank of monitors to see what kind of damage she could do and found two Semtex charges. The pencil timers stuck in them weren’t set to go. She pulled the metal strip from each charge, giving her about five minutes to clear out. Someone, probably Quinn, had done her a favor. There wouldn’t be anything left in this room.
She pulled the door shut behind her to maximize the effects of the Semtex and looked for a stairwell. She would kill Quinn. Of that she had no doubt. But she would have to kill White and Thompson as well. The U.S. government had invested a lot of money and time in the five-man team that had originally tried to get Quinn. Two had died in Quinn’s D.C. town house, and another in the hallway, each shot several times. Because that team had failed, she was given the green light to do whatever she thought best. White and Thompson had been part of the original team, but they didn’t know she was the one calling the shots on this op. They had only been told this operation was a chance to clean up their mess. They had made a bigger mess.
* * *
White dug the silencer deeper into Jack’s spine and shoved him into the stairwell. A solid steel wall was to Jack’s right, the metal railing to his left. He wondered if he would survive a jump.
White shoved him against the rail and pointed the pistol at Jack’s crotch. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned.
“If I did, how would you know?”
White’s response was to fire a silenced bullet between Jack’s legs. It splattered on the stairs and ricocheted a few times.
“My penis surrenders. Can I go to the bathroom?” Jack asked.
“You’re a smart boy, Jack,” he said. “It’s that mouth that gets you in trouble. Your captain puts up with it because he’s stupid. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“What was your first clue?”
White chuckled, but it wasn’t a warm sound. “You have balls, Jack, I’ll give you that. Brains . . . not so much, but big balls.”
“Now take your gun out of your waistband and throw it over the railing.”
“I’d rather not,” Jack said, but he reached in his waistband and brought his .45 out with two fingers.
“Now, pitch it over the railing.”
/> Jack did as told but he wasn’t going to die alone. He’d take this asshole to hell with him.
White pushed him forward and down a few stairs. “Okay, stop there.”
I guess this is it. He was ready to fight, but before he could make a move he heard the sound of footsteps bounding up the stairs. White pointed the pistol at Jack’s head and whispered, “Against the wall. Not a sound.” Stu Sanders came flying around the corner of the landing heading for them, not seeing them. White struck Jack in the back of the head with something hard. Jack staggered forward into Stu and they fell against the wall at the bottom of the landing. Jack was dazed, Stu started to reach for his gun and stopped when he saw the silencer White had pointed at his face.
“Don’t, Stu,” Jack said.
Stu raised his hands over his head.
“Please, put your hands down. This isn’t a cowboy movie,” White said.
Stu looked at Jack and asked, “Who is this guy?”
“I don’t have a clue,” Jack said. “He says his name is Paul White. First he was FBI and then CIA. But if he was really CIA, he’d know that policemen don’t watch cowboy movies, only porn flicks.”
“Shut up,” White snarled.
“That’s the thing about Jack,” Stu said. “He never knows when to shut up.”
“Another wiseass,” White said and again pointed the pistol at Jack’s little sailor.
“Agent White,” Jack said, “aiming that cannon at my dick doesn’t intimidate me. My dick has done nothing but make bad decisions for most of its life. You’d be doing me a favor.”
This time White did laugh. “You’re funny,” he said and leveled the pistol at Stu’s chest. “I’m not forgetting you, Trooper Sanders. Jack can watch you die unless you lose the gun.”
“Okay,” Stu said and slowly began to move his hand towards his gun.
“Use your other hand,” White said. “Slow and easy. Throw it over the rail.”
Stu removed the 9mm from his holster and tossed it. It clattered down a few stairs. “Listen to me,” Stu said. “Some asshole planted explosives downstairs. I got a few of them disarmed but there are more. I couldn’t find them.”
White’s expression didn’t change.
Stu said, “I can understand you wanting to shoot Jack. I’ve thought about it myself. He’s a prick. But right now we have a serious problem, and in case you didn’t notice, we’re in the middle of the river.”
“Stu’s right,” Jack said. “Not about me being a prick, but . . . hello . . . explosives. That’s bad. We need to work together.”
“You’ve got more immediate problems right here,” White said. “Agent Thompson should be finished with Agent Pons and then we’ll get rid of you two. Quinn’s not going anywhere.”
“Listen to me,” Stu said. “This guy—Ellert—had a big canister of some type of gas that he was feeding into the ventilation system. When I found him, his nose and eyes were bleeding. I think it’s some kind of mustard gas. We could all die.”
“Not all of us,” White said.
“Are all of you crazy?” Jack asked. “How are you going to get away if the boat sinks?” Then he understood. “Quinn has a boat, doesn’t he?” he asked. “And you knew about it.”
White grinned. “See, I told you you’re a smart boy.”
“Quinn’s going to gas everyone and sink us. You knew about the explosives and all of this, didn’t you? This was going to be your cover for killing Quinn. Right? You and Thompson and Crenshaw. All in it together. So how were you three going to escape?”
“Nothing matters except killing Quinn,” White said. “You’re right about him having a boat. We knew about the ordnance Khaled was supplying to Quinn. All we had to do was sit back and watch you running around like a hamster in a cage. What do you think of that, smart guy?”
“I think you’ll never get away with it,” Jack said.
“Yeah. Well how about this,” White said. “You shot Quinn—he shot you and anyone else that gets dead—and when this thing sinks everyone else drowns while me and Thompson leave in Quinn’s boat. How’s that for an escape plan?”
“What about Agent Crenshaw?”
White smiled. “She won’t make it. One of you will have shot her.”
“You don’t get out much, do you?” Jack said. These weren’t regular squirrels playing hide the nuts. They truly believed they had the right, or the duty, to kill for God and country. Even when they were killing hundreds of innocent people.”
“Let’s all move, like friends,” White said. He motioned for Stu to go down and shoved Jack forward. To Stu he said, “Oh. And in case you get any bright ideas—if you run, I’ll kill Jack first and then you. I’m a very good shot.”
Jack knew he and Stu were as good as dead. White was only keeping them alive until he could get them down to the lower decks where their bodies wouldn’t be found right away.
“You can still stop this and prevent all these people from dying,” Jack said.
White motioned with the gun. “Get moving.”
“Who gives a shit about Quinn?” Jack said, stalling for time. “You guys take him and do whatever you want. We’ll help you catch him. I’ll even kill him for you.”
“I can kill you both right here,” White said.
“Okay,” Jack said and he and Stu moved down a step. “As long as I’m going to die why don’t you tell me about Khaled? Did you guys kill him or did he just fall in some grease solvent?” Jack started to turn. He was going to rush White. All he had to lose was his life.
“Move,” White said, and then there was a gunshot.
Jack thought he’d been shot, but then White fell past him and down the flight of stairs.
Blood pooled around White’s head, and it was easy to see why. The base of his skull and most of his face were missing.
Pons was standing above them. “I hope that was one of the bad guys.”
“Not anymore,” Jack said.
Pons came down a few steps, and Jack could see the hand holding the gun was shaking.
“You did the right thing, Greg. This guy’s partner is around somewhere, and he’s even more psychotic. The partner was supposed to have killed you. What happened up there?”
Pons looked a little embarrassed. “I thought maybe the robbery wasn’t going to happen until we docked. So I came to see what you two had found out. It didn’t look like Shirl was going anywhere.”
Jack found his and Stu’s guns at the bottom landing near White’s crumpled form and retrieved them. He handed Stu his gun and said. “There’s a female with them. I think her name is Crenshaw. She’s the one that was at the hospital with these bozos. They were probably going to finish Killian off.”
Stu said, “We need a plan, and quick. There really are explosives down there.”
“What the hell?” Pons asked.
“Ellert was down below trying to light this big container of chemicals. He said it was tear gas, but whatever it was, it made him really sick. He told me he planted Semtex different places down there to sink the ship. I couldn’t find all of them.”
“How much time do we have?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know. There are new crates of inflatable life rafts on the upper deck,” Stu said. “But I don’t think we have time to evacuate everyone.”
“Moon Pie and Shirl are probably waiting for the explosion. That’s their distraction. We’ve got to stop them. Someone has to warn everyone,” Jack said.
“I know the ship better than either of you. I’ll go back down and see if I can disable the rest of the explosives,” Stu said. “You guys get up there and see what you can do.”
“You think that’s a good idea?” Pons asked. “If we’re going to abandon ship, maybe you’d be better off up here with us?”
“There are crewmen down there. I’ve got to try and get them out. No one else dies today,” Stu said and hurried down the stairs.
Jack and Pons hoofed it back upstairs.
“Do you think we
can evacuate this boat in time?” Pons asked.
“Evacuate them to where?” Jack said. “If we try to get them to leave we’ll start a stampede. There are only two of us and we don’t know how many of Ellert’s crew might be involved in this. Let’s hope Stu gets the explosives in time. We have to stop Shirl and Moon Pie, or we’ll have a lot of dead people on our hands.”
They entered the second level of the casino and Jack asked, “How did you know where I was?”
“I didn’t.”
Jack looked around for Moon Pie but didn’t see him. Everything looked normal. If you can call hundreds of zombies throwing money away “normal.”
“Where are they?” Pons said. “Maybe I was right, and they’re waiting until we dock. Maybe Stu was wrong about the explosives.”
“I think the CIA guys were using me to track Quinn,” Jack said. “And I led them right to him.”
“You mean they were just going to kill him?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “And us.”
“So it’s just you and me against Shirl and Moon Pie and Quinn and two more CIA operatives.”
Jack said, “I’ll find Moon Pie. You find Shirl.”
“What about Thompson and Crenshaw?”
“They’re with Quinn as far as I’m concerned. If you run across any CIA people shoot first, and then say you’re sorry.”
“That’s your plan?” Pons asked.
“You know the old saying, Greg. Better tried by twelve than carried by six. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather go to jail than get killed. You got a better plan?”
Chapter Forty-one
A shudder ran through the boat, and Jack felt the floor under his feet tilt very slightly to the starboard side. He hoped Stu had gotten clear. His instinct was to check on his friend, but he feared it was too late.
The passengers had felt the change in the boat’s position too. Some exchanged looks that asked: “Is something wrong? What was that?” Even the hardcore had stopped placing bets or pulling levers, but someone hit a big jackpot nearby and Jack was caught in an onrush of gawkers.
As Jack tried to shove through the crowd, he saw Moon Pie coming out of the restroom, wearing that stupid porkpie hat with a rubber mask over his head and a silenced handgun in his hand. The gun was similar to the one Jack had taken from the dead CIA man.
