Blood Conspiracy (Brooklyn Shadows Book 2)

by Brock Deskins

  Meat darts back to the cargo hold and reappears a few minutes later. “No chutes.”

  “What the hell do you mean there’s no chutes? How does a damn spy plane not have any chutes?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t want us to use them to escape in case we got free and managed to kill our guards.”

  “That’s awfully fucking forward-looking, especially for this lot. Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is even though planes are almost as easy to fly as driving a car these days, I can’t land it.”

  “What’s the good news?”

  “I have no intention of trying to land. One of you find me a phone.”

  “Why do you need a phone?” Meat asks.

  “I need to make a call. And grab my pistol and blade while you’re back there. I feel naked without them.”

  Meat looks like he wants to inquire further but chooses to avoid more answers that will just annoy him.

  He comes back a few minutes later bearing a phone and my preciouses. “Found this on the guy with the button. I found two others with remotes as well. You’re damn lucky you didn’t get yours and Lesile’s brains pulped.”

  “It was a calculated risk.” I punch in the number and hope Snow isn’t monitoring this phone.

  “Mo’ Money,” says the voice on the other end.

  “Marvin, It’s Leo. I need your help.”

  “My man Leo! Sorry, man, I am booked solid. You’ll have to make an appointment with my assistant. Hey, you know where I can get an assistant?”

  “Marvin, my foot is going to make an appointment with your ass if you don’t shut up and listen!”

  “You know, I could have sworn you were calling me for help, but your words and tone make it sound the opposite. I’m really busy. So I’m going to get back to work while I ponder this conundrum.”

  “I have a bomb in my head!” There is a distinct pause on the other end, and for a moment I fear Marvin has hung up on me.

  “You have a bomb…inside your head?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, there’s certainly room for one, but I gotta wonder about the exact logistics of getting it in there.”

  “Marvin, I need your help.”

  “Okay. What can you tell me about the device, what kind of explosive, trigger, etcetera?”

  “It’s a liquid poison in a glass vial attached to a small explosive. It has an anti-tampering mechanism. I’m assuming contact pins or something, and a satellite receiver.”

  “Okay, the first and most important thing to do is speak calmly and politely, because satellite receivers can easily be set off by being an asshole. I’m surprised it didn’t blow up a long time ago.”

  “Goddammit, Marvin!”

  “See, that’s the attitude that’s going to make the thing go boom. They can also be set off by being a cheapskate, so we need to talk about my fee.”

  “We can haggle over cost later, but keep in mind a dead man can’t spend money.”

  “Threats are even worse than being rude.”

  “Marvin, I need you to take this seriously.”

  “I am serious! I’m serious you are an asshole, and I know you screwed me on our last contract.”

  “I gave you what you asked for!”

  “You took advantage of a poor, inner-city youth!”

  “You’re only poor and live in the inner city because you got thrown out of MIT and NYU and you’re too fucking lazy to get a real job!”

  “Tick, tick, tick! You best start laying plastic over the furniture, because that thing is about to blow!”

  Lesile strips the phone from my hand before I have a chance to shatter it against the cockpit window. “Hello, Marvin is it?”

  “Oh damn, who is this? Bonjour, baby. You got what we in the hood call a boner voice.”

  “You’re sweet, Marvin. I certainly understand letting Leo get blown up, but I too am in the same unfortunate predicament and wish to keep my lovely head a bit longer. Can you help us?”

  “Oh, yeah, I can’t let a sexy-voiced mademoiselle perish. I am your knight in Sean Johns.”

  “Merci.”

  “Mercy me too. Okay, let me talk to the asshole again.”

  Lesile hands the phone back, and I force myself to speak rationally. “What can you do for us?”

  “Let me think a minute. Okay, first thing I need to do is block the incoming signal. If I can get my hands on a spectral analyzer, I should be able to determine the frequency. Then I just need to sample the signal and make a transmitter to override the original signal with my own.”

  “Can you make a fake receiver and transmitter as well? This thing has a GPS in it, and I need it to look like it’s still receiving.”

  “Yeah, that shouldn’t be too hard if I can get my hands on the tech.”

  “I know a guy in Queens. His name is Yuri Poplonovich.”

  “Yuri? I’m at his place now!”

  “Why are you at Yuri’s?”

  “I told you I was busy. Yuri has me installing all the electronics in this building he’s turned into a fortress. Man, he’s got thermal imaging, IR, sonic sensors, motion activated fucking machine gun turrets, and flame throwers in the walls and shit. Oh my God, you wouldn’t believe this place…wait, Yuri’s making the throat cutting gesture and says he’s going to kill me if I keep talking. He’s so funny.”

  “Marvin, listen to me. Yuri is Georgian mafia, and he’s not joking. Shut the fuck up right now before you end up at the bottom of the East River.”

  “Oh…shit.”

  “Let me talk to Yuri.”

  “I’ll put us on speaker.”

  “Yuri, can you hear me?”

  Yuri’s heavy Georgian accent comes over the phone. “Yeah, I hear you. Malone?”

  “Yeah. Yuri, Marvin is going to need some high-tech equipment, and he’s going to need it fast to save my ass.”

  “Yeah, I heard spectrum analyzer and other shit. No problem, I got a guy. Same guy I get Star Trek computer shit from last year for you, no problem. What trouble you get into now?”

  “The feds snatched me up and pressured me into doing a job. Now that it’s over, my life expectancy is ticking down rather fast.”

  “Focking feds. I focking hate focking feds more than I hate focking cops.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured. Thanks, Yuri. Marvin.”

  “Yo.”

  “I can slow my arrival down a bit and give you…” I look at our position and airspeed and make a quick calculation, “…five and a half hours to get the stuff ready and meet me.”

  “Assuming Yuri can get me the stuff within an hour or two, I shouldn’t have a problem.”

  “Good. I need you to contact Will Stepanek. Write this down.” I give Marvin the latitude and longitude of where to find us. “You’re going to need his boat to get to us.”

  “A boat? Are you in the middle of the ocean?”

  “We will be, so make sure your false receiver and transmitter is waterproof to a few hundred feet.”

  “I can do that, but you know radio signals don’t travel through water worth a damn, right?”

  “No, I didn’t, but let’s do it anyway just in case they drop something overboard to confirm our deaths.”

  “Can do.”

  “Thanks, Marvin.”

  “Was that an expression of gratitude from Leo Malone? Wow, that’s like a deathbed confession coming from you. You really are in trouble.”

  “I am, and thanks for making it weird.”

  “You called telling me you have a bomb in your head. It’s been weird for more than a minute. Now, if you could put that sexy mademoiselle back on the phone…”

  “Get to work, Marvin.”

  Meat looks at me when I hang up. “Your people skills suck.”

  “Hey, I got it done.”

  “No, Lesile’s vagina got it done. You almost got yourself killed.”

  “It was my voice, my sweet, not my vagina,” Lesile corrects him.

&
nbsp; “Honey, all women’s interesting features lead to their vaginas.”

  “Can we stop saying vagina?” I grumble.

  I flinch away when Lesile strokes my cheek. “Aw, poor Leonard. It is such a troubling subject for you, isn’t it? Lars, it is a dreary flight, and we do have quite a bit of time to ourselves…”

  “Oh, fuck me.”

  “Is that a request for an invitation, Leonard? You are more than welcome to join us.”

  I grumble and shake my head as they make their way to the back of the plane to have near-bestial sex amongst half a dozen dead bodies.

  I locate the flight control manual in a pocket on the side of the seat and spend my time learning the layout of the complex control board. Twenty minutes into my studies, I dog-ear the page I’m on and put the plane into a steep dive. My ass begins to leave the seat, and I become weightless for about five full seconds before pulling the stick back and leveling out once more. The thump of bodies hitting the deck reaches my ears.

  “Malone, you fucking asshole!”

  “Sorry, turbulence.”

  I grin like a masturbating chimp, pick up the flight manual, and start reading where I left off.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Attention, disgusting passengers, this is your captain speaking. Please ensure your pants are in the upright and locked position, stow away any and all genitals, and come to the cockpit to prepare for landing.”

  Lesile slaps me in the back of my head hard enough to knock my headset off when she enters the cabin and buckles into the copilot’s seat. Meat takes the navigator’s spot and straps in.

  “What exactly is the plan?” Meat asks.

  “We’ll ditch five miles offshore. I called my people, and they’re ready to meet us.”

  “Ditch?”

  “Yeah, it’s like landing except you’re not on a runway and the pilot has no fucking clue how to fly a plane.”

  “I know what ditch means! I’m not quite as resistant to dying as you are.”

  I reach into a panel next to my seat and stuff a bundle into Meat’s hands.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “Airbag.”

  “It’s a goddam life raft!”

  “Makeshift airbag.”

  “God I hate you.”

  “That just shows you care. We’re nearing our crash site, so make sure you’re strapped in tight.”

  “Crash?”

  I roll my eyes. “Fine, our ditch site if it makes you feel better. Stop being such a baby. As long as we don’t burst into flames when we hit we should be fine.”

  “Does this we include me?”

  I shrug my shoulders as if I’m not worried about it, because I’m not. Not really, well maybe a little. If I had to choose between killing Meat or Lesile, I’d definitely choose Lesile, but this is going to happen and the cards will fall where they may. What’s really important is I live long enough to kill Snow.

  The engines’ tone drops as I reduce their power to the lowest possible speed while still maintaining flight. The ground warning alarm goes off, and it takes me a full minute to find the shut-the-fuck-up button. We’re skimming over the ocean at just a few dozen feet as I deploy the flaps for maximum lift and slowly press the stick forward.

  A low swell hits the plane’s nose. Meat screams in panic and yanks the life raft’s inflation cord. The expanding raft hits me in the side of the head and causes me to move the stick left. The port wing dips, hits the water, and sends us into a cartwheel. Sea air hits my face for a brief second when the fuselage splits open like an egg, and water rushes in.

  Lesile releases her restraints and shoots for the surface as we sink to the bottom of the ocean. I unhitch the buckles tying me to my seat and set out to follow her. I glance at Meat and see that the inflated raft is pushing against his chest and has him trapped in his seat.

  “You dickhead!” I shout, but the only thing that comes out is a blast of bubbles and incoherent gurgling.

  I reach into the pouch in my seat and find the standard issue restraint knife tucked inside. After cutting through the tough nylon, I take a firm hold of Meat’s shirt and hitch a ride as the raft shoots for the surface.

  Meat gasps in a lungful of jet fuel-contaminated air when his head breaches the water. “You asshole!”

  “Me? Your goddam raft nearly killed us all. I’m the one who saved your life.”

  “I panicked! You’re the one who told me to use it as an airbag.”

  “Not while I was still flying the fucking plane!”

  “You weren’t flying, you were crashing!”

  Lesile interrupts our bickering. “It is pitch-black out here. How are your friends going to find us?”

  I pull out a flare gun from inside my shirt. “With this.” I raise the flare gun up then point it at the water.

  “You stupid sonofa…!” Meat shouts before diving below the surface.

  I squeeze the trigger and the flare streaks over the water and ignites the shimmering layer of jet fuel floating on the surface. I duck below the water just before the orange corona washes over my head. It’s an easy swim for me to get clear of the fire since I can hold my breath literally forever.

  Lesile curses me the moment my head breaks the water. “Asshole!”

  Meat emerges a second later. “Malone, what the fuck is wrong with you? Some of us have to breathe, and now my dinghy is on fire!”

  “Hey, I only had one flare, and if your dinghy is burning it’s probably from fucking that dirty whore in the back of the airplane!”

  “I am not a dirty whore!”

  “Honey, all the showers in the world can’t wash out skank. Why are you all bitching at me when I’m the one facilitating our rescue?”

  “Because we’re in the middle of the ocean, which you managed to set on fire.”

  “Fire keeps the sharks away…or draws them, I really don’t know.”

  “Wow, Malone actually admits he doesn’t know something. I am truly witnessing a miracle. Praise Jesus!”

  “You want to know what I do know?”

  “What?”

  “If you shut the fuck up and quit your whining you can hear the sound of a boat coming our way. Aaaaaaand you’re welcome.”

  Meat puts his complaining on pause and listens. “Shit…I almost wished we drowned.”

  A powerful spotlight plays over the water as Will’s boat draws near. “Leo!”

  I wave my arms over my head while treading water. “Over here!”

  Will’s light washes over me, and he points the boat in my direction. When he draws close, he spins the wheel to put the stern with Leo’$ Money emblazoned across the back in gold letters at my face. We clamber onto the back deck, and Will and Marvin help us into the boat.

  Marvin looks out across the hundreds of yards of flaming ocean. “Goddam, Leo, what the fuck did you do?”

  “I crashed my airplane. Do you have the stuff with you?”

  Marvin flips open a large, plastic crate and pulls out several pieces of electronics. “Yeah, hold still so I can try and get this thing’s frequency.”

  He studies a monitor while passing his phone bearing an odd attachment on it over my head. “I got the freq, but it’s encrypted.”

  “Is that going to be a problem?”

  Marvin looks at me as if I just asked him if abolishing slavery was a good idea. He plugs a small device into his laptop, punches a few keys, and repeats the process with a second one.

  “These are your fake receivers. I’ve copied your bomb’s response to the satellite, so it shouldn’t know the difference. Anyone monitoring the signal will think that’s you on the bottom of the ocean along with your busted up plane.”

  “Can you turn off the bomb’s signal?”

  “That’s going to be a little harder. It’s encrypted, so I have to crack it before I can do anything with the signal. But I can jam it so they will only see the ones I made instead of the ones in your heads.”

  “Good. Let’s get out of here before
the coast guard shows up. I’m sure our handlers already know the plane went down and have units on the way.”

  Will guns the engine, and the twin inboard motors send us skimming across the water toward Manhattan Beach. Marvin continues to work on cracking the encryption despite the bumpy ride. Most of the work is done by his laptop running an algorithm, so the rough ride doesn’t hinder him too much.

  It takes us half an hour to reach Marine Basin Marina where Will parks his boat. “Leo, what kind of trouble are you in now?”

  “Just the worst kind.”

  “Sounds expensive; my favorite kind.”

  “Sorry, this ain’t the lawyer kind of trouble.”

  “That’s a shame; I was really hoping to get a plane this year. Oh well, there’s still time.”

  “You’re all heart.”

  “You need a ride somewhere?”

  Lesile says, “No, I have a car parked not far from here. We can take a cab.”

  “All right, I need to go secure my alibi if anyone asks about my late night boat ride.”

  “Thanks a lot, Will. Meat, are you coming with us?”

  “Naw, I best gather the pack and inform them what’s happening. We may not have a dog in this fight just yet, but like you said, it’s only a matter of time.”

  “Expect us to call on you after we convene a council. Marvin, you’re with us. Let’s go.”

  Will gives me a burner phone, and I use it to call a cab. The nightlife around here is active, and the cab shows up within minutes. The driver, a man with a thick mustache and beard, likely hailing not far from where we just came from, glances in the rearview mirror as we climb into the back seat.

  “What is that stuff you have there? Read the sign: no guns, no bombs in the cab.”

  “It’s not a bomb.”

  “No guns. I saw the handle of a pistol sticking out of your pocket!”

  “Come on, buddy, it’s a short ride. Would a hundred bucks loosen your grip on the gun policy?”

  “Okay, but only because you have a beautiful woman with you. Just keep your hands where I can see them!”

  “Fine.”

  “Avenue Plaza Hotel, you sweet man,” Lesile says to the cabbie.

  Yusuf grins into the mirror and hits the gas. The hotel is only a few blocks away, and we pull up to the front in just a few minutes. I fish out a twenty and pass it to the driver as we get out.