Allies of Convenience: Pirates of the Badlands Series Book 1

by Sean Benjamin

  “He’s in one of the cheap hotels on the river,” the guide briefed. He gestured vaguely ahead of the van’s route. “He should have got a top tier place in the center of town. More people around and the staff is easier to bribe.” The man slightly shrugged. “May not have had the money.”

  Shane nodded silently in agreement. Halder’s instinct was to get as far off the beaten path as possible and hide in a deep hole. He should have hid among the crowds in the center of the city. Delacruz would not have conducted a shootout on Main Street with hundreds of civilians in the kill zone. Of course, if the roles were reversed, Halder would have no problem starting a gunfight on Main Street, so he probably assumed Shane would act in the same fashion. Maybe Halder thought the crowd would also hide his killers as they moved in on him. It didn’t much matter now.

  The driver took a comm unit from his breast pocket. He spoke into it without preamble. “We’re about two hundred meters away. Anything to report?”

  “No.” The reply was almost immediate. “He’s in his room. Has not been out all day.”

  “We’ll park and join you in a couple,” the driver replied and returned the unit to his pocket.

  He pulled the van over to park in the shadow cast by a large warehouse and he killed the electric engine. He then stuffed the ignition card under his seat. Everyone glanced around continuously. The immediate area was deserted. After a quick scan, the driver turned to the rear of the van and addressed the group. “This vehicle is from the company which owns this warehouse and it usually sits here. We arranged to rent it to pick you up and get in here without attracting attention, but it is now returned to its owners. Once the job is completed, I will lead the way out of this district on foot. We know a few passageways to keep us off the main routes and away from any prying eyes. We have another vehicle waiting for you on the edge of the district with a different driver to take you back to your shuttles. I, and my two friends at the hotel, will not be with you. Walking is slower but if anybody at the hotel reports the incident, the first thing the police will do is put up barricades around the industrial area and stop all vehicles. I don’t think anyone will report the attack as long as we are quick and there is no collateral damage, but it is best to be safe so we will exit on foot.”

  The driver now left the van and everyone took the cue and did the same. Equipment was checked and rechecked. Weapons were moved to belts and shoulder holsters to allow quick and easy access. The rifle bag was slung over one man’s shoulder. The group moved out in a single column staying close to buildings and in the shadows.

  The short walk was done at a brisk pace. Everyone scanned continuously but no other people were seen. The guide stopped short of rounding a corner and turned to the group.

  “One of my men will be just around this corner watching the hotel room from the outside. The other is in the hotel watching the floor from another room.” The man was watching Delacruz as he spoke and as Shane made to reply, he held up his hand to forestall him. “To answer the obvious question, no, the man did not check into the hotel and raise suspicions. He broke in by opening a locked side door, going up to the third floor, and taking a vacant room without any of the staff knowing. The only danger is if the room is rented but we’ll take our chances on that. If someone rents the room, my man will grab him and tie him up for the duration.”

  Shane nodded. These guys had it covered. The party now moved around the corner of their building and approached another building directly ahead of them. There sat a man on a stack of crates against the wall staring through a window into the building. The man turned at their approach, eyed them briefly, and returned to his vigilance. He looked back at them as the group stopped below his crate stack. Again, nods were traded but no names. The lookout spoke briefly. “I’ve been watching the hotel by looking through this window, across the corner room, and out the window on the adjoining wall. Gives a great view of the hotel with minimum risk.”

  The lookout jumped down from his perch and moved along the side of the building away from the direction the hit squad had come. He stopped at the corner with the pirates close behind. The man peeked around the corner briefly before pulling back.

  “I come here to break the routine and get a wider view. Dangerous though because if Halder looks out while I’m looking, he might see me.”

  The man turned back to the corner and slowly looked around it once more. He talked without turning back to his audience. “Halder is on the third floor in the corner room there in the front.” He gestured to the hotel. The group lined up behind the lookout in a single file and peered around the corner and around each other. They could see one long side and the front of the hotel.

  The old building was a three-story brick structure. It was a simple, unadorned rectangle. No decorations or fancy paint jobs enhanced the décor. Not even a plant was seen. The front had a large sign bolted across the top with the hotel’s name, Easy Rest, written in large block letters. The front had a wide pavement separating the hotel from the street that ended just beyond the other side of hotel at the river. There the Duck River meandered by. It had been several decades since any ducks had been seen this far up the river. The hotel’s second and third floors had a catwalk bolted just below the windows of all the rooms. At each end of the building was a vertical fire escape ladder. The ladder ended three meters above the ground so nobody could use it as an entrance to rooms by going up the ladder, down a catwalk, and in through a window. Halder’s corner room was just where the ladder joined the catwalk. He could be out the window and down the ladder in a few seconds. Below the end of the ladder were dozens of large crates. These crates ran down the side of the hotel. The lookout continued. “He has been in the room all day. Seen him looking out the edge of his window now and then. Don’t think he has had visitors. Traffic in and out of the hotel has been slow and none of them look like people who would have an interest in our guy.”

  Shane spoke up as the lookout paused. “Looks like some of those crates have been moved.”

  “Yep,” the lookout responded. “Yesterday our boy was busy. He went out and got food and drink so he could hole up in his room, and then he came out and adjusted some of the crates. I strolled over there last night to see the result. He created a pathway through them for escape. It goes through the middle of the crate stacks and arcs back around in a semicircle that allows him to duck back into a room on the ground floor through its window without being seen from outside the crates. I suspect he has that room rented so it will be empty. You can see all the ground level windows have wire fencing embedded in the glass to prevent break-ins, but he left his particular window unlocked. Just slide it up and in he goes. He did a good job. The crates look like solid stacks against each other from the outside but the path is there. I didn’t disturb anything. Left it just as he set it up.”

  Delacruz nodded as everyone shifted to get a clear view of the crates set up in rows along the hotel’s length. Nobody ventured out far enough to see Halder’s window so Halder couldn’t have seen them as they viewed the crates, but after thirty seconds passed, the lookout remarked, “We need to move back. He does look around every now and then.”

  The group moved back behind their building and relaxed. Only Shane remained at the lookout corner as he surveyed the situation. Soon he moved back to rejoin the group. Water containers appeared and some of the squad took a seat on the ground. Soon all eyes drifted to Delacruz as everyone waited for the plan of attack to be briefed. He inhaled deeply and began with a question to the lookout. “What are those crates doing there next to a hotel? Wouldn’t think the hotel would like it. Detracts from the hotel vacation experience.”

  The lookout shrugged. “The hotel needs all the money it can make, so they rent the space to any of the nearby companies who want to stage cargo for loading onto river barges the next morning. Those crates will be loaded on barges in two days when the workers here come back after their time off.”

  Delacruz nodded. “Can we get into the crate maz
e over there without him seeing?”

  The lookout thought for a moment. “Yeah, I think so. We wait until he looks out his window on this side and then move out after that. Would be better to have a diversion out front to get him glued to the front window.”

  “I thought of that but don’t want to spook him. He might do one of two things, both bad for us. He might bolt before we’re ready for him and get away, or he might hunker down in the room. We would pay hell getting him out without a fight. I do want to spook him down the ladder, but we will close up his maze and he will have nowhere to go.

  “Here’s the plan. We close up his maze and surround it. Then we send four men in the front door to the front desk and ask for his room number. The clerk will probably send them to the wrong room and then call Halder with the news. He goes out the window, down the ladder, hits the ground, and tries to enter the maze. When he realizes the maze is closed off there will be a moment of frozen panic. While he is stationary trying to figure the next step, we drop him.”

  One of the men from Bandit’s party frowned. “Why four in the front door? Seems heavy to me.”

  “It is heavy. He would definitely shoot it out with one or two figuring he has the advantages of knowing the hotel setup and getting the first shot. This would allow him to finish off his immediate pursuers. He just might shoot it out with three people for the same reasons if he was desperate enough but never with four. He will run from four and then we will have him.”

  He now addressed the whole group. “You, you, you, and you,” he pointed at the driver, one of the Bandit people and two of his own shipmates, “will go to the front desk. The clerk will send you in the opposite direction. Go in that direction to give the clerk time to call and warn Halder. Give it about thirty seconds and then go to Halder’s room by the inside stairwell in case I’m wrong and he decides to shoot his way to the front door and escape that way.” He now gestured to the remaining people. “We will form a two layered circle around the ladder and the crates. We will let him get down to the ground and try to enter the maze. When he can’t get in, he will hesitate in the gap between the crate stacks and the hotel building. We will get him then. Whoever has the best shot, take it. No talking, no prisoners, no anything. Everyone got it?”

  Heads nodded all around and everyone turned to their weapons and other preparations. Shane spoke directly to the lookout. “Call the man inside and give him the set up. We want him to cover the hallway as soon as our people go in the hotel’s front door. If Halder abandons his room and goes down the hall away from the front door to run, tell your man to take the shot. If Halder moves toward the front looking to shoot it out with our four, have your man give us warning only. We want to kill him ourselves if possible. Whatever happens, the man needs to stay in contact with us.”

  The lookout nodded and moved away as he raised his comm unit to his lips.

  Shane went back along the wall to the makeshift lookout point. He climbed up and looked through the window, across the room, and out the other window toward the hotel. It did provide a direct view of Halder’s room window. It was a nice perch for watching without being exposed. He watched for a few seconds and then descended to the ground.

  “Let’s get someone from the front door party up there to watch,” he remarked to nobody in particular. “You four going in the front door already know your job so one of you take the watch.”

  One of the men from that party now climbed up and took the position.

  “Call when you see him,” Shane ordered and then addressed the group. “We move right after Halder makes an appearance at his window. I’ll block off the maze entrance by shifting a few crates around while everyone else takes positions to block all paths of escape once he is down the ladder. When he discovers he can’t get into the crate maze, he will have to go along the wall of the hotel toward the front or back. No other options. We will block those off.”

  I’ll take the front,” Emily Legrand broke in.

  Shane looked at her. She was taking the best position for the first shot and she knew it. He had planned to put his best marksman there but did not want the argument she would undoubtedly start. She wasn’t a bad shot and there would be plenty of back up. Perhaps she deserved first crack at him.

  “Fine,” he nodded toward her. He then turned back to the group. “I want the shooter with the rifle to stay here and track him down the ladder but do not take the shot. He has to pass windows on the second floor and ground floor before he can get to the crates. If he pauses and looks like he is going to go through a window back into the hotel, take the shot. But if he continues down the ladder to the ground and the crates, let him. I’m going to move the crates and then take up position at the rear of the hotel.” He pointed to one man. “You take a position across the street in front of the hotel. Watch for anything unusual.” Shane stared at him hard. “And I mean anything at all. I doubt he has reinforcements coming, but he might have explosives planted to go off to cover his escape. I would rather be over prepared then get caught by surprise. If he gets Captain Legrand and me and comes your way, take him.” Shane turned to another man. “Take a position in the back across the alley. Same instructions.” He now pointed at the lookout. “Stay here with the rifleman. If he somehow gets around the crate maze and by us, you two take him.” He addressed the whole group. “We’ve covered inside the hotel, front, rear, and the side beyond the crates closest to us here. Can he go up to the roof?”

  “No,” said the lookout. “The fire escapes do not go that way. The only way to the roof is up the inside stairwell and the four people going in the front door will cut that off. Besides, even if he got to the roof by using the interior stairs, there is no way down except to use a rope or jump.”

  Shane nodded. “I guess we’re done unless someone sees a hole in the plan.” He paused to give anyone a chance to speak up. Silence all around. He continued, “We’ll take a break in place here until Halder makes an appearance at his window, and then we move.”

  Everyone spread out along the warehouse and sat against the wall. Water and food appeared and was hastily consumed. Twenty minutes passed in near silence. The lookout on the crates was swapped out. Shadows grew as the heat subsided in the late afternoon. Shane started to get concerned. If Fred Halder was anxious and keeping a lookout, he was getting lax about it. He hadn’t looked outside on this side of the hotel for nearly thirty minutes.

  Just then the new lookout spoke softly from his station above the group. “Man at the window looking out.”

  Everyone rose and adjusted equipment as the hired lookout moved to the edge of the building. The window lookout reported, “Gone now.” The ground lookout cautiously looked around the corner as the party lined up behind him. The man confirmed Halder was gone by stepping around the corner with the words. “Let’s go.”

  The people moved to their assigned posts as Delacruz ran the fifty meters to the crates lined in stacks along the hotel side. He went around the crate stacks at the back of the hotel away from Halder’s hotel window and moved along the narrow corridor between the large boxes and the hotel wall. He quickly located a narrow gap between two crates along the otherwise solid wall of crates. The gap was just a few steps from the fire escape ladder. He looked down and saw a line of sand in the gap. The crate was gone but a little sand dune, which had built up along the crate’s edge, was still there along with a single footprint going into the gap. This was the entrance. Shane went into the stacks along the path and moved a crate from an inner row to block the opening. He left the crate slightly back in the passageway so it would not be obvious it was closed off until the observer was nearly in front of the entrance. He then moved further back along the path deeper into the stacks and pushed another crate against the first so Halder couldn’t push the first crate back into the passageway and recreate the entrance. Shane then followed the passageway. This arcing path led to the hotel window on the ground floor so Halder could reenter the building. Shane followed the path several meters
to an apparent dead end. He pushed against the crate in front of him and it moved easily. It was clearly empty. He slid it out into the narrow gap between the hotel and crates. He peeked around the empty crate and was staring at a hotel window. He stepped forward into the gap between the crates and the hotel side and tested the window. It slid up slightly under his pressure. It had been left unlocked. Yes, this was it. He reentered the exit point behind him and manhandled a heavy crate into the passageway exit. He now stepped back into the gap and pushed the empty crate back into its original position but it was now jammed up against the newly positioned crate in the passageway. The exit was now sealed off. Shane now took a sliver of wood off the ground and jammed it into the sliding window’s rail. The hotel room window would now be difficult to move. If Halder descended the ladder into the gap, he would have nowhere to go except forward or back along the hotel wall. He could try to break in one of the ground windows but the reinforced wire embedded in the glass should prevent such an entrance, or at least slow him down enough to make him an easy target.