by Jonas Saul
He peeked through the crack in the door. The man who had just finished his smoke break retreated to the main offices in the rear of the warehouse.
The door’s hinges were well-oiled as Darwin eased it open far enough to squeeze through. He stepped onto the warehouse floor and stopped as a piece of cold steel pressed against his neck.
“Oh, man, won’t the boss be so happy with me when I show him what I caught trying to break in here. Are you so fucking stupid that it didn’t surprise you that the door was unlocked? We saw your approach on camera and motion sensors, you fucking dumbass.”
Darwin turned enough to see the crazy look on the man’s face. He held an assault rifle, strapped over his shoulder, both hands holding it steady, with the tip pressed into Darwin’s skin.
“You know … I’m wondering something,” Darwin said.
He wasn’t surprised with his immediate reaction to having a loaded weapon pressed into his neck. He was beyond caring because he should’ve been killed numerous times over by now. For whatever reason, he still lived and breathed. Whether he was destined for greater things or just lucky to a fault, he was sure of one thing. The natural fear of death was slowly being beaten out of him.
“What you wondering, asshole?”
“Where do all of you guys come from? Like, do you all have the same mother or something?”
The gun pulled away from his neck. A flash of movement and Darwin felt the sucker punch as it connected with his left temple. His shoulder smacked the doorframe as he lost his balance, fell backwards out the door and onto the grass. The fall hurt more than the punch.
“Damn, that sucks,” he said.
The pain where the rubber bullet had hit him in the forehead had recently subsided, but pulsed again.
“Wha’s that you be saying about us? You wanna talk shit again before I kills ya?”
“Wait,” Darwin said, his hand raised to ward off an attack. The assault rifle was aimed at his face. “I need to know if you all have the same mother because if you don’t, then how does Gambino hire you guys? I mean, it boggles the mind. Does he put out a classified ad in the newspaper saying something about asshole thugs needed to piss and shit all day while looking scary and holding a big gun?”
The guy smiled. “You got some balls, kid. I like that.”
“You’re gay? I would never have noticed. You look too tough to take it in the ass. Are you the wife in the relationship or the husband?”
The guy shook his head to clear it of Darwin’s words. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You just complimented my balls, so I was wondering if you take it in the ass or give it? Which way does your boyfriend like it?”
Darwin braced himself and waited.
The thug lifted the assault rifle over his head and removed the strap. He tossed it back into the building and rolled up his sleeves.
“I think you need to learn how to talk to strangers. You break into our facility and then insult me. I will kill you, but first, I want you to feel pain.”
“I meant no harm,” Darwin said. “You were the one who admitted to being gay. I was just curious is all and I wanted to know how a guy like Gambino could have so many assholes on the payroll—”
The thug lunged down, grabbed Darwin by the front of the T-shirt and brought him to a standing position.
“Please mister, don’t hurt me,” Darwin cried out.
Then he pushed off the ground, jumped up and wrapped both legs around the man’s midsection. The guard stumbled backwards, let go of Darwin’s shirt to use his arms to break his fall and dropped back toward the step. At the last second, Darwin opened his legs so his feet wouldn’t fall under the man’s back.
The moment they landed, Darwin formed fists with both hands and pummeled the thug’s face over a dozen times before he stopped to catch his breath.
Blood oozed from numerous cracks in the guard’s skin. His nose was broken and Darwin could tell that both eyes would swell shut in a matter of hours.
Darwin pulled the guard’s unconscious body away from the open door and behind a copse of trees. He ran back to the door, stepped into the complex and grabbed the assault rifle. After a quick inspection, he found the safety and clicked it off. Then he wrapped the rifle strap over his head, held it in front of him and started along the wall toward the front.
He passed two planes with World War II insignia on them. An old jeep with a broken windshield sat parked in the back corner.
A light turned off in the offices at the back of the facility where the smoker had gone earlier.
Finally he saw what he came for.
The authentic, restored, German Panther tank sat facing Gambino’s house. The gun stuck out proudly from the turret. The tracks were wide and slightly different from other tanks he’d seen with the wheels interweaved. They were placed almost side-by-side so that certain areas of them weren’t visible. The front of the tank had a slope that probably repelled enemy artillery.
Gambino had said that the tank was fully restored and fully operational, and that a buyer was coming to pick it up.
Time to ruin those plans.
Darwin swung the rifle around to his back and climbed up the side of the tank. He stood on top and looked around to make sure he wasn’t being observed.
He grabbed the circular opening at the top of the turret and pulled. Nothing happened. He pulled again.
Damn, how do you open this thing?
A lever in the middle twisted under the pressure of his hand. He pulled up and the top opened.
Great, it’s nice when something works in my favor.
The crack of a weapon made him swing his head around as a bullet ricocheted off a wall. The smoker stood at the back of the building, sighting him down with his weapon.
“Get off the tank or I will shoot you,” the guy shouted from fifty yards.
“You’re not that good,” Darwin shouted back as he jumped up to the top and dropped down into the confining space of the turret. He bumped his right knee and left elbow on the way in, numbing his left hand.
“Shit, that fucking hurts.”
He grabbed the top and pulled it shut over his head as bullets careened off the tank. A quick twist and the hatch locked from the inside. Small lights flickered on. The interior was tiny.
Great, now, how do you drive one of these things?
He took off the rifle and scrunched down to move into another compartment. The guy outside shouted frantically into a phone about how some guy just jumped in the tank. Reinforcements didn’t bother Darwin. Short of another tank or a massive amount of explosives, nothing could stop him now.
He found where the driver would sit in the lower forward compartment and eased into the small black chair.
How the hell did four or five men operate in something so small?
He quickly ascertained that the tank had seven gears. On either side of the turret he saw ammunition for the gun, but had no idea how to load it or fire it.
All he needed to do was get the thing turned on. He touched the black steering wheel and placed his other hand on the gear shifter. Two lights hung near a black panel on his right. He saw the ignition button and pushed it. The tank fired up like the day it was built. It was so loud the guy on the phone just outside the tank was drowned out.
He maneuvered the gears on his right and tried to find the first one. Once he had it where he thought it should be, he put his left hand on the steering wheel and looked straight ahead at a wall of metal.
“How the fuck did the driver see where to go?”
There was a small rectangular slit about eye level. He unclipped it and flipped it open. The first thing he saw was the guy on the phone.
Their eyes met. Then the guy dropped the phone, yanked up his rifle and aimed at the slot Darwin stared out of. As fast as he could, Darwin slammed the slot closed and clicked it back into place. Bullets twanged off the exterior.
“Fuck, that was close.”
He decided he didn’
t need to see out the rectangular slot. The tank was already aimed at Gambino’s house, which was his target. He would just drive forward until he hit the building.
Now, how do I get it to move?
He couldn’t detect a gas pedal at his feet.
“Hey, you in the tank. Listen carefully.”
The guy must have a bullhorn or something like it to be able to be heard over the sound of the engine.
“We have orders to blow the tank up with you in it. Get out of the tank and we will let you live.”
Are these guys for real? Let me live?
“We have a large quantity of C-4 sitting under the tank right now. I give you ten seconds to exit the tank, or I will blow the C-4 … starting now.”
That gives me ten seconds to get this thing moving.
Because the lights were slightly above his head, he couldn’t see the clutch pedal. He felt around until his foot bumped into it and then placed his foot on top and pushed. He slipped the gears into what he assumed was the first gear and slowly let the clutch out.
The tank chugged forward, knocking him back in his seat, his foot coming clean off the clutch. The tank stalled and stopped, the engine dead.
“Fuck.”
“Last chance,” he heard loud and clear now that the engine was off.
“Fuck you.”
He pressed down on the ignition switch again, fired up the engine, dropped the clutch and let it ease out slowly.
The tank moved forward.
He felt it teeter as the front came off its cement platform. It met the grass, dug in and started across the lawn toward Gambino’s house.
As soon as the back touched down on the grass, the tank shuddered as an explosion behind the tank sent out a shock wave.
Fucking idiot blew the C-4 anyway. Bit late, assholes.
Darwin pushed in the clutch, dropped the Panther into second gear, opened the view slot and headed for the back patio of Gambino’s house, intent on murdering everyone he could find.
“I’m coming baby … I’m coming.”
Chapter 14
Carson looked at his passenger and had the sudden urge to shove him out the door. He hated everything about Greg Stinsen at that moment. He had predetermined ideas and attitudes about Darwin when the facts spoke for themselves. Darwin had killed federal agents. Darwin had stolen a pickup truck and, as far as anyone was concerned, Bob Freska was dead because of Darwin Kostas.
But Greg thought mobsters were involved. If he had his way, he’d proclaim that Darwin was innocent despite the evidence.
“Hey, Rudy,” Carson said as he looked in the rearview mirror at him in the backseat, “what’s your take on all this? You think the Mafia orchestrated everything? Or is this carnage Darwin’s handiwork?”
“Carson, seriously, I have no idea. We’ll put everything together, gather what proof we can, and charge the people responsible like we always do. Then the courts will decide who’s innocent and who isn’t.”
“Waffling, are you?”
“That’s not waffling. It’s what we do. We don’t assign blame.”
Carson slapped the steering wheel. “I wasn’t assigning shit. I was asking for your opinion. So let me ask you a different way. Who, or what, is behind all the killings of federal agents?”
“I’m gathering that Darwin and his wife have a lot to do with it, but I can’t say they are the only guilty party. I think the Freska thing had more to do with the Gambino Family than it had to do with the Kostas.”
“Why’s that?” Carson asked.
“Because everyone knows Bob’s been on the take for a long time and no one could prove it. Gambino has at least half a dozen local cops around here in his pocket. Good men, too. Men who wouldn’t normally consort with guys like Gambino, but he had something on them, something over their heads. Do I think some kid from Canada took Bob out like that? No way.”
Carson stared forward at the road. As much as he wanted to pin everything on Darwin, Rudy had a point. But why did Gambino take care of Bob Freska the day Darwin’s on the run? Just to make it look like Darwin did it when Darwin’s profile would suggest otherwise?
Something was fishy and Carson would find out what it was. Somehow, someway, he was going to figure out who killed his men, and whoever was responsible would pay.
He turned onto the side road that led to Gambino’s vacation home.
“What are we going to say when we get to the door at two-thirty in the morning?” Carson asked. “Oh, hey guys, just wanted to check in and see if you’re keeping anyone hostage here?”
Carson detected Greg looking at him.
“We are going to knock on the front door,” Greg said. “We’re FBI. A man and his wife known to the Gambino Family are missing in the area and federal officers have been killed. We’re canvassing the area to see if anyone heard or seen anything.”
Carson looked at him. “And you think they’re just going to say, ‘Oh, those two. Yeah, we got them in the basement tied up’?”
“You know, Carson, you’re more an asshole than your reputation lets on.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means your reputation is better.”
“What?”
“We’ll study their response. Watch to see if they’re edgy. Did we wake a sleeping guard or are all the lights on and—”
The sound of automatic gunfire from somewhere on the right stopped him mid-sentence.
“What the fuck was that?” Carson asked.
“Sounded like a gun,” Rudy said from the back.
“Come on, let’s go. Looks like the show has already started. Rudy, get on your phone and call for backup.”
They passed a small gravel road and came to the main entrance. On the left, Carson looked at the funeral home sign and wondered how many more bodies would be buried before the night was over.
A huge explosion rocked the car as they turned onto Gambino’s driveway.
A fireball rose in the air over the treetops.
“That looks like Gambino’s warehouse.”
“A warehouse?” Greg asked.
“Yeah, he stores old war relics in there. Harmless shit.”
“Doesn’t sound too harmless to me. Hit the gas.”
Greg pulled out his gun and placed it on his lap. “We’re going in hot. My hunch is Darwin and his wife are here and if I have any wits about me, that explosion was because they pissed Darwin off and he’s fighting back. He’ll need our help and I intend to give it to him.”
Chapter 15
After about twenty feet, the tank started down an embankment and headed toward the pool and hills behind it. He needed to continue toward the main house which meant he needed to turn left, but the steering didn’t respond like a car.
“What the fuck do I do to get this thing to turn?” Darwin shouted.
He pulled on the steering wheel, forcing it as far left as he could, but the large machine continued to lumber straight forward. When he released the wheel, the panther turned further to the right and headed toward the trees beyond the property.
“Fuck, shit. This is no good. Don’t tell me I got all this way to ram a fucking tree.”
He knew that yanking the steering wheel wouldn’t produce the results he needed. But he didn’t know what would.
A pinging sound alerted Darwin that he was being fired upon. Regular bullets would do nothing to a German Panther. Everything was in place for him to do a frontal attack of Gambino’s house, but the tank wouldn’t turn.
Then a thought occurred to him. Would it respond like a boat?
He looked down into the darkened area around his feet but couldn’t see the brake pedals. Feeling around, he detected numerous pedals at once. He chose the pedal on the left, pushed down softly and saw through the rectangular slot that the tank turned to the left a little.
“Got it!” he shouted.
He quickly learned to hit the brakes on one side to turn easy and fast. By using the brakes on the treads on one s
ide, the tank turned as if he were in a canoe and had placed an oar in the water on that side. He kept the tank moving at ten miles an hour so he wouldn’t have to anticipate a turn too early.
Through the slot, the house came into view. A line of men carrying assault weapons stood between him and the house. The last thing he needed was one of the guards getting a lucky shot that slipped through the view hole and into his eye. He set the tank on a course to barrel into the patio furniture at the back and enter the house through the back windows, where it would drive through the living room and out the front. Once in the main driveway, he planned on turning it around and driving back through the house. He would do this over and over until the house fell down around him or they released Rosina.
