Marked for Death

by Marked for Death (retail) (epub)

  ‘We sit tight for now. I need to contact my friend Rink. We need off this island, but if we take a cab we’ll possibly be identified and arrested at the next police checkpoint.’

  ‘How are you going to do that? Won’t the police be monitoring your friend’s cell phone?’

  ‘You really have watched too many Bourne movies, haven’t you,’ I joked, but to be fair I was worried about the possibility. If we had been identified as the fugitives, and potential murderers of up to six victims from the fights at our hotel and at the art supplies store, then the cops might very well be keeping a tight eye on my closest associates. With Velasquez already in custody, that only left Rink at liberty, and the cops would expect us to try to make contact with him: so they might very well monitor his calls. Also, there was the possibility that Rink had been pulled in for questioning and was currently in custody too; despite having a checkable alibi, Rink’s connection to the events leading up to the attack on McTeer and afterwards would be deeply scrutinised. But I had faith in Rink’s ability to avoid detention. And we had our ways and means – if I told Trey the details now she’d be convinced she was on the run with an international spy or hitman. Our friend Harvey Lucas was a tech genius, and could have set up an anonymous communications channel via the dark web, but sometimes you only needed a burner phone and a discreet call monitoring service.

  ‘I need to purchase a cell phone and prepaid SIM. So let’s finish up and get moving.’ Her earlier protestation at having no appetite was fully dispelled now. Trey ate the last crumbs of both muffins, and even picked some stray nuggets of chicken that had come adrift from my taco. It was understandable: she’d been running on adrenaline for hours, so her body would now be at a low ebb, and she was in need of a protein and sugar boost. She grimaced guiltily when she noticed me watching.

  ‘I’m ravenous,’ she admitted.

  ‘We’ll pick up something else to eat as well. We need to keep up our strength.’

  There was a pizza restaurant on the nearest corner, and she eyed it dreamily. But it was still too early in the day for pizza. I collected our empty cups and wrappers and deposited them in a trashcan: the plastic lid off one cup fell loose, and I stooped and grabbed it and made sure it went in the can. I caught the disbelieving shake of Trey’s head. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re a man of such contradictions.’

  ‘How come?’

  She glanced all around, checking there was no danger of being overheard. ‘You’ve left a trail of bodies behind us, smashed your way in and out of a shop, stolen a boat, a van and even some kid’s sneakers, been involved in a high-speed car chase and crashed the van into a creek, but woe betide the day you’d ever be caught littering.’

  ‘Yeah, you have to draw the line somewhere.’ I smiled. ‘Otherwise some people might call me a criminal.’

  ‘Man,’ she said, ‘why the hell do I always end up attracting bad boys?’

  I took her jest as intended, but she must have realised what she had intimated. Her head went down quickly, and colour flushed her cheeks. To save her any embarrassment I said, ‘I do the same with idiots.’ And then I realised what my words must have sounded like. ‘Uh, not that I’m saying…’

  Trey laughed heartily, and stood abruptly. She slapped me playfully on the shoulder, said, ‘I think you had the best idea: let’s get moving before we make complete fools of ourselves.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, sobering quickly. ‘And while we walk, you can finish telling me what you started in my room about your bad boy husband.’

  ‘Why bother? If we continue running away from the police, who’s going to stop him going through with it tomorrow?’

  I halted, forcing Trey to turn and face me. My frowning face was reflected in the lenses of her shades: it wasn’t a pretty picture. ‘Stop him from going through with what, Trey?’

  She exhaled slowly. ‘You’ve got to believe me that I have no part in any of this, but when you’ve been around them as long as I have they tend to ignore your presence, or they’re confident that you’re so under their thumb that you daren’t speak a word to anyone else. Joe, I don’t know exactly what it is they’re planning for the celebrations, but I overheard Mikhail speaking with Sean Cahill, and he bragged that it was going to be spectacular.’

  I thought about the date. ‘I’d bet he wasn’t talking about an Independence Day fireworks show.’

  She peeled off her sunglasses so I could see the sincerity in her. ‘Not the fireworks,’ she said in a barely audible whisper, ‘but I did hear something about a parade.’

  This was only my second day in Miami Beach, but even I knew about the upcoming 4th of July celebrations centred around Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive – I’d have to be blind to miss the proliferation of banners and US flags flapping overhead, even while running in the dark. As well as numerous individual celebrations, parties and family events, a parade of floats and marching bands was due to take place to mark the holiday.

  ‘Are you saying there’s going to be some kind of an attack on the parade?’

  ‘That’s what I’m fearful of. Especially when Mikhail promised it would be more spectacular than what happened in Paris, Berlin or London.’

  23

  Rink parked his rental car in the shadow of one of a trio of gleaming towers in the beachfront community of Sunny Isles Beach, not too distant from where Hunter and Trey Shaw were situated. Glancing up at the looming buildings comprised of luxury condominiums, he thought that the current president might be controversial but there was no denying he could build an impressive set of towers. He wasn’t visiting any of the condos; he’d pulled into the parking lot of an adjacent hotel set on the waterfront of a marina on the Intracoastal Waterway. He was within striking distance of Mikhail Viskhan’s residence on a nearby islet connected to Collins Avenue. A quick stroll through Intracoastal Park would take him to a bridge onto the islet and from there he could walk directly up to Viskhan’s house and knock on his door. He was sorely tempted to do so, but he wasn’t yet ready to take the fight directly to the enemy. Not while the cops were still there.

  He’d diverted into the hotel’s parking lot when a patrol car shot by him and took the turning onto the islet ahead. He couldn’t be certain that the cops were going to speak with Viskhan but, considering the previous night’s events, it was a safe assumption. Whether or not Viskhan had been tied to the attack on their team yet was still up for debate, but Rink thought that it was only a matter of time before Tracey Shaw was identified as the woman seen entering the hotel a short time before, and was subsequently unaccounted for after a man had died with her shoe’s heel jammed in his eye socket. If anything, the cops would want to question Viskhan concerning his missing wife long before they made a connection between Albert Greville-Jones’s fatal assault and him, or even linked Greville-Jones to the attack at the hotel.

  The cops beating him to Viskhan was inconvenient, but it was not an insurmountable problem. He simply had to wait the police out. They’d question Viskhan, take down his bogus account of his wife’s disappearance and then leave. He doubted that Viskhan would become a guest of the Miami PD, the way that Velasquez had, because he had the clout, wealth and possibly the dirt on key politicians to ensure he never saw the inside of a police station. Rink could care less if Viskhan was ever convicted of his crimes, because he knew as well as Hunter that there were other ways to see that justice was done. He slipped his hand under the tail of his shirt, felt the hilt of the knife in a sheath on his belt. It was a D2 Extreme Fighting/Utility Knife from the KA-BAR workshops: justice would come at the end of its seven-inch clip point blade if all went as planned.

  Planning violent murder wasn’t in Jared Rington’s character, not in his current guise as a civilian, but that hadn’t always been the case. As an Army Ranger he’d killed enemies on the battlefield, and after his induction into Arrowsake, his skills had regularly been utilised on more pinpointed and specific targets. His kills were collectively termed ‘military sanctions’
, but shake the terminology any way you wished and the actual definition of Rink’s actions was assassination. Back then his targets had been terrorists, key enemy combatants, tyrants and dangerous international criminals, but it was easy for him to equate Mikhail Viskhan with any of those designations. Plus, there was the fact Viskhan – through Sean Cahill – was the motherfucker who’d ordered a hit on his friends, and that designation was enough for Rink’s mind to rest easy with his plan.

  As he waited for the cops to vacate the islet, he marked the time by the shrinking of the shadow from the nearest of the three Trump Towers condos as the sun arced higher in the heavens. After the storm, there was a distinct pastel hue to the sky, but soon all trace of humidity would be scorched from the air. Rink worked best in the dead of night, but being in stark daylight didn’t faze him. He wasn’t dressed in battle fatigues, or in a black jumpsuit – often his costume de rigueur back in his former life – but in a loose-fitting shirt and chinos, and would blend easily with the rich dudes preparing for a day on their yachts and cabin cruisers.

  Forty minutes after they arrived, the cops left the island, turning right on Collins Avenue and back towards Rink’s position. As they passed he glimpsed at the cops, but they didn’t return his scrutiny. As expected, Mikhail Viskhan wasn’t locked in the back of the patrol car. He took a deep breath, reached for the door handle. Another car following rapidly on the cops’ tail halted him from climbing out of the rental. It was a large SUV, powder blue, the same hue as the sky. It also took the turn towards him, and was driven past. Two figures sat up front, with a third in the back. When Harvey first identified their enemies, he’d sent photographs of Viskhan and Cahill to Rink’s phone. He got only the briefest look at the red-haired man with a neat moustache in the front passenger seat, and was certain it was Sean Cahill. In all likelihood the driver was another of Viskhan’s henchmen, while their boss took his comfort in the back.

  It was an assumption about the backseat passenger at best, but Rink decided on the imaginary flip of a coin, and pulled out after the SUV. Catching both his targets in one go suited him, and if it turned out Viskhan wasn’t in the car then Rink could always return after dealing with Cahill. He fell in behind the SUV as it followed the highway through Haulover Park and on through the districts of Bal Harbour, Surfside and North Beach. The opportunity to catch the SUV, run it off the road with a slam of his fender against its rear side, and then bring hell to those within didn’t arise. But that was OK: his intention for following had altered; he had no inkling where the SUV was heading, and he wanted to find out.

  The SUV took a right at 71st Street, and crossed the water onto Normandy Isle. Separated by a delivery truck and one other car, the SUV was fifty yards ahead of Rink’s rental as he passed Normandy Isle Monument, and Rink took the briefest of glances at the monolith set at the heart of a small palm tree-fringed park, before his attention fell on the SUV again. He had no way of knowing that less than a hundred yards away, on the other side of a commercial strip, Joe Hunter and Trey Shaw were in the process of purchasing a reconditioned cell phone and SIM card from a pawn shop. Minutes after that, the SUV led him over Biscayne Bay through North Bay Village to the mainland. Allowing other vehicles to fill the gap between them, Rink held back aways as the SUV went south: if the driver was counter-surveillance savvy he would have spotted the tail before now, and although that didn’t appear to be the case, Rink knew that complacency could be a killer. He followed at a more discreet distance all the way down the coast until the SUV cut back into Biscayne Bay and onto Dodge Island, also known as Miami-Dade County Seaport. The island housed the terminals of a number of cruise ship operators, but was also the domain of dozens of cargo shipping companies. More than two thirds of the island was a concrete expanse buzzing with industrial activity, much of it stacked high with shipping containers, some newly arrived, others holding cargo destined for foreign lands.

  There was only so far that Rink could follow. He was forced to pull into the long stay parking lot of one of the cruise lines while the SUV continued on past the US Customs inspection and processing area and into the industrial port. From his vantage, Rink watched as the SUV was waved through the security checkpoint, through which he couldn’t follow. At least not in the rental car and without good reason. On foot he was at a disadvantage, and risked discovery, but he’d come this far and wouldn’t be deterred by a few wire fences and bored security guards.

  He’d lost sight of the car he’d followed but Rink got out, ensured his KA-BAR was sufficiently concealed under the tail of his shirt and then headed over the port boulevard. Within a minute he’d found entrance into the secure industrial area, walking boldly through a gate into a dry dock area containing yachts and cabin cruisers. Behind a large crane and boom employed to lift boats from the water, he scaled a chain-link fence by using some thoughtlessly stacked steel drums as a launching platform. Inside the secure area, he continued walking boldly: he’d discovered long ago that hiding in plain sight was often the best strategy. Look like you had a right to be there, and with a purpose in mind, and you were rarely challenged. He cut across the expanse of concrete, aware of the buzz and hum of heavy machinery around him. He was passed twice by workers in vehicles, and twice was paid no more attention than the briefest of cursory nods in greeting.

  The last sighting he’d had of the SUV was when it had turned right towards a large warehouse, and then driven beyond it towards a dockside shipping container lot. He headed in the same direction. The atmosphere was dusty and hot, with no trace of last night’s storm left on the baking concrete. He entered the container storage area unchallenged. There was no sign of the powder blue SUV. He gave the warehouse a brief look, but was confident his targets weren’t inside; otherwise their car would be parked adjacent to it. He went left, walking with purpose along a pedestrian walkway marked out on the concrete with yellow paint. Taking care to appear as if he belonged there, he strode along, as if heading for a specific destination, but at the same time he took note of each row of shipping containers he passed. He spotted the SUV a hundred yards down one row, but there was no sign of its passengers. If he turned directly down that row he might be spotted long before he reached the car, so continued on past for two more rows before cutting across the road and into the storage area. He couldn’t see another soul, but from nearby he could hear voices, too faint to discern the words.

  Closing in on his enemies, his demeanour changed and he progressed stealthily. He positioned himself adjacent to where the SUV was parked two rows over. Gaps between the metal containers allowed him to snatch glimpses between the rows, and for sound to filter through. The configuration of the containers played games with sounds, and at first he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where the voices originated. But he decided that it wasn’t from near the SUV but further towards the dockside. He padded along the row of containers, and then set his shoulder against the final one as he again listened. The voices sounded muffled and hollow as if the men were inside one of the containers, but that wasn’t it. Leaning out from his hiding place he spotted a building alongside the dock. It looked a temporary structure, some kind of prefabricated office. Parked next to it was a refrigerated van, emblazoned with a mixture of Cantonese characters and English decal, denoting it as belonging to a distributor of fresh produce. Peering beneath the van’s undercarriage, Rink made out the feet of three individuals. The trio of men was the source of the muffled conversation. The whining of a crane at work nearby made hearing their words impossible, but he guessed that this was no innocent meeting. As far as he knew, Viskhan’s business portfolio didn’t extend to catering Miami’s Chinese restaurants – unless he supplied illegal immigrant workers for their kitchens.

  As he observed them, the trio moved together towards the back of the van. A slim, severe-looking Chinese man also walked out from the office, his attention on the trio, but he must have been motioned out of the way. He walked around the front of the van, lighting up a cigarette. From his angle Rink
got a look at the nearest of the trio, but only briefly, before he unlocked the nearest of the van’s back doors and swung it open. It concealed the others from view as they joined him at the back. The thing that immediately struck Rink was that the man in sight wasn’t the third guy from the SUV: he was dressed in a security company uniform. But one thing that Rink was certain of was that he wasn’t checking the van for illegal contraband, but displaying its wares. Rink would have liked to get a look inside the back, but it was impossible from his position. Moving to a better vantage wasn’t an option either, not without backtracking all the way down the row of shipping containers and returning via one much further along.

  Or he could walk directly out, confront the men at the van, and get down to his original reason for stalking Viskhan.

  The temptation was great, but he had reservations. The Chinese guy was likely an innocent in Viskhan’s schemes, and although the security guard was most definitely corrupt, he hadn’t done a thing to attract Rink’s personal ire. And then there was the third and most important fact: where was the last man from the SUV?

  His survival instincts pinged.

  Beneath the constant sounds of industry, the loudest of which was the mechanical wailing of the nearby crane, he’d picked out the scuff of a shoe on concrete.

  He snapped around.

  The third man from the SUV, his face rosy from the heat, was caught mid-step barely ten feet from him. He wasn’t startled, more pissed that he’d been detected as he crept up on his prey. Clutched in his right hand he held a blade not dissimilar to the KA-BAR Rink carried. He also carried a pistol, holstered under his armpit beneath his thin jacket, but had chosen a knife for its silence. Viskhan might have bought the security man, but that wouldn’t extend to all the customs officers on site and the sound of gunfire would bring the authorities running.