The Blue Tango Salvage: Book 2 in the Recovery and Marine Salvage, Inc. Series

by Chris Poindexter

  The rest of the planning was much less tense. The new and improved team player Amber joined us after she changed and there was far less tension in the air this time around. When we got to the part about breaching the back door then her part was in context of what everyone else was doing and not everyone else running around Maverick Amber. I could tell she felt better and everyone else was visibly relieved, except V. She was far less quick to forgive, especially another woman.

  “Are we going to burn the place?” Dugger asked.

  “No,” I said, definitively, “we’re going to flood it”. Dugger looked puzzled.

  I decided to explain, even though I didn’t like it. “If we burn it then firefighters will risk their lives trying to put it out. If one of them got hurt…” I let the comment trail off because it was clear I was getting through.

  ‘Water damage is just as bad,” Bobby pointed out, “and nobody gets killed when the roof collapses.”

  “It’s also a bitch dealing with the insurance company when water’s involved because they want to push the claim off on flood insurance and the chances Sergei has flood insurance on that place is pretty remote.”

  “But a fire claim would get paid right away,” Q pointed out.

  “Clever,” the new and humbler Dugger agreed. Maybe there was hope for him after all.

  “Have any big vehicles left since the deliveries?” I asked.

  “Not from out back,” Deek confirmed.

  “So they haven’t made the deposit yet,” then another thought dawned on me. “Holy crap, they may not have made a deposit since Sergei skipped town.”

  “Fat and happy,” Jesse pointed out.

  This was shaping up to be more fun than I would have guessed.

  Chapter 24

  Given that it was a work night, we decided to go in later when the crowd was thinner and the staff would be tired. We also decided to deliver Amber in a ride share car and the rest of us split between the phone van and the truck. We’d have to be more careful not to get surprised by the local PD this time. A phone van during the day would arouse no one’s suspicions; a phone truck at night was more difficult to explain.

  Dugger paid for his ride with the tidbit that the transit center didn’t have a night guard, relying instead on gadget security and a drive-by patrol service. We weren’t going to be staying long this time anyway. We pulled up to the building, in the same spot next to the pole and ran V up to the roof in the bucket. She disappeared over the ledge with her urban camouflage blanket and rifle in a sling bag. She’d use a stick-up camera relaying video to her phone to watch the roof door behind her and a quick descender to come back down so we didn’t have to send the bucket to get her back.

  “Okay, Deek,” I said from the van. He would fritz their cameras momentarily while Q and I got out on the ground and moved south along the railroad tracks to the back corner of the strip club on the opposite side of the tracks. There was a big silver railroad switch box that provided decent cover. Q had the Thread Cutter and I had the Val.

  This time the van and truck moved into the industrial area north of the club and parked next to some of the other delivery vehicles. From there we could watch the road and front of the strip club. Deek launched the drone and Q and I could just make out its dark shape in the sky, moving just over the tops of the buildings and scanning the license plates in the parking lot. Between that and the phone data, Deek could make sure we weren’t barging in on a bachelor party for an off-duty police officer. We could all watch the video on our cell phones.

  “No off-duty law enforcement,” Deek confirmed. “Mostly locals who work in the neighborhood.”

  Well and good. “Okay, front door team you’re go,” I said.

  Dugger and Bobby came down the street in the truck and backed it in as close to the front door as possible. I could hear Dugger doing the talking and waving their no cover passes at the goons at the door, they passed them in with no problems. The club had airport style security and Bobby’s earpiece and the plastic syringes they both carried were too small to detect but they did put his pocket knife in a box and tell him he could pick it up later. They sat at a table near the bar and confirmed there was indeed no guard stationed at the hallway entrance to the bathrooms.

  “Sloppy,” I said out loud, then I realized Sergei had spotted us-- me --getting sloppy too. Give anyone long enough to watch your operation and even a blind sow can find an acorn.

  “Local PD two blocks over,” Deek noted, tagging his phone with the IMIS catcher. “He’s turning north.”

  Dugger was chatting up the bartender inside and Deek had to turn down Bobby’s mic because of the volume of the music. Even though the club wasn’t jammed, there was a decent size crowd and we needed to give Bobby time to evaluate the patrons. I was happy about the loud music which paused only long enough to introduce a new dancer.

  “None of these guys look like sleepers,” he said to Dugger but was really talking to us.

  That was good and the airport style security at the front door made it less likely any of them would be armed. So far so good.

  “Sound off,” I ordered.

  “I have good coverage of the back of the building from here,” V confirmed. “All clear.”

  “Road’s clear,” Jesse reported from the van where he and Mateo were watching.

  “We’re go here!” Bobby said laughing and whooping it up with the other patrons.

  “Okay, let’s see inside.”

  Deek cycled through the internal cameras, inside and out. We saw a view down the back hall which showed the single guard by the back door with a shotgun, two views from the bar, and the view of the money room door, there were no cameras inside there. That could be a problem.

  “Anyone see a no go?” Silence.

  “Okay, let’s roll the party girl.”

  Amber had the ridesharing service pick her up outside another bar closer to downtown and the driver was exceptionally friendly, especially after finding out where she was going. He went into his life story and took his time getting to the club. It was painful to listen to so Amber pretended to be on the phone.

  “Coming down the street,” she said to her phone.

  “Got the car,” Jesse informed us.

  “Back door, please,” Amber instructed the driver. Show time.

  The driver offered to walk her to the door, which Amber refused and I was afraid we were going to have a problem but he drove off without incident. Amber walked up to the door with the dispassionate boredom of someone looking forward to another six hours of getting hit on by sloppy men in cheap clothes in desperate need of a shave.

  “Front door team stand by,” I said over the comm link.

  I was watching the outside camera, Q the inside. Amber kept her face away from the camera and did three short knocks and one long. The guard looked up at the monitor, buzzed the door and pushed it open.

  “I thought you were off tonight,” the guard said in heavily accented English.

  “Just couldn’t tear myself away,” Amber said hitting him with a stun gun.

  “Now Deek,” but he was already ahead of me, fuzzing out the cameras.

  Q and I sprinted across the tracks and Q helped her drag the guard around the corner and out of sight. Q took his place on the chair.

  “Time for the loop,” I pointed out. Deek made a loop of the feed. It wouldn’t fool anyone for long, but we only needed a few minutes.

  “Breaching charge?” Q asked, looking at the reinforced door and the end of a short hall.

  “Too loud,” Amber said. “One minute. Jesse we need the van,” Amber requested.

  “30 seconds,” Jesse replied.

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked. Improvising always made me nervous but it was 30 seconds and I wanted to see what she had up her sleeve.

  “Back door,” Jesse said.

  Q held the door for Amber and she hauled in a small box from the van she loaded before we left. Inside was a small tray, a bottle of Stolich
naya, four shot glasses and a stun grenade.

  “Hold this,” she said, handing me the tray. She laid out four glasses and started pouring from the bottle. Q joined us, curious as well as to what she was doing. She whipped off the short jacket and we all discovered the sheer top was basically invisible. She handed it to Q.

  “Behold the power of titties and beer,” she said, pulling the pin on the stun grenade, careful to hold the spoon down. She lofted the tray with her left hand and told Q to go back to the seat by the door and Deek to go live feed on the cameras.

  The screen blinked and we were live. Amber walked down the hall and pushed the door buzzer with the hand holding the grenade but she hid it with the tray. Holding the tray up to the camera so it shielded her face but giving them a good look at the tray and her tits. Another mistake they made was their secure room door opened outward, making it hard to bar from the inside.

  It took a long ten count but the lure of titties and beer was too much and the lock buzzer rang and an unseen hand started to open the door. Amber kneeled down and rolled the stun grenade through the opening, giving the door a hard back-kick as she did.

  “Deek, loop the cameras,” I ordered. “Front door team go.”

  By sheer coincidence the stun grenade went off perfectly in time with the music thumping in the next room. Certainly the front door guards would have noticed anyway but, while Amber was distracting the money room guards, Bobby was pretending to be drunk and telling them how much he loved the place. He stumbled against one of them, sticking him with syringe he had hidden in his hand loaded with a cocktail of my own design that contained a fast-acting paralytic, a sedative and a cocktail of drugs that would keep their brain from writing long term memories. In 30 minutes they wouldn’t be able to remember what happened up to the moment they were stuck.

  “What the fu-u-u-uh,” the guard said, collapsing. The second one was out of reach for a needle stick so Bobby gave him an old fashioned right cross; equally effective at close range. Because of the poor lighting, music and patrons paying attention to dancers, hardly anyone noticed the commotion, except the bartender. She went for her phone and the emergency button by the cash register. She never quite got there as Dugger reached over the bar and jammed a needle into her arm. She had a second of incomprehension before collapsing.

  “Front door secure,” Bobby said.

  It was on now, the time for stealth was past. Q buzzed in Mateo who walked in with an armload of axes and ax handles. I was about to tell Q to use the breaching charge, instead he lifted the thread cutter and cut loose on the door lock. A cascade of 9mmx39 casings streamed out of the side of the gun, barely making any noise. The racket of the heavy, armor piercing slugs tearing through the door made more noise than the gun.

  While Q changed mags I walked over and jerked the door open, rolling off to the side, expecting to be greeted by a hail of bullets but none materialized. I fired a couple short bursts at waist height through the door, but again no answering fire. Professionals are trained to fight through stun grenades but these were not professionals. They were thugs that were flash blind and moaning with bleeding ears. Q went through and dosed each one with a syringe. When the smoke cleared we discovered it was, indeed, payday. There was a long table piled with cash in front of a counting machine. Behind them was heavy safe, the door ajar, and stacked with wrapped packages of money.

  Through it all Amber had managed to hold the tray without spilling it. We all three took a shot and knocked it back. She got her jacket back from Q and put an end to the peep show.

  Mateo handed off the axes to Bobby and Dugger who went into the bathrooms and started smashing water pipes, a couple patrons exited the bathrooms quickly.

  “Mat, get the cash,” I instructed. Q and I moved down the hall. The staff was catching on something was wrong and some of the girls were trying to sneak out the back. Q was about to round them up when Amber pushed past him dragging an ax handle along the floor.

  “I got this,” she said, pushing the dancers and cocktail waitresses back through the door. “Going somewhere, ladies?” The heavy door closed behind her.

  “A couple patrons are calling 911,” Deek informed us. The really great thing about the IMIS catcher was, not only did it mimic a cell tower, it could also intercept calls.

  “9-1-1 what’s your emergency?” Deek said smoothly. “There’s some kind of trouble here,” the man began, giving Deek the name of the strip club. “Some guys with axes.”

  “Okay, sir, we’ll have someone on the way shortly. Are any of the dancers injured?” Deek asked.

  “Huh?” the man was obviously confused.

  “The dancers, are they okay?” Deek clarified.

  “Yeah, I-I think so,” the man said, obviously not clear of what to make of the question.

  “That’s good, sir, because we have a special response team for injured strippers,” Deek informed him. “We like to take care of the ladies who take care of us.”

  “Knock it off, Deek,” but I was smiling anyway.

  There was a crash from behind the door Amber just went through, followed by screaming and something heavy hit the door. Q made a move toward it, but I held him back. There was more crashing and more screaming.

  “I saw you creeping on my girlfriend’s tits,” I joked. “You just want another creep peek.”

  He smiled. “I would kinda like to see what’s going on in there.”

  A single small caliber gunshot barked from behind the door, Q looked at me.

  “She’s a big girl,” I reminded him. “That’s only the second time in a week she’s been shot at.”

  Bobby and Dugger finished their work in the bathrooms, the water already flooding out from under the doors and they waded into the main bar. Bobby had a fire ax in each hand.

  “Smashin’ time!” he said over the comm link.

  Mysteriously, most of the patrons were still in their seats, clueless about what was happening, a few wondering if it was part of the show. Most were hesitant to abandon their drinks. When that small mountain that was Bobby appeared, wielding two axes, it finally sunk in that this wasn’t part of the act.

  “We’re sorry but the club is now closed for remodeling!” Bobby announced, bringing an ax down on one of the tables.

  The smart ones scrambled for the door, the dimmer wits waited until one of Bobby’s axes landed on their table, splitting it in two. Bobby methodically went through the club smashing furniture and fixtures with abandon. Bizarrely the DJ was still in the booth when Dugger walked up with an ax.

  “I’ll take over,” he said brandishing the ax. The DJ threw off his headphones and headed for the door.

  The total elapsed time had been less than two minutes. I called Anita.

  “You ready?”

  “On the move,” she confirmed.

  “I can’t handle all the 9-1-1 calls,” Deek informed us. “I’m giving them a busy signal. When they’re out of range they’ll get through.”

  “See how we’re doing in back,” I asked Q, who disappeared into the back to help Mateo.

  “We’re good back here,” he said after a few seconds. “Coming back up.”

  I walked into the bar where Dugger was still taking an ax to the DJ booth.

  “Dugger!” I motioned him away from the booth with the Val and he ducked out of the way.

  I flicked the selector over to full auto and emptied a mag into the DJ booth. The effects were spectacular. The 259 grain light armor piercing rounds zipping along at 920 feet per second shredded the equipment into electronic confetti; the shower of sparks was very satisfying. Besides being nearly silent the gun was well balanced and there was hardly any recoil. I hated the goddamn Russians but their shit always worked. I put another mag into the mirror ball and lights above the dance floor. The mirror ball disintegrated and one side of the light bars came crashing down on the stage.

  Q joined me. “Mind if I try?”

  “Be my guest.”

  He put a mag into t
he bar, a shower of glass, exploding booze bottles and mirror fragments blasted into the air.

  “Hey, some of those rounds are coming through the outside wall,” Deek informed us, the drone picking up the damage. Unlike the movies handgun ammunition isn’t stopped by framing timber or drywall and penetrate walls really well. Surprisingly the ammo that penetrated the least were the zippy but light 5.56mm rounds from assault rifles, which explained by most SWAT teams switched from handgun caliber carbines to A-4s.

  “Sorry,” Q apologized and changed his angle so he could fire down the length of the bar and use the cash room as a backstop. He shredded the drink machines, rail booze and cash register. “I love this gun,” he said in admiration, one-handing the last mag.