Burke's War: Bob Burke Action Thriller 1 (Bob Burke Action Thrillers)

by William F. Brown

  Scalese was a big man, and the deck was hard. He lay motionless for a moment, trying to catch his breath, before he finally rolled over and got up shakily onto his hands and knees. He crawled slowly to the closest of the decorative, wooden posts that surrounded the platform and paused to look back to the wood line. Straining to see into the dark, he saw nothing and heard even less. That only made Scalese more and more nervous. He knew that prick Burke was out there somewhere, and he felt naked without his shotgun. At his size, Tony was used to dealing with problems up close with his fists or maybe a knife. He had never been a very good shot with a handgun; but with the Lupara, he didn’t have to be. Close enough was good enough with a 12-gauge scattergun.

  Finally, he turned and looked around the dark platform, certain that the sawed-off shotgun lay somewhere on the other side of the dance floor. There was a thick, wooden post in the center, which carried most of the weight of the heavy roof. He figured the shotgun must have slid behind it, so he crawled across the pitch-black platform, feeling his way across the floor with both hands out ahead of him like a blind man navigating by braille, hoping his fingers would find it. Finally, his right hand touched the shotgun’s barrel and he breathed a sigh of relief. However, when he wrapped his fingers around the short handgrip and pulled up, the shotgun wouldn’t move.

  “Looking for something, Tony?” A voice spoke to him from the darkness. It was Burke! His boot rested on top of the Lupara, pinning it down.

  Scalese looked up and saw Burke's dim outline a foot or two away, leaning casually against the pavilion’s center post. He was nearly invisible, dressed in black from head to foot, with a black ski mask, black gloves, and a strange-looking contraption on his head. The bastard must be some kind of Ninja with goddamn night vision goggles. No wonder he took his crew apart so easily. Worse, he held some kind of high-tech automatic rifle in his gloved hands. The Italian was much larger than Burke, almost twice his size, more muscular, and with broad shoulders. However, on his knees with a gun pointed at his head, there wasn’t much Scalese could do about it. He could feel the .45-caliber Colt tucked in the small of his back. Maybe, if he could work his right hand around his hip and grab it, he might stand a chance. Then, to his surprise, Burke took his foot off the shotgun.

  “Is this what you want?” Burke asked as he took a step back, inviting him to try.

  “What’s the trick? I go for it, and you shoot me in the head?”

  “Nope,” he answered as he lowered the rifle. He also pulled off the night vision goggles, the headset, and the ski mask, and tossed them all behind him, too.

  Scalese still wasn’t buying it. Ever so slowly, his fingers closed around the Lupara’s handgrip and he stood up, straightening himself to his full height until he towered over Burke. A thin smile finally crossed Scalese's lips. “You’re a fool,” he mumbled between clenched teeth. The little man had thrown away his advantage, and he had no idea who he was dealing with. Scalese’s smile slowly faded and his eyes turned cold and hard, as he raised the sawed-off shotgun with his right hand and pulled back on its twin hammers with his left, intending to cut Burke in half with a blast from both barrels. However, as Scalese swung the Lupara around, Burke stepped in close, grabbed the barrel, twisted, and snatched the shotgun out of Tony's hands. Burke then tossed it behind him with the other gear, as if Scalese were a naughty child playing with a dangerous toy. With a lightning-fast move, Burke then stepped in even closer and slammed his elbow across the bridge of Scalese’s nose. The big Italian’s head snapped back, and Burke immediately brought the elbow down on Scalese’s left collarbone, breaking it with an audible ‘snap!’

  Scalese tried to respond. He balled up his right fist and took a swing at Burke’s head, but it was too little and he was too slow. Burke caught Scalese’s right wrist, slipped under the punch, got the big man on his hip, twisting and lifting as he flipped him high in the air with apparent ease. It all happened in the blink of the eye, as Scalese crashed down on the hard wooden deck, landing on his head and left shoulder. The fall from six feet up knocked the wind out of him and left him stunned and in pain.

  That was when Scalese heard several other men laughing at him from the deep shadows. “Krav Maga?” one of them asked, referring to the deadly Israeli hand-to-hand fighting system, at which Bob Burke was an expert. “Nice to see you’ve been working on your game, Major.”

  “Don’t screw with him, Ghost. Kill him and let’s get out of here,” another added.

  “Not yet,” Burke stepped over Scalese and searched his pockets. He pulled out the stiletto, flicked the blade open, and closely examined the blade. “Is this what you used to kill my wife, Tony?” he asked as he tossed the knife behind him with the other stuff.

  “That wasn’t me. It was Greenway. I had nothin’ to do with that.” Scalese shook his head and tried to clear the cobwebs, only to feel a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest and shoulder.

  “What about the little girl? You had nothing to do with that either?”

  Scalese looked up at him defiantly and said nothing; so Burke placed his boot on the big man’s upper left chest, where the broken collarbone was located, and pressed down.

  “Ah! You son of a bitch!” Scalese screamed at him and tried to push the boot away, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Where is she, Tony?” he lifted the boot from Scalese’s chest. “I can play this all night, but you can’t; you’ll bleed to death internally. Tell me where the girl is and I’ll let you walk out of here. That’s the best offer you’re going to get.”

  Scalese’s head dropped back to the deck. “She’s in the back seat of my Lexus in the North lot with Patsy Evans and Greenway,” he finally said. “Don’t worry, my guy Jimmy’s guarding them. I’m not that stupid.”

  “Ah, crap,” one of the other voices called out from the darkness. “We put the guard down and somebody drove the Lexus out of the parking lot a couple of minutes ago.”

  Scalese looked up at him and laughed. “I guess you shot the wrong man, Burke. Jimmy was there to watch Greenway, not the girls.”

  “All right, where did he take her? Back to the CHC office?”

  “Probably. If he’s running, he’s going to need a lot more than my freakin' Lexus,” Scalese conceded painfully. “I think he’s got a bunch 'a money squirreled away somewhere in the building, so that’s where he’ll go.” Scalese rolled over and slowly got to his feet, bent over like an old man, his left arm hanging limp. “One thing though, when you get the girl, do us both a favor and kill him.”

  “Don’t worry, Tony, if he’s touched her I will; and then I’ll be back for you,” he said as he turned to walk away. “Count on it.”

  As he did, Scalese’s right hand slipped behind his back and came out holding his Colt .45 automatic. The big Italian smiled as he raised it toward Burke, knowing that the powerful handgun would blow a hole through the little man big enough for him to put his fist through. That was when the loud Boom! of a 12-gauge shotgun lit up the night. The blast caught Scalese in his right shoulder, blew the .45 out of his hand, and nearly took his arm off. Scalese staggered backward as a second blast hit him in his chest and sent him tumbling over the wooden railing. He ended up lying on the ground below, eyes wide open, looking up at the surrounding canopy of trees above him, very much dead.

  Bob turned and saw Ernie Travers step out of the deep shadows holding the Benelli shotgun. “I guess you really don’t have to be a very good shot with that thing, do you?” Bob asked.

  “Nope. Shotguns or horeshoes -- close enough is close enough,” Travers grinned as he jacked in a fresh round. “You know, we really gotta get some of these.” Satisfied, Travers turned and walked back to the tree line to retrieve the ghillie suit and the rest of the army gear he left there. He picked it up and returned to the pavilion, expecting to find Bob and his men standing there; but the dance floor was empty and Bob and the others were gone. Travers stepped to the railing and looked out into the clearing that surrounded the pavilion. Exce
pt for Tony Scalese’s body, it was empty too. To the south, he heard the muffled sound of boots running away down a gravel trail.

  “Goddamnit, Bob,” he shouted as loud as he could. “You can’t go in there alone,” he added as set off after them at a dead run.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  As he, Ace, and Vinnie ran down the path toward the South parking lot, Bob put on his headset and radioed, “Koz, stay put, we’ll come around and pick you up in five. Chester, pack up. We’re headed your way and then we’re out of here.”

  Bob turned to Ace and Vinnie and told them, “All that fireworks is bound to draw attention, so we need to double time back to the SUVs.” When they reached the South parking lot, Chester and Linda had already packed their gear and were throwing it in the back of one of the Chicago Police Department SUVs as Bob and the other two came out of the woods.

  When Linda saw three men in camouflage gear carrying automatic rifles, but no six-year-old girl, Linda screamed, “Where’s Ellie, Bob? Where’s Ellie?”

  “Greenway got away from the North parking lot in Scalese’s gold Lexus. Scalese told us Patsy and Ellie are in the back seat.”

  Linda dropped to her knees shaking her head, screaming, “That bastard, that bastard! When I get my hands on Scalese… I swear, I'm going to kill him myself."

  “You won’t have to. He’s dead. So are all the rest of them.”

  “But you promised me you’d get her back! God, I should have never…”

  “He’s headed for the CHC building, so that’s where we’re going. And I’ll get her back, Linda, like I told you I would. Now get in the car,” Slowly, as if on wooden legs, she got up, sobbing, and sat on the rear seat of the big SUV, holding her head in her hands.

  That was when Ernie Travers burst out of the woods carrying his shotgun, the ghillie camouflage suit, and an armful of gear. Bob turned and looked at him, and frowned. “I didn’t want you involved in the rest of this, Ernie.”

  “It’s a little late to worry about that isn’t it, Bob? I’m already ‘a little bit pregnant.’ Besides, you’ve got my two vehicles, and I’ve got all this gear that Ace signed for,” Travers answered as he threw the Benelli and the other equipment in the back of the SUV.

  Bob quickly turned to the three men around him. “Okay, Chester, do you still have the Semtex and detonators?”

  “Roger that. It’s in my gear bag, ready to go,” Chester nodded.

  “Semtex?” Ernie Travers looked askance at Bob.

  “I’ll explain it later, Ernie. For now, you don’t want to know,” Bob added

  “Okay, but I'm not going; I’m staying here,” Travers told him as he took off the dark overalls they gave him and he shoved them in the back of the SUV with the rest of the gear. “As soon as you guys clear the area, I’m calling it in. That way, I can feed the reporters what I want and get ahead of the story. By the time I get done, this’ll look like a Mafia turf war gone bad; and believe me, Chicago’s had enough of those to know what they look like. The woods are strewn with the bodies of a dozen or more gunmen from different parts of the DiGrigoria crime family, armed to the teeth, with their cars sitting in both parking lots. To cap it all off, Tony Scalese himself is lying back there by the Pavilion. Nobody’s going to be looking for much more of an explanation than that.”

  “You’re sure you can pull this off?” Bob asked.

  Ernie laughed. "Who would ever believe the truth — a telephone guy, a receptionist, an old CPD cop, and a squad of Deltas from Fort Bragg cleaned out the Chicago mob?"

  "Well, when you put it that way..."

  “Besides, I know a couple of really good crime reporters with the Sun Times and Tribune. Between the bodies out here and the stuff they’re still untangling about Bentley and the DiGrigorias, it shouldn’t be hard to get all the charges against you and Linda dropped, and all the rest of it shoved off on Scalese and DiGrigoria. Now get the hell out of here, ‘before I runs the lot of youse in,’ as my sainted patrolman father would’ve said.”

  “Great, that solves another problem for me,” Bob said as he reached into his pants pocket, pulled out the computer flash drive, and handed it to him. “The reports and stuff we printed out are in a thick manila envelope in the back seat of that old Taurus. I wasn’t sure what to do with it or whom I could trust, but if your Sun Times and Tribune pals are good at forensic accounting, they should be able to milk this for a long series of articles on Organized Crime in Chicago and probably win a Pulitzer Prize. My suggestion is to give half of it to each of them, and watch the feeding frenzy. In particular, tell them to follow the links between Greenway, the DiGrigorias, Tony Scalese, and a prominent local US Attorney.”

  Travers looked at him for a moment, and then nodded. “In Cook County? Wouldn’t surprise me one damned bit. But the Taurus? Isn’t that Linda’s?”

  “No, we stole it from one of your lots at O’Hare, where we left her car. By the way, we’re taking your two SUVs, and Linda left the keys to the Taurus in the ignition.”

  “Wonderful,” Travers shook his head and stepped over to where Linda sat in the SUV and knelt down next to her. “You should stay here with me until the shooting stops. I can put you and your daughter in protective custody.”

  “Until the shooting stops?” Her eyes flashed as she reached into the SUV and pulled out one of the 9-millimeter Berettas lying in back with the other equipment, and jacked a fresh round into the chamber. “You let me know when that happens, Ernie. Until then, I’m not leaving my daughter alone with that animal Greenway for one second longer than I have to. Enough talk, let’s go!” she turned toward Bob with a look of angry determination.

  As he opened the driver’s side door and got behind the wheel, Bob turned to Chester and said, “Take the other SUV, pick up Koz and The Batman in the north lot, and the three of you take care of that little errand we discussed before. They can provide you cover and run interference. Ace, Vinnie, and I are headed back to the CHC building in Indian Hills to make a house call on Dr. Greenway,” he said as he looked at his watch. “I’m showing 23:30. I want everyone back at the airplane by 01:00. That gives both teams 90 minutes to execute before it’s wheels up and back to Bragg. Chester, if it gets hairy over there, I want you to abort. I can go back and take care of that later. And Ernie, we'll leave the SUVs at the airfield. When you get a chance, check them out yourself. You might find a couple of new presents inside.”

  Lawrence Greenway sped through the dark, empty streets of Indian Hills in Tony Scalese’s blood-spattered Lexus at over 90 miles an hour. He had used the windshield washers to get the worst of the gore off, so he could at least see to drive; but he wasn’t too worried about being stopped by the town police tonight. With Chief Bentley and his nephew Bobby Joe in the morgue and the rest of the department being grilled by State Police investigators, his other 'nephews' weren't bothering anyone tonight. If they did, he held Jimmy DiCiccio’s.357-Magnum Colt Python revolver in his right hand, and what would one or two more of them matter. When he ran around the car in the Forest Preserve parking lot and got behind the wheel, he saw the big pistol lying on the ground and picked it up. Now, he wasn’t about to stop for anything.

  In the back seat, Patsy Evans sat with her arms around a terrified Ellie Sylvester, holding her close, trying to comfort her. “Let us go,” she pleaded with him. “You don’t need us.”

  “Oh, I need you more than you know, my dear. But you will. I promise you that.”

  “Then let her go. I’ll come with you and do whatever you want… I… I won’t even fight you. Please, but let her go.”

  “How noble of you, Patsy. But, no. You’ll do that anyway; and frankly, I always prefer it when you girls fight me. I know that’s how you like it too.”

  He raced into the Hills Business Park and was going far too fast when he turned into the CHC office-building parking lot. The Lexus bounced over the curb, lost a hubcap, and skidded to the left before he was finally able to bring it to stop in the handicapped spaces ne
ar the building’s front entry. Greenway grabbed the revolver off the passenger seat and got out, leaving the engine running. He intended to be back down in a few minutes, no more, and get the hell away from the building, Indian Hills, and Chicago as quickly as he could.

  Greenway pulled the rear car door open. “Get out,” he looked in and shouted at Patsy.

  “No!” she shouted back and clutched Ellie even tighter.

  “Out, now,” he ordered as he pointed the .357-Magnum Colt at Ellie and dared Patsy to keep arguing with him. There was something about looking straight down the barrel of a very large handgun like that, which sapped the courage from even the bravest. Reluctantly, Patsy edged across the seat toward him, until Greenway reached inside, grabbed her by the forearm, and dragged both her and Ellie out of the car. “You can save the petulance for later, Patsy. If you don’t do exactly what I tell you, neither you nor the little girl leaves this building alive. Do you understand me?”

  The roads leading away from the Park District Forest Preserve parking lot and the Interstate were dark and empty, until a line of police cars and ambulances raced past them in the opposite direction, lights flashing and sirens wailing. It looked like Ernie Travers was about to have his hands full, Bob thought. For the first few miles, he tried hard to keep his speed within ten miles per hour of the posted limits. With all the weapons and tactical gear in the back, the last thing he wanted was to pop up on some cop car’s radar and be stopped.