“Easy enough for a ten year old to operate, though that’s not our demographic,” Gabriel said, pulling out an even smaller case. “And these are your best friends. Glock 19s. We’ve got more of them than the MPD has bullets. So help yourself.” Pointing over to the stash on the buffet, he raised a brow. “Concussion grenades, the regular grenades, night vision goggles, radios, flak jackets, K-bars… it’s all over there.”
Nicola turned up his lip. “Damn. I’d say that we’re ready.”
“When you are.” Gabriel looked at his phone. “What time is this shit kicking off?”
“I need Boris and Maurice to head on over and set up. Once they are in place, they need to radio in,” Nicola said, going back to the map. “We need to cut off the two road ways that head into the small warehouse and we need eyes 360 around the perimeter.”
“I can handle all of that with Boris and a few guys that are already here,” Maurice said ready to get this over with. He did have a life outside of Nicola Agosto and Dmitry Medlov, regardless of what they thought. His oldest of four girls had a ballet recital in the morning and his wife was nagging the shit out of him about being gone so much over the last week.
“Alright. Well, the brave team should head out of here at the most in an hour,” Nicola said, looking at his tactical watch. That should give us enough time to…” He stopped, hearing blood-curdling screams come from the basement.
Gabriel motioned to Boris. “Close the door to the basement, please. I don’t want to hear that bastard scream all night. Damn.”
Boris got up from his chair and stalked down the corridor toward the kitchen and basement.
“Is that Vasily working?” Nicola asked, hearing Ferris scream again.
Gabriel hated that part of his job. “Yep,” he said, disgusted. “I don’t know why he doesn’t just cut the tongue out first. It’s so annoying. I think the sick fucker likes to hear them scream all the way up to the end.” He shook his head. “Vasily needs a girlfriend.”
Nicola continued, trying not to think of what parts Vasily was cutting off of Councilman Ferris at that moment. “We should be able to get suited up and out there in an hour.”
“Anatoly will be here in about ten minutes. I’ll get him up to speed. After that, I’ll see you when I see you,” Gabriel said, offering his hand.
“Thanks.” Nicola shook his hand sincerely. “I appreciate it all.”
“Oh, my uncle never does anything for free. You’ll see.” Gabriel winked at him.
This wasn’t Nicola’s first time hearing that. Still, he couldn’t let that bother him for now. When it was time to pay the piper, he would. “Give me a minute. I need to make this call,” he said, pulling out his non-traceable phone.
***
“Hello,” Steele said, hesitant of answering a blocked number on her cell phone.
“Steele, it’s Agosto,” Nicola said, walking out of the living room. He knew that he could trust her to handle what needed to be done in the eleventh hour of this push. But he hoped more than that that she could keep her mouth shut about how she did it.
Steele froze. “One second,” she said, putting her hand over her phone and popping up from the table.
Director Amway looked up at her and frowned. “Who is it?”
“My…” Steele didn’t know how to answer and lying to the Director wasn’t an option. “Give me just a sec, okay. I’ll be right back.”
She was in a meeting with Amway and ten other men about the connection between the bombing of Cane’s house in Eads and his pharmacy in Memphis. They were promptly putting the pieces together with the Bomb Squad and knew that whoever was responsible for the bombing of Agosto, Johnson, Ferris and her house using Molotov cocktails was not the person or persons responsible for the professional bombing the buildings that day that had used C4.
Their bomb guys had referred to the two bombings as Amateur Night at the Apollo versus Beirut. Obviously the MO led them all to believe that the latest one was in retribution of the previous. The question now became who did it?
There were no fingerprints and no witnesses at either location. Ferris was missing and up until this very moment the entire Agosto family was gone. People were still demanding answers, only now they were louder, speaking to the media every half hour. They wanted to know who was responsible for the Baby Boys murders, the bombings, the riots and they now believed that Agosto could be innocent.
And reporters were creating a complete frenzy over the downtown riot the night before, which could have potentially been a lot more destructive if Amway had not had his men prepared.
Plus, everyone was still talking about Ferris announcing his decision to run for the city mayor’s job after Johnson stabbed him in the hand and shot him in the knee.
What the media did not know was that Collin Magnelli had vanished into thin air. The Deputy Director had come in just this morning and put out a missing persons report on him after he got drunk at Mother Russia the night before and bolted out of the restaurant, demanding to be simply left alone.
Going into the adjoining bathroom of Amway’s office, she closed the door and whispered into her phone. “Are you and your family alright? We’ve searched everywhere. The fucking FBI is involved. Where are you?”
“I’m fine,” Agosto said, pulling out a small piece of paper. “Something is about to hit the air. You need to know that, but when it does, I suggest that you already be at 555 State Street claiming that your unit cracked the Baby Boys case.”
“What?” she said in raised voice. “How?”
The men in the room next door curiously turned their direction to the bathroom.
“It was Ferris all along, Steele. And there isn’t going to be an easy fix for this. You have to trust me. Go to 555 State Street, with or without a warrant and raid the place before the news hits, which will be in 30 minutes or less. In the back room of the building there is a latch to an opening in the floor. Open it and go downstairs. It’s a pedophile playroom with drugs, DNA, video…God only knows what else. The building is registered to Ferris.”
“How did you find out?” she asked, pulling out her small notebook to write down the address.
“You don’t want to know. Also, considering I just gave you a career case, you have to hold me as a confidential snitch. No one can know that we spoke.”
“If this Intel is correct, you don’t have to worry about that. You don’t say anything and I won’t.” She looked at her watch. “I gotta go if I’m going to make your timeline.”
“Good. Make sure you take care of Johnson. He’s a good honest cop.”
“I will,” Steele said, opening the door. “Take care of yourself.”
***
The panic in Cane’s eyes could not have been more pronounced if he had been at his house when it was bombed. Hanging up the phone on one of his men who had been able to get through the traffic to see the destruction for himself, he turned to his men standing around in his office looking at the news and screamed.
“What the fuck are you going to do just standing there looking at that damned television?” He hit the table with the fat fingers balled up into a frustrating fist.
The men turned and looked over at him with a look of fear and disgust. He wasn’t such a bad ass now that he wasn’t the one behind the trigger. Wiping the hair out of this face, he twisted his John Deere hat around on his head and stormed out of the office into the warehouse where fifteen people in scrubs worked quietly to produce and package his new synthetic drugs.
“I’m only on day fucking one and shit is already going straight to hell,” he said, pacing around.
“What you want us to do, boss?” one of the bigger men asked.
Cane cursed under his breath and then bit his lip. “We gotta…we gotta move. I want everything stopped. Break down the equipment and get ready to move. I’m going outside to see how many trucks we got parked at the back of the dock. We need to get this shit out of the state.”
“Where?” The man
asked.
“Someplace safe, you fucking moron! Do you think that they are going to just stop once they blow up my fucking pharmacy and my house? They’re next move is going to be here as soon as they find out about it, and considering that I can’t get Ferris or fucking Magnelli on the phone, the assholes responsible probably already know.”
He walked to the back door and flung it open. The evening sunlight shined in his face. Throwing a hand up over his eyes, he knocked his hat off his head. “Fuck,” he bent down quickly to pick it up and a bullet whizzed right above his head into the building and hit one of the workers on the end of the assembly line placing the pills into small baggies.
“Oh shit!” Cane said, crawling back inside. As he slammed the metal door behind him, shots rang out again from across the lot in the bushes penetrated through the door leaving large holes.
People scattered immediately. They all ran, including Cane toward the front of the building. “Get the guns!” Cane screamed. “Get the fucking guns.”
Perched on the grassy hill under camouflage, Boris touched his earpiece informing. "They know we're here."
“Copy that,” Nicola answered, riding in the SUV convoy headed straight toward Cane’s warehouse.
Grabbing his AK-47 from behind his desk, Cane went towards the front door on the other side of the warehouse with his men. “Open it,” he told one of his guys, standing beside him.
Sweating in fear, the man hesitated as he reached for the knob. “Open it now!” Cane said, pointing his weapon at the man. He spit snuff on the floor beside them. “Open it now or I’ll kill you myself. I swear to God!”
Feeling that he had no choice, the man inhaled a deep breath and opened the door to peer out quickly. As soon as the golden sunlight hit the man’s face, Maurice, 50 yards away in the bushes, shot the man dead in the head. Brain matter splattered into Cane’s face, making him jump back from the body. “Front secured,” Maurice said into his earpiece, before the man could hit the concrete floor. He popped his bubble gum and settled back down in the bushes, completely undetectable.
“Copy that,” Nicola said with almost a grin in his voice. He was only fifteen minutes out from Cane’s place now and didn’t want the man touched until he got there. But for now, at least, they had him cornered like the animal he was.
Cane shot the gun up in the air to quiet all the ruckus inside. The men and women who were working on the assembly line turned off the machine and boxed up the Molly as fast as they could, while Cane and his twelve men went to get as many guns as they could.
“Fuck!” he screamed, kicking a box of Molly beside him. Pills scattered on the floor beneath him. “Who in the hell is that?”
“We need to be figuring out what the hell we’re going to do,” one of the men said. “I could give a fuck about who they are?”
“Jim Bob, who do you think you’re talking to?” Cane screamed.
Jim looked at his friends behind him first, then turned to Cane with a sympathetic nod. “You ain’t in charge no more, boss. We all gotta figure out how the hell to get out of this place alive. They have both exits blocked. They done blew up your house and your business from what the news say. You ain’t got much in the way of means right now. So you can point that gun at one of us again, and we gone do you ourselves.” Jim pumped his double action barrel.
“I wonder if we shouldn’t just see if we give him up will they let us go,” one of the other men behind him said, pointing his gun at Cane.
Cane weighed the situation carefully and changed his tune. “Do you really think that they killed two men without a fucking word and expect to bargain with you?” Cane screamed. “Your best bet is with me. You hear! I still got a bank of money, and if I get out of this, anyone who helps me is gonna get rewarded. I mean a hundred thousand for each of you. Now that's more money than you boys ever seen. Then we can just restart somewhere else.”
“Somewhere like where?” Jim asked. “We’ll find some place. But if we don’t figure out how to get out of here and they keep shooting at all these chemicals, then we’re going to be incinerated by the shit in all these barrels.”
He knew that they were in a tight fix. The warehouse was filled with combustible chemicals that could take out the entire area if blown up. Even if he got out alive, which was his first priority, then it would be impossible to get his entire product out. But maybe, he could use some of the chemicals in here to keep whoever was outside off his ass.
“What you think boys?” Jim asked as the self-appointed leader of their mutinous group. He was honestly tired of Cane and ready to kill him for all the trouble he had caused. The entire time that Cane had been developing this scheme against their former boss Twist and with his so-called business partners, he’d promised one thing after the other and never came through. Jim was still living in a trailer park, driving a shit pick-up and living paycheck to paycheck while Cane was relaxing in a 6,000 square foot farm house. In truth, he was sort of glad to see the bastard’s place blown to hell. It was justice for him if no one else.
“Hundred thousand sounds real nice,” one of the shorter men behind Jim said. “And what if it’s only two men out there with guns. Hell, it’s ten of us left plus the workers. We could swing it.”
That was not what Jim wanted to hear but he knew that he couldn’t do it all alone.
“Well, alright then,” Cane said, putting down his hands. Sweat poured down off his neck onto his shirt. “Let’s go find a way out of here then.” He turned the workers and screamed, “Get those barrels and bring the half-full one over here to the front door. Get some to the back door and move quickly!”
“Boss, you gotta see this quick!” one of the men screamed from Cane’s office.
“What is it now?” Cane asked, running into the room with the rest of the men.
On the monitors they watched as a long convoy of black Tahoe trucks approaching at a fast speed headed toward the entry gate of the long private gravel road. Barreling through the old gate, they knocked the temporary barricade out of the way. Metal shrapnel flew up in the air as they zoomed in, headed right toward them.
“There are five trucks,” Joe said, “There goes the whole more of us than them theory.” Suddenly, he wanted to revert back to giving up Cane. It seemed like a better idea than going up against the men coming.
Cane rolled his eyes. “Get your guns and get to the doors,” he said in a low defeated growl.
Nicola and his men were doing at least eighty miles an hour down the gravel road. Cocking their guns, they did one last radio check before they headed into position.
“What’s the status around the perimeter of the building?” Nicola asked into the radio.
“No movement in the back,” Boris said, looking out of his scope.
“No movement in the front,” Maurice said, checking his cell phone. Sending his wife a text, he focused back on his weapon.
“ETA two minutes,” Nicola said, looking over at Cory. “You ready to end this?”
“Oh yeah,” Cory grinned, pushing down on the gas. “Let’s light these motherfuckers up.”
The trucks entered through the thick trees, turning their lights on bright as they approached their destination. Pulling up to the white old warehouse, each SUV stopped at one of the four corners of the building and blared their blinding lights on the building lighting it up in the dark. Jumping out, the men pulled out their weapons. Standing behind the open doors of the truck, they pointed their guns and put their fingers on the triggers.
“They’ve got us surrounded. I count fifteen of them, all carrying automatic weapons and wearing tactical gear,” Jim said, even more nervous now. “What are we going to do, boss? We gotta do something! Can’t just sit here like a bunch of damned deer to be picked off!”
“Just let me think, damn you!” Cane screamed, getting behind a wall in the middle of the building where he could take cover as well as return fire. He crouched down behind the concrete wall and wiped the sweat from his furry brow. �
��I gotta do everything around here myself,” he mumbled under his breath.
Outside of the building, Nicola and his men took their positions among the high trees and brush. With the owls hooting, the cricket chirping and lightning bugs flying around, they quietly waited. “Settle in and wait for the signal,” he said into the ear piece. Getting on the phone, he dialed on his cell phone.
“Yeah,” Deputy Magnelli answered.
“We’re in position,” Nicola said, spitting on the ground.
“Alright.” Magnelli put his hand over the phone. “Hit it now, Billy,” he said, speaking into the radio.
“Yes, sir,” the man answered.
At that moment, the factory went completely dark. Walking a few feet away from the entry, Anatoly shot a cannon round into the front door, blowing off the knob and leaving a huge hole in the door. Immediately, Cane’s men started to fire at the door blindly. Anatoly’s man quickly ran up to the side of the door and waited a second to make sure that it was clear. As fast as he could, he opened the door, threw in the bag, closed it shut, then darted back to the safety behind the truck.
A minute later the generator kicked on and the lights came back on. The frantic men inside were still shooting toward the door. Looking around the corner of the wall, Cane stood up. Putting his hand out, he screamed. “Cease fire!”
“I told you that they wanted something,” Jim said going for the bag. “There is something inside.”
“Be sure it ain’t no damn bomb!” Cane screamed.
They waited a second before Jim picked the black bag up and felt how light it was. “Feels like a football,” he said reaching in. His hand quickly snatched back. Turning back towards the door, he dropped the contents on the floor. “Son of a bitch!” he screamed as he looked down at Sammy’s severed head. Attached to it was a note. You’re next.
Cane came from round the wall and walked up to it. Wiping his face, he growled. “Fuck you!” he screamed.
Anatoly could hear him screaming from the hole in the door. Laughing, he rolled his tired neck. “I told you that would fuck him up,” he said into his earpiece.
The World in Reverse Page 42
