Chapter 36

The takedown would happen outside the city, late at night, on an open road that would be clear of traffic at the time they were planning it.

Broker had arranged for two contractors they knew to stay round the clock with the family. Pieter Traut and Derek Coetzer nodded at all of them when they entered the home. The two South Africans slapped hands with Broker, Bwana, and Roger, who they’d met on previous assignments.

Broker had given them a tour of the house, introduced them to Tony and Eric, and had gone through schedules and details with Elaine Rocka, their professionalism and experience both apparent and comforting.

Chloe would be riding her bike the night of their attack, following the three-SUV party, to confirm that Cruz was in the motorcade and keep the rest of them updated.

She would also take out the last vehicle in their motorcade.

‘In New Jersey, on US 130, I know where,’ Broker decided as he brought up a map of the route Cruz had taken the previous nights.

‘Why so far? Why not take them down in the warehouse?’ Roger asked him as he calculated the distances, working out the logistics rapidly.

‘We’ve hit them thrice now at their places of business. I don’t want us to be predictable. Besides, gunshots in the city are bound to attract attention. If we take him in the warehouse, I expect a prolonged firefight, quite different from our rapid entry and exits earlier. On top of that, I want to know what’s in NJ, and the closer to their destination we hit them, the quicker we’ll find out what and why.’

The rest of them would be in two vehicles and would deal with the remaining Patriots. Tony and Eric had their roles to play too.

‘Chloe will be alone, without backup. You okay with this?’ Bwana shifted uneasily, looking at her.

‘Yup. That part was my plan if you recollect.’

‘Tony will be following at a distance,’ Broker said mildly, deflating Bwana’s tension. Bear looked bemusedly at him and shook his head. ‘All that badass routine… you’re just a softy underneath, aren’t you?’

Bwana gave him a look that chilled hardcore gangbangers, but it just raised a laugh from Bear.

‘What about traffic? We can’t be sure we’ll be the only ones on that stretch.’ Roger was frowning still.

Broker’s lips twitched. ‘We can. Eric will be driving a Freightliner with a container, an empty container, and it will develop some problems, if needed, and block the highway. I’ve made some calls, and we will not get attention so long as we can clear up the highway in half an hour. That should be enough for us. Tony will be backing up from the rear, a distance away.’

They took two custom-fitted Escalades from Broker’s garage: bulletproof glass, double armor- plated, run-flat tires, navigation system, impact proof, the works.

‘I have a few.’ Broker patted the roof when Bwana looked quizzically at him. They were colored a dull gray so that no shine reflected off them, and ran low on the wheels because of their weight, but the four hundred horses under the hood gave them enough muscle and torque to leave most other wheels behind.

Chloe’s ride was a favorite of hers, a Yamaha YZF-R6, fast, steady, jet black, and when she wore matching leathers, with her chest-strapped Glock, Bwana gave her a wide berth.

He shook his head admiringly. ‘That sight alone is enough to reform me. I pity those hitters.’ They loaded their weapons, Bear throwing Mossberg shotguns in the back of his Escalade, Bwana packing his long gun carefully, and when they were done, Broker placed hampers of rations in both the vehicles.

He shut the door and looked at them. ‘Let’s do it.’

 

Chloe went to their Chevy, a familiar friend by now, inserted herself in it, and checked her comms. ‘In position,’ she whispered.

‘Roger,’ came Broker, who had headed to US 130 a couple of hours earlier with Bwana as his wingman, the two of them catching a snooze, waiting for everyone to catch up and the action to begin.

‘Yup,’ Bear and Roger acknowledged, in their ride a block away.

The hoods repeated the same routine, the Cherokee coming, hitters spilling out, increasing the pace of activity in the warehouse, the three Patriots rolling in at two a.m., signaling the exodus of the workers, and then Cruz and his motorcade left at just after three a.m.

Cruz was in the middle set of wheels.

Chloe waited for them to clear the block and then unlimbered herself and jogged to the end of her street, rounding it, and reached into a dark alley for her bike. The roar, when it came, was muffled, the custom silencers doing their job. She tapped keys on her dashboard, and the navigation and tracker system sprang to life. She scanned the console swiftly, noting the three red dots, and eased out on her bike. ‘Bogeys identified and all rolling.’ She spoke normally, the days of shouting over the wind had long gone with the technology Broker had access to.

In his Escalade, Broker queried Tony and Eric, ‘You guys with us?’ and nodded silently when the affirmative replies came back. They would fall behind Chloe once they left the city behind.

Chloe zipped past dimly lit streets, the rare cab or police cruiser crossing her way. This was a different New York, silent and brooding before daylight came and restored it to its cheer and energy.

Keeping the last Patriot’s taillights in sight in the distance, her own lights doused, she followed them through Holland Tunnel, entering the Garden State, down Hoboken Avenue, then Newark Avenue.

‘I think they’re taking the US 130,’ she said in the wind.

‘Gotcha. That’s the route they took the last couple of nights. So far they’re sticking to habit, which’s bad for them, good for us.’ Broker’s baritone came back muffled, trying to clear sticky gum in his mouth.

They hit the highway at North Brunswick, and the hoods maintained a steady pace, ignoring the call of the empty expanse of tarmac ahead of them.

The gang’s motorcade took a three-hour break at a rest stop, presumably to catch up on sleep, and when they resumed their ride, Chloe followed.

The sun was painting the sky gold as suburban America fled past, places where dreams and hopes took shape, bearing names such as Cranbury Township and Windsor. Chloe started to wonder if she’d been going too fast for those behind when Broker’s baritone broke in her ear. ‘Alrighty, we’re behind you now, rather, we are behind Eric; you should see him soon. Bear is following us.’

She glanced at her mirror, and in the distance she could see Eric’s Freightliner take shape, growing larger as he ate the miles between them, the gleaming chrome grill catching the dim light. She breathed deeply, patted her gun once, and smiled when she remembered the conversation Bear and she had had. This was her life, their life… not the picket fences and children’s toys in some of the homes she rode past.

The lights ahead flared suddenly. ‘Uh-oh,’ she commented.

‘What?’ came Bear’s voice urgently.

‘They’re slowing, hang on… no, they’re speeding again, now turning, the exit to US 206. I’m following them. Eric, did you get that?’

‘Yo, ma’am, will follow your tail.’

Broker glanced at Bwana. ‘They could have made her… or maybe that’s where they were planning to go in any case.’

Bwana shrugged; he was scrolling through the navigation system. ‘Works just as well. There’s a lot of empty road and open country there.’

Broker swung the wheel and followed Eric’s truck, Roger and Bear’s ride behind them, and far behind, Tony’s van fell into position.

They drew on, the road narrowing to two lanes, the surroundings becoming thicker, densely wooded, darker, the terrain preparing itself for action.

Broker looked far ahead and behind in the mirrors. ‘Go.’

They accelerated, closing the gap to two vehicle lengths, and Eric stomped the gas, his truck filling Chloe’s mirror, escaping it as it came alongside and drew ahead, powered behind the gang’s Cherokee, and started overtaking it.

She revved, sticking close to its body not more than two feet away from its rear and using it as cover, the Freightliner’s front wheels throwing fine gravel over her, pinging her helmet.

She feathered out from behind when the truck drew abreast of the last gang vehicle, eased between the sets of wheels on either side of her, the Yamaha rock steady amidst the buffeting from both sides. Through the darkened glass of the rear window, she could make out a hitter on the phone turning back to look at her, his mouth a dark oval, and his silent shout as the Glock slid whisper smooth into her hand and she shot the right, rear tire.

Their Patriot wobbled, straightened, lost speed, and she flashed past, the sight of windows cracking open and hitters shouting fading behind her. She cut across in front of Eric, who swerved into their lane, absorbing the automatic rifle fire that spat from the gang, and she was free ahead.

The pothole came up in the edge of her vision as she was scanning her mirror; her fingers instinctively reacted, guiding the bike around it, and the handle twisted violently in her grip, and she was flying, falling, landing in the woods, rolling over and over again, her helmet cracking, until she came to rest against the bole of a tree, and woods closed in on her.

Their takedown was planned for the wider highway. On a narrower road, the margins lessened, and loose gravel around a pothole was what Broker eloquently called, ‘Shit happening when it doesn’t need to.’

She lay in her position, allowing her brain to scan her body, sending impulses to neurons, receiving acknowledgement, and decided she was fine – bruised, dazed, but in one piece – the thick leather she wore cushioning her fall. She removed her helmet and saw she was about twenty feet away from the edge of the highway, where the line of woods started. She could see the hoods parked in the distance behind her, her bike sprawled sideways at the edge of the highway. Eric’s taillights brightened as he slowed down ahead, and in the far distance she could see the two Escalades. She checked her watch, less than ten seconds since her crash.

Breathing deeply, once, twice, clearing her mind, she pressed the earbud back in and heard the urgent voices calling out for her.

‘I’m fine, guys. The bike slipped around a pothole, but I’m fine. Eric, you carry on. Broker, could Tony get me?’

‘I will, ma’am. I’m a mile behind you.’

Bear twisted back in his seat and took the scene in in a glance. ‘Chloe, are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Yes,’ she said impatiently. ‘You guys stick to the plan. Tony and I will catch up with you.’

Bear relaxed at her impatient tone and mouthed at Roger, ‘She is fine.’

‘The lady’s spoken. Let’s haul ass,’ Broker announced, and they floored their rides.

Cruz’s motorcade was visible in the distance; it had slowed down when the last vehicle had called them, and then had picked up speed, hustling down the narrow road.

One hitter stuck his head out of an open window of the lead vehicle, shouted, his words lost in the wind, poked his head out again, and fired an automatic rifle, the bullet singing harmlessly in the air.

The lead vehicle abruptly left the highway, crashing through the undergrowth in a thinner section of the woods with waist-high grass and shrubs, the tree line about a mile away. They could see heads turning and watching them through the darkened windows of Cruz’s vehicle as the two vehicles flattened undergrowth, heavy going on the soft, uneven ground. The shrub was a flat, green, dense expanse, stretching wide and deep to the tree line, with an occasional tree spearing up.

‘Woods,’ Bwana yelled, and Broker nodded. If they reached the tree line and vanished into the dense foliage, their hunt would be harder.

He swung hard, catching them, ramming Cruz’s ride in the rear, whipping it from side to side before its driver controlled it, but not before it surged forward and grazed the lead vehicle.

The two vehicles sped up, now having the advantage over the heavier pursuers. Broker’s Escalades were great for tarmac; here, they were weighed down by the armor plating and moved slower and sluggishly.

The lead vehicle angled, and two hoods opened fire from the rear windows, their bullets singing in the sky harmlessly, some spattering against their roofs. They ducked back inside when Bwana cracked his window open and loosed a long spray at them, the going too uneven for accurate shooting.

‘Come on,’ Broker growled, coaxing more torque, the RPM already in the red. ‘Rog, can you go faster?’ he shouted.

‘Nope, on this soil, this is a frigging tank.’

Two hundred yards between the pairs of wheels when luck swung their way.

The lead vehicle came to a sudden stop, its follower nearly crashing into it from behind. Bwana risked a quick poke out of the window. ‘Tree fallen across, long and wide.’

He paused for a beat. ‘Lead vehicle will pour covering fire for the rear, and they’ll make a run for it.’

‘Roger, Bear?’ he called out.

‘Yo. We know what to do.’

On cue, the first automatic opened up from the lead, followed by three others, making time for the second vehicle to turn sideways, driver side to them.

Broker opened his mouth to shout, but Bwana had leapt out, making for the brush, rolling down beneath the stream of fire, most of it going high above them. Broker turned off the ignition and, flinging his door open, dived under its cover, into the shrub.

The automatics turned off one by one as the hitters ran behind Cruz, Diego, and their driver, their heads bobbing above the waist-height shrub.

Thirteen hundred yards to the tree line.

And then the firing opened again, steady, bouncing off the now empty Escalades, seeking them in the thick grass.

Bwana looked at Broker, beneath their ride, and didn’t need to speak when he saw it in the other’s eyes. Some, maybe all five of them behind the log, providing covering fire while Cruz ran for safety.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, Roger, and nodded at what he saw in his eyes.

Roger drifted off in the undergrowth, making as much noise as a big cat, Bear shadowing him on Broker’s side. The two split wide, heading to the log from behind which the hitters were firing sporadically. They had unleashed a barrage at the green foliage and then realized they were more likely to run out of ammo than hitting anyone and had settled down to firing occasional bursts.

Bwana took a breath and leapt up once, taking in the scene at a glance. Cruz, Diego, and their driver were running to the sanctuary of the forest, trotting since Diego and the driver weren’t in the best shape, and had covered about a hundred yards.

Bwana ducked back and crawled ten feet away swiftly, just in time, avoiding a hail of bullets. ‘I’m good. Rog, Bear, take those guys out,’ he said softly before anyone asked him.

They would flank the tree from either side, about a hundred feet away, and would either take the hoods out from whatever cover they could find, or disarm them. Bear patted his pockets, he’d enough magazines with him for his handgun, but would have preferred the M41 back in their ride. He visualized the fallen tree, mentally marked where he would come at it, and the foliage opened to welcome him. The hitters had Uzis and AK-47s from the sound of them, and they had Glocks. He shrugged mentally. Felt even to him.

Bwana crawled back towards the vehicle and rolled under it, joining Broker. Broker was fiddling with something he had drawn from his fatigues, and when Bwana looked at it closely, he saw a thin cable camera that had a phone attachment at one end.

Broker twisted the long cable, and it became a firm five-foot stalk. Plugging in the phone end, he raised it above the grass, slowly, so that it didn’t stick far above the shrub.

The picture came blurry initially and then cleared, like a live video feed. The guns had gone quiet, and in the distance they could see the three who had fled had stopped and were gesticulating at one another. One of them, the driver, came running back and said something to those behind the tree, and head shakes and furious hand gestures followed.

After another round of furious hand waving, backed up by some shouting from Diego and Cruz, the driver ran backward, his hand cradling his automatic rifle. They could see heads bobbing up and down behind the log, and twin bursts of firing followed, providing covering fire for two hitters darting out, bent double, and disappearing in the shrub at opposite ends.

Bwana raised his hand and shot blindly in their direction, but knew he had missed. Broker and he crawled swiftly away, but they didn’t draw fire.

‘Bogeys coming your way, one each, maybe two,’ Bwana said in a low tone in his mic.

He got two acknowledging clicks.

‘I think all four have left the tree,’ Broker told him in a low voice.

Bwana risked another quick leap and saw no bobbing heads. He crouched down and looked as Broker scanned his camera and shook his head. He hustled a few feet at an angle, in the direction of the tree, and raised his head again, gun ready. Nothing.

Cruz and his companions were making distance, and Bwana, after motioning to Broker, set off after them, his Glock held high and ready.

Bear paused and lay prone, the pungent smell of wet soil and the vastness of silence surrounding him. Another slow day in rural America to savor the sun, but for the hitters out to get them.

The hitters would know roughly where they were, and if their training was still with them, would search in sections, but keep each other in sight. Ten minutes, Bear reckoned and started counting down.

In the ninth minute, he heard something move, a long pause, and then another movement. The undergrowth wasn’t one thick wall, but patches of thick and thin, and occasional bare earth sections, though from a distance, it was one rolling green wall.

Bear was in one thick pocket of green next to a small bare earth space, and if the hitters were good, they’d be coming at him at an angle, about fifteen feet apart. Closer than that and they would be one target; farther than that and they wouldn’t be able to eye-signal effectively. They would come to brown earth and would be undecided which section to search. A slug crawled across slowly, came across the cold metal of his Glock, didn’t like it, reversed and ambled away, enjoying the day.

The smell came to him first, cigarette smoke and sweat, clinging to the clothes of the hitters, and then came a footfall and another, and then a couple more, and a shadow fell across the opening, and then a barrel poked through the green, and a face appeared behind it, thirty feet from where he lay.

He’ll be the more experienced; the second guy will be backing him up, or parallel to him, and to his right; the human eye tends to look to the right first.

Bear searched without moving and saw a slight darkening in the green, looked to the left of it, and through the edge of his eyes saw the shape of the other hitter. Another barrel poked out twenty feet away, and Bear and the two hitters made a crude upturned L, Bear the angling tail.

The hitters peered cautiously at the open space and at each other, and took a cautious step forward. Bear clicked his earbud, and Bwana, who was chasing Cruz and Diego, spun round in a full loop, firing blindly.

The hitters started and looked back, and Bear rose silently, a pillar amidst the foliage, and shot the nearest in the head. He snapped a shot at the other, missed, and dived in the thicket, ducking below the spray of bullets.

The second hitter ducked down, and silence and sunlight beat on them again. The hitter fired again blindly through the undergrowth in Bear’s direction.

Bear wasn’t there.

He had rolled and moved forward as soon as he’d landed and was now behind the hitter’s right shoulder.

The hitter stopped firing suddenly when he realized it would give him away. He crawled cautiously around the open space and through the stalks of grass, saw the undergrowth bend forward and straighten slowly as weight moved over and away from it.

He fired a long burst, directing his barrel in an arc to cover the shape of a man.

From behind him, Bear rose and tripled-tapped him.

He double-clicked his mic and got acknowledgements from the others, untied the long cord attached to the thicket, and waited for Roger.

The sun, the smell of grass, the stillness made it a good day for death to come visiting.

 

A bird flying across the blue sky swerved suddenly, and Roger knew where they were before they came in sight. Swarthy, unshaven, the two came abreast cautiously, and he saw that the taller man was the more experienced of the two and had good tradecraft.

His eyes were ceaselessly scanning left to right, then right to left, but his partner was jumpy. His partner kept drifting closer to the senior man and retreated jerkily when the tall man gestured angrily at him.

Roger slithered back slowly, sliding through the grass rather than over it, so that from the top, the grass looked as if it swayed with the wind.

A gnarled, stunted bush, its leafy shade stretching above the canopy of the field, trembled in the sun, drawing the attention of both.

They stopped. The tall one looked at it, then around it, trying to see through the depth of the growth, looking for patches of dark and light. The other nervously licked his lips, his barrel pointing straight at the shrub, finger on trigger.

The bush jerked forward suddenly toward them as if attacking them, and the nervous one fired his Uzi wildly at it till his magazine was empty.

The tall hood placed methodical shots ahead and behind the growth – and then his gun fell silent as Roger shot him, a double-tap through the chest and a third through the head. The nervous hood went down seconds later as Roger’s Kimber rolled thunder in a cloudless morning.

Roger went to the bush and freed the cord he had used to control it, rolled it up and jammed it deep in one of his pockets. He double-clicked to signal his companions and searched the bodies. He found one phone on the bodies, which he pocketed, and found no identities or papers of any kind.

 

Bwana and Broker were gaining on the three hoods when the last one, the driver, swung back and fired a spray-and-pray burst. They dived to the ground, and Broker raised himself to his elbow, grunted, ‘Go,’ and fired back at the hood. The range was too long for accurate handgun shooting, but it was enough to deter the driver, who stepped back and resumed running, ignoring Cruz’s curses.

Bwana covered ground rapidly, the undergrowth bending to his will; the driver looked back at him and gaped at the sight of the tall, big, black form speeding remorselessly after them.

One hundred feet away, the driver turned back again, his barrel coming up, and Bwana dived to his left, a long sail in the air, his gun coming straight, eye to the sight, sight to the driver, and punched a hole in his shoulder. The hitter stumbled and fell, losing his rifle, and Bwana circled him wide and took him out.

Two hundred yards to the tree line and Diego and Cruz, risking a quick glance behind them, coaxed more speed from their legs.

Bwana picked up the fallen man’s AK-47, looked over it swiftly, thumbed it to semi-auto, kneeled down in a classic shooter stance, and sighted. The first shot was for range, the second was range again, the third shot went into Diego’s thigh and brought him down sprawling.

Bwana shifted and fired a shot over Cruz’s shoulder; he kept on running still. He fired another, over his other shoulder, no effect. Cruz was weaving erratically to throw off his aim; Bwana waited and then creased his shoulder, more by luck. Cruz stumbled, recovered, and then hugged the ground and lay there when Bwana shot over his head.

Broker reached them, circling cautiously, keeping behind Diego’s back. His caution was justified when Diego whirled on his back and came up with his gun, pressing the trigger. Broker shot him in his right shoulder, shooting his other thigh for good measure.

Bwana had restrained Cruz, a knee on his back, one hand pressing Cruz’s right hand deep in the ground. Cruz thrashed on the ground, nearly unseating Bwana, a stream of curses filling the air. Bwana slashed his head with his gun barrel, and that drained his resistance. He removed plastic ties from his belt, and Cruz struck.

Using his grounded hand as a pivot, using the force Bwana was bearing down on him, Cruz twisted sideways and jerked back with his head, catching Bwana on the bridge of his nose. Bwana, his grip loosened, reared back as Cruz whipped a foot-long blade from an ankle sheath, twisted around on his right shoulder and slashed at Bwana.

Sharp, so sharp that it cut the light, the blade swept from left to right, a neat horizontal line appearing in Bwana’s shirt that turned crimson and then black. Using the twisting motion to free a leg and get it under him, gaining leverage, Cruz swept back the blade in a wicked arc, aiming for Bwana’s throat.

Bwana, half falling back, losing his balance, deflected the strike with his right hand and, with his left hand, bunched Cruz’s shirt, put a knee to his middle and heaved him over his head, and threw him behind.

He rolled immediately, getting to his feet and turning around, and Cruz was up, attacking, not giving him time. He had run almost half a mile, but he was breathing normally, the knife weaving in his hand, catching the sunlight in tiny streaks.

He feinted, withdrew, feinted and attacked, a quick in an out at Bwana’s stomach, and Bwana stepped back. He darted forward again, and this time the blade went horizontal and upward, a smooth controlled flow, and Bwana swayed out of reach again.

Bwana reached down for his knife, but stopped when Cruz feinted again, a long sweep of his arm, Bwana following it with his eyes, and the arm swerved suddenly up, Bwana moving just his upper body and his head, the sharp edge catching the tip of his ear.

Cruz bared his teeth in a feral grin, attacked rapidly, thrusting in short fluid motions, and as his right arm was cutting the air, the left hand, which was stretched for balance, cocked and swung at Bwana… who was ready for it, sailed under it, and the knife came back, lightning fast, parting the air, aiming for his throat.

Bwana bent back, making room and then following the blade, grasped Cruz’s wrist in a lock that had crushed bricks, pulled Cruz forward, kicking him in the groin, his leg curling up in the same motion to knee him in the face, swayed to the side, still holding his wrist, twisted and dislocated his shoulder.

He threw Cruz to the ground and grasped his hair to pull his head back and break his neck.

‘No,’ Broker said quietly.

Bwana paused, looked silently at him, Cruz’s harsh breathing punctuating the seconds, and slowly released his head, and finally cuffed and gagged him.

He stood up, breathed deeply once, twice, then thrice, to rid his head of the adrenaline and combat instinct, and caught Broker’s smile.

‘You could’ve shot him and saved me the trouble.’ He grinned.

‘I thought it was high time you took a shower, and this now gives you the reason,’ Broker bantered back. He’d guessed, correctly, that the two swipes were more blood than cuts, and would heal in no time.

‘Were you slow, or…?’ Broker asked.

‘Nope. I wanted him to draw blood, make him confident. Overconfident.’

He walked over to Diego, crouched down, and looked in the hate-filled eyes. The feared enforcer stared back and spat at Bwana, who ducked and smiled at Broker.

‘Feisty fella, ain’t he? Let’s see just how long he lasts.’ He pressed down on the wound in Diego’s thigh.

Diego cracked ten minutes later and told them what they wanted to know.

They looked up as steps came their way – Roger and Bear, who had finished searching the bodies and stacked them together.

‘What?’ Bwana demanded, seeing something in their eyes.

‘Chloe, she’s not answering. Tony too. Eric doesn’t know where they are. He thought they would be here by now.’