Blond Cargo (24 page)

“You’re shitting me,” Nick said.

“We can start the car, turn off the power, lock the doors, unlock the doors, pop the trunk, and deploy the air bags. This bad boy is basically our bitch.”

“Stopping the car is the point,” Nick said. “Popping the trunk could bring it home. And you’re comfortable with the setup?” he asked Jack, knowing this wasn’t his maiden sting.

Mateo jumped in. “We took a million five off a Colombian laundering cell up in Great Neck, same basics. Used a cutoff switch that was attached under the hood. With the new technology, we don’t even have to get our hands dirty.”

“Too late for that,” Nick said without humor. “Guys like you are the reason the cops are always one step behind the scumbags.”

Mateo stiffened. “I thought we were fighting the same war.”

“Right.”

“Maybe we’ll stay lucky,” Jack interjected, trying to diffuse the direction the conversation had taken. His back was knotted up and firing currents of pain up and down his spine. “But in case it doesn’t work”—Jack pierced a rear taillight with a Phillips-head screwdriver—“you can pull him over the old-fashioned way.”

Nick held out his hands, gesturing
What the fuck, Bertolino?
and shook his head in exasperation. As tired as Jack was, he took the time to enjoy the moment.

“All right,” Cruz said. “I just got the ID on the transponder. Now we’ll be able to pick up the car’s GPS signal.”

“Range?” Nick asked.

“You could be sitting in your living room. As long as you’ve got my laptop, you’re good to go.”

“Let’s wrap it up,” Jack said. And then to Nick, “We’ll track the Yukon, and when we’re a safe distance from the club, so they don’t trip to there being a connection, you give us the go-ahead and we’ll disable the car. Then it’s your scene. We’re only there in case of a fuckup.”

Cruz reengaged the alarm system and locked the doors from his computer while Mateo closed up the back and wiped the car clean of prints.

“This has gotta play out like a bad-luck bust, just the shitty luck of the draw,” Jack said. “We want the gang to go back to doing business as usual. I wanna twist the knife, keep Malic off balance, but I don’t want him running for the exits just yet.”

Jack had taken the first watch while he let Cruz sleep in the back of the Beemer, and in the end he was in too much pain to fall out himself, so he let him sleep.

Jack never minded surveillance work when he wore a badge. He could sit for days outside a cartel safe house until he had logged the license plates of all the clients and had proven without a shadow of a doubt that the house was loaded. Then he’d call up his team, and they’d execute a warrant and shut down the entire drug or money-laundering cell.

Jack was into career building during his son’s first year of Little League and missed far too many games. He lived with the guilt and was still trying to make up for being an absentee father.

Jack would call him after the game, keeping one eye trained on the drug house, while Chris gave him the cold shoulder over the phone. But Jack could always break through. The love of baseball, and a father’s love for his son, won out.

Chris would loosen up and narrate a play-by-play of every hit, every run, every pitch he threw, every strike, walk, and tag-out he made, like a young Howard Cosell.

Now Jack had second thoughts every time he picked up the phone to call.

Chris had met with Dr. Leland, the shrink, but Jack had no idea how the session had gone or whether he’d even shown up for his second appointment. The cast on Chris’s arm had been realigned in an attempt to stop the night pain, but Jack didn’t know if the procedure had been successful. The neurologist had also prescribed some heavy-duty, non-narcotic pain medication. Jack prayed it worked.

Chris had promised he was clean, and if he wasn’t too far gone, Jack thought, it might be the truth.

The men were all in foul, pissed-off moods three hours later when they shook themselves awake, revved their engines, and prepared to hit the road. The adrenaline that usually came before a takedown did little to buoy the energy in the three cars.

Mateo was parked around the block, reclined behind the wheel of his Explorer, and Nick was in his mammoth black Expedition on Airport Way, surly, hungover, and waiting for a go signal. Each car was equipped with a walkie-talkie provided by Dick Trammel. Jack made a mental note to take the man out for a steak dinner when the dust settled.

Normally, Jack would have run a classic progressive surveillance on the Yukon, stagger their three cars and when one driver radioed the Yukon’s position, that car would leapfrog ahead of the target and be replaced by the next member of the team. That way if the target became suspicious of being followed, he’d never make the tail, because it was constantly changing.

Now that the GPS signal had been hacked by Cruz, the group could hang back at a safe distance and wait until it was time for the takedown.

The first complication appeared after the silver Porsche roared by and entered the parking structure. A Jaguar XK that Jack had taken a photo of outside the Iraqi social club was trolling down Von Karman Avenue, checking the parked cars, looking for anything suspicious.

Jack caught the maneuver in his rearview, turned off his engine, and slid down in his seat. While hunched down, he warned Mateo. Cruz didn’t have to be told and Nick wasn’t directly in the line of fire.

After the man in the Jag had made a full sweep of both sides of the block and was satisfied all was clear, he pulled to a stop outside the enclosed parking structure at Irvine Towers with his engine idling. Jack saw him raise a cell phone to his ear and a few seconds later lower it.

The silver Porsche barreled out of the enclosure with the black Yukon so tight on its bumper it looked like a killer whale closing in on a seal. The Jaguar squealed away from the curb and assumed the rear position. The three-car motorcade traveled northeast on Airport Way and hung a tight left onto MacArthur Boulevard.

Nick reported that he had a visual and followed five cars back as Jack and Mateo played catch-up.

In the wee hours while the others were asleep, Jack had pulled up on his laptop three main routes to Detroit, highlighted on MapQuest. His guy would likely take one of the two overlapping routes because they both passed through Vegas and Denver before splitting off toward the Motor City. And Jack had never met a gangster who could pass up a night on the town in Vegas.

After talking with Nick, they decided that they would pull the trigger where the I-15 crossed I-10 in Ontario. Nick knew the local cops and could call for backup if needed.

They hoped that the trailing cars would carry the Yukon until Jamboree turned into the CA-261 N, a toll road and then drop off when it crossed under the I-5. That didn’t happen, and Jack and the men started to worry. Engaging the armed entourage would be a total cluster fuck. They might have to rethink their strategy and let the drugs slip through their fingers.

The only thing that made sense, unless all three cars were going to Las Vegas, was that the Iraqis would now peel off when CA 91 E crossed the I-15, which was a straight shot to Vegas. And that’s exactly how it played out.

Jack’s heart rate quickened, and Cruz’s foot tapped nervously on the floorboard as they watched the two exotic cars disappear down the exit ramp—heading for home, Jack expected.

With approximately five miles to go, Nick backed off the gas and Mateo sped past the Yukon. He would stay a few hundred feet ahead and then pull over when he got word that the target was disabled and he was out of the Yukon’s line of vision.

Jack would pull to the side of the highway a few hundred feet behind and raise his hood, feigning motor trouble.

Nick would arrive a few minutes later and engage the driver. Ask if he could be of service. Bad luck breaking down on the highway, that sort of thing. Keep it light. Then he’d flash his badge and ask to see license and registration. As soon as the bearded Iraqi opened the door, the smell of marijuana would give Nick probable cause, and he’d slap on the cuffs. No muss, no fuss. A clean bust.

That was the plan.

Jack’s BMW pulled about ten car lengths behind the Yukon, and when the I-15 approached I-10, he gave the go signal.

Cruz tapped a few strokes into the computer.

He banged Enter.

The Yukon shuddered, swerved, and then started to decelerate. The driver frantically tried to merge to the right. With his power steering gone, the wheel leaden in his hands, he fought to navigate a safe exit from the freeway.

Jack pulled onto the shoulder with the Yukon still in his line of vision but far enough back to assuage suspicion.

Mateo disappeared around a bend in the highway, waiting for an all-clear over the walkie-talkie.

The Iraqi pumped his brakes and executed a gravel-spitting stop on the side of the I-15, unaware that his rear brake light was smashed. He immediately jumped out of the vehicle with a phone plastered to his ear and slammed the car door. His anger could be read at a hundred paces.

Nick passed the BMW, pulled comfortably to the side of the highway, and parked behind the Yukon.

Nick was a good actor when called for, and Jack could tell by his body language that he was offering friendly help, just a Good Samaritan, but the Iraqi was shaking his head, friendly enough, but not taking the bait.

“He won’t open the door,” Cruz said.

Jack knew they were shit out of luck without entrée to the car. The bust wouldn’t stick.

“You said you could lower the windows and pop open the back. Do it now.”

Cruz tapped a few keys and hit Send.

Nick and the startled Iraqi turned toward the Yukon as all of the tinted windows powered down and the rear panel yawned open.

Nick pulled out his badge as the dark-haired Iraqi pulled a nine-millimeter from a shoulder holster.

The passenger door to the Yukon flew open, and the raven-haired woman leaped out, ran, stumbled, and scrabbled down the side of the grassy embankment toward I-10.

Jack sprinted toward Nick, a bullet in the Glock’s chamber. He fired one into the air to get the Iraqi’s attention, and when the desperate man flinched, Nick punched him in the side of the head and drew his own police-issue.

The Iraqi went down, rolled, and came up on one knee firing, putting the Yukon between his body and Nick’s gun.

Nick ducked behind his Expedition as his side windows exploded, raining shards of safety glass over his head and hair, really pissing him off.

The silver Porsche and the Jaguar screamed up the road doing 120. They both went into power skids and chattered to spinning stops in the middle of the four-lane highway. The Iraqi gangsters jumped out of their vehicles and laid down suppressing fire.

Jack, being fully exposed, hit the deck.

Bullets punctured Nick’s Expedition.

Traffic screeched to a dead halt in both directions and then the sound of metal smashing metal, a panicked chain reaction of fender benders, punctuated the firefight.

Jack, wary of collateral damage, scrabbled closer, looking for a clean shot, but was forced to hold his fire.

Mateo rounded the bend but couldn’t pull the trigger without the risk of hitting his own men or the civilians caught in the logjam.

The dark-haired Iraqi jumped to his feet and fired his weapon, forcing Nick farther back, then bolted away, running a zigzag pattern toward his comrades, who continued to provide protective cover. He leaped into the Jag, slapped in a fresh clip, and started shooting out the window, covering his men as they jumped back into their vehicles and executed tire-spinning exits.

Jack ran up to check on Nick, who was already in the middle of the highway in a two-handed stance. He fired once and was forced to hold up because Mateo stepped into his line of fire.

“Get the fuck down!” Nick shouted.

But Mateo was in the zone.

The Porsche and Jag were pushing sixty as they hit the bend in the road, slid, and rocketed past. Mateo raised his weapon and fired, fired, fired, missing the Jag but scoring direct hits into the rear engine block of the Porsche.

The silver sports car went into a death spin. The forward momentum caused the car to go airborne, flip, and careen end over end until it came to a metal-wrenching, spark-gushing stop. Smoke billowed out of the engine compartment, and Jack and Nick immediately raced to the scene. The door was locked, the driver unconscious.

Jack used the butt of his pistol to break the window and open the door. Nick pulled the unconscious driver out and dragged him a safe distance before the car became fully engulfed in flames.

Jack, Nick, and Mateo looked on as one hundred and twenty thousand dollars’ worth of luxury vehicle exploded in a massive ball of fire.

Commuters jumped out of their cars, dialing 911, talking excitedly, and taking videos and photos with their smartphones.

“That went well,” Nick said, bone-dry.

Two police helicopters appeared overhead and circled like vultures.

“Good shooting,” Jack said to Mateo, who accepted the compliment silently.

“He missed the Jag,” Nick said, not expecting a response and not getting one. They all knew he was talking schoolyard bullshit.

While they surveyed the carnage, Cruz stumbled up over the ridge, dusty, bruised, and dragging the obstinate raven-haired beauty by the arm.

“Least the kid got lucky,” Jack deadpanned.

“We’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” Mateo said.

“They shot my fucking car,” Nick added through clenched teeth.

No sympathy from the crew.

The Ontario police arrived en masse, lights flashing, sirens wailing, and too many guns drawn to count. Nick badged the onslaught, but all five of them were ordered to throw down their weapons and assume the position until the Ontario police sorted things out.

So much for friends in the department, Jack thought, as he lay spread-eagled on the hot pavement of the I-15.

36

Rarefied air, Malic thought as he looked over the Lucite screen where the Azure Architectural Firm was finishing off a PowerPoint presentation in Vargas’s conference room. The screen had been set up in front of an expansive window on the thirty-eighth floor of the KPMG building and showed how the present skyline would be altered with the addition of the Spring Street complex.