Fallen Honor: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 7) (37 page)

“Looks like it’s all here, then,” Donnie said and took the case from the man.

I had my other eye open and saw the pilot’s door move slightly as he made ready to exit the chopper.

“Wait one,” Travis said. “Wait for them to pick up the crate and move away from the bird.”

Brown and the second man bent and picked up the crate, carrying it sideways toward the waiting airboat.

“Move now!” Travis’s voice came over the comm.

In my peripheral vision I saw three men to the left of and on the other side of the chopper rise as one. Bond’s voice boomed, “Don’t move! This is Homeland Security and you’re all under arrest!”

I heard the crash of the crate falling on the sand as my left eye slowly closed, my attention now fully on the man in my reticle. As he started to bring the weapon up, I heard two shots ring out. The man’s rifle continued coming up, the cross hairs in my reticle were center mass, and I squeezed the trigger. The impact of the bullet lifted him off his feet, like a spring was attached to his back and suddenly recoiled.

Sweeping the scene for another target, I heard more gunshots and shouting, then everything went quiet. Lowering the rifle, I saw four men down on the ground and one kneeling by the crate. Donnie was directly behind him, his Sig pointed squarely at the back of the man’s head, as he shouted orders at him.

Scott and I sloshed quickly through the knee-deep water, arriving just ahead of Guthrie and his shooter. Donnie and the pilot had Brown down on the ground, the pilot’s knee planted squarely in the middle of his back as Brown screamed in agony.

“Six Actual to Alpha One! The takedown team in Naranja reports that there is nobody at the store! Repeat. Negative contact at Austin Brown’s gun store.”

D
riving on US-1, the sun now high behind them, Malik asked, “How’d you know we were being watched?”

GT was in a surly mood and Conner was asleep in the back of the old Volkswagen van. “You gotta pay closer attention to details, Malik, if you want Erik’s job. When we first got there a white van with dark windows was parked at the video store across the street with four other cars. Three hours later, the van and one of the cars was still there, when the place was closing. You ever take three hours to pick out a fuck-flick? I remembered seeing a van just like it pass by when Brown’s wife picked us up, and again later coming through Key Largo.”

“The guys should have the guns by now,” Malik said, checking his watch. “Brown said it’d take less than an hour to get back and the Maggio guy would fly them from Homestead airport, where they left the rental van. That means they oughta be in the air pretty soon. It’s almost nine o’clock.”

Clicking the end button on his phone, GT said, “Brown’s still not answering. You got one of the guys’ numbers in your phone?”

“Yeah, I got all four. Hang on.” Holding the phone on the steering wheel of Brown’s wife’s decrepit van, he scrolled through his contact list and tapped on a name. A moment later, he scrolled again, then a third and fourth time.

Putting the phone in his pocket, he said, “No answer from any of them.”

Crossing the bridge onto Stock Island, GT shouted back at Conner. “Wake up! We’re almost there.”

Conner moved up to one of the plush swivel chairs just behind the front seat. “Key West?”

“Yeah,” GT replied. “I need you alert.”

“I really don’t know what good I’ll be, Mister Bradley. I’ve never even been in a fight before.”

“Maybe not, but an extra pair of eyes and ears can’t hurt.”

The van rolled across another bridge onto the island of Key West. “Go right,” GT instructed.

Malik made the right turn onto Truman Street, the VW van backfiring when he gave it too much gas.

“About a mile ahead,” GT said, “take a right on Duval Street and then look for Eaton Street on the left. The place we’re going is just around the corner from there.”

Ten minutes later, the old van pulled into a small shopping center and parked in the shade of a big banyan tree on the corner across from the fortuneteller’s store.

“We wait here,” GT said, peeling two twenties off his new money roll and handing them to Conner. “I saw a sandwich shop around the corner. Go get us something to eat.”

After Conner left, Malik asked, “How long we gonna wait?”

“Till either the fortuneteller or our guys get here.”

A
irborne once again, the Bell commuter helicopter flew directly toward the sun, now high in the morning sky. The sawgrass on the landscape below gently bent and swayed, waving in the light breeze, a stark contrast to the Miami skyline ahead.

“Did he tell you anything?” Travis’s voice asked over the headphones I was wearing. Scott, Germ, and Donnie sat across from me. Bond, Guthrie, and the other three men who I’d never learned the names of stayed behind to wait for another helicopter from Homestead to come and get the bodies and the prisoner.

“Nothing useful,” I replied. “Said he didn’t know Bradley wasn’t accompanying him to the meet until just before they got in the van to leave. He said Bradley didn’t even give him a reason, just handed one of his guys the briefcase with the money in it and told them to get back as fast as they could. Has the takedown team learned anything?”

“Brown’s wife arrived to open the store at oh seven-thirty hours,” Travis replied. “They only live a block away and she was walking. Venomous woman from what Kumar said.”

Kumar Sayef is part of Deuce’s first team, now reassigned as the Bravo Team leader. A former Delta Force interpreter and interrogator, he’s about my age and had been a sergeant first class, until Deuce recruited him. He speaks a number of Middle Eastern languages and dialects.

“We’re going straight there,” I said. “Donnie says the area behind the gun store is large enough to land a helo.”

“If they slipped out after Brown left,” Travis said, “they have a three-hour head start. They might have stolen or even rented a car and be as far north as Melbourne or Orlando.”

“I don’t think so, Colonel. Bradley doesn’t strike me as the type to let things go. He brought his own muscle down all the way from Pittsburgh, rented a nine-passenger van for five guys, and arranged to buy guns. Doesn’t sound to me like someone who’d just up and change their mind.”

“Your daughter’s getting worried,” Travis said.

“Tell her what you think you can, Colonel. I trust both her and Nick.”

“I do too,” he replied. “Call me when you’re on the ground.”

Removing the headphones, I leaned toward Scott. All three men had been listening in. “What am I missing?”

“Her car,” Donnie replied.

“What car? The Colonel said they only live a couple blocks away.”

“Aye, I heard that. Reckon she also walks to the grocer? Carries everything back in her hands? I been here in the land of opportunity only ten years, mate. But one thing I’ve noticed for sure is that every married couple has two cars.”

The nose of the chopper came up, the pilot slowing and circling to the left. Through the Plexiglas I could see the gun store, easily recognizable by the flashing lights of two cars and a large black van and the number of people outside holding guns.

On the ground again, I trotted quickly around the building toward the group of men in the parking lot. I spotted Kumar coming out of the store and changed direction toward him.

“Find out anything from the wife?” I asked him without preamble.

“She’s not talking, Jesse. What about Brown?”

“In a lot of pain. An old back injury got reinjured. Donnie shot him up with enough morphine to deaden the pain and more than enough to loosen his tongue. Said he had no idea that Bradley and Conner weren’t coming out there and no clue why they’re not still here. Where’s the wife’s car?”

“I just sent two men to check their house,” he said, pointing back toward the chopper. “It’s just beyond those trees. No car there and only the husband’s monster truck here. However, there are two grease stains on the concrete driveway. Chyrel is checking DMV records now.”

Pulling my sat-phone out, I called Travis. “We’re here,” I said as soon as he answered. “Kumar says there’s no second car at their house. Any word from Chyrel on the wife’s car?”

“Just got it, should be coming to both you and Kumar, too. Besides the Dodge truck, they also own a sixty-six Volkswagen van converted into a camper.”

My phone beeped but, knowing it was the incoming text from Chyrel, I ignored it. “I think it’s time to get local law enforcement’s help, Colonel.”

“Doing that as we speak,” he replied as my phone beeped a second time. “I’m putting out an APB on the van, Bradley, and Conner. Did you learn the other guy’s name?”

“Brown called him Malik, but said he didn’t know the last name.”

“Alright, keep me posted.”

I closed the phone without checking the text message. Nothing I could do about it here, anyway.
In fact, there wasn’t anything I could do about anything here
, I thought. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the urge to be somewhere else. Anywhere where I could hold a rod in one hand and a beer in the other. Anywhere near crystal-clear water.

Frustrated, I turned and looked around the lot and building. That’s when I noticed Binkowski’s van parked in the empty parking lot across the street. The parking lot looked like it could hold twenty cars and, except for the van, it was empty. A big white sign stood by the entrance with XXX written in big red letters. The van stuck out like a sore thumb.

Kumar was talking to two of his men a few feet away. “Kumar, where’s Binkowski?”

“He left four hours ago, before the raid. Guthrie asked to be part of your takedown team, so I assigned someone else to the van.” He frowned and looked across the street. “He hasn’t checked in since Brown and the other four men left.”

Together, we sprinted across the street and into the parking lot. Reaching the van, we both pulled our sidearms and cautiously approached it. A slight gust of wind told me all I needed to know, as the stench of death it carried reached my nostrils.

Kumar stood off to the side, weapon ready. I grabbed the door handle and yanked the door open, instantly bringing up my Sig. A body lay on the floor of the van in a pool of congealed blood. The temperature inside had to be well over a hundred and thirty degrees and the body was bloated, nearly unrecognizable.

Kumar keyed the mic hanging on the front of his body armor. “Get three men over here, now! Cordon off this parking lot, and someone call the sheriff’s office and the base coroner.”

Turning to me, Kumar sighed, his shoulders falling. I saw the look in his face. I’d had it myself on more than one occasion. “His name was Greg Murray,” Kumar said quietly. “Five years with the Rangers. He was only twenty-four years old, married with a two-year-old son. I recruited him myself.”

Scott and Donnie came running over with three other men from Kumar’s team. “The wife just tried to make a break for it,” Scott said. “She made it out the back door, but one of the guys caught her just standing in the parking lot out back. She had a set of keys in her hand.”

“We gotta find that van,” I said to nobody in particular. Then I remembered the text from Chyrel and the second text notification.
Maybe she found out something
, I thought, pulling my phone out of my pocket.

Looking at the screen, I saw that there were two messages, but only one of them was from Chyrel. The other was a voice mail from Lawrence, which I clicked, then put the phone to my ear.