The World in Reverse (43 page)

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 war
ehouse 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 a
lready 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 i
nhaled 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 shoo
ting 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 chem
icals 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 pro
mised 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.

Seeing the note, Jim eyes went wild. “That note says that you’re next. Not us.”  He walked toward the door.

“What are you doing, Jim?” Cane asked, pointing his gun at him.

“They don't want nothing to do with us,” he said, pointing his gun back at Cane.  “This ain’t my fight.”

Grabbing the door, he screamed out. “If you want Cane, you can have him.  We just want to get out of here alive.”

“You traitorous son of a bitch!” Cane screamed to Jim.  Pulling the trigger on his shotgun, he blew a hole through Jim’s black Jack Daniel’s shirt, sending him to the ground.

The other men froze, shocked that their boss had killed their friend in cold blood.

“The mutiny begins,” Anatoly said, pulling out his grenade.

“Let ’em fly,” Nicola said over his earpiece. 

The men all released their grenades at once, throwing them toward the building.  Running back a few feet to take cover, the loud explosion crumbled the outer walls of the warehouse, rattling everything and everyone inside.

For what seemed like minutes, they rolled around the concrete floor among the debris deaf and dazed. 
When their hearing finally returned, the ringing in their bleeding ears paralyzed them.. 

That was enough for the workers.  Running toward both the front and back doors away from Cane, they came out shooting, determined to get out of the warehouse alive. 

As soon as the workers darted out, Nicola’s men began to mow them down, one at a time.  In what seemed like slow motion, their bodies flew back into the walls and onto the ground as the high-caliber bullets ripped through them. 

Cane watched in utter fear.  For the first time since all of this began, he realized that he was facing death.

“What do you want from me?” he screamed, crouching behind the wall.  “Who are you?”

“I asked the same thing when you sent your fucking punks to kill my family, you piece of shit,” Nicola screamed back to him.  Anger blazed in his eyes. 

Cane froze.  “Agosto is that you?” Shit, he thought he was dead.  Fucking Sammy couldn’t do anything right.  Slapping his forehead, he stomped the ground quietly.  None of this would be happening if it weren’t for Ferris.  Killing everyone else had given that wab-bastard time to prepare for his men to arrive.