Chapter19

 

“They’re on the move!” one of the technicians yelled.

“What’s the count?” Berkner asked, his voice strained, even though he hadn’t been shouting – not consciously anyway.

Inside his head, he’d screamed the whole time, over every flawed move, over the fact that this old time hoodlum seemed to be making a mockery of them, predicting their moves to avoid them, countering moves that should have boxed him in.

“Two down, three on the move.”

“And the package.”

“Out in the open.”

“And our resources?”

“Not much, sir,” one of the technicians said. “We have remote and a few drones. But ground assets aren’t yet able to pursue.”

“What about the others – the boots on their way to the site? Can they be diverted?”

“They’re on the wrong side of the scene. Our targets are traveling north. Our people are coming to the site from the south. We can try to divert them. But we would need to have a better fix on where our target is heading otherwise, they might slip away.”

“Get that fix, damn it! Keep on them with the drones until we do.”

 

***************************

 

The red Honda moved through the narrow streets a few miles per hour above the speed limit.

“Not too fast, not too slow,” Ponci said, holding onto his side. The bleeding had started again.

Sara noticed.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

“We’re both hurt,” Ponci said, nodding at Luis in the back seat.

“We should stop at a drug store and get something,” Sara said.

“Not yet, not unless it gets worse,” Ponci said, then looked back at Luis. “Give me the package.”

Luis passed the package forward between the seats. Ponci positioned it on his lap, staring down at it. This was what the whole damned thing was about, a box with the now-brown stains of the Fed Ex driver’s blood.

“We can’t stay on the road,” Ponci said, glancing out the window at the passing factories. They were headed north, towards the boundary of Nutley.

“We can go back to my place?” Sara suggested.

“No, we can’t. By this time, someone will be looking there. Going there once was dangerous enough.”

“Then where do we go?”

“What time is it?”

Luis mumbled the time from the back seat.

“Too early to go to the train station for our meeting with the man,” Ponci said. “We go there too soon someone’s bound to spot us.”

“What do you mean?” Sara asked.

“I mean we’re hot. Our descriptions are probably in every patrol car. And what’s worse, this car is probably being tracked. There were drones back there. Small weapon variety, but it says something about the level of technology we’re dealing with. If there were small drones, then they have big drones, too, watching us from above. With that kind of technology, you can bet they’ll have facial recognition software, and every camera in the train station will be monitored.”

“By the police?”

“No,” Ponci said. “Something worse. These guys weren’t cops like we know them. These guys weren’t even the same people we’ve been dealing with.”

“You’re starting to scare me,” Sara said.

“You should be scared. Hell, I’m scared.”

“If the train station is all so dangerous, why did you pick it for a meeting with this man of your?” Luis asked from the back seat. “Everybody knows the man has eyes all over that place.”

“A slight miscalculation,” Ponci admitted. “I under estimated who we’re dealing with. I’m a bit out of touch with the times – I’m used to old school, not this new tech world. I should have hung up my career after 9/11. That’s when everything changed. That’s when things got complicated. In the old days, public places were safe place. The police didn’t look for transactions like this to happen there. They always thought we’d do our deals in back alleys somewhere.”

“Maybe public places were cool for white people like you,” Luis said, his head leaning against the narrow slanted rear window on the passenger side. “But when you got a face like mine, no place is safe.”

“We’re going to need a place to hold up for a few hours,” Ponci said, “and ditch this car. I also think we need to take a better look at what’s inside this box.”

“But where?”

“Some place public, but not too public,” Ponci said. “I don’t want to have to deal with security cameras. A restaurant would do.”

“I know a place,” Sara said.

“Count me out,” Luis said.

“We should stick together,” Ponci said.

““I’ve had enough of this gig,” Luis said. “I’ve lost my two best friends and I don’t need to see any more of those people you’re talking about. You can let me off downtown.”

“If we let you go they’ll kill you.”

“They’ll kill me if I stick with you two.”

“We can’t afford to have you talk before you die,” Ponci said.

“What are you going to do to stop me, old man?” Luis said. “Shoot me?”

“I could, and should, and will,” Ponci said, twisting around, his pistol pointed straight at Luis’ chest.

“Stop this!” Sara yelled.

“Your friend is putting us at risk,” Ponci said.

“If you kill him, you’ll have to kill me, too,” Sara said. “Because I won’t be apart of this after that.”

Ponci glared at her. In the old days, he might have blasted them both, and then gone on to meet the man on his own, but for some reason he dreaded being alone this time. He needed someone, and she was the best he could find, and knew he would not find anyone else if he let her go.

“If he gets caught we’re doomed,” Ponci said.

“Then, Luis will have to make sure he doesn’t get caught,” Sara said, glancing up into the rear view mirror. “you hear me, Luis? You’re going to have to stay low until we do what we have to do. Can you do that?”

Luis glanced at her in the mirror, then at Ponci’s pistol still pointed at his chest. He gave a stiff nod.

“Is that good enough?” Sara asked Ponci.

“No,” Ponci mumbled, but lowered the gun. “But it will have to do. Let him off. But not somewhere obvious. Then we have to dump the car. We’ve been in this thing far too long.”

 

***********************

 

Miller climbed out the passenger side of the unmarked car, the tip of his shoe kicking an empty malt liquor can, the sound of which seemed unreasonable loud in what would have otherwise been a noisy neighborhood,

While the street was filled with the sound of voices and the rasp of police radios, street life sounds in this art of Newark had gone very still.

Concerned faces, mostly black and Latino, stared down from apartment windows on the floors above, watching the police activity that filled the street around Miller, activity through which Miller and Ransom weaved on their way towards the liquor store and the center of what had been a hail storm of bullets. Nearly all the car windows on that side of the street were shattered, or bore the tell-tale passage of bullets. Bits of glass littered and the sidewalk, and in the daylight looked like jewels.

Miller halted by the sprawled shape of Gizmo, whose face was mercifully against the ground. Wounded twice, once in the leg, the fatal blow had come through the back of his head, exploding out the front so that whatever face remained not even his mother would have recognized.

The second black man, LeRoy, had been struck square in the back and also fell forward onto his face. But the blow hadn’t killed him immediately, because he had managed to turn his face in the direction of the firefight, as if calling out to someone ahead of him. His eyes were still open. So was his mouth.

A Newark police captain greeted Miller and Ransom as they drew near the door to the liquor store. The windows were spattered with bullet holes and the scattered bits of flesh from some of the other unknown men who had assailed the Fed Ex Truck.

Police personnel hovered around the truck, buzzing like bees as they photographed and finger printed everything they could, echoing activity that transpired at a number of locations on both sides of the street.

“What do you make of it, captain?” Miller asked when they reached the doorway itself, where two bullet holes in the door looked a lot like pensive eyes.

“I haven’t seen anything like this since Vietnam” the gray-haired police captain said, “or maybe The World Trade Center – though nobody did any shooting there.”

“This isn’t like that,” Miller said. “This wasn’t done by outside terrorists.”

The Newark captain frowned.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Too much sophistication – the drones, some of the weapons, the set up itself,” Miller said. “This was more a military operation than a terrorist attack. What’s the body count?”

“Six – the driver, the two black men, two characters we haven’t yet identified – one over there, one in the doorway across the street. Are any of these the people you’re looking for?”

“No,” Miller said. “They must have gotten away.”

“As unlikely as that seems considering the fire power used here, I’d say you’re right,” the police captain said.

“Were there witnesses?”

“Plenty. But it’s hard to get anyone in this neighborhood to cooperate. Those most willing to talk didn’t see anything. Those who saw something aren’t talking.”

“Have you identified any of the victims?”

“Those two we know,” the captain said, referring to the two black men. “They’re from the area.”

“Police records?”

“Nothing too serious. Nothing in this league.”

“And the others?”

“Well, three’s the driver, of course. The poor fool walked into a fire fight and never knew what hit him. The other two are a real mystery – not military exactly, but they arrived here as if they were.”

“Paramilitary?”

“Not if I read this right. These guys aren’t vigilantes.”

“Then read me what you think they are.”

“My best guess would to read them as Navy Seals – or trained on that level of special operations, but not operating on any level of government I would consider legitimate.”

Miller glanced at Ransom, who seemed to be taking all this in.

“What’s your take on this,” Miller asked Ransom. “Are these guys connected to the guy from The Bronx?”

Ransom stepped out of the doorway and looked down at one of the suited characters. This one and the other both had short blonde hair, brush-like in a manner similar to career soldiers. The one nearest to the store had fallen with his arm still extended and his hand still holding a pistol he’d clearly intended to shoot.

“This was an undercover team of some sort,” Ransom said. “My guess is they were tracking somebody, and tried to stop the delivery. The shooting started when they made their move.”

“Delivery? What could the truck have been delivering?”

“I can only guess. But I suspect it is the same thing that was in the brief case back at the hotel.”

“Are you telling me we have two groups of operatives involved in this?”

“At least,” Ransom said. “And they are willing to do almost anything necessary to get that package, and kill as many people as it takes.”

“Then perhaps we’d better get to it first,” Miller said.

“My idea exactly.”

“The question is, where do we start?”

“Maybe we should try and talk with the soldier’s sister,” Ransom said. “She doesn’t live far from here.”