One of his guys had already frisked them. He tossed him Dalton’s wallet and Angelo cracked It open, removing a driver’s license. “John Dalton. California.” He looked at him. “You are a long way from home.” He tossed the license and pulled out a business card. “A mission.” He chuckled. “A man of God, huh?” He continued rifling through, dropping one card after the next until he reached a family photo. Angelo turned it. “That’s a beautiful family. What’s your wife’s name?”
“Look. I think there’s been a mistake.”
“Of course there has,” Angelo said, dropping the wallet like it was nothing. “The mistake is you got tangled up with Jack. And the mistake is that you came to my neighborhood. So, tell me. Where is he?”
Neither one of them spoke.
The corner of his lip went up as he walked over and grabbed Dalton’s face and squeezed it hard. “My patience is wearing thin. Now you better start speaking or I’m going to cut out that…”
An explosion of epic proportion rocked the warehouse, followed by multiple eruptions.
Through the opaque windows, a glow of fire lit up the night.
Angelo gritted his teeth. “Jack.”
He knew the cops and the fire department would be swarming the port in a matter of minutes. Angelo turned and began bellowing out orders. “I want all of this money out of here now. Vito, take some of the men and make sure he’s dead.”
Yelling ensued.
Orders were barked.
A chaotic scene played out as workers hurried to complete their task.
A group descended from the catwalk and went with Vito, armed with assault rifles.
Under the hail of gunfire, a few of his guys strong-armed Kelly and Dalton into one of the ground offices while he had another start the Humvee parked at the back of the warehouse. He knew Jack well enough to know that if it came down to him or those he cared for, he’d get them out first and that would give Angelo plenty of time to slip away.
“Hurry it up!”
Duffel bags were thrown one by one into the back of the Humvee. Angelo climbed steps and entered his office. Whether it was Jack, the feds or another crime family, he always had a plan B ready to deploy. Frantically he opened a safe and removed paperwork, a passport and additional money and stashed it all inside a brief case.
Minutes earlier, Jack had brought the tanker around and driven it down to the ship where three more were waiting to be loaded with cocaine. He’d accelerated and in those final few seconds, jammed a tire iron against the accelerator and the upper portion of the frame, then jumped. The collision was perfect, igniting and sending up a fireball that lit up the night. It was one of many explosions that erupted causing workers to flee. But his focus wasn’t on the ship or the destruction of cocaine but the warehouse. And just like clockwork, the doors opened and a slew of men burst out, guns at the ready.
From there it was just a matter of picking them off.
He took up position near the corner of a steel container and watched as an SUV came barreling down, and men jumped out. With the sawed-off shotgun in one hand, a Glock in the other, they didn’t know what hit them. Darting out from behind them he unloaded a flurry of rounds dropping three of them before racing back into the dark, narrow passageways between the steel containers. He scaled up to the top of a container, and took another out before jumping down and changing position. Keep moving. Never stay in one spot. Confusion worked to his advantage, as did the darkness and maze of steel.
At some point in the disarray Jack dropped the shotgun that was now empty and replaced it with a Beretta 92, a pistol stolen from one of the downed men.
“He went that way.”
Confusion and fear was getting the better of them.
Finding their guys dead only made them more careless.
With two more down, Jack scooped up a Heckler and Koch MP5k submachine gun. He darted out of the darkness and hopped into the driver’s side of the SUV that was still idling and smashed his foot against the accelerator, swerving it around and heading for the warehouse.
There was no easy, foolproof way of doing this. He knew that he had made peace with death if the reaper came calling. Jack accelerated towards the closed double doors and leaped at the last moment. He hit the ground, rolled and was up just as the vehicle crashed through wood and glass, coming under heavy gunfire seconds later.
He sidled up to the opening and unleashed a flurry of rounds at the distracted shooters on the catwalk. Bodies dropped over the railing, collapsing on tables full of money. Screams from workers followed. Jack entered as partially nude Chinese women ran out. He felt like a fish swimming upstream. Crouched and moving fast, he used them like a human shield as he took out those on the opposite side of the catwalk in rapid succession.
Jack surveyed the warehouse taking note of everything: a Humvee, an open office door, movement behind opaque glass high above.
“Jack!” Dalton yelled, a little too late. A round hit him in the right shoulder sending him down around the side of an idling Humvee. Exhaust fumes billowed out the back. No one was inside but the rear door was open. With the knot of workers thinned out and the final few exiting, Jack saw his attacker approaching beneath the Humvee. Boots moving fast. He took aim and squeezed the trigger. A bearded man dropped, wailing in agony before he finished him. Piercing heat and excruciating pain
