Unchained Fury : Axel Blaze Thriller Book 5, page 7
“I take it you’ve got passengers in the back?” I asked Mitchell as he jumped out and joined us.
“Yeah, two of them. Still sleeping. Britt told me you’ve got a bigger cargo here.”
“Five in there. I guess some of them might be coming around,” I replied.
“That the Berkeley kid?” Garcia asked, looking at Eugene.
The kid was dutifully sitting inside the car with doors locked and windows up. But the second Garcia fixed his gaze on Eugene, the kid nervously broke eye contact and began looking straight up at the road.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“What the fuck’s he doing with these guys? I thought you needed brains to make it to Cal?” Garcia asked, still looking hard at the kid.
I could see Eugene getting visibly nervous under Garcia’s intense scrutiny. Those eyes could make toughened criminals squirm—the kid really didn’t have a chance.
“He got caught in a scam. And now these guys have their claws in him. Let’s head inside. I’ll fill you in.”
“Sure thing. I’ll get the van in the driveway,” Garcia replied, jumping back into the van.
I could almost feel the kid starting to breathe again as Mitchell and I turned and walked towards his house.
“Whoa, who did all this?” Garcia asked as we walked in and saw the three men lying knocked out in the living room.
“Let me guess. Was that Britt Dixon in a rough mood?” Mitchell asked.
“Bingo,” I replied.
“Guys, I need you back here,” Britt called out from the other room.
When we went inside, Britt told us there had been two missed calls on Dutch’s phone. Both were from Sharky. The boss must have been waiting for an update from his guys.
“What do we do? He’s going to get suspicious if he doesn’t hear back,” Britt said.
“Yeah, we’ll lose our advantage. If he moves from the warehouse, it’ll be back to square one,” Mitchell agreed.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s get going and raid the place. What do you say?” Garcia said, looking at me.
“Let’s do it. We’ll have to decide what to do with all these men,” I said.
“I’m sure you’ve already figured that out,” Garcia replied.
Britt and Mitchell looked at me expectantly.
“These guys have drugs and weapons at the warehouse. The best thing would be to dump them there after we make the bust. Then call the cops. They’ll take care of the rest. Best to avoid the drama of calling cops to Mitchell’s place. What do you say, Mitchell?”
“I’m with you, Blaze. I can really do without having to explain to the neighbors why I had gangsters paying me a house visit.”
“I was wondering why you had asked me to get the van,” Garcia said.
“Yeah, that was the idea. Let’s start dumping these guys in the back of the van. Garcia, get someone to start tracking Sharky’s phone. Britt, give him the number and throw some water on Dutch. We’ll need him awake if another call comes in.”
We were interrupted by someone calling out from the front door. It was Eugene.
“Excuse me… uh, excuse me. Sir, I’m sorry to intrude, but it’s important,” his voice kept rising with each word he uttered.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Is that how gangsters from Berkeley talk?” Garcia asked.
We couldn’t help laughing.
“Leave it to me. I’ll have a word with him. You start dumping the men in the van. There are two more lying by the back entrance,” I said, before walking out to see what Eugene had to say that was so important it couldn’t wait.
I saw him standing just inside the front door, staring wide-eyed at the three broken men lying unconscious, his jaw almost touching the floor.
“Are they…” he whispered, not quite sure how to finish the sentence.
“No, they’re alive,” I answered his implied question. “What is it? Let’s go outside.”
I led him back to the street outside.
“Sorry, I know you asked me not to move. But it’s important. I think you’ll agree with me.”
“What is it, Eugene?” I asked, trying to hide my impatience.
“Sharky called on my phone.”
“Oh. What did he say?”
“He sounded mad. He’s been calling Dutch but he’s not taking the call. He asked me ‘what the fuck’s going on’… uh, those were his exact words.”
“What did you say?”
“I froze for a few seconds. Didn’t know what to say. But then he got madder. I told him Dutch and the other men are inside the house and they asked me to stay in the car. He told me to get in and tell Dutch to, uh, ‘get off his fucking ass and call Sharky the fuck back’. Uh, those were his exact words. He made me repeat the words back to him so I’d relay his exact message.”
“Good work. I’ll take it from here,” I said, but saw he was staring wide-eyed at something behind me.
I turned and saw Garcia and Mitchell carrying one of the men and dump him in the back of the van. I snapped my fingers in front of Eugene’s face to get his attention.
“They’re not dead. Just knocked out. Now, back to the car. Doors locked. And switch off your phone until I tell you to turn it on.”
“Yes, sir.”
I turned and signaled Garcia and Mitchell to meet me in the backyard before rushing inside. Britt had dumped enough water on Dutch to get him back into the land of the living. He was half lying on the floor in an awkward position, trying to prop himself up on his intact arm. His unbroken arm was still cuffed to the other guy, who hadn’t woken up yet. Dutch couldn’t use his other arm as it was broken at the elbow.
I signaled Britt to follow me to the back, where we found Garcia and Mitchell waiting.
“Slight change of plan. Sharky’s getting hopping mad Dutch isn’t taking his calls. Garcia, we’ll have to scare the shit out of the guy so he makes the call. We don’t have much time. Ready?” I asked.
“Sure. We improvise? Bad cop, worse cop from hell routine?”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
Both of us walked menacingly into the room. Dutch tried to give us a defiant stare, but his expression soon changed. I took out the knife from the sheath inside my cowboy boot, cut the flexicuffs binding him to the other man, grabbed him roughly by the collar, pulled him up into a seated position, and threw him hard against the wall. He cried out in pain as the jarring impact sent shockwaves through his broken arm.
“Save your energy, tough guy. You’ve got a lot of pain coming your way,” I said.
“I’ve heard you’ve got us on a hitlist, gangster boy. Do you have any fucking idea who you’re fucking around with?” Garcia’s voice sounded more like a growl, as he leaned in close, his eyes almost burning holes into the man, the toothpick rolling around from one side of his mouth to the other.
“What hitlist? What the f…”
I cut him off midway as I placed the tip of the razor-sharp blade below his eyeball and pressed lightly, drawing blood.
“You’re not bullshitting your way out of this. Got it?”
“Yes,” he whispered, barely breathing to avoid the knife nicking him again.
“We know Sharky’s waiting at the warehouse.”
“You know that?”
“Who the fuck do you think we are? We know you’ve been staking out this place and the motel in Sausalito, dumbass. We know every move you guys have been making. That’s what we do… see this star? And you thought you’d fuck with us?” Garcia said, taking out the Marshal’s badge from his pocket.
“And before you think you’re safe and we’ll just arrest your ass… think again. There’s only one way you’re seeing the sun tomorrow. You talk to Sharky and lead us to him,” I said.
“Or I put a bullet in you from my government-issued gun. You’ve broken into a Marshal’s house. No one’s going to ask questions. And this badge makes it even more legal. Might even get me a medal,” Garcia said.
“So, what will it be—make a call or…” I left my sentence unfinished for Garcia to finish it.
“A bullet to the brain. No point letting you live if you’re no use for us. We kill you, wake up these other guys, and take our chances with them. I’m sure one of them will be ready to talk.”
“You have five seconds to say yes. Tick tock, tick tock,” I said, pressing the knife slightly.
Garcia racked the slide of his Glock to add to the pressure.
Dutch was shaken to the core. Being a gangster is one thing. But an attack on a federal lawman’s house… that’s something the man wouldn’t have done had he known better. We kept up the pressure, without giving him a chance to even breathe properly. The man had no choice but to cave in.
“Alright, alright, I’ll do it.”
“Wise choice. Tell him you’ve got the woman. But your men staking out the motel called you to say the husband is driving here from the motel. You’re waiting to grab him and will bring them both.”
“But he’ll know I lied to him. I’m a dead man,” Dutch said, doubt creeping into his voice.
“He won’t. When I grab Sharky, I’ll slip it to him Mitchell picked us on the way home from the motel. And we beat the shit out of you guys. You can say all that happened after you made the call. That lets you off the hook,” I said, giving him a clear way out.
“Uh, alright,” he said, finally giving in.
“Wise choice. Before you make the call, how many guys are holed up at the warehouse?” I asked.
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“Lying won’t help you. You’ll be in the front seat when we raid the warehouse. If we’re prepared, we’ll avoid gunfire and make sure no one dies. If not, bullets will fly. And you’ll be in the middle of it with your hands cuffed. Think about it.”
Dutch’s face told me he didn’t need to think about it. The scenario I described was real and would result in him catching a bullet.
“There should be six men,” he said.
“Including Sharky?”
“Yeah.”
“Is Slick going to be around?”
I hadn’t yet told Garcia about Slick. He gave me a questioning look but didn’t say a word.
“At the warehouse? No. He’s not part of the crew,” Dutch replied.
“Where does he hang out? How do you guys contact him?”
“I don’t know, man. He deals with Sharky. They meet at this club downtown. Called Wild Spirits. I think Slick mostly hangs out there.”
“Alright. How many entrances does the warehouse have?”
“Um… there’s the main one at the front… and two others, one at the back and another at the side.”
“Any chance the other two would be open?”
“I don’t think so. They keep everything bolted from inside.”
I had all the information I needed. It was time to call Sharky.
“Right. Let’s call Sharky. Stick to the script. Ready?”
Dutch nodded. I pressed Sharky’s number on the phone and put it on speaker mode.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Sharky’s voice thundered out of the speaker as he took the call.
“We’ve got the woman. But the guy made a move from the motel he was shacked up at. He’s on his way here. We’re waiting to grab him.”
“Oh… OK. But why the fuck weren’t you picking the phone?”
“It was on silent, boss. And then the guy called the broad, uh… woman,” he corrected himself, looking nervously at us, before continuing, “We had to make sure she didn’t say anything to him.”
“Alright. Let me know when you’ve grabbed the guy. And tell Murky to call me the fuck back. I can’t get a hold of him either. Am I the fucking boss or what?”
“You’re the boss man. Murky must be following the guy. I’ll tell him to call as soon as he’s here.”
I disconnected the call.
“Who’s Murky?” I asked.
“He was staking out the motel,” Dutch answered.
“Alright. You did your part. You get to live. Stay on the floor. Don’t move an inch,” I ordered him.
Garcia and I went back to the other room. Britt and Mitchell were waiting for us.
“Who’s Slick? What was all that about?” Garcia asked me.
“I’m not sure but I think he’s the guy who floated the hit on us. Some kind of a fixer. He’s the next target once we put Sharky out of business,” I replied.
“Right. Sharky might start getting suspicious when he doesn’t hear back from Murky.”
“Who’s Murky?” Mitchell asked.
“One of the two guys staking out the motel,” Garcia replied.
“So… he’s lying knocked out in the back of the van, right?” Britt asked.
“Yeah,” Mitchell replied.
“We’ll have to move now, or we’ll lose the advantage of surprise,” Garcia said.
“Yeah, we better move,” I agreed.
“What’s our play?”
“We’ll try to make it as painless as possible. Hopefully, without any bullets fired, like we managed here. But if bullets do fly, we’re not using our own guns. We don’t want the cops tying anything that goes down there to us. We’ll have to remain in the shadows until we get to the bottom of this.”
“Roger that. These guys were carrying more than enough hardware. I’ll sort it out,” Garcia replied.
“Good. Let’s hit the road in five minutes.”
“Roger that,” all three said in unison before each one of us went about our specific tasks.
There had been eight men involved in the stake out at the motel and Mitchell’s home. Six of them, except Dutch and Eugene, were cuffed and dumped in the back of the van.
Garcia soon set us up with weapons.
“Three Glocks and a SIG... and four AR-15s,” he said, pointing to the guns laid out neatly on the table.
Mitchell went for the SIG. We picked a handgun each and slung the AR-15 rifles across our backs. We decided to travel in three vehicles—the two cars the men had come in and the van with all the cuffed men in the back. Garcia drove one car, with Dutch seated next to him—uncuffed but hardly a threat with his right arm broken. Eugene drove the other car, with me riding shotgun. Britt and Mitchell followed in the van.
“What do you want me to do when we get there? Try to drive the car through the doors?” Eugene asked in a nervous voice as I got into the passenger seat.
“You’ve been to the warehouse before, right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Are the doors made of cardboard?”
“No. They were metal.”
“Then don’t overthink or ask dumb questions. This isn’t a movie set. Simply follow Dutch’s car. He’ll get them to open the doors. They expect to see you and Dutch driving. That’s what they’ll see. Once we’re inside, just duck beneath the steering column and stay there until I ask you to come out.”
“Uh, right. Got it,” he replied, trying to sound a little more confident.
“We’ll try to get it done without a bullet being fired, but you can’t be sure. Just stay low and you’ll be fine.”
“Uh, OK.”
“Once we grab Sharky, he’ll be going to prison for a long time. That’s your only ticket to freedom. He won’t let you be if he’s out and about.”
“Uh, right. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate your help, and the fact you believe me.”
“Don’t worry about it. When you get out of this mess, don’t act like a dumbass again. And you can quit calling me sir. My name’s Axel.”
“Uh, right… thanks… Axel. Uh, and one more thing…”
“Yes?”
“It’s about Slick. You asked about him and I couldn’t remember the word for what those guys called him. Well, it’s shot caller. I’m not exactly sure what it means… Does that make sense to you?”
“Yeah, it does. It’s beginning to make perfect sense.”
I was convinced by this time the hit had come from Dexter. If those guys were calling Slick shot caller, he must have been in prison at some time and would still have connections in there. If the hit had come to Sharky’s crew through Slick, it was logical the hit originated from someone in prison.
“One more thing. What I heard the men saying was he’s always in a white suit and hat.”
I had already seen that in the photo. But didn’t know he wore that get up all the time. That would make it easier to grab him.
We were finally on our way to the warehouse in Hunters Point. We needed answers soon. Grabbing Sharky was the first step in getting to the men behind all this.
CHAPTER 8
Hunters Point is called the forgotten neighborhood of San Francisco. Plagued by decades of industrial decay and a history of toxic spills, it tends to be in the news for all the wrong reasons, most of them having to do with crime and gang wars.
Less than a fifteen-minute drive from downtown, Hunters Point doesn’t bear much resemblance to the city’s shiny center. It lies on the south-eastern corner of San Francisco, east of US 101. The highway starts way up north in Olympic National Park in Washington and makes its way south through Oregon and California to finally end in Los Angeles. But Hunters Point is a place far removed from the tinsel dreams of La-La Land. With its graffiti-scarred housing projects and storefronts with faded billboards, large parts of the neighborhood have the nightmarish appearance of an urban wasteland.
Hunters Point did have its good days once. Candlestick Park was the first major league baseball park in the city. It was home to the San Francisco Giants for four decades until the year 2000. But the stadium had the reputation of being the windiest, coldest and dampest park in Major League Baseball, with winds blowing directly off the Pacific Ocean.
As with other good things that forsook the area, the Giants left Hunters Point to move to Oracle Park in San Francisco’s trendier SoMa neighborhood. The new design reduced wind levels, but cold fog in summer months still remains a feature at Giants games. The Giants took their foghorn with them, which blows any time a player hits a home run.
We drove east down Golden Gate Avenue, continuing onto 10th Street before taking the on-ramp onto US 101. We took Exit 432 a couple of miles later to get onto Palou Avenue. In all, it took us twenty minutes to arrive in Hunters Point. As we left the projects behind us and moved towards the Bay, the residential area disappeared and all we could see were warehouses. It was growing late in the night and there wasn’t much traffic or people around.
