Chapter Twelve
Airstrip
Somewhere
Outside Of New Orleans
Thursda y
T ruth be told, Alexsandr couldn’t believe that he’d actually made it. He was back in the United States, but this time, he wasn’t a child being taught the Western world’s ways.
This time, he was here for revenge.
Oh, and revenge he would have.
Let there be no doubt.
As the stairs went down, and the pilot opened the door for him, Alexsandr was able to walk down the stairs to his new life.
HERE.
The irony was that it was in the place that he truly hated the most in the whole world.
Before long, he’d plant the poison so that the whole country began destroying itself from the inside out.
His mother and father would be proud.
When his five assassins joined him, it was time to meet up with their ‘host’ .
As a Chinese man approached him, he held out his hand.
“Fang?” he asked, hoping the man had managed to show up despite being out of contact.
The man shook his hand and his head.
“No, Mr. Dominik. I’m Shing Reung. We’ve spoken on the phone earlier. There has still been no contact from Fang.”
He could see the irritation in the Russian’s eyes, but he legitimately didn’t know where his business partner, Fang was.
He wasn’t answering his phone, and neither was his wife.
That didn’t bode well for the man. He was rarely out of contact with his people.
The Russian man sighed.
“Well, I’m not thrilled,” Alexsandr said. “I was expecting Fang. He was, after all, who our German helper put in charge of this.”
Oh, he was aware, but as his second in command, Shing was more than capable of doing the job. After all, he’d been in charge of setting everything up here while Fang was in Boston .
“I’m sorry, Sir. He’s out of communication, but I can reassure you that we’re ready to go.”
The Russian man looked really pissed about that, and Shing knew he was in trouble.
“I see.”
He began trying to smooth over the issues.
“Sir, we’ve been making money for you, as per Fang’s promise, and we have the businesses doing what they need to do. They’re set up, and you have a way to launder in and out. No one will suspect when the money goes to China, and then to your accounts in Russia. You will be very pleased with how we’ve integrated into society here for you.”
Well, at least there was that.
Honestly, Alexsandr didn’t care who helped him build his empire here. They were all dead when he didn’t need them anymore.
His father always said leave no trace of your dirty deeds, and leave no witnesses to them.
That was his plan.
“Are the cars ready?” he asked, looking around to see if they were there.
“Yes, Sir,” he said. “We kept them in the hanger in case anyone was snooping around.
Shing raised his hand and snapped, and four blacked out Lincolns exited the hanger where the plane would be stashed for easy access if they needed to escape.
He nodded in appreciation.
So far, that was what he’d been promised, and that helped him not be so irritated that the German woman was MIA and now, so was Fang.
Good help was difficult to find.
No one knew that more than him.
“Good work, Shing. Now, ladies,” he said, and three of the beautiful Russian women began walking toward the cars. “Find our missing assets and get them home. Then, embed yourself into society.”
They all grinned at Alexsandr, and then, got into three of the cars to head out.
They had long drives ahead of them, so it was best to go now. That left behind the last two assassins who had been trained by Alexsandr to be his protection.
Two and Three were the next best ones.
“Shing, I’m going to head to the warehouse that was prepared for me, so I can get the weapons we’re going to need. My first step is to acclimate myself so I can take down the three people who ruined my life.”
He nodded.
“What is it that you need for me to do?” he asked. “I’m here to help you in any way.”
That was a good thing.
He’d need backup—for now.
“I want you to go back to keeping those money laundering businesses open. I need an influx of cash to take on the Americans. I have to be very careful to stay off the radar. That’s why I’ve done this over the last couple of years, and not in haste.”
The man bowed and backed up.
“Yes, Sir. I’ll be taking boating tours in the bayou if you need me. I’ll check in later tonight when I’m free. You can give me your orders then.”
That worked for Alexsandr.
Idle hands were the devil’s workshop, and he needed those hands making him money.
This was war.
And he needed to be ready.
As he watched Shing walk away, he glanced over at his security.
“Remind me to kill all of the worthless Chinese when we’re done. They’ve been a huge disappointment to me. Once I get in control of the businesses, they are done.”
Two and Three nodded.
“Da, Ser!” Two said.
“Konecho,” Three offered.
Holding out his arms, both beautiful assassins took an arm, and headed with him to the last remaining car as the jet was stashed in the hanger.
All of the way there, he’d been planning what needed to be done. He was going to catch the assholes who hurt his parents off guard.
They didn’t expect him until tomorrow, so he’d have the jump on them.
“Ladies, I have a little mission for you. I’ll have you handle it while I go and see what the German has prepared for us. Then, we begin our systematic destruction of this pathetic, weak, capitalistic nightmare called The United States.”
They laughed, and headed out.
Oh, he was going to get his revenge now that he was in America.
It was a long time coming.
FINALLY.
* * * H U N T E R – C R O F T * * *
The French Quarter
Barber Shop
Same Time
Well, it was now or never.
As the man guarding the doors went down, Remmy was up, and had his ‘barber’ in a chokehold. When he snapped his neck, the white man hit the ground.
With a thud.
Jagger was through the door, and he took out one of the other workers, shooting him fast through the head. He hit the floor next.
Rogue popped the next two, taking them down, as Dakota closed the door and turned off the lights as soon as the location was secured.
Pulling out his phone, he typed up something, and showed it to them.
If they talked, the dead man’s com might pick it up. They had to do this silently.
They didn’t have a pack of Marines. They had a CIA guy, who was pulling on a vest, an ex-Marshall, and a rich playboy thief.
While they were his family, what wouldn’t he give for four Marines?
Holding up his phone, he let them read it.
‘Rogue, get us through that door, and when we get up there, keep the killing to a minimum—only if you have no choice. We have to question them. Someone has to be able to tell us where to find Shing, and give us something on Alexsandr.’
They all nodded, knowing what he wanted. Over their com, they heard Maura.
“BE CAREFUL!” she warned.
Jagger said nothing back, so as not to alert anyone upstairs.
MATE was in their ears, talking over the com.
“ShotSpotter software was activated. You will have cops on that street in less than twenty. I suggest that you move quickly.”
Yeah, that was the plan.
Jagger pulled out his phone to text the man on the roof. He had to worry about him too. They couldn’t let him get pinned up there with the cops wandering.
Zayn got a little too…
Shooty.
‘Zayn, move the car. Pick us up one block over in twenty.’
When he texted back, it was only one word.
‘Copy.’
The only thing Jagger was grateful for at that moment was his wife was NOT there. She was safe, that that meant they could get the job done.
He pulled out his ski mask, the one with the skeleton face on it, and pulled it over his trademark red hair and freckles. The last thing he wanted was word to spread if someone got away that it was Mikey O’.
That would be a problem.
A HUGE one.
As Rogue did the same thing, he then got on his knees and picked the lock. He used some CIA tech that Remmy had sold them, and there was an audible click.
One by one, they went up the stairs, Remington taking the rear as they reached the top. There was a door there, and a camera.
Pulling his favorite tech from his pocket, Rogue passed it to Jagger. He pushed a button, and then the light went green on it. Well, they were now looping.
No one would see them coming.
He motioned, and they went to the door. Jagger would be going in first since this was his operation.
It was time.
Boot it, he mouthed.
With Dakota kicking in the door, it flew open, and Jagger was in within seconds.
Inside, everyone was shocked when the door slammed into the wall.
EVERYONE.
Oh, and the room was full of people too. They weren’t just criminals hanging out there, but there were also powerful people from the city.
They had some dirty deeds going on here.
“Hands up,” Jagger said.
Reluctantly, they did.
When one of the dealers reached under the table, Jagger saw him and shot the man dead. His brain exploded out of his head and hit the wall behind him.
Everyone there gasped.
He warned them once.
“If you think I’m fucking around, let me reassure you that I’m not. If you go for a gun, you all die. We’re wearing masks so you stay alive. Don’t make this a massacre.”
Okay, they weren’t wearing masks so they didn’t have to kill them. This was in case someone slipped out of there.
After his warning, everyone sat perfectly still.
“Restrain them,” he said, as Dakota passed out zip ties, and then he, Rogue, and Remmy bound their hands.
The whole time, people were freaking out. There were a few women there, and along with them, some powerful men.
A city councilman.
A judge.
And the Mayor’s assistant.
Only, who wasn’t there?
Shing Reung.
Damn it.
Where the hell was the dude? They only had one business left, and that meant if he wasn’t there…
They had issues. There was no way they could let that man run wild. He was a bad guy.
They needed Fang’s right-hand asshole to get intel on Alexsandr.
“Where can I find Shing?” Jagger asked, knowing the people working there would know.
Only, he wasn’t getting the answers he needed.
The employees there shook their heads. The few Chinese workers there looked scared, but they weren’t talking.
Jagger used what Maura had learned in her assault on the Chinese laundry.
“Did you guys come over on a ship brought here by Fang Yan?” he asked first in English, and then in Chinese.
That seemed to help.
They nodded.
“Do you know where Shing is?” he asked, this time, keeping it Chinese.
They shook their heads.
Well, this wasn’t really getting them anywhere, and that pissed him off.
When MATE came on, talking, they all listened.
“J, I’ve detected another room that is hidden behind that wall. The dimensions of the room are not right.”
Well.
Well.
Well.
The people here were keeping a secret, now, weren’t they?
“Thank you, MATE. Which wall?” he asked, waiting for her to point him in the right direction.
“To your left and ahead five feet.”
In front of that space was a blackjack table and the dealer who had tried to go for his gun.
Now, they knew why.
“Let’s move the table.”
Dakota and Remmy moved all of the people, lining them up against the wall.
“You can’t do this,” the Mayor’s assistant said. “Do you know who we are?”
Jagger focused on him.
Oh, he knew exactly who they were. These were the dirty people who he was there trying to clean up for the city.
“Actually, I do. You’re public officials paid by the taxpayers of this city, and you’re in here on a workday gambling. So, yeah, I know who you are. Scumbags.”
The city councilman got on the bandwagon to complaint-ville.
“We’ll find you and…”
Oh.
Hell.
No.
He didn’t get to say anything else. Jagger shot all of them. As they were standing against the wall, he put a bullet in three of them.
That took care of that.
Sometimes, the trash had to take itself out. This was one of those times. There was no way they were threatening him, or living to come after him and his family.
After handling that, and ignoring the crying from the other people there, they dragged the table out of the way, and focused on the wall.
“Who knows how to get in here?” he asked.
NO ONE would help.
Well, then, no one was leaving this room. They had their resting place for them until someone located their bodies.
When Zayn came over the com, Jagger paused.
“You have cops EVERYWHERE on the street in front of the barber shop. You’re going to have to go to the roof, and jump across to the other roof and scale the building. There’s no way you’re getting out the front or the back.”
Jagger understood.
This was going to be tricky, and he knew it.
“Find us the best and safest way out. While I know the cops in this city are dirty, I don’t want to alert anyone with a shootout. The last thing we need is the homicide captain on our asses.”
Why?
That homicide captain was Thomas Bernard—their once family member, and he was already on their asses. Why add fuel to that fire?
“Copy,” Zayn said.
They went back to working on the door, and it was Rogue who found the indentation in the floor that had been under the dealer.
“It’s push release,” he said, stepping on it.
When he did, the door opened.
“You two,” he said, pointing at Dakota and Remmy, “if they move, kill them all. Make it painful. The street is already swarming with cops.”
They both nodded.
Then, Rogue and Jagger went inside to see what the Chinese mafia was hiding in that room. Once there, Rogue whistled.
They hit paydirt.
“We found Alexsandr’s cash stash. There has to be five hundred grand in here, and then all of the jewelry…”
They couldn’t leave it behind for the man. They didn’t know what Alexsandr knew or didn’t know.
“We take it all,” Jagger said. “If we want to slow down the Russian bullshit heading here tomorrow, we take his informants and cash away.”
When Mate chimed, Jagger was curious.
“Yeah, MATE?”
“May I suggest not trying to take that over the rooftops and instead use the tunnel beneath this business?”
Well, that had merit.
It also was surprising. There were very FEW underground features in NOLA due to the city being below sea level.
“What do you mean the tunnels?” he asked.
MATE shared what she’d discovered.
“This building was used during prohibition. There are tunnels beneath it. You can follow them a mile away to an exit spot.”
“How did you find this?” Jagger asked.
That’s when Merry’s voice came over the com to answer that for them.
“It was me. I hacked the records, went in, and found the schematics, and located the best exit. There’s a wall in the lowest level that has an access point.”
Well, hot damn.
Never let it be said that Merry wasn’t high up on their favorite-person list.
“Can you get Zayn to a pickup location to meet us? We have A LOT of money and things in here. We can’t leave it, and we can’t risk that someone will bring Alexsandr here.”
MATE was all over that.
“I will get the pretty one there.”
As soon as he heard that, Zayn protested.
“God is my co-pilot not MATE,” he said.
MATE chortled.
“In five years, I will be a God. Can you wait?”
They heard Zayn’s gasp of horror, and the Major’s amusement, proving she was listening in and letting Jagger handle this.
“Deal with it,” Jagger said. “I don’t have time to babysit our AI.”
He glanced over at Rogue, knowing what they needed now more than anything.
“Get me Shing’s location, or kill them.”
He nodded, and as Jagger used cording that he brought with him to scale down a building if need be, he tied sections to the bags of money and jewelry.
It was going to be a long walk. He hoped everyone was ready for a mile carrying their bodyweight. This was exactly why he wished he had Marines.
It wasn’t that they weren’t in shape, but a Marine was just built differently.
Outside the room, when he heard the bodies hitting the floor, a sound he knew well, that had to mean the people weren’t talking.
Well, that was life.
People needed to make better choices.
As the team headed into the closet, Dakota was putting away his gun.
“Holy shit. That’s a lot to carry,” he said, pointing out the obvious.
“At least we’re carrying it down. We’re going down and having to mule it a mile through tunnels in the dark.”
Remmy laughed.
“Why do I think the Major somehow knew this was happening and planned it?”
That was all she had to hear.
“Because she’s smart,” she said over the com. “Now, get to getting,” she added. “You have a long walk ahead of you.”
Tell them about it.
This was not going to be fun.
They each grabbed four bags, and put them over their shoulders, held together by the cording.
And they began the trek.
When they reached the bottom level, they found the door that led to the ‘basement’ and hopefully the tunnels. If they had collapsed over time, they were going back up, and the roof was their only option.
That or they were hanging out there until late tonight, jacking up the rest of their plans.
“MATE, where?” Jagger asked, as a red laser came out of his vest, scanning each wall. When it stopped on one, they knew it was there.
“Behind that wall,” she offered.
Well, it looked as if they were going to be pulling a wall down.
When Rogue pushed on it, as hard as he could, it popped open on a pressure lock.
“Oh, look. Everyone in, and let’s hope it’s open at the other end.”
Their AI companion couldn’t help herself.
“And that there’s no toxic mold,” MATE added. “You humans are frail. That will kill you in a week’s time.”
Jagger was horrified.
“MATE!” Jagger said. “Not the time. Learn comedic timing a little better.”
Their vests beeped.
“A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar,” she said, getting everyone to sigh.
It was Zayn who reminded them of one thing.
“Elizabeth Blackhawk is an asshole,” Zayn said over the com. “I told you she’s sadistic. Now, we’re saddled with a computer that doesn’t know how to be quiet.”
Jagger just shook his head.
This was the burden of MATE, but it was worth it. She was damn good at helping.
As they pulled the door closed behind them, their lights went on. Each vest had one.
Navigating this was definitely going to be a bitch.
“Now I know why people use debit cards,” Remmy said. “Cash is heavy.”
That it was.
As they lugged along the tunnel, there were bones all alongside the corridor.
HUMAN BONES.
“Well, we know where someone dumped bodies long ago,” Jagger offered. “I’m betting it got wild during prohibition.”
“They are recent,” MATE said. “By scanning them, I can tell you they died in the last ten years—likely carrying heavy things through this tunnel.”
“MATE!” they all said together.
The next voice they heard was Zayn on the com.
“Use the AI, Elizabeth said. It will be helpful, Elizabeth said. It’s not helpful, now is it?” Zayn asked.
There were mutterings of irritation.
All he knew was thank God he was outside in the sun.
“We’ll discuss this later when you’re asleep, Mr. Thundercloud,” MATE said.
“MAJOR!” he shouted, horrified.
Maura laughed.
“Zayn, she’s kidding. Right, MATE? You’re not going to kill him in his sleep.”
She chortled.
It was a terrifying sound.
“I don’t like this anymore,” Zayn said. “Hurry and get to the grate. Leave the vests in the tunnel.”
That had Jagger’s attention.
“A grate?”
He explained.
“They put bars across it, and welded it in place. No one can go in that way or out. Thus, the remains you’re walking on. I hope we don’t get haunted.”
Yeah, that was a problem.
“Uh, Zayn,” Jagger said. “We’re trying to get out that way.”
“Then, I guess you shouldn’t trust AI,” he added.
The Major wasn’t having it.
“ ZAYN!”
He sighed.
“I have the tow chain tied to it. When you get to it, I’ll rip it out. That’s the plus of having a Hummer.”
That it was.
They were all familiar with one because Humvees were very similar.
Behind them, Remmy dropped his bags and leaned against the wall.
“Sorry, Guys. I’m still recovering,” he said, when they turned around to check on him.
They understood that.
There would be no judging.
The man had been shot a couple of days ago, and nearly died from the infection in the swamp.
Jagger headed his way.
“I’ve got two of your bags,” he said, putting them over his shoulders and around his neck so they hung on his chest. “I’m accustomed to carrying my weight.”
“Said the little guy,” Zayn stated.
“You’re funny, Captain,” Jagger said. “Wait until the Major kicks your ass for busting my balls.”
Maura was still listening, and she wasn’t having it.
“Leave my little guy alone,” she stated, making him laugh.
“Thanks, Mar.”
With the other two bags, Rogue grabbed one, and so did Dakota. While they were tethered together, it was still manageable.
They walked along the tunnel, and it didn’t take long for them to see a light.
“Are you good, Remmy?” Jagger asked, checking up on the man.
“Yeah, I’m still here,” he said, following behind. It was clear that he needed to rebuild his stamina.
He felt weak and that didn’t work in their jobs. On this team, they all carried their weight.
Literally in this case.
As they got closer, they could see Zayn starting to back up to rip the grate off.
“Get ready,” he offered.
“Ready,” Jagger said, as they all stayed back a few feet. It was then that Zayn hit the gas and floored it. The whole tunnel shook, and then, the metal grate flew off, trailing behind the Hummer.
When Jagger came out, they were in a lot not far from The French Quarter .
Zayn helped them grab the loot and toss it into the back of the Hummer.
“Need a lift?” he asked.
Did they ever?
They got in, and headed out. As they moved through the streets, backtracking to make sure everything was okay, they could see the cops checking out the building they had just been in.
They were shining flashlights into the windows and looking around.
That.
Was.
Close.
“We got out in time,” Jagger said, as there was police presence everywhere.
That they did.
“Shall we get back?” Zayn asked, as they left that location behind.
That worked for them.
They had to get back in for debriefing.
Tomorrow, Alexsandr would be here, and there wasn’t much time left to take out his people.
Unfortunately.