39. Wesley
39
Wesley
I really hate having my hands tied like this.
I lock the chain around the fence door and climb back into the van’s driver seat, just as the cold rain starts falling. It would look too suspicious for the vehicle to be on the side of the road, or anywhere else nearby, so I park in the rear of the warehouse. The fields around are flat, and other than a patch of trees on the opposite side of the road, the nearest tall thing is a house, only just visible half a mile away from its lit windows in the dark.
If anyone does manage to get through the fence, hopefully I’ve arrived early enough for the engine to cool. It’s got bulletproof glass, so at least that isn’t a concern. Any light in the back can be shut off at a second’s notice, and I won’t be making any noise so I should avoid attention. This rain is perfect, in fact, creating a dry spot that sells the image of an abandoned van in the back of a warehouse parking lot.
The warehouse itself is only about 20,000 square feet, small for this kind of thing in America, I’ve gathered. And it’s in a state of disrepair that makes it nondescript—it’s not shiny new, but the roof is intact and the rust staining the paint on the cinderblocks hasn’t eaten through any key features. The windows are high, giving a good illusion of privacy, and the rolling door in the front was big enough to drive that lorry straight through.
After a quick walk-through of the building, confirming that the lorry—truck, Mac is always saying, truck —is exactly where we left it, I settle into the back of the van and open up my laptop. We have video visuals inside the warehouse already, something I set up before we left half a billion dollars of high-grade weaponry in a low-security warehouse in New Jersey. Because it’s so dark in there, the nighttime vision upgrade was critical.
The picture casts a greenish light into the back of the van and I settle into my seat. I reach into the bin under the makeshift desk and produce a bag of jerky that Mac forgot about.
A message pops up in my secure Internet Relay Chat, or IRC. Normally I ignore it when I’m on a job, but it is going to take McCloskey at least a quarter hour to get here from the hotel.
mermaidav: heard you’re looking for info on a certain mayor
I grin and type back. This could tie up nicely.
SpyderMan: Fresh meat. Who gave you my contact?
mermaidav: vinny
SpyderMan: Send it.
mermaidav: no freebies
SpyderMan: Vinny sent you? Then I know he told you how it works. Intel, then $.
mermaidav: fine. don’t stiff me… i know where you type
I laugh and send her my email for tip. The her is part assumption, part deduction—I’ve never met a man with mermaid in the username. I’m not ruling it out, it’s just the most likely scenario.
Just as the email comes through, I spot headlights down the road. It’s not a back road, but traffic has been slim, so I watch as it approaches. The car slows, then comes to a screeching halt, nearly missing the entrance to the car park. After a wide turn that rolls over some of the grass, the car drives around the front and I lose eyes on it.
I pull up the cameras and split the screen into six. There are two outside, one that gets a south-east visual and one that gets the north-west sides. The four inside are basically pointing in from each corner of the rectangular building .
I watch McCloskey park facing the chain link fence. He keeps up a pretty steady stream of nervous babbling to himself—standard stuff, like, “what the fuck is this place,” and “looks pretty empty.” He’s a bit too thick around the middle to consider trying to scale the fence, and a little too nervous to think about trying to break the chain. He goes to the door on the side by the fence, tries it, and finds it unlocked.
Just how I left it for him.
Gun drawn forward in one hand and police-issued torch in the other resting on top, he creeps through the building, about as silently as a hunting house cat. I can hear his ragged breath and I wonder how long it’s been since he was really in the field.
Deciding he’s alone in the echoing silence and dark, he tucks his gun in his holster and winds through the racks, empty of everything except stacked pallets on the ground. He comes around into the large open space and notices the truck.
“He found it and he’s approaching,” I tell the others.
I get no response. From Dimitri, it’s nothing less than I’d expect, though from Mac… As much as I’m not particularly opposed to a bit of adrenaline-fueled fun, it would be remarkably poor decision making on Mac’s part to act on those fuck-or-kill urges we all get. We’re in the literal thick of things.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” McCloskey says, as he pulls open the right trailer door.
I don’t have the correct angle to see into the truck, but I can see McCloskey shine his light into the bed. I also see his jaw drop.
Awkwardly, he uses the foothold under the doors and pulls himself into the truck, disappearing into the 50’ steel box filled with crates of stolen weapons.
Now begins the true nail-biting portion of the evening.
“Come on… take the bait,” I urge him, moving closer to the screen, like it’s going to help me see through the solid metal walls.
I hear the sound of plywood lids being lifted and dropped, and some surprised laughter that turns gleeful the further he gets into the truck. “No fucking way,” he mutters. “No fucking way! ”
Here it is. Our crossroads, thanks to the unknown that is McCloskey. We couldn’t be sure how much he knows—if he knows about the smuggling and selling, if he ever saw these weapons, if he ever learned they were missing…
But any corrupt cop of reasonable intelligence, confronted with a truck full of illegal goods, would likely go one of two ways. If he’s Rossi’s man, he’s going to call his boss back and let him know what he’s discovered. If he’s Anderson’s, he’s going to the mayor with this.
If he calls Rossi, we follow one response plan. If he calls Anderson, we go with the other.
I see a faint light spill out the back of the truck and hear him lift the phone to his ear. The voice that picks up is faint, only really audible from the utter silence in the room and the amplification provided by the metal box he’s standing in.
Rossi asks, “They on the move?”
“No, they’re probably still there, fucking.” McCloskey sounds relaxed. In control.
“Probably? The fuck you mean, proba—”
“I found ‘em. The crates. Still on the truck and everything.”
There’s a beat of silence, then Rossi’s greedy voice, “No shit? Where are you, I can be right there—”
“Yeah, it’s not gonna be like that, Jay. I’m thinking this info is worth a little more to you than that.”
“You motherfucker.”
“I could call Mayor Anderson, give him my location, if you want—”
“No,” Rossi hurries to say. “That’s… not a good idea.”
“That’s what I thought. It’s a lot of guns, Jay. What’re they worth to you?”
“What do you want?” Rossi growls.
McCloskey pauses, perhaps reveling in the moment. “You’re a smart guy, you can recognize an opportunity, right? Well, I want in—this operation you’re running with the mayor? I’m part of it now. You and Anderson are gonna make me the Chief. I know you’re the logistics guy and he’s got the contacts. But I’ll be the law, and we can split the profit as equal partners. ”
There’s silence on the other end, as Rossi marinates in his own anger. So, McCloskey tries to reason with him. “Think about it—how much easier would your life be with the Chief of Police protecting you? Protecting us.”
“Fine. We’ll make it happen. Now, where are you?”
McCloskey laughs, a cruel but gleeful sound. “No, no, no. Why would I give up my leverage like that, Jay? Make it happen, then I’ll tell you.”
“It’s going to take some time to—”
“Not my problem.”
“Those guns are—”
“What’s that sound? The sound of Pete Harris retiring early and Mayor Anderson asking me to be the new Chief of Police?” McCloskey lets it hang, and when Rossi says nothing, he finishes with, “Make it happen, Jay.”
I sit back in my chair as McCloskey hangs up. Fuck. McCloskey’s officially a complication. I didn’t know that tosser had it in him. I really thought he was going to prove to be the mayor’s man, not throw us a third option and try to ransom the weapons back to Rossi, which makes Dimitri’s bait for the mayor a moot fucking point. We need the mayor to find them here. I need the mayor to find them here.
“Erm… Did you all hear that?” I ask, a little dumbfounded.
“Yeah,” Mac sounds as stunned as I feel.
I rub my eyes. “This is why I hate when the plan is reacting to the decisions of other people,” I grumble. “How are we going to get Rossi here if McCloskey isn’t going to give up his location?”
“We pivot,” Mac says, predictably. “He dies tonight. Dimitri moves forward to lay the trap for the mayor. I’ll go to his safe house and take my shot; you guys handle the mayor and McCloskey.”
I curse as the cop’s head pokes out of the back of the trailer and he looks around, like he’s making sure he’s still alone. “I think he’s probably going to try to move the truck, or come back with something to move the crates. He won’t just leave it here, now that it’s his leverage to get what he wants if he thinks Dimitri will come for it.”
“Then handle him,” Dimitri replies simply. “I will be there in 30 minutes—40 if there are complications. Send me the documentation we discussed. ”
I tap my earpiece to effectively mute myself and take a few seconds for an angry reaction. Once I’m under control, I get back on the line and shoot off the email to Dimitri. With a sigh, I pull the burner phone out of my pocket, and send off the text to the FBI tip line. I really hate having my hands tied like this.
I creep inside using the much more silent and well-oiled back door. I can see the torch waving around inside the back of the truck, and hear McCloskey’s delighted noises, like he’s a kid on Christmas. Likely, he’s deciding what he wants to keep for himself. Because he’s blithely unaware, he doesn’t hear me as I move towards the opening at the back of the truck. Only the right door is hanging open, so I use the left to shield me while I get ready.
“Hands up,” I say, shining my high-powered torch into his face.
From his position bent over a box, McCloskey freezes and spins slowly, squinting against my light, then lifting his hands as he spots the gun. He’s still got his cell phone in his grasp. I’ll be needing that so he doesn’t call for help.
“Phone,” I say. “Kick it over.”
He looks up at the cell in his hands, gauging his move. I know he has his weapon tucked in his holster, but I don’t care too much about that. As long as he doesn’t…
He throws the phone at me, and goes for his gun. The phone clatters noisily on the ground and I duck to the right, under the door, coming around the other side of it. I push it with all my might. It swings closed, the sound of metal against metal resounding in the cavernous room, and he bangs into it just as I get the latch in place, locking him inside.
“Fuck!” he screams. “Let me the fuck out of here! I’m the Chief of Police!”
I laugh. “Not yet!”
“Who the fuck are you? What do you want? I’ve got money!”
I leave him yelling and cursing in the truck as I walk back towards the van. When I get back in front of the screen and see McCloskey’s car in one of the frames, I curse again. I've got to get rid of that so no one sees. He’s still got his keys with him, but I’ve got an internet connection and several kinds of tools available to me. Time to learn how to hotwire a car…