11. Dante
11
DANTE
I t’s early when I wake up, wiping a hand down my face wearily as I urge the sleep away. Moneybags isn’t in the bed. I look around the cabin; she’s nowhere to be seen and her bags are gone. I rise from the chair I fell asleep in and go to the window.
“Damn it!” I curse, clenching my teeth in irritation. The car is gone. And so is Moneybags.
My father is not a happy man when he finds out where I am. I hadn’t been able to infiltrate the Murray household whilst Maddog was alive, and now his son is holed up in the fortress with no reason to come out. They have doubled their security, and even Maddog’s number two Tate has taken to sleeping at the compound. No doubt because they are expecting a move on their organization. A business without a leader is as good as dead or dying.
I haven’t seen Moneybags enter or leave the house since the day at the gas station, which raises even more questions. I tell myself she had been a short term fixture with the Murrays and her work there was done. In all likelihood, I will never see her again. Especially after my car was delivered back to the cabin two days after it was taken. In all honesty, she continues to surprise me in unbelievable ways. No one knows where that cabin is, yet she had somehow managed to return the car to the location after she left it. The car had been delivered with a full tank of petrol, vacuumed and washed and completely wiped down so there was not a shred of evidence that she had ever been in the car. I know this because I try to have her prints lifted off the steering wheel. Then the seat. Then the door. The car is so clean, it could have been manufactured overnight and fallen out of the sky.
“We have one chance,” my father mutters. “One last chance… to get the boy.”
Like I said, my father is not a happy man.
“The funeral.”
“You’ve been watching the house for weeks; something’s got to give. He’ll have to come out for the funeral.”
“You don’t think they’ll toss a red herring?”
“Oh, they definitely will. Maddog was not one to not go out in style.”
* * *
Half a dozen men are watching the compound at any given time, looking for changes in the Murray household’s routine. They keep to a meticulous schedule, their lives running like clockwork as they regroup and plan the future of the Murray empire without a viable leader.
My men note down every entry and exit into the compound, including the food trucks that make their daily run. Tate leaves, but rarely, and only for a few hours at most, an angry scowl evident on his face as he exits the compound. No strangers are seen going in or out of the house. Moneybags is nowhere to be seen, and even the boy doesn’t make an appearance. Aside from the deliveries and the security guards dotting the perimeter, the compound is an otherwise deserted ghost-town.
I hit the comms in my ear, checking in with each of my men. We have cars scattered all around the compound, in either direction, on every street corner within a one mile radius. There is no way anyone can leave the compound and not drive past us.
It’s twelve days since Maddog’s death when the first sign of action happens. An escort of six massive black cars with tinted windows makes its way through the gates slowly, crawling along as though in mourning, and leave the compound, heading in the same direction.
“Boss?” one of my men enquires, as I look down at the screen, watching the convoy move steadily down the street.
“Pick up after Elm,” I say, “two cars only.”
“Boss?” His confused voice filters through the comms again.
“It’s too obvious. The cars are going too slow, waiting for someone to follow.”
I get the confirmation that one of the cars is a healthy distance behind the convoy, following them to their destination.
“What now?” Marco asks coming to stand beside me.
“Now, we wait,” I tell him, looking at my personal bodyguard. Marco has been shadowing me for years, and has been my sidekick since college days.
We turn back to the screen, waiting. Forty minutes later, there is a squeal of tires as another convoy of black cars filters through the sliding gate of the compound. It makes its way down the driveway and gains speed as they hit the road and head in the opposite direction of the first convoy.
“Go!” I whisper into my comms.
My men would be so fluid, there’s no way they’d be picked up. Slowly, one after the other, I hear the confirmations come through the comms as six of our own vehicles pick up the tail at various intervals as the Murray parade makes its way toward the freeway.
I call ahead and have two cars fall into traffic in front of the Murrays. At some point, some of our men drop off and others pick up the tail. The cars are ordinary, inconspicuous, so unrelated to mob activity that no one would ever suspect the battered old Volvo or the Ford with a bad fender. There is no way they would pick up the scent, but they are cornered at all angles. I watch the little blips of our cars on the screen in front of me, tapping Pietro on the shoulder. He is an IT wizard I’d plucked out of obscurity just as the FBI were planning to raid his home for hacking into a government telecom network. I’d saved him from serving serious jail time then and he’s been grateful enough to stay with us indefinitely. It was now seven years later and it didn’t look like he was in a hurry to go anywhere.
“Where’s the nearest cemetery?” I ask him.
His long thin fingers, manicured to a fault, fly against the keyboard as he pinpoints out the graveyard on the GPS map. “There,” he points.
“Greenwood,” I whisper. “Eyes,” and I chuck my chin toward the screen, telling him to keep watching.
The men are following discreetly, continuing the same pattern of dropping off and picking up at different intervals so they don’t arouse suspicion. The last thing I need is for this operation to turn into another disaster. I have to use any means necessary to secure the Murray boy. Any means necessary.
“We’re mobile,” I speak into my comms, getting into the car with Marco and two of my other men. “Keep me updated.”
* * *
We drive toward the cemetery in silence, our pace steady and deliberate.
“Greenwood,” I hear, through the comms unit. “They just drove through the gate.”
“Looks like any intelligence in that outfit died with Maddog Murray,” Marco mutters, not impressed that it has been that easy to find them. He enjoys the thrill of the chase, the cracking of the puzzle, the adrenaline that comes with not knowing what is around the next corner.
“The boy’s too young to rule,” I remind him. “That means Tate’s the one calling the shots. And we all know he’s no leader.”
“You think he’s going to make a move to take over?” Marco asks, and I feel his gaze searing my skin as we inch toward the cemetery gates. The mere thought of an all out turf war is enough to turn Marco on. Crazy bastard. But I suppose that’s why my father had chosen him to head my security detail; the man would literally jump in front of a bullet for the thrill of it. And he had.
“I don’t think the boy wants it. He’s out of his depth here. Either we finish him, or Tate will.”
Marco shakes his head regretfully. No matter what, the boy was a kid. And the one absolute rule of law we all followed was not to hurt women or children. I don’t know what my father has planned for the Murray boy, but it definitely doesn’t include killing him. Break him, perhaps. Keep him in captivity until he is eighteen and can sign the docks over to us, maybe. I’m not sure what he has in mind, but it doesn’t have anything to do with putting a bullet through the poor boy’s skull.
“We’ll go by foot from here,” Marco says, directing the driver to stop between two pines at the edge of the entry. I can see some of my men’s cars idling outside, out of view but not out of range, preparing to execute the plan I’ve laid out for them.