M.I.A. Hunter: Miami War Zone (18 page)

"It doesn't matter. Someone who might profit if we were to go to war with one another. Someone who might want a share of our profits."

"The
fuckin
' D.E.A.," Jaime yelled, slamming a fist down on Blanco's steel desk.

"They would be glad to see us wipe each other out," Blanco conceded, "but the method seems a little crude for them."

"Who else?" Gomez asked.

"As I said, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that we respond in the right way. What I suggest is that we simply treat this attack as an opportunity."

Jaime's face contorted in what passed for a thoughtful expression. "Huh?"

Blanco smiled at him. "An opportunity. A chance for us to profit even more than we do now."

Gomez leaned forward with interest. Whenever more profit was mentioned, he was sure to perk up. "What chance are you talking about?"

"The chance to go into business for ourselves. To take over the distribution of the finished product."

Gomez leaned back, rubbing his hands together. "Is it possible?"

"Of course. Since we no longer trust the Cubans, we establish our own network. We can do it with the contacts we have now. Cut out the middleman."

Gomez smiled with pleasure. "What an excellent idea. I'll get to work on it right away."

Even Jaime del Rio smiled. He understood that economic revenge was almost as good as bloodletting, if not always quite as satisfying. "Fuck '
em
all," he said.

"Exactly," Blanco replied.

S
tone awoke after exactly thirty minutes. He had the ability to rest deeply in a short span, and he felt almost as refreshed as if he had slept the night away. He was ready to go.

Carol met him at the door to the room. "I used our Bragg connection. There's a van waiting outside."

"Great. Let's check on Loughlin and Wiley."

Hog's voice came from the next room. "If you're
waitin
' on us, you're left behind. We're ready."

They got into their gear. This time, they would be going in hard. They were taking the heavy ordnance. Each man would be armed with an Ingram Model 10 submachine gun, chambered for .45-caliber ammo, in addition to his usual hand weapons. They would also be taking an M-16 equipped with an M-203 grenade launcher. There wasn't time to sneak in by way of a storm drain, and Stone didn't want to have to stop long for walls or gates.

"The important thing," he reminded his team, "is that we get Jack
Wofford
out. Everything else is secondary. Carol will be driving, and she'll be going in with us."

There was no objection. Both Hog and Loughlin knew that Carol Jenner was a fighter to equal nearly anyone.

"Any questions?"

There were none.

"Then let's go."

E
nrique
Feliz
got there first. After all, he had a head start.

Crazy Charlie's estate was even larger than his father's, as if to make up for its inferior location. It covered an entire block, with the house approximately in the middle. The grounds were surrounded by a brick wall, and a curved drive ran from the house to a reinforced wrought-iron gate in the front. The gate was the weak point.

It was still shortly before dawn, but it didn't seem that the sky was getting any lighter. A low-pressure system had passed through the Miami area an hour or so before, bringing with it a heavy cloud cover that further darkened the sky and threatened rain.

Feliz
sat in the cab of the moving van and directed the driver. "We can't hit the gate straight on, but if you get up a good head of steam you can turn into it and ram it hard. That is what we will do. Break it down, then go on through."

The driver nodded. They were two blocks away. He pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor.

"H
urry it up,
goddammit
!" Spittle flew from Crazy Charlie's lips as he urged his men to greater speed. There was a rumble of thunder and a flicker of lightning, briefly outlining the men who were trying to load the unconscious
Wofford
in the back of a car.

"Shove his ass in there! We gotta get
outa
here!" In the darkness, Charlie for the first time began to look like he was really crazy. His men knew that he did odd things, but they had never seen him act this way before.

"Let's get the fuck
outa
here!" Charlie screamed. He climbed into a car on the passenger side and slammed the door behind him. "Step on it!"

It was hard to believe, but Charlie was scared. Someone was breaking the rules. Could it be that the pussies from the D.E.A. had finally caught on? Could it be that they were going to use his own methods against him? It didn't seem possible, but there was no doubting the report he had received on the telephone.

Someone had actually broken into his father's house and killed him. That same someone might now be after Charlie. Surely not the D.E.A. The Cubans? The Colombians?

It didn't matter. Charlie was getting out, and he was taking his bargaining chip with him.

Gravel flew from beneath the tires of the three cars in the convoy as they started out. Charlie was with
Wofford
in the middle car. If it was the fucking D.E.A.,
Wofford
was history.

T
he orange-and-black van crashed into the gate, mangling the iron and tossing the two pieces of the gate backward into Charlie's estate. The driver backed up and straightened the van, then drove it through the gate.

Alarms began sounding, but there was no one to hear them in the house.

Charlie's convoy came around a bend in the road and met the van. The driver quickly pulled the van across the road, blocking it.
Feliz
spoke into an intercom, and his
Marielitos
opened fire with their Uzis.

Charlie's men came out of the cars. They were equally well armed.

The Uzis on both sides opened fire.

The
Marielitos
had not been able to get to both flanks of the convoy, so Charlie's men crouched behind the cars and exchanged fire with the enemy.

Charlie's car was armored, so he decided to stay inside. He was not going to kill
Wofford
. As a last resort, it was possible that he could trade him for his own life.

Charlie lay on the floor of the car, afraid to look up. He could hear the breaking of glass as headlights popped, the bullets thudding into the sheet metal of the cars, the screams of wounded and dying men.

Like Charlie,
Feliz
stayed inside. There was really no need for him to step into the fighting. His men were doing just fine, though many of them were dying. There was little natural cover, and they were having to hide behind the borders of flowerbeds and small ornamental statues.

One man stood up and charged the cars, firing wildly through the windows. Glass shattered and flew all around.

The man was brought to a halt by the stitching of a machine gun across his midsection. He was cut in half.
Feliz
could have sworn that the man's legs took another two steps after his torso fell backward.

Then
Feliz
heard a hard,
whuump
ing
sound. The gas tank on the third car had exploded.

Charlie heard the explosion too. He stuck his head up and saw the fireball behind him.

It was time to get out.

He tugged at
Wofford
, but the D.E.A. man was deadweight.
To hell with him. Let him lie there and burn
. Charlie didn't give a shit. All he wanted now was out.

He slipped out the door of the car on the side with his men. They kept up a steady fire. A man beside Charlie raised up, and his head seemed to explode, three bullets hitting it at once.

Charlie looked to the other side and saw a man dancing backward, gobbets of flesh being ripped from his chest.

First they kill the old man
, Charlie thought,
and now they want to kill me. Well, they'll have to catch me first!

Charlie began to slither away from the firefight on his belly, staying so close to the ground that his face was almost pressed into the grass. He had no intention of dying. Not if he could help it.

F
eliz
saw the dark form sliding across the grass.

"Don't you leave this place without me," he ordered the driver. He waited until a lull in the firing and slipped out of the van. Bullets
thwang
ed
off the armored cab as someone got a glimpse of him, and then he was off in the dark.

Heading to meet Crazy Charlie.

"I
t may not be what we thought," Rosales told
Allbright
when he picked him up.

"What are you talking about?"

"The D.E.A. I got a call from some guy named Williams, a big dog from D.C. He wants a meet."

"A meet about what?"
Allbright
thought that he must have missed something. He didn't quite know what was going on.

"A meet about all the killings. It seems there's someone else involved, someone we didn't know about."

"Who?"

"A man named Mark Stone. Williams seems to think he's some sort of vigilante, but he has some good connections. I don't know what's going on, so I told Williams we'd talk to him."

"Why me?"

"You're Homicide, aren't you? People are dying, aren't they?"

Allbright
nodded. "I see your point."

They arrived at the D.E.A. office and were met by Mike Bass. "I'll take you to meet Williams. He's really got it in for this Stone guy."

They followed Bass in. Williams was calm, but they could see the rage just below the surface.

"I don't know how much of this Stone is involved in," Williams told them after the introductions. "But I know he's into some of it. He's here on his own, completely unofficially, to rescue one of
our
men. He seems to believe that the agency's helpless and unable to care for its own."

Well, he's got that right
, Rosales thought, but the news upset him in other ways. "You mean to tell me that there's an unauthorized agent running loose down here, shooting up everyone in sight, causing a drug war to break out, and we haven't been told about it?"

Gilbert Benton spoke up. "It's not exactly like that. We don't know for sure just what Stone's been involved in and what he hasn't."

"Not all of this is connected to Stone then?"

"Probably not. But some of it definitely is," Williams said. "And I want him out of it. We'll take care of our own."

Sure you will
, Rosales thought. "And you want us to take this guy out. Is that it?"

"That's it."

"You may as well know that we don't think anyone except the locals is involved in the latest escapade,"
Allbright
told them. He explained their reasoning about the drug raid, the loose money and drugs left lying at the scene, and Crazy Charlie's probable part in things.

"I knew there was something wrong with that scene," Ferguson said. "I think you're right. If Stone had been in on it, he would have at least destroyed the dope. And he would have been a fool to have left the money."

Rosales decided to let them in on the rest of it. "We're on our way to Charlie
Lucci's
right now. You're welcome to tag along."

"Give us five minutes," Williams said.

T
he rain began just as
Feliz
started out after Crazy Charlie. The clouds seemed to open up, dropping hard pellets of water that stung his face as he ran across the grounds. He had no idea where Charlie was going, but he intended to find out.

Charlie, his feet slipping on the suddenly wet grass, didn't know where he was going either. He was just running to get away from the shooting. There was one other gate in the wall, a small one at the rear of the grounds. If he could get there, he might have a chance.