Tampa Star (Blackfox Chronicles Book 1) (22 page)

any
lights unless we do.” He then climbed in the right side hatch of the tank and his driver handed him a printout of a weather advisory. He read it to the men in the crew compartment of the GPV: 

“
Locally heavy rain and possible flooding will impact portions of the eastern Gulf Coast and Florida into Monday.  Isolated tornadoes cannot be ruled out in much of Florida. Tropical storm warnings have been issued for parts of the Louisiana, Alabama and Florida Gulf Coasts. Tropical-storm force winds (Forty five mph or higher) are possible from Friday into early Monday.  Power outages were reported in several areas in Pinellas, Pasco, and Hillsborough Counties late Friday from Tropical Storm Glenda’s outer bands. Track Forecast Uncertain
.”

“Shit, who thinks up these names?” asked one of the deputies.

“All right, listen up, sounds like we are in for it from this storm and what’s waiting for us at Fort DeSoto is anyone’s guess, so  stay sharp, take care of your fellow officers and above all, be careful,” said Trevino.  He nodded at the driver and the GPV lurched forward into the driving rain, heading south down Seminole Boulevard.

***

Mike and Triple G had cut the green conical top of the airshaft with a battery powered circular saw which allowed one of them access to crawl into the shaft and drop down three feet to the cement floor.  Michael handed in the C-4 and a separate bag containing the electrical blasting caps and then ran off to fill the sand bags Triple G would use for ballast to direct the force of the explosion downward.

Char directed Mitch to stage the Duck across the entrance way to the parking lot about fifty meters from the

bunker and then took up a position observing the incoming roadway with the night vision goggles—his hands holding a Ruger Mini-14, .5.56 mm rifle modified to selective fire—either semi or full automatic.  Jimmy took up a similar position in the rear of the vehicle with a CAR-15.

Despite their foul weather gear and protection afforded by the Duck’s canopy, undulating sheets of wind driven rain quickly soaked them to the skin and severely limited visibility.  Mitch sat
glumly behind the wheel partially shielded behind by the windscreen contemplating the bad hand he had once again been dealt.

“Why rob pharmacies?” asked Char; suddenly breaking the silence. 

“To paraphrase Willy Sutton, that’s where the drugs are,” replied Mitch. But, feeling he had answered too flippantly, he continued, “I was wounded in the battle to retake Seoul—sniper got me through the shoulder— the shot should have killed me, but it hit the Colt .45 I wore in a holster in the center of my chest.  A Corpsman found me and it was the first time I got introduced to morphine.”

“Ah, yes, I had a nodding acquaintance after I got shot in the leg in Nam.” 
 

Mitch didn’t acknowledge as if determined to finish the tale.
“Later, in the Navy Hospital, they weaned me off morphine after doing what they could to repair my shoulder and I had to make due with other drugs.”

Char nodded and commented that it hadn’t changed much, he was wounded towards the end of American involvement in Viet Nam—Seventy Two, when he was serving as an advisor to an ARVN paratroop battalion.

“The military is very good at immediately saving your life on the battlefield—it was the aftercare that is usually lacking,” said Char.

“Yeah, they kept me on morphine for months and processed me for a discharge because my injuries rendered me unfit to serve. By the time I got out, I was eating those little orange pills like they were candy,” explained Mitch. 

“I can see that happening— they were doing the same to me, but I knew  eventually, they would cut me off, so I weaned myself off of the hard stuff and made do with eating fistfuls of aspirin to compensate,” replied Char. 

“Smart man!
  It was too late for me—I was physically addicted and the VA didn’t refill my prescriptions, so I began taking matters into my own hands by robbing drug stores. For a while, pickings were easy; even sold the excess to my fellow junkies.”

“So what happened?” Asked Char; obviously intrigued. 

“What always happens; I got greedy—hit one of the larger pharmacies, but didn’t case the place—they had a silent alarm; the rest is history.  But, the plus side is that prison is what you make it, I got clean, came up with a business plan—such as it is, and got to do something I enjoy.”

Char felt guilty; it was doubtful Mitch would come out of this unscathed.  Hell, all of them would probably end up locked up or worse. 

“Where is this money from?” Mitch asked.

“Heard of the
Star of Tampa?”

“Shit, who hasn’t?  I heard it was sunk a long time ago.”

“Yeah, but not before we robbed it.”

“So, if turnabout is fair play, why did you do it?”  

“To tell you the truth, it was so long ago, I really don’t remember anymore—revenge, money, adventure—shit, just to see if it could be done.”  Char’s voice trailed off.

“Fire in the hole!”
Triple G shouted as he clicked the lever on the detonator that would covert the mechanical action into an electrical charge and cause the blasting cap to detonate the C4.

***

Marilyn was rapidly closing in on the parking lot, she had driven the distance many times in the past as she loved the park—it had one of the best beaches in the United States, having won that coveted title several times. She felt rather than heard the explosion at first—a shock wave passed through her chest and startled her. A moment later, it was followed with a tremendous boom.

“Oh, shit! I think you over did it
,” Michael exclaimed as a thick layer of black smoke emanated from the airshaft.

“One of the rules of demolition is it is better t
o use too much than too little,” replied Triple G with a laugh. 

They waited for the smoke to clear and Groves did a quick post demolition inspection to insure that all the explosive charge had detonated. He gave the all clear and then entered what was left of the shaft; it having been literally shredded by the explosion,
examined the hole—now littered with large chunks of broken concrete and quickly started clearing it away.

Triple G climbed down into the shaft and began tossing chucks of cement over the top. Michael joined him and they spent several minutes struggling in close quarters to clear the debris without hitting each other.  Just as he thought they would find nothing but concrete, Michael felt around the bottom of the shaft and felt something solid, but that gave a slight muffled metallic jingle.
He reached into the space he had cleared and attempted to remove the bag—“Pay Dirt.”

The bags were in rough shape, having spent thirty years entombed in cement. They had planned for this eventuality and had brought empty sand bags made of circular woven polypropylene to place over the old sacks. It took them over ten precious minutes to

complete the job. Michael signaled with a flashlight and the Duck pulled around to begin loading the gold.

***

“Get ready!” Handley told the others.  He and four of Sally’s “disposable muscle” were hunkered down in the small one room museum that displayed a few of the remnants pertaining to Fort DeSoto’s period of active service. Since none of Fort DeSoto’s garrison buildings remained—long since washed away by years of tropical storms and hurricanes, the museum was sparsely populated with artifacts.

Handley and the others were armed with some of the largest weaponry, as Sally still dabbled in sales of illegal weapons. 

The four hoods were from a biker gang in Tampa named the Kurgans; a fictional character portrayed in the movie Highlander, because their leader was a fan of the movie and needed a new name for his gang after quitting the Mongols. It was said that Kurgans were famous for their cruelty and that they toss children into pits full of starved dogs, and watch them fight for amusement, and he liked that. 

Sally didn’t bother to tell them why they were being paid to shoot some shitheads
, and supplied them with cheap and untraceable Tec-9s assault pistols, figuring the worst that could happen is that the Babbos would get arrested and he would be out a couple of Gs. The Kurgans didn’t know who he was; Handley had set up the deal—another reason he would have to take a dirt nap, before this was over.

The Kurgans burst out of the side doorway of the small white wood frame building, spread out across the parking lot and began firing wildly at the figures in and around the Duck.  Handley came out after them and took up a position behind the right corner of the building as it always paid him dividends to be cautious.

Char had been waiting for this since he had spotted multiple figures through the windows of the museum with the NVGs.  Probably not cops, as they would be armed with more than 9 millimeter street sweepers he thought as he calmly brought the Mini-14 to his shoulder and fired, causing one of the figures to drop to the pavement.

Michael had been loading the sandbags full of gold coin onto the Duck, but had been warned by Char of the
shadows in the museum and was ready.  Two v40 mini-frag grenades sailed over the top of the Duck, impacted between the Kurgans and exploded a second later.

Although the V-40 mini-grenades were only the size of a golf ball, they packed a deadly wallop—it was considered lethal up to a radius of five meters and dangerous up to 300 meters from its point of impact. The steel shell of each grenade was comprised of 325 squares that produced separate fragments that flew out of the grenade when it detonated. 

“Never conduct an attack with less than a three to one force ratio,” commented Michael dryly. Groves just nodded in the driving rain.  

Handley had recognized the sound for what it was
—two small grenades bouncing on the pavement and had dove head first into a water filled drainage ditch that ran behind the museum as the grenades exploded—the Kurgans were not so lucky; the Medical Examiner would later recover sixty two small steel fragments from the bodies of three bikers and one 5.56 mm round from the chest of the other one.  It was said that the Kurgans had the shortest tenure in the history of Outlaw Biker Gangs—there and gone in less than a week. 

Jimmy was out of the Duck and already standing over him before he recovered his senses enough to realize he was still breathing.

“Get up scumbag,” he said as he poked the muzzle of the CAR-15 into the back of the dirty cop’s head and herded him back to beside the Duck where Char stood waiting. 

“What do we want to do with him?” Jimmy asked.

“You can’t kill a cop,” pleaded Handley. Ever the one for movie lines, even in these dire circumstances, Handley had perhaps unknowingly recited a line from Scarface just before Tony dispatches the corrupt narc.

It was too tempting not to complete the dialog and Char started to speak, but was silenced and surprised when a disembodied female voice loudly shouted, “Freeze, Sheriff’s Department.”

They looked around, but saw no one in the heavy rain.  Char had left the NVGs in the Duck and Marilyn was wisely staying out of sight, so they could not determine the level of threat they were encountering. Handley recognized the voice and smiled; he might get out of this yet.

“Drop your weapons,” said Marilyn so forcefully that her voice cracked.

The men were taken by surprise, but had come too far to let one cop stand in their way. Three of them slowly and strategically placed their weapons at their feet; still well within their grasp. Jimmy failed to immediately comply—this probably meant he was going back to prison and he was considering doing something rash.

Marilyn sensed this and fired a round that loudly impacted a few inches from his right foot, “I won’t tell you again!” Jimmy dropped his rifle.

Mitch hunkered down unseen in the driver’s compartment.

“Move to the front of the vehicle,” she ordered and they all did so. Marilyn had come up from the rear of the bunker complex and had been hiding behind one of the other airshafts.  She had undergone training in the academy to handle multiple suspects and desperately tried to remember the steps. 

She ordered them all face down on the pavement and figured she would hold them here while she called in the cavalry.  It was then that she recognized Guy Handley was among the suspects.

She crouched down at his head and looked down. “Handley, what a surprise to find you here,” she said with heavy sarcasm that was lost in the wind.

“Yeah, let me get up, I’ll help you cover them.”

“Fat chance, I would be better off, letting one of them cover you,” she said as Jimmy reached out, gripped her ankles
and pulled her off of her feet. The move caught Marilyn off guard and she landed heavily upon the pavement, striking the back of her head as she hit.  Her pistol clattered away and landed about four feet away and both Char and Handley scrabbled for it.  Char drove his shoulder into Handley, knocking him away from the weapon as he reached for it and sending him sprawling on the pavement, his hand landed on one of the recently abandoned TEC 9. Handley turned and fired wildly from a crouch—one of the rounds ricocheted off the pavement and nearly struck Char in the leg. 

In the interim, the other three men scrambled to retrieve their weapons. Realizing he would soon be badly outnumbered, Handley ran for the cover of the museum building and continued running south along the shoreline.