Текст книги "Among thieves"

Автор книги: John Clarkson

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

69

Beck slid into the open passenger door of the Mercury.

“I was about to climb into that lot and pull out your body,” Demarco said.

“No. I wouldn’t want you to risk hurting yourself.”

Demarco sped away, steering the Mercury straight through the intersection of Beard and Van Brunt. He avoided turning on Van Brunt. He kept the car headlights off, racing along the dark street until he was well past the intersection.

Beck sat back in the passenger seat, closing his eyes, pressing his shoulder against the seat back to help stop the bleeding from his knife wound. The warmth in the car making him sleepy.

Demarco wore a light down jacket. Black. Black wool pants and black suede shoes with rubber soles. He had a black Kangol fur cap turned backward on his nearly bald head so the brim wouldn’t bump into the windshield as he peered out, finding his way along the dark streets with his lights off.

He asked, “Whose blood is that on you?”

“His, except for in back.” Beck turned so Demarco could see the slice through his coat.

“Bad?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t want to look just now.”

“I take it you won?”

“You take it right. If there’s a hell, that bald bastard is in it.”

“What happened to the rest of them? The cops get them like you planned?”

“I saw them arresting one of them. Hopefully, they wounded or killed the rest. Cops arrived way too late. Ciro came back and saved my ass.”

Demarco smiled and shook his head in admiration.

“He get away?”

“I hope so. If he could climb that fence in front of the food store, he did.”

“Good. Where’d the bald fucker end up?”

“Out on Beard Street. I tried to make it look like he ripped his neck open getting over the fence. How’d you and Manny do?”

“Got ’em all. I think Manny wounded one guy. I don’t know how many of them got burned up. Hopefully, all of ’em.”

“And Manny got away?”

“Far as I know, he and Ciro and Joey followed the plan. Left all the guns in the Porsche. Left the Porsche parked in the food store lot, then went down to the warehouses on Van Brunt to make believe they’re unloading trucks. The crew there will cover for them if the cops come looking.”

“Good.” Beck felt himself succumbing to the exhaustion.

He relaxed now. He knew if anybody could maneuver the confusing streets of Red Hook to avoid whatever cops were descending on the neighborhood, it was Demarco. He tilted back his seat and stretched out. It felt like the wound in his back had stopped bleeding, but if the cops stopped them, there’d be no hiding the blood on him. Demarco would just have to deal with it. It was in his hands.

Beck took a last look out his window. They were already on Bay Street. If Demarco could maneuver around and get on the Gowanus Expressway, they’d make it out of the neighborhood.

“You okay?” asked Demarco.

“Yeah. Just let me close my eyes.”

“We got some killing to do, James.”

“I know. Wake me when we get there.”

70

Alan Crane took another Ritalin and continued scrolling through his positions for what seemed like the thousandth time. He pushed himself, knowing that in these last hours the difference in working every trade rather than giving up and closing out positions could amount to tens or even hundreds of thousands.

He checked his watch. Three in the morning.

Markov’s minders were working in shifts. The one with the beard was up now, watching him while the other two slept.

Fucking ridiculous, thought Crane, but who cares. Let Markov waste his money, and these bozos waste their time. At least they had enough sense to keep their mouths shut while he worked. Crane wondered what their exact orders were. Probably something simple, make sure he doesn’t go anywhere and keeps working.

As if I weren’t going to do that anyhow.

Crane sat back and rubbed his face, trying to focus on a one-minute-interval candlestick chart showing the creeping spread between the U.S. dollar and the euro.

He stared at the Bollinger Bands beginning to bulge in the direction he wanted. Crane found himself pleased that he was still able to maintain his discipline. At this stage, Crane believed ninety-nine percent of traders would be pulling the trigger too soon, too weary to eke out the last bips. But he had a big position to close out and right now the bips were going in his direction. He willed the next candlestick to turn green.

The minute interval felt like ten. The chart blinked. The candlestick moved up.

Got it. Crane calculated an eighty percent chance the trend in the next few minutes would continue up. He clicked his first sell order, grabbing the first tranche. Then he quickly pulled up his order ticket and typed in sell orders in ascending values, hoping the trend would last for a few minutes.

He was on a roll. He knew he’d grab each price. He felt it. He’d make a profit on this position. And not for you, Markov, you fucking Russian cunt. Putting these assholes on me. Having them snoring and shitting and sleeping in my house. Bringing their mess and their stink and their bullying. Fuck you, Markov.

Crane pushed back from his desk. He turned to Anastasia. He made a point of not asking permission or informing him of what he was doing, and went to the kitchen.

Ralph Anastasia sat in one of Crane’s custom George Smith chairs and watched him without comment. He had concluded early on that Crane wasn’t going to present any problems. It was just a matter of keeping an eye on him and killing time, not something that Anastasia found hard to do.

He could hunker down and wait for days doing essentially nothing. Ralph Anastasia had been shot at enough times to appreciate an opportunity to get paid for hiding out and laying low.

Harris and Williams were a bit more restless, but every once in a while Anastasia would send one of them out to walk the neighborhood and look for anybody lurking or watching Crane’s building.

As Crane walked barefoot to his kitchen, his Bluetooth earpiece buzzed. He continued walking, headed for the bathroom in the main area of the loft, and waited until he was out of sight before he tapped the on button.

“Hold on,” he said. When he had the bathroom door closed, he continued talking. “Yes?”

Olivia Sanchez spoke in a soft voice, obviously somewhere she didn’t want to be heard talking on her phone.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“It’s going. What about you?”

“They’ve got me stashed away up in East Harlem.”

“Why?”

Olivia lied, “Beck’s place is getting too crowded. There’s nowhere for me to sleep. One of Manny’s gang people is watching over me at this place. Luckily she prefers watching TV to watching me. Where are you at?”

“Closing out everything I can. Grabbing profits, minimizing losses. Same thing I’ve been doing for days. I’m planning to have everything closed out by ten, eleven o’clock this morning. I won’t make it much longer. There isn’t much left.”

“Good. When is Markov going to take over the account?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard shit from him. He must be busy with something else. Drugs, whores, or presumably killing Beck. You sure your guys are going to survive this?”

“Well, nobody is going to take them by surprise, that’s for sure.”

“If Beck doesn’t make it, you realize, we’re fucked.”

“No, we just go to plan B and take it ourselves.”

“And be on Markov’s kill list for the rest of our lives?”

“We’re not giving up now, no matter what happens.”

Crane said, “Agreed.” But he was thinking it through. Realizing now that he had to have a plan in case Beck and his men didn’t make it.

He asked Olivia, “Where are you going to be when the market opens?”

“Hopefully back at Beck’s.”

“Hopefully?”

“He said I would.”

“You’ve got to be there to see where they put the cash.”

“I will. I will. Just hang in. Eight more hours and it’s done. If you don’t hear anything from me by nine-thirty, you’ll know I’m back there.”

Crane calmed himself. “Fine. You keep them pointed in the right direction. I’m assuming Markov will show up to look over my shoulder and breathe his stink all over me sometime soon. When I start consolidating everything in his bank account I’ll do it fairly fast. I’ll make the amount of the last transfer about five million, so hit it when you see it going in.”

“Got it.”

Olivia cut the connection.

Crane splashed his face with cold water, washed his hands, and headed back to his computer.

Anastasia stared at Crane when he returned.

Crane stared back at him, almost daring him to say something. He didn’t.

Crane asked, “You hear from Markov?”

Anastasia shook his head.

“When is he going to show up?”

“No idea.”

Anastasia continued staring at Crane. For the first time since they’d been guarding him, Crane wondered, is this guy just trying to fuck with me, or could Markov be paying these thugs to watch me until he has his money, and then kill me? No. He’d made money for Markov in the past. If he made him almost whole this time, there’d be little reason for Markov to kill him, but still—definitely got to think about a Plan B. There’s no downside having a Plan B.

All right, Crane told himself, keep going. Make this work. Cover your bases. First, get the fucking money. Money can solve anything, even this hard ass watching him like he was a target.

As Crane settled behind his keyboard, he had a disturbing thought. If these guys did manage to kill him, Olivia could very well end up with everything.

For a moment, Alan Crane tried to calculate the possibility that Olivia Sanchez had planned it that way from the very beginning.

71

It took Jeffrey Esposito and his men two hours just to square away the bodies and arrest the survivors.

They’d left the Seven-Six in four cars. Esposito and Augustus Mosebee in the lead, driving an unmarked squad car. Behind him the three detectives from his precinct squad in another unmarked. Behind them were two patrol cars. He’d managed to wangle one more than he originally planned after talking to Pearce, both cars with a team of two uniformed cops.

They’d heard the gunfire and seen the light from the burning gasoline five blocks away. Esposito stopped and immediately called for support. All police personnel in the area were told to respond to gunshots at Beck’s location.

Esposito sent one patrol car to investigate the fire on Conover. He and his detectives and the other patrol car converged on the gunshots on Reed Street.

By the time Esposito screeched to a halt near the bullet-ridden SUV blocking the empty lot, the gunshots had ceased. He flooded the SUV with his high beams. The unmarked and the patrol car pulled in next to him and did the same. That’s when he spotted the two men Beck and Ciro had knocked out lying on the ground.

Everyone stayed behind the cover of their open doors. Esposito got on his loudspeaker and ordered, “Police. Anybody in there, come out with your hands up.”

Immediately, shots rang out, bullets hitting their cars. Esposito and his men returned fire, but the advantage of the two remaining assault rifles almost outweighed their superior number of handguns. Two patrol cops taking cover behind car doors were hit. One in the hip, the other in the lower part of his bulletproof vest.

By then, more police flooded into the area and joined the gunfight.

Eventually, the overwhelming firepower of the cops prevailed. Of the six remaining Bosnians, three were killed, two seriously wounded. The sixth evaded injury by taking cover in a dip in the ground behind a pile of discarded tires. He surrendered babbling unintelligible English.

Before it was all over two more cops were hit, both in the lower legs.

Everybody was half deaf from the gunshots.

On Conover, the first fire truck had arrived before the cops. Two more were on the scene by the time the flames were extinguished.

Three more patrol cars arrived on that side of Beck’s building, but they had stayed well back of the billowing fire, even though they saw bodies on the street and sidewalk.

All five men that Demarco had wiped out had survived the fires because they were on the far side of the SUV. Four suffered extensive burns when the SUV went up in flames, but by then the firemen were on the scene and had dragged them away.

The driver died from inhaling superheated air and burns over most of his body. The arsonist that Manny had shot had managed to roll away from the flames, but he was badly burned and unmoving.

Once the paramedics loaded ambulances with the survivors, all under arrest and escorted by police, the Crime Scene Unit teams began securing the area, waiting for the Medical Examiner personnel who would investigate and handle the dead.

While all that was going on, Esposito and Mosebee pounded on Beck’s front door. Alex Liebowitz appeared in his pajamas, looking bewildered and somewhat terrified at the gunshots and fires.

Of course, he had been prepped by Beck.

All the computer equipment and files had been locked and secured behind a fake back wall.

Whatever questions the cops asked him, he answered, telling Esposito that James Beck was not around, he didn’t know where he was, or when he might return. As for Ciro Baldassare, Alex told the cops he had never heard of him, but that James Beck might know him.

He volunteered that they should contact Beck’s lawyer, who he was sure would straighten everything out.

Alex kept jabbering at Esposito and Augustus Mosebee, distracting them, trying to hand them a piece of paper with the phone number of Phineas P. Dunleavy.

When they asked Alex for ID, he presented it. When they asked why he was at this address, Alex said he was staying there while his place was being renovated.

Esposito finally grabbed the piece of paper Alex kept trying to give him and threw it on the floor. Knowing the building would be empty, he and Augustus did a cursory search and stormed out.

Esposito realized this was now out of his hands. His only course of action was to stay out of the way of McManus and the other higher-ups now on the scene. He and Augustus trudged back to his car. They’d already given their preliminary interviews. Now they would have to wait for their union delegates, and start the long procedures that were standard.

While he waited, Esposito tallied the damage. He counted seven out front, eight in the back lot. All of them either dead or out of commission. As far as Esposito could figure, the only ones dead had been killed by police gunfire or by a gasoline fire that looked like it had been started by the men who had been burned.

A sixteenth body had been found out on Beard Street. A preliminary investigation concluded that he had cut his neck on razor wire trying to escape over the fence at that end of the lot. Probably while Esposito and the others were emptying their guns at the other end.

The sky was beginning to lighten.

Augustus had somehow obtained a pint of Johnnie Walker Black. He took a long pull and handed the bottle to Esposito, who shook his head.

“Fucking mess,” said Augustus.

“Goddammit.” Esposito shook his head.

“What?”

“We got played.”

“What do you mean? How?”

“That retired cop who came to see me.”

“What about him?”

“He told me to come out here heads up, ready to call for backup because there would be more than the two guys on our warrants at the location.”

“Well, he fucking got that right.”

“No. I thought he was talking about Beck’s crew.” Esposito motioned toward Conover and the empty lot. “You think any of these guys are in Beck’s crew?”

Augustus shrugged. “Who gives a shit? It still turns out good for you. You took down a bunch of bad guys. Armed. Trying to kill cops. End of story.”

Esposito shook his head. “I don’t like being played.”

Augustus waved a hand, too tired or uninterested to argue the point.

“Think about it. Beck had to have planned this whole thing. Sixteen men show up here with guns and gasoline. Why? To take down Beck and whoever else was here. Sixteen of them. None of them even got near the place. They didn’t firebomb it. There’s not even a bullet hole in that building. Beck, and whoever he had with him, somehow got the drop on all sixteen. They fucked some of ’em up pretty good, but didn’t kill them. So there’s no murder investigation. That takes most of the heat off this. The only ones who killed anybody is us. We’re the ones who are going to be investigated.”

“Correct. And we’ll get medals for it. It was a righteous shooting.”

“Probably. But where’s Beck? Who helped him? How many of them did it take to do all this damage?”

Augustus took another pull of Scotch. “Don’t know. Don’t give a fuck. I’m gonna rack out in the backseat of your car. Let me know who we have to talk to, and when I can get the fuck out of here.”

“Go ahead.”

“And one more thing, Jeffrey.”

“What?”

“If you still got to serve those warrants after all this shit, don’t call me.”

72

Beck’s phone woke him from a nearly comatose sleep. Demarco was just exiting the Belt Parkway, headed for Coney Island Avenue. Beck fumbled for the TALK button and croaked, “Hang on.”

He took a deep breath, trying to come fully awake, to focus.

“Go ahead.”

Ricky Bolo muttered into the phone.

“Congratulations. You’re still alive.”

“So far. What’s happening?”

“Things have been quiet since that group headed out. About thirty seconds ago, a black Tahoe pulled up. It’s sitting right in front of the entrance to that apartment building.”

Beck said, “Hang on.” He turned to Demarco, “How far away are we from Kolenka’s?”

“About five minutes.”

He turned back to the cell phone. “Can you see into the Tahoe?”

“No. Tinted windows.”

“Anybody getting out?”

“No. Looks like they’re waiting for somebody.”

“You’re not anyplace you’ll be spotted are you?”

“Nah. We’ve been in the same spot for hours. Engine’s off. It’s like we’re parked overnight. We got a little space heater running off the battery. We’re good.”

“Okay. Call me if something else happens.”

Beck hung up and turned to Demarco, “How long since we left Red Hook?”

“About a half hour. What are you thinking?”

“Kolenka knows by now something went wrong. He’s got to get somewhere safer. Somewhere we don’t know about.”

Demarco continued down Coney Island Avenue. He was three blocks from Kolenka’s building. Beck’s phone rang.

“Yeah.”

“Another car pulled up behind the SUV. Cadillac. XTS. Three hard types got out. One went into the building. Two are standing guard just outside the entrance, guns out. A big meatball got out of the passenger side of the SUV. He’s got a piece in his hand, too.”

Beck told Demarco, “Pull over, D.” Then he told Ricky, “Shit. Looks like they’re getting ready to take our guy out of there.”

“Yep.”

“All right. Can you tail them?”

“Traffic is dead. It’s not rush hour yet. We’ll have to lag way behind, but it shouldn’t be hard.”

“Okay, we’ll trail you and then probably switch back and forth so they won’t spot you. You in the white van?”

“Still in the Bolo-mobile.”

“Stay on the phone and tell me what’s happening.”

“It’s like they’re moving the fucking president.”

“They are.”

“All right. Here we go. There’s a small old guy coming out now. Raggedy-ass suit coat over a white sweater, baggy pants, smoking. Everybody’s looking around. The one who went in for him is on one side. Another guy on the other. The third one is leading them to the Cadillac. Everybody has guns out. They’re putting him in the back of the Cadillac.”

“Who’s in which car?”

“The big guy and I’m guessing just a driver in the SUV. Can’t see through the windows. The boss man and two bodyguards in back of the Cadillac. Another bodyguard and driver in front. Cadillac leading. SUV trailing.”

“Stay with ’em. Keep your phone on.”

Beck put his phone on speaker and placed it in the Mercury’s ashtray so Demarco could hear Ricky Bolo’s running narrative. Kolenka’s cars were on Neptune Avenue headed east.

“Now what?” asked Demarco.

“Pray we get lucky. I’ve got my Browning. You have your Glock, right?”

“Plus my AA-Twelve. It’s on the floor in the back. I put a thirty-two-round drum on it.”

“Loaded with what?”

“Mostly twelve-gauge shot. But every fifth or sixth shell is a single slug. Big ones.”

“Well, maybe we have a chance.”

Beck was stiff and sore all over, the long knife wound on his back was only oozing blood. He downed a five-hour energy drink from the pocket of his coat. Grimaced through the pain and reached over the backseat for the assault shotgun.

Ricky Bolo’s voice came over the cell phone speaker. “They’re gettin’ on the BQE.”

“Still heading east?”

“Yeah.”

“Fall back a little more. We’ll overtake you and follow them.”

Demarco asked, “What do you think?”

“If he stays on the BQE, my bet is he’s heading for JFK.”

Demarco nodded. “Makes sense. Fly out to somewhere we can’t find him. Maybe the homeland.”

“We aren’t chasing this fucker to Russia. Gimme your phone.”

Beck used Demarco’s phone to get online.

Demarco eased past the Bolo’s white van and spotted Kolenka’s caravan of two cars about a hundred yards ahead. The van fell back. Demarco took its place and followed from well behind. Both of Kolenka’s vehicles were in the far left lane, going about sixty.

Beck was bent over Demarco’s phone.

“There aren’t any flights leaving at four in the morning. Where are we?”

“Just past Floyd Bennett Field.”

Beck pulled up Google Maps and searched for motels near JFK.

“I’m saying he’s heading for Kennedy, but he’ll have to hole up somewhere until planes start flying. There’s a lot of motels around the airport, but there are five that are the closest. Three in one cluster, two a block away. I guess we’ll have to roll the dice and cover the cluster of three.”

Demarco thought it over. “Or we split up and cover all five.”

Beck thought it over. “No, that could mean one of us against six. There’s a better way.”

Beck picked up the cell phone and took it off speaker. “Ricky, there’s three streets just past the JFK Expressway. One Hundred Fifty-third Place, Hundred Fifty-third Lane, and Hundred Fifty-third Court.”

After a moment, Ricky responded, “I see ’em on my GPS. What genius came up with that?”

“There’s two motels on One Hundred Fifty-third Lane. Three on the corner of One Hundred Fifty-third Court and South Conduit.”

“I see ’em.”

“Demarco and I are going to find a spot midway between all five. Can you lay back and follow them until they turn off, then let us know which street they take?”

“Not without them spotting us. How bad do you need to get this guy?”

“We don’t get him now, we’ll never get him. He could send gunmen after us forever.”

“Shit. James, there’s hardly anybody on the road. They spot us, it’s over.”

“Fuck.”

Beck thought it through. He was almost positive Kolenka was going for a flight out of town. That meant JFK. Would he go straight to the airport? They’d never be able to take him there. And then Beck thought, no. He’s not going to sit for hours in the airport. He can’t smoke in the airport.

“Okay, here’s what we do.”

Beck laid out his plan.

“All right, man, we got to hustle. Right now.”

Demarco slid into the far right lane. Two minutes later, the white van pulled up in the middle lane blocking any view of the Mercury because Beck feared the big Russian in the SUV was Vassily, and he might remember it. Both vehicles gradually sped up and past the Kolenka two-car caravan. Once past, they continued accelerating. The van topped out at ninety miles an hour. It took Jonas Bolo’s full concentration to keep the van under control.

The van nearly spun out when they hit the exit.

Jonas braked hard and parked the van on South Conduit Avenue where they had a view of all three streets. Beck and Demarco continued on, found a spot in the middle of 153rd Court, and parked the Mercury, shutting it down.

Beck said, “There have to be security cameras around these motels.”

Demarco spun his Kangol hat around to cover any view of his face from above. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a NY Knicks ball cap for Beck.

“They’re mostly covering the entrances.”

“Let’s get into that lot connecting the two blocks. Try and angle away from any cameras we spot. Once they turn onto one of these two streets, we’ll have to run to get in place. We have to take them outside. Can’t let them get into the motel.”

Demarco popped open his door and headed into the dark night without a word, Beck following close behind. Within seconds, they were hunkered down between two parked cars in the lot of the motel facing South Conduit.

Beck handed Demarco his Browning. “Take my gun.” He held up the AA-12. “I’ll need two hands for this fucker.”

“Don’t worry. It doesn’t kick much at all. But be careful. It shoots fast and does a hell of a lot of damage.”

Beck worked the headphones for his cell phone into his ears. The phone had been on the whole time.

Beck asked over the phone, “Any sign of them?”

“Not yet. I didn’t think the old Bolo-mobile could go that fast, but they should be here pretty soon. If they’re coming here.”

Beck turned down the volume on his phone. Suddenly, everything seemed quiet. All he could hear was the whoosh of occasional traffic out on the BQE. A gust of cold wind blew through the parking lot.

They didn’t have long to wait.

Beck heard Ricky Bolo’s voice in his ear. “Here they come.”

Beck felt a spasm of emotion run through him. He’d won half his bet. He stood up, moving out from between the parked cars. He did two quick half-squats, trying to loosen his sore knees, getting ready to run.

And then Ricky’s voice. “They just turned on … on … what the fuck is the middle street called? Goddamn it, is it Court? Lane? Whatever, it’s the middle street.”

It took Beck a split second to figure he had to run left, Demarco drifting easily behind him, guns in both hands.

They came out onto 153rd Court just as the trailing SUV drove past. The Cadillac was heading for the motel near the end of the block.

Beck took in everything. Across the street was a long-term parking lot filled with cars dropped off by airline passengers. A six-foot chain-link fence surrounded the lot, covered by a green plastic mesh.

Beck started running as fast as he could toward the lot. Demarco could see Beck was taking the high ground. Beck rolled under a locked double-wide gate and ran toward the fence bordering the motel parking lot.

Demarco raced up 153rd Court, closing the distance between him and the slowing SUV.

The Cadillac turned into a narrow lane that led to the parking area behind the motel, the SUV following. Demarco dug in and ran full blast.

Beck slipped and stumbled across the parking lot, but hit full stride and made it to the last row of cars parked parallel along the chain-link fence. He scrambled onto the roof of the nearest car, leaned over the top of the fence, and found himself ten feet above the motel lot as the big Cadillac slowly eased between the concrete wall that supported the parking lot fence, and a car parked against the motel wall in a handicapped space.

Beck opened fire. Fully automatic bursts of 12-gauge shot. In five seconds, he took out the front passenger tire of the Cadillac, and both front tires of the Tahoe. He then shifted and blasted the back windows of the Cadillac. The driver floored the accelerator and the car leaped forward on the shredded front tire, sending up sparks as the rim spun against the asphalt.

Out on the street, Demarco stood behind the SUV shooting nonstop with both handguns through the back window. The driver tried to accelerate between the wall and the car parked on his right, but with two flat front tires, he veered into the wall.

Beck fired a blast into the Tahoe’s engine, stalling the SUV.

The driver was too close to the wall to open his door, but the big Russian, Vassily, fell out of the passenger side, landing hard on the asphalt, gun in hand, firing back at Demarco.

Demarco calmly shifted aim and fired both guns at the downed Russian. After six shots, the Russian stopped firing back,

The panicked driver of the Cadillac tried to turn left, but without a front tire, he smashed into a parked car.

Beck blasted five quick shots into the back of the Cadillac, obliterating the trunk and tires. Everything went silent.

Demarco calmly walked to Vassily, who had been hit four times: his left arm, chest, right shoulder, and a grazing shot that had taken off most of his right ear. He leaned down, put his gun against Vassily’s head, and said, “Who’s the glupo chertovski negr now, fat boy?”

Vassily’s mouth moved like a fish gasping for air. Demarco put him out of his misery with one shot.

Beck had no choice but to climb over the fence. It seemed to take him forever to lower himself to the ground and slide down off the four-foot concrete wall that bordered the parking lot while still holding the shotgun. He had never fired it before and could hardly believe the damage it did. He started limping toward the Cadillac.

Demarco looked inside the open door of the SUV. The driver had fallen over the steering wheel. He looked dead, but Demarco put one shot into him to make sure.

Beck had to be certain Kolenka was dead. He moved as quickly as he could toward the Cadillac. When he was ten feet away, the back door opened and one of Kolenka’s bodyguards leaned out and shot at him. Beck lurched right and fell to the ground, but could not get the AA-12 out from under him to fire back.

Demarco, still back at the SUV, fired off wild shots at the bodyguard over the open door of the Tahoe, until both handguns clicked empty, giving Beck enough cover to fire the AA-12 from a prone position, cutting down the bodyguard with two shots.

Demarco stepped over Vassily, slammed the Tahoe door in his way and ran to Beck, lifting him to his feet. They both walked to the Cadillac, Demarco reloading his Glock. The carnage inside the car was nearly complete. The driver and remaining bodyguards were dead. Kolenka was pitched forward against the passenger seat, blood across the top of his head.

Beck leaned into the car and pulled Kolenka back off the seat. He had a massive head wound, but he was still breathing. Beck placed the muzzle of the AA-12 into Kolenka’s side.

“You should have stayed out of it, Ivan.”

He pulled the trigger.

The entire gun battle had taken less than three minutes.

Demarco helped Beck limp back to the Mercury as quickly as he could. He wasn’t sure if Beck had been shot, but he couldn’t waste time on the street finding out.