Jeff Abbott: Cut and Run

‘This is it,’ Bucks said. The six men hung back in the alleyway, surveying the parking lot of the warehouse. A high fence, topped with barbed wire, separated the lot from the adjoining side road. An office light gleamed through the glass door. Three cars were parked nearby; Whit recognized one. A little red Honda. Tasha Strong’s car that she’d driven over to Frank and Eve’s. He started to speak, thought, and stayed quiet.

They waited ten minutes. No movement or sound in the lot.

‘No guard,’ Whit said.

‘We go over the fence, then through the side truck bay, the service door. Quietly. I got skeleton keys. Surprise them. Surprise is critical,’ Bucks said.

They waited another two minutes; no sign of movement.

‘Trevor, Wart, go,’ Bucks whispered and the thin Jamaican and the Wart hurried forward. Trevor lifted the Wart up high; Wart started cutting the stretch of barbed wire at the top of the fencing. Trevor balanced Wart on his palms, and the ribbon of wire curled away as Wart moved down the fence.

Then Trevor boosted Wart over the fence. He eased himself down on the other side, carefully, then dropped to the asphalt. Whit, Bucks, and Heavy Jamaican began to scale the fence, Trevor helping them. Frank hung back.

‘Frank, shake your ass up here,’ Bucks said.

Frank started to climb, tentatively.

Whit was over the fence, trying to be silent in making his jump down, when the shadow bulleted out from the other side of the lot, beelining toward Wart, who was crouched over, waiting for the rest of them.

Whit said, ‘Oh, no,’ loudly, as he dropped to the pavement next to Bucks and the bullet, a sleek Doberman the color of night, launched itself at Wart. The dog took him down in the shoulders, hammered him to the concrete. A horrible tearing noise rose from their struggle; a spray of blood shot across the asphalt. Teeth sunk into flesh and ripped with ingrained precision.

Wart screamed once as the dog yanked him around by the neck, as fangs found new hold. Bucks and Trevor fired. The dog yelped, twisted, then Bucks put a bullet right in the dog’s skull. Wart lay there, groaning, cupping his hands under his chin, the blood welling.

Whit turned and the second dog was arrowing right for him, eyes locked to his throat, snout down, ten paces away and Whit fired, the silencer Bucks had attached to his gun making a soft-bark sound, firing once, twice, catching the dog in its leap, the bullets tearing dogflesh from ribs and it fell, thudding into him, knocking him to the ground. But dying. Whit climbed out from under the dog; it made a last, feeble attempt to snap, to fend off the dark, then shivered into stillness.

‘They know we’re here now,’ Bucks said. ‘Rush it, full frontal.’ He and the Jamaicans charged the office door, Whit kneeling by Wart. He was fading, gone as Whit touched his wrist, the carotid and jugular torn, his throat nothing but wound, the neck broken. His eyes were still open in shock at the sudden, end-it-all turn.

Whit glanced back over at the fence.

Frank was gone, fled into the dark of the alley.

Whit turned and headed for the building; a couple of sharp pops from Bucks’ gun shattered the door glass, loud in the quiet of the industrial park. Bucks reached inside, flipped the locks.

They were in, Heavy taking the lead and Whit coming in last.

The entry office was dimly lit, an empty desk, a mountain of old newspapers scattered around the room. The smell of gasoline – rich, unexpected – filled the air. Two gas canisters stood on the side of the desk. Whit stopped. The canisters were full but capped. Waiting to be used or moved.

Bucks gestured down the hall, and Heavy Jamaican bolted down it, laying a spray of suppressing fire, tearing chunks out of the wall and ceiling. At the end of the hall a metal warehouse door stood shut.

‘Wait,’ Whit called, ‘they’re torching the warehouse?’ But Heavy and Trevor and Bucks were blasting the door, charging into the warehouse proper, and now there was an answering hail of shots, an intense staccato of bullets and screams.

He barreled down the hall, after Trevor and Bucks, and went through the door. A storm of gunfire met his ears, battle in full rage, shrieks, the horrible sound of metal impacting flesh.

They had been waiting for them. Two men, taking cover behind boxes twenty feet beyond the door, emptying rifles, Heavy stumbling as blood erupted from his chest. No sign of Trevor but then the men behind the boxes screamed, fell. Bucks charged past a wall of boxes and gave out a bloodcurdling yell. More gunfire erupted to Whit’s right, from two different guns. A moment of quiet. Then bullets shot by his head and Whit dove down, skidding on the concrete floor, crabbing for cover behind a set of crates near the door, Spanish scrawled along their sides. Bullets ripping into the wood.

He heard his mother scream his name.

‘Whit!’ Eve screamed. ‘Get out!’

Whit stayed down on the floor, his gun close to his head. She must have seen him come through the door; he hadn’t seen her. He heard sobbing. Then he heard a soft cussing. Bucks, in pain, angrily moaning.

But no more shooting. Over in thirty seconds that felt like thirty hours. He closed his eyes, forced himself to breathe quietly.

‘Whit,’ a voice called. Jose Peron’s. ‘Come out now. Or I shoot her.’

‘He’ll shoot me anyway,’ Eve said. Her voice calmer now, ordering him. ‘Get out!’

Whit risked a look past the crating. The warehouse space was huge, but most of the shooting had taken place in an open area within thirty feet of the door. Wooden crates stood stacked, haphazardly, and Jose and his group had quickly retreated behind the boxes. A forklift sat idle in a corner. A small space had been cleared behind a tower of boxes, and worn chairs and a desk were grouped there.

Heavy lay in a heap by a desk, half his face gone, two men Whit had not seen before dead near him, heads and chests bloodied messes. Heavy had kept shooting after he went down, probably taking the two men with him, and the concrete floor was scarred and chipped with bullet hits. Whit could not see Trevor, but Trevor wasn’t shooting and he hoped the man had found cover. Tasha Strong stood over Bucks, a gun locked at his temple, relieving him of his pistol. Bucks bled from a leg wound, had his palms open in surrender. And Jose stood, looking to Whit’s right, listening like a wolf for the scrabble of the rabbit in the grass.

Whit aimed at Jose, who didn’t see him but stepped behind the forklift. No clear shot. Whit ducked back behind the crate.

‘I’m counting to three, then I’m shooting your mother if you don’t come out, toss the gun out, arms up,’ Jose said. ‘One. Two.’ Counting fast.

‘I’m counting to three,’ Whit shouted, ‘and if you don’t release Bucks and my mother, I’m calling the rest of our team outside and telling them to start your office fire for you.’

‘Excellence!’ Bucks yelled, then groaned. ‘That’s real excellence!’

‘Shut up,’ Tasha said. ‘Shut your ever-running mouth.’

‘Where’s my movie?’ Bucks said. ‘Jose, you bastard…’ A shot rang out and Bucks shut up.

‘Do you not know what be quiet means?’ Tasha said.

But Jose had stopped his countdown. ‘Let’s all be cool. Where’s the money, Whit?’ he called. ‘You tell me and I’ll let you and your mother go.’

Whit said nothing. He thinks we still have the money. But that’s crazy, he has it. No, clearly he didn’t, and the realization froze Whit’s blood.

Frank, running from the fence once Bucks changed the plans. Frank being more than a coward. Maybe Frank hadn’t gotten any tip from the street; maybe Frank cut a deal with Jose to deliver Whit and Bucks. He could hear Frank’s voice, smooth, into a phone: Yeah, say you know about Montana, that’ll prove to him you really have his mom. Jose wanted Eve to help him, get the rest of the Bellini money for them, and she wouldn’t do it. So give them Whit because Eve would help them if they had a gun to his head, give them Bucks to tidy up the last of the loose ends, and Frank was set. That’s why he objected to the extra men Bucks brought. Frank thought tonight would be a walk-in and exchange for all intents and purposes, some separate deal cut between him and Jose.