M.I.A. Hunter: Miami War Zone Page 6

  "Good. And is the D.E.A. man still safe?"

  "Yes. Still safe." Charlie was keeping the D.E.A. man at his own house, which galled him. He thought it was an unnecessary risk and a real danger. But his father had insisted.

  "You have more men, more security. We can't keep him at my place," the don had reasoned.

  Charlie had agreed, but only for one reason. He was hoping to feed Wofford to his pet alligators after his usefulness was finished.

  The rendezvous was set for an area south of Miami some miles off U.S. 1, an area that could be reached by traveling first on an asphalt road and then on gravel. It hadn't been developed yet, but sooner or later it would be, like all the rest of the land in Florida.

  For now, however, it was a perfect spot for a drug deal. Dark, mosquito infested, thick with trees and grasses and weeds.

  Crazy Charlie's Cuban gunmen were spread out and well hidden. Charlie himself, and a few of his closest associates, were located a safe distance away, awaiting results.

  The Colombians got there first, driving in pickup trucks with armed guards in the back. There were three trucks, about six men to a truck.

  The Cubans were close behind, in cars. Four cars, four men to a car. Charlie could not see well from where he was hiding, but he assumed that the men were as well armed as the Colombians.

  It wasn't that anyone expected trouble. This was a routine meet, of a kind that had gone down often before, but no one was completely relaxed. No one in the drug world ever allowed himself to get completely relaxed, or if he did he didn't last long enough to tell about it.

  The doors opened and closed on the pickups as men got out of the cabs. No lights came on in the interiors.

  More doors slammed, and men got out of the cars. The guards in the pickups tensed.

  Charlie's men waited until both groups had gotten as close as they ever would. Then they stood up and began firing.

  The sounds of the Uzis shattered the stillness and quiet of the night, and the screams of the men followed.

  The Colombians began to return the fire from the pickup beds, and the Cubans got out of their cars. It was Charlie's idea to let as many of the Cubans escape alive as possible, thus solidifying the idea that this was indeed a Cuban double-cross. He also wanted at least one Colombian left to tell the story.

  It was hard to get that idea across to his Cuban troops, however. They were firing and being fired on, and in the heat of the battle they didn't much care whom they killed.

  Bodies flipped out of pickup beds as projectiles tore into them. Cubans slammed into the sides of their cars and slipped slowly to the ground. Bullets punched holes in the sheet metal of the cars' bodies.

  Charlie knew that some of his own men would be killed as well, but they were Cubans and would be reported as such in the newspapers. The Colombians would be convinced. He was sure of it.

  A stray bullet slapped into the palm tree beside which Charlie was hiding. "Shit!" he exclaimed, sinking lower. It wasn't his idea to die out there himself. That was not part of the plan.

  He saw no more of the fighting, though to tell the truth, he hadn't been able to see much to begin with. The night was too dark, and most of the action he had viewed had been illuminated by the flame bursting from firing Uzis.

  Soon he heard a door slam and a car start. He raised up to see one of Feliz's cars leaving the scene, backing as fast as it could down the gravel road.

  Another slam, and a Colombian pickup spun off the road and into the ditch to get around all the other vehicles.

  Charlie strained his eyes for five minutes, but there was no other movement. It was time to move out. Even this far from town, the gunfire would have been heard and the cops would be on the way.

  He and his men cut across the open field to where their own car was hidden, not far off another gravel road.

  His Cuban troops could find their own way out.

  If they were still alive.

  Charlie didn't give a damn one way or the other.

  Chapter Seven

  Stone was angry.

  His two leads were dead, Wofford was still missing, and there seemed to be no more clues as to his whereabouts.

  "Let's go over it again," Carol said. They were in the safe house, surrounded by the computers and monitors. Hog and Loughlin were in their rooms, resting, but Stone was unable to sleep.

  Stone took it from the top, telling Carol everything that had happened from the time they entered the Black Pussy Cat until the fistfight had ended.

  "It was a planned, organized hit," Stone said. "They didn't care who got killed as long as they got their targets. In fact, the random shooting will cover up their objective. I'd bet everyone in that club had a record. The police will never figure out exactly who was being hit."

  "Not everyone had a record," Carol said, smiling.

  "Not the same kind, at least," Stone agreed.

  "And the hit team couldn't have known that you would be there. So that eliminates one target. If they had known they might not even have gone in."

  "Probably not, considering the outcome."

  "And what was it that Rodriguez said before he was killed?"

  "He asked if we were from the don. He said something like, 'We delivered, didn't we?'"

  "Delivered what?" Carol brushed her hair back with a hand.

  "Dope? Guns? Money?"

  "Or a hostage."

  Stone thought about it. "You could be right. That could be our connection. They delivered Jack to the don. I don't know how they spotted him, but they could have done it."

  Carol said, "Remember, they'd been bragging about being in solid with Don Vito earlier."

  "Then the don didn't have them hit."

  "Why not?" Carol wanted to know. "They were talking too much, letting the word get around about their 'good buddy,' the don. Loose talk like that can get you killed."

  Stone nodded in agreement, but he still wasn't satisfied. "It's possible, but I don't see it that way. It's more likely that someone else was behind it. Maybe it was a punishment for talking too much, or maybe it was a punishment for being on the wrong side."

  "The Cuban drug dealers?"

  "Right. Castillo and Rodriguez talked too much and to the wrong people. How long do you think it would take that information to get back to their leader? What was his name again?"

  "Enrique Feliz. Of course. If he found out that his own men had sold out to the don, he wouldn't hesitate to eliminate them."

  "It doesn't really matter," Stone told her. "Not now, at any rate. It would just strengthen what we already believe. So our next visit should be to Don Vito Lucci. What have you got on him?"

  Carol sat at a keyboard. "Miami Organized Crime should have plenty." Her fingers played over the keys.

  In only seconds, letters began to appear on the monitor screen. "Here's the address," Carol said. "It's in Coral Gables, one of the 'old Miami' neighborhoods. I'll bet his neighbors have no idea who's living next door to them."

  She punched more keys. A floor plan began to appear. "He lives in an old mansion that's been renovated. This plan hasn't been updated, and it doesn't say anything about the security systems, but you can see the arrangement of the house and grounds."

  "Print that out," Stone said.

  While they were waiting for the hard copy, another printer in the room began spewing dot-matrix letters onto paper. Carol got up to see what new intel was coming in.

  "My God," she said after reading a few lines.

  Stone looked over her shoulder. "Damn," he swore.

  The printer was telling them about a shooting war in progress, or just ending, with drug dealers dying all over the place on the other side of the city.

  "People dying by the truckload," Stone grunted. "First the shooting at the club, and now this. The police must be going nuts."

  "Almost like a war," Carol said.

  "There aren't any good guys or bad guys in this war, though," Stone told her. "Apparently a fight broke out at a
drug deal, and both sides started firing. I don't much care if they kill each other off in a battle like that."

  "Of course not," Carol said. "But this is really going to put the pressure on. The press, the politicians, everybody will be on the backs of the police, demanding that something be done."

  "Which will restrict our freedom of movement even more," Stone said. "We've got to act now. Let me look at those plans."

  He moved to the printout of the house plan. "Bedrooms don't move around much. They stay next to baths, so whatever changes have been made, probably the master bedroom is still in the same place."

  He looked at the plan. "Second floor right. We can expect that the don will have pretty good security, but not as heavy as it might have been in the old days. I expect it's been years since he had an unwanted visitor. People do tend to grow careless after a while."

  "Not you," Carol said.

  "I'm still too much in the game. The don hasn't been a player for a long time now, not if what you told me about him is true. I don't mean that we can walk up to the front door and ring the bell, but we can get in.

  "We aren't going to do anything that would attract the attention of the police. I don't want to kill anyone. I don't even want to hurt anyone. Not until I find out what I want to know. I just want to ask the don a few simple questions in the privacy of his own home."

  "A soft probe?" Carol asked.

  "Right. We go in, we come out. No one's the wiser, if the don is cooperative. If he's not . . . " He looked closer at the floorplan printouts on the screen. "I think I see our way in . . ."

  "He may be old, and he may be out of touch," Carol objected, "but he'll still be heavily guarded. And the guards can't all be expected to be lazy and careless."

  "Let's see if there's not more information in that computer," Stone said. "They might not know about the systems he uses, but they'll know about guards and animals."

  Carol tapped the keys.

  The information began to appear.

  Stone smiled grimly. "We can handle that. Hog and Loughlin have had enough sleep. I'll go wake them up."

  At Williams's insistence, Mike Bass had checked all the rental agencies for the hour after the arrival of Stone's flight.

  Though Stone had used a false name to rent the Toyota, Benton and Ferguson had taken around a snapshot, which had been identified by the Avis clerk. They got the license number of the car, and a description of it.

  Immediately, Bass got in touch with his contacts on the police force, who got a description of the car and the plate numbers on the air.

  A patrol car spotted them heading down 95 toward Coral Gables and got the word to headquarters, who relayed it to Bass and Williams.

  "Tell the patrol car to stay on their tail! If they lose them, we'll bust the cops back to the academy! Tell them we're on the way!" Williams was practically frothing as he relayed the orders. "Let's go!"

  He and Bass headed for their car.

  It was Carol who spotted the tail. She was the driver. "There's a marked car hanging on our tail," she informed her passengers.

  "Where the hell did he come from?" Stone wondered.

  "I don't know, but there he is. There's not enough traffic to hide him tonight."

  "Can you lose him?"

  "In a Toyota? I can try."

  Carol stomped the accelerator and sped down the nearest exit ramp, ripping onto the service road at something far above a safe speed.

  "Hot damn!" Hog roared from the rear seat as Carol took the first right turn, throwing Loughlin over into Hog in the crowded car. "Does this mean we're engaged?"

  "I bloody well hope not," the Brit returned. "My mother would never understand."

  Carol shot the little white car through a series of sharp rights, then a few lefts. She knew that in speed the Corolla was no match for the police car. Her only chance was to outmaneuver them.

  It wasn't going to be easy. The police had taken Williams's threat to heart, and the driver was hanging in like a madman. They flew down residential streets and past businesses. "Hey!" Hog yelled. "Ain't that the Orange Bowl?" Stone took a quick glance. Sure enough, he could see the outlines of the stadium in the distance.

  "I saw the Dolphins play there once," Hog informed them, as happy as if he were on a sightseeing tour. "It was when Griese was the quarterback. That Marino kid is good, all right, but Griese really had a touch on the ball. He threw for over three hundred yards that day."

  Carol took another sharp right, tossing Hog around in the seat and taking away his view of the stadium. "Are they still behind us?" she asked.

  Stone checked. "Yes. But no closer."

  If she had known the area, Carol would have found her job easier. As it was, she had to keep moving while trying not to get lost or run into a dead end.

  "There's an alley coming up," Stone said. "Try it."

  Carol looked at the dark space between two storefronts. She jammed on the brakes and spun the wheel to the right. The rear end of the Toyota drifted, but thanks to the front-wheel drive, the forward tires bit into the pavement and the car swung into the turn.

  The car sizzled down the alleyway, driving over excelsior from thin packing crates and barely missing a Dumpster. The alley was only one block long.

  The white Corolla leaped into the street and across into the next alley. Fortunately, there was no car coming from either direction. Carol didn't look or make any attempt to yield the right of way.

  The alley ended in a T, with the top of the T being the brick wall of another building. Carol literally stood on the brakes, bringing the car to a shivering halt inches from the wall. As she turned the wheel to the left, they all heard the police car carom off the Dumpster from the other alley.

  Carol got her foot off her brake, cut her lights, and turned left. She drove out of the alley and turned left back onto the street, then hooked another left and drove slowly to the alley entrance.

  The police car hit the wall.

  Not hard enough to stop it, however, but hard enough to shake up the occupants. They had almost managed to stop in time. When they finally recuperated from their close call, they would have no idea about which way to turn.

  Carol drove past the alley with her lights out.

  "Can you find the highway again?" Stone asked.

  "Sure. But it might be better if we took the secondary roads."

  Stone agreed. It took them a little longer, but they found the entrance to the storm drain before two o'clock. It was on a dark side street, and no one saw the three men slip out of the car, lift the cover, and disappear inside.

  "It smells like shit in here," Hog complained.

  He, Stone, and Loughlin were walking through a pipe five feet in diameter, their flashlights glinting off the sides and off the narrow trickle of water that ran along the bottom. They were all dressed in camo fatigues, their faces blackened.

  "This is a storm drain, not a sewer," Stone reminded him. "There is a difference."

  Hog wasn't convinced. "It still smells like shit. What's that over there? Looks like a turd to me."

  Loughlin walked ahead to where Hog's light picked an object out of the shadows. He nudged it with the toe of his boot. "A bloody rat," he said. "But don't worry, Hog. It can't bite you. It's dead."

  "I ain't afraid of any rat," Hog growled. "I just don't like walkin' in shit."

  "Let's go," Stone ordered. His words echoed off the metal walls of the pipe. He moved ahead, and the others followed.

  "You sure the weather forecast didn't call for rain?" Hog asked.

  Stone ignored him. The information Carol had drawn from her computer said that there was a city storm drain running beneath Don Vito Lucci's property. When the estate had been built, it had taken in a considerable amount of land, including one of the openings of the storm drain near the far edge of the property.

  Stone believed that the opening might still exist. "Why cover it up?" he had asked Carol. "It was concrete, with an iron cover. It must have looked like
something useful. Unless they investigated the whole estate, they don't even know it's there. I'm sure the previous owners wouldn't have covered it. There would have been no reason to."

  Carol had agreed. "But what if you're wrong?"

  "Then we'll pull back out and go through the front gate."

  "Quietly?"

  "Probably not. So let's hope the opening's still there.

  "This should be it." Stone shined his light upward at a round iron covering. "Now if no one's built a summerhouse on it, we'll be all right."

  The three men had all been walking bent over, and Hog welcomed the chance to stretch out. He stepped to the spot beneath the cover, gave his light to Loughlin, and pressed his hands against the iron.

  He pushed upward.

  Nothing moved.

  Hog looked big enough to move half of Miami if he really wanted to, but all his strength seemed useless against the round piece of iron.

  "Goddamn!" Hog exploded, the breath rushing out of him. "Maybe they did build a fuckin' summerhouse on top of that thing."

  He set his feet and tried again.

  Nothing.

  Loughlin stepped over beside him, handing both lights to Stone. "Let me help."

  Both men pushed and heaved until their legs and arms trembled.

  Just as they were about to give up, the covering seemed to move slightly.

  "As far as anyone knows, that covering hasn't been moved since the late thirties," Stone told them. "Fifty years is a long time. It may be rusted in place."

  They heaved again. The cover shifted even more, and dirt poured down on their heads, getting down their necks and inside their camos.

  "Keep pushing," Stone ordered.

  Loughlin and Hog strained powerfully. Suddenly the cover seemed to rise straight up and dirt cascaded in.

  They moved together as if on a given signal, throwing the cover up and to the side. Through the opened hole they could see the night sky, a faint star glimmering above.

  The dirt slowed to a trickle, forming a black mound at their feet.

  "That sonofabitchin' cover was heavy!" Hog said.

  "So am I," Stone told him. "But toss me up there anyway." Hog hooked his hands together and Stone put his foot in the cradle.