By edRogers
[Reviewed here on the novel’s publication day, October 6, 2018: “Coming soon to a Barnes & Noble store near you?”]
Charlie was notified by Customs what American Airlines flight his feathers were going out on. He knew that if his feathers were going out Tai’s shark fins would be on the same flight, and he forwarded the information to Agent Morris.
By the time AA 2589 landed in Dallas, the D.E.A. had added more cameras around the Customs secure-holding area. The area was already covered with cameras but these gave them coverage of every inch of it.
Morris and Nowak were in an American Airlines van parked just outside the entrance. Once items passed through Costa Rican Customs they were never checked again until they reached their destination, which wasn’t the U.S.A. The packages that were just passing through were removed from the arriving flight and placed in the secure-holding warehouse to await their flight out of the country. That was how the U.S. allowed shark fins to fly in and out of the States; they could say they were never here because until something or someone clears Customs, it or you aren’t in the U.S.
Nowak pushed Morris’s arm and pointed at a load of bags coming across the tarmac. “Here it comes.” The last cart bore two pallets of fins.
Earlier they had found a raised table with four spikes that was set up like a scale. The table was enclosed and looked solid, its top sitting on springs to allow the scale to work. It even had a dial to display the weight – very official looking. The only problem was that there was no need to weigh anything in Customs. Morris had tried to push down the top to see if it opened but he felt no movement. They could only wait and see what happened.
Presently, two men began working in the area around the table, a section that was fenced off even from what was already secure. The cameras watched their every move. First, they set smaller items on shelves, and then one of the men got on a lift truck and removed the two pallets from the cart they had come in on. That man then got off the lift truck and drove what they called a pushback tug, with a line of carts behind, to meet another airplane. The remaining man now mounted the lift truck and picked up one of the pallets, presumably of fins.
Morris was shaking with anticipation. “This is it!”
The driver put the pallet gently on the four spikes and backed away. Nowak and Morris – and the lift truck diver – all watched the scale’s dial move upward and then suddenly drop a little more than a hundred pounds.
Nowak screamed, “What the hell just happened?”
Morris was hollering into his radio, “Everybody move! Repeat: everybody move! Get some sledgehammers in there and take that scale apart.”
By the time Morris and Nowak got to the scale the top was busted off to reveal an opening underneath to allow the drugs to drop into a tunnel, but there was no sign of the drugs. Nowak grabbed one of the agents close to him. “Get in that tunnel and tell me which way it goes, and then follow it. Take two more men with you.”
Three men jumped in and one hollered up, “It’s heading due northeast. We’re on the move.”
Nowak and Morris ran outside and looked to the northeast. A small hangar appeared to sit just beyond the airport perimeter. Morris slapped Nowak on the back. “That’s it! Let’s go get the bastards.”
Nowak drove their van as Morris barked orders over the radio, wanting to be sure no one, or thing, got out of that hangar.
Nowak cut across the grass toward a gate in the fence. He slammed through the gate without slowing up, pulled in front of the hangar, and jumped out into a hail of gunfire. Morris rolled out his side of the van as Nowak rounded the back and threw himself against the tire.
A voice came over the radio from one of the three men in the tunnel. “We’re taking heavy fire from up above, down an elevator shaft! The tunnel ends at the elevator, which has gone up, and there’s no other way for us to exit. Trying to climb up the shaft puts us in the line of fire from above.”
Morris clicked his radio. “Stay out of the line of fire. With you down there they have nowhere to go but out the front door.”
Nowak tapped Morris on the back. “The assault team is here.”
An armored vehicle pulled up next to the van and the rear opened for Nowak and Morris, who made a run for it as the gunner opened up with his M60. Once they were safely inside, the commander asked, “Is one of you the agent in charge?”
Morris had to holler over the sound of the M60. “Yes, I am. We have to breach that building before they can destroy the drugs they have. Can your men do that?”
The commander only smiled and clicked his throat mic. “Team One, move off to the right. Team Two, I want you to move to my rear. We’ll be the first through the door. Team One, cover us and let no one escape.”
He patted his driver on the shoulder and said, “Buckle up, here we go!”
Like a bull charging from the gate at a rodeo, the armored vehicle shot forward. It crashed through the large sliding doors of the hangar knocking one of them off its hinges and launching it flying across the room and killing two of the men inside. The vehicle ran over and killed another man as it entered, and the gunner shot two more. Team Two poured into the hangar and within 90 seconds the battle was over. Eight living men had been inside the hangar. Now six of them were dead and the remaining two were prisoners, along with three hundred pounds of cocaine. It was a wonderful day for the D.E.A.
They got the elevator to the tunnel working so their three men could come up and join in the celebration. Morris removed his phone from his pocket an sent Charlie a text. “Thanks.”
Next, he sent a text to his man at the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica: “Release the money.”
With the evidence the D.E.A. now had, Tai was out of business, and this time it was the U.S. Government that would be indicting him, not Costa Rica.
Morris’s phone rang. “Hello.”
He didn’t recognize the voice. “Agent Morris, my name is Captain Araya. I’m with the Costa Rican Federal Department of Organized Crime.”
“How may I help you, Captain Araya?”
“Could you tell me if Charlie Blankenship is or has ever been in your employment?”
It wasn’t a call Morris had expected. “The names of people we hire or don’t hire are never open to discussion. I can’t tell you one way or the other. However, I can’t think of a reason why he would be employed by us. Can you?”
Morris caught a little frustration in Araya’s voice. “I had hoped you would be more forthcoming with me, Agent Morris. I have quite a few dead people to account for here in Costa Rica and you and Agent Nowak, along with Mr. Blankenship, seemed to have dealings with all of them.”
“Captain Araya, I do wish I could help, but even if I knew anything it would be classified.”
“I can obtain a warrant and have you brought to court here in Costa Rica and forced to talk.”
“Good luck with that.” Morris hung up the phone but made a note to find out who Captain Araya was.
| Copyright © 2018 by Ed Rogers |
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