Plausible Denial (17 page)

Santos
was in the shadows of the building close to the wall when Mac broke the
silence. “Got it. Hang on a minute. Someone’s coming this way.”

He
dropped to the ground in a prone position, invisible in his Ghillie-suit, and
aimed his rifle down the wall toward the front of the building.

Santos’s
night vision gear illuminated a security guard, an AK-47 slung over his
shoulder, heading in his direction.
Maybe a relief for the guy we killed
behind us
, he thought,
or maybe a rover
. He set the green line on
the unsuspecting guard’s chest and watched the poor fool continue in his
direction.

He
waited, and waited, and waited until the man was less than fifteen feet in
front of him, then he pressed the trigger once. Three rounds spat out of the
gun. The first hit the guard in the solar plexus, the second in the center of
his chest and the third two inches higher and slightly to the right. The
guard’s heart exploded and he was knocked backwards, dead before he hit the
ground.

The
only sounds heard were the three consecutive
phiffts
of the rounds
leaving the suppresser and the rattle of the AK-47 when it hit the ground.
Culler was up and standing over him seconds later, his weapon pointed down
range searching for another target. “Got him,” he said into his lapel mic. “All
clear on this side.”

“Clear
here,” came the response. “Meet you up front.”

Keeping
to the shadows close to the wall, Mac moved silently to the end of the building
and peeked around the corner. He saw three men gathered next to a pickup truck
at the front of the parking lot directly across from the entrance to the warehouse.
Illuminated by the bright floodlights, they were smoking cigarettes and
chatting animatedly.

All
carried AK-47 assault rifles slung over their shoulders and were oblivious to
what was happening around them.

The
shock of the floodlights illuminating the front of the building and parking lot
affected Mac’s night vision gear by causing light blooms. Blinking his eyes, he
backed up into the shadows, flipped up the night vision eyepiece and turned off
the infrared laser.

He
brought the rifle to his shoulder and sighted through the riflescope to make
sure everything was working perfectly before again peeking around the corner of
the building and setting the red chevron of his scope on the three guards.

But
Santos got there before him.

Mac
watched all three guards go down in a hail of silent 5.56mm rounds plinking
into the surrounding vehicles. In the next instant Santos was standing over
them. One guard groaned and Culler put a double-tap through his head. And then
there was silence.

Culler
ducked down into the shadows of the vehicles beside the dead guards and turned
his attention to the front of the building. There was a large roll-up garage
door in the center of the warehouse and two smaller pedestrian doors on each
side. Five windows ran across the second floor as in the rear. All of the
windows were dark.

He
surveyed the entire area around him but saw no movement other than Mac running
out of the shadows at the corner of the building and taking up a position at
his side of the parking lot behind one of the vehicles. Both men concentrated
on the front entrances of the warehouse.

Mac
pulled his lapel microphone up close to his lips and whispered into it. “That’s
five of them. Good shooting. That’s it for the outside, but there are still a
few more inside. You try the door on the right and I’ll try the left.”

“Roger
that.”

Keeping
low, both men ran to the doors and flattened themselves against the building.
They listened intently for any sounds coming from the interior and then gently
tried the doorknobs.

“Locked,”
whispered Culler.

“Mine
too.”

“What
now?”

“Don’t
know. Wait for someone to come out? What do you think?”

“Naw,
that won’t work. There must be another way into this building.”

“Didn’t
see any, aside from the back door. Did you?”

“Nope,
and the corrugated walls look pretty strong, and there are no windows along
this side at all.”

Mac
was silent for a few moments. “Do you think we should knock?”

Chapter Forty-Seven

T
he
four off-duty security guards were wrapping up their card game in the break
room on the second floor. They were dressed alike in military style camouflage
trousers and boots and black “security” tee-shirts. Pistols hung from their web
belts, and their AK-47s stood stacked in the corner of the room. 

Anon,
the heavyset leader of the shift, glanced at his watch. “Hey, it’s after
two-thirty and Michai hasn’t checked in yet. Sano, go out back and kick the
sonofabitch in the ass. This is the last time for him. I am tired of warning
the lazy bastard. Check on the other guys too. Make sure they are not standing
around with their thumbs up their butts lying about the whores they screwed. I
want to hear about it if they are not doing their rounds. Then we can all get
some sleep.”

“Yes
sir.” Sano grabbed his cap, slung his assault rifle over his shoulder and
pushed the door open. The door led to a catwalk that extended the length of the
building and provided access to the rooms and offices on the second floor. At
each end of the catwalk were stairs leading down the ground floor.

He
turned left and headed down the catwalk to the stairs that would take him down
to the rear entrance.
Poor Michai
, he thought,
all he has to do on
this job is stay awake and he cannot even do that. Now he will be out of a job
and will have the Cambodian to contend with as well. The Cambodian will smack
the crap out of him. I would hate to be in his shoes.

Sano
reached the double doors and called through them in a hushed voice. “Hey,
Michai, open up. It’s me, Sano.” There was no response. He called again, louder
this time, and tried opening the door. The door opened a few inches and bumped
up against something. “Wake up Michai.” He put his shoulder to the door and
pushed harder, forcing the door open a few more inches.

Then
he saw the blood and the body; he knew his friend was dead.

Sano
pulled the door shut and called out. “Anon, Anon. Michai is dead. Hurry up.
Someone killed Michai.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

M
oments
earlier, Santos whispered into his lapel mic. “Don’t you dare knock on that door.
Look, there are rooms on the second floor on your side of the building, but I
don’t think there is a second floor on my side. No windows at all. So come over
here and we’ll shoot the lock out of this door and enter from this side.”

“I
was just screwing with you,” said Mac. “Sounds like a good plan to me. I’m on
my way.”

Mac
joined Culler on his side of the warehouse. He leaned close and whispered,
“It’s going to be dark inside, so let’s go back to night vision and lasers.”

They
changed the settings on their rifles and flipped down their night vision gear
over their left eyes. “We’ve got plenty of ammo. At least we don’t have to
worry about that.”

“One
more thing,” Mac whispered. “Let’s not forget why we’re here. Once we get inside,
you concentrate on injecting the ricin into as many of those heroin bricks as
you can, and I’ll take care of the rest of the guards. And if we have to
skedaddle, make sure we get a couple of those bricks to make it look like we’re
thieves. That’ll give us at least a bit of a fig leaf for why we were here.”

“Okay,
okay. I got it. We’re thieves. Now stand back while I blast the door.” 

Santos
brought the POF up to his hip, put the green line above the bolt of the lock
and hit the trigger.  As five silent 5.56mm rounds leaped out of the
muzzle and splintered the wood around the lock and door jam, the door opened
with a gentle tug.

Santos
slipped into the warehouse and turned right toward the side of the building. He
saw two pallets of heroin bricks sitting in front of bales of stacked
marijuana. MacMurphy followed, pulling the door closed behind him and
flattening himself against the wall on the other side of the door.

His
eyes quickly surveyed the interior of the dark warehouse and caught the sight
of one of the guards at the other end of the building pushing at the double
doors and calling softly to someone on the other side. He saw the guard push
the door open wide enough for him to see his dead colleague laying on the
ground, and all hell broke loose.

The
guard turned and started yelling up to the second floor. Mac already had the
green line on him, and he touched the trigger, slamming the guy back into the
doors and down in a heap.

Mac
glanced over at Santos who was standing with his back to a pallet of heroin
bricks looking up toward the second floor. A heavy- set security guard came
running out of one of the rooms yelling something in Thai to others behind him.

Culler
was already aiming in that direction, and when the guard hit the catwalk he brought
the green line to bear on the running man and hit the trigger, sending him
sprawling to the floor, his AK-47 assault rifle flying out of his hands, over
the ledge and clattering onto the concrete floor below.

An
alarm blared, echoing through the warehouse in a cacophony of noise. Other
doors flew open on the second floor level, and men ran out onto the catwalk in
their boxer shorts.

Mac
fired at the guards in short bursts, alternating back and forth as they came
out onto the catwalk. Two went down immediately, but one of them returned fire
with his AK-47, adding to the noise, before Mac cut him down in a hail of
5.56mm rounds.

Other
guards came out of the rooms on their bellies and started to return fire from
over the edge of the catwalk.  The noise of the AK-47s joined the
mind-numbing yells, shouts and the incessant wailing alarm.

Mac
continued to rake the catwalk with his assault rifle, but the odds were not
looking good for them. “We’re fucked,” he shouted. “Get the shit and let’s get
the hell out of here.” Glancing over at Culler, he saw the big man stuffing a
heroin brick into the sack carrying the ricin.

They
both concentrated their fire along the second floor catwalk, keeping the guards
at bay as best they could, but the guards continued to return blind fire over
the edge in the general direction of Culler and Mac. Bullets pinged into the
corrugated steel wall behind them as they dove for the door and darted out into
the relative safety of the night.

“Are
you okay?” asked Mac.

“Where
did those fuckers come from all of a sudden?” Culler replied with wide eyes.
“So much for stealth and clandestinity. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

They
were at the far corner of the building heading toward the rear when Mac stopped
abruptly. “Wait a minute,” he said into his lapel mic. “You go ahead and watch
the back door. I’ll slow them down from this end. Let’s try to keep them inside
for as long as we can, or they’re gonna be on our asses all the way to town.”

Running
to the edge of the parking lot, Mac set up behind a black pickup truck. The
area was well lit, so he switched off his laser sight, flipped up the night
vision monocular over his left eye and sighted his rifle on the front entrance.
The door nearest to him flew open, and two men dressed only in their
undershorts came running out only to be met with a hail of fire from Mac’s
assault rifle. Three of them went down in the doorway and none followed.

The
far door opened a second later. Mac sighted the assault rifle; two more men
were met with another hail of silent 5.56mm bullets.

Figuring
that would stop them for the time being, Mac left his position behind the truck
and took off running down the side of the warehouse to join Culler at the far
end. “I’m on my way. Don’t shoot me,” he called into his mic as he ran.

He
met up with Culler, who was standing with his back to the ravine with his rifle
leveled at the back doors of the warehouse, and shouted: “Rake the doors and
let’s bug out of here.” 

Culler
stitched the doors back and forth at waist high and then joined Mac over the
ledge, sliding down on their butts through the mud and foliage toward the
bottom.

Chapter Forty-Nine

C
haos
reigned in the warehouse. Anon hit the alarm to warn the others of the
intrusion, and sleeping guards baled out of their racks.

He
hit the speed-dial of his cell phone to call the Cambodian. The call was
answered on the second ring by an angry, groggy voice.

Anon
sputtered into the phone: “Boss, we have…an intrusion…at the warehouse. We
need…help immediately.”

The
Cambodian leaped out of bed and struggled to pull his pants on while holding
his cell phone up to his good ear with his shoulder. “How many? What is going
on?”

“I
don’t know yet. I don’t know. We have at least one guard, Michai, dead at the
rear of the building. That’s all I know. I’m going out to see what is going on
now, but you better get over here.”

“I’m
on my way.” The Cambodian cut the connection.

Anon
grabbed his AK-47 and charged out of the door directly into a hail of gunfire
from below.

Chapter Fifty

C
uller
and Mac were half-sliding, half-running down the steep slope of the ravine,
holding their weapons high out in front of them to keep them clean. They
reached the base of the huge banyan tree where they had rested on the way up
and stopped for a moment to retrieve their backpacks and listen.