about the full moon again. He checked his cell phone, looking for the text from Toby that hadn’t been sent. Frustrated, he hit the remote button sending the custom doors rolling down and headed into the house.
----
Jack’s desk was littered with the Tomas Vegas files. The Hollywood Hills sparkled in the distance, but Jack hardly noticed. A half-empty bottle of Cab and a half-full yellow pad with a list of Tomas Vegas’s potential killers kept him occupied. Jack scoured the files for people or groups who had clear motivation for wanting the gangster dead. A grudge shooting thoughtfully planned, expertly executed.
Except for the one errant shot.
On a clean page Jack made a second list, pulled from court records of Vegas’s arrests, his court appearances, and his victims, dead and alive. He then added their family members who had testified for or against him.
The page looked like a dysfunctional family tree, but it would help Jack get an overall feel for the scope of the case.
He also flagged one particular court case where Vegas had been called as a witness for the prosecution and added the female defendant to the list.
One of the local rags had called the murder of Vegas an assassination. It chaffed Jack. Presidents and heads of state were assassinated . . . gangsters got murdered.
The shooting had a military feel, he thought. Surveillance, scheduling, precision shooting.
Jack still wondered why the gunman’s first bullet flew high and wide.
He’d check fathers, brothers, and sisters for military background, law enforcement, and anybody with a personal grudge.
He agreed with Nick: a revenge killing felt right.
----
Sean Dirk pulled his watch cap low on his forehead to keep any light from reflecting off his face and putting the mission in jeopardy.
It had taken close to three hours to arrive at the previous cartel drop-off point, two miles east of Catalina, and now it was a waiting game. The temperature on the water was a comfortable sixty degrees; the night sky was brilliant with planets, constellations, and the Milky Way, a reminder to Sean of his insignificance in the grand scheme of things.
The only illumination on the black surface of the sea was the full moon, and at one o’clock it perched far over the horizon and shone like a beacon across the ocean surface, splitting north from south.
Sean had cut off all communication with his brothers until the drop-off was completed. Sound traveled great distances on the water, and as long as he stayed low, and silent, tucked neatly into his Hobie kayak as it bobbed with the light chop of the waves, he was all but invisible.
After an hour of nothing but a container ship crossing between his position and the twinkling lights of Los Angeles behind him, Sean started to doubt. The plan was his, and he’d never hear the end of it if the brothers came up empty.
Then he saw them.
A quarter mile west, with the island of Catalina looming beyond, a fifty-foot fishing boat cut sharply through the reflected moonlight, raising wild ripples of silver. The boat circled once, and then without pause dumped a large parcel off the stern of the boat and powered away, due south, at a high rate of speed.
Sean’s heart pounded as he keyed his walkie-talkie and alerted the troops, shouting out coordinates. He clicked on the kayak’s motor, checked for all-clear behind him, and throttled silently ahead toward the bales of drugs floating in the water beyond.
They were engaged in a race against time. The first job would be to find the GPS beacon on the packages and disable it. Then Terrence would drag the floating bales of drugs to Shark Harbor, on the backside of Catalina, where they would be broken down, stowed in the body of the kayaks, and returned to a protected cove on the mainland, where the F-350 and the Mercedes van were parked.
Terrence would power back to Marina del Rey. If he were stopped and searched by the Coast Guard entering the marina, he’d be just another
----
Jack’s desk was littered with the Tomas Vegas files. The Hollywood Hills sparkled in the distance, but Jack hardly noticed. A half-empty bottle of Cab and a half-full yellow pad with a list of Tomas Vegas’s potential killers kept him occupied. Jack scoured the files for people or groups who had clear motivation for wanting the gangster dead. A grudge shooting thoughtfully planned, expertly executed.
Except for the one errant shot.
On a clean page Jack made a second list, pulled from court records of Vegas’s arrests, his court appearances, and his victims, dead and alive. He then added their family members who had testified for or against him.
The page looked like a dysfunctional family tree, but it would help Jack get an overall feel for the scope of the case.
He also flagged one particular court case where Vegas had been called as a witness for the prosecution and added the female defendant to the list.
One of the local rags had called the murder of Vegas an assassination. It chaffed Jack. Presidents and heads of state were assassinated . . . gangsters got murdered.
The shooting had a military feel, he thought. Surveillance, scheduling, precision shooting.
Jack still wondered why the gunman’s first bullet flew high and wide.
He’d check fathers, brothers, and sisters for military background, law enforcement, and anybody with a personal grudge.
He agreed with Nick: a revenge killing felt right.
----
Sean Dirk pulled his watch cap low on his forehead to keep any light from reflecting off his face and putting the mission in jeopardy.
It had taken close to three hours to arrive at the previous cartel drop-off point, two miles east of Catalina, and now it was a waiting game. The temperature on the water was a comfortable sixty degrees; the night sky was brilliant with planets, constellations, and the Milky Way, a reminder to Sean of his insignificance in the grand scheme of things.
The only illumination on the black surface of the sea was the full moon, and at one o’clock it perched far over the horizon and shone like a beacon across the ocean surface, splitting north from south.
Sean had cut off all communication with his brothers until the drop-off was completed. Sound traveled great distances on the water, and as long as he stayed low, and silent, tucked neatly into his Hobie kayak as it bobbed with the light chop of the waves, he was all but invisible.
After an hour of nothing but a container ship crossing between his position and the twinkling lights of Los Angeles behind him, Sean started to doubt. The plan was his, and he’d never hear the end of it if the brothers came up empty.
Then he saw them.
A quarter mile west, with the island of Catalina looming beyond, a fifty-foot fishing boat cut sharply through the reflected moonlight, raising wild ripples of silver. The boat circled once, and then without pause dumped a large parcel off the stern of the boat and powered away, due south, at a high rate of speed.
Sean’s heart pounded as he keyed his walkie-talkie and alerted the troops, shouting out coordinates. He clicked on the kayak’s motor, checked for all-clear behind him, and throttled silently ahead toward the bales of drugs floating in the water beyond.
They were engaged in a race against time. The first job would be to find the GPS beacon on the packages and disable it. Then Terrence would drag the floating bales of drugs to Shark Harbor, on the backside of Catalina, where they would be broken down, stowed in the body of the kayaks, and returned to a protected cove on the mainland, where the F-350 and the Mercedes van were parked.
Terrence would power back to Marina del Rey. If he were stopped and searched by the Coast Guard entering the marina, he’d be just another
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