Inside an abandoned warehouse, the forty-foot shipping container with its DIPLOMATIC CARGO seal was parked in the middle of the bare, hangar-like space. Standing beside it, Soul Patch, whose name of record was Emer Lynch (no one called him Soul Patch to his face) racked the slide of his Glock automatic. He motioned to the truck driver from the crash, a jacker named Victor Crotty, to swing open the end of the container.
Four men with shotguns and automatic rifles were positioned near Lynch to cover the container as the end swung open, revealing an interior crammed with furniture and what looked like Asian artifacts – chests, chairs, ornate rugs…
Lynch gestured with the Glock and called toward the cargo: “Anyone in there speak English?”
Silence.
Lynch tried again. “You need to come out so we can take you to where it’s safe.”
More silence.
Then a voice with an accent called back, “Who are you?”
“We’re going to get you to your people,” Lynch answered.
There was murmering inside. Then, “How do we know that?”
“Because it’s in my interest to. Otherwise I’d leave you.”
Another silence… Suddenly an armoir crashed over. Behind it, six men pointed automatic weapons at Lynch and his crew. The crew whipped their guns up.
Lynch moved quickly to calm both sides. “Okay, easy, easy…”
The man who was speaking from inside glared at Lynch. “If you lie, you are dead.”
Lynch pointed with his Glock to a van parked next to his SUV. “Get in there, we have to move.”
The man and his companions hesitated – then, one by one, they came out, swarthy, tough, hardcore Middle East. Warily, weapons at the ready, they walked toward the van.
Lynch was about to follow them when something across the warehouse caught his eye. A movement. Something shadowy behind the sooty windows that ran along the top of the far wall.
He turned to Crotty, indicating the van’s sullen passengers. “Take them to the store, I’ll catch up with you there.”
He motioned to one of his other men to come with him, the two climbing into the SUV.
# # #
On a scaffolding running along the outside of the warehouse, Juna’s friend from the crash site, the young guy in the hoodie sweatshirt, was peering through one of the sooty windows and talking on his cell.
“The van left right after the SUV. They rolled down the door, nobody else here.”
Suddenly a Glock automatic was pointed at the back of young Hoodie’s head.
“Wrong,” a voice said behind him.
Hoodie whipped around, eyes wide looking at the gun.
BAM!
The Glock jumped and blood erupted from the back of Hoodie’s head all over the warehouse window.
# # #
Weecho had decided to go back to the crash site, stood now in the same spot across from the BQE pillars where he’d taken the pictures of the two trucks and the car. The sound of traffic whooshing overhead was same as before. And like before, nobody else was around.
YOU ARE READING
Weecho: First Shots
UngdomsfiksjonA hot young photographer shoots a conspiracy murder, has cops and the killer chasing after those pictures, hooks up with a fugitive punk girl to cover his back.
