Girl Under Fire (A Sam Hemming FBI Thriller Prequel), Julia Payne [ebooks online reader txt] 📗

As soon as I do, I hear chatter on the other side. I enter midstream of a conversation between the men, presumably on the street level looking through the dead bodies littered on the streets and hanging out at the SWAT van. I catch a break; the conversation is in English, and the accent is American. Not everyone in this band of gangsters is Greek. I think to myself as I pay attention to the conversation and move forward cautiously. From the bottom of the stairs, I look up to see a well-lit upper basement. The lack of shadows and voices tells me that it's safe to ascend. This triggers a familiar thought – one that I had when I first encountered the groveling Greek. Why was he guarding the lower basement?

Chapter 4

Upper Basement

As I reach the top of the stairs, I hear voices in the distance. This part of the building is lit but dimly so. I soon find out why. There are rows of racks—all holding bottles of liquor. As I reach for the frame right in front of me, I find that they are expensive bottles. None of them have a custom's seal indicating that they entered the country without paying the appropriate import taxes. Is there anything this guy does that falls within the letter of the law? I wonder. There must be a thousand racks, and each rack must have a hundred bottles. I look at the label of one, and it is a product of Italy. One is a product of Israel, and the other, a product of South Africa. As I make my way across, I find there are expensive bottles, each likely over a thousand dollars from almost every country in the world.

Then I look carefully, and I realize that this is not a custom's and excise tax issue; this is still part of the money laundering mechanism. Each bottle here was at least fifty years old. Worth over a hundred thousand dollars in most cases. A quick number-crunching exercise makes me realize that there are over ten billion dollars in liquor bottles here. This was not what they drank – this was how they laundered part of the money they brought in. I will come back to him later, and I promise myself as I move forward.

The voices in the distance are coming from the top of the stairs that leads to the street level. I hear the conversation loud and clear. They are discussing how easily they had taken down the SWAT team. There are three of them talking as they smoke their Cubans. I can smell the Cohibas from down here.

"You think more will come?" the American with the southern accent asks. I assume he means more FBI SWAT.

"No," the deeper voice answers. He has a regular accent. Sounds Hispanic, something that you would find on the south side of L.A. "We managed to cut them down without the rest of the Bureau knowing about it."

"That's crap," says a third guy. Now, this guy is Mediterranean. Probably Greek. Someone who had spent much of his time in Cyprus, judging by the confluence of his accent. "That's not why they won't come."

"Why do you say that?" the southern guy asks with his broken English. I can almost picture him to be buck-toothed and hideous-looking.

"Because," The Greek answers, "it's true. They won't come because Boos is paid up with the right people."

"In the FBI?" The Hispanic asks.

"Not just the FBI. It goes all the way to the Department of Justice. Boss knows a hit before it is even approved."

As they talk the comm radio comes alive." She's not here," an American says. His language is clear. He is from around here – the tristate area, I conclude. But the way he says what he says, blows my mind. "Are they talking about me?" I find myself whispering.

"Anyone found Special Agent Hemming?" He asks over the radio, presumably to the others who are out scouting the massacre up top. One by one, the others come back, answering in the negative.

They are looking for me, I realize.

"We have to tell boss," the first guy on the radio says.

The conversation between the three guys further up now changes. They begin to talk about me. They've heard the same communications I just did.

"She was the one they needed to hit today, and she is the one they missed. Boss is not going to like that," The Greek commented.

"Why not?" the clueless buck tooth asked.

"This whole thing was arranged so that we kill Agent Hemming. She had been on our tail for a year, and she was coming close. Boss needed her killed in an ambush so that our mole in the unit is not exposed.

That's the moment I froze. Those people died because I had done my job. All those men died because this was an ambush to get me. My instinct not to call the Bureau yet was right. It would be nice to put a bullet in him and leave him for dead. It would be payback for the families who would be told tonight that their sons and husbands won't be coming home tonight.

But I took an oath, and it was to bring those who committed crimes against my country to justice. Killing Nyke would not be justice, it would just be an eye for an eye. I may have been persuaded to run for my life and leave Nyke for another day, but not anymore. Now, I wanted him in cuffs and at Federal Plaza by dawn, and I had to do it quietly.

I had to move now, and I had to get him soon since I only had about an hour.

"So, you're heading back with the boss again," the Hispanic asked the Greek. Their conversation had resumed