Sold Out (Nick Woods Book 1) (21 page)

Chapter
56

Two
men from Strike Team Three sat outside the Holiday Inn in Jacksonville, N.C.

They
watched Allen Green's room though they didn't know the full story as to why
Allen Green needed to go down. All they knew was that some guy named Allen
Green was selling secrets he’d obtained from a few Marines inside Camp Lejeune
to the Chinese.

Strike
Team Three intended to hit Allen Green's room at 3 a.m. There was no better
time for a night strike. Too late for the night owls to be up and too early for
the early birds to have risen.

The
team would stack quietly and hit the door with a battering ram -- no warning,
no knock-ee, knock-ee.

Two
support members would trail the eight-man strike team and wait on the balcony.
They'd be wearing khaki's and polo shirts equipped with Glock pistols on their
hip. Anyone who opened their door to investigate the noise would be approached
by an angry "cop" flashing a quite-real looking badge and commanded to
stay in doors for their own safety and to not bother calling the cops. The
situation was under control.

Inside
the room, Allen Green would be either taken alive -- bound and gagged -- or
riddled with bullets from silenced MP5s. His choice. Neither Whitaker nor the
team members cared.

The
time was just after 10:15 p.m. and the two Strike Team Three members watching
Allen's room had been bored for nearly two hours now.

The
team member in the driver's seat said, "Did I ever tell you about the best
blowjob I ever got?"

"Yeah,
you did. When we were doing that surveillance up in Buffalo, New York. Her name
was Sarah, and you were on a plane,” the other team member replied robotically.
“Stepped into the lavatory together."

"Actually,
it was Sandy, but yeah, that was it."

The
team member in the passenger seat heard the disappointment, but what the hell.
He didn't want to hear the story again, but now he hated the awkward tension he
now felt in the car. Maybe he should have pretended he'd never heard the story.
Then, he saw the curtain in Allen Green's room move.

"Hey,
hey, hey. What do we have here?" he asked.

"What
is it?" the team member in the driver's seat shifted forward.

"The
curtain moved in his room --"

But
before he could say more, the light turned off, and the door opened. Allen Green
checked the lock and stood in the walkway up on the second floor.

"Call
it in," the driver said.

And
while the call worked its way up to the team leader, they saw Allen stride down
the walkway and down the steps.

Chapter
57

Allen
Green drove the entire way to the pick-up point full of mixed feelings. On the
one hand, Ken Leonard from
The New York Times
had written a great
article the night before. Doubt continued to spread among the public and the
authorities.

On
the other hand, Nick Woods should have been at the rally point waiting just in
the trees on night number two. Now, it was night three, and Allen couldn't
shake the feeling that something bad had occurred. It was so frustrating
because they were so close to busting the conspiracy wide open and getting
their lives back -- even though Nick said they'd never truly have their lives
back. Allen disagreed with that, but regardless, that was beside the point.

They
were so close to their safety and freedom again, yet it seemed something had
happened to Nick. Allen lit his second cigarette of the past ten minutes and attempted
to push the fear out of his mind. Maybe he should just keep driving if the
signals weren't in the roadside tonight.

He
had nothing in the hotel room that mattered. Maybe they were after him now. He
felt a cold chill work its way down his neck. Nonsense. He'd been around Nick
too long and was growing too paranoid.

He
drove on, turning the radio on and pushing the thought from his mind.

Behind
him, Strike Team Three scrambled to gear up. The two men who'd been monitoring
his room followed from a safe distance while the rest of the team grabbed
weapons and loaded into vehicles from a nearby hotel.

They
had been waiting in a hotel room while their team leader sent a call in to
Whitaker telling him their target was on the move. Whitaker digested the news
and instructed the Strike Team Leader to follow the man and take him down at
the first chance they got.

Whitaker
debated briefly in his head as to whether he should mention to the Strike Team
Leader that their target might be meeting up with a dangerous sniper and former
veteran, who'd bagged a bunch of people in his day and was still on the hunt.
But in the end, Whitaker passed.

He
knew the Strike Team Leader was in an open room with the rest of the men, so
everything he said would be heard by all. It certainly wouldn’t inspire
confidence to hear about the talented Nick Woods right before what should be a
simple strike.

And
there wasn't time to tell the Team Leader to step outside and call him, so he
could brief him. Thus, Whitaker made the decision not to mention it.

"Listen,"
Whitaker commanded. "Follow him, and the first chance you get where there
aren't any witnesses, just take him out. I don’t care if it's an open road or a
dark, deserted parking lot. Just make it happen and get out of there."

"Roger
that," the Team Leader said. Then, to his men, he yelled, "Let's go.
We don't have time to screw around. He's getting further and further away, and
we can't go speeding after him if we're armed for bear. Everyone, just grab
pistols and ignore your vests or sub-machineguns. This should be easy. Now,
let's go. Move. Move. Move."

The
six remaining Strike Team Three members and their Team Leader piled into their
two SUVs and headed in the direction that their target -- or Allen Green --
traveled.

Chapter
58

Nick
Woods watched the road in front of him. He waited in the kneeling position,
leaning against a tree. He had the sniper rifle slung across his back and the
bloody ghillie suit that he'd taken off the sniper balled up in front of him.

He
had his .45 pistol out and in his right hand, nice and ready. Extractions
usually proved dangerous, and Nick didn't plan to take any chances. Besides his
.45, he also had the 9 mm Beretta that he'd taken off the sniper stuck in his
waist, just below his belly button.

Right
on time, he saw headlights headed his way.

Allen
Green drove down the road, his eyes searching the ground in front of his eye
beams. And then he saw a branch where it was supposed to be.

"Come
on," he thought. "Please, RC can, where are you?"

Then
his headlights picked up the glint of a blue RC Cola can. And just beyond that,
he saw the old red shirt laying in the gravel of the road's shoulder.

Allen
felt huge relief, the fear and stress suddenly gone. There was just something
about the confident, hard Southern man that Allen had trouble putting into
words.

Allen
cut his lights and slowed. But, as he pulled to the side, he noticed a vehicle
behind him hit its high beams and roar toward him. And behind it came two more.

Nick
heard the convoy before Allen saw them. Nick's senses had been on full alert in
the darkness, and his ears picked up the traffic coming his way.

Nick
immediately left the ghillie suit and sprinted up the road toward the coming
vehicles, while staying within the tree line for its cover and concealment. As
Allen had approached Nick’s pick-up point, Nick had kept his eyes shielded from
the headlights in order to maintain his night vision. And then the other vehicles
hit their lights on bright after Allen had slowed and cut his off, and Nick
still worked to look away from the glare, hoping his adjusted eyesight might
play some advantage if things got rough.

Nick
raced through the woods, limbs smacking his face and his boots slipping and
sliding. He made it roughly fifty yards then darted out of the woods and into
the grass alongside the road once he'd run beyond the vehicles.

The
three vehicles -- two SUVs and a business car of some kind -- lined up behind
each other, and men burst out of the cars, guns drawn and shouting as they dashed
forward.

Nick
ran, too. Toward them. From behind. He kept his eyes squinted, protecting his
night vision. Thankfully, he only had the red brake lights to contend with, not
the bright lights from the front of each vehicle.

Whitaker’s
Strike Team Three members all rushed to the right of each vehicle. It made
sense from a tactical perspective. If they approached from both sides, then
they'd be in each other's line of fire. In this formation, they'd be on line
and could fire safely.

Nick
had closed to within ten yards, and they still hadn't heard him in their own
noise. Then he saw Allen's brake lights go brighter as he pushed the brake. It
was obvious that Allen planned to throw the car in gear and drive off -- he'd
frozen for what must have been five or ten seconds, but that's what civilians
do, Nick knew.

"Shoot
him before he drives off," someone yelled, and Nick saw pistols get raised
their final necessary inches. Nick stopped running and started shooting.

He
couldn't see his sights, but he didn't need to. They were just six feet ahead.
He pointed the pistol as if he were pointing his finger. It was just as he'd
been trained, and he trusted his body to intuitively aim correctly.

His
shots rocked the night as only a .45 can, and as his rounds tore into the rear
man. The team hesitated. They'd been told there'd be only one man, and Nick
took advantage of their hesitation.

He
fired eight shots from the .45 in three seconds and dropped the pistol, yanking
the Beretta out and firing off the entire magazine from the kneeling position.

The
men in front of him tried to turn, to maneuver around their screaming and
bleeding buddies, but every time one got close to returning fire, they caught
rounds themselves. The entire line of men was perfectly illuminated and blinded
by the bright lights of the three vehicles.

They
were barely able to see a silhouette, and some pistol flashes, but their views
were one-one hundredth of what Nick Woods saw.

And
Nick Woods fired until the pistol locked to the rear, out of ammo. Nick reached
down, grabbed his .45 from the ground, and reloaded it with a second mag. And
as men groaned, cried, or reached for pistols or other weapons, he walked among
them and kicked their weapons away.

“Looks
like you boys picked the wrong team today,” Nick said. “And I figure real cops
don’t bother shooting a man in the back who’s trying to drive away and presents
no threat to them, so I’ll spare myself any regret for gunning you all down.”

One
of the men lying on the ground withdrew a radio to call for help. Nick watched
in amusement, snickered at the futility of such a move, and stepped hard on his
hand.

There’d
be no calling for back up for these boys.

Chapter
59

After
the echoes of the gunfire ceased, Allen Green wanted to flee the scene
immediately, but Nick instructed him to wait just a little longer.

Nick
ran to the woods and grabbed the ghillie suit he'd taken from the sniper.

"I
might need this," he said, throwing it into the car.

"I
thought you said you didn't have one," Allen said.

"I
didn't, but somebody decided to let me borrow it."

Allen
looked back over the seat and saw what looked to be dried blood on it.

"I'll
bet," he said.

"Oh,
before we leave, let's get all the money we can from these chumps," Nick
said. "May need it."

"We'll
be leaving our fingerprints, though."

"Won't
matter," Nick replied. "You'll be writing this up as one of your
press releases, right?"

"True."

The
two quickly searched each of the men and wiped the inevitable blood they
couldn't avoid off on the dry pieces of clothing they could find. Despite the
sticky hands, it proved worth it. They found more than $860 in cash on the men,
along with an MP5 and six magazines fully loaded in the back of one of the
vehicles.

"Not
a bad night's work," Nick grinned as they stood outside the car.

"Easy
for you to say," Allen said. "You didn't have eight dudes aiming guns
at you about to blow your head off."

"The
hell I didn't," Nick scoffed. "Who do you think they were aiming at
after I started firing? Not to mention, a damn near perfectly hidden sniper
nearly took my head off."

"How'd
you get by him?"

"I'll
tell you later. We need to get the hell out of here, grab our stuff from our
room, and get out of Indian country."

"And
then what?"

"First,
a shower for me. Then you can update the media on what happened. With as many
bodies being piled up, they're going to catch on soon that something pretty
serious is going on. Now, call 911, and tell them there’s been a drug deal gone
bad out here on the highway. And that there’s been lots of shooting.”

Nick
scanned the stack of men to confirm none was moving very quickly, then looked toward
the field he’d thrown the weapons in. Yeah, none of them would get away or be
able to shoot down some innocent cop when he arrived.

After
Allen made the call, they climbed in the car and sped off into the night. Allen
waited until he was a few miles away to share the latest. Once he was confident
they were clear of the incoming police units, he said, “I have some good news.
A
New York Times
reporter named Ken Leonard has been writing up the
story. Believe me, the press is coming around to seeing things our way, and
I've been getting more e-mails from reporters I once knew."

"That's
great news, Allen. It really is, and it's an important part of what we need to
get done. But just remember, in the end, this war will be won by bullets, not
barrels of ink."

"Don't
be so sure," Allen said, pulling out a cigarette.