The Intruder

Chapter 7

The light that was shining in my eyes shifted, I saw three guys standing there pointing their guns at us. I thought, shit, here it is, I am going to die right here in this dirty old warehouse.

The man in the center spoke, “are you Dustin and Petey?”

I slowly nodded, “yes, I’m Dustin.”

He put his gun down, “I’m Agent Wilcox, with the FBI, you need to come with us.”

I felt a wave of relief come over me as I looked over at Petey, the color slowly returned to his face as well. We both stood up and started to walk toward the door, I could see light shining through the windows at the back of the warehouse. It had been several hours since we were locked in the room, it was now morning. They rushed us out the back door and into their SUV, I was just glad to be out of the warehouse and sat and stared out the window as we made our way down the street. A short time later we pulled up to the police station.

They led us into the basement of the brick building and into a room that looked like a lab.

Agent Wilcox said, “please have a seat, this is Lila and Carla, they are going to do some make up work on you and then we are going to take a few pictures.”

Petey said, “pictures? What for?”

Wilcox told the ladies, “Petey here needs a few bruises on his face and a bullet wound right in the center of his forehead. Dustin also needs some bruises and give him a shot in the chest. They both need to have their clothes ripped a bit and Dustin should be a little dirtier.”

Petey and I looked at each other, this time I asked, “what are we doing?”

Wilcox said, “oh, and they have been dead for about three hours, so they need to be pale. We are going to take a few pictures of you two being dead, we’ll make sure Marco sees them so he will quit looking for you.”

I was still trying to process what was going on, I asked, “how did you know we were locked in that warehouse?”

Wilcox just smirked, “Drake told us.”

I asked, “who the hell is Drake?”

He motioned to the ladies to get started and said, “we need to hurry, I’ll explain everything later.”

Lila and Carla got to work, I sat and watched as Petey now had a gunshot wound in the center of his forehead and he looked like he had the shit beat out him. I had my clothes ripped and then a hole cut in my shirt and molding clay made a bullet wound in my chest. They took us to the other end of the room, where there was a dumpster, some pallets and other trash against a brick wall, it looked like an alley behind a warehouse. They had Petey lay on top of the pallets and me on the trash bags. Once we were laying down, our arms sprawled to the side, they told us to hold still while they poured a red liquid on our wounds so that it looked like the blood flowed naturally. Agent Wilcox pulled out a cell phone and started to snap pictures. He took several of each of us, then he and the other agents scrolled through the pictures.

He looked at us and said, “these look good, you can get up now.” He handed the phone to one of the other agents and said, “get these to Drake asap, he’ll make sure Marco sees them.”

I asked, “now what?”

He said, “now we wait, once Macro sees the pictures, we think he will call off his goons. They all meet every morning at his restaurant for breakfast, we have agents watching and once they are all accounted for, we’ll move in and arrest them.”

Then it suddenly hit me, Sully, where was he? Shit, he was going to be arrested with the rest of those thugs. I had to tell Wilcox that he was the one who saved us, maybe that would help, and he could testify against the others and wouldn’t have to go to jail.

Wilcox said, “you guys go with Agent Burns, he will get you some clean clothes and show you where you can take shower. We’ll keep you here until all the arrests have been made and then we will provide you all the protection you need while we put these guys away.”

Petey and I followed the agent and took a shower and dressed, he then led us to a waiting room.

He said, “make yourself comfortable, you may be here awhile, there is coffee and donuts on that table, if you need anything else, just let us know. He picked up the remote and turned on the TV that was mounted up on the wall. I poured myself a cup of coffee and picked out a donut and sat down as the morning news started.

The news anchor started, “our top story this morning, two bodies were found in the early morning hours behind an abandoned warehouse downtown. Police have identified the bodies as 24-year-old Craig “Petey” Peterson and 26-year-old Dustin Baker. Police told us that Peterson has ties to a known drug gang, they believe Baker may have been an innocent bystander who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Police are searching for more evidence that may lead to the arrest of the culprit or culprits. We will give you more information as it becomes available to us. Charlie, what does the weather have in store for us today?”

I turned to look at Petey, I said, “holy shit Petey, we’re dead.”

He nodded, “yeah, I guess so, shit, they better get Marco this morning, or we really are dead.”

I asked him, “what do you think happened to Sully?”

He shrugged, “I don’t know, but I still don’t trust him. He is sure to know that we really aren’t dead when he goes back to look for us in that warehouse.”

I thought for a moment, Petey was right, if Sully went back to get us and we were gone he would be suspicious. We sat there watching the news, I was thinking about the events of the last 24 hours. I still couldn’t believe that Sully was involved in all this. How could I be so wrong about him, he was trying to protect me and Petey, wasn’t he?

I sat back in my chair thinking about Sully, the adrenaline from the morning’s event must have finally worn off, I started to doze off. Petey was doing the same, I woke to see him sprawled out over two chairs and snoring. I chuckled to myself as I dozed off again.

I’m not sure how long I had been asleep when I was startled awake by some commotion in the outer office. Agent Burns looked in on us again.

I asked, “what’s going on?”

He said, “our agents in the field are making their move, it looks like all the top guys of the gang are in Marco’s restaurant this morning. The arrests are being made as we speak. You two stay put.”

Petey stirred and sat up rubbing his eyes, he asked, “what’s up?”

I said, “it looks like the FBI is making their move, they just entered Marco’s place.”

He said, “I hope they get him and Victor too, I’m probably going to have to move out of town anyway. I don’t see how they can get all the crew, even if Marco gets put away, one of his guys will step up and take his place.”

I hadn’t thought about that, but Petey was probably right. I should have listened to Mike and stayed out of this whole situation. I sat there and stared at the TV, not really paying attention to the program that was airing. I glanced at the clock, it was almost noon, the TV suddenly caught my attention again when the news started.

“Our top story on the 12 o’clock news cast is an update to a story we aired this morning. Authorities have made several arrests in connection with the two bodies that were found in the warehouse district this morning. A nearby restaurant owned by suspected gang leader Marco Cortez was raided, Cortez, along with several of his top captains have been arrested. We have been told that the FBI has had the gang under surveillance for months and the killings overnight caused them to move quickly. Authorities have also told Channel 12 that the gang was taken by surprise and offered little resistance. A spokesman for the FBI said that the only gang member that made an attempt to escape was an enforcer by the name of Jack “Sully” Sullivan. We were told that he ran out a rear entrance and was met by more agents, he attempted to shoot his way out, but was severely outnumbered. Our cameras captured the scene of the coroner loading his body into a van to be taken to the morgue. We will bring you more information as it becomes available.”

I sat there in disbelief, why would Sully try to escape like that? What the hell was he thinking?

Petey looked over at me, he asked, “are you ok?”

I shook my head, “I don’t know, I can’t believe this.”

He asked, “so you really liked him, huh?”

I nodded, “yeah, I do, or I did.”

He said, “I’m sorry Dustin.”

I said, “thanks.”

I sat there stunned, just staring at the floor, I didn’t even notice that Agent Wilcox had come into the room. He sat between me and Petey and asked, “did you guys see the news?”

Petey said, “yeah, does this mean we are safe now?”

Wilcox said, “we are going to have a few questions for both of you, but the good news is we probably won’t need either of you to testify and reveal that you aren’t really dead.”

I asked, “was there a chance that we would have to go to court?”

He nodded, “yes there was, but when we started to question all the guys that we rounded up this morning, a couple of them talked. The first was Victor Ramone, he couldn’t wait to tell us everything, he gave names, times, places, and anything else we wanted to know. Our agents are out there right now arresting all the guys that weren’t at the meeting this morning. He gave us enough to tie Marco to at least 4 murders and countless drug dealings. Marco will be in prison until his grandkids are old enough to retire.”

Petey snickered, “I knew Victor was a weasel.”

I swallowed hard, “can I see him?”

Wilcox looked at me puzzled, “Victor?”

I shook my head, “no, not Victor. Can I see Sully?”

He asked, “why do you want to see him?”

I shrugged, “it’s hard to explain, I just need to see him. Please?”

He thought a moment, then stood up, “follow me.”

We walked down the hallway and got on the elevator, Wilcox pushed the button for the basement. The door opened to another dark hallway, it was cold and smelled of death. I took a deep breath and stepped out behind Agent Wilcox. He pushed open the door to the morgue, I saw a couple guys on each side of a table that had a body laid out on it. Just like I had seen in countless TV shows, they were taking pictures of the body. The pictures were being displayed on a TV screen on the wall, I saw the flash of the camera and a new picture came on the screen.

I saw that chest with at least 4 bullet holes, all right next to that Semper Fi tattoo that I came to admire over the last few weeks.

 

To be continued…