Chapter Forty-Four

Helo rides could be cold sons-of-guns. Chance was glad for the woolen beanie he’d topped off with on his way out the door. His spacious log cabin grew smaller the higher Woody took the chopper until the forests welling up around the massive wooden structure swallowed it whole. There was no sense looking back then. Suede would be safe. Gallo would see to that.

In no time, the dark snake that was the mighty Columbia River wound below. Bright lights to the south meant touchdown on one of Portland’s two riverfronts was imminent. Nestled at the confluence of the mighty Columbia and Willamette Rivers, metropolitan Portland boasted a population of nearly two and a half million. It’d be damned hard locating Pagan in that crowd, but Chance didn’t plan to search for him. He activated the homing beacon transmitting from the microchip inserted at the base of his brother’s skull. Black ops got all the latest and greatest toys, but this particular one was a lifesaver. A man didn’t have to be conscious to ‘call a cab.’ It had better work tonight.

Sure enough. A steady blink lit the handheld device in his palm. “Take her in as near to Terminal Twenty as you can land without attracting attention, on the water if you need to. I can swim.”

“No can do, amigo,” Woody drawled. “I never dump my guys in the drink unless I have to. It’s the docks for you.” He switched the chopper to stealth mode and killed the running lights. Stealth mode these days meant the aircraft was damned near invisible to a person on the ground. “You fast roping in or should I set her down?”

“Rope,” Chance replied. “Short rope.”

“Copy that.” Woody cut to the left and zeroed in on Terminal Twenty, a cavernous warehouse that opened onto the dock as well as at the frontage road on its opposite end. Portland’s waterfront was a modern day miracle of conveyor belts, hoppers, and silos for dry bulk cargoes of grains, grabbers, and railway cars on standby for coal and other ores, plus a mixture of loading booms, gantry cranes, and stacking cranes.

Tugboats escorted the dry cargo ship alongside Terminal Twenty-One while the deck crew prepared to unload. Spotlights lit the entire area. That there was still plenty of dock left at either end of the massive ship belied the monstrous length and depth of the terminals. They were built to accommodate not one, but several inventories the size of the mammoth one they were preparing to unload. A small third world country could live inside one of those terminals. Why Zapata rented Terminal Twenty nagged at Chance. It had to be a cover, but for what? Just to stash the nine bodies the FBI had found? Didn’t make sense, but then, dealing with a killer like Zapata, rarely did.

Neither Terminals Nineteen nor Twenty had activity dockside tonight. Woody leveled out and hovered closer to Nineteen. “Leave your tips in the tip jar on your way out.”

“Stay close. I’ll be in touch,” Chance said as he stepped off the chopper skid and began his descent. His hands warmed beneath the heavy-duty gloves he wore, but the drop was short and sweet. In ten seconds he was on the ground with the smells of the busy riverfront in his nose: diesel exhaust fumes, fish, and the pungent odor of creosote coated timbers.

Woody’s chopper blades barely made a sound as he headed east, another stealth enhancement. Chance ducked low but kept his head on a swivel, quartering the scenery with eyes that had seen too much.

Pagan’s alert hadn’t slowed and it was stationary, both good signs. The chip monitored his pulse. Its steady beat meant Pagan was still alive and the stationary blip meant he was nearby. Chance jogged the narrow shadow between Terminals Twenty and Nineteen, a path that would put him street-side and directly across from Pagan’s location, but could also get him killed.

Moving fast, he cleared the alley, but halted street side, still in shadows. The way across looked clear, but Chance wouldn’t venture forth until he could be sure. The storage warehouses, offices, and equipment garages opposite his twenty were quiet and dark. Several big rigs idled to his far left at Twenty-One, the night air thick with diesel fumes.

The swing shift had dwindled to very few men at his right, where five-high stacks of twenty-some rows of shipping containers lined the wharf, no doubt pending incoming transport. He counted five men, four standing alongside the semi, the other seated inside.

No traffic blocked Chance’s way forward, but the yellowish light cast from tungsten halogen industrial lights was the problem, that, and the long empty space between Chance and Pagan.

Chance flipped his jacket collar up, pulled a baseball cap out of an inner pocket, and beelined to Pagan’s twenty, his eyes and ears on high alert. No one called him out, but the very real probability of ambush niggled every step of the way. His last op in South America replayed through his head. Everything could go to hell before a guy knew what happened.

Hyper-vigilance sucked. It made a man paranoid, jumpy and prone to make mistakes. To over calculate. To second-guess every damned decision. It amplified every wrong scenario in a man’s playbook, and it just plain ate away at his confidence.

Flinching at the sound of his boots against the pea gravel underfoot, Chance kept going, his eyes straight ahead, dodging the imaginary army of what-ifs that had plagued him since South America. The tremendous loss of good men that day wouldn’t be as painful today if they’d gone down protecting their package. But everyone had died for nothing. Even Gillian Enright.

In the end, he knew he was one lucky SOB to have survived. Still sucked rocks to know he’d failed his men and that woman. Chance shook the ghosts off his shoulders, needing that day behind him, not crapping all over the mission ahead.

Finally across the street and in shadow once more, he followed Pagan’s distress call to the opposite end of the alley, dodging trash receptacles and storage sheds sandwiched between the two narrow office buildings.

There he was, face down with one arm stretched forward. Missing? The rifle he wouldn’t be caught dead without. As much as Chance wanted to run to his injured brother, he took it slow and steady. Angling sideways, his back against the one building and his pistol up, all six senses reaching into the dark for the bastard who had Pagan’s piece, Chance sent another whispered, “Talk to me, Baby Brother. Give me a sign you’re still with me.”

Pagan’s index finger on his left hand lifted. Just barely. Thank God!

“Are you hurt bad?”

Two finger taps and Chance blew out a measured breath. One meant yes. Two meant no. “How many were there?”

One tap. Okay, good. One person as far as Pagan knew, but he could be wrong.

“Where from? Your left?”

Two taps. No.

“Your right?”

Two more taps.

“Behind?”

One tap. Some asshole shot Pagan from behind. There was no sense asking where he’d been hit. The list was too long and Chance hadn’t the patience. “I’m coming for you.”

Two definite taps.

No? “The shooter’s still here?”

One tap.

Shit. Then so be it. Chance dug two cans from his gear bag, peered out of the alley long enough to pop yellow smoke in both directions, then broke cover. Grabbing hold of Pagan’s waist, Chance had him undercover in the alley in seconds.

“Shit,” Baby Brother spat when Chance eased him into the corner of a trash receptacle and the brick building. “I can’t sit here.”

“You can and you will,” Chance growled as he bit the gloved tip of his index finger and pulled the glove off. “I’ve got my blowout kit. In a couple seconds, you’ll be fine.”

“No,” Pagan ground out, his eyes squeezed tight and pain contorting his face. “You don’t understand.”

Chance leveled a palm to Pagan’s heaving chest. “Trust me. I understand. Sit still and—”

Pagan growled, shoving Chance’s hand off. He stuck one leg straight and rolled to his hip. “For Christ’s sake, let me roll over. She shot me in the ass.”

“She?”

Pagan pointed behind Chance. “Her, damn it.”

Oh. Her. Damned if the she-devil in the game hadn’t just stepped clear from all that yellow smoke. Miss Vicki Hex. In the flesh.