Deadly Force sts-18 Read online

  “In your opinion, was Shortchops on drugs?”

  “I’m no expert. But I’d say he was on something.”

  “Did you see him take pills, snort, or shoot up with a hypodermic needle?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Not tonight?”

  “Not tonight, not ever.”

  “Is Shortchops a violent man?”

  “No, sir. He’s soft, mellow. If he were drunk he’d be slobbering and crying. With drugs, I don’t know. He’s always been gentle and easy around me.”

  “How often do you see Shortchops?”

  “Once a week. But I miss some of our gigs. I do some traveling with the SEALs.”

  “You were in the Philippines recently?”

  “Yes. That one the papers went wild with.”

  “You men did a great job over there. Thanks, Senior Chief. You’re free to go. I may want to talk to you again.”

  The other three members of the band were on the sidewalk outside the club.

  “Damn, looks like we’re going to need a new bass player,” Dick Andrews said.

  “You think Shortchops is involved with that girl?” Sadler asked. “They never said she must have taken an overdose. Petroff said she was rich, just inherited three and a half million dollars.”

  “No wonder they were spending time worrying about a hooker. This will be all over the papers tomorrow.”

  “Probably,” Steve Rawlings, the trombone player, said. “I wonder if Shortchops had any part in what happened.”

  “He does do drugs,” Peterson said. “Hell, I don’t know much about drugs. Just enough to stay the hell away from them.”

  “Me, too,” Rawlings said. “We’re the wrong generation.”

  Peterson looked at Sadler. “Hey, Sailor, you going to be in town Friday? We got promoted to the weekend. And a small pop in pay to $125 each a night.”

  “Great, I’ll get here whenever we’re in town. Sometimes I don’t have time to call you.”

  “Yeah, we play when you show,” Peterson said. “Always glad to have your trumpet. Look at the time. I’m heading for home.”

  Sadler waved at them and angled across the street for his well-worn Buick. Sylvia would be worried. Usually he was home by this time. He always told her to go to sleep, but she never did. A few times she came to the club and had a sandwich and three or four Cokes. But that got old after a while. Great lady, but not much of a Dixieland buff. The Buick started on the first crank, and he drove toward the Coronado Bay Bridge and their condo.

  A block down from the Basic Jazz Club, Shortchops Jackson watched from the front seat of his car as the police boiled around the front door and the alley. Suits all over the place. The ambulance rolled out of the alley with no lights and no siren. So she was dead. He’d been afraid of that. No rush now to get the body to the morgue.

  Shortchops rubbed his hand across his face. She had been one fine lady. At eighteen Joisette Brown had been a knockout. Then some asshole boyfriend got her hooked on shit and she never came out of it. She moved in with him. He pimped for her and six other girls. Six months ago Shortchops had paid off the pimp with the quick thrust of a thin-bladed knife through his fancy red vest, through his two-hundred-dollar sport shirt, and halfway into his heart before Shortchops turned the blade and sliced it outward. The pimp had died in that alley within seconds. Shortchops had left the knife in the body. He had sauntered out of the darkness into the light and gone a half mile over to play his bass at the Basic Jazz Club.

  After that, he had to take care of Joisette again. Her father never knew what happened to his beautiful daughter after she’d dropped out of San Diego State University a year ago. He couldn’t find her. She’d just vanished. Not the cops, the private eyes her father hired, nor her friends could find her.

  She had stayed in Shortchops’s one-bedroom apartment in the worst part of town. Twice he had weaned her off heroin. Twice she’d gone back on it, and into the streets at night to make a few dollars to buy shit with. Then her father died, unexpectedly. The music world mourned his passing. There was a special on TV. Nobody spoke of his daughter, but his entire estate, valued at something like 3.5 million dollars, was left to Joisette Brown in his will. A close friend said he’d talked about changing his will, but never had. Shortchops read the story in the paper about the millionaire daughter who couldn’t be found. He dried out Joisette again, got her off drugs for a week, then told her about the money.

  “Dad didn’t love me or he wouldn’t let me live like this,” she’d said in one of her more lucid moments. “Hell, I don’t know if I want his money or not. I want to make it on my own. I’m going to be a porn queen star. I could use that money to produce some porn videos on my own.” She had frowned. “Hell, no, too complicated. I’d blow it in week, give it away, gamble it. You get a lawyer and I’ll make out a will leaving everything to you. Then you keep me straight for a month and we’ll go to a lawyer and claim my money. As soon as the estate gets settled, I’ll give you a million dollars. After that you keep me with all the shit I want and a nice apartment where I can have friends in.” Shortchops had watched her. For a few minutes she had seemed almost happy.

  They had the will made up by a lawyer, had it notarized, and it was legal and ironclad. Shortchops Jackson was the major heir to Joisette’s 3.5-million-dollar estate. That was a month ago. Her dad’s estate was still in probate, so he hadn’t seen any money.

  The next day after the money was claimed by Joisette, the story broke in the papers that Joisette Brown, daughter of jazz great and recording superstar Billy Ben Brown, had turned up in San Diego. The notary had talked to the newspapers.

  Shortchops drove away from the club slowly. The cops would come hunting him. The other guys in the band had seen him go out with Joisette, and the cops must figure he shot up with her. No way did he kill her. He had never provided her with that shit, and he never would. He loved her in a strange, weird way. The 3.5 million dollars wasn’t bad either. He’d need a good lawyer who would wait for his money. Shortchops knew that before he saw a lawyer, he needed to dry out and clean up and get straight again. When the cops found him, there was gonna be hell to pay. Until then he would vanish for a while. He had more than five hundred dollars in his shoe. Hell, he could get a high-roller suite at one of the Vegas hotels and last for at least a week. Oh, yeah. He’d drive over. He’d done it before. Just as he put his foot to the throttle to dodge down to the freeway, a blinking red light zeroed in on his rear bumper and the police siren gave one small wail. Shortchops swore at the rearview mirror as he pulled over to the curb and stopped his two-year-old Cadillac. Damn. If he’d been white, the cop never would have stopped him. Here it was almost three A.M. and a black dude was driving a good-looking car. A must stop. Shortchops rolled down the window and waited for The Man to come up to him.

  2

  West Coast of Africa

  Sierra City, Sierra Bijimi

  Twenty men in jungle cammies and floppy hats slid into positions near the Sierra City Central Police Station. All were armed with AK-47 rifles or H & K submachine guns. Their leader, Mojombo Washington, motioned one man ahead. A sentry walked his post outside the four-story building. He moved twenty feet beyond the main door, turned, and came back twenty feet this side of the door. As he turned on the near end of his post, a cammy-clad figure rose out of the shadows, rushed forward, and drove a fighting knife into the sentry’s back. The guard didn’t have time to scream before he died. The attacker caught him as he fell and pulled the AK-47 from his shoulder. Two more men dragged the dead policeman into deep shadows where the floodlight over the main door did not penetrate.

  Six of Mojombo’s fighters raced to the police headquarters’ door from each side. Two men pulled the twin panels open and the twelve men charged inside. Mojombo led the troops, swinging his submachine gun to the left side he fired a three-round burst, dumping a police sergeant off his chair behind a desk, and then laced three rounds up the chest of a second cop who had been t
alking to his sergeant. The man on Mojombo’s right dispatched a policeman who had lifted a pistol. The firing inside the building billowed into a roaring sound like a dozen thunderclaps all at once. With only half their usual hearing, the men communicated with hand signals. Mojombo had briefed them before the raid and each of the men knew his job.

  Mojombo sent four men up steps to the second floor. He and six attackers drove into the hallway that led to the police headquarters supply rooms. They shot locks off doors, found the armory, and soon staggered from the room loaded with new AK-47’s, boxes of ammunition, and pistols. They rushed them to the back door of the building, where a stolen truck waited. The men on the second floor fired down the hallway, keeping anyone in the rooms bottled up. Two blasts of a whistle sent those men dashing back down the stairs.

  By that time some opposition had arrived. Four policemen tried to rush in the front door, but were met with a withering fire of submachine-gun rounds. The two still alive stumbled back outside and hid.

  Mojombo and three of his men rushed into the central radio room and found two men on duty with earphones on. He guessed they were listening to music. Both died of multiple gunshot wounds before they knew anyone was there. Mojombo and his men searched the area until they found what they wanted: a box with six handheld radios in it, fresh from the factory. They had batteries with them and were ready to use. The attackers took the prize with them.

  Down the hall in the records section, they dumped out files and tipped over desks and poured a gallon of gasoline on the pile, then threw a match into the mix and jumped out of the way of the whoosh of fire that the gas fumes ignited. They watched it burn for a moment, then rushed out. Four attackers stood guard in the hall. They were done except for one more stop. At the back of the building they found the storeroom for the kitchen. The police headquarters had a cafeteria for employees.

  Mojombo and his men looted the storage area of dozens of boxes of canned food and baked bread, and from the freezer took two quarters of frozen beef. All went onto the truck that waited at the back door.

  Mojombo blew the whistle again, and the nineteen men in his force charged through the first-floor hall and out the back door. They climbed on the open truck and Mojombo jumped in the cab. The driver gunned the rig down the narrow street and away.

  Mojombo looked over at his driver and trusted lieutenant. “Gabu. Any casualties?”

  “Two wounded, not seriously. We go to the old Army fort now?”

  Mojombo smiled. Gabu had been his friend for many years, and was always eager for action, ready to strike back for the people. “Yes, Gabu. We know that half of the force there is on vacation for the holiday. Many of those left on the post will be drunk by now. We will go in the south gate, take out the guard, and charge to the supply depot on the far side. We may get there without any opposition.” He grinned. “After all, this is an Army truck.”

  Mojombo Washington relaxed for a moment. This day had been a long time coming. He had gone away to school in America, and come back home to use his knowledge and skills in helping to govern his nation. But he’d found only corruption and graft and murder at almost all levels of government. He had tried to right small wrongs, and had been thrown in jail for a year. When he got out he had started his campaign to free his nation. He left his parents’ modern home in Sierra City and took to the jungle, where government troops and police couldn’t find him. Slowly he began to gain followers, men and women who thought the way he did and were willing to fight and die to make their country free from the thieves and murders who held it captive. He had made progress, but his people still had a long way to go. He called their movement the Bijimi Loyalist Party.

  They drove down a street in the business section of Sierra City. Mojombo marveled at how the place had grown in the two years he’d been away. There were new buildings, owned and operated by President Kolda, no doubt financed with money he’d stolen from the federal treasury. Mojombo had heard there were more than 200,000 people living in his hometown now.

  “Roadblock,” Gabu said.

  “They have put up a few lately to try to control the street traffic,” Mojombo said. “I didn’t think they would be manned this late at night. Slide up to it and stop. If the guard gives you any trouble, we’ll have to shoot him and move on. Looks like he’s Army.”

  The Sierra Bijimi soldier on duty at the roadblock saw the military truck coming, and quickly lifted the swing-down bar and gave a snappy salute. Then they were through.

  Another five miles and they were at the edge of the city and coming up to the sprawling Sierra Bijimi Army base, Fort Sierra. It wasn’t a real fort, just a collection of buildings, training grounds, a parade ground, and about three thousand troops. They slowed as they came to the south gate. The guard there, in a clean and pressed uniform, noted the number of the Army unit painted plainly on the bumper and waved them through.

  “That hasn’t changed since we were stationed here,” Mojombo said. “No security at all. Not even a good try. Swing past the motor pool. We need a second truck. Two men will drop off the tailgate and negotiate with the guard on duty for a six-by-six.”

  “So far, so good, Captain,” Gabu said. “We’ll have supplies to keep us rolling for six months.”

  “Let’s hope we can get our revolution going long before that, Gabu. It all depends on how much the people of our country support us, and help supply us. We have a lot of work to do yet.”

  The truck stopped at the motor pool, and two men in cammies and with sub guns dropped off the truck, which moved away to Building 426, marked “Supply Depot.”

  Gabu backed the truck up to a side door, and Mojombo and two men went to the front door. The guard saluted when he saw the captain’s bars on Mojombo’s shoulders.

  “I’m here to see the officer in charge,” Mojombo said.

  The guard frowned. “Sorry, sir, he isn’t here tonight. He reports to duty at 0800.”

  “Soldier, I’m on a special night-training exercise and I need to pick up supplies for the troops. I guess you’ll have to sign the order form.”

  “Not allowed to do that, sir.” The soldier had just got the words out when one of Mojombo’s men stepped in behind him, caught his hair, and pulled his head back, then slit his throat from one carotid artery to the other. The soldier’s eyes went wide, his voice coming out in a whisper as rich red blood spurted four feet into the air from both carotids with every beat of his heart.

  The soldier dropped his rifle and put his hands up to his throat trying to hold in the blood. He slumped to the ground as the vital blood supply to his brain dropped lower and lower. He would be dead in a minute and a half, Mojombo knew. They dragged the body into some shadows and slid inside the unlocked front door. One man ran to the loading dock area and lifted the truck door. There were now two trucks at the dock waiting for supplies. Ten men stormed inside and went to selected sections of the huge warehouse where they picked out the designated supplies. Mostly they took dozens of cases of canned and packaged food, sacks and boxes of sugar, flour, cornmeal, and other staples.

  In another section they found submachine guns and ammo. They piled them in boxes and took loads of RPGs, flares, armloads of uniforms, boots, and another case of handheld radios.

  “Let’s move,” Mojombo shouted. “We could have company at any time.”

  A minute later a jeep rounded the corner of the huge warehouse, its lights picking up the truck at the loading dock. Mojombo walked out to the front of the truck and waited for the jeep. It stopped a dozen feet away and a man stepped out. He wore the dress uniform of an officer in the Sierra Bijimi Army. He walked up and saluted smartly.

  “Sir, Officer of the Guard on rounds. I don’t recall any orders for loading trucks tonight.”

  “At ease, Lieutenant. Special orders on a night-training exercise. It has to be realistic or training is no good. We load here, drive to another warehouse, get it checked out by the umpire on duty there, and then drive it back here and unload. From
a practical standpoint it’s absolutely useless, but then it’s training.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand. I’ll need your unit number and name for my report.”

  Mojombo saw one of his men approach the jeep from the driver’s side. Mojombo drew his 9mm Glock from his holster and shot the officer twice in the chest before the man sensed any danger. Two more rounds sounded at the jeep, and the driver crumpled over the wheel.

  The men were finished at the trucks. They pulled the canvas down over the backs and the rest of the men jumped on board.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Mojombo said, and stepped into the cab of the first truck. At the south gate, the guard flagged them down.

  “Been a little trouble on base, sir,” the guard said. “I’ll need to see your transit papers and orders.”

  Gabu shot the guard twice in the throat, and stormed the truck out the gate and down the road. The second truck followed closely behind them.

  Mojombo looked at his watch in the truck’s faint dash lights. “Almost three A.M. Time we head for the river. No chance that we can get to the President tonight. Maybe on the next trip.”

  “A good night’s work,” Gabu said.

  “Yes, we did well.”

  Gabu looked at the blackness of the roadway. They were outside the town now and well into the countryside. There was only one road north, so they had to take it. “We expecting any trouble up the road?” Gabu asked.

  “Probably. We didn’t cut any telephone wires. Somebody will report our raid. They know we always go north.”

  “Probably around Tambacounda. They still have an Army post there?”

  “They’ve rebuilt it since we burned it down a month ago,” Mojombo said. “Yes, my guess is they’ll have every man on the post out to the road to stop us. They for sure will get a telephone warning.”