Season of Harm

“What’s the matter,” McCray said, chuckling, “do you wish they were heroin smugglers?’

“I’d feel like we were doing something more important.”

McCray nodded. “Well, I suppose we would, at that.” He shifted in his seat. The senior agent was a big man with snow-white, close-cropped hair, craggy features and a tie cinched tight around his thick neck, over a shirt whose collar appeared just a bit too small. “But this is an important assignment. This bootlegging ring has its fingers in several different industries, if the preliminary reports are correct. They’re taking in what could be millions of dollars. That’s no small thing, no matter how dull the operation itself might be.”

“I know, Mike.” Carrol nodded. “Just permit a little griping ahead of time.”

McCray chuckled again. “Fair enough,” he said. “Look at it like a wedding you don’t want to go to. You’ll be glad you did when it’s over. And it’ll take longer for the photos afterward than for the ceremony itself.”

Carrol laughed despite herself. “Okay, Mike.”

“At least I’ll be home at a decent hour,” McCray said. “Ellen has really been riding me about the overtime.”

He picked up the walkie-talkie in the cup holder in the center console. “McCray to Two and Three,” he said. “We’re a block away. Everybody get ready.”

“Two, ready,” came one response.

“Three, roger,” came the second.

“Ready to do some good?” McCray winked at Agent Carrol.

“Let’s not get carried away,” Carrol said. She laughed again; McCray’s sense of humor was hard to resist.

Agent McCray brought the SUV to a halt along the curb fronting the warehouse. The half-dozen FBI agents who made up the rest of the task force piled out of their trucks, some toting AR-15 rifles, some carrying Glock pistols. Two of the agents carried a portable battering ram. Doing her best to keep her expression neutral, Carrol joined McCray as the two walked purposefully up the cracked asphalt walk to an access door at the side of the warehouse. Both agents drew their Glock sidearms.

“Do it.” McCray nodded.

The two agents with the battering ram took position, braced themselves and swung the heavy metal cylinder.

The door lock broke easily and the agents swarmed in. The two lead agents dropped the ram and let their fellow agents cover them, drawing their own weapons as the team spread out to control the space within.

“FBI! Nobody move! Federal Bureau of Investigation!” the agents announced themselves. Men and women froze, putting up their hands and staring in confusion.

The warehouse was a large rectangle, with tall, painted-over and dirt-smeared windows dominating the long ends of the box. A catwalk and what was apparently a partial upper level ran along the outer perimeter. Carrol spotted a metal staircase at the back of the warehouse floor that led to the upper level.

The floor itself was a maze of tables and benches. On each of these were piles of DVDs in various states of packaging. Carrol recognized a set of burning machines on a table at one end of the room. The machines were humming away, still automatically copying whatever disks were placed within them. On other tables, color-photocopied labels were being cut and placed in plastic sleeves on clam-shell DVD cases. Cardboard boxes were everywhere, piled two and three deep under the tables and next to them, forming narrow aisles through which the workers had to navigate.

The workers blinked in confusion as the FBI agents moved among them, searching and securing them. Most of them did not appear to speak English. A few spoke in Spanish or broken English; Carrol wondered what a background check would turn up.

“Bonarski, Gerdes,” McCray ordered. “Up the stairs and secure the upper level.”

“Sir,” another agent called. He had opened one of the cardboard boxes stacked under the table closest to him.

“What is it, Harney?” McCray asked.

“Sir, I knocked over that plastic bin of DVDs. Look what was inside it…and inside this.” He pointed at an overturned plastic container and at the cardboard box just unsealed.

McCray came over and peered inside the carton.

“Holy shit,” he said.

The box was full of large plastic zipper-lock bags stuffed with white powder. McCray bent, removing a small pocket knife from his suit jacket. He snapped the blade open and poked it into the bag. Careful not to inhale the powder, he raised the coated blade to his nose and let its odor travel to his nose.

“Heroin,” he said. He looked up. “Watch them,” he ordered the agents, indicating the confused workers. “And check those other boxes.”

“Here, too, sir,” Agent Harney called. “Packed full. Every box.”

Agent Carrol looked around the warehouse in amazement, counting the cardboard packages. “Mike, if every one of these boxes is full of heroin…”

“Still think a DVD piracy ring isn’t worth busting?” McCray grinned back at her. He lowered his Glock as she did the same. “This has to be millions of dollars of heroin. Maybe more. I’ve never seen so much in one place.”

Suddenly, Carrol felt very anxious. “Mike, what have we stumbled onto here?” She scanned the room, her fingers clenching as she half raised her weapon once more.

“Easy,” McCray said. “Easy, now. Sometimes luck just works on our side. Relax, Marie.”

“I know, I know,” Carrol said. She couldn’t help it; she couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.

“Bonarski! Gerdes! What have you got up there?’ McCray looked up to the catwalk. When there was no answer, he called again, “Gerdes? Agents Gerdes and Bonarski, report, damn it.”

The only response was a corpse that came flying over the catwalk.

Carrol felt her heart leap into her throat. The body that struck the floor, scattering workers and bringing up the heads of the workers and the assembled FBI personnel, was that of Agent Gerdes.

The ghastly expression on his face left no doubt that he was in fact dead. His throat had been cut from ear to ear.

“All agents—” McCray began to order.

“That,” a voice shouted in accented English, “will be quite enough!” Punctuating the words were the sounds of a dozen assault rifles being cocked. The barrels of the Kalashnikov rifles suddenly appeared over the catwalk railing, wielded by small, deadly-looking men who appeared more than ready to use them.

“Drop your weapons!” McCray ordered.

“You,” said the man who had spoken previously, “are in no position to make demands.” He appeared at the railing, holding a gun to Agent Bonarski’s head.

He was a small man, perhaps five feet, four inches, with a swarthy complexion and vaguely Asian features. To Carrol he looked Filipino, or maybe Thai. He was dressed much the same as the other armed men now looking down from the catwalk, sporting a mixture of civilian clothes and castoff military uniform. Specifically, he wore cut-off BDUs, unlaced combat boots and an open and very faded olive-drab fatigue blouse over a Rock-and-Roll Café T-shirt. A red-and-white bandanna was tied over his skull, knotted above his forehead. He was chewing an unlighted cigarillo. The hammer of the .45-caliber pistol in his hand was jacked back, and a very nervous Agent Bonarski was sweating as the barrel was jammed into his temple.

“Do not hurt that agent!” McCray commanded. “Identify yourself!”

“You may call me Thawan.” The man smiled, his face a mask of petty cruelty. “And you may also call me master of your fate. Drop your guns.”

“I can’t do that.” McCray shook his head. “I’m ordering you to stand down, mister!”

“Such arrogance,” Thawan said. “It does not surprise me. Do you, American, have any idea what you have walked into this day?”

“I’ve got an idea,” McCray said. “Now put down those guns!”

“No,” Thawan said. He chewed on the cigarillo, switching it from one side of his mouth to the other. “You are about to die, American. It can be quick and clean. It can also be very, very messy.”

“Sir…” Agent Bonarski said.