THE BLAKE CUTTER DETECTIVE SERIES | BOOK 4
Copyright © Edward T. Milligan, 2024
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Cover Design by Donika Mishineva
www.artofdonika.com
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. The events and characters portrayed are imaginary. Any resemblance to real-life people or locations is entirely coincidental.
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The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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All rights reserved.
YOU NEVER LIVE UNTIL YOU DIE
Excerpt from The Blake Cutter Detective Series | Book 4
Prologue
It was an overcast and balmy Easter Sunday morning in Miami when Rico Calderon, a paid assassin for Ransom Oliver’s cartel, wanted revenge against his mob boss for betrayal his partner Spencer McShain and leaving him to die in the hands of a Haitian mafia leader named Dominique. Oliver, the leader of the southeast cartel had a chance to rescue Calderon’s assassin partner and best friend from the Haitian mafia captives, but instead let him die at their hands to forego their demands for a sizeable ransom. It was a level of betrayal Calderon could not let slide by.
Calderon was unaware that Oliver had just been killed in a black operations raid at a nearby safehouse church complex. He was about to execute a most heinous act of revenge. He wanted to foil Oliver’s bank robbers from getting away with $50 million they’d planned to steal from a bank that was holding the cash pending distribution of the funds to regional banks scheduled to take place following Monday. The adrenaline-charged, hatred-filled Rico Calderon watched three of Oliver’s men exit the bank carrying large bags he assumed were full of cash. They were wearing chemical protective masks and nitrile gloves to hide their identity. Rico hoped as soon as they loaded the bags into their nondescript white panel van, they would remove their masks and gloves and expose themselves. He knew he’d have only a few seconds to navigate the sarin-gas loaded drone over the van, detonate the C4 on the drone and have the containers of sarin gas burst open, exposing the bandits to the biological agent. There would be no way to escape exposure, even if they drove through it.
At that moment, Rico felt a sudden stiff wind to his back. It was an easterly morning gust blowing in the direction of the bank. Beyond the bank was a residential neighborhood only three blocks away. Rico trained his binoculars towards the alley. He never traversed the binoculars to the west to see that there were several children dressed in their Sunday best playing along their sidewalk, waiting for their parents to come out of the homes to take them to Easter Sunday service. All areas to the east of downtown had been evacuated. But since that activity started, the wind had inexplicably shifted toward the west, which was the last area on the priority of local police.
An alert had just been issued over the television and on cell phones but had not yet reached the operators of the city sirens. No one in the surrounding neighborhood had suspected that only a few blocks away, a bank robbery was taking place, nor could they imagine a potential deadly exposure to sarin gas was imminently heading their way.
After the drone lifted off the roof, Rico remotely steered it towards the alley where he noticed the black-clad robbers exiting the bank. The time was now to complete his plan. Rico’s goal was to kill the robbers with the deadly gas, don his mask and hazmat suit and quickly head down the stairs and out the building to the alley. Once he made it to the scene, he would retrieve any bags of cash that had been left on the ground or in the van and then escape out of town.
As he was about to push the switch to activate the detonator, he overheard a loud voice shout. "Land the drone, Calderon! You're under arrest!"
Rico dropped the remote controller but held onto the remote detonator switch. He raised it in the air with one hand. Sanchez instantly paused like a man holding a detonator to a bomb. But this was much worse and more lethal than a bomb, especially on a windy morning.
A sudden strong wind gust blew and carried sandy debris across the roof. Rico turned his back to it, but Sanchez was momentarily blinded as dust flew in his eyes.
Rico seized the opportunity. He dropped the detonator into the wagon, grabbed his pistol and fired at Sanchez. But the round only grazed Sanchez’s shoulder. As Sanchez raised his shotgun, Rico got off another round and hit Sanchez high and to the left on his chest.
Sanchez plummeted to the floor but didn’t lose consciousness.
Cutter leaped ahead to render assistance to Sanchez.
Rico fumbled the remote control and dropped it, then dashed between the solar panels for cover.
Cutter realized he couldn't retreat to safety or call a 911 dispatcher and risk being identified. He squatted and felt Sanchez’s pulse and realized he was still alive for the moment, but blood was oozing from his shirt and gurgling from his mouth. He figured he’d have only a minute or two to engage Rico or persuade him to disarm, use Sanchez’s phone to call for help, then disappear out of sight. So, he stepped over Sanchez and slowly inched towards Rico with his gun pointed ahead. Cutter wasn’t sure what authority he had to act now that Sanchez lay unconscious.
Rico noted hesitation in Cutter’s steps and decided to make his move. He leaped out from behind the panels and fired a volley of rounds indiscriminately in Cutter’s direction as he lunged for the remote detonator switch.
Cutter dived forward towards Rico to avoid being hit. He got close enough to grab Rico’s pants right leg, but Rico kicked him off. Then, as Rico tried to move forward, Cutter managed to trip him up and Rico fell. Cutter then grabbed Rico’s leg again. But Rico swirled around and punched Cutter in his face. The force of the robust man’s wrought iron like fist propelled Cutter backward, allowing Rico to break away from his clutches. The punch did more damage to Rico’s hand than to Cutter’s face as the impact of his knuckles against the LED mask drew blood to Rico’s hand. Rico lunged to the edge of the roof where he picked up the detonation device and joystick to direct the drone, as it was now drifting off course.
Unhurt by the punch, Cutter rose to his feet, trained his Glock on Rico, and yelled, "Stop now, Calderon!”
With nothing to lose, Rico ignored the warning and pointed the joystick towards the drone, which was still hovering off the side of the building but had drifted lower. Rico quickly steered the drone towards the location where there were still five of Oliver's henchmen loading the escape vehicle.
"Put that down or I’ll shoot you." Cutter barked refocusing himself. He realized he now had no choice, no matter the consequences.
Suddenly, Rico turned and stared at Cutter. Rico recognized him. "Hey, I know who you are. I recognize your voice behind that mask. You’re the guy from the hospital when we took out that bitch Penelope.
“Drop the device,” Cutter warned him again.
Cutter relaxed the Glock momentarily and took a deep mournful breath. "Yes, and I'm the man who watched your partner murder an innocent woman."
Rico chuckled, "That's a trip.” He moved his hand off the switch as he engaged in the conversation. “That Penelope bitch was hardly an innocent woman, dude."
Cutter wasn't about to go down that road. "So, what's your game here? You’re about to kill some innocent people. Why?"
Rico responded, "I can’t help collateral damage, but I’m going to get what’s coming to me. Oliver's gonna pay for letting my partner die. We were loyal to him."
The wind began to blow more briskly as the drone began to drift away and appeared to be falling towards the ground. Rico was losing control of the drone and knew he had to act fast.
Cutter inched towards him while glancing over the edge of the roof. A momentary image of Penelope falling off the roof at the Witherton Apartment Building in Bullet, Georgia popped into his head, but he quickly shook off the thought.
"You move that finger, and I'll blow you away."
"You’re not going to shoot me,” Rico pointed out. “If you were, you would’ve done it by now.”
Cutter knew his bluff had ended. He had no authority to shoot unless it was in self-defense, or others were in immediate danger. He had no definitive information that the situation could result in death of innocent people, thus he had no authority to function as a suspended cop. He was just a civilian. He decided to switch to negotiation mode and tried to talk Rico out of his plot.
Cutter asked Rico, "What did Oliver do to your partner?"
Rico stared at Cutter with watering eyes, "He let him die at the hands of some two-bit ransom seekers, and now his men are gonna die and I'm taking all that money they're stealing. I just hope Oliver is down there to die a slow painful death along with them."
Cutter retorted, "Well he's not! He's already dead, so you can discontinue this plot of yours. Whatever you do won’t hurt him, but just put you in prison. If any of that gas makes its way to innocent people, you're facing the death penalty."
Suddenly Rico displayed a crooked grin, unfazed by Cutter’s words. He turned towards the bank and put his right hand back on the switch.
Cutter realized he had a known killer with intent to inflict mass chaos right in front of him. Cutter decided to take a risk and act. So, he fired four rounds into Rico's left side and back.
Rico stumbled forward, tripping on his own feet.
Like a repeat of the fall of Penelope Lane off the roof of the Witherton apartment in Bullet, Rico plummeted face first over the edge. The only difference is that Penelope Lane miraculously survived. Rico Calderon, the man who had not himself murdered Cutter's wife Jenni or her doppelganger Penelope Lane but had been directly involved as the partner to an assassin, fell face first ten levels onto a hard asphalt surface across from the bank. Rico Calderon, Oliver's main east coast assassin, lay dead on a Main Street sidewalk on Easter morning with blood seeping from every part of his body.
Cutter rushed to the edge of the roof and cautiously glanced over it. He took a deep breath of relief. But then, his heartbeat elevated. There was still a drone flying around with a cylinder containing sarin gas attached to it.
A stiff breeze blew through Cutter's disheveled black hair as he felt a sprinkle of raindrops against his clammy right palm. He rushed back to Sanchez and felt his pulse again. It was throbbing and now Sanchez was moaning in pain. Cutter scurried back to the edge of the roof and saw a nondescript white van veering from the alley onto the main street and then speeding down Main Street to a loud screech. The van’s driver and six occupants unknowingly were heading straight to the heart of the police cordon.
Cutter glanced over to the end of the alley and saw no one lying on the ground. Then, he could barely make out a mangled collection of metal pieces on the ground in front of the alley on the bank’s west side. It was pieces of the drone. The C4 hadn't exploded. The sarin gas hadn't leaked. There was no sign of an airburst. There was no one to be seen on Main Street near the bank.
Everybody was safe, but Oliver’s bank robbers had escaped with fifty million dollars in cash. Yet, the city was spared from a catastrophic biological attack. He dashed back over to Sanchez, checked on him and then called in the chief’s location and condition.
Moments later, Blake Cutter, a suspended SBI agent and former Miami police detective, was once again an anonymous hero. He made his way down to the ground floor of the building and quickly exited out the side door of the building. He disappeared without being identified.
By the time he was three blocks away, he stopped and listened as he overheard several sirens screaming as emergency vehicles were rushing to the area. He only hoped that the first responders would arrive to the roof soon enough to save a Miami police chief and his dear friend's life.
Chapter 1
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The top drug cartel bosses of the northeast US, operating under the guise of a business consortium meeting, gathered at the summer home of mafia kingpin Townley Mann. Mann’s estate, a rustic 15,000 square foot hunting lodge was located on a plush, remote five-acre estate located deep along the Red River Gorge in eastern Kentucky in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
Mann welcomed the cartel heads and their entourages to his large meeting room, located on the backside of the estate. The exquisite great room, adorned with antler chandeliers, rough-hewn beams and columns, a vaulted ceiling, and a huge stone fireplace, was obscured from drone and helicopter surveillance by large red hickory trees and from ground invasion by a dense forest. It was the ideal spot for a clandestine mafia planning meeting where mobsters could relax and enjoy the scenery while conducting serious business.
Each of the four cartel heads operated commodity distribution businesses throughout their respective regions that were being used to launder drug and weapons money. All were registered with state licensing agencies as limited liability corporations. Most of the businesses were directed to limit the reporting of their profits so that they wouldn’t be forced to re-register as S Corporations and attract additional government scrutiny. The four regions were all operating independently and respecting each other’s territory.
The New York region was led by Townley Mann, a Caucasian middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair and a well-groomed beard. Unlike most middle-aged men who accumulated fat around the mid-section, he was a fitness enthusiast who ran four miles every morning and spent a great deal of time in the full gym he’d built in the basement of his estate. He as the most active of the mafia leadership whose enterprise engaged in the production, supply and distribution of illegal drugs and weapons. His cartel engaged in the entire gamut of illegal activity to include extortion, human and drug
trafficking, prostitution, and contract killings. All activities reaped huge profits. But it wasn’t enough. Greed had overtaken Mann, and he wanted to unite the group of drug cartels with him, taking most of the profits.
Leadership of the New England states region was currently in a state of flux due to the takedown of Enrico DeSalvo, fraternal twin of Benito (Bennie) DeSalvo, the mobster who’d been taken down by Cutter and Georgia SBI during the raid of rescue Penelope Lane. He was a ruthless Sicilian-born mob boss who was at the top of the FBI most wanted list due to brutal public assassination of police informants and local politicians and public officials who sponsored tough anti-crime legislation. Most of his lieutenants had committed multiple assaults and murders. He had the reputation for demanding outright loyalty of his lieutenants and never questioning his authority or they’d face brutal assassination.
The Mideast region, consisting of states from New Jersey to Virginia, was led by Renaldo Pineda, a Philippine-born immigrant who was a relative newcomer to the organized crime scene and had only a small group of cohorts. But he had great connections to European drug and weapons smugglers and quickly established a robust supply network for import of fentanyl and tungsten-core, armor piercing bullets from European illegal markets. Mann was planning to have a side conversation with Pineda for the transshipment of the bullets into his cartel to increase his firepower against local law enforcement and SWAT teams.
Jimmie co-led the Tennessee-Kentucky region “The Ironhead” Smith, and Ruban Santiago, who also oversaw mafia operations in Cuba, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean. Smith and Santiago were looking to expand to the southeast and compete with those cartels for control of the Caribbean drug smuggling networks. It was the same smuggling operations in Miami in which Manuel Sanchez and Miami PD were trying to interdict the operations now led by Ramon Sicaro.
Townley Mann’s purpose for calling the meeting was to decide on the distribution of the fifty million dollars. It was the money stolen in the bank heist, foiled terrorist attack in Miami for which the money was now being maintained in a safe house deep in the Kentucky foothills. Each of the drug lords wanted the biggest share of the distributed loot to finance larger drug and weapons operations. But Townley Mann had already decided to keep at least 30% of the funds under his control. The loot would be managed by his trusted deputy, a man named Anthony Rizzoni. Rizzoni, an Italian immigrant and product of a powerful Sicilian mafia, always sat next to Mann during meetings since he was the senior in age of Mann’s drug operators. Rizzoni was being groomed to become the successor to Mann as the northeast cartel leader when Mann, now 72 years old, retired. Each of the men were given five minutes to pitch their plan to Townley Mann, who would provide the largest share of his cash divestiture to the leader who showed the greatest potential for profit and expansion.
He sat at the head table and listened to each of the drug lord’s pitches. Mann was most impressed by his facial expressions with the plan pitched by Ramon Sicaro. Sicaro had recently taken over leadership of the Florida cartel after the takedown of the previous drug lord Ransom Oliver, during the church raid in Miami led by Blake Cutter with the help of the band of retired police renegade group known as The Elements. Through his communication with Sicaro, Mann had gained knowledge of his efficient throughput operations of drugs and weapons from Europe and China. Sicaro also managed a robust inland shipping network and distribution from Haiti and South America to the southern coastal states.
After hearing each of their pitches, Mann adjourned the meeting for two hours for him to meet with his inner circle to make the decision on the distribution of the stolen funds. Mann promised that his accountants would have funds transferred to each of their offshore accounts within a week with a contract to receive 10% of each of their future drug and weapons distribution profits.
During that break, the drug lords were invited to tour his estate and grounds and mingle. They found time to socialize with other invited guests while they partook of a lavish spread of wine and food. They were also entertained by his hired call girls to include invitations to estate rooms for copulation if they desired.
As his trusted confidant, Rizzoni had organized the meeting and overseen the logistics, food, and entertainment, ensuring that the twenty young, leggy, call girls, three band ensembles and lavish spread of the hors d’oeuvres and finest of imported vintage wines
were dispersed through the inner and outer parts of the estate. All aspects of the affair were well orchestrated and conveniently located to ensure the drug lords thoroughly enjoyed their visit and didn’t leave disappointed if they were apportioned the share that they’d hoped for of the bank loot.
At eleven p.m., the leaders were summoned back into the meeting room and were quickly served a glass of wine at their tables. Minutes later, Mann stood up at his position at the head table and said to the gathering, “Gentleman, welcome again to my home. I hope you have enjoyed your time here at the estate. The past year was a momentous year for our expansion of operations on the east coast. We are prepared now to form a conglomerate to control all commodity distribution along the eastern seaboard. Now, if we can work together and harness our differences, we can all benefit from the successful operations already demonstrated in the Florida region. I am ready to announce the distribution of the fifty million dollars in profits from the Miami heist. But first let’s have a toast to our success and our pledge for continued cooperative operations. Mann gestured to the drug lords to stand, pick up their champagne flutes and take part in the toast.
“To the continued success of our newly formed Townley Mann conglomerate. May we all share wealth and prosper.” he said, as they all raised their flutes in near unison and consumed the wine. As they sat down, Mann remained standing and prepared to make the announcement. Suddenly, he became pale and disoriented. The first words of his mouth were incoherent. He reached for the desk to brace himself. Although Rizzoni was sitting right next to him, Rizzoni pretended not to notice Mann’s unusual behavior and stared forward, blandly.
Mann’s son Ricardo, who was sitting at the circular table closest to the head table, leaped out of his chair, sprinted around the end of the table, pushed two other mobsters aside to come to the aid of his father.
“Pop, are you alright? What’s going on?” he asked frantically, assuming his father, who was seventy-two, was having the onset of a stroke or heart attack.
Mann, now sweating profusely and stammered, “Y-Yeah, son. I’m okay, just a little dizzy for some reason. I must’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with me.”
“Maybe you should sit down a minute,” Ricardo suggested. “No!” Mann disagreed, exhibiting his usual pride and sense of invincibility.
Then, the stunned group of men noticed Mann leaned over on the table, preparing to vomit from his sudden nausea.
Ricardo yelled, “Somebody get a doctor!”
As all the men in the room quickly stood and prepared to rush to aid, Mann leaned backwards and collapsed. Before he could catch him, Mann fell to the floor and started convulsing. Then, his eyes rolled back, and they shut.
Rizzoni quickly eased back from the crowd that had quickly gathered around the fallen mob leader and casually walked away from the scene. He exited a side door with two of Mann’s other henchmen who had been sitting at a table toward the back of the room. One of the two men was the one who had placed Mann’s flute on the table in front of him. Within minutes, they were driving off the premises in Rizzoni’s limo.
Rizzoni used his cell phone to call his informant who was still at the back of the room observing what was happening. “What’s going on, now?” Rizzoni asked him.
“I think they’ve summoned for medical help,” he replied. Rizzoni then said to him, “Okay, that means first responders or EMT and police might arrive there. Get out of there and meet me back at my estate.”
The estate doctor, who was certified in cardiology, had been provided residence in a one-bedroom Tiny House located about a hundred yards from the estate. He answered his cell phone and immediately got dressed. He then rushed out the door, sprinted over to the estate entrance and was escorted to the room, arriving in less than ten minutes. He made his way through the men and quickly knelt to examine Mann.
As the mobsters stood in dead silence, the doctor opened his bag, removed his stethoscope and checked Mann’s pulse as well as other vitals. He then looked up first at Mann’s son Ricardo and then the rest of the men and announced, “I’m afraid he’s deceased.” Ricardo’s eyes became watered as he stammered in disbelief, “My father just had a heart attack and died?”
The doctor stood and pulled Ricardo to the side of the room, and they walked to a point behind a curtain. The doctor said to Ricardo, “I just did a physical exam on your father about two weeks ago. His heart was in excellent health, and he had no health issues. I won’t know until we can get him back to my lab, but there’s a possibility that your father may have been poisoned.”
Chapter 2
It was six months to the day after Blake Cutter, a suspended federal agent, led a black ops raid on a raid at the church complex that led to the death of Ransom Oliver and several of his band of thugs. Despite his heroic efforts, the SBI had decided not to lift Cutter’s suspension. He remained a cop without a job.
A server position at a local diner had been the only work he could find. He had just returned to his apartment after finishing a ten-hour shift, when, after dozing off in his recliner, he was awakened by the chiming of his cell phone. It was Manuel Sanchez, Chief of the Miami Police Department.
“Blake, I got some great news for you,” Sanchez opened, trying to hold back his enthusiasm. “Can you get here in two days?” “Why, what’s up?” Cutter asked.
Sanchez walked over to the door and shut it to ensure his call wasn’t being overheard. It was a call he didn’t even want his wife to hear. “I finally got IA to agree to hold a reinstatement hearing for you. It’s set for this Thursday here in Miami.”
Cutter was momentarily speechless, not believing what he was hearing, having thought his career in law enforcement was over. “Did you hear me, Blake??
“Y-yeah,” Cutter stammered. “I’m just a little in shock.” “I need you to be at my house no later than Wednesday evening. We need to brainstorm potential questions and practice your responses to ensure you don’t blow this opportunity. The last thing you need to do is have you trigger questions about your involvement with the Elements or that Penelope Lane woman. They find out you led an unauthorized black ops operation, and your chances are gone. We got one shot, Blake, and one shot only. Several hearing committee members are on the fence about your reinstatement.” Cutter responded confidently, “Of course, I’m coming. You don’t have to tell me how important this is. I’m waiting tables for a living right now.”
“Are you sure you can get the committee to forgive you for everything’s that’s happened?” Sanchez asked.
“I’m not blowing this chance to get back in the saddle. I assure you. Being back with MPD means everything to me.”
“I know that, Blake,” Sanchez responded. But he sighed heavily with doubt. “You’ve gotta convince the committee that you’ve overcome your grief from the loss of Jenni and you’re not going to start back here on a continued vendetta. I’ve sat on several of these types of reinstatement boards, and they pull out all the stops to make you earn a spot back on the force. You’ll have to face questions again about your confrontation with Alex at the Bullet courthouse and convince them that you know you have total remorse for your actions that day. Several of the members still feel that you should have been terminated from any future law enforcement involvement instead of receiving a transfer. Many are not happy that it turned out be what many perceived as a promotion stemming from unethical conduct.”
Cutter countered, “Manny, you know what my intentions were then. The woman needed to be rescued from assassins.” Sanchez paused with a deep sigh, and replied, “We both know that. But I doubt a reinstatement committee will be sympathetic. You broke the law, Blake. That’s the main obstacle you’ll have to overcome in persuading them to give you a second chance.” Cutter remained momentarily silent.
Then, Sanchez finished by saying, “Look, Blake. I know you’ll do your best. But, if you mess up, it will not only be on your head on the chopping block, but mine also will be for endorsing your return. I owe you a lot, Blake, but I’m getting ready to retire in a couple of years and I want to leave on my own terms, not be forced out because of controversial decisions.
“I won’t let you down, Manny,” Cutter assured him. “I know more than anyone what’s at stake.”
After Cutter made a few more statements to solicit Sanchez’s confidence in not only Cutter’s performance at the hearing but also his future discipline in MPD, Sanchez confirmed his support and the two closed their phone conversation with Sanchez’s last words.
Cutter hung up and felt euphoric at the thought of Sanchez standing up for him and giving him the opportunity to be a legitimate cop once again.
The next morning, Cutter packed up two suitcases and several changes of clothes and drove to Miami. He arrived at Sanchez’s house around noon. Sanchez’s wife fixed them snacks and dinner as Sanchez and Cutter escaped to a private table in the den and stayed there the entire afternoon and evening, reviewing all of Cutter’s accessible online case files while he was assigned as a detective in MPD. They walked through every arrest, looking for anything that the committee could pull apart regarding questionable arrest or apprehension, especially of minorities. Cutter left Sanchez’s house around midnight and found a local hotel about ten minutes away.
The next day, Sanchez had a full schedule, so he didn’t meet Cutter until after work. On this night, which was the night before the reinstatement hearing, they met at a cabana outside Cutter’s hotel room and spent three hours rehearing Cutter’s answers to questions Sanchez had remembered from previous disciplinary board and reinstatement hearing from other suspended police officers in his fourteen years as Police Chief. This time, Sanchez broke off the meeting earlier so that Cutter could return to his hotel and get a good night’s sleep. Sanchez felt it was more important for Cutter to be fresh for the hearing rather than taking more time to prepare.
The next morning, Cutter left his hotel room and drove directly to BPD HQ, arriving around eight. He met with Sanchez briefly in his office, then he and Sanchez proceeded to the MPD main conference room where a six-member reinstatement panel was waiting.
Over the next six hours, they conducted a comprehensive interrogation and review of Cutter’s time in both the MPD and at SBI in Georgia. They pulled apart the murder case of Phillip and Dorothy Drummond as well as Cutter’s participation in other investigations while he was at SBI. They also conducted phone interviews with Alex McBain, SAC Harry Ryker and several other law enforcement personnel who’d worked closely with Cutter both in Miami and in Bullet. Each interviewee, other than Ryker, testified that Cutter’s performance as an agent in Bullet was exemplary. They each were asked their opinion about Cutter’s attempt to free Penelope Lane from custody resulting in him being shot by his partner, Alex McBain. Each expressed to the committee, in their own words, that their belief was that the act was just a temporary lapse in judgement and was out of character for a stellar colleague like Cutter. Each recommended his reinstatement, believing that behavior such as that would not be ever repeated. However, nothing was revealed regarding his later involvement with Penelope Lane or with the Elements in the takedown of the Oliver cartel.
A week after the hearing commenced, Sanchez and Ryker received word that Cutter’s reinstatement to the Miami Police Department was approved and the record of his suspension from the SBI would be expunged from his police service record. Sanchez invited Cutter to his home for a private celebration that night.
Cutter immediately notified the landlord that he was breaking his lease and immediately leaving for Miami. He hired the fastest moving company he could find to pick up his belongings and place them in a storage unit in Bullett. Later that night, he drove overnight to Miami and checked back into the same hotel, pending his location of an apartment.
The next afternoon, after spending the morning searching for an apartment, he reported to MPD HQ to the cheers of many of the senior detectives and administrative personnel that had worked with him before. The staff provided him with the best of the vacant offices on the second floor.
A couple of hours later, Cutter received a call on his cell from Sanchez, summoning him to his office.
As Cutter entered, Sanchez look serious and said, “Blake, I’m appointing you to head a new division we just established in the MPD, the Special Investigations Division which will focus specifically on combatting the growing concerns with major drug cartels attempting to set up shop in South Florida. The justice department and the feds have established an objective to eliminate Sicaro’s Southeast cartel, formerly run by Ransom Oliver and to recover as much of the stolen fifty million dollars as possible from that bank heist a few months ago. We can’t leave the impression that our banks are vulnerable to drug cartels executing bank robberies. I need you to head the task force to begin the process of bringing down the Sicaro drug network. I realized that some of the stolen cash has been laundered but we can set the stage for the feds to acquire leads of where the rest of the cash is being flowed through.”.
Without hesitation, Cutter said to Sanchez, “I’m your man. But I’ll need some time to conduct some stakeouts.”
Sanchez responded, “The resources of this department will be at your disposal.” Then Sanchez asked Cutter, “On a related note, have you heard of a mobster named Anthony Rizzoni?”
Cutter responded, “No. That’s a new name to me.” Sanchez briefed, “He heads the northeast U.S. mafia consortium. He’s now become the bigger threat that we’ll have to deal with. He’s number one on the FBI’s most wanted list after suspicion that he was involved in the death of the previous Northeast leader, Townley Mann. FBI’s intelligence sources report that Anthony Rizzoni is looking to expand his drug network to take control of the entire east coast from Maine to Miami. Some of Oliver’s former henchmen jumped ship after the church raid and joined Rizzoni’s northeast mafia group for very lucrative salaries. Expect a power struggle between Rizzoni and Sicaro for control of South Florida with MPD and SBI caught in the middle of a turf war.”
Cutter commented, “I guess that mean I’ll have plenty to keep me busy.”
Sanchez ended the call with one final statement, “I’m not only assigning you as division chief, but I want you to lead any SWAT operations that we conduct. You were my best tactical planner, and I know you were the most experienced cop I had in tactical operations. Word on the streets from our confidential informants is that Anthony Rizzoni is looking to score some high-power illegal arms, and his kill squads want to take over drug territory that Sicaro currently controls. We also believe that he’ll try to acquire most of the stolen money through assassinations of laundering facilities and set up offshore accounts to move the funds into. He’s stopping at nothing to become the next Ransom Oliver in South Florida and consolidate operation on the entire east coast. You play an instrumental part in taking down Rizzoni and Sicaro and you’ll get my vote as my successor. It’s getting time for me to retire.”
Cutter argued, “I’m not interested in taking your place and dealing with the police politics, Manny. But you know my motivation. I want to take off the head of the snake. After Jenni’s death, I promised to her parents that I’d stop at nothing to get to the very top of the organization responsible for the assassination attempt on my life that mistakenly killed her.”
With a wide grin and fist bump, Sanchez said, “That’s sounds great, Blake. But I’ll warn you. You will face a new set of challenges getting the evidence we need to take down the top syndicate heads and get them indicted. The district attorney is not trying cases against top drug lords unless we have all the evidence to put them away for good. With technology it’s becoming harder to trace the money flow.”
“Explain that statement, Manny,” Cutter requested. Sanchez elaborated, “Some of the world’s most advanced IT encryption software has made its way in the hands of criminal organizations through the dark web. We’re now fighting an IT war, just like the military. Miami syndicates are on the forefront of using AI to camouflage their networks and communications platforms. Everything they’re doing now is meant to counter law enforcement intelligence gathering.”
Cutter noted, “We used to could get around their firewalls and bypass their encryption to trace their IP address?”
“Not anymore,” Sanchez admitted. “The feds are telling us that both the Sicaro and Rizzoni cartels now have some of the top IT specialists in the country on their payroll, and they are using VPNs and some new sophisticated firewalls to mask their IP addresses. Even the Feds in Washington haven’t been able to track any voice or electronic communication other than what I’ve already disclosed to you.”
“What does all this mean for future tactical operations?” Cutter asked.
Sanchez explained, “It means that we’ll to need get to them the old fashioned way, through human intelligence. . . namely more CI’s and implants on the streets, in their gang and cartel territories, particularly their safe houses. That means a lot of law enforcement lives will be at stake, more than ever before. I need you to be the man to mitigate that increased risk.”
Cutter replied, “I’ll do my best.”
Sanchez walked him to the door, opened it and said in final words, “What used to be your best, Blake, won’t be good enough here now. We’ll need to reengineer how we do business and think outside the box if we’re going to combat this new threat to public safety here in Miami. These guys care nothing about collateral damage when they’re at war with each other. They’ll blow up an entire building or city block with innocent civilians to take out one rival cartel member. That’s the way we’ve been told that Rizzoni did business up north. I’ll have my folks get you up to speed then some and see me in a couple of days when you get settled in.”
Chapter 3
​Blake Cutter couldn’t find closure to his past. The loss of his wife Jenni and her doppelganger Penelope had long since left his immediate thoughts. Now, his motivation turned to going after the kingpin of Florida drug invasion. Despite having taken down Ransom Oliver, Bennie DeSalvo, and several of the Mafia cohorts in a foiled biological attack at the church complex, Cutter was determined to make the streets of Miami safe again, especially the Pinecrest area where he grew up. He still didn’t know who had planted the bomb that killed his Jenni. He could only assume it was Rico Calderon or Spector McShain since they were Bennie DeSalvo’s main operatives. But Calderon and McShain were now dead, and Cutter was left without confirmation that the two were the operatives in the assassination attempt that took Jenni’s life. All hopes of a confession from Calderon were lost when he was forced to shoot and kill him to prevent a biological release from the roof of the office complex.
What was more pressing to Sanchez than Cutter’s closure, was the fear that the city of Miami was being primed for two mafia groups to begin a turf war to control the city’s drug and weapons flow with MPD and many of Miami’s citizens caught squarely in the middle.
On July 6, Cutter received his official orders, reassigning him from the Georgia State Bureau of Investigations back to the Miami Police Department with a promotion to Chief of Investigation Division. He spent the first month on the job, reestablishing his previous contacts and gathering as much information of the remaining infrastructure of the Miami drug network, once led by Ransom Oliver but now under the control of Oliver’s understudy, Ramon Sicaro.
It was early morning when Cutter walked into his office and logged onto his email. He quickly noticed an email that was marked URGENT in the subject line. It was from Sanchez, with the SBI chief Harry Ryker on the cc line. Sanchez was announcing a meeting with all of Miami’s law enforcement leadership in the MPD main conference room for four o’clock that afternoon.
At four, with over a dozen law enforcement officers present from MPD, the Dade County Sheriff’s Office and agents from SBI, ATF and Homeland Security, Sanchez walked up to the podium from behind the curtain. He was accompanied by his deputy police chief and his public affairs specialist, who stood to his left.
​
“Gentlemen. I’m here today to brief you on some intelligence we’ve gathered from multiple sources regarding a planned attack on Miami Police Department Headquarters and several unnamed law enforcement facilities in South Florida. We don’t know whether these planned attacks will come in the form of active shooters, terrorist-type bombings or all-out assaults. This intelligence was codified by the BPD tactical operations team, FBI, DEA, and other state investigative agencies. We believe this is a revenge attack for our takedown of Ransom Oliver, Bennie DeSalvo, and the arrest of several high-ranking personnel in the southeast coast drug operation. We have evidence that organized crime elements have been reconstituted and are fully operational. Thus, we have asked the Attorney General to order all state and local law enforcement agencies on high alert and have coordinated with officials at the Port of Miami and all shipping locations to be on the lookout for shipments of undocumented cargo. We believe an attack will be ordered by the head of the northeast drug cartel; a man named Anthony Rizzoni. Rizzoni took over the cartel after the sudden and mysterious death of Townley Mann six month ago. He has employed several high-profile drug lords and gang leaders as well as several individuals that have experience in paramilitary groups and assassination squads. So, we’re potentially dealing with a very robust, lethal, and extremely dangerous criminal organization. It will take well-coordinated efforts to uproot their planned attack as well as any other operations they are planning to conduct in this city and county at large. There is speculation that Rizzoni, who was the number two man in the northeast cartel, was responsible for the poisoning death of Townley Mann during a dinner party which resulted in Mann having a fatal heart attack. His body disappeared from the morgue a week after, so this suspicion could not be positively confirmed. But it was enough to put Rizzoni on the FBI’s ten most wanted list as well as the DEA and Department of Homeland Security watch list. Thus, I am hereby requesting all tactical units to be on 24-hour recall until further notice. We will be conducting joint meetings during the next few weeks as well as several surveillance operations over the next thirty days to attempt to locate and apprehend Anthony Rizzoni and the drug leadership. What we must prevent is an all-out turf war between the Sicaro and Rizzoni cartels on the streets of Miami which could lead to a lot of property destruction and innocent lives being lost in the crossfire. This has happened on the west coast, and we can’t let it be repeated in our backyards. That’s all I have for now. My team and I will provide further updates once they develop.
Chapter 4
After the bank heist of fifty million dollars from the South National Bank, which had been temporarily stored and earmarked for distribution to two hundred branch banks in Florida, Ramon Sicaro, Ransom Oliver’s successor, had planned to launder the money through legitimate business establishments in South Florida that were formerly run by the Oliver’s cartel. But police had raided several of the establishments within the past three months prior to the bank heist. Thus, Sicaro, through lack of trust of his cohorts, realized he couldn’t protect the money from discovery and confrontation prior to laundering operations being completed. Also, he became aware that his bank accounts in Florida were being wiretapped by the FBI and ATF. So, he decided his best bet was to get the money out of the country to one of his offshore accounts.
A week prior, he’d summoned a meeting at his safehouse in Florida and a plan was concocted to get the money out of the country via midnight air transport from a remote airfield. But he needed a mule. So, he contacted Dominique, the head of the Haitian cartel who agreed to facilitate the mule transfer in exchange for a $10 million handling fee which would be paid upon successful delivery. As a down payment, Dominique would provide a delivery of cocaine and fentanyl worth approximately $10 million, which would be exchanged for the cash when the Cessna pilot arrived at the airfield. The deal was sweet for Dominique since he was currently burdened by an excess of drug and arms supply with limited demand due to the current unrest and violence ongoing in the country. He had to empty the cache that the coke and fentanyl was being stored due to ongoing surveillance of the location by Haitian SWAT and that the cache was under an imminent threat of a raid.
Sicaro’s delivery man was tasked to make an exchange of the money at the airfield with a Haitian mule pilot who would be arriving on the Cessna carrying twenty kilos of cocaine and fentanyl. Once the plane arrived and the transfer was made, the pilot would quickly fly back out and returned to Haiti. Dominique would then meet the pilot at a remote airfield, take his 10 million fee and provide the rest of the money to Sicaro’s hired representatives. The remaining funds would then be delivered to the Cayman Island and deposited into a shell corporation account that was jointly owned by Sicaro and a Cayman Island businessman who was a former Caribbean mafia head who had left for the Caymans in exile. The Cayman Island was considered a tax haven because the country did not impose corporate taxes, making it an ideal place for Sicaro to shield his assets and continue his laundering operation.
Through his intelligence sources, Anthony Rizzoni had learned of the drugs for money swop a week prior via information from his implants into Sicaro’s organization. He decided to personally travel to South Florida to not only witness the confiscation of the money but also to begin his systematic identification and elimination of Sicaro’s drug network and seizure of all stolen money that had not yet been laundered.
It was only two months after the death of Ransom Oliver that Rizzoni and his personal security team embarked upon a secret trip to South Florida. Although Rizzoni had become de facto head of the northeast operations, he realized the port of Miami was of paramount importance due to its throughput opportunities for shipments of drugs and arms from the Caribbean.
MPD Special Operations Team had been surveilling Rizzoni since they got word of his departure from New York. Yet, despite this surveillance, they had not received any definitive information on what his intentions were by deciding to leave New York and travel to Florida other than the speculation that he was expanding his drug network.
Shortly after midnight, a motorcade of three vehicles, one limo and two black Suburbans, pulled up to the outskirts of a remote airstrip in the Everglades. It was the same airstrip that Ransom Oliver had utilized for his covert trips between Haiti and South Florida for his drug smuggling meetings. Sitting in the backseat of the limo was the slender, gray-haired Rizzoni. Although Rizzoni was American born, he spent much of his teenage life in Sicily after his Sicilian-born mother left his alcoholic, abusive father immigrated to the Bronx, New York. There, she filed for a divorce and then after it was completed, returned to her original home in Sicily with four of the five children, including Anthony who was fifteen at the time. There, he worked odd jobs to help his struggling, unemployed mother and four younger siblings, barely providing enough money for food to help her as she became ridden with rapidly debilitating ALS. He saw the family’s only way out of poverty and money for her medical treatment was for him to begin running numbers for the Sicilian mafia.
When he returned to the US as an adult, he quickly sought out the underworld to make quick cash on the streets and quickly rose up through the ranks. He always believed that if he ever became a mafia drug load, he would employ most men from Italy, Greece and Central and South America. He felt Americans didn’t have the stomach for the type of executions Siclian mafia were accustomed to carrying out against their rivals. He would often say to his bosses, when they were hiring American hoods, Americans have too much of a conscious when it comes to mob hits. He also feared the education of Americans as opposed to the uneducated cheap labor of men from Italy and the Caribbean. He also figured Americans would eventually challenge the mob leadership whereby foreigners from poor villages were more loyal and simply happy to have money to send back to their families in their countries.
One of Rizzoni’s compatriots that he invited to join his regime was a muscle-bound, Sicilian immigrant named Luciani Vega, who went by the nickname Luchi. Luchi was a teenage friend of Anthony’s in the ghetto neighborhood in South Sicily. He had stayed in Sicily to go to art school at the time Rizzoni departed the country. But when he dropped out of art school due to lack of tuition money, he got back in contact with Anthony in New York. Anthony invited him for a visit to one of his nightclubs that was used as a front for drug distribution. Anthony set him up with wine, women, fine men’s clothing and a pocket full of spending cash. Within a week, Luchi was returning to Sicily to get a work visa as a limo driver for Anthony’s limousine business. First, Luchi worked as legitimate driver in the limousine business, but then Anthony made him his personal driver. He had now been Anthony’s personal driver and main confidant for the past ten years.
The driver of Suburban #1, was a Cuban defector named Carlos Rubio, who went by the nickname Rope. He’d been recruited off the streets of New York two years prior based on his reputation for brutally assaulting other street thugs during drug deals. He and his partner named Marcelles Reyes were the security drivers and bodyguards for Anthony Rizzoni and traveled everywhere with him. The three vehicles parked behind a set of abandoned clamshells which were once used to house small aircraft back when the airfield was in used in normal commercial operation. Luchi proceeded to tune two hand-held Motorola walkie-talkies to an internal channel
and then handed one of them to Rizzoni.
Rizzoni placed the Motorola temporarily on the car seat and grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket. He immediately made a call to his two snipers who were parked alongside the highway a mile away from their location.
“Are you setup and ready to go?” he asked.
“Yes,” said the sniper who answered the call. “When he passes us, we’ll trail him for about a mile until we reached the gully then run him off the road, kill him and take possession of the money.” “Are you sure there’s no chance the car will catch on fire when it crashes?” Rizzoni asked. “I don’t want a fireball in the middle of the sky drawing attention.”
“As certain as we can be, sir. The gully is in a wet ravine which should extinguish any flames if that occurs. There shouldn’t be any serious contact with the back gas tank, but there’s no guarantees, sir.” Rizzoni hung up immediately to keep the call from being traced. He decided to check in with his other security men who were at the location with him.
The occupants of Suburban #2, were a Greek-born immigrant named Georgio Protopapas who went by the nickname Ice, and his partner, Italian-born Ricardo Tonelli, nicknamed Tony. They were Rizzoni’s main assassins with a long resume of murders of Rizzoni’s rivals in the northeast. They proceeded to exit their vehicle and they both took their Motorolas and tuned them to the assigned frequency. Then they did a commo check with Rizzoni and the limo driver. Once they confirmed they were all in communication, Ice and Tony hopped back into the Suburban and the driver proceeded up to the taxiway for the main airstrip.
Unlike Luchi, Rope and Marcelles who always wore suits as they would accompany Rizzoni to meetings, Ice and Tony were tactically outfitted with black skull cap beanies, black leather jackets and pants and military style boots. Ice and Tony’s job was to provide the firepower and protection for Rizzoni in case a gun battle with surprised occupants of the Cessna ensued.
As Anthony Rizzoni sat in the limo, waiting, he grew nervous and fidgety. “I hope our contacts got the timing right,” he said to his driver Luchi. “We don’t have the firepower here for a gun fight.” Luchi reassured him, saying, “No worries, sir. “We had surveillance on the flight leaving Haiti. I got a text that the plane just went airborne a half-hour ago. Provided Sicaro’s delivery man makes it here on time from Miami, we’ll have plenty of time to take him down and take over his identity before the plane arrives. “Are you sure the aircraft is coming alone and doesn’t have an escort plane with it?” Rizzoni asked.
“That’s what our sources are telling us,” Luchi replied. “There was no one else on the manifest and even if there’s stowaways, the single engine Cessna 210 Centurian only seats six people. We’ve got AKs. So, we can take out all passengers from a standoff distance if we need to.”
Running the traps, Rizzoni asked, “What if they identify us before he comes forward with the cargo? If that pilot gets spooked, turns around, and takes back off, we’re screwed. It doesn’t take much of a turning radius for that to happen.”
Luchi answered, “We’re sending them to the plane wearing balaclava masks. The pilot should understand the security posture and I doubt he’ll question it. We’re certain he doesn’t know his contact. If he does or even looks suspicious as we approach him, we shoot him on the spot and take our chances with taking down anyone else who may be on board.
“Our plan is to dispose of the plane in the woods and set it on fire,” Luchi added, before Rizzoni would ask.
Rizzoni shouted through the phone, “No, goddammit! That plane must go back with the pilot alive and functioning. He’s got to be the one in communication with Haitian air traffic control until you two get close enough to knock him out, parachute out and set it to crash land at the designated spot within two miles from the bay of Cap
Haitien. We gotta make sure you can survive in the water with the cargo and money until my boats retrieve you.”
“Copy that, sir,” Luchi responded.
Chapter 5
At 12:40, from their hidden spot in the wood line, Ice and Tony trained their binoculars to the skies in the southeast and picked up sight of a Cessna plane heading in their direction. It was vectoring northwest and approaching a landing strip about a quarter mile from their location.
Ice immediately radioed back to Rizzoni, who was sitting in his limo with his driver Luchi. They had parked inside a vacant clam shelter to stay out of observation. Ice said, “Hey boss, the plane is inbound and at about a mile out and should be on the ground in about a few minutes.”
Rizzoni shouted through the radio, “What the fuck is going on? That plane’s arriving too early. I haven’t heard from the ambush team, yet.”
Ice replied, “I don’t know, boss. It must’ve been traveling with a tailwind or something. We’ve got no loot in hand. If that plane waits out there on the runway too long, the pilot might be suspicious and take off.”
“Wait one!” Rizzoni said pausing the conversation. He took a deep sigh. The normally unflappable Rizzoni suddenly felt a sense of panic. His forehead stretched and began pulsating with anxiety. In his business, with the elevated level of DEA and FBI surveillance, he knew timing was of the essence, and he didn’t like surprises. Without any calls with a change in arrival time, his first thoughts were that the plane might be carrying law enforcement agents. He immediately dropped the Motorola on the seat and grabbed his cell phone. He called the ambush team. “Collins-Collins, what’s going on? Are you on your way here?”
“Not yet, boss,” Collins answered. “There’s no sign of the vehicle yet.”
“What are we expecting to see?” Rizzoni asked, having not been given specifics of the planned ambush.
“A Jeep Wrangler,” Collins replied.
Rizzoni glanced at the time on his Rolex. It was twelve forty-five. He sighed heavily, then told Ice “Alright, stay put and execute as ordered, but call or text me when you see the vehicle coming.” As Rizzoni clicked off, the veins in his neck started bulging. He hated it when a plan didn’t come together.
Two minutes after Rizzoni hung up, the Cessna landed smoothly on the west airstrip. The pilot was a Haitian-born man named Evens Sanon who worked as a delivery man for the Haitian cartel and was immediately subordinate to Dominique, the former #2 man who risen to the top after the previous Haitian cartel leader escaped a raid and went into exile at a nearby island. As Sanon taxied the plane down the runway, Suburban #2 remained hidden in the wood line as Ice and Tony stayed hunkered down in the front seat below eye level. Their instructions were to wait until they saw Collins and Sammie arrived and get out of their car with the money satchel that they would have snatched from Sicaro’s delivery man.
Noticing there were no vehicles in sight, Sanon halted the plane at the mid-point of the runway but kept the engine running, ready to turn the plane around and jet back down the runway on a moment’s notice if he noticed anything suspicious. He was told his contact would be driving a Jeep Wrangler. But he was instructed by Dominique to not exit the plane until the Wrangler driver was clearly in sight, had exited the Jeep, and was walking towards the Cessna with the satchel in plain view.
Rizzoni looked on and waited patiently in the limo, peering through a set of binoculars. Luchi sat in the driver’s seat and used binoculars to observe the activity. The Jeep arrived through the gate and the driver proceeded to drive past the taxiway to the runway. Because of the tinted windows and the foggy darkness, neither Rizzoni nor Ice and Tony in Suburban #2 could make out who was inside the car.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Rizzoni asked Luchi rhetorically. “Collins was supposed to call me before he completed the task and also to not enter the runway until he stopped here at the hangar first.” Luchi replied, “That’s not like Collins to not follow orders directly, boss. He’s one of your best and most dependable men. You think he’s double-crossing us and gonna hop on that plane.” The thought was a big leap in a short minute for Rizzoni to accept. “I don’t know but something’s not right.” Rizzoni said to Luchi with a deepening scowl.
“What do we now?” Luchi asked, reaching behind the back seat of the limo to retrieve two sub-machine guns he stored there. “Just wait!” Rizzoni ordered. “Let’s see what happens.”
Ice and Tony started the engines of their Suburban and slowly drove forward while locking and loading their rifles. They were suddenly sharing the same suspicion as their boss.
As the Cessna halted, Ice did likewise and shut off their headlights. At that moment, Sanon panicked. Something didn’t feel right. Then, something turned into an obvious. The two guys in the car did not fit the general description that Dominique had given. At the very least, Sanon felt an urge to take off, land at another nearby airstrip and make efforts to verify who these guys were. Mobsters always trusted their gut. As he started the engine, Ice revved the Suburban and sped forward. Sanon now suspected he was being double crossed and could be in danger, so he attempted to turn the plane around.
Rizzoni, noticing the activity, radioed the Wrangler driver and barked for him to have Sammie shoot out the tires of the plane. But Sammie’s radio had mysteriously gone off frequency and wasn’t transmitting.
“These bastards are double-crossing me,” Rizzoni angrily said to Luchi. “Drive up there now and cut them off.”
Rizzoni, then quickly radioed to Ice and said, “We’ve been double crossed. Kill the occupants in that Wrangler.”
Ice argued, “But, boss, we can’t be sure….?”
“Move in, now, we kill him and take the money!” Rizzoni ordered Ice, without further explanation. “Shoot up that Wrangler. It’s not our men.”
Ice sped forward and reached a point of the taxiway that cut off the Wrangler driver’s path. Ice and Tony then hopped out and pointed their weapons at the Wrangler. They proceeded to fire over twenty rounds into the front panel and the front window of the Wrangler. There was no return fire, so they assumed the occupants of the Wrangler were shot and unable to return fire.
Meanwhile, Sanon looked on in confusion. He grabbed his satellite phone and speed-dialed Dominique’s burner phone number in Haiti. “I’m at the airfield but there’s a shootout going on between two cars. I don’t know what the hell is happening. I’m gonna take off.”
Through the phone, Dominique yelled, “No. You complete your mission. You don’t come back or go anywhere without bring back my money.” Dominque clicked off his cell, making his position noticeably clear, even if it put Sanon in imminent danger. So, Sanon said a silent prayer and held steady in the cockpit to see how it played out.
​
Meanwhile, Rizzoni and Luchi walked up to the bullet-ridden Jeep.
“Whoever’s in there is dead, boss,” Luchi informed Rizzoni. “Do you see the money?” Rizzoni asked him.
Ice moved forward to the Wrangler and looked directly into the back seat without glancing at the dead men in the front. He noticed a large brown satchel on the floor of the back passenger side. He proceeded to open the back door and grab the satchel. He pulled it open and noticed stacks of hundred dollars bills.
“I got the money, boss,” he informed Rizzoni.
Rizzoni then gave further instructions, “Hold on to that satchel until I get there. Don’t try to count the money or hand it to anyone. Just put it in the trunk of your Suburban and make sure the door’s locked. Now let’s take care of the pilot.”
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by E.T.Milligan | ETMBooks
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