Click – Brothers At Arms #5

Marty made the call and when she finished, she looked over at Zeus. “They will be here in two hours.”

“Well that’s a step forward, now I’m waiting for the two steps backward,” Zeus grumbled.

Marty wrapped her arms around his neck. “Honey, you guys are doing great, all things considered. You’ve never been up against this kind of madman before or this kind of situation before. And let’s face it, Barrett Raggetti is a mad man.” She glanced over her shoulder at Alfredo and said, “No offense.”

Alfredo nodded. “None taken because you are right. My son has fallen off the reality train and now he’s freefalling into insanity.”

“Tell us about this product,” Zeus ordered.

Marty released her hold around his neck. “This is a new product but something I think will work well in this situation. Once the mixture is combined, it creates a foam that they can spray and it hardens into almost a cement like substance. It won’t take long to harden. If we can start closing off some of the many tunnels under our feet that will make it harder for Barrett to move through them so freely.”

Leon nodded. “I like this idea. If they can close off the air portals that would stop him from starting a fire below our feet as well.”

Zeus nodded his head but he still looked perturbed.

Desi came over and looked around the table. Grabbing the map of what they thought was the tunnel system underground she studied it. She looked up at Click.

 “What?” Click asked.

Desi shook her head and did not answer him as she put the map back on the table. Turning, she walked down the hall to his room. When she came back, she had her bag with her. She set it on the table and unzipped it. She began pulling things out of it. When she reached the bottom of it, she grabbed a folder in a plastic Ziploc bag.

Zeus and Leon watched her the whole time.

Finally, Leon asked her, “What are you doing?”

“When I found my mom that day, she was barely hanging on, but she hung on long enough to tell me about her to-go bag. She told me to grab it and get as far away as I could. She told me I knew the plan and I had to stick to the plan. After she was gone, I took it and I got out of there. Before I left, I telephoned the police and told them they needed to find her body. It wasn’t until I went to Montana that I ever looked in the bag.” She paused to wipe a tear away from her cheek. “I told you I had seen that map before and you blew up at me wondering if I was working with Barrett. Well, I wasn’t. He took my mom and his boys took my grandfather. I came here to kill that man and nothing less will satisfy my need for his blood. But I saw something, another map I guess. I didn’t know what it was either and I’m not sure why she had it.” She took out the map and handed it to Click.

Click studied it for a moment then picked up the older map they found. The map Desi just gave them was a cleaner map that showed the tunnel system more accurately than the old one did. Click handed the maps to Zeus.

Zeus looked at the new map then the old map and growled. “Where the hell did she find this?” He growled.

Desi shrugged. “I have no idea. But I found it in her bag fourteen years ago.”

Leon studied it too, over Zeus’ shoulder and grunted. “This will help us close down the tunnels much better.”

Desi was thumbing through the rest of the file when she paused and stopped. She glanced at Leon then down at the file. “Apparently, my grandfather found this file at some point.” She picked up a letter addressed to Leon inside the folder. She held out the letter to him.

“How odd.” Leon took the letter from her. He studied the outside of the envelope for a moment then ripped the letter open. He read the words his old friend had written to him and when he finished his fingers crushed the paper between them. He snapped his head up and glared at the men around him. “My old friend Girmondo warned me about what Barrett was doing. Telling me that the man murdered his daughter and was hunting his granddaughter. That he wouldn’t stop until she was dead. He begged me to help her stop Barrett and his sons once and for all. That the world wouldn’t miss these men and it would be a better place without them. He explained that his daughter Rosilind had researched Barrett to try and find a way to stop him and that she found his true goal. You see, he not only hit the jewelry store in New York, but he also embezzled the money from his former partners and then set them up to take the fall. So that much we know is true. But she also found he had a steady source of income building up from the drug trade. That money was being brought out here and being hidden as well. Well, it was until my friend found out about it. He said he put a stop to the steady income but the money deposited before then was never recovered. That’s something Barrett knows is here and he wanted to get to that as well.”

“Did he say where this messenger put the money?” Alfredo asked. “I’m sure my son would never tell him where his other bank was. He might trust this other man to bring the money to this location, but he wouldn’t trust him that much.”

“Si he did.” Leon nodded. “When he followed the man down here he saw the messenger drop the money bundle into an opening of a cement hole in the ground. This hole was just big enough for the bundle and there was no way he could take it out once he put it in there. The whole thing was disguised as a tree stump but Girmondo checked it out and it was a fake tree stump for sure.”

“So there is no way of telling how much money is down there.” Zeus looked over at Alfredo. “Old man, you sold us a bogus fun house and I have a feeling if you knew what this place really was, you sold it too cheap.”

Alfredo shook his head. “Si but that’s the real point here. I didn’t know what all my father had done or what my son was doing. If I had, I would have burned this place down myself rather than sell it to anyone.”

“But it wasn’t only your father that did that,” Desi put in her two cents. “Barrett was well on his way years ago. That old greed monkey was riding him hard back then.”

“Si, that was my son.” Alfredo nodded.

“I really hate to bring this up, but Barrett said something about his men coming in three days,” Memphis reminded them all. “Whatever play he’s going to make, we have to be ready for it.”

Marty nodded. “And when we block the tunnels, I hope that buys us enough time to find his stash and then find him.”

Zeus agreed, “Hopefully your boys can cut his access off and we can focus on finding him.”

 “With the new map,” Mary said. “They should be able to get the job done in no time.”

“When this is over,” Zeus growled. “I want them to come back and fill in the entire tunnel system. That way, there won’t be any more surprises.”

 “I agree, but one step at a time there junior,” Leon called out. “We need to get the tunnels blocked first, then find his two stash places then we can concentrate on finding him, if there is anything left to find.” He turned to Memphis and Captain. “Did you say Desi’s bullet hit him?”

Captain nodded. “Yeah he wasn’t looking so good when we saw him in the tunnels. He had a bullet in the leg from earlier and now, he’s bleeding from the shoulder.”

“Plus,” Memphis took up the story, “He’s running for what’s left of his life. He’s already figured that out. But at the moment he’s tired, he’s bleeding and he’s running out space to play his games. Plus, he knows he’s all alone out there and that’s playing tricks on his psyche too. I’m thinking the man just doesn’t like to be alone in his games. He likes to have people who can stand between him and the next bullet with his name on it.” He shrugged and said, “I could be wrong about that, but he was saying something about hanging around for three more days until his men got here. When they do, he thinks everything will be all right in his mind. This tells me a lot. It tells me he can’t stand the silence of being alone.”

Grave Digger finally spoke up as he asked, “Was the man sweating at all? Delirious maybe?”

Captain and Memphis glanced at each other then looked over at the doctor among them, “Yeah, he could have been. Why?”

Grave Digger shook his head. “Well so far, we know the man has blown up one of the tunnels and got himself caught in the backlash of that. So, he could have a concussion, because we all saw him laid out on the floor after the explosion. Then he caught a bullet to the leg that hasn’t been treated yet, and now he got shot again in the shoulder. These wounds might have turned into bad infections if he’s out running around a tunnel system made of dirt walls and floors. This would cause a delirium derived from fever.”

Memphis looked over at Captain and shook his head. “He was really talking wild when we saw him and he was talking to himself. Could be delirium setting in. His clothes were covered with dirt so he isn’t anywhere clean.”

Grave Digger looked over at Zeus and Leon. “Could be the infection will kill him all on its own then. That’s not a very pleasant way to die.”

“Don’t expect us to feel sorry for the man, brother.” Zeus growled. “Cuz that just isn’t gonna happen. Barrett Raggetti is getting everything he deserves, one way or another. Don’t forget he planned on burning us alive by setting the fire under the clubhouse. What kind of man does that, knowing his kids and his own father are under our roof?”

Grave Digger didn’t say anything, as he just stared at him. Before he could open his mouth to remind them of the oath he took as a doctor, Zeus stopped him with a hand raised in the air. “I know you don’t believe in that kind of justice but in this case he deserves it.”

“That is not for you or me to decide. Only God decides that,” Grave Digger told them. “But maybe Barrett would rather have it end this way than going back to prison for the rest of his life.”

“You could be right about that senor,” Alfredo interjected. “It could be he will get to his treasure only moments before God takes it all away from him in the end anyway. My son might realize that the money he stole or swindled other people out of wasn’t worth it. Barrett used to laugh at me when I would come home from work, tired and grubby. He would ask me, Dad why do you work so hard when you could get another job that paid more? And I would always tell the boys, there is nothing wrong about working hard in order to feed and house your family. I told him family is everything and when you have a family, you are a whole man. You know what he told me then?” He shook his head sadly and said, ‘A real man doesn’t need to work his fingers to the bone anymore.’ He wasn’t going to be a common man like me, he would work smarter and let the system work for him.”

“Si and look where that got him.” Leon snorted. “It got him an 8 by 10 cell in two different prisons and now he’s going to find himself broke in the end. We will get everything he worked for and then some and he will end up with nothing.”

“Amen e ringrazia il signore!” Desi exclaimed as she stared at Leon.

The brothers in the room all turned their heads to stare at her.

Alfredo grinned at her.

“Amen and thank the Lord,” Memphis translated it for them.

They all looked over at him.

He shrugged. “Hey, I’m learnin’ over here. I’m learnin.”