Detective Fog and the Mission Pigeon

50. What Really Happened On November 1 (Part 3)

Satisfied that the warehouse was adequately set up for Detective Fog's arrival, Jason needed to collect Nick Minardos. A glance down at his Omega Seamaster told Jason that Nick would arrive outside the warehouse in four minutes.

Much about the plan had been anything but elegant, hacked together to look like a reasonable strategy to Mena but promising to allow Detective Fog's survival.

Getting Paul to the warehouse had been clumsy and frustrating. But there was an elegance to the next phase of the plan when Nick would go where he was asked by Mena Sigler under the impression that he was being tasked with Paul's execution. It was often a test of loyalty to choose the executioner based on intimacy with the victim; the mob asked the best friend to do the honors. Little did Nick know, he too was slated for execution.

Jason moved quickly back to the main door to the warehouse. Jack was in place inside the door where Paul was now chained up, ready to pounce with his ether if Nick entered from a different entrance.

Nick wouldn't be stupid; he would know there was a chance today, like any day, the mob would choose to end his life, whether for suspected wrongdoing for which he was innocent or some disloyalty actually committed against Mena Sigler. Well aware that a wrong move could end his life instead of Nick's, Jason moved into the shadows on the other side of the door and chased moving shadows with his eyes in all directions, listening for movement from anywhere it might come.

Three minutes later, the front door, which had been left unlocked, jingled on its hinges as if about to be pushed open. An ether soaked cloth in one hand, the other free to go for a gun he didn't want to use and with which to create another mess to clean up.

The door opened, swinging wild enough that Jason could tell it had been thrown open rather than pushed by someone meaning to come on through. Like sticking a twig in a bear trap. So Nick was nervous but not smart enough to come up with a smart counter to Jason's trap. There wasn't an ounce of him that would have sprung at the door the second it opened. Not when it flew open like that. He was patient and lying in wait.

Nick's first move told Jason that he would check the corners fast, most likely with gun in hand and safety off. His nervousness might still save him.

The worst place for Jason to be was where Nick expected him to be, but luckily the young soldier hesitated. The free hand designated for gun use took a chance going for his phone instead, and it pressed one button without even leaving his pocket, which would send a signal to Jack: a pre-planned play, he's at the door, come and welcome him.

Too late by a millisecond, too short a time for it to be Jack leaving the kill room, a double door crashed open in much the same swinging wild and clamor, from somewhere beyond Jason's vision at the other end of the building. Doors beyond the stairs to the second level led to what could be a whole warren of hallways and chambers, and there was no telling where exactly the noise had come from. Jason's imagination filled in some of the blanks; Nick had gone around the building and tried his stick in the trap trick at one of the other entrances.

Three seconds after that, Jack came out through his heavy metal door, thankfully having the good sense to open and close it silently. He swept toward the front door looking like he was ready to greet Nick with a bear hug.

Jason shook his head as Jack came over and raised his arm high in the air to signal Jack to go back. His partner had avoided looking at him, expecting Nick to stroll inside and for Jason to sneak up behind him while Jack distracted him with pleasantries, but the big gesture attracted his attention, and he stopped in his tracks. But Jack saw something Jason didn't, and a third of a second later, he took another step forward.

"What are you doin' here, Makris?" Jack said the second the door opened a crack. It stopped there, and he had to repeat himself when she opened the door the rest of the way, but he had said it for Jason's benefit, and not that of Jennifer Makris, anyway. "What you doin' here?" he said again.