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  We already knew it wasn’t okay, given that one of our men had clearly been shot, but it was all a matter of degrees. A chest hit was far more severe than one in the shoulder, normally, though that wasn’t always the case.

  “Yeah!” Martin called out, and I breathed another sigh of relief. “I think I’m good.”

  His voice was strained, and he sounded like he was in a lot of pain, but he was talking. That was good.

  “He got hit in the leg, and the other guy’s down,” Muñoz called. “I need to call this in. Are you guys good up there?”

  I glanced back over at the remaining two guys. The one by the window was still crumpled on the floor, holding his head. The other was standing now, his gun trained on Holm. But his hands and arms were shaking vigorously.

  “I think we can handle it,” I called back. “Take care of our guy.”

  “Alright, guys,” Holm said, giving both of the remaining goons a smug look. “You saw how well that went for your friend over there. You may have gotten a shot in on the detective, but you’ve still got three highly trained federal agents in this house with you, and neither of you looks like you’re quite up to the task. Is that a bet you want to take?”

  The standing man shut his eyes tightly and shook his head, setting his gun down on the floor and sliding it over to us.

  “Good choice,” Holm told him with an approving nod, bending down to pick up the gun, remove its ammunition, and pocket both.

  “What about you?” I asked, turning my attention to the man by the window who still had a gun in his hand, though he didn’t look very interested in using it.

  Then, to my surprise yet again, he launched himself out the window before I even had time to react.

  I blinked several times before realizing what had happened when I heard him cry out in pain on the ground.

  I exchanged a bewildered look with Holm, who looked just as shocked at this ridiculous move on the Jamaican man’s part as I was. It wasn’t like he was going to get very far even if he somehow managed not to break his legs in that fall.

  “Go,” Holm said, nodding to me. “I’ll wait with this one.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking off out of the room and back down the stairwell. It wasn’t like I was going to risk shattering every bone in my leg by jumping out that damn window.

  In the stairwell, I stopped briefly when I passed Muñoz, Martin, and the third goon who was bleeding out and unconscious on the floor. Martin was gripping his leg, blood pooling around his fingers, but he appeared conscious and lucid. Muñoz was in the middle of pocketing her phone when I passed them.

  “What’s going on?” Muñoz asked quickly. “I didn’t hear any more shots.”

  “Guy jumped out the damn window,” I yelled back at her as I continued running, shaking my head as I said it. “He won’t get far.”

  “Okay, an ambulance is on the way!” she called after me.

  “Good, that’s good,” I called back, more to myself than anything else. The last thing we needed was for Martin to be seriously injured in this thing.

  I plowed back out the front door and surveyed the area. I didn’t see the guy anywhere, even though he would’ve landed somewhere on this side of the house. That meant that though he was no doubt injured in the fall, it wasn’t serious enough to cripple him substantially.

  I ran around either side of the house but didn’t see him there either. Then I turned my attention to the beach where, in the distance of my vision, I could make out a speck of a man hobbling along the shoreline.

  I chuckled to myself and shook my head again. If he wasn’t going to get very far with his injuries on solid ground, he was going to be even slower on the sand. I wondered what could’ve possessed him to go in that direction, but then again, he hadn’t exactly displayed great critical reasoning skills so far in this encounter, so why should that change now?

  I sprinted down to the shore after him, and it wasn’t long until I was about ten feet behind him, though he didn’t seem to hear me. I couldn’t blame him. My own ears were still ringing from all the gunshots inside, and the sound of my feet was dampened by the sand and likely drowned out further by the incoming waves along the shoreline.

  “Hey!” I hollered at him as loud as I could, gun in hand as I ran. “I’m right behind you! You’re not getting anywhere. Stop and drop your weapon, hands in the air!”

  I wasn’t sure how much of that he was able to make out over the ringing in his ears and the roar of the ocean, but he definitely heard something. He looked around wildly and then saw me, panicked, and fired his gun back in my direction.

  This was yet another questionable decision, as he was only gripping his gun with one hand, was facing the opposite direction, and was really only operating with one good leg, his left one bloody and mangled from his fall.

  I ducked down to the ground at the shot, hugging close to the sand, the smells of the ocean becoming even more pungent in my nostrils. But the bullet landed somewhere far away from me, showing that this guy was just shooting wildly behind him. Stupid or not, that was dangerous. Stupid dangerous, even.

  I grabbed my own gun, keeping low to the ground, and glanced up at the guy, who hadn’t stopped to see what happened to me and opted instead to keep on running at his hobbled pace.

  “Stop!” I cried, still not wanting to shoot a man with his back turned, at least not without fair warning. “Stop now, or I shoot!”

  He sent another haphazard shot in my direction, and it landed several paces from me as I rolled out of the way, my clothes covered in sand now.

  “Alright, that’s it,” I muttered, training the barrel of my gun on his good leg and shooting three times.

  He fell to the ground and cried out in pain as I shuffled forward and grabbed his gun, standing over him.

  “That was a very questionable series of decisions, young man,” I said, peering down at him as I tried in vain to dust the sand off my clothes.

  He merely groaned in response and gave in to his pain, his eyes closing as he drifted into unconsciousness.

  19

  Ethan

  Muñoz came running over to me not long after I took down the idiot on the beach.

  “What happened?” she asked, stopping several paces away from me and staring quizzically at the strange scene before her.

  “The moron jumped out of the second-story window, messed up his left leg, decided to try to run anyway, decided running on the beach would somehow be better than the firmer ground, and then when I caught him, he just started wildly shooting at me with one hand without even looking to see where I was,” I explained, shaking my head down at the guy’s limp form.

  “You’re kidding,” Muñoz said, deadpan. “That… wasn’t smart of him.”

  “No,” I chuckled. “He was a terrible shot, but that only served to make him more dangerous, in a way. Who knew where the next bullet was going to go? I had to take him out.”

  Muñoz stepped forward and knelt down to check the guy’s pulse.

  “Still alive, at least,” she murmured.

  “Yeah, he’ll be fine,” I said, waving away her concern. “I just got him in the other leg. He’ll hurt in the morning, but he’ll live to see it. How’s Martin?”

  “He’ll be fine, too,” Muñoz sighed, standing and wiping some sand off of her hands. “A bit spooked by the whole thing, though. The paramedics are taking care of him now. Then they’ll come down here to get this one.”

  “What about the guy Martin shot?” I asked, but Muñoz just shook her head.

  “He died pretty quick,” she said. “Never had a chance.”

  “What happened?” I asked, thinking back to how Holm and I just heard two shots and two male screams when the goon passed Muñoz and Martin in the stairwell.

  “It all happened so fast,” she said quietly, scrunching up her face as if trying to remember it all correctly. “It’s hard to say what happened when. I remember you yelling to warn us that he was coming, and then he was just there,
and then he shot at Martin. He seemed surprised to find us there somehow, even though you must’ve heard us coming.”

  “Holm fired a warning shot,” I pointed out. “I remember hearing you, but they might not have. It was loud, and my own ears were ringing pretty bad.”

  “I guess so,” Muñoz murmured. “Anyway, he was surprised, and he shot, and I’m really not sure what happened next. I was standing out in front, further up on the stairs than they were. I’m not sure he even saw me at first. He was moving so fast. But he saw Martin.”

  “And then Martin shot him?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure who shot first, to be honest,” she said, shaking her head. “The guy was getting ready to shoot Martin, either way, so it was justified. But I’m not sure what order it all came in. Maybe it happened at the same time, who knows.”

  “I’m not surprised he’s spooked,” I said with a small smile. “I doubt he’s ever even had to pull his weapon on the job down here.”

  “He said as much to me earlier,” Muñoz said weakly as we watched two paramedics with a gurney come running down our way on the beach. “He’ll probably be talking about this for years, though.”

  “I’ll bet,” I laughed.

  “Did you get anything out of the guys in the room? Figure out what they were doing there?” Muñoz asked hopefully, and I knew that she was really wondering whether we’d found anything out about Birn yet.

  “Not yet,” I said, shaking my head. “But it’s not like we had a lot of time to talk. Is Holm casing the third floor?”

  “He and I did that before I came after you,” she said, almost sounding disappointed in a way. “There’s no one up there.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, reaching out and squeezing her shoulder. “We’re making progress. We still have one guy conscious and seemingly willing to cooperate. We’ll figure out what went on here and find out where Birn is. Then we’ll go get him. It’s that simple.”

  “Thanks, Marston,” she said, giving me a wry smile. “I know that. I was just hoping that maybe…” Her voice trailed off as if she didn’t even want to give voice to the notion.

  “That he would be in the house?” I finished for her. “Yeah, I was hoping so, too. But we got the next best thing: potential witnesses.”

  She nodded and looked away from me as the paramedics approached us and began to load the unconscious gangbanger onto the gurney. One of them came up to me with a first aid kit.

  “No, I’m fine,” I said, waving him away. Then Muñoz did the same, and the paramedics then focused their whole attention on the Jamaican man as we followed them back up to the house.

  There was one ambulance there in the driveway behind my car, and Martin was already piled into it on a second gurney.

  “Take care of yourself,” I called back to him as I made my way to my car. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Wait,” he yelled, waving me to him. Muñoz and I walked up to the edge of the ambulance as the paramedics loaded their other patients inside.

  “What is it?” Muñoz asked, her face scrunched up in concern now.

  “My buddy in the Key West department got back to me,” he said, his voice hoarse as he tried to project it across the ambulance. “He said your guy Chris Daniels has a pretty decent rap sheet. Dealing, DUIs, the usual suspects. Nothing violent, though. They were surprised to hear he would be involved in something this organized.”

  “Interesting,” I said, nodding slowly as I took in this information. “Is he available for an interview?”

  “They’re trying to track him down now,” Martin said. “I gave my friend your number. I hope that was okay.”

  “Of course,” I said, smiling at him. “Thanks for all your help, Detective.”

  “Rest up,” Muñoz said. She waved to him as the paramedics shut the doors of the ambulance behind them, the goon now soundly resting on the other gurney next to Martin.

  “What a strange morning,” I muttered, shaking my head as Muñoz and I turned back toward my car, where Holm was waiting in the backseat with our lone prisoner.

  “Back to the station, then?” he asked when I opened the door and climbed inside along with Muñoz.

  “Oh yeah,” I said, glancing back at the whimpering Jamaican man behind me. “We’re going to have a really long conversation with this one, here.”

  We rode in silence back to the station with the windows rolled down so we could enjoy the scent of the ocean. After my impromptu stroll on the beach, I was enjoying more than just that, however. I wasn’t sure I would ever get all this sand out of my shoes and socks.

  Rollins was waiting for us alone in the station when we walked in, our prisoner in tow.

  “You transfer that other guy out of here already?” Holm asked, noting the absence of the officers who had been there earlier.

  “Yeah, once you got what you needed out of him, I had a couple of my guys take him up to Key West,” Rollins said gruffly, looking with interest at our prisoner. “What’s this all about? Where’s Martin?”

  We explained what had happened, with Rollins listening to our story with increasing horror until we finished.

  “Well, I’ll be,” he said when it was clear we were done. “I can’t even believe it. I could’ve sworn that bartender was full of it. He was just down here complainin’ some more about it, you know?”

  “Was he really?” I asked, looking around as if expecting Nick to materialize out of thin air. “Where’d he go?”

  “Ah, he gave up his hollerin’ when I told him that you guys were taking care of it,” Rollins sighed. “I said I’d let him know if you found anything. I hate to vindicate him, though.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We’re staying at the hotel where he works. We’ll take care of it for you.”

  “Ah, thanks for that,” Rollins said, looking a little lighter at this news.

  “You said your guys are headed to Key West right now?” I asked, doubling back on this piece of information.

  “Sure thing,” Rollins confirmed with a nod. “They should be there already, I’d bet.”

  “We’re looking for a guy over there named Chris Daniels,” I said. “Martin’s already got a friend over there looking into it. If there’s a way that your guys could meet up with their guys and bring him back here for questioning, we’d appreciate it.”

  “Um, sure, guys,” Rollins said, a little taken aback at this. “I’ll let them know right away what you’re looking for. But I thought you said that this all was a Caribbean operation?”

  “We think it is, but there are always local contacts who help them get their foot in the door,” I said quickly. “And we have reason to believe that there are a fair number of Americans involved in this thing, too.”

  “Okay…” Rollins said, looking more than a little frazzled as he made his way over to the filing cabinet and began to rifle through it. “Okay…”

  I looked back at Muñoz. The chief’s eyes were wide with panic. I got what he was feeling. If this was an international problem exclusively, it would probably never fall back into his own lap here at the small local police station. But if some of these people were going to stick around once MBLIS left town… well, his department was going to have to be more prepared for next time.

  Somehow, I thought that this might be a good thing. Whether I could hold it against them or not, these guys needed a wake-up call. And perhaps this was it. At the very least, Martin would be more prepared in the future.

  “I don’t see a ‘Chris Daniels’ in here,” Rollins said, shaking his head as he stared despondently down at the filing cabinet. I wasn’t sure how he could’ve possibly figured that out so fast, considering how disorganized the thing looked to me, but I figured there must’ve been some kind of system going on there that Rollins could work out himself.

  “That’s okay,” I assured him, not having realized that was what he was doing at the filing cabinet. “Martin already looked earlier. Daniels is from Key West like I said.”

/>   “Oh, right,” Rollins said, looking relieved again. “So their department can probably handle this, right?”

  “Well, the crimes were committed here,” Muñoz said gently, taking a step toward him.

  “But we have a handle on it,” Holm said quickly, seeing the panic return to Rollins’s already red face. “We’re going to go take this guy to the back and ask him a few questions. Do you have someone to guard him when we’re gone?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Rollins said, nodding. “I’ll be here, and a couple of my officers are still on the island out on patrol.”

  “Thanks, Charlie,” Muñoz said, smiling at him. “We’ll take it from here then.”

  And with that, we escorted the Jamaican man back to the holding cell, where Muñoz took him in and cuffed him to the interrogation table for questioning.

  When I moved to follow her, Holm held me back.

  “Wait,” he said, and I arched an eyebrow at him. “What are we thinking here? That place looked like a dump. These kids were probably left behind for a reason—we have no idea what they were doing there. And they didn’t exactly strike me as highly trained operatives.”

  “Yeah,” I chuckled, shaking my head. “Me neither, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they were high, and that had something to do with how they acted. In fact, I’d be shocked if they weren’t, considering how that guy just kept running despite taking a nasty fall. Something had to be blocking out the pain.”

  “I guess the most we can do is find out,” Holm shrugged, lowering his arm and following me into the room.

  20

  Ethan

  Holm and I followed Muñoz into the small room where we had interrogated the drug dealer, Derek, just that morning. Except, this time, it was the lone remaining Jamaican man from our raid of the south shore vacation home that was handcuffed to the left-hand side of the table.

  “Hello,” I said, taking my usual seat between Holm and Muñoz on the right-hand side of the table. “My name is Agent Ethan Marston from the Military Border Liaison Investigative Services, and this is my partner Robbie Holm and our colleague Sylvia Muñoz. I seem to remember that you speak some English?”