The intel I had gathered from Isabella couldn't be used to obtain a warrant. The money was dirty and would be seized. Once again, Jack and I were operating in a gray area. Maybe it wasn't so gray. I kept reminding myself that Kendra's life was at stake.
Dressed in black, decked out in tactical gear, Jack and I took the Porsche to Jamaica Village. We spotted the battered blue-gray cargo van parked in front of the crappy house on Pelican Crest. The yard was surrounded by a chain-link fence, and a withered palm stood guard. The yard was dry and patchy, and the cream stucco siding of the house was dingy. Without gutters, prior rainfalls had splattered the ground and kicked up dirt, staining the siding. The house was in desperate need of a power wash.
We parked about halfway down the street and surveyed the house for a few minutes. It looked like the crew was inside, celebrating their new score.
Sixty duffel bags full of cash were heavy. Lugging them around was enough to wear anybody out. I hoped they had been too lazy to unload the van.
JD and I pulled on black balaclavas over our faces. With wireless earbuds, we had encrypted comms over a secure network. Under the cover of night, we slipped out of the Porsche and hustled down the block toward the van.
Crickets chirped, and a dog barked a block over.
I tugged on the door handle to the driver’s side of the van, but it was locked. So were the cargo doors and passenger doors. But I had come prepared. I took a Slim Jim, slipped it through the weatherstripping, and unlocked the door within a matter of moments.
The dome light on the interior flicked on when I opened the door. I reached up and disabled it. Then I hit the power locks. Jack pulled open the creaky back cargo doors and surveyed the loot. The van was stacked to the brim with black duffel bags.
"Looks like everything," he said in a whisper.
"Those punks still have our guns,” I said.
I wasn't too keen on the fact that cartel thugs had our pistols, and I really didn't feel like explaining to the sheriff how they got them.
"Let it go," Jack said. "We got what we came for."
Usually, I was the one talking sense into him. But I was a little hot about this one. Getting sealed in a crypt was hard to let go of. But I took a deep breath and thought better of it.
I crept around to the front of the van, slipped inside, and pulled the door shut with a gentle touch.
Jack hustled back to the Porsche and hopped behind the wheel.
The cargo van was older, built before immobilizers were common. There was no ECU. No chip. I pried off the cover to the steering column, yanked the wires, and hot-wired the van within 30 seconds. The engine turned over and rumbled to life.
I put the vehicle in gear and drove off. At the corner, I flipped on the lights, took a left at the stop sign, and stepped on it.
Jack was right behind me.
We were long gone before the dipshits even noticed the van was missing. They sure were in for a surprise. A sly smile curled my lips.
I didn’t think those idiots would be brazen enough to report their van stolen, but anything was possible.
We zipped across the island to Jack’s bungalow. He’d been renting it to a friend who was going through a divorce. I pulled the van up the drive. JD pulled in behind me and hit the remote to the garage. The door lifted, and I drove in.
Jack’s friend, Travis, was there to greet us.
I killed the engine and hopped out.
“Where’d you get this hunk of shit?” Travis asked. He was mid-50s with short brown hair, sleepy blue eyes, and a bit of a beer belly.
“Don’t ask,” I replied.
“What kind of crazy shit are you two into now?”
“Long story,” I said.
Travis’s suspicious eyes surveyed the battered vehicle. He peered in through the driver’s window and saw the ignition column. “This thing hot?”
“It’s not exactly cool,” JD said.
Travis laughed. “And they gave you two badges?”
