“I don’t know. There were only four of us, and he thinks one of us crossed him. Bulger’s gone; that leaves three. Rumor is he’s coming after us.” It was more than a rumor. Vince Murphy’s murder confirmed it as far as Ballick was concerned. Many people might have wanted Murphy dead, but Ballick could think of only one man who would carry out the job in the way it had been done. “Are we ready?”
Kent nodded. “Our three best guys. Positioned just the way you told me.”
“Good.”
“I wish we had more,” Kent said. “There’s still time to get some of the others.”
Ballick shook his head. “He’s too smart for that. If he thinks he’s outmatched, he’ll wait. I can’t surround myself forever. If he thinks I’m an easy target, he’ll come quickly, and we’ll be able to deal with him. Or not. Either way, it needs to happen now, and this is the best place for us.”
“What if they send others after him?”
“There are no others. It’s him, and that’s it. If he fucks it up, it’s over.”
Ballick had chosen a good spot; Liam had to give him credit for that. The shack was located on a narrow strip of land jutting out into the water, sandwiched in between a deserted boatyard and an open marsh that pushed up against the high metal fences of a gas station and two car dealerships. There was only one way in-a long narrow driveway with trees running down both sides. A steel swinging-arm gate was locked across the entrance to the driveway. It wouldn’t keep a man on foot out, but it would present an obstacle to a full assault by vehicle. The driveway set up a bottleneck that would make anyone approaching an easy target.
Liam had been watching the place for more than a day. He kept tallies in his head of everyone coming or going, and watched the patterns of activity. He knew Ballick wasn’t alone. If his count was accurate, there were four others on the property. His count was always accurate.
Five men presented a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. Even the best that Boston ’s underworld had to offer had never been to war. They were little more than bullies, and they wouldn’t understand the principles of ambush and counterattack.
The key was determining where they were positioned. He could be pretty sure that Ballick would keep his most trusted man with him as a last line of defense. It was likely that two others would be hidden in the trees along the driveway-one on either side to catch him in a cross fire if possible. That left one more. Where he would be hidden was the main mystery. The driveway ended at a spot where the land broadened, and beyond was a parking lot and scrub that eased into the marsh. The property was littered with derelict boats up on cradles, stacks of docks and floats and lobster pots ready to be put into the water once the weather warmed, as well as piles of netting and unidentifiable junk. The place presented a thousand places for a sniper to sit and wait, fully concealed. If he guessed where among the mess the fourth man was hidden, he would make quick work of all of them. If he guessed wrong, he’d be dead before he was aware of his mistake.
Liam was concealed at the edge of an outcropping of small trees and bushes around twenty yards from the gate. From his position, he had a perfect view down the driveway, and could see the corner of the fishing shack in the distance. He was armed with his nine-millimeter, four clips, and his knife. Sean Broadark was in a car parked across the street, his head down. Liam’s instructions had been explicit, and he knew they would be obeyed. Broadark was a soldier.
As he lay there, a beat-up Honda with a square plastic sign advertising Domino’s Pizza pulled up to the gate. The driver hesitated, then got out of the car to examine the lock. When it became clear that he could not swing open the arm, he got back into his car and leaned on his horn, giving off two long blasts.
Liam reached into his coat, pulled out a pair of night-vision binoculars and focused them on the driveway; it was all about to begin.
Kent looked at Ballick when he heard the car horn. “Go check it out,” he said after a moment.
Kent put the hand that held his pistol into the outer pocket of his coat and walked around the corner of the building. As he headed toward the driveway, he glanced at the stack of lobster pots behind which Tom Shavers, the best shot among all his men, was concealed. It was a perfect sniper position, with a clear view of any approach to the shack. The tarps over the pots gave complete cover. They had ripped a seam in the tarps so that Shavers could see out. In the darkness, there was no chance of him being spotted.
Kent walked quickly up the driveway, his head on a swivel, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He knew that two others were in the trees along the driveway, but he couldn’t tell exactly where. He hated being out in the open.
As he got to the end of the driveway, the driver of the Honda got out of his car and opened the rear door. Kent ’s grip on his gun tightened in his pocket. “What the fuck are you doing?” he called out.
“Pizza,” the driver said, pulling a box out of the back.
“We didn’t order any pizza,” Kent replied. “You got the wrong address.”
The driver looked at the sign just next to the gate. “This is eleven-oh-eight?”
“Yeah, but we didn’t order any fuckin’ pizza.”
The driver was a young man with long hair and a fuzzy chin. He looked stoned as he bent down to look again at the sales slip in the car’s interior light. Then his head popped up above the car roof again. “That’s the address they gave me,” he said.
“I don’t give a fuck what address they gave you,” Kent said. “I’m telling you, we didn’t order any fuckin’ pizza. Get the fuck out of here.”
The driver ran his greasy fingers through greasier hair. “Fuck,” he muttered. “I hate this job.” He tossed the pizza box into the backseat. Then he slid into the driver’s seat and pulled away.
“Fuckin’ moron,” Kent said. He stood there, his eyes searching the street. He’d never seen Ballick so concerned, and he didn’t understand why. Kent had his best men in place, and they were ready for anything. After a moment he turned and started back to the little shack by the water.
He took two steps before the shot tore through the center of his back. It felt as though he’d been hit with a baseball bat, and he pitched forward onto the pavement. In his mind he was moving, his gun out as he whirled around to shoot back, shouting directions to the men in the trees. In reality, he lay still. The bullet had blown through his spinal column just between his shoulder blades, and the instructions from his brain had nowhere to go. His mouth was moving, but no sound came out. Blood fought its way up his esophagus and trickled out of the corner of his mouth onto the driveway. He was dead within seconds.
Liam was moving as soon as he pulled the trigger, silently shifting his position ten feet to the left. The bushes where he’d been standing exploded from the rounds fired from the trees along the driveway. He watched the flashes and took careful aim at the spot from where the shots came on the left, firing six quick rounds into the trees.
Then he was moving again, running toward the driveway.
More shots rang out from the right-hand side of the driveway, and Liam could hear the shots whistle by him. Then he heard a number of gunshots coming from behind him, and he knew that Broadark was returning fire, just as instructed. The gunshots from the trees stopped, and Liam kept moving, hurtling the metal fence and diving toward the far edge of the row of trees.
The trees were now his allies, providing him with cover as he moved quickly down the row toward the shack. Halfway down the driveway, he came across the body of one of Ballick’s men. He was slumped against a tree trunk, his neck tipped back at an awkward angle, his eyes wide open, staring at the overhanging branches. Liam bent down to feel his neck for a pulse, though he knew there would be none. He could see the hole that had been ripped in the man’s chest.