By mid-afternoon the next day they had worked out a plan to destroy Yuri’s eastern shore cell, the cell instructed to kill mayors of local cities in the Virginia/Maryland area. They decided to go after the cell on Saturday.
According to the contact instructions in Yuri’s file for the Jason cell, a note could be sent through the mail to Jason’s common law wife. Jack told Kathy the note should tell her to have all the cell members in the marina house on Saturday afternoon. She probably wouldn’t be familiar with the exact procedures but would surely open any letter addressed to her. The text could say a messenger was being sent to give her information about Chester and her son Billy. Kathy suggested the note include a thousand dollars in large denomination bills with the promise of more coming with the messenger.
Jack added the tourist traffic on an early spring weekend would provide cover for nonresident movement around the waterfront. It was a bit early for the Morgan’s marina to be very active. Anita suggested late afternoon was the best time to hit the Morgan cell. The parking lot and house were clearly visible from several hundred yards out in the bay.
On Saturday at 11:00 a.m., they picked up their rented thirty-foot cabin cruiser from the Galesville marina on the western shore of the Chesapeake. The cruiser was hired in the name of one of Brandon’s notional paper corporations. After crossing the Bay in intermittent rain squalls, the cabin cruiser dropped anchor just south of the Morgan’s marina, 200 yards offshore. At 4:30 p.m. three cars were sighted in the parking lot.
Leaving Kathy on board, Jack and Anita shoved off in the inflatable Zodiac dingy. A cold, offshore wind was blowing, causing a chop in the water. Even at low speeds, windborne spray soon soaked them.
With the light fading fast, Jack guided the Zodiac north of the marina. When he was a hundred yards north of the marina, he slowed to five knots and with the outboard burbling quietly, giving no hint of its top speed, moved slowly south, cut the engine, tilted the outboard up and gently nudged the shoreline 30 yards north of the Morgan’s house. Anita stepped ashore and moved into cover, giving her an angled view of the front, north side and back of the house. Jack dragged the Zodiac into the marsh grass. Anita moved into position through the high dead marsh grass to the front northeast corner of the rundown ranch house, while Jack circled to the north and settled in a pine grove behind the house. He was carrying a nine millimeter browning handgun and an M79 grenade launcher with high explosive rounds. The launcher looked like a large caliber sawed-off shotgun. Anita was armed with an assault rifle, as well as a silenced .22 caliber Hi Tower pistol. Jack hadn’t been in position for more than ten minutes, when Anita whispered into her throat mike that a man carrying what looked to be a rifle or shotgun was moving into the tree line immediately behind the house.
Jack answered, “I heard his movement. Do not yet have a visual. Be moving up in five.”
Anita replied, “No chances. Play it safe.”
Inside the house at the marina, Maria Stanton, Jason’s common law wife, and Earl Stanton, her older brother, were sitting at a table with a bottle of Jim Beam. Joshua, the younger brother, had been encouraged to go outside with his old 12-gauge Remington pump gun to watch the house, but mostly to get rid of his constant fidgeting. All he wanted to talk about was the great shot he had made on the mayor of Leesburg.
Maria Stanton had called them together to discuss Jason and Billy’s long absence. She also told them if they needed money she could advance some. The promise of money made Joshua come, but he wasn’t going to stay in the house. Joshua was much more comfortable by himself in the stand of pines behind the house. From there he could see the one narrow sandy lane leading to the marina, as well as part of the house.
Joshua was proud of his school dropout status. He had been smart enough to quit before going to the eighth grade. They weren’t teaching him nothing that made any sense anyhow. He knew the tides, shoals and wetlands as well as anyone, and he wasn’t afraid to work. He could shoot, too. His sister’s man Chester had taught him how to shoot using those fancy rifles with the telescopes and wind adjustment knobs. He could hit a man-like target at 700 yards. He had proved his skill by his shot in Leesburg. His uncle Earl had taken the easy shot on the Richmond mayor. Anyone could hit a person from a hundred yards. But Joshua’s real artistry was with his old pump gun.
As Earl always said, “When Joshua throws his old pump gun up, something comes down.”
Joshua loved to run those words of man praise through his mind. Wasn’t nothing going on out here, but he wasn’t ready to go back inside and listen to his sister bitch. Once she got started, there weren’t no stopping her. Joshua shifted the pump gun under his arm as he lit up a Camel. No filter shit for him. He liked a man’s smoke.
Maria Stanton was tired of Earl asking her the same questions over and over, as if she in some magical way could come up with answers. No, she hadn’t heard a damn word from either Chester or Billy since they set off for Virginia. She wished Chester hadn’t taken Billy with him. And no, she had never met the man who gave Jason orders. If someone showed up with word about Jason, they could handle that. Anyway it would just be one man. If they didn’t trust him, they could have Joshua kill him. Joshua liked to kill things. Heavied up with some old anchors and dropped way out in the Bay would take care of him. Wouldn’t be the first time. Of course, they would keep any money he brought. Don’t forget, over the years the man had given Chester a lot of money and Earl had gotten his share, too.
Anita crawled in closer to the house, taking advantage of the high marsh grass to conceal her movement. The ground was soggy, and the wind was picking up. She was cold and wet. Anita thought, give me the desert anytime. They were now in position to take care of anyone leaving the house. Anita worked her way up to the one window on the north side and reported she could see two people inside, one man and a woman. It was nearly time to go. The setting sun was behind them. Anita moved back to her original position.
Jack was moving slowly and cautiously through the low brush and pine tree stand behind the house. He hadn’t seen or heard anything since the first noise of someone moving through the brush 10 minutes ago. Then he picked up the smell of cigarette smoke in the gusting wind. A non-smoker, he possessed a keen sense of smell. Pausing to check the wind again, he moved upwind toward the source of the smoke. Five minutes later he saw the shape of a man leaning against a large pine tree and saw a puff of smoke drifting upward through the pine needles.
Jack had no doubt he could quietly take care of the smoking sentry. Keeping the tree trunk between him and the smoker, Jack moved over the damp pine needles to a point behind the smoker. The noise of the wind blowing through the pine boughs would cover any noise he might make. The man was holding a shotgun under his arm pointing down, a gun safety posture but not one allowing a quick shooting response. With both arms free, Jack put his left hand around the smoker’s face covering his mouth and firmly cupping his chin. Jack pulled hard with his left hand as he spun Joshua’s head in the same direction with his right hand. Joshua heard nothing until this terrible force twisted his neck. The last sound he heard was the crunching snap of his neck.
Only one window was in the back of the house. Moving low and fast, Jack dragged Joshua’s body with the Remington pump gun up under the elevated propane tank and then hurried back to the wood line. Anita was waiting for Jack to start the action with his M79 grenade launcher. Jack radioed he was going to aim for the propane tank snug against the house. He planned to fire high explosive rounds close to the tank to rupture it without leaving any holes in the tank for a forensic investigator to discover. Anita would take care of anyone running from the house. Shooting was the last resort. Shooting left too much evidence behind. The M79 grenade explosion was the signal to get ready to cover the front door.
Checking his watch, Jack saw it was 5:35 p.m. Show time! The first high explosive M79 round hit the cement rockers holding the tank and exploded. One end of the tank torn from its cradle slid to the ground, breaking the connecting lines carrying the gas into the house. Jack heard the escaping gas and fired a second round, igniting the gathering gas and causing a huge roaring fireball singeing the pines in front of him.
Anita heard the first M79 grenade explode and was up on one knee getting set to cover the front of the house. The fireball from the second grenade blew out the windows and front door. The blast knocked her backward. As she was recovering, Jack came running around the house. They headed back to the Zodiac at a full run. With hardly a pause, they scrambled into the inflatable and headed back to the anchored cabin cruiser.
It was after 2:00 a.m. when they pulled up at the Brandon garage under the apartment. With Yuri dead, they didn’t think much danger faced them anymore. No one felt they had left any forensic evidence behind. Even the boat had been wiped down. Jack had picked up his one brass casing from the M79. The other was still in the weapon. Anita hadn’t fired a single shot. Any tracks they had left would be wiped out by the collection of firemen and onlookers wandering around. No one could have lived through the inferno sweeping instantaneously though the house. Anita thought placing the sentry’s body under the propane tank was a stroke of genius. The fire inspectors would probably think the burned body with the shotgun under the tank had somehow caused the blast. The terror caused by the Tilghman Island cell was over.
***
Facts and Fictions 