by Eden Sharp
The most interesting part was the last part. I didn't have any idea who Rami was. Maybe it was a name Stuart could work with. I sent him a text with the details then skipped through the rest of the recording in case I heard the name mentioned again. Towards the end I did.
Rami's set for Monday. Union Iron Works, 1pm.
How are we gonna make it fly?
I got the feeling it was Aaron asking the question but I hadn't heard enough of his voice previously to be sure.
I'll tell Kraner I'm out meeting with an informant for something that's likely to speed up his promotion. You're out on surveillance. Leave Dawson to deal with everything else.
I didn't know who Rami was but I knew exactly where he was going to be on Monday around lunchtime. Pier 70, at the foot of Potrero Hill, at the Port of San Francisco.
Once a major ship building and repair port that had been around since the height of the Gold Rush, it had been abandoned since the 1989 earthquake. Many of the buildings were now used by graffiti artists but the lifeless sixty-nine acre stretch of waterfront was on the verge of a major transformation according to the local press which is why I had recently read about the redevelopment plans and some assorted historical trivia. The last major infrastructure project conducted there had been the construction of the BART Transbay Tube in the Union Iron Works machine shop.
I wondered if Glen Secora might be involved so I reassembled his phone and powered it up to check for any messages. I read through a few but there was nothing about Pier 70 or any which were of importance to me. Then the phone rang.
Pete.
I hit the answer button but didn't say anything.
'Your boyfriend's dead,' Peter Secora said.
There was a lasting silence as I tried to get a handle on what he was saying. My stomach lurched.
'What?'
'You tried to blackmail a member of my family? There's no money train bitch. The fucking douche bag thinks his name is going to save him? When he comes over for dinner tomorrow I'm going to make him eat his own fucking body parts. Imagine what I'm going to do to you.'
I ended the call and powered the cell down in case he had the capability to locate me. To say I had just had my life threatened by a local cocaine kingpin, I felt pretty upbeat that he didn't know about Knox. That said, I was going to need to exercise extreme caution from hereon in.
My apartment was the one place I knew I was safe. I got into bed feeling so drained I felt like I might never wake up.
FIFTY-FOUR
John Knox
When Dan had rung about an idea for a bachelor party, Knox had tried to sound like his regular self but something in his voice must have alerted his brother. Dan had arrived on his doorstep with assorted breakfast items in a brown paper bag which basically amounted to a care package and had then attempted to play therapist.
Knox assuaged some of his guilt for the wound he was about to inflict. Anyone with an iota of perception would have heeded the warning signs. Kept their mouth shut. People got hurt in innumerable ways. Continuing to whittle away despite the unspoken rebuttals amounted to a natural recipe for regret. The cliché of collateral damage spread further than it was possible to imagine.
'Why don't you get off my back?' he barked as a final decisive response to repeated offerings of love. He sank deeper into the recliner as he registered the look on Dan's face as he worked away in the kitchen.
His brother turned off the gas on the stove.
'Because you're the only family I've got left. You're my big brother who I've always looked up to and getting this job seemed to be the answer for you. But now you're like you were when you left the Corps. So...broken.'
Knox could hear the humiliation in his sibling's voice of not being able to reach through, of being shut out.
Knox had always been the buffer and was now refusing to allow the favor to be returned. Not letting anyone else savor the prize of playing substitute parent. Destined only to the role of helpless dependent, his twenty-six-year-old brother, forever twelve, his tone growing less bold, concluded with the deadliest round before walking away.
'I don't know who you are anymore.'
The sound of the door slamming reverberated in the still air, and the words of an old veteran he'd met in a bar, in the a.m. years before came to mind.
You choose this life, it ends bloody or sad.
His arthritic fingers had clung on to his glass like all else in life had slipped through their grasp.
Son, this is what you've got to look forward to.
It had seemed back then there was no reason to believe in a god or reflect on a future you weren't sure would ever arrive. The empty seats on the last transport plane home had reminded him that nobody's future came with a warranty. But he thought he had found himself a new path. A path upon which he would be able to exorcise old ghosts.
The door clicked open, Dan stood for a moment framed in a shaft of light from the hallway. He closed it quietly.
'What the hell happened?' he said.
The silence lay thick. Shame forced Knox to break it. A tear dripped off the end of his chin. He struggled to clear his throat.
'Thought I could make up for some of the shit over there.'
Knox felt the tears spilling down his cheeks.
Dan pulled out a chair opposite him and sat.
'Whatever happened? You're back and it's over. And whatever you did? It was war.'
Knox nodded. Yeah, everyone thinks you get back and it's over.
His brother let out a deep breath. Reminded Knox of their dad and his “this is how we're gonna get to fixin' it” sigh.
'Maybe you should go talk to your doctor again,' Dan said.
Knox shook his head and wiped his eyes.
Dan leaned in.
'Then talk to me.'
The suggestion hung in the air. Knox threw his head back against the chair and focused on the ceiling. He closed his eyes, let go of his resolve.
What the hell did anything matter anymore?
'When you get there it's all struggle. Even breathing,’ he said. ‘The dust in the air makes your chest hurt and your eyes and nose drip. You're never sure who's friendly or where the next attack is coming from. High altitude heavy bombing sure ain't the way to retaliate against indistinguishable people on the ground you're hoping to get on your side.
There was no time to relax. Nowhere was safe. The buildings were full of snipers and the roads were filled with mines. Our main strategy seemed to be walk till you got shot at.'
He looked over at Dan. His brother nodded, stayed silent.
'We were fighting what they called a three-block war. Combat, peacekeeping, and humanitarian stuff. We had to learn where we could fight and where we could influence. We needed to build trust with the locals and do what we could for them, so they reciprocated with info but, at the same time, still consider everyone a potential threat. One job was to help build and protect a home for mentally-disabled children whose families had abandoned them. The hospitality of the staff, the welcome of the kids, it was unreal, like stumbling into paradise in the middle of hell.'
Knox felt his throat getting tight. He swallowed. Tried to regain his composure.
'One day they invited us to a special meal they'd cooked for us over a fire they'd built outside in the yard, so we brought some stuff from the market and some rations, and some fresh pineapple that had come in off a shipment. Up to that day none of the kids had ever eaten anything but yogurt and bread.
I gave a piece of pineapple to this young girl. I was told her name was Mehri. She looked like a teen but she was very young mentally, around six, something like that. She looked after this tiny little boy, Pazhman, like he was a dependent. I don't know if they were related but they had this real inseparable bond. I don't think he could speak but he was this cheeky-looking little dude. The way he observed everything around him, it was like he was really smart.
Mehri made this face and spat out the pineapple then laughed her head off
. She thought I'd tricked her into eating something gross. After that, whenever we were there, the two of them were always playing jokes on me and they liked to give me little gifts of pictures they'd drawn. Being there with them, I really believed that there was possibility and hope in the place, but war just plays with your mind and mixes reality and insanity together.'
Dan leaned forward.
'I'm sorry we didn't talk sooner, bro.'
Knox cleared his throat.
'We had a small outpost, miles from our forward operating base and the rest of the company, in a mud brick compound on the outskirts of the village where we set up a patrol. At night we'd hear the calls of Howler monkeys like children crying. It's kind of eerie at first but better than silence. Silence meant movement and a firefight.
The locals left the village each day to sleep in the desert where it was safer and came back each morning. For us, it was limited sleep and lots of stress. We were sat, heavily outnumbered and wide-open.'
Knox's diaphragm spasmed involuntarily with a sharp intake of breath.
'I got word that Mehri was approaching the camp. It was dangerous territory, but still I just figured she'd wandered off somehow, was bringing me one of these hokey little pictures she drew. I was wrong.'
FIFTY-FIVE
'It turned out that local Taliban had taken her and strapped her up to a suicide belt with remote detonation.'
Dan shook his head.
'She didn't get what was happening at all. We were all yelling at her to stop. Even if she could have heard us, she would never have understood that she couldn't just walk up to the base. There was only so far she was ever gonna be allowed to go, a line of departure that couldn't be crossed or turned back from.'
He cleared his throat.
'I remembered part of a general's speech at Bastion to do with the rules of engagement: When the enemy endangers innocents, it is he, not we, who is responsible.
It was like we were watching something grotesque and unstoppable. Everyone frozen in place. Sherman, our sniper, lying in wait for the kill order. All I could think about was how are we going to save her but there was no time. There wasn't any time.
My lieutenant was about to open his mouth, but instead it came out of mine: I'll do it. I know what needs to be done and I'm doing it. Inside my head this voice is yelling at me, shut up and walk away. He asked me if I thought I could make the shot. I told him I'd make it.'
Knox swallowed hard.
'I'd make it because it was important for me to know she wouldn't suffer, that she'd die by the hand of someone who knew her, who cared about her. Because it was gonna be a necessary thing to have to do to save the little boy, clutching her hand, she'd brought along with her.'
A long sigh escaped from Dan, like he'd been holding his breath the whole time. Knox knew his brother had always looked upon him as being the immature one despite being the eldest.
'I chose to fire the rounds because the others, they didn't know her like I did. When Sherman handed me his rifle, I didn't know if I'd be calm enough, if I'd be able to go through with it, but by then I'd already climbed up to the top of one of the buildings and was setting up position. Everything becomes automatic. You don't have time to think then. Just after. Sherman called the wind and I lined up the sights. I focused in on regulating my breathing in order to get a clean shot.
At that moment, Mehri stumbled in the road and dropped to her knees. That gave me hope. I thought I'll just shoot her in the leg. She'll be confused and won't understand what has happened to her but she'll be okay. She'll lie there in the sand crying and then we'll call up EOD, get them over with a robot. Work out a way to get that thing off her, get Pazhman away.'
Knox shook his head.
'But it could have taken hours. Making sure it was safe out there, that there were no snipers around. There was no real likelihood that they'd have been able to get it off. She'd still have been stuck out there, probably bleeding out. No water, the two of them burning up in the sun. Then she went and got back up on her feet. I was willing her to stop at the same time as I was watching the muzzle of the rifle rising and falling to a resting point each time I breathed out. If only she'd stayed where she was, maybe it would have been different, but she just kept on coming, smiling and waving.
Pazhman was maybe four-years-old but I got this weird sensation that he knew exactly what was about to happen, that he understood there was no choice. Everything around me fell quiet, like the three of us were trapped inside this bubble.
I shot her twice in the head.'
Knox looked at Dan. Saw no sign of accusation.
'Through my sights, I could see Pazhman sitting in the dirt, still clutching at her hand, looking back at us. I was watching the tears rolling down the little guy's face, making track marks through the grime, when there was this loud explosion. They'd detonated the belt anyway. Instead of a kid, I was looking at a cloud of red mist and dust where a kid should be.'
Knox heard his voice crack and coughed.
'I heard myself screaming at who ever had done it, you killed them, you killed them, but the truth of it is, I did it. I killed Mehri. She was just a little girl and I can't take thinking about her anymore.'
Dan walked over and sat by his side. Gripped him into a bear hug. It lasted a couple of seconds then Knox slapped him on the back and pulled away, wiping his tears. He felt uncomfortable with the role reversal. He'd never been that demonstrative with his love when Dan had come to him with a problem.
'I wanted to make up for it somehow you know?'
He shook his head.
'So, you're the one with the college degree. You tell me. How the hell do I pay for what I did? How do I make the dreams stop?'
FIFTY-SIX
Inspector Dean Ortiz
A blue Mazda came into view on the gravel path near the facility's office.
Ortiz checked his watch. Ten on a Sunday morning and the place was as dead as it was in the middle of the night so it had been a good choice for the op.
'That's Glen Secora's vehicle now. Three other occupants. You good to go?'
Barstow
Barstow talked in to the mic he was wired to, responding to the support vehicle.
'I'm good.'
He looked across at Dawson. Dawson winked back at him.
'Let's get this over with kid.'
They waited for the sedan to slow. Watched it idle into park. Both of them stepped out on to the rutted dirt ground.
A tanned steroid-abuser, a wiry guy with a mustache, and a bald man with a diamond earring stepped out alongside Glen Secora. Dawson had half a ton of metal between himself and Secora's men. Barstow, on the driver's side, felt exposed. He tried not to look at Reeves.
'Just me and you go inside,' Barstow said nodding towards Secora's cousin.
'Ain't gonna happen,' the orange guy said.
'Three against one. What are you pussies?' Dawson said. 'It goes down like that or it don't happen at all.'
Secora's guys all took out weapons and pointed them at him and Dawson.
'So I lied about the three against one thing. You think we didn't bring back up?' Dawson asked.
'Just me and you,' Barstow said. Christ, Glen was meant to be on board with the script.
Glen Secora looked rattled.
'It's okay, we can do this however you want,' he said.
He made a move towards the container. Barstow followed him over and unlocked it.
They both walked into the gloom. A single shaft of light penetrated from the half-closed door. Barstow patted Secora down for a weapon. He felt for a wire but couldn't find one. It had taken him all of twenty seconds. He pointed to the suitcase the man was carrying.
'Open it.'
Glen Secora laid the case onto a dirty metal workbench, released the catches, and opened it up. Barstow lifted up one of the stacks of money. Checked the layer underneath looked the same. Flicked through the notes in his hand. He put the money back into the case, closed it up, secured
the catches, and put it down beside the bench. Then he came up with another case which he handed to Glen Secora as per his instructions. Secora's cousin was starting to look relieved that his ordeal may about to be over.
Barstow stepped back out into the light and blinked trying to adjust his sight as his pupils constricted.
Secora returned back to his vehicle and handed the case to the guy with the diamond earring. He slung it on to the hood and popped the locks.
'What the hell is this?'
'What do you think it is? Dawson said. 'It's the dough for the dope your boy just sold us.'
Glen Secora turned round to look at the contents. His eyes bulged wide open when he saw it was full of cash.
Inspector Dean Ortiz
Ortiz gave the go command and watched Reeves take out the tanned giant standing next to him then bundle Secora safely behind a container.
He smiled. It was time to take the muzzle off. He spoke into his radio for a second time on a separate frequency to address Aaron waiting in position on the perimeter.
'Do it,' he said.
Angela McGlynn
I was just sitting down to eggs florentine and sausage when Kerpen rang. I was feeling pretty good.
'Hey.'
'You're not being investigated.'
That made things a hell of a lot easier. More than taking some of the pressure off it was also informative.
'So it was all bullshit. Ortiz really is trying to move me aside. That says a lot. I think I should meet with Barstow.'
'Barstow died this morning,' Kerpen said.
'What?'
'That's why I'm calling. There was a sting set up to trap Secora. It was a fucking bloodbath. Secora didn't show but his men did. Two of them are dead. One of them was the undercover cop.'
