Once again, he relived that day just after his seventh birthday, the day he had last seen his father.
He sat on a wooden crate in the kitchen late that Sunday afternoon. His mama, making dinner, was singing “Blessed Assurance.” She could have recited a shopping list to him and made it sound beautiful.
She stopped singing when his dad stormed through the front door of their small housing-project apartment. In about six steps, Bic’s daddy had walked through the living room and stood face-to-face with his mama in the kitchen. He was coming down from a cocaine high and needed money bad. He had already sold everything they had to fuel his drug habit. There was nothing left in the apartment except the crates and boxes they used as furniture. Bic’s father told his mama that she was going to start turning tricks for his drug dealer to pay off his debt.
Bic’s mama refused, and his daddy started screaming, backhanding her across the face. She fell to the floor and rose immediately, screaming at him to get out. Foaming at the mouth, he grabbed a hot pan off the stove. Bic remembered the sickening thud as that old cast-iron skillet connected with his mother’s skull. Fear turned into a blind rage in Bic, and he leaped onto his father’s back—punching, biting, and scratching. Bic fought ferociously. It was no use. From his father’s back, he watched the man beat his mama to death, smashing her beauty into a bleeding mass of ruined bone and flesh. His dad then yanked Bic off his back and slammed him onto the floor. With the red of the devil glowing in his doped-out eyes, Bic’s daddy grabbed him by the throat so hard Bic thought his neck was going to snap. His daddy then snatched a raw pork chop from the counter and jammed it into Bic’s mouth.
“It’s pork chop-eatin’ time!” his daddy growled as he choked.
Everything went dark.
52
Late afternoon, Mack stood outside the main conference room. TJ and Moretto waited for him. His text chain to Caroline had no responses. Mason’s murder and Caroline’s unresponsiveness fueled Mack’s feelings of anxiety and guilt.
He looked up and saw TJ waving for him to join them. He impatiently glanced at his phone, a deep-rooted sick feeling growing in his stomach.
He called her again. No answer.
“Angry Birds will get on without you,” Moretto called. “Let’s go. We got work to do.”
As Mack made his way to the room, a female agent passed by, leaving an unmistakable scent of patchouli in her wake.
Patchouli, that awful scent his mom used to wear. He took a deep breath, then exhaled. She didn’t leave us because of me—I was just a kid who saw her doing something terrible. She left for what she did, not for what I saw.
Mack entered the room.
“Nice of you to join us, Cinderella,” said Moretto.
Mack smirked darkly at Moretto. “It was a princess move, making us come back to LA instead of helping put the heat on that crooked detective until he told us what he knows.”
“Relax, kid. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Moretto said.
“A friend of mine is a detective on the Chicago PD. Turns out, this Reed character pulled some strings to be in charge of our case. And yet he tells us when we’re there that he was ordered to babysit us. And this dirtbag has a history of dirty dealings.”
“Mack,” TJ said sympathetically, “I understand your frustration, but we’re not going into the Chicago PD and shaking down a twenty-five-year vet.”
Mack pointed to Gabriel’s name written on the white board. “That detective is a direct link to whoever hired this scumbag.”
Moretto raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “He wouldn’t have said a word.”
“He doesn’t have to. I bet if we pull his cell phone records, we’ll find he made a call to either Gabriel or whoever hired Gabriel yesterday.”
“Sounds like you have this whole case figured out.” Bender walked energetically into the room, smiling. “How about we just pull the phone records of everyone within a twenty-mile radius of the building?”
Bender sat at the head of the oval table, wearing a dark navy suit with a fashionable tie.
“I appreciate you taking the time to join us, sir,” said Mack.
“I like how you two have contributed to this investigation.” Bender looked at everyone in the room, then gazed through the glass wall out into the open office space, where all the cubicles could be seen. “Where’s Agent Foxx?”
“She’s in the field,” said Mack. “Trying to dig up additional information on the suspect.”
Bender nodded. “Alright. Now, tell me why you think I should let you cowboys go down to Tijuana to apprehend a suspect?”
Mack blinked, surprised—and a little impressed—with the A.D.’s directness. He pointed to the white board and said, “He’s our one lead, sir.”
“This perp may have information—” Moretto began.
“Don’t fill this kid’s head with ideas, Moretto. If he does have any information, we’ll extradite him. Personally, I think Gabriel Hernandez is nothing more than a hired gun who knows only as much as he needs to know.”
“Sir,” Mack interjected. “He may know things he doesn’t realize he knows. Even two more names of potential targets could reveal a pattern.”
“And the dirty scumbag’s gotta pay for this!” Moretto added.
“It’s vigilante justice now, agent?” Bender asked Moretto. “The FBI isn’t going around assassinating anyone, for the record. As for you, Agent Maddox, I realize he may have information, which is why I’m prepared to go forward with extradition. Hernandez has major ties to the drug cartels. We’re going in on that. I’ve already been notified that the DEA is going to handle it. San Diego department head Phil Utah has confirmed that Hernandez is back in Tijuana, so he will be sending in a SWAT team.”
“Can this Phil Utah guarantee he’ll be taken safely for questioning?” said Mack.
“You’re overstepping, Agent Maddox,” warned Bender. “It’s not your place to question. Utah’s an old friend, and he’s good at his job. You’ll leave him to it.”
A disconsolate silence filled the room.
“Good. Then we’re done here, gentlemen,” said Bender, rising. “By tomorrow, this particular individual will be dealt with.”
“Sir?” said Moretto, raising his hand.
“Agent Moretto?”
“Permission to refer to the suspect as ‘the rodent'?’”
Bender left without an answer.
53
The room had no air conditioner. It was close, muggy and hot inside. Sweat clung heavy to Gabriel’s skin, and to the half-naked flesh of his two female companions. He smiled through the heat, liking his threesomes hot and nasty. He felt powerful here. His unlimited supply of hard drugs made him feel like some master vampire with his own harem. Instead of a thirst for blood driving his underlings to obey, they had a craving for his dope.
The queen-size bed dominated the small bedroom. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a small, scarred wooden desk located where other people might keep a nightstand. On top of the desk were some pieces of surveillance equipment and a lamp. The room’s décor of plaster walls, each a maze of different-sized cracks and holes, was a motif of rot and corruption. The room’s most unique feature was a platform mounted above the doorway, with a section of the ceiling cut out so a man could stand upright on it into the attic above.
The dark-haired Latina and blonde white girl waited anxiously as Gabriel fixed a hit of heroin.
“Old McGabriel had a needle, E-I-E-I-O. And in that needle, he had some horse, E-I-E-I-O,” he sang lustily as he filled the syringe.
The blonde woman grew more excited.
“Easy chica, it’s comin’.” He flicked his tongue out at her as he placed the syringe on the bed and reached into another massive pile of cocaine on the table. He scooped a mound of the fine white powder with two fingers and drew a thick, messy line on his chest.
“Yeah, baby,” the blonde sa
id, as she bent down and wildly snorted the coke, while simultaneously licking his chest with her long tongue to clean the rest.
“Show me why I need to party with you next time?” Gabriel said as he picked back up the glass syringe.
“With pleasure,” the blonde replied.
Gabriel motioned to the Latina to join in as he made a couple new lines.
High as kites, the girls snorted and licked Gabriel’s chest and stomach.
“I like hard working chicas,” he said as he moved the glass of the syringe above the flame of the candle.
At that moment, a red light came on near his head, piercing the gloom. Gabriel pushed the women off him unceremoniously and turned his attention to the electronics on the desk. The red light was a perimeter sensor, indicating something was moving within five feet of his house. Gabriel grinned wickedly, his mood changed from the erotic to a possibility of even greater pleasure: killing those coming after him.
54
Gabriel quickly put on pants and grabbed two silenced 9mm Beretta pistols. He ran out of his bedroom and dove to the living room floor. He crawled along the splintered hardwood and squatted below a window, careful not to give anyone a shot at him. The living room was the only room in the house where the windows weren’t boarded up.
He snatched up the small pocket mirror lying on the floor near the window and lifted it carefully above the sill. Using several different angles, he was able to see down the side of his house all the way to the backyard. He didn’t see anyone coming from either direction, though a second scan did reveal a beat-up white Ford van that he had never seen before. In this neighborhood, vans were mainly used for two things: transporting large amounts of drugs, or bringing in a crew to snuff someone out. His guess was the second.
Feet scuffled on the front porch, and he heard a few metallic clinks. His eyes narrowed. The raggedy old boards in the front porch cracked and squeaked, like he had fixed them to do, and he estimated that at least four, maybe five, men stood on the other side of the front door.
Another shuffle came from the front porch, and then some whispered dialogue. These pendejos are real amateurs, he thought. Anyone with any sense would have worked out hand signals in advance.
Before they could knock his door down, Gabriel rose and unloaded both pistols into it. Bullets snapped through the thin wood as if it were paper. He didn’t know how many he had hit, but he was sure it was at least some.
He spun to the side, expecting return fire. Nothing. No groans or screams, even. Huh. He retreated into the bedroom, baffled, amazed he hadn’t made contact. The two women were huddled naked in the corner, attempting to shoot up as much of his dope as they could, oblivious to the gunshots.
Then it hit him: this had to be some type of government raid. The people conducting the raid would be well-equipped, wearing body armor everywhere.
Well, he had the answer to that, too.
Gabriel opened the desk drawer and grabbed several clips loaded with armor-piercing bullets. Then he grabbed the white hooker by her hair and pulled her to her feet. “You still have to earn that dope. Go check and see who’s at the front door.”
The hooker was too high to be afraid and didn’t question the command. She stumbled her way, naked, to the front door. Gabriel stood in the dark hallway, making himself a shadow against the wall.
She unlocked the door and opened it.
“Hold your fire!” someone yelled in English. “It’s one of the girls.”
Gabriel smiled, then took aim and shot the woman in the back of the head. Her brains sprayed across the front porch as she fell face-first out the door.
Complete silence followed the thud as the woman’s lifeless body hit the floor. Gabriel fed off the eerie stillness of the moment and the horror of his action.
The silence was broken by frantic calls to act and then by the sound of a small bowling ball rolling toward him across the hardwood floor. He took three quick steps back before diving deeper into the hallway. The grenade exploded loudly, briefly flooding the house with searing light.
Gabriel rose to his feet and ran into the bedroom. The Latina whore sat in the corner, rubbing her eyes and crying out.
He had no doubt some type of American strike force had come for him—probably the DEA. If this were a gang or drug hit, he would have just been blown up … none of this whimpy flashbang stuff.
He stood up on his bed and shattered the naked bulb dangling from the ceiling with the butt of one gun. With the windows in the room boarded up and the hallway leading to the room unlit, the only lights left in the room were the burning candle on the desk and the ready lights on the surveillance equipment. Gabriel reached under his bed and pulled out a strobe light box. He plugged it in and placed it in the corner of the room along the same wall as the doorway.
He turned the strobe light on and blew out the candle. Then he put his foot in a hole in the wall and climbed up onto the platform above the doorway.
He waited, squatting on the one-by-three-foot plywood platform directly above the entrance. As he waited, he stared at the Latina crying and pleading in the corner of the room opposite him. He raised his gun and took aim at her forehead; the strobe effect flickered in and out of life. He almost squeezed the trigger, but he lowered his weapon, realizing she made the perfect bait.
Gabriel could hear shuffling feet in the hallway, and saw the laser scope-lights of the men in the hall beaming across the room. He counted five total.
“We have you locked down, scumbag!” a harsh voice yelled. “You have two choices: come out with your hands on your head, or we’re coming in and taking you down!” The demand was immediately repeated in Spanish.
Gabriel reached up into the attic, where he had more weapons stashed than Santa Anna had fielded at the Alamo. He made sure two grenades were within easy reach. If they did fatally wound him, he was going to make sure he took everyone out with him.
“Let’s put this dog down,” a different voice muttered.
Another flash grenade rolled into the bedroom; Gabriel stood, lifting his upper body through the hole in the ceiling and into the attic while covering his ears. The device exploded.
With his ears ringing, he squatted back down. Two men entered, leading with their automatic weapons as they swept the room. Undetected above and behind them, Gabriel took aim at the tops of their helmets. He then squeezed off two rounds.
The two men fell to the floor. “Men down!” someone bawled.
The men in the hallway blanketed the room with automatic weapons fire, a constant spray of slugs snapping into the walls, bed, and desk within the light-dark-light-dark of the strobe. A haze of dust, generated by hundreds of bullets plunging into plaster, filled the room.
The bullets stopped. Dead silence. Gabriel smiled as he waited for someone to come into the room to retrieve their dead comrades.
One man charged deep into the room to cover a second, who went to the team members who had been shot. The man on the other side of the room turned and saw Gabriel standing on the platform above the doorway entrance—above his teammates. With both pistols aimed at the agent’s goggles, Gabriel squeezed off a shot from each before the man could fire. Before the second man realized the teammate covering him had been shot, Gabriel put two slugs in the back of his head.
Amateurs, he thought.
55
William Bennington waded alongside his wife, Lynn, in a calm stretch of the Yellowstone River. The tall man moved hardly at all as he cast his fly rod. A perfectionist, he knew the fish feared movement above the water much more than they did movement below the water’s surface.
He had never felt better, which was a relief. He peeked over at his wife, Lynn, in wading boots to her armpits. After his second heart attack, it was she who had convinced him to retire and buy this 2,000-acre ranch in the Rocky Mountains. He had been only fifty-nine at the time, and had been planning to work for another ten years. If it hadn’t been for her, instead of
fishing nearly every afternoon for the past three years, he would have been stuck in constant meetings with his execs, feverishly strategizing on how to stay ahead of the competition—until he dropped dead.
A very tall black man was walking downstream toward them. He was wearing a backpack and carried a large canvas sack slung around his shoulder.
“Who the hell is that, and what he doing here?” said William, starting toward the riverbank.
“Don’t cause a fuss.”
“Fuss nothing. This is private property. I’ve a right to defend it.”
The very notion of having to defend his property made his blood boil. He sloshed back to the riverbank, and his wife followed. Once ashore, he opened his tackle box and pulled out the knife he used to fillet fish.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I have a right to defend my property,” he repeated. He put the knife, still in its plastic case, in his back pants pocket.
“Hello,” the man yelled, waving.
William lifted his chin and said loudly, “This is private property.”
“I know, and I apologize,” said the stranger, ten yards away and still closing. “I was canoeing down the river and spotted this little guy on the shore.”
He unzipped the bag enough to show them the face of a grizzly cub.
“Dear God,” said Lynn. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I’m not sure yet. He was like this when I found him—listless and unresponsive. The abandoned cubs I’ve worked on before are often malnourished, or end up eating something bad. They get lethargic and usually wind up dead. He should be okay. His vitals are strong. With food, he should be alright.”
“Who are you?” said William Bennington.
“Name’s Green. I’m a biologist.”
Lynn Bennington stepped forward to pet the cub’s head. As she did so, she pulled on the forehead, forcing the left eye to open. She recoiled slightly.
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