Infidel

by Steve Gannon

  “Damn it, Kane, ” Taylor called after me.

  “Make your calls,” I said over my shoulder, not looking back.

  A jog up the neighbor’s driveway and a short trek across a landscaped yard brought me abreast of the Clark residence. Staying to the shadows, I squeezed through a wall of shrubbery and vaulted a wrought-iron fence. Once on the other side, I headed for a terrace in the Clarks’ backyard.

  Moments later I arrived at a patio adjacent to a large swimming pool and several tennis courts. Beneath a latticed pergola to the left, a sliding glass door led into the house. Approaching cautiously, I looked inside. The room beyond was dark. Holding my breath, I tried the door handle.

  Locked.

  As I was gauging my chances of scaling the pergola to a second-story deck twenty feet up, my phone vibrated. I checked the screen. “Taylor?” I whispered, not recognizing the number.

  “Kane,” Taylor’s voice came back. “Where are you?”

  “In the backyard. I’ll be inside shortly.”

  “I notified Gibbs,” said Taylor, sounding nervous. “A Bureau team is on the way. Your Captain Snead called, too. SWAT is still ten minutes out. Snead’s ETA is about the same. He was none too pleased to hear you were present. He ordered you to stand down.”

  “Like I said, I don’t take orders from Snead. Besides, in ten minutes we could be too late, with the residents already dead. Stay on the phone and keep the line open.”

  Time was running out for the Clarks. I muted my cellphone, repocketed it, and assessed my situation. With the ground-floor door locked, my best chance of entering the house undetected now lay in climbing to the second-story deck over the pergola, and hoping the door there wasn’t locked as well.

  I eased out from the shadows. Silently, I moved to a nearby pergola support, a six-by-six post that helped carry the weight of the lattice structure above. Placing one foot against the post and another against the house, and then doing the same with my hands, I bridged the distance with my body. Slowly, I began moving upward, alternately inching up my hands and feet as I progressed. Several minutes of strenuous effort brought me to the lattice structure atop the column. Grabbing a support beam in both hands, I swung over a leg and manteled onto the framework.

  Breathing hard, I stopped and listened.

  Nothing.

  Careful not to make a sound, I crossed the lattice and stepped over a railing to the second-story deck. A glass-paneled door led into a darkened bedroom beyond. I peered through the glass.

  Again, nothing.

  Mentally crossing my fingers, I withdrew my Glock and tried the doorknob.

  The door was unlocked.

  I slipped inside. From somewhere deeper in the house came the sound of voices. I withdrew my cellphone, intending to let Taylor know I was in. The phone’s status bar read “No Service.” Puzzled, I returned the phone to my pocket, hoping that when SWAT arrived, Patrolman Fagen remembered to inform them of my presence.

  Deciding it was too late to worry about that now, I crossed the bedroom and eased open the door to a second-floor hallway.

  Again, I listened.

  No sound came from the upper floor. But from downstairs, the voices had grown louder. I still couldn’t make out the words, but they sounded angry.

  Palms slippery with sweat, Glock held before me in a two-handed grip, I edged out into the hall.

  *****

  Jacob scowled, angrily regarding the scene in the living room. Not for the first time, he wondered whether assigning Rudy to escape-vehicle duty that night had been a mistake. Ethan, Rudy’s replacement for the evening, simply couldn’t follow directions. Despite Rudy’s insubordination and the perverse enjoyment he seemed to take in the killings, at least he could follow orders.

  “Okay, let’s try the knife shot one more time,” suggested Parker.

  “This isn’t rocket science, Ethan,” added Caleb. “Just take the knife from the jar and hold it in front of you. It’s not that complicated, bro.”

  “Screw you, Caleb,” said Ethan. “I did it right the first time.”

  “Just do it again,” said Parker.

  Bound and hooded, Dr. Clark and his young girlfriend were kneeling in the glare of the floodlights. The girlfriend was sobbing. Dr. Clark had initially put up some resistance, but that hadn’t lasted long. Blood seeping through his hood bore testament to a beating from Ethan that had brought Dr. Clark into line. For a fleeting moment Jacob felt a pang of sympathy, knowing what was to come. Resolutely, he pushed away his misgivings, reminding himself that this was God’s will. The couple on their knees were dying for the greater good of all.

  Suddenly Jacob heard a noise.

  He froze.

  Someone upstairs?

  Concealed in the shadow of a curving staircase, Jacob gazed up to the second floor. Ethan had already checked the house. No one else was home. Yet against all reason, at the top of the stairs Jacob saw the shadow of a man move across a wall. The man had a gun.

  “How’s about we just forget the knife shot, Parker?” Ethan said angrily. “I’m doin’ this guy now. If you don’t like it, tough. Start recording.”

  With a surge of alarm, Jacob glanced across the room to where the AK-47 was propped against a wall where he’d left it.

  Too far.

  “Not yet, Ethan, God damn it!” Parker yelled, losing patience. “I’ve gotta refocus.”

  Keeping his back to the stairs, Jacob retreated to the kitchen. Earlier he’d noticed a door leading to the backyard. Maybe it wasn’t too late . . .

  “Too bad,” Ethan snarled, ripping the hood from Dr. Clark’s head. “Like Rudy says, it’s showtime!”

  Fighting panic, Jacob crept to the door at the rear of the kitchen. With trembling hands, he tried the knob. The door was locked. He twisted a thumb latch and tried again. The door swung open.

  Jacob glanced back into the living room, wondering how things could have gone so wrong. Despite Parker’s instructions, Ethan had started his work with the knife, and blood was beginning to flow.

  “Police! Freeze!” someone shouted.

  *****

  The voices grew louder as I neared the top of a circular staircase. Now I could make out what the men below were saying. “Not yet, Ethan, God damn it!” one of them yelled. “I’ve gotta refocus.”

  If I’d had any doubts about what was happening, one glance into the living room dispelled them. Hands bound with plastic ties, sacks covering their heads, a man and a woman were kneeling in front of a camera. Floodlights were attached to either side of a tripod supporting the camera. Blood stained the side of the man’s hood. It sounded like the woman was sobbing.

  A tall man with dark hair and a prominent nose stood behind the camera. An AK-47 rifle lay propped against a nearby wall. Two other men, both wearing balaclavas, were positioned behind the couple. Both men were holding long, serrated knives. They were knives I had seen before.

  “Too bad, Parker,” one of the men laughed, yanking the hood from his captive’s head. “Like Rudy says, it’s showtime!”

  I watched in horror as the masked terrorist placed his blade to the man’s throat and began sawing.

  “Police! Freeze!” I yelled.

  I was too late. Left forearm circling his captive’s head, the terrorist sawed his blade across the man’s throat, opening a mortal gash. Blood spurted, gushing down the man’s shirt.

  I routinely scored in the top percentage of shooters at the LAPD handgun range. During a tactical situation, something clicked and I shot even better. Although his victim’s body shielded most of his own, the killer’s head was exposed. When he ignored my warning, I put a bullet through his forehead.

  He dropped like a stone.

  At the deafening concussion of my shot, time seemed to slow. I saw the man behind the camera start toward the AK-47. The other man released his female captive. Screaming, the woman fell forward. The hooded killer drew a pistol from the small of his back.

  I knew the man with the
pistol would get off the first shot, but the man with the rifle presented a far greater danger.

  Which one?

  The man with the pistol made my decision for me. Dropping to one knee, he put a round into a hallway mirror behind me. The mirror exploded, sending glass shards flying. Blood bathed the side of my face. Ignoring my injury, I double-tapped two into the man’s chest.

  By then the third man had reached the rifle. An AK-47 assault weapon has been described as a “bullet hose”—having questionable accuracy at distance, but deadly at close range. The barrel swung toward me. An instant later it began spraying rounds.

  Without hesitation, I dropped the third man as well.

  *****

  After easing shut the door behind him, Jacob ran as he’d never run before. Reeling from the horror of witnessing his brother’s death, he raced through the Dr. Clark’s backyard, hoping against hope to escape the trap that someone had set.

  How had they known?

  Upon reaching the rear of the property, Jacob vaulted a wrought-iron fence and continued on. Racing through the darkness, he followed a dirt footpath across a wooded section of parkland and then crossed another backyard, finally spotting their emergency vehicle on Villa Woods Drive.

  At Jacob’s approach, Rudy sat straighter behind the wheel, his eyes widening in alarm.

  Closing the final yards to the vehicle, Jacob once more asked himself how things could have gone so wrong. They had prepared for every circumstance, practiced for every contingency. Yet somehow disaster had struck. Parker was gone. And Ethan. And Caleb, whose loss was immeasurable.

  How could God have allowed this to happen?

  Panting, Jacob threw open the passenger’s door. “Go!” he yelled, climbing inside. “Get us out of here.”

  “Wha . . . what happened?” Rudy stammered.

  “Just shut up and drive,” Jacob ordered, still fighting not to panic.

  Seconds later, they slowed briefly at a stop sign on Sunset. From there they headed west, skirting a police barricade blocking the mouth of Rivas Canyon, the lights atop a swarm of police vehicles there illuminating the intersection in staccato flashes of red and blue. Heart still hammering in his chest, Jacob was again thankful that he’d taken the precaution of having an escape car present.

  Several minutes of steady driving brought them to the 405 Freeway. From there it was a straight shot to the San Fernando Valley. And from there, the Trancas Canyon compound, and home. As Rudy merged onto the freeway, Jacob’s heart finally began to slow. Still not believing he had escaped, he stared out the window, stunned that everything had so unexpectedly fallen apart.

  Nevertheless, he refused to believe that Caleb’s death had been a part of God’s plan.

  Something else must have been at play. Something evil. Someone evil.

  Tears of rage streaming down his cheeks, Jacob lowered his head and made a silent vow—both to himself, and to his God. It was a promise he intended to keep.

  *****

  I felt my phone vibrate. Ignoring it, I rushed downstairs, taking the treads three at a time.

  After kicking away the terrorists’ weapons in turn, I confirmed that all three were dead. The male resident whose throat had been cut was unconscious. Lying nearby, the woman was still crying. She screamed when I removed her hood.

  “Police,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “That’s what they said,” the woman sobbed, staring at my face in shock. Curious, I touched my cheek. My hand came away red.

  “Cut me loose,” the woman pleaded. Then, noticing the man beside her, “Oh, God, Ollie. What did they do to you?”

  Using one of the terrorist’s knives, I severed the handcuff ties binding the woman. Once freed, she stripped off her sweater, wadded it, and began applying pressure to the man’s neck, attempting to stem the flow of blood.

  Leaving her, I made a quick circuit of the ground floor to make certain no one else was present. As I was heading upstairs to check the second level, I felt my phone vibrate again. I checked the screen. Recognizing Taylor’s number, I answered.

  “Kane, we heard shots. What’s going on?” Taylor’s voice demanded.

  “One of the residents is injured,” I replied. “Get an ambulance here ASAP.”

  I heard Taylor speak to someone, then come back to me. “Are you okay?

  “I’m fine. But the guys who broke in here aren’t.”

  “Please tell me you left one of them alive to interrogate.”

  “Sorry. Judgment call. Stay on the line, Taylor. There’s something I have to do.”

  After checking the upstairs and finding no one, I returned to the living room. The young woman was still applying pressure to her friend’s throat. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. Probably not a good sign, I thought. From the size of the blood puddle, it looked like he had already bled out.

  I moved to the bodies of the two masked terrorists. Leaning down, I pulled off their balaclavas. One was blond, maybe in his early twenties. The other had red hair and appeared a bit older than his partner. Like the third man who had been operating the camera, both looked like clean-cut American youths. Young men you might see on the street every day. Definitely not foreign Muslims.

  I raised my phone. “Has SWAT arrived?” I asked Taylor, who was still on the line.

  “Their van just pulled up,” Taylor’s voice came back. “Captain Snead and his team are here, too.”

  “Good,” I sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted. “Tell them I’m coming out. Ask them not to shoot me.”

  Again I heard Taylor speak to someone. Then, again back to me, “Holster your weapon and exit the front door with your hands raised,” she instructed. “SWAT will stand down. As for Snead . . . that I can’t guarantee.”

  Chapter 27

  All incidents involving the use of deadly force by an LAPD officer are investigated by the department’s Force Investigation Division. Following my exit from the Clark residence, I was ordered to proceed downtown, where I was round-robin interviewed by several teams of FID detectives. Simply put, the purpose of their investigation was to determine whether, under the circumstances, my use of deadly force had been objectively reasonable.

  The bulk of the interview, which took the remainder of the evening, was conducted by a pair of seasoned FID investigators, Detectives John Madison and Emily Logan. Two hours into it, Snead stormed into the room.

  Ignoring surprised looks from both Madison and Logan, Snead placed his fists on the table and leaned over, bringing his face within inches of mine. “You screwed the pooch this time, hotshot,” he said with a sneer.

  “Damn, Snead,” I said. “Ever hear of breath mints?”

  “With all due respect, Captain Snead, you can’t be here,” Madison intervened. “Someone will be taking your statement later.”

  “Fine,” said Snead. He took a step back, raising his hands in concession. “I just want to make it absolutely clear that Detective Kane disobeyed my direct orders when he entered the Clark residence.”

  “I was serving as a Bureau liaison and not under your command,” I countered.

  “I was the senior investigative officer at the scene, which gave me command,” Snead snapped.

  “You weren’t on the scene, Bill. I was. And as it looked like a developing hostage situation, that put me in command.”

  “That’s Captain Snead, you insubordinate bastard,” Snead shot back, his face mottled with rage.

  “Okay,” I replied. “Let’s call a spade a spade here, Captain Snead. If we had waited for your arrival, there would have been even more dead bodies inside than there already were.”

  “You can’t be certain of that,” Snead spat. “Speaking of which, how did you know to be there? Who tipped you off? It was Deluca, wasn’t it?”

  “Deluca isn’t my only friend on the force,” I replied, dodging his question.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Snead continued. “As of now, your career is over, hotshot. I knew if I waited
long enough, I’d see the day. Well, that day has come. You’ll be lucky if you don’t wind up serving time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Who gave you the right to execute those suspects? You didn’t even give them a warning, did you? Just blew them away, right?”

  “That’s not how it happened.”

  “Captain, if Detective Kane was responding to aggressive actions by the suspects, either toward him or the residents, a verbal warning wouldn’t have been necessary,” Logan pointed out. “Now, if you’ll let us get back to our job . . .”

  “Ask him why he turned off his cellphone,” said Snead.

  “What?” asked Madison, looking puzzled.

  “Before Kane entered the Clark residence, he agreed to remain in cellphone contact with Special Agent Taylor,” Snead explained. “As soon as he entered the house, Kane broke the connection. Why? Simple. He disconnected so no one could monitor his actions.”

  “I lost cell service when I got inside,” I said.

  “Bull,” Snead snapped. “And after the shooting, your service was miraculously restored? That’s just a little too convenient, don’t you think?”

  “A cellphone jammer could have—”

  “I heard about your bogus jammer theory,” Snead cut me off. “No cellphone blocker of any kind was found in the house. So I’ll ask you again. If you didn’t hang up, how do you explain losing contact with Taylor?”

  I couldn’t.

  “And now, with no corroboration, you expect us to simply take your word for what happened in there?” Snead snorted. “No way, Kane.”

  Detective Madison stood. “We’ll be taking your statement later, Captain,” he repeated. “With all due respect, you have to leave. Now. We’ll take it from here.”