Horns of the Devil - Jeff Trask [02]

by Rainer, Marc

  “Yep,” Trask said. “They don’t know we found it, and they had to overhear me telling you earlier that we had a source for Ortega’s location.”

  “I get it. You can set ’em up,” Mays chimed in. “Bravo. That ought to be quite a show. Moreno and his whole crew.” He looked at Lynn and shrugged. “Or what’s left of ’em.”

  “We need a good location and a whole lot of heavily armed good guys,” Trask said. He looked at Doroz. “You have time to set up an operation with your SWAT guys? I lose control of this on Monday, and I’m not sure my successor—whoever that may be—will agree with this.”

  “It’s already Thursday,” Doroz noted. “No way. This has trouble written all over it, and I’d have to write the short version of War and Peace just to try and get it approved, then some clown up the command chain would disapprove it.”

  Trask looked at Hall.

  “Same here,” the DEA agent said. “Maybe if we were in-country in El Salvador, but not here.”

  “Your friendly local police can provide the requested services,” Sivella said.

  “Your SWAT guys can handle this?” Mays asked.

  “We in the nation’s capital do not have a SWAT team,” Carter answered for his boss. “Being more politically sensitive, we have an ERT, an Emergency Response Team. They work out of our Special Operations Division and do seem to resemble what other city authorities would call a SWAT team or tactical unit. At any rate, our Kevlar Cowboys are quite good, and our operations plans do not require Department of Justice approval, unless, of course, the Assistant United States Attorney assigned to the case thinks that DOJ should weigh in on it.”

  “My neck’s out as far as it can be already,” Trask said. “Might as well try to bring our little murder spree to a close, even if we’re just going to be deporting someone.” He looked at Doroz, who had an eyebrow cocked. He’s thinking the same thing I am. “I don’t know if Moreno and his crew will go down without a fight. All we can do is corner them as well as we can and try to make it happen with a minimum of casualties.”

  “I know a spot,” Sivella said. “My girlfriend has a brother in commercial real estate. How does an empty warehouse sound?”

  “As good a spot as any, as far as I’m concerned, Willie,” Doroz said. “But it isn’t up to me anymore. This looks like your show from here on out.”

  “Accepted, then.” Sivella nodded. “We’ll need to brief the ERT guys and get them set up in place before Jeff and Barry issue the invitations. How does late Friday night sound? Can you two tailor something credible for our listening audience?”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.” Trask looked around the table for any signs of disagreement. There weren’t any. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Everyone stood to leave the room.

  Trask motioned to Crawford. “Mike, have a minute?”

  Crawford came around the table. Doroz came around the other side.

  “I don’t think you should see her tonight,” Trask said.

  “And I agree,” Doroz said. “If you have to, tell her you’re sick or something. We can’t risk a single wrong word on this, for any of our sakes, but especially yours.”

  Crawford nodded. He headed for the bullpen and his desk.

  Trask turned back to Doroz. “You and I have a script to iron out.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Friday, September 15, 10:00 a.m.

  The ERT briefing was held in Sivella’s building, enabling both FBI and DEA assets to claim they were merely observing and assisting a Metro Police operation. Since neither federal agency had the time to clear everything with their command chain, those involved could not take the chance that something could go wrong. Without the required T-crossing and I-dotting, heads would roll. Better to let the cops play it out and pick up the pieces, if necessary.

  Trask recognized the police captain in charge of the ERT from some prior cases. Chester Halsey Williams was a Naval Academy grad whose father, a Navy captain and Annapolis grad before him, had named his son after two World War II admirals. Somewhat to his father’s chagrin, Midshipman Williams had chosen to accept a commission in the Marine Corps upon his graduation instead of aiming for a command in the surface fleet. After performing admirably in Iraq, where he had earned a purple heart for a leg wound, Captain Williams the marine had decided to become an officer of a different kind and had entered his second academy—the one that graduated metro cops. After a rapid rise through the ranks, he was a captain again, and his knowledge of urban warfare tactics had made him a natural fit to command the Emergency Response Team.

  Trask received a pleasant nod from Williams as he entered the room with his command. “Colonel,” he said, addressing Trask by his rank in the Air Force Reserve.

  “Captain,” Trask said, smiling back at him. “Good to have a marine on board for this one.”

  I mean that, too. No outfit I’d rather be with if I had to be in a ground fight.

  Mays from DEA was the first to address the group.

  “I’m happy to contribute what I know of your targets for this evening, gentlemen. These guys are not gangbangers or street thugs. You will probably be facing a squad—exact number unknown—of paramilitary operatives who know something about combat themselves. These guys have been through a civil war in their country, have probably been trained by US military or CIA instructors, and they’ll fight hard and dirty. The plan I’ve seen gives you your best shot at forcing them to surrender, but do not assume they will. I wish you luck.”

  Sivella was next. He grinned, looking around the room at the faces of the officers. He knew many of them from their prior assignments in the department. They smiled back at him.

  Everybody loves working for Cap’n Willie, Trask noted.

  “You’ll be setting up in a vacant warehouse in the 1300 block of 5th Street, NE. It’s part of the farmers market area near the intersection of Florida and New York Avenues. I know a lady who knows a guy who knows the owner.”

  Trask smiled as the cops laughed. And everybody knows about Willie and Kathy.

  “There’s a back door, but it’s blocked,” Sivella said. “One way in for the bad guys, and—hopefully—no way out except unarmed and cuffed. They’ll have to come in the front door. They’ll be expecting a few undisciplined gang thugs. We’ve even arranged for a radio to be softly playing the greatest hits of El Salvador in a little office off to the side.”

  More snickers from the cops. Willie has ’em at ease. Trask glanced across the room at Captain Williams. He isn’t laughing. Going over the ops plan one last time before it’s his turn. He’s focused. Good.

  “There’s plenty of cover inside, and you’ll have plenty of time to set up before the subjects hit the front door. There may be a little wait involved, in fact. Don’t get too relaxed or careless. As our friend from DEA said, these are serious people and they will mean you serious harm. Let’s be safe and careful.” Sivella looked at Williams. “Your show, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Commander.” Williams swept the room with his eyes. The eyes that looked back at him were all business now. “Like the man said, our subjects may be well trained in combat tactics. If they choose not to lay down their weapons, even faced with an ambush and overwhelming force, we can expect them to charge and attack a point in our perimeter inside the warehouse. Expect automatic weapon fire. AK clones. Some of you have been in combat before. You know the sound.”

  Trask saw several heads nodding in agreement.

  “We have a couple of bright spotlights centered in the warehouse that should serve to surprise and blind them. I don’t want anybody using laser sights tonight. These guys will know to return fire at the sights. Expect them to shoot out the spotlights right off the bat if they want to fight it out, so don’t set up by the spots. Pick your targets while they’re lit up and before they realize they’ve been had. We’ll demand their surrender in both English and Spanish when the lights go on. After that it’s up to them. We don’t know if they’ll be wear
ing body armor, so expect it. If we take fire, don’t assume that one shot will knock these guys down. Everybody clear?”

  All the heads nodded again.

  “Good. We’ll roll in well after dark, give the area a chance to clear out. It’s usually pretty deserted on a Friday night after about twenty-two hundred. We’ll use the vans instead of the armored cars so we don’t get noticed. The vans’ll move out after we unload. We go in the warehouse, then everybody sits tight and quiet. I’ll have a radio link to the commander and a mobile command post, and he’ll have eyes outside. Like the commander said, safe and careful, guys.”

  They didn’t know exactly when the listening end of the bug would be manned. Trask suspected it would be twenty-four hours a day, with some poor schmuck wearing the headphones even when nobody was in the whole FBI field office building, much less Doroz’s office. Such was the nature of work in a dictatorial environment, and he strongly suspected that Moreno ran his group in such a fashion. Still, they couldn’t take any chances, so they had to bait the hook before they set it. It was 3:00 before Trask and Doroz closed the door to the office.

  “Looks like we got lucky,” Trask said. He was sitting in the chair under which the bug was planted. “The attorney for Santos called me again. He has an appointment to meet with his client late this afternoon. His guy is supposed to give him the current location where we can find Ortega. That’s the good news.”

  “That is good news,” Doroz said. “What’s the bad?”

  “That we’ll be working late again tonight. I don’t expect to hear from this guy until after he has a chance to grab some dinner. He doesn’t look like he misses any meals, if you know what I mean. I’ve got some errands to run myself, and you’ll need a couple of hours to get an arrest team together and your precious ops plan written.”

  Doroz flipped him the finger.

  “That being the case,” Trask continued, returning the gesture, “what time do you want to meet back here tonight?”

  “Why don’t we say nine or so? That will give me time to get everything lined up. Once we get an address, it will still take some time to set up the ops plan. We can probably roll on Ortega about midnight.”

  “See you at nine, then,” Trask said. He rose from the chair. “Open or shut?”

  “I’ll follow you out and get something to eat myself.”

  They shut the door after they were out of the office. Sivella was in the bullpen, grinning.

  “Oscars for my friends,” he said softly. “Jeff, you are a righteously evil guy. I knew Bear was an actor from all his undercover stints. I guess your courtroom theatrics gave you the background, too.”

  “Willie,” Trask said, “I never act in court.”

  It was Lynn’s idea. Dinner for everyone not wearing Kevlar at her favorite eatery, a giant, all-you-can-eat seafood place that had peanut shells for a floor and picnic tables and benches for furniture. Trask finished his huge plate of fried cod and waited patiently as his spouse, Sivella, Carter, Wisniewski, Doroz, and a very subdued Crawford did their collective best to rid the world of crabs. They were in a side room off the main dining floor, since Sivella “happened to know the owner.”

  “Jeff doesn’t eat seafood,” she explained.

  “Not true,” Trask said. “I eat fish, not bait. Those ugly things you are all devouring are nothing more than sea spiders. Arachnids. Eight legs, count ’em. Anyway, I’m working on the mental script for my next act in Barry’s office.”

  “What’s the plan after that, Cap?” Wisniewski asked.

  “Mr. Trask and I will be climbing up the back side of an electrical supply company at the north end of the block,” Sivella explained. “Jeff will have a view of the alley behind our target building if our target bad guys want to get fancy on us. I’ll be looking straight down 5th Street watching the front of the building. ERT will all be inside. They’re probably setting up already.” He stopped for a moment to suck the meat out of a crab leg. “We’ll have ERT helmets and radios on to stay in communication.”

  “Dix, I want you and Tim to take the surveillance van. Park it in the lot of that motel on the northwest corner of the block behind the alley. Bear, you’re welcome to ride with them. Puddin’ too, just in case we need extra eyes or guys on the street. There’ll be extra helmets and radio packs in the van, too.”

  Lynn was fidgeting in her chair. “Jeff can’t go,” she said. “He might start throwing rocks at somebody with a gun.”

  “I am going,” Trask corrected her. “I have the .45, if I need it—and I won’t—and a vest, if I need it—and I won’t. I’m staying on the roof, above the fray, just monitoring, but if any of these creeps have something to say, I’m going to make sure our evidence is properly taken and preserved. We’ve only got six hours for the interrogations after any arrests. So sayeth the Supremes in their collective wisdom. Anything longer is presumed to be a violation of the perp’s rights. I trust Williams and his guys to do everything tactically correct, but I want to make sure we have it all legally correct. We’re going to hand this over to some unknown stiff on Monday, and I don’t want him or her having to even consider not charging something or somebody because of some proof problem.”

  Trask looked at Lynn. “You on the other hand, will be remaining at the field office squad room because you are still recovering from a concussion. End of discussion.”

  “The hell I will—”

  “Supervisor’s orders, Lynn,” Doroz said, his mouth only half full of a hush puppy. “Doctor’s orders, too, if I recall correctly. I’d trust you like my best agents on the street if you were healthy and had a badge, but Jeff ’s right on this one. Besides, I need someone to man the phones in case we have to call in more cavalry.”

  “Shit,” she said. She turned to Sivella. “Willie, if my favorite prosecutor tries to get off that goddamn roof too soon, you have my permission to shoot him in the butt.”

  “I’ll be going out in front of him if we go,” Sivella said. “But if he outruns me, I could probably manage that.”

  Trask looked at his watch, then at Doroz. “Had enough sea spiders?”

  “Not really, but it’s about that time.” Doroz wiped his face with a napkin and downed what remained of a glass of iced tea. “Come on, Lynn. You’re heading back with us.”

  “I’ll get the check,” Sivella said. “Dix, you and Tim take Puddin’ and get the van. You can pick Bear and Jeff up after they play scene two, then head for the motel. Everybody gears and arms up, understood?

  “I just heard from the mouthpiece,” Trask said. “Ortega’s holed up in an empty warehouse on the west side of the 1300 block of 5th Street, NE. I brought it up on Google maps. The warehouse front has metal bars, with a door cut in ’em. Center of the block, the only front with no sign above the door. There’s a chain and a padlock on the door. Santos told his attorney that Ortega locks himself in at night to help slow down any rival gangbangers, so we’ll need some bolt cutters on the entry team. Santos said they’ve pulled a dumpster against the back door in the alley so nobody can sneak up on ’em from behind. Ortega has about three other Maras with him. I printed a photo of the warehouse front and the block. You can use these to brief your arrest team.”

  “Sounds good,” Doroz said. “They’re in the conference room. I’ll get started. We should be able to roll on this about midnight.”

  They got up and left the office. Trask made sure to give the chair a nice noisy scrape across the floor on his way out. Hope you have the goddamn headphones on yourself, Moreno.

  They took the elevator down to the waiting van.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Friday, September 15, 10:14 p.m.

  An ocarina was playing in Trask’s head. The theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. He was on a roof staring southward through the binoculars down the alley that ran between the 1300 blocks of 4th and 5th Streets, NW. I know who the ugly is. I’ll figure out the rest later. This must be the scene in the flick where the Blue and the Gray fight o
ver the river bridge. Wonder how old Hugo Montenegro came up with that ocarina idea?.

  The supply building they were on faced southward on Penn where 5th Street T’d into it. At the far end of the block to the south was Neal Place, running parallel to Penn and crossing 4th and 5th Streets. The motel was on his right, across Penn, and he could see the surveillance van in the parking lot in front of the place. Sivella was about forty feet to his left, also looking over the edge of the roof with binoculars. Trask heard him start the communications check.

  “ERT set?”

  “We’re in place, Commander.” Trask heard Williams’ voice loud and clear through his headset. Once a marine, always a marine. That sounded like he was about to brief an admiral.

  “Bear, you read us?”

  “Gotcha, Willie.”

  “Good. Dixon?”

  “Yes, sir, Cap.”

  “Good. Everybody relax. We’ll let you know when we see anything. Jeff, keep a lookout for vehicles approaching from the north and the west. I’ll watch east and south.”

  “Will do,” Trask said. Twenty-eight years in blue. I almost said, “Roger.” Some things get burned into your brain if you do them enough. He trained the binoculars southwestward down New York Avenue and rolled onto his right side to follow the route to the north. What am I looking for exactly? Anything big enough to hold an assault team. Six to ten people, probably. A large van or stretch SUV, maybe even a panel truck. If they’re coming from my side, they’ll have to come up on Florida Avenue from the south or get off New York onto 4th Street.

  Trask turned his attention back to the south and west. He saw a pair of headlights turn off New York onto Florida, heading south and east, toward where 4th and 5th crossed Florida, the larger street. The lights turned northward onto 5th Street. The vehicle was close enough now to make out: a long bed van. “Willie, I got a—”

  “I see him,” Sivella said. “Van heading north on 5th off Florida. Everyone saddle up.” Sivella watched the van as it drove straight toward him, approaching the target block. When it reached Neal Place, however, the truck turned left. “Turning your way, Jeff. Watch him.”