24 Declassified: 06 - Chaos Theory

by John Whitman

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  “You said the inmates who attacked you had the same tattoo?” Talia asked incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think Zapata is on to you? He tried to kill you in prison?”

  Jack shook his head. “Maybe, but it doesn’t make sense. If he knew something was wrong then, he never would have let Ramirez get that close to him. And I have no idea how he could have known what I was up to in the jail. If he knows that, he’s not a genius, he’s a psychic.”

  “Zapata has evaded CTU, the CIA, the FBI, the Russian GRU, the Cubans, the Israelis, everyone. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “I’ll be sure and ask him in person. Can you get me a name and address for the top of the food chain with MS–13 in Los Angeles?”

  Someone knocked on Talia’s door. She was so engrossed in her research that she simply said, “Come in.”

  Jack turned as the door opened and he found himself staring up at the big U.S. Marshal who’d arrested him earlier.

  He was fast for a big man, and smart. He didn’t go for his gun. Instead he jabbed Jack in the face with a short left, or tried to. Jack slipped inside it and threw a punch to the big man’s liver. He missed, hitting solid muscle. Pascal was big, but he wasn’t flabby. He grabbed Jack by the hair with his left and punched him in the face with a right fist the size of a soccer ball. Jack heard a ringing in his ears and knew he couldn’t take another one of those. Plus they were making a racket; he didn’t know how much noise they were making which meant they were making too much. He blocked the second punch, then slammed his own hands down on top of the hand holding his hair. Unexpectedly, he took a bow, dropping his shoulders to the ground. Pascal grunted, the leverage on his trapped wrist dropping him down to one knee. Jack kicked, connecting to the Marshal’s groin. Then he kicked him in the face, and Pascal went limp and quiet.

  Jack closed the door and listened. No noise, no movement. Maybe no one had noticed.

  He turned to check on Talia. Her face was white and her eyes were wide, watching Jack as though he were a wild animal that had stalked into her office.

  “I could use that address as soon as possible,” he said.

  9:41 A.M. PST Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu

  The Reel Inn was one of those beach dives that looked terrible, smelled terrible, and served great food. It consisted of a weather-stained wooden shack—once painted blue but now faded to a stormy gray—and a neon sign that worked at least half the time.

  This early on a Saturday morning it was deserted, except for three men who sat on one of the outdoor benches staring across Pacific Coast Highway toward

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  one hundred yards of sandy beach and then nothing but ocean.

  Kyle Risdow, the blond man who had picked up Zapata earlier, lay flat on his back on one of the benches, yawning. This meeting had little to do with him directly, so he spent the time dozing and trying to think of unique concepts for online porn websites.

  Next to him, Zapata sat upright, but he was otherwise equally relaxed. He had a new identity now, thanks to the third member of their little group. If anyone asked, he was now Bernard de la Plaz.

  The third member of their group was a Ukrainian named Franko. Although it was Saturday morning on the beach, he still wore dark jeans and a black leather jacket. He was fingering a piece of paper with an address.

  “I only have one question,” Franko said in precise but heavily accented English.

  “A man without a question is a man without a brain,” Zapata said.

  Franko held up the piece of paper. “You want to get rid of this person because they worked for you. But now I work for you. Will you want to get rid of me, too?”

  Zapata smiled. The sun was growing stronger. It felt good on his bald head. “Lots of people who’ve worked for me are still alive.”

  “Hmm,” the Ukrainian pondered. “That is no answer.”

  “I like this man, Kyle!” Zapata said. “You’re sharp, sir. But don’t worry, I have no intention of killing ev

  eryone. Just do this job, get paid, and have a good life.” Franko nodded, picked up a brown paper bag full of cash, and walked away.

  “He’ll do it, right?” Kyle said.

  “You’re not seriously asking.”

  Kyle laughed, amused and, more likely, impressed by Zapata’s confidence. “Have you ever been wrong?”

  Zapata stared out across the beach. It was a fair question, an important question that merited a thoughtful answer. He considered his major decisions since the day he’d walked up into the hills and away from his identity. The tasks he had set for himself in the last few years, from Venezuela to Eastern Europe and the Middle East, appeared in his memory like so many bits of a Rubik’s Cube. One by one they had spun into place and yes, now and then he had encountered some difficulty—the Mossad agents who’d sniffed around his activities in Jordan, the national policeman who’d caught on to his alias in Buenos Aires—but always he’d foreseen it several moves ahead and simply shifted the puzzle in a new direction.

  At last he said, “No.”

  Such a significant statement to be summed up in one small word, Zapata thought without ego—and that was part of his genius, part of his success—that he had no ego. He had never been the victim of any government investigation in part because he’d never been the victim of his own pride. A good plan was a reflection of the realities on the ground, not a reflec

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  tion of the planner’s genius. Zapata had always succeeded because he was brilliant, but also because he was clear-sighted.

  All of this was lost on Kyle. Kyle Risdow was not a terrorist, nor was he an anarchist, and he lacked utterly the perspective and intelligence to appreciate Zapata’s genius. He was a much more common type of villain: a profiteer and opportunist. He had been making money from instability since Hurricane Andrew in Florida back in 1992, when his little grocery store had miraculously survived and he’d jacked his prices up one hundred percent.

  “Good,” Risdow said smugly. “Then after today I should be even richer.”

  9:51 A.M. PST Staples Center

  Mark Kendall jogged around the Staples Center. The huge digital display on the side of the complex read “Professional Reality Fighting Championships Tonight!”

  He had hours still before his real warmup began, but he was full of nervous energy. He felt more like a kid in his first fight than a veteran in what the odds said was his last. He wasn’t afraid of his opponent, but he was afraid of failure. He was afraid to hear his baby girl crying in the background on the next telephone call. He was afraid to hear the sadness in his wife’s voice, the pure, undiluted sorrow of a mother who cannot help her child. He couldn’t bear that. He didn’t care about the fight, but he couldn’t bear to let his family down.

  And what if he did? What if he failed them? Kendall put a big hand on the pocket of his track suit. The envelope was in there. Was the little man serious? And could he kill someone?

  The answer to the second question came easily. Yes, he could. For his daughter he could do anything. And he would do it if he had to, for his baby. He’d known that the minute she was born, when he held that tiny creature that had come through him and out of his wife’s body, and finally understood what all his size and strength were built for. They were built to protect that baby. And that’s what he would do now, no matter what the cost.

  Slowly Kendall removed the envelope. He opened it. The writing inside was very direct, the same way the bald man had spoken. It told him about the bank account that would be activated in his wife’s name the same day he completed his task. It told him that the account would be closed if the authorities ever found out. And it told him who to kill.

  Kendall read the name. He hadn’t heard it before, or at least he didn’t remember it. But it sounded important.

  He felt fear—more fear than a man his size ought to feel. But then he thought of his baby girl, and he steeled himself to act.

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  9:58 A.M. PST Boyle Heights

  Jack parked Talia Gerwehr’s car on Seventeenth Street, looking for the address Talia had plucked from her computer. The houses here were large, but run-down. This was a de-gentrified neighborhood that forty years ago had been an upper-class enclave overlooking downtown. But three generations of gang warfare had made the houses forget their past. They were old, sagging hulks now, occupied by a mixture of hardworking families who kept to themselves and gang members with too much time on their hands.

  Jack found the house. According to the Federal anti-gang task force, it was the home of Ruben “Smiley” Lopez, suspected leader of the main L.A. branch of MS–13. It was a large, two-story Colonial-style house perched at the top of a long red brick staircase. The tumbled slope below the porch had once been landscaped, but now was nothing more than dirt and weeds. The house itself was dirty white, with several windows covered over in cardboard and tape.

  Jack climbed the stairs, not sure how to approach, when he heard a scream and a soft puff—the sound of bullets being fired through a silencer.

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

  THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 10 A.M. AND 11 A.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME

  10:00 A.M. PST Boyle Heights

  Jack pulled his weapon—the Para Ordinance .45 he’d taken from Peter Jiminez—out of his waistband and sprinted up the last few steps. He kicked the door hard, but the door held and electric shocks forked up his leg. As run-down as the house looked, the door was reinforced. Jack kicked again, hard, and this time the frame surrendered and the door swung inward.

  Jack bobbed his head inside and then out again just as he heard the soft pfft! pfft! again and two bullets thudded against the door where his head had been. He knew his kicks had alerted the gunman, whoever he was. In a different situation, Jack would have

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  stuck his weapon around the corner and emptied a magazine into the room, but he had no idea who was there, or if Lopez was the gunman or the victim, and he needed Lopez alive. Through the open door he saw a couch in the middle of the room. He dropped low and dived forward, rolling as he hit the floor and finding cover. He felt something tug his pants leg as he rolled, but he didn’t think he’d been hit.

  The living room was big and opened up to the right of the front door, so most of its space was now behind him. To the left of the front door, now in front of him, the house opened onto what looked like a dining room. In between, and set farther into the house, was a staircase that climbed to the second floor. A hallway led to the back of the house and probably the kitchen. Jack glanced behind him to make sure his back was secure—there was nothing but another couch, a few chairs, and a fireplace. There were empty beer cans scattered on the furniture and floor, and the distinct smell of cannabis.

  He stayed low, peeking around the side of the couch, across the parlor, and into the dining room. He saw nothing, but he heard a girl’s sob. Then the girl squealed, and two people appeared in the doorway. In front was a frightened Latina wearing a short cotton nightgown, sobbing and staring at Jack in terror. Behind her, using her as a shield, was a hard-looking man in a black leather jacket, most of his white face hidden by the girl’s shoulder. He had his left hand in her hair and his right hand on a mean-looking Smith & Wesson.

  “Back off!” the man ordered in a thick Slavic accent. He moved himself and the girl toward Jack and the door.

  Jack had no idea who he was, but the man clearly mistook Jack for someone who would hesitate in that situation. Jack raised up to one knee, steadied his weapon, and fired a hair’s breadth above the girl’s shoulder. The round was meant to go right between the taker’s eyes, but it had been a long night for Jack. The bullet grazed the man’s temple, drawing an angry red line from the corner of his eye to the back of his ear.

  He was tough, whoever he was. He flinched at the bullet, then immediately shoved the girl toward Jack. Even if Jack had shot her, her momentum would have carried her into him. Jack leaned out of the way, trying to fire, but a red-hot bullet bit him on the right shoulder and he felt his gun arm go numb. His right arm again! He stumbled to the floor and lost his weapon. He saw the black-jacketed man slow and steady himself for a finishing shot.

  At that moment someone else roared and surged out of the dining room, slamming into the assassin from behind. The newcomer was a big Latino man wearing a wife-beater. But his hands were tied behind his back. He used his shoulder and momentum to ram the Slavic gunman, who stumbled forward into the couch. He spun with an elbow, catching the bound man in the temple.

  Endorphins masked the pain in Jack’s right arm, but he couldn’t move it, so he jumped up onto the

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  couch and landed heavily on the gunman’s shoulders. He wrapped his left arm around the Slavic man’s neck and grabbed the barrel of his gun. Jack couldn’t seal a proper choke this way, but then the gunman couldn’t reverse his weapon and shoot Jack, either. At the same moment, the Latino man rose unsteadily to his feet. He kicked the man once in the stomach.

  The Slavic man clearly had had enough. He let go of his weapon, leaving it in Jack’s hand, elbowed Jack in the stomach, and dropped out of his hold. He bulled past the Latino and sprinted out the door.

  Jack paused a moment, gasping for breath. His right arm hung heavily at his side. The bullet seemed to have plowed a furrow along the width of his forearm, glancing off the bone. He forced himself to flex his fingers. He could move them, but it was going to hurt like hell in a minute. He looked up at the other man. The Latino was in his mid-twenties, red-faced and angry, still staring out the front door as if he wanted to chase down the other man.

  “Smiley Lopez?” Jack said.

  “Yeah,” the other man said. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I think I’m the guy who just saved your ass.” Jack dropped the gun he still held, stepped off the couch and behind Lopez. His hands were tied together with flexcuffs. “You have any wire cutters?”

  Lopez said something to the girl in Spanish, and she replied. “The kitchen,” Lopez said. “The drawer by the back door.”

  Jack went into the kitchen, found the right drawer, and came back with a pair of red-handled cutters. He snipped the plastic cuffs off and gave them to Lopez, who freed his girlfriend.

  “Who was that?” Jack asked.

  “Don’t know,” Lopez said, “but when I find out, I’m gonna pay some people a visit.” Lopez casually picked up the weapon Jack had dropped and pointed it at him. “So who the fuck are you?”

  Jack ignored the threat of the weapon. His right arm was more mobile now, but it was also on fire. “I came here for information. There’s a guy I’m after, and I think you know how I can find him.”

  Lopez gave the girl an order and she scurried off to the kitchen while Lopez sat down in a chair. “Fuckin’ cop. I’m not giving you shit.”

  Jack sat down, too. “He’s not one of yours. In fact, he’s a guy who left MS–13.”

  “Nobody leaves.”

  “He did. Tell me where to find him, and I’ll make sure your guys at the Federal Holding Facility get out.”

  Jack wasn’t prepared for the effect this had on Lopez. The gang leader laughed, showing big white teeth and huge dimples. When he smiled, his face changed from a sneer into something oddly jolly. “You guys must be desperate. You’re the second cabron in two days to offer me a deal. What the fuck, my homies in the jail giving you too much trouble? You want to get rid of them?”

  “I want Zapata.”

  This statement had a totally different effect on Lo

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  pez. He went suddenly cold and serious. “You aren’t a cop. Not a regular cop.”

  “You’re right. But I do want Zapata. So give him up, and your boys go free.”

  Smiley Lopez studied this stranger. If he’d been raised in a different neighborhood, he might have grown up to be a lawyer or a businessman. As it was, he was a shrewd entreprene
ur, but he dealt in drugs and muscle. This blond man struck him as someone to bargain with. “Maybe I could do it,” he said at last. “But not just for my homeboys. I want to get back at those pendejos.”

  “This guy who tried to kill you.”

  “Fucking Russians or Ukrainians or whatever. We’re in a war with them.”

  “You want me to go after him?”

  But this still wasn’t enough for Lopez. “More than that, ese. I know these pieces of shit are moving a whole lot of crystal meth. How about you go take it from them and bring it to me.”

  “I don’t have the time to find them—”

  “Make the time, ese. That’s the deal.”

  “I take down these Russians and bring you the crystal meth, and you’ll tell me where to find Zapata?”

  “You got it.”

  “Why should you trust me?”

  Lopez grinned. “What trust? I get the tina or I don’t. You come back, we’ll talk about Zapata.”

  Jack considered, but he had little time and less of a choice. “Deal.”

  10:39 A.M. PST Biltmore Hotel

  The Biltmore Hotel was unusual because the front of the hotel had become the back. Modern traffic needs had forced the owners to create a modern entrance in what had been the rear of the hotel. The tragedy was that the original front doors had opened onto a grand lobby with a beautiful double marble staircase leading up to a mezzanine. So that this glamorous room would not go to waste, the management had turned it into an opulent dining room.

  Martin Webb was having breakfast in that dining room with his grandson. Jake was a bigger, stronger version of Martin as a young man. In his early twenties, Jake was over six feet and solid, but not so muscular that it slowed him down. He was a good-looking kid, too, and he turned lots of heads as they walked through the lobby to the restaurant. There was a minor scuffle among the waitresses arguing over who would serve his table. Jake took it all in stride.

  Martin ordered eggs and pancakes—even in his seventies, he had a healthy appetite—while Jake ordered egg whites and fruit.