by Ryan Schow
“This is it?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
The Chicago Division of the DEA employed over seven hundred agents, overseen by Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Ryan Wright, a literal juggernaut who specialized in transnational criminal organizations. SAC Wright has always had a hard-on for violent gangs as they related to not just drugs but human trafficking. Chicago serves as a major crime hub, feeding other communities here in Illinois and in neighboring states. SAC Wright was reportedly the perfect man to head the Chicago Division, but I’ve never cared much for politics and I’ve never met the man personally. But I will say this, I’m damn glad to see him at the head of the room.
Xavier walks me right to him. He says the man’s “an agent’s agent,” which is to say he preaches protocol religiously, but he’s all about results.
That’s always been the word from the top down.
“Ryan, this is Fiyero Dimas,” Xavier says introducing me to SAC Wright. “Fire, this is SAC Ryan Wright.”
Ryan takes my hand in a solid grip, gives me the nod of a head. “Glad you made it, Agent Dimas,” he says. “Although it looks like you’ve got one hell of a story to go with all that blood.”
“Yes, sir.”
I’m looking at this six foot man who feels ten feet tall to me based on his reputation alone, and now my conscience is bugging the hell out of me.
“He’s deep inside the Sinaloa cartel,” Xavier says.
SAC Wright perks up.
“Really?” he says.
“Yeah.”
“You’re still inside, after all this?”
“My phone’s been blowing up all morning,” I admit.
“How deep are you?”
“Balls deep, sir. Eight months. Low level Sinaloa’s are planning on waging war on Guerreros Unidos and Los Rojos, by the sounds of it. A quick and dirty assault. Looks like See-Jing (CNJG) is using this crisis to gain a foothold over their rivals, but factions of the Sinaloa are trying to move in first.”
“So what are you doing here?” he asks.
“Multi-tasking.”
“What were you wanting to do?” he now asks.
I don’t want to answer this question, because it means I’ll have to answer a few more. But perhaps, in light of today’s events, SAC Wright won’t react the way he’d react if everything was Kosher.
“Why are you hesitating, Agent Dimas?” he asks.
“He had some issues last night and this morning,” Xavier offers up. I fire him hard eyes, but then he says, “We’re in it now, Fire. And we’re all on the same side.”
People were in close enough proximity that I honestly didn’t feel like airing my dirty laundry with an audience. You never knew who felt how about what and, even in this situation, I’m still apprehensive.
“I need to smoke,” Ryan says, reading the signals. Turning around, SAC Wright announces, “Take fifteen, then let’s meet back here and wargame.”
Everyone is about to go their separate ways when Ryan turns to me and says, “Follow me, Agent Dimas.”
Outside, he says, “My office is gone, the DHS is in the dark, and agencies are pulling together as best as they can, but we’re screwed on a level I never thought possible. I still can’t believe all this is happening, or that most of our staff is dead, but it is what it is and we’re dealing with it. So whatever it is you need off your chest, son, or whatever ideas you think you have, get your foot off the brakes and just spit it out.”
Nodding my head, telling myself I planned on a life sentence anyway, I take a deep breath and confess.
“Not everything I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours has been exactly legal and I have to admit, my state of mind is not…what it usually is.”
“Really?” he asks, waving around the city with his free hand. “You’re worried I won’t think your mind is right?”
Shaking my head, I can’t believe I’m about to say this…
“Just spit it out, Fire,” Xavier says. “He’s one of us. An agent’s agent.”
“Three boys violated my seventeen year old daughter yesterday and they filmed it. She called my emergency line on the tail end of a big buy. I thought I had my DC line on me, but it turns out I was carrying my emergency line and these guys are paranoid. Push came to shove, I didn’t handle it right and my cover was blown, so I killed them. It was self-defense, but admittedly I went too far. I could have brought them in, kept my cover intact, but I let my emotions get the best of me.”
The SAC’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t stop me. Even Xavier gets a little flush in the cheeks as he’s hearing this for the first time.
“I stuffed them in the trunk of my car and was going to contact Xavier, but I lost my marbles and went home only to find out my wife is having an affair with Caelin Boyle.”
“That scumbag?” Xavier asks, finally realizing what I was up against. “Jesus, Fire, I didn’t know.”
“It gets worse,” I say, holding the SAC’s eye. He motions for me to continue, the look on his face letting me know his constitution is strong, even under news this dire. “Are you sure you want me to keep going?”
Taking a long drag of his cigarette, he nods his head.
“I went to my daughter’s school, forcibly took the three boys who did this to my daughter at gunpoint.”
“Jesus Christ,” Xavier hisses, now pacing in a tight, agitated circle.
“Let him finish,” Ryan says, blowing out a stream of smoke.
“I took them out to Garfield Park to kill them, but before I could a drone strike turned two of them into meat sauce. The other kid got away. He was already in bad shape, and I’m pretty sure he’s not a threat. Who is a threat, however, is this freaking squid named Paco Loco. I answer to him and he wants me to get back there with his drugs so I can go in with the crew and run an assassination squad on our closest rivals.”
SAC Wright takes one last draw of the smoke, drops the butt and squashes it underfoot.
“So you killed three Sinaloa in a drug buy, then kidnapped three kids—two of whom were killed in your charge, and one who is now missing—and your “boss” is calling wanting his drugs and wanting you to be part of a massive cartel hit they think will be the mother of all power grabs. Is that about right?”
“More or less.”
“Where are the drugs?”
“I’ve got them stashed at the house, sir.”
He gives a contemplative nod, like he’s giving all this a lot of thought. I don’t know Ryan Wright well enough to presume anything, let alone his personal assessment of my behavior, but at least I can’t read him at all.
“Let’s see if we can rephrase this to ease your mind, Agent Dimas. You defended yourself against three drug dealers at a drug bust that went sideways for reasons outside of your control. You unwittingly facilitated the deaths of two would-be rapists while opening up an unsanctioned investigation every single one of us would have opened. And you have a wife at home who just admitted to be cheating on you because of your loyalty and dedication to the DEA. Does that sound right to you, Agent?”
“When you put it like that, then yes, sir. It sounds right.”
“I find myself in an unusual predicament, Agent Dimas,” he says. “On one hand, this city is better off because of what you did today. But we uphold the law, we don’t break it.”
“I understand, sir,” I say, my stomach in my throat.
“I thought I understood, too. But today changes everything. These attacks on the city, they aren’t random, and this isn’t an isolated incident. Big cities all over the nation are under assault and we’ve literally got no response from either the White House, DHS, or the military proper. What that tells me is that we’re in a war the likes of which we have yet to comprehend.”
“It feels like that, sir.”
“So now you,” he says, turning his eyes on me.
“Yes, sir.”
“Stop calling me sir, Agent Dimas. The DEA here is done. We are in a state of war and there are two t
hings we can do.”
Xavier and I are paying close attention to the SAC.
“We can cower in this building and wait for some sort of official communication while the city burns, or we can be real with ourselves.”
“What do you mean?” Xavier says.
“I mean this city is done. It’s toast. Just look around. Drones are hitting everything with no military response. They’re laying waste to the civilians, stepping on everything that moves like they’re a giant foot and we’re the ants heading for our anthill. It’s like this in New York, D.C, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Houston, San Diego, San Francisco. America is seeing its darkest day.”
“So what is your other suggestion?” I ask.
“If this continues much longer, we’re going to be without power, communications or any kind of organized response. At that point, the only logical conclusion for the President, if he’s even still alive, will be an EMP strike.”
“That’s a death sentence for America,” I say.
“Yes, but it’s slower than this,” Wright says. “It at least gives us a fighting chance.”
“You think he’ll really do that?”
“If he doesn’t have to, no, but the next few days will tell us a lot about the future of this city, and about this country.”
“We’re resilient,” I say. “This won’t be the first time Chicago has had its butt kicked and came out breathing.”
“Before this,” Ryan says, “the city was getting its butt kicked. Not by fire like in 1871, but by gangs, DTO’s, human sex trafficking and political corruption. Which brings me to my next point: option two.”
“Yeah?” I say. Xavier and I, we’re all ears.
“January was hell. We haven’t seen a cold snap like that in forever. No matter what happens in the next few weeks, if this persists, Chicago will not survive this well. If these drones take down the grid, you’re talking a million, a million and a half dead. Maybe two. No one will care about their jobs anymore. It will be about survival. And in this struggle to survive, the most organized groups will fill the power vacuum. We’re talking the mob, the worst DTO’s—groups like the Sinaloa and the MS-13. This city will be a nightmare of unfathomable proportions.”
I know exactly where he’s going.
“The Dinosaurs went extinct, but the cockroaches lived,” I say. He’s nodding his head, impressed that I’m seeing this. “We need to stamp out the cockroaches while we can.”
“Exactly,” he says with an awkward smile.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Xavier asks.
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste,” he says, echoing Rahm Emanuel’s famous statement. “It’s time to put down the badge and really protect this city.”
“So you want to kill as many of these guys as we can?” Xavier asks. “Just go on a killing spree?”
The SAC nods his head.
“I have a new wife,” Xavier says, astonished. “Fire still has his family.”
“If we are just men, then it is our duty to survive, to protect our family, to get out of Chicago proper until the smoke clears,” Wright says, warming me and Xavier up. “But right now we have the element of surprise on our side. At least, you do, Fiyero.”
“So I hand you my badge, go on this assault, take out the rival gangs, then turn on my own DTO?” I ask. “Is that it? That’s your big plan?”
“It’s a start,” Ryan says.
Thinking of these idiots I’ve been deep cover with for the last eight months, considering the damage my DTO has done to this city—let alone the mob, all the other DTOs and the gangs—I feel like all this restlessness needs a place to go. An outlet. This just might be a way for me to finally cut free of it.
“I can do that,” I say, “but now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure I’ll be able to live with what I do.”
“That’s why it has to be your choice,” SAC Wright says.
“Well I’m out,” Xavier replies. “I need to check on Giselle. She’s not answering the phone. And if your grand plan is to go on a massive killing spree, that’s not something I can get behind.”
“You know in the movies, where the good and moral hero always lets the bad guy live one last time to see if he’s really the scumbag the movie audience knows he is?”
“Yeah,” Xavier says, hesitant.
“And you know how they always come back and prove what menaces they are and the hero has to put them down anyway?”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, we don’t wait for them to show us who they are. We already know who they are. That’s why we need to take advantage of this situation now, and get ahead of the curve. Because if you think for one minute this city is coming back from this, you’re an absolute fool.”
“I love my wife,” he says.
“We all do.”
“Then you should go home to yours,” Xavier says.
“My wife is dead. She was in our building when it went down.”
Now we’re both still. I can’t stop thinking of Adeline’s betrayal, or how those boys did what they did to Brooklyn. It’s got my mind pumped so full of mindless rage I need this outlet. Looks like Ryan needs it, too. I’m going to have to show up and face Paco Loco anyway, so I might as well do what I’ve been wanting to do to these turds since the first day I met them.
“I’m in,” I say.
“Good,” Ryan says.
Just then a pair of Predator drones come roaring up W. Madison toward the OEM building, but it’s already too late. Two sets of missiles drop from their wings, heading right for us.
“Run!” I scream.
Chapter Fourteen
When his shift ends and the night security takes over, Carver says good-night to the guys and heads home, stopping first for takeout. Twice he gets a nose bleed; once leaving campus and second in the burger joint.
He’s starting to worry that something’s wrong with him.
By the time he gets home and puts some food in his body, he’s feeling better. Right around eleven he feels his eyes get heavy; ten minutes later he’s on the couch snoozing, the TV on but the sound turned off.
Somewhere around midnight, his home phone rings.
Roused and irritated, sure it’s a wrong number, he stumbled off the couch, bumped his shin against the coffee table toppling an empty water glass, then grabbed the phone and said, “It’s late.”
“Outside,” the woman said.
Federica Abruzzo had a very distinct voice. He noticed that about her when she hired him, when she took him through orientation and when she told him earlier that day they weren’t paying him to browse the internet.
“Miss Abruzzo?” he asked.
“Leave your phone inside, put on something warm. Scarf and mittens, jacket, warm socks. And don’t be a girl.”
Meaning hurry up.
The line went dead. He looked at the cordless, then hung up. Within five minutes he walked outside, saw her standing there dressed the same and said, “What’s this about?”
“Did you leave your phone inside?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have anything else electronic on you?”
“No. Miss Abruzzo, you’re kind of freaking me out a bit,” he said. “You do realize the time, yes?”
“I’m not unaware of it,” she replied. “Don’t you have a twenty-four hour coffee joint around here somewhere?”
“Yeah, a couple of blocks up,” he said.
“Let’s walk.”
They walked the first block in silence, but then he finally said, “Normally, when a woman shows up at my house at midnight making unusual demands, I’m thinking she wants something of a more licentious nature.”
“I can assure you—”
“I know, I know,” he said, putting up his hands, “that’s not what I mean. Besides, I’m too young for you.”
“No you’re not, but that’s not the point.”
“Perhaps you could enlighten me.”
“There are some things going on at the university that are deeply concerning,” she said.
“No kidding.”
She turned and looked at him, and the normally stoic Italian woman who carried herself like she never had an emotion to spare, now had eyes rocked with fear.
“Do you consider yourself an intelligent man, Carver?”
“You hired me, what do you think?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I thought you were witless,” she said.
“I appreciate that,” he said with a fair amount of sarcasm.
They got to the coffee shop a few minutes later, went inside, ordered hot coffee to go, then stepped back out into the cold.
“We’re now two and a half blocks and two hot coffees into a night you interrupted after a day you didn’t make easy. You want to tell me why I’m out here listening to my teeth chatter?”
“Are you sure you have no electronics on you? Nothing?”
“Are you really this paranoid?” he asked.
“If you knew what I know, you would be long past paranoid.”
“Is that why you shut me down earlier today?”
“That wasn’t me.”
“Who was it then? Because I was looking up the company. Trying to figure out why an android would be hauling dead bodies out of a server room in the middle of the day.”
“You are a smart kid,” she said. “That’s why you can’t look into this stuff. It’s also why you need to know that when I hired you for security, I hired you only for security.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning there’s some weird things going on in that server room. Temperature spikes and androids and dead bodies are the least of it.”
“What kind of weird things? Because all that is enough to qualify as beyond weird.”
“Everything I’m going to say to you sounds like conspiracy, but if you know what I’m up against, what you’re up against, you will realize that looking at these things at home, or even on your cell phone, is the same as looking at them right under our nose.”
He felt himself bristle.
“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t look at online.”
