Operation: Midnight Rendezvous

by Linda Castillo

  It was good as far as stories went. A situation the police would surely need to investigate. But there were so many things that could go wrong.

  She realized then he hadn’t included her in the story. One look at his face and she knew why. He was concerned for her safety. She knew it was silly, but his concern warmed her in a place that hadn’t been warmed for a very long time.

  “Madrid, you can’t do this alone.”

  “I don’t think you’re in any shape to—”

  “I can do it,” she cut in.

  “Jess…” He scraped a hand over his face. “You can’t. They’ll recognize you—they’re looking for you.”

  She shook her head. “They’re looking for a woman with a little boy. I have to take the chance, Madrid. For Angela and Nicolas. For me.”

  He stared at her with such intensity that it was difficult to hold his gaze. Then he nodded and his eyes went back to the police station. “Okay. Same story. You’re my wife. All you have to do is help me in. I was driving when some unknown gunman took a potshot at us. Okay?”

  There was nothing okay about any of this, but Jess nodded. She wondered if he could see the fear that was surely written all over her face.

  When Madrid got out of the car, Jess followed, hating that her legs were weak and shaking. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him smear more of the fake blood on his shirt. She crossed around the front of the car and jolted when he reached for her and applied some of the blood to her hands.

  “You sure you can handle this?” he asked.

  His hands were warm and strong and incredibly reassuring as they covered hers. “I’m sure.”

  “Let’s go.” He looked both ways, then put his arm around her shoulder. “Put your arm around me,” he said. “As if you’re helping me.”

  She did. He was large and warm beside her. When he leaned on her she thought she detected a quiver, but he didn’t give her time to ponder. “We move fast from here,” he said.

  They crossed the street at a jog with Madrid leaning heavily against her. Her legs trembled as they ascended the concrete steps that would take them inside. Through double glass doors she saw what was probably the desk sergeant’s desk. Beyond, a narrow hall led to several offices. Their doors were open, though only one of the lights was on.

  She shoved open one of the double doors and they walked inside, Madrid groaning loudly in a believable performance. She realized he was a much better actor than she was.

  “Call for help,” he whispered.

  Jess closed her eyes, prayed for strength. “Help us!” she called out. “Please, there’s been a shooting.”

  A young cop who didn’t look old enough to shave emerged from the lit office. His eyes widened at the sight of him. “What happened?” he asked, rushing toward them.

  “Someone shot at us,” Jess said in a strangled voice.

  Madrid groaned again.

  “My h-husband is hurt. We need an ambulance.”

  The young cop went for his radio. “Where?”

  “On the h-highway.”

  A middle-aged cop wearing an ill-fitting uniform emerged from another office. His mouth opened when he saw them. “What’s going on here?”

  “Shot out on the highway.” The young cop motioned toward a wood bench against the wall. “I’ll call an ambulance. Sit him down there. We’ll get someone on the scene.”

  The second cop turned and shouted. “Dispatch! Get on the horn! Shots fired on the coast high—”

  Jess didn’t even see Madrid go for the tiny plastic pistol he’d tucked into his waistband. But in the next instant it was in his hand.

  “What the—”

  The young cop didn’t have time to finish the sentence. The gun let out a whispered poink. The young cop grabbed his throat, staggered to the left. Jess gasped when she saw the dart protruding from his neck. He raised the radio, but Madrid kicked it from the man’s hand.

  “Hey! You can’t—”

  Madrid spun, brought up the dart gun. Poink! The middle-aged cop jolted when a dart slammed into his shoulder. A curse slid from his mouth as he fumbled for his radio. Madrid fired again, this time striking him in the gut. The cop stumbled, dropped his radio. Madrid moved with the speed and grace of a big cat and kicked the radio away, out of reach.

  Jess thought her heart was going to explode. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the young cop fall to his knees, clutching his throat. He made a strangled sound and collapsed. The older cop was already on the ground, inching like a big worm toward the fallen radio. But Madrid was faster and crushed it beneath his boot.

  He swung his gaze toward Jess. “We need to clear the rest of the building.”

  Jess glanced down the hall, but no one had emerged. She looked back to the two men who lay motionless on the floor now.

  Madrid sprinted down the hall. When he’d cleared the first two offices, a third young cop darted from a room farther down the hall.

  “What the hell—”

  Madrid fired twice in quick succession. The cop did an awkward dance as two darts hit home, one in the throat, the other in his stomach. His hands fluttered over the weapon strapped to his side, but before he could reach it his eyes rolled back. His knees buckled. His body hit the floor like a sack of flour.

  Three cops down in less than two minutes. Jess couldn’t believe they’d gotten this far.

  “Find Mummert’s office,” Madrid said as he dragged the first man into a darkened office, out of sight from the lobby and street.

  For an instant Jess was so scared she couldn’t move. Then, numbly, she started down the hall. The first office she passed was Dispatch. Inside, she could see a computer monitor and a switchboard-like system. The next office was labeled Norm Mummert, Chief Of Police. “Here,” she heard herself say.

  With the three unconscious men stowed out of sight, Madrid strode past her into the office and went directly to the desk. “Check the file cabinet.”

  Jess’s entire body shook as she darted to the cabinet. She couldn’t stop thinking about the three cops lying unconscious on the floor or the very real possibility that another one would walk through the door and catch them red-handed.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked.

  “Same kind of thing we were looking for back at Angela’s. Anything unusual or suspicious. Photos. Documents. I don’t know.”

  She tugged at a cabinet drawer, only to discover it was locked. “Damn.”

  Madrid already had the top drawer of the desk open. He stopped what he was doing and reached the file cabinet in two strides. “We don’t have time to finesse this.”

  Jess shouldn’t have been surprised when he slid a big black pistol from his waistband. “How many guns are you carrying, anyway?” she muttered.

  “Enough to get the job done.” He fired a shot directly into the lock. Even though the gun was equipped with a silencer, the single shot seemed thunderous.

  The drawer rolled open, its mangled lock smoking like a spent match.

  “Go,” Madrid said. “We’ve only got a few minutes.”

  Jess didn’t have to be told twice. As methodically as she could manage, she went through each file, but found nothing even remotely suspicious. The second drawer proved just as useless. By the time she finished with the cabinet, frustration and the ever-present fear of discovery were quickly transforming into panic.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Madrid finished with the desk. “Maybe there’s a file or storage room.”

  “How long will that tranquilizer last?” she asked.

  “Half an hour tops.” His gaze met hers. “You doing okay?”

  She gave him a smile, but it felt shaky on her face. “I don’t know how criminals do this stuff. It’s nerve-racking.”

  “Different wiring.” He reached out, touched her shoulder gently. “Let’s look for the file room.”

  His touch reassured her the way nothing else could have at that moment. Then he was moving past her and into the ha
ll. She followed closely behind him. Looking ahead, she saw a room labeled Records. “There,” she said.

  “Bingo.”

  His hand was resting on the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans as he entered the room and flipped on the light. It was the size of a walk-in closet, but from floor to ceiling the room was filled with some type of paper storage system, from file cabinets to cardboard record storage boxes to steel shelving units.

  “I don’t think we can get through all this in five minutes,” she said.

  “We’ll go through what we can. Leave the rest.” He looked around. “I’ll take the file cabinet.” He tugged at the first drawer. When it didn’t open, he pulled the gun and shot the lock. The drawer rolled open. Madrid pulled out the first file and began to page through it at the pace of a speed-reader.

  Jess turned and, uncertain where to start, crossed to the nearest shelf and pulled down a box. The box itself was marked Parking Tickets. She figured if someone was trying to hide something, he’d label the goods with an innocent, ordinary title. Quickly she paged through each folder, finding nothing.

  Urgency hammered at her as she went to the next box. Seconds ticked into minutes as they worked. Midway through the box, she glanced at her watch and was alarmed to realize they’d been inside for fifteen minutes.

  Hurry.

  Closing her eyes against a rise of panic, she slid the box onto the shelf and went to the next. This one was labeled Arrest Reports from several years earlier. Someone was behind on their filing. Discouraged and scared, certain she wasn’t going to find anything, Jess began paging through the files.

  She was no cop, but she realized almost immediately these were not arrest reports. They looked like some type of profile. Psychological. Physical. A dossier of sorts on young, foreign-born women complete with photographs, background information and health reports.

  “I think I found something,” she said.

  Madrid left the file he was frantically digging through and crossed to her. He looked down at the dossier in her hand. “I’ll be damned.” He went to the next document.

  “What is it?”

  Madrid made a sound low in his throat. “Looks like some sort of blueprint.”

  “Blueprint of what?”

  “Hard to tell from this.” He went to the next page. “Looks like a container. Like some sort of ship modification.”

  “A container ship?”

  He set his finger against the drawing. “There’s been a compartment built into the aft side. Looks like some sort of crude living quarters.”

  Jess stared at the architectural drawing, her heart pounding. The tiny type illustrated a small bunk area, a sink and toilet facility.

  “My God,” she murmured. “A floating prison.”

  His eyes were dark with knowledge when they met hers. “I think we just hit pay dirt.”

  “Let’s hope we fare better than these passengers.”

  Her words were punctuated by the sound of the outer door opening.

  Chapter Eight

  Madrid heard the door close as if it were a gunshot. Adrenaline stung his gut. Automatically his hand went to the dart gun. Only, he didn’t have any more darts. The last thing he wanted to do was shoot a cop—even if there was a good possibility said cop was corrupt. But he pulled the revolver from his waistband anyway.

  Human smuggling was a lucrative trade. But it was also a violent, immoral one. He knew whoever was responsible wouldn’t leave any witnesses. Not alive, anyway.

  In a fraction of a second his mind ran through a dozen scenarios, none of them good. The best he could hope for was to get out alive.

  “Go out the window.” He strode briskly to the window above a lateral file cabinet, realizing immediately there was no way he could fit through it. But Jess could.

  Twisting the lock, he flung it open as wide as it would go. “Run to the car.”

  “I’m not leaving without you.”

  He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “If I’m not there in three minutes, I want you to drive like a bat out of hell to the coast highway. Don’t stop until you’re out of the state.”

  “Madrid—”

  “If you get caught, tell them I took you hostage. That I was going to kill you.”

  “But—”

  “There’s no time to argue!”

  Jess went pale right before his eyes and for an instant he got the uneasy feeling she was going to faint. Damn. Damn. Damn!

  Glancing over his shoulder at the door, half expecting to see a cop with a big gun and an itchy trigger finger, he muscled her to the window. “Go, damn it. I can take care of myself,” he whispered, hoping to get her moving before she had too much time to think about it. The last thing he needed was for her to worry about him.

  She took one last look at him, shook her head and went through the open window. Hoping she stuck to the plan, relieved that he didn’t have to worry about her, Madrid darted to the door and peered around the doorjamb.

  The cop was standing at the sergeant’s desk, looking around suspiciously. “Hey, Dex! Where the hell are you?” He put his hands on his hips and started toward the hall. “Must be a damn full moon. All hell’s breaking loose out there.”

  Madrid spun, darted to the storage box and grabbed what documents he could, then stuffed them into the waistband of his slacks. Every nerve in his body went taut when he heard a shout in the hall. Undoubtedly the cop had discovered his buddies.

  Cursing beneath his breath, knowing he’d run out of time and options, Madrid looked around wildly. But there was no escape.

  Footsteps sounded outside the door, followed by the steel click of a hammer being pulled back.

  He pulled his fake FBI identification from his slacks. “FBI!” he shouted. “SAC Magill! Don’t shoot!”

  The burly officer appeared in the doorway. He glared at Madrid. His gaze flashed to the ID Madrid held in his hand, but he didn’t lower the gun.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Mike Magill, Special Agent in Charge. FBI.” Remembering the fake blood, Madrid looked down at his shirt. “I heard shots. Someone jumped me from behind.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I had a meeting with Norm Mummert.”

  The cop’s gun hand relaxed marginally. He looked over his shoulder, toward his fallen comrades. “What happened?”

  “Two men, well armed. I ducked into this office.” He winced dramatically. “I’m hit.”

  The cop lowered his gun and reached for his radio. “This is Two Adam Four. I got a—”

  Madrid lunged, kicked the gun from the other man’s hand. The cop’s eyes went wide. He reeled backward, screamed into the radio, “Code eight!”

  Madrid knew enough about cop jargon to know that was the code for an officer calling an emergency. He knew that in seconds the place would be crawling with cops out to protect one of their own. The kind of situation that called for deadly force. Hell.

  Madrid spun, kicked the radio from the man’s hand. Vaguely he was aware of it clattering to the floor. The cop’s eyes flicked to the fallen gun six feet away.

  “Don’t do it,” Madrid growled.

  The cop dived for the weapon.

  Cursing, Madrid went for the cop, but he wasn’t fast enough to keep him from grabbing the gun. They rolled in a tangle of arms and legs and fists. What the officer lacked in the art of self-defense, he made up for in size.

  In the struggle Madrid caught a glimpse of the blue steel muzzle, then a white-knuckled fist. The ensuing blast made his ears ring, followed by plaster raining down from the ceiling where the bullet had blown through.

  Madrid tried to wrestle the gun away, but the cop was too big. He kneed Madrid, loosening his grip for just a second, and rolled away. In one swift motion the gun came up and the muzzle exploded. The next thing Madrid knew his arm was on fire. It felt as if someone had sneaked up behind him and branded him with a hot poker.

  More pain followed in a sickening rush. Bu
t it made him mad. Furious, in fact. He used the resulting adrenaline to put the other man on his back.

  “You just had to cross that line, didn’t you?”

  Grabbing the other man’s wrist, Madrid slammed it against the floor. Once. Twice. “Drop it!” he shouted.

  The cop’s hand opened and the gun clattered away. Clamping his hand around the cop’s throat, Madrid tugged the handcuffs from his belt with his free hand. He closed one cuff around the man’s wrist, the other around the shelving unit brace.

  “That ought to hold you for a while.” Dizziness assailed him when he rose. Surprised, he leaned against the file cabinet. He glanced down at his arm, saw blood coming through his jacket and cursed.

  The cop yanked at the cuff. “You won’t get away, you son of a bitch!”

  “I already have,” Madrid said, and walked out the door.

  JESS HAD NEVER BEEN GOOD at waiting. But if waiting was torture, then sitting in the car, waiting to see if Madrid would make it out of that building alive, was nothing short of hell.

  She couldn’t see the front of the building from where she was parked, but with her window down she’d heard the shots. And the thought of all the things that could be going on inside made her sick.

  A glance at the clock on the dash told her six minutes had passed, but it felt as if she’d been waiting an eternity. Was Madrid in trouble? Had the cop shot him? Or had the agent with the dark eyes been forced to do the unthinkable and shoot a cop?

  “Come on, Madrid.” Her voice sounded strained in the silence of the car. She tried drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, but they were shaking too much. She couldn’t take her eyes off the stretch of sidewalk leading to the police station….

  A strangled yelp escaped her when she heard a tap on the passenger window. Half expecting to see a cop with a gun, she glanced over to see Madrid standing there, looking inside. Weak with relief, she hit the locks.

  “What took you so long?” she hissed as she started the engine.

  He slid onto the seat. “Drive.”