by CJ Lyons
“Believe it or not, it’s called Finance Road.” They swerved to avoid an abandoned tractor-trailer covered in graffiti.
“Alley is more like it.” The Mustang took a pothole hard and he slowed down marginally.
“Small enough I’m hoping the Rippers won’t bother with it. It will take us right to the bottom of Ruby Avenue.” She rolled down her window again as they passed the Morewood Terrace public housing units. It was quieter here. No sound of gunfire, the sirens all in the distance. Go figure: on a night where the rest of the city had descended into chaos and destruction, its most dangerous neighborhood was an oasis of peace.
There was definitely something wrong with that picture.
Pittsburgh would never be the same after tonight, she realized. Police presence in high-risk areas like Homewood, the North Side, Oakland, and the Hill would be intensified, diverted from low risk patrol responsibilities. Homeland Security would probably get involved, given Zapata’s narcoterrorist designation. The CC TV initiative that had stalled would be placed front and center, until most of the city’s populace was monitored.
The city’s already strained budget would struggle to meet the new demands for protection against gang warfare. Lucy guessed that lower priority line items: social services, public transportation, nonessential police units like the bike patrol, parade unit, river patrol, school program… would all be curtailed or canceled outright.
The media would have a field day with it. Pittsburgh’s psyche, its pride in emerging from the smoggy haze of its steel industry origins to become one of “America’s most livable cities,” would be forever scarred.
All because of a handful of men in a few short hours.
“Do they have the roads blocked off to keep us out?” she asked Haddad. “Or to keep everyone here in?”
He didn’t answer, concentrating on avoiding the assortment of garbage cans, abandoned vehicles, and incongruous random objects—a kitchen oven, a wheelbarrow, a sleeping vagrant—that blocked their path and turned the narrow alley into an obstacle course.
As they approached Ruby Avenue, Lucy tried her radio. Nothing. The antenna had snapped off. No wonder it’d been so quiet. Dumb, dumb, dumb. She should have monitored communications instead of mooning over Haddad’s Afghanistan deployment and calling Nick. She blew her breath out in frustration. She knew better. The emotions that had swept over her after what happened at the 911 Center were clouding her judgment. She couldn’t let it happen again.
“Your radio working?”
“Here.” He reached inside his vest and handed it to her. “I turned it off to save the battery since we had yours.”
“Broke mine at the Comm Center.” She clicked his on and listened to the latest on the NIMS channel. If anything the chaos and confusion had multiplied. Then she switched to the training channel. “Galloway, Walden, come in, this is Guardino.”
A few moments later Taylor answered. “Hey, boss. Good to hear from you.”
“Taylor. Tell me you have good news.”
“For everyone else in the city, no joy. But I was able to trace that guy Andre Stone’s phone—all the cell companies are being super responsive given the level of emergency. He’s at 411 Ruby Avenue. Place called Kujo’s.”
“The Rippers’ HQ.”
“That’s why it’s good news. Jenna thought it would give you one target instead of two.”
Lucy didn’t like it. Too pat. But it was their only lead. “Jenna, you there?”
“I’m here.” The sounds of a hospital could be heard in the background.
“How’s Walden?”
“He’ll be fine. The doctors have to operate, repair a blood vessel in his leg, so he’ll be here overnight.”
At least he’d be safe.
“Taylor, any luck with Raziq’s phone? A location on that would help.”
“Last location on his phone was on Lexington, at the 911 Center. They must have ditched it because it hasn’t moved from there. Jenna gave me the plate on the Escalade you saw. It's a rental. Traffic cams tracked it to Ruby Avenue, but there’s no cameras on Ruby, sorry.”
Haddad stopped the Mustang. They’d reached Ruby Avenue. All roads led here.
“Good work. Anything else that could help us before we head in?”
“We need more intel,” Haddad put in, craning his head to look up and down the street.
Given the chaos disrupting the city tonight, Lucy thought they were damn lucky to get what they had already. Then she had an idea. “Taylor. Can you call your buddies over at the Air National Guard and see if they can help with a helicopter?”
“They’re already dispatched. So are the Staties. Boss, we’re fielding calls for help all over the city. There’s just no one left.”
She heard the strain in his voice. Nothing like the frustration of being on the ground in the middle of this mess. “How about one of those drones they used during the last Presidential visit?”
“Good idea. Those babies can read the warning label on a pack of cigarettes in your pocket. I should be able to feed you real time data once we get one up.”
“Make it happen. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye out for Andre Stone, look for Raziq and his family, and see if we can find Victor Zapata while we’re at it. Anything else you guys want while we’re out and about?”
“Pamela’s isn’t far, I love their homemade macadamia nut brownies,” Taylor said, his grin almost audible.
“Any chance for some backup?”
“I can get there but I’m not sure how long it will take me,” Jenna said.
“Get here as fast as you can. But be careful. The gangs are blocking the roads—they might have more snipers out there as well.”
“No problem, I can do stealth mode.”
Right. With her looks, the only place Jenna’d pull off “stealth” would be on Project Runway.
“We’ll tell you where to meet us. Until then we’re going radio silent.”
“You got it, boss.” Taylor clicked off.
Lucy gathered her breath and turned to Haddad. “Head up Ruby Avenue, past Kujo’s, see what we can see. Then we’ll decide on the best approach.”
Haddad nodded and made the right hand turn onto Ruby Avenue.
In some ways this neighborhood mirrored Raziq’s in Point Breeze North. Closer to the Busway were the more commercial properties. As they drove away from it, they passed vacant lots where empty houses had been torn down by the city in an effort to curtail squatters and criminal enterprises. Then another of the Terrace public housing projects: 1970’s-era ugly yellow brick single story duplexes crammed together. They were supposed to be less conducive to criminal activity than high-rise units, but she doubted it. A few charming Victorians, most of them brick but a few wood frame, stood among condemned houses and boarded-up stores.
The first vehicle they spotted was idling at a cross street. Lucy tightened her grip on her Remington. Then relaxed. It was a white church van driven by two nuns, complete with short, navy colored veils. As the Mustang drove past, the nuns looked just as startled to see Lucy and Haddad as they were to see the nuns.
“Slow down,” Lucy said as they reached the base of the hill. Five brick row houses, each with its own individual flare when it came to ornamentation and trim, filled the block to their left. On the right side of the block there were several single-family frame houses that looked well cared for despite their crooked fences and sagging gutters. “Kujo’s is two blocks up the hill. On our right.”
“What’s that church at the top?”
“Holy Trinity.”
She wished the Mustang were another color. Black would have been nice, because as they began up the hill the number of people on the street—all men, all armed—went from zero to a dozen.
“That’s it,” she pointed to a red wood frame Victorian that had vehicles, mostly SUVs, triple-parked out front, almost completely blocking the road. A makeshift safety perimeter, Lucy realized.
Metal shutters covered the w
indows and men with machine-pistols patrolled the porch and stood on the roof on either side of the chimney. No sign of Victor Zapata’s Escalade, but they couldn’t dawdle long enough for Lucy to get a look at all the SUVs’ plates.
Loud rap music boomed from the house, making Lucy wonder if anyone else actually lived on the block or if they’d long since been driven out by the noise.
“Can’t see anything with those shutters. Keep going to Holy Trinity. We should be able to find a place to hide the car near there. Then we can come back on foot so we won’t be so obvious.”
Haddad drove up to the top of the hill and circled the block containing Holy Trinity church. There were a few lights visible in the convent behind the high stone wall that surrounded the compound. No lights visible in the church. So much for churches acting as sanctuaries in times of need, Lucy thought. After investigating as many clergy-related child abuse incidents as she had, she’d grown cynical about all religions.
They found a service drive on the block behind Ruby Avenue and backed into it, facing out so they could make a quick escape if they needed to.
They got out of the car and did a quick inventory and weapons check. Lucy’s parka was long enough to conceal her ballistic vest and the Remington. Thankfully the parka was black, which hid the blood covering it, although she couldn’t do anything about the smell. Haddad’s overcoat was even longer, easily hiding his vest and M4. They both had their pistols and spare ammo. They were as ready as they were going to be.
“You sure about leaving the car?”
“It’s too obvious. And it's not like it offers a lot of protection against automatic weapons.”
“Times like this, I wouldn’t mind driving a Humvee,” Haddad muttered.
“Times like this, I wouldn’t mind being bored to tears by The Nutcracker.” She smiled, imagining Nick sitting in front of the TV, feet propped up, cat on his lap and dog by his side, snoring as he waited for her to come home. She closed her eyes for a second, letting the feeling sink into every fiber of her being. Nick and Megan were why she did what she did.
No way in hell she wasn’t going to make it home to them, she vowed.
<><><>
Morgan glanced out the window of the SUV to check on Nick’s progress. He’d wrestled the bike up the embankment and over the guardrail. Now he was crouched down, examining the front tire.
Perfect. His prints would be all over the damn thing. She reached for his phone, took a deep breath in, and got ready for her performance. 9-1-1, her fingers pressed. The irritating tone of a busy signal answered.
What the hell? 911 couldn’t be busy. They had to answer.
She tried again. Still busy.
Stabbed the digits one more time. This time there was a recording: We’re sorry, all circuits are busy at this time. Please try your call again. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Inconvenience? Her plan depended on that 911 call coming from this phone, linked to this location, at this time. Recorded, irrefutable evidence.
She threw the phone down, wanting to scream.
Nick rapped on the window. “You okay?” he asked. “You look upset.”
She stepped out of the car. “Just thinking how pissed off my dad will be that I wrecked my bike.”
He carried the bike to the rear hatch. “It is a nice bike. But I think he’ll be glad you weren’t hurt.”
Together they loaded the bike into the back. “Yeah, I guess. It was a birthday present. More money than he and mom could afford, but I really wanted it. I feel a little guilty now. Should have been more careful.”
Nick slammed the hatch shut. “Let’s get you home before they have time to worry. Where to?”
She gave him the address of the vacant house off Lincoln Avenue she’d appropriated, just a few miles from where they were. They drove there in silence, Morgan trying to decide how to get her plan back on track—invite him inside, ambush him there? Send him off and then call the police? Vanish and leave an anonymous tip?—and Nick thinking whatever boring thoughts normal people thought.
Morgan’s father would have relished the abrupt derailment of a plan. He lived for the thrill of being totally out of control. At the whimsy of fate, he called it, often using an unexpected obstacle as an excuse to let loose with a frenzy of violence. Taste the danger, he’d sing to Morgan, his eyes wide with bloodlust.
But it was always Morgan who had to clean up after him when he tempted fate—and the police—with his rampages.
She understood the thrill—like him, she needed more and more intensity just to feel anything, like constantly sharpening a scalpel to cut through thick scar tissue.
It was as if her blood was electric, constantly simmering, needing fire, more fire, hotter fire, to finally boil so hot it burned. There was no greater hell than sitting, doing nothing, all that electricity buzzing in her veins and nowhere to go, nothing to do, knowing the next blaze would need to be bigger, brighter, bolder to get that same thrill.
Her father’s thrills centered on sex and violence, an insatiable thirst that made him reckless and got him caught. Morgan wasn’t like that. Maybe it was because she was a girl—no, not a girl, she’d met girls her age and she was nothing like them. She wasn't even like the older ones in high school or college although she could pass for one of them easily. She knew the right things to say, the right way to arrange her face and hair and clothes, understood their need to skirt the edge, thirsting for whatever would make them feel good: sex, booze, drugs, good grades, bad grades, taking risks, wielding power, acting out, acting like angels…
To Morgan they were all the same shade of beige. Boring. They’d never understand what a true thrill was: absolute, total control over someone else. Dominance. Manipulating their life, their future, every moment, every breath, every day until their death.
Better than sex—or so she assumed. She had a feeling she might never know for sure. Sex didn’t interest her, not after what she’d seen. She had no intention of ever lying down, letting any man or woman control whether or not she felt pleasure.
The power Morgan felt—like when she’d decided if Jenna Galloway lived or died, or now, as she controlled Lucy’s husband’s destiny without either Lucy or Nick even knowing—that was Morgan’s idea of a climax.
No blood, sweat, or tears involved.
Well, at least not hers.
Nick pulled into the driveway of the empty house she’d directed him to. He came around to her side of the SUV first, opened her door for her. Such a gentleman.
“Just park it by the garage,” she told him as he lifted the bike from the back of the SUV. “Thanks again.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me in?” he said. “You wanted something more than a ride home, didn’t you?”
She blinked. Startled. And it took a helluva lot to startle Morgan. “Excuse me?”
“You didn’t have to go to all that trouble. Really, a phone call would have worked just as well.”
Her fingers tightened on her knife. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying it’s cold out. Let’s talk inside.” He smiled at her, which only confused her even more. It was a gentle, fatherly smile. As if he knew exactly what she was thinking but still cared. “The disguise is quite good. But you made a mistake using my daughter’s name, Morgan.”
Chapter 22
Fatima pulled her scarf around to cover both the baby and her face. A shrill wail escaped her as her body crumbled in on its self. The high-pitched noise warbled through the room, her shoulders heaving, body swaying, joined by the baby’s shriek.
Andre wanted to comfort her, bundle her into his arms, pat her shoulder, anything to ease her pain. But all he could do was watch.
She shuddered to a stop, tears streaking her face. “Inna Lillahae wa Inna Elaihae Rajae’uon.” Her voice quivered and broke as she recited the words over and over. Andre had no idea what they meant, but they seemed to comfort her.
She sat up, the head cloth falling free, and made soothing n
oises to the crying baby. Then she moved her eyes to gaze up at Andre’s face. Bold move for a woman from her culture. But he understood. She was desperate.
“I’m going to get us out of here,” Andre promised. Suddenly all his fear vanished. Didn’t matter what the hell he looked like or how weak his body was. He was goddamned Dog Company and he had a job to do.
She met his gaze warily. Then nodded a fraction of an inch.
Good enough. Andre got to his feet and turned to the tool table and shelves to see what he had to work with.
Tin of black powder. Assorted sizes of PVC pipe. End caps. Wire. Darius said he needed Andre’s bomb making skills, but clearly he’d already built some bombs on his own. Even had Andre’s favorite special ingredient: highway flares.
Seeing all the bits and pieces they’d used to create their masterpieces when they were kids brought back memories. It’d never been about bombs or destruction—not for Andre, not until the Rippers recruited him and he couldn’t say no without risking Grams. Back when he was young, it’d been about creating.
Beautiful, bright, colorful lights. Loud noises that were a call for attention, like a symphony gearing up for a concert. One year, he’d even held a fireworks display for the folks on Ruby Avenue—folks who never got to go to the official one down at the Point. He still remembered all that clapping and ohhs and ahhs. The rush of pride that for one night he’d been able to make everyone forget where they were.
For him creating fire was like painting or sculpting. He molded it, formed it—there was nothing to be frightened of. Fire was his partner. Maybe that lack of fear was why he’d rushed into the flames back in Hajji Baba, only to emerge to find his men gunned down in an ambush.
In a warped way the fire had protected him from death, even as it had molded him in its own image. Something dangerous, something people should be frightened of. Out of control.
He shook the tin of black powder. Nearly empty. Useless if he wanted to build a bomb, but a bomb wouldn’t help things. What they needed was a diversion.
