NCIS Los Angeles

by Jerome Preisler

  He looked around quickly. The living room was empty, everything neatly in place. His eyes swept over the gramophone, the Warhol print. Tyger, tyger.

  Deeks turned and ran into the hall, peripherally aware of Kensi climbing in the window to his left.

  There was a partly open door in front of him. All at a glance he saw the twisted bedsheet looped around its knob, then run over the door’s upper edge.

  His heart skipping a beat, he rushed up to the door. And then halted for the slightest instant, looking into the room beyond.

  Theodore Holloway was suspended there from the sheet, his feet still on the floor. The makeshift noose he’d fashioned was high up around his throat, its knot positioned to cut off his oxygen supply.

  Deeks pressed his fingers to Holloway’s neck, feeling for a pulse. But he knew the old man was gone. His face was purple, his tongue protruding from his mouth. He’d bitten halfway through it in his violent final throes, bloodying his lips, chin and shirt.

  Deeks swooped in a breath and went back into the hallway to untie the sheet from the doorknob. He saw Kensi rushing toward him, and shook his head.

  She met his gaze.

  “Oh, man,” she said. Then opened her mouth to add something more, and couldn’t think of any words.

  “We better call an ambulance,” Deeks said after a second.

  Kensi exhaled, nodding.

  And reached for her cellphone.

  * * *

  She had chosen a light lunch at the Bean n’ Crème coffeehouse on North Alameda, only a block and a half from Union Station.

  Drew liked the place. It was clean, warm, and atmospheric in a funky sort of way, with reclaimed wood walls, a tin ceiling, a blond bamboo floor, and alternative rock music playing at an ambient level.

  Really, though, anyplace Milena wanted to go would have been fine with him. As long as it had a table where they could sit and talk, Drew figured he was golden.

  “So,” he said, “how’s the food?”

  “Very good,” she said, and took a small forkful of her black bean and corn salad. “It’s just enough to keep me fueled up… I don’t want to be too stuffed with a busy day and night ahead of us.”

  Drew chuckled.

  “I know what you mean,” he said. “I get downright sleepy after eating big.”

  She smiled a little, swallowed, then reached for her jasmine tea and sipped.

  Drew took a bite of his chicken wrap, thinking this was as good a moment as any to spring his surprises on her.

  “I’d like to show you something,” he said. “Well, a couple of things.”

  She sat quietly, waiting, her eyes on his face.

  Drew reached inside the messenger bag he’d slung over the back of his seat, and took out a brand-new Dodgers cap.

  “First things first,” he said, handing it to Milena. “I picked this up for you on my way to the train station. Hope it’s the right size…”

  “I’m sure it is.” She took the cap from him and put it on her head, adjusting it with a downward tug of the brim. “What do you think?”

  He smiled.

  “Looks great,” he said. “You like it?”

  “Love it,” she said. “Thank you, Drew. That’s a very sweet gift.”

  His smile broadened.

  “While I’m at it,” he said, “I want to show you something else.”

  He reached into the bag again, extracting the map he’d brought in a transparent vinyl sleeve.

  “This is a copy,” he said, and passed it across to her. “My grandfather made the original a long time ago.”

  She held the map in both hands, studying it through the sleeve.

  The writing on top said:

  PIGGYBACK YARD GERMAN POW HOLDING AREA

  “I told you about Poppo… my gramps,” Drew said. “As you can tell from all the crooked lines and squiggles, he sketched it out freehand.” He laughed a bit. “Guess he had a thing against rulers.”

  She raised her eyes to look at him.

  “This map shows the entrance to the underground passageways,” she said.

  Drew nodded. “And their layout,” he said. “X marks the spot, like in an old pirate map. The big difference being there’s no buried treasure. Just some dank, dark, crumbly tunnels to nowhere… as you’ll see for yourself in a little while.”

  Her eyes stayed on his face.

  “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” she said.

  Drew shrugged, but he was smiling again. “And one man’s Nowheresville another’s Dreamland?”

  She laughed.

  “I can go with that,” she said, and forked some more salad into her mouth.

  * * *

  “Nell, wait,” Callen said. He quickly read off a set of coordinates on the wall screen. “Give me a closeup right there.”

  She nodded, already zooming in on a segment of Flor Linda’s twenty-three-acre tract of desert real-estate.

  It was now 1:20 P.M., and she’d begun her fifth image sequence five minutes ago, methodically organizing the torrent of Block Four satellite photos into a gridded, intricately detailed layout of the subdivision. For Hetty, Callen, and Sam, it was almost like they’d been shrunk down to fit inside a low-flying surveillance drone.

  The current sequence had initially presented a numbing reprise of the abandonment and neglect laid out in the previous four—street after street of decaying homes orbited by scavenger birds, and surrounded by barbed wire, weeds, and refuse.

  But now everyone in the room could see what Callen thought he’d seen.

  Nell moved in tighter, tighter, all of them watching in silence.

  “This is too good to be true,” Callen said. He glanced around at the others. “It has to be the safehouse.”

  No one else spoke. Beside him, Sam was staring at the image onscreen…

  The tan stucco house.

  The battered, windowless white van in the driveway.

  And the vulture, dark and hunched, on its roof…

  Hetty turned to the agents.

  “You’d better get out there right away,” she said.

  19

  The Challenger’s big-horsepower engine throbbing, Sam saw two choppers overhead as he turned sharply off the highway link onto Flor Linda’s entry road. Wasplike UH-72A Lakotas, they were bristling with thermal I/R surveillance equipment.

  The OSP was used to operating in the shadows, Hetty Lange’s natural element. But this time Hetty had called in the cavalry.

  He glanced at his dashboard’s center console, then at Callen.

  “Where’s the downlink?” he said.

  Callen tapped the touchscreen. “I’m entering the access code again,” he said. “Think I screwed up when you hit a bump.”

  “You’re blaming me?”

  Callen shrugged.

  “You or the bump,” he said. “Same difference.”

  Sam sped past the derelict properties they had seen in the Block Four photorecon imagery. It was almost 2:30 P.M., a full hour since they’d set out from headquarters, and by now the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Enforcement Bureau tac teams would have established a perimeter around their target.

  Callen input the downlink code again. This time the chopper’s I/R video stream appeared, replacing the console’s GPS view.

  The combined daylight and warm temperature made nearly everything in the image radiate in the red and orange wavelengths… the safehouse’s roof and walls, the windows, the walks and driveway. The body of the parked van was bright yellow, almost white, from sitting in the sun. Even the dry, overgrown shrubs, grass, and weeds around the house mostly showed red-orange from absorbing the sun’s heat, with a few scattered blue and purple spots indicating shadier areas.

  “Leader, this is Alpha Bird,” Callen heard the helicopter pilot say over the air-to-ground radio. Both he and Sam were wearing lightweight bone conduction headsets that left their ears uncovered. “I notice your log-in… you with us yet?”

&nbs
p; Callen copied him. “We just cleared the entry road,” he said. “What’s happening at the target?”

  “It looks clear outside on the ground,” the pilot said. “We aren’t sure about the premises. Window blinds are down, can’t see what’s inside.”

  Which essentially told Callen what he already knew. He hadn’t expected miracles. Thermal sensors could not see through walls—and therefore couldn’t reveal whether there was anyone in the house. But they would show human heat emissions on the surrounding property, meaning anyone trying to make off, or hide outside, would be detectable.

  Callen peered out the windshield as Sam shot along, his tires spinning up dirt and pebbles. A BearCat armored truck was stopped in the intersection up ahead, SEB personnel in olive drab uniforms pouring from its doors. He could hear the commander shouting orders beneath the throb of the Lakotas’ rotors.

  “We’re here,” Callen said over the radio. “Hold your positions. Out.”

  “Got it.”

  Sam slid the Challenger to a halt yards from the BearCat, exiting his door at once, Callen rushing from the other side. The agents wore light armor over their shirts and had large badges on their belts, the letters NCIS emblazoned on their chests in white to leave no mistake about their identities. Both had assault rifles slung over their arms, Sam a full-size M-4 carbine, Callen an H&K 416 subcompact, his SIG-P226 service pistol tucked into a crossdraw holster on his left hip.

  He raced up to the SEB commander. “I’m Agent Callen, this is Agent Hanna.”

  “Captain Porat,” the commander said. He pointed down the side road blocked off by his truck. “Target’s fifteen yards up.”

  “Still no sign of occupants?” Sam said.

  Porat shook his head. “We have entry teams onsite. Sergeant Leo’s your point there. LASD regulars are in close perimeter.”

  Callen snapped Sam a glance. “What do you think?”

  “We go right in,” he said. “Can’t waste time.”

  Callen turned to Porat.

  “Hold steady,” he said. “Tell your men at the house we’re on our way.”

  Porat nodded. “This is your dance,” he said. “Good luck.”

  The agents sprinted up the road as it curved between several crumbling properties, then saw patrol cars across the blacktop, flashers on, sheriff’s deputies milling around them. An SEB entry team was gathered on the front lawn beyond the vehicle cordon. Sam spotted a short, chunky man with sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve in the middle of the group.

  He trotted up to him. “Leo?”

  “Agent Hanna.” The sergeant tapped his headset. “The commander told me you were on your way.”

  Sam gestured toward the house. “What’s the situation, Sarge?”

  “I’ve got four men at each entrance, front and back,” Leo said. “Can’t tell if anyone’s inside.”

  “You ready to move?”

  “Yes, sir. At your say-so.”

  Sam turned to Callen, caught his nod, then turned back to Leo.

  “Okay. Let’s roll.”

  The three of them ran across the yard to the front door, heads low, rifles in their hands. One of four armored tacs posted on the right of the door held the ram, the man behind him a ballistic shield. The two at the end of the stack had their semiautomatic weapons ready to fire.

  Leo, Sam, and Callen moved to the left of the doorframe, the sergeant talking to the rear breaching team over his throat mike.

  “Beta, on one,” he said. “Do you read?”

  “Yes, sir.” Callen and Sam heard, their radios switched to the ground freq now. “Loud and clear.”

  Sam thumbed his M-4’s bolt catch as he waited.

  Leo began his countdown. “Three… two… one…”

  The tac with the ram swung it against the door like a pendulum, slamming it hard under the lockplate, reducing its frame to splinters with a single blow. As the door crashed inward, one of the tacs on the right tossed a flashbang into the room beyond, and then the men went rushing through the entryway, storming in behind their bullet resistant shield, Sergeant Leo, Sam, and Callen following close on their heels.

  The room was large and empty, no furniture besides a couch and some recliners…

  And sleeping bags. Sam and Callen saw several on the bare wood floor.

  They moved deeper into the house with the tacs, hearing the sound of hurried footsteps as Beta Team poured in through the backdoor. Leo shouting terse commands, the two teams moved from room to room, storming through hallways in a rapid, coordinated sweep.

  The place seemed unoccupied. There was a bed with pillows and tousled sheets in one room. More sleeping bags in another. The bathroom had soap, toothpaste, and toilet paper. Peering down a hall into the kitchen, Callen saw a trash can filled with crumpled towels, paper cups, and plastic food wrappers.

  Unoccupied, but not unlived-in.

  Hugging the wall, Sam and Callen moved down the hallway to a closed door, a couple of tacs lining up behind them. Sam tried the doorknob, found it locked, and glanced around at the guy with the battering ram.

  The guy moved along the wall to the door.

  “Police! Get down on the floor with your hands over your heads,” he shouted.

  Then he swung the ram again and the door crashed open.

  Sam led the way into the room, Callen behind him, buttonhooking to the opposite side of the entryway with his subcompact’s barrel outthrust.

  Like the other rooms, it was vacant. But its furnishings were conspicuous. Laboratory tables, stools, a metal cabinet on the far wall.

  A gun cabinet.

  Callen strode over to it, noticed the door was slightly ajar, and pulled it open.

  It didn’t surprise him to discover it was empty.

  He turned to Sam. “Nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing here. They cleared out and took everything with them.”

  Sam lowered his weapon, filled his cheeks with air, and slowly let it escape through his mouth.

  “Question is,” he said, “where’d they go?”

  Callen just looked at him without anything resembling an answer, thinking they needed one fast.

  * * *

  Matous checked his dashboard clock as he guided the Savana over the dusty, sunwashed highway blacktop. It was 3:15 P.M., hours earlier than he had expected to be making the trip across the desert. But adaptability was an operational necessity—a basic principle of warfare.

  In the Marines, Matous had learned that engagement was friction, and friction created turbulent change. You couldn’t always control its tempo. But you had to anticipate the changes and be ready to adjust on the run.

  You needed to be mobile.

  He looked over at Gaspar, who sat bolt straight in the passenger seat, staring out his window at the yellow, barren Mojave hills. Matous thought he looked nervous, but not overly consumed with fear, and that was all right.

  “Are you ready to die, Matous?” Gaspar said after a while. “Can you honestly tell me you’re ready?”

  The question caught Matous a little by surprise. He had already turned his mind toward timing and practicalities.

  A half hour ago, Tomas, Yuri, and Pavel had swung off the highway into Vincent Grade/Acton, boarding the three o’clock train into Los Angeles. It would put them at Sun Valley around four-thirty—and that was where they would strike.

  Tactically, the station was perfect. Seize the train further up the line, and you left time for the Dispatch and Operations Center in Pomona to detect a problem—especially as you began skipping stations. But the off-peak train out of Sun Valley normally bypassed both the Burbank and Glendale stops en route to Union Station, where it was scheduled for a 5:00 P.M. arrival.

  That gave Tomas a full thirty minutes before anyone at the DOC even sniffed anything irregular or unusual. It was a good window of opportunity.

  He drove on, aware Gaspar was staring at him, waiting for his answer.

  Matous considered it now, then tightened his jaw.

 
; “I’m prepared to die for the cause,” he said. “And take a lot of other people with me.”

  Silence. Gaspar looked at him another moment before returning his eyes to the monotonous hills outside.

  They said nothing more the rest of the way into Los Angeles.

  * * *

  At 3:30 P.M., an eyestrained, stiff-necked, and sore-shouldered Eric Beale rolled across the room on his lab stool, carrying the fifth and last of the brown wax cylinders from their cleaning tray to the Mona audio restoration scanner.

  Eric had started his scans an hour earlier with the only recording whose container bore any markings besides a catalog number: a date written on its lid in faded, barely legible ink—2/17/1921—with three letters—W.G.R.—penned beneath it. Twenty minutes later, his first digital surrogate was complete, and with good results despite the mold damage that had eaten deep into the cylinder’s grooves. As Mona’s software converted his waveform transcript to audio files, he’d heard the high, ghostly voice of a young boy rise above recurrent flurries of hisses, crackles, and pops, singing along to the accompaniment of a choppy, inexpertly strummed acoustic guitar.

  The audio reproduction was clear enough for him to make out the lyrics without a problem:

  Strange things have happened

  Like never before

  My baby told me

  I would have to go

  I can’t be good no more

  Once like I did before

  I can’t be good, baby

  Honey, because the world’s gone wrong

  The next three recordings consisted of Sutton’s recollection of his maiden voyage aboard a naval warship as a young ensign, an off-key duet of “I’m Sitting On Top of the World” he’d sung with his wife Mara, who he introduced as his “heartbeat” at the top of the number… and a spoken draft of an ardent, and spicy, love letter he’d written to a woman named Cleo, who may not have been his heartbeat, but had obviously made his pulse race.

  They were remarkable—and in the case of the letter, shameless—glimpses of the former senator’s past, but Eric hadn’t had time to enjoy them. Not with the city of Los Angeles’s present threatened by a group of maniacs trying to build a dirty bomb, and the OSP desperately seeking to beat them to the stash of fissile uranium—courtesy of Hitler, Tojo, and a couple of crooked American officers.