First Deadly Conspiracy Box Set

by Roger Stelljes

  • • • • •

  The chief led the meeting. A CIRT commander was present. Mac, Lich, Riles, and Rock all put on vests and Windbreakers that said police on the back, their badges now hanging around their necks. Weapons bristled. A crude drawing of the PTA building lay in the middle of the conference table.

  The plan was to secure the parking garage and the private elevator, as well as the front entrance. Officers would cover all four sides of the building. Alt and Lindsay would be pinned inside and have no choice. Mac wasn’t sure whether they’d throw down, but he didn’t want to take any chances. At this point, all they needed was the warrants to be finished, and they were ready to go. Besides everyone around the table, there were numerous other people in the room, talking on cell phones, getting things arranged.

  Just then Sally came back into the room with the warrants and handed them to Mac, whispering softly in his ear, “Be careful.”

  Mac nodded. Anderson came back in the room, a cell phone to her ear, followed by Sylvia Miller and Captain Peters, both hanging up their cell phones.

  The chief spoke. “Mac, you and the boys will go in the front. You get to put the cuffs on Lindsay and Alt. CIRT Team 1 goes up with you guys. Team 2 will work to secure the garage. Everyone understand?” Everyone nodded. “Let’s roll.”

  • • • • •

  Lindsay hung up his cell phone.

  “Where’s the chopper at?”

  “Took two VPs up to Duluth,” Alt answered. “Why?”

  “We need to get the hell out of here.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “They’re coming for us right now. They have the Cross documents, and they have you killing Daniels on video.”

  Alt, stunned, was slow to follow Lindsay, who came back to grab his arm. “Let’s go.”

  They got into the elevator and headed to the basement. Lindsay spoke, “Apparently Daniels liked to video herself having sex. There was a hidden camera in the room, and it was running the night you took her out. Think back. After you killed her, did you take your mask off?”

  Alt nodded.

  “Well, they have it on video. Plus they have the documents, which hangs all of us.”

  “How did they find it?”

  “McRyan found it. I don’t know how, but he did.”

  Alt recovering now, thinking about getting away. “McRyan. I should have known.”

  “I underestimated him, Webb. You didn’t, but I did. He’s coming for us.”

  They hustled off the elevator. “Sir, we aren’t caught yet.”

  Skogman and Thompson were waiting for them. They had a minivan running. Automatic weapons and rounds were loaded inside. They all jumped into the van, and Bouchard got behind the wheel.

  They pulled up to the exit and took a left onto East Sixth Street, a one-way.

  • • • • •

  Mac, Riley, Lich, and Rock climbed into Mac’s Explorer and the two CIRT Teams followed. Mac was going to pull up in front of the main entrance to PTA, which was on the west side of the building along St. Peter Street. Team 1 would follow them. It would take Team 2 a few minutes to get to the garage as they had to drive all the way around the building on the one-way streets.

  Mac crossed East Sixth and pulled in front of the building, his front left tire up on the curb. Team 1 was a half block behind, caught at a stoplight .”We should have had them running with lights,” Riles muttered. The police radio blurted that Team 2 was still three blocks away, caught up in traffic on Cedar Street.

  “We’ll have to wait a minute,” Mac said.

  • • • • •

  Alt made the call immediately when they had turned left out of the parking garage. A CIRT truck was at the stoplight, and it was clear that the driver and man in the passenger seat saw them come out of the garage. They had no choice. Alt let his window down. Skogman behind him opened the sliding door. Thompson was doing the same, looking to the south.

  Chapter Forty

  “How did you know we were coming?”

  The sound was unmistakable—automatic weapons fire. Mac saw it first, the black minivan, coming to the corner to the north on East Sixth. The side door was coming open, and he saw the barrel, “DOWN! DOWN! DOWN!”

  Mac hit the pavement and rolled to the entryway of the PTA building. Shots flew over his head, causing glass to rain down over him. People were screaming. He looked quickly back to the Explorer. Lich was down low, hiding behind a cement holder for a garbage can. Riley had rolled to the front of the truck and had cover. Rock was down on the sidewalk, hit in the thigh, exposed.

  Mac quickly got to his knees, leaned around the corner of the entryway, took a look at the background and returned fire, emptying his clip. Lich grabbed Rock and pulled him behind the garbage can.

  The black minivan veered left, cutting in front of Mac and through a diagonal intersection, in front of the PTA building. Mac gave chase, running behind, firing at the van, shattering the rear window glass. The van turned right onto East Fifth. It was half a block to Washington Avenue. There was construction on the corner of East Fifth and Washington. The van could only go left when it hit the corner.

  Mac burst across East Fifth and flew into Rice Park, popping another clip into his Glock. The van turned a hard left onto Washington, tires screeching. Fifty yards away, Mac fired at the side of the van, this time low, at the tires. Shots came from behind him to his right, Riley, firing high. They both connected. Mac got the front left tire, Riley spraying the driver’s side windows. The van veered hard right, across the sidewalk, crashing into the corner of a brick wall on the east side of the Convention Center.

  With the van stopped, steam coming from the radiator, smoke from underneath, Mac and Riley cautiously moved through the park towards the vehicle, weapons still drawn. Then Mac saw it, someone was out of the passenger side, running. Alt.

  “Check the van! Check the van!” Mac yelled while he took off after Alt, firing on the run.

  • • • • •

  Alt kept his head low in the front passenger seat, as the van was pelted from behind. They turned sharply left, and the glass on the driver’s side started shattering all over, shots flying over Alt’s head. He felt the left side of the van abruptly drop and then buck hard to his right. He looked up in time to see the van heading into the corner of a brick wall. The left side of the front of the van took the brunt of the impact, causing the van’s back end to buck slightly on impact. It threw him into the passenger side door and most of the airbag missed him when it deployed.

  Alt looked to Bouchard, who was slumped over the wheel; a bullet hole through his head. The others in the back were bloody, probably dead. Looking out the driver’s side he saw McRyan and Riley slowly approaching from the east through the park.

  He jumped out and ran west towards the northeast entrance to the Convention Center. Shots hit the sidewalk around him as he ran for the doors. Once inside, he had two options. Straight was a long hallway, angled upward towards the hockey arena. There were convention-goers walking along the way. Too open.

  He turned left through another set of doors into the east end of the Convention Center. There was an escalator one hundred feet away that went up to the second level on the south side of the Convention Center. He had his assault rifle and two clips in his coat. Hitting the escalator running, he got to the top, stopped, and looked back.

  • • • • •

  Mac carefully approached the double doors, crouched, squinting inside, the tinted glass making it difficult to see. He didn’t see nor sense any movement and went in. He quickly scanned the hallway straight ahead. Nothing. Alt went left. As he turned left, the shots came. He dove to his left behind a wall, as glass, cement, and ceramic tile shards fell all around him. The shots stopped, and he heard screaming in the distance from Alt’s direction.

  Mac pushed himself up and sprinted towards the escalator. He was up the first half of the escalator two steps at a time, and then crouched, peering over the right
side as he approached the second level. Loud screaming was coming from the hallway to his right. As he came off the escalator and moved to his right, he saw Alt well down the hallway, convention goers screaming and running. Mac also drew screams when he rushed into the hallway with his weapon drawn. His “Police” vest and dangling badge were useless. Panic all around.

  • • • • •

  Alt missed McRyan when he came through the doors. He turned to his left and ran down the long, forty-foot-wide hallway between the meeting rooms. A few exhibitors were milling in the hallway while the convention sessions were taking place. They screamed as they saw a man running down the hall, brandishing an AK-47. He came to the open area at the west side of the hallway and heard screams behind him. He turned around and saw McRyan at the other end.

  • • • • •

  “Get Down! Get Down! Get Down!” Mac yelled when Alt spun around. Mac jerked a woman to the ground and ducked behind an exhibitor booth. The shots went high, shattering the Sheetrock of the walls above him, dust and debris cascading all around. The shooting stopped, and Mac rolled to his left, looked to the other end of the hallway, still seventy-five yards behind Alt. Alt was rushing away again. Mac pushed himself up and chased. Alt veered hard left, taking an escalator back down to the first level and the main Convention Center entrance on Kellogg Boulevard, fleeing outside.

  Mac sprinted through the crowd to the escalator and frantically looked down. Alt was going out the doors. Mac quickly bolted to his right, where it was fifty feet to the indoor skyway that served as a bridge over Kellogg Boulevard to the Convention Center parking ramp on the other side. In the skyway, he could get on top of Alt, he thought, maybe surprise him on the other side. Down ten steps, he threw his shoulder through the door and turned left. He was on the skyway.

  • • • • •

  Alt didn’t stop to find out if he hit McRyan. He jumped onto the escalator to his left, took it down two steps at a time. At the bottom, he turned right and burst through the doors out onto Kellogg Boulevard and heard the sirens ringing out all over downtown.

  This wasn’t much better.

  He had to get out of sight and out of downtown. He needed a set of wheels. There was little traffic coming from the east, stopped from the commotion caused a few blocks away. As he quickly looked back to his right, he saw the stoplight turn green. A single car was coming his direction from the intersection of Kellogg and West Seventh.

  • • • • •

  Mac, running across the skyway, looked left and saw Alt rushing across Kellogg at a forty-five-degree angle away from him but only to go through the break in the median dividing the east-west lanes of Kellogg. Alt’s diversion allowed Mac to close the gap. Alt got through the gap in the barrier and then looked back in Mac’s direction, but not up at him—back up the street past him. Mac looked right and saw it.

  • • • • •

  Alt moved towards the car, the assault rifle pointed at the driver. The car stopped, and Alt stood right in front of it. “Get Out! Get Out!”

  The driver, frightened, with his right arm in the air, began to open the door with his left hand, when Alt heard glass breaking above him. McRyan was at a hole in the skyway glass he’d just shot out. Alt unloaded the rest of his clip up at the skyway thirty feet above the street.

  As he fired, the car pulled away. Alt turned to give chase, but Riley came around the corner of the Convention Center. The assassin quickly popped in a new clip and fired at Riley, who dove away. Alt quickly turned to his right and sprinted for the parking ramp.

  • • • • •

  Mac was down on the floor of the skyway, lying in a pool of glass. He’d gotten two rounds off before Alt fired. The shots had stopped. Mac got up on one knee and peered over the edge just in time to see Alt going through the doors and into the parking ramp.

  Mac pushed up and scrambled twenty feet to the end of the skyway. He veered left and threw his shoulder through glass doors to a thirty-foot stairway. He jumped sideways onto the middle hand railing and slid down on his fanny. Took two strides through another set of doors into the parking ramp and saw Alt at the bottom of a runway, fifty feet away, turning to go further down into the ramp. Mac fired.

  • • • • •

  The shots sailed over Alt’s head as he turned to go lower. The assassin sprinted down, past the second-level elevator lobby, turning back east, hustling to the third parking level. He turned again, going down to the elevator landing between the third and fourth parking levels. Passing the elevators, he continued part way down the walking ramp to the fourth parking level and stopped.

  • • • • •

  Mac ran down the first runway and could hear the echoes of Alt running a level below him. Mac turned at the first parking level and ran down the ramp back west to the second elevator level, turned back east down the ramp and stopped about two thirds of the way down, looking directly right, into the third parking level and down the ramp and listened. He didn’t hear Alt running. He’d stopped.

  Cautiously, Mac moved slowly down now, shuffling his feet sideways to the left, scanning the cars and trucks. He got to the bottom of the walking ramp and urgently scanned the lot again. He took a cautious step forward and his heart jumped as something broke to his right.

  • • • • •

  Alt heard McRyan coming down the ramp right above him and then heard him slow down. Now he didn’t hear anything. Alt calculated he was scanning the cars, thinking he’d gone into the parking ramp.

  Gingerly edging his way back up towards the elevator lobby, Alt moved to improve his firing angle. He stepped back with his right foot, the rifle aimed up at the parking landing. As he stepped back, he could see more of the landing. He stepped back again and could see even more. As he stepped back once more, he saw McRyan’s hands and weapon pointed out towards the parked cars scanning the ramp. One more step back. He planted his right foot and heard glass crunch under his feet. He fired.

  • • • • •

  The bullets ripped at the loose right sleeve of Mac’s windbreaker as he dove back to his left, and the shots flew over his head. His service weapon was a popgun next to that damn assault rifle. The shots stopped, and he heard running again. Alt was going for the bottom. He had to be, it was the only way out.

  Mac gave chase, hitting the third elevator level, and pausing briefly. He could still hear Alt running a whole level below him.

  He kept after him, going back east to the fourth parking level and made the turn at a sprint back down to the last elevator landing. He turned to his right and stopped. In twenty feet he would be exposed coming down the last walking ramp. Alt was already in the cars, he thought, waiting in ambush for him.

  Mac quickly assessed his options. The sirens were way in the distance, although it was hard to tell eighty feet below the main street level now. He looked at the last thirty feet of walking ramp. At the bottom on the right side of the cement half wall was a large square pillar. If he could reach the pillar at the bottom, he’d have cover. Mac stuffed the gun in his pants and crab-walked sideways down the walking ramp, staying below the top of the half wall.

  At the bottom, Mac lay on his belly and pushed himself to the edge of the pillar and peeked around the corner.

  • • • • •

  Alt got down to the last level of the ramp and ran straight into the sea of cars and trucks. He needed to find something to hot wire. A white Chevy Impala was in the far row, near the exit for the ramp, the perfect car to boost. But McRyan was coming, and Alt had to take care of him first. He got to the third row of cars and ducked behind a Ford F-150 pickup with a camper top. The position left him a good angle at the walking ramp. McRyan had to come down, and he’d hit him when he did. He heard McRyan get to the last landing. Then the running stopped.

  Alt trained the rifle at the walkway, waiting for McRyan to come. But he didn’t. The assassin edged out a little from the back of the truck, looking at the ramp, scanning from the pillar at
the bottom, back up the walking ramp and then back down to the pillar. Where was he?

  • • • • •

  Mac saw the feet move, black dress shoes, next to a pickup truck with a camper top. He quietly pushed himself back and rolled to a sitting position. He set his gun in his hands and pushed himself up, his back against the pillar. He had more protection if he turned to his left, the half wall protecting his lower half, and he could duck behind it if need be. If he turned right, he would be totally exposed. He exhaled, turned to his left and fired.

  The shots hit the camper top. Mac knew he missed, but he had position now and could wait him out. “Alt,” he called out, “there’s no way out of here.”

  Sirens in the distance were louder now, zeroing in on their position. “The cavalry’ll be here any minute.”

  • • • • •

  Alt was trapped. McRyan knew it too and was calling out to him.

  Then he heard it to his left, to the west, and he had new life. A hundred feet away a car pulled into the ramp.

  Alt took off at a full sprint, his weapon up, pointed at the car, a hostage, and keys—a way out.

  • • • • •

  Mac saw it too and was out from behind the pillar, running at a full sprint, firing at Alt, missing wildly. He got off three shots before his clip ran out. He reached with his left hand into his back pocket and grabbed his last clip, looked down briefly, popped it back in and raised his gun again looking for Alt. The killer had stopped and was facing him. Mac dove away, but it was too late. He took a round in the left shoulder.

  • • • • •

  Alt knew he’d hit McRyan. He pivoted to run towards the woman again. Then to his right, another vehicle came down the spiral ramp, McRyan’s Explorer. Riley was in the passenger seat, a gun drawn, scanning the garage. Alt fired at the Explorer, causing it to swerve left and careen into a parked car. Then a shot came from the right. Alt pivoted back that way.

  • • • • •

  Mac pushed up with his right arm and fired. His first shot missed. As Alt turned back towards him, Mac’s second shot caught Alt in the left shoulder, jerking his body hard to the left. Mac took a step forward and fired twice more, double tap, into Alt’s chest, sending him flying backwards against the trunk of a parked car.