Reese pushed past the heavy plastic drapes that hung over the entrance and walked across the factory floor, past the abandoned machines collecting dust and spiderwebs, and went to a slit in the floor with a chain sticking out. He pulled on the chain, revealing a door that led down to the basement.
He walked down the stairs. Music was playing. It grew louder as he descended into the bowels of the building and turned into a hallway that was dimly lit by a few swinging lightbulbs. The walls and floor were cement, the carpet long since ripped out. Doors led to what had once been storage rooms but had been turned into bunkers. Reese walked past one that had two bunkbeds on either side, and men were sitting up in the beds talking and cleaning handguns and shotguns. Another room was the same except it housed women and they sat on the floor, eating a meal of takeout and joking and laughing.
All of them had nowhere else to go. They had nothing else waiting for them outside the walls of this plant. Most of them were runaways, some of them were fugitives. But they all had one thing in common: Agamemnon. He had taken them in when no one else would, trained them, given them purpose and a pillow under their heads. It was more than most of the people here had ever had in their lives.
Reese turned into a large space. Metal grating covered the area, and large machines, which workers were busy fiddling with, were set up against the walls. They were building something here, but no one really knew what. Only Agamemnon had all the details. For protection, he had said. Too much information was too much power and only those responsible enough to handle that power should be trusted with it.
Reese could see a massive black figure moving at the far end of the room. It hauled metal beams to the opposite wall where they were being bolted to the floor and ceiling. The structure almost looked like steel shelves. Reese walked to the figure, Agamemnon’s colossal frame coming into focus as he approached.
“You’re limping,” Agamemnon said in his grainy, electric voice.
“We finished the Red Salamander. I got grazed in the leg. Tyrell got his ankle blown out.” Of all the Myrs, he was the only one that did not need to end his responses with sir.
“All of them are gone?”
Reese paused, surprised that Agamemnon didn’t comment on the man that would need a cane permanently now because of him. “Every single one. Even Armand.”
Agamemnon nodded as he laid down the beams. “And how many of our brothers were lost?”
“Two. And two arrested. Including Jimmy.”
“We will hold a memorial for them tonight and remember them.”
Reese nodded.
Agamemnon didn’t say anything at first, the silence filled with the sound of his breaths inhaled through the circuitry of his voice box. “What else, brother?”
“Someone there hurt Jimmy. That’s how they got him.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. He was in the crowd. They interviewed him on the news; I saw that. I don’t remember the name.”
Agamemnon turned toward one of the men working on the machinery. A thin man with thick glasses that used a blowtorch to meld two pieces of steel. “Brother,” Agamemnon said, “Reese needs help. You will help him.”
The man nodded.
“I want your permission to kill him when I find him,” Reese said.
“Granted. There is something else.”
“What?”
“The two that were caught, including James. We must ensure that they do not speak to the police.”
Reese’s eyes went wide and icy fear trickled down his back. “No…they wouldn’t. Not in a million years. I’ve known Jimmy since we was teenagers livin’ on the streets. No way.”
“There is only one way to make certain.”
Reese lowered his head. He had known Jimmy so long he couldn’t picture his life without him. Even the thought of it filled him with a deep loneliness.
“You were lovers?” Agamemnon inquired.
“Yes.”
“We all have our weakness, brother. This was yours. You must rectify it yourself.”
“You…you want me to—”
“It is not because of ‘want’ that I ask this of you. We are few and if we were to be found here, our numbers could be thinned in one stroke. Our work is too important to leave to the fickle loyalties of a few.”
“But…what if we set them free? What if I broke in there and got them out?”
Agamemnon considered this. “Very well. But it is your responsibility. It will be your failure if you do not succeed. Understood?”
“Yes. What about the man on the news?”
Agamemnon waved his hand dismissively as he turned back to the machines. “Kill him however you like.”
CHAPTER 9
Disneyland was crowded today to the point that Jack felt awkward. It’d been years since he’d been around this many people at one time and he wasn’t sure how to act. He kept thinking everyone was staring at him, noticing his awkwardness. His niece sensed his apprehension and held his hand as they went from ride to ride, never letting go.
After half a day of spinning and looping and twisting, he felt like he was going to vomit. He sat on one of the benches, catching his breath as Nicole went behind the benches to a candy shop with Autumn. Jack’s brother-in-law sat next to him and groaned as he lowered himself.
“My damn knees,” Hank said. “They haven’t been the same since playing football in high school.”
“You should try barefoot running. It corrected a lot of the knee and back problems I was having.”
“Barefoot? As in no shoes?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, Jack, not all of us are DEA hitmen and can run through the jungle with no shoes.”
Jack turned away from him, staring off into the distance.
“I’m sorry,” Hank said. “I didn’t mean the hitman thing.”
“It’s all right.”
“So, when you settling down and finding yourself a good woman?”
“I’m still trying to adjust right now. For a long time it was just me, or me and my partner. When there were other people, they didn’t know who I really was. Being back takes some getting used to.”
Jack looked out over the crowd as he spoke and noticed two men walking toward them. They were hooded, wearing jeans and boots though the temperature was approaching a hundred degrees.
“Well, if you’re interested, there’s this gal at my work. Cute as a bug. She’s newly single.”
“Uh huh,” Jack said, not taking his eyes off the two men.
They were approaching quickly. One of them looked directly at him and then they turned away and into one of the souvenir shops. Jack’s gaze finally broke free and he realized that Hank had been speaking the entire time.
“And so her husband just left, just like that. You believe that?”
“No, that’s amazing.”
“Yeah,” Hank said, staring off at some kids that were running around.
Movement caught Jack’s eye. The two men had gone through the back door of the souvenir shop and were looping around toward him. Jack looked over and the men broke into a run.
Jack shoved Hank to the ground as the men pulled out handguns from their pants and opened fire. Jack jumped behind a nearby statue as the park filled with screams and people began to run.
He sprinted out from cover as he saw that the men circled around from opposite directions. He kept his head low as he jumped over the railing to a children’s ride and sprinted through to the other side. A Star Wars ride was inside a building and he ran for it as shots echoed behind him.
A hallway and then a ramp as he sprinted down and turned into a small room, flipping the lights off. The people in here hadn’t heard the gunshots and they were still walking around talking and laughing. He slid down the wall close to the floor, and waited.
After a few seconds, he heard someone yell, “Holy shit they’ve got guns!”
People panicked and ran for the exits. Jack kept his eyes on the floor. The clat
ter of running and screaming filled the building but it soon emptied until just the sounds of R2-D2 and a short film playing somewhere remained. He could see a shadow cast on the floor and then the shadow began to fade. He held his breath.
The shoe came first. It casually stepped in front of him and as it did Jack jumped to his feet and glanced out. The man wasn’t more than a foot away from him, his hood off and his dreadlocks hanging down around his shoulders. He looked surprised and Jack moved. He grabbed the weapon and twisted it up, enough so that the man clutched it with both hands and raised his arms to try to keep hold of it. Jack slammed his elbow into the man’s windpipe, causing it to collapse.
Choking, the man let go of the weapon. Jack could see the second man outside. He stood guard, making sure no one would get in. He saw what was happening and opened fire.
Jack twisted the man in front of him so that he spun like a top, bits of bloody flesh flying away from him in chunks as his companion’s rounds tore into his body. The man ran at him and Jack ducked inside the ride.
When the man was close enough, Jack jumped on him from around the corner. The man swung with his gun, using it as a hammer. Jack leaned back far enough that the blow missed him and came up with his foot, smashing it into the man’s groin. The man didn’t even flinch.
He swung again and Jack palmed him in the nose and chin, knocking the man off balance. But the man didn’t feel, or didn’t recognize, the pain.
He kept coming at Jack. Swinging wildly or kicking, grunting like an animal as he did. Jack ducked and parried and spun, waiting for the moment when his attacker opened himself up.
The dreadlocked man finally grabbed for Jack’s throat with both hands. Jack came up with his hands together as if in prayer and then spread them out, knocking the other man’s hands down. He grabbed the man’s face with his palms and stuck his thumbs into his eyes, sweeping out his legs from under him. As the man fell, Jack flew on top of him, the weight from his body causing the thumbs to bury deep into his eyes, popping them out of the sockets.
The man howled in pain and thrashed wildly as Jack stood and picked the weapon up from the ground. He held it as he came out into the sunlight, his eyes sweeping the crowd for any more men with dreadlocks. And then he saw something that made his blood cold.
Nicole and Hank, covered in blood, hunched over Autumn. The young girl had a large wound in her chest and the blood was quickly flowing out of her. Jack dropped the weapon and sprinted toward her. He placed his hands over the wound and pressed as hard as he could. He shouted for an ambulance but there was hardly anyone around to get help.
“Damn you!” Nicole was shouting as she hit him in the face. “Damn you!”
CHAPTER 10
The hospital was filled with nurses running around catering to patients, beeping machines, and squeaking gurneys. Moments of quiet would interlace with the chaos and it was the quiet that was most disturbing to Jack. It forced him to be in his own head and the only thing running through it was the broken and bleeding body of a little girl that had trusted him.
Jack saw his sister and Hank step out of a room with a doctor. The doctor was explaining cerebral edema to them. He wasn’t smiling and had a grave look on his face as Hank asked him, “What are the chances?”
“Touch and go right now,” he said. “But she’s strong. She’s fighting really hard.”
Hank thanked the doctor as he embraced his wife. Nicole was weeping, repeating, “My baby. My baby.”
Jack’s heart felt like it had torn in half. He stared at the floor, unable to look them in the eyes. He heard their footsteps nearing. He glanced up at his sister and the rage and hatred in her eyes. She lunged at him and he got to his knees and lowered his head, submitting to whatever it was she wanted to do to him. Hoping that it was something. He felt so dead inside; maybe pain could make him feel something.
His sister never did anything but stare. Hank pulled her away and they went to the waiting room across the hall. Jack got to his feet, watching them as they sat down and gazed blankly at a television up on the wall. He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see William walking up, his badge gleaming brightly from a clip on his belt.
“How you holdin’ up?”
Jack shook his head but didn’t respond.
“We ID’d the body in the morgue. Definitely Myrs. His name was Mark DeMaria, if you’re interested. The eyeless wonder is Michael Brant. One of the park’s cameras caught a third Myr. Reese Stillman. He took off. We got a BOLO call out for him right now.”
“Why would they do this?”
“The bar, Jack. This is how they operate. You took out two of their men and got ‘em arrested. Murder’s the only retaliation they know.”
“I want to find them, William. I want you to take me to them.”
“And then what? Jack, this isn’t some street gang of thirteen-year-olds. These guys are well funded, well trained, and there’s a lot of ‘em. Not as many as the bloods or Crips or Tres Locos but they’re increasing their numbers every day. The FBI wants in on this. Let them handle it.”
Jack stepped close to him, looking him in the eyes. “That little girl might die because of me. Because I chose to come back here.”
“Bullshit. That little girl might die because there’s a war going on in this city between people who don’t care who they hurt or kill. It has nothing to do with you, Jack.”
“If you won’t help me, I’ll find them alone.”
William shook his head. “You’re not law enforcement anymore. I can’t do that.”
“Then make me law enforcement.”
“You serious?”
“Yes. On one condition: I’m assigned to Robbery-Homicide on this case.”
“There’s no way I can promise that.”
“Robbery-Homicide, this case. That’s the only way, William. I know you got the juice to do it. I know you’re up for captain when Franks retires. Just do it.”
William exhaled, watching the man’s face. “Okay. Robbery-Homicide, this case. But if you get emotional and let your judgment get clouded, I gotta take you off.”
The paperwork was amazingly quick. Jack did have to take a blood test and polygraph, but he got his shield within two days and was issued his weapon. He turned it down and ordered one of his own. A custom-made Desert Eagle .45 caliber with expanded clip.
Whenever he got through for the day, he went to the hospital and sat in the waiting room. Nicole still wasn’t speaking to him but one day she came over and sat next to him for a few hours, neither of them saying anything.
Autumn was stable but the swelling in her brain had her in a coma. Her heart hadn’t been punctured but the tip of her lung had and she had gone into surgery the moment she got here. Recovery, they said, was a long way away.
Jack bought an iPad and at night would read everything he could about the Myrs. They had come out of nowhere to become one of Los Angeles’ most dangerous and influential gangs. They supplied their operation with drug money but had recently gotten into bank robberies as well. It was odd, because the drug trade was so lucrative. Jack wondered what it was they needed all that money for.
Their main recruitment tool was the promise of money. Everyone in the organization was paid, an anonymous source had told the LA Times. And paid well. But there seemed to be more than that. People died willingly for this gang. Money couldn’t motivate men like that. It was one of the reasons Machiavelli had recommended never to use mercenaries; their loyalties were easily changed.
Jack tried to find as much information as he could about their leader, Agamemnon, but there was nothing on him other than a few black and white photos from the bank robbery. There was no way, Jack knew, that a human being could grow so large. He estimated Agamemnon was probably near eight feet tall and somewhere around seven or eight hundred pounds, if that mass was all him. Jack guessed there was a regular man under that suit, disguising his body shape and type from the cameras.
Technically, a new detective had months of
training with superior officers, assisting on routine calls. Jack was spared that little speed bump and, when he appeared at the precinct one day, had every file on the Myrs emailed to him. He began reading at seven in the morning and didn’t stop until three in the morning the next day. He would run down to the grocery store around the corner and buy fruit and cheese and he’d sleep a few hours on the bed in the breakroom. Other than that, his eyes were glued to his screen.
The bank robbery last week wasn’t the first by the Myrs, but it was the most brazen. There had been three other robberies. Jack made notes regarding their locations and the amounts taken. Two of the banks had video.
One video showed a bank teller out of a First Mutual in downtown Burbank, who saw the Myrs coming and locked the doors. Agamemnon casually ripped the doors off the frames.
Jack played the scene over and over. What the hell are you?
CHAPTER 11
The next day, Jack’s first stop was the hospital. No one was there this early in the morning and he got to sit next to Autumn’s bed. He held her hand a long time and spoke gently to her of some of the things he’d seen and places he’d been the last few years. After an hour, he rose and headed to the precinct, giving her a kiss on the forehead.
The first duty of the day was roll call. The detectives would sit in a small classroom while the lieutenant or captain gave a briefing of the previous day’s goings-on and took questions about any open cases.
“All right,” the captain said, “anything else? Detective Yates, what’s goin’ on with the Myrs?”
“Detective Kane has that one.”
“Detective Kane, what’dya got for me?”
Jack said, “They’re going to hit American Security.”
Everyone in the room stared at him. The Myrs case was considered one of the toughest cases in the open-unsolved category and no one had made any progress in the year and a half it had been ongoing.
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