by Elin Barnes
“You have to tell me what you want from me,” Malik wailed. “I just don’t know what you want. I’ll say anything.”
Now Ethan got closer still. Malik’s eyes widened, and before he could get in another word he started heaving, as if he had a hard time breathing. He looked at Ethan in desperation. He was trying to speak, but his mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water’s.
Ethan hesitated, wondering if it was an act. “Curtis, get in here now!”
Curtis walked in, followed by the others. They stopped by Ethan, who had now taken a few steps away from Malik.
“He’s having a heart attack,” Curtis said, pushing everybody aside.
He cut the man’s restraints and pulled him onto the floor. Everybody else watched their victim struggle for breath. Malik started clasping his chest, and he looked back at Curtis with bulging eyes strained with terror.
“We need to take him to a hospital,” Curtis yelled, watching as the man faded fast.
“No can do, brother,” Ethan said.
Curtis looked up at him for a second and started giving Malik CPR when he went into cardiac arrest.
“You’re going to let him die?” Bishop asked.
“No, I expect the paramedic to save him,” Ethan said, watching Curtis.
“I’m just an 18D. I can’t work miracles. We need to take him to the emergency room now.” Life was draining from Malik’s body with each chest compression.
Everybody stood still except Curtis, who continued working on Malik. Barr and Mac exchanged furtive glances with Bishop, but nobody said anything.
Finally, Bishop turned around and, passing by Ethan, slightly hitting his shoulder, said, “I don’t know you anymore, man.” And left the room.
Ethan looked at the others, but the three men made themselves busy. “You better make sure he lives,” he told Curtis, and followed Bishop out of the room.
Chapter 25
When Seth McAuley walked into the station, Sorensen almost spilled his drink. The Marine had discarded the kilt and was now in his class C uniform, but Loren hadn’t lied: his eyebrows were gone.
Sorensen extended his hand and introduced himself, then said, “Thank you for coming by.”
First Sergeant Loren stayed behind and just nodded, animosity radiating from his entire being.
“Really?” Sorensen shook his head.
Loren kept his hands interlaced behind him and didn’t reply. McAuley looked from one to the other.
“Any coffee?” the detective asked, moving on.
When they both declined, he led them to an interview room.
“Can you run me through what happened to you?” Sorensen had the case file in front of him but didn’t open it.
“Not much to tell, sir. I went to the coffee shop to get some writing done. I do this every week.” He looked down at his hands and picked at a hangnail on his thumb. “I’d just ordered coffee and went back to my table. As I sat down, the doors opened, and a bunch of guys walked in, dressed in night camouflage and gas masks. I heard a pop, then saw gray smoke. Next thing I remember, I’m waking up on a bus in Seattle, en route to friggin’ Canada.”
“What are you writing?”
McAuley chewed on his thumb. Then, without fully removing his finger, he said, “A sci-fi opera.”
“A what?” both Sorensen and Loren asked.
“It’s like an epic. A lot of characters and different worlds set a couple hundred years from now.”
“Anything confidential?”
“No. Of course not. It’s futuristic fiction.”
Sorensen eyed him. He’d read enough fantasy books to know that even if there was anything nonfiction in it, it would be disguised enough for the information to not be a threat.
“Any idea who these men were?”
McAuley looked at Loren. Sorensen leaned back against his chair, observing both. Loren finally nodded, and McAuley started talking.
“A couple weeks ago we had a football match against the guys from the 23rd Regiment, from San Bruno. One of their guys got injured, and it got pretty ugly very fast. I think they did this.”
“Why would they target you?”
“I’m the captain of the team.” He was sitting straight, not touching the back of his chair.
Sorensen remained quiet for a while. He was trying to process how preposterous this scenario was.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and left the room.
He grabbed one of the tablets lying around the office and went back into the room. He tapped a few screens and finally pressed Play on the YouTube video of the kidnapping at the coffee shop.
“I’m sure you’ve seen this already,” he said as the video started.
McAuley hadn’t. His expression was a mixture of disbelief and anger. He traced his missing eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
When the video ended, Sorensen said, “Some heavy-duty stuff.”
McAuley nodded.
“Do you really think a group of Marines would do this as a payback for a stupid game?”
Neither Marine said anything, but Sorensen could see they both believed they would.
“Remember the prototype halothane gas I told you about?” Loren asked.
“Yes. You found the missing case?”
“No. But I think you should know that we’ve had a few reports that some Marines have been horsing around with it.”
“And you waited until now to tell me this?” Sorensen yelled.
“It didn’t seem relevant to your investigation.”
“I’m the only judge of that.” He wanted to punch him but instead pounded on the desk.
Sorensen stared at Loren for a long time.
Loren finally broke eye contact and, as a truce, offered the names of a few Marines from the 23rd Regiment who were at the game.
Sorensen walked them to the elevator, and before it arrived he asked, “Did they do anything else to you? It seems like a lot of trouble for just a pair of shaved eyebrows, a kilt, and a ticket to Canada.”
McAuley looked back at Loren, then opened his shirt and pulled up his white T-shirt. On his right pectoral he had a brand-new tattoo. It looked like an action hero.
Sorensen laughed. “Man, I’m sorry,” he said, almost choking. “That’s mean.”
“And it’s not true,” McAuley said.
The detective looked at him, not comprehending. “What’s not true?” he asked.
Loren interjected: “That’s a blue falcon, slang in the Marines for ‘buddy fucker’—someone who doesn’t take care of his troops.”
“Oh,” Sorensen said. “Why would the 23rd Regiment think that about you?”
“Exactly. It’s baseless,” the Marine protested, rebuttoning his shirt.
Sorensen decided to look more into McAuley. It seemed strange that the guys would have gotten him the tattoo if the accusation was completely unfounded.
The detective ran back to his desk to a ringing phone. It was Sergeant Marra. He said a couple officers had gone to investigate a loud disturbance, followed by dark smoke. They found a black van burning at the Alviso Boat Dock. They first thought it was vandalism, but when the scorchers finished putting the fire out, they found a body inside.
Chapter 26
“There’ve been some complications,” Blake heard Ethan say as soon as he picked up the phone.
“We can’t afford any complications.” He got up and closed his office door. “We have less than a week to make this go away.”
“Suresh Malik is dead.”
Blake felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. When he was able to breathe again, he asked, “What happened?”
“Heart attack.”
“Fuck.” Blake felt the cold sweat wetting the collar of his shirt.
“‘Fuck’s right. We need to talk.”
“Meet me in Washington Park in a half hour.”
“Okay, but not by the play area. I don’t want some mom calling the cops because two creeps are hanging out there
,” Ethan said.
Blake laughed against his will. “I’ll see you by the tennis courts.”
About thirty minutes later, Blake arrived at the park. He zipped his leather jacket. The air was crisp. Nobody was playing tennis. He saw Ethan coming toward him. His pace was fast and determined.
“The way I see it,” Ethan said when he got close enough to not have to yell, “is that we can walk away right now and hope to God we don’t get caught.”
Blake shook his head but didn’t interrupt him.
“Or you find somebody else.”
“Malik was the right person. I don’t even know who else you can go after.” Blake bent over as if he was going to puke, but instead rubbed his thighs. He was thinking, but he couldn’t come up with what to do next.
“I say we go for the big guy,” Ethan suggested.
“That’s crazy.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know anything about him,” Blake said. “We’d need to do a bunch of research to figure out how to do this and not fuck up again.”
“I got all that.”
Blake looked at him. “How? Why?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t come up with a plan B, partner, so I did,” Ethan said, but there wasn’t a hint of humor in his voice. “How fast do you really need this done?”
“As I said, this nightmare needs to go away in the next couple days. A week tops, and that’s really pushing it.”
“Well, if you don’t want the top guy, you can find another target. Up to you.”
Ethan started walking away.
“Wait,” Blake called after him.
Ethan turned and smiled. “I’ll call you in an hour with instructions.”
For a second, Blake wished he’d never met this man.
Chapter 27
There was nothing Sorensen could add to the new crime scene. CSU was all over the burnt van, and the ME had already taken the corpse to the morgue. So he decided to go back to the station. While he cruised down the highway, he thought about his cases. Maybe what they did to Seth McAuley really was just a prank, but what about the other cases? The dead guy in the van—an accident? Unlikely. And nobody shoots at the police for a lark. That was absurd.
As soon as he got to his desk, he called the main contact number for the 23rd Marine Regiment and asked for the commanding officer of the guys McAuley had given him.
“This is Sergeant Major Williams. Colonel Francis is in Washington and won’t be back until next Monday. How can I help you?” The woman’s voice was high pitched and sounded more like a teenage cheerleader’s than that of a high-ranking officer in the Marines.
Sorensen introduced himself and jumped right into it. “I wanted to know if you’ve heard about a prank done to Gunny Seth McAuley, from the 4th LSG.”
“I heard about it,” she said.
Sorensen remained silent for a long time. She did too.
“Were your guys involved?” he finally asked, feeling as if he had just lost at a staring contest.
“You think that was retaliation because of the game?” she asked, not giving anything else away.
“You tell me.”
She was quiet again.
“Sergeant Major, Seth McAuley was kidnapped in a coffee shop in San Jose yesterday. Six men gassed the place and took him. They shaved his eyebrows and tattooed a blue falcon on his chest while he was passed out. Then they put him on a bus to Canada wearing a kilt. He woke up in Seattle with no recollection of any of it.”
“I don’t know anything about this,” she said after another long pause. Her voice didn’t even try to conceal her amusement.
“I’m glad you find all of this funny,” he tried to admonish her, but he also had to shake off a laugh, remembering McAuley with no eyebrows. “Do you know if any of your men might have any information?”
“Seriously, no,” she offered.
“We’ve invested a lot of manpower in trying to figure out what went on at the coffee shop. The same MO was used at a kidnapping at the VTA. And as I’m sure you’ve heard, again at a bank this morning.” He waited, but still nothing. “The one this morning resulted in a high-speed chase and shootout that critically injured one of my best guys. So, as funny as a prank can be—and trust me, the tattoo was priceless—I need to understand what’s going on here ASAP, or a lot of heads are going to be rolling.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your man, Detective. Let me do some digging, and I’ll call you right back,” she said, her tone matching the gravity of the situation for the first time.
Chapter 28
Darcy Lynch spent more time than was needed at the scene of the shootout. He always went back to crime scenes after CSU had left. He rarely found something the techs had missed, but what he was looking for was something different. He wanted to connect to the place, become almost intimate with it so he could understand why the perp had decided to use that site and not another.
This time he got nothing, especially because the shooters hadn’t chosen the place. Darcy had offered it on a silver platter by pushing the pursuit way too far. So he finally left the crime scene because he couldn’t justify being there any longer. Dread weighed on him more than he wished to admit.
He drove Saffron’s Mini with his left hand. His right shoulder throbbed, but he didn’t care. The pain was a reminder of what he’d done. He looked over at the passenger seat, half expecting to find Jon there. He thought about the intern’s pleas to stop the pursuit, and his unwillingness to do so. Darcy then shut his eyes for a second and saw Jon’s wounds spewing out, blood tainting his hands in dark red.
He was responsible for what had happened to Jon. He had to find out who’d done this to him.
As soon as Darcy entered the bullpen, Sorensen looked up at him, and his face changed, making Darcy feel worse than when he had punched him earlier. Darcy wondered if he should say something, but nothing came to mind. He went to his desk and powered up his computer.
Darcy sensed Sorensen’s eyes on him and looked up. He would have to face him sooner or later, so he said, “I’m sorry, okay?”
“You’re sorry?” Sorensen got up from his desk and stared down at Lynch. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“We were in pursuit. The license plate was covered with mud, and I didn’t want to lose them. They didn’t start shooting until we were on the side streets. I wanted to get close enough so they would lose the line of sight, and we could give the location to the other units.”
“Jon’s just an intern. He didn’t even have a gun to defend himself!” Sorensen yelled.
The few people in the bullpen left like rats abandoning a sinking ship.
“I know.” It was all Darcy could say. He knew. But he was just trying to do his job. He wondered who in that office would have done anything differently. But he didn’t say it.
Sorensen shook his head and turned around to view the evidence, as if the sight of Darcy disgusted him. Darcy stood and walked to the boards too. He needed to work. He needed to make sure the shooting wasn’t in vain.
Sorensen moved a few inches away when Darcy got close.
“They were shooting at us with an assault rifle. It could have been an M4. The military uses them,” Darcy said when he saw the note below McAuley’s name about being a Marine.
“Yeah, and a lot of other forces,” Sorensen spat, “including some law enforcement around the Bay, and the East San Jose gangs.”
“What do you have so far?” Darcy asked.
“I’m not wasting my time getting you up to speed. You just managed to get yourself pulled off the case this morning.”
“I’m not off the case.” Darcy shook his head. “We can either work this together, or we can work it separately—your choice—but I’m not off the fucking case.”
His patience was running out.
Sorensen acquiesced and sat down. He told Darcy everything about the kilt prank, the call to the Sergeant Major, and the dead body in the burnt van.
“Do
you have a pic of the van?” Lynch asked.
Sorensen pulled out his phone and showed him the few he had. “CSU will have more.”
“That’s the same van as in the shootout.”
“How do you know?”
“Same color, make, and model, and the side mirror is missing.” Lynch pinned one of the photos on the board.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Sorensen called Mauricio from his desk phone. “Hey, are you still with the van?”
“Yep.”
“We’re pretty sure this is the van the perps used to kidnap the guy at the bank and to shoot Jon, so go through every inch.”
“You got it,” Mauricio said.
“And tell Madison we need to know ASAP who’s the crispy inside.”
When he hung up, Darcy said, “I bet it’s the guy they took at the bank.”
“Why on earth would they kidnap somebody and then set him on fire?”
“I have no clue. But I bet it is.”
Darcy went to the kitchen and came back with a fresh cup of coffee. Sorensen was talking on the phone. When he saw Darcy, he pressed the speaker button.
“Sergeant Major, you’re on speaker. Detective Lynch is with me.”
“Very well. As I was saying, none of my guys are fessing up to the prank. However, my gunny, Ben Walters, is missing.”
“Your gunnery sergeant?” Sorensen asked.
“Yes.”
Darcy looked up to the whiteboard and saw that McAuley was also a gunnery sergeant.
“Thank you, Sergeant Major. Let me know if you hear from Walters.”
“Will do.”
Chapter 29
As soon as Sorensen hung up the phone, Virago poked her head out of her office and summoned him over. The detective explained how Lynch had identified the burnt van as the one from the bank kidnapping and subsequent shootout. He also told her about the prank on McAuley and the missing gunny from the 23rd.
“I’m planning to meet with all of the guys who played at that match later today.”
Virago checked her watch and arched an eyebrow.
