Chapter 10
I wasn’t back at the Town Hall before O’Day emailed me the address. But then, I wasn’t getting back into Town Hall anytime soon, as Occupied Seattle was well on its way to full WTO lock down. The Feds were forming skirmishing lines, all clad in riot gear, as an angry mob taunted them across Westlake Square.
The Feds looked undermanned, and I could see why. Looking at the mob, I recognized many of my old comrades, police officers and city workers, toting hunks of concrete and taunting the riot cops. They weren’t in uniform, but it was obvious. They were the ringleaders. The Seattle establishment had turned out for a little street justice.
I was of half a mind to step up to the line and join right in, but with the Montavez case just about to break wide open, I had no time to help out. It disgusted me to admit it, but I needed Constantine and his TAC-30 unit to Special Ops their way into the address O’Day had just sent me, before the Rosicrucians figured out that they’d just stolen back an e-reader with its lowjack broadcasting back to the mother ship.
An official was addressing the crowd through a megaphone as I pushed forward through the gathered mass of humanity. People were screaming, brandishing bats and makeshift clubs. They were ready for a fight, alright. The Feds were dangerously outnumbered.
I broke through the crowd and advanced on the Fed’s line. Riot cops yelled from behind gas masks for me to get back, but I raised my hands, with my badge showing in the right. I just kept yelling “Constantine” over and over, until the wall of riot shield parted and let me slip through. A bottle exploded an inch to my right as I slipped through the Fed’s phalanx. I ducked as the broken glass sprayed me. Fuckers. Guess I was marked down as a collaborator now. I was going to have to watch myself.
I found Constantine in his command trailer, frantically yelling orders to his ops team at their consoles. I’d only seen the mob in Westlake Square, but from the monitors I could see he was dealing with similar gatherings in Pioneer, Hing Hay and Steinbrueck. The masses had the Feds boxed in. No wonder Constantine looked scared.
“Get a reserve detachment to Yestler and Fifth, right now!” Constantine bellowed as I climbed into his trailer. He had his jacket off and his tie loosened. He looked frazzled.
“You ordered the reserve to Pike and—” a bearded geek began to dispute.
“Fuck! I don’t care!” Constantine growled. “Just find me more men! And form a skirmish line at Yestler, okay?”
“We have movement, east down—” another voice said.
“They’re coming at Alpha Twenty’s flank!” Constantine thrust an angry finger at an overhead, thermal map. He must have had drones in the air, giving him a live feed. “Order Alpha—” Constantine began. Then decided there wasn’t time. He ripped the headset off the seated technician and hollered into the microphone himself. “Alpha Twenty, wheel to your nine! Approaching hostiles! I repeat—”
But the battle had already begun. The riot police on Pike were caught off guard as a mass of red blobs on the thermal screen swarmed over a mass of blue blobs with ID tags.
“Shit!” Constantine threw the headset back at the shocked ops tech. “Pull twenty men of Westlake to reinforce Pike. Where’s the ORV?” Constantine turned to look at a tactical map.
“Tough day?” I said from my dark corner.
Constantine gave me a quick glance and returned to his map. “I don’t have time for you Fonseca.”
“I’ve got a hot lead on Montavez,” I said, stepping up next to Constantine and attempting to figure out what about the map he was so interested in.
“Not now,” Constantine dismissed. Then, to his Ops, “Move Mobile One to…University! University and Third.”
“Wilco,” the bearded geek said, straightening his headset on his ears.
“I just need a fire team to breach an address,” I continued, undeterred.
“I have no spare men right now, Detective,” Constantine replied with irritation. “Everyone is in the field.”
“I can see that.” I smiled. The red blobs on the thermal map seemed to have the upper hand. “But these could be the guys who have Montavez’s body.”
“It will have to wait,” Constantine said.
“Wait?” I exclaimed. “Wait? These guys took a big risk coming out of hiding to cover their tracks. They messed up, and they know it. These are our murderers. We’re talking minutes here, Special Agent. Once they drop out of sight again, there’ll be nothing bringing them back up into the daylight. All I have is an address…” I held up my phone in front of Constantine, with the address in its screen, “…and a rapidly shirking window of opportunity.”
Constantine sighed. “I simply can’t spare the men, Fonseca. I have aggressives only blocks away. If they overwhelm Command...”
“Well, you’ll have to spare someone,” I said, returning my phone to my pocket. “Constantine,” I whispered, trying not to share my concerns with the entire command trailer. “Isn’t the Montavez murder your whole justification for this? If her killers get away...are you going to be able to rationalize anything you’ve done here? To your superiors? To the courts?” Constantine paused in his frantic attempt to run his defense. I’d hit a nerve. “Returned back East with nothing to show for all this expense, all the arrests, all the broken teeth...they’re going to pin all of this on somebody...but return with Vivian Montavez’s body...return her to her grieving mother...then all of this is going to be seen in a very different light, Special Agent. Think about it.”
Constantine straightened to his full height. He turned to face me as he sucked in his gut. “Alright, we’ll check it out.”
“Good.” I smiled.
“But just you and me,” Constantine reached for his jacket. “We’ll keep this quiet. If it’s a dead-end, then we’ve only wasted an hour.”
“What?” I hedged. He’d missed my point. “But just the two of us—”
“Come on, Detective.” Constantine didn’t wait to hear my protests. He was already climbing out of the command trailer.
“I mean, you have guys for this—”
But Constantine was already gone. I was left in the dark on the Feds HQ, as agents and Ops tried desperately to coordinate their defense. The crowds were closing in on Occupied Seattle.
The wolves were howling at the door.
“Wild Thing! I’ll eat you up!” I could almost hear the crowd yelling.
That Nietzsche Thing Page 12
