“Try to lose the Bobby De Niro accent while you’re at it,” Palton said. “No one buys that shit anyway.”
Denley jerked a thumb toward his chest. “You talkin’ to me?”
Tim cracked a smile, his first in days. He realized he hadn’t thought about Ginny in nearly five minutes—his first free five minutes since the incident. His return to the memory was jarring, but he felt steeled with the first bracings of hope. Maybe tomorrow he’d manage six minutes free and clear.
The Beast screeched over a curb and pulled into the back lot of a 7-Eleven. Two LAPD officers at his side, Freed crossed to them in a crouched under-fire run, though the motel was nearly two blocks away. One of the ESU geeks—matted hair, thick glasses, the whole nine yards—was right behind him, eyes glued to a handheld GPS unit, the faintly glowing readout showing that the locating RF pulse from Heidel’s mobile phone was not moving.
The ART squad exchanged greetings with the cops, and Miller thanked them for their presence and discussed where to set the perimeter. With ART huddled around, Freed unfurled a thick sheet of butcher paper across the hood of a nearby Volvo. On it he’d sketched a rough diagram of the hotel room’s interior based on a conversation with the manager and his own assessment of the lay of the roof and the locations of various vents and external pipes. They didn’t want to risk the visibility of taking a tour through a similar room. The blueprint was oddly elongated; a hallway led back from the front room to a bedroom and bathroom.
“The mule just showed up in a hoopty,” Freed said. His command of slang disguised the fact that he came from money, but his crisp enunciation still betrayed a private school education. “A kitted-up ’91 Explorer. Chrome rims, running boards, brush guards, curb feelers, air dam—the whole street-scum package. The back looks to be filled with boxes, but the windows are tinted, so we can’t ID if they’re wine crates or not. He’s been in there about five minutes. The two Hispanic males arrived in a Chevy, and we think whoever was waiting for them in the room came in a green Mustang. Plates check out to a Lydia Ramirez, Heidel’s girlfriend, so that’s a pretty good confirm.”
Maybeck was fondling the new battering ram, getting a feel for it like a pitcher with a new glove. “What do we got on the door?”
“It’s a circa-1920s building, so probably a metal door with a wood core. There’s no security screen to pop or anything.”
Tim took a look around. Empty 40s in brown paper bags. Weedy front yards. Broken windows. “They might’ve sold the doors when the neighborhood went to shit and the hotel switched ownership.”
“Double-check in case they’re hollow-core,” Bear said. “The last thing we need is you putting the ram through the goddamn door again.”
“Relax, Jowalski. That happened once, six fucking months ago.”
“Once was enough.”
Freed cleared his throat. “It’s a two-story building, room is center first floor, number nine. It’s got sliding-door access to a shitty pool in the back, and a back-facing bedroom window. Me and Thomas’ll cover the rear.”
Tim turned down the volume on his portable radio so he wouldn’t have to remember to do it on the approach. “Is the unit connected to the rooms on either side?”
“No.”
The adrenaline started to hammer pretty hard. The men had instinctively paired into their two-man cells, and they were bristling like fillies in the gate. Precious strained a bit on her leash.
Miller finished with the police officer and turned to his men. “All right, boys. Let’s Pearl Harbor his ass.”
•They shuffled along the outdoor walkway, stacked tight, guns low-ready across their chests, approaching from the hinge side of the door. Miller led with Precious, Maybeck hauling his ram close behind. Tim was in his customary position as the number one; Bear, his cell partner, would be through the doorway right after him. The other cells were pressed behind them. All black gear and weapons, their eyes bugged out with goggles, helmets low and sleek. More than a few fugitives had wet themselves after being surprised by a kick-in.
Bear was sweating heavy, holding the action back on the Remington, the ejection port empty and ready for when he wanted to jack the pump and make some noise.
Miller crept forward and tapped the far edge of the door frame. Precious went up on her hind legs, holding her paws back from the door, then followed Miller’s hand down across the bottom of the door and back up to the knob. If she smelled any explosive materials booby-trapping the door, she would have sat, but she just stood there panting. Miller took her off in a fast trot, clearing the way.
The door was particleboard, probably hollow, with cheap, white-metal hinges. Maybeck rested his hand on it, feeling its vibe. Deputy marshals and doors have a long-standing respect for one another.
Maybeck drew back the battering ram. A perfect moment of quiet. Then he swung it down, striking the locking mechanism. The dead bolt tore through the frame, the door banging in with a jagged Pac-Man bite missing at the knob. Maybeck flattened himself against the outside wall, and Tim swept past him, kicking through into the unknown, the heat of seven more bodies following him, all yelling.
“U.S. Marshals!”
“Down! Everybody down on the ground!”
“Policía! Policía!”
“Hands up! Get your fucking hands up!”
The mule’s head snapped up. He’d been counting hundreds into a wrinkled brown paper bag. Three cell phones lay on the dinged-up wood table beside the cash, one of them silently emitting the telltale burst.
Tim was aware of the shirtless male to his right—a Joaquín y Leticia tattoo inked across his left pectoral—but he went for the first immediate threat, shoving the mule over and getting him proned out. “Spread your arms! Spread your arms!”
The room shook with thundering boots and commands as the other ART members poured in, moving threat to threat. Tim frisked the mule quickly around the waist and sides to make sure he couldn’t get to a weapon immediately, then stepped over him and let Bear move up to take custody. Tim’s head pivoted with the MP-5, cheek mashed to the shoulder stock, sighting down the dark hall.
Two deputies were on Joaquin, four more spreading along the walls, MP-5s raised. One of them took over the mule for Bear, then Bear was at Tim’s back, one hand touching his shoulder, stutter-stepping after him into the dark hall. Behind them Joaquin struggled and cursed as the others finished clearing the front room.
“U.S. Marshals!” Tim yelled down the hall. “You’re surrounded! Step out into the hall! Step out into the hall!”
Two more men waited behind Tim and Bear, eager to penetrate the rear rooms. The hall stood dim and silent, a fifteen-yard stretch back to the open opposing doors of the bedroom and bathroom. No closets or corners behind which to seek cover—reasons veterans sometimes balked at hallways and called them fatal funnels.
Tim moved swiftly down the hall, men stacking up behind, still shouting commands. The place smelled of rotting carpet and dust. As Tim neared the two open doors, Heidel and Lydia Ramirez leaned barely out from either side, pistols lowered at Tim’s head. It was an impeccably timed move; Tim couldn’t get a shot off on one without the other’s opening up on him. The narrowness of the hall cut off Bear’s angle behind him.
Heidel’s face was pressed hard against the inside jamb of the bedroom door, so his voice came out slurred. “That’s right, motherfucker! Keep moving!” The gun flicked to Bear, still behind Tim. “You! Big guy! Back the fuck off.”
Heidel was sporting what appeared to be a Sig Sauer. He carried a wheel gun, a Ruger from the looks of it, in a shoulder holster under his left armpit.
“Come here, come here!” Heidel’s greedy hand bunched Tim’s shirt.
Bear chambered a round, his massive fists encompassing the shotgun like a pool cue. “Release that federal officer! I said release that federal officer!”
Without raising the MP-5, Tim thumbed the release, dropping the clip on the floor just before Heidel whipped him around the corner int
o the bedroom. Heidel slammed Tim against the wall and pressed the Sig into his cheek so hard it crushed his flesh against the bone. Heidel wore a Philly Blunt skullcap pulled low over his eyebrows. A wispy goatee, light blond, barely stood out from his pasty white skin. Another man, a big Hispanic male with a snake tattoo encircling his biceps, snatched the MP-5 from Tim with one hand and lifted Tim’s Smith & Wesson from the holster with the other. He looked at the MP-5’s empty receiver and threw the gun to the side in disgust, though it still housed a round in the chamber.
More shouting farther down the hall. Heidel stuck his arm out and fired blindly into the hall until the Sig’s slide locked to the rear. He threw the empty gun aside, drew his Ruger, then gestured for Tim’s Smith & Wesson, which he jammed into his empty shoulder holster as a backup. He shoved the Ruger up against Tim’s face.
“Anybody fucking moves, I’m wasting your guy!” Heidel yelled. “Come on, baby. Come on.” His girlfriend stepped across the hall into the bedroom, and Heidel slammed and locked the door. Tim rotated slightly into the grinding pain of the pistol to get the lay of the room and noticed the fire door connecting to the hotel room next door. Faulty intel.
Heidel yelled at the closed door, “Anyone comes through here, I shoot the fed! I’m not fucking around.” He turned, panicky, and shoved the big man toward the fire door. “Move it, Carlos.”
Carlos flung open the fire door and stepped through. Another bedroom, another long hall. Heidel pushed Tim forward, following Carlos’s trail. The big man had a revolver tucked in the back of his jeans, the pearl handle glimmering. Tim slowed a bit, falling back. Heidel and his girlfriend fired idiotically at the walls behind them.
“Move it, cabrón,” Lydia screamed. She shoved him, and Tim faked a fall.
Carlos kept running, disappearing around the corner.
“Get up! Get the fuck up!” Lydia stood over Tim, unbound breasts swaying fat and free beneath a stretched-out man’s undershirt. Heidel was behind her, providing rear cover.
Tim pushed up onto his hands and knees, then rose. His holster hung empty from his belt. “Get him the hell up and moving!” Heidel shouted.
Tim crossed his arms, his left hand high on his biceps. When Heidel raised the Ruger to his forehead, as Tim knew he would, he snapped his hand over, grabbing the wheel tightly so it couldn’t rotate, and kicked the girlfriend in the stomach as hard as he could. She grunted loudly and dropped, maintaining her clutch on the pistol.
Heidel was yanking the trigger, not yet realizing that the cylinder couldn’t turn, the barrel digging into the middle of Tim’s forehead. With his right hand Tim reached across and pulled his own Smith & Wesson from its limp dangle in Heidel’s shoulder holster, then calmly fired a shot into Heidel’s chest. The back-spray of blood misted Tim’s face, and Heidel fell away, arms spreading out and up like a kid’s first pass at a snow angel. Tim kept his grip on the Ruger, still held up and backward, aimed at his own head. He pivoted quickly, saw that Lydia had found her feet, and he fired a shot through her chest and one through her face before her upswinging pistol arm reached horizontal.
She collapsed with a gurgle, a shudder of flesh and ripped cotton jersey.
Tim spun the Ruger and holstered it, keeping his Smith & Wesson at the ready. He ran down the hall, shoulder scraping a wall, and entered the front room just as Carlos banged through the sliding door onto the hotel’s pool deck. With the exception of Freed and Thomas, all the cover rifles were out front, and the LAPD’s secondary perimeter was a block away. Tim sprinted through the sliding door in pursuit, but Carlos was gone. Thomas was running toward Tim, shotgun at his side, while Freed kept rear cover by the pool. Having unexpectedly moved the length of four rooms and two hallways, Carlos had caught them off guard.
Without slowing, Thomas gestured to a still-swinging gate to Tim’s left. “Come on!”
Tim followed after him into a narrow alley. Puffs of smoke rose from the window of a restaurant kitchen, clinging to the walls. Carlos was halfway down the alley in a dead sprint for the traffic-heavy street ahead. Tim passed Thomas quickly. Carlos burst out onto the street and saw the LAPD vehicle at the far curb, the small crowd of bums and passersby drawn to the police perimeter, now pointing and shouting. Twenty yards behind, Tim cleared the alley just as Carlos froze up in surprise. The two young cops at the perimeter looked more shocked than Carlos.
Carlos reached for the revolver tucked in the small of his back, and Tim stopped running, raised his Smith & Wesson, and sighted on center mass. He double-tapped Carlos between the shoulder blades, then put his last bullet through the back of his head in case he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
When Carlos slapped the pavement, what was left of his head sent out a spray like a dropped melon.
6
WHEN TIM ARRIVED back at Room 9, two deputies were hauling Joaquin out. They’d hoisted him by his ankle and wrist cuffs and were carrying him horizontally, facedown. A length of nylon cord cuff ran around his ankles and back up to his arms. He continued to resist violently, jerking and trying to bite the deputies’ legs. The mule evidently had gone more peacefully.
Five LAPD patrol cars cordoned off the area, lights flashing. A sizable crowd had gathered; in the distance Tim spotted the panning dishes atop the first news vans to pick up the story. The chop of a copter was audible, though the visible sky was empty.
Bear sat propped against the outside wall, clutching his ribs, Miller and a paramedic bent over him. Tim felt his pulse quicken once again. “Everything all right?”
Miller opened a fist dramatically, revealing the flattened slug he’d just picked out of Bear’s vest. Tim exhaled hard and slid down the wall to plunk beside Bear.
“You’ve got nine lives, Bear.”
“Only seven left. The first I owe to you, this one to Kevlar.”
Freed, Thomas, and a cop milled around the hoopty, peering hun-grily through the tinted windows. Sweat stains on Freed’s T-shirt outlined the pattern of a bulletproof vest.
“What are they doing?” Tim asked.
“Waiting for the U.S. Attorney’s office to call back,” Miller said. “She’s tracking down a judge at home so they can get a telephonic search warrant for the car.”
“We stumble in on a Top 15 exchanging cash with convicted drug traffickers who then try to kill us, and that doesn’t constitute probable cause to search the fucking car?” Bear deteriorated into a coughing fit.
“I guess not anymore,” Miller said.
“You mean my night classes at the South West LA Legal Training Academy weren’t wellsprings of infallibility? How ’bout that?”
Tim shrugged. “We have the guys, we have the vehicle. Nothing’s going anywhere. They might as well wait another twenty minutes and cover their asses.”
They sat watching the commotion in the parking lot and the street beyond, a windstorm trying to quiet. The younger deputies were circled up by the door to Room 9, trying to joke off the bitter aftertaste of mortality.
“You could toss a cat through Motherfucker’s chest cavity.”
“Nice hit, nice hit.”
“Rack shot that fuck, he was DRT: Dead Right There.”
A few of them swapped high fives. Tim noticed that Guerrera was gripping his wrist hard to keep his arms from shaking.
“That’s the way to do it, Rack,” someone called out. “Fuckin’-A yeah.”
Tim raised a hand in a half wave, but his eyes were on the marshal’s Bronco, just pulling through the police perimeter. Marshal Tannino hopped out and approached in a jog. A stocky, muscular man who’d come up through the ranks, Marco Tannino had joined the service at twenty-one. His recommendation last spring by Senator Feinstein paved the way to his marshalship, one of the few appointments made on genuine merit. The majority of the ninety-four marshals were big contributors to Senate campaigns, trust-fund babies whose dads rubbed elbows with Beltway brass, or sycophantic bureaucrats from other government agencies. Much to the chagrin of the street deputies, one
of the marshals out of Florida was a former professional clown. Tannino, on the other hand, had logged plenty of trigger time in his distinguished career, so he was respected from bottom to top in the district office and elsewhere.
He wore a focused expression, running a hand through his coiffed salt-and-pepper hair as Freed filled him in.
Miller squeezed Tim’s shoulder. “We need to get you a paramedic?”
Tim shook his head. The aftermath of the adrenaline kick had left his mouth dry and sour. The area smelled of sweat and cordite.
One of the police officers crouched over Tim and flipped open his black notebook. He started to talk, but Tim cut him off. “I have no statement.”
Tannino stepped in hard, his knee brushing against the cop so he had to stand to regain his balance. “Get out of here,” he said. “You know better than that.”
“Just doing my job, Marshal.”
“Do it elsewhere.”
The cop retreated inside the hotel room.
“How are you doing?” Tannino asked. He was looking Hill Street hip in his Harvey Woods sport coat, polyester slacks, and Nunn Bush wingtips.
“Okay.” Tim unholstered his Smith & Wesson, double-checked that the wheel was empty save the six casings, and handed it over to Tannino, not wanting to make him ask for it. The weapon was no longer his; it was federal evidence.
“We’ll get you a fresh one soon.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Let’s get you out of this mess. The media monkeys are banging the bars, and the scene’s gonna heat up.”
“Thanks, Marshal. I fired si—”
The marshal held up his hand. “Not now, not here. Nothing oral, ever. You know the game. You’ll make one statement one time, and it’ll be in writing. You did your job and did it well—now let’s jump the hoops and make sure you’re protected.” He offered his hand and pulled Tim up off the wall. “Let’s go.”
The Kill Clause Page 6
