Dead Heat

by Allison Brennan

  Lucy thought it interesting that George started with we but ended with he—Jaime. Confirming that the younger brother was the leader.

  “Address,” Donnelly said.

  George looked at Lucy. He gave them the exact address. “Can I see my nieces? Please?”

  “Bella only,” Lucy said. “Officer Wyatt will bring her back in. But then she and CeCe are leaving.”

  “Is CeCe okay?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said and left it at that.

  Outside, Donnelly said, “Why not let him see the other kid?”

  “I don’t want CeCe to know that he’s helping us,” she said quietly. “We can’t trust her not to spread the word that George is turning snitch. She won’t understand that she could put him in danger.”

  “Eleven,” Donnelly muttered.

  It hurt, Lucy realized, that she couldn’t trust the girl. They now had an obligation to protect not only the girls, but George Sanchez as well.

  * * *

  That little motherfucking brat was going to be gutted and left to die in the streets, like the rat he was.

  Where would he go? Jaime already put a man outside Michael’s old foster home, but would he be stupid enough to go back there? For a kid, he was a smart little bastard.

  But not smart enough. Jaime would find him and kill him for jeopardizing this operation. If the plan didn’t go off perfectly, the general would be gunning for Jaime, and no way in hell was Jaime going to die. This had been his grand plan, his brilliant strategy to unite three smaller gangs into a cohesive group. Smaller than the Texas Mexican Mafia, but more powerful because they were smarter. They would swear allegiance to the TMM, but the general had it worked out that they were to be partners, not subordinates.

  If the plan was executed.

  And Michael was the wild card. He had to play his part or the entire plan would fail.

  His burner phone rang. The only person who had this number was the general himself.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “What happened?” the general asked, his voice low and rough.

  “I told you Michael was a threat. He escaped.”

  “The feds are all over your house.”

  “That ain’t my problem.”

  “It is if your stupid brother talks.”

  “He won’t.” Jaime wasn’t so sure of that, but he couldn’t let the general know George was trouble. “And if he does, he doesn’t know anything about the plan.”

  “He knows enough. Mirabelle has been arrested as well.”

  “She probably mouthed off at the cops.”

  “Which leads me to the most important question. Where is Isabella?”

  Jaime’s face twisted in a grimace. “Safe,” he said.

  “She’s with the authorities. You know our agreement, Jaime. I want her. Find her and bring her to me. No more waiting.”

  Mirabelle would never forgive him, but it was her own fault. Mirabelle had brought the general into their lives in the first place.

  You made your bed, sister, now suck it up.

  “I told you I would.”

  “It sounds like you have a lot of problems, Jaime. Take care of them.”

  The line went dead.

  Jaime glanced at the river and considered throwing the phone in and running. But where would he go? All his contacts and friends where here. He’d be a sitting duck anywhere else in the West. He had no resources to disappear.

  If he stayed, the reward would be great. But first, he would have to survive the coming war. And survival depended on finding Michael and sending him in to do his part. Jaime wished there were someone else, but it had to be Michael.

  He dumped Mirabelle’s car and stole another ride, took it to the warehouse on 39th. His boys were there and were happy to see him.

  Andy said, “The feds are everywhere today. Some fucking sweep, ever heard of such a thing?”

  Jaime shook his head. “They were at Mirabelle’s. They have her and George. I need a kit and a clean car.”

  “Got it ready. Ben went underground. They hit his place, but he’d already heard about the sweep and disappeared.”

  “When he checks in, have him tag me. I need his help.”

  Jaime looked over the car Andy had stripped and rebuilt. There were hidden compartments for drugs and guns, but Jaime didn’t need drugs right now. He packed up the weapons he could use, and cash. “Keep your eyes open,” he said. “I’ll check in later.”

  Jaime drove off, heading south. He couldn’t leave the city until he had Bella, but he had a safe house just outside town where he could lay low for the rest of the day and have his people search for Michael. There weren’t many places the kid could go.

  As soon as he had Michael, he’d grab Bella and head south of the border. Once the general had her, Jaime could rest easier, buy some more time.

  The feds might have his niece now, but finding her would be a piece of cake.

  CHAPTER 3

  Watching Brad Donnelly work, Lucy realized he’d done this a hundred times. He wasn’t that old—in his late thirties—but he was comfortable giving orders and executing a plan. He pulled a unit from another team to transport George to a holding cell, assigned Officer Wyatt and his partner to stay with Bella and CeCe through CPS processing until they were secure in the foster home, and left two officers to stake out the Sanchez-Borez home in case Jaime returned. Within an hour he had a new staging area set up half a mile from the hardware store that, according to George Sanchez, fronted for Jaime’s drug and gun storage facility.

  If George was lying, they’d gambled and lost, but all that would be wasted was time. Donnelly seemed optimistic, but with detailed preparation he wasn’t counting solely on George Sanchez’s intel.

  There were nine of them now, with a tactical backup of six watching the perimeter and manning the communications van. Donnelly had everyone gear up. Six were SWAT-trained, including Donnelly and Ryan and SAPD Officers Butcher and French, who’d been part of their team from the beginning. Two other DEA agents had joined them as well. Donnelly split them into three teams of three, and Lucy was assigned to Donnelly and Ryan.

  Donnelly had week-old satellite pictures of the block, and he highlighted the hardware store and all its ins and outs. He marked the two primary entrances. “My team is Alpha, we’re going through the front. Beta, you’re in the rear. Delta, you’re covering the parking lot. Any packages, get them clear immediately. Questions?”

  There were a few, which Donnelly answered. Then he said, “As soon as the warrant gets here, we’re moving.”

  Ryan turned to Lucy. “Are you ready for this?”

  Donnelly interjected. “You have a problem, Quiroz?”

  “Kincaid isn’t SWAT. Neither are Rollins or Crane. You just outlined a SWAT operation.”

  “This is a raid, pure and simple. According to our drive-by, there are only two cars in the lot, and SAPD intelligence reports on the area list this as a low-level facility. They don’t even have it confirmed as a drug house, but Sanchez swears up and down that it’s for storage. And it makes sense they’d keep it low-key, to not trigger our interest.” He turned to Lucy. “You want out?”

  “No, sir,” she said.

  “Good.”

  It was clear from the look on his face that Ryan was still not happy. Lucy pulled him aside while Donnelly handed out communications equipment. “I’m good, Ryan.”

  “Donnelly’s a hot dog. He’s knows better than to rush an op like this.”

  “We don’t have time. This is our best chance—if George Sanchez is being up front, we can deal a severe blow to his brother’s operation and possibly gain a lead on where he’s hiding. He might even be here.”

  “It’s not we, Lucy, it’s him. It’s Donnelly’s gig, we’re just along for the ride.”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  “I don’t know that I am.” He glanced around at the team. “We train every week in SWAT. This is a hodgepodge of people who haven’t trained tog
ether.”

  Lucy didn’t know how to respond. She trusted Ryan; he was the most cop-like agent on the Violent Crimes Squad, largely, she suspected, because he’d been a big-city cop for so long. But this situation required speed. If they waited, they’d lose the edge.

  “But,” Ryan continued, “I have your back.”

  “I have yours, too. I might not be SWAT, but I’ve trained for this.”

  Ryan was acting protective, and she didn’t know if that had more to do with her being a rookie, or her being a female agent. He didn’t really know her, her history, what she’d done or what she’d been trained to do. If their roles were reversed and she were the agent assigned to a rookie, she might have similar concerns.

  She added, “Ryan, when this is over, remind me to have you to the house for dinner. I have some stories for you. Maybe then you’ll trust me.”

  He glanced at her. “I trust you. It’s him”—he jerked his finger toward Donnelly, who was on the phone—“I don’t trust. Not completely.” Then he gave her a half grin. “I was wondering when you’d get around to an invite. Nate said he’s over there all the time. Says your place is awesome.”

  “That’s all Sean. He has too much time on his hands.” Which was becoming a problem. Not for Lucy—she loved coming home every evening to Sean—but she sensed that Sean was getting restless. Starting a new PI business in a city where he didn’t have many contacts was proving more difficult than he’d thought. He was looking into local private security companies, but he didn’t want to work for anyone else. It was his chance to make a clean break from his brother’s company, and he wanted to do it on his own. So he’d spent all his free time updating and decorating the house he’d found while Lucy spent New Year’s with her family in San Diego.

  While she loved her job, she loved coming home even more. For the first time in her life, everything was working together. A job that was her vocation, a home that she felt was truly her own, and a man she loved beyond anything else.

  Which made Sean’s sacrifices for her all the more noble. He’d given up his position with his brother’s company, and though he wanted to leave, it still meant he had to create something from the ground up here. Because he loved her.

  “Ready, Kincaid? Quiroz?” Donnelly said. “Finally got the damn warrant.”

  They nodded, and the three of them bumped fists. Even with the tension between Ryan and Donnelly, the operation came first. They were a unit.

  They rode into the red zone via the tactical truck, cramped in a narrow space that was dominated by communications equipment. The van followed. They parked directly in front of the entrance and exited immediately. Speed was essential in case there were external security cameras that announced their presence.

  Donnelly used his hands to signal each team, and everyone moved out seamlessly. Lucy had only trained with SWAT as part of rescue scenarios, years ago when she’d been an intern with the Arlington County Sheriff’s Department. Because she was a certified EMT, she’d trained as the team medic. She was very comfortable with the process.

  Donnelly was lead, and he silently counted down, then shouted, “Go, go, go!” and kicked open the door.

  “DEA! We have a warrant to search these premises!”

  Lucy surveyed the main room. It was a hardware store with several long, narrow rows of supplies, but there was more open space than shelves. Several Hispanic males were lounging on couches, and they jumped up as soon as Donnelly breached the entrance. Two ran toward the back.

  Ryan shouted, “Down, down, down!” The three remaining men slowly sank to the ground. “Keep your hands up, above your head.”

  Donnelly nodded to Ryan. “Got them?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Into his mike Donnelly said, “I need backup to secure three hostiles in front.” Then he motioned for Lucy to follow him in pursuit of the fleeing suspects.

  The two on foot hadn’t left the building. Lucy motioned to the floor. She’d felt a vibration beneath her, but hadn’t heard a door closing.

  Donnelly understood. In his mike he said quietly, “I need plans on this building. Is there a cellar?”

  As he waited for information, they searched all potential hiding places, but came up empty. Beta team, from the rear, entered. “They didn’t come out this way, sir,” the Beta team leader said.

  Donnelly slid over the counter. There was an old manual cash register. He motioned at the floor. Lucy saw exactly what he did: The wood was different from that in the rest of the store.

  He took out his cell phone and read something, then said into his mike, “Expand the perimeter, possible tunnel escape.”

  He gestured to Lucy. “Get that door open.” He trained his gun on the opening.

  Lucy slung her rifle strap over her back and felt around the boards. The hinges were on top, flush with the wood, but indicating that the door would swing out, into the store. On the opposite side where the opening should be the boards were wider apart and discolored. A small handle was barely noticeable. She tried to open the trapdoor; a faint sound of scraping metal came as she pulled.

  “They have it locked from the underside,” she said.

  “Stand back.”

  Lucy complied. Donnelly fired two bullets at the lock. The lock gave and the door sagged. Donnelly reached down, pulled it up, and leaned it against the counter.

  Dull-yellow lights lit the cellar below. There was no movement and no sign of the two suspects, but that didn’t mean they weren’t waiting to ambush anyone who came down. A ladder lay on the packed-dirt floor below. In addition to the lock, they’d taken away the stairs. But the drop wasn’t far. Rows of shelving revealed hundreds of firearms, from handguns to illegal automatic weapons.

  “Shit, that’s a lot of weaponry,” Donnelly muttered. He grabbed a box of bolts from the counter and dropped it into the hole. No one fired.

  “I’m going first. Crane, guard the door, everyone else follow me.”

  Donnelly didn’t hesitate. He slung his rifle over his back, unholstered his sidearm, and eased himself into the hole, dropping almost immediately and landing on his feet. He searched the immediate area and said, “Clear. It’s only an eight-foot clearance,” he added. “The drop is easy.”

  Lucy dropped down, followed by two others. They fanned out and quickly searched the remainder of the basement. There were six rows of shelving with at least three hundred guns of all types, plus hundreds of boxes of ammo. A door led to a room that was mostly empty, except for a money-counting machine and a computer. A stack of unused plastic bags sat on the small table.

  “Shit,” Donnelly said, “this is bigger than I thought, but they haven’t cleared out. We definitely caught them unaware. Either they’re waiting for a new drug shipment, or they just released their last.” He glanced at the guns. “I didn’t expect the gun operation. The Sanchezes have always been about the drugs, this means—” He stopped for a moment, as if running through a list of scenarios.

  “Someone else?” Lucy offered. “Or expanding his operation?”

  “I sensed something was up. The last gang that Sanchez hit, it didn’t make sense—now it does.”

  One of the Beta team members, Johnson, motioned to a hall that led east. It was poorly lit. Donnelly put his hand up to halt them, then asked the tactical team on the street if they’d found the exit to the tunnel.

  “Affirmative,” Lucy heard through the mike. “We have two men on it. No one has exited.”

  Johnson said, “It could be a maze down here.”

  Donnelly considered, then said, “Delta team, stay on the tunnel exit. I’m going through this end with Johnson. Be alert for us, no one gets caught in the cross fire, got it? Stay up on the com.” He said to Lucy, “You and Rollins stay here, complete the search, secure this door, wait for my orders.”

  Lucy watched them enter the tunnel, then walked the perimeter of the room.

  Nicole Rollins said, “No place to hide here.”

  True. The room off the main
storage area had no door. They’d already been in there. Lucy paced, assessing the guns and space. “I’m from California. Most houses don’t have basements. My brother had one in DC, but we didn’t do anything with it.”

  “I lived in Kansas until I was fourteen,” Nicole said. “Spent lots of time in the cellar during tornado season. My dad fixed it up with a television, radio, games—my brothers had an extra game system down there. Lots of batteries.”

  “I’ve never been through a tornado.”

  “Just wait, you’ll experience it soon.”

  Her stomach lurched. Lucy had gone through many earthquakes, but tornadoes freaked her out. It was like God put His finger down on each individual house that was destroyed, whereas earthquakes were just big shakes of temper and everything crumbled.

  “Donnelly will bring in a team to catalog and impound everything,” Nicole said as they finished the second sweep of the room to verify there were no more trapdoors or hiding places.

  Lucy went back into the smaller room where it was obvious that drugs had been packaged and money counted. The computer was new; the electronics team would seize it and analyze the data. She was good with computers and itched to turn it on, but refrained. Instead she looked under all the shelves, for anything that might be helpful to the investigation.

  “How long have you worked with Donnelly?” Lucy asked Nicole conversationally.

  “Awhile,” she said.

  “Why doesn’t he like rookies?”

  She hesitated. “What makes you think that?”

  “He said so.”

  “Well, you’re here, aren’t you?”

  “I sensed there was something more to it.”

  Nicole stood in the doorway at such an angle that she could see the main room, her back to Lucy. She was shorter than Lucy, but more muscular, as if she worked out daily with weights. She was also older, late thirties or forties. The fine lines around her eyes were getting deeper, though she wore a thick layer of makeup to hide them. “Few years ago, before I transferred here from Atlanta, he lost a rookie in an operation. I don’t know much about it, but he blamed himself, blamed the kid, blamed the cartel that set them up. He never works with rookies anymore. He wants five years’ experience before he’ll let you on his team.” She glanced at her. “So I’m surprised you’re here.”