"I went out to Westlake and drove around Stone's property. There's a man-made lake with a runoff that goes under the fence to a culvert. We could get in through the runoff and-"
"Hold it. Back up a minute, okay?" Chooch stopped pacing and waited. "Where did you get the information that she's being held in Stone's Westlake estate?"
"What's it matter?"
"Because the source of that information could sell you out. You could be walking into something."
"Nobody cares about me."
"Wise up, Chooch! Your mom is head of DSG. You'd be a great trading card."
"I don't-" Then Chooch stopped. He obviously hadn't thought of that. "Okay, so…"
"So, who gave you the intel?"
"I overheard it. I was hanging out in one of Stone's strip clubs down in South Central. The guy I overheard talking was a crazy-looking light-skinned brother with a Senegalese twist. This braid was hangin' halfway down his back. He was bragging about how he and some other Crips were holding American Macado's cousin, were gonna use her to get Amac. I was one table over, listening. When he left, I followed him all the way to the mansion out in Westlake. I asked around and found out the place was owned by Kevin Cordell."
"Jeez, you coulda gotten killed." Chooch shrugged. "But it fits. Amac told me some light-skinned brother with a braid did the hit on Stone."
"He's one of Hardcore's tights. That makes this all the more righteous."
"I don't trust it. Maybe they knew you were listening." "These guys aren't that clever."
But Shane was frowning.
"Dad, you and I could do this. If Delfina's there in the guesthouse being held by a coupla Crips, we could crawl through that spillway, sneak up on the place, then break in and grab her."
"Look, I'm not gonna do this."
"Dad, I'm gonna rescue her with or without you." "Wanna bet?" Shane looked up at Chooch, who, at six-three, two-twenty, would be damn hard to stop. It was a classic parental dilemma. In that moment he realized he could probably no longer physically control his son. "Dad, this is exactly what you'd do if you were me." "No, it-"
"Be fair," Chooch interrupted. "If this was Mom being held, would you go to the cops? Would you risk SWAT and tear gas and all the rest of it? Or would you try and sneak in there and pull her out?"
"That's different, and you know it. I'm an adult and an experienced police officer."
"This isn't about being a cop. It's about being a man. You always tell me that a man has to live with the consequences of his actions. Well, I can't live with the consequences of inaction. You told me on my birthday last year that from now on, you're going to treat me as an equal. But I guess that's just when nothing's at stake. Now that someone I really care about is in danger, you're telling me I'm a kid, that I don't really have a vote."
Shane sat still for a long minute. Dammit, he hated to be quoted against himself! But his son was right about one thing: Shane would never call SWAT if it was Alexa. He wouldn't trust an adrenaline squad of twenty-year-olds to go in, guns blazing, and hope they could pull her out alive.
"Dad, Amac is gonna try and set up the trade. If we pull her out tonight, before he meets with the Crips, then you'll have saved his life-paid him back for what he did for us three years ago."
Shane did owe Amac for his son's future, but still, how could he take part in a three A. M. raid on Stone's mansion using his seventeen-year-old son as backup?! If they survived, Alexa would kill him. If it went wrong, he would never be able to explain it.
"Dad, I came to you because you're my best friend, and the only person on earth I would trust with my life and Delfina's. You've got to do this with me."
Chapter 33
BUTCH AND SUNDANCE
They were driving on the 101 toward Westlake Village. Shane was behind the wheel. Alexa's backup gun, a no-nonsense Colt Double Eagle, and a box of.45 ACP cartridges were on the seat beside him.
He reached into his pocket and handed Chooch two empty clips. "Why don't you load these they take eight shots."
Chooch opened the box of ammo. The metallic snick of brass on lubricated steel rang softly inside the car as he thumbed cartridges into the clips.
They drove past Woodland Hills and Calabasas, then fifteen minutes later turned onto Westlake Village Road, which bordered ten acres of blue moonlit water on one side, and a string of multimillion-dollar homes on the other.
As they drove south, Chooch pointed out a huge colonial mansion hiding behind wrought-iron gates still festooned with yellow LAPD crime tape. The estate was one of the largest and, as Chooch had said, sat on at least six acres of manicured property. It was guarded by an eight-foot-high electric fence and lit with xenon lights. Kevin Cordell had come a long way from his bullet-scarred neighborhood in South Central to this millionaire's estate in Westlake. But Shane knew many had died so Stone could make the journey.
Following Chooch's directions, Shane drove around to the south end of the property, where they parked on a side street.
They sat quietly inside the black Acura, letting their nerves settle.
"Okay, you stay here. I'm gonna do some reconnaissance."
"I'm going with you," Chooch answered. "Don't try and talk me out of it."
Shane sighed, then grabbed the loaded Double Eagle with its spare clip and got out of the car as Chooch followed. They headed up the street away from the estate.
"Where're you going? The way in's back there."
"The police padlock is still on the gate. You said they parked on the street. I wanta check out the work car first."
A block away they found a blue '78 Charger with a busted-out taillight and a bullet hole in the right rear fender. Shane forced the window wing, unlocked the door, then found the registration in the glove box. "Darnel Sweet, with a bullet hole in the fender. This rig doesn't live around here." Shane opened the hood, removed the distributor cap and threw it in the bushes. "Only one car. If they all came together, that means four or five at the most," Shane said. "Now show me the way in."
His son led him back to the overflow spillway, a short distance down the street. When they got there, Chooch knelt down and pointed to an oblong pipe that ran under the electric security fence. Shane knelt down beside him, then leaned forward and peered into the opening. It was going to be tight squeezing through, but, fortunately, whoever put in the spillway hadn't safeguarded it with an iron grate.
"Except for this, security looks pretty good, so you can bet Stone has motion traps in there," Shane said softly. "Yeah, probably."
Shane was determined to keep his son as far away from this as possible. "You're too big to get through. Go get the car and repark it back here. I'll go in. Keep the engine running. If I find her, and can bring her out, I'm gonna need a quick dust-off."
"I can get through there," Chooch responded.
"I need you out here."
"Dad, I'm going-"
"Not an option."
"She won't go with you. She doesn't know you."
"I met her up at her aunt's house in the Hills, three years ago."
"You're chota. She won't trust you." Emes called cops la chow and viewed them all as corrupt racists.
"Listen, Chooch, I'm not letting you-"
"I'm going. That's it. This was my idea." Chooch didn't wait for further argument, but dropped to his stomach and started to squeeze through the narrow spillway.
Shane was praying that his son wouldn't be able to fit. The teenager had broad shoulders, made even broader by all the weight lifting he'd done for football. Slowly, Chooch inched deeper and deeper into the enclosure, until only his tennis shoes were sticking out. Then he stopped.
Shane thought, Good, he's stuck, the smartass. But before he could grab Chooch's ankles and pull him out, his son was moving forward again, the tennis shoes slowly disappearing into the pipe. Shane waited. About two minutes later, he heard rustling on the far side of the fence.
"Okay, I'm through," his son whispered.
Shane followe
d Chooch through the spillway, slushing in two inches of water and slime that had collected on the bottom of the runoff. Finally he reached the end and slithered out of the gooey mess.
Once he was through, he realized how Chooch had managed to make it. There was so much moss and mildew in the runoff pipe that it acted as a lubricant. Shane rolled to a sitting position. His clothes were soaked and stained with greenish-brown gunk. His son, looking just as funky, was crouched, staring off across a small man-made lake toward the guesthouse.
"What about guard dogs?" Chooch asked softly.
"If the Westlake PD secured this place, they'll be at Animal Rescue."
Chooch nodded. "Let's go."
"Hold it. What's the rush? Let's take a look around first."
"Dad, the guesthouse is right over there by the pool." He pointed at a low-roofed structure about two hundred yards away.
"Yeah, but Stone was a Crip legend with lots of enemies, so this place probably has better security than the White House." Shane began looking at the ground, checking the area around the spillway.
"What are you looking for?"
"Darnel Sweet was parked on this side of the house, so maybe we're not the only ones to use this drainpipe."
"Shit, you're right, lookit that…" Chooch said, pointing to some moss and dried slime on the grass to the right of them.
"Darnel and his friends didn't want to toast their nuts on that electric fence either. If he knew about this runoff, he probably also knows where the motion traps are, so let's follow his footsteps."
"You're pretty good at this," Chooch admitted. "Ain't my first roundup."
Shane found four sets of footprints. He held up four fingers. Chooch nodded and they moved along, following the tracks. Soon the trail led them out onto the lighted lawn, and Chooch stopped abruptly. "We go out there, they'll see us."
"They're probably asleep. Besides, they usually put motion traps in the dark places in the yard, not the lighted ones. If Darnel was avoiding the motion detectors, we need to stay in his tracks. We don't have a choice."
Nonetheless, Shane felt hopelessly exposed as they crept along, lit by powerful overhead xenon lights.
Finally they made it to the guesthouse. Shane motioned for Chooch to stay back, then crept up to the structure, inching slowly around the perimeter, checking the security on every screen door and window opening.
It was a class-A installation. The alarm wiring had all been punched through the walls and ran in copper conduit-no way to straight-wire or short it. He returned to where Chooch was waiting and knelt next to him.
"It's a good system," Shane whispered. "I don't wanna mess with it."
"We gotta get in there now," Chooch insisted.
"We could kick in a door and swarm the place, but we only have one gun, and they probably all have street sweepers. Furthermore, they have Delfina. Like you said, if we go in like SWAT, she could end up dead."
"So whatta we do?" Chooch sounded panicked.
"One of us has to set off one of these trap alarms while the other waits for them to come out."
"One of us…?" Chooch was frowning. "You mean me!"
"I've got the gun, and if you think I'm turning it over, you're nuts."
"She won't go with you," Chooch stubbornly insisted. "I'll deal with that when the time comes."
"Dad-"
"Dammit, Chooch, I'm trained in tactical planning. Lemme do the fucking tactics!" Shane snapped. He was buzzing like a power line. Calm down, he told himself, but doing a raid with his only son was almost more than he could handle. Shane remembered a dog-and-cat patrol team that had worked a basic car in South Central a few years back. They fell in love and ran off to Vegas to get married, but didn't tell anybody and kept working the Plain Jane together-a nearly fatal mistake. The guy ended up getting shot and almost died because they were both so busy protecting each other, they didn't use good tactics. Shane had the same problem. He was more worried about Chooch than the killers inside the house.
"Let's try and get this done before the sun comes up," Shane said, pointing the gun in the direction of the footsteps they were following. "When I get into position, you veer off the path and trip an alarm."
Chooch moved off, as instructed, while Shane sprinted to a shadowy place he found next to the front door. He prayed the G's came out together so he could take them all at once.
Once Shane was in position, he quietly chambered the Double Eagle.
Suddenly all of the alarms in the yard went off. A hooting siren followed by a huge ten-inch ringer. It set up a clattering, whooping din in the once quiet neighborhood. Shane counted to twenty before the back door swung open and two black guys wearing nothing but boxer shorts ran out of the house carrying auto-mags. A second after exploding out the door, they caught sight of him and spun. The first one triggered off a wild burst as Shane fired. The slug from his Double Eagle hit the G high on the hip, spinning him around. He screamed as he fell, his Tec-Nine wildly stitching holes in the brick pool decking. The second G spun in the opposite direction and was accidentally disarmed by a friendly lemon tree. The barrel of his auto-mag hit the trunk and it was knocked out of his hands. Shane stepped forward and clocked him hard with the broad side of the Double Eagle. The man's head chimed loudly against the steel breach. He fell onto his back and began snoring. Shane heaved the G's auto-mag into the dark.
The first g'ster was shrieking in pain as Shane grabbed his Tec-Nine and ran into the house.
Almost immediately, he saw a light-complexioned g'ster with a long tenza braid standing naked in the kitchen, a bad-looking, cut-down ArmaLite AR-10 machine gun in his right hand. He was swinging it toward Shane, who was off balance, skidding to a halt. He instantly knew that by the time he squared up and completed his pivot, he'd be dead, so he threw the Tec-Nine back-handed across the room toward the G.
"Catch!" he yelled. The light-skinned man attempted to catch the gun or dodge out of the way. In either case, he lost his grip on the AR-10. As he struggled to control the weapon, Shane finished his pivot, pulled the Double E, and fired. The automatic reared up in his outstretched hands and blew a hole in the G's chest.
The naked man flew backward spouting blood, then hit the wall and fell in a sprawl of arms and legs.
Shane stepped over his lifeless body and moved through the house, slower now, alert for more G's.
There were no more Crips in the house.
He found Delfina duct-taped to the bed in a guest bedroom. She was bruised and naked, with a sock stuffed in her mouth. A look of mindless terror filled her vacant eyes.
Shane pulled the sock out of her mouth and she immediately started screaming. Blood-curdling, insane screeches. God only knew what they had been doing to her.
Shane opened his pocket knife and cut the duct tape from her hands and feet, then grabbed the terrified girl, threw her over his shoulder, and ran from the house.
She never stopped screaming.
When he got outside, Chooch appeared next to him. They made the run across the yard, accompanied by Delfina's screeches and the whooping alarm sirens. Shane figured since this was Stone's house, the alarm probably didn't have a direct-dial to the police. It would just clatter and howl until the angry neighbors finally called 911.
As they reached the spillway, Shane pulled Delfina off his shoulder. Chooch stripped off his grass-stained Pendleton overshirt and put it on his naked, crazed girlfriend.
"Delfina, it's me! It's Chooch!" he pleaded, but her eyes were wild, nothing registered. "Please, Delfina, I'm here! You're safe now," Chooch begged, but the girl was delusional with terror.
Shane squeezed through the spillway and yelled for Chooch to wedge Delfina into the narrow opening. He crawled halfway back, then grabbed her wrists, pulling as hard as he could.
She was scratching and clawing. One of her fingernails cut a gouge in his face under his eye.
Finally Shane pulled her out of the narrow aqueduct and held her until Chooch scrambled through the openi
ng.
They ran to the Acura, helped Delfina into the backseat, and pulled out. She never stopped screaming. It was as if her mind had snapped.
She screamed all the way out of Westlake Village, to the freeway, and all the way down the freeway to the emergency room at Sherman oaks Community Hospital.
Chapter 34
PTSD
It was four A. M. and Alexa had just arrived from Parker Center, where she had been sleeping on a cot when Shane called. "Why didn't you stay there at Stone's and wait for the police to arrive?" she said as she stood before him in the hospital waiting room. "According to Westlake P. D., you left one dead and two down at the scene."
Shane had come crashing down from his adrenaline rush of an hour ago. He felt irritable, tired, and wanted to change the subject even more than he wanted to change his moss-stained clothes. Chooch had lied, saying he was Delfina's brother, and was now upstairs with her in the psychiatric trauma ward.
"I didn't wait because Chooch was with me."
"You mean in spirit or something? 'Cause I'm sure you're not trying to tell me you took our son to a shootout."
"He was in there with me. He helped me get her out. I didn't want the police to find him there. If this gets goofy, and we get some kind of backfire prosecution, I don't want Chooch named in it."
"How the hell could that happen? They were all armed, holding a sixteen-year-old girl at gunpoint."
"I just don't want him involved."
"How could he not be involved? You took him with you!" She seemed floored by all this.
"Well, theoretically, that's one way of looking at it."
"What's the other?"
"He took me with him. Matter of fact, honey, he was the one who found where they were holding her. He came to me for help. There was no way to stop him. He loves her. He was going whether I said so or not."
"That's absurd."
"You think?" He held her gaze and finally she sat on one of the vinyl-upholstered chairs. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep.
"I did the shooting," he continued. "All he did was handle the diversion and help me carry her out of there. So how 'bout we just pretend he was never there. Can we do that?"
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