19th Christmas

by Patterson, James

I learned from a harried, tight-lipped ER nurse that some of the injured were still in the emergency room, others were in surgery, and more were in critical condition in the ICU.

  The stricken faces of the friends and families ripped from Christmas parties or beds spoke without words of the devastation.

  Joe stood with his back against a wall hung with children’s Christmas drawings. I sat a few feet away in a row of attached chairs, holding Julie in my lap. The woman sitting beside me was a few years older than me. Her arm was around the shoulders of a young teen, her son, who was cut and bruised and waiting to see a doctor.

  The woman turned her stunned face to me.

  “My oldest, Jeffrey, went through the windshield. He’s … they’re operating … it was bad …” She started to cry. Her younger son threw his arms around her and said, sobbing, “He has to be okay. He has to be okay.”

  Sitting in this waiting room was like being wrapped in sheets of broken glass. I felt for the parents and their children whose lives had been tragically altered. I was also flooded with horrific memories of my own, spanning decades.

  I pictured Joe and me sleeping in these chairs, holding hands in this very room when Julie was an infant with a rare disease, not knowing if our tiny baby would survive to see her first birthday.

  I flashed back to waiting-room vigils for cops who’d been shot, the death of a partner. And I’d waited in one on that horrifying day, not long ago, when Joe was brought to San Francisco General with a life-threatening head injury after the bombing of the science museum.

  How quickly a romantic dinner had changed to what could have been the worst day of my life and the end of his. I felt his presence behind me now and thanked God for his life.

  Julie didn’t have any memories like these. She was big-eyed, bubbling with questions that I couldn’t answer. How could I explain to her why so many people were sobbing, keening, holding on to one another?

  I turned to face Joe and we exchanged looks. On a bad-parenting scale of one to ten, bringing Julie here had sent the needle off the dial. And yet how could we leave without knowing what had happened to Mrs. Rose?

  Short of an assault on the ER, I had done my best to find out her condition. I had badgered the head nurse, who had explained that since I wasn’t a relative, she was forbidden by law to tell me anything about the patient.

  I persisted. I produced my badge. I told her that a paramedic had called me from the ambulance, for God’s sake, to say Mrs. Rose was being taken to Metro. I told her I was as good as Mrs. Rose’s closest relative, that she had no one else in San Francisco.

  The nurse shook her head no. But then she relented.

  She scribbled on a pad of paper and turned it around so I could see the word Stroke. After I read it, she ripped the page from the pad, balled it up, and threw it into the trash.

  I told Joe I’d be right back, took my phone out to the street, and looked up emergency treatment for stroke victims. Mrs. Rose was probably having a CT scan right now. Whatever was learned would determine her course of treatment over the next few hours or days.

  If she lived.

  I had stored her daughter’s number, and I punched it in, expecting to get Becky’s outgoing message again. But instead I heard her actual voice, a breathless, frantic “Oh, thank God. I tried to reach you so many times. How’s my mother?”

  I filled her in, telling her I’d hit a bureaucratic wall but that she could get information on her mother’s condition. “I have the keys to your mom’s apartment,” I said. “Let me know your plans. And tell me what I can do to help.”

  Just after ten, as Joe, Julie, and I were headed back home to Lake Street, my phone buzzed.

  It was Conklin.

  “I’m outside your door,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “About ten minutes out. What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll wait,” he said. “A hot Loman tip just came in. We’re catching.”

  CHAPTER 40

  MEGAN RAFFERTY WAS too smart for this, yet here she was.

  Six years ago she’d graduated from high school having been voted most likely to become rich and famous. She’d spent the two years after that in college. Then two years in rehab.

  Now she was living in a housing project next door to a Superfund site, sweating in a stinking van, waiting, waiting, waiting for directions from someone she didn’t know via the drug-riddled brain of her current boyfriend.

  What came from Mr. Loman’s call would either set her free or earn her a stretch in a state pen.

  She was glad her mother couldn’t see her now.

  Using. Living with Corey. Not a mother or a schoolteacher or a doctor. It would break her heart.

  Megan busied herself in the navy-blue transport van neatening the shelves and picking up after Corey, who was a pig.

  The van was an aging Chevy with a spunky new motor and amazing pickup. It had rear cargo doors and decals reading TANYA’S CAT AND DOG GROOMING: WE COME TO YOU on the side panels. No phone number. No email. But in Megan’s humble opinion, it was perfect camouflage.

  They were parked on Donahue Street near the construction dump behind the replacement housing where they lived. The field was four city blocks of radioactive dirt and rubble from the bulldozed former shipyard, polluted with petroleum, pesticides, heavy metals.

  What a dump.

  Other vehicles were parked at a distance from one another on both sides of Innes Avenue, their occupants steaming up the windows.

  Here inside the van, Corey was in the driver’s seat, fiddling with his playlist, earbud cord dangling from his ear. He was singing along with some vocalist, killing time.

  The two of them, waiting for Mr. Loman. Waiting.

  Megan had a high idle. She hated to wait.

  She climbed up behind the front seat and pulled the bud out of Corey’s ear. He spun around like he was ready to pull his piece.

  “What’s the latest?” she asked.

  “I told you never to sneak up on me,” he said.

  Corey was good-looking for his age and weight. Thirty-eight. Five foot ten. One ninety. A semiretired drug dealer and not a bad bunk buddy. He was also ambitious. He said he was hooked up with a major-league mobster. That big money was in the future.

  His future or theirs? Corey kept secrets. And right now he owned her, one baggie at a time.

  Megan said, “You told me that he was calling an hour ago.”

  “Chill out, will you please. Make coffee. Thassagirl.”

  “Make it yourself.”

  Megan pulled back one of the blackout curtains and looked out on Donahue. The apartments across the way were lit up. She could see twinkling lights.

  A beat-up ’85 Mustang GT parked up the road, and a couple of kids got out. They walked down the middle of the street, smokin’, jokin’, heading in their direction. One was wearing a Santa cap and a fake beard that was pulled away from his face and hanging over his shirt like a bib.

  Santa Claus was coming to town. Ha.

  The other one—boy or girl, she couldn’t tell—was wearing a flimsy skirt over skinny jeans.

  “Corey. Those two look like undercover to you? Corey?”

  “What? No. I know the one in the skirt. Calm down, Meggy, will you? You’re driving me crazy. Is that what you want? Me on crazy?”

  She blew out a long, exasperated sigh, returned to the rear of the van, and threw herself down in the bunk against the wall.

  How was she supposed to calm down?

  On the one hand, freedom. On the other hand, jail.

  She put a T-shirt over her face and was counting backward from a hundred when Corey thundered down the length of the van.

  “Get up,” he said.

  “Get up please. Mr. Loman called?”

  Corey was standing on the bunk, rummaging in duffel bags in the overhead cabinet.

  “Here,” he said, handing her a semiauto pistol. He grabbed one for himself, jammed a second into his waistband. He tugged open the blackout curtain. />
  A line of vehicles came up the road from behind them, some stopping along the sagging chain-link fencing across the street. An SUV with its headlights off sped up and passed their van. She couldn’t see where it went. A fire truck stopped, backed up, parked behind them.

  “What’s happening?” she shouted.

  No answer from Corey.

  Megan could just make out men in dark clothing clambering out of vehicles. She saw long guns.

  Corey’s face was next to hers; he was also looking out at the swarm of activity on Donahue. Then, bellowing commando-style, he ran toward the front of the van.

  Had he wigged out completely? What was he doing? Were they going to run?

  Glass shattered.

  No, no, no, no.

  Megan Rafferty’s life wasn’t supposed to go this way. Christ.

  Am I about to die?

  CHAPTER 41

  “SHE WAS CRYING when I left the house,” Conklin shouted over the scream of the siren.

  “Another night and I’m not home for dinner and cannot say when I will be home.”

  He was driving.

  I was bracing myself against the inside of the door and standing on imaginary brakes in the footwell as we followed Octavia Boulevard onto the ramp for 101 South. The skyline winked on our left, and ahead of us cars peeled off into the right lane, getting the hell out of our way.

  He said, “She gets that this isn’t my choice. She respects what I have to do. But she doesn’t like it.”

  “Do you need a note? I can vouch for you.”

  Conklin laughed. It was an ironic, tired little laugh, but there was mirth in it.

  I made a mental note: If Rich and I survived the night, the four of us—Joe, Rich, Cindy, and I—should treat ourselves to a first-class outing. Something to look forward to.

  My thoughts jumped back to the matter at hand and the “hot Loman tip” that had launched our Code 3 response out to Hunters Point. Information had come from one of Brady’s own CIs that Loman was sending a caravan of transport vehicles to an unknown target—tonight. That the targeted hit would be big. According to Brady’s informant, two people in a dark-blue 2009 Chevy transport van that was part camper, part arsenal would be spearheading a heavily armed assault team and would join the rest of Loman’s crew at an unknown location. We had no clue about what we were about to walk into.

  We had some background on Corey Briggs and his partner-girlfriend, Megan Rafferty.

  Briggs had done time for a home invasion and petty larceny and for possession with intent. Rafferty had been arrested for possession, sent to court-ordered rehab, then released. The pair had found each other and were now living in a housing project in this predominantly low-rent, high-crime area under redevelopment.

  Not the pair I would have pegged for criminal masterminds, but from what we knew about Loman, he needed henchpeople he could manipulate.

  As other cops headed out to banks, a museum, and the art gallery, my partner and I were assigned to the takedown of a pair of small-time criminals with big-time aspirations.

  SWAT commander Reg Covington and his unit were waiting for us on Donahue, a low-traffic side street near the replacement housing. Covington’s unit would approach covertly in unmarked vehicles.

  My partner and I were only four miles out, and he was concentrating on his driving. We got off the freeway, followed the signs to Cesar Chavez Street, and slowed as we approached the stoplight at Evans.

  Adrenaline had burned off my fatigue and focused my mind. I didn’t think about home, bed, Julie, Joe, or Gloria Rose. I thought about my partner. And I hardened my nerves for whatever shit-storm was about to come down. I hoped we could bring these two nobodies in alive.

  I hoped we could head off a bloody heist and get our hands on Loman.

  Commander Reg Covington’s voice came over the radio. He had located the dark-colored van two hundred yards up Donahue Street, right-hand side, registered to Corey Briggs. He told us to kill our lights. His team would isolate and launch an assault against the van, with our car bringing up the rear.

  “Boyle will wait for you and hand off the first aid,” Covington said.

  Conklin hung a squealing right around the bend where Evans becomes Hunters Point Boulevard, and we slowed for local traffic, then crawled for a mile along Innes Avenue, bordering the construction site. I stayed in radio contact with Covington and he guided us in.

  Four miscellaneous trucks and SUVs, one small all-terrain fire truck, and Conklin’s old Bronco converged on the dog-grooming van up ahead.

  Everyone involved was heavily armed.

  CHAPTER 42

  AT OUR SWAT commander’s direction, Conklin eased the Bronco onto Donahue and braked halfway down the stretch of pitted asphalt bordering the bulldozed site.

  The last time we’d worked with Reg Covington—two full days ago—he’d led the charge up all those flights of stairs at the Anthony Hotel. Then, like now, the goal had been to take the subject alive. But Chris Dietz had gotten the last word, killing an FBI agent, wounding another, and committing suicide-by-cop, taking everything he knew about Loman’s plans with him.

  A failed takedown just couldn’t happen again.

  We needed Corey Briggs and Megan Rafferty to talk while there was still hope of heading off Loman’s big, bloody heist. In fact, this pair of small-time dopers might be our only hope.

  Covington’s plan of attack was classic: Use ordinary-looking vehicles and trucks so that they could get close to the subjects’ van without spooking them. Isolate the van so that it couldn’t go mobile. Execute disabling tactics so that the subjects couldn’t hurt anyone, including themselves.

  I saw Briggs’s old Chevy van thirty yards up ahead. Covington was on the radio, and I confirmed to him that the vehicle was in sight.

  “Do you see Boyle?” he asked me.

  A man carrying a duffel bag over his shoulder came down the street singing to himself. I recognized him and said so to Covington.

  A moment later Boyle rapped his knuckles on my window. I buzzed it down and he passed the heavy bag to me.

  “Here you go, Boxer. Everything you’ll need.”

  I thanked Boyle and watched him get into a vehicle; it crawled up the road and disappeared from sight. It was as if I’d imagined him.

  A pickup truck, no lights, turned onto Donahue and pulled smoothly in behind the van. Another vehicle, an SUV, parked a dozen yards in front of the van, backed up.

  Tanya’s groom-mobile was now locked in bumper to bumper. Men and women in tactical gear exited their repo’d vehicles, stopped between our Bronco and the blue van.

  I watched SWAT advance on the van with weapons in hand. One of the team leaned across the hood of a truck and braced a 40mm grenade launcher. He aimed at the blue van.

  He fired.

  A pepper-gas grenade traveled ten yards, shot through one of the van’s side windows, and hit the back wall.

  The quality of life inside that van was about to go straight to hell.

  CHAPTER 43

  I HUNCHED OVER reflexively as the grenade exploded, and when I sat up, everything was in motion.

  The masked tactical team swarmed toward the van. The rear cargo doors blew open, and the writhing figure of a young woman tumbled out. She was followed by a screaming man in bulky outerwear.

  The two fell to the ground, blinded by the burning gas, their mucous membranes inflamed, making them feel like they were choking. These two had to be Briggs and Rafferty. I watched as they tried to stand, but they didn’t have a chance. An all-terrain fire truck rolled up on fat off-road tires, and a SWAT commando aimed the water cannon at the couple and flattened them to the asphalt.

  On Covington’s “Go,” Conklin and I scrambled out of the Bronco, me with the duffel bag, Conklin cutting a path for us through the tac team, which was cuffing our howling, writhing subjects on the ground.

  “We need some room,” Conklin said as we edged through the SWAT team scrum. This was why we were on th
e scene: to rescue these two mutts from the punishing takedown, befriend them, and get them to talk.

  I crouched beside Rafferty, who was cuffed and rolling from side to side in agony. I set the duffel bag down next to her and told her that she’d be all right soon. I spilled cool water onto a rag, swabbed her face, then poured water directly from the bottle into her eyes.

  Only yards away, Conklin was doing the same with Briggs.

  I said to Rafferty, “Megan, I’m Sergeant Lindsay Boxer. You have a jacket in the van? I’m going to get you out of here.”

  I had no idea whether she’d heard me or understood me. Anything inside the van would be permeated with pepper gas, but I wanted her permission to send someone into the van without waiting for a warrant. Maybe Loman’s contact number would be written on a wall. Or maybe there’d be a map on a cell phone. It had happened before. Or here’s what would be nice: a note with Loman’s current location stuck to the fridge door.

  She said, “What?”

  “Do you need a jacket or your handbag? Can we get you something from the van?”

  She groaned. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Pepper gas wafted over me. Tears came.

  “I know. I know, Megan. Let’s get you back to the station, find you some dry clothes there.”

  I offered her the rest of the bottle of water. She took it, guzzled it down, and then vomited on my pants and shoes.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay. I’m going to help you up now.” She heaved again.

  A uniformed officer assisted Rafferty to her feet and into the back of an SUV.

  I shouted to Conklin, “Meet you at the Hall.” I settled into the front seat, my suspect crouched in the back. The day wasn’t going well for Megan Rafferty.

  CHAPTER 44

  I USED THE restroom down the hallway from the bullpen and washed pepper-gas residue from my face, arms, and upper torso. I dried off with paper towels, bagged my shirt and Windbreaker, and changed into the sweatshirt and pants I kept in my locker.