Powder Burn

by Ty Patterson

  He wouldn’t be returning to the house again. It was no longer safe.

  LAPD will be issuing a warrant for me. Any day.

  41

  Cutter drove to an auto dismantler in Huntington Park when it was evening. The owner, Wyatt—big, burly, his body stretching his coveralls— was well known in the shadowy world of deep-black operators. He provided rides or disposed of vehicles on a no-questions-asked basis. For a hefty fee, of course.

  His face flowed with perspiration when Cutter entered the cavernous garage half the size of an aircraft hangar.

  ‘At the back.’ Wyatt wiped his brow on his sleeve and grinned, his teeth contrasting sharply against his dark skin. ‘Been a long time.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve been busy, here and there.’

  ‘Kicking ass?’

  More like getting mine kicked.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘It’s a Peugeot,’ the owner yelled. ‘Red. Windscreen’s shattered. You can’t miss it.’

  Cutter waved and winced when Wyatt started his grinder and applied it to a car’s frame.

  He went past neatly stacked shelves, car parts wrapped in plastic, labeled and ready for sale in the after-market. The back of the warehouse was the receiving area, where wrecked cars were taken in and disassembled, their components labeled either for scrap or resale.

  He spotted the French vehicle immediately and popped its trunk. Zipped open the large camping bag and whistled softly at the array of contents. Chad had gone above and beyond in fulfilling his shopping list. Zip cords, grappling hooks, drones, more tear gas and stun grenades, and there were the ANM14 thermite grenades, bubble-wrapped and good to go. He picked one up and inspected it. Military grade, used to destroy tanks, buildings, just anything they were thrown at. These are timed to explode after a few seconds’ delay. Which was what he wanted. Don’t want to be anywhere near them when they detonate.

  He checked the rest of the equipment, then spotted the folded note inserted between the cable coils.

  He unfolded it and grinned when he recognized Chad’s scrawl. Nothing’s traceable.

  He burned it with a lighter and returned to the front of the garage.

  ‘Wyatt?’ he yelled over the grinder. ‘I need to bring my vehicle to the back. Load some stuff in it.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ the owner replied without looking up.

  ‘I need plates.’

  The owner turned off the machine, removed his safety glasses and wiped his mouth. ‘Plates?’ he thumbed toward the wall where a small mountain of them lay. ‘Help yourself. All of them, clean.’

  Cutter peeled off several bills from his stash and handed them over.

  Half an hour later he was driving the Durango out of the neighborhood.

  * * *

  He checked into a motel near Hollenbeck Park and rested. At twelve am, he drove to the children’s hospital and waited until its backyard was clear of people traffic. He ghosted inside and fist-pumped mentally when he spotted the ambulance. In the same parking space, with the same uniform hanging off a hook as the previous night.

  He unlocked it with his key, changed into the EMT’s coveralls, fired it up and rolled out of the hospital.

  He went to the street where he had parked the Durango and transferred its contents to his new ride.

  Checked himself in the mirror one last time. Disguise was good. Face was darkened with paint. He had his gear.

  It was time to hit Covarra.

  42

  Eduardo ‘Sight’ Aponte yawned lustily as he lay on the roof of the house on Forest Avenue. He scratched his butt, ran his fingers through his hair and sighted through the nightscope.

  The Street Front house was across the street from him. He could see down both Forest and Malabar from his vantage point.

  He didn’t know why Fuse wanted him on this roof. There were ten men down there, more in the street. No one’s going to attack us, he grouched to himself.

  He was the Street Front’s best sniper, which was why he had been given his nickname. With his Remington MSR, he was a deadly shot and his best kill had been at three hundred yards. He knew that distance was average, but heck, he was in a drug gang. They didn’t go for sniping.

  Even this, he grumbled, isn’t for me. But Fuse said Snake wanted a sniper, and he was the only one Street Front had.

  He checked the scope again and pulled out his phone. He could while away the time by messaging his girlfriend. He smiled in the dark as he pictured her shapely curves, and cursed Fuse again. He could be with her instead of lying on a roof.

  * * *

  Cutter parked the ambulance at the mouth of Malabar, just off Evergreen Avenue. Ahead of him, towards his left, the crane rose in the sky. A red warning light on top of it flashed periodically. He climbed out of the vehicle and did a recon.

  The first run was with his drone, which identified several security cameras around the site. He put them out of commission with an EMP blast. He checked the thermal imaging. No guards. Why do they need it? No one’s going to steal that heavy machinery.

  He returned the UAV to the ambulance and headed to the site on foot. There was tape around it, wooden barricades that he could easily navigate. The ground was uneven, with soft soil and deep holes, being prepared for a new foundation.

  The machine lay in the center of a freshly dug clearing. Tram-track wheels, yellow frame, at the front of which was the cab. The boom rose above it, at a steep angle in the sky.

  He climbed up to the cab and inspected the long arm. The crane was of the older variety, with the boom being a metal framework within which its arm could be extended or retracted. Enough bars and angled slats for him to hold.

  He returned to the ambulance and extracted the coils of zip cable and slung them around his shoulder. Fastened them to his chest with belts to keep them from slipping away. Reached into the bag and extracted a canvas belt that he wrapped around his waist. He attached the hooks and grappling gun to it and Velcro-ed them tight to prevent them from falling off or making any noise.

  The thermite and tear-gas grenades went into his pockets.

  Can’t reach for my Glock. Not easily. No room for the HK, either.

  He shrugged. That was a risk he would have to take.

  He returned to the crane, conscious of the weight he was carrying. Started climbing without a second thought.

  Self-doubt was an operator’s enemy. He wouldn’t allow himself to question his actions.

  The going was slow. A thin breeze rocked the boom, which creaked as it swayed in the night. He had hardly reached one-third of its length before he broke out into a sweat. His Mechanix tactical gloves retained their grip, however, as he clutched at the boom’s laddered surface and hauled himself up.

  The neighborhood grew smaller as he went up. Ambient lighting was good enough for him to get a satellite view of surrounding houses, their yards, cars, the boundary fences.

  He paused for breath at the halfway level and wiped the perspiration from his face.

  Good thing I’m good with heights, he grunted to himself.

  The swaying of the boom was more intense as he reached its end. It grew narrower as well. Do I need to reach the hook?

  He gripped the frame with his thighs as he considered it. The long arm was over sixty-five feet long. He had about ten more to go. It’ll be difficult to maneuver at the small end.

  He decided he had gone high enough.

  Cutter uncoiled the longer zip cable with difficulty, attached a hook at one end and fastened it to the boom. He squeezed his thighs harder when he slid an inch, and swore at himself.

  I didn’t do all this to fall to my death, he told himself irritably. Grinned when he imagined the look of satisfaction on Difiore’s face at his precarious position. She’d love it.

  He removed the grappling gun carefully and attached the free end of the cable to it. The launch device was a military-grade piece of equipment that wasn’t available in any commercial store anywhere. It was a pneumatic
line launcher powered by close to five thousand pounds per square inch of air pressure. The grapnel was a titanium and steel composition that stuck to walls, roofs and wooden surfaces.

  He had trusted his life to similar gear.

  He hadn’t ever launched it at a tiled roof before.

  There’s always a first time.

  He made sure the length of cable was loose, took aim at a point near the skylight, and fired.

  There was no dramatic noise. Nothing but a sharp sound that got lost in the night’s sounds. No screen music played out, like it did in the movies. Just the pounding of his heart and his breathing. Both of which were steady.

  The hissing and uncoiling of the cable stopped as the grapnel landed on the roof. He hauled up the slack and coiled it up around the boom as tightly as he could and reattached the hook to its frame.

  Too far for me to make out if the hook’s stuck firm.

  He waited for several moments for lights to go up in the house, to hear sounds of alarm.

  None came.

  That window might be an attic room. No one’s there, likely. Or, the sound hasn’t registered on its occupants.

  He tried the cable with his gloved hands. It felt taut enough. No slippage when he applied all the force he could.

  Cutter holstered the grapple gun, made sure the second cable and the rest of his gear was secure. Inserted a pulley into the zip line and let his body swing out into the night.

  43

  Average zip line speeds in recreational uses are thirty miles an hour.

  Cutter decided to go slower and applied his gloved palm to the cable as a braking mechanism. Don’t want to slam against the roof and alert them.

  Fifteen seconds to travel four hundred feet, roughly parallel to Malabar Street, starting high over rooftops and dropping low as he drew closer to the target residence.

  He let go of the cable and jammed it against the roof, bent his elbow to absorb his momentum and brought his body flush against the roof.

  * * *

  Sight snacked on a protein bar as he checked his scope, idly. No movement. He returned to his cell phone, and his breath hitched when he checked out the photograph his girlfriend had sent him. Whoa! What was that she was wearing? He cursed Snake and Fuse loudly. He could have been with her instead of lying on a cold roof with his gun.

  * * *

  Cutter strained his ears to hear any movement. Looked down at the walls of the house and the windows to see if any shadows emerged. He let out his breath when no one appeared.

  He could hear the faint sounds of voices from within. House is packed with people. Not all of them will be asleep. He reached out with his left hand and felt the skylight. Yeah, he could break its glass.

  First, however, the escape cable.

  He twisted on the pulley and drew out the grapple gun. Inserted a second hook in it and let it dangle from his waist while he uncoiled the spare cable and fixed one end to the grapnel embedded in the roof. No give when he tugged firmly on it. Its claws have sunk into the roof’s frame.

  He finished setting up the cable and raised the gun to aim at the target house—the fourth from the bangers’ house. Its roof was at a lower level, which was why he had chosen it. That, and the alley at its back, which would be his escape route.

  The cable flew with a hiss when he triggered and tautened when the hook struck and held on the exit house. No lights turned on there, either.

  He wrapped the slack of the cable around the embedded grapnel and tugged sharply again. It held.

  He took a deep breath and released it. And again, to center himself in the night to prepare for his next move, which had to be flawless for him to escape.

  Cutter extracted the Glock and smashed its butt on the skylight, shattering the glass. Returned the weapon to its holster, then removed the first thermite bomb and tossed it inside the house.

  Doesn’t matter if it’s an attic. It will burn and the flames will spread. Threw two more for good measure and swiftly transferred his pulley to the escape roof and kicked off.

  He went four feet and slowed himself. Dangled in the air while he twisted to look down at the lower window of the house. Can I reach that?

  Conscious of time ticking by, he lobbed another incendiary grenade at the target window. It bounced off the wall and landed in the yard. No matter. It’ll explode there, too. He threw another grenade and that one missed, too. The third landed squarely on the window, broke through its glass and disappeared inside the house.

  He lobbed all but one of remaining thermite bombs and swung his body into motion to escape. By the time he had crossed the boundary wall, the Street Front house was glowing orange and the shouts of its residents were audible in the quiet night.

  * * *

  The shouts alerted Sight, who reluctantly drew his eyes away from his phone. His jaw dropped when he saw the burning house.

  How did that happen? He hadn’t seen anyone go in.

  He put his eye to the scope and watched in horror as flames exploded from the windows and several hoods came running out.

  Wait. What was that behind?

  He stared in disbelief. Was that … yeah, it was! A dark figure on some kind of cable who was escaping away from the house, above the yards of the houses.

  SON OF A—Sight clamped his lips firmly and went into sniper mode. He relaxed his body and, at the lower end of his respiratory cycle, triggered.

  His teeth bared in a grin when the man jerked but didn’t fall.

  Some kind of armor.

  Sight didn’t go for a head shot. He wasn’t that good a shooter. He fired at the man’s legs and pumped his fist when the stranger dropped out of sight.

  He got to his feet and reached for his phone.

  He dialed a number and then stopped himself.

  This was his chance. If he could capture this person, all by himself, Fuse and Snake would reward him. He would get the promotion he wanted. Boss of a neighborhood cell.

  He erased the number and called another one.

  ‘Armando?’ he asked sharply. ‘Are you okay?

  ‘NO!’ He cut his friend off. ‘STOP TALKING. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. I KNOW WHO DID IT AND WHERE HE IS. Come to Malabar. BY YOURSELF. YOU AND I CAN CAPTURE HIM.’

  44

  Cutter almost lost his grip on the pulley when he felt the first blow on his back. Before he could comprehend what had happened, something smashed into his left thigh and sent him falling into the backyard of the house.

  He rolled instinctively to absorb the impact of the twenty-foot fall.

  Someone shot me!

  His armor had saved him from the first round, but the second had found the fleshy part of his thigh.

  He grimaced when he felt the stickiness on his leg and traced the wound gingerly. It burned, but it seemed like it was a flesh wound. Got to move!

  He winced and got to his feet. Thanked his luck that the residents of the house hadn’t woken up. Tested his leg, gritted his teeth against the searing pain and hobbled to the fence. He hauled himself up clumsily and fell over it into the garden of the third house, on whose roof his cable had landed.

  He groaned and got to his feet. That rear wall leads to the alley—I can get away from there.

  He took two steps, just as a dog started barking.

  * * *

  ‘He flew over the houses on a cable,’ Sight whispered to Armando as the two men ran down Malabar, guns in their hands. A neighbor came out, woken by the blaze and the commotion from the Street Front house. Took one look at them and disappeared inside hastily.

  ‘Cable?’

  ‘Yes. I shot him. If we get him, just you and me, we’ll be rewarded.’

  ‘But how did he—’

  ‘Stop talking,’ the sniper snarled. ‘I’ll explain everything later.’ He drew up in front of a house three doors away from the burning building. ‘He fell in the backyard,’ he whispered.

  He was about to go down the driveway when a dog started barking in the neighboring
house.

  ‘HE’S IN THAT ONE!’ Sight hissed loudly and raced to the next yard.

  * * *

  Cutter hustled to the wall as fast as he could, cursing, sweating. He got his palms on the fence. Had wrapped his fingers on its top when the backyard door slid open and a light came on.

  ‘WHO ARE YOU?’

  He turned cautiously to check if the speaker had a gun.

  An old woman in her robe. Her husband behind her, holding the leash of their pet, which was straining, barking, at the stranger’s intrusion.

  No weapon in their hands.

  ‘I mean no harm,’ he replied. ‘I’m going—’

  Something crashed at the front of the house.

  The couple turned at the sound. The woman screamed, the man yelled, and before Cutter could react, two hoods appeared. Both of them armed, one of them with what looked like a Remington, the other, a handgun.

  ‘THERE HE IS!’

  ‘GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!’ the elder man roared. ‘YOU HAVE NO RIGHT—’

  He fell when Handgun Man slashed him across the face with his weapon. His wife shrieked and rushed to his aid. The dog yelped when a boot struck its ribs and resumed barking as it leapt around, trying to attack, but hindered by its leash.

  The throbbing in Cutter’s leg faded as the animal in him took over.

  Twenty-five feet from where he was, to the back door, where the hoods were.

  ‘YOU!’ Sniper ordered. ‘COME HERE. SLOWLY. DON’T REACH FOR A WEAPON.’

  ‘Please don’t hurt us. Please. We don’t know who he is. We—’

  The woman’s pleading turned into another scream when Handgun Man slapped her. The force of the blow felled her to her knees, and her husband joined her. They cowered in fear as they held each other, blood streaming down from cuts on their faces. The man reached out to his dog, which climbed into his arms and kept yapping at the strangers.