Powder Burn

by Ty Patterson

  ‘Let them go,’ Cutter told the hoods softly.

  ‘You hear that, Armando?’ Sniper laughed. ‘See how calm he is? He is telling us, not asking, as if—’

  Cutter wasn’t conscious of his draw. One moment he was heading to the back door, the next, his Glock was bucking in his hand.

  His first shot caught Sniper in his chest. The second was a dollar bill apart from the first, and the third was in his face.

  Armando gasped as his partner fell. The hood’s eyes widened. He had thought he and his friend had the upper hand. He yelled and had just brought up his gun when Cutter shot him twice.

  ‘Please …’ the woman sobbed as she turned blindly to him. ‘Don’t kill us. Please—’

  ‘I won’t, ma’am. MA’AM!’ He shook her gently and stood as unthreateningly as he could as she and her husband focused on him.

  ‘I’m not here to kill you. I was looking to get away when they shot me and I fell. Tell the cops everything that happened. What happened, how I arrived. Don’t—’

  ‘You need to get away.’ She grabbed his hand as sirens wailed in the distance. ‘Go. Leave us.’

  ‘You’re hurt, ma’am. You and your husband. You need—’

  ‘GO!’ she insisted fiercely. Her grey eyes burned into his. ‘You don’t need to jump over the fence. There’s a door that opens into the alley. Go down it, between the houses. You’ll get to Boulder Street. Jim’s got an old car there. A Ford. Keys are in the glove box. It’s so old no one will steal it. It works and there’s gas in the tank. Take it.’

  ‘Ma’am—’

  ‘Son,’ her husband interrupted. Blood streamed down his face and had colored his shirt to a dark red. He was smiling, however. ‘When Em orders, no one protests. Do it.’

  ‘Why?’ Cutter shook his head dazedly. ‘Why are you helping me?’

  ‘Why did you save us?’

  * * *

  He loped out into the alley, his head bowed. He knew he looked conspicuous in his EMT uniform, with his gear over his back, his face darkened with paint and sweat.

  The neighborhood was awake, alive with the sounds of cruisers and fire trucks and the voices of residents. No one was in the alley, however, and when he peered cautiously into Boulder Street, it wasn’t busy. All attention is on the burning house and perhaps that couple’s house.

  Jim’s Ford was easy to spot. It was in a sorry state, with its peeling paint, dust and grime-laden windscreen and nearly bald tires. The engine turned smoothly, however, when he tried it.

  Cutter rolled out without drawing any attention, turned left on Evergreen Avenue and went down to the intersection with Malabar. He parked between two cars and got out cautiously. Straightened his walk as smoothly as he could, as he bit his lips against the burning pain.

  He turned the corner and breathed a sigh of relief. Police vehicles and fire trucks at the far end of Malabar, where the house was burning. Two cop cars in front of Jim and Em’s house. No one was near his ambulance.

  He went to it, opened the rear door, lobbed his last thermite grenade inside, then returned to his getaway vehicle and drove down Evergreen.

  He was a block away when he heard the escalation in sirens and knew the ambulance was on fire.

  He had escaped. He was alive. The Street Front’s house was destroyed.

  It doesn’t even matter if there were no drugs in it. Covarra’s got the message. His business isn’t safe as long as I am around.

  45

  Cutter gritted his teeth as his thigh reminded him he had been shot. He hoped it was no more than a flesh wound, that it wouldn’t hinder him.

  He drove out of East LA, skirted downtown and, when he was in the central part, reached for his phone and sent a text message.

  It’s Cutter. I’m coming.

  On La Cienega Boulevard, with just the radio to keep him company, he heard a journalist breathlessly reporting that Boyle Heights was under attack.

  He shook his head and grinned mirthlessly at the exaggeration. Entered Beverly Hills, drove to Foothill Road and approached a black metal gate, which rolled back. He drove down a concrete driveway and parked in front of a large triple garage. Got out of his vehicle and limped to its side, where a man stood.

  ‘I was hoping you were dead.’ The man sized him up.

  Cutter had fans all over the world.

  ‘Good to see you, too,’ he growled and winced when his leg complained as he climbed the single step and followed the man inside.

  Yevgeny Kozlov had been a doctor in Moscow, but he wasn’t the kind any random citizen could go to for their ailments. He worked in GRU, the secretive military intelligence agency that carried out covert attacks all over the world. The agency was widely believed to be behind election manipulation in the Western world, hacking on an industrial scale, and assassinations.

  Kozlov had walked into the US Embassy in Moscow on a spring morning and turned himself in. He had given up intel on active Russian agents in the US, Germany and UK and had been immediately flown to the US, where he had been further debriefed and rehabilitated under a new identity.

  The Russian had established himself as a cosmetic surgeon of repute and was on speed-dial on every A-lister’s phone.

  ‘That’s recent,’ the doctor commented as he cut the EMT uniform’s legs and inspected the wound.

  ‘Would I come to you if it weren’t?’

  ‘Of all the gin joints in the world, you had to pick mine.’ Kozlov cleaned Cutter’s thigh as he paraphrased. ‘You want the good news or the bad news?’ He went to a chest of drawers and brought out a bottle of vodka. Poured a generous shot into a glass and offered it to Cutter, who shook his head.

  ‘I don’t drink. Have you forgotten?’

  ‘I wish I never remembered anything about you.’ The doctor emptied the glass in one swallow and donned his gloves.

  ‘You’re going to operate on me after that drink?’

  ‘That’s how it’s done in Moscow.’

  ‘We’re in LA.’

  ‘Be my guest.’ Kozlov gestured expansively. ‘Find someone else who will treat you no-questions-asked.’

  Cutter gave up. He had yet to work out why everyone in his life was stubborn, headstrong, and got great pleasure from yanking his chain.

  He lay down on the bed and then remembered and propped himself up on an elbow. ‘What’s the good and bad news?’

  ‘Ah, that.’ The Russian picked up gleaming instruments. ‘It’s not serious. The bullet grazed the side of your thigh, took out a chunk of flesh, but you won’t die. You don’t even need complicated surgery.’

  ‘What’s the bad news, in that case?’ Cutter eyed him suspiciously.

  ‘It’s going to hurt,’ and with that Kozlov jabbed him right on the wound.

  * * *

  ‘You passed out,’ the doctor said unsympathetically when Cutter came to. ‘For maybe fifteen minutes.’

  ‘That’s what happens when you torture someone.’

  ‘Torture, droog? That was not even close. I should know. I worked in the GRU, in case you were forgetting.’

  Droog. Friend. That’s who Kozlov was to him, despite his attitude.

  It was Cutter who had escorted him from Moscow to the States, and during the flight and in the subsequent months, they had developed a close friendship. Cutter was at his side when Kozlov heard from Moscow that his parents had been arrested in retaliation for his defection. He held the Russian when they heard the news that his folks had died after being tortured. He had been best man when the defector had married Marta, another Russian émigré, a psychiatrist.

  Kozlov cleaned up and bandaged his thigh. Washed his hands in the sink and cocked his head at Cutter, who was inspecting what remained of the EMT coveralls.

  ‘I guess I have to provide you with some clothing,’ he sighed. He went to a dresser and returned with a clean Tee and a pair of jeans.

  ‘They’re mine. They should fit. We’re the same size.’

  ‘Neat place,’ Cutter co
mmented after he had put on the clothes.

  ‘Yeah.’ Kozlov had developed an American accent as he established his business. ‘Marta would have killed me if I started seeing patients in the house. Turning the garage into my surgery was the obvious choice. I didn’t need it anyway.’

  ‘How is she? The kids?’

  ‘She misses you. No,’ he replied quickly when Cutter looked up. ‘She doesn’t know you’re here. Vasily’s in New York, working in a law firm, while Taty’s at Princeton.’

  Cutter smiled absently at the pride in Kozlov’s voice and tested his leg by pacing the room. It throbbed dully, but he could move.

  ‘Painkiller will wear off in a few hours. There are more in that baggie. Take them regularly. I’ve written a prescription too, in case you need more.’

  Cutter inspected the medicines and pocketed them. Reached for his wallet and got his hand slapped.

  ‘Don’t,’ Kozlov told him roughly. ‘You should rest for a few days. Let your leg heal.’

  I can’t.

  ‘You won’t, will you? What have you gotten yourself into this time? I thought you were in New York. Marta was proud when you came up on TV. She told all her friends how close we were.’

  ‘It’s better you don’t know.’

  Kozlov nodded, as if he had been expecting just that response.

  ‘You’ll have to erase your security camera footage.’

  ‘This isn’t the first time you or other operators have turned up in the middle of the night. I know what to do.’

  Cutter grinned and squeezed his shoulder. Went to the door when the Russian turned off the inside lights and slipped out.

  ‘Try not to get killed,’ his friend told him in a low voice when he climbed into his car.

  He drove away on that upbeat note, and in the coolness of Beverly Hills worked out his next moves.

  I can’t go back to Sycamore Avenue or Vienna’s house. Cops will be watching those places.

  He was confident there was nothing to link him to the burning house or the ambulance. However, LAPD already suspected him. I don’t have an alibi. They’ll find the burner phones if they search hard enough.

  They wouldn’t find his arms caches because he had stashed them in various locations all over the city.

  What of Covarra? Will this attack be enough for him to call me?

  He would have to find other places to hit if the shot-caller didn’t respond. Which would be a challenge, since he didn’t know any others.

  His hands tightened on the wheel as he drove through the night.

  I won’t give up, he vowed. But his words felt hollow, even to himself. All the Street Front boss had to do was stay silent, and that would leave Cutter with nothing and nowhere to go.

  He drove to Pacific Palisades, an upmarket neighborhood on the west side of the city, and checked into a hotel.

  The thought came to him just as he dropped off to sleep.

  I can ask Janikyan. He might know where Covarra’s warehouses are.

  46

  Difiore watched as Matteo briefed Dade in her office. It was more crowded than usual. Cruz and Estrada were present, along with more cops from the task force. Lasko, seated at the back, hadn’t acknowledged her or Quindica when he entered the office.

  It’s a show of force from Matteo. He knows the chief will be furious at what happened last night. He’s brought so many of his team to demonstrate they’re working hard.

  ‘We arrested three bangers in that house, ma’am. There were ten inside, and ten more outside—’

  ‘Three out of twenty,’ Dade interrupted him coldly.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. The rest of them got away. Their entire stash burned down. These hoods say there was close to one-and-a-half mil worth of product. Mexican Oxy, mostly, some meth. Our technicians are still on site—’

  ‘Tell me something new, Vance.’

  ‘Ma’am. That house went up at two am. Firefighters got it under control by about three am. No other houses were affected, thankfully. We were able to enter the house only at five; by then it had cooled down sufficiently. That’s just six hours ago, ma’am. We need time—’

  ‘You realize whoever is doing this, attacking Covarra, is several steps ahead of us?’

  ‘That’s the way it is with any crime, ma’am. We’ll get him.’

  ‘You sound very confident about that.’

  ‘He’ll trip up, ma’am. He’ll make a mistake.’

  ‘Break it down again for me.’

  Difiore tuned out when Matteo went through the sequence of events. She and Quindica had visited the scene early in the morning and had gotten a report from Estrada.

  ‘No one saw this attacker,’ the chief summarized when the lead detective had finished. ‘He blasted the cameras at the building site, zipped down, threw ANM14s inside the house, got away, burned down the ambulance he stole and disappeared into the night.’

  Her icy look froze Matteo when he attempted to speak.

  Lasko wasn’t deterred, however. ‘Correction, ma’am. There were twenty-one bangers in or around the house. We got three, Mystery Man got two: Eduardo Aponte and Armando Dengra. The first was the sniper—’

  ‘Lasko.’ Dade cut him off sharply. If a voice could freeze, the cop would have turned to ice. ‘You think I haven’t read the reports or listened to Vance?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ the detective mumbled as his face turned red in embarrassment.

  ‘That couple.’ The chief regarded him silently for a moment and then turned to Matteo. ‘I want to talk to them. Make it happen.’

  * * *

  Francisco Covarra was in another safe house in East Hollywood. Salazar with him, along with the sixteen bangers who had fled from Forest Avenue.

  ‘I don’t pay you to run away from fire,’ the gang leader said venomously as he eyed the men. ‘You should have gone inside the house and captured this man.’

  ‘It was burning—’

  The shot-caller snarled and pounced on the speaker. A blade appeared in his hand as if by magic and he plunged it repeatedly into the man’s chest until Salazar grabbed him and pulled him away.

  Covarra didn’t resist. His chest heaved as he watched the thug writhe and moan on the floor and die. His face, when he raised it, was cold and hard.

  ‘Go,’ he said, pointing a finger. ‘Spread out in the city. Find out who did this and where he is.’

  ‘They won’t find anything,’ Salazar told him when the men left. ‘We know who did this. Call him—’

  He broke away when the gang leader looked at him viciously. He changed tack. ‘I called Santangel, our captain in the LAPD—’

  ‘I know who he is.’

  Salazar swallowed. It was difficult to have a conversation with his friend when he was in such a mood. ‘He told me the attacker used military equipment. Thermite grenades, he called it. They burn anything down. He used a zip line to land on the roof. From the crane on the building site—’

  ‘I don’t need to know that. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH PRODUCT WE HAVE LOST IN THOSE TWO ATTACKS? ALMOST THREE MILLION DOLLARS. HOW ARE WE GOING TO MAKE THAT UP?’

  Covarra pounded his friend’s chest with his fists and then broke away, panting.

  ‘Fuse,’ he snarled. ‘Don’t tell me how that man attacked. Tell me how we can get him.’

  ‘There is only one way. Call him.’

  47

  ‘Why are we with her?’ Difiore mouthed at her partner as they accompanied Lisa Dade to her official vehicle.

  Quindica shrugged and climbed into the rear seat while the police chief sat next to her driver.

  ‘I need to get away,’ the LAPD boss said wearily. ‘Keep me company.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. You think the couple will tell us anything more than they told Matteo?’ Difiore glanced back through the rear window and spotted the lead detective following them in their car.

  ‘I hope so. When they see us in person.’

  Jim and Emily Curiel. The NYPD detective brought up Matteo’s
report on her phone. Retired. He had been a building construction inspector, employed by the city, while she had been a school teacher.

  ‘Salt-of-the-earth kind of people,’ Difiore guessed, speaking softly so only her partner could hear. ‘One daughter, who works in tech in San Francisco, no other children. They’ve been in LA all their lives.’

  ‘You think we’ll get nothing from them?’ Quindica whispered.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You heard what the chief said. Look at her. She’s stretched tight.’

  Difiore nodded. Dade’s neck was rigid with tension, tendons taut against her skin. A pulse fluttered visibly in her forehead whenever she looked at them.

  ‘Understandable. Her city hasn’t experienced these kinds of attacks in a long while.’

  They broke off when the vehicle slowed to a stop in front of the Curiels’ residence.

  A patrol cop who was leaning against a cruiser snapped to attention.

  ‘They’re inside, Chief,’ he told Dade at her questioning look. ‘I informed them you would be coming.’

  ‘Thank you, Terry. You did great.’

  That’s one reason she’s got most of the cops’ loyalty, Difiore thought as she observed Dade at work. She calls them by name, makes them feel important, can relate to them. She goes to bat for them.

  ‘Waste of time,’ Matteo grunted when he joined them. ‘They aren’t going to tell the chief anything more than what they told me.’

  Difiore made no comment and trailed behind Quindica as they went into the house.

  * * *

  The living room was cozy, with warm colors. A muted-red throw on the floor. A well-used couch in front of a fireplace, which the elderly couple occupied, family photographs and paintings on the mantelpiece and walls. A home on which love and care had been lavished.

  Dade introduced herself and her companions, made small talk to make the Curiels feel comfortable. She noted the small bandages on their foreheads and, despite her warm words, the wariness in their eyes.