by G. K. Parks
“A shrimp and rice dish. It’s a variation on gumbo. Is that okay?”
“It’s great,” I stepped away from him, “but don’t wait on my account. I have some stuff to do first.”
The OIO was at a standstill. The city was on pins and needles, waiting for the danger to pass, and I had never felt more helpless in my entire life. Honestly, ever since my first encounter with the Horvats, I’d been feeling this way, and in the peace of the darkened bedroom, the thought that I’d been avoiding screamed through my psyche: This is it. You’re done. It’s over.
My chest felt tight, but I tried to ignore it. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I wanted it to go away. I wanted to feel something besides what I knew my late partner had felt. I remembered that day clearly. Carver had been shaken. After that close call, he never bounced back. He planned to resign from the OIO. If he had done it immediately, maybe he’d still be alive today. Instead, he waited, and things happened. God knows I blamed myself for it, but some asshole’s booby-trap killed him. And deep in my soul, I felt like this job was going to claim me next.
“Alex?” Martin said, entering the bedroom several hours later. “Is it my birthday already?”
“Well, if you don’t remember, that means you’ve gone senile.”
Somewhere in the midst of my insanity, I’d slipped into the white and silver lingerie Martin had bought for some occasion or another. I had never worn it, like most of the slinky gifts he thought were romantic, but I needed my mind to turn off. And he could make that happen.
He crossed the room to me and brushed his lips against my neck. With one hand, he untied the sash on the silk kimono, and the other traced my cheekbone. Once the robe was open, his free hand slipped inside, gently caressing my side while his lips found mine.
“What are you doing hiding in the dark?” he murmured. His hand stopped on the bandage, and he pulled back, confused. “When did this happen?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, becoming agitated. “Focus on the rest.”
“Well, you color coordinated to your bandage at least.”
“Martin, stop.” I tugged on the opened collar of his shirt, pulling him closer. Then my fingers went to work on the buttons and yanking the hem of his shirt free from his pants. This was a much harder feat with one arm in a cast. “C’mon, I’ll make it worth your while. We can even do that thing you like. Come on. Please.”
“Damn, I should have taken lessons from you on sexual harassment.” He gently grabbed my hand and kissed the back of it to lessen the sting. “Tell me what’s going on first. Then I’ll do that thing that you like.” He winked.
“You’d rather talk than have sex?”
“I’m screwed regardless of what I say.”
“Apparently not.” I folded my arms across my chest and turned my back to him, staring out the window. It had been several hours since I’d come home, but I’d accomplished nothing. “I’ve completely lost my mind. This was stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.” He rubbed his hands along my shoulders. “I just like to know that you’re okay before things heat up.”
“I’m not okay,” I snapped. I spun around to face him, and he stepped back. “I’m terrified.” He looked dumbfounded and took a seat on the edge of the bed. Swallowing, I took a deep breath. “I’m not supposed to get scared, or rather, I’m not supposed to let it control my actions. We’re trained, y’know, that no matter what, we have a responsibility to uphold the law. At times we’re the only ones that can make a difference. Our lives don’t matter.”
“Alex—”
“No, it’s true. That’s how it is. We can’t think of ourselves first. Our instinct for self-preservation has to come second to serving the greater good. So I can get scared, but I can’t let it stop me from doing my job. But I’ve seen it happen before to a lot of agents. The smart ones get out. Hell, I don’t even remember how many recruits left during training or within the first two years. Others get burnt out later. It happened to Michael.”
“Your late partner?” Martin was doing his best to follow along, but my narrative wasn’t exactly coherent.
I nodded. “He got spooked. Hell, the smart ones take private sector jobs, claiming that the pay bump is the real reason, but it isn’t.”
“You tried that yourself, but your OIO career turned into a revolving door. Are you telling me that you want to quit again? Because I don’t care. You can do whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’d just like it if you’d make up your mind and stick with it. We don’t handle adjustment too well.”
“Even if I wanted to, and I’m not saying that I do, I can’t. Not now. I can’t walk away. Lives are at stake. I’m just scared. I’ve been afraid since this began, and now, it’s turned into a madman’s vendetta to seek vengeance against the police. I can’t let that happen. I couldn’t let it happen to complete strangers, and I definitely can’t sit back and do nothing when my friends are out there with targets on their backs. Think of O’Connell, Thompson, Heathcliff, and everyone else that we’ve met along the way. They could become victims. I can’t just quit.”
“I wasn’t telling you to quit.”
“I know. Everything’s overwhelming me right now. Before you came up here, I was thinking of all the ways people can die. There are so many random acts of violence, and crimes of passion, cold-blooded murders, war, bombings, suicides, famine, drought, biological weapons, chemical warfare, viruses, bacteria, genetic issues, diseases, genocide, shark attacks, natural disasters, killer storms, asteroids.”
“Okay, no more disaster movies for you.”
“I’m serious. Anything could happen at any time. In fact, there are so many possibilities that I can’t believe that any of us live for more than a few days at the rate things are going.”
“Well, first things first, stay out of the ocean and away from aquariums, and you can mark shark attack off your list of fatal threats.” He sat up a little straighter, sensing that the reason for my lunacy was due to recent events. “Sweetheart, tell me how you got that new gash on your side.”
“I was inside the police station when forty hired mercenaries stormed the building. I’m okay.” I batted his hand away. “But 155 cops aren’t, and it’s not fair. I was primary on the investigation, but it got jumbled and confused in my head. I didn’t remember a lot of things. Even now, new details keep coming to light, but it’s too late for them to help.”
“It’s not your fault,” Martin said quietly.
“I know. For the first time in my life, I understand that. But that just means that I can’t control any of this or stop anyone from doing something much worse. I can’t stop a meteor or a shark either. I can’t come up with a cure for an incurable disease or usher in world peace. It’s useless. It’s too big. Everything is too big. And I’m worried about what’s going to happen, but even more than that, I can’t shake the thought that I’m living on borrowed time, that I shouldn’t have survived that evening in the restaurant.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “And to top it off, the voice inside my head keeps telling me that my own well-being should be at the bottom of this damn list.”
“Well, it’s at the top of mine.” His voice was stern, and he pulled me onto the bed and into his arms. “Listen very carefully to what I’m about to say. Shit happens. It’s out of our control, and we have two choices. We can fight against it, or we can let it steamroll us. Fighting against it doesn’t mean we’ll win, but we have to try. You’re a fighter, so you fight.”
“I know. Like I said, this is stupid. I’m being stupid.”
“No, you’re not.” He hugged me tighter. “I’ve said it before, but I want you to really hear the words this time. I will do everything in my power to move heaven and earth for you, or I’ll storm through the gates of hell. If you lose your will to fight, then by god, I’ll fight for you.”
“Martin, shut up and kiss me.”
Thirty-eight
It was early. Too early for the sun to be up, but I was. Staring out the wind
ow, I couldn’t see past my own reflection in the glass, but I wasn’t looking for anything. I wasn’t sure what to do. During a brief period of sleep, I’d dreamt of the SUV and Jakov Horvat. Martin had said a lot of passionate things to reassure me, and they weren’t empty promises in order to win my love. He already had it. But Jakov wanted to win his brother’s love, so whatever he was willing to do would be extreme. Initially, I’d considered that he’d attempt a prison break, killing all law enforcement officers that were in the vicinity of Niko’s incarceration, but Niko was off the grid. He was being held at a black site that I had visited and didn’t even know the location of. That wasn’t feasible, so what else could be Jakov’s grand gesture?
“Come back to bed,” Martin whispered, propping himself up on his elbows.
“I shouldn’t. It feels like a waste of time. Everything I’ve been doing is nothing but a huge waste of precious time.” But despite my words, I knew sleep would improve my cognitive function and possibly my mood. I took a few steps closer to the bed, and he grabbed my arm and pulled me against him.
“Then let’s stop wasting time.” He kissed the top of my head as I settled into the cozy spot against his chest. “Marry me, Alexis.”
“Okay,” I replied, too fried to say anything else or think too much about the words and what they entailed.
He didn’t say anything else either. Instead, he rubbed random patterns against my shoulder blade while I drifted back to sleep.
* * *
“We have another sighting,” Lawson said. “Bravo team’s the closest.”
“Notify them,” Jablonsky said. “I’ll get on the horn and see if anyone else is nearby. This bastard isn’t giving us the slip again.”
Within the last eighteen hours, the city’s CCTV feed picked up Jakov Horvat three different times. By the time a team was dispatched to his first location, he was long gone. The second sighting was soon after, but he eluded us again by jumping into a cab amid the sea of taxis during morning rush hour. This was our third hit. They were coming more frequently because Lawson was doing a superb job of tracking the footage in the vicinity in which Jakov was traveling.
“Parker, figure out his target,” Jablonsky ordered.
Quickly, I crossed the op center and pulled up the maps. Lucca was at the computer with the three-dimensional rendering of the city grid, including the subway lines, streets, and walking paths. He scooted his chair slightly to give me access.
“I don’t see anything,” he said. “He’s not near any police or government buildings. No landmarks or historic sites in close proximity.”
“What about restaurants?” I asked. Digging through the intel, I found the list of delivery sites from the trucking company. “He’ll need to gear up before he can carry out his plan.” The nervous energy coursed through me. “If we can stop him before that, we can end this without any more casualties.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Lucca said, even as he began marking the deliveries on the map. “The news outlets are still reporting on the precinct under siege. Everyone knows that the weapons and the men hired to carry out the massacre are in custody.”
“Then we missed something else. Maybe there’s a fourth location. We need to determine the weight differential on the cargo plane. They dumped something out the back, and we’ve been functioning under the assumption that it’s the crates of guns. If the weight of all of that doesn’t explain the sudden lightness when the plane landed, then we missed something.”
“You’d have to account for fuel usage too,” Lucca said. “I don’t know that the records would help. It’s not like a weigh station for trucks.”
Pushing away from the screen, he crossed the room to ask about something while I searched through the data that the FAA had sent over. Unfortunately, he was right. While there were calculations and logs indicating the weight at takeoff to ensure balance and adequate fuel, nothing was recorded upon landing.
“What about the crew?” I asked, continuing to search through the paperwork. Unfortunately, the crew manifest was full of fictitious people, and we never managed to track down anyone involved in the cargo drop. “Dammit.”
“Hey,” Lucca said, reclaiming his chair and adding more highlighted areas to the map, “this was the location where Donaldson’s body and that CI were found.” It was close to Jakov’s last known location. “He might have a hideout nearby.”
“They ditched the SUV. They probably wanted to lie low until the coast was clear. Let’s check it out,” I said, scribbling the information on a piece of paper and handing it to Jablonsky. He read it, nodding approval while waiting for some other agency to verify that they had a team in pursuit of Jakov.
“Do you remember if there was anything in the vehicle?” Lucca asked as we made our way to the garage.
“No, I don’t remember any biohazard or radiation warnings on anything,” I retorted. “Honestly, aside from the dome light and the door handle, I have the briefest recollection of a plastic-wrapped corpse, but that’s it.”
“After murdering two men and abducting a federal agent, the Horvats must have been smart enough to know that Pepper was compromised. If there was anything particularly useful or valuable on the premises, they would have taken it with them. And if it was large enough, they’d have to stow it somewhere safe until they could go back for it. It’s not like they could walk onto a city bus with a RPG over their shoulder.”
“Didn’t the police search the area?” I asked.
“Yeah, but they were looking for evidence and clues on the murders. They found you.” He jerked his chin at the glove box. “Grab that map and make a grid. We’ll start a search. Let’s just hope we find it before Jakov does.”
“Hell, I’d be happy finding Jakov first,” I said. Giving Lucca a sideways glance, I asked, “Do you think we’re actually on to something?”
“We have to be. There aren’t any other rocks left to overturn.”
Arriving near the former crime scene, Lucca parked the car and cautiously stepped outside. The area was deserted. It was near the waterfront, but the ground was rocky and polluted. It wasn’t a picturesque scene. It’s where dope dealers and street-walkers perfected their craft and where runaways came to disappear. It was a shitty spot to leave a SUV.
“How come no one jacked the vehicle?” I wondered.
“It was gutted. It wasn’t going anywhere.” He shrugged. “Hell, maybe it didn’t start out that way.” He set off in a direction, and I followed, keeping my head on a swivel for signs of Jakov or anything amiss.
After searching four of the squares on the artificially created grid, we hadn’t found anything of use. Lucca was on the phone with the original police crime scene investigators, asking what had been in the vicinity at the time. They’d forwarded photos to his phone, but the place looked about the same.
“I got something,” I said, pointing to a large, rusted dumpster near the edge of our search area. Sprinting over to it, the first thing I noticed was the new steel lock. Why would an old rusted dumpster have a shiny new lock? “Do you want to shoot it off, or do you have bolt cutters in the car?”
“Lock picks would be easier, Annie Oakley,” Lucca said. He scanned our surroundings while he patted down his pockets. “You didn’t happen to bring a set, did you?”
“Yeah, I shoved ‘em up my cast.” I glared at him. “Dammit, boy scout, the one time that I needed you to be prepared.”
“I left them in the car. Just stay out of sight, and keep your eyes peeled for Jakov. If you spot him, call for back-up before you make an approach.”
“Yes, sir.” The sarcastic tone earned a glare before Lucca double-timed it back to the car.
The dumpster was probably half a mile from our original location, so it shouldn’t take Lucca more than six or seven minutes to get there and back. In the meantime, I examined the exterior of the nearest building. It was old with no windows facing this way. A single steel door stood at the corner, but it was also locked. This wasn’t th
e best place for hiding spots.
The next nearest building had a basement, and I glanced down the exterior steps. At the bottom were two, dirty, half-asleep teenagers, probably runaways or junkies. They didn’t look like they were in any condition to make a move, so I cautiously crouched down at the top of the steps to wait.
“Whatcha doing,” the girl asked. “You getting out of the rain?”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing at the sky which was clear. “Storm’s pretty bad.”
“Shit, I know,” she said. “I always come here to get out of the rain.” She leaned her head back, closing her eyes. “Do you think it’ll pass soon?”
“Maybe.” I glanced back at the two of them. Her junkie boyfriend or john, whatever he might be, was pawing at her, and she was giggling. “Do you guys hang around here a lot?”
“What’s a lot?” he asked, eyeing me. “Are you a cop? If you’re a cop, you have to tell us. That’s the law.”
That was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard, but it had filtered through our culture and media so much that I suspected everyone believed it. Morons. “I’m definitely not a cop. I just got picked up two weeks ago.”
“You working or buying?” the guy asked. “Because I can hook you up, baby. I’ll set you up with some coke for a little three-way action.” He waggled an eyebrow and stared with glassy eyes at me. “You look like you’re in need of a pick-me-up.” Finally, he noticed my attire. “You normally buy on the northside, right? That’s where you corporate types feel safe, but we ain’t scary over here.”
“Really? Weren’t two people killed like right around the corner a few weeks ago?”
“Nah, they arrived that way. Those weird dudes did them in before dumping ‘em, but they haven’t been around much since.” He stood up and moved up the stairs until his crotch was at eye level. “A blow for some blow?”
“Tempting. Can I see it first?”
