Neighbors and Other Strangers

by Gordon Parker

  Rossi reluctantly set the cocktail on his desk and slowly rose from his chair.

  “This had better be important,” he warned.

  He followed his driver to the pool. There he stopped to stare with disbelief. Each of the four guards he had left to keep his home secure lay on his own chaise lounge around the pool. Three of them were conscious, in pain and fearful of their fate. The fourth was still alive but not conscious. Blood covered his face.

  When he regained his composure sufficiently to allow him to speak with authority, he turned to Gideon, the first of the guards attacked.

  “What happened here, Gideon? Who did this?”

  “We don’t know who he was, Don Rossi. He just appeared out of the dark. He shot me with a very large hand gun. My shoulder is smashed. I won’t ever be able to use it again.”

  “He? One man? Are you telling me one man did this? One man with one hand gun?”

  “Not exactly, Don Rossi,” the second guard said, hoping to let Gideon incur all their boss’ wrath. “He shot the rest of us with Gideon’s gun.”

  “And none of you managed to get a shot at him? Where are your guns now?”

  “He took them all,” the second guard said, the anguish of knowing his attempt to shift blame solely onto Gideon had failed.

  “Let me be sure I understand this,” Rossi said, speaking slowly, deliberately. “One man somehow gets over the security fence, which apparently is useless in defending my home. This one man, armed with only one hand gun, takes out the four men whose job it is to protect me and my family, and leaves with all your weapons. At least he was kind enough to lay you all out comfortably on my pool furniture.”

  The four guards were silent.

  “Do I understand the situation correctly?” Rossi asked. “Is there anything else I should know?”

  “Uh…He left a note for you, Don Rossi,” Gideon said, holding slip of paper out in his one usable albeit trembling hand.

  Rossi looked at the man with contempt as he took the note from him. He struggled to keep his emotions concealed as he read the note. To control his rage. And something more. Something he seldom felt. Fear. He wouldn’t speak until he was sure his voice would be level.

  “He talked to Gideon privately, Don Rossi,” the second guard said, making another attempt to save himself. “We don’t know what they talked about.”

  Ross looked at Gideon. “So? What did you talk about?”

  “He wanted to know where you’re holding those two people.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I told him I don’t know. That’s all, Don Rossi. I swear.”

  “Yes, I should think you would. Do something with these things,” he told his driver, indicating with his hand the four wounded guards.

  Returning to his desk, he took another sip of the cocktail waiting there. It was no longer ice cold. Martinis should be ice cold. Warm gin isn’t pleasing to the palate. He sipped it anyway as he considered the options.

  He began to develop a plan.

  First, he would send his wife and children to visit her family in Virginia on the first flight he could find.

  Second, he opened the door to a small storage closet. He ignored the printer and various office supplies that occupied most of the space. He found what he was looking for leaning in a far back corner.

  He laid the ArmaLite AR-18 on his desk. One man managed to abrogate the contracts of four of his security team. The thirty round magazine extending below this rifle would not be so easily overcome.

  Capable of selective fire, the rifle was popular with the Irish Republican Army in the days when the streets of Northern Ireland often ran red. It was the IRA’s use of the weapon that led to it being called the “Widow Maker.” An appropriate nickname, Rossi thought, for surely when he found whoever was responsible for this night’s devastation, and if that man had a wife, he would force her to watch as he made her a widow.

  Only then did he reach for his phone and dial a number.

  “We have a problem, Peter,” Rossi said when the man answered.

  On the other end of the line, Peter listened to his don. Peter was both Rossi’s underboss, or second in command, and his consigliere, his advisor. He lived in a more modest house a short distance from the Rossi compound. Rossi wanted Peter close by at all times.

  When the call was ended, Peter made other calls carrying out Rossi’s orders.

  Then he sat at his own desk for a while. Thinking. Rossi was correct. They had to come up with a response to this unexpected development.

  Peter needed a plan.

  Wednesday, August 3rd

  Trent awoke and lay still for a few minutes. He felt no pain. Nothing unusual. He didn’t remember having any hallucinations but then he probably would have no memory if one had occurred. He thought it would be a symptom-free day. He was grateful.

  He had managed to sleep for three hours before leaving to meet Christopher and his team at SFPD headquarters. Christopher was already in the conference room when Trent arrived at five o’clock. Other members of the team were there as well, preparing to execute their plan.

  Trent tossed the truck keys to Christopher. The cop caught them and reluctantly returned the keys to the Bentley in return.

  “I don’t know what you did last night and don’t want to know,” Christopher said. “But I wouldn’t mind driving that car for a few days more.”

  Trent laughed. “Maybe we can work something out. By the way, I left a little present under the seat.” The “present” consisted of one of the H&Ks and one of the semiautomatic handguns. Their twins were safely stowed in Trent’s duffel in his closet.

  “No one was killed,” Trent said in reply to the question he could see in Christopher’s eyes. “Four of Rossi’s security team won’t be working for a while but they’re alive.”

  The SFPD and FBI teams were assembled and ready. Over in Richmond Nancy’s team was also ready. At 5:30 Christopher gave the order to go.

  In a luxury apartment on the top floor of a building on Ellis Street in Little Saigon, one of very few homes in this part of the city that could be so described, Kiettisuk Jetjirawat was sitting down to breakfast. He sighed happily as he gazed at his favorite morning meal, khao neow moo ping. The grilled pork skewers were seasoned with cilantro root, garlic, and white pepper, among other things. It was accompanied, of course, with sticky rice. An excellent way, Kiettisuk thought, to begin the day.

  He was not in the least concerned with his personal safety. He owned the building, though that would be hard to prove unless someone managed to weave a path through the various corporations between him personally and the title to the apartment building.

  He had armed his personal security guards with Springfield M1A SOCOM-16 rifles. He had personally selected the weapon for his men. The relatively small, semiautomatic rifle packed a very powerful punch. No other rifle had ever been able to put that much power into such a lightweight weapon.

  He took the first bite of the pork, perfectly prepared as always. He was feeling much younger than his 67 years. He was thinking about the new shipment of girls that had been delivered to his hotel over on Eddy Street. One in particular had caught his eye. She looked to be perhaps 15 years old. Well developed for her age. Beautiful, long dark hair. He would have her sent over tonight.

  As he took the first bite of pork, there was a sound from the street. Much like two cars smashing into each other. Or one vehicle crashing into something else. The sound had nothing to do with him but it interfered with the quiet that Kiettisuk preferred in the morning.

  He could have looked out one of the two bay windows in his apartment to see what caused the noise. But he found the view of the street below and the buildings surrounding his to be unprepossessing. He motioned for the security guard standing by the door to investigate.

  Had he looked through one of the bay windows he would have been surprised to see the noise was caused by an armored SWAT vehicle belonging to the San Francisco Police D
epartment smashing through the gate. Cops in bullet proof vests poured out of it as a string of black and whites, filled with more combat-ready cops, followed it onto the grounds of his building.

  He would have been even more surprised to see his security force laying down their high-powered rifles as they surrendered to the assault team led by Lieutenant Billy Mitchum. Kiettisuk’s guards wisely determined their rifles were no match for the SA80 L85 selective fire assault weapons with which Mitchum had armed his team. The SA 80s, with a fully automatic fire option, were popular with the British army. The lightweight, semiautomatic rifles with which Kiettisuk had armed his private soldiers were no match.

  Kiettisuk didn’t look up from his breakfast when the man returned to his apartment.

  “Well?”

  “Good morning, Kiet.”

  Kiettisuk was immediately enraged with the informal greeting. When he looked toward the door he saw not the man who had been sent to investigate the disturbance downstairs but a smiling Lieutenant Billy Mitchum backed by three other police officers, all four of whom held the wicked-looking assault weapons.

  “What is the meaning of this? How dare you invade my privacy?” Kiettisuk raged. “Do you have a warrant permitting this atrocity?”

  “Sure do,” Mitchum replied, cheerfully, as he handed over the warrant. “Now you’re going downtown with us for questioning. It’s a little matter of operating a prostitution ring. You haven’t had time to hear of it yet but your hotel over on Eddy Street is shut down. Your crew in charge of it is in custody. Some of those girls were only 12 years old. You make me sick, Kiet.”

  “I have nothing to do with any of that. You have no proof of such a thing nor will you find any.”

  “We’ll see about that, Kiet,” Mitchum replied. “Meanwhile you’re going with us for some questioning. Cuff him,” the lieutenant directed.

  Kiettisuk was outraged. He wasn’t even allowed to get dressed. He was taken into public view dressed only in pajama pants, slippers, and an undershirt. His hands were cuffed behind his back.

  Two black and whites were parked in front of the apartment building. The rear door of one was being held open for him. As he was guided into the vehicle his head was turned toward the other. He didn’t allow his facial expression to change but he was surprised to see one of Jonathan Rossi’s men in the back seat of the second vehicle.

  He was being personally insulted by being dragged out in public in handcuffs. He had lost a large sum of money with the shutting down of the Eddy Street hotel and the loss of the young talent he had only last week imported. And now one of Rossi’s men was sitting in an SFPD car. He would have to give some thought to what it all means.

  At the same time, Sergeant Nancy Patrick’s team was moving in on the warehouse that was the headquarters of the Barons of Lucifer. Located in the Iron Triangle district of Richmond, near the interstate, luxurious would be the last word to describe the building.

  There were no guards outside. There was an entry on either side of the large garage door leading into the warehouse. At Nancy’s direction, four of her biggest colleagues smashed through them.

  Nancy led her team into the garage, startling two men playing poker. Both men went for the semiautomatic handguns lying on the table. One of the men stood, swinging around to get into firing position. Nancy’s Ruger barked twice. One nine millimeter slug smashed into the upper part of the biker’s femur, near where it connected to the pubic structure. The second man dropped to the floor and managed to fire his weapon three times with no hits. A hail of bullets chewed up the concrete floor all around him. He dropped his weapon, pushing it away.

  Two of Nancy’s team quickly cuffed the two Barons taken on the main floor while she led the way across the warehouse to the stairs leading to the second floor. It was there that the Barons kept a series of rooms, not unlike a dormitory. Gang members could use the rooms for the night or for an hour.

  At one end of the second floor was the club house. There was a bar and pool tables. Another Baron was passed out, his head lying on one of the tables. He was quickly awakened and subdued. Doors to a few of the rooms along the hall were opening. Barons were stumbling out, half asleep and still drunk from the night before. None offered serious resistance.

  Nancy and two other officers moved toward the other end of the building. The Mad Dutchman’s apartment was there. The noise woke him. He was hungover and feeling mean. The naked, tattooed blonde he had taken to share his bed the night before woke up, too.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice still slurred from the booze and coke.

  “Shut up,” the Dutchman said, slapping her.

  He reached for the half full jug of red wine sitting on the floor by the bed. Turning it up, he took three deep swallows, hoping the wine would stop the pounding in his head.

  The pounding only got worse as the door to his room was kicked in. He looked up to see three cops, one of them a woman, holding guns pointed at him.

  His own weapon, another Sig Sauer, cousin to the semiautomatic handguns Trent had taken from two of Rossi’s men, lay on a table near his bed. He liked the weapon. It was in a batch intended for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that the Dutchman had hijacked.

  Nancy saw him look at the gun. She smiled, her own weapon held steady, her aim dead on the Dutchman.

  “Go ahead, Lin,” she taunted. “Try for it. Let’s see if your hand can move faster than my bullet.”

  As hungover as he was, Winters wasn’t entirely slow-witted. He held up his hands.

  “What’s this all about?” he asked.

  “We had a double murder in our town a few days ago,” she said. “We have reason to believe you might be involved in it. I’m taking you in for questioning. And, before you ask, yes, I have a warrant. We’ll be searching this lovely home you have here.”

  “This is harassment,” Winters said, as two officers cuffed his hands behind his back. Nancy kept her Ruger aimed at the Barons of Lucifer leader.

  “We’ll see. Take him to the cars,” she directed the officers.

  As they passed through the building she counted fourteen Barons and seven women, most of them severely hungover or still high from the night’s activities. An interesting assortment of weapons was being assembled as the rooms were searched.

  Outside the warehouse, as at the apartment building in Little Saigon, there were two black and whites. As Winters was being helped into the second vehicle, he saw one of Rossi’s men in the first.

  The vehicle he was in pulled out first, passing the vehicle with Rossi’s man in it. The Mad Dutchman looked hard at the Mafia soldier as they drove slowly by. The fire in his eyes gave proof to why he was called Mad.

  Abdul Rahman completed his morning prayer at 5:30. He was enjoying a cup of tea on the terrace outside his bedroom. He had purchased this home in the affluent city of Pleasanton because of its architecture.

  The large house was over a century old. Most thought it to be Spanish. And so it was, in a roundabout way. The architecture showed the influence of the Moors in the centuries they dominated significant portions of the Iberian Peninsula, of which Spain is the largest part.

  Abdul had been precocious as a child in the study of Islam. He was a devoted follower of the religion from his earliest years. His very name pronounced him as a servant of God.

  Now he enjoyed his public persona as a successful venture capitalist. He enjoyed even more his private life as the leader of the Scourge, an organization dedicated to overthrowing this silly republic known as the United States and bringing it under Islamic control.

  He kept a few of his followers on the grounds of his estate in the guise of servants and assistants. Some were relatives. He considered it a sign of his intelligence that none, including himself, were armed. He knew the xenophobic forces among the government, as well as throughout the general population, were constantly on the lookout for armed Muslims. He refused to give anyone the satisfaction of coming into his home and fi
nding anything that could be described as supportive of revolution.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t have an army or arms for them. He had both. Most worked at his warehouses on the coast. It was in one of them that he kept his armory. He was prepared to act on the orders of Al Dawla al-Islamyia fil Iraq wa’al Sham. That which is called ISIL, or ISIS, in the United States and the hated acronym Da’ish in Great Britain.

  For the time being he was content moving among the elite of the Bay area and sitting on his terrace, sipping tea.

  He was shocked, then, when he saw the black SUVs speed up the driveway. He was more shocked as he watched the black-clad, armed men and women emptying from the vehicles.

  With great irritation, he went downstairs to meet the armed force invading his home. Abdul knew Agent Joseph Brady. There had been confrontations between them in the past. Abdul was not concerned about the outcome of this latest attempt by the FBI to intimidate him.

  Agent Brady handed the warrant to Abdul.

  “This is our authority to enter and search these premises, Abdul,” Brady said. “And we will take you to our office for questioning.”

  “Questioning for what?” Abdul demanded to know. “This is racial discrimination. Harassment. Nothing more. I am a respectable and successful businessman.”

  “Yes, it would seem so,” Brady agreed as he looked around at the lavishly furnished house. “You’re also the leader of the Scourge, one of the groups funding ISIL through several illegal activities, which cross state lines.”

  “Ridiculous!” Abdul said. He kept his face expressionless but he was surprised that Brady had information connecting him to the Scourge. He had thought that was known only to his four partners in Rossi’s fiduciaria.

  He was outraged when his hands were cuffed behind his back and he was led to an SUV. One of the SUVs they passed had all the windows open. His rage was even more enflamed when he saw two of Rossi’s men sitting inside. They were not cuffed.

  In the hills of Atherton, Rossi’s wife and children were driven to the airport to catch an early flight to Virginia. His wife had been part of the Rossi family long enough to know better than to ask why.