The First Rule

by Robert Crais

  “How did you find me?”

  She made an offhand shrug, her face as flat as a Texas highway, ignoring his question.

  “Okay, you’re sure. Personally, I don’t know, but I need a reason Darko killed him, and that one makes sense.”

  “Guns.”

  She pointed at herself.

  “ATF. The F is for firearms.”

  She studied him a moment longer, then cocked her head.

  “You don’t know about the guns. You’re just in this to get some payback. Okay, I get it. That’s who you are.”

  Pike knew she was trying to decide what to tell him, and how to play him. Same things he was thinking about her.

  “Terrio lied about our not having anything that ties Williams to the earlier six invasions. We found a woman’s bracelet in his grandmother’s trailer that puts him with the Escalante invasion, and an antique Japanese sword that puts him with the Gelber invasion. We’ll probably find something in Renfro’s crib, too. The gun comps will be the icing, but these boys are our killers.”

  Pike knew that Escalante was the second of the six previous home invasion/homicides. Gelber was the fifth.

  “If you found these things only now, then you didn’t know Williams was involved.”

  “No. Turns out Johnson was living with Renfro. That’s why no one could find him. Except for you. You did a good job there, Pike, finding these guys so fast. We hadn’t even come up with names for these guys, but you found them. I like that a lot.”

  She reached into her inside jacket pocket, and fingered out a four-by-six-inch photograph. Pike saw a clean-cut African-American man, early thirties, high and tight hair, and a tasteful gold stud in his left ear.

  “Special Agent Jordan Brant. Jordie was one of my undercovers. He was murdered twenty-three days ago trying to identify a takeover crew employed by one Michael Darko. This is Darko.”

  She produced a second picture, this one showing a big man in his late thirties with wide-set eyes in a round face. He had black hair pulled into a short ponytail, a thick mustache, and long, thin sideburns. The man who would not let himself be photographed had been captured on a security camera at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.

  Pike stared at the picture, and Walsh read the stare. Walsh smiled for the first time, but it was nasty and mean.

  “Yeah, baby, that’s him. Killed your boy, Frank. Killed those little kids. The young one, Joey? Was he named after you?”

  Pike sat back, and said nothing.

  “You know where he is?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Jordie was found behind an abandoned Chevron station in Willowbrook. They used a box cutter on him. Wife and a child. You can relate to that, right? Me losing my guy. You losing your guy.”

  “You believe Williams killed him?”

  “Considering that Williams and his crew were Willowbrook homies, I’d say yes, but all we knew at the time is that a Crip set was involved. Jordie was trying to identify them.”

  She returned the pictures to her pocket.

  “What does this have to do with guns?”

  “Darko works for a man named Milos Jakovich. Also known as Mickey Jack and Jack Mills.”

  She arched her eyebrows, the arch asking if he recognized the names. Pike shook his head, so she explained.

  “Jakovich heads up the original Serb set here in L.A.—the first of the old bosses to come over in the nineties. Think Don Corleone in his later years, but meaner. Jakovich is bringing in three thousand Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles.”

  The number stopped Pike. He tried to read if she was lying, but decided she was telling the truth.

  “Three thousand.”

  “Full-auto combat rigs that pirates stole from the North Koreans. So if Darko sends his killers to murder a man who used to be a professional mercenary, and who probably knows how to buy and sell weapons anywhere in the world, pardon me if I see a connection.”

  Pike took a breath. A new element had entered the field, and now Pike felt a stab of doubt. He felt bad for having it, as if he were betraying Frank’s memory.

  “Frank wouldn’t do that.”

  “Tell you what? Let me figure out whether he would, since that happens to be my job. Here’s what’s more important—you’re going to help me get those guns.”

  Walsh moved for the first time. She leaned forward, resting her hands on the table.

  “Darko works for Jakovich, but he’s trying to take over the deal, pick his own buyer, and force a regime change. Old school out, new school in. That buys me time to find the guns, but if you keep dogging this guy, and he feels the heat—”

  She snapped her fingers.

  “Poof! The guns disappear, and they could be anywhere—Miami, Chi cago, Brooklyn. So—first—you’re going to drop your search-and-destroy.”

  She didn’t give Pike time to respond, but pushed on, leaning even closer.

  “These East European sets, if these bastards didn’t know you in the old country, they don’t talk to you, and they haven’t been in this country long enough for us to develop informants. My guy died trying to bust that lock, Pike, but you—I think you have someone inside with the Serbs. So—second—I want your contact.”

  This was why she bounced him. Pike still didn’t know how they made him at the trailers, but Williams was the break point. A Crip connected to Darko. When Pike reached Williams, Walsh must have realized he had inside help, and triggered the bust. She was with Terrio and Deets on the day they made such a big show telling him about Frank, and now he wondered if she was behind it, and if she had been using him to get inside from the beginning.

  Pike thought it through, wondering if someone as far down the food chain as a prostitute would have information about an important deal. It was doubtful, but Rina might be able to find out.

  Pike said, “I’ll see.”

  Walsh shook her head.

  “You don’t understand. We have three thousand automatic weapons coming into this country, so I am not asking you. You will put me together with your informant.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, Walsh. This isn’t lost on me.”

  “That isn’t the right answer.”

  “I told you I would talk to my source. I will, but there’s a risk. I didn’t know about these guns. If I bring it up now, and word gets to Darko, you’re in the weeds.”

  Walsh glared, but only for a moment, as Pike went on.

  “There are people in the EOC community who know I’m on the hunt, and they know why. They won’t be spooked by a civilian working out a grudge. It’s something they understand.”

  Walsh showed her palms, shaking her head to stop him.

  “Don’t even think about it, Pike. Don’t go there. I am not going to allow you to murder this man.”

  “I suddenly stop, the people who know are left hanging. They want things in this, too. That’s why they’re helping me. If I go back with this gun thing, and tell them I’m talking to you, they’ll disappear as fast as your guns.”

  Now Walsh didn’t seem so confident.

  “What are you saying?”

  “You don’t have someone inside—I do. They’re inside—and they want me to find Darko—badly. Whatever I learn, I will pass back to you, and I can start by giving you something right now—Darko is going back to Europe.”

  She stared at him, and now her tanned face paled. Pike read her apprehension in how she shifted, a subtle step to the side as if she felt her own private earthquake. She glanced at her watch as if she wanted to note the time she learned this thing for the official record.

  “Is this bullshit?”

  “It’s what I was told.”

  She shifted again.

  “When?”

  “ Don’t know.”

  “Why is he going back?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe his deal is closing. Maybe he wants to go back after it’s finished.”

  Pike decided he could not mention the child, or Rina, or the true reason Darko sent his
killers to Frank Meyer’s home. Not without Rina’s permission.

  Walsh’s face hardened as she struggled with the new information. She stared through him as she wrestled with her options, not liking any of them. When she spoke again, her voice was soft.

  “I can take you out of the play. You don’t want that.”

  “No. I want Darko.”

  Her eyes refocused. On him.

  “I’ve got three thousand weapons being brought into this country by a foreign national. That’s a terrorist act. By the law as written in the Home-land Security Act, I could make you disappear. No trial, no lawyers, no bail—just gone. Look me in the eye, Pike—”

  She stared at him, letting him see.

  “If I lose those weapons because I couldn’t find them, I can live with it, but I am not going to trade the guns for Darko. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want him, but on my terms, not yours, alive, so I can testify against him in open court. So Jordie Brant’s wife can sit in the front row, and watch this piece of shit squirm. So she can take the stand during sentencing, and tell this piece of shit how much he hurt her, and how much he took from their child. I want that, Pike, just like you want what you want, and I will have it. Guns or not, the only way you’re leaving here is if you agree.”

  Pike studied her face, and knew she meant it. He nodded.

  “Okay.”

  “You agree? Darko is mine?”

  “Yes.”

  She put out her hand, he took it, and, for a moment, she did not let go.

  She said, “If you kill him, I swear to God I will devote the rest of my life to putting you in jail.”

  “I won’t kill him.”

  She walked him downstairs herself. His Jeep was waiting. So were his weapons.

  23

  PIKE TURNED OFF HIS CELL PHONE as soon as he was alone. He stopped at the first large shopping mall he reached, cruised up to the top floor of the parking structure, then down, looking for tails. He found none, but he had found none before. He still didn’t understand how they followed him.

  Pike left the parking lot the way he entered, and backtracked three blocks. He reversed course again, clocking the cars he passed, but found nothing suspicious.

  Returning to the mall, he parked on the second floor of the parking structure, then inspected the underside of the Jeep. He found nothing, but still wasn’t satisfied.

  He cleaned himself as best he could, then went into the mall. He bought a throwaway cell phone, extra batteries, and a prepaid calling card good for two hours. Seated on a bench outside a kitchen store, Pike spent ten minutes activating the phone and loading the prepaid calling time, then called Elvis Cole.

  Cole’s phone rang four times, a long time for Cole because he didn’t recognize the incoming number.

  “Elvis Cole.”

  “It’s me. Where’s Rina?”

  “With Yanni. I brought her back after our tour.”

  “Do me a favor, and go get them. The ATF knows I was at their building, and suspects I was seeing a source. They want the source.”

  Cole made a soft whistle.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just spent three hours with them.”

  Pike sketched out what he found at Willowbrook, what happened when Walsh had him picked him up, and the information she gave him about Darko.

  “This is no longer about some gangster murdering people in their homes—they’re bringing three thousand Kalashnikovs into the country. That’s why the Feds are involved.”

  Cole said, “I’ll get them. You want me to bring them to my place?”

  “For now. I’ll have a place for them by the time I get there.”

  Pike phoned Jon Stone next. Stone’s phone rang five times before his voice mail answered, and Pike waited for the beep.

  “It’s Pike. You there?”

  Stone answered, talking loud over Nine Inch Nails.

  “Fuck, man, I didn’t recognize the number.”

  “Someone’s been able to find me without following me, Jon. That’s why I’m using a different phone. I think the Jeep might be bad.”

  Nine Inch Nails vanished.

  “You driving it now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t come here. I’ll meet you.”

  Twenty minutes later, Pike arrived at a car wash on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, and pulled around back to the detailing bays as Stone had instructed. In the rear of the car wash, they couldn’t be seen from the street.

  Stone’s black Rover was in one of the bays, and two young Latin men were detailing a black Porsche in another. Stone was with them, laughing about something when he saw Pike arrive. He pointed at the empty bay on the far side of his Rover, and that’s where Pike parked. One of the young men was sleeved out with gang tats. Neither looked over as Pike climbed from his Jeep.

  Stone opened the back of his Rover and took out a long aluminum tube with a movable mirror jointed to a pod containing sensors and antennas. Jon’s security work often required him to scan for explosives and multiplatform surveillance devices. Jon was a pro, and had the equipment to accomplish his mission.

  He swept the pod under the Jeep, talking to Pike as he watched a dial in the handle.

  “You find these fucks?”

  “Found the crew. They were dead.”

  “No shit. Who bagged them?”

  “Their boss.”

  “No honor among scumbags. What was the butcher’s bill?”

  “Three. Their boss is still up, but these three are down. One more to go.”

  Stone paused between the Jeep’s headlights, and studied the dial. After a moment, he continued on around the Jeep, making a full sweep of the vehicle until he returned to the front end. Then he put the pole aside, and wiggled under the engine.

  “Here you go.”

  He rolled to his feet, and showed Pike a small gray box the size of a pack of cigarettes.

  “GPS locator. High-end piece made by Raytheon under an NSA contract. This is top-dollar equipment. Federal?”

  “ATF.”

  Stone grinned.

  “Right now, there’s an agent with a laptop staring at a real-time map overlay. X marks the spot, bro—right here at the car wash on Santa Monica Boulevard.”

  He tossed it to Pike.

  “Three choices—kill it, toss it, or—my personal favorite—tack it to a FedEx truck and let’m watch it roll all over town.”

  Pike didn’t want Walsh to know he found it or had even thought to look for it, but he didn’t want her watching his path. If he put it on another vehicle, she would realize what he had done within a matter of hours. Pike tossed it back.

  “Kill it, and I need you to do something else.”

  “For Frank?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m there.”

  Pike told him about the guns—three thousand Chinese AKs stolen from the North Koreans.

  Pike said, “Jakovich didn’t steal them. He bought them from someone. See what you can find out.”

  Stone hesitated.

  “About Frank?”

  “About the guns. Frank didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  Stone hesitated again, but made a slow nod.

  “I know a guy who knows a guy, but I want a piece of the hunt. I’ll help, but I want some trigger time. For Frank.”

  “You got it.”

  24

  PIKE DROVE TO COLE’S HOUSE when he left the car wash, climbing the narrow canyon roads to the top of the hills, then along Woodrow Wil son Drive through a heavily wooded canyon. He decided Walsh had planted the locator on his Jeep the day they stopped him at Runyon Canyon. Maybe that was why they stopped him the way they did, to keep him clear of the Jeep until they finished installing the locator.

  Pike wondered now if she bugged him to follow his own investigation, or because she believed Frank was involved with the guns. There would have been no reason for her to believe Pike was i
nvolved in an arms deal, but maybe she knew something Pike didn’t yet know.

  The sky was deep purple when Pike pulled up in front of Cole’s A-frame and let himself into the kitchen. Pike liked Cole’s home, and had helped Cole maintain it over the years whenever Cole needed a hand painting, roofing, or staining the deck. Perched high in the canyons where it was surrounded by trees, Cole’s rustic A-frame felt removed from the city. Pike took a bottle of water from Cole’s fridge. A dish of cat food sat on the floor beside a small bowl of water. The house smelled of eucalyptus, wild fennel, and the flora that grew on the canyon’s steep slopes.

  Cole, Rina, and Yanni were in the living room, watching the news. Rina’s bag was on the floor at her feet, along with a bag that probably belonged to Yanni. They glanced over when Pike entered, and Cole muted the sound. Yanni’s face was purple where Pike hit him.

  Rina squinted at Pike as if she were sizing him up for target practice, then waved toward Cole.

  “We are not going to stay here. It smells like cats.”

  Cole arched his eyebrows, the arch saying, You see what it’s like?

  Pike motioned Cole over.

  “See you a minute?”

  When Cole joined him, Pike lowered his voice.

  “You were going to check out her story. What do you think?”

  Cole glanced at Rina and Yanni to make sure they couldn’t hear, then shrugged.

  “I located one of Ana’s friends, and have a call into another. Everything checked. Rina spent the 90210 years protecting her sister. Kept Ana completely away from this stuff, just like she said.”

  Rina stood, then raised her voice.

  “I don’t like this whispering. I told you already once. Yanni and I, we are going to go.”

  Pike said, “Yanni’s building is being watched by the police. You shouldn’t go back.”

  Yanni mumbled something in Serbian, and Rina chattered something back.

  She said, “The police don’t care about Yanni. Why would they watch?”