Grass

by Steve Williams

  The driver got out of the vehicle and walked to the man. There was a small dark stain on the roadway by the man’s head. The driver rolled him on his side. Hector looked up at him, holding a pistol. “I am glad to see there are still some Good Samaritans in these troubled times.”

  Two minutes later, the truck pulled up to the front gate. An armed guard came out of the gatehouse and approached the driver’s side window. “Hey, Len. How’s it hangin’?”

  “Not bad Earl. Last run of the night. Then I’m heading back into the city. Maybe hit that new club you told me about.”

  Earl laughed. “It’s hot. Take lots of cash—you’ll need it.”

  He raised the gate, and Len drove the van into the complex.

  Len felt the muzzle of the automatic retract from where it had been pressing into his seat. It had been aimed at the base of his spine. “That was excellent Len,” Hector said. “Now once more.”

  They pulled up in front of the secure cash-counting building. Len waved at the two armed guards, then got up and passed between the two front seats into the back of the van. He picked up two canvas bags and exited through the back doors, leaving them open.

  He walked ten paces to the building. In the van, Luis and Hector counted his footsteps. They heard the armored door being buzzed open and jumped from the van, weapons ready. The two guards were taken by surprise. They dropped their assault rifles.

  As they approached the building Hector heard the armored door locks engage again. Only then did he notice a recessed video security camera above the entryway. He and Luis knocked Len and one of the guards unconscious with butt-strokes of their shotguns. Luis had the other guard, who was built like a defensive lineman, stand facing the building, to one side of the armored door.

  The cash building had a formidable security door. But like a surprising number of fortified structures, to either side lay common drywall, built over two-by-four studs. Luis rushed at the guard standing in front of the wall and their combined five hundred pounds broke through the vinyl siding and the outer and inner sheets of drywall like a bulldozer. The guard was knocked unconscious with the impact. Luis was on the ground, but Hector came charging over top of him.

  Inside the building, men had abandoned the piles of cash they were feeding into the automated counters and scrambled for weapons when the alert had gone up from the front security camera. As Hector and Luis scrambled behind cover just inside the building, they heard the unmistakable sound of AK-47 charging handles being pulled back. One of the defenders called out. “We have five AK’s ready to spray the living shit out of you. Come out with your hands behind your heads!”

  Hector and Luis remained on the floor behind cover by the front entrance. The man called out again, repeating the warning. After a few more seconds, Hector and Luis stood up. They laced their hands behind their necks, where they had each secured a 9mm automatic. The five men defending the building also stood up, AKs at their shoulders. They began to move toward Hector and Luis, then pitched forward as the back wall of the building exploded.

  The Colonel and the rest of the men charged through the smoke and debris. They had waited until the men inside the building were distracted by the frontal assault. With nobody looking at the rear surveillance cameras, they had easily breached the fence, crossed the twenty yards to the building, and put shaped charges against the wall.

  The men with the AK-47s, now disoriented and confused, put their weapons on the ground. Arturo, Ramon and Diego cuffed them and secured them to heavy office furniture.

  The Colonel and his men moved across the open floor of the building, gathering bundles of cash and putting them in large alpine mountaineering backpacks. When the packs were full, they hoisted them on their backs and did up the hip harnesses. Then, looking like a Sherpa hit squad, they double-timed it from the building and toward the forest.

  From their left flank, automatic weapons fire aerated the grass close to their feet. The guard at the front gate had heard the explosion and come to investigate. The hail of bullets stopped just as abruptly as it had started. The Colonel knew that Andre had seen the muzzle flash and put a high-velocity round into the shooter.

  They made their way through the forest to the van. Although they didn’t have to worry about the wireless cameras in the woods, the going was a lot slower because each pack weighed close to 120 pounds. While they were packing the cash bundles, the Colonel had urged his men to forego smaller denominations if possible. Prior to the raid, they had calculated that one million dollars in hundred dollar bills would weigh approximately twenty-five pounds. If they could get away with a load of larger bills, it might mean a haul of as much as thirty million dollars. But the Colonel knew they had been forced to take some smaller denominations.

  They were halfway to the truck when the Colonel noticed Luis was lagging. A blood stain bloomed on his right shoulder. “Luis, what has happened to you?” he asked.

  “It is nothing Commandante. I believe when you blew the back wall, the shock wave may have caused one of the men to fire a round from his AK. I am sure it is just a flesh wound,” Luis insisted.

  The Colonel stripped off his pack and ordered Luis to do the same. Then he hoisted one pack on each shoulder and urged Luis to walk the rest of the way unencumbered. They covered the last hundred yards together.

  When they arrived at the van, Barros was waiting. Andre was already there, since he had covered the same distance without a heavy pack. He helped them into the truck. Barros tossed Ramon a first aid kit so he could tend to Luis’s shoulder. Fortunately the bullet had not fragmented. As Barros drove them slowly back to their base of operations, Ramon put a field dressing on the wound. They would have a better look at it later.

  The adrenaline rush of the mission ebbed and was replaced by elation. They had finished their campaign against Otis Gaverill’s organization without losing a single member of their squad. The men congratulated each other. Their enthusiasm was tempered somewhat by the knowledge that their real war was about to begin. But the past few weeks were an amazing victory.

  56

  “It’s like I’m a single guy again,” Mitchell complained as he skulled a golf ball off the Eighth Precinct’s roof and watched it clatter into the trees in the park. Somewhere in the thicket a magpie protested.

  “You said she should go for the gold with her career, so don’t start whining now,” Sandovan replied as he lined up his own shot. He made his usual big shoulder turn, letting the large muscles do all the work. The ball soared and finally splashed down within four feet of the decoy.

  Mitchell watched Sandovan’s shot with envy. “Yeah, yeah. You’re supposed to be on my side. Do I try to make you see Claire’s point of view when you guys are fighting about whether to get a minivan or an SUV?”

  “No, you don’t. That’s because I don’t endorse her side and then go back on it.”

  Mitchell finally hit a decent shot with his last ball. But it was still a good fifteen feet from the target. They put away their clubs, spread a seed-and-fertilizer mix on the divot holes in the turf, and headed down to the squad room to pack it in for the day.

  Mitchell knew that his mood was caused by Otis dying before they could nail him. To further aggravate the detectives, the DNA on the facial hair sample taken from the flask was a perfect match to Otis’s post-mortem sample.

  It appeared that Curtis and J.A. Montclair were going to avoid any implication in the criminal activities they’d pinned on Otis. Mitchell supposed that they did the city a favor. But sooner or later, he thought, we’ll find something on you.

  The one highlight of the past few days had been Mrs. Vargas’s reaction to the huge check Emilio had given her. Naturally she had tried to refuse, saying that the butter tart had become his property, fair and square. But Emilio had convinced her of all the good she could do for her son and the school. Finally, she relented.

  Even the grow house robbers had gone dark. There hadn’t been a report of a house getting robbed for quite a while
. Which didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t still happening, since the home owners wouldn’t file a complaint. Still, Mitchell and Sandovan were poking and prodding the neighbors of the crime scenes they knew about, seeing if they could shake something loose.

  Eventually, something would give. Until then, the only entertainment was watching Nelson try to fill Tewks’s role as head of the parade route security detail. He wasn’t a bad kid, just green.

  The media frenzy surrounding Ptushko’s visit to the States was fever pitched. Mitchell remembered his mother telling him about the hero’s welcome the good old US of A had given the Canadian ambassador to Iran in the late ‘70s. The diplomat had smuggled six American embassy workers out of the country shortly after Iranian student militants had seized the US embassy. After a stunt like that you could pretty much write your own ticket. Mitchell figured a guy like that probably wouldn’t have to pay for a drink the rest of his life. Doubt he ever had to drink alone either, he thought as he put on his jacket and headed home.

  Just for the hell of it he stopped in at the Rusty Bayonet. There were a few more patrons in the evening compared to the sparse lunch crowd. It was the type of place that was more conducive to drowning sorrows than buoying spirits. Ferg was at his usual spot at the bar. Mitchell expected to see a thin layer of dust on the old man, because it appeared he hadn’t moved since the day Sandovan and he had ordered the fish special.

  Ferg was his usual attentive self. After about five minutes his wife Alice came out from the back. She looked over Ferg’s shoulder and shouted in his ear, “Forty two across, aglet!”

  She noticed Mitchell and teetered over to help him out. “What’ll it be, detective? You come in for another glass of water?”

  Mitchell gave her a grin. “Yeah, and I’ll have a glass of single malt with it please. I’m off the clock.”

  She poured him a Macallan and set a small carafe of water and a bowl of peanuts on the bar. He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. “Don’t worry, they’re right out of the can,” she explained.

  “Which can?” said Mitchell. He thought he saw a smirk cross Alice’s face.

  “Ferg do anything around here aside from the crossword?” Mitchell asked.

  “Not really. Doesn’t even do all of that, as you can see from the way I feed him the answers. Took a bullet in the hip in Korea, so his mobility ain’t what it used to be.”

  Old bastard’s tougher than he looks, Mitchell thought. “What’s Ferg’s first name?”

  “That is his first name,” Alice replied. “It’s Ferguson, like Fergie Jenkins the hall of fame pitcher, except not as tanned.”

  “How long you and Ferg been running this place?”

  Alice paused for a moment. “Since Ferg got back from the war. It’s deteriorated since then. But so have I. We never opened it to strike it rich. Just to give our friends some place to stop in and have a drink. Maybe when we’re gone our son will take it over and fix it up a bit.”

  “What’s your son do?” Mitchell asked.

  “He’s a police captain. I believe you know him.”

  57

  Early the next morning, Pyotr Ptushko stepped off his private jet and waved to the adoring crowds. A band began to play. Several grade school children presented him with bouquets. The Mayor and Governor were effusive, especially once they caught a glimpse of Yasmine, who wore a tight cashmere dress that accentuated a multitude of temptations.

  The red carpet receiving line from the plane to the limousine took twenty minutes, as everyone jockeyed for a photo with the hero of the hour. Journalists moved in a scrum worthy of the New Zealand All Blacks. Finally the limo managed to depart for the parade route, with Vasily riding shotgun and Ptushko in the back seat flanked by the Mayor and Yasmine.

  Ptushko’s meeting with the President had been postponed until the final day of his visit due to some saber rattling by North Korea. This first day would be taken up by the parade, a series of meetings with local dignitaries, a delightful private dinner, and a late-night unscheduled visit to a club that had promised to extend “every courtesy” to Pyotr the brave.

  Vasily was vigilant. Yasmine checked her smartphone as the Mayor bent Ptushko’s ear mercilessly. She knew that Pyotr wished he could have Vasily jettison the politician from the moving car. But while he could probably get away with something like that in Russia, America was a different story.

  They entered the city and were joined by a police escort of four motorcycles. Because the convoy’s progress was being shown on large monitors throughout downtown Salento, they could hear the cheers rising as they slowed down and began to navigate the official parade route. Streamers and handfuls of confetti whirled down from the rooftops. Yasmine had never seen anything like it.

  It was a difficult shot. But he had hit difficult targets before. His rooftop vantage point put him in excellent position. He also had the element of surprise on his side. No one would be expecting such a bold stroke.

  He felt the comfort of the custom grip. The matte finish on the high-grade steel would not reflect the sun, giving away his position. It was an important detail, because he would only have one shot. The roar of the motorcade rose in the distance. He saw the four police Harley-Davidsons heading toward his location.

  Andre was in the prone shooting position, in a hide he had constructed in a maintenance shed atop an eight-story apartment building near the end of the parade route. It was well beyond the medium-security perimeter the city had budgeted for this event. He had been hidden for three days, with enough rations and water in his daypack to comfortably last the seventy-two hours. His latrine was an automatic deodorizing diaper pail.

  Through his scope he watched the flags in front of the City Hall for any trace of wind. They were still. He waited until the limousine was at the precise marker he had tagged with the rangefinder, a lamppost at three hundred and twenty meters. At that distance the .300 magnum bullet would arrive a half-second before the sound of the shot, but the rifle’s report would be obscured by the din of the motorcade and the cheering of the crowds anyway.

  He squeezed the trigger gently, then put the rifle down and exited the hide. Andre did not stop to look. He knew.

  In the limo, Pyotr Ptushko’s head snapped back as the bullet hit him just above the left eyebrow. The Mayor, sitting to his right, was so transfixed by the adoring crowds that he didn’t even stop waving. But Yasmine, sitting on the other side, was cut on the cheek by a shard of bone from Ptushko’s skull and sprayed with a mist of blood and brain tissue.

  Her scream alerted Vasily. He turned quickly in the front passenger seat. Seeing that his boss was hit, he grabbed the wheel of the car and yanked it to the right, pulling the limo into an alley and sending two pedestrians flying. The mayor finally realized something was wrong. He looked over at Ptushko and, seeing the carnage, fainted.

  When the car stopped, Vasily had a chance to assess the damage. It was obvious to him that as of that moment, he was unemployed. Pyotr Ptushko was dead. There was no need for an ambulance.

  Vasily jumped from the limousine and burst through the crowd, sprinting up the parade route with surprising speed for such a huge man. He knew the shot had come from in front of the car, farther up the parade route. All he was hoping for was a glimpse of a person calmly walking away from the commotion. He could likely rule out women. The young. The elderly. He was searching for a physically fit male, walking with purpose, looking cautiously over his shoulder.

  He knew that his chances of identifying the shooter were slim. The effective range for the world’s best snipers, as proven with record-setting kills in Afghanistan, was now well over twenty-five hundred yards. This shot had probably been taken from closer range, but he had no way of knowing. After three hundred yards Vasily stopped running. The sprint was too much for a man of his size. He bent over at the waist and vomited.

  Half a block to the west, Andre walked out of the apartment building and got into a nondescript sedan. He smiled at Hector and nodded.
r />   “You must be hungry,” Hector said.

  “I could eat.”

  “I told Barros we would go to the drive-through fast-food restaurant. He wants us to bring him a hamburger.”

  “I’ve always wanted to try onion rings,” Andre said.

  They drove past a large man vomiting in the street. Andre looked at him, then back at Hector. “It appears we should avoid the food in this neighborhood.”

  The fallout from the shooting of Pyotr Ptushko was swift and virulent, as various levels of government tried to pin the security breach on one another. Politically savvy bureaucrats went into stealth mode and flew effortlessly under the radar. Nonetheless, the media was looking to assign blame, and Detective third grade Dave Nelson of the Salento PD was an easy target.

  Nelson had been assigned to the security detail when Sergeant Randall Tewks was shot in the line of duty. Since a heroic wounded police officer laying in a hospital bed was far too sympathetic a target, the press came down on Nelson with a fury.

  “Dave, you won’t lose your job,” Sandovan said, trying to reassure the kid.

  “Yeah, if anything it’s going to come out that some bureaucrat down at city hall set the security budget too low. Besides, Tewks put all the plans in place before he got shot,” Mitchell said, backing him up.

  “I dunno,” Nelson said, his voice trembling. “You can’t escape these reporters. They’re like bloodhounds.”

  “That’s an insult to a fine breed,” Hernandez said. “How about leeches?”

  The one benefit of the media scrutiny was that people were starting to ask why someone would want Pyotr Ptushko dead. Some of the better investigative reporters were beginning to unearth details of Ptushko’s unsavory business practices.

  The Russian consulate was doing its best to quell the negative press. But within hours the online news sites were reporting allegations of bribes, strong-arm tactics, and the brutal policies of the new government in Uramera, whose rise to power Ptushko had bankrolled in exchange for mineral rights.