by Ty Patterson
And yet he’s alive.
* * *
Difiore and Quindica showed up at twelve-thirty. ‘It had better be good.’ The detective slid down on the leather seat, the SAC next to her.
‘It will be.’
‘I mean the food.’
‘Don’t look at me like that.’ Quindica raised her hands. ‘She’s gotten worse ever since she met you.’
‘The steak’s good. Fish, too. Almost everything here.’
‘How would you know?’ the detective challenged him, without looking up from the menu. ‘You’re a vegetarian.’
How does she know that? He tried to figure it out, gave up and placed his order.
‘He’s alive. Sheller,’ he said bluntly when the server had left.
Difiore blinked. Quindica sipped the drink she had ordered. No theatrics. No surprised exclamations, but he could see the interest flaring in their eyes.
‘That’s not much to go on,’ the SAC said thoughtfully when he had finished briefing them. ‘Just the word of a prisoner.’
‘Vague at that,’ Difiore added.
‘I saw him.’
That got their attention.
‘When? Where?’ the detective demanded.
How much could he share?
‘Where Davis was captured.’
‘I knew it. You were involved somehow,’ she muttered. ‘Sheller was there?’
He told them about the SUV, its occupants.
‘You didn’t see him clearly,’ Quindica said. ‘It could be any bald man.’
‘It’s him.’
‘Who was the other man?’
‘I don’t know.’
He hadn’t placed the driver, even though that feeling of having seen him before persisted.
‘Why were you there?’
‘I was driving past,’ he lied, ‘got a call and drove inside to take it.’
Difiore didn’t believe him. Her expression was scornful, but she didn’t push him.
‘Why would he go through that?’ Quindica again, tracing the lines on the table with a finger. ‘Stage his death, go to all that trouble. He could have run the Lions just as he was. Many gang leaders do.’
‘Good question. There’s another you should ask yourselves. Who does he know inside the system? How far does his reach go? That killing, he couldn’t have done it himself. The coroner, the cops, Davis’s death …’
He trailed off when Difiore went impassive, the wooden face that he was becoming familiar with fast.
‘The thought’s crossed our minds,’ she ground out.
They picked at their food silently when it arrived. He paid for it, and when they were leaving, Quindica caught his sleeve.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘You’ll let us know when your friend gets back?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Grogan,’ Difiore warned him, ‘stay out of this. You’ve helped, great, but that’s the end of your involvement.’
He nodded.
He wouldn’t stay out of it. He had to be sure Darrell left the gang. That there would be no blowback.
Sheller’s out there, too. If he’s based here, he must know I’m here, too.
The man would come for him at some point if he recognized him from their prison days.
If that happened, their enmity would spill over to the street.
29
Cutter swore when he saw Darrell with Manuel that evening. The two boys were loping down Pitkin Avenue and headed towards Mother Gaston.
‘Have you lost your senses?’ he said savagely in the silence of his car.
He parked it after a light and felt his false nose. Yeah, it was in position, as were the pads on his chest and belly, to give him a heavyset look, and his Glock in his shoulder holster.
He put on his shades and got out of his vehicle. Followed them at a distance to the same stretch of sidewalk in front of the developer’s lot.
He couldn’t risk pretending to be a drunk again. He turned on his jacket cam and proceeded. Looked dubiously at the group of thugs and stepped to the street and went past them with the line of vehicles in between. A wary civilian who wanted no truck with the bunch of hoods on the sidewalk.
Where are the cops? he wondered. Wouldn’t they patrol this area after what happened? They would. But the gang was also there, which meant they were fearless or stupid. Or they have a pass. Which seemed most likely, given that Sheller was alive.
Cutter went down several car lengths and then patted his pocket and brought out his cell phone. He leaned against a vehicle and checked the recording. Made a face when he found there were no close-ups of the gang members. He had to know who had come in place of Davis.
Forty yards between him and the Lions. He could make Darrell out, a small figure who kept his distance from the bunch on the sidewalk. He shook his head when Manuel turned to him and beckoned.
Doesn’t look like he’s committed to them. Cutter faced them to allow his jacket cam to take everything in. Brought his phone to his ear and started speaking with a nonexistent caller.
No thugs looked his way. It didn’t look like the new leader, a taller man around whom many men were bunched, had put in place any surveillance.
‘You waiting for someone?’
Cutter turned around slowly and found out how wrong he was.
The speaker was short, bearded, in a loose Tee over jeans. One hand hooked loosely in his pocket, something hard and flat outlined at his waist. A gun. Ink all over his arms and up his neck.
He must have been crouching between cars. Watching the street from sidewalk level. Excellent tradecraft.
‘Hold up a moment, Pete,’ Cutter spoke loudly and held his phone away from his ear. ‘Yeah? You said something?’ he queried the arrival.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Me? Can’t you see? What business is it of yours?’
The speaker’s face hardened. He took a step closer. ‘Move. Take your call somewhere else.’
‘Huh? Who are you—’
‘What’s that on your jacket?’
Cutter looked down. Cursed mentally when he saw the camera had slid out of its buttonhole.
‘That’s … you’re a … COP!’ the man hollered, his face twisting in anger. He started reaching for his weapon.
‘Who? Me? No—’
‘COPS!’ the man yelled again furiously, his hand emerging from beneath his Tee.
Cutter risked a glance down the sidewalk.
The Lions had heard the call. They split up. Some of them leapt over the barbed wire and fled through the open lot. Darrell was a distant figure. It looked like he had run at the caller’s first shout. Some heavies hustled down the sidewalk, determined looks on their faces, looking to support the sentry. The leader … there he was, along with a few hoods. He had threaded through the parked vehicles. Can’t let him escape through the traffic Need to find out who he is.
No time to fight.
‘GUN!’ Cutter roared. ‘SHOOTER ON STREET. CHRIST! HE’S FIRING.’ He shoved the startled thug against the vehicle as several passersby screamed. He leapt over the vehicle’s hood and landed on the street. A car blared angrily. Tires squealed.
‘CALL THE COPS,’ he shouted and pointed wildly at the thugs on the sidewalk. ‘THEY’RE SHOOTING.’
Word spread. Cars honked. People cleared away from the street.
Cutter didn’t stay to watch. He ran through the traffic. Prayed that the drivers had more sense than him. They did, but not before several cursed him loudly through rolled-down windows. He didn’t pay them any attention. His eyes were on the tall man who was fleeing with three hoods.
Can’t let him get away.
He put on a burst of speed. Yells behind him. Spotted the caller and one more thug in a storefront’s reflective window. Chasing him.
Cutter put them out of his mind as he sprinted through an opening, landed on the sidewalk and raced to catch up with the leader. Down Mother Gaston, shoving past shoppers, leaping over a baby stroller, the mo
ther’s angry shout burning his ears.
Right on Livonia, and then the hoods veered suddenly to the right. Into a housing project, over a metal fence, through a children’s play area. Past grim-looking buildings and narrow lanes. The sounds of their footsteps echoing in the small passageways.
No one else present. Just the gang’s leader and his men, who had spotted their pursuer, and more hoods behind.
A left and a sudden right, and Cutter slithered to a stop.
A dead end. A storage alley lined with trash bins. Several doors, all of them shut.
Two hoods standing, grinning wickedly, their guns by their sides.
No sign of Leader.
Pounding footsteps behind him.
Caller turned the corner and entered, along with another hood.
One against four mean-looking hitters. All of them armed, flanking him.
Flight wasn’t an option.
‘I’m a cop.’ Cutter raised his hands. ‘Backup should be here soon.’
‘Nails and Serro?’ Caller asked.
‘Got away.’ One of the two thugs nodded at a door.
The sentry reached for his gun.
Violence it would be.
30
Cutter had no fear of being killed.
He had faced down that enemy a long time ago, after Riley died. If he had to meet his end in the housing project, however, killed by punks, it wouldn’t be alone. He would take as many as he could with him.
He ran at Caller with a ferocious yell, drawing his Glock with blinding speed as the emptiness filled him.
The sudden move gave him a fractional advantage. No one charged at a gun-wielding assailant. Caller was startled and was late in raising his gun.
His first shot caught the sentry in the shoulder, and then he was in the air. He landed on the two men, full body contact. Lashed out with his legs and caught the second shooter in the face. Swiped wildly with his Glock and felt it connect with the man’s nose.
He landed on his feet. Stumbled, and that saved his life when a round buzzed angrily over his head. Another spat into a concrete wall as the roar of shots filled the narrow passage.
MOVE!
He got an arm around Caller’s neck and dragged him back as a human shield. Fired wildly behind him and felt the distinct sounds of rounds slamming into the flesh of the fallen man. Brought the Glock up and trained them on the three hoods.
‘Your call.’ Calm voice. No panic or desperation. ‘Let me go or he dies.’
The two hoods had their guns on him. The man he had shot gasped and shuddered. Caller swore and struggled and stilled when Cutter’s arm tightened around his neck.
‘You can’t escape, pig,’ one of the hoods called out. ‘You’d better give up.’
He didn’t reply. He backstepped, dragging his captive with him.
One step. Two steps.
He got closer to the mouth of the alley, where a bigger lane ran that led to other buildings. He could escape through the congestion of the housing project, which had enough nooks and twists and turns for cover. Provided more hoods weren’t flooding the space. And those two facing me stay where they are.
The hoods didn’t stay where they were. They spread out and came forward.
‘Are you all from that gang? Rising Lions?’
Caller stiffened. ‘Flack!’ he wheezed.
One of the thugs fired.
Cutter reacted immediately. He pushed Caller at them and dived out of the alley. Something burned his shoulder. A round brushed his hair and then he was out, staggering, as shots reverberated in the confined space.
Go right!
He regained his balance and ran past a scared face in a window—a woman, pale, eyes wide in shock. Turned another corner. More densely packed buildings. No other person visible. Lights in various apartments. Clothing on lines, but no one showed themselves, as if shooting in the neighborhood was commonplace.
He leapt over a tricycle. Risked a glance back and spotted two hoods chasing him. No one else.
A growl escaped him.
Two against one.
Those were odds he could deal with, even if that shoulder throbbed insistently. He twisted and turned, changed direction unpredictably as they kept firing. A window shattered. A bullet clipped a metal door. A trash bin ahead. He grabbed its circular cover, spun on his heel and sent it flying toward the attackers. He heard one of them swear and fall, but he didn’t stop to watch.
He resumed running. Long, ground-eating paces as he scanned his surroundings, swiftly looking for cover. He came out of the passage he was running through and faltered.
Open space ahead. A parking lot. Vehicles filling several spaces.
He dived to the ground when a shot rang out. Crawled quickly and ducked beneath an SUV. Peered from under. Another building behind him. One to the side, and to his right was a street. A feeder that went from the housing project to Livonia.
A line of cars ahead of him, blocking out the thugs.
No, he corrected himself as a heel scraped on concrete. Can see their feet. Just then, a pair came into sight.
One pair of feet visible, one car between him and the thug. No sign of the second shooter. He could guess where the other man would be, though. Flanking wide, checking out the parked vehicles.
One shooter not moving, deliberately making a noise to set himself as bait, the other crouching, ready to fire. The second gunman would be facing his gang member either fully or partially to get the best firing line. Which meant he would come up from Cutter’s blind side on the left or right.
A trap in the urban jungle of a parking lot from which he wasn’t sure he could escape, but there was no give in him. It was in his blood, in his genes, from when his ancestors had fought and died in distant lands, and Delta Force had shaped that animal instinct to the point of a spear. Without conscious thought, Cutter took the bait.
* * *
He slithered quietly, taking care not to brush his clothing against concrete. Moving on his toes and one hand, the other holding his Glock. Breathing shallowly, every sense firing. Open space between his SUV and the vehicles ahead of him. He peered cautiously around a tire. No sign of the second gunman.
A burst of speed, a fast crawl, his Glock ready, and then he was underneath a Cherokee. Next to it was the pickup truck beyond which Feet stood.
Cutter moved carefully, the smell of concrete and gas and burned rubber around him as a riff of air blew and cooled the sweat on him.
Under the truck. Recon to see if the second gunman was visible.
Nope. He’s behind some vehicle, hidden by its wheel well.
Feet was there, however, right in front of him.
Standing too close to the pickup. An elementary mistake, the kind made by someone with no real combat experience.
Cutter’s left arm shot out like a whip. Curled around the man’s ankles and yanked hard. The thug fell with a startled grunt. His head crashed to concrete. A swift body drag forward, a vicious elbow to his throat, a shoulder roll despite the stinging burn from the injured joint, to get to his feet and go behind the truck’s bed.
A whisper of movement a car away.
On his three o’clock, his blind side when he had been prone, just as he had guessed.
Cutter’s body uncoiled like a spring being released. He rose in a controlled motion to let just his head show, and there the gunman was, his upper body exposed over the roof of a black sedan, his eyes searching where his friend had been. By the time he spotted the threat, it was too late.
Cutter triggered twice, ducked and fast-slapped a new magazine, ran around the truck, back to the line of cars where he had hidden, crouched behind a vehicle and snatched a look.
The thug was down.
He crab-walked, ready for a feint, but the man was sightless when he stood over him. Both rounds had taken his throat out and left nothing but flesh and blood and entrails on his neck.
Another crab-walk back to Feet, only to find that man was dead, too. It looke
d like his head had crashed so hard on the concrete that the fall had killed him, and if that hadn’t, then the throat jab had finished him.
Cutter didn’t let himself relax. He ghosted out of the parking lot, ready to take on more hostiles if they showed.
They didn’t.
He went back into the maze of lanes. Circled and doubled back until he came into the dead-end alley.
Caller was dead, as was the other thug.
Both of them killed by their own men.
It was Sheller’s code.
31
Cutter pocketed his spent brass wherever he could find it and got out of the housing project just as sirens wailed in the distance.
He got to Livonia as cruisers and emergency vehicles flooded the buildings and turned the evening into flashes of blue and red.
He walked without hurrying. Back to Mother Gaston, to check if Leader had returned. The strip of sidewalk where they hung out was empty. He went to his car and drove out of Brownsville as his blood cooled and the adrenaline spike diminished and the earth resumed spinning on its axis.
He shook his head, bemused at how he had survived the fight.
They were too eager, over-confident about their numbers. Still, he had pushed his luck when he charged at Caller. Any of those rounds could have found me. At the parking lot—that had been different. He had been in control.
He drove aimlessly, deliberately to let the endorphins dissipate.
What had he learned that evening?
That Davis had been replaced by someone called Nails. Serro was a gang member, as was Flack, but the latter was dead. He hadn’t spotted the distinctive ink on the men he had killed, but that didn’t mean anything. They are Lions.
Which brought him to Sheller.
And Joshua Gruber, an ADX inmate whom he had known before Horstman. An ascetic-looking prisoner who kept to himself and rarely opened up to anyone. Cutter and he had bonded over their love for chess. The men played whenever they could, quietly pondering their moves.
Gruber had killed his abusive parents in a fit of rage, and that had gotten him to Florence. Beneath the calm exterior was a killer capable of enormous violence, and his initial months in the penitentiary had taught other inmates to leave him alone.