But there were no shots fired, and there were no noises coming from inside the house or anywhere else. All he could hear was the steady drone of cars from the main road, the birds in the trees and the normal background noise of a neighborhood that was in the process of waking up.
He opened his eyes and stuck his head around the corner and saw an empty backyard. Maybe he was just being paranoid, imagining things that would never happen. But then again, maybe not. He had no doubts in his mind that the cartel would try to get to him when they eventually found out that he was the main suspect in the killing of one of their own.
But it was still early days. Only eight hours had passed since he had walked out of that police station. Surely it would take them a whole lot longer than that to learn about his arrest, figure out where he lived and organize for someone to come and sort him out? But then again, that could of course be nothing but wishful thinking on his part. This was a powerful organization with tentacles reaching far and wide. If they had caught wind of what had happened, it would probably be more than enough time for them to set the ball in motion.
He poked his head back around the corner again for a second peek. But still there was no one there. Then he put his hand in his pocket and got his key ring out. He found the key for the screen door and looked at it for a few seconds. The sweat from his fingertips was making the metal moist and it felt slick in his hand.
Alright, that’s enough thinking for the time being. Let’s get this over and done with, he thought. Then he stepped out from behind the corner and carefully inserted the key in the lock. He turned it slowly, but did not feel the resistance that normally occurred when unlocking a door. Instead the key turned all the way back without him having to use any force at all. Nor did he hear the familiar click that the bolt should have made when it retreated back into its housing in the door.
Matt froze when he realized that the door was unlocked. He knew for a fact that he hadn’t left it like that when he had gone over to see James the previous evening. He always checked to make sure that everything was locked whenever he left the house, and yesterday had been no exception.
He let go of the key, as if he had just placed his hand on a hot stove. Then he acted instinctively and threw himself behind the corner of the house again. And there and then he had absolutely no idea about what to do next. The implications of his discovery were obvious. Either somebody was, or had been inside the house. And that somebody might just be waiting for him to return. And that somebody might just be armed and ready to put a few slugs in him when he stepped through that door.
A deep seated fear ran through his body, and he noticed the hands holding the gun had started to shake. He also found it increasingly difficult to fill his lungs with oxygen. Jesus, am I having a panic attack, he thought? He closed his eyes again and tried to take long deep breaths, willing his body to do what his mind told it to do. And all of a sudden, making his way inside the house and retrieving his personal belongings no longer seemed that important. At least not important enough to lose his life over it.
Yes, he would have liked to bring everything with him, as there were some very important personal belongings stored inside those boxes. Not to mention photo albums and various other items that had great sentimental value to him. But it wasn’t worth dying for. And there was a very real possibility that this would be the outcome if he went through that door, regardless of the fact that he was armed or not.
He tried to think about what to do next, to come up with a plan that would solve the predicament that he had been thrust into, but he was struggling to come up with viable options.
In Iraq the choices had always been easy, and they had been made for him by his superiors. You went inside whether you liked it or not, and if you happened to encounter some bad guys with guns, you simply took them out. A light squeeze of the trigger and problem solved. He had done it on pretty much a daily basis. And on at least five percent of the times that they had forced their way into private residences, there had been bad people waiting for them on the other side, whose highest wish on this earth were to kill Americans.
But this wasn’t Iraq, this was the US, and he was no longer in the Marines. Here he had a choice. He could walk away if he wanted to. He could make a retreat, get back in his car and just leave. Just get as far away from here as possible. It wouldn’t be the end of the world. He could always organize for someone else to retrieve his stuff on a later date, and get them to put his things in storage for him.
Then another thought hit him. It was something that one of the detectives that had interviewed him last night had mentioned. He had told him that the police had searched his place. His lawyer, Osborne had gone ballistic when he found out and had demanded to know why the police had felt the need to search the residence of a suspect on such flimsy basis.
But if the police had gone through the house, wasn’t it possible that one of them had opened up the laundry door and simply forgot to lock it before they left? Surely, they must have gone out into the backyard in their quest to find the evidence they were looking for. And forgetting to lock the door when they were done was an easy mistake to make, especially if they were looking for evidence in a murder investigation. Could it be that simple? Was his fear about a killer hiding somewhere inside the house just a result of some cop forgetting to lock a door?
It was a plausible explanation, he had to admit that. And he would feel very stupid if he learned later on that he had run away from an empty house, and in the process made his life a whole lot more complicated because he had been too scared to collect his personal belongings. Would he be able to look at himself in the mirror and hold his head high after such an embarrassing episode?
For crying out loud, he was a martial arts expert and could easily floor people that were twice as big as himself, and he knew how to handle a gun. And if there indeed was someone inside there waiting for him, wouldn’t they expect him to walk through the front door, and not try to sneak in like a thief in the night via the laundry door at the rear? What were the odds that someone was standing in the laundry with a gun aimed at the door, ready to squeeze the trigger the second someone turned the doorknob?
Wouldn’t it be more logical to hide in the hallway, weapon aimed at the front door? Or hiding behind the curtains in one of the rooms facing the street, keeping a vigilant eye on anyone who went past?
From a rational perspective, it certainly made sense. It was a tactic that he himself would have relied upon if the roles had been reversed.
And besides, he would have the element of surprise on his side entering from the rear, provided he was able to keep the noise down to a minimum. And it was not like he was walking into the situation unarmed. He had a gun, which he knew how to use, and he had entered residences on numerous occasions in the past where there had been a real possibility of encountering hostiles inside the premises.
There was also another thing to take into consideration, and that was the ‘stand your ground law’, the law that allowed him to use deadly force if someone tried to break into his place of residence. If there was someone inside there waiting for him, the law stipulated that he could not be arrested and charged with murder if he shot and killed the assailant. It would be a justifiable homicide, and especially if it was someone with a criminal record, not to mention close ties to a drug cartel.
Matt made up his mind. He took a step forward and carefully slid around the corner and stopped in front of the door. Then he pulled the key out of the lock and placed his hand on the door handle, and began pushing it down. When he could push it no further, he pulled the screen door toward him. It slid effortlessly away from the metal frame without making a single sound.
Matt held his breath and pushed the key into the lock on the slightly sturdier laundry door. Was it unlocked too? He turned the key, and as had been the case with the screen door, felt no resistance, nor heard the familiar clicking sound of the bolt sliding back into its housing.
He removed the key from t
he lock and placed it back in his pocket. Then he exhaled slowly, his jaw trembling as he did so. His hand found the doorknob, and he began turning it. Not a sound could be heard. It was as if he held his hand out in the air and turned the colorless gas.
He pushed the door inward about a quarter of an inch. Still no sound could be heard. If someone was on the other side of that door, waiting to kill him, they would start to shoot at it any moment. He took another breath, filled his lungs with as much oxygen that they could hold, then pushed the door open in one quick motion and lunged inside.
It took his brain a quarter of a second to register that the room was empty. There was no contract killer aiming a gun at his head, attempting to send him along to the next world.
Matt let go of the spent oxygen and momentarily closed his eyes. He felt both lightheaded and alert at the same time. It was the same feeling he’d had whenever he’d entered houses in Iraq. It didn’t matter whether he had to discharge his weapon or not. It always filled his body, like some enormous high, similar to what a junkie must experience whenever the effects of the drugs kick in.
But there was no time to rest and savor the fact that he was still alive and unharmed. He had to move on. He closed the two and a half yards between the laundry door and the door leading into the living room, and felt the nauseating uneasiness return when he placed his hand on the doorknob. If anyone was inside the house, they would be somewhere on the other side of that door.
Matt stood absolutely still and spent almost a minute listening for sounds. He was trying his hardest to detect any motion coming from the other side, any footsteps or sudden movements, but he heard nothing. Everything was all so quiet. Eerily quiet.
It was time to act. And once again, he filled his lungs with as much air as he could, the gun in his right hand aimed straight at the door. He began turning the knob and felt it move effortlessly toward the left. And he kept turning it until it wouldn’t go any further.
Please don’t let there be anyone in there, he thought as he worked up the courage to pull the door toward him and throw himself inside. Please don’t let this be my last moment on earth. Then he released the air from his lungs, quickly pulled the door toward him and rushed inside.
When Peter Woods still hadn’t heard back from Michael after an hour, he started to worry. The young reporter had promised to call him the minute he arrived at the house of the suspected killer, and then give him another call the moment he found out whether the guy was willing to talk or not. And at this hour of the day, it should have taken him no more than twenty minutes to cover the distance between the office and the house. But even so, Peter hadn’t heard a peep.
He had waited for another fifteen minutes before he had finally picked up his own phone and tried to reach his younger colleague. But his call had gone straight through to voicemail. He had left a message asking Michael to give him a call back as soon as possible, but still he hadn’t heard a thing. Then ten minutes later, he had made the second call, but with the same result, straight through to voicemail again. That’s when Peter had really started to worry.
It was standard practice for a reporter to call the newspaper and let them know that he or she was ok whenever they were sent out on assignments that were deemed risky. And this was certainly one of those assignments.
The guy Michael was sent out to interview was a suspected killer with considerable combat experience. Right now the guy was probably feeling stressed out and cornered, and heaven only knew how he would react when a newspaper reporter came knocking on his door this early in the morning looking for a comment.
Dammit! He should have sent two reporters out there instead of a complete novice such as Michael.
Peter hadn’t waited any longer than that. He had told Christie to cover for him until he returned, then hurried down to the car park and climbed behind the wheel of his 2015 Audi Q7 and raced over toward Alhambra.
When he arrived at the house, he had immediately seen Michael’s car parked outside on the street. He had pulled up behind it, got out his cellphone and tried to call Michael yet again before he killed the engine, but once again it had gone straight to voicemail.
Peter placed his hand over his mouth and gazed up at the house, and wondered if it would be considered an overreaction if he contacted the cops. He knew that Michael was inside the house, and he knew that he had his phone with him, but still he wasn’t answering. It was not like Michael at all, and it made absolutely zero sense.
He tried to think of a natural explanation for the odd behavior, but his mind drew a blank. And once again he got this overwhelming feeling that something was wrong, very wrong. Something must have happened to Michael. It was the only logical explanation.
Convinced that he had sent his young colleague straight into harm’s way, he got out of the car and walked up toward the house. He was unsure of what to do next, but he knew he had to do something. Ring the doorbell, he told himself and if no one answers, call 911. He had every reason to be concerned, and he would have no problems justifying his actions to the cops if no one came to the door.
As he walked up the driveway, he got out his cellphone again and held it up in front of his face, ready to call the police if he had to. When he got to the door, he noticed that there wasn’t a doorbell there. He hesitated for a few moments, then resolutely started pounding his palm against the screen door.
“Hey, Michael are you ok?” he shouted out, then a few seconds later added, “Mr. Brunner please open the door, sir. I know Michael is in there with you. I’ve already called the police. They should be here any minute now.”
Then he stopped and listened, but he was unable to hear any sounds coming from the other side. He lifted his hand back up again, and continued banging on the screen door. It was rattling in its metal frame and it created a god-awful noise.
“Come on open up the goddamn door, Mr. Brunner. I know you’re in there.”
But still there were no sounds coming from the other side.
“Dammit,” Peter muttered under his breath, now even more convinced that something was terribly wrong. He took a few steps backward to get a better look at the house and tripped on a brick that someone had placed there.
Peter felt his heart miss a beat and found himself falling backward. But at the very last second, he managed to steady himself and was able to avoid crashing down on the ground. The cellphone in his hand however was not as lucky though. It flew out of his grip as he tried to regain his balance and landed on the concrete footpath a few feet away with a disturbing sound.
“Fuck!” Peter shouted, as he watched the phone bounce off the hard surface from the corner of his eye. Then he hurried over and picked it up, and noticed that the glass screen had shattered. Dozens of fine, spider web like lines now covered the front of the phone
He grimaced and placed his thumb on the cracked screen and swiped it toward the right, but nothing happened.
You’ve got to be kidding me, he thought as he tried a few more times, but with the same result. Of all the times that this could happen! He started shaking it, as if this would somehow magically take care of the problem. But the phone was just as dead as it had been when he picked it up.
He turned around and looked at the houses across the street. There was a car in the driveway of the house directly opposite him. Surely, someone in there wouldn’t mind calling the cops for him if he asked them to. He slid the damaged phone back in his pocket and quickly ran over there.
The place looked tired and worn, and there were tall weeds growing in the front yard. Rubbish and old electronics equipment were piled on top of each other and had been pushed up against the side wall of the house. And from somewhere inside, he could hear Spanish voices from what he suspected was a TV set.
He hesitated for a few moments and wondered whether he perhaps should try another house. But the problem was that all the houses pretty much looked the same, and this was the only one with a car in the driveway. And judging by the voices coming from insid
e, the owners hadn’t left for work yet.
He quickly hurried over to the entrance area and gave the screen door two quick taps with his hand. It took almost a minute before a woman with a haggard face and unkempt shoulder length hair opened up the door a few inches and stared at him with suspicious eyes.
“Please, can you call 911 for me,” Peter said before the woman got a chance to ask him why he was knocking on her door. “A colleague of mine is being held against his will in the house across the road.”
The woman looked at him for a few seconds and then said something in Spanish that Peter didn’t understand.
“The police, la policia. I need you to call them for me,” he said, more forcefully this time. He pointed toward the house across the street where Michael was being held hostage. “Por favor, my friend needs help.”
But his plea didn’t have any effect. And instead of opening the door and letting him come inside and using the phone, the woman lifted her hand in front of her face and waved it back and forth.
“Policia, no,” she said in a resolute voice, and shook her head to emphasize that she had no intention of doing what he asked. Then she simply closed the door and locked it, leaving Peter standing there staring at it dumbfounded.
He considered raising his hand and pounding on the door until the woman returned and did what she was asked to do, but he didn’t think it would do any good. She was obviously not a fan of the police, and he would just be wasting his time. So instead, he turned around and walked back down the driveway.
When he was out on the sidewalk again, he stopped and studied the surrounding houses, contemplating whether he should try to knock on a few more doors or not. But they all looked empty, and even if there were people inside, there were no guarantees that they would let him use the phone.
Shock and Awe Page 9