“What’s this?’ Vega felt the badge case.
Bale’s voice seemed to pitch an octave higher. He tossed off another nervous laugh. “Cops . . . you know how we like to joke around. Play gags on one another. C’mon, man. Put it back.”
Vega suspected Bale kept a fake badge in the case. Probably some sort of sexist or racist tin novelty that he knew might get him into trouble with the brass. Vega wasn’t here to make life harder on the guy. He’d open it, glance at it, and put it back if that’s all it was.
It wasn’t. It was something much, much worse.
Staring back at Vega was a gold badge with an eagle on top and an American flag in the center. A crown of blue enamel sat beneath the eagle’s wings. Three gold letters were stenciled across the enamel.
ICE.
Across from the badge was a federal identification card with a headshot photo of Bale and the name Daniel Wilson, Enforcement Officer. Vega felt the weight of what he was staring at in his hand.
He was staring at the evidence of a dirty cop.
“Ryan? What the—”
Vega never finished his sentence. In one fluid motion, Bale rolled himself off his stomach, lifted his knees, and shot his feet straight up at Vega, catching him in the gut and lower ribs with the heel of his duty boots. Vega heard a sound like dried twigs snapping in his chest. The badge case dropped from his left hand.
Vega fought to stay on his feet and keep control of his weapon. But already, his body pulsed like one giant bruise. Nausea rose at the back of his throat. Each breath felt like shards of glass were piercing his lungs. The pain was blinding, slowing his reflexes. When Bale charged at him, Vega knew he had, at best, one shot, given that Bale’s torso was protected in Kevlar. He wrapped both hands around the grip but couldn’t get off a clean shot before Bale’s fist connected to the left side of Vega’s face.
Fireworks exploded in front of his eyes. Big sparking lights with halos around them and strobe flashes that danced like lightning across his field of vision. Vega saw the big man in double—unsure which image was real and which was imagined. And then he felt it. A torque to his right wrist that forced the Glock from his hand. It skittered across the honeycomb grating and dropped to the floor of the sanctuary four stories below.
Blood ran down Vega’s face and stained the collar of his shirt. His left eye began swelling shut. His head pounded like someone was playing a conga rhythm between his ears.
Bale yanked his weapon from the back of Vega’s waistband and returned it to his own holster.
“You’re not even worth the price of a bullet.” He spat out a thick wad of saliva at Vega’s feet for emphasis.
Vega braced his arms against the railing and tried to steady his vision. “You can’t kill me,” he choked out, wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand. “Aviles will tell—”
“Tell what? He’s gone, amigo. Deportado. You think he cares what happens to you? You’re a burned-out head case who came up here to cut a deal for you and your heroin-dealing girlfriend. And believe me, after you’re gone, that’s exactly where they’ll find the rest of that missing stash—inside your truck. Or your house.”
Bale clamped a hand on Vega’s shoulder and spun him to face the railing. Bale was counting on their mismatched sizes to make the job easy. But Vega had been a street fighter in his youth. He’d beaten boys who were bigger and heavier because he knew all the soft spots on the human body where size and strength offered no advantage. The eyes. The ears. The gonads. Fingers. Nails. And the best, most vulnerable spot of all. A spot that required only the bony joint of an elbow.
Vega waited until Bale hunched slightly at Vega’s back, positioning himself for leverage. Then Vega raised his elbow level with his shoulder and delivered a hard up-and-back jab to the soft tissue at Bale’s throat. He felt the satisfying give to Bale’s flesh, like a fist in pizza dough.
Bale stepped back, wrapping both his hands around his throat, a stunned look in his beady eyes. Vega used the precious seconds to advance on Bale and grab his gun again from his holster.
A burst of voices echoed from below. High-pitched chatter. Children. Walking up the stairs from the preschool. Filing into the sanctuary for some morning ritual Vega could only guess at. Just stick to your routines. Is that what he’d told the teachers? And now those routines were throwing these children straight into the line of fire.
“Police!” Vega shouted. “Get out. Call nine-one-one!”
He knew how this would look to the teachers below. He knew that when they looked up, they’d see a bloody, dark-skinned man in street clothes holding a gun on a white uniformed cop. Vega had to hope they’d take into account the badge he’d shown them earlier. Whatever. So long as they all left.
Except they didn’t. A couple of the children scattered in the commotion, hiding under the pews and by the bimah.
“Get them out of here!” Vega shouted again.
He turned his attention from Bale for only a second, but it was enough. Bale charged at Vega, flipping him up and over the railing.
His vision spun. He saw the world in slow motion. The great blue sky through the windows. The cool blond oak of the pews forty feet below. A little girl with dark brown pigtails in a yellow dress hiding beside the bimah. There were probably screams from the teachers and children below, but Vega couldn’t hear them. His primitive reflexes took over, relinquishing everything not needed to fight the force of gravity.
Bale’s gun went first, dropping from Vega’s hand to the sanctuary floor below. He locked his arms around the railing and tried to swing a boot to catch the edge of the catwalk. His shoulders and biceps burned with the effort. It felt like someone had poured lighter fluid on his tendons and set them ablaze. His fingers turned numb until he could no longer feel them—only the sweat that greased his palms. He couldn’t see—blinded by the swelling in his left eye and the blood dripping into his right.
Bale sliced his index finger down the front of his uniform shirt. The Velcro seams ripped apart, revealing Bale’s Kevlar vest beneath. He leaned over the railing and grabbed Vega by his armpits, relieving the strain on his body. Vega’s muscles quivered at the sweet reprieve.
Bale’s eyes were flat and lifeless. All the tough-guy bravado seemed to drain from them. What was left behind didn’t even look human. Vega felt like he was staring at a mannequin.
“You got a choice here,” Bale hissed softly into his ear. “Let go and no one else dies.”
Bale’s gaze floated over Vega’s shoulder. In the direction of the bimah. Vega couldn’t turn to see what Bale was looking at. But he could guess. The girl in the yellow dress. Maybe others as well.
“I got a backup gun in my vest,” said Bale. “So, what’s it gonna be? ’Cause I won’t just take the girl when I check out. I’ll take as many as I can with her. Either you die. Or they all do.”
Chapter 43
Edgar Aviles appeared at the front doors of Beth Shalom, breathless and sweaty.
“Rabbi.” He banged on the double-paned glass until Rabbi Goldberg noticed. Only two sheets of glazing and five feet of concrete stoop stood between Aviles and the two ICE agents waiting to arrest him.
“Edgar?” The rabbi’s voice cracked as he said his name. “I don’t think you should be out here—”
“You need to get Officer Fitzpatrick. Quickly, Rabbi. Please.”
“Officer Fitz . . . ?” Rabbi Goldberg turned to Adele.
“Do you mean Officer Fitzgerald?” Adele asked Aviles.
“Fitzgerald, yes,” said Aviles. “Detective Vega asked me to bring him inside.”
Adele scanned the parking lot and driveway for Bale’s partner. She didn’t see him. She didn’t want a cop inside that synagogue. She didn’t even want Vega inside. What was he doing there anyway?
“Where’s Fitzgerald?” Adele asked the two ICE agents.
Tyler and Donovan shrugged. “Probably hunting around for his partner,” Tyler answered.
“Please, seño
ra,” Aviles begged. “Please. It’s very important. If you can’t find Fitzgerald, then another police officer.”
“We’re law enforcement,” said Donovan. He smiled at Aviles like he was on the menu.
Adele raised her hands. “Hold it. Hold it one moment.” She turned to Aviles and spoke in Spanish. “What’s going on?”
“The bald cop—he tried to kill me,” said Aviles.
“Bale?”
“I think so. Yes,” said Aviles. “He tried to throw me over the railing above the sanctuary. Detective Vega rescued me. He told me to get Fitzpat . . . Fitzgerald.”
Adele pulled out her cell phone and hit Vega’s number. She didn’t want to risk Aviles’s freedom for a situation that he already had under control.
One ring. Two. Three. Vega’s voice mail came on the line. Adele’s heart began a slow creep into her throat. She turned to the two agents. Tyler was older than Donovan. Calmer. She trusted his judgment more, even if he did work for ICE.
“Can you get the Lake Holly Police on your radio and ask them to come over here?”
“Will do,” said Tyler, pulling out his radio. “Though if it’s a real emergency, we’re cops and we’re already on the scene.”
Adele turned back to Aviles and spoke again in Spanish. “Where is Detective Vega?”
“I left him on the catwalk in the sanctuary,” said Aviles. “I left both of them there.”
A tumble of little bodies began pouring down the red-carpeted stairs, moving quickly to the front doors. Adele noticed the two teachers and the rabbi’s secretary walking behind, hurrying some children while they carried others in their arms. All of them had panicked looks across their faces.
“What’s going on?” the rabbi asked them.
“A police officer and some other man are fighting on the catwalk in the sanctuary,” said one of the young women. “They’re trying to push each other over the railing.”
Adele’s lungs constricted. She felt like she was breathing through a cocktail straw. She wanted to push past everyone and run inside to help Vega, but she didn’t have a clue what to do.
“Fitzgerald’s at the top of the driveway,” said Tyler, returning his radio to his belt. “He’s heading down, but it’s going to take a few minutes. Same with a unit response. We’re here. Let us help.”
Aviles turned to Adele and Rabbi Goldberg. “Please. Let them enter. I understand they will arrest me. But the detective needs our help.”
Rabbi Goldberg took off his glasses and wiped his tired eyes. Nobody had taught him how to handle something like this in seminary school.
“Agent Tyler,” said the rabbi. “You can come in. Agent Donovan? Please stay here and keep the local police informed when they arrived.”
Tyler followed Adele, Rabbi Goldberg, and Aviles into the synagogue and up the short flight of stairs to the sanctuary. Right away, they heard it—hard breathing and voices coming from inside. The rabbi rushed forward. Tyler put a hand on his shoulder.
“Easy,” cautioned the agent. “We don’t know what we’re walking into. You and Ms. Figueroa stay here. Outta trouble.” Tyler turned to Aviles. “Where’s the entrance to the catwalk?”
“This way,” said Aviles. He led the agent down a hall. The rabbi waited until Aviles and the agent had turned their backs to peek inside the sanctuary. His face paled beneath his dark beard. His glasses dipped along the bridge of his nose.
“Got in himmel,” he whispered.
Adele came up beside him. There, forty feet above the pews, was Vega, hanging on to the outer edge of the catwalk railing, trying to swing his foot up and gain a purchase. His face was bloody and swollen. His arms quivered from the strain of holding himself up. Bale watched him casually from the walkway.
Time stopped. The earth felt like it was spinning on the head of a pin. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. Vega had probably only a minute or two more before his arms gave out. No one could survive a four-story drop onto hard wooden benches and marble floors.
She pushed past Rabbi Goldberg and ran across the sanctuary floor, cursing herself for all the minutes she unknowingly wasted outside.
“Dear God, help him!” she shouted up at Bale. “He’s going to fall!”
“Get out of here, Adele!” Vega huffed. “Get out!”
Bale leaned over the railing a few feet away from Vega. His uniform shirt was open and untucked. His face was slack. He didn’t seem to be able to register the human suffering right next to him.
“Here’s your chance, Jimmy,” said Bale, loud enough for Adele to hear. “You want to walk out of this? The kids left. But you’ve got another victim to take their places.”
“Get out!” Vega screamed again at Adele.
Bale pulled a gun from beneath his vest. “Maybe you should die together.”
Adele registered the gun a second before Bale pointed it at her. She dove beneath a pew and waited for the firecracker explosion. On the catwalk, she heard shouting. She lifted her head to see Aviles and Tyler rushing the landing. Two shots echoed through the interior. Aviles staggered, then hunched his shoulders and threw himself full force at Bale.
The big man’s legs flipped out from under him, sending him halfway over the railing. He might have stood a chance but for his high center of gravity. His mass was all on top. The muscular biceps and torso. The Kevlar vest. There was only one direction he could go in—straight down, headfirst, onto the pews.
He landed like a bag of cement. A thud that seemed to suck all the noise out of the room. Adele flinched at the impact, four rows away. But her eyes were on the railing, watching as Tyler and Aviles grabbed Vega beneath his shoulders and pulled him onto the catwalk.
Rabbi Goldberg touched Adele on the shoulder. She hadn’t even realized the rabbi was behind her. She had no idea when he first entered the room. Her heart and mind had been on Vega.
The rabbi rolled up his sleeves. “Go see the detective. Make sure everyone is okay. I’ll stay down here. If there’s a chance I can save this man, I will.”
“You know CPR?” Adele asked him.
“I left medical school for seminary,” said Rabbi Goldberg. “After I lost my first patient.” He looked up to the lamp on the stage, shimmering in front of the cupboard of religious scrolls. “Now, I let Him do all the decision making.” The rabbi gestured to the catwalk. “Go check on the detective.”
Adele found the spiral stairs to the catwalk. She expected to see Tyler and Aviles leaning over Vega, trying to get some feeling back into his arms. But it was Aviles who was on the ground. Vega had shrugged off his bloody polo shirt and V-neck T-shirt. Tyler was pressing both to a spot just below Aviles’s shoulder.
“He took one of the bullets,” said Tyler. “I’m not sure he realized it until the adrenaline began wearing off.” Tyler looked down at Aviles. His face was pale and sweaty.
“I’ll get the rabbi up here,” said Adele. “He has medical training.”
“Yeah. Do that.” Tyler leaned over Aviles. His voice was tender when he spoke. “An ambulance is coming, man. My partner just radioed me. You’re gonna be okay. More than okay. My partner just got word. Our boss signed the emergency stay.”
Chapter 44
Lights. Sirens. EMTs negotiating the spiral stairs. Vega’s head throbbed. His arms ached. He registered the man and woman with stethoscopes around their necks carrying Edgar Aviles down in an improvised stretcher, an oxygen mask on his face.
Bale, they took out in a body bag.
“Deisy’s phone,” Vega managed to choke out to Adele before the EMTs loaded him into an ambulance. “Make sure the police get that phone.”
“I know where it is,” said Adele. “Rabbi Goldberg will turn it over.”
Vega lost track of Aviles after they got to Lake Holly Hospital. The handyman was whisked into surgery. Vega was led into a curtained triage cubicle with nothing more high-tech than a blood pressure cuff and a jar of tongue depressors. He already knew they’d X-ray his skull and torso and th
en bandage him up and send him home. There was nothing modern medicine could do for cracked ribs, strained tendons, and a probable concussion but time and rest.
Adele sat in the cubicle with him, holding his hand, the depth of concern in her eyes a pretty clear indication of how bad Vega looked. He had an ice pack over the swollen left side of his face. His hair was flaked with dried blood. He’d given up both his polo shirt and his undershirt to help stanch Aviles’s blood. He was now wearing a lost-and-found number the nurses had dug up—a black T-shirt with a Metallica logo on top and four skeletons on a battlefield. All he needed was the ink sleeves and ponytail to go with it.
“Go home, nena,” Vega told her. “They’ve still got to X-ray me. And then I have to go back to the station and give a statement.”
“Today? You’re hurt.”
“We’ve got to move fast on this,” said Vega. “Bale’s dead. His coconspirators are gonna know it soon if they don’t already. If we don’t piece this thing together quickly, we may be chasing it all over Central America.”
“I can’t believe Ryan Bale made all those poor immigrants think he was an ICE agent,” said Adele.
“I know.” Vega fell back against the cool sheets of the gurney. His head throbbed. But even in his pain and confusion, he realized that parts of Bale’s story didn’t add up. It was easy enough for Bale to make up a fake badge and ID. Easy enough to buy a jacket that read: ICE. But how did a local cop get his hands on real information about people in ICE’s files? Someone inside of ICE had to have fed him the cases. Someone not on their radar.
“I guess Bale was the one who planted that heroin in my car,” said Adele.
“Looks like it,” Vega grunted. Though the whole fiasco left him with more questions than answers. How did Bale know Adele’s car would be in her driveway Saturday night while they were out at that gig? How did he get ahold of those bundles of heroin? According to Lieutenant Giordano, Lake Holly wasn’t one of the agencies involved in that sting.
Adele got a text on her phone. “It’s Maria,” she said. “Edgar’s wife.” She looked tense as she opened it. Her shoulders seemed to relax as she scrolled through the words. “Edgar’s out of surgery. The bullet missed his vital organs. He should pull through okay.”
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