The lot was badly underlit and it was hard to see. When we reached the center of the parking area, we finally saw the Lincolns. We moved up fast to clear all three Town Cars. They were already empty. The four of us began scanning the area. If the Crip shooters were here, they were crouching low out of sight. Since we had split into smaller groups it was impossible to tell where the rest of the squad was. I felt exposed and vulnerable.
When we finally. Got to the far end of the parking area, we still had seen no Crip G-sters. Alonzo radioed the two flanking groups and soon all of us were standing in a huddle next to a chain-link fence.
Alonzo triggered his mike. "This is Thrasher One. We're ten-ninety-seven. Nobody in sight in the parking lot."
"Stand by, Thrasher One," the spotter came back.
Then we heard a long static burst of gunfire coming from the direction of the stands as somebody over there dumped at least fifty rounds. It was followed by the short, tight, burping sound of an automatic weapon on a four-shot burst.
"They musta got around us," one of the cops said.
"We' re hearing gunfire," Alonzo announced into his shoulder mike. "Give us a location."
"We're ten-ninety-nine under the bleachers," Talbot Jones said, using our ten-code for an emergency. "Redeploy! We've got men down!" Jones screamed.
Alonzo spun and all of us ran as a group back toward the bleachers. I knew from my Marine Corps training this was a tactical blunder. We were clumped together and out in the open, all of our operation plans forgotten as we ran headlong to help fallen officers.
Just then, a machine gun on full auto opened up. Bullets sparked, pinging off parked cars all around us. We were under direct fire. Two of our guys went down.
I kept running and shouted into my shoulder rover, "This is Thrasher Three, we have men down!"
I had to decide if I was going to follow Alonzo on this suicide charge or take my own evasive action. More guns opened up and that sealed my decision. I veered off, sprinting between cars looking for muzzle flashes.
I saw one. The gun was firing from behind the refreshment stand to my right. I headed in that direction, running low between rows of parked vehicles. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I was pretty much just trying to stay alive.
Chapter 23
Suddenly I was hit from behind.
A round caught my Kevlar vest high in the shoulder and knocked me flat. The MP5 flew from my hands, landing somewhere out of sight under a tricked-out low rider. I couldn't tell where the gunfire was coming from. Bullets were flying everywhere. My Kevlar vest had saved me.
With my MP5 lying out of sight in the dark and my shoulder aching from the impact of the bullet hit, I pulled my police-issue Smith amp; Wesson. 38 and crouched low, regained my footing, then slowly rose up to look over the hood of the car. Police in riot gear were swarming all over the place. A machine gun cut loose across from the refreshment stand, firing in long bursts. It sounded like an AK-47, which puts out six hundred rounds per minute at twenty-three hundred feet per second. Nothing sounds quite like it. I heard Lieutenant Eastwood screaming instructions over the police rover on my shoulder.
I started moving again, slower this time, checking my back and protecting my sight lines. I finally reached the refreshment stand where I had seen the initial machine gun muzzle flash. There were three Crip gangbangers hunkered down behind the stand. One of them looked like Harris Karris. Their eyes were wide with fright as they looked for a way out of this. None of them had been expecting to run into heavily armed cops.
I started moving up slowly, trying to get the drop on these guys. Suddenly Alonzo Bell appeared on the far right, sneaking up behind the Crip G-sters. As I watched, he knelt down and got ready to unzip all three. It was happening so fast that I didn't see how I could stop it.
Just as I was about to call out a warning, four SWAT vans roared into the parking lot and screeched to a halt close to where I was standing. T he Crips hit the deck just a split second ahead of Alonzo's gunfire. The bullets from his MP5 barely missed K-Knife and the others. The van doors burst open and four seven-man FBI SWAT teams poured out, deploying quickly.
Ophelia Love had finally arrived with backup. The Crip shooters threw down their weapons and thrust their hands in the air. The parking lot was quickly secured.
Alonzo Bell was caught short. It had happened so fast, he had been unable to get off his kill shots. FBI agents swarmed the scene.
"We're code four," somebody yelled, and all over the parking lot FBI SWAT officers in flak gear started to hook up Crip shooters. All ten were quickly cuffed and arrested. Two had been injured.
I grabbed a spare Maglite and ran back to where I had dropped my MP5. I didn't want to try and explain that loss to my new department bosses. I shone the beam around under some cars until I saw it, then rolled under a low rider to retrieve the gun. When I came out, Alonzo Bell was standing right in front of me.
"Where the hell did those feds come from?" An angry vein was pulsing on his forehead.
"How the hell do I know?"
"Somebody tipped 'em."
Just then Ophelia Love, looking pissed off and tough in black Kevlar, strode angrily over to where we stood. She was holding a Glock nine in one rawboned fist, a field rover in the other.
"Scully. I shouldVe known you'd be in this," she growled. Then she wheeled on Alonzo. "Are you just bagging Crip shooters or are you gonna bust some of these eses as well? I want every gang-affiliated Eighteenth Street Loco out in this parking lot in cuffs and I want it right now," she ordered.
"Those guys had nothing to do with this," Alonzo defended. "They're just here watching their high school football game."
"If any one of those dirtbags has a student body card, I'll eat it. Now get 'em out here," she shouted. "I'm not fucking around. Do your job or I'll have my guys do it for you."
When he didn't move, she gave the order to her own SWAT team. They all surged toward the stadium and twenty minutes later the feds had a dozen angry 18th Street Locos in custody and had herded them to the FBI SWAT vans. Most were carrying the new Russian-made AK-100 series machine guns hanging from cords tied around their shoulders, protected from view by their duster-length gang coats. The new Russian ordnance was going to put them in serious trouble with Homeland Security.
The Crip arrestees were being transported to the Haven Park PD for booking as the feds started processing the 18th Street L's.
An announcement was being broadcast over the loudspeakers saying the game was canceled and instructing all spectators to vacate the area immediately.
Frightened parents and students began filtering through FBI checkpoints and moving quickly into the parking lot to retrieve their cars and get out of there.
When I reached our mobile command center under the stands, I found Talbot Jones and Ophelia Love in the middle of a fierce argument.
"We had this under control. We were deployed," Jones responded angrily.
"That's not what it looked like to me," she fired back. "It looked more like an ambush."
She glared at me. "Get outta my way, Scully." Then pushed past me and walked to her SWAT vans.
The entire mess ended up back at the Haven Park PD. Talbot Jones decided to book the Crips and the Locos at our mobile CP in the police department's main parking lot. There wasn't enough room in the Haven Park jail to hold all of the arrestees, so Ophelia Love made arrangements to have the overflow prisoners transported to the L. A. County Sheriffs facility in Vista.
As the mop-up continued, I couldn't believe how lucky we had been. The Second Chance Kevlar had saved all our guys. No spectators had been injured despite an incredible amount of careless gunplay. Two Crips had been shot and were transported to County USC by the EMTs. Both appeared to be in stable condition and looked like they would survive.
The 18th Street Locos had one fatality; a nineteen-year-old named Carlos Rosario was dead where he landed and left the football game in the coroner's van.
As we we
re finishing with the booking, Alonzo approached me. "We need to talk," he said.
"Okay."
"Meet me over in the elementary school parking lot in twenty minutes." Then he turned and walked away.
I desperately needed backup for that meeting, but couldn't talk to Agent Love about it. We were locked into our roles as sworn enemies.
Ten minutes later Ophelia drove off in one of the FBI SWAT vans, leaving me to deal with Alonzo alone.
It was after midnight when I walked over to the elementary school and changed from my uniform into my street clothes. I needed to recover my cell phone because, waterlogged as it undoubtedly was, the chip might still contain my text message. I waited until that bathroom stall was empty, then went in and locked the door.
When I opened the surge tank and looked inside, my cell phone was gone.
Chapter 24
"What were you doing in Manhattan Beach two nights ago?" Bell demanded. We were standing in the deserted parking lot of the elementary school next to my car.
I started groping for an appropriate response.
"You left here at end-of-watch, then went downtown, switched cars and went to Manhattan Beach. You spent the night in a condo on Ocean Way."
"Are you having me followed, Alonzo?"
My heart was racing. I'd left the bugged MDX with Harpo, made sure I wasn't followed on the freeway when I drove his van. So how the hell could they know about my trip to Deputy Chief Arnett's condo in Manhattan Beach? Yet somehow they'd managed to tail me there. Either that or they'd planted a tracking device on me. I knew from police ops I'd done recently that the new GPS trackers had been reduced to the size of small collar buttons. Was I wearing one of those in the sole of a shoe or something?
"I'm waiting for an answer," Bell growled.
"I don't have to tell you what I do off duty," I stalled, still trying to assess the jeopardy.
If they knew I'd gone to that condo in Manhattan Beach, then they also knew I'd been meeting with Alexa. My whole story about Tiffany Roberts was going to start looking like a lie. What about Ophelia Love? Did he know she'd been there? I could see Alonzo's off-duty piece clipped in an easy-to-reach place on his belt under his windbreaker. Mine was in my clamshell at the small of my back, just a little tougher to get to.
"I was seeing a woman," I finally said, keeping it vague.
"Not good enough."
I knew I had to tell this ape something and, if he didn't buy it, be ready to deal with some major fallout. However, the more I thought about it, the more I was certain he didn't have a clue what I'd done or I'd already be tits-up under a bridge somewhere. So he didn't know what I'd been doing, only where I'd gone.
"It's none of your business," I said, trying for a better read.
"I did you a solid to get you on this department. If you're a federal plant, then it's my screwup. So it damn sure is my business."
"I was in Manhattan Beach seeing Tiffany Roberts," I said. "She's still hooked to that producer Harry Venture, trying to keep her marriage together for the sake of her career. I met her there."
"You're lying. We ran the real estate taxes to see who owns the units. There's no Tiffany Roberts or Harry Venture on the books for those condos. There is, however, an LAPD assistant chief named Malon Arnett who owns a penthouse there. Let's talk about him."
"Hey, Sergeant, I just got thrown off the L. A. department. What would I be doing hanging out in an apartment owned by Chief Arnett?"
"Debriefing. Telling him shit about what's going on down here."
"Right." I shook my head in disgust. "Me and the A-Chief from Administrative Affairs. He's a paper pusher. He runs budgets, not undercover ops. What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Then come up with something, because I talked to some people an hour ago who are very upset about this. I want the truth."
"I told you the truth. I was meeting with Tiffany. I don't know shit about A-Chief Arnett having a condo there. The condo we were in was a furnished model in the building. Tiffany has a friend who works at Century 21. We gotta be very careful since this all went down. Her husband knows about us now. She just barely kept him from throwing her out. Her friend unlocked the model so we could use it. Check it out, Al. There're empty units all over that building."
My heart was slamming inside my chest.
"You can bet your ass I'm going to check it out."
We stood for a minute studying each other. Then I said, "Is this meeting over?"
"Yeah, it's over." Bell turned and walked to his Escalade and drove off.
I headed back to the hotel and went straight up to my room. I stripped off all my clothes, took everything out of my dresser and closet and put it all out on the bed along with my briefcase and shoes. Then I started looking for the tracking device.
I found it inside my belt. They had sliced open the leather on a seam, buried the tracker and stitched it back up. As I suspected, the unit was the size of a collar button. I left it in there. It wasn't too hard to realize how they'd done it. They'd broken into my locker while I was out on patrol. The padlock they'd given me obviously could be opened by a second combination.
Now I needed to warn Alexa and have Ophelia set up a new cover story for Tiffany Roberts and me about the condo.
I dressed again and stuffed a change of clothes into a paper bag, then exited the room, leaving the belt containing the tracking device behind.
I went downstairs to the lobby, crossed to the casino and made two calls from a pay phone. One was to Alexa, the other to Ophelia.
Next, I rented a car from Hertz through the hotel concierge, who handed me the keys and informed me it was a blue Mustang, parked in slot 23 at the side of the hotel. I went into a downstairs mens room in the casino and changed into the black T-shirt and Bermuda shorts I had in the paper bag. I rolled my original outfit up inside my windbreaker and jammed it under my arm. I pulled a ball cap low over my eyes and slipped on a pair of dark glasses, transforming myself into another card zombie. 'Then I slipped out a fire exit and hugged the side of the building, watching my back as I made my way to the rental car slots. I found the Mustang, got in and sat there watching out the rear window to see if I was being followed. My heart hadn't stopped flopping around in my chest since the meeting with Alonzo. Textbook paranoia.
When nobody showed for five minutes, I put the car in gear and got the hell out of there.
Chapter 25
This time I was very careful getting to Santa Monica and employed a freeway anti-tailing technique I'd discovered through hours of trial and error. Simple and impossible to defeat. I drove at over seventy in the fast lane until I finally saw a hole in traffic, then, without signaling, dove suddenly across three lanes and shot down an off ramp onto surface streets. Then I got back on the freeway going in the opposite direction. The idea was, any car attempting to follow would not be able to find a similar hole in traffic and would overshoot the exit. I repeated the maneuver three times.
I'd just rented the Mustang, so I knew both the car and my clothes were clean.
Twenty minutes later I was on the Coast Highway driving through Santa Monica. I turned into the parking lot by the Santa Monica Pier, looking for the LAPD eight-wheel truck that we used for clandestine meetings with undercover operatives. Because Switzerland was neutral territory, we had nicknamed the truck Little Swiss. Some smartass in vehicle maintenance had gone to the Swiss chocolate company for the decals that now decorated both sides of the cargo box.
I quickly spotted the truck looming above the other cars and pulled into an empty spot nearby. As soon as I got out of the Mustang, the back doors of Little Swiss opened and I was let inside. Seated in back were Alexa and Ophelia, two very tense-looking women.
I wanted to hug my wife and kiss her, but I could see from both their faces that they were in battle mode, so I just sat on the wooden bench opposite them. There were three television monitors on the front wall of the interior, which displayed surveillance views of the parking lot, be
ing recorded by three roof cameras.
"Thank God you sent me that 911" Ophelia said without preamble. "Those guys were about to commit a mass execution."
"That's exactly what they were up to," I confirmed.
"This is supposed to be a country of laws," she stated vehemently.
"I'm running out of options," I said to get her off the 'country of laws' party line. "Alonzo Bell is all over me. He suspects I'm a plant. They even put a tracking device in my leather belt. I found it and left it in my room."
"Then we're pulling you out now, Shane," Alexa declared.
"I haven't gotten close to the real corruption yet. I haven't even met Mayor Bratano. If you pull me out now, we'll have accomplished nothing."
We sat silently on the hard wooden benches looking at each other across two feet of open space while the TV screens showed infrared panning shots of the parking lot.
"What about Rocky Chacon?" I asked Ophelia. "The way I see it, they're getting set to take him out."
Alexa said, "Maybe Ophelia can find a way to put more FBI security on him. But if you get involved, they're gonna know you're a plant."
Ophelia nodded. "I think Alexa's right. You're probably already compromised. Talbot Jones didn't believe my story about being there because of a street tip. He suspects somebody on the inside of leaking the ambush."
"I need a few more days."
Both women sat trying to decide what to do. I must have been frowning, because Alexa leaned forward.
"What?" she asked.
"Sergeant Bell knows I went to Manhattan Beach. He knows Deputy Chief Arnett has a condo in that building."
"Then you're definitely out of there," Alexa said, rising as if the meeting were over.
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