by James Hunt
The phone rang, and then dispatch answered.
“This is Lieutenant Susan Mullocks,” Mocks said. “I’m at 455 Baker Street, and I have an intruder in my house. I need officers on scene.”
“Copy that, Lieutenant,” dispatch said. “We have units nearby. Stay on the line with me.”
Mocks kept the phone glued to her ear, finger over the trigger, and despite the rush of adrenaline flooding through her body, the pistol remained steady as a rock.
The thunder and rain made it hard to hear, but she could have sworn that she heard footsteps on the staircase.
“Do you know how many intruders are in the house?” Dispatch asked.
“At least one, but possibly more,” Mocks answered. “Be advised that the suspects are armed. I repeat, suspects are armed.”
A body appeared in the crack in the door as the intruder ascended the staircase, and Mocks dropped her voice to a whisper as thunder clapped. “He’s upstairs. Close proximity. I’m putting the phone down.”
Before dispatch could answer, she set the phone face down on the carpet. She clasped the pistol with both hands. The intruder kept close to the wall, out of her field of vision, but she could feel that he was close. She took a deep breath, the world dissolving to the sight on her pistol. She had cover. She had a bead on him. She was going to be fine.
The seconds that followed felt like an eternity, and when the door slowly crept open, Mocks didn’t hesitate on the trigger pull.
Bullets tore through the wood of her door, the recoil from the gunfire sending a sharp pain from her wrists all the way to her shoulders. The ringing in her ears blocked the sound of the second intruder coming up the stairs, but the door was more open now, and Mocks had a clear shot.
She squeezed the trigger, this time dropping the gunman to the floor as the intruder’s partner tried sneaking around the corner. Mocks emptied the rest of the magazine, pushing the intruder back, and when the firing pin clicked empty, she dropped back behind the bed and grabbed another magazine.
But the adrenaline had finally caught up with her, and she couldn’t keep her hands still long enough to shove the magazine into place before the intruder had a gun to her head.
Mocks dropped the pistol, her hands in the air, unable to stop the stream of tears as the masked gunman barked orders at her in broken English.
“UP! UP!”
But when Mocks couldn’t stand up by herself, the masked man viciously grabbed her arm and flung her on the bed on her back. She desperately tried to sit up, but the rifle was shoved in her face to keep her still.
“Don’t move!” The cloth of the man’s mask stretched as he spoke, and he reached around to the left side of his belt, opening a compartment. But the motion forced him to drop the rifle slightly, and when Mocks tried to make a move, he smacked her forehead with the rifle barrel. “Don’t move, bitch!”
The pain cut through Mocks’s head like a knife, and she winced. Blood oozed from the wound on her forehead and sent a warm trickle down her face. When she finally came to, she saw the man had shifted his aim to her stomach.
“No,” Mocks said, her lips quivering as she desperately tried to cover her stomach with her hands. “No, please, I’ll stop.” She shook her head. “I’ll stop, just don’t hurt the baby, okay? I’ll cooperate.” The barrel pressed into the side of her stomach, and Mocks shut her eyes, crying. “Please, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She sobbed, the worst culmination of her fears unfolding right before her eyes.
“Don’t move!” The masked man kept the rifle trained on her stomach and then finally removed the syringe from the compartment on his belt.
When the needle penetrated her leg, Mocks immediately felt the effects of the drug as she drifted into sleep.
12
Grant kept his ears peeled to the radio chatter. Sam had been left at the factory with a team of medics, who then sent her to the nearest hospital for X-rays to check for any broken ribs. When she peeled the Kevlar off her chest, the bullet had nearly gone through, and had pricked blood that stained her shirt red.
It was the pain on her face the flooded Grant with rage. Something feral had broken loose inside of him. Every ounce of control was harnessed not to execute the two men they’d captured at the factory. He knew they deserved it. But law and order restricted Grant’s rage. So he channeled it, waiting to unleash it on the next location.
“Five minutes,” the pilot said.
Grant nodded. “What kind of situation are we looking at in the suburbs?”
“The neighboring houses have been evacuated,” Hickem answered. “FBI is on scene making sure no one blows their load too early. They don’t move until I give the go ahead.”
“And the location to the north? The one where I said they were going to take Anna?”
“Empty,” Hickem answered. “Looks like second time will be the charm.”
The radio crackled, and Grant’s heart leapt, wondering if it was an update on Sam, but it was from authorities on the ground.
And as if he sensed Grant’s hesitation, Hickem caught his attention. “When we hit the ground, I’ll send you back.”
“No. I’m staying with you.” Grant wouldn’t be good to anyone on the ride back, and the feeling of the rifle returned to his hands.
“Grant, I don’t think—”
“I’m not going back, Hickem.”
Hickem passively held up his hands, nodded, and then leaned back in his seat. And while Grant got what he wanted, he wasn’t sure if he’d like it. He thought that having a mission would provide enough distraction for the worry in the back of his head. There were a thousand scenarios, none of them with a happy ending.
The chopper touched down on the residential street, and Grant unbuckled the straps around his chest and shoulder and jumped to the pavement. Once clear of the blades, he turned to find the end of the road blocked off by a line of police cruisers, and a thick crowd of bystanders watching the action. Grant figured they were most likely the residents of the evacuated houses.
“Multz said the money still hasn’t moved,” Hickem said on their walk through the dozens of police vehicles, SWAT vans, and officers that surrounded the house where they believed Copella was being held. “Which bodes well for our victim.”
But Grant remembered the fingers plucked from Mary Copella’s hand. Charles might still be alive, but there was no guarantee that he was still in one piece.
Grant was surprised to find the neighborhood affluent and middle class. The trimmed yards and newer cars parked in the driveways told the story of a community where this kind of event just didn’t happen.
Yellow police tape was the final barrier to the house, and Grant and Hickem found the commanding officer on scene as choppers buzzed the air overhead.
“We have the location secure,” the captain said. He had a nearly fresh mustache, the hairs so thin that its only contribution was making his upper lip look more swollen. “The first officers on scene could hear screaming from inside, but they stuck to their orders of securing the perimeter. But now that you’re here, what’s the call?”
“Could they hear what the person was saying inside? Or how many people are in there?”
“They said he was calling for help. But from what they heard, it was only one person. And they said it sounded like a man.”
Hickem nodded. “You have K-9 units on scene?”
“We’ve got two on the way.”
“All right, the moment they arrive, I want to have them check the perimeter before we make any moves.” Hickem paced down the line of squad cars that had formed a blockade around the driveway of the house. He shook his head. “It wouldn’t make sense for them to just leave him behind. Unless they’ve got someone else in there, or one of Joza’s thugs decided to stay behind.”
But then Grant’s pocket buzzed, and he jumped from the vibration of the phone. He reached into it and found that it was a number that was blocked. He answered, a sense of dread filling him as he lifted the phone to
his ear. “Hello?”
“Mr. Grant. It’s good to finally speak with you.”
Grant turned left and right in half circles, looking for anyone that might be in the crowd, anyone that might be close. “Who is this?”
“I’m sure you know who it is.”
Grant paused, almost afraid to speak the words aloud. “Director Links.” Hickem was within earshot and turned toward Grant at the sound of his boss’s name. He frowned, and Grant noticed how the color drained from his cheeks. “Where is Charles Copella?”
“He’s inside the house,” Links answered, his tone innocent. “Waiting for you to go in and get him.”
“What’s the catch?” Grant asked as Hickem stepped closer and the hundreds of people that surrounded them went about their business.
“I made all of the right moves, Mr. Grant. I followed them down to the letter. But I didn’t account for you. I never anticipated a disgraced detective from the Seattle Police Department would live down the street. It’s almost funny.” But there was no humor in his voice. Only contempt. “But to that ‘catch’ you referred to. I want you to go into that house, Mr. Grant. You won’t need a gun, but I wouldn’t expect you to go inside without one. But you must go alone. When this is done, I’m going to reach out to you again. And when I do, you’ll understand why. Now why don’t you hand the phone over to Hickem. I’d like to have a word with him before this is over. And I’d hurry, Mr. Grant. Time is running out.”
Confused, Grant lowered the phone and then slowly handed it over to Hickem.
“What?” Hickem asked, reaching for the device. “What happened?”
“Links wants to talk to you. And he wants me to go inside alone.”
Hickem wrapped his hand around the speaker end of the phone and lowered his voice. “Grant, if you go inside—”
“You won’t lose much,” Grant said, and to that Hickem only shook his head, complete with an unamused grin.
“Be careful.” Hickem placed his massive palm on Grant’s shoulder and gave two hard pats. Then he turned toward the CO on scene and barked for them to make a hole. “No one fires unless I give the order, but I want guns trained on that house and every window or exit that we have.”
Grant stepped through the barricade of police vehicles, and the moment he crossed that line, he was a man on an island. He turned around, staring down the barrels of the dozens of pistols and rifles aimed at the house, and wondered if this was how it would end for him.
Grant reached for the front door of the house, and the hinges groaned as he stepped into darkness. Curtains blocked the sunlight, and all of the lights had been turned off. The front door opened up into an empty foyer, and a living room was set off to the right side, where there was a man with his head down, strapped to a chair in the dark.
Out of instinct, Grant raised his rifle, scanning the rest of the room on his approach to ensure there weren’t any other traps. But the closer Grant moved, the more he realized that Charles Copella was the trap. And the timer ticking down past the sixty-second mark made the bricks of C-4 circled around him that much more ominous.
Charles lifted his head, his face beaten, bruised and swollen. Old blood crusted his hair, and the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut was bloodshot and struggled to focus on Grant as he knelt by his side.
“My wife—” Charles’s own hoarse throat cut him off, and Grant took hold of his hand. There was no time to call in the bomb squad. There was no time to dismantle the explosives. Charles was going to die, no matter what.
“Mary’s alive,” Grant said, trying to offer whatever relief to the man that he could, but by the dazed and shaken look on Charles’s face, he wasn’t sure the man even understood what was happening. “Anna is alive too. Your family is safe.” Grant squeezed his hand. “They’re safe.”
The timer on Charles’s chest dropped to forty seconds, but after a moment of hesitation, he smiled and nodded, reciprocating the hand squeeze. “Links.” He swallowed, the motion painful as he winced. “It was Links who—”
“We know.” Grant examined the explosives, and with the timer below thirty seconds, he knew that he couldn’t stick around for much longer. The blast radius would encompass the house, and he’d need at least seven seconds to get to a safe distance.
“I gave up the codes,” Charles said, his voice hoarse as he started to cry. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t take it anymore.”
“It’s all right,” Grant said.
Charles tried to speak, but when he couldn’t find the words, he motioned Grant closer and then whispered in his ear. It was a message for his family, and when he was done and he pulled back, tears dripped down his face. “I don’t want to die.” The time ticked below twenty seconds. “Please don’t let me die.”
As the clock wound down, ticking below fifteen seconds, Charles repeated the words more frantically, keeping his hold on Grant.
“I’m sorry.” Grant ripped his hand free from Charles’s death grip and then backtracked, his eyes falling from the doomed father’s face to the clock on his chest, which ticked at the ten-second mark. “I’m sorry, Charles.” Grant turned on his heel and sprinted toward the door then burst out into the sunlight to see dozens of rifles were trained on him. “Get back! Get down!” He waved his arms, and when he reached the blockade of vehicles that surrounded the house, a blast of heat hit his back, and the explosion rocked the house.
Grant skidded over the hoods of the cars seconds after the blast had died down, and he landed hard on his shoulder on the pavement as other heads and bodies turned from the blast. When it was done, Grant lingered on the blacktop for a moment, a dull throb in his shoulder as the world around him exploded like the house he’d just escaped.
“Grant!” Hickem was in his ear, screaming and patting his shoulder. “Grant! Are you okay? What the hell happened in there?”
Slowly, Grant positioned his hands and feet beneath him, a tingling vibration sending waves from the back of his head all the way to his fingertips. His ears were ringing a little, and when he finally stood upright, he had to use the car behind him to keep from falling down.
“We need a medic over here!” Hickem yelled, waving his big arms at the ambulances down the street, and a team of SWAT members stormed into the house to examine the charred wreckage of whatever remained.
Hickem kept his hand on Grant’s shoulder, keeping him upright until a paramedic was able to take over, flashing a light in Grant’s eyes and asking him questions like his name and the day of the week, all of which Grant answered correctly.
“We should get him to the hospital and run some additional tests.” The medic pocketed the flashlight and removed the blood-pressure wrap from Grant’s arm, but Grant shook his head.
“No, I need to get back to Seattle.” Grant pushed himself off the car and made it one step before Hickem pulled him back.
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell happened inside that house.”
Grant winced, a sharp pain piercing the top of his head. “He was tied up.”
“Who? Copella?”
“Yeah.” Grant rubbed the top of his head ferociously, and the pain eased. “There was a bunch of C-4 strapped around the legs of the chair, and there was a timer.” Grant moved his hand across his chest and then shut his eyes. “There wasn’t enough time, but he told me—Gah!” What felt like an axe to the head trying to slice his skull in two brought both hands to the sides of his head to keep it together.
“All right, yeah, you’re going to the hospital,” the medic said.
But as the medical officer tried to move Grant, he remembered what Charles Copella had told him, and what he needed to tell his family. “I have to get to Seattle. I have to tell them.”
“Grant— Grant, stop it!” Hickem used his size and strength to keep Grant still and then pinned him back up against the car. “What did he say? Was it about Joza? Was it about Links? What did he tell you?”
Grant locked eyes with Hickem, Charles Cope
lla’s words rattling around in his head. “It was for his family. He… He knew what was happening. He knew he wouldn’t survive, and he wanted them to know how… how he felt.”
Disappointed, Hickem let Grant go and paced in a tight circle. “God dammit!” He turned to one of his men. “I want an APB out for Nathan Links. He couldn’t have gotten far, not with his office in Washington. At the very least, he’ll know he can’t leave the country.”
Grant turned toward the wreckage of the house, firefighters already on scene to try to extinguish the small fires that had sprouted around the explosion. A column of smoke stretched toward the blue sky, and Grant followed it all the way to the top, before following it back down to the house.
He knew there wouldn’t be anything left to find of Charles Copella. His family would bury an empty coffin. And he would have to deliver a dying father’s final message. Like an angel of death, Grant would only bring more pain to an already grieving family.
13
The time between getting on the helicopter with Hickem and returning to Seattle had been erased from Grant’s memory. The only good news that he heard was about Sam. Bruised ribs, nothing broken, and no vital damage to any of her organs. But the doctors were quick to point out that she was lucky the bullet hadn’t gone any further, or she could have been looking at a broken sternum.
Still dressed in his tactical uniform, Grant entered the marshal building, Hickem helping to direct him toward the room where Mary and Anna were waiting for him. He floated through the halls, dreading the conversation he was forced to take part in.
Covered in grime and smut from the explosion that killed Charles, Grant paused at the door before entering the office where Mary and Anna were huddled together. He saw the pair through the window in the door. Anna was in her mother’s lap, face pressed firmly against her chest, with Mary stroking her daughter’s hair with her one good hand.
As an outsider looking in, Grant didn’t want to open the door. It wasn’t because he was afraid to deliver the news of her husband. Someone had already informed them about that. Nor was it because of the message that Charles Copella bequeathed upon him to carry on to his family. It was simply because the pair of girls inside that room were peaceful. It was one of those quiet moments between loved ones, where the outside world dissolved and the only thing that mattered was the person that you were with. Those were moments, no matter the circumstances, that you wanted to have last forever. Grant didn’t want to enter the room because with his presence, that moment would end. But he also knew that he couldn’t hold off on telling them. It was like ripping off a Band-Aid. Better to do it quickly.