Clever detective that I was, I had actually managed to get myself caught by the very serial killer I was investigating. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
The car slowed slightly, and I felt the tires humming on asphalt. We had left the highway and were now on a winding road.
Suddenly, the car passed over something, and intense vibrations rattled the chassis. A cattle grate? It seemed we were outside of L. A., far out in the country.
Half an hour or so later, I felt the car tilting and tipping as the driver negotiated what felt like deep rain crevices.
After what I estimated was about a half mile, we made a long sloping turn and came to a stop.
Car doors slammed.
A minute later, the trunk opened and I was looking up into the sunlight. Looming over me, looking like something a mad scientist concocted in his basement, was Samoyla Petrovitch. He reached down and scooped me out of the trunk, using so little effort, it shocked me. Then he turned and threw me on the ground nearby.
I thumped in the damp grass. When I looked around, I realized I was about a hundred yards from a beautiful, blue lake. Wherever we were, it appeared deserted. No neighbors or houses in sight, no docks or boats. I saw Kersey Nix getting out of a gray government sedan, which was parked behind the black Cadillac Brougham I had ridden in. I took a head count. Including Nix, Sammy, Iggy, and their five brigadiers, there were eight all together.
I started to lose it.
To begin with, no full-grown male likes to be lifted off his feet and thrown around like a sack of laundry. Secondly, eight against one is lousy odds unless you’re the star of a kung fu movie. I couldn’t see any way to change that. I was in terrible shape—beat to hell with one fingertip gone, taped up, and weak from loss of blood, miles from civilization. I wasn’t going to get out of this.
I craned my neck and saw that we were on a rolling lawn in front of a sprawling mountain lodge in a garden framed by low brick walls. The house was designed to look like a Swiss chalet with wood carved eves and Disneyesque pastel colors. The Petrovitches’ summer place on New Melones Lake. I was going to disappear up here just like Calvin Lerner.
I glanced at Sammy. He had a blank expression on his ruptured face and was again rocking side to side. Two brigadiers were standing behind, watching him sway, frozen by his murderous intensity.
“Sammy … ,” I said.
He didn’t answer.
“Listen, man, you don’t want to kill me. This is a very bad plan. I’m a cop. You kill a cop, it doesn’t go away.” Thinking even as I said it, that it hadn’t slowed him down, or hurt him much when he shot Martin Kobb ten years ago.
The Petrovitches and Kersey Nix went into the house, leaving me on the lawn with a few brigadiers assigned to guard me. Ten minutes later Sammy came back out carrying a fifty-pound Danforth anchor in his left hand. Then he grabbed my bound feet in his right, and began dragging me down toward the lake. My head kept hitting rocks on the path as he yanked me savagely along, rounding a point to a small cove, just out of sight of the main house.
There, tied to the end of a private dock, covered by a canvas tarp, was a classic, varnished wood Chris-Craft.
Sammy dragged me to the end of the pier and dumped me next to the boat, then pulled out his 5.45 PSM automatic. It disappeared quickly into his enormous hand. He jabbed the barrel behind my left ear, its cold muzzle pressing hard against my skull.
I gathered myself together, trying to prepare for death, but all I kept thinking was, I’m not ready yet.
Then Sammy wheezed, “Suck my dick, yakoff.”
I steeled myself, waiting for the bullet. Instead, he just laughed. It was a high-pitched squeak that shot over ruptured vocal chords, hee-heeing across the silent mountain terrain in a breathy, whistle. He pulled the gun away, leaned down, and fastened the heavy anchor to my legs with a rope.
The idea of getting shot in the head was bad, but going swimming with a fifty-pound anchor didn’t exactly cut it either.
Sammy lumbered back toward the house as one of the brigadiers unzipped the canvas cover on the speedboat, peeled it off, and then jumped down into the cockpit. He slid behind the wheel and turned on the blower, waiting for the gas fumes in the bilge to clear. Then he pushed the starter.
A rolling ball of fire blew straight up into the air, sending wood splinters flying into my face as the classic speedboat exploded. The blast rolled me across the dock and almost knocked me into the water. From where I lay, I saw the brigadier who had been behind the wheel catapult through the air engulfed in flames. He fell toward the water, finally splashing into the lake, extinguishing himself and sinking without a trace thirty yards out.
Sammy Petrovitch screamed something in Russian. I craned my neck and saw him running across the lawn, heading back toward the dock.
He was so intent on the burning speedboat, he didn’t see the white Econoline van speeding out of a dirt road in the woods, coming directly at him from behind. Just as it was a few feet away, Sammy heard the engine and spun. The front bumper clipped him and the impact knocked him sideways. Then the speeding van roared right on past, heading toward the dock where I lay. It hurtled out onto the pier, its tires clattering on the wooden planks, and finally slewed to a stop just inches from the water.
The side door flew open. “Some fucking mess you got here, Bubba,” Zack said, as he jumped down onto the dock, a big square-muzzled Glock in one hand, a fishing knife in the other. He put the knife between his teeth, then pulled out his handcuff key, leaned down, and quickly unlocked the metal bracelets.
“Gimme a gun!” I yelled.
He threw the automatic to me. I tried to catch it, but with my wrapped and painful left index fingertip missing, the Glock went right through my grasp, hit the dock, and splashed into the water.
“Nice catch, asshole,” Zack cursed. “My last backup piece.”
Gunfire erupted, coming from the direction of the house. I turned and saw Sammy, Iggy, and their remaining brigadiers all shooting at us from the lawn with Kalashnikov submachine guns. Kersey Nix ran out of the chalet firing a handgun. The barrage of bullets zapped and sparked against the dock while pieces of the burning Chris-Craft still rained down around us.
The wood pier was disintegrating under a steady stream of 7.62-mm machine gun bullets.
“Get in the van!” Zack yelled.
I managed to pull most of the tape off my ankles and untie the anchor. Then I half-hopped, half-threw myself through the open side door as gunfire riddled the vehicle. Rounds punched through the metal sides, ricocheting and sparking around me.
Zack jumped into the front seat and threw the van into reverse. “The metal case in the back!” he shouted. “Get the SAR out and get busy,” referring to a semi-automatic rifle.
I scrambled to the back where there was a metal case with LAPD SAWT stenciled on the top. I could barely raise the heavy lid on the box because the missing fingertip made my left hand all but useless. I finally heaved it open and wrestled a semi-automatic .223 AR-15 out, slammed in a clip, tromboned the slide and jammed the muzzle through the back window, breaking the glass.
We squealed backward off the dock, once swerving very close to the edge, almost going into the water.
I let loose with the semi-automatic rifle.
The AR-15 had been modified to fire four shot bursts and the 55-grain JSP rounds scattered the mobsters and FBI agent on the lawn.
Zack powered backward onto the grass and made a sharp turn, taking my scrambling targets from view. I rolled to the front of the van and, kneeling in the open side door, began firing again, squeezing off short bursts like an aircraft waist gunner. I saw Kersey Nix break for cover, and fired in his direction. I took his legs out and he screamed as he went down. Then I swung the barrel and took out a brigadier who was just running off the porch, gun blazing.
Then we were back in the woods on the same dirt road Zack had come out of earlier. The van’s engine must have taken hits from those monster 7.62-mm s
lugs, because it was now running rough, coughing and sputtering.
“This thing is trashed! Gotta find some cover,” Zack shouted as he pulled the van into the brush and parked. We both bailed out.
I saw the black Caddy rounding a distant turn, heading toward us, throwing a dust cloud out behind as it came. I waited until it got close enough so I could see Sammy and Iggy and maybe three other men crowded inside. Then I let loose with two bursts from the assault rifle, breaking the windshield first, then taking out the front grill of the speeding cad. The men all ducked down and the cad lurched right and skidded to a stop. Then I saw their heads pop up and they all jumped out of the car. The long gun was empty so I turned and ran into the woods, following Zack.
We scrambled up a hill, finally coming to a small clearing.
“How many?” Zack asked.
“Four, maybe five. I didn’t hit anyone, but I took out the block.”
Zack saw the slide on the AR-15 was locked open and took the rifle out of my hands and pulled the last magazine out of his back pocket and began changing clips, dropping the empty, slamming the fresh one home.
“The fuck happened to that boat?” I asked.
“Snuck over there, opened the gas line. Drained half the tank into the hull. My idea was to hit it with a hot round, blow it up and use it for a distraction. I almost shit when they took you out there and that asshole hit the starter.”
“How did you find me?”
“Been tailing you for two days. Got pretty worried when they had you in that garage near Pismo Beach. Had to wait it out, hopin’ they didn’t kill you. I been watchin’ your six, Bubba, just like the old Wild West days in the Valley. Nothing changes, huh?”
Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out my badge case and handed it back to me.
“Here. If we get lucky enough to arrest these hair bags you might need this.”
I felt like shit as I took my shield. I’d just spent two days trying to drop a serial murder case on this guy while he’d been following me around trying to keep me from getting killed. “I had it all wrong,” I said. “I’m sorry, Zack. I should’ve believed in you.”
He looked up, his face hard to read. “I know I’m a strange flavor, man. It’s why I don’t have many friends.” He didn’t speak for almost ten seconds, then said, “I gotta look after the few buds I’ve got.”
I was too choked up to say anything, so I just nodded.
He finished reloading the SAR and tromboned a fresh round into the chamber. “Glock’s in the lake, one thirty-shot clip left for the long gun. One knife. And it’s five against two.”
Then my partner smiled. “I don’t know, Bubba, seems like a pretty fair fight to me.” He handed over the hunting knife. “Whatta ya say we go kick some commie ass?”
Chapter 60
Zack and I made our way slowly back down the hill toward the road, our footsteps deadened by a heavy bed of pine needles. I heard Zack wheezing in front of me, breathing through his mouth. After about ten minutes we stopped and kneeled in the dense brush beside the road.
“We need to set up an ambush,” he whispered.
“We should sneak back up the road to their car,” I responded.
“Right.” But he stayed where he was, hunkered down in the brush. “You didn’t really think it was me murdering those homeless guys, did you?”
I didn’t want to talk about this now. We needed to keep moving.
“I gotta know,” Zack said. “You really thought I was the unsub?”
“I’m sorry, Zack. But you looked pretty good for it. I couldn’t get past the Vaughn Rolaine coincidence and how fucked up the murder book was. It was almost like you were trying to tank the case. And then after you damn near killed me … I’m sorry, but for a while, that’s the way I saw it.”
He shook his head, looking down at his shoes. “Guess loyalty just ain’t one a your strong suits,” he said, softly. “What’s important is, I was wrong.”
He was still kneeling there, shaking his head while cradling the automatic weapon in those huge, fleshy forearms. “You know how completely fucked that is?” His voice was loud, carrying in the still forest.
Suddenly, I felt very strange about all this. I hadn’t exactly proved that Sammy was the unsub. Boiled down to its essence, that was just a promising theory. I gripped the hunting knife tighter, wondering whether I’d just made another terrible mistake.
When Zack looked up at me, he had tears in his eyes. “I’m afraid to let the people I love get close,” he said. “Zack—”
“My dad committed suicide when I was eight. It hurt so much I swore I’d never let anybody hurt me like that again. The day he did it, he told me he was gonna go help pour out the rain. Thought he was talkin’ about our rain cisterns out back. But that wasn’t what he was talking about at all.”
“Zack, we gotta keep our mind on business here. These guys aren’t pushovers. We gotta keep moving.”
I looked up the hill behind me. I couldn’t see or hear anybody up there, but my combat training told me we’d stayed in one spot too long.
“Zack—”
“Shut up, okay?” he interrupted. “I gotta tell you this. It may be our only time.” He took a deep breath. “I found him down in the basement. His brains were on the ground, maggots crawling in his head. I puked. Couldn’t touch him—my dad, and I couldn’t touch him.” He shook his head. “After that, Mom stayed drunk for two years. Her liver was so stewed they had t’put her in a hospital to dry her out. Kept my brother but dumped me in foster care, same as you. Only I was this fat kid nobody wanted and my foster folks kept throwing me back.”
Then he looked directly at me. “You asked me why I hung on to you when you were so wasted. That’s the reason, man. That’s why I did it. I knew I couldn’t let you go, ‘cause you were just like me. It wasn’t that you were too drunk to testify at my shooting reviews. It was because I understood you, Shane. I understood because your demons were the same as mine.”
We were quiet for a minute, both thinking about that shared emptiness.
Then we heard voices in the distance. Zack rose out of his crouch. “Let’s go.”
We took off, moving just off the road, hiding in the brush. It took us almost twenty minutes to travel three hundred yards. When we finally got close enough, Zack held up his hand, signaling me to stop.
We could just make out the black Cadillac through the brush, parked on the road about twenty yards away. One of the Russians was leaning against the car. Then, almost as if inviting an attack, he set his pistol down on the trunk to pull out a cigarette.
Zack pointed at me, then at his eyes, indicating he wanted me to keep an eye on him while he moved up closer. I was only armed with a knife, so I wasn’t going to be much backup unless I got in close. I held up my knife and pointed at myself, then to the car. He shook his head violently, and before I could argue, moved off in a low crouch, staying by the side of the road.
He was almost halfway there when he stepped on a piece of wood.
There was a dry snap and all hell broke loose.
The Russian grabbed his gun off the trunk as simultaneously Zack fired the .223, blowing him out of his loafers and halfway across the road, taking out most of his chest with one four-shot burst. The man flopped on his back, dead before he landed. Zack moved out onto the road toward him.
At that moment a Kalashnikov RPK opened up from somewhere further up the road. Zack was spun around by a stream of bullets as the barrage turned him. Blood sprayed out of his chest. He went down hard. I spotted the Russian with the machine gun crouched behind a rock twenty yards further up the road.
We were the ones who’d been lured into the ambush. Sammy Petrovitch, also a combat veteran had left two rear guards and split them.
I ran toward Zack’s fallen body, keeping the Cad between me and the second guard. The Kalashnikov started chattering again. Bullets thunked into the car, breaking windows. I ducked down, then rushed out, grabbed Zack by the heels,
and dragged him off the road. The machine gun suddenly went quiet. The brigadier had emptied the weapon and was changing clips. A few seconds later, the machine gun started up again, but by then I had my partner behind the car. I rolled Zack over and checked his wounds. He’d been hit by more than half a dozen rounds. Blood was seeping out of both sides of him, but his eyes were still open.
“That didn’t quite work,” he whispered weakly.
I knew the gunfire would bring the Petrovitches and henchman down on our position. There wasn’t much time. I sprinted out into the road where Zack had dropped our .223. As soon as I showed myself, machine-gun fire erupted. I scooped up the long rifle and took off into the woods on the opposite side of the road. The Russian tracked my run with a stream of lead, hitting trees and boulders as I disappeared into the heavy foliage. I took cover in the deep forest, then started moving back toward him. I needed to clear the guy out before going back for Zack, and I knew Sammy and the others were headed this way.
Suddenly there was motion on the road. The brigadier had changed positions and was now standing below me with the Kalashnikov on his hip pointed up in my direction. He spotted me and started spraying bullets.
The cover was thin now and I was pretty much his for the taking. At that moment, I lost my sense of self, as rage over Zack and everything else that had gone wrong flooded over me. Without judging the danger or fearing for my safety, I ran straight down the hill at the Russian, firing the AR-15—charging right into his chattering Kalashnikov, squeezing off short bursts one after another, guided by some insane force.
“Motherfucker!” I yelled as I charged.
When we were only twenty feet apart, the Russian mobster swung his gun barrel toward me and pulled the trigger. But the Kalashnikov fired just one round and jammed. The slug went a foot wide and flew past my head, whining into the forest. The brigadier crouched, struggling frantically with the slide, trying to clear the breech.
Cold Hit (2005) Page 28