by James Hunt
“Let’s go find out what he wants,” Grant answered.
The officers had already called the house phone, which the communication company had turned off due to lack of payment, but after haggling with a supervisor for twenty minutes, it was reconnected after the threat of a court order. Whenever someone was slow to move, that one usually did the trick.
Ordained by the mayor, chief of police, and a United States senator, Grant now had full control of the operation, much to the sergeant’s dismay, who still thought the idea was ludicrous.
Grant got on the line and called the house. When Craig Johnson answered the first time, he screamed a stream of curses and then unceremoniously slammed down the receiver. The second time Grant called, he didn’t pick up at all. Thankfully, third time was the charm.
“Mr. Johnson, please, don’t hang up,” Grant said. “I’m not here to bullshit you.”
Labored pants filled Grant’s ear and after a few seconds’ pause, Craig Johnson spoke. “It’s just more games. I know what you want, and that’s me in a fucking body bag!” His voice was haggard and panicked, dangerous even without the twelve gauge clutched in his hands.
“Not this time,” Grant said. “Tell me what you want. And it’s yours.”
Again Johnson paused, contemplating the authenticity of the offer. “I want the cops gone. And the helicopters.”
Grant stepped out of the back of the S.W.A.T. van, and glanced up to the few choppers in the sky. Only one of them was Seattle PD. “I can only call back the police choppers.”
“Bullshit!”
“Wait! Wait, wait, wait,” Grant said. “I can get the FAA to clear the air space around the house, but once you start moving, that’s as far as the guarantee can go.”
Another pause. “And I want the cops on the street gone. No one around the house for half a mile.”
“All right, we can do that,” Grant said, not bothering to take notes because he knew the call was being recorded.
“And I want a car with ten grand cash in a duffel bag in the passenger seat,” Johnson said, his voice growing eager the longer he spoke. “No one follows me out either. I leave, with the boy, and no one follows. I get a hint that someone’s on my tail, and he dies. We both will. I don’t care anymore what happens to me, get it?”
“Yeah,” Grant answered. “I get it.”
The call clicked dead, and Grant returned the phone back to the negotiator, who raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Any word on exactly how you’re going to deliver on that, your holiness?”
“Yeah, like all good holy men do,” Grant answered, getting out of the back of the van. “Talk to the boss.”
Mocks stepped in stride with Grant on his exit, and he tossed his phone to her. “Call the captain. He should have Mayor Brugsby and Senator Pierfoy on the line by now. Tell him we need the choppers cleared from the area and ten grand. We’ll give him one of the squad cars to get away in, and I’ll have the sergeant clear everyone back once the choppers are gone.”
“And after we do all of this, what’s the plan?” Mocks asked, dialing. “Catching him is still a part of the plan, right? Or is this your way of going out in a blaze of glory?”
“Did you ever go to a magic show when you were a kid?” Grant asked.
“Rick took me to one when we were dating,” Mocks answered. “We didn’t go back.”
“It’s all about sleight of hand. The magician gets you to focus on everything but the trick, and by the time you realize what’s happened, you’ve missed it.” Grant glanced around to the chaos around him. “This is the distraction. And when the pieces start to move, that’s where you and I perform the trick.”
“You didn’t go to magic camp when you were a kid, did you?” Mocks asked, but before Grant answered the captain was on the phone, and Mocks recited what Grant had told her. Judging from her facial expression, it wasn’t going very smoothly.
Grant grabbed hold of the sergeant and pointed to the surrounding officers. “I want every unit, sniper, and badge watching that house to retreat at least five blocks. And it needs to happen all at once on my command.”
“Your command?” the sergeant asked mockingly.
“Yes, mine,” Grant answered. “So don’t worry about any blowback if things go wrong. None of the heat will land on you.”
Begrudgingly, the sergeant spread the news, and Mocks tugged on Grant’s jacket just before a cold breeze gusted their way.
“Mayor said he’ll make it happen with the cash, and the Senator is clearing the request with the FAA right now,” Mocks said. “They said it shouldn’t take too long.”
“With the Senator’s connections, I didn’t think it would,” Grant said, thinking about the offer the man had extended earlier that morning. He was sure the senator would pressure him even more to take the job now. If he was successful of course. “C’mon, we need to get ready.”
Grant returned to the S.W.A.T. van, which had become the HQ for operations. “I need to see the schematics for the house.” One of the officers retrieved it and spread it out on the table for Grant to examine. He switched his gaze from the blueprints to the house. “Is there any bushes or trees over here by this window?”
An officer decked out in tactical gear nodded, his helmet bobbing with the motions. “Yeah, we tried to position an officer there earlier, but once we discovered the bomb threat, we pulled our guys back.”
Grant stepped outside and spotted the growth on the south side of the house. The trailer was wedged up against a cluster of other homes, which provided good cover. “What’s the distance from the side of the house to the front door?”
“Eleven feet,” he answered.
It was longer than Grant would have liked, and there was still the possibility that Johnson would wire the boy to blow like Mallory Givens’s abductor. Though if he used the explosives for around the doors and windows, he might not have enough to make a vest. “All right, that’s our play.” He turned around to Mocks, who was already back in the van and examining the blueprints herself.
“I’ll go around the north side, and we’ll hit him from both angles,” Mocks said. “If we catch him off guard, we can force his initial reaction to shoot us first.” She let out a low breath. “This will go down really fast.”
When she stepped out of the van, Grant pulled her aside, out of earshot from everyone else. “It’ll be helpful to have two people do this, but if you can’t—”
“I’m in, Grant,” Mocks said. “This guy may have taken some classes on how to abduct kids, but he hasn’t had the firearms training we have. And besides,” she smiled and punched his arm. “Maybe I’ll get my own medal for this.”
“Careful what you wish for,” Grant said. “Let’s grab some vests.”
The Kevlar was bulkier than Grant would have liked, but he knew it was needed. There was something ominous about strapping on Kevlar. He didn’t wear it in his normal day-to-day. He felt like he was tempting fate when he did. Like he was asking for a bullet.
Once they were strapped up, Grant noticed the hum of the chopper blades fading. He looked to the grey, clouded sky and watched them disappear. Senator Pierfoy had come through.
“Sergeant,” Grant said. “Get your people back.”
In the chaos of the retreat, Grant and Mocks slid up around the backside of the houses next to where Johnson was located and huddled in their position.
It wasn’t until Grant was alone at the south end of the house that he realized he never said anything to Mocks before the pair parted. There was the possibility that he wouldn’t come out of this alive, and if so, his last words to his partner would have been ‘let’s grab some vests.’
Not the most eloquent goodbye. He would have preferred something more personal. After all, they’d been together for over two years, and it was by far the most successful partnership he’d ever been attached to. Plus, he was fond of Mocks. She was the little sister he never had. And he knew she looked up to him, though he wasn’t sure why. In many a
spects, she already surpassed him in the position. She had the mind and tenacity for the job, and once she picked up on the subtleties of dealing with people, which was the only area she lacked, she’d be the best in the field.
Heavy thumps snapped Grant’s attention back to the house. Johnson shouted, but the words were muffled through the trailer walls. Grant removed the 9mm Glock from his holster and inched to the front corner of the house, ducking below the only window he passed along the way.
The last few police cars disappeared down side streets, and the crowds of pedestrians were corralled away from the scene. The thump of the choppers overhead faded. Everything was falling into place. All that was left was the getaway car and the cash. But the quieter it grew outside, the louder it became inside the trailer.
Johnson stepped heavily, running around the house, screaming nonsense. He could be hopped up on drugs. He could have already killed the boy. But could haves always bounced at the bank. Grant needed to stick with what he knew, and that was Craig Johnson stepping out of that house and trying to kill anything that got in his way.
Grant drew in a breath as the brakes from the getaway car squealed to a stop just short of the driveway. The officer inside stepped out of the vehicle slowly, his hands in the air. Grant saw the outline of the man’s Kevlar underneath the bulky coat.
Johnson cracked open the front door and Grant remained glued to the side of the house, out of sight.
“Where’s the money?” Johnson said, his voice raspy from shouting.
The officer, moving slowly, reached inside the car and grabbed hold of a duffel bag. He opened it and exposed the cash piled inside. Grant couldn’t see the exact bills, but it was more than enough to convince Johnson that it was legit.
Johnson had everything he wanted. The choppers gone. The officers retreated. The getaway car, and now the cash. The trust was established. The only question that remained was if he would take the bait.
The officer placed the duffel bag back in the car and slowly retreated, keeping his hands in the air as he walked backwards to the end of the street.
Grant’s mouth went dry. His tongue turned into sandpaper and it hurt to swallow. He panted quietly from his mouth: adrenaline, nerves, blood pressure, and heart rate all skyrocketed and bundled together in the pit of his stomach.
The front door swung shut and Grant inched to the edge, his back scraping up against the faded paint. He craned his neck around the front and saw the porch. He made eye contact with Mocks as she did the same, her figure even smaller with the distance between them.
He couldn’t tell if she was nervous. She just gave a slight nod and then retreated behind the house. Grant did the same. More thumps echoed inside, and Johnson barked something, and the question of whether the boy was still alive was finally answered as Tommy Steeves screamed.
Grant gripped the handle of his Glock with both hands, his knuckles white from the tight hold. He raised the pistol in preparation to strike. His muscles grew taut with anticipation, his mind and body poised to act at the sound of that door. He had two, maybe three seconds to assess the situation before shots were fired.
The details of the plan faded from his mind. The moment consumed him. He clung to the element of surprise, his only advantage, and hoped it was better than Johnson’s nothing-to-lose. Johnson could miss. Grant couldn’t.
The front door’s hinges whined, and Grant planted his foot past the plane of cover. It was all instinct now. His mind and body retrieved the years of weapons training, the hours spent at the range, and muscle memory. But there was no paper target when Grant turned the corner, no stationary dummy with a burglar painted on the face, no blanks in the chamber. This was the field, where your actions had real consequences. And when Grant saw Craig Johnson with a pistol to Tommy Steeves’s head, Grant aimed for the one square foot space on Johnson’s chest just above Tommy’s head. That was his window.
Johnson turned and made eye contact with Grant. Everything moved in slow motion. He screamed something as Grant applied pressure to the trigger, and the man removed the barrel of the gun from Tommy’s head and aimed at Grant.
The bullet jettisoned from Grant’s pistol and connected into the right of Johnson’s chest. He stumbled backward and another gunshot fired. Instantaneously, a sharp pain ripped through Grant’s gut.
Grant tumbled backwards, and amidst the ringing in his ears from the gunfire, a high-pitch scream broke through. He smacked the ground and the wind was knocked from his lungs. A third gunshot fired, and Grant rolled to his side, a pressure in his head so intense that he thought his eyes would bulge from its sockets.
He looked to the porch where Mocks had Johnson cuffed on the ground. The next thing he saw was Tommy Steeves. He was crying and covered in blood. Grant just hoped it wasn’t his own.
Chapter 5
The sirens and flashing lights flooded the street as every squad car and cruiser that had retreated returned in full force. Dozens of officers and a handful of paramedics rushed over to both Johnson and then Grant, who had managed to steady himself on all fours. He gasped for breaths and fingered the center of pain in his lower abdomen. It felt like it went through.
“I just need you to sit still for me a minute, Detective.” The paramedic had thick eyebrows and a shaved head. He flashed a light in Grant’s eyes and then gently patted the area on the vest where he’d been shot, then took his blood pressure. “Can you hear me okay?”
“Yeah,” Grant answered, inhaling a deep breath through his nose. He glanced over to the porch to see what happened with the boy, but a cluster of officers and medics blocked his view. He couldn’t even see Mocks.
“I need to get this vest off you,” the paramedic said.
Grant slid off his jacket, grinding his teeth as another shot of pain spasmed from his abdomen. Velcro ripped apart from the connecting pieces of the vest, and he tossed it aside. The paramedic ripped open Grant’s shirt and examined the red blotch on his abdomen. The paramedic poked the injury, and Grant winced.
“No bruising,” he said. “So that’s good.” The paramedic flipped the vest over and found the bullet that nearly traveled all the way through. He rubbed his finger over the flattened metal and shook his head. “Looks like someone was looking out for you today.”
But was somebody looking out for Tommy Steeves? Grant pushed himself off the ground and leaned up against the front of the house to steady his wobbling legs. He spied his Glock in the grass and bent down to grab it, being mindful of the soreness in his stomach.
When Grant raised his head, the cluster of bodies had disappeared, and he saw Craig Johnson being wheeled toward an ambulance, paramedics keeping pressure on the gunshot wound to his body. And off to the side of the porch, with a blanket wrapped around him, was Tommy.
Grant exhaled with relief, and the tension melted from his body. Mocks sat with the boy, holding him as he sobbed. The paramedic grabbed Grant by the shoulders but he shrugged him off, stumbling over to the pair and dropping to his knees.
“Are you all right?” Grant asked.
“We’re fine,” Mocks answered.
The ambulance doors carrying Craig Johnson closed, and the vehicle sped away. The remaining paramedics carried Tommy Steeves toward the second ambulance, and Mocks looked down at Grant’s exposed shirt.
“Showing off that six-pack?” Mocks asked, cracking a smile.
Grant buttoned up. “Hardly.”
The paramedic walked over and handed Grant his jacket. “You should really let us check you out. Make sure you’re all right.”
“I’m fine,” Grant replied. “What hospital are they taking the suspect?” Grant meant to question him the moment he was medically cleared. If Craig Johnson survived, it was their first big lead.
“Northside Memorial,” the paramedic answered. “They won’t let you in until he’s stabilized.” He paused, then looked back at the boy. “God knows he deserves a worse punishment than death.”
The sergeant cantered over, shaking
his head and smiling. “That was some legendary shit, Detectives.” He looked to Mocks, his pupils dilated. “I suppose I have you to thank for that twenty bucks I lost.”
“Keep the thanks,” Mocks said, taking a step back.
“I want every corner of that trailer searched,” Grant said. “Anything you find, you report it directly to me, understand?”
The sergeant held up his hands defensively. “I got it, Detective. I got it. Hey, maybe the mayor will give you another medal for this one.” He chuckled and left.
“I doubt it,” Grant said.
“Yeah,” Mocks said. “The next one is for me anyway.”
The phone in Grant’s pocket buzzed and he jumped. When he removed his cell, the number was blocked. “Hello?”
“It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, Detective,” Senator Pierfoy said. “Don’t let this win go to your head. The next time it might result in your resignation and a child zipped up into a body bag.”
“The goal is to make sure it doesn’t escalate that far to begin with,” Grant said. “The officers that arrived on scene chomped down on the bit so hard that the suspect had no other choice. They pushed him. He pushed back.”
The praise and kindness that Pierfoy exhibited earlier that morning had disappeared. The amiable tone had transformed into disappointment. “And what are you pushing, Detective? Your own death wish? I hope you don’t expect for me to bail you out every time you find yourself in trouble. I don’t want our relationship to become muddled.”
“No, Senator,” Grant said. “We wouldn’t want that.”
“Find the rest of those children,” Pierfoy said quickly. “I want whoever is responsible for this madness behind bars now!”
The call ended, and Grant shoved the phone back into his pocket. He wasn’t sure if he was shaking from anger or if the adrenaline from the gunfight had yet to fade.
“What now?” Mocks asked. “It’ll take a while for forensics to sweep the place.”
“The girl at the mall,” Grant answered, pulling on his jacket. The air had grown oddly cold. “Let’s see if forensics is done analyzing that video.”