by Frank Zafiro
The beer was flat, so he screwed the cap back on the bottle and walked into the messy kitchen. He opened the fridge and put the bottle on the bottom rack, where it was coldest. He knew that because unlike most of his crew in the other room, DeShawn had finished high school. He even flirted with going to college, though he never told anyone. In his world, saying he wanted to go to college was along the same lines as telling everyone he was gay or something. The reaction would not have been congratulatory.
Besides, he wouldn’t be where he was now, running his own crew. Taking River City for serious bank every goddamn day.
He smiled and closed the refrigerator. Then he thought about Ronnie again and scowled. What in the hell was he going to do about him and Little La La? Maybe if he had Ronnie take care of the—
KA-BLAM!
DeShawn jumped. “What the fuck?” he yelled, and took a step toward the living room.
Another blast exploded through the front window. Glass flew across the room. The groggy gang members instinctively dove for the floor and huddled behind furniture.
DeShawn dropped into a crouch. He reached into his waistband and pulled out the 9 mm Glock he kept tucked there. His hand trembled with adrenaline. He took a deep breath and told himself to relax.
The sound of squealing tires echoed through the shattered windows.
“Motherfuckers is doin’ a drive-by,” he said in a low tone. His voice carried in the silence of the room. “Some gonna be dead motherfuckers,” he added for the benefit of his boys.
For a long moment no one moved. DeShawn listened carefully, but all he could hear was the racing whine of a small engine descending in the distance. He waited another few seconds, then motioned toward the sprawling figures on the floor of the living room. “Any o’ y’all hit?”
There was a pause, then a general murmur in the negative.
DeShawn rose. “Well, then, get yo’ asses off the motherfucking floor and check it out,” he snapped. He turned and strode quickly back to the bedroom to check on Little La La. He found the girl sitting up in bed, blinking in confusion.
“What is it, Dee?” she asked him.
Relieved, DeShawn slipped his gun into his waistband. He sat on the edge of the bed and kissed her on the forehead. “Don’t you worry none. Just some broke-ass wannabes taking a shot at the title.”
“Huh?”
“Bad guys,” he told her. “Go back to sleep.”
She nodded and slid beneath the covers. DeShawn was pretty sure she was back asleep before he left the room.
He returned to the now empty living room. The front door stood open, and he made his way toward it. He’d almost reached the threshold when the sharp crack of automatic gunfire erupted in the night. He dropped to the ground but the rounds weren’t landing near him. He saw the muzzle flashes from behind parked cars across the street. The shooters fired in controlled bursts, their bullets tearing into the assembled group of gang bangers in the front yard.
DeShawn watched in horror as his boys scrambled for cover. One did a grotesque, shuddering chicken dance before flopping to the ground.
Almost as soon as the gunfire started, it ended. A van appeared in front of the house and slowed to a near stop. Three shooters materialized from their positions of cover and walked purposefully toward the van. The side door slid open and the first gunman climbed inside.
Rage washed over DeShawn. These motherfuckers were not getting away! He tore his nine from his waistband, pointed, and cranked off three quick rounds.
He was instantly rewarded with a long burst of gunfire. Bullets tore up the doorframe and bit into the ground in front of him. He heard the whizzing whine of a ricochet off the concrete steps.
The van continued slowly along the street. The two gunmen still outside moved next to it, using it as cover. Every couple of seconds, one of them stepped from behind the van and sent a few rounds in his direction. He’d seen this tactic somewhere before, but couldn’t remember where. Then the man inside the van started firing at him and he rolled to his left.
A few more rounds peppered the house. One of the men shouted something in a guttural tone. Then came the sound of slamming doors and an accelerating engine.
DeShawn lay still for a long moment, shell-shocked. The distant wail of sirens brought him out of it. He cursed and clambered to his feet. The wooden doorframe was chewed up from the gunfire—chunks were missing, and splintered edges pointed out at sharp angles.
There was a long, painful moan from the front yard, but DeShawn ignored it. He had to take care of his gun first. He went out into the yard, where two of his boys lay on the ragged grass. One, Sweaty, twisted and turned while he moaned in pain. The other lay still.
DeShawn peered closer at the still body. It was Ronnie.
Shit, DeShawn thought. A pang of grief jumped up in his chest. Not for the dumb-ass punk on the grass, but for his little cousin. La La was going to take it hard.
The sirens drew closer.
Gotta do what I gotta do.
DeShawn wiped the grip of his gun with his shirt, then squatted next to Ronnie and tucked the pistol into his slack hand.
“Sorry, G,” he whispered. “You was never shit, but at least you can die like a good soldier.”
He wanted to know who got away and who got hit. It was also important to know right now who fought back, because if he didn’t, he knew there’d be plenty of lying going on about it later. He moved away from the fallen boy and tried to survey the yard, but it was too dark, and he couldn’t see anything.
The yelp of the police siren burst onto the street and the patrol car screeched to a halt.
DeShawn held his hands in the air. He didn’t want some nervous cop busting a cap on him. Not after surviving the assault he’d just been through.
He glanced down at Ronnie’s still body. As sad as Little La La was going to be, this did solve the problem. Of course, now DeShawn had a host of new problems to deal with, ones that wouldn’t be quite so simple.
A young officer approached slowly, his shotgun leveled at DeShawn. “Police!” he shouted. “Don’t move!”
“Easy,” DeShawn told him. “I’m the motherfuckin’ victim here.”
0614 hours
Thomas Chisolm stood next to the gang banger, his pen poised above his open notepad.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“I go by Dee.”
“That’s great,” Chisolm said, “but what’s your name?”
The man gave him a hard look, then answered, “DeShawn Brown.”
Chisolm scribbled the name on his notepad. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he had to admire the man’s composure. He’d just been shot at with high-powered automatic rifles, seen one of his buddies killed and another wounded, and yet he didn’t seem too shaken up. Chisolm had seen his type before, both in the military and since coming on the job. There was a simple word for it. The man was a warrior. Too bad he was throwing his life away being a gangbanger maggot.
“What happened next?” he asked.
DeShawn pointed. “A van pulled up right over there. Them motherfuckers wit guns came out of their hiding places and walked to it. Then they—”
“Wait a minute. They walked to the van?”
“That’s what I said. You need a hearing aid, pops?”
Chisolm glared at him. DeShawn blinked and stared back. Chisolm shook his head. “Just answer my questions. I’m trying to help you here.”
“If you’da been doing your job, this never woulda happened,” DeShawn snapped. “Where was you at, anyways? Off shoving donuts in your hole or something?”
Chisolm smiled humorlessly. “You’ll want to curb that talk,” he said in a low voice.
DeShawn opened his mouth to shoot back another comment, but Chisolm twitched his fingers next to his handcuff case. DeShawn noticed, and after a moment he closed his mouth and pressed his lips together. “What you wanna know, pops?” he asked, his voice more neutral.
“Were they wearing masks?” C
hisolm asked.
DeShawn shook his head.
“Did they say anything?”
“Somethin’, but I couldn’t tell what. It sounded like some foreign shit.”
Chisolm nodded. “Show me where they were hiding before the van showed up.”
DeShawn pointed out the three locations. Chisolm noted the perfect triangulation of fire—whoever set this up had a strong understanding of military tactics. He would have to make sure the investigating detectives knew.
“Somethin’ else, too,” DeShawn said. “They didn’t all get in the van right away. Two of ’em walked behind it while they were shooting at me.”
“They used it for cover,” Chisolm muttered. “Great.”
“Thas right,” DeShawn said. “I saw that before once. I didn’t remember before, but I do now. It was in a movie.”
“What movie?”
DeShawn scratched his chin. “That Vietnam movie. The one with the little Oriental bitch sayin’ ‘me so horny’ and shit.”
“Full Metal Jacket,” Chisolm said.
DeShawn snapped his fingers and pointed. “Thas right. Them dudes was walking along next to a tank, just like these motherfuckers were doin’ with that van.”
Chisolm resisted the urge to sigh. Using a tank or an APC for cover while on the move was a fairly common military tactic. But it took knowing the tactic, as well as a little bit of planning ahead and practice.
“Can I go check on my little cousin?” DeShawn asked. He pointed to the neighbor’s house where a teenage girl sat huddled on the porch in a blanket.
“Sure,” Chisolm said. “But don’t go anywhere.”
DeShawn nodded and walked directly toward the girl.
Chisolm glanced around the crime scene’s inner perimeter. Yellow tape cordoned off the front yard of DeShawn’s house as well as the area across the street. At the edge of the outer perimeter Sergeant Shen sat in his cruiser with the door propped open, working his phone. Chisolm knew he was talking to Lieutenant Crawford in Major Crimes. He’d arrive soon, along with his detectives. They’d take over the scene and conduct the remainder of the investigation.
“Homicide, step aside,” Chisolm muttered to himself, snapping his notebook shut.
Day shift would be out soon to relieve the graveyard officers, but he decided he’d stay on scene until the detectives made it out. He hoped it was Detective Tower or Detective Browning, either of which he figured would listen to the bad news he was going to have to tell them.
0719 hours
Officer Mark Ridgeway took a deep drag from his cigarette and watched the young man in a business suit approach the edge of the crime scene. He noted the uptight, cocky swagger and the slight bulge under the left arm.
“Fed,” he muttered, and cursed silently. So much for wrapping the scene up in a timely manner.
The agent stopped in front of Ridgeway and looked him over, contempt plain in his eyes. Then he reached into his jacket and removed a billfold. “Special Agent Payne,” he announced, flashing his tin at an unimpressed Ridgeway. “FBI.”
Ridgeway nodded slowly, and blew out a stream of smoke. “You expected in there?”
Payne’s eyes narrowed. “I was requested.”
“Oh, I see.” Ridgeway raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. “Requested.”
“Yes,” Payne said tightly. “By your chief, as a matter of fact.”
Ridgeway lifted the crime scene tape. “Then, by all means, go right in.”
Payne took a step forward, then stopped. He pointed at Ridgeway’s cigarette. “This is a crime scene. You need to put that out.”
Ridgeway eyed him for a moment, not entirely believing what he’d just heard.
“I’m serious,” Payne said. “Put it out.”
“This is the outer perimeter,” Ridgeway told him, letting the crime scene tape snap back into place. “There’s no chance of contaminating the scene out here.”
“This whole area is a crime scene,” Payne repeated. “And now that I’ve been called in to consult, federal procedures are to be adhered to. That means no smoking anywhere near the scene.” He leaned in slightly and forced a cold smile. “Of course, officer, if you’d like me to get your lieutenant out here to talk to you about this, I’m sure I can accommodate you.”
Ridgeway took another drag off his cigarette. It wouldn’t be Ridgeway’s lieutenant that came over. It would be the Major Crimes boss, Lieutenant Crawford. And while the man was a bona fide ball buster, they’d known each other a long time. Ridgeway wasn’t particularly worried. “How many years have you been a cop?” he asked Payne.
The special agent crossed his arms. “Why?”
“How many?” Ridgeway repeated.
“I’ve been with the bureau three years. Plus I have a degree from the University of Washington in the field of—”
“See these?” Ridgeway interrupted. He pointed at the one-inch horizontal service stripes on his left sleeve. “You know what they are?”
Payne shrugged. “Service stripes.”
“That’s right,” Ridgeway said. “Each one of these stripes is for three years of service.”
“On patrol, probably,” Payne snorted.
“Yeah, on patrol. All of them.” Ridgeway’s voice was low and mean. “And since you feds have trouble with simple things, I’ll tell you straight out that there’s nine of these stripes right here on my sleeve. Nine.” He cocked his head slightly and glared at Payne. “How many years is that, Agent Payne?”
“Twenty-seven.So what?”
“So what?” Ridgeway took a deep drag and sent the smoke billowing toward Payne. “Well, sonny, I’ll tell you so what.” He pointed at the hash marks and traced them up his sleeve. “Why don’t you just climb up this ladder and kiss my ass?”
Payne blanched. His mouth gaped open for a moment. He moved it as if to speak but no words came out. Finally he slammed it shut, turned on his heels, and stomped toward the inner perimeter.
Ridgeway shook his head and made a notation in the crime scene log of the time and who had entered. He exercised great self-discipline and labeled Payne as “Agent” instead of “Dipshit.”
Then Mark Ridgeway finished his cigarette and lit another.
0720 hours
“Military training?”
“Yes.” Thomas Chisolm nodded emphatically to Detective Ray Browning. “That’s what I’m saying.”
Chisolm stared into the intelligent, dark-brown eyes of the veteran detective. Detective Tower stood off to the side, his pen poised above a notepad as he made a preliminary sketch of the scene.
Browning gave Chisolm a long look, then nodded. “All right, Tom. I’ll keep it in mind. Who would have this kind of training?”
“Any infantryman gets it,” Chisolm said.
“That doesn’t narrow the suspect field much.”
“Any infantryman gets it,” Chisolm repeated, “but getting instruction and training is a long ways from putting into effect in a real situation with a full team.”
Browning stroked his closely cropped goatee. The jet-black whiskers had a sprinkling of gray in them. Chisolm could remember a time when Browning wore his face clean-shaven. The detective’s skin had been a more vibrant cocoa color back then. Now it had a worn, dusty look to it.
We’re all getting old, Chisolm thought. Even so, he was glad for the deep wisdom he saw in Browning’s eyes.
“You’re saying it takes a lot to employ these tactics?” Browning asked. “More than just being trained?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Whoever executed this operation has either done it before, probably in the military, or they planned for it extensively.”
“Are you saying that because of the—”
“Triangulation of fire. It’s the exact opposite of crossfire.” He peered closer at Browning. “Were you ever in SWAT, Ray?”
Browning shook his head. “No. Five years in patrol. The rest of it in investigations. Why?”
Chisolm squatted
and motioned for Browning to do the same. “I know for a fact that you’re one hell of a detective, Ray,” Chisolm said. “Everyone does.”
“Thanks, but—”
“The thing is,” Chisolm continued, “that no one can know everything, right?”
“Of course not.”
“Even if some people think they do,” Chisolm added, his eyes flicking toward Lieutenant Crawford as he conversed with a Channel Five news reporter.
Browning smiled slightly. “Even if.”
“Okay, then. Here’s what you might not know.” Chisolm removed his pen from his uniform shirt and scratched in the dirt while he spoke. “Here’s the van,” he said, drawing a small circle in the dirt, “and here’s the house.”
“Got it.”
Chisolm marked the positions of the gunmen with a large dot for each. “This is where the shooters were staged,” he said. “Keep in mind that every one of them had cover and concealment, whether it was the one behind that tree over there or crouched next to the front tire of that pickup truck.”
Browning nodded.
Chisolm drew a line from shooter to shooter, creating a rough semicircle. “They’re covering about 120 degrees of the compass here. That gives them a huge field of fire, but it also keeps them from being in a crossfire and out of danger of hitting each other.” He emphasized his point by drawing lines from each shooter’s position toward the house.
“It was an ambush all along,” Browning muttered.
“Exactly,” Chisolm said. “They used the gangster drive-by tactic and threw a couple of shots into the house as a ruse. This draws the majority of the bangers outside.” He stabbed his pen into the dirt. “Once they’re outside, they walk into the middle of hell. From their perspective, bullets would have been coming from everywhere.”
Browning nodded thoughtfully. “One of the witnesses said that the shooting was loud and definitely from what she called machine guns. But she said it only lasted about five or ten seconds at the most.”
“Right,” Chisolm said, “because these guys knew what they were going to do. They had a plan. They had concentrated fire. They poured a full magazine of rounds down onto these poor bastards, went back to cover, and did a reload. Meanwhile, the van swoops in. They use it for cover as they get away.”