by Frank Zafiro
Oleg Tretiak sat across from him, studying the two cards in his hands. He looked up at Battaglia inquisitively. “These cards only mine?”
“Yeah,” Battaglia said. “Just yours. And these”—he pointed to his own two hole cards—“are only mine.”
“Okay,” the Russian said, nodding. “Ponimayu. I understand.”
Battaglia smiled. He didn’t think the Russian quite understood Texas hold ’em yet, but he seemed to be getting the bluffing part down. He doubted that whatever Tretiak was holding would beat his pocket aces.
He flicked out three cards into the center of the table. “These are cards we can both use,” he said. Then he flipped them over. An eight of spades, three of hearts, and jack of diamonds showed.
Tretiak nodded, his eyes studying the face-up cards. “Which one I use?” he asked.
“All of them,” Battaglia said. “Or any of them.”
Tretiak squinted. “Which ones you use?”
“Same. I can use any or all of them. So can you.”
“Who pick cards first?”
“No one,” Battaglia explained. “All three cards are for both of us to use. I’m going to put two more down, too. We share them all.”
“Share?”
“Yeah. They’re called community cards.” Battaglia chuckled. “Come on, you should understand this. It’s like communism. Everything in the middle belongs to all the people.”
Tretiak nodded, a smile spreading slowly across his face. “And these,” he said, holding up his own cards, “are for Communist Party members only.”
Battaglia laughed a little louder. “Exactly.”
“Okay. We bet?”
Battaglia took a deep breath and glanced at the bathroom door. Agent Leeb had been in there for twenty minutes. From the initial sounds that he could hear over the fan, the guy had a case of the runs. He’d probably be in there for a while yet.
“Sure,” he said. “Why not?” He pulled a money clip from his shirt pocket and peeled off five ones. He dropped one next to the flop. “Buck a turn?”
Tretiak removed something from his pocket and fiddled with it underneath the table, out of Battaglia’s view. Battaglia half expected him to come up with a handful of rubles or something, but he had a wad of George Washingtons in his hand. Tretiak dropped a crumpled dollar bill on top of Battaglia’s.
“Bet!” he exclaimed.
Battaglia shook his head. He wanted to say he was going to hate taking the Russian’s money, but that would have been lying.
“Here comes the turn,” he said, and burned a card. Then he flipped over a six of hearts.
Tretiak’s eyes narrowed. He picked up his hole cards, then threw out two ones. “Bet two.”
Battaglia almost told him what a buck a card meant, but it was his money, after all. He tossed in two bills.
“Call,” he said.
2209 hours
Carson let the suspect that ran through the apartment complex go. She tried to keep the other one in sight as he scampered back through the small park. She contemplated driving up onto the grass, but decided against it.
She depressed the PA button and shouted, “Police, stop!” Her voice sounded far too shrill to her. It was no surprise that it only made the dark shadow run faster.
She accelerated and cut into a parking lot next to a row of houses. She drove straight at the fleeing suspect, who stopped suddenly and stared at her. She dynamited the brakes at the last second and the front end of her cruiser skidded to a stop. The push bar nudged the suspect. The young man’s eyes flew open, then narrowed with rage.
“Jesus!” Carson yelled at him.
“¡Puta!” he shouted back. Then he turned and sprinted for the nearby fence, vaulting over it into a back yard.
Carson sat in the driver’s seat, her heart pounding.
“Adam-128, I’ve lost both suspects,” Carson broadcasted.
Chisolm shrugged. He wasn’t surprised, but it didn’t matter much. There probably wasn’t a victim there, anyway. Just two guys duking it out. And now no officers were in danger, either.
“Baker-125,” Kahn transmitted. “I’m close to that strong-arm robbery. I’ll take the female victim.”
Chisolm snorted. Of course he would.
“Copy. Adam-112, you can disregard.”
Chisolm pressed the mike button. “Copy.”
He slowed down as he approached Monroe and turned off his overhead lights. Back to routine patrol.
Battaglia burned a card. “Ready for the river?” he asked.
Tretiak shrugged. “What is river?”
“The final card,” Battaglia said. “It’s called the river card.”
“Why river?”
“Fuck if I know. You ready?”
Tretiak nodded. “I ready.”
Battaglia flipped the card over. Eight of clubs. He tried not to smile. That gave him two pair, aces and eights.
“Three,” Tretiak announced, dropping the money into the center.
Battaglia considered. There were a number of hands that could still beat him. Any pocket pair that matched up, for instance. But that wasn’t the question. The question was could Tretiak be bluffing him?
He looked the wily Russian in the eye. Tretiak stared flatly, grinning at the same time. “Three,” he repeated.
The toilet flushed in the bathroom. Battaglia realized this might be the only betting hand they’d get if Leeb came out and kiboshed the whole thing. He was an FBI agent, after all. Battaglia had to decide. And there was no way he was going to back down. Not with top two pair.
He heard the water from the bathroom sink come on.
He reached for his own money.
A knock came at the door.
2210 hours
Carson shut off her overhead lights. After a moment’s thought she dumped her headlights, too. She pulled back onto the side street and rolled slowly along, watching for a shadowy figure moving in between houses.
She wanted to find this guy. She didn’t know what puta meant, but she doubted it was something good. But it was also a matter of proving herself. If people figured out what was going on with her and Battaglia, she knew they’d call her police abilities into question. It was a stupid thing, and a sexist thing, but she knew it was a very real thing.
Graveyard cops respected hard-edged police work. That meant catching bad guys. Sometimes it meant fighting them. Maybe she could get some of both on this call.
If she could find this son of a bitch.
Battaglia set his cards on the table face-down. He glanced away from the door to Tretiak.
“Did you order room service?”
The Russian shook his head.
“Pizza or something?”
“Nyet.”
Battaglia rose from his chair and walked cautiously toward the door.
The water in the bathroom shut off.
There was another knock at the door, no harder than the first.
“Don’t answer that!” Leeb called from the bathroom.
“I wasn’t going to,” Battaglia snapped. “I’m just going to look.”
He leaned forward and put his eye to the peephole.
As soon as Val saw the peephole darken, he fired three times. The .44 erupted, bucking in his hand with each shot. The wood splintered and tore with each blast.
Val stepped aside to make room for Black Ivan.
Battaglia’s world exploded. Concussions buffeted his chest. Sharp wood chunks bit into his face and throat.
He staggered back, staring stupidly at the door. Then he reached for his gun. As his hand came to rest on the handle he veered awkwardly to his right. His legs felt heavy, then suddenly weak.
He collapsed toward the wall as if in slow motion. His mind screamed out at him: “Let go of your gun and brace yourself!” But he couldn’t force his body to obey.
He crashed face-first into the wall and slid down sideways.
Black Ivan took a giant stride toward the door, a twelve-gauge shotgun
clutched in his huge hands. He drove his foot into the door just beside the handle.
“Go!” Val ordered, but he didn’t have to. The large Russian was already through the doorway. He gave the wounded cop a brief look, then walked right past him.
Oleg Tretiak had moved into the far corner. Black Ivan raised the shotgun.
“Wait!” Val ordered, following Ivan inside. Shots rang out before he could give a further order. Hot zipping sounds flew by him like angry hornets. Val didn’t hesitate. He turned his .44 on the bathroom door and returned fire. He emptied the revolver, moving deeper into the room as he fired.
Another shot answered his own, then two more.
Val flipped open the cylinder and reloaded. He caught Ivan’s eye and jerked his head toward the bathroom door.
Ivan fired at the door. The shotgun’s sharp booming filled the room, followed by the menacing racking sound and another shot. The rounds tore fist-sized holes in the flimsy bathroom door. Val heard the heavy thud of somebody falling into the shower door.
“Keep that covered,” he ordered.
Ivan nodded, keeping the shotgun trained on the bathroom door.
Val turned his attention to Oleg Tretiak, the traitor.
Battaglia saw red, then black.
He blinked.
The world became a hazy, bright fog. He saw a giant shape pause in front of him, then rumble past. He drew in a rasping, gurgling breath.
I’m shot.
Panic started to seep in. He tried to control it but it was like an avalanche. The sensation enveloped him. For a moment he thought it would grab onto him and drag him down into darkness. He could feel the constant pull at the edge of his consciousness, an insistent tug toward blackness.
He wanted to draw his gun and return fire, but he couldn’t move his hand. He couldn’t move at all. He could barely breathe.
Then the pain hit, fiery and pounding. He tried to cry out, but all he could manage was a wheezing whisper. What did all the training say? He forced his mind to focus on those in-service days, sitting in the academy classroom, watching videos about critical incidents, reading all of the officer-killed summaries. What did all of that tell him?
Simple. If you knew you’d been shot, you were still alive and would probably survive.
Survive, he thought. I have to survive.
More shots rang out, but he didn’t feel any impact. Maybe he was too far gone to feel the bullets hitting him. No, that couldn’t be it. The shots were missing him. Or they were meant for someone else.
He focused on his left hand. It dangled off his hip, just a few inches from his radio. He willed it to move. First, twitch the fingers. It seemed to take forever, but finally his first two fingers responded. He forced his hand upward to the radio on his belt. He fumbled blindly for the notch near the antenna. His index finger found it, skipped over the top, then dropped back inside.
Push the button, he told himself. Call for the cavalry.
He twitched his finger and pressed downward.
The huge booming sound of a shotgun erupted.
An alert tone came over the police radio. Chisolm immediately turned the volume up.
“Signal 98,” the dispatcher said, her tone elevated. “Signal 98, Officer Emergency.Officer Battaglia at the Quality Inn on North Division. Room 420.”
She repeated the broadcast a second time, but Chisolm was no longer listening. He engaged his lights and siren and punched the accelerator.
Val savored the moment as he took two steps toward Oleg. He flashed the traitor a cold, hard smile.
“Did you think we wouldn’t find you, musor?” he asked, his tone conversational.
Oleg shook his head. “I knew you probably would.”
“Why would you betray your own people?” Val asked.
“Sergey is a fool,” Oleg said. “He is too ambitious. He was going to cause all of us to go to prison.”
Val shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn’t explain why you would skim money from us.”
“Fuck Sergey, and fuck you,” Oleg snarled. “You barely even missed what little extra I took. You drive BMWs while my wife must work at the laundry. Why should I be loyal to that?”
Val raised the .44 and pointed it at his head. “Because we are your people,” he said simply.
“My family is my people.”
Val pressed his lips together. “Come with us now, if you want to live.”
Oleg spat on the carpet in front of Val.
He had to admire the man. He knew that a more painful, torturous death awaited him if he left the motel room. But most men would trade that death later for a few more moments of life now. Oleg had a warrior’s heart. A black, traitorous warrior’s heart.
“Stukach,” he said, and squeezed the trigger.
Oleg’s head jerked backward. Blood and brain matter speckled the wall behind him.
Val turned away before the body had even hit the ground. Ivan followed him out of the room with his weapon trained on the bathroom door, acting as a rear guard, just like so many times before.
In the hallway Val pulled down a fire alarm. A loud clanging bell filled the motel. He and Ivan took the stairs down to the first floor.
Clockwork, he thought. Now just out the side door to the sedan where Sergey and Yuri are waiting.
2211 hours
Chisolm broke the light at Francis and Division, barely slowing for cross traffic. He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a pickup truck skidding through the intersection. One second difference and he’d have T-boned Chisolm. Or the other way around.
The thought flit through his mind and was gone again. He focused on the motel that was still eight blocks ahead.
Carson drove faster than she ever imagined possible. She could hear sirens all around her.
“Fire is responding to an alarm at the Quality Inn,” the dispatcher announced.
Fire?An alarm? Carson didn’t have time to think about it as she approached an S-curve on Maple. She steered through the turn using both lanes.
High, low, high, she recited automatically, just as she’d done during emergency vehicle operations training at the academy.
She took a hard right onto Francis and headed east. She saw a fire truck rolling out of the station ahead of her at Jefferson. In what seemed like less than a second she was right up on the rear of it.
Carson dropped her foot onto the accelerator and whizzed around the huge fire engine without a second thought.
Val opened the car door and slid into the back seat while Ivan clambered into the front.
“How did it go?” Sergey asked, his voice a little strained.
Val started to answer when a bullet shattered the rear window. Sergey jerked forward, then tipped sideways toward Val. Sergey’s head flopped onto Val’s lap with a wet slap.
Yuri cursed and punched the accelerator.
Val looked up to see a slender man in a white shirt and tie shuffling toward the car. Bright red blood had soaked through his shirt from his right shoulder, and his right hand hung limply at his side, but he extended his black automatic pistol toward the car with his left. His expression was one of grim determination. He fired another shot.
An electric buzz whipped past Val’s face and struck the windshield.
Yuri cursed again.
Val raised his .44 and fired back several times. The fiery blasts from the muzzle blinded him momentarily, and then Yuri came to the corner of the building, where the savvy driver took a hard right and accelerated toward Division.
Chisolm heard the shots as soon as he pulled into the motel parking lot. He saw the flashes of gunfire around the corner reflecting against the trees to the rear of the hotel. He gunned the engine and slid his .40 caliber Glock from his holster.
As he rounded the corner he saw a solitary figure in a white business shirt staggering away from him. The man’s entire right sleeve was soaked through with blood.
Chisolm swung his car to a stop at an angle, slammed the gearshift in
to park, popped his door open, and planted his left foot on the pavement. He pointed his gun sight squarely center-mass in the middle of the man’s back.
“Police!” Chisolm boomed. “Don’t move!”
The man slowed, then lowered his left hand. Chisolm immediately recognized the black metal shape of a gun and his index finger shifted onto the trigger.
“Drop that gun!” he yelled at the man. “Drop it, or I’ll blow a fucking hole right through your spine!”
The man looked over his shoulder at Chisolm with a slightly dazed expression. Chisolm saw the clean-cut features and the loosely knotted tie. A lanyard hung from his neck, the identification card tucked into the shirt pocket. A small gold badge was on his belt just to the right of the buckle.
“Who are you?” Chisolm called to him, though he already knew the answer.
The question pierced the man’s confusion. “FBI,” he shouted back. “Special Agent Greg Leeb.” Then he pointed in the opposite direction with his gun. “They went that way. A white Mercedes. At least three suspects.”
Chisolm lowered his gun. “Are you all right?”
Agent Leeb nodded. “Go.”
Thomas Chisolm jumped back into his car and dropped the hammer.
2212 hours
“Take a left at Lyons,” Val ordered. “More cops will be coming. We need to get out of sight.”
Far ahead of them Val saw a large fire truck navigate the turn at Francis and Division. A smaller set of lights hurtled toward them from even closer. He looked back through the shattered rear window in time to see more red and blue lights pull out of the motel parking lot.
“Go left,” he repeated to Yuri.
Yuri didn’t answer, but swung the car in a hard left turn at Lyons, then sped up even more.
Val watched to see if either police car followed. The first one whipped past Lyons toward the motel.