Black Fall

by Andrew Mayne

  Forty minutes later, an older Metro cop who looks to be on the verge of retirement unlocks the gate and lets us into the police impound yard, which overlooks the Potomac River at the south end of the city. He leads us through rows of cars with his flashlight and fills us in.

  “The van was stolen about a week ago. They found it yesterday in a parking garage near Union Station. Plates were gone. A quick field fingerprint inspection didn’t find anything, but they only check the steering wheel and the door handles in a case like this.” He stops at a blue cargo van. “Here we go.”

  It’s about as anonymous looking as you could imagine. I inspect the side door with my light while Aileen has a look at the driver’s seat. The Metro cop leans against a Cadillac and has a smoke.

  If Bogden and Steadman were killed, the convenient thing would have been to have a van parked right near the building to haul them away. Immediately across from the entrance to the building would be best. That way, their murderers minimize the number of witnesses and are able to move the bodies quickly.

  If that was the setup and they were shot with a high-powered rifle from the top of the stairs, the bullets would have gone straight through and into whatever was behind them. In this situation, the side of the van. Unfortunately for my theory, the exterior is intact.

  So far, all I have is a stolen van. It was a little optimistic of me to think the first stolen vehicle we inspected would be the actual one we’re looking for. I lean against the door and try to think of some other solution.

  Aileen raps on the window from the inside, startling me.

  “Hey genius, you know these things can move?” She points to the door.

  I grab the handle and swing it open. Her flashlight is aimed at the floor. There are two distinct holes about a foot apart.

  She taps a gloved finger next to one. “If the bullets aren’t in the undercarriage, I’ll bet you anything they ricocheted into the street outside of where we were looking.”

  I suppress a grin. It’s good to be right, but being right also means that not only are two men dead, they’ve been wrongly maligned by the rest of the world.

  To be sure, I inspect the holes in the van more closely, making sure they’re not just rust stains. I know not to touch them. There could be flecks of blood we could match to Bogden and Steadman. If we can find their DNA in the van, then maybe people will start listening to me.

  I give Aileen an approving nod. “Still think I’m crazy?”

  “More than ever. Now I know it’s contagious.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Snare

  Aileen and I are sitting in an SUV on a road near the industrial park where the CCA building is located. There’s a highway a few hundred feet away and a line of trees off to the shoulder. The moon is hidden by clouds, so the only light is from the street lamps, which are stretched a little too thinly to provide full coverage. I keep a steady watch on the road ahead of us, as well as the rearview mirror.

  Aileen taps her passenger window. “Did you know President Roosevelt used Al Capone’s car to get around after he made his Pearl Harbor speech announcing we were at war? It was the only armored car the Secret Service could find.”

  “Really?” I reply.

  “No.” She shakes her head. “People say that. But it’s an urban legend.”

  “That Capone had an armored car?” I ask.

  “No. He had one. Three thousand pounds of armor. The man was paranoid.”

  “I can relate. I wouldn’t mind having one for personal use. I imagine the gas mileage is rough, though.”

  “You ever thought about a different line of work?” Aileen asks.

  “I like this work. Mostly.” I keep telling myself this. “Why do you ask?”

  She turns to me. “Well, it’s not normal to have this many people want to kill you. You know that?”

  “I’ve met some DEA agents at a survivor meeting I sometimes go to who’d say otherwise. I know some cops in Mexico who won’t even let other members of their department know their faces. But yeah, I get your point. I never expected to be this in the thick of things. Marta, the woman behind the gang X-20, it was never really personal with her. I was just a badge that saw something. After we ID’d her, that was the end of it.”

  “You sure about that?” asks Aileen.

  “No,” I admit. “At the time, I was worried that the Warlock, I mean Heywood, was after me. His psycho buddy tried to push me out of an airplane.”

  “I heard. I read up on you.”

  Gerald interrupts us over the open radio. “Black Rabbit, we have a silver Prius coming your way. Out-of-state plates. We’re running them now.”

  Aileen and I both tighten our grips on the guns in our laps.

  Three hours ago, I had Gerald leave a message in Ezra Winter’s Draft folder as bait for Bogden and Steadman’s shooters, who we think are also the killers from the farmhouse. It’s a long shot. But right now, we’ll take any chance we can get. Even if it means using me as a prize.

  The message said I was on a stakeout without backup. It’s a gamble, but hopefully one they can’t risk not taking. Our goal is to get them to make a move while we can still control things.

  Aileen had insisted on sitting in the car with me. She said it’d be more realistic if I was on a two-person stakeout than if I was by myself. I feel horrible putting her in harm’s way. It’s a dumb plan, but we’re shorthanded.

  “It’s clear,” says Gerald.

  Gerald is in another unmarked car hidden at the far end of the road. His job is to look for any cars with stolen plates, or that fit descriptions of recently stolen vehicles, and run them through a computer before they get to us. He’s set up a license plate recognition camera to track everything that drives by. Nadine and Jennifer are at the opposite end of the road, doing the same. If they see a suspicious car, the plan is for them to intercept it before the suspects reach Aileen and me. We’re here just for show. If the shooters are smart, and so far they have been, they’ll try to spot us first, probably from the highway, and then decide if they’re going to get closer.

  “Yeah. I kind of pissed him off,” I say, retracing our conversation back to the Warlock. “He didn’t like me spoiling his game. When X-20 tried to kill me, he went out of his way to tell me it wasn’t him.”

  “That was nice of him,” she says drily.

  “Yeah . . .” I think about the fact we haven’t heard anything from him lately. I’d like to believe this is because the Texas prison he’s in has him locked down good. But I know that’s not true. If a Luddite like Ezra Winter can get messages through to the outside, Heywood shouldn’t have a problem. It’d be easy for him to communicate without us or even his attorneys knowing. And it’s not like it’s hard to find a guard in those prisons who’s willing to smuggle in a cell phone or carry out messages.

  This is what’s really frustrating to me. We work hard to lock the bad guys up, but all it takes to make our lives complicated is one crooked prison employee to poke a hole in security.

  “So you don’t think he’s involved in this?” Aileen asks.

  “I don’t know. It’d mean I have one less person trying to kill me. But there’s no connection between him and the Red Chain. What makes Heywood interesting is that as intelligent as he is he just doesn’t have the charisma of a guy like Ezra Winter. Heywood had to pull off big spectacles because nobody would pay attention to him otherwise. He’s smart, real smart, but he’s really just a sociopathic nerd.” I go back and forth on this argument every ten minutes in my head.

  “Who wants to kill you.” Aileen says sympathetically. She’s trying to wrap her mind around all this. For her, being a cop is supposed to be a job you do, then go home. It doesn’t follow her. For me, it’s consumed my life.

  I sigh. “Pretty much.”

  “Like I said, you ever think about a different line of work?”

  “Think they’d let me be?” I ask, genuinely curious to hear her point of view.

  “
Maybe Heywood has it in for you for a different reason than revenge,” she says.

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m just a city detective, not a fancy-pants FBI agent, but even I know some killers are strategic. Like that X-20 bitch. Maybe Heywood just wants you off the chessboard? More a tactical than personal motive?”

  I’ve heard the chessboard description used before. Back when I first went after the Warlock, he’d attempted to manipulate the media to draw attention to me so my superiors would pull me from the case. When that didn’t work, and we caught him, he flat-out tried to have me killed. I’m not sure what advantage he would gain by having me murdered now. He would still be in jail, and prosecutors don’t need me to build their case.

  “Well, he’s in prison. Not sure what the point now would be. They don’t really need me for a trial.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t plan on staying there,” Aileen replies.

  “We’ve got enough to tie him up in court for years on appeals.”

  “Maybe he’s not looking for a legal solution. Either way, if I were him and I got out, I’d feel better knowing you weren’t on my tail.”

  Aileen makes sense. I’ve thought this over a lot, but I’ve avoided expressing it because it makes things . . . complicated.

  “Yeah, well we don’t have much indication he has any personal pull outside of prison. Like I said, he’d love to be a cult leader, but he lacks the talent.”

  “Black sedan going fast!” Gerald shouts over the radio. “No plates!”

  Aileen and I scoot lower in our seats and crane our necks to see behind us. The road is still empty.

  “We’re going to flash the blues,” Gerald says. “Snare Two?”

  “We’re heading toward you!” says Nadine.

  A half mile ahead, I spot the blue light on their dashboard as it flares on and they roar out of their hiding place. Behind us, the lights of the sedan race down the road. Farther back, Gerald and his pursuit cruiser give chase.

  “They’re not stopping!” he shouts.

  The sedan quickly closes the distance between us. It’s almost parallel. Aileen and I pull on the bulletproof helmets that go with the Kevlar we’re wearing, and I draw my pistol.

  All I can think about is how I don’t want to shoot my gun in here. It’d be loud. Real loud.

  But the sedan takes a slight turn to avoid us, and keeps going. Its windows are too dark for me to see through them.

  It skids across the asphalt and heads straight on toward Nadine and Jennifer’s pursuit car. At the last second, the driver swerves onto the easement and goes around them.

  Gerald flies past. Nadine and Jennifer do a U-turn, and chase after them.

  “Should we pursue?” Aileen asks.

  I have a horrible feeling the sedan was a trick. Something inside me screams to get the car started and moving.

  It’s too late.

  Before I can get the car in gear, a man dressed in all-black body armor runs from the bushes into the middle of the road aiming a high-powered machine gun at us. He tosses a smoke grenade under our car, and we’re engulfed in darkness.

  Then the shooting starts.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Seizure

  Bullets shoot through the windshield in a burst of automatic gunfire. Shards of glass rain down on Aileen and me, angrily striking our exposed faces like hail. The noise is deafening, like being inside a garbage can with a brick of firecrackers.

  She and I exchange glances, hoping for a pause long enough to return fire. But the shots are unrelenting, and we’re trapped. This was not the plan.

  “Black Rabbit, are you under fire?” Gerald calls out.

  “Affirmative!” I yell over the sound of bullets and breaking glass.

  “Snare Two, we’re going back to Black Rabbit!” Gerald shouts to Nadine and Jennifer.

  “Roger. We’ve got a bailout!” says Nadine. “Pursuing on foot!”

  “Mother Ship? Are you there?” Gerald asks.

  “Affirmative,” replies the pilot of the FBI chopper that is holding back from our location.

  “Please assist Snare Two!”

  “Roger that.”

  Christ. This is a fuckup.

  Finally, the shooting stops as he reloads. I reach for the door handle, ready to bail out and create a distraction so Aileen can get away. She sees what I’m about to do and grabs my wrist, stopping me.

  Two seconds later, he’s shooting at us again. The bullets come from a different angle, through the side windows to hit the body of the car with a metal ping. The only reason we’re still alive right now is that Aileen had a brainstorm in the police impound yard. The SUV we’re in isn’t standard police issue. It’s one they seized from a drug dealer. The body is made of reinforced armor and the glass is bulletproof—up to a point. We’re moments away from him figuring out our little survival trick, because the rounds are going to make their way through real quick as soon as he finds a weak spot, or gets a higher angle. If he’s as smart as they’ve been so far, then Aileen and I are going to die.

  Something hits the back of my neck as the gunfire stops, and I flinch.

  Aileen doesn’t.

  The split second the glass in the back window starts to shatter, she pops up and fires her whole magazine through the now-open rear, then ducks back down to reload.

  “You okay?” I yell.

  “Far as I know!”

  Shots continue to echo from outside the car, but they’re not hitting us. She may have got him.

  The rearview mirror sits on the center console, and I use it to see over the dashboard through the dissipating smoke. The man in black armor fires at me again, then staggers toward the blue lights of an oncoming police car. But before he can raise his rifle, he’s struck at about fifty miles an hour. He slams into the hood with a thunk. As the cruiser skids to a halt, the shooter flies off the bumper and rolls across the highway like a discarded toy.

  “Goddamn,” Aileen says, peering out of the window.

  “It’s the fall that gets you,” I reply.

  “Our suspect just got onto a motorcycle and is heading westbound on the highway,” Nadine calls into the radio.

  “Mother Ship is in pursuit. Did you say westbound?” asks the pilot.

  Crap. They already lost the other man.

  I open the door and crouch low. Gerald has swung his car around, aiming his headlights at the crumpled man on the ground. I have my gun pointed at the body, but I’m keeping my eyes open for a third shooter. Anything is possible at this point. Another police escort rolls to a stop exactly where the man had stood a few seconds ago. Gun held tightly in my hands, I approach. His rifle lies in the grass.

  “Stay back,” Gerald says as he gets out.

  It takes a moment to realize he’s talking to me.

  I hold up, and keep a paranoid watch on the trees as Aileen pulls the magazine from the machine gun and clears the chamber.

  The man on the ground twitches.

  “Face down!” Gerald screams.

  The man moves his arm weakly.

  Gerald closes the distance between them and aims his gun at the man’s face. With his left hand, he rolls the man onto his stomach. The police officer from the other car runs over to keep the man covered as Gerald pulls a pistol free and searches him for other weapons. He then cuffs the man, and rolls him onto his back.

  Normally you wouldn’t touch somebody in a situation like this, but normally your accident victims haven’t just fired a machine gun at an FBI agent, and don’t have what look like grenades strapped to their chest.

  “Ambulance is four minutes away,” says the police officer.

  Gerald pulls the shooter’s helmet free and checks his pulse. “He might make it.”

  I run back over to the SUV and pull out the bandages I keep in my purse. It’s become a habit of mine lately to have medical tape and gauze there, just in case.

  Aileen managed to shoot the man in the neck. Gerald is pressing his hand on the
wound to keep the man from bleeding out. There’s another wound in his shoulder, which I grasp with my left hand. My gun is still in my right.

  The man looks up at me. His eyes are glistening. A terrible wheezing is coming from his lungs. God knows what the impact did.

  “Is this the man from the train?” Gerald asks.

  I shake my head. “No.”

  The man coughs up a bubble of saliva and blood. I don’t know if he’ll make it to the hospital.

  “Why are you trying to kill me?” I ask.

  His face spasms.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  His eyes begin to focus, and he looks at me.

  More coughing.

  I don’t ask him any more questions. I don’t want his last breath to be a lie.

  A paramedic steps in to take over. Gerald and I go to the side of the road to keep watch.

  “The other man?” I ask.

  “The helicopter lost track of him. Jennifer says they found another bike in the woods near the highway here.”

  “How did we miss that?”

  “We were looking for parked cars. My mistake,” he says, ashamed.

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be stupid. You did great. If I hadn’t listened to you and Aileen, I’d be dead right now.”

  I move away to give him some space and realize Aileen is standing by herself at the back of our SUV. She’s staring at the ground, watching the paramedics work on the shooter as they get ready to put him on a stretcher. I know that feeling. I go over to her.

  “You saved our lives,” I tell her.

  “Then how come I feel like shit?” Her eyes are welling up.

  “Because you have a soul.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders and squeeze. “You did real good. I froze. You didn’t. You saved our lives. Between taking the shot and suggesting we use the tank, you’re a heck of a cop.”

  I continue to hold her, never taking my eyes off the shooter.

  “How do you get used to it?” she finally asks.

  “You just do,” I lie. “You just do.”

  As I pull away, I notice Gerald is looking at the man on the stretcher with the same expression as Aileen’s. I don’t know if I should hug him or high-five him because we got a bad guy. I’m not sure how men really feel about this kind of thing.