Larsen approached as Rios-Parkinson got out of his SUV. His boss’s suit was a mess – it looked like he had spilled coffee on himself.
From inside the complex, there were bursts of gunfire and occasional screams. There was the dull thud of an explosion.
“Director, we have secured most of the compound with no casualties to our forces. A few of the subversives have locked themselves inside apartments. We are eliminating those one by one.” More gunfire erupted inside, and another explosion. Apparently they were using grenades.
“What have you found in the cleared areas so far?”
“Nothing yet,” said Larsen. “No hard drive. And we have not found their leader yet, this David Kaplan. He doesn’t match any of them.” Larsen pointed over to a row of covered bodies lying on the sidewalk, at least a dozen of them, with pairs of PSF tactical personnel carrying out several more. Dark, thin rivulets seeped out from underneath them and drained into the gutter.
There was more shooting from inside.
“Let me look at the dead ones. Our spies may be among them, but I doubt it. We would have casualties of our own if that were true.”
They began walking toward the field mortuary, the security team roughly clearing lesser PSF and PBI personnel from the Director’s path. A female wearing PSF tactical gear pulled back the tarps, exposing the faces of the dead, one after another. Several men. Several women. Some kids. And Jacob, shot through the windpipe, his eyes wide and afraid.
“What did you find?” Larsen asked; he had been coordinating the final assault on the top floors.
“No one important,” Rios-Parkinson relied. “The spies are not here. If they did escape the sector, they could not have done it with a vehicle so they likely did not get here before your forces did. They are still in Los Angeles, and without the hard drive. Find them.”
There was a commotion around them that the Director did not immediately understand; his security men brought their weapons to the ready position. Now people were pointing upwards. Rios-Parkinson looked up too.
A man stood on the edge of the rooftop above them. Rios-Parkinson could make out a skullcap. Larsen glanced at his tablet’s screen.
“I think that’s David Kaplan,” he whispered.
“Get him,” Rios-Parkinson said, and Larsen turned away, shouting orders into his radio.
David stood on the edge of the rooftop for a moment, his eyes closed, his mouth moving as if he was speaking. Was it…a prayer? Rios-Parkinson watched fascinated – the man really believed all his superstitious nonsense.
David tumbled forward, rolling in the air, hitting squarely on the spiked fence. The crowd gasped – there was no question of him having survived.
“It has to still be in there. Find it,” Rios-Parkinson said, staring at the body. But Larsen had the radio to his ear, listening. He put the radio down.
“There has been a reported shooting of two PSF officers somewhere to the west, near Fairfax and Rosewood. It’s a confused situation, but all units not engaged here are responding.”
“It has to be them,” said Rios-Parkinson. “Send everyone available. Seal off the entire area for a dozen blocks. Go house to house. Kick in every door. Find them. And kill them. No prisoners. Do you understand me?”
“Absolutely, Director.”
Rios-Parkinson savored the feeling or relief, the feeling of victory. They did not have the hard drive. He would find it. And he would find them.
But Larsen was overcome with a deep unease, and against his better judgment, he shared it. “There’s a story about the Jews. They were surrounded on a hilltop by Romans. There was no way out, so they killed themselves rather than being taken alive. It was called Masada.”
Rios-Parkinson looked at his deputy with a measure of disgust.
“So?”
“I was just thinking that the Jews, well, they’re still around. And the Romans…they aren’t.”
Rios-Parkinson’s face was stony and blank. “Just find me the hard drive.”
Turnbull and Junior crossed Wilcox toward the PSF building, which looked like it was probably an edgy harbinger of the not-too-distant future when it was built in the 1960s. It had gone downhill considerably since, and had been partially rebuilt after the post-Split rioting had destroyed some of it. The old Los Angeles Police Department signage was all pulled down, replaced with the words “People’s Security Force” on the dirty brick face. A central stairwell led up to the public entrance where a dim light shone.
“Put in your plugs,” Turnbull said, jamming the plastic baffles into his ear canals. There were some people wandering about – none uniformed – but the two men in what looked like plainclothes carrying weapons and wearing old, black plate-carrying vests that had “PSF” spray-painted on the front and back in yellow drew little notice.
They reached the sidewalk and Turnbull charged his weapon. Junior did the same.
“Don’t come back out the front if you can help it,” Turnbull said. “Find the keys, head to the south side, come out in the lot.”
“Okay.”
Turnbull checked his watch. “It’s 10:43. If I am not out there in the impound lot at 10:53, you take your sister and get the fuck out of here. Don’t come after me. If I’m not there it’s because I’m dead.”
“Okay.”
They turned up the steps to the public entrance. Inside, a blue sat at a counter typing something, taking no notice. A few sad, dour people sat on bench seats lining the foyer.
“Hard and fast,” Turnbull said, and pushed open the front door.
The PSF officer looked up and Turnbull opened fire with a burst into his upper chest. He spilled backwards out of his chair. The attackers rushed forward, heedless of the civilians screaming and taking cover around them.
Behind the counter was an empty work area with two doors. One read “IMPOUND OPERATIONS” and went off the rear. The other read “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”
Junior leapt the low barrier and went to the dead officer’s work station, looking for, finding, and then pushing a green button. There was a buzz, and Turnbull, weapon up, pulled open the “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” door. It opened to a long hallway occupied by three PSF officers who were rushing forward, one with her Beretta out, two more struggling to remove theirs from their holsters.
Turnbull squeezed off a burst one-handed, then rushed through the door and raised the weapon to his ready position, firing again. The walls erupted with geysers of plaster and dust as the first officer staggered back under the impact. Turnbull fired again, at face level, and the other two went down as well. There were doors along the hallway which turned left at the end. Turnbull charged down, trying to cover any angle of potential attack. A blue with a mug stood stunned in an office as he passed; Turnbull fired again and he went backwards and crashed over a desk, blood and coffee mingling on his stomach. The M4’s bolt locked back and Turnbull seamlessly replaced the magazine, hundreds of training iterations in the close quarter battle houses at Bragg paying off.
Despite the plugs, his ears were ringing. He reached the end of the corridor and sliced the turn left 15 degrees at a time. Another long hallway, and two more PSF officers were in it. He fired and could make out the center mass impacts on the first one. The second got off a shot, then a second with his Beretta. They were wild – Turnbull had no idea where they went, glad only it was not into him. His next burst caught the shooter in the upper chest, neck, and face.
There was a sign – just what he was looking for. It said a number of things, but he paid attention to “CELLS,” “EVIDENCE LOCKER” and “ARMS ROOM.” The arrow for all three pointed down the hall. Weapon ready, Turnbull moved out.
Junior let go the buzzer and stood back, looking for a telephone box. It was there, in the rear of the front office. He raised the M4 and shot it to ribbons. No more calls, in or out.
Then he raised his weapon and kicked open the “IMPOUND OPERATIONS” door, finding no one inside. On the wall was a mounted key box. Someone
had lost the key to it long ago, and jimmied the lock with a screwdriver. Letting his M4 hang by its sling across his chest, Junior started flipping through the two dozen sets of car keys and the paper labels clipped to them. There was a hell of a lot of firing going on elsewhere in the building. He stepped it up.
The labels told the color, make and model, and Junior was indecisive for a moment until he saw one marked “RESERVED FOR LT WINFREY.” He looked over the label. It was an old brown Ford Explorer, a 2018. Perfect. If the lieutenant was going to steal it for himself, it was probably good to go. He took the keyless remote and put it in his pocket.
Weapon up, he went to the door that led back into the front office and pushed it open gently. Two PSF, pistols out, were screaming at the civilians, who could not seem to respond coherently. Junior took a deep breath and went through the door.
The PSF officers’ eyes went to him before their weapons did, the last tactical error of their lives. Junior put a burst into the farthest one, then pivoted to the second PSF officer as his Beretta came up and squeezed the trigger. The 5.56 mm rounds stitched the blue from navel to neck, and he arced backwards, muscle spasms causing the dead officer’s trigger finger to squeeze off a couple of rounds into the wall before he fell dead on his back.
The half dozen civilians on the floor of the foyer shrieked in terror.
“Get the fuck out! Out!” Junior yelled. After a moment, they rose as one and crowded the front door as they sprinted for the street.
Junior returned to look at the dead officer’s desk. There was a public address microphone, just as they had expected, probably used to page people to the front. Junior keyed it.
“Attention Hollywood station!” – there was a burst of rifle fire somewhere in back – “We are under attack by racist terrorists! They are dressed as uniformed officers! Repeat: They are dressed as uniformed PSF officers! Engage them whenever you see them!”
Junior threw down the mic and hit the buzzer. At the same time, he stretched to reach for the door, just barely grabbing the handle and pulling it open. Gun up, he went inside where Turnbull had been.
That guy squatting behind the desk in the office off the second hallway was actually putting up some resistance, Turnbull admitted to himself as he sat on the dirty linoleum floor pulling a fresh mag out of his vest and inserting it in his M4’s well. Three more shots from a handgun slammed into the closed door across from the open doorway to the office where the gunman lurked. Turnbull could try to leap past the doorway and just bypass the guy, but you don’t want an armed and determined enemy behind you.
“Fuck it,” he said and leveled his carbine at the dirty, light green-painted wall about 18 inches above the floor in the general direction of his nemesis and fired off the entire 30-round magazine. Wafting fingers of smoke and a cloud of pulverized plaster rose in the hallway as he tossed away the empty mag and replaced it with a full one. There was a slight groan from the office, then nothing. Turnbull got to his feet and kept moving toward the arms room.
A few yards ahead, a uniformed PSF officer, clearly wounded, stepped out of an office, firing back into it. There was a moan, then silence from inside. The officer was unsteady and fell. Turnbull noted two chest wounds. Inside, sprawled on the linoleum floor, was another uniformed PSF the officer. The thug with the chest wounds had killed him.
“Nice job, Junior,” Turnbull muttered.
He pressed forward, scanning for targets, until he came to the arms room. Someone had opened it up, because the door was wide and the light was on. A PSF officer stood outside yelling something – it was hard to hear through the ringing and the plugs but it sounded like “Rifle!” Turnbull lit him up and charged into the open door. Another officer was fumbling with keys to unlock a rack of M4s; he dropped the keys to try to draw his pistol, but Turnbull shot him too. Alone, as he reloaded, he looked around the room.
“Fucking A,” he said, delighted.
Turnbull let his M4 fall across his chest, supported by its sling, as he grabbed a canvas bag off the shelf. He ignored the AK ammo and helped himself to some of the loaded M4 mags sitting in a cardboard box on the arms room clerk’s desk.
Then his eyes alighted on something even more interesting.
It was a wooden crate, the top pried open, with the words “Grenade, Fragmentation, M67.” Someone had spray-painted on the top “Tactical Squad Use Only.”
“Oh, hell yes,” he said, stepping forward.
But from behind, a voice, “Come on, man, get me a fucking AK or M4! I need a rifle!” It was a PSF officer, with two tear drop tatts below his left eye, fearfully looking back down the hall.
“Well, the M4 is technically a carbine.”
“What?” replied the blue, incredulous.
“The M4 is a carbine. Ah, whatever.” Turnbull drew his Glock in a smooth motion, double tapped him center mass, then finished him with a round to the forehead. The blue dropped, and Turnbull went back to gathering up hand grenades. After all, in all his adventures, he had never found himself unhappy about being too well-armed.
There were three dead PSF officers in the hallway as Junior moved down it, weapon up. There was much more shooting from the back of the building – pistol shots too. Apparently someone was fighting back. He pressed on, looking for a sign to direct him. There was one at the intersection with another long corridor, which was likewise occupied by several dead thugs. The impound lot was through a door to his right. Gun up, he pushed it open. There was a short corridor ending in a windowed steel door. The windowed door opened to the outside. And by the door was a control box that read “GATE OPEN/CLOSE.”
Hitting the button, Junior went through the door into the night air, standing on a concrete patio from which a few stairs led down to the impound lot. The 12 foot high chain link fence was opening with a low grrrrrrrr. There was the barest hint of a siren in the distance; he could still hear occasional shots from inside, but the brick exterior walls muffled the sound. Outside, on Wilcox, people were gathering. They just stood there, watching, quiet. For now.
He hit the keyless remote button and there was a beep and a flash of lights. The Explorer. He headed down the stairs.
Down the hall from the arms room, Turnbull took one of the grenades out of the bag and pulled the pin, throwing it underhanded back inside. Then he ran and covered his ears. Before leaving the arms room he had made sure to smash every bottle of gun cleaner on the shelves, so the bone-shaking explosion of the Composition B in the grenade was complimented by the flammability of the cleaning fluid. The arms room erupted in flames, with the remaining ammo almost immediately beginning to cook off.
He headed toward the small cellblock where they held short term prisoners before either letting them go with a beating or transferring them downtown for more extensive abuse. In the cell room was an unarmed, dumpy PSF officer cowering behind a counter – no guns in the cellblock.
“You,” Turnbull said, M4 leveled at her head. “They brought in a kid tonight. Where is he?”
She stuttered something incoherent, terrified. She was used to cuffed and cowed prisoners, not this.
“Listen, I will fucking shoot you. Where’s the kid?”
She continued to stutter.
“Shit,” he said. “Okay, we’re going back in there. Open all the cells.”
She stood, her jaw quivering.
“Do it! Three, two.…”
She leaned forward and hit several buttons. Somewhere back behind her, through the door marked “CELLBLOCK” there was clanging and whirring. Turnbull grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her through.
It smelled like a sewer had shit another sewer back there. There was a row of a dozen cells, and all the doors were wide open. Some of the inhabitants were stepping tentatively outside, looking around. There was not a one that did not look like he or she had been worked over.
Turnbull shoved the officer forward and covered her with his carbine. “Abraham! Abraham, come out! We’re leaving!” The other prisoners sta
red, numb.
Down at the end, a young boy’s head peeked around the corner. He had a black eye.
“Remember me, Abraham? We’re going. I’m taking you out of here.”
Abraham blinked, then started to approach.
“Come on, run, we gotta go. All of you, you’re free! Get out of here! Go! Before this place burns down!”
But the prisoners seemed less interested in leaving than in the guard. They surrounded her, silently, and she began to babble and step backwards. They kept coming.
Abraham reached Turnbull and he took the kid by the upper arm and pulled him out the door. The last thing he saw was one of the prisoners raise her fist and bring it down on the guard’s face. As he turned and pushed the kid out into the hallway, he could hear her incoherent screaming through his plugs.
Junior opened the door of the brown Explorer and jumped into the driver’s seat. It started right up – the lieutenant had good taste in what he stole from other citizens. It even had a full tank of gas – probably courtesy the PSF’s own pumps – and the range indicator estimated 413 miles, which should be more than enough.
He pulled it out of the stall and over to the gate. Leaving it to idle, he got out and ran around to the fence to wave to Amanda up the street to come on over. The cruiser’s engine turned over, and Junior turned around to head back to the Explorer.
The buckshot hit the ground low in front of him; his left leg was technically struck by three ricocheting pellets. The gunner was a PSF officer with an ancient Remington 870 about 50 yards up in the dark of the road kneeling to take the shot. Limited practice had limited his effectiveness. If he had been better trained he might have come close to taking off the leg entirely, if not killing him outright. Still, Junior was now on the ground tangled in his carbine’s sling and trying to draw his Glock.
Around them, a growing audience of civilians watched from the darkness.
The PSF thug smiled as he stood up and racked another double aught shell into the chamber and prepared to empty it into Junior’s head. He got two steps before the cruiser slammed into him at 30 miles per hour, snapping his femurs and fracturing his skull on the light bar when he flipped over the roof.
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