The Vanquished

by David Putnam

  “Wait, that’s not all of it. That heist went down on the grade just outside of Barstow.”

  He shook his head in wonder. “Yes, yes, I agree with you, this has got to be our guy. But what does the ATF agent have to do with it? And if Jumbo took the drone for Bobby Ray, why was Jumbo making the pickup for the fifty-thousand-dollar payoff?”

  I shrugged. “Jumbo told me that he got popped trading some guns for dope and was working the case off. That is, if he’s tellin’ the truth. But you’re right, it doesn’t make sense. I want to talk to Jumbo again.”

  “Not with McCarty,” Dan said. “He’s a straight shooter, and we checked into him. He’s not involved.” Dan glossed right over my comment about talking to Jumbo. I could get more out of Jumbo than Dan could. I didn’t have to follow the Miranda decision and read him his rights or play nice.

  “Try the name Larry Gerber,” I said. “Put another couple of teams on an agent named Larry Gerber.”

  He typed some more notes into his phone as he said, “I’ve had the whole damn LA office working on this for the better part of two months and we get zip. You roll into town and in one day you—” He stopped abruptly and instead said, “Hey, I know it’s asking a lot, but I need you to stay with this thing, get close to Bobby Ray.”

  He waited for me to agree to do it. I couldn’t, not with a baby on the way. It would be irresponsible and unfair to Marie.

  When I didn’t say yes, he continued. “Bobby Ray’s too savvy to tail. He does countersurveillance all the time, even on days we’re not on him. And he’s good at it. Once he makes one of us on his tail, he just shuts down for the day and tries again later.”

  Dan had just made another slip, a small one. How could he know Bobby Ray did countersurveillance even on days the FBI wasn’t up on him unless he had someone on the inside of the Goths?

  “You Lojack his car or bike?” I asked.

  “Won’t do any good, he never drives the same vehicle. He’ll pull eight cars with tinted windows into that factory of his, close the doors, open them ten minutes later, and have them all leave at once. He really knows what he’s doing. From the conversation I heard this morning, it sounds like you’re in tight with him already, at least for right now anyway.”

  I again caught something in his tone. “What?” I asked. “What’s goin’ on?” My paranoia continued to eat away at me. Paranoia and guilt are not great bedfellows.

  He didn’t answer the question. He took a smartphone out of his pocket and said, “Here, use this to contact me anytime day or night.”

  I didn’t take it. “I haven’t said I’d do it yet. I can’t, not now, not right now.”

  The yet part of me must’ve given him his true answer. He continued as if I’d already said yes. “This phone’s all set up to look like a regular phone, with contacts, apps, previous calls, the whole thing. I can also track where you go. If you get in over your head, there’s a panic button right here on the side.” He pointed to it. “Press it down once, let off, then press it a second time and hold it for ten seconds. But only do it in dire circumstances, because I’ll be rolling in hot with two teams to pull you out. We don’t want to burn this op too soon, not unless we absolutely have to. I don’t need to tell you how important this is.”

  “I guess it won’t do any good to say it again, I don’t wanna do it.”

  He didn’t answer. He just gave me the Dan Chulack look that said you don’t want to mess with the FBI.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  “ALL RIGHT. ALL right,” I said. “Marie’s not gonna like this one damn bit. I’m gonna have to lay the whole thing off on you.”

  He smiled. “Go ahead.” Then he grew serious again. “I’m sorry about this, Bruno, but this operation is too important. There’s a lot at stake here.”

  Yeah, but I was the one with the most skin in the game, not him. I wanted to throw down the pregnancy card, but that wouldn’t have been right.

  “I said all right.” I held up the phone he’d given me. “But this idea won’t work at all. They’re not dumb; they’ll just pull the battery.”

  “Let them. In fact, do it yourself, show them so they won’t take the phone from you. With this phone, there’s a secondary GPS with an independent power supply. All you have to do is find out when the trade is going down—the money for the drone and the Hellfires—that’s it. Then you get that info to me. We’ll handle the rest.”

  “Really, that’s it? That’s all?” He didn’t bite on my sarcasm.

  My mind spun trying to figure a way out of this mess. What choice did I have?

  None.

  Right at that moment, all I wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep. Sleep for another two or three days with Marie snuggled up beside me.

  The sun seemed brighter than I ever remember it being, and I had to continually focus to keep the contents of my stomach down, the pretzel and orange soda no longer my friends.

  He didn’t mention Disneyland, the largest soft target in the Western States. Everyone in law enforcement stepped easy around that one. If you didn’t talk about it, maybe it wouldn’t happen.

  All those children visiting. The happiest place on earth.

  What would four Hellfire missiles do to a crowded theme park? The symbolism—and worse, the exposure of America’s vulnerability—would strike terror in every household for a generation. No, I truly didn’t have any choice, not this time.

  I started to walk away.

  “Bruno?”

  I stopped and turned, no more than five feet from him.

  He lowered his tone as he closed the gap between us. “There’s video of you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The CHP patrol unit shot video; a unit cam was running during the whole incident. The cop was wired with a microphone linked to the camera, got the whole thing.”

  My knees went weak. I swayed and might’ve fallen if Dan hadn’t grabbed hold of my arm. “Steady, pal.” I thought I had a little more time before the investigators processed the scene for trace evidence and the fingerprints I left behind.

  My mouth hung open as I nodded. “Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say as I worked through the shock of it.

  My dirty little secret wasn’t a secret anymore. Dan knew and hadn’t said anything right up front when we’d started our conversation. He knew exactly how this information would impact what I had to do—infiltrate the Visigoths. He held this card to throw right at the last, after I’d already agreed to do his little blackbag job. I’d been manipulated by a pro and didn’t like it, not from someone who I thought of as honest and loyal, a friend. He had been all of those things, just not to me but to his job. I tried to think if I’d been that ruthless back when I worked with informants. I hadn’t, not even close. What Dan did, the way he withheld vital information concerning the operation until he got what he wanted, mirrored exactly what Robby Wicks would’ve done. I liked Dan a little less for it.

  I didn’t have any argument left in me and resigned myself to just getting the thing done so we could go home.

  “How’s the cop doing?” I asked.

  “She made it. She’s going to be okay.”

  “Good, that’s good.” I swallowed hard. “What’s her name?”

  I didn’t know why I had a need to know that. Maybe putting a name to her face would help a little with the guilt over the kid getting tossed out into traffic.

  “Clevenger, Kris Clevenger. Her husband is a member of LA County Sheriff’s prison gang task force.”

  I nodded, let that sink in a little. “Have I been identified yet, I mean by anybody but you?”

  “No, but it’s just a matter of time. Clevenger’s husband has a lot of juice, and I can’t imagine him being deterred too long. The CHP made copies and was going to send it around to every law enforcement agency in Southern California to try and identify you. They know you’re an ex-cop by the way you handled yourself.”

  “Damn, why are they even looking? I didn’t brea
k any laws.”

  “You know why, for their investigation. They need a statement to wrap it up nice and tight. Come on, think about it, you shot and killed someone. So, of course, they’d need your statement.”

  “That shooting was absolutely justified.”

  He held up his hands. “No question about it.” He hesitated, and then said, “There’s something else.”

  “What? What else could there be?”

  “They want to thank you.”

  “They’ll wanna thank me, alright, until they find out who I am. Then they’ll throw my sorry ass in prison for the rest of my life. I didn’t get involved with that whole mess so someone could thank me.”

  The irony of the entire situation—standing next to an FBI agent while I had a load of warrants in the system, my wanted poster in every post office in the U.S., and me worrying about being outed—wasn’t lost on me.

  I thought about it for a second more and then said, “You know how that hangs me out on this thing, if any of the Visigoths see the video? They’ll plant my ass in the desert. And you and I both know it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when that video gets leaked.”

  “I know. And I know this is an understatement, but I’ll say it anyway. You’re going to have to be careful. And you’re going to have to work fast.”

  “Understatement? You’re sending me into the lion’s cage without even a chair or a whip. Can you at least put a lid on this video by declaring it a matter of national security? Delay it a little, keep it from going public at least faster than it would normally? If it goes public, your op is blown, too.”

  “I did put a lid on it as best I could, but like you said, it is going to go public no matter how hard we try, so you have to push this exchange with Bobby Ray and the Arab, make it happen, and get out as soon as you can.”

  Another tick against him. He’d suppressed the video before he even asked me to help him. He knew me. He’d known up front that I’d do it. What kind of chump was I?

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said.

  “I know you will, Bruno.”

  I again turned to leave, more disheartened than before I met with him.

  “Hey,” he said, “that was a hell of a thing you did. I saw the tape. You stuck your neck out when you didn’t have to, when you had everything in the world to lose.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  I WATCHED DAN walk off. I let my mind chew on all the implications, the odds of success. They weren’t good, not by a damn sight. I might’ve been able to pull it off had there not been the video. The video upped the chances of failure tenfold.

  How many times had video leaked out in the past? The more concise question: How many times, if any, had a video of major media interest not leaked? Somebody in the know in the law enforcement circle, someone with a skewed moral compass, would eventually put it out, sell it to the highest bidder in the media. And if caught, they’d always have a fall-back excuse, the First Amendment, the public had a right to know. Of course they did. That same public also had the right to be blown to hell with drone missiles.

  Marie came up behind me and took my hand—hers hot, mine cold. “You feelin’ okay?” She leaned her head against me. We both watched Dan disappear into the parking garage.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get back to the room. I need a shower.”

  We walked back, my arm around her waist. I didn’t know where the next twenty-four hours would find us, a fear of the unknown worse than most.

  Drago stayed a few steps behind. I tried to work the problem out: how best to force the issue. To make the trade go down right away and at the same time keep my skin. That was my only chance, to make it happen now, not later. I didn’t have all the pieces yet, who the players were, who was the middleman, who had the drone and where. The where being the big one. If I knew the where, we could all go home. I stopped. “Drago, let me use your phone.” I didn’t want to use the one Dan had given me. They’d for sure be up on that one, listening.

  “Sure, bud.” He handed me the phone.

  I dialed Salvador’s number in Costa Rica and continued walking back to the hotel.

  He answered right away. “Bueno, mi amigo.”

  “Salvador, how are things in your country?”

  “Everything is fine here, muy bueno. It is a beautiful day. You need not worry about anything here. Take your time on your vacation, señor.”

  “Thank you, my friend.”

  “I told you this was not going to be a problem at all.”

  “What about that little issue we had in town with those visitors?”

  “There is no longer an issue. Those visitors will never visit this country again.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes, they did not enjoy their stay here. They went out sport fishing on a boat.”

  “Too bad Jose Rivera doesn’t have a passport. I could use his public relations talent right about now.”

  “I am sorry you have not yet resolved your problems there. But as I said, you do not have to worry about anything on this end.”

  “Thank you, Salvador, that means more to me than you know. Be safe. Hasta la vista.”

  “Vaya con Dios, amigo.”

  I hung up and handed the phone back to Drago. Marie heard my end of the conversation and squeezed my hand. I stopped in the shade of the building on the sidewalk along the side of the hotel. Both Marie and Drago had a right to know the score and the seriousness of the problem.

  “Here’s the deal,” I said. “Someone’s stolen four Hellfire missiles and a military drone that fires them. There’s going to be a meet and a trade, money for the arms. Dan wants me to find out when and where.”

  I watched Marie, expecting her to be stunned. She didn’t show any emotion at all. I knew her well enough; she was doing a slow burn on the inside. She said, “And this has to do with the Visigoths’ president, Bobby Ray?”

  “Yes.”

  She waved her finger. “And this has nothing to do with the problem we came here for in the first place, The Sons of Satan, right?”

  “Sort of. Kind of. We did come here to talk with Sonja—”

  She turned angry and pointed her finger at me. “No, you came here to talk with Sonja. I told you we shouldn’t have anything to do with her. That bitch. Anyone who’d dump a child off on the father and never look back doesn’t deserve anything from us.”

  I didn’t want to argue with her, especially when she held all the cards. I didn’t know why it always happened that way, her holding all the aces, me a measly pair of deuces.

  “I understand your anger,” I said, “but I’m in this now, boxed in but good, and there just isn’t any way I can back out and still be able to live with myself.”

  She just stared at me, fuming.

  Drago, who stood off to the side, said, “You find these things, these hell missiles, and you’re done, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  Oh, thank you, big man, for coming to the rescue.

  He shrugged. “Shouldn’t be a problem at all, not really. I’ll go along and make sure he stays out of trouble. Okay, how’s that?”

  She flung her hand in the air. “What then, we start all over dealing with the problem with The Sons, the reason we came here to begin with?”

  “Dan said, we help him with this, he’ll make sure that our problem with The Sons goes away. We have his word.”

  Drago said again, “So we work out this one problem, then we’re done.”

  She spun on him. “Don’t you try and get Bruno out of the dog house. He’s going to be there a long time. A very long time.” She took off walking at a faster pace.

  We caught up with her. No one spoke. We went through the lobby. The two off-duty cops talked among themselves, not looking at us. When we stepped into the elevator, Drago said, “What are we going to do first?”

  “Sonja’s son, Bosco, got hurt.” I said. “He’s in the hospital in grave condition.” I used another term I’d learned
from Marie, grave. I never realized until right at that moment the double meaning that the word carried.

  Marie stuck her arm out and stopped the elevator doors from closing. “Ah, shit, why didn’t you tell me that earlier, before I called Sonja a bitch? Come on, let’s go.”

  “Where we goin’?” I asked.

  “To see your ex-girlfriend Sonja at the hospital, you big oaf.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY Medical Center, in the city of Loma Linda, looked like a huge sprawling campus with multiple buildings scattered and intermingled among large trees and separated by vast parking lots loaded with a sea of cars. It took us a while to locate the wing that Bosco was in.

  Down the long hall we walked by a closed door with a uniform from the Montclair Police Department sitting in a chair next to it, a rookie with a young face sitting guard duty on Bosco’s room. A procedural move only, as there was no way Bosco could escape in his condition.

  If Bosco survived, he’d be arrested for assault on a peace officer. And if the DA really wanted to get shitty, they’d file the felony murder rule. Someone had died during the commission of a felony: Ol’ Hector, the guy I shot. Which opened up Bosco to a long stint, if not life in San Q as a murderer.

  Sonja chased a toddler around a waiting area the size of a small living room at the end of that same long, starkly white hall. A television mounted up in the corner of the waiting area played the local news, the sound turned off. I made a conscious effort to pull my eyes from it.

  Halfway down the hall, Sonja spotted us. She stopped, put her hand on her back like an old woman, and stood upright.

  I didn’t know what would happen when Marie and Sonja met. I’d never been in a similar situation and didn’t know what to expect. They both possessed strong-willed personalities. I’d fretted about it the entire forty-minute drive from LA.

  Sonja watched us approach as the toddler continued to paw Sonja’s legs and whine, wanting to be picked up.

  I held my breath as we closed on the last ten feet.