A Killer's Role: Erter & Dobbs Book 1

by Nick Keller

  Over by the computer, Bernie grunted. “Look at this.”

  William slid the photos away looking over his shoulder. Bernie had found personal server files on Heirloom Park, Athens Park, and Underson Park. They were downloads from the Los Angeles City Parks and Rec Department, like schematics. And there were other parks logged in Sola’s hard drive, too—dozens of others. They had all been marked with what looked like sniping schematics—red marks designating high-ground areas, munitions trajectories through park trees, areas, and ranges of visibility, windage through the landscaping—just like a sniper’s scope dope journal. Bernie gave a whistle. “This guy’s serious about shooting shit, ain’t he?”

  A roster of file folders popped on the screen. Bernie selected them and opened. Pics of dogs in parks populated the screen. Most of them were being walked on leashes. Some of them were cajoling in the grass. One was leaping in midair to snatch a Frisbee in its jowls. There were dozens of dogs, maybe a hundred, all taken through what looked like a 35mm digital camera. William whispered, “My God.”

  “Look at these pics,” Bernie said, pointing them out as they fanned across the screen. “It’s never the same time of day. Bastard’s been scoping these parks out for weeks. This apartment has everything we need to put this guy away before he blows someone’s head off.”

  “How do we proceed?” William asked.

  Bernie rubbed the grizzle on his face. “We can’t procure any of this stuff for evidence. Heller would have a shit fit. Probably charge me with criminal activity. Asshole.”

  “Then we have to find another way, and we have to do it quickly.”

  “I’ll get back to the station and run a sheet on Sola. Maybe we can do an End-Around.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Get him on other charges. Shacked up at a cheap barrio joint like this—he’s guilty of something. Outstanding tickets. Bounced check. Possession. We’ll find something on him. That’ll give us official reason to pay him a visit for an arrest. Then—goodness, Captain, look what we found in his file boxes?”

  “Ah. End-Around. Got it.”

  “In the meantime, you need to get back to that little computer nerd’s house and cook up a reason to have the cops search this place, too.”

  “Alright.”

  It was time to go. Bernie locked the file cabinet and stuffed the key back in the drawer. William brought the computer into sleep mode and straightened out the wrinkles on the bed sheets. Leaving the place exactly as it was, they went through the front room. William opened the door and found himself face-to-face with a hooded figure. The man flinched at the sight of him, each as startled as the other. In the space of a second William saw the guy’s eyes sparkling through the shadow of his hoodie, his dark features invisible. Then something like a cannon ball hit William square in the nose. A fist. It made him go blank for a few seconds, and when his eyes opened, he’d fallen flat on his back. He heard Bernie’s words, “Get back here, you little sonofabitch!” and his heavy footfalls thundering down the stairs. They were growing further and further away. Someone was hauling ass and Bernie was hot on their heels.

  40

  A. Soldier

  William shook his head and got to his feet catching himself against the big plastic barrel of clothing. Through the fogginess in his vision he watched Bernie hit the bottom of the stairwell and blow through the exit door. They were already gone. William jaunted back through the living room and to the rear window still shaking his head. He had never been one to get angry—in fact, he’d always felt very much like the schizophrenic serial killers he’d lectured his class about, the ones that felt nothing during their killings, whose heart rates remained constant even when they tortured people and skinned them alive. So, the sensation that flooded his veins at that moment was fairly new to him. He felt remarkably pissed off.

  He jammed open the rear window over a tiny steel balcony and looked out across Main Street two stories below. The runner was streaking across the street toward the empty parking lot leaving Bernie in his dust.

  William sneered like a mad dog. He would put Bernie up against anybody in a fistfight. But a foot chase—forget it. William gave a bomb-of-a-whistle. Bernie looked up. “Get the car! Get the car!” William screamed. Bernie adjusted, headed toward the cruiser.

  William threw himself over the balcony railing, dangled toward the curb, and dropped. Once on his feet, he sprinted across Main Street as the guy scaled the chain link into the empty lot. William took the side curb, tracking his prey’s motion. He ended up on Fiftieth Street half a block down, and hooked a lightning quick left turn. The guy jumped the fence a hundred feet down and hit the street running. William gritted his teeth pushing it. He closed the distance, feet pounding on pavement. The guy streaked into a narrow alley and disappeared. William peeled after him.

  It wasn’t quite an alley. It was more of a crawl space hardly two feet wide, a cinder block wall to one side, a wooden mesh fence to the other. The guy was up ahead. William pushed forward elbowing overgrown ivy out of his way. The guy took a turn into another passageway leaping up and yanking on a leaning wood-slat fence. The whole thing collapsed shutting off William’s angle. His anger flared even more than before. Refusing to find an alternate way around the debris, he smashed through the fencing sending splinters and boarding into an explosion.

  The guy veered left into a broad back alley. William heard his steps clamor away. He followed, pumping his arms, gaining speed. The guy was up and over a private fence like an Olympic high jumper. William hurdled it too, going topsy-turvy. He came down in someone’s backyard exploding grass all around him. Glancing over he watched the guy leap onto the backyard decking and go flying into the house. William got back to his feet and dashed after. He stormed into the house, down a hall, into a foyer and out the front door hearing people scream as he blew through.

  They were on a wide-open street darting up an incline. Dogs barked. William found it remarkable how fast and prolonged Sola was able to maintain his flight. He was no couch potato, no P.T. slacker. This guy was fit, maybe even more so than William himself. So, he closed his mind to the fire pumping through his thighs. He began internalizing his biorhythms, just as he did on his treadmill each morning, and he began to fall into a hypnotic trance while his body pounded toward his prey. It settled him, even made his anger a peaceful, clean, white-hot blast of energy. He wanted to kill Sola. His father’s impulses awakened inside him. Yes—he wanted to catch him and wrestle him to the ground and put his hands around his throat and squeeze the breath out of him and feel his legs kick and hear him gag and sense his helplessness until he was dead.

  Before he realized it, he roared, “Sola!” through a voice that was not his own. That pushed Sola even harder. It made him veer across a front lawn and slam through another house, blowing its glass front door into pebbles, hitting the floor.

  William flew over the lawn kicking up grass and went diving through the home’s entryway at him. He met only the floor slipping across tiles in a sea of shattered safety glass. Sola was already on his feet steaming through the living room, crashing an end table over in his wake. William got up and hurdled after him, both men hitting the backyard within paces of each other. Sola was up and over the back fence in a desperate flurry. William hurled himself over it and landed in an alley with weeds and busted asphalt, looking up. Sola was gaining separation, headed like a rocket toward the end of the alley ahead. William shook off his fatigue, got up and sprinted after him growling like an angry dog and kicking up pebbles and dust.

  Tires screeched, rubber skidding against pavement. Bernie’s cruiser came to a stop at the end of the alley cutting Sola’s path off. The driver’s door flew open, and Bernie got out of the car. Sola never stopped—never even slowed down. He slammed into Bernie pinning him between the door and cabin, then leaped over the hood, escaping to the other side. But Bernie reached back, snared the fucker in midair by the back of his neck and wheeled him back over the hood against his own moment
um. He floundered to the pavement with a painful umph!

  Bernie grunted. “That’ll be enough of this running shit!” As William caught up to them and came to a stop, Bernie wrenched Sola up by his collar onto his feet and smashed him against an aluminum shed. Everything gonged and rattled as Bernie grabbed him around the neck suppressing him. “What’ve we got here, eh? You wouldn’t be Anthony dickhead Sola, would you?”

  Through gritted teeth the guy whined. “You got the wrong guy, dude!”

  “Yeah? Why the fuck you clocking my partner, punk?”

  The guy said, “Don’t act like you weren’t raiding the place, man!” He pulled and tugged on Bernie’s bear-thick wrists, but to no avail. He gasped, winded from the running. “I can’t breathe, man!”

  Bernie spun him around like a rag doll pressing his face into the galvanized aluminum siding, and fished his wallet out of his back pocket. “You got something to hide, Anthony?”

  “Who the fuck is Anthony, man?”

  Bernie tossed the guy down onto the ground opening up his wallet and walking through it with his fingers. He pulled out a California ID card, then gave William a heavy look. He flipped him the card.

  William caught it and looked it over. This wasn’t Anthony Sola Jr. This guy was too young. Barely twenty years old. He was half Sola’s age. And probably twice as fast. “Jamarcus Withers,” William said. “What were you doing in Anthony Sola’s apartment?”

  “You talking about door number two? Shit—I wasn’t in that apartment. You was!”

  “Why were you there?” Bernie snarled, nudging him with a foot.

  “I live there, motherfucker.”

  “Door two?”

  “Door three, asshole!”

  William and Bernie shared an exasperated look. This was the wrong guy—the fucking neighbor! Bernie leaned over and ripped the guy back to his feet slamming him against the aluminum wall. “Why’d you give my partner one in the kisser, huh? Why were you running, huh?”

  The guy looked away. “’Cause you’re cops, dude.”

  Bernie slammed him again. “So?”

  “I got shit on me, okay? It ain’t nothing.”

  “What shit?”

  “I’m a probey, that’s it.”

  “Probation? For what, punk?”

  “Possession. That’s it, dude.”

  Bernie slammed him again. “What else?”

  “Intent to sell, alright? I’m on fucking probation. I don’t need you guys fucking locking me up again.”

  “How do you know Anthony Sola?” William said, diverting the guy’s eyes over to him.

  He said, “You mean Tony. Dude’s my neighbor. He never says nothing. We never talk. I’m telling you, you got the wrong guy.”

  Bernie leaned in close making a horrifying bull-sound through his flaring nostrils and said, “You say one fucking word about this and the next time I come back I’m going to kick in your door and take you down. You got it, flyboy?”

  “Yeah, man,” the guy said, still avoiding eye contact.

  Bernie put his hand around his throat and squeezed slow and steady. The guy’s eyes bulged and went up to meet Bernie’s. William watched, licking his lips, waiting to see him die. “You got it?” Bernie said.

  The guy blinked and nodded as his eyes went red. “Eee—yeah.”

  Bernie dropped him back to the ground and said, “Let’s go.”

  William exhaled a breath he’d been holding and stepped over the guy dropping his ID down to the ground. But he stopped and looked back at the alley. He could feel eyes on him. Maybe it was the foot chase, or maybe it was because they had pounded the wrong guy, but he was flushed with an uncomfortable feeling, like paranoia. Someone was watching him from a long way away. Maybe it was his dad. Maybe it was his conscience. Whatever it was, he could feel it.

  The guy in the scope—the one named William—stepped away from the crosshair when he got into the passenger side of the cruiser. Even though he was three hundred feet away in the alley, he looked ripe for the kill, sensing that he was being watched. The voices were silent. There was no doubt. This was the enemy. The time to kill had come. It was now.

  But now William was beyond the scope’s reach, no longer centered for a perfect headshot. Anthony Sola Jr. lowered the rifle and watched the car peel off, and all that was left to watch William as he drove away was The Eye.

  41

  Ceros

  Ceros: On a case.

  Cyber_lynx1001101: Dude, specs?

  Ceros: Deep.

  Cyber_lynx1001101: Specs, m-effer!

  Ceros: Try L.A.P.D.

  Cyber_lynx1001101: Lucky bitch. What’s the go-go?

  Ceros: Spydering databases.

  Cyber_lynx1001101: Sounds shiny! Casing correspondence?

  Ceros: Yuppers.

  Cyber_lynx1001101: Pings?

  Ceros: Like cray-cray.

  Cyber_lynx1001101: Gold?

  Ceros: So far. I B logging everything.

  Cyber_lynx1001101: Can’t wait to iBall.

  Ceros: Oh def. Shit, no more Mt. Dew.

  Cyber_lynx1001101: Get juiced. Talk again.

  Ceros: Yuppers.

  Jacky logged out of his secured, private chat room. He closed out the window bringing up his Spyder software. Lines of code jumped at him. He squinted reading it like a novel. His spyders were clicking all over the L.A.P.D. department’s data files. Every time someone added data he recognized the sequencing—a personnel change here, an evidence request there. Changes were happening almost on the minute. But no pinging. He nodded closing the laptop down, snagging his car keys and leaving.

  A quick trip down to the corner Whip In drug store always got him into conversation with the dude behind the counter. He was a remarkably light-skinned guy from the middle east, and despite the fact that Jacky had asked him a dozen times which country he was from, he couldn’t remember—Yemen, Pakistan, Saudi. He only knew him as Fakesh.

  He bought his usual fare, an armful of Big Bomb burritos and a six-pack of Mountain Dew. Back at his place, he microwaved one of the burritos until it was piping hot, slathered it with packets of ketchup from the local In-Out-Burger drive through, and popped a soda. Plopping down on his couch he brought up his online Call of Duty game. He’d been playing the newest version and had pirated the badassest character profile in the land. He was about to storm some cartel’s heavily-fortified beach house mansion when the sound of a ping made him twitch.

  He looked over at the laptop, cringing.

  “Awe…” he said, and opened his spyder window. He recognized the interdepartmental request immediately. His eyes bugged. “Holy shit!”

  Bernie had spent all day trying to justify tracking Anthony Sola Jr. through his Cold Case files. Maybe Sola had speeding tickets that had gone warrant, or was on probation. Maybe he was an ex con or had misdemeanors. Everybody in L.A. had something. He was looking for anything. But not Anthony Sola Jr. His nose was clean as a whistle.

  He had to switch tactics. He started looking for another Anthony Sola out there who might have had a bad mark on their record, which would justify kicking in the “wrong” door. All he needed was a reason to spy the public records on him with an L.A.P.D. reference that wouldn’t get him in trouble. He was trying to pull an End-Around, referencing the name Sola to a Cold File in the hopes that a coincidental match would pop up. So far, zilch. Operating covertly then covering his tracks wasn’t Bernie’s strong suit.

  His cell phone rang. The caller ID said Jacky. “Oh God,” he muttered and looked over at Donna’s station. She was gone, probably on lunch. He answered the phone, “Yeah.”

  “Officer Bernie, I got something major, dude.”

  Bernie rolled his eyes. “What?”

  “Okay, so I just got a notification from my spyder-ware. You see, I got it setup with my inbox service to notify me when specific frames of code are verified as task-relevant, and I just got a kill-ping on some network activity happening interdepartmentally, so I…”
<
br />   “The fuck you talking about, kid? Speak People.”

  “There’s a warrant. It was just issued for Professor Erter. They’re going to arrest him, man.”

  Bernie got to his feet before he knew it, bumping his little station with a knee. “When?”

  “Right now. It’s hot.”

  “Who issued it?” Bernie said.

  “Uh—”

  “Never mind. I already know.”

  Mark fucking Neiman—that’s who!

  “Thanks, kid.” He hung up and rushed out.

  42

  The All-Seeing

  Sola had recorded his personal experiences in Desert Storm with an eloquence that was both refined and raw, using a voice that was level and duty-driven, yet edged with a young man’s terror-bloated anger. William found it easy to lose himself inside Sola’s journal as it displayed on his computer screen.

  Sola had included several pages from his dope diary—the little black book that every sniper possessed, and used to calculate the specifics of their kill shots. They recorded distance, windage, curvature, spin drift, etc. It was how Sola doped his kills. One of these pages was very enlightening.

  Dope Diary. January 24, 1991.

  We entered a bowl canyon from the north ridge, elevation eighty meters above the lowest point. Terrain is rocky and jagged with plenty of cover and egress. Multiple targets below. The Ten of Diamonds was confirmed. I got the green light. I could hear my heart in my ears, pounding my brain.

  Windage: 2 knots

  Direction: Northwest to southeast, possible ½ knot circular motion in bowl

  Distance: 210 meters

  Angle: Negative 20

  Spin drift: Position for one meter right at current distance

  And so on. Each shot had dozens of calculations, each one a delicate balance between all the others, but once the shot was arranged and all variables accounted for, there was nothing left to do but engage the trigger. This was Sola’s account of Long Range Ghost, and it had put an up and coming, high-powered Islamic militant who had been rising through the leadership ranks of Al Qaeda and had seen first-hand combat against the Russians right in Sola’s scope. He was the Ten of Diamonds, later identified as Osama bin Laden.