Snake Eye

by William C. Dietz

  Paco, Skinner, Tom-Tom, and Kwong were all equally surprised, and stood in a rough semicircle as Dexter stopped about fifteen feet away. Chow spoke first. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The ex-SEAL felt his stomach muscles tighten. His hands hung at his sides. Each held a pistol. The weight was reassuring. There was a momentary pause between mortar rounds and his voice was loud enough for everyone to hear. “You left without paying your rent.”

  “Look boss!” Paco said shrilly. “The bastard has heat!”

  “He’s here for the woman,” Chow said. “Kill him.”

  No one had seen fit to close the cabin door, and that was a mistake, because although Rossi was in pain, the FBI agent wasn’t as helpless as she appeared to be. By the time Dexter emerged from the smoke she was peering through the door. A strobe shell went off and a quick succession of explosions lit up the ex-SEAL’s face. The sight was so amazing, so completely unexpected, that it took Rossi’s breath away. Somehow, impossible though it seemed, Dexter had come for her!

  But there were five snakeheads, all heavily armed, and the crazy bastard was just standing there waiting for one of them to make a move. Then Paco shouted his warning. The spell was broken, and everything went into motion. As Paco struggled to free the Beretta from the waistband of his pants, Dexter brought the .45 up and squeezed the trigger. The Colt bucked. Paco was thrown backwards and there was a muted thump as he hit the cabin before sliding to the deck.

  Confident that one opponent was down for good Dexter swung the P7 left, and was in the process of bringing the pistol to bear on Tom-Tom when Rossi side-kicked the snakehead from behind. Tom-Tom stumbled, felt himself start to fall, and threw out his hands. It didn’t do much good as the snakehead landed face-down on a cluster of ten-inch mortars. His body was literally torn apart as they went off in sequence. The headphones that the gang banger habitually wore flew high into the sky, fell back onto the barge, and punctured the tinfoil covering a twelve-inch round.

  Meanwhile, even as Tom-Tom died, Chow fired his Browning. But having seen Paco go down, the snakehead was too scared to take the time necessary to aim. A fountain of brass squirted through the air as he unloaded the semi-auto’s thirteen-round magazine in Dexter’s general direction. But, as luck would have it, only one of the .9mm slugs made contact with its target.

  The ex-SEAL staggered as the bullet smashed into the lower part of his prosthesis but managed to remain upright nonetheless. Though not especially logical the attack on his artificial limb struck the ex-naval officer as especially offensive. “Wrong leg, you bastard!” Dexter shouted angrily. “Now, let’s see how you like it!”

  Chow pulled the trigger once more and was rewarded with a click, as his opponent’s Heckler & Koch went off and twin sledgehammer blows struck his knees. That was followed by an explosion of pain more intense than anything the snakehead had ever experienced before. As if to illustrate how it felt a red, gold, and white Crossette exploded directly overhead. It seemed to wheel as he fell.

  Having knee-capped Chow, Dexter was about to turn his attention to the surviving gang members when Rossi blew Skinner’s brains out. The FBI agent didn’t like wheel guns, especially big iron like Tom-Tom’s .44, since they were heavy and the recoil was hellacious. But there was no denying how effective the humongous revolvers could be and she was happy to have it.

  Once Skinner went down that left Kwong. He was backing away and giving serious consideration to a timely surrender when Dexter shot him once in the head and once in the chest, the traditional double-tap that makes body armor irrelevant. The little man staggered and fell.

  All of the threats were down. Dexter looked at Rossi, saw what he had always hoped for in her eyes, and felt a sudden sense of warmth. Here, within his grasp, was everything he desired. Then Chow pulled the trigger on the FBI agent’s Glock. A .9mm bullet sped through the air and smashed into the ex-SEAL’s chest. He went down hard.

  Rossi shouted, “No!” and Missy watched from the doorway as her mother emptied the big revolver into Joe Chow’s head and torso. The first shot shattered his skull. The second blew a fist-sized hole through his chest and the third took his balls off.

  Stars wheeled and constellations were born as Dexter stared up into the night sky. Then a much-abused face appeared to hover above him as Rossi knelt to hold the ex-SEAL in her arms. There was a lot of blood, more than she could possibly stop, and both of them knew his life was leaking away. Tears fell and Dexter blinked as one of them landed on his eyelid. “Oh, Dex,” the agent said softly, “what have you done?”

  Dexter coughed and blood trickled down his chin. “I’m sorry, Christina. I’m sorry about everything.”

  “And so am I,” Rossi answered tenderly.

  Dexter smiled. “You want to know something funny?”

  The FBI agent bit her lower lip. “Yes, I do.”

  “The leg? The one they blew off? It hurts like hell.”

  As the fireworks display entered the final stage, there was a loud BOOM, followed by a series of overlapping explosions as violet, blue, and pink rings strobed across the huge black canvas. The star shells lit up the entire city, but when Rossi looked down at Dexter, the light in his eyes was gone.

  The FBI agent wanted to stay there and cry until she ran out of tears, but there was Missy to consider. Slowly, tenderly, Rossi lay the ex-SEAL down on the blood-stained deck. Then, having appropriated Dexter’s P7, the FBI agent went back to retrieve Missy and her Glock. With pistols at the ready, Rossi led her daughter down the central aisle towards the bow.

  Both the Chinese pyrotechs and the fire marshal had evacuated the barge soon after the firefight began, but Tian Lei was still at his post, eyes agleam as his creation approached its final climax. He bowed as Rossi and Missy passed and was still staring upwards when the FBI agent boarded the stolen cabin cruiser, saw that the key was in the ignition, and brought the big MerCruiser engine to life. Missy managed to cast off in spite of her arm. She made her way back to the cockpit and stood by her mother’s side as Rossi took the power boat out into the lake.

  In spite of the millions of eyes that were focused on the scene, none of them saw the single spark that fell past Tom-Tom’s blood-spattered earphones and into the mouth of the unfired mortar. When the bomb went off, and detonated the shells all around it, the onlookers assumed the explosion was part of the show—until the barge flew apart in front of their eyes, a powerful ring-shaped shock wave rocked the surrounding boats, and a resonant BOOM, rattled windows all around the lake.

  Rossi wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders and remembered the old man in the control booth. Was that how he would have chosen to go? There was no way to know. Missy looked up into her mother’s face. She had to shout in order to be heard. “What are you going to do now?”

  The Bayliner was planing by that time and Rossi put the wheel over to avoid a slow-moving sailboat. “Do you remember the Hartleys? The people who took you water skiing last summer? I thought we’d call Vanessa from there.”

  “She’ll make me go to the hospital.”

  “Yes, she will. And I’m grateful.”

  “But you aren’t coming.”

  “No, honey,” Rossi said glancing into her daughter’s eyes. “Can you forgive me? A good mother would take you to the hospital herself, and stay until you were safely in bed. But, I have something important to do.”

  “You’re going to finish your job.”

  “Something like that. Yes.”

  Missy looked up at her mother. Her eyes were big and bright. “It’s okay, Mom. I understand.”

  Rossi gave her a quick hug. “Do you really? If so, I’m grateful for that. By the way, it took a lot of courage to jump onto that man’s back, but don’t do anything that foolish again.”

  Missy grinned mischievously. “I won’t if you don’t.”

  The FBI agent might have replied, but the dock was coming up fast and quick work was required to shift into reverse before scraping the sid
e of pier. Then, having secured the boat to the dock, mother and daughter climbed a flight of gently curving concrete stairs. A well-lit house loomed above, and judging from the subdued thud, thud, thud of bass, a New Year’s eve party was well underway. The doors out onto a balcony were open and the sounds of excited conversation could be heard as the distressed party goers discussed what they had witnessed on television only fifteen minutes earlier.

  When the bell rang it was Marianne Hartley who went to open the front door. The society matron barely recognized the ragged looking couple who stood on her porch. Rossi’s hair was tangled, one eye was half-swollen shut, and her face was badly bruised. Missy’s face was dirty, one arm had been splinted, and her clothes were filthy. “Christina? Missy? What happened?”

  “Sorry to barge in on you like this,” Rossi said apologetically, “but I need to use your phone.”

  “It was,” as a prominent businessman told a society reporter the next morning, “a night to remember.”

  It was almost two in the morning by the time Rossi drove her ex-husband’s BMW745i across the University bridge and headed downtown. It was what Vanessa had described as “a Christmas present from Ed to Ed,” and there were only 412 miles on the odometer. Although the Hartleys had agreed to transport both Vanessa and Missy to Children’s Hospital in their SUV, Rossi could tell they took issue with her decision to leave her daughter, and would probably remove her name from their Christmas card list.

  She wound her way through the mostly empty downtown streets and pulled up in front of Samuel Chow’s apartment building. That put the Beemer in a tow-away zone but the agent didn’t think there were likely to be any SPD meter maids out and about at that hour of the morning.

  Then, conscious of the fact that a little bit of preparation was in order, Rossi got out of the car, made her way over to the curb, and laid out her arsenal on the BMW’s flawlessly shiny hood. She had her Glock, plus Dexter’s Heckler & Koch, but what about ammo? Both weapons had been fired so it was important to check.

  Meanwhile, directly across the street, there was consternation inside the SNAKE EYE surveillance van. Agents Moller and Hagger had the duty, but Inez had decided to bring her teammates some coffee on her way home from a party and was just about to check her voicemail when a brand new Beemer stopped in front of Chow’s high-rise and a woman emerged. Hagger shifted his chocolate-covered doughnut to his left hand, which allowed him to zoom in. It was too dark to make out the woman’s features at first, but once she rounded the front end of the car, the glare from a street-light illuminated her badly ravaged face. “My God!” Inez said as she peered at the monitor mounted over Hagger’s head. “It’s Rossi!”

  “It can’t be,” Moller said incredulously. “Joe Chow has her.”

  “Not anymore,” Inez said grimly, and reached for the side door handle. “She looks like hell—but that’s our girl. Call Hawk. Tell him that Rossi not only managed to escape, but judging from the hardware on the hood of that car, she’s getting ready to visit Samuel Chow.”

  When the van door opened Rossi looked up. The FBI agent wasn’t surprised to see an agent get out, but the fact that the agent was Inez brought a smile to her face, and that hurt. “Hi, Olivia. I need some nine-millimeter. Have you got some loose rounds?”

  “Damn, girl,” Inez said, as she drew closer. “I’ll get you a rocket launcher if you need one. But not until you come clean. Where the hell have you been? And how did you escape? Every cop in Washington State is out looking for you!”

  Meanwhile, as the two agents spoke, the security cameras mounted on the front of the apartment building swiveled around to focus on them. Inez listened in astonishment as Rossi provided a brief synopsis of her capture, imprisonment, and the recent shoot-out. “So Dexter came for you?” the ICE agent demanded incredulously. “How the hell did he know where to look? And why didn’t he call me?”

  Rossi shrugged. “It beats me. There were a lot of things I would have liked to ask him but it’s too late now. Once Missy and I were clear, the barge blew up.”

  “Yeah,” Inez said in wonderment. “I saw that on TV. They’re still searching for possible survivors. You were damned lucky.”

  “Yeah,” Rossi said, remembering the way Dexter had stood there waiting for the snakeheads to make their move. “Real lucky. So back to the nine-millimeter…. You carry a Glock—can I borrow a clip?”

  “That depends,” Inez answered cautiously. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I’m going to arrest Samuel Chow,” Rossi answered evenly. “He has a lot to answer for.”

  “Arrest him for what? the ICE agent demanded. “You need probable cause.”

  “I have it,” the FBI agent lied. “Joe Chow spilled his guts.”

  “But he’s dead,” Inez objected. “That won’t work.”

  “Why not?” Rossi asked reasonably.

  But Inez never got the opportunity to answer the other woman’s question because that was the moment when both of them heard the roar of an aircraft engine and looked up to see that a helicopter was circling Chow’s building. “You see?” Rossi demanded mildly. “My guess is that Mr. Chow is leaving for parts unknown…. Do I get my ammo? Or, do I go upstairs with what I have?”

  “You’ll get it,” Inez replied. “Wait here!” The ICE agent ran across the street, entered the van, and was back a few moments later. “Here,” Inez said, as she handed over a box of .9mm rounds. Moller and Hagger arrived a minute later. They wore protective vests and Hagger had armed himself with a Heckler & Koch UMP .40 caliber sub-machine gun. After weeks of sitting around in cramped vehicles he looked happy. “I put in a call to the SPD…The SWAT team is on the way. How do we get in?”

  “I have a key,” Rossi said confidently as she inserted a fully recharged clip into the Glock. “Follow me.”

  Both security cameras tilted in and downwards as the sound of the helicopter echoed back and forth between the surrounding buildings and the agents approached the front door. Rossi had a pistol in each hand, and the safety glass shattered into a million pieces as she fired both weapons at once. “All right!” Hagger exclaimed approvingly. “That’s what I call a key!”

  A security alarm began to bleat as the agents stepped through the empty door frame and entered the lobby. There was a reception desk with a “Closed” sign sitting on top of it, a nicely furnished waiting area, and two banks of opposing elevators. Rossi touched the “Up” button. Stainless steel doors parted and the foursome entered. Inez was armed with a 12-gauge shotgun and it made a distinctive clacking sound as the ICE agent racked the action and pumped a round into the weapon’s chamber. Rossi raised an eyebrow. “What’s with the cannon?”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Inez replied with a wink. “But I forgot my contacts. But it’s hard to miss with a scatter gun—so don’t worry.”

  “Now she tells us,” Moller said, her Glock at the ready.

  Hagger was going to make a comment as well, but Rossi interrupted as double-digit numbers started to appear on the floor indicator and the elevator began to slow. “Get down!” the FBI agent ordered. “All the way down!” and dropped to the floor.

  The other agents followed Rossi’s example so that when the car came to a stop all four of them were in the prone position, weapons at the ready. The doors had just started to part company when Hippo pulled the trigger on a fully automatic AK-47. The big man was firing from the hip. The military-style rounds punched their way through the metal facing, whipped over the agents’ heads, and dug divets in the paneling behind them.

  Hagger fired two bursts from the Heckler & Koch. The bullets hit Hippo’s lower legs, shattered bone, and brought him crashing down. Bullets from the AK-47 stitched holes up the wall and across the ceiling as the snakehead fell. Seconds later Hagger was kneeling on Hippo’s chest with the SMG pointed at the gang member’s face as Moller patted him down. She removed a 9mm pistol from the big man’s waistband as Hagger used a handheld radio to call for an aid car.

&nb
sp; Rossi didn’t know how long it would take Chow to board the helicopter but the FBI agent knew time was of the essence as she tried the door that led from the lobby into the penthouse and discovered that it was locked. “Here,” Inez said cheerfully, “allow me.”

  The Boom! sounded especially loud within the enclosed space. The handle, the lock, and a sizeable chunk of wood simply vanished. Rossi, who was standing next to the door, reached around to give it a push.

  There was no gunfire as the door swung open, so Rossi shouted “FBI!” before entering what appeared to be a small antechamber. The walls were covered in red, black, and gold wallpaper, and an empty aquarium rested on a sturdy stand. A couch sat in front of that.

  With no opposition present to slow her down, Rossi positioned herself beside the next door, even as Inez and Moller prepared themselves to provide covering fire. But, before the FBI agent could try the handle, the barrier opened inwards and an immaculately clad houseboy appeared. He bowed. “Good morning,” he said politely. “Mr. Chow see you now.”

  Though surprised, Rossi was far from amazed, since a man with Samuel Chow’s resources might fare better by facing the legal system rather than running from it. But it pays to be careful, so the agents followed one at a time, each ready to respond should a snakehead open fire. As Rossi followed the manservant into the great room, she couldn’t help but notice the rich decor. Judging from the well-lit sculptures and carefully placed paintings, the apartment had been professionally decorated before all of the wood, metal, and ceramic serpents had been added.

  Samuel Chow sat with his back to the room as the agents entered. His chair made a whirring noise as he turned. Although Rossi had never met Samuel Chow face-to-face, she had seen countless pictures of him, and was struck by how ill he looked. For some reason his eyes seemed to bulge slightly, his skin looked gray, and a sheen of sweat covered his forehead. “Please,” the man said, “help me!”