by Mark Terry
“Malika—”
A woman appeared around the corner of the shed. She was medium height wearing a blue suit and looked Pakistani, perhaps Indian. She aimed a handgun at him. “Freeze, FBI. Hands where I can—”
Kalakar ducked behind the truck, drawing his own weapon. He jumped up and fired over the hood.
The FBI agent returned fire.
Malika screamed, turned, and ran.
Kalakar dropped to the ground next to the truck. Peering underneath, he saw the agent’s feet and lower legs. She was moving for cover.
Taking careful aim, he fired from under the truck. The agent screamed and fell.
Jumping to his feet, he sprinted around the end of the truck. The FBI agent was on the ground. Her face was contorted in pain. Kalakar fired.
The FBI agent’s body jumped. She groaned, fought to hold her gun steady, and fired back at him.
A burning sensation cut along Kalakar’s right side.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Malika was almost to the gate.
The FBI agent was struggling to aim her gun at him. He raised his own with difficulty. Pain shot through his ribs and up to his shoulder. Jaw tense, struggling against the wound and the pain, he fired. The FBI agent’s body went limp.
Kalakar rushed back to the truck, jumped in, and roared after Malika. She was trying to scramble up over the fence without much success. He lunged out of the truck.
“No! No! Leave me alone!” she screamed. “Go away! Go away!”
He snagged the back of her shirt and dragged her back to the truck. She clawed at him. “You’re not my Daddy! Help! Help me!”
He struck her with the gun in his hand. Her head snapped backward and she slumped to the ground. Kalakar picked her up and flung her into the truck like a rag doll. Stupid little bitch, he thought. Look what you made me do. Stupid little bitch.
He climbed back in the truck, keyed his way out of the facility, and drove away.
CHAPTER 42
The first thing Derek noticed as he approached the Bel Vista Toro Self-Stage facility was the black Grand Marquis parked in the lot outside the facility’s office. A Grand Marquis screamed law enforcement. He didn’t know if someone fresh from Pakistan would realize it, but to any American bad guy, they might as well have a light rack and big sign saying cop written on the side.
A lot of other things registered on his radar screen as he drove up, but only from the periphery. Traffic was only moderate here. He saw a Ford F150 with a man and a little girl drive by. The little girl seemed to be crying. The office was locked and closed for the day. A motorcycle roared by, its female rider helmetless, long red hair blowing in the wind. It was starting to cloud over, the sunny blue California sky turning over to a chillier November evening, the sun starting to set early.
A hundred other things bombarded his senses, but he pushed them away, screeching into the parking lot and pulling in next to the Grand Marquis. He took a quick peek in the window and recognized Shelly’s briefcase.
Spinning, he scanned the facility. He stepped over to the gate, saw it was locked and required a keycard to enter.
He pulled his cell phone and redialed Shelly’s number. Faintly, he thought he heard the ringing of a phone. After a couple rings it clicked over to voice mail. The distant ringing of a cell phone ended as well.
Derek’s heart thumped against his ribs. He strained to hear something other than traffic noise as wind ruffled his hair.
He clambered over the fence, casting a glance toward the security camera mounted on a pole nearby.
Dropping to the pavement, he dialed Shelly’s number again. This time he definitely heard the phone ringing. He sprinted in the direction of the sound.
As he rounded the corner, he spied the crumpled figure of Shelly Pimpuntikar. Racing toward her, he bent down. Blood soaked her clothes, seeping onto the pavement beneath her.
Pressing fingers to her throat, he felt for a pulse, relief sweeping through him as he felt it. She moaned and opened her eyes. “Der-ek?”
“Yeah. Hang on.”
He quickly dialed 911. His voice sounded harsh and angry as he spoke rapidly into the phone. “Officer down. I repeat, officer down. I have an FBI agent, victim of gunshot wounds, at the Bel Vista Toro Self-Storage facility in Culver City.”
“Your name, sir.”
“I’m with Homeland Security. Get an ambulance here ASAP. Female FBI agent with multiple gunshot wounds.”
“Sir—”
“I’ll leave the line open,” Derek said.
Leaning over, Derek grabbed hold of the sleeve of Shelly’s suit coat at the collar, and pulled. With a tearing sound, the cloth ripped. He pulled off the sleeve, pulled open her coat to look for the wounds.
There was no difficulty finding them. She had been shot three times. Once in the lower left leg. One bullet had struck her lower stomach. The other bullet struck her upper right shoulder. He folded the sleeve and pressed it down on the stomach wound. It quickly became saturated with scarlet.
Using his knife, he stripped Shelly’s coat into tatters, creating makeshift compresses on the shoulder and stomach wounds. His hands were bright with blood. The unmistakable scent of blood, coppery and hot, slammed against his nasal plates.
Fifty-two bodies dead—
Derek flinched, shaking his head, forcing the flashback away.
Digging up graves in Pakistan, bodies rotted, the buzz of flies, the muffled sounds of digging broken by the chunk of metal striking bone—
Sweat beaded up on his forehead. Not now!
He checked her pulse. Nothing.
“Shelly! Stay with me!”
Sirens shrieked in the distance.
She moaned. “Girl …” she breathed.
“What? Stay with me, Shelly. The ambulances are on the way. Hang in there.”
“Little … girl …”
“Little girl?” What was she talking about? He took another wad of cloth and pressed it down on the stomach wound. His stomach did a low, threatening roll. He stared at the wound, closed his eyes, pressed down. The leg was bad, the shoulder was bad, but the gut wound was really, really—
He forced the thoughts from his mind. It wasn’t time to give up hope.
The sirens grew louder.
Shelly’s voice was a whispery croak. “Kal … a … kar …”
“What about him?” Come on, Shelly. Stay awake. He brushed a lock of her dark hair out of her face, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Had … a … girl …”
Derek flashed on the Ford F150 that had driven by him as he showed up. A little girl had been crying in the passenger seat. “He had a little girl with him?”
“Y-y-yesssss.” A sibilant bit of her life escaping with the word.
“Good, Shelly. That’s just great. Now hold on, the ambulance is almost here. You hold on.”
The sirens were loud. “Over here!” Derek shouted. “We’re over here!” He thought there was a panicked rawness to his voice and didn’t like it.
A moment later a uniformed cop ran up, gun drawn. He took one look at Shelly and shouted into the radio pinned to his collar. Derek pawed through the remnants of Shelly’s coat and through her pants pockets and came up with the white key card. He tossed it to the cop, who sprinted off toward the gate.
“Was Kalakar in a Ford pickup truck?” he asked.
Shelly didn’t respond. Her eyes were open, but she seemed to be looking off into space. “Dammit, Shelly! Stay with me. You’re going to make it. Stay with me!” He pressed his fingers to her throat. Nothing.
“Shelly!”
There. A pulse. Weak, but there.
The white-and-red ambulance wheeled up to them and two paramedics jumped out. One, a woman, eased Derek aside. They immediately went to work.
Derek stepped back, watching her. He blinked. The cop stepped toward him, but Derek held up a finger. He held up the cell phone, trying to remember O’Reilly’s sat phone number. His mind was a blank.
The female paramedic looked at him. “Are you Derek?”
He nodded, hurrying over.
“She asked for you.”
Derek knelt down by her. Shelly’s eyes blinked open.
“I’m here, Shelly. Right here.” He reached out and took her hand, squeezed. “Everything’s going to be all right.” He ignored the look the two paramedics shot each other as he said that.
“Girl …”
“Yes,” Derek said. “Kalakar had a little girl with him. I saw her.”
Shelly seemed to struggle to speak. Her mouth opened and no sound came out. The male paramedic said, “We’re going to lift her onto a stretcher and get her to the hospital now.”
Derek nodded.
They deftly lifted Shelly onto the gurney, clicked it up, and were rolling it toward the ambulance, when Shelly said, “Girl … name …”
“What? The girl’s name?” He squeezed Shelly’s hand, but she didn’t respond. She was sending him a message, telling him something, but it seemed to be sapping all of her energy.
“Mmmmmm.”
Derek looked at the paramedics, who shrugged. “Shelly?”
But Shelly was out. They loaded her into the back of the ambulance, and with siren wailing, sped out of the facility. Derek stared after it, mind buzzing.
CHAPTER 43
The cop lumbered toward him. Derek held up his hands. “Wait, wait, wait!”
The cop, who looked like he used to play college football, scowled at him, obsidian eyes suspicious. Cop eyes, Derek thought.
“What?” The cop started toward him again. Built like a refrigerator, his skin was the color of burned toast.
“Don’t move! Don’t move!”
The cop cocked his head. “What’s this about, Agent Stillwater?”
Derek’s eyes narrowed. He scanned the ground. “Are detectives coming?”
“Yeah. What’s this about?” He took a step toward Derek.
“No. Stay right there. Right there.”
Derek studied the facility, then the pavement, and said. “Don’t move. Have you notified the FBI?”
“No sir.”
“I don’t remember the phone number, but call the FBI Field Office here and tell them Special Agent Shelly Pimpuntikar was in a shooting. Ask to speak with Agent Cassandra O’Reilly. She’s not FBI, but she’s federal. Tell her they need to get here ASAP. We need a crime-scene team.”
“Sir—”
Derek pointed to a spot about five feet in front and to the left of where the cop stood. “Does that look like blood to you?”
The cop looked to where he pointed. His eyebrows raised above his dark eyes. “You think she nailed her assailant?”
Derek nodded. “Make those calls, please.”
When the two Culver City detectives showed up, Derek cooperated. He knew he wouldn’t have to cooperate for long. It took thirty minutes before O’Reilly arrived with an FBI team. The FBI SAC, Jeremy Black, showed up as well and informed the local cops the scene was theirs. Because it involved the shooting of an FBI agent, even the locals knew they didn’t stand a chance in hell of fighting them on it.
Black was tall and broad-shouldered and pissed off. He got into Derek’s personal space and slammed the flat of his palm against Derek’s chest. “You’re a fucking menace, Stillwater.”
“The only reason Shelly’s alive is because of me. So you can stick your attitude up your ass. Kalakar was here. He rented a storage unit. And I think Shelly shot him. Also—”
He looked past Black to O’Reilly, whose face was a pale gray mask. “I think you need to take control of the video cameras here. Now. I think we got Kalakar and his truck on video.”
O’Reilly’s eyes grew wide and she spun to take in the video cameras. She strode off without a word. Black shouted after her, “It’s the bureau’s, O’Reilly. Remember our conversation.”
She waved her hand at him, but didn’t hesitate or pause.
Black stared at Derek for a moment. “Run me through it, then I want you to go back to the FO and write up a statement. Then get on the first flight out of LAX back to wherever the fuck you came from.”
“That’s not your call.”
Black’s glare could cut tempered steel. “Listen to me closely, Stillwater. This START team bullshit has been a waste of time and resources. We didn’t need you coming here, and you sure didn’t do us any good, did you? We’ve got a nice little body count over at the port and we’ve got a wounded agent and then we’ve got you wandering all over town causing trouble with the locals. I have contacted the director in D.C. and informed him that the L.A. START team is done. I’m pulling the FBI out of the team and I’m sending the non-bureau personnel home—that means you and O’Reilly and Givenchy. Welch can stay if he wants to.”
Derek shrugged. “It’s still not your call. I answer to Secretary Johnston.”
Black’s face had the look of a thunderhead. “I’ve given you all the slack I intend to, Stillwater. The LAPD wants you for questioning. I don’t answer to them, and I’m not sad Popovitch is off the playing field. But I’m being real generous by suggesting you go back to the FO, write up your report, and catch the first flight back to D.C. Otherwise, you’re going to be spending a lot longer time here than I think either one of us wants you to. You understand me?”
“Loud and clear.”
Derek turned and walked to his car. Black just gave him a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card, but it was temporary and he’d better use it while he could.
He climbed in the car and fired up the engine. Suddenly the door opened and Cassandra O’Reilly threw her Go Packs into the back seat. She settled into the passenger seat.
Derek cocked his head. “What do you want?”
“We’re working together. The START team is history and so is any cooperation I’m going to get from Black or the Bureau. But we’re not done yet and, frankly, I’m pissed off. So drive.”
“Where to?”
“Jesus, Derek. Anywhere but here.”
CHAPTER 44
Ghazala Seddiqi was vacuuming her living room carpet and waiting for Malika to come home from school when the phone rang. She thought it was probably Alicia Rodriguez, Dominica’s mother, telling her that Malika was over at her house. Those two, Malika and Dominica, were as thick as thieves. Malika was just as likely to be at Dominica’s as Dominica was to be here. Ghazala liked Dominica. She liked her energy, her spark, her sassiness. She liked her Americanness.
Shutting off the vacuum, she picked up the phone. Her spine went stiff and her heart pumped a little faster as she recognized the voice.
“Hello Ghazala. This is Kalakar.”
Biting back her anger, Ghazala said, “John is not here. He’s still at work.”
“I know that. He’s not answering my calls. As soon as I hang up, I want you to call your husband and tell him he has to take my calls.”
“I don’t understand. If John doesn’t want to talk to you, I think that’s a good thing.”
“I know that, Ghazala. But I have your daughter.”
“What?”
Ghazala felt a ripple of terror wash over her. She did not know exactly who Kalakar was, but she had a pretty good idea of what he was. “Let me talk to her. Now.”
“That’s a good idea. Just a moment.”
Ghazala heard rustling and then her daughter’s voice. “Mommy?”
“Malika, honey. Are you all right?”
“I’m—I’m—”
Kalakar took the phone away from the little girl, his voice louder, flat. The flatness somehow struck Ghazala as the worse thing, the unemotional, cold way he was talking to her. “Your daughter is fine, Ghazala, and she will remain fine just as long as John cooperates with me. We had an agreement and he broke off his end of our arrangement. He has one opportunity to save your daughter—”
“What do you mean, save my daughter?” Ghazala clutched the phone as if it were a life preserver, but she felt as if she were falling away, the r
eal world spiraling beyond her reach while she dropped into a whirlpool of fear. “What do you mean? Don’t you hurt her! Don’t you hurt her!”
Kalakar’s voice continued in that cold, flat way. “You call John and tell him I will be calling him in a few minutes.”
The phone line went dead. Ghazala’s breathing was ragged. She thought she might pass out. Clutching the edge of the kitchen counter, she swayed, chest burning, blood roaring in her ears. With trembling hands she dialed John’s cell phone by heart. When he answered, she blurted, “Kalakar took Malika! He took her! What did you do?”