Innocence

by David Hosp

  Kozlowski said nothing.

  “Be careful,” Finn replied.

  She slammed the door and hurried across the street toward the church.

  z

  Flaherty moved silently. The church was on a corner lot, bordered in front to the left by a warehouse that ran barbed-wire fencing along the shared property line. At some point in the past, probably in an attempt to soften the industrial feel of the neighborhood, trees had been planted along the fence line, and shrubs had been grown along the front of the property. As a result, much of the church was hidden from the street view.

  It made for a difficult approach, but from the information they had, it seemed as though most of the activity took place in back. There was always a chance that a guard would be watching from the front, but it seemed unlikely, given the small number of gang members involved. There was no way to be sure, though, so Flaherty and Seldon ducked through the bushes cautiously.

  It was good to see Finn.

  The thought jumped into her head, unbidden and unwelcome. Now was a time when she had to focus all of her attention on the task at hand; her survival, and that of the men she was with, depended on it. It was the wrong time to be thinking about her personal life.

  But it was good to see him. She couldn’t help admitting it to herself. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed him until she was near him again, and now all of the feelings she had been suppressing for months came streaming back over her. It made her question her decision to pack up her life and move to D.C. There was more to life than police work, after all.

  “You ready?” Seldon whispered.

  She shook the thoughts of Finn out of her head. “Let’s do it,” she said. “Left side. Through the playground.”

  Then they were moving, keeping low, just inside the shrubs. There was a full moon casting a bright blue light over the unbroken field of white between them and the front of the church. Once they started in toward the buildings, there was no way to avoid being exposed, at least for a moment or two.

  Flaherty and Seldon came even with the front of the church, then nodded to each other and turned a right angle, moving as fast as they could toward the corner of the building. Their guns were drawn, and their eyes searched the scene in front of them, looking for any sign that they had been spotted. The place looked and felt deserted, and it took only a few seconds before they were engulfed by the church’s shadow, continuing to kick their way through the snow until their backs were up against the building. Flaherty motioned to Seldon, and the two of them raced along the side of the church, down toward where the troika of buildings met. They still had not seen a soul, and it felt wrong. Very wrong. Still, they had no other options now; they were committed.

  Tucked behind the corner of the church, Flaherty nodded to Seldon, and the two of them dashed across the walkway that separated the church from the rectory; then they ducked around the outside of the little house toward the garage below them.

  z

  “You’re not staying here, are you?” Finn asked.

  “No,” Kozlowski replied as he checked his gun and slid it back into his holster.

  “I didn’t think so.” Finn pulled out the revolver Kozlowski had given him and looked at it. It had been years since he had fired a gun.

  “You can stay here,” Kozlowski said. “I’m a big boy.”

  “I’m coming,” Finn said. “And it’s not you I’m worried about.”

  “Flaherty?”

  “No, Seldon. He seems like a decent guy.”

  Kozlowski gave a humorless chuckle. “I didn’t see a ring on his finger. I’m sure you two will be very happy.” He slid the van door open and stepped out into the night.

  Finn took a deep breath and followed.

  z

  Kozlowski followed the tracks that Flaherty and Seldon had left in the snow. He stayed low and moved silently, as they had. Behind him, he heard Finn curse quietly under his breath as he tripped over a rock in the churchyard. When he got to the front of the church, Kozlowski crouched by the side of the building, waiting for Finn to catch up. Finn eventually slid alongside him, his shoulder bumping into the clapboard siding, making Finn groan ever so slightly.

  “Your arm still hurting?” Kozlowski asked.

  “Only when I’m awake,” Finn replied. “It’s fine. Between the fear and the painkillers I can barely feel it.”

  “You stay here,” Kozlowski said to him.

  “What?” said Finn. “Why?”

  “This is police work, Finn. You’re not a cop.”

  “Neither are you,” Finn reminded him.

  “Yes, I am,” Kozlowski replied evenly. “Always was; always will be.”

  Finn just looked at him. “So you want me to wait out here?”

  “You want to do something useful? Check out the church and make sure no one’s in there waiting to ambush us. I don’t want to take care of business around back only to get my ass shot off when I think it’s all over.”

  Finn blew out a long breath, watching the steam rise from his lips. “Fine,” he said. “But once I’m sure the church is all clear, I’m coming back there to help you out.”

  “Fine,” Kozlowski said. “I’ll be looking for you. Just be careful. You get yourself killed, and I have to find a new office to rent. I don’t like change.”

  “You’re all heart,” Finn said.

  z

  Finn peeled off and scrambled around the corner to the front of the church. There was some truth in what Kozlowski had said; Finn wasn’t a cop and had never been one. This was a law enforcement operation, Finn told himself, and he had no training in that area. He knew he probably would be of little help in the raid and might even get in the way. Still, he didn’t like that Kozlowski had pointed that out to him, and he liked even less the notion that he wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on Linda.

  Finn pushed on the front door to the church, and to his surprise, it opened with a low, tired creak. Gripping Kozlowski’s backup gun, he stuck his arm through the crack in the door, pointing it around in the darkness. It made little sense; he could see nothing. But somehow it made him feel better to let the gun lead him in.

  He slipped into the church and allowed the door to close behind him. He was lost in darkness, swimming in it as he waved his arms about, keeping his back to the door. His eyes began to adjust, and he could make out the shapes, if not the details, of his surroundings. In front of him was a row of what appeared to be heavy drapes, separating the entryway from the church’s main hall. It was pulled fully across the entry, blocking out whatever moonlight might make it through the windows of the church. To his right, he could see a stairway leading up to the balcony at the back of the building.

  As he turned to his left, he caught a glimpse of a tall figure against the far end of the wall, his arm raised, a gun pointing directly at Finn’s head. Finn let out a shout and dove to the ground, rolling to his right and coming up on one knee, his own gun aimed instinctively at the man. “Freeze!” he yelled. “Put the gun down!”

  The other man didn’t flinch, and the gun remained aimed at Finn. Finn waited no more than a second or two before he squeezed off two quick shots. He was gratified to see that his aim was still good; even in the dark and after all the years, he could tell that the two shots took the other man directly in the chest. The man rocked back and forth twice, still holding his gun out, and then fell stiffly to the floor. As his body hit the ground, the entire church shook with an enormous rumble, and as Finn watched, the man split into three large pieces on the ground.

  Confused, Finn stood and moved carefully over to the man he’d shot. Kneeling, he could see a face, etched in stone, its eyes open in an expression of hope and compassion. Around its shoulders, a granite shawl fell to an inscription at his chest. st. jude thaddeus: “he will show himself most willing to give help.” Looking more closely, Finn could see that the statue’s arm had been raised out straight to bestow a blessing on all those who would enter the church.

&n
bsp; As Finn knelt over the broken body of the patron saint of lost causes, he whispered to himself, “Shit. That can’t be a good sign.” Within seconds, all hell broke loose in the echoes of gunshots from the rectory behind the church.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Linda Flaherty was tucked behind a row of bushes that separated the low-slung day-care center from the rectory, looking out onto the driveway leading into the sunken garage. The greenery that ringed the property combined with the natural landscape to hide the scene from the street, but she had a clear line of sight into the garage doors. A dim light bled softly onto the edge of the driveway, and inside the building, a dozen or so people milled about in tense clusters.

  There were three distinct groups she could make out. The first was of least concern to her: three disheveled women, a gaunt young man, and two girls who couldn’t have been over seven or eight years old. They cowered at the back of the garage, watched over casually by a rough-looking man in his mid-twenties with tattoos, wielding an automatic rifle. There was no way to mistake them for anything but what they were: scared and helpless refugees, just arrived in what they assumed was a land of untold riches and opportunity.

  The tattoos on the man guarding them placed him solidly in the second group: VDS. She could see five of them, and they were all heavily armed. They moved about with arrogance in the driveway, overseeing the operation. One of them, an older man—thin, wiry, and covered

  with tattoos over every inch of visible skin—was ordering them about, and the other four obeyed without question or hesitation.

  The third group interested her most. There were four of them, also all male, but not visibly armed. They all had dark olive skin and heavy beards. The tallest one seemed to be the leader, talking with the VDS commander as an equal. His voice, heavily accented from the Middle East, drifted across the driveway. The VDS gang members were not guarding this group the way they were the refugees. Though the VDS men seemed to treat them with the respect of business associates, there was a wariness to the way the two factions interacted.

  She glanced over at Seldon, concealed behind the bushes with her, and nodded. This was it. It was what they had been hoping for. She knew that the other four federal agents would be spread out along the perimeter of the property, just out of sight. It was perfect. They had their suspects caught in a cross fire, and more important, they would have the advantage of surprise. From the look of the men loitering about, they had no idea that any sort of raid was imminent, and as long as that didn’t change, the operation would be a success.

  She raised her fist to Seldon, giving him the ready sign. In a matter of seconds, it should all be over.

  It was at that moment she heard the gunshots. They broke through the quiet with electric clarity: two loud, crisp reports from up by the church. She flinched, and her heartbeat doubled as she watched all those within the garage break into motion, unslinging their weapons and heading toward the safety and cover of the garage.

  The advantage was lost, she realized instantly, and what had looked to be a swift, easy roundup had morphed into an inevitable siege. She cursed under her breath. Then she stood up from behind the bushes, raising her gun toward the men running for the garage. In a loud, clear voice, she yelled, “Federal officers! Put down your weapons!”

  z

  Kozlowski was easing his way down along the side of the rectory when he heard the first two gunshots. He looked back up toward the church, which seemed to loom over the other two buildings in the complex in dark judgment.

  Finn!

  Kozlowski hadn’t actually been concerned about the lawyer’s lack of formal police experience. Finn was smart and levelheaded, and Kozlowski had seen the way he responded under pressure. He knew that Finn would be a good man to have around in just about any fight. But not this one. In this fight, Kozlowski had only one objective—to kill Carlos. Kozlowski couldn’t go back to Lissa and tell her that the man responsible for her ordeal was still breathing. And if killing Carlos required him to give up his own life . . . well, his life had always been about sacrifice, hadn’t it?

  Finn, though, wouldn’t understand, and even if he would, Kozlowski didn’t want him involved. It was his sacrifice to make, not Finn’s, and that was why he had sent Finn into the safety of the church.

  When he heard the gunshots, though, Kozlowski felt ill. In the process of pursuing his own vendetta, he had sent Finn into an ambush. He took two steps back toward the church, then looked around again toward the garage below, caught in indecision. Before he had the chance to think through his options clearly, he heard Flaherty’s voice calling out, “Federal officers! Put down your weapons!”

  In a matter of seconds, the real gunfire started in earnest.

  z

  Flaherty was on her feet for less than two seconds before a barrage of gunfire chopped at the bushes in front of her. She went down, gripping the snow as she tried to push herself deeper into the ground. She wished she had chosen a spot with better cover, but there was little she could do to correct that now.

  Besides, she was confident that the assault wouldn’t last long. The two initial shots had drawn the attention of those down in the driveway and the garage toward the church, and her shouts had redirected it toward the day-care center. That left the driveway entrance clear, and she knew that the other agents wouldn’t hesitate to exploit that approach.

  She turned her head and looked through the shrubs in front of her toward the driveway, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that her assumptions were well founded. Three of her men were moving in quickly down the driveway, advancing on the VDS gang members from behind. They didn’t even bother announcing their presence or intentions; they simply took aim, dropping two of the shooters without warning.

  Three left, Flaherty thought as she took advantage of the break in the gunfire to stand up and motion for Seldon to follow her. As long as the Middle Easterners weren’t armed—and she couldn’t see VDS arming a bunch of al Qaeda terrorists, no matter how much they were paying to be brought into the country—she and her men had a two-to-one tactical advantage.

  As she and Seldon moved down the hill toward the driveway, she could see that the other agents were already pressing their assault. All four of them were there, and they were trying to cut off the retreat into the garage. That was where the terrorists and gang members were headed: pulling back to mount a stand. Behind them, Flaherty could see the refugees huddled into a corner, trying desperately to find cover and stay out of the way. The terrorists, unarmed as they were, seemed to be searching for some way to join the battle, but they probably realized from experience how ineffectual rocks and sticks were against modern police hardware.

  Flaherty heard Carlos, the leader, yell something in Spanish, and one of the two remaining VDS soldiers rushed forward from within the garage, reaching up to grab the overhead door and pull it down. Flaherty dropped to a knee and squeezed off two shots, taking him in the center of the chest and putting him down. The door slid halfway toward the ground and then caught on its runners. The man had failed to close the door entirely, but the line of fire was partially blocked, and it would make the siege even more difficult.

  Flaherty and Seldon joined the other agents, who were using the vans for cover as they peppered the garage doors with their fire. “Down to two?” she called out, looking to confirm her count.

  “I think so,” one of the other agents yelled back. “Never can tell, though.”

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s be careful with our aim. We want prisoners if we can get them. Body bags don’t tell us much.”

  “Sure,” the agent responded. “You got any ideas about how to be careful with our aim and not get killed in the process, I’m all ears.”

  She thought about it. “You stay here and keep them pinned down.” She looked at Seldon. “You feel lucky?”

  He gave her a game smile. “Always.”

  “Good. Come with me.”

  z

  Carlos had be
en talking to the tall Syrian when the first two shots were fired. He called himself Hassan, but Carlos knew that was not his real name. The man’s real name had been lost over a decade ago and been covered carefully by his sponsors to make tracking him—or even identifying him—nearly impossible. Not that Carlos cared about his real identity; Hassan was willing to pay for the services VDS could provide, and Carlos was, at the core, a believer in rough capitalism. To the extent that Carlos had any reservations, they stemmed from the increased risks associated with bringing people like Hassan and his associates across the border. The smuggling operation VDS had established nearly two decades before was a profitable one, and Carlos was sometimes concerned that he was putting that at risk. But the Arabs paid twenty times what the refugees could, and that kind of money was difficult to turn down, no matter what the risks were.

  When Carlos heard the shots, it occurred to him that his judgment might have been flawed. “¡Adentro! ¡Adentro! ” he shouted to his men. His men were well trained, but when the woman on the hill announced her presence, they turned and engaged her. It was a fatal mistake, he knew “¡No! ¡Al garaje! ” He ordered them back into the garage, but it was too late. Two of his men were killed almost instantly, falling in their own blood on the driveway, as more officers moved in from the street. It left them with only three guns, and he knew then that it was a losing battle.

  “¡Cierra la puerta! ” he yelled to another one of his men. Carlos watched from behind as the man reached to pull the door down, but before the task was completed, the center of the man’s back exploded as one of the federal officers’ high-velocity shells hit him in the chest and tore a pathway through his body, exiting with a spray of blood.

  Carlos ticked off the options in his head and realized that escape was the only one that held even a modicum of hope. He turned to Hassan and held out his automatic rifle.