Troubleshooter

by Gregg Hurwitz

  In the mirror Tim watched Rich’s face alter. His eyes widened; his forehead smoothed. For a moment he looked shocked and maybe even sorrowful. Then, slowly, his face gathered itself back up into its customary squint.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  Reaching with cuffed hands, he opened the door and climbed out.

  50

  Tim. Tim. Tim.”

  “Dray?”

  Bear said, “No.”

  Tim awakened in the empty cell, clutching his pager in one hand, his phone in the other. Bear stood over him, blotting out the bright Cell Block lights. After returning Rich to his cage, Tim had gone into one of the other keep-away cells, relishing the quiet. He’d touched base with Thomas and Freed, who’d been following up at Burbank Airport for the past few hours. When he’d lain down on the plastic bench to think through his next step, he’d ended up dozing off.

  “Tell me it’s good news.”

  “It’s good news,” Guerrera said. He was holding Tim’s tactical vest. Tim swung his feet over the edge of the molded bench and ground the heels of his hands into his puffy eyes. He checked the cell-phone clock—he’d been out seven minutes.

  “Haines pulled the vehicle-cam footage from my Impala,” Guerrera said, helping Tim into his vest. “It was intact—that shit is secured in a black box in the trunk. He found the hearse—a 1998 Cadillac Miller Meteor, license plate clear as day, lit up by my headlights. We put out a BOLO to all agencies. But guess what?”

  Tim’s voice was cracked from sleep. “Registered to a false name.”

  “And a fake address.” Bear pulled Tim to his feet, and they all exited the cell. “Thank you, Babe Donovan.”

  “So we checked where the registration crap shipped to,” Guerrera continued. “A P.O. box. Bear got a telephonic warrant, called your postal inspector from the cult case—”

  “Owen B. Rutherford,” Bear chimed in.

  “—found out the P.O. box is still active.”

  Bear turned and waved at the black bulb of the security camera at the far end of the corridor. A moment later the door buzzed, and they stepped out of Cell Block.

  “Even if we—or Sheriff’s—could spare the men for a stakeout, the Sinners aren’t gonna send anyone important to the P.O. box to pick up the mail,” Tim said. “We’ll wind up with Wristwatch Annie.”

  Bear hit the elevator button, and the doors dinged open. “We don’t need a stakeout. Rutherford found us a gas bill for service to a Fillmore address.”

  Tim’s pulse quickened when they drove by the two-story clapboard house. Flaking white paint revealed patches of rotting wood. Blownoff composite roof shingles peppered the lawn. Blankets draped the windows. Located in a formerly middle-class part of Fillmore across the 126 from the Laughing Sinners clubhouse, it was an ideal safe house. Other residents would not notice comings and goings or motorcycles; the houses on the block were decently spaced for privacy, some distinguished by pit bull runs along the sides, others by aboveground pools. A few ambitious souls had already tugged their Christmas trees to the curb.

  The deputies did a slow approach, Guerrera sliding around back while Tim and Bear peeked through the front and side windows. The blankets had been tacked to the frames and sills, but in places they’d pulled free, enabling Tim to make out the interior.

  The house appeared deserted, no furniture in evidence. Knee-high mounds of kitty litter sloped from the corners. No cat shit. No scratching posts. No claw marks at the doorjambs. Rust-colored stains climbed the walls. Unplugged fans and coils of plastic tubing had been left by the windows, rolled-up towels near the doorways. Wires protruded from holes in the ceiling where the smoke alarms had been. After using the house for a while, the Sinners had cleared out. Like all smart dealer/distributors, they kept their meth labs mobile, moving them every few weeks to stay one step ahead of the DEA and the competition. Once the heat blew over, they might hermit-crab their operation back into a house they’d used months before, or the nomads could use it as a place to hole up.

  Tim reconvened with Bear and Guerrera on the old-fashioned porch, all three keeping to the side of the door. Bear had gone out to his Ram and retrieved some of his gear. A mound of L.A. Times, some yellowed already, buried the mat.

  Bear pointed to the newspapers and whispered, “Nice ruse.”

  “Really looks like it’s vacant,” Tim said.

  Bear gave a skeptical frown. They drew their guns, Guerrera’s hand jiggling in a nervous tic. The doorknob lock yielded in seconds under the pick, but Tim took a bit more time with the dead bolt. He raised his gun and stepped back, letting the door swing inward to reveal the still-empty entry.

  Bear stuck his side-handle baton lengthwise along the seam inside the hinges to prop the door ajar. A second door opened to the kitchen. Bear placed a wooden wedge with a nail driven through it, guiding it with a boot. It stuck in place, stopping the door on its backswing. They waded through a heap of kitty litter, globbed up from the toxic gases absorbed in the meth-cooking process, and pushed forward into the living room. Though they were close to the center of the ground floor, wind whistled past them from the open front door—no barriers along their escape route in case they needed to beat a hasty retreat.

  The room-to-room went quickly, given the lack of furniture. They triangulated, only one deputy moving at a time. They made silent progress, their backs toward the walls, careful not to let their shoulders whisper against doorframes. Accustomed to full-bore ART kick-ins requiring heavy firepower, Guerrera didn’t handle his Beretta with the same facility he did an MP5. Tim caught him holding the handgun up by his head and gestured for him to straight-arm it or keep it in a belt tuck. The Starsky & Hutch position was good solely for catching a closeup of an actor’s face in the same frame as the gun; in real life a startle reaction to a sudden threat would leave an officer momentarily deaf and blind, or with half his face blown off.

  Every so often they’d pause and listen. An upstairs floorboard creaked, and they waited. A few seconds later, a slight rasp put them back on alert. Neither sound was quite pronounced enough for them to determine whether someone was moving up on the second floor or if the house was merely groaning.

  Tim and Bear ascended the stairs, back to back, then waved Guerrera up. The second floor comprised a wide master and a bathroom. Guerrera kept his gun on the bathroom door, waiting for Tim and Bear to clear the bedroom. Beside a bare mattress, cigarette butts stuffed a shoe-box lid, making it look like a nicotine planter. Bear waved a hand over it and shook his head—no heat. Tim opened the closet door, gripping the knob with his fist, thumb up, prepared to shove if he felt sudden pressure. Two wire hangers dangled inside.

  Guerrera waited for them to get into position before pulling open the bathroom door. He remained flat against the wall, allowing Bear and Tim to enter first. An empty square of chipped tile. Tim swept back the shower curtain with his arm and checked out the empty tub.

  Bear let out his breath in a rush—disappointment or relief. “It was worth a shot.”

  Tim’s eye caught on the flexible showerhead. It had been shoved nearly to the ceiling to accommodate a man larger even than Bear.

  Guerrera followed Tim’s stare and mouthed, “Kaner?”

  Bear raised the toilet lid with his boot. A half-smoked cigarette bobbed in the gray water.

  Tim ran his thumb along the sink drain. Shaving whiskers.

  When he looked up, Guerrera had his Beretta pointed at the ceiling. An attic hatch, nearly seamless. Bear was already telescoping his mirror. He was too big and the space too tight, so he handed off the mirror to Tim and stepped out of the bathroom.

  Tim took down the shower-curtain rod and set the rubber plug against the hatch. Guerrera returned his nod, gun still trained overhead, and Tim pushed. The hatch popped up easily. As Guerrera aimed into the dark slit, Tim eased the mirror up into the attic. The stripe of light provided minimal visibility. He made out tufts of pink insulation, crossbeams, swirling motes. The gable window was blac
ked out. Tim rotated the mirror another quarter turn.

  Two dark eyes, illuminated sharply in the reflected band of light, consumed the small rectangle of mirror. Tim dropped the shower-curtain rod, the hatch falling back into place with a thud an instant before the ceiling exploded.

  51

  Bullets spit up chips of tile. Tim kicked Guerrera in the hip, and Guerrera flew back through the open bathroom door, rolling into the master. Tim charged behind him as chunks of drywall fell and the light fixture showered sparks.

  They returned fire, but their handguns were no match for the invisible firepower. Bullet holes chewed up the bedroom ceiling as Kaner mirrored their movement overhead.

  Bear grabbed Tim and Guerrera and practically threw them down the stairs. They tumbled over each other, Bear miraculously there before they landed, yanking them to their feet again. They reached the front door, Bear going a mile a minute into his radio.

  Breathing hard, Guerrera reloaded and started back inside, shooting Tim an inquisitive look. Tim shook his head, so Guerrera ran outside to keep an eye on the upstairs windows until backup arrived.

  Tim and Bear waited in the entry, sweating, weapons drawn, eyes on the stairs. Though the automatic weapon had silenced, dust rode the air down from the second floor, depositing sediment on the top steps. Tim pressed his ear to the doorframe and listened to the house, picking up the thump of boots two floors up and the chink of a new mag in the well. A creak as Kaner sat and then, most unsettling, the silence of the patient hunter.

  Eighteen units responded within five minutes. Tim directed them into position while Bear continued to coordinate with the comm center. Even before the street was cordoned off, four major news-channel helicopters circled overhead, one painted KCOM’s trademark banana yellow. The front door remained open, Bear’s baton still wedged in the hinges, leaving a clear view through to the staircase. Sheriff’s quickly determined that there were no live telephone lines going into the house; if they wanted to talk to Kaner, a deputy would have to risk his ass running up to deliver a phone. Malane was there with three suits from Operation Cleansweep. They kept a respectful distance, huddling behind the sawhorses, recognizing that the Service took lead—for now—on the biker front. As soon as the operation dovetailed back with the AT investigation, they’d roll up their sleeves and plunge in.

  Sheriff’s SWAT was up on the neighboring roofs, scopes glinting in the sun. Sniper-qualified with the Army Rangers and SWAT-certified as a deputy, Tim was eager to get his eye on a scope, too, though he knew that his job today was on the ground. He’d done his retraining at the Sheriff’s Academy before adopting the more media- and law-enforcement-friendly title of countersniper, though he had to confess that his precision-marksman instinct was still to play offense, not defense. The military had permitted him ample opportunity to hone his proficiencies; law enforcement had taught him restraint.

  The ART squad gathered in the street behind the Beast, a retrofitted ambulance they used for deployment. Tannino jogged over, bent at the waist until he had the oversize vehicle between him and the house. Tim grabbed a ballistic helmet from the Beast and tossed it to him.

  Tannino screwed it down over his poufy Erik Estrada do. “How much ammo you think he has in there?”

  As if in answer, a burst of automatic fire blazed from the gable window, drilling holes in a Sheriff’s Department car. A few of the younger ART members crouched, despite the Beast’s protection. The tip of the AR-15 withdrew into the darkness of the attic.

  “Not sure,” Tim said.

  “What’s the play?”

  Miller spit through his front teeth. “Burn it down.”

  “We want him alive,” Tim said, as if Miller had been serious.

  “Let’s go in there and get him,” Guerrera said.

  “He’s got position on us,” Bear said. “We march up those stairs, we’re gonna get our asses shot off.”

  “We’ve got numbers.”

  “Great—we can share the body bags.”

  Miller said, “From the roof?”

  Tim said, “We’re not going in at all.”

  A few puzzled glances made the rounds.

  Thomas said, “What’s left, Troubleshooter?”

  “We’ll make him come to us.”

  Maybeck braced himself against the Beast and fired the short, big-barreled breach projectile launcher. An OC canister flew from the 37-mm, punching a fresh hole in the top of the blacked-out gable window. Within seconds, white-gray smoke wisped up into view. Tim lowered his binocs and nodded at Maybeck, who popped the breach open, ejecting the spent casing, and loaded the next round.

  A persuasive blend of three hundred varieties of pepper plants, OC was ART’s preferred weapon for area denial. OC not only redlined pain receptors in the mouth, nose, stomach, and mucus membrane, but it could incapacitate the esophagus, trachea, respiratory tract, and eye muscles.

  Maybeck, as the resident breacher, managed the less lethal weaponry under Miller’s supervision. His first day in the district office after his transfer from St. Louis, Maybeck had won a steak dinner at Lawry’s, spelling oleoresin capsicum on a chalkboard in the old squad room when Jim snidely bet him he couldn’t unwind the abbreviation.

  Tim tipped his head, and Maybeck let another perfect shot fly.

  “He’s fighting it right now,” Maybeck said. “Got his shirt up over his head, probably. Give it a minute.”

  They waited as the plume of gas escaping the shattered window rose and spread. Then a violent hacking came audible, and the sound of Kaner stumbling around in the attic.

  “Wait till Bear and I get in position, then fire in another,” Tim said. “Hit the rear of the ground floor heavy—I want that back door fogged off. Lose the shotgun and throw grenades if you have to for better aim.”

  “Make sure you cook the grenades for three or four seconds after you pull the pin so he doesn’t have time to send ’em back our way.” Miller shot a glare at Thomas. “Sound familiar, jackass?”

  Tim and Bear broke from the cover of the Beast, sprinting across the front yard. They shouldered up on either side of the doorjamb. Tim reached across and yanked Bear’s baton from the hinges. The door banged closed.

  Tim watched another canister disappear into the house. A loud thump as Kaner deserted the attic, jumping down into the bathroom. Tim signaled at Maybeck, holding up two fingers, and Maybeck fired three more canisters through the second-floor window.

  Wheezing and gagging. Shoes scrabbling across the upstairs floor.

  “Come on, big boy,” Bear muttered. “Come to the fresh air.”

  The house shook as Kaner stumbled down the stairs to the first floor. Through the door they could hear him gasping and grunting, less than ten yards away. Tim signaled again, and Thomas and Freed ran along the sides of the house, heaving grenades through the windows. The bark of Kaner’s cough grew louder.

  Kaner’s raspy voice rose into a warrior’s roar, rage tinged with pain. Tim white-knuckled the side handle of the baton. Bear settled down on one knee a few feet back from the hinge side of the door, the stock of his Remington braced against one shoulder, the barrel aimed gut level.

  Kaner’s footsteps quickened as he thundered toward the front door. Tim tensed his knees, his shoulders, watching the doorknob six inches from his hand. Heart hammering, he drew back the baton, starting his windup. Still bellowing, Kaner hit the door like a ’roid-raging linebacker, knocking it clear off the bottom hinge and splintering the wood. His momentum carried him onto the porch, the AR-15 rising in his right arm. Tim pivoted off the wall, meeting Kaner’s skull with the baton and dropping him flat on his back.

  52

  Holding a five-foot Plexiglas shield before them, three officers wearing gloves and helmets advanced on Kaner in the holding cell. Though his hands were cuffed, he swung his elbows, backing up and bristling like a bull. His cheeks were cherry red and still glistened with tears from the pepper; his eyes looked like something out of an R. Crumb comic. T
he shield was see-through and concave, designed so the curve could trap a prisoner against a wall like a bug. Tim, Bear, and Guerrera watched the cell extraction from the safety of the corridor.

  They’d stripped Kaner of his originals, his jeans, and his drive-chain collar, putting him in an orange jumpsuit. They’d given up on fighting him into new clothes in Booking, and so the top half of the jumpsuit remained unbuttoned, hanging at his waist, his T-shirt proclaiming STOP LOOKING AT MY COCK. He paused to glare at Tim, then put a shoulder down into the Plexiglas and lunged, knocking the lead man over. The two others jumped in, taking up the broad shield, but not before Kaner managed to stomp the fallen officer’s knee, which gave with a crack.

  As the injured officer howled and crawled away from the scuffle, the other two hammered Kaner against the wall, struggling to hold him in place. One dropped to all fours, reaching under the shield and pulling Kaner’s feet out from under him. Kaner hit the concrete hard, banging his head. While he was dazed, they got him in a restraint hold and moved him out of the cell, four detention enforcement officers leaping in to help.

  “Put him in the interview room next to Booking,” Tim said. “Cuff wrists and ankles to the chair.”

  Kaner lunged at Tim as he was dragged past, cursing, spittle flying from his lips with the effort.

  Bear’s breath passed through his teeth as a whistle. They followed at a distance. A one-way mirror occupied a wall of the spacious interview room, a cardboard box below it. In the far corner, a metal chair was bolted to the floor. The officers double-cuffed each of Kaner’s limbs to the chair and left him with Tim, Bear, and Guerrera. Kaner strained against the cuffs, throwing his weight violently from side to side, trying to budge the chair. Bear stepped forward, but Tim held up his hand. Kaner thrashed and swore for about ten minutes, finally settling back in exhausted defeat.