by Robert Greer
“Sounds like a reasonable enough agenda to me,” said Pinkie. CJ nodded approvingly.
The two men got out of the SUV, and Pinkie stepped to a rear door, opened it, and slipped the Colorado State University gym bag that Damion Madrid had given him off the back seat. “Whattaya got there?” Arnie asked, looking puzzled.
“Taters,” said Pinkie. “I figured you’d show us the slicer, so I brought along something to slice.” He set the gym bag on the ground and unzipped one of its two zippers. When he squeezed the sides of the bag, a half-dozen russet potatoes rolled out onto the ground. Scooping the potatoes up, Pinkie said, “I’ve got two or three dozen more in here—catch.” He tossed a potato to Arnie.
Arnie grabbed for the potato, but the pint of Jim Beam he’d polished off a half hour earlier wouldn’t let him catch it. Kneeling, he scooped the potato up off the ground and, in an attempt to demonstrate his sobriety, tossed it from hand to hand. “Still got my reflexes. And at seventy-six.” He looked toward the darkening sky. “We better get movin’; daylight ain’t gonna be with us much longer.”
“It’s your show,” said Pinkie, winking at CJ and hefting the gym bag. “Wouldn’t wanna get off our agenda.”
By the time they’d finished inspecting two of the three sugar-beet storage sheds, the compound was aglow in the magenta haze of twilight. CJ had scrutinized the two sheds, which were each the size of a small two-story house, looking for any evidence that Antoine Ducane, or anyone else for that matter, might’ve been sliced and diced, pulverized, or even laid out for a permanent beauty rest. Both sheds, however, were in the throes of final collapse. He had barely been able to walk around inside them without hitting his head on something, much less determine whether anyone had ever been killed inside.
Now, as CJ stood inside the surprisingly pristine-looking third shed scrutinizing Arnie’s beet slicer while Pinkie inspected an inoperative Humvee-sized refrigeration unit, a look of disappointment spread across CJ’s face. He’d hoped to stumble across some link to the Ducane murder at the abandoned factory. Something that would help him determine how Antoine Ducane had been killed there and then transported to the Eisenhower Tunnel. A hospital gurney, a stretcher, a pine box, some gunnysacks—anything suggesting a method of transport and transfer. Instead he’d toured two ramshackle sheds, had a look at a silo, and was now standing a few feet from a sugar-beet slicer that, although operable, certainly wasn’t the kind of machine anyone would use to slice up a human being.
“Wanna see anything else?” Arnie asked, inching his way toward the shed’s door, and taking in the look of disappointment on CJ’s face.
“Nope. We’ve seen enough,” said CJ, aware that sometimes you end up shooting a blank. Shrugging off the apparent miscalculation, he turned to Pinkie, who still stood across the room. CJ had barely uttered, “Let’s shove off,” when the lights in the shed went out. Seconds later the only door swung open, and Arnie DeVentis was out the door. “Hey!” Pinkie called out. “Shoulda been watchin’ the fucker closer.” He raced to the door, gym bag draped over his shoulder. When he stuck his head outside, three rounds from a semiautomatic handgun sent him diving back inside. “Son of a bitch set us up. Shit!” Pinkie slipped the gym bag off his shoulder, letting it drop to the floor. “Still any good at puttin’ an M-16 together in the dark?” he called out to CJ.
“Like ridin’ a bike.”
“Then you better get over here and start. I’m already half done with my Uzi.”
CJ walked across the floor and knelt next to the gym bag. A minute and a half later, he was holding a loaded, fully assembled M-16. “So what’s our exit strategy?” he said to Pinkie, moving the rifle from hand to hand, regaining its feel.
“Since there’s only one way outta here, I say we wait for it to get a little darker and hope that whoever’s bound to be out there waitin’ for us has less firepower than we do.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then it looks like we got ourselves stuck back to the future, Petty Officer Floyd.”
Gus Cavalaris, congratulating himself for having had the sense to stick with Floyd, had scaled the rickety fence that surrounded the sugar-beet factory grounds a half hour earlier and slowly worked his way across the wide-open grounds until he now stood behind the crumbling four-foot-high remains of the northwest corner of the headquarters building, trying to determine where the three shots he’d heard had come from. When Arnie DeVentis appeared out of nowhere, headed toward him at a dead run, Cavalaris, his right hand on the butt of his 9-mm, yelled, “Hey! Stop!”
Arnie reached for the semiautomatic in his jacket pocket, but Cavalaris was quicker. The second of three shots he fired at the slightly inebriated old caretaker hit him in the right thigh, and he crumbled to the ground. Seconds later Cavalaris stood over Arnie with the barrel of his 9-mm aimed squarely at the old man’s chest. When he reached for his cell phone to call for backup, he found that the phone wasn’t clipped to his belt. Realizing that he’d probably lost it sometime between scaling the compound’s fence and working his way to the main building, he said, “Shit!” As he watched the circle of blood on Arnie’s pants leg grow, he said, “Should’ve s-s-stayed put.”
“Who the hell are you?” Arnie said, trembling.
Cavalaris reached into his pants pocket, slipped out a wallet containing his police badge, and flipped it open. “Lieutenant Gus Cavalaris, Denver Homicide. More important thing, though, is w-w-who are you?” When Arnie didn’t respond, Cavalaris slipped his handcuffs off his belt, turned the now moaning old man over onto his belly, and slapped the cuffs onto his wrists. As he turned to retrace his steps to look for his cell phone, machine-gun fire strafed the ground in front of him. A second strafing splintered several bricks at the top of the building’s remnant of wall. He looked toward where the gunfire seemed to be coming from to realize that someone was shooting at him from the compound’s remaining silo. A third strafing sent him leaping to the ground, spread-eagled next to Arnie. Looking more agitated than afraid, he said, “Nice f-f-fuckin’ place you’ve got here, old man.”
“Let’s move it!” CJ yelled at Pinkie in the wake of the third round of machine-gun fire.
“Why now? It’s not dark.”
“Because we don’t wanna be sitting here where Arnie deposited us when whoever’s out there gets around to dusting us. There’s a reason Arnie left us here. Let’s go.” CJ duck-walked his way to the shed’s door, opened it just enough to slip out into the fading twilight, hoping he hadn’t been seen, and began crawling, M-16 cradled across his arms, toward the first shed they’d visited.
Pinkie stayed glued to CJ’s heels. They were a few feet from the shed when a string of bullets danced across the dirt in front of them.
CJ glanced skyward toward where he thought the gunfire was coming from, rolled onto his side, and squeezed off a full M-16 clip at the top of the silo.
Pinkie followed CJ’s lead, uncertain what he was shooting at. The response they got as CJ nudged open the crumbling shed’s door with his rifle muzzle and they both crawled inside was the unmistakable return fire from a submachine gun. “Somebody else out there with an Uzi,” CJ said, panting.
“Or an AK-47,” Pinkie said, nearly crawling over him. As Pinkie kicked the door to the shed closed, a round of shots from an automatic handgun rang out. “Shit! How many people are out there?”
“I’m guessin’ two,” said CJ. “That machine-gun fire came from the top of the silo, but those pistol shots came from ground level and from an automatic. I don’t think the pistol shots were meant for us.”
“You sure?”
CJ smiled. “As sure as I am that after babysittin’ that .50-caliber of mine for two tours, I swore I could hear the son of a bitch breathing.”
“What about the other shooter, then? Arnie?”
“I’m not sure,” said CJ. “I could’ve sworn Arnie’s shots came from a semiautomatic before.”
“Wonder who the guy with the automatic’s shootin’
at? Us or them?”
“One way to find out. Hey, Arnie, you out there?” CJ yelled, as loudly as he could.
A round of machine-gun fire peppered the side of the shed. A few seconds of silence followed before Cavalaris yelled, “Floyd, y-y-you out there? It’s Cavalaris.”
“Yeah,” CJ yelled, happy to hear the familiar stutter.
“I’m pinned down over here inside a corner of what’s left of some building,” Cavalaris called out. “Fifteen yards or so from the s-s-shed that just got strafed. You in there?”
“Yeah.”
“Our shooter’s on t-t-top of the silo.”
A volley of machine-gun fire sent Cavalaris sprawling to the ground.
“And he can hear us yelling,” CJ said, shaking his head. Looking at Pinkie, he asked, “Think you can keep our shooter occupied while I slip out of here and around to the exit-stair side of that silo?”
“Are you crazy, CJ? Let Cavalaris call for backup.”
“I’m hoping he already has.”
“Then let’s wait.”
“I don’t think that would be smart,” said CJ. “There’s no telling what our friend out there has cooked up for us. Could be he’s got grenades.”
“Shit! So what’s your plan?” asked Pinkie, well aware of the damage a grenade could do to the rickety shed.
“I’m gonna crawl outta here and head for the back side of that silo with this relic of mine from Vietnam burping.” CJ patted his M-16. “There’s a ground level access door to that silo somewhere and I’m gonna use it to our advantage. Keep an eye on me once I get to the silo. In the meantime, keep the guy on the roof occupied and let’s hope that somebody shows up.”
“And if nobody does?” Pinkie asked.
“Oh, they will. Sooner or later somebody’s bound to hear that there’s a war goin’ on out here.”
“Why don’t we just sit tight?”
“How many ways do I have to say it, Pinkie? We were set up. And we may still be,” CJ said, not bothering to mention that in all likelihood Ducane’s killer had stepped out of the closet and he planned to bag him.
“Listen for my shots,” said CJ, crawling back toward the door. As he slipped out of the shed and worked his way across the ground toward the exit-stair side of the silo, all he could hear was his own labored breathing and the wind.
Trying his best to think three steps ahead of the bail bondsman and Niedemeyer, Napper was beside himself. He’d been prepared to dispose of the two of them. What he hadn’t counted on was a third man gumming up the works. Realizing that he had very little time to work out a solution, he weighed his options. He could stand his ground and hope to finish off the bail bondsman and Niedemeyer while there was still a glimmer of daylight. He could move down to ground level and use his grenades. Or, as a last resort, he could make a phone call on the special phone he’d brought and extricate himself from his predicament. But he realized that once he made that phone call, he’d end up just like Ornasetti, or worse. He’d spent decades straddling two fences, and he’d made it work. He’d molded himself into a perfect chameleon and served two masters. And now he found himself a hair’s breadth away from falling off his perch. As he saw it, he’d even helped a few people out. He’d been Sheila Lucerne’s beacon to safety, although she’d never realized it. At Antoine Ducane’s request, and for a mere $10,000, he had come up with a safety net for her. He’d even shown Ornasetti how to keep breathing.
Scanning the darkening landscape, upset that he’d left his night-vision goggles in his truck, he muttered, “Damn.” He’d never expected Floyd and Niedemeyer to arrive with an arsenal, and never in his wildest dreams had he expected a stray dog like Cavalaris to come tagging along. No matter. All he could do now was play out his hand.
A hint of a breeze kicked up as CJ crawled along the south rim of the silo in the last glimmer of light. Reaching a recessed access door on the silo’s south side, a door he’d suspected had to be there, he rose to a crouch and wedged all of his 240 pounds into the eight-inch-deep recess. He patted his stomach and considered a plan to take out the machine gunner. Convinced as he glanced skyward that he could work his way clockwise around the base of the silo and fire up at the gunman from 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions before jumping back to the safety of the door access as he drew return fire, he nodded and thought, Why not? It wasn’t a bad course of action if his ammo held out and if he played the game of cat and mouse just right. Hopefully the gunman, uncertain where the next round of M-16 fire might come from, would respond by exposing himself briefly, but long enough for Pinkie to pick him off as he leaned over the edge of the silo to fire down on an ever-moving target. The success of the plan depended, however, on an experienced former infantryman like Pinkie recognizing his role in a maneuver that couldn’t be communicated to him.
Taking a deep breath, CJ patted the bulge of ammo in his pockets and thought, Now or never, as he stepped out of the doorway and fired up at the gunman. The gunman’s return fire kicked up a spray of dirt and rock that made CJ wonder, as he jumped back into the protection of the doorway, if he hadn’t chosen the wrong plan.
After two more sets of serve and volley and an interim round of machine-gun fire meant to keep Lieutenant Cavalaris pinned down, Pinkie had caught on to CJ’s strategy. Hoping the machine gunner hadn’t as well, and anticipating a fourth exchange, Pinkie sighted in on the top of the silo at 9 o’clock. Barely breathing now, he waited for CJ to let loose with his M-16.
Seconds after CJ opened fire, Napper leaned over the side of the silo to fire downward. Pinkie emptied thirty-two rounds into the top of the silo, splintering the top edges of a protective three-foot-high stem wall and sending concrete flying. When Napper let out a wail, CJ and Pinkie yelled, “Hit!” in near unison.
Bleeding from a nicked shoulder artery, his right arm limp from a fractured collarbone, and his shoulder blade shattered, Napper lost his grip on the AK-47 and fell to his knees. The submachine gun dropped into a pool of blood near his knees. Realizing that his choices for survival had suddenly narrowed down to either bleeding to death on the spot or taking his chances on an uncertain future, Napper scooted over to the silo’s protective concrete stem wall and, back to the wall, propped himself up.
Laboring to breathe, he reached for the phone case at his feet, snapped the front of it open, and entered a ten-digit number. When he heard the busy signal on the other end of the line, he said, in barely a whisper, “It’s Napper. I’ve got a Code 3.”
Chapter 31
Gus Cavalaris’s call from his vehicle for backup turned out a virtual army of cops from eight jurisdictions, including an incident command unit and a SWAT team from Adams County. An ambulance, its roof-mounted lights flashing red and yellow in the early-evening darkness, sat in front of the crumbling headquarters building, awaiting delivery of a semiconscious Arnie DeVentis. Cavalaris stood a few feet from the ambulance talking to the Adams County sheriff. Ten yards away, Pinkie and CJ sat on the ground, back to back, handcuffed to a badly rusted standpipe.
DeVentis, mumbling barely intelligible threats and obscenities, lifted his head off the stretcher as two paramedics rolled him toward the ambulance. “I’ll settle wif you cocksuckers. I—I—I’ll settle …”
As the paramedic pushing the back end of the stretcher passed Cavalaris, the frustrated homicide lieutenant grabbed him by the arm. “Need to talk to your patient. Won’t take but a sec.”
The paramedic shook his head. “Sorry, Lieutenant. His blood pressure’s barely pegging seventy over fifty, and he’s headed for the kind of shock that can’t be reversed if we don’t get him some help real quick.” Slipping out of Cavalaris’s grasp, he nodded to the paramedic leading the stretcher to keep moving.
Looking disgusted, Cavalaris turned back to Sheriff Vickers, a tall, silver-haired man sporting a crew cut, and mumbled, “Shit.”
Recognizing Cavalaris’s frustration but beset with problems of his own, the sheriff said, “We don’t get many wars out here, L
ieutenant. Mind telling me what the hell started this one?”
“Can’t t-t-tell you for sure,” Cavalaris yelled, trying to be heard above a roar of background noise. “Not ’til I t-t-talk to whoever’s m-m-manning the submachine gun up there on top of that silo.” Cavalaris eyed the silo, thinking how deceitfully peaceful it looked in the moonlight.
“Don’t hold your breath, Lieutenant. I don’t think he’ll say much more than the guy those paramedics just carted out of here. And that’s if we can get him off that rooftop.” Vickers glanced at CJ and Pinkie. “Your two Rambos over there saw to that. According to them, our shooter’s hit pretty bad, and you saw what happened when I tried to coax him down from his perch. Could be he wants to die up there.”
“Yeah,” said Cavalaris, recalling the three rounds of machine-gun fire that had sent him and the sheriff scurrying for cover in the ruins of the headquarters building after Vickers’s failed attempts with a bullhorn to persuade the shooter off the rooftop.
“Could be he’s finally passed out,” said Vickers.
“Or he’s d-d-dead.”
“Don’t think so. The pilot of that chopper I called in to spot him reported that when he punched up his spotlights, our shooter made a move to take cover. But we’ll know for sure in a little bit. I’ve got a couple of my SWAT boys headed up the back side of that silo to take a closer look.”
Looking puzzled, Cavalaris said, “You know, it’s almost like he’s trying to h-h-hold out up there for as long as he can for s-s-some reason.”
“Yeah. He probably doesn’t want to end up staring at half-a-dozen counts of attempted murder.”
“Maybe.” Cavalaris sounded unconvinced. “Think I’ll g-g-go see how your SWAT boys are doing.”