He was moving as he said it, heading for the protected side of the Crown Vic. Casey and Nicky Cicero got there at the same time, weapons out, covering the roofs and windows all along the east side of the container yards. Carlo Suarez was the only one not moving. He was nailed to his spot, staring at the rifle a hundred feet away. He was trying to figure out what to do, when Dexter Zarnas reached him and jerked him nearly off his feet.
“Cover, you moron!” said Dexter, half dragging the rookie toward the Crown Victoria. In less than fifteen seconds from the fall of the rifle, all five cops were down behind the big blue sedan. Jimmy Rock was by the right front wheel, acutely aware that the only parts of a car that can actually stop a major round are the engine block and maybe the wheel rims. He put the sights of his Glock ten-mill on the roofline of the container yards. There was nothing to look at.
Nobody was visible. No one was moving.
He could hear the boom and clank of machinery noises coming from the water side of the facility, winches and the grinding of rusted metal, the roaring of hydraulics. Whatever was going on in the parking lot, it wasn’t affecting the work out on the docks. If there had been rounds fired, no one would have heard the sound above the noise coming from the Red Hook Terminal. He turned around and checked his crew. Casey Spandau was right next to him. She looked calm and was holding her piece braced on the hood of the car. Nicky was on the ground beside her, breathing hard, then Dexter Zarnas—looking flushed and pale all at once—and beyond him Carlo Suarez, kneeling by the rear wheel with his Glock in his hands, staring back at Jimmy Rock with a dazed expression, panting like a tired dog.
“Everybody okay?” asked Jimmy Rock. “Anybody see a round coming in? Anybody take a hit?”
They all shook their heads. Casey slipped back from the hood and crouched beside Jimmy Rock.
“Call it in, Detective!”
Jimmy Rock flinched, plucked his portable off his belt, keyed the citywide channel switch.
“Five-one-one to central, K?”
“Five-one-one?”
“Central, this is an NYPD detective unit. We’re calling a ten-thirteen, we have a possible sniper at Red Hook Container Terminal, Van Brunt and the Gowanus. Request additional units, K.”
“Ten-four, five-one-one. A ten-thirteen at Van Brunt and Gowanus. Any Seven Six units to respond to a ten-thirteen at Red Hook.”
In the meantime, up on the rooftops, all the necessary mistakes were being made, many of them at the speed of light.
“Six, this is Valkyrie. Come in, Six!”
From the secondary sniper post on top of the main container yards, Lee Ford, the sniper’s spotter, came on the radio snarling.
“Greco, stop calling for Six, you crazy bitch! Campbell’s down. So’s Kreuger. What the fuck is going on?”
“India, this is Valkyrie. So go look!”
“Roger that,” said Lee Ford, and he tapped Zoot Conyers on the left shoulder. “Let’s go, Zoot. Take a look-see.”
“Delta, this is India. You still in position?”
Delta was an ATF man named Derry Flynn, the leader of the three ATF agents inside the trailer near the docks. Ford and Flynn were good friends and had worked together for years. Derry Flynn was a cool head, fifteen years on the job, grizzled salt-and-pepper hair in a marine cut, slope-shouldered and lanky, with a dry laconic delivery. Derry Flynn was going to live through tonight, which turned out to be a good thing for the NYPD cops later on down the road.
“Roger, India. Orders?”
“Stay in position, Delta. Hold your post. We don’t know what the hell is going on. Everybody stay in position. Zoot and I will check out Six.”
“Roger that, India.”
“India, this is Valkyrie.”
“Valkyrie, you’re not tactical. Please vacate the airspace.”
“India, I’m coming with—”
“Delta, this is India.”
“India?”
“Delta, assign a member to safeguard Ms. Greco. See she stays out of the line of fire.”
“Roger that, India.”
Lee Ford and Zoot Conyers moved in a combat assault pattern across the metal rooftops of the container building, Zoot with his sniper rifle at the ready, Lee Ford covering him with his MP Five. They cleared the crest of the main building and scampered down across the forward slope until they reached the roof of the parking garage. Lee Ford found Luther Campbell lying on his back about ten feet from a fan housing, less than a yard from the edge of the roof.
As Ford knelt down to check out Luther, Zoot Conyers belly-crawled past him until he got a line of sight off the roof. He saw the two vehicles, the gypsy cab and the blue Crown Victoria. There were figures visible behind the blue sedan. He took a position and raised his rifle. Behind him, Lee Ford was speaking into his mike.
“Valkyrie, this is India. Six is hit. Major trauma. Still alive. Get us a medevac chopper now!”
“What’s the frequency, India?”
“Use the fucking telephone on the desk in front of you, Greco! Call the HQ and get us air support! Now!”
“Uh, roger, India. Out.”
“Zoot, what have you got?”
“India, I have five subjects acquired. They’ve taken cover behind the blue sedan. I have a clear head shot at one. Shall I engage?”
Lee Ford rolled his eyes. He was fifty-one, a solid old pro, in on a transfer from a detective job with the Chicago PD, and he had a good twenty years on Zoot Conyers, who was less than five years out of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy in Glynco, Georgia. Zoot was one of the hard-charger law enforcement fanatics Lee Ford liked to call “the hut-hut freaks.”
“No, Zoot. Do not engage.”
Down in the lot, Dexter Zarnas saw something moving on the roofline. He leaned over to hiss at Jimmy Rock.
“Motion, Jimmy Rock. On the roof, near the vent housing!”
“I have it. Hold fire. Nobody fires, got it? Nobody’s shot at us yet. We don’t know what’s going on. We wait for backup.”
They had all heard several patrol units from the Seven Six come back with a rolling affirmative to the 10-13. Jimmy Rock asked for an ETA from the supervisor car, Seven Frank, and was told maybe six, seven minutes.
“Roger, Seven Frank. Come in hot. We think we may have a subject on the roof of the container building here, a possible sniper. Let’s scramble an air unit.”
“Any officers down?”
“Nobody yet. We have taken no fire! Repeat, we have not taken any fire. Get us an air unit ASAP, K?”
“No chopper available right now, five-one-one. Only available unit is on a traffic pursuit up in the Bronx.”
“It’s a hot zone, Seven Frank. Tell your guys to be tactical.”
“Ten-four. A hot zone. How do we know you?”
“Blue Crown Victoria. The only one with five cops hiding behind it. Will that do?”
“Ten-four, five-one-one. On the way.”
He keyed off the mike and moved along the car toward Dexter Zarnas. On the roof, Zoot Conyers had him tracked as he duck-walked, centering his crosshairs on Jimmy Rock’s right temple. If they’d had their badges out at this point, what was about to happen might not have happened. Later on, the survivors got to think about that a lot. Not that it did them any damn good. But they didn’t. Not one of them had badge-chain out on their chests, not even Jimmy Rock, who was the road boss, and he should have known better.
Zoot shifted around to look at Lee Ford, who was now lying down on the roof beside him. Zoot’s young face was slick with sweat and the whites were showing all around the edges of his brown eyes. Zoot’s whisper was charged and hyper. This was his first time on a real street scenario. Everything up until now had been training. This was real. He was still young enough to think that real was better. He was going to hold that opinion for about another six minutes.
“I see weapons. The one moving has a Glock.”
Lee Ford shook his head.
“It wasn’t a Glock that hit Luther, Zoot. Mo
st of his chest is raspberry jam. The round punched right through his vest. Then it drilled a hole in a half inch of steel housing. No Glock can do that.”
“Then who shot Six? And Bunny Kreuger? And Farrell? There’s nobody else around, dammit! We heard nothing. It’s gotta be them.”
Lee Ford grabbed Zoot’s shoulder harness, jerked him in very close, pointed out across the rooftops into the dark skyline.
“Look at the angle of fire. Whoever’s shooting at us is way out there somewhere, on our level, on a roof. He probably has a heavy-caliber weapon, a fifty anyway, and since we heard no shot, he’s got to be using a silencer. Probably also a Star Lite night scope. We’re wide open to him, you follow me? We’re bright green ghosts in his sniper scope. Now stay down and stay put. You fire on my command, Zoot, not before. Now shut the fuck up for a minute!”
Lee Ford was trying to recall the radio talk at the point that Luther took his round. Farrell Garber had said something about seeing something on a rooftop. Where? While he was thinking about it, they all heard the sound of sirens. Incoming, and very fast. Lee Ford looked back down into the lot. He could see the blue car and maybe a figure or two behind it. Surely they could hear the sirens too. If they were hinky, if Zoot was right and they were the ones who’d shot Kreuger and Farrell and Campbell, they’d be getting the hell out of the area. Yet there they sat. Waiting. For what?
“Christ … Holy Christ, Zoot, those guys are cops—”
Something disc-shaped and shining with pale light flickered in his peripheral vision. He turned to look out at the distant rooftops. The incoming round took him in the cheek at twice the speed of sound, just below the left eye. One-half second later most of what used to be Lee Ford’s head was now splattered all over Zoot Conyers. Other than the sound of a man’s skull bursting apart, there had been no other noise at all. Zoot Conyers, stunned, finally found air and screamed into his mike.
“Incoming! Lee’s hit! Lee’s down!”
He got back a babble of cross talk as Greco and Derry Flynn and Maya Bergmann out in the Zodiac all competed for airtime. Zoot swiveled, his breath rasping dry in his throat, put his crosshairs on the blue sedan, got motion at the rear of the car, then he too saw that distant pale disk flickering, lifted his sights off the car, and zeroed in on that huddled shape a half mile away—he squeezed off a round—it boomed in the heavy night air—Jimmy Rock jumped—Zoot was working the rifle bolt—Casey saw Jimmy Rock’s face white and bone-hard in the yard lights—Zoot Conyers tried to reacquire the shooter—sniper at a thousand yards, he said into his throat mike—Casey reached out to Jimmy Rock—Jimmy, she said—we have to move—where to?—we’re in the open—Jimmy was looking out into the night skyline—the full beam of the parking lot lamp was on them both now—it was so bright it hurt her eyes—she felt a weapon out there, a rifle, felt them all caught like a photo in a distant lens—Dexter was shouting into his radio—Carlo Suarez looked up at the container roof and saw a rifle barrel showing on the edge—got to his feet with a hoarse yell—centered his Glock on the roofline of the Red Hook container garage—Nicky Cicero shouted at him—began to move—Zoot Conyers had the distant sniper targeted again—he was squeezing the blade of his trigger—Carlo Suarez fired his Glock at Zoot’s position—the round clanged off the roof six inches from Zoot’s right shoulder—Zoot flinched—his rifle fired—the booming crack rattled tin all around him—the butt jumped in his grip—his second shot went spinning wild into the orange sky—Carlo was still yelling and he fired again—Nicky reached him and dragged him to the ground—he was screaming at Carlo—that’s not where the fire is coming from—and then the distant sniper fired one last time from his position on top of a tenement roof a thousand yards away and the round came howling in at the blue Crown Victoria—low and true and fast—and hit the dead center of the target mass with a muffled thwack like a sledgehammer striking a side of beef. Zoot Conyers saw the muzzle flare a half mile away, saw the huddled shape shift, melt away, and now the parking lot was filling up with NYPD patrol cars—red lights were circling—the air was full of sirens—men in blue running and over his headset Zoot heard the voice of an ATF agent—it was Delta—Derry Flynn—and Delta was saying hold your fire everybody hold your fire that’s the NYPD—repeat acknowledge repeat hold your fire those are police officers!
Zoot Conyers shook his head, took one last look at the distant rooftop, marking the location. Then he let out a long uneven sigh, put his weapon down carefully, and got slowly to his feet. One knee was vibrating like an overtorqued guy wire. Down in the lot, at least ten different patrol cars had gathered around the blue Crown Victoria. Somebody in the tangle of police cars saw Zoot standing on the rooftop, shouted a warning, and then fifteen weapons were on him in a heartbeat and a bright white light was blinding him—he heard a voice in his earpiece—it was Derry Flynn—hold your fire—hold your fire—Zoot—drop your sidearm for Chrissakes drop your sidearm—Zoot had completely forgotten about the Beretta strapped to his thigh, and then from the hazy field of red and blue flashing lights and the single white glare he heard an amplified voice—male—urgent—saying drop your weapon now repeat drop your weapon. Zoot plucked the Beretta backhand from his holster and threw it twenty feet away, where it landed, clanged on the tin roof, bounced once, and tumbled away into a rain gutter.
Zoot put both hands in the air and held his breath, acutely aware of the guns now trained on his body. He tried to pray but could think of nothing to say. Down by the blue sedan, a cluster of figures was gathering around the far side of the vehicle, looking down at something—someone?—on the ground. He couldn’t make out what. A siren blipped once and he looked up to see an EMS ambulance rolling toward the vehicle, butting through the tangle of plainclothes and uniformed cops. He was dimly aware of a large older man standing beside him now, it was the Delta agent—gray crew-cut hair and small eyes, what the hell was his name—Zoot could not remember his name—it was Derry Flynn.
Derry Flynn was holding up a badge and bellowing down at the cops—federal agents don’t fire we’re federal agents—and now there was a sudden rushing wind and the downward buffeting blast of a hovering chopper overhead. Zoot looked up and saw a Blackhawk with the letters ATF Medevac on the belly, and when he looked back down at the blue sedan it was surrounded by blue uniforms and the EMS truck was stopped dead beside it, the red and white strobes on its roof circling slowly.
The doors were wide open and some poor bastard on a gurney was being lifted into the back of the EMS truck and paramedics were holding a bag of intravenous fluid over the body and someone else was wrapping the figure in a red blanket and Zoot Conyers, the former hut-hut freak, came to the important realization at that precise moment that real was not always better than training, and when real life showed up in a cranky frame of mind, you were a lucky young man if you were anywhere else.
FRIDAY, JUNE 23
2217 GRANITE VALLEY PARKWAY
RENSSELAER, NEW YORK
0300 HOURS
Jack had fallen asleep in the dining-room chair, in front of the cold chicken plate. When the phone rang, he jerked upright and reached for the cordless handset beside him. Smoke, the six-toed stray tom with the brainpower shortfall, sat on the dining-room table about a foot away, blinked his yellow eyes at Jack, and yawned hugely, showing Jack a pink-ribbed cavern of a mouth and four needlepoint fangs the size of railroad spikes. Jack blinked back at him and did the same. Smoke seemed unimpressed.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Vermillion, this is Valeriana Greco.”
“Yes. Miss Greco. Right … what time is it?”
There was a pause while somebody spoke in the background. When she came back on the line, her voice was guarded, formal.
“It’s three in the morning. We have a car on the way. We’re going to fly you down here in a chopper.”
“How did it go?”
Another whispered conversation.
“I’d rather not discuss it on the phone.”
&nbs
p; “Okay. I’ll be here.”
“Fine. One thing?”
“Yes?”
“I think you should have a lawyer with you, okay?”
Jack was definitely not okay. Wide awake now, but not okay.
“A lawyer … why do I need a lawyer?”
Her voice was fading.
“My battery’s low. I’ll have to break off. I just want you to have representation with you. For your own protection.”
“From what?”
“The car will be there in ten minutes.”
The transmission popped and shut off. Jack set the receiver down, stared at it for another full minute, and then dialed the number of Flannery Coleman. The phone rang six times and then he heard Flannery’s growling voice.
“This had better be damned amusing.”
“Flan, it’s Jack.”
“I figured it was you. What fresh hell is this?”
Jack sketched it out.
“I’ll meet you at Red Hook. Say nothing to anyone until I get there. No matter what happens. Nothing. I’m leaving now.”
“You can ride with us.”
“No. I have calls to make. Hear me, Jack. Not a word.”
Jack put the receiver back, moved toward the bathroom with his mind in overdrive and his heart pounding against his rib cage. He was halfway there when the phone rang again.
“Hello?”
“Jack. Hope I didn’t wake you?”
It was Earl Pike. His voice was as soft as sleep. Jack could hear traffic in the background and someone calling out names over a public address system. There was an echoing emptiness in the background that made Jack think of an airport or a train station. Pike was breathing hard, as if he was out of breath.
“Earl, are you okay? You sound bad.”
“I’m fine, Jack. I just wanted to say thank you.”
“Okay. It went well?”
“Went well? Not really. It went badly. Very badly. I just wanted to say thank you for the lesson.”
“Lesson?”
“You get to a certain age, no matter what you know, you tend to get sentimental. They say it happens to men our age. Women get tougher, we get weaker. I got sentimental over my family’s collection. Now it’s gone. I got sentimental over you, over a man I saw as a soldier, just like me. That was stupid. You straightened me out. Showed me the truth. So I’m saying thank you.”
Black Water Transit Page 17