Lethal Target

by Janice Cantore

  Tess turned to see Ledge’s partner, Sal Hemmings, approach. Unlike his partner, Hemmings was not personable, he did not play well with others, and Tess didn’t care for him. As usual, his cheek bulged with sunflower seeds, which he saw fit to spit anywhere and everywhere. Tess had worked with guys who smoked and guys who chewed tobacco, but none of them were as annoying as Hemmings was with his seeds.

  The field still bothered her and she wasn’t going to drop it. “We’re dealing with people who like to dig tunnels. Is it possible the lumps are hiding something?” Tess knew they’d found tunnels in Rio Linda.

  “You questioning my expertise?” Hemmings was tall and lanky, easily six-three to Tess’s five-foot-six-inch frame, so it was natural for him to look down at her. He spit seeds out the right side of his mouth as he did so.

  “I’m making an observation.” She held his gaze, ignoring the seeds and refusing to back off.

  He looked away first. “I was against you even being here. Like pretend cops from a Podunk town are going to be any help,” he mumbled as he stomped away.

  “Ignore him; he’s grumpy. He didn’t want to move up the raid.” Ledge gave a wave of his hand. “You and Bender follow me. I’ll put you in the field as part of the perimeter team—that work for you?”

  Tess glanced at Bender, who nodded. “It does.”

  “Then saddle up; we’re ready to go.”

  – – –

  Excitement mixed with apprehension once Tess and Bender were in place behind the main target address. Ledge and Hemmings were part of the entry team. If she couldn’t breach the door and storm the inside with them, Tess was glad she was in a position to keep an eye on the lumpy lot. Even if it was like being the grunt waiting for the coroner.

  Despite everyone’s assumption that this field was simply a dirt bike course, Tess was on edge. The last search warrant she’d served was on a property in Rogue’s Hollow where they’d found a hidden man cave. Suppose these guys had a tunnel into the field?

  They wouldn’t get far, she thought, unless . . . What if they had resources hidden? Maybe distance wasn’t the plan but damage to law enforcement personnel was. Tess played out a lot of scenarios in her mind as her eyesight adjusted to the darkness.

  She and Bender were parked at the rear northwest corner of the house. Their windows were down, and though it was cool, she could feel the sweat beneath her vest. It was warmer here than it had been in the Hollow. Ledge gave the call to move, and a few seconds after that she heard his voice, though distant, shatter the early morning quiet.

  “Police! We have a warrant!”

  She looked over at Bender as they listened to what sounded like the splintering of a door under the force of a battering ram and a cacophony of loud voices.

  The entry team would move in and secure all the occupants, clear every room. She didn’t realize how tense she was until she heard muffled gunshots ring out—tap-tap-tap—and she jumped.

  She reached over and turned up the radio, hoping she didn’t hear an officer down call. All the while her eyes scanned the dark field. They could still hear audible law enforcement orders and the sounds of glass breaking. Was that more gunfire?

  “Suspect down. We need medics,” someone said after what seemed an eternity.

  “Are you code 4?” dispatch asked.

  Tess didn’t hear the answer. Bender tapped her arm and pointed. “There, I saw movement!”

  She clicked on her spotlight and her heart leapt into her throat as at the end of her light’s glow, in the middle of the field, a head popped up out of the dirt.

  Tess cranked the ignition and pressed the accelerator hard as she keyed her radio. “Edward-1, suspect fleeing in the back field. In pursuit!”

  Teeth jarred as the SUV roared over the lumps. The head became a fleeing figure, who turned their way, and a gun glinted in the headlights. All she could do was hit the siren, hope the lights blinded him, and step on the gas. His muzzle flashed and the windshield spiderwebbed. Tess ducked on reflex.

  “You okay?” she asked Bender.

  “Fine!”

  He fired again, but the shot must have gone wild; there was no impact. The suspect jerked right toward more lumps, and Tess moved to cut him off, accelerating. She went airborne over one large bump, fear biting when she realized that she had no control and might accidentally run the guy over.

  “Hang on!” She braced herself for impact. When the SUV hit the ground, the seat belt tightened and snapped her back into the seat, she bit her lip and tasted blood, and though the air bag didn’t deploy, the impact disoriented her for a moment. At the same time, she felt something snap under her and then a thud against her right fender.

  The SUV jerked to a stop, dead and listing, and Tess blinked back to orientation. Bender groaned but he was moving.

  She unsnapped the belt and bailed out the door, drawing her weapon and flashlight at the same time. She stumbled to a knee and dropped her gun. Rising quickly with only her light, breath coming hard and fast, she directed the beam to the right side of the leaning vehicle. A figure was there, on the ground. She guessed he’d run right into the passenger-side front fender.

  There was no time to look away and find her weapon. He was moving, pushing himself to his knees. She glimpsed a gun on the ground in front of him, visible in the dusty glare of her headlights.

  “Freeze! Police!” she bluffed, shining her powerful flashlight in his eyes.

  The man squinted and lurched toward the gun, and so did Tess. As his hand grasped the grip, her booted foot came down on his wrist.

  He screamed and cursed, yanking the hand back without the gun. He then lunged at her, grabbing her around the knees, lifting and dropping her hard against a mound of packed dirt. Her breath fled, and she brought her hands up to protect herself from further attack.

  The man released her legs and reared back. Her raised hand partially blocked the backhand he sent toward her face, but it still glanced across her jaw and she grimaced in pain. He cursed in Spanish and leaped away from her—he was going for his gun.

  Tess fought disorientation in the dusty, dry air, wondering where Bender was. Pushing herself up, she grabbed her Taser and shifted left as the suspect turned toward her with the gun in hand.

  Tess aimed and pulled the Taser trigger, the fishhook barbs glinting in the murky light as they impacted the suspect in the chest and abdomen at the same time he fired the gun.

  8

  The Taser did its job. The electrical current caused a complete neuromuscular lockup, and the suspect went down, dropping like a tree. Vaguely aware of a sharp pain in her shoulder, Tess moved forward, knowing she had only a couple of minutes to restrain the guy.

  Just then Bender appeared at her shoulder, face bloody. “Sorry it took me so long,” he said in a nasal tone. “I couldn’t get out my side of the car, had to climb over.”

  Together they handcuffed the suspect and secured his weapon. Breathing as hard as if she’d just sprinted fifty yards, Tess stepped back and studied her officer’s bloody face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  He wiped his face with the back of his hand. “That’ll teach me to not fasten my seat belt. Think my nose is broke.” He pointed to the radio. “They’re calling you.”

  The suspect’s body began to relax from the muscle-tightening shock, and Bender turned his attention to him.

  Tess stepped back and retrieved her own weapon about the time the guy snapped out of the stun and exploded in a string of Spanish curses.

  Tess grabbed her radio, swallowed, and took a deep breath before pressing the button. They were asking for Edward-1.

  “Code 4 in the field, one in custody. He popped out of an escape hatch under one of the lumps.” She was ready to relax, counting her lucky stars and content with the victory, until DEA Agent Hemmings came roaring out of the waning darkness, face contorted with anger.

  “Just what in the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  “What do you mean? Ledge asked
us to watch the field. I saw this guy pop up and went after him.”

  Hemmings looked as if he might explode. A vein pulsed in his forehead. “Why didn’t you notify dispatch?”

  “I did. I told them we were in pursuit.” Tess was perplexed as to why he was so angry.

  “You’re reckless!” He threw his hands up. “Look what you did to your own officer!” He blustered for a few more minutes and then stormed away.

  Tess turned to Bender, who shrugged. He’d wiped the blood from his nose, but Tess could see it was beginning to swell. He’d have two shiners as well.

  “Don’t worry about me. Maybe we stole his thunder?” he suggested.

  Tess watched Hemmings leave. “Maybe.” She’d obviously accidentally stepped on his macho in some way. “Forget him—do you need to see a medic?”

  “I’ll be fine. What about you?” He pointed.

  Tess looked and saw blood running down her arm from under the short-sleeved shirt. “Huh?” She pulled at the sleeve and saw the tear in her shoulder patch and the crease in her arm. “He must have grazed me.” She looked over at the suspect.

  He grinned. “Next time I’ll kill you.”

  “You have the right to remain silent; exercise it,” Bender said.

  The man spit on the ground next to Bender’s boot, then said, “Lawyer,” and turned away.

  Tess saw Ledge coming their way. He passed Hemmings and they shared a brief, heated exchange that she couldn’t quite make out. Ledge continued toward them.

  She leaned against her listing SUV, wondering what Ledge could possibly add to the tirade of his partner. She thought Hemmings was a hothead, but Ledge was a good, solid investigator.

  “Well, well,” Ledge said as he looked their suspect over, “you caught a big fish.”

  “What?” Tess frowned and looked closer at the dirty, sweaty man. Recognition dawned as she remembered him from the wanted posters. This was Javier Alexander, aka Shorty, a member of La Eme. He’d added quite a few more tattoos; they snaked up the side of his neck to his jawline.

  “You’ll be in jail for a good long time, Mr. Alexander. Doubt there will ever be a next time between you and me.”

  The man gave her a vintage hate stare and said nothing. Tess returned her attention to Ledge.

  The agent folded his arms and sighed. “Sal will get over his miff. I knew you had brass, Chief. That’s why I asked you along.” He smiled but it faded. “You two okay?”

  “Just a little banged up, along with our vehicle.”

  “I see that.”

  “Think the axle is broken,” Bender said.

  “Think Forest can fix it?” Tess asked.

  “Forest can fix anything.”

  Ledge chuckled at that and radioed for a vehicle to come get the arrestee. “Good work anyway.” He jabbed a thumb toward Alexander. “We found his escape hatch in the basement. Also found a map of the field. Care to guess what he was running to?”

  She shook her head.

  “Under a lump out here is a hidden motorcycle and a bunch of guns and explosives. It wouldn’t have been pretty if he’d gotten there. There might have been pipe bombs flying and lots of casualties. As soon as it’s light, we’ll get a backhoe out there. I wish the rest of the raid had been successful.”

  “What happened? Who got hurt? I heard the shots and the medical call.”

  “No good guys are down. One of the worker bees got off a couple of rounds before he went down. He was probably trying to slow us up to let your hombre get away. He’s circling the drain right now. There was some other incidental physical resistance.” He shrugged, fatigue and disappointment showing. “But it appears as if they were tipped off. The guys we caught were cleaning out the last of what was probably a big operation. From the intel we had, there should have been more people here and more product. Ditto at the other locale. If we’d come in later in the week like we originally planned, everything would have been gone. Hemmings had to eat crow over that as well as what was in the field.”

  “Is there enough to make sure everyone involved goes away for a long time?”

  “Yes, but the big guy is in the wind. He earned the name Fantasma today.” Ledge’s face scrunched in disgust.

  “He’s not superhuman, just good at staying off the radar,” Tess said.

  “Yep, and it’s frustrating after all these months.”

  A DEA vehicle came bouncing across the field, and Bender stood Alexander up and secured him in the backseat.

  “Come on, let’s get your guy booked and order a hook for your vehicle. Sal will calm down. His ego is bruised that he was so far off the mark about this field. And we may not have cut off the head of the serpent today, but his day will come.”

  9

  The full light of day revealed that Tess’s vehicle had indeed broken an axle.

  “I called Forest,” Bender said as he and Tess surveyed all the damage to their vehicle. “He’s sending one of his tow trucks down here to get us.” Forest owned Wild Automotive in Rogue’s Hollow and was a wizard with mechanical things.

  “Great,” Tess said, happy that they’d be able to stick around and see the DEA dig up everything hidden in the field.

  Search of the residence complete, they’d learned the full extent of the raid, and sadly, Ledge was right—the bad guys must have been tipped. There was some fentanyl residue, some pot, and some heroin, but not the huge quantities the DEA expected from a major hub. Also, there were indications that machinery used to manufacture pills had been recently removed.

  “They relocated someplace else,” Ledge said. “And we’ll have to develop the intel to find that place as well.”

  “We always seem to be playing catch-up,” Tess said.

  Hemmings stayed in his funk, but the sunflower seeds were back with a vengeance. He was across the field, talking with another officer near the large lump concealing the escape hatch. Bender sat with an ice pack on his nose. Tess saw him keeping one eye on Hemmings.

  After a minute, Bender faced her, lifted the ice pack, a grin playing on his lips. “How is it that the chief of a Podunk PD in Oregon outcopped the vaunted DEA? Hemmings was certain the field was nothing more than a dirt bike track. You proved him dead wrong. Kind of makes me proud.”

  Tess laughed. “Never underestimate a small-town PD.”

  Bender replaced the pack of ice on his nose and leaned back in a chair an agent had brought for him. She herself sported a bandage for the crease in her upper arm. It almost required stitches, but luckily Steri-Strips worked. Tess considered the wound par for the course, and she was glad at what she and Bender had accomplished today. In fact, she was proud of all her people and her PD. She’d stack them up against any agency.

  – – –

  LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA

  Hector Connor-Ruiz took a seat at the bar and ordered a Bloody Mary. He’d partied way too much the night before because the booze was free, and now his head was pounding. Thankfully, the sound on the TV behind the bar was muted and he had some space to himself. His drink came, and he nursed it as he watched the screen, occasionally reading the closed-captioning. Nothing seemed to keep his mind off his problems. He’d just received a thirty-day notice from his landlord to quit, and all his freelance contacts had dried up.

  Hector specialized in sensationalizing police brutality and found that there really wasn’t a lot of work when the police decided not to be brutal. At least that was what he tried to explain to the landlord when he begged for more time. The jerk was not sympathetic.

  Just then the words police, raid, and dead caught his eye.

  “Hey, turn the sound on.” He waved to the bartender, eyes now intent on the screen.

  “How about please,” the guy said.

  Hector ignored him because he turned the sound up anyway.

  “We’re awaiting a briefing by the DEA agent in charge. But to repeat, three search warrants were served here in the small town of Yreka, California. Agents were looking for opiates and a dr
ug operation with a connection to the Mexican mafia. What we know so far is that one person was killed by DEA gunfire. What is notable about this raid is that a former Long Beach police officer took part. Viewers will remember Tess O’Rourke and the shooting she . . .”

  Hector stopped hearing as his pulse began to pound and he saw red. He remembered the shooting, and of course he remembered Tess O’Rourke.

  That woman was responsible for all of his bad luck. Maybe it would change if she were involved in another shooting. Then people would see that he was right all along—Tess O’Rourke should be in jail, not working as a cop.

  Headache forgotten, Hector felt infused with new energy. He’d failed to get her fired last year, but maybe he’d get another shot. And maybe this time she’d go to jail.

  – – –

  Tess and Bender were not able to leave right away, even after Forest’s flatbed had loaded her sad-looking SUV onto its bed. Because of the officer-involved shooting, reporters descended on the location with a vengeance. Especially since the person who’d been shot had died, and it was discovered that he was only seventeen.

  Geraldo Herrera had gotten off four rounds from an assault rifle before law enforcement gunfire took him down.

  True to form, the news media was calling him a “teen victim”—never mind that he’d had enough guns and ammo at his disposal to kill every law enforcement officer who’d served the warrant. Annoyingly, Tess found herself the center of attention at first.

  One reporter called out a question before the press conference had even began. “Chief O’Rourke, did the fact that your last job ended because of a shooting keep you from firing your weapon today?”

  “The Taser was all that was called for today,” Tess said, not wanting to talk about dropping her weapon.

  A bunch of questions came her way after that and she did her best to explain what had happened in the field. Several photographs were snapped, and it got Hemmings’s nose out of joint.

  “People, people, people, Agent Ledge will begin the conference shortly. He is the agent in charge.” He shot Tess a glare and she hiked a shoulder. “Chief O’Rourke simply assisted here, that’s all,” he said with a wave of his hand.