the Viking Funeral (2001)

by Stephen - Scully 02 Cannell

  Shane and Alexa had now arrived at the chain-link gate. After Shane picked the lock, they moved onto the deserted airfield, past a windsock long ago eaten by the toxic L. A. air. It hung at the end of a rusting pole, like the shredded skin of a dead animal. They had agreed earlier to say nothing unscripted, to avoid surreptitious communication for fear they might be under high-powered directional mikes and a telephoto lens. Shane thought this choice of an open location might have been designed by Jody to give Shane and Alexa a chance to reveal themselves to some long-range listening device.

  Once they got to the hangar, Shane picked another padlock. He swung the door wide, and they walked into the huge, seemingly empty space.

  The timing was now very critical.

  Filosiani's idea was simple but dangerous: Shane was to lure Alexa out and then shoot her with a light load. The Day-Glo Dago explained that she would be wearing Kevlar. Filosiani wanted to know who they were working for, what crime they were about to pull off, and how deep the corruption went inside the LAPD--from possible Glass House commanders all the way down to the suspected moles inside the Clerical Division. If Jody thought Shane had murdered another police officer to acquire Shephard's file, the hope was that he would eventually accept Shane into the conspiracy and give him its entire scope.

  The critical part of the timing came right after Shane fired his light load into Alexa's Kevlar vest. SWAT was supposed to arrive immediately after the gunshot, before Jody would be able to check Alexa and see that she was wearing body armor. They were then going to let Shane and Jody escape amid a hail of nonfatal gunfire. It had to look good and go down fast.

  Shane glanced around the hangar's interior, but because it was windowless and dark, he couldn't see if anybody was hiding in the blackness. He knew that SWAT had tailed Alexa's car from a distance, using a GPS sending device attached to her bumper. They should be a mile or more back, so Tremaine would not be able to spot them. Shane hoped that Jody had sneaked inside to witness the "killing."

  "Hand over the file," Shane said.

  "I want the key book first."

  "There isn't one, you dumb bitch," Shane said, then pulled his gun, ominously aiming it at her.

  "You piece of shit. You cut a deal with Jody, didn't you?" she shrieked.

  "Gimme the file," he repeated, cocking the gun for emphasis.

  "This is a dumb play, Scully. I called in SWAT. They followed me. You didn't think I was gonna wander in here without cover, did you?" Alexa said. This sentence was supposed to keep Shane clean when SWAT did in fact arrive.

  "Whatta I do, Jody?" Shane called into the darkness.

  "It's bullshit... A bluff," Jody's voice called back from somewhere inside the hangar. "What the fuck you waiting for? Give her the pill."

  Shane and Alexa gave each other tight smiles. The trap was set; Jody was inside the hangar with them, watching.

  Shane stepped forward, snatched the manila file out of her hand, and checked it.

  "Cap her!" Jody ordered. "Do it now!"

  Shane aimed his gun at Alexa, but even though all of this was rigged and she was wearing Kevlar under her windbreaker, he was afraid to fire.

  "Do it, man! Whatta ya stalling for? She's bluffing.... There's no SWAT team!" Jody screamed from somewhere above. "Blow the bitch away, or I will!" They heard him trombone the slide on his automatic weapon.

  Shane had no choice. He fired.

  The Mini-Cougar bucked powerfully in his hand, surprising him with its kick.

  It felt like a full-load recoil. How could that be? The clip contained Remington Lights.

  Alexa flew backward, blood spurting from her chest where his bullet had entered.

  He couldn't believe what he was seeing: His round had punched through the Kevlar. "Shit!" he screamed.

  Suddenly, all hell broke loose. A machine gun started chattering outside, then two others joined in.

  "Let's go! Let's go!" Jody screamed. "She brought backup!"

  Shane was standing over Alexa's dead body, looking down at a growing pool of blood spreading out around her shoulders. "No..." he murmured in shock. More gunfire outside. Jody's footsteps pounding down a set of stairs somewhere behind him. At least ten weapons were now working outside.

  Shane was still looking down at her, dumbfounded, when Jody grabbed him and pulled him across the hangar. Shane stumbled over his feet while his stomach leaped toward his throat. He barely avoided vomiting.

  A door flew open on the far side of the hangar, and Rodriquez appeared. "Let's go, man! It's a fuckin' SWAT meet out there--they got ten guys and a step van!"

  Shane was dragged along by Jody as they followed Rodriquez through connecting doors into an adjoining building. He could see a red-and-gray Bell Jet Ranger with skids and no FAA numbers parked inside on a rolling platform under a center light. Both side doors had been removed from the chopper. A blond man Shane had never seen before was in the pilot's seat; he already had the helicopter whining to life. The big rotors began to turn slowly overhead. Jody snatched a garage-door clicker off a nearby table and aimed it at a huge set of electric elephant doors. He pushed the button. Immediately, the metal slats of the doors began rattling, creaking, and clanking as they went up. Rodriquez moved to the opening door and stood just inside, pouring lead into the predawn darkness. Hot brass clattered and chimed at his feet. Jody pushed Shane into the back of the chopper, then dove in behind him. They could hear a constant barrage of machine-gun fire as SWAT team officers and rogue cops swapped 9-millimeter ordnance.

  "Pick it up!" Jody shouted at the pilot.

  The helicopter, with its engine at full roar, lifted up slightly and hovered inches above the portable pad. The rotor wind set up a perilous cross-draft inside the hangar, buffeting the Bell Jet Ranger from all sides. It began rocking dangerously but crept forward. When it was halfway out of the building, Tremaine jumped onto one skid and the gray-eyed Mexican hopped onto the other. The pilot pulled the collective back, and the helicopter rose while both men stood on the skids firing MAC-10 pistols at the SWAT officers below.

  They were climbing rapidly, crossing the dirt taxiway. Shane could see three police cars and a black SWAT van falling away quickly beneath them as they pulled up. He could see sparks of gunfire aimed at them, but the chopper was moving too fast and SWAT was aiming low. Then they were heading north, leaving the police gunfire behind.

  "Fuck you!" Jody yelled triumphantly out the open helicopter door at the distant line of black-helmeted police.

  Tremaine and Rodriquez, still hanging on the skids, emptied their clips until the slides locked open. The airfield was now far away, out of sight.

  "Mexico," Jody said, grinning at the pilot.

  The helicopter turned south to meet the Pacific coastline.

  Shane sat numbly in the backseat wedged beside Jody, who suddenly grabbed the file out of his hand.

  "We're clean," he was looking at the file full of pages crowded with numbers.

  Rodriquez and Tremaine swung inside the helicopter and found seats, forcing Shane to slide over, pinning him to the bulkhead next to the door opening.

  "Good catch, Salsa," Jody shouted triumphantly. "Way t'dig it outta the dirt."

  He reached over, took the gun out of Shane's grip, and popped the clip. "You see the way she flew when your slug hit her? That's 'cause she was flacked, man. Good thing I put one of these in the pipe for you." He pulled a bullet out of his pocket and held it up. The Remington Lights Shane had checked were still in the clip, unfired. "Black Talons. Cop killers! I put one in the breech. Bastards explode on impact." Jody smiled at Shane, who just sat there, unable to get his mind around it. "You never woulda got the job done with that light load."

  Shane was reeling.

  He had shot and killed a woman whom just two days ago he had decided to marry.

  "Hey, lighten up," Jody yelled over the helicopter roar. "You said you wanted her wet. It's done. You made your bones, man. Don't fuck it up. Don't gimme a reason to have seco
nd thoughts now."

  Shane looked at Jody and forced a smile onto his face, but it felt as wide and ghastly as the grille of an old Buick.

  Chapter 21.

  THE VIKINGS

  THEY FLEW STRAIGHT out over the ocean, staying under the radar, skimming the whitecaps kicked up by a gusty Santa Ana wind. Once they were six miles out to sea, they banked south toward Mexico. Occasionally, Shane could see a large fishing boat off on the horizon, drifting lazily in the chop, packed to the rails with beer-drinking day fishers.

  They streaked over a school of dolphins, twenty or more, humping playfully along in the same direction.

  Then after an hour, Jody screamed something at the pilot that Shane couldn't make out over the roar of the engine and slipstreaming air that was rocketing in through the missing side doors. It must have been a shouted direction, because a minute later the pilot altered his course and headed northeast, until they passed over the rugged shoreline of Mexico. Then they were flying low over the open sandy beaches of the Baja Peninsula, streaking along above the windblown surf, the seven o'clock morning sun climbing out of the mountains to the east, lighting the frothy tips of waves and throwing long streaks of sunlight across the white windblown beaches. The helicopter's shadow chased beneath them on the sand, catching up to them a foot at a time as the sun began its slow climb.

  It was morning on the worst day of Shane's life.

  He sat stoically, the racket of the engine and the buffeting wind mercifully killing Jody's normal inclination to talk.

  Shane was trying to find a way to deal with his devastation over Alexa. He knew if he didn't get his head working, he would end up just as dead.

  He was suddenly struck by the realization that his own death could be a release. Death would take him out of this pain, and transport him to another place. He would be free of himself, away from this soul-destroying guilt.

  Or would he?

  There was still Chooch to think about. He could see his handsome son in his memory, standing on the other side of the airport metal detector, holding his pads and duffel.

  Don't fuck this up with some whack move, Chooch had warned.

  Shane had destroyed it beyond their wildest dreams. It was off the scale. But didn't he still owe it to Alexa to see the mission through?

  Or should he just dive out the open door-- DFO into the sand at eighty miles an hour, snap his neck, cartwheel into the black, leaving it all behind?

  In the end, he knew he couldn't give Jody an easy way out. If he was going to die, he'd take Jody with him. He'd have more honor as a kamikaze than as a suicide. He would bring Jody down... For himself and for Alexa. He would do it without mercy or regret.

  Then, as if he could sense Shane's murderous pledge, Jody shivered and zipped up his wind-breaker.

  "There!" Jody yelled, and smacked Shane on the shoulder, pointing at a deserted beach at the mouth of a river.

  Shane nodded as the pilot again altered his course, shooting across the beach and up a narrow wash, slowing as the hills narrowed on both sides of the low flying chopper. The Bell Jet Ranger continued a few hundred yards up the gully, swapped ends, then hovered over a patch of grass.

  A short way off, Shane could see a dusty new blue-and-white, thirty-six-foot, double-axle Vogue motor home parked on a dirt clearing-- an expensive rig with all the extras. A satellite dish poked up from the roof. Two men were standing in front, shielding their eyes, shifting and turning away from the swirling rotor sand as the helicopter settled. Even at that distance, Shane could see that one of the men was gargantuan, leaning on crutches, his left leg bandaged from ankle to hip. The last time Shane had seen him, they were faced off over gun barrels behind the noise-abatement house. Shane felt the skids touch ground, and the pilot started flipping switches as the engine wound down.

  "Let's go." Jody was out of the helicopter first, followed immediately by Tremaine and Hector Rodriquez. As Shane started to exit, he looked into the expressionless, hazel eyes of the pilot, who wore his weathered complexion like a snake's skin.

  "David VanKirk. Jody calls me Lord of the Skies," the man said. "I was in the Police Air Unit until IAD terminated me for flying drugs up on weekends. Now I drive this taxi for the Vikings. Personally, I don't give a shit whether you get a piece of this or not. I'm on a flat deal. But you got trouble here. Watch out for Rod, and Sawdust."

  "Sawdust?" Shane asked.

  "Yeah. The tall thin guy over there by the motor home. Sergeant Lester Wood--Sawdust. Get it? Jody's got nicknames for everyone."

  "Always did."

  "See the steroid case on crutches, next to Sawdust? That's Victory Smith. His real name is Peter. You shouldn't a'shot him.... Jody thinks he can control them but most a'these guys are doing heavy drugs now. My guess is, you won't last the day."

  David VanKirk turned away and finished shutting down the helicopter.

  "Thanks for the heads-up." Shane got off the backseat and reluctantly followed Tremaine, Rodriquez, and Jody over to the two men waiting by the Vogue coach. Jody turned to him as he approached.

  "This is Hot Sauce" Jody said, laying a protective hand on Shane's shoulder.

  All four men glowered at him in silence. Shane found himself trading eye-fucks with the barrel-chested monster on crutches. When they'd exchanged gunfire, Shane had been so jacked on adrenaline that he'd missed Victory's overpowering brutishness. Now, standing in this Mexican wash, he took a better inventory. Viewed piece by piece, he was impressive, but the combined effect was awesome.

  Victory Smith was propped up on crutches, the massive slabs of muscle on his shoulders rising and falling slowly with each breath like plates on a weight-lifting machine. His neck triangulated down on overdeveloped trapezius muscles. A MAC-10 was tucked in his belt, and a webbed bandolier full of magnum nines was stretched across a sixty-inch chest; his biceps flexed at least twenty-five inches. Riding atop this angry tower of muscle was a narrow face, pinched and mean, with a complexion as rough as lunar lava, pockmarked and rutted by steroids. Prehistoric, reptilian eyes never moved off Shane, tracking him mercilessly. He was predatory, deadly, and barely in control.

  "Our code name is Vikings," Jody was saying. "It was given to us originally by Captain Medwick. I kinda like it, so we've kept it. Hector Rodriquez and Peter Smith are 'Hot Rod' and 'Victory.' They're both ex-SWAT. Tremaine Lane, here, is 'Inky Dink,' and this too-tall, half-mute Texas motherfucker dressed like Clint Eastwood is Sergeant Lester Wood: 'Sawdust.' They were in SIS with me."

  Shane had hardly noticed Lester Wood, he'd been so focused on Victory Smith. Now he glanced over and saw a man who radiated silent disapproval. Wood was close to six-four and unnaturally thin, dressed in dusty, worn cowboy clothes. A silver rodeo buckle divided faded jeans from a denim work shirt. He had on a new windbreaker vest, rough-out bull-rider boots, and old-style Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses that were coldly studying Shane from under the brim of a custom-made Charlie Tweddle cowboy hat.

  "Shane, I know you two had a little run-in a while back," Jody said, indicating Victory Smith. "But I want you guys to get past it."

  Shane didn't say anything; a few more amps of pure hatred spread across the weight lifter's steroid-cratered face.

  Jody put his arm around Shane. "This is my old Little League catcher. He's in for an equal share. Nobody fucks with Hot Sauce, or they deal with me, personally. Now, let's break out that beer an' get a fire going. We got plans to make. Bring all that shit down to the beach." Pointing at three coolers sitting on the ground near the motor home, he opened the door and disappeared inside.

  Shane found himself looking at four seething ex-cops. Nobody spoke.

  "In literature, this is called a pregnant moment," Shane finally said, trying to break the tension.

  "Hey, asshole," Victory Smith whispered, "I don't know what you think you got goin' here, but far as I can see, you're just a walking corpse."

  "Maybe you should take that up with Jody," Shane answered.

  "Fuck J
ody," Victory growled. Moments later Jody bounded out of the motor home and set down a cooler of beer. He saw the anger, hesitated, then started pulling cold brews out of the ice chest and flipping them around at the circle of men.

  Smith made no move to catch his. It ricocheted off his crutch and landed in the sand.

  Jody tried to talk their anger down. "To begin with, let's get a few facts straight. This ain't his fault. He saw me on the freeway. My mistake--not his. He did what any one a'you woulda done if you saw a friend you thought was dead. He looked into it."

  Now they were all glaring at Jody.

  "He shot an LAPD sergeant for us. Killed the acting head of DSG and took this file." He reached into his back pocket, pulled out the folded manila folder, and waved it at them. "Hot Rod and Inky Dink were there. Right? Tell 'em what you saw."

  Reluctantly, Tremaine Lane and Hector Rodriquez nodded, but the nods were so subtle, they were almost imperceptible.

  "This file is in code, but it says we're all still alive. Fortunately, it's the original and there are no copies. Right, Hot Sauce?"

  "Right," Shane answered.

  "It was only hours from being sent to the Questioned Documents Division. We were all about to get made. Without Scully, our whole deal was dust. So, in my opinion, that gets him a piece."

  "Then give him your piece," Smith said darkly.

  "And what're you gonna do, Victory? You gonna lead cheers and be in charge a'that fuckin' crutch? Who's gonna handle your end of it, now that you're draggin' one leg?"

  "I wouldn't be draggin' it if yer buddy here hadn't shot me," Victory said, but his eyes shifted briefly away, then came back.

  "You're supposed t'be a SWAT Home Incursion Specialist, so how come you're the one ended up stopping a round?"

  Victory didn't answer, but he leaned down, and with a long arm, scooped his beer out of the sand. He ripped the tab off; the can chirped and hissed foam.

  "Okay. Let's go have this cookout. Sawdust, get the tattoo kit. Since Hot Sauce is a Viking, we gotta give him his leg piece."