Troubleshooter (2005)

by Gregg - Rackley 03 Hurwitz

  Rather than search for his keys, Den threw a switch on his bike, bypassing the ignition--another design trick to catch law enforcement off guard. The bikes fired up, one after another, and they were off in a cloud of smoke. They spread at the fork like a squadron breaking formation and faded into the darkness, dispersing through the hillside.

  Tim took off after the last bike, getting back on the radio. "I lost them. Alert every agency. Send manpower. Redirect the units that are en route. These canyons are a sieve--let's do our best to seal them off. And get the Chippies out all over the surrounding highways in case they make it out." He rattled off Den's license-plate number and spit a gob of cottoned saliva out the window. "He's without a helmet, but the others have them on. They're wearing plain black leathers, riding chopped hogs--four Harleys and an Indian. They're traveling alone but staying in the same vicinity. They're armed and dangerous. They have weapons in their possession and built in to their bikes. Do not approach them on their bikes. And do not approach without backup."

  Only when he clicked off did he note his heart double-thumping with adrenaline. He tried to slow his breathing, but every few minutes a motorcycle whined past, heading for the Rock Store, quickening his pulse. He fought the convoluted landscape, chased down a few bikers for a closer look, returned to search the dirt apron, all the while updates pouring in on federal and local frequencies. Nothing and more nothing.

  When he glanced at the clock, forty-five minutes had passed. By now the nomads could've wound their way free of the canyons or holed up in a safe house within the maze of roads. The night air smelled of brush and distant smoke. The Buick pushed an orb of light before it, seeming to generate the road it was driving on. The canyons grew quiet, but Tim continued to navigate, his nerves frayed, the radio abuzz, his apprehension growing.

  Near the hour mark, a shaken sheriff's dispatcher radioed in to advise that a pregnant deputy in Moorpark had been shot point-blank in the chest.

  Chapter 14

  He didn't remember turning the car around or the drive to the hospital. He didn't remember parking or the walk across the ambulance bay. His first flash of cognizance came when Bear appeared in the emergency-room lobby, running toward him, gear jangling on his belt.

  Bear halted, winded; his voice was high. "She called in a high-risk stop."

  Tim felt his veins go to ice. "Who?" he asked, though he already knew.

  "Den Laurey."

  Tim's vision narrowed again. When he came out of it, a doctor was midsentence with Bear, thin hand on his chest to stop his advance through the swinging doors. A nurse at Tim's side was trying to comfort him with facts, but he couldn't quite keep up with the words. "--medevacked her. We're the closest trauma center with a helipad--"

  He looked around blankly. "Where are we?"

  The nurse's face registered concern. "UCLA Medical Center."

  Bear lifted the doctor by both shoulders, moved him out of his way, and set him back down. The security guard took one look at Bear and stayed in his seat but kept his hand on the phone. Tim followed Bear through the doors, down the sterile corridor.

  Bear froze up ahead, peering through the windowed doors to Procedure Room Two. Filled with dread, Tim drew to his side and looked through the glass.

  Surrounded by nurses and doctors, Dray lay naked, her pallid skin smeared with blood. The blue tint of the fluorescents and her position--supine, elevated, focal--gave the scene a religious aspect. A fat needle stuck out an inch below her left clavicle, and a web of blackening blood glittered on her side. Her brilliant green eyes were cloudy, or maybe it was just the lighting.

  Tim heard the shuffle of boots walking in unison--the approach of the guards--but he couldn't tear his eyes off his wife. One of the doctors glanced up, then stepped away, moving toward them. He shot his gloves on the way through the doors and stepped between Bear and the guards. "I got it fellows." When he pulled down his mask, Tim recognized him as the doctor who'd treated him last year. As the guards backed off, the doctor shot Bear a stern look. "Behave yourself and you can stay back here. Don't go in that room."

  He took Tim's arm and drew him into an empty exam room. He started with details and hard facts--a good read on what Tim required right now.

  "She took a blast from a twelve-gauge, double-aught buck. The vest absorbed the brunt of it, but a pellet got through the armhole, penetrated beneath her breast at the fourth intercostal. It pierced the pleura, the sac surrounding the lung, and caused the lung to collapse." He moistened his lips. "When the paramedic got to her, she wasn't breathing. Unresponsive, no pulse, blood pressure was at fifty. He bagged her and did a needle decompression in the field, but she'd been down for a while. She didn't have oxygen to her brain for seven, maybe eight minutes. There might be brain insult."

  Tim took it standing. The doctor gave him a moment to digest this, waiting for his eyes to pull back into focus.

  "She may have had some hypoxic injury while she was down. The CAT looks okay, but it's a wait-and-see."

  "She stable?"

  "She is now. We put in a chest tube. And she started breathing on her own--clear airway, good breath sounds. But the chest tube put out some blood, and she's not waking up. Because she's pregnant, she has a lower resting blood pressure to begin with...." He wiped his forehead with the abbreviated sleeve of his scrub top. "We did an ultrasound, and the baby's heartbeat is regular. We want to keep the baby inside her, but we need to know.... If an operation is required and we think we might lose your wife on the table, do you want us to perform an emergency C-section or devote our full resources to your wife first?"

  Tim tried to think of what Dray would want but heard himself say, "Devote your full resources to my wife." He put his hand on the exam table just to make sure he had hold of something solid and unyielding. "If you lose her, can you still...?"

  "Perform a postmortem C-section? Yes. But let's hope we don't wind up there." The doctor rested a hand on Tim's shoulder. "I heard about what happened. Your stopping the bikers."

  "They put it out over the PA?"

  "The deputies were talking." He regarded Tim heavily. "You can play the guilt game--" He opened his mouth, closed it, wiped his lips with his hand though there was nothing to wipe. "I lost my first wife. You can play that game until you've got nothing left to play with." When Tim didn't respond, the doctor took a little step back, angling toward the door. "I'm going to go check on her. Want me to leave you in the room?"

  "For a moment."

  "We're going to do everything we can."

  "I know. Thank you, Doctor."

  Only a few concrete images emerged from the haze of the next few hours. Tim's colleagues popping by in shifts. Quiet voices, shy eyes. Tim nodding and nodding to the repeated pronouncement, uttered like a verdict, "It wasn't your fault." Guerrera and Zimmer in the back, discussing leads in whispered tones as if the topic weren't appropriate. Dray's four brothers harassing doctors and flashing badges until the oldest collapsed into a chair, ham-size fists pressing into his sweaty face. Mac pacing in the waiting room, stuck in a loop--"I just saw her at the doughnut joint. Happy's? I just saw her." Mac's and Fowler's sheriff's deputy uniforms recalling Dray's, cut to tatters beneath her gurney.

  Finally the doctor came out and brought Tim up to the ICU, hand on his back, a priest leading the condemned. Tim sat in the bedside chair and stared dumbly at his wife. Beneath her gown her belly thrust up, round and firm. A tube ran from the hole in her chest into a bubbling machine that sounded like a bong. Vaseline-impregnated gauze hid the sutures, but a few peeked out, shiny and black like the antennae of some hidden insect. Her legs were sticky and smelled faintly of urine. Her knees were pressed together and laid to the side in a way she never would have held them. It seemed grotesque--someone else positioning her knees, her limbs. What was a person other than how she held herself?

  All of a sudden, steaming at the joints and burning through the shock, it came. Rage.

  Rising, making his way past his colle
agues, down the hall, into the bathroom. Leaving his badge behind on a closed toilet tank, stepping onto the lid, pulling himself up and through the window. Purpose quickening his step through the parking lot, the night sharp at the back of his throat.

  Dray leans against his car, arms crossed, a knowing smile touching her lips. "I'm a sheriff's deputy, Timothy. It comes with the job. You don't get to be stupid about this."

  Poleaxed, gun hand hanging limp at his side.

  She studies him, reading his answer in his eyes. Then she laughs. "You're not gonna get those fuckers for me. No way. That's a prescription for incompetence. You're gonna get them because they need to be got."

  Tim's eyes narrowed at the sound. Tannino's voice.

  "--anonymous tip saved her life. Otherwise she would've lain there for God knows how long." Tannino checked Dray's pulse as if he knew what he was doing, his olive fingers nestled paternally alongside her throat. Working his lower lip between his teeth, Bear crouched at Tim's side.

  Think, Tim. Where were they going?

  "Moorpark's a long way from the Rock Store," Tim said. "They ran the canyons and back roads, probably. Mulholland, Topanga, Box. Too many holes to plug in those hills. You only need a few brief spurts on freeways. You can pop out high on the 118, gets you on your way north keeping you out of L.A. County."

  "What's north?" Tannino asked.

  Tim and Bear said in unison, "The mother chapter."

  "You think they went there?"

  "Nah, they wouldn't take heat to the club," Bear said. "Safe houses up around there, most likely. We've put all local units on high alert."

  Tim realized he'd been clenching his jaw; he released it, felt the ache deep in his teeth. Tannino watched him, releasing a sigh that said his insides hurt. "There's no way you could've known. I'm sure you're telling yourself otherwise, but you did the right thing on that stop." He ran a hand up his face, over his head, his gold wedding band glittering in his dense hair. "We need live heroes. Dead ones only work for public relations." He bit his lip, possibly regretful of his choice of maxim.

  Tim felt the pull of sorrow, but again Dray's voice cut through it like a blade. What's the next step?

  "Get the video," Tim said. "From Dray's car."

  "Right," Tannino said. "We'll have a copy ASAP."

  He and Bear withdrew, leaving Tim alone with his wife.

  Chapter 15

  He woke up fully clothed on his and Dray's bed, the morning light angling through the blinds directly into his eyes. The clock showed 6:27 A.M.; he'd slept an hour and a half, having stayed with Dray until the night-shift nurse's kind invocations of the visitation rules grew stern. He lay motionless, a wrinkle of fabric pressed up against his mouth, as last night replayed in his head. His headlights illuminating Den's face. The five bikes peeling out in formation, kicking up dirt. The spray of Dray's hair across the gurney, as if she'd fallen there from some great height.

  Despair overtook him, and for a moment he was certain he couldn't move.

  Get up.

  He raised his head.

  Shower. Eat.

  "I'm not hungry, Dray," he managed.

  I don't care. We've done this before. You can do it now. I promise.

  He pulled himself to a sitting position, placed his hands on his knees. After a few minutes, he rose and showered. He stood before the mirror afterward, steam swirling around him, and gazed at his reflection. He lacked the crisp good looks that had served his father well on so many cons; Tim's more generic brand of handsomeness was better suited to undercover work. Now his features were slack, expressionless. He told himself to towel off, and a moment later he obeyed.

  Standing over the kitchen sink, he forced some cereal down his throat. The faucet dribbled, and he fussed with it as fruitlessly as usual; the leak abated only when the handle achieved a resting angle known to no one but Dray. Every time the phone rang, his heart pounded, anticipating the hospital telling him his wife had died. And every time it wasn't the hospital. The command post. L.A. Times telemarketer. Bear.

  He looked in on the nursery. They'd dutifully sanded and repainted Ginny's crib until, aggravated by the symbolism, they'd returned it to the garage rafters and picked up a cheery new one at Babies "R" Us. He glanced from the empty crib across the hall to the master bedroom and thought, quite simply, This is where my family goes.

  He returned to the bedroom to claim his Smith & Wesson from the safe. He housed it in his right hip holster, then strapped a Spec Ops-issue P226 nine mil to his ankle for Onion Field insurance. He taped a handcuff key under his watch for easy access in case he was taken hostage, a precaution he'd implemented since spending some quality time with cult leadership in a locked maintenance closet last April. He preferred to exclude the handcuff key from his key chain anyway; it was as much a giveaway to alert eyes as a magnetic plate on the dash for a Kojak light. Before leaving, he made the bed army style--boxed corners, quarter-bounce smooth.

  His Marshals star lay on the kitchen table by the files where he'd dropped it on his stumble to the bedroom last night. After all the time he'd put in to reclaim it, now he found himself in the one position where he didn't want it. He regarded the silver-plated brass. A love-hate relationship, to say the least.

  Pick it up. You carry that badge. To remind you.

  He lifted the badge, slid it into his back pocket. It tugged uncomfortably.

  He flipped open the top file, and Den Laurey stared up at him from his booking photo. Flat eyes like skipping stones. The broad, playful mouth of a rock singer. Dark hair wiry at the sideburns. Tim stood perfectly still as the sun inched up behind the Hartleys' pines and cast the kitchen in a faint gray light.

  He spoke softly to the flat eyes, his voice little more than a murmur. "Pray she lives."

  Chapter 16

  The command post hushed when Tim stepped through the door. Zimmer's hand went to the laptop keyboard, and the projected image vanished from the wall. A few deputies mumbled greetings; the others got busy in the field files. Malane was absent, a minor blessing, as Tim was in no mood to stomach FBI-Service friction. He spotted the empty jewel case beside the computer.

  Tim sank into a chair between Bear and Guerrera and said, "Go on."

  Zimmer reluctantly clicked a button. The CD rasped into motion inside the laptop, throwing the footage from Dray's patrol car back onto the opposing wall. The vehicle cam, mounted in the center rearview, activated automatically when the overheads turned on, providing a panoramic windshield shot.

  A bumpy view as she pulled to the side of the desolate highway, Den riding trapped in the spotlight in front of her. Dray had been able to make the ID only because Tim had ordered Den to toss his helmet at the last stop--a stroke of luck soon to go bad.

  Dray keyed a few bursts on the siren to make sure Den got the point, and then her voice came loud over the PA: "Pull over! Motor off! Hands up!"

  Her nervous breathing was audible as she sat for a moment, gathering her adrenaline for the approach. A vicious barking exploded over the PA system. Dray kept a recording of a German shepherd in her car to deter arrest resistance when she patrolled alone. She pretended to soothe the dog, then the car rocked a bit, and they heard the sound of a door opening, Dray's boot setting down on gravel.

  Dread sat like a medicine ball in Tim's gut.

  Dray finally stepped into view in the spotlight's fringe, all muscle and belly, gripping her Beretta with both hands. As her pregnancy had advanced, Tim had objected to her working a squad car alone, but her arguments had already been sharpened against her reluctant captain. Her station was short on manpower and long on casework, and Dray was short on patience for special treatment and long on obduracy.

  Her olive green baseball cap sported a molded bill and a Ventura County Sheriff's badge. Blond hair shot out in clean strokes behind her ears. She lumbered toward the bike. "That's it. Keep those hands up. Step off the bike."

  The engines scarcely gave warning before four bikes materialized from
the darkness, two from each direction, pulling tight around Den. The nomads' security travel formation, as Tim had learned last night, was geared for precisely this contingency. The bikers angled their mirrors away so the spotlight wouldn't blind them. Den alone squinted into his rearview, braving the glare to keep the bore of the handlebar shotgun sighted.

  Dray stopped, caught halfway between Den and her vehicle. Tim registered her fear in the slight crouch of her posture. The knowledge of how she felt and what was coming made his breathing quicken to match hers. He'd been in precisely the same position an hour before she was. Bear raised a hand halfway to his eyes as if unsure whether he wanted to cover them.

  The other bikers wore helmets, but Tim could tentatively identify Chief, Tom-Tom, and Goat from their builds and postures. The fourth, too slender to be Kaner, wrestled off his helmet, revealing a familiar sallow face framed by ragged hair. The elastic eye-patch strap indented his hair on either side. He shifted, and the armband came into view, as well as the gaudy pinkie ring. The striker. Either they'd picked him up en route to Moorpark or he'd hung back out of view during the nomads' encounter with Tim.

  The striker's words barely reached the camera mike: "You'd better back off, bitch."

  "Get back to the car, Andrea," Tim said sharply under his breath, drawing a few glances from around the table.

  "Hands up. All of you. You, too." Dray eased back a few steps, her shoulders to the camera. Tim found himself, dumbly, hoping for her safe retreat.

  The crackle of gravel was barely audible as an additional bike rolled up, out of the camera's view. Kaner?

  Dray's head snapped back, offering a clean profile over her right shoulder. She tracked the phantom bike forward as it passed her car, then her present position. Judging from the angle of her head, the bike stopped on the shoulder to the right of the others, just out of the camera's scope. She kept her eyes on the phantom bike, her gun on the cluster of men in front of her.