by Stuart Woods
Joan buzzed him. “Ham Barker on line one, and he wants to talk with both you and Holly.”
“Buzz Holly in the bedroom,” Stone said. He watched the lights on the phone blinking, then turning red again. He picked up the instrument. “Ham?”
“Yeah, Stone. Holly’s on the line, too.”
“What’s up?”
“Well, we were about to start packing for a little vacation when we had a couple of visitors.”
“Are you both all right?”
“Oh, yeah, we’re fine. One of our visitors is suffering from being dead, though, and the other one is taped to a kitchen chair. Don’t you just love duct tape?”
“Ham,” Holly said, “was this a good shooting?”
“Well, if you think having an Uzi pointed at you with intent is a good reason for a shooting, then it’s a good shooting.”
“Have you called the station?”
“Not yet. I wanted to have a little chat with the other one first.”
“Don’t wait too long,” Holly said.
“Oh, I’m about ready to call now. I just wanted to let you and Stone have the results of our chat first.”
“Okay, what are the results?”
“Well, the fellow was a little reluctant to talk at first, until we made him take off his pants and then taped him to the chair and then told him about how Daisy was trained to eat genitals, how they’re her favorite thing.”
Holly burst out laughing. “I’ve got to remember that one.”
“After that, and after Daisy stood in front of him and showed her teeth, he got real talkative.”
“And what did he have to say?” Stone asked.
“Trouble is, he doesn’t really know all that much. Turns out he works for some bad people in Miami, and he and his former buddy had traveled up here at the request of your Mr. Rodriguez. That didn’t come as much of a surprise.”
“No,” Holly said, “it wouldn’t.”
“What did come as a surprise was exactly what Trini wanted them to do to Ginny and Daisy and me when they got here.”
“Do I want to hear this, Ham?” Holly asked.
“Probably not. Suffice it to say that he wanted to cause us all some pain before we shuffled off this mortal coil.”
“Tell my cops about this in detail,” she said.
“Wilco. Now I thought you might have an interest in how this fellow got his instructions from Trini.”
“Oh, yes,” Holly said.
“It seems Trini called him on his cell phone.”
“Oh, good. That means the calling number might still be in the phone.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Ham said. “I’ve got the last number, which is where Trini called from, and nine other numbers, four of them in New York. Seems Trini has been moving around the past day or so.”
“I’ve got a pencil,” Stone said.
Ham read off the list of numbers in reverse order. “I expect you know somebody who can run down those numbers.”
“You bet I do,” Stone said.
“Stone, you still think we should vacate the premises for a while?”
“Yes, I do. Trini may be persistent.”
“Okay. Soon as we’re squared away with the cops, we’ll be on our way. Holly, you can reach us on our cell phones.”
“Okay, Ham, and you tell Hurd Wallace at the station to call me if he needs any help dealing with your visitors.”
“Wilco, baby. You take care of yourself, and Stone, too.” Ham hung up.
“Stone, you still on the phone?” she asked.
“Still here.”
“Who are you going to get to run down those numbers?”
“Dino would be best.”
“Couldn’t you get it done more . . . privately?”
“Holly, listen to me: You and I are not going to go after Trini all by ourselves, and neither are you going to do it alone, even if I have to hog-tie you.”
“Well, being tied up is an interesting thought, but what do you think that Dino could do that you and I couldn’t do just as well?”
“Well, just for starters, he can conjure up a SWAT team, who stand a much better chance of success than you and I busting into some room full of well-armed Arab terrorists, without getting somebody besides them shot.”
“You’re such a sissy, Stone.”
“That’s why I’m still alive,” Stone replied. “I learned as a cop not to bust down doors myself when I could get a dozen guys in black body armor to do it for me.”
“Oh, all right, call Dino.”
“My very thought. Bye-bye.” He hung up and dialed Dino.
“Bacchetti.”
“It’s Stone.”
“Hey.”
“Two of Trini’s hoods tried to kill Holly’s father and his girlfriend this morning, down in Florida.”
“Everybody okay?”
“One of the shooters isn’t, and the other gave up a cell phone with ten numbers in it, four of them in New York, at least the last one from a call made by Trini himself.”
“Shoot.”
Stone read off the numbers.
“I’ll have addresses on these in five minutes, and we’ll raid all five.”
“Great, but Holly and I want to come along on the raid on that last number, the one Trini called from.”
“Stone, you know I can’t do that. If one of you got hurt, the chief of detectives would fall on me from a great height.”
“Listen, we’re both sworn officers of a Florida police department, and with a fugitive warrant. You can make a case for us being entitled. And we’ll stand in back of your team. I think that after what Holly has been through with this guy, she’s entitled. Trini gave his hit men instructions to torture Ham and Ginny and the dog, too, before they died.”
“Oh, all right, but you’re both going to have to dress up in body armor, helmets, the whole thing, and you don’t fire any shots at all. You got that?”
“I’ve got it, and I’ll explain it forcefully to Holly.”
“Okay, then. I’ll call you back when I’ve got an address and a team assembled. Give me an hour.” He hung up.
Stone trudged upstairs to explain to Holly that she wasn’t going to get to personally remove Trini’s liver. Not yet, anyway.
49
STONE STRIPPED DOWN his Walther, inspected it, wiped the parts with an oiled rag, reassembled it, loaded a round into the chamber, shoved in a full magazine, put the safety on, and stuck it into his shoulder holster.
Holly had been watching him. “How good a shot are you?”
“Pretty good. Dino is Deadeye Dick.”
“Yeah?”
“Twice—at least twice—he’s saved my ass by killing somebody with a difficult shot. Most cops I know have never fired their weapons, except on the range. How about you? How good a shot?”
“Very good indeed, but not a patch on Ham. He’s the best I ever saw, maybe the best shot alive—and with any weapon. He has this gift, and of course, he’s worked hard at it. I’ve seen him explode a cantaloupe at a thousand yards with a sniper rifle, and he unerringly hits moving targets with a pistol.”
“Like you say, it’s a gift; genetic.”
“Unfortunately, I got only half his genes.”
“I’d say you got some pretty good ones.”
She smiled. “Thanks. You think we’re near the end of this?”
“God, I hope so. I’m not sure how much longer I can do it.”
“I could do it forever.”
“I know. Reckless abandon and iron will are a powerful combination. I’m glad you’re not hunting me.”
“What makes you think I’m not?”
“Uh-oh.”
She laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t threaten your precious bachelorhood.”
“What makes you think it’s so precious?”
“Well, you’ve created this perfect existence for yourself. You’d never let anybody disturb that, would you?”
“You�
��ve created a pretty perfect existence for yourself, too.”
“Yeah, but since Jackson’s death, it hasn’t been the same. And I’ve already told you I’m bored with the work.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Lance has offered me something.”
“What? When?”
“At Elaine’s, the last time, when you were in the john and Dino was on the phone.”
“What did he offer you, exactly?”
“He was vague but intriguing. He said I’d have to do some training at a place called the Farm, in Virginia. Four months, probably.”
“I thought those guys recruited from the bottom.”
“You mean, not middle-aged, retired soldiers and policemen?”
“Middle-aged, you?”
“Sure. You, too.”
“Well.”
“It might be fun.”
“The training would be a pain in the ass.”
“I like that sort of thing. I did a lot of it in the army, training and retraining, then passing the training on to others.”
“Maybe you’re cut out for it then. But would the work be fun?”
“Lance seems to enjoy it.”
“Sometimes I think he enjoys it too much.”
“I know what you mean. Still, he’s serving his country, so what does it matter if he enjoys it too much?”
“I hope I never find out. So, you want to go work in an embassy somewhere?”
“No, the work he’s talking about is domestic and mostly urban. The Agency has a new role in homeland security now, and the change has made them understaffed. The money is no better than decent, but I’ve got my military pension, and I’m fully vested in my police pension, too. Plus what Jackson left me.”
“Sounds like I should marry you for your money.”
“I’m not ever going to marry.”
“You sound very sure.”
“I am. It just isn’t out there for me. You’re a catch, but you’re too much like me. Jackson was a wholly different person, calm and wise and funny. He wasn’t brilliant, but he knew how to do the right thing in any situation.”
“That’s as much a gift as Ham’s shooting.”
“You’re right, and he cultivated it every day. But he’s gone, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Did they ever catch the people who did it, that cult group, or whatever they were?”
“No, but Lance says I’d have a better chance with the Agency. I could never run them down in law enforcement. Either I’d have a department to run, like now, or I’d be caught up in a bureaucracy with some supervisor’s shoe on my neck. I don’t think it would be like that with Lance.”
“Maybe not.”
“I could always quit, if I didn’t like it.”
“I suppose.”
The phone rang and Stone picked it up. “Hello?”
“It’s Dino. The address is less than two blocks from your house.”
“Jesus.” He got a pencil and wrote it down. “We’ll meet you there.”
“No, come here. We’ve got the building plans on the way, and we need to plan this well.”
“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Bring your weapons and Holly’s warrant.”
“Will do.” He hung up.
“Got your warrant?” he asked Holly.
“You bet your ass.”
“Then let’s go.”
On the way uptown, in the cab, Stone reached out for Holly’s wrist and felt her pulse.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s about ninety,” he said. “You want to calm down. Take some deep breaths. It’s going to be at least a couple of hours before we go in.”
“I want to do it now.”
“I know, but you have to be patient.”
“No, I don’t,” she replied.
“You’ll do a better job if you pace yourself.”
“Maybe.”
“Certainly.”
She began taking deep breaths, and her heart rate started to come down.
“That’s better,” he said.
“No, it isn’t,” she replied.
50
THE TEAM MET in a conference room at Dino’s precinct. There was a pile of equipment near the door, and men, and a couple of women, were milling around, talking.
“Okay, everybody, settle down,” Dino said, setting a blowup of a floor plan on an easel. A blown-up photograph of Trini Rodriguez was pinned to a wall.
People took seats or leaned against the walls.
“We’re lucky on this one. The building’s under renovation, so current floor plans were filed for the new building permit. What we’ve got is a five-story walk-up, just like the ones on either side, with a fire escape down the back. We’re lucky, too, that the fire escape on our building has been removed, pending replacement, so there’s no way down, except the main staircase.
“The phone number we tracked down belongs to the top-floor apartment, though there’s not supposed to be anybody living in the building while the fire escape is down, but the neighbors say there are still people living there. The building is owned by a Muslim charity, and the tenants appear to be Muslim, too, so we should treat anybody inside as noncooperative but not hostile, unless they behave that way.
“It’s possible that, if the occupants see us going up the stairs, they might give the alarm, and that would make this work more dangerous, so anybody who sees us should be hustled inside his apartment and told to shut up. Anybody who tries to give the alarm should be arrested and gagged until we’re done.
“We’ve got a twelve-man team. I want four on the roof—you can access it from the building to the east—and eight going up the stairs. We’ve got two officers from a Florida department who have a fugitive warrant for Rodriguez, and they’ll be bringing up the rear, so I’ll keep them with me.
“According to the neighbors across the street, there are a lot of people living in each apartment, so you should expect there to be as many as half a dozen people in the apartment. They should all be immediately restrained, unless they point weapons at officers, in which case you should respond with armed force. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” said a burly young man sitting at the table. “You have any idea what they might be armed with?”
“My best guess is handguns, but you should be ready to deal with automatic weapons.”
“If automatic weapons are a possibility, then I suggest we use a stun grenade before going in.”
“Negative,” Dino said. “There may be women or even children in there, and since that incident last year when the woman died of a heart attack after a stun grenade was used, we can use them only in dire emergencies when we’re certain who’s in there.”
“Have we used any listening devices on the place?”
“We’ve pointed a mike at an upstairs window from across the street, but the blinds are drawn, and all we’ve heard is a kind of low muttering, which we take to be men’s voices, and not much of that. We think they may be sleeping.”
The man nodded.
“Anybody else?”
The SWAT team leader walked to the easel and pointed. “Going in, try to confine any shooting to this direction, to the east, because we’ve got a double-brick wall there. If possible, avoid shooting toward the walls, here and here, that have windows. Even though we’re using frangible ammo, I don’t want any rounds going through an open window and flying around the neighborhood. Clear?”
Nobody said anything.
“Is the search warrant here yet?” the leader asked Dino.
“It’s on the way,” Dino replied. “We won’t go until it’s in hand. It’s for the whole building.”
“Do we have arrest warrants for anybody but Rodriguez?”
“Not specifically, but anybody in the apartment should be arrested for harboring a fugitive.”
“Women, too?”
“Yes. There’ll be a couple of people from Children’s Services
on hand to take charge of any children in the apartment, and one of them is an Arabic speaker.”
“One of my people speaks Arabic and Urdu, too,” the leader said, pointing at one of his men. “He’ll do all the talking until we’ve established who speaks English.”
“Trini Rodriguez speaks English,” Holly said.
Everybody turned to look at her.
“He might pretend not to, and I’d suggest that if he’s armed and he’s slow obeying commands in English, somebody shoot him.”
“This is Chief Barker from the Orchid Beach, Florida, PD,” Dino said. “She’s had considerable experience with Rodriguez. Anything else to offer, Holly?”
“He’s a stone killer,” she said, “and he’ll do anything to avoid being arrested, including shooting police officers. He won’t hesitate, and neither should you.”
“Okay,” Dino said. “We’ve got four detectives in the block observing the house, two in the building across the street on the same floor as our target apartment. We’ll be in two vans, and we’ll stop on the avenue and check with them before moving in.” He looked around the room. “You guys look ready to me. Let’s go!”
The men picked up their equipment and filed out.
Dino walked over to a pile next to the door. “This is our stuff,” he said. “Let’s suit up. We’re aiming for entry at six p.m.”
51
IT WAS HOT in the van in which Stone, Holly, and Dino were riding, and the heavy equipment made things worse. It was past six p.m. A few of the SWAT team were exchanging macho banter, but most were quiet. Stone wiped sweat from his forehead. “I’m going to need a shower after this.”
“Me, too,” Holly said.
“Hey, driver!” Dino called out. “Crank up the AC, will you?”
“It’s going full blast, Lieutenant,” the man called back.
A minute later, the van pulled to a stop, and Dino picked up a handheld radio. “Ricardo, you there?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
“What’s happening inside?”
“Some women in Muslim dress went into the building carrying groceries, but I couldn’t tell what floor they went to.”
“Anybody leave?”