Dead Wrong

by Allen Wyler

  TWO WEEKS EARLIER, LOS ANGELES 1:24 AM

  WARREN SIKES PEERS out the car window across South Figueroa at the rusted wrought iron bars protecting the dust-caked window with the glowing Corona Extra sign. He and Washington have been waiting four hours, hoping a banger or a junkie doesn’t knock over the dump before they had a chance to interrogate their target.

  A customer pushes out the door, a six-pack weighing down a beige plastic bag. A moment later the last customer of this string, a bag lady, ambles out.

  “Ready?” Sikes pulls the black .22 from under his shirt and locks on the flash suppressor.

  Washington grabs Sikes’s arm. “Hold up.”

  Sikes slaps his hand away. “Don’t fucking start. Hear?”

  Washington raises his hands. “Easy, man.”

  The car interior falls silent. A pair of motorcycles with chrome monkey-hanger handlebars rumble past.

  Washington lowers his hands. “Just don’t want this to end up like the last one. That’s all. Took a shitload of explaining to the colonel. Okay?”

  “Fucker was a terrorist.”

  “Know that for certain?”

  See, that’s the problem with people like Washington. They ignore the obvious. “Guy walks into a liquor store, points a .38 at the clerk; he’s a robber even if you don’t hear him ask for money.” What’d it take? They’d been through this a hundred times.

  Sikes pushes open the door. “You coming or not?”

  THE AIR IS thick with chilidog, coffee, and the bag lady’s sour body odor, a mixture of sweat, urine, and mold. Sikes glances around. No one else inside except the camel jockey behind the counter. He nods to Washington, who flips the door sign from OPEN to CLOSED and engages the deadbolt.

  The clerk leans forward on the scarred laminate countertop, yells, “Yo, dude! The fuck you think you doing? Can’t do that shit.”

  Sikes looks him over, making sure there’s no mistake. Early thirties, black hair, moustache, skin naturally pigmented to a hue most L.A. whites agonize to perfect. Wears an Old Navy logo shirt, looking every bit the struggling minimum-wage college student. He is, in fact, Majid Zaki: a piece of shit they’d spent a month investigating. Zaki manages six exchange students who gather information on port activities in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and San Diego.

  Sikes says, “You’re closed.”

  “The hell—” Zaki’s eyes grow wide. “Bro, c’mon, ain’t nothing in the till but a few bucks. Go on, take it. Just don’t hurt me.” Hands raised, he backs away from the till. “Here. Take it.”

  Sikes levels his weapon at Zaki’s chest. “Turn off some lights.”

  “What?”

  “I said, turn off some fucking lights.” He feels his blood pressure rising. What is it with people who act like they can’t hear?

  “C’mon, bro. Take what you want, but—”

  Sikes says to Washington, “You believe this shit? All of a sudden Majid Zaki doesn’t understand English.” Sikes squeezes the trigger, blows away a fluorescent ceiling panel. Plastic and glass shards clatter down onto worn linoleum. The adrenaline of rage lifts him up onto his toes.

  Zaki’s eyes widen. “Who? That is not my name. You have the wrong person.”

  Sikes hates Zaki, hates every Islamic fundamentalist fuckwad like him. Big bad-asses when hooded up in front of al Jazeera camcorders, but put them on the receiving end of a gun and they’re quivering pussies.

  Washington charges around the potato chips, past a cooler of malt liquor, throws open a gray circuit breaker panel, and rakes down a row of switches. Only the back room fluorescents and a mercury-vapor streetlight illuminate the store interior.

  Zaki glances over his shoulder toward the back room.

  Sikes catches it. “Don’t!” Then to Washington: “Secure the back.”

  “Affirmative.” Washington disappears through the doorway.

  Sikes steps toward the wide-eyed Zaki. “Got any clue why we’re here, Majid?”

  Zaki shakes his head. “No. I am only a poor student. What would you wish from me?” His accent thickens with each word.

  Sikes shakes his head again. “Not buying it, dickwad. We know who you are. Been surveilling you for months. Other agents before us. What we got here, Zaki, is a tie score, fourth quarter, thirty seconds on the clock with fourth and three. Time to step up.”

  Zaki shrugs defensively. “But I am not knowing anything of interest to you.”

  These guys never learn. “Wrong answer. And know what? Before we’re done I will get the right answers. Bet your life on it.”

  Sweating, Zaki swallows and glances around.

  Sikes edges around the counter. “Why not start with who you report to.”

  “Report to?”

  Sikes shrugs. “Yeah, save us all a shitload of time and you a world of hurt, you just tell us what we want to know.” He aimed at Zaki’s right knee.

  “I have no idea what you are—”

  Sikes squeezes off a round and catches the hot casing, dropping it into the thigh pocket of his camos. Screaming, both hand gripping his knee, Zaki crumples to the floor. Sikes leans over him.

  “Know what? That’s an old IRA trick. You know about the IRA, don’t you? Terrorists just like you. Only difference is they’re Irish, so they fuck sheep instead of camels.” He kicked Zaki’s other knee. “They call if kneecapping. Works with elbows too. Do the knees, ankles, and elbows, you got yourself a six-pack. Now answer my fucking question.”

  “Yo, Sikes … easy.” Washington is at the doorway to the back room looking on.

  Zaki screams, “No, really … I am knowing nothing.”

  Sikes empties another round through the other kneecap.

  Zaki screams, louder this time.

  Washington says, “Sikes, be cool, man. The mission, man, remember our mission.”

  But Sikes is standing over Zaki now, grinning with revenge. “What the fuck is it you don’t understand, rag head? Think we won’t kill you, you don’t tell us?”

  Zaki raises his middle finger. “You will kill me anyway. ALLAH AKHBAR!”

  Sikes drops onto his haunches, presses the barrel to Zaki’s forehead. “Guess what? All that crap about the seventy-eight virgins? One hundred percent bullshit.” And pulls the trigger twice in rapid succession, changing the angle between shots.

  Washington squeezes his own temples with both hands. “Fuck! What’d I tell you. How we gonna explain this to the colonel?”

  Standing, Sikes slips the gun into the small of his back. The scene could easily pass for a robbery gone bad. He dials 9-1-1 on his cell.

  “Explain what? We saw the whole thing from across the street, came running over to see if we could help. Clerking in this neighborhood is fucking high risk, man.”

  “You the one called in the complaint?”

  Sikes jumped. Christ almighty.

  A man in a black security uniform held the doorjamb with on hand while leaning into the room, gasping for breath. His belly was so big Sikes wondered when he’d last seen his dick other than in the mirror. The officer was staring at him, face glistening with sweat. A black plastic name tag just above his breast pocket showed Doolittle. Sikes couldn’t believe it.

  Sikes nodded. “Yes, sir. I called it in,” he said, flashing his stone-cold dead eye.

  “What’cha got?” Doolittle craned his neck to scan the area, both thumbs hitched on his belt.

  “Officer Doolittle, Lieutenant Sikes. Department of Defense.” He flashed his ID. “We have an extremely bad situation.”

  Eyes wary, Doolittle retreated a step. “What kind a situation?”

  Sikes replaced the ID, dragging out the moment. “Double homicide,” he finally answered, with a nod toward the shattered glass window separating the reception desk from the waiting room.

  Doolittle focused on that direction and did a double take before making the sign of the cross. “Holy Mary, Mother of God—”

  12

  MCCARTHY CRACKED THE hall door, put his ear to
the opening, and listened. He heard no more voices, no sound of movement, just an eerie, echoing silence of an empty hall. He opened it further, enough to see the west elevator alcove. It too was empty.

  Taking a deep breath, he leaned out far enough to look down the entire hall. Clear. Now was his chance.

  Then he was across the hall and into the stairwell, carefully closing the heavy fire door with only a soft click. And realizing he was holding his breath.

  Heart jackhammering, he listened for footsteps or voices but heard only more hollow stillness, as if the entire world had stopped. Then he was racing down two steps at a time. When he hit the eighth-floor landing, he grabbed the doorknob and pulled. Locked. Shit! He fumbled out his master key.

  It didn’t fit.

  He’d forgotten that three months ago they’d rekeyed all the fire doors after three offices had been burgled in one night. Druggies looking for product. Just great! And come to think of it, all these doors opened freely from the hall into the stairwell but not vice versa. Only the first floor and basement level doors would open from both directions.

  Pound on the door, hope someone heard? Yeah, like one of Sikes’s men?

  Glancing around, he wiped sweat from his forehead and tried to think.

  At each end of the building a stairwell ran from the ninth floor to the ground level. But only one set of stairs continued down to the basement. How would Sikes guard the exits? Well, that depended on how many men he had, and McCarthy had no idea what that number might be. Sikes would probably keep one man in the lobby. Question was, did he have one watching the basement too? No way to know. But if he could make it to the basement it’d be an easy shot through the tunnel to the hospital to call the police. So the big question was, was this the stairwell to the basement? If not, he was screwed.

  Seconds were ticking away. He had to do something.

  Couldn’t go up and couldn’t stay here, so he started down again, checking each door on the way, hoping maybe a smoker had shimmed one open. Floor seven was locked.

  Same with six.

  He was flying past the fifth floor when a male voice came from below. “Roger that. I’ll check this one.”

  He stopped, his gut knotting up. Trapped.

  Then he remembered that the west side of the fourth floor differed from the other floors—it was nothing but a huge maintenance closet. A perfect place to hide.

  Assuming his master key fit the lock.

  He started down again, hand sliding along the tubular railing for balance, no longer trying to mask his sounds, and hit the landing while sorting through his keys.

  He could hear footsteps racing up from below, closing in on him.

  Come on, come on. Finally he found the right key and thrust it at the lock but missed. The footsteps were growing closer.

  Another try, this time he got it. He darted into the room and threw his weight against the door to slam and lock it. Then checked to make sure the lock was secure. It was.

  He blew out a long breath and slumped against the wall. Now what?

  Someone started pounding on the door, yelling, “Open up. Security.”

  Tom stepped away from the door, turning 360 degrees to inspect a room he’d only seen occasionally when walking past the open door. Thirty square feet of floor-to-ceiling cinder blocks lit by two bare fluorescent ceiling rods. The wall to his left contained two metal elevator doors and a smaller single door. Had no idea where the single door led but tried it. Locked.

  On the opposite wall was another door, which he figured should open onto a section of roof. He tested the knob, found it wasn’t locked, and opened the door into blazing sunlight, shimmering heat waves, and the scent of hot tar.

  A thundering crash came from the hall door.

  Squinting from the bright light, he stepped onto blacktop and into a maze of crisscrossing ventilation ducts and fan housings.

  Another crash thundered from behind. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see the hall door fly open.

  He started running, cutting around a wall of ductwork. Dead ahead the roof ended in a foot-high parapet.

  A loud bang came from the air duct just to his right. He glanced back, saw a man in a two-handed firing crouch aiming a silenced pistol at him.

  Shit!

  McCarthy dashed straight toward the parapet as another bullet ripped through the ductwork, closer this time. Running flat out, he jumped, clearing the parapet by only inches.

  13

  SIKES WASN’T ANY more impressed with Frank Hansen, head of security at Doctors Hospital, than he had been with Doolittle. Hansen made a more professional first impression, but he lacked confidence and by inference, ability. Tall and angular, freckled, with that innocent boy-next-door appearance of a jock watching his high school glory days disappearing in life’s rearview mirror. Like Doolittle, he’d probably become a rent-a-cop after washing out of a police academy somewhere. Physically he was big enough, maybe even tough enough, at one time. But now it looked like he had a bad case of gelatin brain.

  Sikes offered Hansen his ID. “Officer Hansen, Warren Sikes, Department of Defense.” Sure, it was a waste of time playing diplomacy to these walk-ons. And if Hansen had any smarts at all, he’d get on the horn jackrabbit fast, call SPD, stand back, and let the big boys play. But the longer this little charade dragged on, the more time Sikes had to personally deal with the traitor, McCarthy. The downside, of course, was the longer this dragged on, the more time McCarthy had to break through the perimeter. Although very unlikely, the possibility that McCarthy had actually escaped grew more worrisome every minute Womack and Lewis came up empty. They should’ve already nailed McCarthy’s ass by now. Then again, the Seattle cops could be put to good use in sealing the perimeter of the larger medical center complex. Maybe he could persuade them to bring in a SWAT team to sweep the building. Yeah, some SWAT action might not be a bad idea.

  Hansen inspected Sikes’s ID, looked back up at him, asked, “Uh, what agency is this?” before handing it back.

  “DIA—ah, Defense Intelligence Agency.” Sikes flashed a conspiratorial grin, playing up to Hansen’s law enforcement fantasies. “That’s all I can tell you.” Then, putting it on even thicker: “Your rapid response is impressive, sir.”

  “Thanks.” Basking in his moment of glory, Hansen sidestepped to look past Sikes. “What kind of situation we have here?”

  Doolittle remained wide-eyed at the hall door, obviously torn between wanting to enter with Hansen and being repulsed by the murder scene.

  “A very ugly one, sir. Double homicide. That woman over there and,” moving aside to give Hansen a better view, “that man there,” pointing at Washington. “Don’t know the woman’s name but he was my partner, Sergeant Elroy Washington. Goddamn traitor wasted them both in cold blood.” Sikes didn’t try to contain his anger. It added credibility to his story.

  Hansen paled as he stood seemingly transfixed by the sight. “You witnessed this?”

  “Hell yes. I’m just lucky he didn’t get me too.”

  Hansen nodded, took another tentative step toward the bodies. “Who we talking about? The shooter, I mean?”

  “Name’s Thomas McCarthy.”

  From the doorway Doolittle added, “You’re standing in his office, Frank. Sikes says the woman might have been an employee here,” and edged one step further into the room.

  Hansen paled further. “Jesus!” He stared down at Maria’s body several seconds. “Think we better leave this for the metro boys.” He turned and shooed Sikes and Doolittle toward the hall door before asking, “Tell me again what happened.”

  Sikes checked his watch. What in the hell were Womack and Lewis doing? “Our agency believes McCarthy is in possession of classified information obtained illegally. We began an investigation into him several days ago. This morning I made the decision to detain him for questioning. Approximately forty-five minutes ago I positioned two men in the lobby, and Washington and I proceeded directly here. We entered the office throug
h the front door and announced ourselves to him. He immediately became agitated and started shouting. Before I could react, he rushed my partner, took possession of his weapon, and opened fire. One shot killed my partner. Next shot—which he aimed at me—killed her,” jutting his chin at Maria. “Before I could return fire he was out the door. Rather than pursue him, I immediately notified my men and attempted to do what I could for Washington, but he was clearly already gone. My team is covering both first-floor stairs and the elevators, but so far there’s been no indication he’s exited the building, leaving me to assume is he’s still hiding here someplace.”

  Sikes continued. “Now, I understand you have a job to do. But, so do I. My friend and longtime partner is lying dead on the floor, shot down like a dog in cold blood. The more time I waste hanging around jawing with you, the more likely it is McCarthy will escape.” Sikes could barely contain his rage now. “I assume your department notified the Seattle police?”

  Hansen came to attention, like his manhood had just been challenged. “Yes, sir. SPD was notified immediately after Doolittle called it in. They’re already downstairs. Along with about a hundred vultures from the press. The reason it took me so long to get here is I had to walk up nine damn floors. First thing we do in an emergency situation is disable the elevator to minimize vertical flow.” This was said with a note of pride.

  Yeah, and it looked to Sikes like it’d been a task for Hansen to hoof it all the way up here. “Well then, why don’t you stay here and wait for the officer in charge while I assist my team?”

  Just then a uniformed SPD officer stepped into the room. Hansen said to the newcomer, “Hold on,” then to Sikes, “No sir, you need to wait here until we sort things out. You’re a material witness.”

  Sikes doubted Hansen actually knew what a material witness was. He opened his mouth to tell him to fuck off but thought better of it. Never know, might just need the bozo to substantiate his story once the homicide team arrived.

  SARAH ENTERED THE psychiatry outpatient reception area, nodded to the woman behind the desk, and picked up her patient list for the afternoon. Ten minutes before her first appointment. Enough time to review a few charts and refresh her memory of the follow-ups before diving in.