by Jack Slater
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay? That all you got?”
“What else is there to say?” Trapp asked. “I’ve got no idea where this is going to end up, but I know I’m done taking it lying down.”
Chino leaned back against the wall and reached for the cane that was propped up against it. He grabbed it tightly. “Okay,” he repeated. “Okay.”
It took Trapp another fifteen minutes to finish prepping the makeshift claymore, pack it full of ball bearings, and disguise it sufficiently well that even he struggled to make out precisely where it was located. He borrowed a can of white paint off Chino and daubed a mark above it.
It was late afternoon by now, and a light breeze was chasing the occasional cloud through a darkening sky. Trapp watched one scuttle across the horizon, his gaze lingering on the skies above until it was out of sight, then turned to face Chino, his mind and conscience clear. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Trapp cleared away all evidence of his afternoon’s activity, and the two men stepped inside Chino’s house. He cleaned up in the bathroom as Chino placed a call to his neighbor’s son and arranged for Mrs. Carter to take a short trip.
The Latino was replacing his house phone in its handset when he stepped out of the bathroom, drying his hands on his shirt.
“There’s a wash towel, you know.” Chino grimaced.
Trapp shrugged. “Sorry. Old habits. Everything go all right?”
“Sure. Spun a story about a gas leak. Said I’ll be staying at a motel overnight, and I’ll call him when the gas company tells me the coast is clear.”
Trapp nodded. “Good. You got a street map?”
Chino did. He fished it out of a drawer and handed it over. The two men stood over it after Trapp spread it out and double-checked that not only would Trapp’s fields of fire now be free of the risk of inflicting possible collateral damage – but so would those of any assailants.
It was still a gamble.
A round could be loosed into the skies, subject to the iron law of gravity: what goes up must come down. Half a dozen innocent civilians were killed across the Middle East each year to attest to that fact, as exuberant wedding guests fired off automatic weapons into the skies with reckless abandon.
But Trapp understood that he couldn’t exorcise away all risk, as much as he would like to. This was going to come down to urban combat in the midst of an American city – albeit one that was no stranger to gun violence.
He was banking on that, too. Police response times in this section of the city were a matter of public record, one he had consulted. He probably had nine minutes from the moment the shooting started before the police arrived.
Or the ball lands on black, and a cruiser’s riding down your ass in sixty seconds.
“Okay,” Trapp mumbled, tiredness creeping up on him. He scraped his hand over his face and pinched the bridge of his nose tight before reopening his eyes. “I think that’s everything.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black Nokia cell phone – one of the burners he had purchased several days earlier. With it, in the small plastic bag it had been sold in, was an unused SIM card. He removed the back casing of the phone, pulled out the battery, and slid the card in before reassembling it and powering the cell phone up for the first time. It took a few seconds before it discovered the cell network, enough time for Trapp to start wondering whether it was going to work at all.
But eventually, the Nokia chirped, indicating they were good to go. Trapp glanced up at Chino.
“Don’t ask me again, Jason,” he said firmly.
“What?”
“I told you, I’m all in. Now place the damn call.”
Trapp dialed the number, his thumb hovering over the green call button before he stabbed it down hard. The second it started dialing, he put the phone on speaker, placing it down on the table between him and Chino before holding a finger to his lips for silence.
Chino shot him a withering look in return. Trapp could practically taste the sarcasm at the back of his tongue.
Okay, I deserved that.
The cell phone’s tinny speaker blurted out a woman’s voice in an impossibly cheery tone, “Odysseus Press Office, Julia speaking. How can I help you today?”
Trapp felt a slight pit of nervousness at the base of his stomach. He was a lot of things, but a wordsmith wasn’t one of them. Still, it wasn’t like he had any other choice. “Hi there, I’m looking for comment on a piece I’m writing about an incident involving Odysseus personnel on November 7, 2003 in Al Anbar province, Iraq.”
There was a pause before the reply, which was noticeably frostier. He guessed that Odysseus’ press people preferred to field questions about their stunning growth to the business press – not respond to inquiries about all the vicious collateral damage their people inflicted when nobody was paying attention.
“And what organization did you say you are calling from, Mr.…?” Julia responded.
“I’m a freelancer,” Trapp replied, conspicuously failing to answer her dangling question. “And I’m shopping this piece to all the majors. I’ve got bites from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, you name it. What I have so far is an allegation – backed up by several sources – that Odysseus contractors were involved in the ambush of an American convoy in 2003 that left several US soldiers dead, and one survivor with”–he shot an apologetic glance up at Chino—“a lifelong disability. I have it on good authority that your people were directly involved in the heist of the cargo that those soldiers were protecting.”
“Sir, if this is a prank call –”
“You have 24 hours to prepare a response,” Trapp snapped back, cutting Julia off in mid flow. “If I don’t have your response by then, I’m going to print with what I have. I suggest you run this by your manager, because I’m guessing the last thing your executives want is this splashed across the front page of every newspaper in America. I’ll be in touch.”
Trapp killed the call. Before he said another word, he removed the cell phone’s battery, then took out the SIM card and destroyed it.
“The bait’s set, then,” Chino murmured, his face ashen.
“It is,” Trapp agreed. “Which means it’s time to get you somewhere safe.”
32
Sandy entered his office at about 7:15, as he was packing his briefcase to leave. Her hair was tied into a messy bun, with what looked like a black knitting needle holding the unsteady structure together. A pair of thin-rimmed round spectacles perched low on her nose.
She was really leaning into the sexy secretary look, Jeffrey Banks thought approvingly. He would have to remember that at her next performance eval.
“Hey, boss, I’m glad I caught you,” she said from behind a cute little frown.
He leaned back in his black leather executive chair, noting with irritation a slight squeak in the mechanism. “I was just getting ready to head out. I’ve got dinner at Mabel’s Brasserie at nine.”
Jeffrey waited for his PA to jump on the implicit invitation. They’d been playing this game for weeks, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out. For that matter, he didn’t care to. There was always another woman. Jeffrey Banks wasn’t the kind of man who liked overcoming speed bumps in the path of the object of his desire.
Desires would have been more accurate. For he was a man who had many such peccadilloes.
When Sandy didn’t instantly respond, Jeffrey allowed his chair to snap forward, carrying his torso with it until he was sitting upright. “Come on, spit it out,” he said a little more gruffly than intended.
“Honestly I wasn’t sure if I should bring this to you, boss,” she said, staring down at a single typed sheet of paper in her hands. “It’s kind of crazy. But the press office insisted.”
“Well, what is it?”
“They said a reporter called asking questions about some kind of crime involving our personnel in Iraq. Something about a heist. Like I said
, crazy, right? I would have ignored it, but I double-checked, and we did have personnel in that region at the time. I’m sure it’s just the media connecting the wrong dots, but I wanted to let you know.”
Jeffrey was instantly on edge. He clicked his fingers, summoning Sandy forward, and stretched out his hand. When she approached, he snatched the piece of paper from her fingers. “Cancel my reservation,” he snapped.
“I’m on it,” Sandy mumbled, backing out of the room as quickly as good manners allowed. “Is there anything else –”
“No. I need to clean this mess up.” Then, for Sandy’s benefit, he added, “You’re right. Those bastards really will print anything.”
The second she slid the glass door to his office closed, Jeffrey reached into the third drawer of his desk, irritably loosening his tie with his left hand as he pulled a burner phone from under a stack of papers. He powered it on and dialed the only number it had ever called.
The reply was instant and curt. “Finch.”
“Are you secure?” Jeffrey asked anxiously.
“Depends how long you keep talking.”
“We’ve got a problem. Where are you?”
“Still in Texas,” came the reply. “The trail’s gone cold. Trapp’s gone to ground, and wherever he’s hiding out, I don’t expect we’ll find him. I need your authorization to employ…special measures.”
Jeffrey clenched his fist and brought it down hard, stopping it only half an inch from the surface of his desk. He restrained himself from cursing and smiled sweetly as Sandy stared at him through the glass wall of his office with concern etched onto her face.
“What measures?” he hissed.
“The family,” Finch replied without a shred of emotion in his voice. “The girl’s still in the hospital. Parents visit every day. I’ve got no evidence that he’s watching them from a distance, but it’s the best guess I got.”
“You’re a psychopath, you know that, right?” Jeffrey replied. “Why the hell would you suggest a thing like that?”
“That’s why you pay me so well,” Finch said evenly in response. “I get the job done. Now, do I have your authorization or not?”
“Grayson’s the damn sheriff, man,” Jeffrey spat into his handset while struggling to keep his expression from boiling over. He waved to get Sandy’s attention, pointed at his watch, and then jerked his thumb back over his shoulder to indicate that she could go home.
“Are you still there?” Finch asked.
“If you’d kept me in the loop when this mess started, I’d never have authorized you to involve that girl,” Jeffrey said, unable to keep his gaze off Sandy’s ass as she bent over to retrieve her handbag from the floor.
“Now we are where we are, which is a hot fucking mess. So no, Eric, you do not have my authorization. Leave the bitch alone. We can deal with Trapp later. And need I remind you that this is your mess. If you had restrained yourself from pumping that fucking Iraqi family full of lead, you wouldn’t need to be in bumfuck Texas in the first place. Now how long till you can get back here?”
There was a short pause before Finch replied. It irritated Jeffrey that the man’s voice showed no hint of strain or embarrassment. It irritated him even more that the reply started with a rebuke.
“This is an open line,” Finch said. “And I can be back in 18 hours.”
With Sandy gone, Jeffrey allowed himself to thump the top of his desk with frustration. It was too long. His eyes scanned the readout from the press office call for what felt like the hundredth time. “Get your ass back here as quick as you can.”
“What’s the problem?”
Jeffrey’s response was as short as it was illuminating – at least if you understood the context. Which Finch, perhaps more than anyone, did. “Al Anbar. Someone knows.”
There was a scratching on the phone line, like something being rubbed against a microphone, accompanied by what sounded like the clicking of a car’s indicator. “I’m on my way. Anything else?”
Jeffrey thought for a second. “I’m sending in a team. I can’t wait for you to get back. This is too sensitive.”
“Are you sure that’s a smart idea?”
“I’ll use people we trust,” Jeffrey replied. “But there’s a 24-hour deadline on this before the story goes to print, and the morons in the press office didn’t bother getting the reporter’s name. We need to move fast. If we grab the cripple now, we might be able to shut this story down.”
Finch replied with the insolent confidence of a man who knew he was untouchable. “Okay, boss. Sounds like you got it all under control. I guess I’ll see you when I see you.”
33
Trapp killed the Corolla’s engine by the sidewalk next to an abandoned lot a couple of blocks from Chino’s place. He sat there for a few minutes in silent contemplation as the last rays of sunshine disappeared over the horizon and stepped out.
A canvas suitcase sat on top of the rest of the supplies in the trunk. It contained four identical parcels – or at least, it had until 60 minutes before. Now only one remained.
This, he knew, was the easiest of the four installations. The lot to the side of his car was strewn with trash and rubble. When he’d scouted the place a couple of days earlier, he’d stepped on a used syringe. It wasn’t the kind of place parents allowed their children to enter. Which made it perfect.
Trapp pulled the suitcase out and closed the trunk. He grunted as he hefted the case onto his shoulder and used the opportunity to take a final glance around him. No one was watching. What was there to look at?
The lot was bordered by a rusted metal fence, the kind used on construction sites. Perhaps that’s where this one got its start. But at least two decades on, the fencing was brittle and rusted and decorated by several man-sized holes. He clambered through the nearest.
The grate of a storm drain rested precariously on a rubble heap in the center of the lot. Trapp picked his way toward the mound, choosing his footing carefully, mindful of the memory of that needle.
All around, the darkness was almost complete, though the eternal glow of the Los Angeles skyline meant there was no need for a flashlight. There was no such thing as night here, not really. Just shades of dawn.
Underneath that ethereal sunshine, Trapp reached his destination. He set the suitcase down with much less effort, swept the rubble beneath him with a cautious glance, and knelt to unzip it. He’d cut several recesses into a section of foam, most of which were empty. The case’s only contents were a single package in brown wrapping paper. It was marked by a yellow Post-it note, as was the black remote control unit that sat beside it. Both bore the number four.
Packages one, two, and three were already gone.
A quick glance at his watch reminded him to be quick. He removed the package from the case and unfolded the paper wrapping to reveal four cylindrical items, each mounted to a wooden stick and attached to a daisy chain of wiring and switches.
Fireworks. Big ones.
A stone skittered behind Trapp into the darkness, and he froze for a second, sniffing the air like a hunting cat. He waited a few heartbeats for the silence to return, or at least what passed for it in the city, and started inserting the wooden rods into the stony ground.
He used the fallen drainage grate as an aiming guide, directing his rockets a few degrees to the east so they would explode as close to dead straight above Chino’s house as was humanly possible. He’d never much wanted to be a mortarman, but right now a few tricks of the trade wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Still, it wasn’t exactly rocket science.
“Come on, Jason,” he mumbled beneath his breath. “You’re better than that.”
Once the last of the fireworks was seated into the earth, Trapp pulled a pair of batteries from his back pocket, and after checking the wires were not yet connected to the remote control switch, he inserted them. Next, he pulled the control handset from the case and depressed the only button on it. A small red light blinked once.
P
erfect.
Trapp didn’t connect the final wire until he’d gathered up the brown paper and thrown a few handfuls of dust over his makeshift artillery site. There was no testing it now. Either it would work or it wouldn’t.
Ten minutes later, and a block over, Trapp held a pair of levered pliers angled straight down so they would be almost invisible to any passing observer – of which there were none. He was now attired in a security guard uniform and completed the look with a dark blue baseball cap that was pulled down low over his forehead.
The gate to the abandoned apartment complex opposite Chino’s house was held closed by a thick chain—and a considerably less impressive padlock. Glancing quickly up and down the street one last time, Trapp raised the pliers and severed the padlock with a single satisfying metallic click.
The base of the lock dropped to the ground with a dull thud, and he reached in and pulled out the U-shaped bracket before retrieving the chain and pushing the two sections of the wooden gate open.
Inside the construction yard, piles of windswept debris filled every empty corner. A few pallets of building supplies remained untouched, but mainly those consisted of sacks of sand or other equally worthless items.
He dumped the chain on the ground before returning to the street. He backed the car into the empty space inside the fence and killed the engine before grabbing his own padlock from the vehicle’s glove compartment and swinging his feet back onto the ground.
The hinge on the rightmost section of the wooden gate squealed as he swung it back into place, in a way that it hadn’t as it made the opposite journey. Trapp winced and made a note to oil it the next time he arrived here.
If there was a next time, that was. He thought it was unlikely that Odysseus would be capable of summoning a hit team in a matter of hours – he and Chino had placed the call just 90 minutes earlier – but the possibility remained. It was far more likely that in about six hours, in addition to fighting off the call of sleep, he’d be retracing his footsteps, collecting his surprises, and preparing to do it all over again the next night.