Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set

by Gordon Carroll

  What I saw inside made me sick… the smell and sounds were worse. Mostly women and children, with a handful of broken men. I couldn’t even begin to guess at how long they must have been held here. A bucket sat in one corner and another in another; toilets. Several clear plastic water bottles littered the floor and a single bare bulb hung from the ceiling on a string. The windows were bolted down here, just like upstairs. The rest was bare concrete with a concrete floor. No chairs, no tables, no mattresses or blankets. A wraith of a girl of maybe four, covered in dirt and snot, waved her little hand at me. Two of her fingers were blackened stubs.

  I went back up the stairs, called Pilgrim to me and walked to the destroyed garage door. I could hear sirens coming from far off. The one surviving gang member clutched his abdomen with both hands and stared at me.

  “The Crow will… ”

  I shot him in the face and left.

  48

  Tamera Sun was packed and ready to leave. Majoqui sat on the bed speaking calmly on the phone. She told him everything of course. All about Dashon smacking her and what she’d said to him and how strangely he’d acted. Majoqui had nodded and said it was alright, that Dashon would never trouble her again, just as he’d promised. He said they had to move, that he’d found a new place for them to live and that they had to leave tonight, as soon as possible. He told her to pack what she needed for now and that he’d have his men pick up the rest within the next few days.

  Majoqui wasn’t angry with her or even upset that she’d told Dashon things she didn’t think she should have. He just smiled gently and kissed her and told her he was sorry Dashon had hurt her again and urged her to start packing.

  Outside, she saw several new friends of Majoqui’s, all very quiet and serious, looking about with hard eyes and thin lips, as though expecting danger. Tamera didn’t know what could possibly be making them act this way. If she saw this many tough looking guys, she wouldn’t think of trying anything. No one would have a chance. She counted seventeen men, and those were only the ones she could see.

  Finishing, she plucked up Miranda and beamed a perky smile at Majoqui. “I’m ready.”

  He put away his phone and smiled back at her. “You are certain you have what you need?”

  “You’re all I need,” she said. “You and Miranda.” She snuggled the cat against her cheek.

  He nodded and held out a hand, which she took. Together they walked down the stairs to a car, not her VW, a fancy black four door with electric locks and windows and leather seats. She didn’t know what kind of car it was exactly, she’d never been good with things like that, but it was nice and smelled new.

  At four-thirty in the morning the streets were nearly deserted and the sun just beginning to poke her rays through the wispy clouds painted across the sky from the east. Tamera loved the sunrise, it always reminded her of how much hope and promise each day held.

  As she got in, she saw police cars coming toward them from way down the street. They didn’t have their lights flashing or anything, but it looked like a lot of them. Majoqui got in beside her and the car rocketed away before she could even put on her seatbelt.

  Before Majoqui, Tamera would have been afraid of so many police. But not now. With Majoqui beside her Tamera wasn’t afraid of anything.

  49

  As I drove away from the hostage house, three APD cars slid into the area with their lights off. My lights were off too. I pulled into a driveway a few doors down and waited till the three uniforms made their way on foot to the house. They were being cautious, as they should be. One went to the back while the other two took up positions on either side of the garage door I’d left open.

  Eventually they went in, as I knew they would. I left the area fast.

  My cell phone, the special one reserved for Dog, vibrated in my pocket.

  “Go,” I said.

  “Your boy is downtown in Gunwood shacking up with some white woman name of Tamera Sun.” He gave me the address and apartment number and hung up.

  Interesting.

  I don’t know if I really expected him to turn Cabrera over to me. I called Jim Black and relayed the information. I told him I wanted him to stake the place out until I could get there, but under no circumstance to go in. He agreed.

  I wanted to go straight there, but I had a task to do first. I needed to get rid of the gun that I just used in dispatching three killers. The gun with no serial number. And I had to get rid of it in a way that would make testing for ballistics impossible.

  Most people think that real life is like TV where the crime lab, packed with the latest and most advanced equipment of science, trots out to every crime scene to suck up and analyze the minutest bits and pieces of evidence. The truth is that the vast majority of crimes never see a hint of the forensics teams. Usually, a standard burglary, or even an armed robbery, (so long as no one gets shot), is processed by one or two responding officers who get stuck with everything, up to and including making sure the scene is safe, talking to the victim or reporting party, photographing the scene, taking prints… if they even check for prints, taking statements and writing the report. Always with the knowledge that their precinct or district partners are getting hammered with other calls so they have to hurry to get back out there and help.

  This, however… a hostage house… with at least six dead innocent victims and four dead bad guys… this was a different animal entirely. For this they would call out everyone and utilize every hi-tech piece of scientific equipment in their arsenal to glean the smallest molecule of evidence. DNA, fingerprints, shoe prints, GSR (Gun Shot Residue). And it wouldn’t just be the local police either. A hostage house warranted at least the FBI, since the hostages had to have been smuggled in over state lines. Maybe even the CIA, and certainly ICE, since they came from out of the country. The gang aspect might draw in the DEA, as well as possibly the ATF.

  Getting caught with the gun used to kill the Mara members would, at the very least, tie me up for days, and worse, could put me in prison for murder. I wouldn’t chance either until I’d taken out Majoqui Cabrera. That meant I couldn’t chance showing up in Gunwood while I had the weapon with me.

  But what to do with it?

  I couldn’t just throw it out the window. It could be found and linked to the killings, and even if I gave it a thorough cleaning, it might hold a speck of DNA or somehow be traced back to the guy that sold it to me. Or it might be found by a thug who could use it to commit a crime, or worse, get picked up by a child.

  Hiding it opened a whole set of new problems. The first being where? Not at my house. If a witness saw me or my car near the scene, it would be traced right to me and a warrant issued. As for my car, it wouldn’t even take a warrant, due to the exigent circumstance provision for motor vehicles.

  Finally, I decided to just keep it simple. In the police academy, they use an acronym for writing reports, K.I.S.S. “Keep It Simple Stupid”. I figured this to be the time to take that advice. I drove to a darkened underground garage, checked for a security camera system, quickly emptied the Beretta and field stripped it. I grabbed a hammer from my toolbox and the barrel of the gun. Laying the barrel on the cement, I raised the hammer. Suddenly, I saw the poor old woman as the hammer swung down at her face. My stomach turned. I shook my head, feeling the blood pulse at my temples, and swung — hard. It turned in my hand with the impact and slid out from the main force of the blow. I knelt down and clamped it to the now chipped cement with my foot, putting as much weight as I could on it, and struck again — and again — and again. I inspected it…no ballistic testing would be done on this baby.

  Getting back in my car, I drove to a dumpster behind a strip mall. I chucked the bent and cracked barrel into the dumpster. Then I drove to another dumpster at another strip mall where I disassembled the hammer and trigger assemblies and dumped them into separate dumpsters. Hammers make distinct striking’s on primer casings that can be tracked back to a weapon, and since I had to leave the casings at the scene,
it wouldn’t pay to overlook the hammer. Finally, I cruised several side streets until I came across a neighborhood with trash cans lining the curbs in front of private houses. I wiped the frame clean of any possible prints and shoved it deep into a white trash bag before tying it closed with the red plastic draw strings.

  Not perfect, there could always be witnesses; an insomniac looking out the window and wondering why a car would stop to throw trash into a neighbor’s can, a bum or a doper or a prostitute by the dumpsters. A tagger looking for bare cement walls in an underground garage. But perfect isn’t possible, not in this world, so the best I could do with the time and circumstances at hand, would just have to do.

  I took one of my spare guns, a Ruger five shot, from my gear bag and tucked it in my waistband, realizing that unlike the weapon I’d just taken such care to dismantle, destroy and make disappear, this gun did have a serial number and that it was on every file imaginable leading straight back to me. I’d have to be more careful, unless, of course, I actually came face to face with Majoqui Cabrera. If that happened, all bets were off. Trial, jail, prison, even death, none of it mattered. All that mattered was getting to look into that monster’s eyes, and by my own hand, sending him straight to Hell.

  Hitting Colorado Boulevard from I-25, I started north. Gunwood stood just up the road. The speed limit sign said forty miles an hour. I toed the accelerator and watched the readout climb past sixty.

  I’d lost too much time already.

  50

  Detective Jim Black pulled up in the lead car, parking about thirty yards from the apartment building in Gunwood. Seven marked units, along with a SWAT van, stopped behind him. On a usual SWAT deployment like this, they would have “eyes” on the location for hours already, making certain the suspects were on scene and checking for lookouts or muscle. The “eyes” units were always snipers with powerful scopes and even more powerful rifles, ready to neutralize any threat that might materialize. But Jim couldn’t take the chance on Gil making it to the scene before Majoqui Cabrera was either in custody or dead. Not if he wanted to receive the credit and keep from allowing Gill to murder the man and ruin everything.

  The sun still hid beneath the horizon, sending purplish bands across the heavens, blanking out the stars overhead one by one. The dark offered a tactical advantage which, coupled with surprise, manpower and weapon’s superiority tipped the odds strongly in their favor.

  The SWAT agents dropped off the side running-boards of their specially equipped van and formed into two perfect lines. They ran-walked toward his vehicle, rifles at the ready. K9 unites moved and staged at the back of the building, along with another team of SWAT in unison.

  Jim set this up quickly, and in so doing, there always remained the possibility of error. But having been around as long as he had had its advantages. Experience, knowledge. Having planned and participated, at least in some functions, on dozens of SWAT hits gave him the advantage. He didn’t see any holes in the mission… except one… the one you could never plan for. Would the target be there? If he’d been able to set snipers in place he might know, but then again, maybe not. Often you had to hit, even after a day or more of surveillance, with never having seen the target. You just had to go with the info you had and hope for the best. Still, the timing came in nearly perfect. Bangers and dealers were all cockroaches and rodents — vermin. And vermin lived and loved the dark. They did their work in the shadows of the night, always hiding, always evading the light. And when the sun rose, they scurried back to their little holes, like vampires seeking a coffin to sleep the day and light away until they were brave enough to venture out, back into the dark of the night.

  As the team passed him, Jim exited his car and flopped a heavy-gage armor vest over his shirt and tie and followed them at a safe distance. He had the vest, but no helmet, shoulder, or groin protection. Plus, he didn’t want to get in the way of the professionals.

  The team slid through the door, up two flights of stairs, and positioned themselves outside the target apartment, three quarters of them forced to line the stairs due to lack of space on the landing.

  Jim has obtained the no-knock warrant through a judge he played golf with twice a month. Jim always let him win, not by much, just enough. That, and the fact they were going after a mass cop killer and torturer of women and children, made it easier. A no-knock meant exactly that. The SWAT team would breach the door with no warning, the safest method of entry since it put the element of surprise firmly in their court and gave the bad guys no chance for preparation.

  The Entry Team Breacher stood next to the door with a thirty pound, two handled battering ram, waiting for the signal to breach.

  Jim felt the hairs bristle on the back of his neck. He loved this part; the adrenaline surge, the raw, primal feeling of danger and the hunt. Once they hit that door, anything could happen. The door could be rigged with explosives, or tricked out with a shotgun on the other side, or a crew of bangers with guns behind couches and tables having spotted them on their way. There could be pit-bulls trained to attack or little kids playing on the floor. It was a roll of the dice and snake eyes were as likely as a lucky seven. No way to know till the cubes stopped rolling.

  The team leader raised his fist. Go time.

  Majoqui Cabrera felt rage, something he rarely allowed. He’d expected the Crips to attack and made arraignments for just such an assault. First order of business had been to get Tamera to a place of safety. After that, it came down to sending another message, one that would put The Crips on notice that their time in Colorado was past and they needed to move along. What Majoqui had not expected or prepared for was the police. When he saw their cars cruising down the street toward her apartment building, he knew instantly that they had been betrayed. No matter how fierce the rivalry between gangs, no one talked to the police. No one ratted to law enforcement. Anyone that did received a guarantied death sentence. Not only them, but their whole family, perhaps even friends. And the death would not come easily. The lesson he came to Denver to deliver to the bank president couldn’t compare to what would be done to a member who sided with the police.

  He wanted to go back, to be with his men, but he knew better. Killing police was bad business. Letting his rage dissipate, he sat back in the car and squeezed Tamera’s hand. His men were lost, nothing could be done about that now. He’d set the ambush to execute a squad or more of teenaged dopers, not trained professionals with modern weaponry and armor.

  Despite his knowledge of the dangers of further involving law enforcement in his activities, a part of him hoped his men would acquit themselves well and take many souls with them.

  Dismissing them from his mind he began to plan his revenge against The Crips.

  I spotted the SWAT van first and felt my pulse start to race. What did Jim think he was doing? I told him to set up surveillance and wait for me. Not stage a full scale war before I could even arrive. Pulling in south of the apartment, I saw the last of the SWAT agents as they stormed the building, Jim in the rear. I couldn’t let them kill Cabrera. It had to be me. Running for the front doors, I heard the first of the flash bangs go off.

  That’s when the war started.

  Jim Black saw the SWAT commander’s fist go down; simultaneously the door breacher swung the heavy ram, disintegrating the lock, doorknob, and most of the frame. Two other SWAT agents immediately threw in flash-bangs; basically low-powered cylindrical concussion grenades. Blinding flashes, accompanied by enormous thunderclaps and pulse-waves, slammed through the room and out into the hallway. The entry team moved instantly after the explosions, rushing the room and breaking into two diverging lines as they ran the walls.

  Black loved tactics and the study of tactics. He’d read virtually every book on the subject, from General Tsing to Colonel John Boyd. He practiced “war-game” scenarios constantly while at his desk, an essential tool in Boyd’s decision cycle framework, commonly referred to as the ‘OODA loop’. The theory’s main concept is that whoever can m
ove through cycles of the OODA loop fastest during a competitive situation will be able to impose their will on an opponent. Utilizing the OODA loop, the person makes an observation, then orients the meaning or impact of that observation on their objective, then makes a decision on a course of action and institutes that action.

  There are numerous ways to enhance one’s ability to increase their OODA loop speed and reliability; practice, muscle memory, familiarity with tactics, weapon’s systems, architectural layouts, knowledge of opponents, surprise, distance. Black shot three times a week at the range, worked out five days a week, was a third-degree black belt in it Taekwondo. He’d never actually been on the SWAT team, or any special team, but he’d advanced to detective after only three years on the street and had an excellent record, as well as the second highest case closure rate in the bureau.

  Jim went through the entire scenario for maybe the fiftieth time as he climbed the stairs, and saw it end in his mind just as the flash-bangs detonated.

  The men rushed the room, Jim almost on their heels. Being a step behind saved his life. Holes punched through the ceiling, floor and walls from four angles and the heavy barking of automatic gunfire rippled and bounced off the walls and stairs. Even so, three heavy thuds impacted his chest-plate, stopping his forward progress and knocking the wind from his lungs. He staggered back, seeing the sparks and puffs of disintegrating copper, lead and Kevlar smack and ricochet off helmets and vests of the men in the room. The door next to him splintered and chipped as bullets ripped up, down and through. One of the SWAT agents took a round in the groin from below, another in the thigh. Confusion reigned for maybe three seconds before training, experience and professionalism took charge. Realizing they were being shot at from above, below and two different sides, they moved into a square formation and started firing back, with two agents shooting straight up and another two shooting down through the floor. Together they moved toward the door.