Motherfucker got out. Fuck, I hope the boys are lighting him up.
Trey forced himself to his feet. His ribs hurt like hell, but he wasn’t bleeding, and he didn’t want to waste a healing potion on bad bruising. He snatched his stun rifle and jogged down the stairs, each footfall jolting his aching ribs.
You ain’t getting away, motherfucker. Not today. You ain’t so tough, or you wouldn’t be running, motherfucker.
Trey hit the bottom of the stairs and rushed out the front, the bright sunlight forcing his eyes to adjust after the time in the darkened townhouse. He snapped up his stun rifle, ready to nail the bastard even if the damned weapon was shit for long-range shots.
He skidded to a stop and blinked, surprised at the sight in front of him. Quickstep lay on the ground, groaning, already handcuffed. Lachlan and Daryl stood over him, big grins on their faces and their stun rifles over their shoulders. Lachlan kept tossing the teleportation necklace up and snatching it out of the air.
Trey shouldered his rifle. “Damn, boys. Good work. I thought that motherfucker was gonna get away. Underestimated the fucker.”
Lachlan and Daryl exchanged glances.
“What are you talking about?” Lachlan asked. “You were the one who took his ass out.”
Trey winced and clutched his chest. “Bruised a few ribs. Motherfucker shot me.” He frowned down at the groaning criminal. “But what you mean I took his ass out? He teleported.”
Lachlan chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, when he popped out here, he fell to the ground, all groaning and holding his ears.”
Trey grinned. “So I did get him with the sonic grenade.” He sneered at Quickstep. “That’s right, motherfucker. You ain’t so tough, and it ain’t just James Brownstone you got to be afraid of anymore in LA.”
Daryl winced and grabbed his stomach.
Trey frowned. “He nail you, too, man?”
The other man shook his head. “I think something was wrong with my lunch. Fuck, man. I can’t wait all the way to the station.”
Trey nodded toward the house. “Use his fucking bathroom. Not like he can complain.”
Quickstep let out a loud groan, drool coming out of the side of his mouth.
Lachlan snickered. “You better hurry, Daryl, otherwise you’ll end up with a new nickname.”
Daryl frowned but edged toward the front door. “What new nickname?”
“Fire-ass.”
The other man grunted and broke into a sprint.
Trey laughed and shook his head. “Not bad for our first level four, even if Daryl’s gonna need new drawers after this.” He looked toward the door as Daryl headed inside with a smile on his face.
We’re still living the life, Shorty. Wish you could be here, brother, but we’re gonna live twice as hard for you.
Chapter Fifteen
Maria stood before the thick glass door at the front of the Brownstone Agency, her stomach twisted in knots.
What if he says no? It’s not like I can go back to the LAPD after retiring and having a big party. What am I supposed to do, take up macramé?
Maria snorted. If she could face down witches and Drow, she could face a little talk with Brownstone. She opened the door, striding with confidence toward the front desk.
Charlyce looked up and offered her a smile. “Lieutenant Hall, nice to see you. Mr. Brownstone is waiting for you in the first conference room to the left down the hall.”
Maria shook her head. “Just Maria now.”
The other woman blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I’m retired. I’m not a cop anymore. I’m not Lieutenant Hall.”
Charlyce smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. Yes, you’re right.”
Maria waved. “No problem.” She headed down the hall.
She’d called Brownstone earlier to say she needed to talk to him and that she would like it if Trey and Royce were there, but she hadn’t explained why she needed them. To her surprise, Brownstone agreed right away without even asking for more details.
Does he really trust me that much? I wouldn’t trust me so much after the way I treated him, even if I have been helping him out since then.
Maria arrived at the conference room. The door was already open, and the three men were sitting at the table, all on one side. She headed in and sat opposite them.
Brownstone nodded to her. “Hey, Hall. What’s this about?”
Trey frowned. “Ain’t more Council bitches coming, are there? If there are, we’re ready to fuck them up.”
Royce didn’t say anything, just watched her, his gaze full of calculation.
Maria cleared her throat. “No, no Council.” She sighed and shrugged. “I’ll just get to the point. You know I’m retired now and I need a new job, so I wanted to sign on with the Brownstone Agency.”
Trey laughed. “Motherfucker. I never saw that shit coming.”
Brownstone grunted. Royce nodded and rubbed his chin, a vague look of approval on his face.
Maria looked at Trey. “I will bring a lot of experience to your team. You all know that. I’ve worked with you before.”
Trey waved his hands in front of him. “Hey, I ain’t bitching. You’re a certified badass as far as I’m concerned. It’ll be weird, you being an ex-cop and us all being ex-gang members and all. No man in this agency can deny that, but it ain’t my call.” He nodded at James. “It’s the big man’s. His name’s on the building and shit.”
Brownstone didn’t say anything. He looked at Royce, a question on his face.
Royce nodded at him. “We’ve been talking about needing to recruit more people anyway, and we also need to do something about leadership. With someone like her, it’ll be easier and more efficient to grow past the gang structure. We can actually start talking about dedicated squads.” He shrugged. “Let’s be realistic. Trey’s the only real leader we have left since we lost Shorty. Max is decent, but he’s just missing something.”
Maria remained silent, her neck and shoulders tense as she listened to the men discuss her. She didn’t give a shit that they were talking about her like she wasn’t there, especially since Royce was giving a lot of good reasons why she should be hired.
Shit. I haven’t really had to apply for a job in twenty years, and joining the different divisions was almost a shoo-in with the record and recommendations I had.
Brownstone leaned forward, his brow furrowed. “The Brownstone Agency is a bounty hunting organization. We’re not cops.”
Maria nodded. “I get that.”
“Do you? That means we’ll do shit you might not always like. We go after bounties, but we’re not running around town trying to lock up every criminal we see. It also means that I, and by extension, my guys, don’t always play by the rules.” Brownstone shrugged. “You don’t have a problem with me now, but it used to be you were prepared to lock me up because you thought I was a dangerous menace.”
Maria snorted. “Yeah, and since then I’ve been doing shit like buying anti-magic deflectors from shady underground elf black marketeers.” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “If I wanted to still be a cop and always play by the rules, I wouldn’t have retired. I’m in my forties, still fit and ready to take down bad guys. I get that you do bounties and not all criminals, but every bounty you go after is dangerous scum. I figured this was a good way to still take down bad guys without so much red tape and without worrying about political crap.” She sighed. “Besides…”
Trey and Royce watched in silence.
Brownstone frowned. “Besides what?”
“I need to be with a team I trust. If I tried to build a team of my own, that could take years. I ran with you all against the Council. I know that was mostly me working with Shay, but I saw how everyone worked.” Maria looked between Trey, Royce, and Brownstone. “I trust the Brownstone team.” She shrugged. “And I figure we both can benefit from this.”
Brownstone locked eyes with her, his face unreadable as if he were trying to peer into her soul. A good half-
minute passed before he opened his mouth and said, “Welcome aboard, Hall.” He chuckled and turned to Trey. “You were gonna do some training today anyway, right? Might as well throw her into the deep end.”
Trey grinned and nodded. “Yeah. Good time to test her out. I hear you, big man.”
Maria frowned. “What the hell are you two talking about?”
Maria laughed as she zipped up her tactical room jumpsuit. “This is the shit I’m talking about. I don’t know how much Brownstone spent on this training room, but I would have killed half the city council to have gotten a training environment like this for AET. VR shit isn’t good enough.”
The bounty hunters who were suiting up all laughed.
Trey shrugged. He wasn’t suiting up because he was supposed to concentrate on observing the whole training session. “The big man likes us to be prepared. Between Royce, this place, and Fort Shorty, how do you think we went from a bunch of street hoods to badasses who can take down wizards and freaky monsters and shit?”
She snorted. “Good point.” She looked behind her at the nine men wearing red armbands. “I want to get this shit out of the way. Brownstone said he wanted me to lead your red team against the blue team. Do any of you guys have problems working with a woman?”
Isaiah stepped forward and pulled up his red armband. “We worked with Alison all summer, and we’ve seen Shay kick a fuck-load of ass. We ain’t got no problems with chicks as long as they can keep up with us.”
Maria shook her head. “Let me put it a different way. Do you have a problem working with me, and more importantly, taking orders from me?”
She stared them all down. Despite her respect for the Brownstone Agency men, they were all young and brave but had limited experience, and they were used to working with their ex-gang friends, not cops. Maria had two decades of experience as a cop, years of that leading highly-trained tactical units.
Isaiah shrugged. “Show us what you got, 5-0, and give us no reason to bitch.”
Maria smirked. “Okay, then.”
The two teams filed into the mist-filled tactical room. Loud peals of thunder roared from hidden speakers, and a bright flash shot overheard.
That’s some convincing fake lightning. If we just clone Brownstone and put one of him in each big city, major crime would shrink to zero in this country.
The ramps and blocks that formed the maze were confusing enough in the normal dim lighting, but the simulated storm conditions would make for a difficult fight for both sides.
“I want five minutes to talk to my team,” Maria announced. “Leadership is about planning, not just shouting.”
Trey shrugged. “Fine by me. How about you, Blue Leader?” He looked at Kevin.
The other man shrugged. “We’ll go get set up.” He waved his arm and jogged away. The blue team men followed him, disappearing into the fog after a few seconds.
Maria chuckled and cracked her knuckles. “So, first things first, everyone’s going to have a partner. Who’s the best shot?”
Several men raised their hands.
She snorted. “I don’t have time for a big dick contest. Who honestly is the fucking best?” She glared at the men.
Everyone dropped their hands except Carl.
Maria grinned. “Congratulations, you’re a sniper.”
He frowned. “How am I gonna snipe shit in this fog?”
Maria slapped the side of the rifle and a flashlight lit. “Your partner’s going to watch your ass, and someone else is going to paint your targets.” She held up the rifle and nodded. “Good penetration through the simulated fog. Who’s the fastest runner?”
Daryl raised his hand. This time she didn’t even have to yell at them.
Good. They are naturally accepting my authority, which means I can work with them.
Maria nodded. “Okay, we’ve got the start of a plan, especially given what Trey explained—that we don’t have access to grenade simulators this time. Your DI is good at giving you discipline and jobs as general experience, but I think you could all use a lot more direct breach-and-clear training. That’ll turn a lot of your future jobs from potential clusterfucks to curb stomps that are over in less than a minute. Today, though, let’s just kill ourselves some fucking blue team.”
The red team men grinned. “Let’s do this shit, Lieutenant.”
She shook her head. “I’m retired now. Just call me Maria.”
Ten minutes later, blue-team screams cut through the fog as three men charged up the ramp, hoping to get the sniper who’d been picking off their men. Daryl’s spotter job had ended a minute ago since even his speed couldn’t save him from a crossfire.
Maria and two other men waited, their rifle simulators pointed to the side. They were flattened against the walls as the blue team men charged toward Carl’s last position. The attackers didn’t even have time to notice the woman and men on either side as the red team opened fire.
The blue team men fell to the floor with groans of pain. Every man knew it was better to just take your hit and fall rather than deal with the secondary shocks.
That leaves only two guys, Kevin and Lachlan, but we’re down to four ourselves.
“Carl, get up here.” Maria lifted her arm and motioned for the men to follow her. “Okay, we’re going to use a basic clearance formation. I’ll take point.”
The red team men exchanged confused looks.
Maria sighed. She had a lot of work to do. “It’s simple. We’ll form a diamond. I’ll be the top, and Carl will be the bottom. Carl will watch our backs, I’ll be pointing forward, and the other two will keep decent firing arcs on my left side and right sides. The main point is we have 360-degree visibility and overlapping firing arcs to the front and sides. Make sense? And I’m in the front, so I’ll be the first to go down. Not like I’m hiding behind anyone.”
The men nodded and moved into position.
“Let’s go finish off those blue-team bastards.” Maria smirked and stepped forward, keeping her weapon ready.
This training is nice, but still a lot of things I’d prefer to do differently. Next time I’m going to demand grenade simulators.
They advanced down the ramp in formation. Maria was impressed by how well and naturally they held it. Even if some of their direct tactical training was lacking, their familiarity and trust for each other led to natural teamwork. She could work with that.
A shadow popped around a wall and Maria, and the man to her right lit him up before he even finished turning. His partner thought he was going to get a nice flank ambush in, but the man on Maria’s left put three quick shots into him, securing the red team victory.
Maria grinned. “Good job. Still sloppy in parts, but I’ll whip you guys into shape.”
An alert popped up on Heather’s first monitor, so she turned to look at her second to check the details. A half-dozen open windows displayed live feeds from the drones she had flying over James’ neighborhood in search of his mystery dog.
Probably creeping people out to have so many drones in that part of the neighborhood.
Heather chuckled.
Just do computer shit.
That was what James had told her, like it was trivial to just throw up some drones and find whatever you wanted. She understood where he was coming from. Enough drones with decent cameras could find a person through facial recognition, but researchers hadn’t spent nearly as much time training the dog breed recognition algorithms.
Heather clicked into a highlighted window, the one responsible for her alert, and zoomed in with the camera.
“Another cat. Great.”
She sighed and shook her head. That was the fourth dark cat she’d encountered. Six other false positives were for dogs, but at least they had dark fur and were roughly the right size, but wrong breed. Another two had been for raccoons.
It could be worse. At least the algorithms aren’t tagging every single animal in the neighborhood.
Another alarm popped up, and she looked at the new h
ighlighted window.
“Wait a second.”
A dark-furred dog was eating out of a garbage can behind a small Vietnamese pho place.
Heather dropped the drone’s altitude but kept it more than a hundred feet from the dog. She didn’t want to spook him. She zoomed in with the camera.
Dark fur. Floppy ears. Decent size.
She brought up a few breed pictures for comparison. He looked like their target.
Heather sighed and shook her head. “Sorry about the next part, boy. Hope this is far enough away that it doesn’t spook you.”
With a flurry of typing, she set the drone to follow the dog.
The dog wandered away from his garbage-can lunch and padded down an alley away from the restaurant, tail down.
Heather sighed. “You should just stop running away from James. He’ll make sure you don’t have to eat out of garbage cans.”
She picked up her phone and dialed her boss.
He answered before the first ring was complete. “You got something?”
“I’ve got eyes on the target and have a drone following him now. He was eating out of a can near a pho place, and now is heading eastbound away from it. You know where that is?”
“Yeah. It’s close to the park.” James didn’t say anything for several seconds. “I’m heading to my truck now. Just give me updates on the way.”
Heather smiled. “James Brownstone, Scourge of Harriken, Council Slayer, and Dog Catcher.”
James grunted. “If I can’t catch one dog, I have no fucking business calling myself a bounty hunter.”
The F-350 pulled into a parking spot at a nearby park. James knew the place well, as he’d held several community barbeque events there.
“You still got eyes on the target?” James rumbled into his phone.
“He’s passed the playground, and is now lying underneath a tree. Can’t tell if he’s asleep, not without getting closer.”
Karma Is A Bitch: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book 12) Page 12