by Paul Bishop
“You've done well, Father,” Flynn said.
As he spoke, MacAlister stepped into the cavernous room. Father Romero took his chance and stabbed at MacAlister with the knife.
The instincts of a lifetime took hold in MacAlister. He turned to the side, raising a leg to take the point of the knife in his thigh. With the other hand he pulled out a gun and smacked Father Romero on the side of the head. He brought the gun around to shoot. They didn't need the priest anymore.
“No!” Hammer yelled coming out of the tunnel on the right side of the room. He had his gun up, aware of the kids around him and the women who had started to scream.
MacAlister whirled, almost toppling on his injured leg. He brought his gun around. As MacAlister fired, Father Romero threw himself forward driving MacAlister back into the main passage. The bullet buried itself in the roof, bringing down a trickle of dirt.
Fey was out of the entrance tunnel, Monk behind her, jumping on Luther Flynn and forcing him to the ground. Alphabet and Brindle came out of the other tunnel, but were blocked by too many small bodies in the confined space.
Hammer, followed by Nails, literally ran over Father Romero's body to chase after MacAlister. Entering the main tunnel, they flattened themselves against the wall, but MacAlister was gone. Hearing his running footsteps, they started after him.
The electric lights quickly ran out, but Hammer had come prepared. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out the three inch tube of a plastic earthquake light. He twisted and snapped the contents inside the clear tube, and suddenly the tunnel was filled with an eerie phosphorescence.
A bullet winged back at them and both Hammer and Nails dove to the floor.
“Give it up, MacAlister!” Hammer yelled. He had his hand over the earthquake light, plunging the tunnel into darkness. MacAlister still had his flashlight, and they could see the dull glow around the next turn.
“Hammer?” It wasn't MacAlister's voice, but that of Frank Hale, who with his partner had followed the procession into the catacombs.
“Sit tight, Frank. He's on his way back to you.”
When a minute passed with no more sound from MacAlister, Hammer came up into a crouch and moved forward. He was holding the earthquake light in his left hand, and his gun in his right.
when he saw a branch tunnel leading off, he listened, but couldn't hear over the pounding of his own heart. Rhonda was right behind him.
“You got anything, Frank?” He called out to Hale.
“Negative,” Hale said, suddenly appearing in the tunnel. He was followed by his partner Dave Manchester.
“Did you pass any other branches? Hammer asked.
“Not since I called out to you.”
“Then he must have disappeared down here.”
The quartet of detectives were silent. Each knowing the dangers of going down the tunnel.
“I hate tunnels,” Hammer said. “You three wait here.”
“I'll go,” Hale said.
“Not a chance,” Hammer told him. “MacAlister belongs to me.”
He reached out and touched Rhonda's hand, but didn't say anything before starting into the offshoot.
This tunnel started out the same size as the main tunnel, but rapidly became smaller. Before long, Hammer was walking crouched over, knowing he was nothing more than a target.
There was no glow from MacAlister's torch. No sound. If he was down there waiting for Hammer, he was waiting in the dark.
Hammer passed three other offshoots. Not knowing where they led, he bypassed them and kept going. The tunnel he was following abruptly ended in a Y intersection, splitting into two tunnels.
Hammer crawled on his stomach to the first and looked down it. Nothing but black. As he was about to uncover the earthquake light for a better look, he heard a slight noise from the next tunnel.
He crawled carefully over. His nose twitched. What was that vague smell? The rotting corpse of a dead rat perhaps?
Holding the earthquake light concealed in his fist, Hammer threw it into the tunnel entrance. At the same time it illuminated MacAlister waiting on one knee with his gun extended, Hammer realized what the smell was.
“No!” he yelled diving back the way he had come.
MacAlister fired, the flame from the gun igniting the methane gas surrounding him and blowing it down the tunnel in a fireball.
EPILOGUE
Sitting in the large booth at the Blue Cat was like coming home. Brink Kavanaugh had his muscular bulk wedged in next to Fey. They were surrounded on both sides by the rest of the team.
“You're serious about this?” Fey asked.
“Couldn’t be more sure,” Hammer said.
He had broken the news about the plans he and Rhonda had to leave the job. The hair on the right side of his scalp was badly singed, and there were several raw patches on his face from the cave-in of tunnel dirt and rocks, which had descended on him when MacAlister blew himself up in the gas-filled offshoot.
“You almost gave us a heart attack,” Monk said. “I’m shocked the whole underground catacombs system didn't collapse. It took us forever to get to you.”
The cavern room where the children were had suffered only a minor shower of dirt and a heavy dust cloud. The children, and the women who came with them on the train, were later turned over to DCS, whose job it was to find accommodations and provide for their other needs.
Further down the tunnels, Rhonda, Frank Hale, and Dave Manchester, had been buried under a layer of soft earth. Hammer had been buried deeper, but the tunnel he was in had not collapsed completely, Eventually, he was able to dig his way out. He wasn't going to tell anyone, not even Rhonda, about the panic he felt being buried alive. The thought of never seeing Rhonda or Penny again terrified him. Now, more than ever, he knew he and Rhonda were making the right decision.
“I can't believe you're quitting,” Brindle said. She resented Hammer and Nail's superiority, but the thought of not having them as part of the team left a vacuum in her stomach. She wanted to believe she and Alphabet were ready to step up and play varsity, but it scared her.
“We'll miss you,” Fey said. She reached out and touched both of them.
“It's the right thing to do,” Hammer said.
“We can't care for Penny properly and do our job right,” Rhonda said. “She needs us more.”
Zelman Tucker, wearing a yellow and black striped jacket over red pants, socks, and shoes, suddenly appeared like a magician. He was bearing a round of drinks on a tray.
“Tucker,” Fey said.
“You guys are amazing. I've already sold my editor on writing this story up for my next book.”
“Why is it he makes more money, yet we take more risks?” Alphabet complained. What he wasn't complaining about was Brindle's hand on his thigh under the table.
“We all have our calling,” Tucker said, and slid a pacifying beer toward Alphabet.
Alphabet smiled and took the beer. Brindle's hand moved a little further up his thigh. Life was too rosy at the moment to be difficult.
“How is the FBI responding to Flynn's confessions?” Tucker directed his question and an Irish coffee toward Fey.
“Devon Wyatt is trying to cut Flynn a deal by having him turn state's evidence in the federal probe Bianca initiated. Freddie Mackerbee and the FBI are delighted. A feather in his cap. All is forgiven between us. Wyatt is also defending Cecily Flynn-Rogers. None of this is going away in a hurry.”
“Are they really going to give Luther a deal?” Tucker asked.
“If he gives up the names of the Vegas buyers. It's beyond our control,” Fey said. She gave a cynical shrug. “We're supposed to move on to the next case and forget.”
After digging Hammer and the others out of the rubble, it had taken the rest of the night and most of the next day to get things sorted out. The press should have been all over them, but Whip Whitman and Drummond ran strong interference, so the team could get on with the mountains of paperwork.
Whip Wh
itman looked good on television. His chances of being promoted to commander grew stronger with each interview. Winchell Groom was also smiling. He wasn't afraid of Devon Wyatt. If anything, the assistant D.A. relished the challenge.
Chief Drummond even managed to ride the tail end of the dragon when he put in a personal appearance at the scene when Fey arrested police commissioner Anthony Barrington. With Cecily also locked down, the commission would need to fill several openings.
“What are you going to do about Eldon Dodge?” Tucker asked. To an extent, Tucker was a fixture within the group, but there were times when he pushed his luck.
Fey raised her glass and swallowed the whipped cream before answering. “I've turned all of Piet Muller's ballistic reconstruction report over to Wyatt along with the original reports from the armored car robbery. What Wyatt does with them is up to him. Whatever happens regarding the murder of Mavis Flynn won't matter much. Freddie Mackerbee has enough information to go after both Flynn and Dodge for the murder of the armored car guards. Thirty years is a long time, but there's no statute of limitations on murder.”
For his part, Brink Kavanaugh was virtually goggle-eyed, amazed by what the detectives took in their stride as everyday occurrences. This was too much real life for the artist in him. There were many facets of Fey's personality he had yet to explore. He only hoped she gave him the chance.
“My concern is Sarah and Mark Junior,” Rhonda said. “We have nothing to tie Mark Ritter into the abuse except for his connections to Flynn.”
“Nothing is ever clean,” Fey said. “The best we can do is work with Ferris Jackson and her underground contacts to fight the case in court. It's going to be a difficult battle to stop him from regaining custody.”
“The children can always disappear again,” Hammer said.
“Don't even joke about it,” Fey said. “I don't want to end up investigating you.”
“Never,” Hammer said. He and Rhonda knew, as Fey knew, Mark Ritter wasn't getting his children back. Everybody draws lines in the sand. “There has to be evidence somewhere. We'll find it.”
“Not if you're not on the job,” Fey said.
“I will be after a fashion,” Hammer said. “When Ethan Kelso offered me a partnership in Highland Security, I made a stipulation we work for the underground pro-bono.”
“How altruistic.”
Hammer smiled, holding Rhonda's hand. “As Tucker said, we all have our calling.”
“The self-congratulation is getting deep in here,” the low voice of Booker, the Blue Cat's bartender, insinuated itself into the conversation. “I'm going to have to put my fishing waders on to deliver drinks.”
“No congratulations for a job well done?” Fey asked.
“Nothing more than expected,” Booker said. “You want the you are special plates every time you solve a murder?”
“It would be nice. If it doesn't happen here, it's not going to happen anywhere.”
“How about a round of drinks on the house instead?” Booker asked, lifting a tray of freshly filled glasses.
Fey glanced at Brink, then took her new drink and raised it toward Hammer and Nails. Everyone was silent. Waiting.
Deep inside, Fey knew she had accomplished something she would not have dreamed possible. She had righted one of her father's wrongs. Maybe now she could bury his memory forever.
“To new beginnings,” she said eventually, a harsh catch in her voice.
THE END
THE DETECTIVE FEY CROAKER SERIES
CONTINUES IN...
CROAKER: PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PAUL BISHOP
Novelist, screenwriter, and television personality, Paul Bishop is a nationally recognized behaviorist and deception detection expert. A 35 year veteran of the LAPD, his high profile Special Assault Units produced the top crime clearance rates in the city. Twice honored as LAPD’s Detective of the Year, he currently works as a deception detection consultant. His unique skills have made him a valuable resource for private companies faced with potentially damaging in-house data breaches, industrial espionage, or corporate sabotage. His low-key, non-invasive, approach to these challenges has proven consistently successful.
Paul is the author of fifteen novels—including five books in his LAPD Detective Fey Croaker series—and has written numerous scripts for episodic television and feature films. He starred as the lead interrogator and driving force behind the ABC TV reality show Take the Money and Run from producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
A regular speaker at writing conferences, he is also a University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and University of California Channel Islands adjunct professor lecturing on criminal investigation. He regularly presents his popular seminar, Six-Gun Justice—Western Novels, Movies, and TV Shows, at libraries and other community functions.
With author friend Scott Harris, he is the writer/editor of the critically acclaimed 52 Weeks • 52 Western Novels and 52 Weeks • 52 Western Movies. A third volume, 52 Weeks • 52 Western TV Shows, will be published in 2019. His latest book, Lie Catchers, is the first in a new series featuring top LAPD interrogators Ray Pagan and Calamity Jane Randall. The sequel, Admit Nothing, is due in 2019.