Shadow Boys (18 page)

- CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE -

I dashed across the parking lot.

The guy from the Suburban had maybe a ten-second lead on me.

At the rear of the building, the door was open.

I paused at the entrance.

Footsteps echoed inside. The lack of furnishings and interior walls made them loud and easy to track.

My cell phone vibrated, a text from the leader of the pickup team.

Status?

I could smell their adrenaline. Rangers were notorious for being proactive, juiced for action. This guy and his crew were armed with enough automatic weapons to invade a midtier Central Asian republic, itching to use them.

I didn’t text back.

The team had a mission window, a predetermined amount of time to accomplish the pickup. Unless it was a Code One transport, which this certainly didn’t qualify for, they would abort after the window closed, leaving the shipment in place.

That would not make Theo happy. He’d probably rupture a spleen or get impacted hair follicles or whatever health malady befell neurotic attorneys when a crisis loomed.

But I didn’t want the team in the building until I figured out who the guy in the Suburban was and what he represented.

I stepped inside, using the interior walls that surrounded the restrooms as cover.

Pfft.
A silenced weapon fired. Then, the tinkle of metal bits landing on concrete.

I stepped away from the wall.

The man from the Suburban stood by the front of the shipping crate, staring inside, a look of astonishment on his face. The crate was positioned so that I couldn’t see its contents.

He lowered the gun. Took a step back.

I drew my Glock, aimed at his chest. “Drop the weapon. Put your hands on your head.”

He looked up, startled. The pistol slid from his fingers but his arms remained by his sides.

“You’re Cantrell, aren’t you?” His face was white.

“Hands on your head, now.”

The man from the SUV didn’t move. He blinked several times like he was trying to think about too many things at one time.

“Do you know about this?” He pointed to the shipping crate.

“That’s not your concern.” I eased closer.

“What?”

“Last time I’ll tell you.” I found a zip tie in my pocket. “Put your hands on your head and get on your knees.”

“Not my
concern
?”

The helicopter overhead got louder, a new wrinkle that had a 101 percent chance of making the pickup team extra nervous.

Nervous Rangers: not a good situation. They’d probably fire up a surface-to-air missile, and we’d end up with chopper parts scattered over half of North Dallas.

“Who the hell are you people?” The man who would not put his hands where I told him to shook his head.

I kicked away the silenced Glock. It skidded across the floor.

“You have any idea what they’re gonna charge you with?” he said.

I holstered my weapon, reached for his hand, zip tie at the ready.

“I’m a cop, asshole.” The man from the SUV yanked his hand away from me. “Don’t even think about touching me.”

He was six or eight years older than me. We were about the same size and fitness level. Getting him cuffed would be messy, and I’d had enough of that for one day.

“We’re taking the crate,” I said. “You do not want to interfere with that.”

He shook his head again, slowly.

I moved behind him, at an angle so I could keep distance between us but have a glimpse inside the container.

The helicopter buzzed closer.

“Need you to call your dogs off.” I pointed upward. “My guys will be in and out before you can write up the overtime request.”

“How long has it been since you’ve worn a uniform, Cantrell?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Homeland Security,” he said. “I’ll need to contact them.” He slumped his shoulders. “Then there’s the hazmat teams. The media liaison office.”

“Consider Homeland notified.” I took another step and looked inside the container.

The radioactive sign was stark yellow, like a beacon in the night.

“Crap,” I said. “They sent a nuke with a regular shipment? Again?”

Portable fusion reactors, made by a Japanese company with deep ties to the American military-industrial community. Maintenance-free, not much bigger than a refrigerator, strong enough to power a town of ten thousand.

“You know about this?” He sounded incredulous.

A portable reactor meant this was a Code One pickup. No aborting the Rangers. No wonder Theo was so nervous.

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is gonna pitch a fit,” I said. “Reactors are
supposed
to ship separately, but contractors are always looking to save money.”

The gun in the man’s hand seemed to materialize from the ether, another Glock, this one without a silencer, the muzzle pointed at my face.

“Put it down.” I still had my weapon aimed at his torso. “You don’t know what you’re getting involved with here. Trust me.”

With his free hand, he grabbed a walkie-talkie from his belt. He held the radio to his mouth.

“This is Captain Mason Burnett.” He rattled off the address of the building. “Officer needs assistance. All available units.”

I shuffled toward the back door, keeping the gun aimed at him.

“Don’t move.” Burnett tracked me with his weapon.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “Outside, there’s six guys in a van. They make your best SWAT boys look like Barney Fife.”

“You’re the vigilante, aren’t you?” His voice was a whisper. “Tell me why you’re killing the lowlifes.”

I didn’t reply. Nothing I could say would make a difference.

“I want to be able to give the press a motive.” He smiled. “And you’re not gonna be in much condition to talk in a few minutes.”

From outside came the sound of rubber soles squeaking on concrete.

I placed my gun on the floor. “Other than the chopper, do you have anybody with you?”

He frowned but didn’t speak.

More noise from the back entrance. Nylon rifle slings rubbing against tactical vests. Gloved fingers patting automatic weapons.

“How far away are your people?” I asked.

He gave me a blank stare.

“Your backup,” I said. “What’s their ETA?”

The first red dot appeared on his chest, a laser sight.

He didn’t appear to notice. “Another minute or so, tops.”

“That’s too long.”

I dropped to the floor and covered my head as the Rangers burst into the room.

- CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX -

Lysol Alvarez may be the king of West Dallas, but it’s been a long time since he’s mingled with his subjects, other than passing them by while riding in a tinted-window Escalade.

He’s running down Navarro Street, headed south toward Singleton, the subgun in his hand.

Every few steps he looks behind him.

A column of smoke streams upward from where his house used to be.

The guy who started this all, the cat in the black tracksuit, is nowhere to be seen.

Lysol hopes the son of a bitch got blown up. But he knows deep in his bones that somehow the man has survived.

Quite a few people are in their yards, the noise from the blast having brought them outside from the comfort of their satellite TVs and window AC units. They’re milling about, pointing toward the smoke.

They watch him run by with blank faces. No one says anything, no acknowledgment that a man in a linen suit and silk T-shirt is galloping down the street carrying a machine gun.

Lysol realizes the depth of his predicament.

Kings don’t run.

Each step knocks another notch from his prestige in the neighborhood, a rip in the persona he’s spent years developing.

Each step makes him angrier.

At the corner, he leans against a stop sign to catch his breath.

He owns more than one place in West Dallas, safe houses that have been set up for just such an occurrence as this.

The nearest location is several blocks on the other side of Singleton. If he can make it there in one piece, he can regroup and find out who is trying to destroy him. Then he can go on the offensive.

Because that’s how a king operates.

Ching.

The pole vibrates like it’s been struck by a rock.

Lysol glances up.

A bullet has punctured the stop sign, right in the middle of the
O.

He drops to his knees, lungs heaving, fingers tight on the subgun.

Another hole appears a few inches from the first.

He looks in the direction he’s just come.

The man in the black tracksuit is about seventy-five yards away, using a two-handed grip to steady the silenced pistol.

The rage builds until there’s no stopping it. Lysol’s arms tingle. Breath comes in snorts.

“Aaayyh!”
He raises the subgun, empties a magazine at the tiny figure.

Spent brass clinks on the asphalt.

Black Tracksuit ducks behind a car, either taking cover or injured. Lysol can’t tell which from this distance.

From a long way away comes the Klaxon sound of a fire-truck siren.

Lysol gets to his feet, staggers away from the stop sign, headed south. He reloads the subgun as he goes.

Another block and he reaches Singleton, a six-lane street, median in the middle. Traffic is heavy.

A break in the stream of cars appears as something that feels like a wasp nips him on the side of one thigh.

Lysol rushes across the street. He tries to ignore the liquid oozing down his leg.

Horns honk as he reaches the median.

He turns.

Black Tracksuit is dodging cars, the gun aimed.

Lysol fires a burst. He misses the man but hits a plumber’s truck instead.

Tires screech.

More horns blare.

Metal rams into metal.

Vehicles on both sides of Singleton come to a stop. The bulk of a city bus separates Lysol from his pursuer.

Lysol’s pants are bloody. His leg starts to hurt. He threads his way through the cars and a few moments later he is on the south side of Singleton. Once there, he crouches in the bushes in front of an abandoned service station and surveys the situation.

More cars have stopped. People have gotten out. They’re pointing, talking on cell phones.

The man in the black tracksuit does not appear to be among them.

Lysol turns and heads south.

The streets that have served as home for his entire life are suddenly alien, no longer comforting, dangerous-feeling even in the bright light of day.

The wound in his leg, minor though it is, throbs, and he wonders if he’ll make it to his safe house alive.

- CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN -

I lay facedown on the floor of the empty office building, arms and legs splayed.

I did not move. Did not speak.

A good rule of thumb: do not get in the way of a team of Special Forces operatives on a Code One pickup.

After a few minutes one of the pickup team dragged me toward the far end of the building while his boss called in the situation to their home office.

Then shit got real, as the kids say.

In a nutshell, here’s what happens when a private military contractor—a former Ranger and decorated veteran of the war in Iraq—puts three rounds into a Dallas police captain, in a room that contains a portable nuclear reactor that has been inadvertently shipped to the wrong location at the behest of the US government.

The nearest FBI hostage rescue team, the special forces of federal law enforcement, descended from the heavens, in the literal sense, rappelling from three Apache helicopters.

After disgorging the FBI agents, the helicopters continued to hover over the area at an altitude of five hundred feet.

The team from the Apaches, along with agents who arrived in a convoy of armored Suburbans and at least one half-track assault vehicle, secured the perimeter of the building.

The FAA had been notified, of course, and they’d declared a one-kilometer circle around the building a no-fly zone.

The local authorities—i.e., the Dallas police—were barred from the scene. This drastic action was based on several court rulings that said Homeland Security, in concert with the FBI, could establish temporary martial law anywhere it damn well pleased if an incident was deemed a threat to the security of the United States.

This point, I had to concede to the feds.

If an unsecured nuclear reactor wasn’t a national security issue, then I didn’t know what was.

It went without saying, of course, that a total media blackout was in effect. No public statement regarding the events at the empty office building had been made nor would one ever be released.

Twitter and Facebook, the ubiquitous social media services, were suffering from an unexplained outage that would later be traced to an offshore server controlled by the NSA.

Except for one aspect of the operation, everything was progressing like a finely tuned mechanism. As slick as cat shit on linoleum.

The problem was the exclusion of the local authorities.

You see, the last message the Dallas police received was from one of their own, Captain Mason Burnett, a request for all available units to respond, officer needs assistance.

Now the captain was not responding to his cell or radio, and the men and women of the Dallas Police Department—all 4,200 of them, all of whom were armed—were a tad anxious to learn about his condition.

According to the FBI agent in charge of the cleanup operation, a man in his forties named Drake, about a hundred Dallas police officers had amassed on the access road in front of the building where the reactor sat.

After a while I was allowed to join Drake just inside the entrance of the vacant building. He offered me fresh-brewed Starbucks from the mobile command center that had been set up in the rear, a pod-like unit that contained a portable cell tower, radio repeater, and a coffeemaker, among other nifty gizmos.

I accepted and together we drank coffee and watched the sea of blue uniforms on the street in front of the building.

“They look angry,” I said. “You sure your people have everything under control?”

Drake ignored my question. He added some stevia to his cup and said, “You been a contractor long?”

“I’m not a contractor. I work for a law firm.” I glanced toward the rear of the building. “Shouldn’t we be, oh, I dunno, doing something?”

An FBI medical team was in the rear, trying to save Captain Mason Burnett’s life. A government medevac helicopter had just landed in the back parking lot. The recovery team was securing the doors of the container, preparing to load the shipment onto the forklift they’d brought with them.

“Your law firm.” Drake took a sip of coffee. “Goldberg, Finkelman, and Clark. They have a contract to arrange pickups. That makes you a contractor.”

“Makes me an employee of a law firm. Not a contractor.”

“Tomayto, tomahto,” he said.

I pointed to the captain. “You think he’s gonna be all right?”

He shrugged. “What’s it to you?”

“He’s a cop.”

Drake gave me a blank stare.

“One of the good guys.” I arched an eyebrow. “You understand the concept, right?”

Drake frowned but didn’t say anything. He took another sip.

“How about this?” I said. “I don’t like seeing somebody wearing a badge get hurt.”

Drake nodded knowingly. “So he’s a friend of yours?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You brought him here, though.” He smiled innocently. “To the location of the pickup.”

“He followed me.”

“With your background.” He pursed his lips. “You let a desk jockey trail you? To a Code One.”

I tried not to sound exasperated. “It’s not like I knew there was a nuke on-site.”

“So you would have been more careful if you’d known?”

I didn’t reply. I wasn’t a big fan of “Have you stopped beating your wife?” questions.

“We’re gonna need to debrief you. Won’t take long.” He paused. “If you cooperate.”

I sighed and tossed my coffee on the ground, stomach sour.

“Let’s assume you’re willing to play ball.” He smiled. “Makes everything easier.”

A thought occurred to me.

“How’d you know the name of my law firm?” I said. “They keep the connection buried pretty deep.”

He turned his attention to what was going on outside but didn’t reply.

The Dallas cops were getting more and more unruly. An older officer was pointing his index finger in the face of an agent in his twenties, yelling.

An FBI agent like Drake wouldn’t know that Goldberg, Finkelman, and Clark did legal work for contractors. He wouldn’t even know the name. A field agent would know about the tactical issues—securing the shipment, maintaining order, keeping the media at bay.

I slapped my forehead, the obvious becoming clear.

“You’re a contractor,” I said. “And your company uses Goldberg, Finkelman, and Clark.”

The expression on his face indicated I was correct. The law firm handled the paperwork for a number of companies who did business with the feds, oftentimes serving as a proxy signer of contracts.

“That makes me your equal.” I smiled. “Maybe your superior.”

A swell of angry voices from the police officers, followed by the crackle of radios in the empty building.

Drake crossed his arms. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

I pointed outside. “Before you get to debriefing me, you might want to contain the situation.”

A police officer was engaged in a shoving match with a pair of FBI agents.

Drake’s shoulders twitched. He pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt and asked for a status report. A second later he received a slew of responses more appropriate to a war zone than suburban North Dallas—
situation critical, imminent threats, please advise ability to engage targets.

Drake stared at the walkie-talkie and then looked at me.

“You think you’ve got a problem now?” I said. “What happens if those cops don’t back down?”

The noise outside got louder.

“You used to be part of this department,” he said. “How should we handle this?”

“What
we
are you talking about? Is there a mouse in your pocket?”

Before he could answer, the shouting outside increased exponentially, a roar of voices growing desperate.

Then a gunshot rang out and everything got quiet.

For a moment.

Dallas, Texas

1999

Raul Delgado, twenty-nine years old, parked his unmarked squad car in a gravel lot, underneath a billboard advertising Marlboro cigarettes.

One of the most popular watering holes for the Dallas PD was a concrete building a few blocks from the county jail. Sam Browne’s sat between a strip joint and a bail bondsman’s office on Industrial Boulevard just a few hundred yards from the Trinity River.

Raul picked up the mic and called in a ten-fifty, a food break.

The notification was a formality. Raul was a sergeant in the Crimes Against People Division, a rising star in the DPD hierarchy. A homicide detective, he had a clearance rate ten points above the state average.

His position was regarded as a stepping-stone for those who wanted to advance into the upper echelons of the department.

The position, along with a drive to succeed that was a marvel to his superiors, and his ethnicity, which was becoming more important as the city’s demographics changed, had led various local politicos to approach Raul about running for office one day.

Not for a few years, they said. You need seasoning. But keep the idea in mind. Politics would be a great way to give back to the community. To do something with your life that matters. Surely, you don’t want to be a cop forever?

Raul took the meetings. He was friendly but kept his comments noncommittal. Coy.

For the present, he concentrated on his police work. He was fluent in Spanish, of course, and worked the Latino neighborhoods, pockets of the city that continued to expand as the population shifted from white and black to brown.

It was midday, April.

Clouds, dark like charcoal, swelled the sky. The air was humid, smelling of ozone from the coming thunderstorm, and hamburger grease from the slatted windows of the kitchen attached to the rear of the bar.

Raul pushed open the door to Sam Browne’s and stepped into a narrow room filled with cigarette smoke and neon beer signs.

Bobby presided over the bar at the back, a half-filled pitcher of beer in one hand, the other pressed against the handle of the tap.

Nearly a decade had passed since Bobby retired from the force and opened Sam Browne’s, the name an homage to the traditional style of holster and belts that police wore.

Nobody called Bobby by his real name anymore. He was Sam to one and all, old friends from the force, rookies, day drunks who passed away the hours in the booths by the pool tables.

Raul sat at the end of the bar. Two vice officers greeted him and then drifted away. They understood that Raul and Sam/Bobby had a special friendship. As a matter of courtesy, they gave the owner and the hard-eyed homicide cop some breathing room.

Without being asked, Bobby opened a Diet Coke and placed the can in front of Raul.

Raul took a sip and waited while the older man moved back to the beer taps, where he filled another pitcher and handed it to an Asian guy in a dress shirt and tie.

Bobby returned, drying his hands on a rag. “Thanks for coming.”

“You told me it was urgent,” Raul said.

“It’s about Junie.”

“What’s happened now?” Raul hadn’t seen Junie in months, maybe a year or more. He still thought about her often but not in the same way as when he was younger.

Bobby didn’t say anything, as if words were hard to come by all of a sudden.

Junie was twenty-seven years old and on her second marriage.

The first had been to her college sweetheart, right after graduation.

The groom had been president of his fraternity and had taken a job offered by his pledge brother’s family. The marriage lasted about a month, until Junie caught her husband in bed with the pledge brother.

The second marriage was a little over two years old. Junie’s new husband was a stockbroker, a good provider except that he spent most of his money on strippers and cocaine.

Bobby said, “She miscarried.”

Raul paused with the can halfway to his mouth.

“That son of a bitch she’s married to.” Bobby’s voice choked with emotion. “He beats on her.”

“Is that—” Raul’s limbs tingled. “Did she lose the baby because he hit her?”

Sounds became sharper, lights brighter. The anger built in the pit of his stomach.

“I dunno.” Bobby shook his head. “Sure as shit didn’t help.”

“I’m sorry.” Raul took several deep breaths, tried to calm himself. “I didn’t even know she was . . .”

“She didn’t want to tell people yet.”

Raul took a gulp of Diet Coke, something to keep his hands busy.

“She had trouble getting pregnant. Went to this specialist and everything.”

“Where is she now?”

Bobby prepared a scotch and soda for a man Raul recognized as a district judge. The bar brought in a cross section of Dallas. Politicians and cops, journalists and sports figures. After chitchatting with the judge for a moment, Bobby returned.

“She’s at home. She’s scared.”

Raul arched an eyebrow.

“Her husband’s on a bender. He won’t come out of the bedroom.”

No one spoke.

“Call the police,” Raul said. “The unis need to take care of this.”

Bobby stared off into the distance, and in the dim light Raul thought he saw tears in the older man’s eyes.

“If I reach out to the substation, then people who come in here will know,” Bobby said. “You think I want that?”

Raul leaned close, lowered his voice. “The guy’s hitting your daughter. Why don’t you just give him a little tune up yourself?”