Kill Zone: A Lucy Guardino FBI Thriller (23 page)

It could have been his.

One wrong word, one wrong look, that’s all it would have taken.

He’d felt fear before, of course. But it was always fear for others’ wellbeing. For his patients, like Andre, who’d been verging on full-blown agoraphobia and clinical depression when Nick first met him. For Megan, when she was sick a few months ago. Fear for Lucy every damn day she strapped on her gun and went to work.

Tonight was the first time he’d ever come so close to being killed.
 

He fumbled for his phone, trying to call the police again. Morgan was far too dangerous to be allowed to wander the streets. All he got was a busy signal.

She’d surprised him. More impulse control than he’d expected after hearing about her violent upbringing. She reminded him in some ways of Megan: trying so hard to act like an adult, yet no clue about who she really was or wanted to be.

At least he’d been able to help Morgan think twice about following in her father’s footsteps. Otherwise, he doubted he would have left alive.

He tried calling Lucy but the call was dropped before it connected. What was up with the damn cell towers? The weather was clear. As he approached Homewood he realized the streets were empty of cars. And a lot of helicopters flew overhead.

Lincoln Avenue was blocked near Route 8, an eighteen-wheeler lay on its side, sprawled across both lanes, but he was able to circle through the side streets to Ruby Avenue. He turned off his Garth Brooks CD and listened. Gunfire. Andre had said something was going to happen tonight.

Nick tried Lucy one more time. Circuits busy. Damn. If she was home, she’d be pissed—they’d already missed the curtain on
The Nutcracker.
Usually it was Lucy who made them late for events. He frowned. She was not going to be happy when she heard why he'd missed their date night. Talk of Morgan Ames always brought out the mother-bitch side of Lucy.

She was kinda sexy when she bristled with over-protective energy, but he’d never tell her that. It was one of the few secrets he kept from her.

He toyed with the idea of adding one more to the list; maybe not telling her about his encounter with Morgan. After all, it’d ended just fine.

No. He’d do what he always did and tell her everything. She’d do what she always did—get upset, then grow quiet and do whatever needed to be done to protect him and Megan. Probably send them and her mom away on a vacation that she’d find an excuse to back out of at the last minute. Anything to clear the way so she could hunt Morgan on her own.

She’d wanted to do that last month, had even hired a private security firm. Both he and Megan had rebelled at the thought of living the rest of their lives patrolled and restrained and secured. Lucy had reluctantly given in. Now Nick was glad—it had probably saved some poor bodyguard’s life.

Still deep in thought but feeling calmer, he pulled up to Andre’s house, the middle one of five quaint brick row houses. A faint ripple of light could be seen through the curtains in the front window. He ran up the steps and rang the bell. “Esther, it’s Nick.”

A few moments later a woman using an elegantly carved wooden cane opened the door. She was slight of build with gray hair in tight curls and a wide smile. Esther was virtually blind, ravaged by diabetes, but fiercely independent. And despite her infirmities she still baked the best homemade apple cake Nick had had since he left Virginia.
 

“Nick! What a surprise. Come in, come in. Join the party.”

Party?
Nick closed the door behind him as Esther hobbled down the hall, past the front parlor, and into the dining room.
 

“Be sure to lock that, now,” she called over her shoulder. “Bad times out there tonight.”

“What?” He glanced up the steps. No lights on upstairs that he could see. “Did Andre make it back yet?”

The front parlor was dark, the thick drapes pulled tight—first time he’d ever been here and seen the drapes pulled shut like that, no lights on. Esther had enough sight remaining that having lights on helped her navigate more easily.

“Andre sent me to get you,” he said as he followed her.
 

He walked down the hall and turned into the windowless dining room sandwiched between the parlor and the kitchen at the rear of the house. Esther’s hospital bed was against the kitchen wall. The heavy oak pocket doors to both the front room and the kitchen were both shut. The antique table that usually featured a lace runner and pair of silver candlesticks had been pulled out from the far wall and transformed into mission control.

Five women, all in their sixties and seventies, sat around the table, each with their own laptop. Several also had cell phones and were busy texting. Two others had earphones on and were listening intently to broadcasts from their computers.

“Got another fire. The old shoe store on Bennett,” one of the ladies with earphones reported. “And looters at the East Liberty Target.”

Fingers typed furiously.
 

“Fifth’s blocked as well,” said another into her computer. A woman’s face was on it. They were Skyping, Nick realized. “Sister Agnes, did you copy? Looks like Frankstown is your only open route.”

“I’m on it,” the woman on the computer screen said.

Nick turned to Esther. “What’s going on?”

“Tweeting and texting. Someone’s got to let folks know where the latest trouble is.”

“Trouble? You mean the Rippers?” Andre had said he was worried about the Rippers threatening Esther, but glancing at the map on one of the computers there were red highlights over most of the city. Except Homewood. That was funny. Usually Homewood was known as one of the most dangerous areas of the city. Strange for so much to be happening around it. “And the nun?”

“Nuns. Sister Agnes and Sister Patrice. They’ve got the van out, picking up folks and bringing them back to Holy Trinity for safekeeping. So far we’ve been spared but we don’t know how long that will last.”

“We’re their eyes and ears,” one of the other ladies said. “Margot, there’s another bomb threat. This one at the Federal Building.”

“Esther, Andre asked me to take you somewhere safe.” Then the lady’s words registered:
another
bomb threat?

“Nick.” Esther reached over, finding his arm, trailing her fingers down to pat his hand. “Nowhere's safe in this city. Not tonight.”

Tires squealed in the distance. At least Nick thought it was the distance. The row house’s thick walls and doors muffled the street sounds. It wasn’t until gunfire crashed through the upstairs, the sound of glass breaking and wood splintering echoing through the house, that he realized they were right outside.

He tried to cover Esther’s body with his own, but she pushed him off. “I am not about to die a coward. Not at the hands of a bunch of no good drug dealers.”

A second salvo of bullets drowned out the rest of her words.

<><><> 

Hey guys, anyone else having trouble with 911 tonight? My dog’s been gone three days now, could use some help #Pgh911Fail

#Pgh911Fail @joepizza hear your pain man, cops don’t care jack ‘bout working men trapped by their fascist curfew

@Steelerluver: broke down on parkway west no help from cops no help from 911 WTF do we pay taxes for? #Pgh911Fail

F*&in cops won’t answer damn phone neighbor parked in front of my house, moved MY parking chair can you believe that sh%$??? What’s this city coming to? #Pgh911Fail

@Proudgranny report of shooting Penn Circle East anyone confirm? Stay safe out there #Pgh911Fail

Chapter 26

Lucy saw Zapata enter the garage with his men. Raziq was with him. She raised her shotgun almost without thinking. Zapata was unarmed, but God, she’d never wanted to kill anyone more in her life. All she could smell was the stench of innocent blood; all she could see were the bodies of slaughtered civilians piled high at the 911 Center.

“Drop your weapons,” she shouted. She and Haddad were outnumbered and probably outflanked, but it was worth a shot. “Give us Raziq.”

Before the men could respond, Fatima and the baby crossed into the line of fire.
 

Shit, shit, shit. She lowered her gun. The others still had her in their sights but obviously they wanted Fatima alive. She backed away.
 

“Fatima,” the man in the mask, Stone, shouted, shoving Lucy aside as he scrambled to his feet. “No. Don’t go.”

Haddad slid the heavy wooden door shut, blocking their view. The men on the other side opened fire. Lucy threw the bolt to latch the door. Then she turned her Remington on Stone. “Give me the gun.”

“Damn it. Why did she go with them?” Stone asked, ignoring her demand, but not resisting when Lucy yanked the Mac-10 from him.
 

“We’ve got company,” Haddad shouted. An SUV had appeared at the far end of the alley, down the hill. “Let’s go.” He grabbed the door of Zapata’s Escalade. “The keys are in the ignition.”

“No,” Lucy said. “We need to track them. Leave your phone.”

She used the Mac-10 to shoot the tires of the SUV facing away from the Escalade. Making Zapata’s choice of getaway vehicles easy. When she turned back, Haddad had his phone out and was slipping it under the cargo mat at the rear of the Escalade. He slammed the hatch down.

Together with Stone they ran up the alley away from the approaching SUV. Shots flew above them but they were out of range of the machine pistols. Angry curses followed as the men were blocked by the other SUVs near the garage. Once they were a few blocks up the alley and out of sight of the men following, they climbed onto a trash bin and jumped over a privacy fence into someone’s back yard. Stone stumbled a bit on the climb over the fence, but otherwise kept up with them.

Lucy wasn’t sure about Andre Stone. He’d been trying to help Fatima and the baby escape, yet he’d almost shot them when they ran to Raziq. Haddad said Stone blamed Raziq for his injuries. Maybe Stone had been using Fatima and the baby to lure Raziq into the open where he could kill him? Had this been some kind of elaborate trap, using the Rippers and Zapata to spring it?

No. Zapata obviously was the leader. Why was Stone there, then? What was his role in all this?

Her head hurt just thinking about it. She had a nice goose egg on the side of her scalp, but the bleeding had stopped. Unfortunately after each adrenalin surge faded, she found more bruises and aches to catalogue. What was really painful, though, was finding Raziq and his family only to lose them again.

Waving the others back, she used the house as cover to observe the activity on Ruby Avenue. The house appeared to be empty—an old yellow brick single-family home with newspapers covering the windows and a convenient collection of overgrown rhododendron surrounding the front porch that they could use for concealment.
 

Lucy motioned the two men forward. They sat behind the bushes. Cars and SUVs raced past them coming from Kujo’s two blocks south: the Rippers out hunting.
 

Lucy watched through her monocular. “No sign of Fatima or Raziq in any of them. Hopefully that means they’re in the Escalade.” She radioed Taylor to track Haddad’s cell.

“No problem,” he replied. “Give me five and we’ll be live. I see you found Stone. Or at least his phone. Is he in custody?”

She pulled away from the others, retreating to the shadows of the backyard, and lowered the volume on the radio. Stone didn’t act like he’d heard, but who could tell for sure? Not with that mask hiding his face from her. She clicked the mic, reminding Taylor this was an open channel. “Not quite. Did you learn anything more?”

“Won’t tell you how, but got his discharge summary from the VA. They list Post Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury due to Concussive Force as part of his diagnoses qualifying him for disability. Plus third degree burns over 34% of his body and whole bunch of surgeries.”

Lucy didn’t want to know what firewalls Taylor had breached to get that info. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. I’ve been looking at footage from the 911 Center. The bomb used was pretty small as far as destructive capacity. We’re not talking Oklahoma City here.”

“Explains why they added the gasoline vapors to the mix.”

“The fire ball definitely magnified the damage. Point is, Stone could be your guy. None of the bombs he built as a kid were very big—more fire and noise than actual blowing things up.”

“Is this coming from ATF?” She couldn’t believe they were already on scene and not helping out elsewhere in the city.

“No. As soon as the fire was out, everyone was deployed elsewhere—except a squad of police cadets left to secure the scene.”

“Then where did you get footage from?”

He chuckled. “TV news copters. Plus cell video from the cadets. They were so excited about being able to help. Rookies.”

Like he wasn’t still a rookie himself. Lucy looked up. She remembered helicopters overhead as they drove through Point Breeze, but although she could see the lights of a few in the distance, there were none nearby. No news worth covering here on Ruby Avenue, they thought. How wrong they were.