Last Man Standing (6 page)

“Well, he hears you guys coming, or he gets intelligence to that effect. He waits until you’ve maybe turned the corner and
he hits the remote and runs.”

“We didn’t see a damn soul in the courtyard, and my thermal didn’t pick up a ninety-eight-point-six temp anywhere.”

“They could’ve been in the building—hell, any one of these buildings. They point the device out one of the windows, hit the
button and they’re long gone.”

“And the snipers and Hotel saw nothing?”

Bates shook his head. “Hotel’s story is they saw zip until the kid brought them your note.”

At the mention of Hotel, Web thought of Paul Romano and his spirits sank even more. Romano was probably at Quantico right
now telling everyone that Web had turned coward and let his team die and was trying to blame it on a mental lapse. “Whiskey?
X-Ray? They had to see something,” Web said, referring to the snipers on the rooftops.

“They saw some things, but I’m not prepared to discuss it quite yet.”

Web’s instincts told him to let that one alone. What would the snipers say? That they saw Web freeze, let his team charge
on without him and then drop to the ground while his comrades-in-arms got obliterated? “How about the DEA? They were with
Hotel, and there was a crew of them in reserve too.”

Bates and Web looked at each other and Bates shook his head.

The FBI and DEA weren’t the best of friends. The DEA, Web had always thought, was like a little brother kicking at his older
sibling’s shins until big brother hit back, and then the little punk ran off and tattled.

“Well, I guess we have to accept that until something makes us not,” commented Web.

“Guess so. Were any of you wearing night-vision equipment?”

Web immediately understood the logic of the question. NV goggles would have picked up on the laser, transforming it into a
long, unmistakable band of light.

“No. I pulled my thermal after the shooting started, but assaulters don’t wear NVs. You get any source of ambient light while
you’re wearing them, then you are basically blind if you have to take them off and start shooting. And the snipers probably
wouldn’t have been using them during the assault; they screw up depth perception too much.”

Bates nodded toward the gutted buildings where the guns had been set up. “The techs examined the guns. Each had a signal link
box. They’re thinking that there was a delay of a few seconds between when Charlie Team tripped the laser and when the guns
were activated in order to make sure the team was squarely in the kill zone. The courtyard and firing lanes were large enough
to allow for that.

Web suddenly felt dizzy and put his hand against the wall. It was as though he were reexperiencing the paralysis he had suffered
during the doomed attack.

“You should’ve given yourself some more time to recover,” said Bates as he slid an arm under Web’s to help support him.

“I’ve had paper cuts worse than this.”

“I’m not talking about your hand.”

“My head’s fine too, thanks for your concern,” Web snapped, and then relaxed. “Right now I just want to do, not think.”

For the next half hour Web pointed out the locations and descriptions of all the persons they had passed that night, and everything
else he could recall from the time Charlie left the final staging area to the moment the last bullet was fired in the courtyard.

“You think any one of them could have been working with the target?” said Bates, referring to the people Web and company had
passed in the alley.

“Down here anything’s possible,” replied Web. “There was obviously a leak. And it could have come anywhere along the line.”

“There’s a lot of possibilities there,” Bates said. “Let’s go over some.”

Web shrugged. “This wasn’t a triple-eight-beep scenario,” he said, a reference to the three number eights that appeared on
his pager representing a command for all HRT operators to haul butt to Quantico. “Last night was selected as the target date
in advance, so everybody met at HRT to get our gear and team configurations ready and then we moved out in the Suburbans.
We did the prelim staging at Buzzard Point and then drove to the last staging area. We had a U.S. attorney available in case
we needed some additional warrants issued. The snipers were already in place. They went in early posing as HVAC rehab workers
doing a job on roof units on two of the buildings along the strike path. Assaulters did our down-and-dirty with the local
police just like always. After we left the last point of concealment, Teddy Riner requested and received compromise authority
because of the unfriendly logistics. We wanted to be able to shoot on the fly if we had to. We knew that hitting the place
from the front and exposing ourselves to fire in the courtyard was risky, but we also thought they wouldn’t expect it. Plus
the way the building was situated and configured, there weren’t a lot of options. We got the green light to move to crisis
site and then we were going to execute on TOC’s countdown. We had one primary exterior breach point. The assault plan was
to split once we were inside and hit from two points while Hotel and DEA blew in from the rear, with a unit in reserve and
the snipers as backup firepower and cover. Hard and fast, just like always.”

The two men sat on a pair of trash cans. Bates tossed his pack of gum in the trash, pulled out his cigarettes and offered
one to Web, who declined.

“The local police knew the target, didn’t they?” Bates asked.

Web nodded. “The approximate physical location. So they can keep a presence, help quadrant off the area and keep people on
the outside of the perimeter out of the way, look for associates of the target tipping them off, that sort of thing.”

“How much advance time you figure the locals had in case there was a leak from there?”

“Hour.”

“Well, nobody set up that death trap in an hour.”

“Who was the undercover on this one?”

“Goes without saying that you take this name to the grave with you.” Bates paused, presumably for emphasis, and then said,
“His name is Randall Cove. A real vet. Working the target from deep inside. I mean deep, like down-in-the-sewer deep. African-American,
built like a truck and could do the street stuff with the best of them. He’s done a million of these gigs.”

“So what’s his story?”

“I haven’t asked him.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t find him.” Bates paused and then added, “Do you know for certain if Cove was aware when the hit was happening?”

Web was surprised by this question. “Your end would know that better than mine. I can tell you for a fact that we were not
briefed that the undercover or any snitches would be at the target. If they were supposed to be there, they’d tell us in the
pre-op. That way we’d know who they were, what they looked like and we’d cuff ’em and get ’em out just like everybody else,
so the real target wouldn’t get a heads-up and kill them.”

“How much did you know about the target?”

“Druggies’ financial ops, with bean counters present. Heavy security. They wanted the money guys as potential witnesses that
we were to treat as hostages. Bag ’em fast and get them out before anyone figured out what we were doing and popped them so
they couldn’t rat. Our strike plan was approved, ops orders written; we got blueprints of the target and built a copy of it
at Quantico. Practiced our butts off until we knew every inch. Got our rules of engagement, nothing out of the ordinary, suited
up and climbed in the Suburban. End of story.”

“You guys do your own surveillance, snipers on glass,” Bates said, referring to snipers observing the target through binoculars
and spotting scopes. “Anything pop on that?”

“Nothing special or else we would’ve been told in our briefing. Except for the possible witness angle, to me it was just a
glorified dope house raid. Hell, we cut our teeth on those.”

“If it was just a dope house, they wouldn’t have needed you guys to crack it, Web. WFO could’ve used its SWAT team.”

“Well, we were told the logistics were really tricky, and they were. And we knew the targets were supposed to be real nasty
and were packing some ordnance SWAT didn’t think they could handle. And then you had the issue of the potential witnesses.
That was enough to make it our gig. But none of us were expecting eight remote-controlled mini-guns.”

“Obviously it was all bullshit. Fed to us like mother’s milk. Except for the guns, the place was empty. Ambush all the way.
There were no bean counters, no records, no nothing.”

Web rubbed his hand against the bullet gouges on the brick. Many were so deep Web could see the concrete block underneath—armor-piercing,
for sure. The only good thing was death for his team would have been instantaneous. “The snipers had to see something.” He
was hoping they had seen whatever had made Web freeze. Yet how could they?

“I haven’t finished talking to them,” was all Bates would offer on that point, and again Web chose not to press it.

“Where’s the kid?” Web hesitated, trying to remember. “Kevin.”

Bates also hesitated for a second. “Disappeared.”

Web stiffened. “How? He’s a kid.”

“I’m not saying he did it on his own.”

“We know who he is?”

“Kevin Westbrook. Age ten. Got some family around, but most are guests of the state. Has an older brother, street name of
Big F, the
F
standing for what you think it does. Head street ganger as big as a tree, and smart as a Harvard MBA. Deals in meth, Jamaican
sinsemilla, the really cool stuff, though we’ve never been able to build a case against him. This area is sort of his turf.”

Web stretched the fingers of his injured hand. The Band-Aid wasn’t doing the trick right now, and he felt guilty for even
thinking about it. “That’s a pretty big coincidence that the little brother of the guy who runs this area was sitting out
in the alley when we came by.” Even as he talked about the boy, Web could feel a change come over his body, as though his
very soul were sliding out and moving on. He actually thought he might pass out. Web was starting to wonder if he needed a
doctor or an exorcist.

“Well, he does live around here. And from what we found out, his home life isn’t all that great. He probably avoided it if
he could.”

“This big brother missing too?” Web asked as his balance began to return.

“Not that he actually lives at a normal address. When you’re in the kind of business he is, you keep moving. We don’t have
any direct evidence tying him to even a misdemeanor, but we’re looking for him real hard right now.” He stared at Web. “You
sure you’re okay?”

Web waved off this comment. “How exactly did you lose the kid?”

“That’s not real clear right now. We’ll know more after we finish going through the neighborhood. Somebody had to see those
weapons coming in and that machine gun nest being put up. Even around here that qualifies as a little unusual.”

“You really think anybody here’s going to talk to you?”

“We have to try, Web. We only need one pair of eyes.”

The men fell silent for a while. Bates finally looked up, his expression uncomfortable.

“Web, what really happened?”

“Say what you really mean. How come it wasn’t a perfect seven-for-seven?”

“I
am
saying it.”

Web gazed across the courtyard at the exact spot where he had hit the asphalt. “I came out of the alley late. It was like
I couldn’t move. I thought I’d had a stroke. Then I went down right before the shooting started. I don’t know why.” Web’s
mind suddenly went blank and then came back, like he was a television and there had been a lightning strike nearby. “It was
over in a second, Perce. A second was all it took. The worst timing in the history of the world.” He looked at Bates to gauge
his reaction to this. The narrowed eyes of the man told Web all he needed to know.

“Hell, don’t feel bad. I don’t believe it either,” said Web. Bates remained silent, and Web decided to get to the other reason
he had come here. “Where’s the flag?” he asked. Bates looked surprised. “The HRT flag. I have to bring it back to Quantico.”

On every mission HRT undertook, the senior member was given the HRT flag to carry with him in his gear. When the mission was
completed, the flag was to be returned to the HRT commander by the senior member of the team. Well, now that happened to be
Web.

“Follow me,” said Bates.

An FBI van was parked at the curb. Bates popped open one of the back doors, reached in and pulled out a flag folded military
style. He handed it to Web.

Web held the flag in both hands, staring down at the colors for a moment, every detail of the slaughter once more working
through his head.

“It’s got a few holes in it,” Bates observed.

“Don’t we all,” said Web.

T
he following day Web headed down to Quantico to the HRT facility. He drove along Marine Corps Route 4 past the campus-style
FBI Academy that was home to both FBI and DEA grunts. Web had spent thirteen very intense and stressful weeks of his life
at the Academy learning how to be an FBI agent. In return Web was paid peanuts and lived in a dorm room with a shared bath
and he even had to bring his own towels! And Web had loved it and had devoted every waking moment to becoming the best FBI
agent he could because he felt he had been born for the job.

Web had walked out of the Academy as a newly minted and sworn agent of the FBI with his Smith & Wesson .357 wheel gun, which
required a staggering nine pounds of pull to fire. Rarely did one shoot oneself in the foot with the weapon. Recruits now
carried .40 Glock semiautomatics with fourteen-round magazines with a much easier trigger pull, but Web still had fond memories
of his Smith & Wesson with the three-inch bull barrel. Fancier didn’t necessarily mean better. He had spent the next six years
learning how to be an FBI agent in the field. He had sweated through the infamous FBI paperwork mountain, ferreted out leads,
drummed up informants, answered criminal complaints, kept his butt on wiretaps, undertaken all-night surveillances, built
up cases and arrested people who badly needed to be. Web had gotten to the point where he could concoct a battle plan in five
minutes while he was driving a Bureau car—or Bucar, as it was always called—a hundred and ten miles an hour down the highway
steering with his knees and shoving shells into his shotgun. He had learned how to interrogate suspects, establishing baselines
and then asking them tough questions designed to knock them for a loop, to later gauge when they were lying. He had also learned
how to testify without being cracked by slick defense lawyers whose only goal was to not discover the truth and instead to
bury it.