On the Grind (2009) (28 page)

Rocky looked at me like I'd just grown antlers.

"I don't like this plan, homes."

I shrugged. "Let's hear yours."

The Jeeps were in gear and again moving up eloser. Two more shots rang out, ricocheting off the low wall we were behind. "Shit. This really sucks. Let's try it," he said.

Chapter
56

The jeeps were still spaced out but were now only about one hundred yards away. Still a tough pistol shot.

"We're coming out, don't shoot!" I shouted painfully through my broken teeth.

"Stand up and throw your guns out in front of you," the bullhorn commanded. It definitely sounded like Manny Avilas voice.

I glanced at Rocky. "Ready?"

"How the hell do I get read
y
-for a dumb-ass move like this?"

But Rocky stood up anyway and stepped around the wall with me. Then he held his gun up high so they could see it. I held up my hose nozzle. I saw the sun glint off a pair of field glasses, so I knew they had a magnified view.

"Throw your guns down," the bullhorn repeated.

Rocky tossed his gun away. It landed a few feet in front of him, kicking up a little puff of sand.

I was ten feet to his right as I threw the pewter hose nozzle away.

"Now move forward," the electrified voice ordered.

As we walked toward the Jeep,
I
could feel the comforting weight of the Kimber jammed in my jeans out of sight at the small of my back.

"Move toward me," the bullhorn screeched.

We started slowly toward Manny Avila s Jeep.

We were about thirty yards away when I saw something in the sky. It started out as a strange, distant movement camouflaged in the heat waves coming off the desert. A distortion of the horizon. A few seconds later, I heard the distant thump of a helicopter blade beating the air. Before I could react, I saw a muzzle flash over by the Jeeps and heard the simultaneous whine of a bullet streaking past my ear.

Rocky and I dove headfirst into the sand.

I snatched out the Kimber and started shooting from a prone position. Thirty yards is still a long ways out for a pistol with a four-inch barrel. The Kimber wasn't much good at that distance. But they didn't know what I was shooting and my gunshots were definitely changing their plans. The Jeeps suddenly went into reverse, backing away from us, throwing up clouds of sand and dust.

As I laid down a withering fire, Rocky used the moment to dart out and snatch his Glock from the desert floor.

I continued to fire the slide lock.

A large green and gold Schweizer 333 helicopter appeared out of the heat distortion and headed rig toward us. It was hugging the deck, the sound of the thumping blade growing louder as it choppered toward us at over a hundred miles an hour.

Then all hell broke loose.

Jeeps were scattering in every direction. One of them broke from the pack and headed back toward us. As it got closer I recognized Manny Avila in the passenger seat, still wearing his cool leather jacket and wraparound shades. He was clutching the electronic bullhorn, his mouth stretched wide in panic.

Rocky suddenly jumped up and charged in the direction of Avila s Jeep. I scrambled to my feet and followed. As we ran, the helicopter banked just overhead. I looked up and saw a big PJDF1 logo painted on the side --POLICIA JUDICIAL DEL DISTRITO FEDERAL. As the Schweizer flashed past, I caught a glimpse of Ophelia Love hanging in the open doorway, gun out, intensity etching her face.

The Jeeps were all in four-wheel drive, going about twenty miles per hour in the deep sand. Mannys was closing fast. Rocky was still four strides out ahead of me when Manny's driver swerved and headed right at us. The front bumper clipped Rocky, knocking him onto his back in the sand. He dropped his Glock, but I was able to scoop it up as I ran past. I dove into the Jeep and landed in the backseat.

In the next instant I was trading shots at point-blank range with the carbine-wielding bodyguard next to me. However, at three feet, Rocky's Glock was a far superior weapon. The bodyguard discharged an awkward, errant shot as he struggled to swing the three
-
foot-long barrel around in cramped quarters. I placed my muzzle on his shoulder and blew him right out of the speeding Jeep.

As my gun discharged, Manny Avila screamed in fright and started clawing for his sidearm.

But when the Glock fired, the driver flinched and jerked the wheel, flipping the Jeep. Everyone flew out of the vehicle and landed face-first in the sand. I rolled, and came up on my feet with the Glock still out in front of me. Manny Avila was ten feet away, trying to stand. I ran to him and jammed the automatic into his chest and shoved him back to his knees.

"Stay put," I ordered, then snatched his chrome-plated pistol out of the belt holster and threw it a safe distance away. The driver of the Jeep was out cold.

The mop-up was right out of a Bruckheimer movie. The helicopter was herding Jeeps from the air, turning them and forcing them to stop. Finally, the green and gold Schweizer settled low and landed. Flak-jacketed, machine-gun-wielding PJDF cops poured out of the chopper door and surrounded the startled ranch bodyguards, who quickly threw down their rifles, jutting their hands in the air.

Ophelia ran over to me. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, but we better check Rocky."

We moved over and helped Rocky to his feet. He was shaken but unhurt.

"\Maravillosol" the little fighter said with a grin.

"How the hell did you find us?" I asked.

Ophelia reached into my shirt pocket and removed her DCST unit. In all the excitement, I'd completely forgotten it was still there.

"You left it on and we backtracked the signal from space." She grinned at me. "How's that for your tax dollars saving your ass?" Then she triggered her hand rover. "Alexa, it's me. I got him. He's safe."

"Thank God," I heard Alexa say. "Get him over here."

"I'll have him to you in ten." Then Ophelia turned off her radio.

"Ten minutes?" I said, and Ophelia nodded. "Where is she?"

"We split up. I was following this signal, but she insisted on following the belt tracker because she was sure that was where you'd be." She pointed at Cielo Ranchero. "She's over there."

Chapter
57

With Rocky driving and Ophelia in the back, we raced one of the Jeeps across the desert sand toward the ranch house.

I could see another green and gold PJDK Schweizer parked in the large plaza out in front of the main house with the rotor just winding down. We streaked under the archway and swerved to a stop as a uniformed Mexican colonel and several helmeted judicial politic! were herding ranch hands into a large rec building. Alexa saw me and ran out of the farmhouse toward us. I jumped out of the Jeep and took her into my arms.

"Thank God you're alive," she said, holding me close. She leaned back and held me at arm's length. "When I found this I didn't know what to think."

She was holding my belt with the tracking device sewn into it. "I took it off one of those Eighteenth Street gangsters."

She leaned in to kiss me, but I pulled away. The pain from the exposed nerves in my broken teeth was beginning to saw a hol
e t
hrough the adrenaline. "Got a little problem with my teeth," I said.

"Open your mouth," she commanded.

"You don't wanta see it."

She reached up and pulled my lip back. "My god! What the hell happened?"

"Got those rearranged courtesy of the Haven Park PD. But the LAPD is gonna get em fixed up better than before. This time next week, Til have a better smile than Brad Pitt."

Alexa and Ophelia introduced me to Colonel Felix Mendcz, the head of the PJDF for Baja del Sur. He was a tall, no-nonsense cop with a crisp uniform, a polished Sam Browne and a neatly trimmed mustache. He had worked several joint ops with Ophelia and was trying to help Homeland and the FBI stem the flow of Russian-made guns and Mexican brown that was coming into the U
. S
. He had taken over command of her operation in Mexico and supplied the helicopters, then led the mission into Mexican airspace.

"It wall be necessary to move fast," he said in near perfect English. "To protect this operation, I have temporarily decommissioned the phones for this sector, including cell towers, so they shouldn't have been able to call out and alert anyone. But there is still a risk somebody got through to Mayor Bratano before we closed communications."

"There's a tunnel that leads from the barn under the border to a warehouse in Calexico," I told them. "You need to go through it and bolt down the U
. S
. side." I turned to Ophelia. "I think you'll find a big stash of AK-100 series submachine guns over there."

"We have to get back up to L
. A
. in a hurry and organize our takedown in Haven Park ," Alexa said. "We're going to need a bunch of FISA warrants."

Rocky and I showed Colonel Mendez where the tunnel was. Six Mexican PJDF1 agents headed into it while Ophelia radioed FBI SWAP and instructed them to move in and close down the Calexico warehouse. Twenty minutes later, the warehouse had been secured and ten more 18th Street gang members had been arrested. Two hundred AK-lOOs and at least a ton of Mexican heroin were also booked into evidence.

Less than an hour later, we were back on the other side of the border, climbing into a U
. S
. Coast Guard Sikorsky for the helicopter ride back to L
. A
. Once we were airborne, Rocky sat on the seat beside me, looking out across the expanse of Baja desert.

"The town where I was born is called Progreso. Its over there somewhere." He pointed south. We all looked in that direction, but couldn't see anything. Just endless miles of brown sand and a cloudless blue sky.

As we flew, I gave Ophelia the names of everybody I had seen committing crimes in Haven Park. It came to about fifteen people. Ophelia was on the helicopter's tactical frequency, talking to a FISA judge. To be safe and to save time, she asked for twenty additional John Doe warrants.

At one-thirty, we landed on the roof of the LAPD Air Support Division on Ramirez Street. I got out of the Sikorsky with Alexa and Ophelia and we hurried over to four police vans that were waiting there, engines idling, side doors open. Before I got in, I turned and said goodbye to Rocky.

"Tuvinmos bueno suerte, amigo," he said.

"Didn't need luck. All we needed was each other."

Then he grabbed me and gave me a Mexican cibrazo.

I got inside the police van and we sped off, heading toward the secure situation room in the basement of Parker Center. Alexa and Ophelia were in the lead van ahead of the one I was riding in, drawing up operation plans.

As I watched the city of L
. A
. fly past my window, it was hard to believe that Haven Park was only six short miles from downtown L
. A
. and Parker Center. Up until a few hours ago, it had felt to me like that corrupt city existed in a parallel universe, far from the justice I believed in. It had seemed secure from assault, moated by its own laws and the slimy Los Angeles River, policed by men capable of almost anything.

I thought about how quickly some realities change. What had once seemed like a massive criminal conspiracy, controlled by brutal power elitists, now just looked like a collection of sorry losers scattering for their lives like tenement cockroaches when the lights came on.

Chapter
58

The situation room at the Glass House is located two stories belowground in a subbasement. Its designed to be used as a command center during major earthquakes, terrorist attacks or incidents of massive civil unrest. It was also frequently used for secure operations like this one. There was a large computer bullpen, a TV media room and television center, along with a tricked-out communications center that utilized half a dozen satellite uplinks.

When we got there, Chief Filosiani was already in discussions with Homeland Security's special agent in charge, Teddy Fielding. The Homeland SAC was pure vanilla, with a bland face and a comb-over hairstyle. He also had Ivy League manners, no personality and a beige suit. He and Tony Filosiani were huddled over a map of Haven Park, working on the takedown.

Captain Calloway greeted me and told me he was proud of what I'd done. He seemed strangely subdued. He cl just been tol
d t
hat my obstruction-of-justice crime had been orchestrated by the chiefs office. I could see, as I looked into his dark eyes, that he was torturing himself that he hadn't put up much of a fight defending me. However, after what he'd been told, and given my confession, there wasn't really much to fight for. Nonetheless, he prided himself on his dedication and loyalty to his troops and, despite my protest, he wasn't about to cut himself much slack.

He hovered over me, making sure I got medical attention. An EMT looked at my mouth, checked me for broken ribs and gave me some pain pills, suggesting I get right to a dentist.

But I wasn't about to sit in a dental chair listening to piped music while the Haven Park takedown was in progress.