Fire with Fire, page 24
When Franko paused to reload, Charlie whipped out his own pistol and fired through a hollow in the briar patch of bikes and racks and locks in front of him. Franko ducked behind a parked car. Charlie followed Lamb in a crouching run to that same car, and he dove without hesitation under it, dropping and skidding his gun back toward Lamb, hoping she’d know what to do. Franko was rising from a crouch when Charlie grabbed his ankle from under the car and yanked with all his might, using his whole body to snatch the ankle sideways and under the vehicle, dragging leg and knee with it, sending Franko crashing awkwardly onto his side. Charlie was despairing as he glanced back and saw his pistol was still on the ground at his feet when he heard Lamb screaming, “Down! Down! Down! Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” and saw Franko drop his pistol, his back on the asphalt and his hands up, his stubbly chins bunched as he took in the young woman standing over him.
Charlie saw Lamb snatch up Franko’s pistol. He crawled out from under the car, picked up his own weapon, and went around the hood, arriving at Franko’s head. He smashed the butt of the gun on the older man’s nose and flipped him onto his stomach.
“Oh, how I’ve been dreaming of this, Franko.” Charlie laughed, putting a knee into Franko’s right kidney and hearing a satisfying groan of pain. “I’ve been lying awake for years thinking about this, you old, fat fuck!”
“Get off me! Get him off me! Somebody! He’s hurting me!”
“Don’t waste your police brutality game on me.” Charlie pulled a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket and snapped them onto Franko’s sweaty wrists. “You’re gonna need that on the inside.”
“We’re LAPD,” Lamb was saying, holding her hands up, trying to settle a crowd of bystanders that was slowly becoming emboldened now that the gunfire had stopped. Every one of them was filming with their phones. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“You want to know what is so glorious about this moment, Franko?” Charlie leaned on the big man’s back, gripping a handful of his leather vest. The Machines logo embroidery clenched in his bloody fist was giving him an almost sexual burst of furious triumph. “I know how hard you took prison the last time, because I was stuck in a cell beside you for a fucking year. I know how miserable you were in there. I am just … Look at me.” Charlie showed the big biker his outstretched hand. “I’m shaking, I’m so happy right now.”
“You’d better shake, because I’m gonna kill you, you dirty little bitch.” Aderhold was drooling blood on the asphalt from his smashed mouth and nose. “You think our playdate out on the boat was bad? Just wait. Just wait.”
“Yeah, I’ll wait.” Charlie got up and spat on the man on the ground, told himself that was enough. But it wasn’t enough. Something took hold of him. It was the sea air, the sound of the waves, the memories of those first few hours in the water with the big searchlight from the boat sweeping the blackness for him. Going under, dragging and pulling the curtains of cold water around him, rising when his chest was crushed and his eyeballs were about to pop out of their sockets, hoping somehow, ridiculously, that he could keep emerging to breathe without that light falling upon him. Franko and Dean had cut circuits of the water, hunting him, for so long that Charlie was sure the game must have been to simply exhaust him and run him over, let the motors make chum of him. He came out of the memories and found that he was stomping on Franko’s head, Lamb dragging him off, her arms hooked under his and her shouts making his eardrums quiver.
“Charlie! Jesus! You’ve gotta stop!”
“I’m done.” He walked away, struggling to catch his breath. “I’m done. I’m okay. I’m done.”
Lamb led him back to the panel van a few feet away, pushed him against it, stood there with her arms folded, watching him regain himself. The palm tree was lying embedded in the van like a hot dog in a bun, and the sight of it made him laugh. Franko was cuffed on the ground. People were filming.
“What the hell are you laughing about?” Lamb asked. There was blood running from a big laceration in her left ear, making a straight line down her neck into the collar of her shirt. “You’re gonna make the news for kicking the shit out of that guy, you know that?”
“Worth it.” Charlie smiled.
23
ZAFFER: Los Angeles Police Department, Central Booking. This is Officer Zaffer.
MINA: Oh, hi. My name is Mina Delforce. I was hoping someone could help me.
ZAFFER: Okay.
MINA: It’s not an emergency. I’m just trying to find someone who I think might be a police officer.
ZAFFER: Who you think might be a police officer?
MINA: Uh. Yes.
ZAFFER: What’s the officer’s name?
MINA: See, that’s the thing. I don’t know. I’m trying to find out.
ZAFFER: Ma’am, what is this call in relation to?
MINA: He … It’s not a complaint or anything. He … he just …
ZAFFER: Ma’am?
MINA: He helped me on a case. Uh. In my street. I called him and, um … and I wanted to connect with him and maybe say thank you.
ZAFFER: Comments, concerns, and queries about police performance can be made using a contact form on the LAPD website. If you have a pen, I can—
MINA: Well, I don’t know his name.
ZAFFER: Do you have a case number for your incident?
MINA: No.
ZAFFER: Then, ma’am, I’m afraid you’ll—
MINA: I saw him on the TV. He’s down at Hertzberg-Davis right now. He must be helping out. That’s why I thought he must be—
ZAFFER: Why you thought he must be a cop. But you said you knew he was a cop. Because he helped you on a case.
MINA: Uh …
ZAFFER: So do you think he’s a cop? Or do you know he’s a cop?
MINA: Um.
ZAFFER: I think I understand. Let me see if I’m getting this right: you were watching news coverage of the scene down at Hertzberg-Davis and you saw a guy you thought was cute on the screen, and you figured he must be a cop, so you called here trying to find out who he is so that you can contact him. Is that right, ma’am?
MINA: No. No. It’s not like that at all.
ZAFFER: Have a nice day, ma’am.
MINA: I’m not—
* * *
“When were you gonna tell us?” Elsie asked. Bendigo looked over at Ashlea, who was still huddled around her swollen belly like a kid trying to hog a favored ball in the schoolyard. Now that he could see the shape of her body, he wondered how she’d concealed it from them all. But the top she’d been wearing, now discarded on the floor at her feet, had been flowy and cinched under the breasts with a little string, and he supposed, under the circumstances, they could all be forgiven for missing the subtle presence of the fourth hostage in lab 21. Ashlea’s breasts were threatening to fall out of the top of her bra and were threaded heavily with blue veins.
“Never,” Ashlea said.
“They might have let you go earlier!” Ibrahim barked. His anger was so sharp, so sudden, that it drew Bendigo’s gaze. “Are you crazy? You could have been out of here hours ago!”
“I haven’t told anyone at all!” Ashlea snapped back. “I’ve waited fourteen weeks to tell my own goddamn mother. Why should these two get to know before she does?”
“You’ve got to let her out of here.” Ibrahim’s entire body was poised like he was going to leap up and fight Ryan if he argued with him. “There’s a baby in there. She … The stress could … You know! She has to go!”
“You should have told us.” Elsie was speaking to Ashlea like they were alone. Like the lab, the other hostages, the police outside had all evaporated. And they were just two mothers. “We would never have kept you here.”
“How could I have known that?” Ashlea shook her hands. “Maybe it would have changed things the other way. Maybe you’d have kept only me. A baby is worth twice what they are as hostages.” She waved her hand at Bendigo and Ibrahim.
“We’re not monsters,” Elsie said. Her voice was weak, breathy.
Bendigo wondered if the shock of the scissors in her stomach was wearing off and the pain was setting in.
“We would have let you go the instant—” Elsie continued.
“He fired a gun at my head!” Ashlea pointed at Ryan. “Without looking!”
“Enough,” Ibrahim said, his eyes pleading with her. “Enough. Enough. Just take her out.”
“She has to go.” Ryan’s voice was smaller, calmer than Bendigo had ever heard it. He turned to Elsie. “You both have to go.”
The hostage-takers looked at each other. Bendigo chewed his lips, told himself there would be another time. But he couldn’t stop himself from speaking. Couldn’t let the opportunity pass while he sat silently.
“End this,” he said. “Let us all go.”
Bendigo’s words made Ryan stiffen. His upper lip pulled tight as he looked at his wife.
“Take Ashlea out,” he said to Elsie. “Use her as a shield. Do not let her go until you’re safely inside the police camp.”
He stood, went to her, took her face gently in his hands, and kissed her forehead. Bendigo watched as they paused together, foreheads touching, eyes closed, their faces taut with pain.
“We’ll find her,” Ryan said.
“We’ll find her.” Elsie nodded.
When they parted, Ryan stepped away, but Bendigo could tell he was ready for what was to come next. Antsy. Restless. Eager to make a move. Elsie must have noticed it, too, because she sat watching him, waiting, but he was locked off to her now. Stony-faced. Planning. She eased herself up carefully, still bracing her stomach and the scissors there with her hand as her eyes went dim with dread.
“Go, Elsie,” Ryan said. “I’ll be okay.”
“What are you going to do?” Elsie asked.
He helped Ashlea to her feet and she pulled her shirt on, then he walked the two women to the door.
“They have to know this isn’t a win,” Ryan said.
* * *
He touched the back of her hand to get her attention. She was standing there, thumbing her phone, reading a message from Charlie Hoskins about there being no dumpsters present on Santa Monica Beach but that he promised to check into it, when Curler brushed his fingers against her skin. Saskia felt a pang of hot shock in her chest. Half of it was the unexpected warmth and tenderness of the touch, a rueful excitement. It had been a long time. But the other half was a whip-fast right angle in her emotions that came after when she followed Curler’s gaze across the parking lot toward the checkpoint and saw the mayor of Los Angeles, Ike Grimley, stepping out of a shiny Tesla. Somewhere nearby, in a huddle of officers, Saskia heard a low chuckle, murmured words.
“Oh, you in trouble now, bitch.”
Saskia looked over, but the officers turned inward. Since she had intervened and caused the Encino police homicide sample to be burned by the Delaneys, the dissenting whispers had grown minute by minute into undisguised glares, murmured warnings, ranting displays that were as yet too bold to be directed at her or carried out in earshot but were nevertheless deliberately performed in her line of sight. Mayor Grimley marched over to Curler and Saskia with his phone out, the screen toward them, and Saskia got a closer look at his manicured hands and gleaming cuff links than she would have liked when he shoved the phone under her nose.
“Would you like to tell me what this is?” Grimley asked.
Saskia had to step back to take in the video. Curler leaned in to watch a clip of Jonie Delaney screaming that she had killed her sister, then being wrestled back by Delta Hodge. Saskia had a strange sense of rewinding in time twenty minutes to when the incident had actually happened. She looked around. Nothing much had changed in the tent since that moment. There was an untouched coffee standing on the fold-out table that someone had brought for Saskia, a coffee she knew in her bones had been spat in. And Jonie Delaney was gone—dragged off, sedated, resting and, Saskia presumed, on her way to the local hospital to a secure ward to sleep off the effects of that sedation under police protection.
Saskia dropped her eyes to the text below the video, the scrolling banner. The mayor was playing the video from the Los Angeles Daily News website.
“It’s a video.” Saskia sighed. “Taken by someone inside the police camp, evidently. It shows a traumatized teenager having a mental breakdown.”
“Hell of a coward we got somewhere!” Curler raised his voice, looking around him at the officers milling about. “To film something like that and shoot it over to a global news outlet!”
“Why is she saying she killed her sister?” Grimley asked. His narrow, wolfish face and furious eyes hadn’t left Saskia’s. “Is there anything to that? Or is she just being crazy?”
“There’s…” Saskia thought about lying. Didn’t. “We’re checking it out.”
“So she confessed to you?” Grimley said. “She told you what happened?”
“Mr. Mayor, with all the respect that I can possibly muster right now,” Saskia said, “this is a police matter, and I would ask you not to intervene.”
“Oh, wow.” Grimley dropped the phone. “Really? I shouldn’t intervene?”
Saskia felt her neck reddening.
“Because I’m hearing there’s been a bit of that going around today, Chief Ferboden!”
Saskia heard a laugh from nearby. The group of officers turned away, their eyes on their boots.
“Jonie Delaney’s confession does not appear to us to be credible at this time,” Curler said. “Until we can find something that lends it credibility, we—”
“Tell those people”—the mayor pointed at the distant lab—“that their daughter’s death was an inside job. End this thing. Now.”
“Mayor Grimley,” Saskia said through her teeth. “I thank you wholeheartedly for your operational advice. I’ll take it under advisement. But whether or not I apply it is entirely my decision.”
“Look.” Grimley edged closer. Saskia could smell mint gum on his breath. “I’ve met with my lawyer this morning already—”
“Oh, is that why you’re so late?” Curler murmured.
The mayor narrowed his eyes at Curler. “—and he’s telling me the fact that my niece’s sample has been handled at all by the Delaney couple is bad news for her case. Okay? Are you hearing me? Do you understand? Her case is already in hot water. I’m going to have to go through back channels to even find the guy who assaulted a member of my family. Then I’m going to have to try to prosecute him without an admissible DNA sample. And that’s if the sample even survives the next few hours!”
Saskia watched the mayor’s lips stretching taut under his gray mustache. His too-close, fast-moving, peach-pink and utterly punchable lips.
“If it’s destroyed,” he went on, “we’ll have nothing!”
“Do you think you’re telling me anything that I don’t know already right now, Mr. Mayor?” Saskia asked. “How do you figure your situation is any different from that of the other families with samples in that lab?”
“My situation is different,” Grimley said, smiling at Saskia, “because if they destroy that sample, I’ll destroy you.”
Grimley turned away, tried to storm off, almost ran headfirst into Tanner Court, who had been meandering sulkily around the police camp since Saskia forbade him to go with Jonie to the hospital, in case he was needed here. The boy twisted sideways to let the mayor through. Saskia only realized she had been holding her breath when it rushed out of her, sending tingles of relief across her scalp.
“Fuck.” Curler exhaled in unison beside her. His face was tight and mean. “Fuck.”
She took out her phone and scrolled the news sites. The Jonie Delaney outburst was on the front page of all the major outlets. Saskia had known her career was over all morning. If punching out a SWAT commander hadn’t done it, intervening against the Encino police officers’ DNA sample would have. It was possible, she consoled herself, that things were set to fall apart even before the Delaneys took over the Hertzberg-Davis lab. What happened to Hoss shouldn’t have happened. She shouldn’t have trusted him to know he was safe to go off radar with the Machines when he was so immersed. He’d almost died. That was on her.
But she also knew that a decimated police career wasn’t the end of the threat when it came to Mayor Ike Grimley. The guy had a penchant for vengeance, and a personal vendetta from him would mean Saskia would have to move to Utah to be employed as anything more than a Chili’s restaurant manager ever again. The sense of loss, current and pending, made her feel weightless.
“It doesn’t matter what’s in the lab,” she said, speaking to no one, to everyone, to herself. “It could be anything. DNA samples. Millions of dollars. Bags full of diamonds. I can’t put objects before human lives. I have to help the hostages. That’s my only job.”
“I know,” Curler said.
Saskia had forgotten he was standing there beside her.
“I’m with you.”
Saskia almost leaned into him for a hug. The gratitude, and longing, was that strong.
The laptop at the fold-out table nearby started ringing. Saskia walked there, unable to feel the ground beneath her feet.
Ryan Delaney appeared alone on the screen.
“We want to send Elsie and Ashlea out,” he said.
“Okay.” Saskia nodded. “Okay. Good.”
“But you’re going to have to pay for it,” Ryan said.
* * *
Lamb was quietly contemplative. She was gripping the steering wheel, now and then glancing over at Charlie incredulously as he smoked in the passenger’s seat, with an elbow out the window, like they hadn’t just bested a one-ton palm tree and a vicious gang leader in a fight for their lives. He figured she was upset at having left another crime scene without volunteering to sit for a report or hand over to the attending patrol cops. Still caught up in the policies and procedures they would have drilled into her at the academy with all the heaviness of priests yelling at Sunday school students about lying to their parents. The blood on Lamb’s neck was drying and cracking. The Honda coupe that Surge had managed to source for them in a mere ten minutes in downtown Los Angeles stank of fish and was littered with woodchips. It made Charlie wonder how many hot cars the ex–police officer had lying around the city, whom they were used by, and how long it would be before he and Lamb needed another one. When she put the car into gear, the whole stick had come off in her hand, a metal tube with an eight ball attached to it that someone hadn’t installed properly.
