Moving Target, page 30
part #9 of Ali Reynolds Series
“It sounds like we’re dealing with a major transportation hub.”
“Yes, with one additional detail: There’s a helicopter pad in the very center of the yard. That is, the spot is marked for a helicopter, but there isn’t one parked there now.”
“If Katerina’s making a run for it and planning to take Lance with her, the chopper’s probably already on its way.”
“What do you want me to do?” Stu asked. “Call Hernandez?”
“And start a gunfight? No,” B. said. “What if they have as many drivers hanging around as they have vehicles, and what if all of them are armed because they’re used to provide extra security?”
“That could be bad,” Stu said.
“Right, so let’s level the playing field and get rid of the extra hands. Did Jillian happen to have Ernesto Cabrillo’s e-mail address in her collection of intel?”
“Yes, she did,” Stu replied. I’ve got it right here.”
“I want you to use our copy of GHOST. Hack in to Ernesto’s e-mail account and send a spoof message to whatever e-mail address you have for the junkyard. Say, ‘DEA on way. Get out! Now!’ After you do that, since what you’re watching probably is DEA satellite feed, you’d best shut it down. A lot will be happening in the next little while, and I’d like to have as few eyes watching as possible.”
Somewhere out of reach, Ali’s phone rang. She remembered dropping it in her purse much earlier, but the purse was currently stowed on the floorboard behind the passenger seat. She had to unfasten her seat belt and clamber half onto the seat with her knees in order to reach it. By the time she retrieved her phone, it had stopped ringing; a call from an unknown number showed in the screen. Thirty seconds later, the phone vibrated in her hand, this time with a voice mail.
“Kate Benchley here,” said a cheery Brit voice when Ali punched the Play button. “Thought you’d want to know. The samples weren’t all that degraded after all. Donna was able to work her magic. The bloodstains from the collar, presumably from the victim, belong to a male who is almost certainly the father of both whoever left the stains on the shirtsleeves as well as the sample taken from the coffee cup, which I’ll return to the Highcliff the next time I go to spend some time with Marjorie.
“You know the odds on DNA,” Kate continued. “These three individuals are definitely related, with a 99.99777 percent certainty, but without some other corroborating evidence, Donna’s findings won’t be enough to carry the day in a court of law. Give me a call to let me know what, if anything, you want me to do with these results. Cheerio.”
“Who was that?” B. asked.
“Kate Benchley from Oxford,” Ali said. “She just told me who murdered Leland’s father.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Tell him, I suppose,” Ali said. “What happens after that will be up to him.”
The Saucedo exit sign appeared overhead, along with another sign on the shoulder announcing gas and food. No lodging. B. slowed and switched on his turn signal. “I’ll fill up with gas,” he said. “You keep an eye out and tell me if you see anything.”
While Ali watched, an odd assortment of vehicles—vans, trucks, and pickups—came streaming out of a business across the freeway from the gas station. Some entered the freeway northbound and sped away. A few crossed over and continued westbound on the surface road, while the remainder entered the freeway headed south. The last vehicle to leave, a pickup, stopped just outside the junkyard’s razor wire–topped fence. The driver got out, closed the gate, and then locked it with a length of chain and a padlock.
Done filling the tank, B. climbed into the car. “I counted fifteen vehicles in all,” Ali told him. “The last guy to leave locked the gate.”
“Okay, Stu,” B. said. “Whatever you told them worked. They all bailed. Great job. Now where’s that northbound ambulance?”
“They’re only ten miles out, but they’ve pulled off into a rest area. I directed Father McLaughlin to drive past them and take the next exit, five miles ahead, then wait to see what they do. I’m guessing that someone from the junkyard called to warn them of the impending raid. They may be considering going elsewhere.”
“If they’re all gone,” Ali wondered, “what are the chances that the only people left inside are Phyllis Rogers and her grandson, two hostages who are completely expendable now that Katerina has Lance?”
“If they’re not dead already,” B. replied.
“So what do we do? Call Hernandez and tell him to bring on the strike force?”
“It’ll take those guys at least fifteen minutes to get here,” B. said. “We may not have fifteen minutes. Let’s see if we can get them out ourselves.”
“Alone? Without backup?” Ali responded. “Cops call that Lone Rangering, and it’s a bad idea. Especially since we have no weapons and no Kevlar vests.”
“You’d be surprised,” B. told Ali as he punched buttons on his phone. “You might be very surprised.”
A moment later, Father McLaughlin’s voice boomed over the speaker.
“Hey, it’s B. and Ali.”
“Good to hear from you. What’s up?”
“I know Stuart directed you to hold up, but we’re parked across the highway from the junkyard, and we have an issue. We believe—or rather, we hope—that we’ve sent most of the bad guys packing. Right now, before that ambulance shows up, we have a tiny window of opportunity.”
“To extract the other two hostages?”
“How did you guess? I know you offered to help out by lending us weapons and vests earlier. Stupidly, I turned you down. At this point, I’ve changed my mind, and I’m ready to accept same.”
“Where are you?”
“At the 76 station on the west side of the Saucedo exit, but we’re headed for the gate to the junkyard right now. We’re in a red Cadillac Escalade. If you’re northbound, the gate to the junkyard is on the east side of the freeway along the frontage road just beyond the exit.”
“I’m on my way,” Father McLaughlin said. “I should be there in a jiff.”
“Tell him there’s a chain with a padlock on the gate,” Ali warned. “The only way we’ll be able to get inside is to drive through.”
Father McLaughlin said with a laugh, “I may be a man of God, but I’m also a man of action. I believe in being prepared because it turns out most people aren’t, including, presumably, the two of you. Along with a few extra weapons and a spare Kevlar vest or two, I always carry a pair of bolt cutters in the back of my car. Doesn’t everybody?”
“Point taken,” B. muttered.
He was preparing to drive away from the gas station when Ali stopped him. “Wait,” she said. “I want to go buy some jerky. We’re going to a junkyard. If there happens to be a junkyard dog, I want to be prepared, too.”
Father McLaughlin pulled up in a dusty, disreputable, and very unpriestly-looking Isuzu Trooper moments after B. and Ali stopped in front of the locked gate. He got out, wrestled a large bolt cutter out of a locked tool chest in the Trooper’s cargo hold, and made short work of the padlock.
“Ambulance is still stationary,” Stu reported. “If you’re going to do this, get in and get out in a hurry.”
The good father seemed to be in no rush at all. Once they had driven the Isuzu and the Escalade through the opening, he took his time closing the gate and replacing the chain and the lock, positioning them so the lock appeared to be engaged. “It might be enough to slow them down,” he explained in response to Ali’s clear exasperation. “Now, I believe I promised you vests and weapons?”
First he hauled out two Kevlar vests that they put on immediately. B.’s was slightly too small, and Ali’s was too big, but they were for protection rather than a fashion statement, and Ali was glad to have them.
Father McLaughlin reached back into the Trooper, opened a metal case, and retrieved two handguns. “I trust you both know how to operate these,” he said. “They’re loaded: six in the magazine, and that red pop on the slide shows there’s one in the chamber.”
He handed over a pair of Kahr P380s. Ali hefted her weapon and then expertly stripped it down. The Kahr was unfamiliar to her, and if there was a chance that her life would depend on it, she needed more than a relative stranger’s word that the P380 was in good working condition. She checked the rounds in the magazine. They were .380ACP hollow-point bullets. Hoping the Kahr had been properly lubed and cleaned, she put it back together and passed it to B.
Once she had checked out the second weapon, she dropped it into the pocket of her vest. After a moment’s consideration, she took it out of the pocket and tucked it into the waistband of her underwear. She had the jerky unwrapped and at the ready, but so far there was no sign of any dogs.
Father McLaughlin looked around. “Seems like a big place. Do we have any idea where to look for those hostages?”
“Best guess, they’re in one of the metal buildings,” B. said. “I doubt there’s any sense in trying the front door.”
“Let’s try it anyway,” Ali suggested. “The hostages may not be there, but this way we’ll know for sure if someone is minding the store.”
“Okay, you take the front. We’ll try the back. If somebody does come to the door and asks what you want, tell them you’re looking for body parts for your husband’s 1962 Corvair Monza,” B. said. “That’s something almost no one will have on hand.”
Ali drove the Escalade to the front entrance while B. and Father McLaughlin, in the Isuzu, drove to the back. Peering in through grimy windows, she saw a grubby linoleum-covered counter with a pair of dilapidated stools parked in front of it. At the far end of the counter stood an old-fashioned cash register with the drawer wide open. No, Ali told herself. The guy who left isn’t coming back.
Her phone rang.
“Trouble,” B. said. “The ambulance is on the move.”
“We need to go, then.”
“We can’t. We think we’ve located the hostages. They’re in a locked shed with some kind of motor running inside. The doors are metal. One has a deadbolt and the other is barred on the inside. Father McLaughlin is hooking a chain up to the back of his Trooper and hoping to pull the slider loose, but it’s taking time. Once we get to them, we’ll need to get them out. If they’ve been in there long enough to have suffered carbon monoxide poisoning, that may not be easy.”
Ali looked at the northbound lanes of the freeway. There were cars visible but no sign of the ambulance. “Somebody needs to stall them, then,” she said. “How long before they get here?”
“Stu says five minutes, no more.”
Ali turned and looked at the junkyard’s front entrance, at a gate that looked locked but wasn’t. The padlock was all bluff. Squaring her shoulders, Ali decided she would be, too. “I’ll do it,” she said. “At least I’ll try. You guys do whatever you can to rescue the hostages. I’ll go back to the gate and use the Escalade to block it shut. The only way for Katerina and her henchmen to get to you or the hostages will be through me. If you have to, use Father McLaughlin’s bolt cutter and make a hole in the back fence big enough to drive his Trooper out.”
“Wait,” B. objected. “I didn’t mean for you to—”
“Too late,” Ali said. “I’m already on my way. I’ll leave my phone on speaker so you’ll know what’s happening.”
“I can’t let you do this,” B. argued. “I never should have put you in this position.”
“We got into this position together,” Ali told him. “We’ll get out of it the same way.”
From the far side of the building, she heard a boom that sounded like a mini-explosion followed by the clattering of metal. She hoped that meant Father McLaughlin had succeeded in popping the door off the shed. In the Escalade, she drove back to the gate and parallel-parked on the far side of it.
With the vehicle in park, she took a deep breath. In the stillness, even with the phone in her pocket, she could hear urgent shouting, ragged coughing, clattering, and banging—all of them the welcome sounds of living. She let out her breath and then sat there, trying to relax and calm her nerves; trying to summon the courage it would take to face down someone she already knew to be a cold-blooded killer. Having wandered into the thick of what might be a dispute between two warring drug cartels, she had come to the fight armed with a single pistol and seven hollow-point bullets. Her only hope was to try to deescalate a shooting war into a war of words. Was that even remotely possible?
“I’m in position,” she said. Her phone, on speaker, was in the left pocket of her vest. She shifted the pistol from her waistband to the right-hand pocket. Ali was a trained shot, a capable shot, but would that give her enough of an edge against two armed guards and a killer? Probably not. And if a hail of bullets came speeding at her, bent on mowing her down, would the paltry vest be any kind of help? Unbidden Ali recalled Jillian Sosa’s wide-open eyes as she lay dead in the back of LeAnne Tucker’s Taurus. Jillian had been shot in the head. Bullet-resistant materials could help with body shots, but no Kevlar vest in existence would protect against a headshot. None at all.
“Got ’em,” B. said breathlessly. “They need to be checked out in a hospital. Should we try coming out through the gate?”
“No,” Ali said decisively. “There’s not enough time. Use the bolt cutter and go out through the back.”
“All right,” B. agreed, “but once the hole is made, it’ll only take one of us to get them to the hospital. The other one should stay here with you for backup. You pick.”
“You go; Father McLaughlin stays,” Ali said. “He’s a better shot.”
If B.’s feelings were hurt by her unflinching assessment of his combat capabilities, he let it pass without a word.
Out on the freeway, Ali caught a glimpse of a tiny speck of red speeding north. “They’re coming now,” she said. “Still on the freeway, approaching the exit. Go now. Get Phyllis and Thad to safety.”
“Ali, I—”
“Don’t talk,” she urged. “Go! Please.”
She opened the car door and got out. In order to pull off this colossal bluff, she would need to look perfectly at ease, as though she didn’t have a care in the world and wasn’t scared to death. Her knees still shook as she walked up to the front fender of the Escalade and leaned against it. With the back of one foot propped against the tire and with her hands stuffed casually in her pockets, Ali hoped she looked relaxed even though every nerve in her body was strung tight. If need be, she was fully prepared to use the poised foot to kick off from the vehicle and propel herself forward.
The ambulance slowed as it approached the stop sign at the top of the exit. She tried to prepare herself. She knew that four lives hung in the balance: Lance’s, LeAnne’s, Sister Anselm’s, and her own. What could she possibly say that would be powerful enough to win this war of words? A moment later, she knew. “I’ll lie,” Ali Reynolds said aloud. “I’ll lie like crazy.”
The ambulance turned right at the top of the overpass and then, after a few short yards, turned left onto the two-way frontage road. In a block or so, it slowed again and prepared to turn in to the junkyard. Having prepared herself to face down the two guards, Ali was astonished to see LeAnne Tucker behind the wheel of the rumbling ambulance. In the passenger seat was a woman. Although Ali had never seen her before, she realized this had to be Katerina Barnes.
The passenger door swung open. The dark-haired woman with shoulder-length locks who swung to the ground from the cab of the ambulance was probably a decade younger than Ali. Her figure was nothing short of spectacular. She was dressed in a smart knit pantsuit that spoke of money and power. Almost as an afterthought, Ali noticed the weapon in Katerina’s left hand, pointed directly at Ali’s chest.
Automatically, Ali tried to assess the weapon’s capabilities. It was most likely a semiautomatic. There would be lots more shots in the clip than Ali’s paltry seven. Forcefully, she pushed that self-defeating thought out of her head. If you started comparing numbers of potential shots, you had already lost.
“Who are you?” Katerina Barnes demanded. “You don’t look like DEA. No letters on your vest. Besides, they don’t drive Escalades, and they wouldn’t show up with a search warrant in hand and leave the gates locked.”
Years earlier, when Ali was starting out as a television news reporter, she had suffered dreadful cases of nerves before those first few stand-up live reports. Over time, she had learned to look at the camera and focus. In this case, the weapon pointed in her direction served the same function, giving her focus and purpose.
“And you don’t look like an ambulance attendant,” Ali said with a toss of her head. “I guess that makes us even.”
“Move your vehicle. Now.”
“No,” Ali said.
“Move it, or I’ll shoot.”
“If you do, you’ll be very sorry.”
Katerina frowned as though she didn’t quite grasp what had been said. Maybe it had been spoken in a foreign language. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I want the people you’re holding prisoner,” Ali said. “Lance, his mother, and Sister Anselm.”
Katerina laughed. “You can’t be serious. You think I’m just going to hand them over?”
“I am and I do,” Ali said calmly. Inside the pocket of her vest, her hand felt steady on the firm grip of her pistol.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I have GHOST and you don’t,” Ali said. “You need GHOST, too, but you shot the person you hired to run it. The only other person who can do that for you is the person in the back of that ambulance. If something happens to Lance Tucker, you’re screwed.”
“He’ll do what I say,” Katerina said. “Otherwise his family dies, starting with his mother.” She turned back to the ambulance and waved the gun in LeAnne’s direction. “Out,” she ordered. “Now.”
LeAnne opened her door and stumbled to the ground. The open plea for help in her expression came close to disrupting Ali’s concentration.
