The Art of War

 

Griff took a last look out Helena’s bedroom window at downtown Los Angeles, then went back downstairs. Automatic timers had cycled on lamps throughout the house. At the kitchen, he paused to look out back at the pool which glowed blue from the underwater lights. The quick sweep of an errant shadow caught his eye.

Griff moved into an interior hallway without windows, pulled out his iPhone and logged into the house’s security system with the ID and password provided by Lance. He swiped through the CCTV camera views. A van was parked out front just around the corner. It had not been there when he went in. The cameras around the pool showed nothing, but the far reaches of the backyard near the fence line were veiled in darkness. He brought up the front door camera and studied it intently. At the fringes, the shape-shifting of shadows led him to conclude that two, possibly three assailants lay in wait. Griff checked, then re-holstered his P226 pistol.

He went to the kitchen, grabbed the bottle of Dawn dishwashing soap from beneath the sink, then went to the foyer and poured it out on the Italian marble tile just inside the door. He got what he needed from his tool bag, biting down on zip ties and quietly pulling his baton to full length. In his left hand, he turned on the TASER Strikelight, pointing the beam of the flashlight down and away. Griff stepped to the side of the front door. He turned the deadbolt.

At the faint click of the latch opening, the front door was violently pushed in, and two men came lunging into the foyer skating uncontrollably on the soap-slicked marble, cursing as they crashed into a tangled heap. After a couple of quick shots from the stun gun, Griff had the two men hogtied with zip ties faster than a rodeo calf roper. Duct tape from the tool bag sealed their mouths. He stood and stepped back to the side of the front door and waited. A minute later, he heard a quiet shuffling on the walk outside. He drew his SIG Sauer.

“Alan? Steve?” came whispered from just outside the door.

The muffled replies of the two bound men were indecipherable.

A head and a Glock came into view through the doorway.

Griff pressed the muzzle of his P226 against the intruder’s temple and grabbed the barrel of the Glock. “I’ll have that if you don’t mind.”

He led the third man to a Queen Anne chair in the foyer and zip tied his wrists and ankles to the arms and legs. Griff closed the front door, pulled out his iPhone, and studied the CCTV camera views again.

“You can’t—”

“Shut up. I just did,” Griff cut off the man in the chair. He swiped through the camera views again. “Just the three of you then?”

The ungagged man smirked.

Griff smiled. He surveyed his quarry. The two larger, hogtied men were obviously the muscle; the slight man in the chair the “brains” of the operation. He retrieved wallets from the back pockets of the men on the floor and took out their driver’s licenses. “Not really good tradecraft, fellas. Oh, look, you really are Steve and Allen. So, who hired you guys? Cliff Junior?”

The man in the chair glared at Griff.

“And who might you be?”

“Bite me.”

Griff shrugged and pocketed the driver’s licenses. He held up and fired the Strikelight, so the unnamed man could see the blue arc clearly. Griff smiled at the grimace of despair on the man’s face when he heard the electrode crackle loudly. “Don't feel like conversating a little?”

“I—I—I…”

Griff leaned over, pulled the shirttail out of Alan’s trousers, and pressed the stun gun against the small of his back.

Fear etched itself deeply into the “brains” of the operation, but he remained silent.

“Okay, then.” Griff fired the stun gun. Alan had a brief spaz attack against the zip ties. “Looky there. Soap bubbles. I think he pissed himself.”

The man in chair swallowed hard.

Griff came over to the chair and leaned down into the man’s face. “Now…let’s say we talk.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. We’re getting paid by some law firm.”

“This law firm have a name?” Griff touched the stun gun to the man’s cheek.

“Perkins, Holmes and something. I don’t know. I just cashed the check.”

“Here in LA?”

“No. The Bay Area.”

Griff smiled. “Now, was that so hard?”

“Is he—is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine.” Griff retrieved the man’s license and pocketed it with the others. He packed up his tool kit and paused at the front door. “You fellas have a nice night.”

Griff punched the panic button on the alarm system control panel, then left.

 

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