| |
Saturday, October 18, 2014, Seattle, Washington
The children were still in the study under Carolina’s watch. They had been bedded down with pillows and blankets and most of them were asleep. Not Carolina. She was vigilant. Mac would have given her a weapon if he didn’t think others in the house would be horrified. She was 14, and Nick Rodriguez was her father? He bet she could shoot. Well, if they stayed here much longer, he would give her one, and protesters be damned.
For now, he just nodded at her with approval, and she smiled back. She was seated in the rocking chair, wrapped in a blanket. Maybe she’d get some sleep. He hoped so. But it might be a while before she slept without nightmares from this.
One more crime to add to the list against the enemy. Bad enough that that they had risked civilians with the hit on Rodriguez, but they’d come back to attack civilians directly. Children. And that carried a death sentence in Mac’s mind. He hoped no one tried to stop him from implementing it.
The adults were in the kitchen. He wanted a guard outside, but truthfully if they came back again, a guard was just dead. And they needed to talk. He sniffed. Paulina was cooking something. It smelled good.
Quesadillas, he discovered. His stomach growled.
Janet, Juan, and Shorty were seated at the table. Stan was leaning by the back door. Angie was watching from the doorway to the rest of the house, her camera around her neck. Mac came up behind her, and hugged her to him, keeping his right side free. His hand was in his pocket, resting on the Glock there. She leaned against Mac and smiled up at him. It felt right.
He and Juan had stopped on the way here to add weapons to the stash in the truck. Juan’s eyes had widened a bit at his stash, but he hadn’t said anything. He’d just taken Mac’s smaller Ruger .380 auto, checked it and put it in his pocket. Mac had handed him some extra ammo, and they got back in the car and drove on. He was torn between wishing he’d gotten here earlier and being grateful he hadn’t pulled up in the middle of that firestorm.
Mac had a second, smaller Glock 42 in an ankle holster. He suspected Stan had something similar as well. No, he realized. Janet had a small pistol next to her on the table as if it were part of the normal place setting. The knife, the spoon. A fork and a Sig P365. He smiled at the ghoulish humor.
Shorty had a gun too; he’d seen it earlier, a snub-nose revolver. It must be in a pocket now. He winced. He promised Shorty he wouldn’t involve him again after they’d rescued Janet a year ago. Well, Mac hadn’t this time, not really. Shorty had made this call. Or rather he’d responded to Angie’s dropped call.
People were silent, focused on eating. Juan had brought out beer and iced tea — the ubiquitous non-alcoholic drink of the Northwest. Mac could smell coffee brewing, and he grimaced. He hated that smell. Mac took the tea, though, when Juan offered him a glass.
“We need a safe house,” he said at last, when he realized no one else was going to step up and speak. “Agent Warren? The FBI got one?”
Stan shook himself as if he’d been deep in his thoughts. Not pleasant ones. “We do,” he said sourly. “Unfortunately, they are meant to protect people from bad guys, not from other cops, who may access the list. And I still haven’t gotten a call back from my SAC either.”
Mac grimaced. That did put a kink in things, he acknowledged. “Ideas?” he asked. He could take them home, but seven kids, an assortment of adults, eventually two convalescent cops, and several guards would be a tight fit. And Lindy loved Anna Marie, but there was a reason they both had their own homes. Lindy might have something to say about him invading her house with... he counted, a dozen guests minimum? He winced.
Janet was looking around, calculating the numbers as well. She was still rebuilding her house, so that was out. Truly what they needed was a fortress like Howard Parker had on Lake Washington. Prying it open and rescuing his friends had been a bitch.
And cost Danny his life. He set that aside, and said with a half laugh, “We need a place like Parker’s.”
Didn’t mean anything to the Moores, but he didn’t think they were tracking all that well anyway. Nor to Angie; although she snickered, so maybe she did know about it. Janet looked thoughtful. She found her cell phone and stepped into the living room where she could talk.
Mac cocked an eyebrow at Stan who shrugged. No one said anything, they just waited for her return. Mac assessed the situation. A bunch of shell-shocked, sleep-deprived civilians, a couple of embedded journalists, and seven kids in his care. Mac counted Stan as solid, and Shorty too. Juan seemed like a good man. His ‘embeds’? Angie — who was supposed to be safe with his aunt right now, and he rolled his eyes — and Janet? They might not be able to shoot worth a damn, but he trusted them to have his back.
And the enemy? Firepower. Advanced technology. Unknown goals. Unknown numbers. He grunted. Afghanistan — except he was running defense for a village against the might of the United States, instead of coming in as a part of U.S. troops.
Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance — C4ISR. Mac winced. They had it, he didn’t — yet.
On the other hand, the Afghani had chased out the Russians, and he would put the odds in their favor that they’d chase out Americans too. Never bet against the guys who know every hole in the ground.
And it had just begun. They’d expected to wipe them out in the first go — and didn’t that remind him of U.S. military strategy? And they failed. He doubted they had a long-term strategy. He needed to find their weak points. And to do that he would need his own C4ISR. Well he had Shorty for computers. A newspaper full of people for intelligence. And two Fibbers and a bunged-up cop for staff. Not bad for starters.
Janet came back into the room. “The Parker place has been up for sale since the story broke two years ago. Howard Parker is pretty much a recluse living up in Duvall,” she said. “So, I called the publisher — he knows the family. He’s reaching out to one of them. A sanctuary for some cops attacked by the mob. That’s what he knows, and that’s what he will tell them.”
Mac thought she might have consulted first, and a glance at Stan suggested he thought the same, but neither of them said a word. “Mob hit? In Seattle?” Mac said instead.
Janet shrugged. “You go look outside and tell me that doesn’t look like every mob hit in a movie. Well, drug cartel maybe, but the publisher is of an older generation.”
Angie snickered, and people relaxed a bit.
“I’ve been thinking about the technological aspects,” Shorty said suddenly. “You all assumed it was cops, right? Because the backup didn’t come. They would have to have inside help, I agree, or at least someone who really knows how the police dispatch works, but I wouldn’t think street cops would have the technical expertise to pull this off.”
“Good point,” Stan muttered. “I don’t even understand what they did.”
Mac didn’t either, but that’s what he had Shorty for.
“I think they had a multi-pronged approach,” Shorty said. “I need my computers and maybe a whiteboard to figure it all out. But I’m guessing they had a cutout on the line police call in on for backup and resources. The person you reached wasn’t a dispatcher. Guessing here,” he warned. “Because they also set up a blackout of this neighborhood, and we’ll need to see how tight of a blackout, and probably of the Queen Anne block where Joe got hit. Doable. They may have had a watch on certain numbers — yours, Agent Warren, for example — and blocked or rerouted your calls. We really need a phone specialist for this.”
Mac suspected Shorty meant a phone hacker, what did they use to call them? A phreaker? The expression on Stan Warren’s face said he was thinking the same thing. “You know someone?”
“Maybe,” Shorty said.
Janet’s phone rang. She answered it. They all listened, but there wasn’t much to hear. She wasn’t doing the talking. She thanked him — the publisher, Mac assumed. He could tell the voice was male, but not who it was.
She put down the phone. “All right,” she said. “We’ve got the place. There is a guard at the guardhouse, and he’s expecting us. My name is the only one he was — that anyone has. The house is kept in good condition in case some realtor wants to show it. I didn’t get the impression that has happened all that often, and they’ll pull it off the market tomorrow.” She glanced at the time on her phone. “Later today.”
“Are you talking about taking us with you?” Juan said, apparently startled by the speed Janet operated at. Well, she had to make deadline, Mac thought with amusement. Neither of them were literally on the Saturday morning shift, thank God. He wondered what Angie’s schedule was. Or Juan’s for that matter.
“You can’t stay here,” Janet said, sympathy obvious in her voice. “It isn’t safe. The house is too damaged, but also, they came back and you were the targets the second time. That’s disturbing. So yes, your family, the Rodriguez family, Joe Dunbar, and eventually Nick for recovery. And probably Stan and Rand. I don’t know who all will need to be there. But the place is big enough to provide sanctuary for everyone.”
When Juan started to protest, Janet shook her head. “Get to safety first, Juan,” she said. “Then you worry about the rest.”
Paulina looked away from the skillet where she was still making quesadillas. She probably would keep making them until she ran out of tortillas, Mac thought. Reminded that he was still hungry, he put some sour cream and salsa on another one and ate it.
“She is right,” she said to her husband. “I remember my parents....” She didn’t say anything more, just swallowed hard. Juan looked at her and nodded.
“Before we leave here, you all need to take out your phones and leave them behind,” Shorty warned. “No exceptions. I’ll get clean phones for you, but your phones can be traced — that’s how they’ve been doing this, partly at least.”
No one argued. Mac thought they were too shell-shocked at this stage. He made a mental note about getting more phones.
The next challenge was transportation. Mac had room for one. Shorty could take three, more if they were children. But that left a whole lot of people without a ride. Janet considered that, chewing her lip. She reached for her phone and made another call.
“OK, we’re going to have a circulation van here shortly. We have to move fast, because they need to be at the printing plant by 9 a.m. So, Angie? Can you take pictures of the damage for insurance purposes? I, for one, dread explaining this to my insurance agent.”
There was laughter, and Angie went to take pictures of her shot up RAV4.
“Paulina? Juan? You need to pack bags for the children and for yourselves,” she continued. “Stan? Would you escort Carolina home so that she can do the same for herself and the children? It wouldn’t hurt to have a small bag for Anna as well.”
She looked around to see if there was anything else she could delegate — Mac knew that look. Then she chewed on her lip, picked up her phone and called someone. Mac listened. Someone to go rescue her dog from his kennel in her apartment apparently. Janet caught his look. “I have an agreement with my neighbor,” she said. “Not the first time I’ve gotten trapped somewhere — usually work, and usually doesn’t involve bullets — and needed someone to take care of him.”
Mac nodded. He felt his phone vibrate and he looked at it. A message from Rand. He read it, then read it again. “Stan?” he said softly, and he handed his phone to the FBI agent. Police had shown up and were trying to boot Rand — and Joe — out. They would guard the downed officer now, they informed hospital security. Rand wasn’t budging.
Stan read the text and shook his head. “Let’s go,” he said. “Janet? Maybe Shorty could be Carolina’s escort?”
Neither of them waited for an answer — or for the inevitable questions. Angie looked up when they came out of the house. “Where are you two going?” she asked.
“Back to the hospital,” Mac answered. “Help Janet get everyone to the Parker house, will you? A lot of shell-shocked people here.” He didn’t like leaving them unprotected like this, but he didn’t see many options. And Janet was demonstrating exactly why she was boss: no one better to organize a bunch of people, get them pointed in the same direction, and reach their goal. She did it every day of the week.
Angie looked at him with narrowed eyes, suspicious that something was up. Well, she wasn’t wrong.
Stan hesitated before he got into Mac’s 4-Runner, but Mac didn’t ask. “There’s a gun box under your seat,” was all he said.
“I think I might keep it on me,” he said. “I’m FBI. My jacket and my badge say so. You’ll need to leave yours behind.”
Well, that was worrisome, Mac thought as he made the drive, again, to the UW Medical Center. It was getting to be a very long night. Suck it up, he told himself. You’re approaching 30, not 50. And Stan Warren might be headed toward the big 5-0 and he was sitting there, glaring at the world. Mac rotated his shoulders to release the tension.
“Any chance it’s on the up and up?” Mac asked.
“Asking an FBI agent to leave?” Stan said, and he shook his head. “Or the man’s partner? No, that’s not normal.”
Mac drove a bit faster. They hadn’t rescued the two cops to lose them inside the hospital itself.