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Mac ended the call with Shorty abruptly because there was a call coming in from Angie.
“Mac? Where are you?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
Mac was already on the move toward his car. “I’m at the house,” he said. “Where are you?”
“The office,” she said. “You didn’t send me a text telling me to meet you here?”
“No,” he said. He got in the 4-Runner and headed out the gate, nodding to the man who was there. Mac frowned. He didn’t know that guard. He made a mental note to get Kevin Winters to send him names and photos.
“There’s no one here,” she said.
Mac glanced at his watch. After 5 p.m. Business side would have gone home. Janet was experimenting with different shift configurations: the 6 a.m. shift he usually worked, but instead of the next shift coming in at 3 p.m., they now came in at 10 a.m. Lots of activity then, but by 6 p.m. things had pretty much cleared out. Sports wouldn’t be in until later.
Mac closed his eyes briefly, and swallowed his fear. “Are you in a safe place where people aren’t likely to find you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m going to leave the line open,” he reassured her. “I’m just setting the phone on the seat. I don’t want to get pulled over for talking on the phone while driving. Sounds kind of risky right now.”
She laughed. It was shaky, but he admired the hell out of her for managing it.
Well, it was a reverse commute over the bridge, but it still took more time than he wanted. He pulled into the parking structure at the Examiner, then parked and checked the gun in his pocket. He got out of the 4-Runner, every nerve in his body was twinging with warning signals: danger, danger!
“Hello, Mac,” a familiar voice said from the shadows.
“How the hell did you get mixed up in this,” Mac demanded. He didn’t turn to look at the shadows. “Are we going to re-enact Deep Throat, here? Meeting in parking garages?”
Craig Anderson snorted. “This is a one-off meeting,” he assured Mac. “As to how I ended up here? Damn, Mac. I did a good deed. Might be the only one I’ve ever done in my life.”
Mac laughed. He could relate. “Tell me,” he said.
“I live alone,” he said. “Wife left a long time ago, and I don’t blame her. We’re still friends, actually, and that’s more than I deserve. I have the gun shop and pretty much everything I have is tied up in inventory there. I rent an apartment, own a second-rate gun shop on the wrong side of the tracks in a no-account town. And quite frankly, I’m happy with that. So I get involved with Andy Malloy’s gun range, and you know how that turned out. I’m still amazed I didn’t end up arrested for something in all of that. I suspect you might have had something to do with that, and so I feel like I owe you. This is the payback.”
“You were on the side of angels up there,” Mac said, although Craig was right. He’d vouched for him on that.
“Would be a first,” Craig muttered. “So anyway, Andy is charged with a felony, and he’s forbidden to be around weapons, right? He could lose his PR bond. What the hell were they thinking letting him out on a PR bond? Anyway, he asks me if I’ll keep the range open for him. He doesn’t want to let his steady customers down. I figure sure, why not? I can cut my hours back at the gun shop, open the range in the evenings.”
Mac could see where this was going. “And some of those steady customers? They’re cops.”
“Yeah.” Craig said. “And one of them approaches me about two weeks ago. He’s got evidence of something from my past that would put me away for a long time. He says he just needs a favor. Needs me to watch a house. To be a spotter. A dirty cop, log him coming and going. Do it for two weeks, and the evidence disappears.”
“And you agree,” Mac said. “Hell, who wouldn’t?”
“I did,” he said. “But I recognize the cop when I saw him. Saw him at your hospital room once with Rand. And I think shit, he’s not a dirty cop. What the hell is going on?”
“Did you figure out an answer to that question?” Mac asked. “Because I’d sure like one.”
Anderson snorted. “I bet you would,” he said. “No, because I didn’t ask. I wasn’t going give them any reason to bust my ass.”
“And so you were sitting out there when they drove up and shot the hell out of him and his house.”
“Yeah,” Anderson said. “I was shocked. I called 911, but there was something hinky about the response from the dispatcher, and I hung up. I was supposed to stay until midnight, each night, but I was packing it in. And then my handler calls and says they’re going to have to make a second pass, and for me to stay put. I see Angie, and my heart stops. I think a lot of that little gal, Mac — you better be treating her right.”
“Doing my best,” Mac said.
“So I know that crew is headed back, and they’re moving toward the house, but not fast enough. So I pinged the house with a shot and lit a fire under that FBI agent. Not Rand, the other one.”
“Stan Warren,” Mac said. “And you’ve been trying to reach out to me. Are you still being assigned to surveillance?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You got to step up your game, Mac. These guys aren’t clowns. They scare the hell out of me, to be honest. Letting that woman leave the coffee shop before you clear the zone? What the hell? And your phones are compromised, if you didn’t know.”
“I know,” Mac said grimly with a glance toward the door into the Examiner office. “They trying to flush us out? Figure out where the safe house is?”
“That, among other things,” Anderson agreed. “They don’t tell me much, and I don’t want to know even as much as I do. They got a hard-on for you. But that shouldn’t be a surprise.”
“Malloy a part of this?” Mac asked. There was no response. Mac frowned and then he ran for the door. He tapped in the password, just as he heard the rapid fire of an AR-15. He jerked open the door and dove through it to the floor, tugging the door shut behind him. It would lock, but he doubted it was a bullet-proof door. He elbow-crawled down the hall past the break room before he stopped. He listened.
Nothing. He got up to a crouch, and moved around the corner, through the sports section — the section he’d originally applied for, he thought sourly. No one would be shooting at him if he were covering the Mariners.
He headed to the photo department. It was eerie in here without people, he conceded. He wasn’t sure he liked Janet’s shift change. “Angie?” he said quietly.
A door opened, and Angie flung herself at him. He caught her and held her tight. He felt the tension in his back ease a bit. She was fine. “What is that room?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
“Old darkroom,” she said, holding on to him. “I heard gunfire?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I thought they tore out the old darkroom to expand the computer editing stations?”
“This is the old, old darkroom,” she said. “It’s barely more than a closet. And the photo editor couldn’t bear to be without any darkroom. But it looks like a closet door. I figured no one would look inside, and if they did? I was sitting on the floor, with my head on my knees trying not to vomit because it smells like old darkroom chemicals in there. And that would suck because everyone would laugh at me.”
Mac laughed. “Good job, then,” he praised. “And yes, that was gunfire. We need to get out of here before someone calls the cops. Leave your car, ride with me.”
Angie nodded and grabbed up her photo and camera equipment. “I think I’m going to stay at the house,” she said, still sounding a bit shaky.
“I like the sound of that.”
Mac watched from the doorway of the Examiner. He didn’t see anything odd. He nodded to Angie, and they walked the 20 feet to where he was parked. Now that he had a bit of breathing time, he wondered if Craig Anderson had been keeping him exposed for the shooters to get into place. He thought they were gone now, but it worried him that there were no police sirens headed this way. Well, he was grateful for it right this minute, but truly? If the police were called to the Examiner, and they didn’t respond? That wasn’t good. And if no one in the neighborhood called in the shots? That wasn’t good either.
He opened up the car for Angie, and then got in and drove off. He headed toward the police station. He pulled up along the curb, and leaving the engine running, he ran his hand under the edge of his vehicle. And found it. The fuckers had attached a tracker. He detached it carefully, using the palm of his hand only. Then he walked over to an unmarked police car that was parked in a 10-minute spot and slapped it under the vehicle.
“Let’s get out of here,” Mac said. “Dinner smelled really good when I was leaving.”
Angie looked at him. “There was a tracker?” she said slowly. “And now it’s on a police vehicle?”
He laughed.
But then he turned serious. “The text. It came from my new number?” he asked. Angie pulled out her phone and looked. She nodded.
“Said meet me at the office, we’ll grab a bite to eat before heading out.”
Mac frowned. Angie. Anna. The women? Did they think they’d be less aware of their environment? He didn’t think that was the case. Most women were more aware. Shorty? A school teacher.
Or just the people who had gone to work today? They wanted something, Mac thought. And they needed to get to the safe house to get it. But he’d been running all over the place, in a car that was easily linked to him. He assumed they’d put the tracker on just now. He thought back about his day. Almost have to be.
He thought about Craig Anderson. Thought his story was mostly true. Incomplete. But true enough. But why would they blackmail him into being a spotter?
Because the rest were cops and Nick would recognize them if he saw them?
He was thoughtful as he drove the rest of the way to the Parker house.
Angie was quiet too. “Mac?” she said as they pulled up to the gate. “What did they want me at the paper for?”
“Near as I can tell, they want to panic someone into running to the safe house without paying attention,” Mac said. “You, Anna, and Shorty. And to send me a message. Don’t know that I get the message besides they wanted me dead in that garage.”
He considered that for a moment. He parked the 4-Runner in what had become ‘his’ spot. “Come on, let’s eat,” he said, and put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. “And then we need to get everyone together and talk.”
Rand was at the hospital on guard duty with a new agent. Stan looked grim when Mac told him about the tracker he found underneath his truck. “I’ve got a wand,” he said. “I should have thought they might try that.”
“Seems to be our theme song,” Mac said as he dished up a plate of carnitas and tortillas. He ignored the salad. “I should have thought.”
After dinner, Mac announced a debriefing session in the conference room. Paulina took the children elsewhere, and Carolina went to help her. But Mac shook his head. “Carolina, can you join us? And bring your computer?”
She looked puzzled, but she nodded. Mac led the session. Just got everyone to talk mostly. Janet was jotting down notes. Probably a story list.
“Carolina, is that your father’s laptop?” Mac asked, trying to keep it casual. Given the silence in the room, he didn’t do a particularly good job of it.
She nodded. “He let me use it,” she said, a bit defensively.
“I’m sure he’d be glad you grabbed it,” Mac said, and she relaxed. “Could you let Shorty take a look at what’s on it? Someone wiped the hard drive on his computer at work. And emptied his file drawers. It might be useful to see if some of it is here.”
Shorty smiled at the teenager. “I’ll swap you,” he said. “A new one for that old one?” He had a pile of laptops sitting behind him, under the whiteboard. She nodded, and he gave her one.
“Could you go help Paulina now?” Anna suggested. “Those kids are a handful.”
They waited until she was out of the room. “I think they may have staged that second drive-by in part to scare everyone out of the neighborhood to get that laptop,” Mac said. “So let’s figure out why.”
Mac detailed the rest of his discussion with the director of IA, Trevor Lorde.
“Janet, can we get the courts reporter to look into a couple of things: one, the status of all the people charged last spring? Two, any lawsuits involving the police union — probably on someone’s behalf — and the city? Or the department?”
She nodded, and jotted that down.
“Joe? Lorde said to ask you about a murder at Green Lake Reservoir you investigated in July,” Mac said. “That ring a bell?”
“Oh yeah, it rings a bell all right,” Joe said disgustedly. “A guy drowns in the reservoir. Suspected homicide. I catch the case. I get out there and the cops from North Precinct have botched the scene so bad the crime scene team are screaming at them. I try to intervene, but then I look around and think, holy shit, let them yell. The reservoir manager wants the body out of his reservoir, understandably. So, the cops pull him out — with fishing gaffs. Those long poles with a hook on the end? And they tear him apart getting him out. It’s a mess. And then they trampled the scene. Couldn’t have done a better job to compromise the case if they tried.”
Joe got a strange look on his face. “Were they trying to compromise the case?”
“Any chance you remember who the uniformed cops were?” Mac asked.
Joe snorted. “Hightower, Donovan, and Mason, the dumb shits that came after Rodriguez in the hospital that first night,” he said.
Mac looked at Janet. “Be interesting if Mike Brewster could see how many cases have been thrown out of court for compromised evidence that has those names attached.”
He looked back at Joe. “Who was the dead guy?”
Joe shook his head. “Don’t recall, to be honest. It took a while to get that report back.”
“Black, White? Other?” Mac asked, his eyes narrowed.
Joe frowned. “It was four months ago, and other than those three assholes being numb nuts at a crime scene? It wasn’t particularly remarkable. I think it was ruled a suicide. But the man was Black.”
“Joe, I think you need to take another look at that case,” Mac said. “You’ve done data searches before. Or work with Shorty. How many Black men have committed suicide in public spaces? And who was the responding officer? Who made the suicide call?”
“Mac?” Joe started, looking sick.
“I read something, somewhere,” Mac said, frowning. “It will come to me.”
There was a whole list of items to go through. Shorty was working on a laptop. Janet was making a list.
Finally Mac said, “Our real problem is that our new phones are already compromised. Anyone know how? You called someone? No shame or blame. But we’ve got to figure it out.”
“Whose phones?” Shorty asked, his eyes narrowed in thought.
“Angie received a text from me that I didn’t send. Anna got a call from her office to her phone, a number they didn’t have, and no one recalls using,” Mac said. “Anyone else?”
“I called the director back at the end of the day like he asked,” Anna said tiredly. “No one admitted to calling me in.”
“Juan? Anything weird when you went to work Sunday?” Mac asked.
He shook his head. “And I was expecting something, you know? But no, it was a normal night.”
Shorty suddenly winced. “Shit,” he said. “All they would have to do is sit outside the hospital and monitor for calls. Cell phones essentially broadcast in the open. And while that would be a bad data sort to do, it’s doable if you’ve got the resources to do it. Best guess, they used the numbers of whoever they grabbed. Almost at random.”
Everyone sat in silence. “Can they trace these phones here?” Mac asked slowly. “My phone? Can’t Anna’s. I had her destroy the sim card. But mine? And Angie’s?”
“Maybe,” Shorty said. “Shit! Damnit, I screwed up.”
“So we get rid of those phones tonight,” Joe said with a shrug. “Send them out with whoever the guard is, and tell him to dump both of them at the nearest Motel 6.”
People laughed, and Angie blushed a bit. “Joe,” she scolded.
He shrugged. “Give them a plausible story,” he said. “Best we can do.”
Mac nodded. He got his phone out, erased it completely. Then he erased Angie’s phone too. “I’ll run them up,” he promised. “What else?”
“Mac, I’ve got a question for you,” Stan Warren said. He’d been silent, listening to the discussion all evening. “Do you have the database of Sensei’s newsletter subscribers?”
Mac stared at him. “Yes. It’s in the car with the weapons. I’ll get it when I come back in. Shorty? Can you run a cross-match on the names we come up with? Against that database?”
Shorty nodded.
“Who knows you have it?” Stan followed up.
Mac considered that. “Rand,” he said. “He was there when I pulled the hard drive. Shorty, because he’s been helping me manage the list. I’ve been sending out gun safety and civic engagement messages,” he added. “Figured they were too volatile to be cut off abruptly.”
Stan snorted. “Rebecca Nesbitt will be glad to hear it’s you,” he said. “She’s been paranoid someone was picking up where the Sensei left off. Rand assured her he didn’t think that was the case. Now I know why he’s been amused by the whole thing.”
Mac was silent. “Well that’s the other person who probably knows,” Mac said. “Edward Peabody, the Sensei, probably knows. He saw me pull the hard drive at least. Is he locked up?”
“He pleaded guilty to a federal charge of terrorism,” Stan said. “State murder charges are still pending. But he’s in federal prison. I got the impression he did it to protect himself from someone. Not you,” he added. “But someone else.”
“Could be,” Mac agreed, ignoring the suspicion that he might have gone after Peabody. If he was going to do that, he would have already and Peabody would have been found dead in his home near Mount Vernon. He’d been tempted. “If Norton and some of the others think he would toss them to the wolves and cut a deal, they’d take him out. Not a doubt about it.”
“Norton and Malloy are loose, however,” Stan Warren went on. “They’re out on bail, pending a court date.”
Mac nodded. He didn’t tell the larger group about Craig Anderson. He still didn’t know what to think about him. Maybe he should ask Angie. She’d met him. And she was a good judge of people.
“Anything else?” Mac asked. No one had anything to contribute. “Angie, want to go for a walk to the guard house?”
She nodded, and they walked up the hill instead of taking the trolley. Mac told her about Craig Anderson. “Do you buy it?” he asked.
She thought about it while he handed the phones over to Brian Winters. He gave him detailed instructions, and reminded him to wipe down the phones before he disposed of them. He nodded. Mac half-expected him to write it down, he was taking it so seriously. Seriously was good.
“Can we walk the loop?” Angie asked. There was a gravel path that wandered around the circumference of the property, weaving through the trees and gardens. It had small solar lights that lit it even at night. Mac ran it most days, sometimes more than once. He wasn’t going to the gym, and he missed the exercise. He wondered if he could set up a workout room here. He should if this was going to drag out.
“I trusted Craig with my life,” Angie said finally. “Do I trust him in this? I don’t know, Mac. I’d like to know what it was they’re holding over his head.”
“Probably something that would get his gun dealer’s license pulled,” Mac said thinking it over. “And that means a crime with a weapon involved. Murder, armed robbery, something. Just guessing. But he said the shop was all he had. He won’t risk losing it.”
Angie nodded. “I liked him,” she said. “And I want to trust him. But I can’t do it. He’s playing some cross game I think. Going along with them, toying with us. But he’s got his own agenda, and his own plan. And I’m not going to count on my life being a very high priority on his agenda.”
That fit, Mac thought. He nodded, and hugged her. “You are a very smart woman,” he said.
She laughed and waited while he opened up the back of his 4-Runner and pulled the Sensei’s hard drive out of the gun vault. He carefully locked everything back up. “Let’s get this to Shorty, and call it a night.”
She smiled up at him. “I hope you don’t mean sleep,” she teased.
He grinned at her. “Whatever you’re game for, babe. I’m there.”