Chapter Five

The sun had set, but plenty of ambient light remained, washing the evening sky with a mix of pinks and blues behind the silhouettes of the abandoned industrial buildings on Albany Street. Police in dark blue uniforms and helmets took position on the perimeter of the property, fenced on three sides with weathered chain-link that looked weak enough to knock down with a good, stiff push. Val and Grimes crouched beside their squad car, Grimes on his radio, giving last-minute instructions in a low voice.

Val checked her gear one more time. Sidearm loaded, safety on. Spare ammo, ready. Taser, charged. Club, check. Cuffs, secure. Gas mask ready to wear. Radio on, earbuds in. No one would give away their location through an errant blast of static or voice communication.

“Ready, Dawes?” Grimes said at last. She nodded. He pointed to the warehouse, a two-story rectangle of sheet metal, painted blue fifty years before and now flecked with silver and black. In front line, a wide, metallic front door marked the official business entrance, next to a garage-style roll-up unit for loading and unloading. A white rectangle hanging over the door had long ago displayed a corporate logo, lit up during business hours. All that remained now were shards of plastic and a few loose wires.

“Follow me,” Grimes said. He followed up with a terse “Moving in” to the rest of the team by radio and led Val in a crouched trot toward the warehouse. A half-dozen SWAT team members followed, rifles at the ready.

When they reached the building, Grimes nodded to Hodges, the SWAT team leader, who tried the door. Locked, of course. He waved them all back, attached something to the door frame, then scooted away. Pressed a button on a hand-held device. Val expected a loud bang, so the low-key “Whoof!” sound surprised her. The door swung open toward them, the locking mechanism a smoking, ruined mess.

“Love high-tech explosives, don’t you?” Grimes said with a grin. He led them inside, Val on his heels, SWAT team members spreading out into the cavernous space that greeted them. Grimes flicked a switch, and a few bare bulbs hanging from metal rafters provided dim light, just enough to move around. The room spanned at least forty feet wide and twenty feet deep, with no ceiling other than the slanted metal roof. A front service desk sat to one side, more a formality than an obstacle. Gray shelves lined each wall and formed rows from front to back, empty save for some trash left behind by squatters and vagrants.

“We’re in,” Shannon’s voice said in Val’s ear. The rear entry team.

“Us, too,” Grimes said. “Meet you in the middle.” They conducted a cursory search of the room and, as expected, found nobody.

“You want the gas now?” Hodges asked on the radio.

“Not yet,” Grimes said. “Let’s get a visual first. I want to find those stairs.”

Val recalled the building schematic. Behind the room’s rear wall, the warehouse had been divided into two levels. At one time, forklifts and freight elevators moved cargo in and out as needed. The manager’s office, which their targets had taken over, according to the informants, occupied the front left corner of the second level. Hodges postulated that the gunmen would position themselves up there, with clear sight of the stairs and both entrances. Shannon’s team, entering from the rear by the utility rooms and restrooms, should be waiting at the door.

No doubt the gunmen heard them come in. They’d be ready, too.

Val crept to the entrance, this time leading the charge. She glanced through the tiny window. Too dark to see much. Tried the handle. Unlocked. She took a deep breath, checked in with Grimes. He nodded and waved her inside.

She opened the door, and all hell broke loose.

***

Maggie McCloskey navigated her GMC Yukon through the Clayton residential neighborhoods, relying on her memory rather than the car’s built-in GPS. She didn’t trust devices—or people—that told her what to do, when, and how. When in an unfamiliar place, you couldn’t beat a good old-fashioned paper map.

Clayton was not an unfamiliar place.

True, she hadn’t driven here in almost ten years, but the city hadn’t changed much. Same crumbling streets, same feeling of hopeless poverty and despair. Few children played outside, unless you called roaming street gangs “kids at play.” In some ways, it had gotten worse. Her favorite salon had closed, replaced by a sleazy check-cashing service run by the damned Arabs or Iranians. Probably used their exorbitant fees to finance plots against America. Next door, her favorite Italian eatery had sold out to the Mexicans. Burritos and tacos. Cheap crap that made people smell. Disgusting.

Even worse, at least a quarter of the shops along the strip had closed and remained shuttered. Faded painted lettering in picture windows, some half-covered with planks or plywood, spoke of better times in America’s past. Before minorities had taken over everything. Proud times. Gone.

The corner where she’d always turned to go home, though, remained the same. The independent gas station and convenience store on one side, run by Zach and Nora Reynolds, deacons in the church Maggie used to attend. Sweet couple. On the other corner, Taylor’s Burgers and Shakes. Brig Taylor and his wife often donated their money and time to Liberty Heights High’s sports teams.

The Reynolds and the Taylors acted as gatekeepers of sorts: hard-working, honest, church-going folk who paid their taxes, sent their kids to the best schools they could afford, and served their community. Driving on, she passed modest homes with mature landscaping, moss-free siding and roofs, and clean, late-model cars in the driveways instead of on the street. People here still cared. They kept their houses nice, mowed their lawns, flew the flag—and not just on the Fourth of July, five days away. All year-round.

Most of the houses, anyway.

She pulled up in front of the home where she’d lived for fifteen years, the one she and her first husband bought after God gave them their first beautiful son. They’d had such big dreams then. She’d had no idea how hard it was to raise children. Stupid her, though: she’d gone on to have two more, even after learning from the first one how much sacrifice it required. Her own dumb fault for falling in love.

She focused again on the property and sighed in frustration. Weeds choked the front lawn. Paint flaked off the trim around the windows, and the roof needed replacing. Her ex had let the place go to pot. Like their marriage, and everything else he ever touched. Like the filthy, paint-scratched old SUV parked in the driveway, in stark contrast to her immaculate, two-year-old Yukon, its leather seats as pristine as the day she first leased the vehicle.

The entire scene—lawn, windows, roof, SUV—reflected the utter lack of discipline with which he’d lived his life. For that matter, even in how he raised the kids. In their seventeen years together, he never laid a hand on either of them. He “didn’t believe” in spanking, or correcting them at all, it seemed. So they trampled all over him, never respecting him, and that bled over into her relationship with them. No doubt he poisoned their minds about her after she left.

She’d considered stopping, confronting him, demanding answers. A scrap of news about the kids, at least. But the condition of the house and yard told her everything she needed to know. He’d neglected himself and the kids as much as his castle. No doubt about it.

It seemed unlikely, then, that he’d help her reconnect with their now-grown children. After all, if they’d stayed close, wouldn’t they pitch in with the upkeep? Plus, he’d done everything he could to keep them away from her over the years, out of spite. She’d need to find another way to reach them.

Maggie drove on. She’d lived a life without regrets, for the most part. This was not the moment to start. She had people to see, anyway. Business to conduct. America’s business.

Try as she might, the image burned into her memory from the last time she drove away from that home flared into focus. The moment that symbolized her one true regret. A young girl, her face heavy with confusion, watching her mother leave for reasons Maggie couldn’t confess. The girl would navigate her teen years without a strong female role model at home, and only a weak man to fill the gap.

It almost made her turn around and abandon her plans.

Almost. She hadn’t then, and she wouldn’t now.

She drove on, heading east, toward downtown. About a mile from the city’s center, she turned north on Albany Street. Her associates had set up operations in a shuttered warehouse a few miles from City Hall in the decaying manufacturing district. Back in the day, it thrived, and the city’s port served as a shipping hub in the region. Now, the extent of the city’s decline became more obvious with every passing block. Many industrial sites, once the core of the region’s blue-collar economy, appeared abandoned, with plywood covering broken windows, back-lit signs now dark and missing letters, parking lots empty. Shards of glass and shreds of garbage littered the streets, clogging the sewer drains. A mess.

A block before she reached her destination, though, the police had shut down the street. Squad cars blockaded the traffic lanes in both directions, blue and red lights flashing. Officers stood at the ready, hands positioned near their weapons, their expressions all business. Yellow crime scene tape circled the entire block.

No, not just the block. Another layer of uniformed police surrounded the old warehouse building itself, weapons drawn. Looking ready…to attack.

A raid! On the local Patriots Pride chapter! How—?

She turned onto a side street, hands shaking. Frustrated, she obeyed the slow speed limit for several blocks until the flashing lights disappeared from her rear view. Then she gunned it, taking the next corner on two wheels, rubber burning on the pavement, and accelerated toward the highway.

A city cop car appeared in the left lane, heading toward her. Maggie pulled over. The cop whizzed by, siren blaring, lights flashing. More help for the crime scene behind her. Moments later, a series of loud pop-pop-pop noises filled the air. Gunfire!

She remained on the side of the road, engine running, heart pounding, trying to catch her breath. Had she come straight to Headquarters instead of driving by her old house, they might have trapped her inside, swept her up in the operation. Caught her in the crossfire, even. At the very least, they’d have carted her away to jail with the rest. Unlikely she could talk her way out of it, either. They would run background checks, find too many red flags.

Her connections would have been of no use, then. They’d have cut her loose, despite her many years of loyal service. They’d find others to pick up the slack.

After several minutes, she regained control of her breathing. Her pulse slowed to almost normal, and her hands finally stopped shaking. Too close.

She phoned her superiors in Florida who’d set up this meeting. Told them what she saw.

“Stay in town, but lie low,” they said. “Wait for further instructions.”

She hung up. Time to find a motel that took cash payments and asked no questions.