Matthews was still running around, shouting orders, when twenty or thirty locos swarmed out of the stacks with shotguns, baseball bats and machetes, yelling like maniacs and knocking over boxes and crap. They must've come in through the dock while Matthews' guys were busy searching the back of the warehouse and guarding the prisoners.
The locos belonged to Heberto's crew, but I saw Dwayne, Deacon's mechanic, and Miguel, his part-time guy, run out of the stacks carrying Mossberg pumps and stop dead in their tracks, gaping at the bomb and Matthews' goons and the prisoners lying on the floor. Castel and a dozen greasers with handguns and knives came out behind us, on the other side of the Lexus, but they jumped behind some crates when they saw the crowd around the office, yelling back and forth in Spanish. Matthews had screwed up big time. When he tailed us back to Oakland, he never realized he had company. It was hard to believe, but Deacon and Heberto must've spotted us getting into Crewcut's van in that alley after we got snatched coming out of Yah Joe. I remembered seeing Deacon's tow truck go by and there must've been locos all over the place. They'd followed us to the warehouse and Matthews missed them completely. So did Crewcut. Maybe they were preoccupied or never saw them on the dark streets in the rain.
Deacon and Heberto weren't exactly rocket scientists, but they could be pretty sneaky. I never found out what they thought was going on, but they probably figured I was selling them out to some other gang looking to take over their territory. It had to be something like that or they wouldn't have called in all their scuzzballs. What a joke. They never expected to barge in on a mob of armed feds guarding an atom bomb.
"FBI!" Matthews shouted, waving his fake ID. "Put down your weapons! You're under arrest!"
That was a laugh. Everybody was yelling and pumping their shotguns, trying to get out of the line of fire in this massive standoff with thirty or forty guys. Heberto's crew was all around us. They hunkered down in the stacks, hiding behind crates and anything they could find, shouting at each other and scrambling for better cover. The aisles running through the stacks were kind of dark and it was hard to see anybody back in the shadows.
"Where'd they come from?" Brown looked stunned.
We were sitting ducks, completely exposed under the lights. Matthews' team was caught in the middle of the open space in front of the office and the only cover was the table, the Lexus and the bomb. They forgot about their prisoners and bunched up together with their guns pointing in every direction while Crewcut's goons started crawling around, trying to get away in all the confusion. A couple fights broke out, spooks wrestling with spooks while Matthews shouted at everyone to surrender. I saw Baldy jump to his feet and deck some guy with a single blow, running off with his machine gun.
"Fuck this!" Arn yelled.
We ran over to the Lexus and huddled behind the trunk, too freaked out to try the car doors or make a break for the exits. I was panting. Arn had turned bug-eyed and pale. We were still in the open, exposed to all the cross-fire if somebody went nuts, but I couldn't think of anything else to do. Matthews had blown it, just like Crewcut, losing control in a matter of seconds. Our guards had vanished, running into the stacks. I thought I saw one of them crouching behind a pillar.
Matthews moved away from the table, digging around for something in his pocket. His team had crowded together about ten feet away from us, yelling at each other and trying to cover the stacks with their guns. Crewcut was hiding under the table and a couple guys had ducked into the office, where they peered around the edge of the door. Nobody paid any attention as Brown crawled over to the Lexus, dragging the briefcase and suitcase as he squirmed across the floor. The lunatic had grabbed them off the table when nobody was looking.
"This is the FBI!" Matthews shouted, turning around in circles with his ID in the air. "Lay down your weapons and surrender! Do it now!"
"Joda a su madre! Cara de pito!"
"We got you surrounded, capullo. Why don't you fucking surrender?"
Heberto's crew laughed and yelled all around us and I didn't like the sound of their voices. They'd grown up fighting turf wars in Third World slums full of death squads and corrupt policia. They weren't scared of cops or jail and nobody knew what they were going to do from one minute to the next because they didn't know themselves. As far as they were concerned, Matthews was just another gringo cop with a big mouth and a badge out of a cereal box, a paddy burocrata just begging to get carved up and fed to the dogs. They hooted at him and laughed at his cornered agents shouting like a bunch of frightened putas. Somebody found a tin can and bounced it off his head.
"Parada!" a familiar voice yelled. "Parada!"
Deacon and Heberto walked out of the stacks and stopped a couple feet from Matthews, shouting at the locos to keep it down and hold their fire. Deacon was carrying a double-barrel shotgun and he looked wet and confused, his gut bulging under a flowered shirt. Heberto came off relaxed, pointing a revolver at the rafters and calling to his men in Spanish. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt with an armpit shoulder holster, and he put away his gun when things started to calm down. The yelling died to a murmur and the warehouse got so quiet I could hear the rain beating on the roof and trickling through the gutters. A foghorn sounded in the harbor.
"What is this?" Deacon asked. "Who the hell are you?"
"Matthews. FBI." Matthews gave him his ID. "Tell your men to put down their weapons and withdraw before this gets out of hand."
"Look around you," Heberto said. "You are in no position to make demands."
"We have a crisis situation here." Matthews was sweating bullets. "You're interfering with federal law enforcement and I'm telling you to lay down your weapons and withdraw."
"Bullshit." Heberto frowned at the bomb. "What is that thing?"
"It's a bomb," Matthews said. "It could go off at any time. Tell your men to withdraw. Your lives are in danger. The whole city's in danger."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Deacon looked worried, turning the ID over in his hands, then passing it to Heberto. "We thought you was somebody else." He looked over at the bomb, his eyes narrowing. "What kind of bomb?"
"There's no time to explain," Matthews said desperately. "Listen, I know who you are, but I'm not interested in you or your activities and I don't care why you're here. That's not my jurisdiction. Tell them to lay down their weapons and withdraw and we can resolve this without a lot of pointless bloodshed. Just walk away and that's the end of it."
"Not so fast." Deacon looked over at the Lexus. "We came for the car and the rat who took it. There's some cops who want them back and we ain't leaving without them."
"Oakland cops?" Matthews shook his head. "If you're talking about the Latham corruption scandal, your source for that story is an informer working for a Customs task force investigating your organization."
Deacon blinked at him. "Say what?"
"Just walk away. There's no time to argue about this."
"We are screwed, socio." Heberto turned to Deacon, shaking his head. "Leave the car to the pigs. Me vale or me vale madre." He nodded at the bomb. "There is some kind of dirty business here."
"There she is." Deacon had spotted me cowering by the Lexus. "I took you in, you piece of shit. I treated you like my own daughter. I bailed you out when you didn't have crap and you tried to screw me like it never happened."
"What?" I yelled back. "What did I do?"
"Forget it, my friend." Heberto clutched Deacon's arm. "We'll take care of that later."
"Take care of what?" I jumped to my feet, the lights blurring. "You think I'm a rat?" I had tunnel vision. All I could see was Deacon's flushed and bloated face, his jowls and piggy eyes. "Who told you that? Jacobo? I told you it was Jacobo all along, you stupid jackoff. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen to me you had your head rammed so far up your fat ass."
"You're dead," he yelled, so furious he'd forgotten everything around him. "I'm gonna finish this right now."
He lurched forward, raising his gun, and chambers clattered all around us. Heberto jumped in front of him and grabbed his wrist.
"No, companero. No!"
"This ain't over," Deacon ranted at me. "I'm gonna rip your guts out and feed them to my cats."
"Screw you!"
I lost it, I guess. Didn't know what I was doing. I started at him, but Matthews blocked my way, pointing his gun at my head.
"Stop right there, Emma."
"What's the matter with you?" Arn grabbed my arm. "Look where we are, you moron."
He dragged me back to the car while Heberto got his partner under control, stepping between us and putting his arm around Deacon's shoulder. Matthews was really sweating now. He was about to say something when he got interrupted by a squawl of static that echoed through the warehouse.
"FREEZE," a huge voice yelled over a bullhorn. "THIS IS THE POLICE. DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR."