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(Seattle, Washington, Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 1, 2013)
Rodriguez was furious, but it was so contained it was like sitting next to a bomb. You knew it was going to explode, but you didn’t know when. You just wanted to make sure it wasn’t at you. Stan Warren could relate—he was unhappy too. They were still at the Fairchild house, but he was feeling like they needed to get out of there, and soon.
Someone had walked into the holding area at the police station and signed out Benjamin Ryan. The signature was unreadable, but it had to be a cop. Ryan was gone, and Rodriguez was now confronted with the fact that there were officers whose allegiance was suspect. It was one thing to guess that might be true—another thing to be slapped in the face with the reality of it. There were surveillance tapes, and eventually the PD would find out who did it. Someone’s career was likely over.
“Hope it’s someone who’s a shitty cop to begin with,” Rodriguez growled. “Because whoever did it will answer to me, and they won’t like it.”
Mac said nothing. He had a low opinion of cops, so betrayal from them didn’t feel like betrayal. For him it was about logistics. “So, if you don’t know who to trust, how are you going to monitor all these places?”
Rodriguez growled. “Some cops I know well,” he said at last, fury still coloring his voice. “Pull from women officers—there’s a couple of lesbians I’m pretty sure aren’t in the Army of God cheering section.”
“Black officers,” Warren offered. “Army of God isn’t white supremacist per se, but they primarily pull from the evangelists who are white. Black churches haven’t gotten aboard with it really.”
Rodriguez grunted. He took a big sip of coffee. Naomi Fairchild had gotten home at 5 p.m., taken one look at those in her dining room, and started making coffee. Cookies had come out of the cupboards. Kate had taken their boarders out for dinner to get them out of the way. Mac, Timothy Brandt, Eli Andrews, Stan Warren, and Rodriguez had been working over plans and intelligence all afternoon. Shorty had shown up around 4:30 p.m. and set up his computer. He’d contributed the most to their intelligence.
Mac kept glancing at the door. “So Ryan is out. They know where we are—probably who we are. We aren’t safe, and we’re endangering this house,” he said.
Rodriguez nodded. “Got a surveillance team on the way. They'll be here shortly,” he said, “and we’ll clear out. I’ve also got someone setting up a second team—we’ll meet up with them, and coordinate from their surveillance van. We can leave Brandt here. They’ll be safe.”
Mac shook his head. “He stays with me until this is over. We’ll need him when we go to Jehovah’s Valley and may not have time to swing back to get him. Besides, the Fairchild’s will be safer without him here.”
Timothy Brandt opened his mouth, then shut it when Mac shot him a stern look. He’d been quiet all afternoon, and no one had taken the time to explain things to him. Mac didn’t know what he’d figured out. Didn’t care.
Stan Warren had stationed himself beside a window and kept watch. “I’d guess that’s our surveillance team,” he said dryly.
Mac looked out, standing alongside the window automatically. Shorty would never let him live it down if he got shot through a window because he stood in front of it. He looked back at Rodriguez. “For real? That’s your notion of a surveillance vehicle? Why not equip it with SPD plates and be done with it?”
It was a newish white van. No markings. Mac sighed. “You all need to use a public works van. Nobody notices them.”
Shorty grinned. The last time they’d needed a van, they’d used one of his father’s. Nobody noticed a landscape maintenance van either. Of course, one of Mac’s Marine buddies had suggested hotwiring a public works van and stealing it. Thankfully Mac had shot that idea down—now that they were respectable and all.
Rodriguez grunted and opened up the front door. “Stop complaining and let’s get out of here,” he said. “Besides. We asked Public Works for a couple of vans and they turned us down. Didn’t want people to question their legitimate vans.”
Mac snorted. Media had been vehement about that issue as well. No cops, no military masquerading as reporters. Of course, he knew reporters who were fine about letting people believe they were cops.
He sought out Naomi Fairchild. “Thanks for letting us barge in here like this,” he said. “And especially thank you for keeping Pulitzer. Dogs really aren’t my thing.” He looked at the shaggy dog, who leaned against Naomi’s leg, and shook his head. “And Pulitzer is really...” He hesitated, not knowing quite how to finish his description of the large, dirty mutt.
Naomi patted his arm. “I’ll give him a bath,” she said. “He does smell of smoke, doesn’t he? He seems well trained though.”
Mac looked at Pulitzer doubtfully. Naomi laughed at his expression.
Then she said “You came when Kate called. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
“Tell her...” Mac hesitated, not knowing how to finish.
Naomi smiled. “I’ll tell her you’ll call when you can,” she said.
“Yeah, that will do,” he said while heading out the door.
They didn’t lack for transportation. While Rodriguez gave his officers instructions, the rest sorted themselves out.
“Teams will meet up at the Denny’s on Aurora,” Rodriguez said. Mac rolled his eyes. Stan caught his eye and shook his head, and Mac kept quiet. Stan was right—Rodriguez was short-tempered enough without more needling. Even if it was fun.
Stan Warren ended up in his rental Camry by himself. Shorty agreed to let the rest of them ride in his Lexus.
He fell into line behind Rodriguez’s unmarked car.
“You still keep an arsenal under the floor of your 4-Runner?” Shorty asked Mac.
Mac grunted.
“So... we head there, you get your rig, and I’m out of this, right?”
“Need you, dude,” he said, with a slanted eye glance toward the two silent passengers in the back seat. “Besides, I can’t fit all of us in my vehicle unless we stuff someone in the trunk.”
Shorty sighed. “Better let Rodriguez know we’re taking a detour. I don’t think he trusts you much.”
Shorty pulled into the parking spot next to Mac’s 4-Runner. Mac motioned for the back-seat passengers to stay put. He opened up the back of his rig, moved things off the floor. The floor was actually a box raised 4 inches over what used to be the tire well for the spare. It required a key to open it up.
“Jesus Christ, Mac,” Shorty said. “You’ve got enough fire power here to invade a third-world country!”
Mac grunted. “Lindy wanted me to get it out of the house. She got paranoid about a house fire.” He shrugged. She might have a point, thinking about what would have happened if Janet had had an arsenal like this in her house when it went up in smoke.
“Stand guard,” Mac said. “I’ve got a few more things I want from the house.”
Shorty slammed down the SUV’s back hatch, leaned against it. He positioned himself where he could see the two people in his car and the gate that Mac had just disappeared through. He could also watch the alley in both directions. Good thing neither cop had followed them here, he thought. Mac’s paranoia might be hard to explain. He snorted as the old line, ‘it isn’t paranoia if they really are out to get you,’ echoed in his brain. With Mac, someone probably was out to get him.
Mac came back with a duffle bag over his shoulder, and a grocery sack. He tossed the duffle bag in the passenger seat and handed the grocery bag to Shorty.
“Lindy says hi, thought we might need some food for the road,” he said.
Shorty peered into the bag. Sandwiches, Cokes, and Mountain Dew. He handed the Mountain Dew to Mac, who put it in his SUV cupholder. No one else would want that shit if they could have something better, Shorty thought. He handed sandwiches to Eli and Timothy. Took one himself. Tuna fish... fine with him.
It appeared to be fine with the other men too. Eli wolfed it down as if it had been awhile since he’d had a regular meal. Probably had been, Shorty conceded. Tim seemed to be eating because he was told to, not because he was hungry. Also fine with him.
“OK, Mac,” Shorty said, swallowing a bite of sandwich. “Do we have a plan?”
Mac shrugged. “We meet up with Rodriguez and Warren. See what the cops know. We go find the bad guys and fuck them up. Then we go to Jehovah’s Valley and get Janet back. Take down any Army of God members who are left.”
Shorty nodded. That was a Mac Davis plan if he ever heard one. Fuck up the bad guys, rescue the girl.
“Oh, and I got to file a story before we leave town,” he added.
Shorty swallowed Coke wrong and coughed. Well, that was a new twist at least.
The Denny’s parking lot held a large RV with antennas, three empty unmarked police cars, Warren’s Camry, and a bunch of cars that Mac assumed actually belonged to patrons eating at the Denny’s. He winced at the thought. He didn’t think he’d eaten at a Denny’s since he quit drinking. He might have to start drinking again after this meal he thought with a slight chuckle.
Mac parked and walked over to Shorty’s car door and opened it. Watched Shorty for a moment.
“Are you attempting to hack a police operation?” he asked.
Shorty pulled out his laptop and looked for Wi-Fi. “One thing Denny’s is good for,” he muttered, as he logged on to the Internet as a guest user. “Almost done,” Shorty said a few minutes later, absently. “Really, just pirating their communications. Open airwaves and all that.”
Tim Brandt was watching Shorty with interest. He’d been cooperative, if silent. Mac was grateful, although he felt like he ought to be concerned, or suspicious. But he figured Shorty could handle him. Hell, Brandt wasn’t much older than the high school students he dealt with all the time.
Mac looked at Shorty tapping away at his computer, and almost joined him. “You hacking into the cops’ feed?” he asked.
“Almost in,” Shorty said. “Then whatever you see, I see.”
Mac snorted. “I was joking.”
Shorty shrugged. “I’m in. Not joking.
He looked up at Mac. “Go on. We’ll be fine out here. I’ll know everything they know, and everything I can find. I’ll text you if I find something useful. You go be a good team player.” He started laughing.
“Team player,” Shorty repeated, looking up at the scowl on Mac’s face.
Mac slammed the car door, and stalked over to the RV. He hated being a team player. Unless it was football. Or a Marine fire team. Something with goals.
Mac leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He didn’t need to hear all the details of their planning. He just needed to get close to the SOB who was running the show. The RV didn’t reassure Mac about the subtlety of the operation, but he had to admit the tech toys inside were impressive. Looked just like on TV. He kept that observation to himself as well.
But he was restless. What Rodriguez was doing was a by-the-book sting operation. Sure, he was doing it off the books, not involving the terrorism task force, or even keeping his boss informed. His boss had been told the bare bones, but after Benjamin Ryan had been released, Rodriguez shut down any information leaving his group.
But other than that, it was a typical cop operation. Stake out the potential sites, wait for the bad guys to show up and do something that they could be arrested for. Even if it meant that a clinic went up with a bomb.
And that made him itchy. What would Janet do? He thought with amusement. What would she do indeed?
When in doubt print, she had said more than once. That’s what we do. We tell the story as we know the story. We can’t withhold information from the public simply because we think we know better than they do.
Would she really print the story now? Mac shoved his hands deeper in his pockets. He looked at the RV and the surveillance vans. They had two now. Seven clinics.
Those odds weren’t good. Some clinic was going to blow up. Probably more than one.
He realized Eli was standing next to him. He hadn’t even seen him come into the RV. He didn’t speak until Mac looked at him.
“They think like cops,” Eli said softly. “Cops, not counterterrorism.”
Mac considered that for a moment. He nodded. They didn’t think like reporters, either. “Come on,” he said quietly. “Let’s talk outside.”
“So where are we going, Sarge?” Eli asked as they stood breathing the fresh air outside the RV.
“I think we need to see the clinics,” Mac said, heading toward Shorty’s Lexus to brief him. Shorty could continue to monitor what was going on in the RV. He grumbled about being a secretary slash baby-sitter, but he said he’d stick with it.
Mac looked at Brandt. “Stay put. Shorty will take care of you. Don’t decide you can disappear out of here. Because Ryan’s had time to report in by now, and Army of God will be looking for you. You run and you’ll end up dead.”
Timothy nodded. “I’ve got that much figured out,” he said quietly. “Lots of questions, but I’m not going to run.”
Mac shut the car door, slapped the roof once, and walked away. At least they had a comfortable car to watch the action from.
Mac got behind the wheel of his 4-Runner. As he pulled away, he saw Stan Warren on the steps of the RV. Warren waved, and then turned back into the RV.
Mac handed Eli a map of Seattle with the Planned Parenthood Clinics marked on them. “I’m going to head north to Northgate Mall first,” he said, “then come down to the one near the University of Washington. If you were running this op from the Army of God side, how would you set it up?”
Eli studied the map silently, his finger tracing the connections between the six sites in Seattle, another in Bellevue, and one in Tacoma. Mac got the feeling he wasn’t particularly familiar with the city. Probably not, he thought. Downtown, yeah. But the burbs? Not so much. He’d known where Janet lived, but then he might have lived there, once. Mac wasn’t sure exactly when they’d stopped living together. Not sure he wanted the details. Most certainly he wasn’t going to ask. Not either of them.
“Set up teams,” Eli said finally. “They hit two, maybe three places. Have the clinics all ready to go up in flames. And then the teams head out to a meet-up point.”
Mac nodded. That’s how he figured it too.
“Think their meet-up point is Jehovah’s Valley?” he asked. “Or do they regroup here first?”
“Probably got some locals with them. Drop them off.” He paused, looked out the window. “Probably alive. Wouldn’t burn bridges by killing local assets, although it would be safer. But assumed names, not from here? Yeah, leave them alive. Then they head out.”
He glanced over at Mac. “Going to be a firefight at the Valley,” he said. “If we left now, we’d get there ahead of them.”
Mac considered it. He took the exit to the health clinics across I-5 from the mall. Traffic was bad. Of course it was. It was always bad. They could leave. Rodriguez was doing his thing. He could call Shorty, have him meet up with them in Bellevue and they’d be on the road, an hour, maybe two ahead of the Army of God people.
“Lot of innocents in the Valley,” Eli said. “Must be 100 folks with kids and all.”
“Nearly 200,” Mac said. “But not all of them are innocent. And we don’t know for sure who will fight with us or against us.”
“Always a problem on the ground,” Eli agreed. “But we know Brother Welch is going to be against us.” His grin was wolfish and didn’t reach his eyes.
Mac’s grin matched.
But no, they couldn’t leave yet, he decided, even though it made sense in many ways. They could get there, get Janet out before the Army of God bastards even got there. Stick it out to take them down if that’s what Janet wanted. Or just get the hell out and come home. He thought that over. Thought about zealots, and isolated communities. “You think Army of God would destroy the Valley if they get there and Janet’s gone?” Mac asked, as he parked in front of the storefront clinic.
Eli tilted his head, consideringly. “Saw it happen, in Kuwait. Both sides. If you weren’t sure which side the town was on, they’d just raze it.”
“Yeah, Afghanistan too.” He thought of the nice people in that church. He’d not lose any sleep if Army of God decided the Welch men had betrayed them. But who would protect the rest of them? People who could give up descriptions and details. Army of God was ruthless.
And there was another problem. He kept hearing Janet’s voice telling him to get the story. Protect her city. Then come for her. He was going to fucking kill Warren for his What Would Janet Do joke.
“Fuck,” Mac said. “We’ve got to stay here until we break this story. Stop them if we can. I can’t leave the newspaper in a lurch either. Got to file the story first.”
“OK,” Eli said.
“Just, OK?”
He shrugged. “You’re in charge.”
“God help us,” Mac muttered. He shoved the car into park but didn’t turn it off. “I’m going to go take a look. If you hear shots, drive out of here. Go back to Rodriguez.”
Eli shook his head. “Not going to do that, Sarge,” he said. “Not going to leave you behind. I got left behind. Not going to do that.”
Mac turned off the car. “OK,” he said. “OK.” He handed Eli his cellphone. Called up his address book, showed him Stan Warren’s number. “If you hear gun shots or if I don’t come back, call Warren. Before you come looking for me, you hear?”
Eli looked over the cell phone as if he hadn’t held one before. But he nodded.
Mac got out of the car, and using the front seat as a bench, checked through his backpack. Notebook. Camera. A recorder. In the bottom, his Glock, an extra magazine. He pulled out the Glock, checked it, added a suppressor and stuck it in the back of his jeans. He shrugged his jacket into place over it.
“You armed?” Mac asked conversationally, without looking at Eli.
“Knife,” the man said. “All I need.”
“You know what’s in the back,” Mac said, keeping his voice low and calm. “If you have to come get me, there’s better than a knife back there.”
“Not much better than a knife, Sarge,” Eli said, smiling. “If you know how to use one.”
Mac snorted. “True, but one of these means I don’t have to get quite so close.”
Medic, he thought, as he walked away. Fuck me he was a medic.
The clinic was actually the end office in a one-story strip mall that shared parking lots with the bigger hospital next door. The lights were still on. Probably stayed open as long as the shopping mall was open, Mac thought, as he walked through the parking lot. If this is wired to blow, it’s going to be a disaster.
The strip mall had four other medical-related offices. Well, he guessed you could call a weed shop medical. It was still strange to see the green version of the red cross on legal weed stores. This one was all bright and white from what he could tell through the window. It looked like a Botanicals store. Which he guessed in a sense it was.
The next office was a dermatology clinic. Same look, white and bright. Which seemed appropriate for a dermatology clinic. But it just seemed weird to buy weed in one like that. They had edibles. Tinctures. He shook his head. Times changed. Trust Seattle to make a yuppie version of a back of a bar transaction.
The third shop was...well he wasn’t sure. An office of some kind. A cutesy name. He shrugged. Didn’t matter. The office that mattered was on the end.
Like most Planned Parenthood offices, this one had a visible front entrance, and a back way in so escorts could get patients into the building even if there were protesters out front. Even in liberal Seattle there were often protesters. The same kinds of people who had been out in front of Janet’s place the night he chased them off. Same kind? Probably the same people.
Nobody was here protesting tonight, however. Mac didn’t know if that was coincidence, or because they’d been cautioned to stay away. Nothing seemed out of place in front, and Mac walked casually—as casually as he was capable of—along the side the building, back toward the darker delivery entrances. He thought he should be able to smell the accelerant, but given the smells of exhaust fumes from cars, he’d have to be a lot closer to the buildings. Or maybe there was nothing to smell. Maybe this wasn’t one of the clinics, or maybe they were wrong about all of it.
Maybe.
The quiet out here was unnerving. In the distance he could hear people. A car roared through the parking lot. Some teenagers were playing some loud music. And some little kid wanted to go home. Or wanted candy. Or both. Loudly.
But out here? Once he turned down the side of the building it was quiet. Too quiet, too dark. He could hear the faint buzz of the bright white metal halide lights used in the parking lot. His own footsteps seemed loud.
He turned another corner, and there were the loading docks for the four offices. The Planned Parenthood office had barricades to keep people back from their door. He looked around, moving closely to the building. Took a deep breath. A faint scent?
As he bent over to check along the base of the building where the diesel accelerant had been used at Janet’s place, he heard a car pull in.
He straightened, whirled, and pulled his Glock from under his jacket, but he was spotlighted by the headlights of some newish pickup with a powerful V8. He hesitated. He couldn’t just shoot.
But obviously the passenger didn’t have any such qualms. He twisted in time to turn the shot into a graze along his left arm. Fuck that hurt, he thought. He steadied his Glock to shoot back, when the driver got out of the pickup, and aimed a flare over the hood.
Mac tried for a shot at him, missed, but came close enough to make him duck. He whirled around, running for the parking lot. They were going to light that fucker up, and he needed to be far enough away that he didn’t go up with it.
A dark shape moved toward him, he sighted in for another shot, but realized in time that it was Eli. “Damn it, I almost shot you,” he grunted.
Eli slid his shoulder under Mac’s right arm as they limped-ran toward the front of the building.
“Shit,” Mac said, stopping. He panted a bit trying to get the pain to lessen. “We’ve got to make sure no one is in these offices.”
“We’ve got to go,” Eli said. “Called it in.”
“No time,” Mac said. He pounded on the door of the clinic, gesturing with his head for Eli to do the same to the other offices.
“Bomb,” Mac yelled, opening the clinic door. “In back. Get out now!”
The receptionist looked up, paled. She pushed some buzzer, Mac thought. “Get everyone out,” he repeated.
As he turned to run, he heard a fire alarm go off. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Eli pull away from the fire alarm, and head for the 4-Runner at a sprint. Mac clenched his teeth, shoved his weapon into his jacket pocket, and moved as fast as he could.
He was drenched with sweat as he leaned against the hood of his own rig. The clinic was brick, but like Janet’s place, there was still plenty to burn, starting with the loading dock. He stared at the edges of the fire, hoping that whoever had set it had stayed around to watch. But again, like Janet’s, no one seemed to be out of place. A cluster of women standing in the street. Some onlookers who came running from the main hospital. He could hear the fire truck in the distance.
“Did you see him?” Eli asked as he eased off Mac’s jacket.
Mac shook his head. “Blinded by his headlights,” he said. “Two of them. The passenger fired at me. Then the driver pulled out a flare, and I knew.”
Eli grunted. He shoved up Mac’s sleeve.
“He got you,” he said. “But in and out. I can bandage you up, but if the bleeding doesn’t stop, you’re going to need stitches.”
“No time,” Mac said through clenched teeth. “We’ve got to get out of here. If we’re here when the cops arrive, we’re going to be trapped answering questions for hours.”
Eli nodded, wrapped his arm, and handed him some Tylenol and a Mountain Dew.
“Did you see anything?” Mac asked him as he tossed the pills into the back of his mouth and took a swig of the Mountain Dew to wash it down.
“Dark pickup. A rental I’d guess. Two men. They were pulling out when I got to you.”
“You talk to Warren?”
“They’re all at the clinic on Capitol Hill. Said if you were still alive, to bring you there.”
He reached out his hand for his phone, snapped some photos.
“Let’s go,” he said, leveraging himself into the driver’s seat.
The fire truck was pulling in as they turned back onto I-5 and headed south.