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When Mac and Stan got back to the Parker house, Kevin and Brian Winters were waiting for them at the gate. Someone else was in the booth. He looked like he had settled in and was half-asleep already. Mac frowned. He glanced at Stan and saw he was looking at the guard booth too.
“I think we need to show them Rodriguez’s place,” Mac muttered. “Let me get Shorty, and I’ll do that. You need some sleep.”
“Not until this place is secure,” Stan said grimly. “And that’s not good.” He nodded back toward the guard. Mac parked his vehicle away from the house like he had earlier.
“I’ll put the fear of God into him,” Mac promised. “But you need some food and some sleep. This is for the long haul, Stan.”
Stan closed his eyes, and nodded. “OK,” he said. “I’m not much good right now anyway.”
“You got us this far, and Nick’s alive. The Moores are alive. So are Janet and Angie. Without you, that wouldn’t be the case,” Mac said. “So far, you’re doing good.”
“And when did you get to be the cheerleader type?” Stan said as he got out and headed toward the house.
“Angie,” Mac said sourly. “She doesn’t respond well to ‘suck it up, buttercup,’ but I could pull that out for you if you’d rather.”
Stan snorted. “I’m worried they had a spotter out there, Mac,” he said somberly. “They had someone watching. Had to have. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to target Nick — he was just going to the store. It was 10 p.m. So it wasn’t like he was going to work or something they could predict.” He hesitated, and then continued. “After Angie’s call to Shorty cut off and we were backing into the house, I was on the porch. And a sniper pinged the wall next to me. Missed me by inches, and believe me I moved faster. But that shot bothers me.”
Mac considered that and nodded. “Why would they shoot when they had all that firepower coming?”
Stan nodded, one professional paranoid to another. “You’re right. I’m too tired to think that through. It bugs me though.” Then he went looking for a bed.
Mac added it to his mental list of things to think about. Then he went looking for Shorty and found him and Janet hammering out a press release for the business page of the Examiner about the promising new startup. Janet was insisting that whatever they said had to be true. She wasn’t printing lies in her own paper.
“It is true,” Shorty said. “Just not everything. And no start-up would tell you everything either.”
Mac glanced at the sheet of paper between them. Well they had a name: Homecoming. And a slogan. Easing the transition from military to civilian life. He liked the name; the slogan needed work. “Solving the transition,” he said. “Shorty, I need you. Or at least I need your car.”
“We need some rental cars,” Shorty muttered. “What’s wrong with yours?”
“I need to take the Winters brothers to see the damage to the two houses,” he said. “Best wakeup call I can think of. And there’s not enough room for three of us in mine.”
Shorty looked torn. Mac didn’t think he let anyone drive his car. At the same time, there was this to deal with. Finally, Shorty sighed. “There’s food in the kitchen,” he said, and he handed Mac the keys.
Mac nodded, grabbed a sandwich, and headed back out. He explained to Kevin what he wanted to do, and Kevin got in the front seat. Brian got in back.
“So, I know your rep,” Kevin said. “I know people who know you. They say you’re a straight shooter, but if you’re involved in this, it’s serious.”
“And what will people say about you when I call around?” Mac asked.
Kevin considered that. “Good rep, won’t take on a job he can’t do. Small company, six men. Knows what it’s like to get out of the military and find civilian life hard to take.”
Mac snorted. “May need to bring you in on Shorty’s cover story too,” he said. “OK, so. Last night two cops I know were targeted. One’s in ICU. The other is at the house with a bullet wound in his leg. I want to show you what you’re getting into. The Parker house is pretty secure by design. But we need tight security at the gate, and a guard who’s napping like the one we just left won’t cut it. If the bad guys come for us, they’ve got real weaponry they’ll bring.”
Mac took I-5 north to avoid the U district, and got off on 73rd Street, and worked his way back down to 65th. He took the turn into the street the two families lived on and slowed down for a drive by.
“Holy shit,” Kevin Winters said softly.
“They came for Nick Rodriguez first, he’s a lieutenant in the Seattle Police Department,” Mac said quietly. “They had his partner trapped over at the bottom of Queen Anne. And when it looked like Nick was going to survive it, they came back and strafed the second house simply because the neighbor Juan Moore helped get Nick to the hospital, and his wife was sheltering the Rodriguez’s kids. There were seven kids inside when they opened fire on that house.”
Mac tamped down his rage at the reminder. “So that’s who we’re up against. That’s what they’re capable of. Rogue cops. Some serious technology geeks. And if you don’t want to be a part of it, or you think that gate is more than your firm can handle, say so. And no disrespect if you do. If you stay, though, you’re going to have to step up your game. We’re not talking about sorting tourists from realtors here.”
Kevin nodded, and Mac turned around in the cul-de-sac. No gawkers. No crime scene team, even yet. He shook his head, and headed back to Parker house.
“The other piece? We’re using the Parker house as a safe house. The cover is a tech start-up called Homecoming. Solving the transition from military to civilian life. Shorty Guillermo is handling that part of it. And if you’re in on the security detail, I’ll get you involved in that. Shorty is still protesting that it’s just a front, and not for real. However, I expect by Tuesday it will be a real thing. He’s talking himself into it — and setting up the cover is as much work as the start-up would be.”
Kevin nodded again. Finally, he sighed. “OK, I’m in. But it won’t be cheap, Mac. I’ll have to pull more men in, shorten their rotation. I’ve got good men, all veterans, but this assignment was a no brainer. It really has been naptime for some of my guards in between other gigs. And for Brian, who’s too new to the business to do much more yet. So, let’s hash out the protocols you want, and I’ll brief my men. We’ll do six hours on, instead of 12, and we’ll arm them.”
“They’re not armed now?” Mac said startled. He glanced back at Brian.
Kevin shook his head. “No, truly this was just a guard-in-name-only gig,” he said. “Someone to scare the tourists away, and to keep the key for realtors. You nailed that right. And you don’t need a gun for that. But we will for this. Probably more firepower than we have.”
Mac grimaced. “I’ll take care of that,’ he said. “We’ll put one of our men on the roof as well. You take care of the gate. And I’ll hand Weeks my sidearm when we go through the gate. Shit, it never even occurred to me to ask.”
Mac tried to wrap his brain around being stationed at a guard post without a firearm. Hell, he had one in his backpack when he went to the newspaper office!
Probably best if no one knew about that, though, he thought with an eyeroll.
“They all do know how to shoot, though, right?” he asked as he pulled up to the gate.
“I only hire vets,” Kevin replied. He considered that for a moment. “But a bit of brush up for some of them might not hurt.”
Mac shook his head. He got out of his car — well Shorty’s car — and stalked over to the guard station. He pulled his Glock out of his backpack and handed it to the startled man. “You know how to use this?” he demanded. The Winters brothers got out of the car behind him.
Benton Weeks looked at it. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“Good. Don’t come back on this job without a handgun or an AR-15 or both! Tuck this Glock away in the guardhouse when you leave.”
He heard Brian snicker. “And you don’t show up for work without a sidearm either,” Mac growled at the young man as he got back in the car. He looked at Kevin Winters. “Send me a detailed plan of action for the guard house, and an invoice,” he said. He gave him the email address Shorty had set up for him last spring. “I’ll see to it you get paid. But treat this as a compound of VIPs in a war zone. Plan accordingly.”
Kevin Winters nodded. Mac waited until they were gone before he pulled through the gate. Jesus. If he had any ideas for someone better, he would replace these guys in a heartbeat.
Suck it up, he told himself. You’ve trained worse.
Everyone was crowded into the large dining room when he found them. There was a taco buffet. Not the crappy hard-shelled kind either. These were soft tacos. All the trimmings and even sliced radishes. He grinned and filled a plate. Paulina was a smart woman, he thought. Easy to fix, no set meal time. Well, at least meals were on track, and that was no small thing.
He sat down next to Joe Dunbar. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“Better than Nick,” Joe said. He looked haggard. “I should have been there, Mac. Instead I got played for a chump.”
Mac shrugged. “And you would have died if you’d pulled up at the wrong moment,” he observed. “But you need to think. Who on the force would have known you would respond to a call pretending to be one of those guys from last spring? That’s not an obvious guess, Joe. You’re Black. Those were white supremacists stockpiling for a SHTF event. I knew you felt guilty about that asshole who went over the edge the day after you made calls. I doubt many would even consider that. Someone had to know you reasonably well to believe you’d go to a house to talk to a distraught man from last spring. Who?”
Joe considered that. “You’re right,” he said. “That’s a small number. I’ll make a list.”
Mac nodded. “Do you know what Nick was into? Did he say anything about IA?”
Joe shook his head. “We weren’t partners, per se,” he said. “Just two of the only non-white detectives in our unit. So we bounced things off of each other. But talking about IA? Nick doesn’t divulge secrets.”
Mac frowned. “So who was your partner? What about Nick’s?”
“Doesn’t really work like that,” Joe said. “You might get paired up with anyone in the unit, depending on need and schedule. But if you’re asking who worked with us closest? I’ll add that to my list.”
Mac nodded. “One more thing,” he said before he headed back for seconds on tacos. “Last year, when the department had problems responding to the Army of God problem, the police chief promised to investigate and to clean house. Did he? Anything actually get done?”
Joe was still thinking about that when Mac came back with a second plate of food. Mac looked over at Paulina and smiled. “These are really good,” he said sincerely. “Best I’ve had since I was in El Paso and would sneak across the border for authentic Mexican food.”
She smiled at him. “Gracias,” she said. “Where are you from? What part of Mexico?”
Mac shrugged. “I was born in the States,” he said. “Not sure about my father.”
She nodded. “It happens.”
Mac looked at her for a moment. “It does,” he agreed. And something eased inside of him. His father? Who knew what happened? Abandoning him to his crazy mother might not have been intentional for all kinds of reasons. It happens. He turned back to Joe as if there hadn’t been a major lightbulb moment. “Well?”
“They booted the man who let that suspect go,” Joe said slowly. “I remember that much. I wasn’t a part of all that, and I didn’t pay close attention. There was some shuffling. I don’t think anyone thought the problem went much deeper than that.”
“You trust the police chief?”
Joe shrugged. “God, Mac, I don’t know the man! Never met him. He’s got a good rep, but what does that mean? A good rep with who? Nick Rodriguez? Or Andy Malloy?”
Mac snorted. True, he thought. He told him about the FBI SAC’s visit to the hospital. “Any reason he shouldn’t reach out to the police chief? Tap into some money?”
“Not going to tell him where we are is he?” Joe asked, thinking about it.
“No,” Mac said. “Stan didn’t tell the SAC that.” And to give the man credit, he hadn’t asked. Mac moved the backgrounder on the Special Agent in Charge for the Seattle bureau higher up on his mental to-do list. At this rate, he was going to have to start writing things down.
Joe shrugged. “Then, I don’t see a problem. And we’re going to need money to run an operation like this.”
“We will,” Mac agreed. He kept coming back to the IA comment that asshole had dropped at the hospital. There was a thread there. Something that could be pulled on. “You know anyone in IA?”
“No,” Joe said and he sounded definite. “No good happens to people who are friendly with IA.”
“From IA or the other cops?”
“The other cops,” Joe said. “IA has a high burnout rate, Mac. And partially it’s because they have to watch their backs 24/7.”
“Or what?” Mac asked. “Someone comes for them with an AR-15? Sets them up for a hit at a deserted house? What?”
“Petty shit. A dead rat in your locker,” Joe said after a moment of silence. “Abusive calls to your house. Photos of your kids showing up in your mail at work. Stalker stuff. I’ve never heard of someone getting hurt. But harassment like that takes a toll.”
“And no one has put a stop to it?” Mac demanded. He tried to think what would happen on base if the MPs or NCIS had been targeted like that. The culprit would be lucky to make it to his court martial alive. Those were tough men.
Joe looked at him. “How?”
Mac shook his head. “I think in terms of the military,” he said. “And the brass would clean house in a minute. They look the other way on too much shit, in my opinion, but harassing the military police or the various investigative arms? No way. Those guys know. You can’t let the dogs think they’ve got you on the run.”
“Like to have you run IA for a while,” Joe muttered. “Might fix some things.”
“Well, in some ways, that’s what we’re doing,” Mac pointed out. “We just appointed ourselves Internal Affairs on this. I drove out there. Wanted our guards to see what they’re getting themselves into. No one’s there. No crime scene team, not even tape. No nothing. Glass is still everywhere. Not even crime scene tape, Joe! You really think none of the neighbors called it in?”
“Maybe not,” Paulina said, from where she’d been listening and making a list of something. “It’s not a friendly neighborhood. We live near the end of the road. Our two families support each other. We’re friends. The others? I don’t even know their names. And we’ve lived there for five years.”
“So, you wake up in the middle of the night to gunfire, and you don’t call the police?” Mac asked.
“They may have called and gotten the fake dispatcher,” Janet observed. “And then when they see nothing has been done in the morning? No cops respond? What would you think?”
Mac looked at her, and then thought about it. Given the neighborhoods he grew up in, he might think none of his business, he admitted. But Sand Point wasn’t one of those neighborhoods. “You think Joe Conte could go door-to-door and ask them?” Mac suggested.
Janet grinned. “He will if I assign him to,” she promised. “You’re right. We would ask. And we have photos.”
“You working tomorrow?” Mac asked. Janet shook her head.
“Monday,” she said. “The bosses have decided I need to be Monday through Friday. Still 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. though. Means you and I can go into the office together.”
He nodded. Logistics, a lot of logistics, ahead.
Mac managed to escape for long enough to take Angie to her place to pack a bag, but it was getting late. Really late. Probably not a great idea, he thought concerned, but they went on to his place — had to get done. And he really wanted a shower and clean clothes.
It felt strange when they walked in — quiet and empty. Lindy spent a lot of time at home — her art studio was here. She had one on campus, but she liked working here, away from interruptions. Mac looked around the bungalow that he’d called home more than any place in his life. His mother had been a nomad, to put it charitably. He’d lived with Lindy’s ex for two years, but at age 15 he’d ended up here.
And he ended up back here when he took the job at the Examiner after college. He liked the house. He liked the wood trim, the clean white walls that showcased his aunt’s art. He liked the creaky wood floors that would give away intruders — just as it gave away Toby and himself when they tried to creep in after curfew as teenagers. Or sometimes trying to leave after curfew. The two of them had been beyond wild as teens. They’d been car thieves and gang members.
Toby had been on his mind lately; he needed to call him.
There was always a bit of guilt when he thought about Toby. Lindy had married a Black man, and Toby, her son, took after him. So one night, a cop had seen the two of them driving down I-5 in a boosted Mercedes coupe and pulled them over — guilty of Driving While Black. Well, guilty of more than that. The cop thought he’d won the lottery. Car thieves? Black men? Then the cop, a guy named Andy Malloy, looked closer at Mac, and decided he was Hispanic. A three-bagger, in his lingo.
Toby was 18, and Mac was not quite 17. Toby went to prison for it; Mac got probation if he promised to enlist after graduation.
And Mac knew that it was his white skin that made the difference. Oh, being underaged helped. And Toby had taken responsibility for the job, although they were equal partners in all of their jobs. “Look,” Toby had said. “I’m going down on this one. No need for you to go down too. Someday I’ll need a favor. And you can repay me for this.”
Mac grimaced. Toby had gotten out of prison, gone down to Vallejo where his father was. He was dealing drugs, not on the street corner, but as a distributor. And he was successful: big house in the hills, beautiful wife and two daughters. His mother wouldn’t speak to him. But he and Mac stayed in touch. Kind of, Mac conceded. Holidays and birthdays. He shied away from that thought. Counting down the days to 30, he thought, and shook his head.
So Toby went to jail, and Mac had gone into the Marines, then to college, and now was a reporter covering the cops who used to roust him when he was a teen.
“Something on your mind?” Angie asked quietly, then gave a short laugh. “Well, besides all the mayhem we just left behind?”
Mac smiled at her. “Thinking about my cousin, for some reason,” he said. “Thinking about the irony of covering the cops who used to roust us as teens. And busted us for stealing a car.”
He didn’t have to explain; Angie knew the story. “Well, I don’t have to cover Andy Malloy, anyway,” Mac said, referring to the cop who made the arrest. He had been a mean, racist son of a bitch. A few years later he killed a kid, and even the cops had had enough, and eased him out. He owned a gun range up in Mukilteo — Mac had run into him last spring.
He frowned. There were people besides cops who would know that Joe Dunbar would respond to a request from one of the men who got caught up in Sensei’s white nationalism cult. Andy Malloy had been one of Sensei’s lieutenants, and on Facebook, he’d been mlk4whites. A name than had pissed off Mac at the time — still did, he acknowledged. Malloy had been the one who had posted shit that had pushed some of the men over the edge.
“Come on,” Mac said now. “Let’s go upstairs and get me packed. I’ve got questions for Dunbar.”
When he came back downstairs, he paused. He held up his hand to stop Angie who went quiet. The house didn’t feel quite as empty as it had. Someone was in here, or had been. He gestured to Angie to stay still, and he pulled his gun from his pocket. He cleared the bottom floor, checking in Lindy’s studio, although you could probably hide a whole army in there, then her room and the bathroom. He moved toward the kitchen, gesturing to Angie to follow him. She did, asking no questions. He appreciated that.
The back door was open. He swallowed hard. There was a note on the counter, written on some receipt: Need to talk alone. CA. I’ll find you.
Mac crumpled the receipt and stuck it in his pocket. “Let’s go,” he said tersely.
CA. Craig Anderson? Mac’s face was set in stone. How the hell did he get involved in this?
Anderson owned a gun shop in Marysville. He’d been one of the organizers of the trips to the Cascades where the men Sensei recruited got a’ wilderness experience.’ In spite of that, and in spite of his partnership with Andy Malloy and his gun range, Mac thought Anderson was a good man to have at your back.
So how did he get involved in this?