Cutter saw Beth’s text when he was checking the news the next day.
Lasko doesn’t have anyone. His folks died young. No special person in his life, from what we can see. He’s a loner.
He shrugged after considering it for a moment. He couldn’t make sense of the detective’s words. They might not be significant.
LAPD suspects you, she continued, but haven’t disclosed it to the public. Those shooters are Munoz and Rodrigo. Street Front Killers.
He nodded to himself. He knew their identities.
He turned on the TV and followed the news for a while. Security beefed up at the hospital. Suspected gang shooting. One cop in serious condition.
He grimaced at that. Could I have done anything more? Should I have shot them in their backs?
They could have been doctors, he argued with himself. I had to be sure.
His phone buzzed as if on cue. Another text from Beth.
Matteo’s updated the case file. He suspects you, Covarra and Lasko had some kind of arrangement. Drug dealing.
He read it in disbelief and called her immediately.
‘Yeah,’ she replied, as if she had been talking to him. ‘He thinks you took Street Front drugs from his warehouses. That meeting on Jesse Street was to strike a deal with him. Lasko was dirty, too. You had some kind of disagreement with both of them, shot the cop and got away.’
‘That’s what Matteo thinks?’ he asked, stunned.
‘Looks like his task force is considering that angle. You gotta admit, it makes sense from their perspective.’
‘Anyone who knows me—’
‘Dade knows you, but why would she overrule her best detective? She’ll want to see proof. As of now, this is just speculation on Matteo’s part.’
Makes sense. It changes nothing for me. LAPD was already hunting me.
‘What about Lasko?’
‘He’s been disciplined several times. Suspended as well. There are rumors he’s a racist. He’s not the most reputable cop in the city. He could be dirty.’
What if that was an act? To gain the trust of snitches he was developing?
Only the detective could answer his questions, and he was in the hospital.
‘Think of the upside,’ she urged. ‘You can walk into any gang now and they’ll accept you.’
She hung up on that positive note.
He smiled ruefully, thought for several moments and then shrugged.
There wasn’t anything he could do to clear himself, other than hope Lasko recovered.
No point in going to Difiore and Quindica. They might believe me, but my word won’t be enough.
Got to get back to my mission.
He brought up the GPS tracking app and checked the green dot on it. Zohrab’s still in Little Armenia.
He washed his breakfast dishes and dressed swiftly. Carried his gymbag and backpack out and considered which ride he would take. He still had the Tahoe, Limon’s cab and the Land Cruiser.
I’ll take the Toyota. It’s built well and Chuck’s beefed it up. It’s sturdy enough for what I’m planning.
Cutter drove to Little Armenia and looped around Janikyan’s alley in a wide circle. Fountain Avenue, Sunset Boulevard, and back. Where should I station myself? Does it even matter? He argued with himself. As long as Zohrab’s got the patch, I can follow him anywhere.
He parked behind a food truck on Serrano Avenue and began the wait. It turned out not to be a long one.
The green dot moved at lunchtime, and judging by its speed, the bodyguard was in a vehicle.
He’s heading to Hobart. Cutter squeezed into a narrow gap in the traffic, waved apologetically when an angry honk sounded, and sped through traffic. He drove fast, got on Fountain and took the left to Serrano, flicking his eyes between his phone and the traffic in front.
‘There!’ he said aloud when the green dot turned out to be a Tahoe with darkened windows. He followed it as it joined Sunset Boulevard and headed to Hollywood.
He got confirmation at a red light that Zohrab wasn’t alone. I can make out three heads inside. He crossed his fingers and hoped one of the men was Janikyan.
He unzipped his backpack, which was on the passenger seat, searched through it and brought out the soluble trackers. He applied them liberally to his right palm and drove with his left hand.
What he planned was called PIT, Pursuit Intervention Technique, aka TVI, Tactical Vehicle Intervention, a maneuver widely used by cops and military forces to stop a fleeing vehicle.
Cutter got the opening to implement it once they had crossed Van Ness. Traffic had cleared up all the way to the next set of lights, some distance away.
He floored the gas and closed the distance to the Tahoe. Came up on its left and swerved into it abruptly just ahead of its rear wheel.
The Tahoe skidded with an audible squeal of tires. It spun in a slow arc with rubber burning as the driver fought to control it and came to a shuddering stop almost a hundred and eighty degrees, facing the way it had come.
Cutter steered his ride to the right lane and stopped. He had to act fast, while the Tahoe’s passengers were jolted and in shock from the collision.
And before cops arrive.
He jumped out with his Glock in his left hand and a hammer in his right and shattered the front and rear windows of the SUV. Zohrab, blinking in shock in the driver’s seat, struggled to free his seat belt.
Cutter knocked him out with the hammer and switched the instrument and gun between hands as he took in Panig Janikyan in the rear seat. Bleeding from a cut in his forehead, clawing for the door handle, no seat belt around him. A third man by his side, who had recovered the quickest and had brought up an assault rifle.
He shot the man in the face as someone screamed in the distance. He didn’t look up, didn’t panic and let his surroundings fade into grey. He was nothing but controlled motion and cold, calculated action as he yanked the door open and dragged the gang leader out with his left hand. It was an awkward hold because of the hammer, and the Armenian leader punched him weakly.
Cutter took it on his chest, then crushed the gangster’s lips with a savage slam of his right palm.
‘You knew all along,’ he growled. ‘You knew those women were killed with your guns. Who was it? Did you shoot them?’
Janikyan wasn’t the head of a vicious gang for nothing. He lunged forward with a roar, blood streaming from his cut lips. His fingers came up as claws to scratch and gouge.
Cutter slammed the hammer on his temple and caught his collar to drag him to his vehicle.
‘Who killed them?’ he yelled as he yanked his captive savagely.
The round slammed into concrete at the base of his feet.
He acted instantly and brought Janikyan in front of him as cover. Curled his left elbow around the man’s throat and squeezed hard to throttle his struggling.
A vehicle was coming up fast on Sunset, with bangers hanging out of it. One of them fired wildly as he took in what was happening.
I can take Janikyan, but they’ll chase me. A shootout in LA’s crowded streets wouldn’t go down in his favor. They won’t care who they kill, but I can’t risk civilians.
He released Janikyan and kicked him on the butt forcefully, to send him staggering at the oncoming vehicle. He fired a burst of rounds at it as it swerved and the shooters ducked inside.
‘This isn’t over,’ he threatened Janikyan and dashed to the Land Cruiser. Fired it up in an instant and raced down Sunset. He cut through the red light, narrowly avoiding a crash with a tour bus, hung a right on Gower, twisted and turned through alleys and streets, conscious that his ride would be reported to the cops by civilians.
Got to move fast and dump it somewhere.
The journalist on the radio channel burst into excited chatter as he reported the shooting. ‘They turned Sunset into the Wild West!’ he exclaimed. ‘Initial reports that it was a movie shoot were wrong. These were criminals—’
Cutter turned down the volume and headed into the Hollywood Hills. Took Fern Dell Drive up into the hills and turned into The Trails, a café in the midst of Griffith Park. He parked between two SUVs and climbed out. Donned his shades and looked about casually. Hikers and families. No cops, no one looking at him suspiciously. He checked that the neighboring vehicles were empty and swiftly changed his ride’s plates with spare ones he carried.
He shouldered his backpack and gymbag and hit a hiking trail.
‘Camping overnight?’ another traveler asked him.
‘Dunno,’ he grumbled. ‘Some friends were supposed to join me but they’re running late. Can’t raise their phones.’
‘Yeah, signals here suck.’
Cutter drifted off the main trail and went high up the side of the hill until he could look down on Griffith Observatory.
Got to stay here till it gets dark.
He checked his phone and smiled grimly when he saw the green dot for Zohrab had returned to Little Armenia. There was a fainter signal next to it. That’s Janikyan. He ingested a little of the soluble on my palm. That signal will fade.
It didn’t matter. He had drawn first blood.
I’ll keep going after him, like I did with Covarra, until he gives in.