William tried to focus on the corner video image in his gogs but sweat was dripping in his eye and he could barely make out anything.
‘Team three in place,’ Henson announced in his ear. ‘We’re at the corner of Hoover and Grand. We’re going to block their escape.’
William instructed, ‘Pull around and hem them in, team two.’
‘Roger that,’ Matty said. ‘Fred, stay with team one. I’ll block.’
Al-Husam exited the car, pistol drawn, finger resting on the trigger guard. The Glock had no safety, merely a little flippy switch on the trigger itself that went down way too smooth and fast. Matty drove the Crown Victoria around the Impala and wedged the right front wheel against the curb, almost slamming their bumper into a blue mailbox.
‘They’re eyeballing and grinning,’ Matty said. Al-Husam walked up behind William.
‘It’s my collar,’ Rowland said.
‘Quaint,’ Al-Husam said.
‘Just, you know, throw down on them, with your guns,’ Rowland said. Her face was slick with sweat. Beneath the jacket, William’s shirt clung damp as a washrag despite the coolness in the morning air.
Rowland approached the left bumper of the Impala, parked a generous three feet from the curb. She assumed a classic Weaver stance and trained her mock SIG on the heads in the rear window. William stayed in a crouch behind his door, also aiming at the Impala’s rear window. Al-Husam took a stance behind the Caprice’s driver side door.
‘Yo, lady,’ said a youngish voice from the Impala. The window rolled down in jerks.
Rowland stopped. ‘Exit the car now,’ she called out. ‘Show me your hands.’ She would have them out and flat on the street in seconds.
‘Lady, we are just hangin’,’ the young man said. ‘Just drivin’ and chillin’. No hassles?’ Arms covered with crude gang tats, tiny goatee, hennaed lips smirking, he looked like the real thing, a true murdering scumbag.
In Hogantown, he is real, William thought. He can kill your career.
William moved to the rear bumper. He took another step. The young man hung his head out the window, and his hands, both empty. He was grinning like a happy whore, more than a little obvious. The driver stared straight ahead, hands still on the wheel. William wondered if all those hands were real. Rubber hands had been used in the past; you walk up to the window and blam.
‘Exit the vehicle. Get out now and lie on the ground face down with arms and legs spread!’ Rowland ordered. ‘Both of you!’
‘Tell us what you want, bitch,’ the young man said. ‘We doing nothin’, we got nothin’.’
They weren’t complying. They were going to force the issue. William sidled around the bumper. The car had been through nine different kinds of hell, a mottled patchwork of paint and primer, but it was still chugging along, still being targeted by naïve recruits. What would they really throw at you? Think icy. Stay tactical.
William glanced left to see where Rowland was. Suddenly, his shins exploded in pain. His legs flew backward and out from under him and he came down on the left rear panel of the Impala, then toppled into the street, barely breaking his fall with his right hand. The pistol discharged a paintball and flew from his grip. Rolling to one side, he saw a rubber bar waggling from a spring-loaded hinge below the Impala’s rear door.
In the texts they called it a cop blade. A cholo trick. In real life it would have been made of steel and honed as sharp as a sword. It would have sliced off his feet.
Rowland saw William go down. Inside the Impala, both heads ducked. Her partner was writhing on the asphalt, trying to roll up onto the curb. In real life they could—they would back over him.
Al-Husam and Rowland aimed and fired. Paintballs exploded red and purple across the Impala’s rear window.
The car’s engine roared and the wheels spun, throwing rubber smoke all over William. The Impala barely grazed the bumper of team two’s Crown Victoria, making it rock, and accelerated down the street. Matty and Lee blazed away, scoring more paintball hits on the side windows and door panels. Puffs of purple and red trailed behind the Impala as it sprinted toward freedom, belching gray smoke. It had reached thirty miles an hour when loud bangs and ear-piercing shrieks echoed between the brick buildings. Long ropes of steaming pink shot from both sides of the street. Team four had efficiently and quickly dropped flares to halt traffic on the side streets and set up bubble-gum pylons at the end of the block. The gum net wrapped around the Impala, sizzling and popping. Its trailing edges grabbed at the asphalt and stuck, spinning the car around, while the span of the net slapped across the windshield and gelled to the consistency of tire rubber. The car jounced on its shocks and rolled on for fifty feet, dragging both pylons sparking and clanging down the street.
The Impala’s engine died.
Matty and Al-Husam gave chase on foot and took up positions on both sides of the gummed car. Pistols poised, they ordered the occupants to stay where they were and keep their hands in view or they would shoot. Finch and Greavy joined them, happy as larks at having expended precious FBI resources, and with such a loud bang, too.
The actors, barely visible through the pink strands and paintball splatters, raised their hands. They would have to be cut out with box knives. Right now, they weren’t going anywhere. Al-Husam kept his gun trained on them.
Rowland stood by William and watched as teams three and four joined Al-Husam and Matty, taking up front and rear.
‘Goddammit,’ William said, over and over, rolling back and forth, clutching his shins.
‘You okay?’
‘I should have seen it. I should have seen it coming. Fucking cholo car.’
‘You need a medic?’
‘Christ, no, it was just a rubber hose. I’m fine.’ He glared up at her. ‘Don’t you goddamn laugh at me. It hurts.’ Tears streamed down his cheeks.
‘Nobody’s laughing,’ Rowland said solemnly. She sat on the curb beside him.
‘I’m toast,’ William said.
Farrow seemed to come out of nowhere. He was trying hard to hold a grim face. Clearly he was enjoying this. ‘You all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ William said, pushing up to his feet. The whites of his eyes showed like a skittish horse.
‘It ain’t over until it’s over,’ Farrow said in a low growl. He held up a box-cutter and thumbed out a length of blade. ‘Get those bastards out of that vehicle and make your arrest. Pick up your pieces and finish your job. Tonight, meet me in the motor pool garage. You’re gonna buff and scrape my car until it shines.’
CHAPTER SEVEN Washington State
Griff looked over the map he had drawn. It showed places on the property where they had seen children playing or people walking. Little x’s peppered the paper, safe places and paths to the houses, the barn, just in case. He drew lines, boundaries.
The children tended to stay away from the barn.
Everybody stayed away from the barn.
Only a crazy man would mine or booby trap the yard where his own children and grandchildren were playing, right?
After all the years Griff had been tracking the Patriarch, he still could not say, with certainty, that they could rule out that possibility.
They had been ready to move out when edicts had come down simultaneously from FBI headquarters and the Attorney General—no big raid, no massive force maneuver, on any date that anyone by any stretch of the imagination