Cold Hit (40 page)

Three explosions followed and the walls of the structure were ripped apart, shredded by exploding hand grenades. I stood to get out of there, but Alexa was transfixed, looking down at Zack's dead body.

"What's he doing here?" she asked, shocked.

"Looking after his partner."

I grabbed Alexa, pulled her up and led her through the smoke and debris. We ran through a large gap in the back wall out into the bright sunlight. The loud, sharp burp of Emdee's M-60 tore a hole in the wall of noise.

Alexa and I made it to the cover of the woods and knelt down. She carried a 9 mm pistol in her right hand. From this position we could cover the back of the chalet through the dense foliage.

"Nice save," I said. "How'd you find me?"

"The kids saw it happen from the top of the Ferris wheel. They called me, hysterical. I figured it had to be the Petrovitches. We had the address on their lake house, so I got Rowdy and Snitch, commandeered Air One, and here we are."

Then she saw my bloody left hand, crudely wrapped and taped.

"What happened to your finger?" she asked, concerned.

"What finger?" I said, ruefully.

Just then we heard the grenade launcher fire, followed a few seconds later by three more explosions. I moved a few yards back to my right, and saw that Emdee was pinned down behind another garden wall. Sod and brick fragments were raining down on him. I couldn't see Roger, but Emdee suddenly stood up from behind the ruined wall, exposing himself to the deadly Kalashnikovs while letting loose with the M-60. His slugs tore through open windows on the second floor and ripped holes in the front wall of the chalet. Then he ducked down again, as two more grenades exploded ten feet from his position.

"That RPG is murder," Alexa shouted over the racket. "Once they get the range dialed in, we're done."

I had an idea. "I'm gonna sneak up to the house from the back and see if I can set fire to the place. Smoke 'em out."

I started to go, but Alexa grabbed me. She unbuttoned her jacket and pulled a long, fat pistol out of her belt.

"Flare gun. It was in the chopper. If we can get a shell through an upstairs window, it oughta do the job."

I took the gun and fumbled it open using my right hand. There was one fat phosphorous round in the breech. I closed the gun and took off the safety.

"I'm gonna get closer."

I turned for the house. Again, she stopped me. "Give that back," she ordered.

"You're not doing this."

"What was your last range score?"

I didn't answer because we both knew I barely qualified.

"A lousy seventy-eight as I recall. I shot marksman."

She snatched the gun out of my hand and took off in a crouch, using the' tree line at the back of the house for cover. I followed, staying close on her heels. When we were about fifty yards away, directly behind the back door, she kneeled down and aimed the flare gun at the second floor. After sighting carefully, she pulled the trigger.

There was a loud bang. The flare streaked across the lawn and went right through a second story window.

"Great shot!" I said. She'd hit it dead center.

Then the M-60 cut loose out front. Twenty yards to our right in the trees, a second gun barked. I turned and spotted Roger Broadway in a crouch, firing the riot gun at the house. He had retreated deeper in the woods and established a position just east of us, cutting off an escape from that side. The four of us had the chalet more or less surrounded.

The upstairs took about ten minutes to catch fire. After that, the flames spread rapidly. Smoke started pouring out of all of the upstairs windows, igniting the roof. Then the intense heat lit drapes and furniture on the ground floor. Alexa dialed a number on her cell phone.

"How's it look out there?" she asked.

Emdee's voice came back through the earpiece, loud enough for me to hear. "We're turnin' Joe Bobs into shiska-babs."

"We'll hold the back," Alexa said. "If they come toward you, give 'em one chance to throw down their guns, then blow them away."

"Done," Emdee replied.

Suddenly, the back door opened and Sammy appeared in the threshold carrying his machine gun. Alexa and I let loose with a barrage, driving him back inside. I caught sight of Roger working his way toward us, hugging the tree line. Then a single shot sounded from a back window. He yelled out and went down.

"How bad?" I shouted. I couldn't see him where he'd fallen in the foliage.

"Through and through," he screamed back. "Fucked the bone up!"

"Stay down. We'll do this."

The Kalashnikovs started firing from the front of the house. Alexa's phone was still open in her hand and I heard Perry shouting over the earpiece. "They're in the door, gonna make a run at me!"

"Right," Alexa said and started toward the front. I grabbed her arm.

"You stay here," I told her. "Hold down this position."

Without waiting for an argument, I took off, heading around to the front of the house. I got there just in tim
e t
o see Sammy and Iggy Petrovitch, along with the last remaining brigadier, run out of the chalet into the yard. All of them were on fire. Their clothes burned brighter as they ran.

I unloaded the AR-15 at them until the clip was dry. Iggy went down first, then the brigadier behind him. Sammy was the last one standing. He was taking hits from the Perry's M-60. But even as several rounds spun him, the giant stayed upright, lurching forward like the monster in a Japanese horror flick.

Then he veered to his right and started toward me. The back of his shirt was still blazing, blood covered the front of him. The Kalashnikov in his hand kept firing, but he was spastically jerking the shots off. The bullets went wide. I tried to return fire, but I'd forgotten that my weapon was empty. Petrovitch continued toward me, bringing his gun up as he advanced.

He was now only five yards away, too close to miss. His ruptured face and giant teeth were pulled wide in an ugly grimace.

Then, as I watched him start to pull the trigger, two loud reports sounded from behind me. I spun in time to see Alexa in a Weaver stance, her 9 mm extended in a two handed grip. Her first shot was a little wide, but hit Sammy in the shoulder, knocking him sideways. The second was perfect--right between the running lights. His huge block head flew back, then forward. He teetered for a moment before he fell forward, landing with a thud, facedown on the ground directly in fron
t o
f me.

Is this woman great? I thought, as relief swept over me.

Then everything was quiet.

I looked around and saw bodies sprawled all over the front lawn. Kersey Nix, Iggy, Sammy, and their brigadier.

When we finally got around to checking the Russians, they were all dead. When I reached Kersey Nix I got a surprise.

The traitorous son of a bitch was still breathing.

Chapter
62

My friends who work in forensic entomology tell me that green bottle flies have many amazin
g c
haracteristics. They can home in on a dead body from miles away, sometimes arriving in less than ten minutes. They feast on the remains and lay thousands of eggs in the cadaver's moist cavities and crevices. Those larva soon hatch and become maggots. Thirty-six hours later, these maggots grow into a new generation of ugly green flies that lay more eggs. The process continues, cycle after cycle. By counting generations of fly larva, and measuring outside temperature, which affects the breeding cycle, it's possible for an entomologist to establish an approximate, long-term time of death estimate.

I don't want to be overly harsh, but in my opinion, the press shares many of these same characteristics. They arrive without warning from miles away an
d f
east hungrily on the dead. The greater the carnage, the more reporters and stories they breed, reproducing their ugly offspring news cycle, after news cycle. With the media, the outside temperature doesn't seem to affect the process.

The first TV chopper landed less than ten minutes after the last shot was fired. Whether they picked up a broadcast from our chopper, or whether some neighbor on the lake called it in, it didn't really matter. The blue and white Hughes 500 settled down on the grass like a big hungry bottle fly and discharged two maggots carrying video equipment at port arms. One had an HD-24 camera, the other, a digital sound unit and sun gun. They had a variety of spectacular targets to chose from. The house was engulfed in flame; bodies were strewn everywhere.

A few minutes later, two more choppers landed, followed by another after that. All had their call letters and station logos emblazoned proudly on the sides, and of course, there were plenty of catchy slogans:

Channel One Is the One in the Inland Empire. Stay Up to Date with Channel Eight.

Channel Six Gets It Right on Time.

I was trying to set up a police line and hold them back but we were outnumbered, and worse still, out of our jurisdiction, so I was getting a lot of arguments. The press knew this was big.

The NBC affiliate KSBW landed a chopper. The story was about to go national.

While I struggled to keep the news crews at bay
,
Alexa was on her cell phone to Chief Filosiani in Los Angeles. The LAPD pilot had already radioed the local sheriff and requested a fire team, backup troops and EMTs. Roger was in considerable pain, but Emdee had stemmed the bleeding with his belt. Kersey Nix was unconscious and going into shock.

The fire department arrived with three pumper units and immediately started knocking down flames using water from the lake. The chalet was a loss, so they concentrated on protecting the trees to prevent a wild fire. Once the perimeter was contained they worked to extinguish the burning house.

There were two EMTs with the fire crew and I led them over to Broadway and Nix.

Roger was sluggish from loss of blood, so the paramedics went right to work tying off bleeders and applying pressure compresses. Nix was critical and needed an immediate dust off. Alexa commandeered the chopper from Channel Six. Amid a chorus of complaints, we loaded Nix inside, along with a paramedic, and the news chopper took off for the nearest hospital. After the second EMT finished the field dressing on Roger he took a look at my hand.

"What caused this?" he asked, as he peeled back the temporary bandage Nix had applied in Pismo Beach.

"I got in the way of a homicidal tree trimmer."

The EMT shot me a puzzled look, but when I didn't elaborate, told me it had to be treated at a hospital, then he splinted and wrapped it up tight with fresh gauze and tape.

The local sheriffs finally arrived at 4 P
. M
. and ten deputies in Smokey the Bear hats took control of the crime scene.

Alexa closed her phone and came over and stood with me. "The chief is worried that once the news story breaks, Virtue will rabbit."

"Yeah." I pointed to the NBC chopper, which had a satellite dish affixed to the door. "Probably Brian Williams's lead story already."

She nodded. "Tony went to the FBI. With Nix off the flowchart, Agent Underwood becomes the temporary SAC in L
. A
."

"Good luck," I said.

"Tony said the guy is actually kicking some big-time ass for us in the Bureau."

"Jerk had to be good for something eventually," I grumbled.

"I need to get back to L
. A
., she said. "The Sonora sheriff is choppering in a local ME right now, to handle the crime scene."

Just then, a paramedic chopper landed on the lawn to pick up Roger. I found him lying on a blanket Emdee had scrounged from somewhere. Blood was already seeping through the new bandage the medic had put on his leg.

I shook Emdee's and Roger's hands. "Thanks for the rescue. See you guys back in L
. A
."

Alexa and I got into the LAPD chopper and left the scene. As we circled the lake on our way back to the city, I turned around and looked down at the smokin
g h
ouse. The fire was now out and there were twenty or thirty dots moving around on the lawn. From this far away, it was impossible to tell which ones were the maggots.

W
e stopped at the Queen of Angels emergency room where the docs did thirty minutes' wort
h o
f needlework on the end of my left index finger. When they were finished, my finger was half an inch shorter and my hand was wrapped in a pound of gauze, suitable for ringing a Chinese gong.

It was around 8 P
. M
. before Alexa and I got back to Parker Center and rode the elevator to six, where we went directly into the chief's office. Great White Mike occupied the only chair. Armando Cuhio and Agent Orange were there, along with half the LAPD command staff and deputy chiefs. Tony Filosiani was pacing the room, fully in charge. As soon as we walked in, the chief told us that R. A. Virtue had disappeared from his home at 6 P
. M
. His wife didn't know where he'd gone and neither did his people at Homeland Security.