Cold Hit (41 page)

"Musta seen the early news and figured to get outta sight till he could assess the damage," he said.

"If Nix survives his wound and talks, Virtue's in a big jackpot," I said. "As it is, I think we have enough to get a warrant to arrest him as a material witness."

"I'm already working on that," Cubio said.

"Agent Underwood's got us dialed into the regional Homeland Security office," Tony continued. "They're in full stammer. They can't believe Virtue and Nix went off the res like that."

Underwood's narrow shoulders were pinched together. His bright orange hair bristled angrily under the fluorescent ceiling lights in Tony's office. He held up two sheets of paper and said, "We've got all the airports and border crossings covered. This is a list of asset-seizure planes in the FBI inventory. There's a twin-engine Challenger corporate jet--tail number Sierra Mike eight-six-eight. It went missing from the federal hanger yesterday."

"It's gotta be pretty damn hard to steal a federal jet without stirring up a flock of questions. Where'd it go?" Tony asked.

"Don't know," Underwood said. "Virtue has his own pilots. He probably has enough juice to commandeer one of these federal planes without paperwork. But if he tries to fly it anywhere without filing a flight plan, the FAA will have an unauthorized blip going through their airspace. Since nine-eleven, if we don't know who you are, you land or get shot down."

"So if he can't take off, how does he plan to escape?" I asked.

"If it was me, I'd park that Challenger in a secure hangar and change tail numbers," Underwood suggested, running a freckled hand through his orange bristle. "Then when he's ready, he files a flight pla
n u
nder somebody else's ownership numbers."

"Okay. From now on, any Challenger jet that requests a flight plan has to be checked, regardless of who owns it," Tony said.

Underwood nodded. "Big job, but we can do it." After the meeting broke up, I found myself in the elevator with Judd Underwood.

"Got pretty tough up there in Central California," he said. "Heard one of your guys got it."

"My partner."

"Farrell?" His brow creased in thought. "You know, I never got to meet him."

"Too late now."

Thankfully, the door opened. I didn't even know what floor we were on, but I didn't know what to say, and needed to get away from him, so I stepped out.

"Hey, Scully," he said, stopping me. "What you did? It was good."

"Thanks."

"Lord Acton's Law. 'Power corrupts, and the love of power corrupts absolutely." He seemed to want to bury the problem between us. "With guys like you around, maybe we can keep the corruption at bay."

I nodded, shook his hand, and watched the elevator close. After I turned around, I realized I was on the second floor.

Accounting. It seemed like a good time to stop in and get the paperwork moving on Zack's survivor death benefits.

When Alexa and I got home, Chooch and Delfin
a m
ade a big deal over my being safe. Once the excitement was over, they went out to a movie to celebrate. We went out to the backyard with Franco, who gazed sadly at the shallow canals. I think he preferred the ocean view from the balcony at Shutters.

I told Alexa, for about the tenth time, how happy I was to see her choppering in with Rowdy and Snitch to save me.

"Enough," she finally said, "I can't take another thank you."

So I told her I didn't ever again want to hear a criticism from her about my taking chances. Not after that suicidal run across the lawn toward the woodshed.

"Gotta look after my honey," she grinned.

I was transfixed by the graceful curve of her neck, the slant of her high cheekbones, all of this exotic beauty lit by soft moonlight.

Then I took her hand, and finally worked into a discussion about Zack's survivor benefits. The family of a police officer who dies in action is entitled to 75 percent of his final average salary plus a death in service benefit.

Alexa shifted in her chair. "All this stuff with Zack I'm afraid it's not quite over yet," she said softly.

"Whatta you mean, it's not over? The guy's dead. He died saving my ass. End of story."

"After you went missing, everything you told me, your suspicions about Zack being the unsub--I took it all to Tony."

"But, I told you Zack was not the killer, Sammy was.

Before he died, Zack told me the department would try to use this stuff to screw him out of his line-of-duty death benefits, and now that's exactly what's going on. I'm not gonna stand by and watch the number crunchers on two steal money that's rightfully his."

"We're not stealing anything," she said, coming to the defense of the department. "But now that it's in the system, things have to take their course. I can issue a favorable opinion, which I will do, but it's not something I can control anymore."

Sitting in the dark, I realized she was right. With both Sammy and Zack dead, there was no way I could ever really prove which of them was the Fingertip Killer.

At one o'clock in the morning, Alexa and I were lying in bed, but were still both awake, tossing and tangling our sheets, too keyed up to sleep.

The phone rang.

Alexa snatched up the receiver. "Yes?" She paused. "Where?"

She hung up, rolled out of bed, and started putting her clothes on.

"Gotta go."

"Somebody filed a flight plan?" I said, swinging my feet to the floor.

"Stay in bed."

I got up and started dressing.

"You're not going, Shane. It's an order."

"An order's not gonna be enough. You're gonna have to shoot me."

Ten minutes later we were speeding down the 405

toward the Van Nuys Airport. Alexa was driving. I was slouched in the passenger seat watching the lights from the freeway streaking across her face.

At 1:35 A
. M
., we pulled into the parking lot of Peterson Executive Jet Terminal in Van Nuys. Tony Filosiani, Lieutenant Cubio, and Judd Underwood were already there, along with a dozen cops and FBI agents. A heated procedural argument was in progress.

"It doesn't matter to me if it belongs to John Travolta or John the Baptist," Tony was saying. "It ain't takin' off. We gotta make a move." Then he turned to face us. "An hour ago, Travolta's Gulfstream filed a flight plan for Berlin."

"I thought we were looking for an asset-seizure Challenger with altered tail numbers," Alexa said.

"We are. Were," Underwood said. "This was filed as an emergency flight plan. According to the paperwork, Travolta's supposed to be aboard heading back to Germany where he's shooting a movie. When the printout came in it seemed fishy to me because I remembered reading somewhere that he has a big new seven-thirtyseven that he uses for long-distance flights. According to his production office in Berlin, Travolta's still in Germany. He doesn't know anything about his Gulf-stream leaving from here. The flight plan has the plane taking off in five minutes. It's taxiing now."

"That's enough talk! We're gonna shut this down," Tony said angrily.

The tower was alerted that we wanted to halt the takeoff and board the Gulfstream. The message wa
s r
elayed to the pilot, but the plane kept rolling.

"He's not responding," the FBI agent who was on the phone to the tower reported.

In less than a minute we were in our cars and out on the tarmac. Four cars streaked down the taxiway. Tony took the lead, driving his Crown Vic at high speed, his Kojack light flashing red. Judd Underwood was in the front seat with him.

I was in Alexa's slick-back while she drove. We were doing close to seventy, following Tony's Crown Vic so closely, our headlights only lit the car's trunk. I could barely make out the shiny white shape of the jet turning at the end of the runway, positioning itself for takeoff.

Then the Gulfstream began to accelerate.

"Cut across the grass," I yelled. "We'll never block him if we stay on the taxiway!"

Alexa swung the wheel and we shot across the infield. Tony and the other vehicles must have had the same idea because suddenly we were all on the main runway.

The Gulfstream thundered toward us, engines at full throttle, while four police cars closed the distance, speeding straight at it on a deadly collision course. When we were halfway down the tarmac, Tony spun the wheel, skidding sideways. The other cars followed suit, blocking the runway four across. There didn't appear to be enough space for the big jet to get airborne, but it kept coming, powering toward us.

"Get out!" I screamed.

Alexa and I dove out of the car and ran for our lives.

The other cops and feds all did the same.

At the last minute, the Gulfstream swerved to miss the blockade of cars and left the runway heading out onto the grass. It tore up the turf as it tried to brake to a stop. With both engines now screaming in retrograde, the big jet finally began to lose speed. As it did, the undercarriage started to sink into the grass, followed a minute later by a loud, tortured bang, as the wheels set themselves in soft turf and the landing gear snapped. The heavy jet nosed down and shuddered to a stop.

Everyone surrounded the plane with guns drawn. A few tense moments passed before the hatch attempted to open. Because of the nose down attitude, the hydraulic door stuck halfway open. After a moment, Robert Allen Virtue appeared in the threshold and peered through the jammed hatch.

"Somebody will have to help us out," his patrician bearing still in place.

"You're under arrest," Chief Filosiani said.

Agent Underwood stepped forward. "FBI," he bellowed.

"I know who you are, asshole," Virtue snapped. "You work for me."

"Not anymore," Underwood replied, his pale complexion coloring.

Minutes later Virtue was helped out of the crippled jet. He didn't expect to see me alive, and stopped to face me as he passed. A strange look shadowed his face as if, for the first time, he realized he might actually b
e i
n some trouble.

"You'll never assess the damage you've done to your country," he said.

"You're the one who's been damaging it," I answered.

Virtue seemed stunned by this. Then came self-righteous anger. "People like you are great moralizers, but have damn few solutions when it comes to getting this country where she needs to go."

"You're certainly not getting us there by trashing the Rule of Law and the Constitution."

"The Constitution?" he snorted. "What's any of this got to do with the Constitution? I'm talking about global terrorism. This country has fought its last war of nations. We're now engaged in a war of ideologies. The rules have to change when your enemy has no conscience or borders. But you'll never understand that."

"I understand that the Patriot Act and FISA are rolling back the search and seizure rights provided by the Fourth Amendment. The FISA court trashes the Eleventh Amendment limiting judicial powers and the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. We're supposed to beat terrorists by becoming despots?"

"Traitors always accuse patriots of despotism," he shot back.

"No," I said softly. "Despots always accuse patriots of treason."

Chapter
64

Sometimes things just have to get a lot worse before they can get better. A wise, if somewhat painful concept.

I just wanted my current string of downers to come to an end. But it wasn't to be. Zack's funeral and my son's USC visit were on a collision course for the same day.

I pulled Chooch aside and tried to explain it to him. "This guy was my partner and he died saving my life."

We were in Chooch's bedroom two days before the funeral and the scheduled USC visit, which were both set for Sunday. "There's not much that would keep me from doing this with you, son, but I can't miss the funeral. I owe Zack too much."

"It's okay, Dad. I understand," Chooch said, but his face was long and there was real disappointment in his dark eyes.

Saturday night I decided to take the family out to dinner to make up for it.

The dinner didn't work out either.

On the way to the restaurant, Alexa happened to mention that accounting had just notified her they were holding up Zack's Line of Duty death benefits because of questions pertaining to his possible involvement in the Fingertip murder case.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Sammy killed those homeless guys?" I said, hotly.

"Shane, I feel terrible about this, but it's out of my hands. As soon as Homicide Special closes the serial murder case, and as long as Zack's not involved, then the paperwork can proceed. We can't give Zack Line of Duty benefits or the two extra years on his pension as long as he's in any way a suspect. The same goes for you putting him up for the Medal of Valor. The press would skin us alive."

So to keep the bottle flies happy, we were going to deny Zack the only two things he'd ask me to do when he died.

I started brooding like a ten-year-old and ruined my own dinner party. But I knew how the game was played. There would be no more murders, so the task force would disband and the case would eventually go cold. Zack would remain a suspect and his survivor benefits would be frozen forever.