Florida Firefight (2 page)

It was all for the cause. He felt a religious thrill move through him. Yes, that was it—for the cause. He would become a martyr, a hero of his people, mourned by politicians and generals alike.

But why must he die? His brain scanned frantically for another answer. Wouldn't the million dollars, which he had demanded as “American War Tax,” be just as helpful to the cause? That had already been promised him, to be paid by the rich father of the blond-haired boy who now stood with the others against the wall.

He was a defiant one, this blond boy. He had not cried like the others, and he had not begged. This boy the others called Jake was the one who had discovered that his classmates were secretly hiding and helping the Guatemalan. He was the one who had notified the authorities, then come to warn his classmates.

He was the cause of it all, and to Rigaberto Laca, he symbolized all rich and aloof white Americans—everything he despised about this country.

We shall see how brave you are
, he thought.
We shall see
.

The pressure in his head grew worse, and he wiped the sweat from his mahogany-color face, slinging it at the blond boy. The boy did not flinch. The Guatemalan trembled with his hatred. Once again the girl with the yellow hair and large breasts began to sob.

“Cesá!
” he yelled at her. He was sick of her squalling, for it made the awful roaring in his head worse.
“Vamos, cesá!
” He waved the .357 magnum with its scalpel-color barrel at her, and she began to cry louder. “Hey!
Puta!
”

Forgetting about the window, he switched on the light. He walked toward the girl, a wild look in his eyes, all the while thinking:
Guillermo, why have you not telephoned? You are a diplomat; you are part of all this
—
yet you have not come forth and demanded immunity for me. Always it is that American politician who promises, promises, promises. But I know the pigs will kill me the moment I walk from this room. The Americans are weak; the Americans are pigs, and they have no honor. Guillermo, why have you forsaken me
.…

7:44
P.M.

Someone had flicked on a light.

James Hawker tensed as he watched the Guatemalan suddenly appear in the window, revolver leveled, dark face soaked with sweat.

Hawker instinctively brought the cross hairs of the Star-Tron night vision scope to bear on the side of the kidnapper's head.

With his left arm wrapped through the sling, bracing the Remington, Hawker grabbed the transceiver in his right hand and began to speak. He didn't take his eye from the scope.

“Chezick! He's moving. Something's wrong. One of the girls in there is crying. Damn it, Chezick, let me have him!”

“Hold it, Hawker! Let me check! They're calling him now; it'll divert his attention. Don't fire yet, damn it! Do you read me? Acknowledge, Hawker. Acknowledge, damn it!”

Coldly and steadily, James Hawker clicked off the safety of his sniper rifle and took aim, sighting in on the base of the dark man's skull.

At that very instant the Guatemalan disappeared from the window, drawn to the telephone.

7:45
P.M.

Later the interpreter working for the Chicago Police Department would realize that the seeming gibberish the kidnapper, Rigaberto Laca, had shouted at him in their final telephone conversation was really a combination of political slogans interspersed with a single unexplained name:
Guillermo
.

Not sensing how desperate the situation had suddenly become, the negotiating team still didn't turn Hawker loose.

When the Guatemalan finally threw down the phone with a choking cry of “Death to Americans!” he turned on the dozen frightened teenagers against the wall.

They saw the new look on his face, and several more of them began to sob softly. Laca found himself about to step in front of the room's single window, then thought better of it. He decided he would kill as many as he could where they stood, then turn the gun on himself rather than die at the hands of one of the pigs.

A horrific grin froze his face as he lifted the .357 and drew the hammer back.

He had decided to kill the blond boy, Jake, first. But, unexpectedly, the yellow-haired girl with the big bosom gave a piercing scream and bolted for the door.

The Guatemalan grabbed her with his left hand and hauled her back. His laughter was like the scream of a hyena. With a jerk he ripped her blouse away, scattering buttons across the linoleum. She tried to cover her heavy breasts with her arms, but he slapped the arms away and began to squeeze her hard, the knuckles of his left hand white with effort.

“You bastard—let her go!”

The Guatemalan didn't see blond-haired Jake coming. The kid shoulder tackled him high, like a linebacker hitting a dummy. The kidnapper stumbled toward the middle of the room, squeezing off three deafening shots.

Jake's chest exploded, the impact slamming him against the wall.

The second shot severed the girl's right wrist.

The third shot caught her low in the abdomen, and she spun dead on the floor.

The remaining ten teenagers were frozen, already deep in shock. A chubby sixteen-year-old boy was on his knees, praying incoherently. Someone was crying for her mother, over and over and over again.

The kidnapper, with blood splattered over him and the horrific grin still fixed on his face, took two slow steps toward them. He lifted the .357, pulled the hammer back, and Rigaberto Laca was just about to fire when splintering glass crashed to the floor—and the Guatemalan's head disappeared.

The corpse took two hesitant steps, as if unsure what had happened.

The headless creature collapsed on the linoleum then, jugular pumping.

7:48
P.M.

Lieutenant Detective James Hawker ejected the spent cartridge jacket and slammed the bolt of the Remington closed.

Through the Star-Tron scope, he could see the body of the teenage girl, her face strangely peaceful. Beside her was the brave, hard-nosed kid who had tried to save her.

The Guatemalan lay in the middle of the floor in a lake of blood.

“You son of a bitch,” Hawker whispered. “You lunatic son of a bitch.”

From the transceiver in his pocket came the voice of Captain Boone Chezick. “Ground Control to SWAT One. Hawk? I think permission to fire will be coming soon. But play it safe, damn it—pass it on to your team. The interpreter says the Guatamalan is starting to sound a little crazy, and someone has already reported hearing shots. You got that, Hawker?”

Hawker reached into his pocket and switched off the radio.

two

Two weeks later Hawker awoke just after dawn in his bachelor flat. Alone.

Outside snow swirled past the second-floor window in the gray light. He realized what day it was, and he wondered:
Where do the unemployed go for Thanksgiving in Chicago?

Downstairs his Scottish landlady, the widow Hudson, rattled pots and pans. There was the smell of coffee boiling.

Hawker forced himself from the warm bed and began his morning calisthenics: push-ups, sit-ups and stretching before the morning run. At thirty-four, Hawker was in good shape—but he had to work at it. He hadn't changed that much physically since he'd played football for Kelly High in Chicago, or his two seasons of class-A baseball in Florida for the Tigers organization. He was six-one, just under two hundred. His hair was copper color, and he had a face that his ex-wife once told him was handsome “in a rough and funny sort of way.”

His nose looked as if it had been broken more than once—which it had.

Hawker had just pulled on his sweat pants and blue running shoes when the widow Hudson tapped at his door.

“Lieutenant Hawker? Would you be awake this early?”

His landlady was a doughy, fresh-cheeked woman with a lilt in her voice. She did her best to mother him, seeing that he had a “proper break-of-fast,” as she called it. Even so, Hawker winced when she continued to call him by the rank he no longer held.

He swung open the door, smiling. “Sure and if it isn't Miz Hudson,” he said, imitating her Scottish brogue. “You must be in an awful sweat to get to your gambling agent. Are the ponies in Miami running early this morning?”

She laughed girlishly and shoved a stoneware mug of coffee in his hands. “Not a-tall, not a-tall.” Her face was red, and she gave him a conspirator's wink. “But I did win a wee bit yesterday betting on the kickball games.”

“Kickball?”

She thought for a moment; then her face brightened. “
Football
. Aye, it was football I won me money on.”

“Hah!” Hawker wrapped his arm around her and gave her a quick squeeze. “Then you'll be having every Irish bachelor on Archer Street over for a fine big turkey—myself included, I hope.”

She slapped at him, redder yet. “But that's why I knocked you up so early, Lieutenant. You have another invitation. A messenger boy just brought this to the front door.” She pulled a note from her apron and handed it to Hawker.

Mr. Hawker:

It seems we will both be without family for the holiday, so I wonder if you would like to join me at Hayes Hill for dinner? Also I would like to discuss with you matters that may be of great mutual interest. RSVP the enclosed number
.

Jacob Montgomery Hayes

It didn't take Hawker long to make the connection. Jake Hayes was the blond kid who had been murdered by the Guatemalan. Jacob Montgomery Hayes was his multimillionaire father.

Hawker thanked the widow Hudson, then went for his run. He jogged through the bleak Chicago morning, his breath fogging and disappearing in the soft storm of snowflakes. He passed St. Barbara High School and disappeared into the winter trees of McGuane Park. For the thousandth time he went over the events that had caused him, a second-generation Chicago cop, to resign.

The police superintendent, committed to Hawker's suspension if he fired without orders, had followed through—but only after the big-wheel politician involved had whined to the press that it wasn't
his
fault the two kids had died. Maybe it was because that trigger-happy cop had opened fire too soon. That was bullshit, of course, but the news people had bought it long enough to make Hawker's suspension imperative. The headlines had hurt the worst:
HERO COP MAY HAVE CAUSED KILLINGS
.

The superintendent had laid it on the line. “Hawker, Captain Chezick says I should be giving you another medal instead of suspending you. But I don't have much choice. You didn't play by our rules, so you left all of us wide open to criticism from every bleeding-heart politician and liberal who wants to be quoted in the press. You're off the force for two weeks, Hawker. And when you come back, you'll be going on Vice. And you'll follow orders, and you'll keep your nose clean, damn it! That's all.”

When Hawker hadn't obediently about-faced and disappeared, the superintendent had looked up from his work. “Anything else?”

Slowly, deliberately, Hawker had pulled out his billfold and removed his badge. “Yeah,” he had said, “there is something else.” He tossed the spinning badge onto the superintendent's desk. “This.”

three

So now what would he do? Hawker jogged on, thinking. He had spent the last two weeks holed up, trying to sort it all out. In one way or another he had lived his whole life preparing to be a cop. He had grown up tough in Bridgeport, the Irish section of Chicago, and he and his father, Ed, had watched with disgust as that section changed from a close-knit community to an area ravaged by interlopers who made their living through violent crime.

When the crime got so bad that the understaffed police force couldn't handle it, Ed organized the community into a Neighborhood Watch force—and James Hawker, just a kid, helped. Old Ed had been a master of strategy and was born with the gift of gab. The community rallied behind him. And then a funny thing happened: People who had felt alone in the face of hoods and strong-arm crooks suddenly found strength in their friends and neighbors. People who were terrified of walking the streets at night suddenly found courage in the knowledge of their union.

Old Ed's methods were rough—and not always legal. But they worked.

Crime in the neighborhood was cut to half, and the Neighborhood Watch program spread.

So Hawker had grown up hating the scum who made the lives of the common workaday citizens miserable. People who lived in fear were not happy people. And Hawker had spent his life fighting the bastards and the bullies, the killers and the crooks who preyed on the innocent. He had become a cop, and a damn good cop. And he had planned to carry on the fight.

But how can you fight when you're no longer part of the fighting structure?

Hawker toyed with the idea of applying to the New York or L.A. police departments for a job—but it would just mean more of the same. More restraint; more innocent people dying because the police department, bowing to political pressure, wouldn't allow him to Hawk it. Also, more bureaucratic bullshit; more arrests to be thrown out of court on legal technicalities; more scum set free by lawyers who cared nothing for truth or justice, only the big fees and the proliferation of a legal system that favored the criminal and made them rich in the process.

Hawker, who collected trivia the way some people collected stamps, remembered something he had read: Nearly 60 percent of the people who flunked out of medical school or doctorate programs went into law.

The legal system, it seemed—like too many public school systems—was being run by people without the talent to do anything else. And the politicians were worse.

Even though it was cold, Hawker was working up a good sweat. Instead of running his usual three miles, he decided to stretch it to five and build up a good appetite for the mysterious dinner with Jacob Montgomery Hayes. Hayes, oddly enough, was the only one who had come to his defense after the shootings. When he was interviewed, Hayes had called the politician involved a naive idiot for trying to bargain with the Guatemalan, and he had praised Hawker for acting without orders. “People in this city ought to get down on their knees and thank God for tough cops like Lieutenant Hawker, who know how to judge the risks and will put their careers on the line to save lives. If Hawker hadn't acted, we would be mourning twelve dead kids instead of two.”