Suicide Mission (14 page)

 

With the sun shining brightly, the exercise yard looked warm, but actually there was a bone-numbing cold in the air, the sort of cold you get on the high plains when the sky clears and the wind dies down and the bottom seems to fall out of the thermometer.

The three guards huddling in their parkas would have rather been somewhere else. Anywhere as long as it was warm and maybe there was a cup of hot coffee.

Their orders said they had to be out here, though, because Madigan was.

And Ellis “Bronco” Madigan didn't seem to feel the cold. In fact, he was stripped to the waist as he worked out with the weights set up in one corner of the yard, revealing his massively muscled, heavily tattooed torso. Those muscles worked smoothly and easily as he lifted more weight than a human being should have been able to lift.

Of course, there had been a considerable amount of debate over the years as to whether or not Bronco Madigan really was human.

Some people seemed to think that he had been created in some mad scientist's lab.

Others were more of the opinion that he wasn't a creature of science but rather a demon from some dark hell.

Either way, he looked the part.

The only hair on his head was a neatly trimmed goatee and his eyebrows. His scalp was as bald and gleaming as a skull. Tattooed across his shoulder blades was a winged dragon with the head of a laughing Satan. On his arms were pentagrams and other sinister, eldritch symbols. On his bulging right pectoral muscle was a swastika. An inverted cross decorated the left pectoral. He was every normal person's nightmare.

One of the guards clapped his gloved hands together for warmth. While he was doing that his gaze strayed across the yard, and he said to his companions, “Oh, crap. Here comes the other one.”

Calvin Watson hadn't taken off his shirt, but he wasn't wearing a coat, either. His breath fogged and plumed around his head like a wreath of smoke. He was a couple of inches shorter than Madigan's six-five, but his shoulders were maybe an inch wider than the taller man's. His black skin was tattooed as heavily as Madigan's white skin was, only with urban gang symbols. He wasn't bald, but his hair was cropped extremely close.

Watson couldn't move very fast because he wore leg irons. His wrists were shackled together, too. Even with those precautions being taken, sharpshooters up on the wall had a bead on him, just as other guards kept their rifles trained on Madigan anytime he was out in the open. Nobody wanted to take any chances with either of these two men.

Between them they had killed at least forty people.

The exact number of their victims was unclear, but Madigan had been convicted on twenty-two counts of murder, Watson on eighteen. They were both suspected of being involved in numerous other crimes, including homicides, but there hadn't been enough evidence to bring charges against them in those cases, usually because the bodies were never found or because witnesses mysteriously disappeared before they could testify for the grand jury.

But the murders were enough to put these two away for life, especially combined with multiple charges of attempted murder, rape, extortion, conspiracy, drug trafficking, arson, kidnapping, and assorted other felonies.

The only reason they hadn't gotten the death penalty was because the feds had intervened in their cases and persuaded the judges that Madigan and Watson would be more valuable alive. They were important figures in the criminal underworlds of the Midwest and the West Coast, and if they could be persuaded to talk, they might lead to people even higher up the chain . . .

So far Madigan and Watson hadn't said anything to federal interrogators except for the occasional anatomically impossible suggestion.

They had been talking to each other, though, here in the federal pen. Talking trash. Like now, when Madigan set the barbell he'd been using back on its stand and said, “What are you doing here, you—”

He finished the question with an obscenely modified ethnic slur.

Watson grinned at him and said, “That's hate speech. That's against the rules. You might hurt my feelings.”

“Why don't you go—” More invective spewed out of Madigan's mouth, followed by, “This is my time to work out, and you know it.”

“They had to rearrange my busy schedule,” Watson said mockingly. “Got a meeting with my new lawyer in a little while.”

“How many lawyers does that make?”

Watson's shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.

“I've lost count. For some reason they don't like me. Important thing is, I get my hour outside now.”

Madigan glared at the guards who had brought Watson out here into the yard.

“Can he do that?” Madigan asked.

“The warden says he can,” one of the guards replied.

Madigan described the warden in unflattering terms, then said, “He's just scared of some chickenshit lawsuit. Doesn't want the ACLU on his back screaming about discrimination.”

“Got to be fair,” Watson said. “Now get your ass outta here, white boy.”

One of Madigan's guards said, “Come on, Bronco. Maybe we can bring you back later, get you a little extra time today.”

Madigan nodded. He still wore his leg irons, but his shackles had been removed so that he could work with the weights. Now he stuck his arms out so the shackles could be fastened around his wrists again.

At least, that's what it looked like he was doing at first. But as Watson took another step toward the weights, Madigan suddenly whirled and lunged at the huge black man.

Madigan's attack was so swift that Watson didn't have time to brace himself. The impact as Madigan slammed into him drove him backward. With his legs in irons like they were, Watson couldn't catch his balance. He crashed to the ground with Madigan on top of him.

One of the guards yelled, “Don't shoot, don't shoot!” into a walkie-talkie, letting the sharpshooters on the wall know to hold their fire. A couple of others yanked short clubs from holsters on their belts, underneath the parkas, and rushed forward to bludgeon Madigan on his bare back as he tried to get his hands around Watson's throat.

The blows seemed to have no effect on Madigan. He ignored them as he continued grappling with Watson. He tried to drive his knee into Watson's groin, but Watson twisted from side to side, blocking Madigan's efforts with his thighs.

He hammered a punch against Madigan's left ear. Madigan might not have felt it when the guards hit him, but Watson's fist had so much power behind it that it couldn't be ignored. The blow slewed Madigan's head to the side and unbalanced him enough that Watson was able to heave him off.

Watson rolled away and came to his feet just ahead of Madigan. With incredible agility, Watson let himself fall backward and kicked Madigan in the face with both feet while Madigan was still on one knee. That left both men stretched out on the ground. Madigan was stunned, though, and Watson wasn't. The black man scrambled up and dived at Madigan. He looped his arms over Madigan's shaven head and tightened the shackles against his throat.

“Now you're gonna die, you damn skinhead,” Watson growled in Madigan's ear.

Madigan's face started turning purple as Watson cut off his air. Bucking and heaving, Madigan fought to get loose, but to no avail. His knees scrabbled around on the asphalt yard, but he couldn't get enough purchase to throw Watson off him. His hands were free, but he couldn't pry the chain away from his throat, no matter how hard he tried.

The guards had all backed off, and now the one with the walkie-talkie gave the order to fire. Shots sounded from the top of the wall, but they weren't the high-pitched cracks of regular rifles. Watson stiffened as the needles of the tranquilizer rounds pierced his shirt and stabbed through skin into muscle. The drugs they pumped into him spread rapidly through his body along with the blood driven by his wildly pounding heart. The adrenaline coursing through him just made the knockout rounds take effect that much quicker.

Watson went limp as he passed out.

Finally, Madigan was able to pull his head out of the other convict's deadly grip. He rolled Watson off him and surged to his knees, gasping for breath. As soon as he got enough air in his lungs, he let out of a bellow of rage, clubbed his hands together, and raised his arms, obviously intending to batter Watson's face until the man was dead.

Madigan paused before the blow could fall and lowered his head to stare stupidly at the hypodermic rounds protruding from his chest where they had just struck him. After a moment he snarled, ripped the needles loose, and threw them to the side.

“Good Lord!” one of the guards gasped. “There's enough of the stuff in him to knock out a horse.”

Madigan seemed to forget about Watson. He lumbered to his feet and swung around toward the guards. As he did, two more rounds fired from the wall struck him in the back. He staggered a little as he took a step, then weaved wildly as he tried to take another. He flung his arms out to the side in an attempt to balance himself on his tree trunk-like legs.

It was no use. The drugs finally caught up to him, and his eyes rolled up in their sockets. He toppled forward, again like a tree—one that had been cut down at the base. The ground didn't actually shake when he landed on it . . . but he was so big it seemed like it should have.

The guards were sweating now despite the cold.

“Just think,” one of them said. “They're both in here for life. That means we're never gonna get rid of those monsters!”

 

“Don't you ever sweat?” the member of the crew in the front passenger seat asked Nick Hatcher.

“Why would I sweat?” Nick asked from behind the wheel of the getaway van. “The weather's nice and cool today.”

One of the men in the backseat laughed.

“Nick doesn't get rattled. That's why he's the best wheelman in the business.”

“Maybe not
the
best,” Nick said, not taking his eyes off the traffic around them. “Oh, who am I trying to kid? I am the best.”

“See?” Chadbourne said. He had put this crew together and was the nominal leader. “That's how you stay alive in this business, by surrounding yourself with good people.”

“I think you mean talented people,” Nick said. “We're bank robbers. We can't actually be considered
good
.”

Chadbourne laughed and said, “We can debate philosophy later. There's the bank, just up the block.”

Nick knew perfectly well where the bank was. He had scouted it half a dozen times in the past two weeks, since the crew had gathered in Bakersfield in response to Chadbourne's summons. He knew every building, every foot of sidewalk, every pothole in the pavement for blocks around. Preparation was the key to success . . . and often to survival.

The other man in the front seat was named Harris. He was short and stocky, with curly black hair and a neatly trimmed beard. In the backseat with Chadbourne was Galloway, tall and lanky with blond hair that tended to fall across his forehead. Chadbourne was the oldest of the bunch, close to fifty, square-faced, mostly bald. Since he'd first gone away to juvie at fourteen, he had spent almost exactly as much time behind bars as he had out. That didn't mean he wasn't good at what he did, though. It was just that he pulled so many jobs, the law of averages kept catching up to him.

Nick was the youngest member of the crew, but he had been at the game long enough that he was considered an old pro, anyway. He had never been caught, never done time. Although it wasn't evident when he was behind the wheel, he was tall and well-built, with the body of a tight end. His brown hair tended to stick straight up, which was why he kept it cut fairly short.

The bank's parking lot sat to the right of the building. Nick hung a bogus handicapped parking placard from the rearview mirror as he pulled in. All four handicapped spaces, the closest ones to the bank's front door, were empty at the moment. He parked in the one all the way to the left. A wide sidewalk was between him and the street.

He would have been able to get out quicker if he'd backed in, but a van backing up like that at a bank might draw too many curious glances. Pulling straight in like he had made everything look normal, which was exactly what they wanted.

Chadbourne put on a baseball cap and tugged down the brim a little. He picked up a cane and opened the door beside him. People resented an able-bodied person taking up a handicapped space, which meant they were more likely to notice something like that. If somebody got out moving stiffly and using a cane, though, that was all it took to alleviate suspicion. Even if the other people who got out of the vehicle—in this case, Harris and Galloway—didn't seem to be handicapped, it didn't matter. Chadbourne's slow-moving, slightly awkward gait was enough to justify parking there.

Harris wore a baseball cap, too. Galloway was in a hoodie with the hood pulled up. The air was cool enough today to warrant that. Some crews rushed in wearing ski masks or helmets and body armor, so that things got tense and potentially violent right away. Chadbourne and his men strolled into a bank, unobtrusively keeping their heads turned just at the right moments to make sure the cameras didn't get a good enough shot of them to be identified in court. Only after they were inside and had sized up everything would the guns come out.

Nick drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he watched the three of them disappear into the bank. He wasn't really nervous; the drumming was just an idle habit, something to pass the time. His gaze shifted back and forth between the bank's front door and the traffic passing by on the street.

He spotted a Bakersfield police car coming toward the bank. No reason to think it would turn in. There hadn't been time even for a silent alarm to go out, and Chadbourne was good at keeping such things from happening in the first place.

But the cop car turned into the bank parking lot, anyway. Two officers were in it, a man and a woman. The woman was driving. She parked half a dozen spaces away from the van, but nobody was parked between the two vehicles so Nick got a good look at her. She was pretty, with a lightly freckled face and red hair pulled into a short ponytail that hung at the back of her neck.

She looked over at Nick and smiled.

He returned the smile. What else was he going to do? Cop or no cop, she was a pretty girl, and any man would have smiled at her if she smiled at him first.

Barely moving his lips, Nick said, “Cops in the parking lot.”

The Bluetooth phone in his ear was connected to an identical one in Chadbourne's ear. Nick knew that somebody could be looking right at Chadbourne and never see a hint on the man's face of the warning he had just received. The guy was that in control of himself.

The redhead's partner got out of the car. She stayed behind the wheel and kept the engine running. Her partner probably just wanted to dash into the bank to cash a check or make a loan payment or something. Whatever errand had brought him here, why couldn't he have taken care of it online like a normal person?

No, thought Nick, some people still liked to actually
go
to the bank, and obviously this jackhole was one of them.

“One coming in,” Nick told Chadbourne.

The cop disappeared into the bank.

This didn't have to be a disaster. It was possible Chadbourne, Harris, and Galloway hadn't made their move yet. They might still be pretending to be customers, in which case they would just wait for the cop to conclude his business and leave.

And if they
had
shown their guns, the heads-up Nick had provided them should have given them enough time to get ready and get the drop on the officer. They could disarm him, put him on the floor with the others . . .

Shots blasted inside the bank.

“Damn,” Nick said softly, under his breath.

The numbers started counting down in his brain. Chadbourne and the others knew they had thirty seconds to get back out here. That was as long as he was obligated to wait. Once the count hit zero, he was gone, baby. That was the way it had to be.

The female cop got out of the car in a hurry as soon as she heard the shots. She was talking into the radio on her shoulder as she drew her weapon and trotted toward the front door. She was using a two-handed grip and advancing rapidly but cautiously, just as they had taught her at the academy.

She was only halfway to the door, though, when she stopped short and turned to look at the van. Her gaze came straight through the windshield and into Nick's eyes, and just like that he understood.

She knew.

She had figured out he was the wheelman, and instinct told her to take him down, but an even stronger instinct commanded her to get inside and help her partner. He might be hurt, maybe even dead.

The internal debate she had lasted only a second, but that was long enough for the door of the bank to fly open and for Galloway to charge out. Chadbourne and Harris were right behind him. Harris had an arm around Chadbourne, and the older man was limping and stumbling for real now. He was hit.

The female cop whirled toward them and yelled for them to stop. Galloway didn't slow down. He fired on the run, flame spouting from the muzzle of his revolver as he blazed away. Nick breathed hard through his nose as he saw the cop's body jerk under the impact of the bullets. She probably had a vest in the car, but she hadn't taken the time to put it on. A rookie mistake.

But even though she was hit, she stayed on her feet and returned fire. Blood sprayed in the air as one of her bullets hit Galloway in the left cheekbone and blew away a big chunk of his face. He went down.

Harris brought up his gun in his free hand and triggered a shot. It missed because blood loss had caught up to the cop and dropped her to her knees. The slug went past the van and whined off the concrete of the parking lot somewhere behind Nick.

The cop swayed back and forth but fired again. She was either really good or phenomenally lucky, because her bullet shattered Harris's left shoulder and knocked him away from Chadbourne, who fell to the sidewalk without Harris's support.

The cop slumped to the side then, done with this battle. Probably done, period. Grimacing, Harris scrambled to his feet and loped past her toward the van. Nick leaned over and had the door open by the time Harris got there.

The count had reached zero almost half a minute earlier, but Nick hadn't been able to abandon his partners in the middle of a gunfight like that. It would have been different if they'd never even made it out of the bank. He would have been in the wind by now.

As it was, he had to grab Harris's jacket and practically haul the wounded man into the front seat. With the door still swinging open, Nick threw the transmission into reverse and gunned back out of the parking space. He whipped the wheel around so violently that the van's rear corner clipped another vehicle parked in the lot. Then the entrance was in front of him and he squirted through it onto the street.

Lights were flashing in both directions.

“Close that door!” Nick yelled at Harris. The cops might not have a description of the van yet, but they would notice a vehicle speeding away from the vicinity of the attempted bank robbery with its passenger door flopping back and forth.

Harris reached for the door and fumbled with it, but he got it closed after a couple of seconds. Nick breathed a little easier.

A monumental snafu like this had been bound to happen sooner or later, he told himself. But things would be all right. Even if Chadbourne and Galloway survived their wounds, they wouldn't give up their partners. Harris needed medical attention, but he looked like he would pull through. Nick made a left, taking them off the street that ran by the bank. A few more turns, and they would be out of the woods.

Flashing lights appeared in the rearview mirror.

Nick bit back a curse. Somehow the cops must have gotten a description of the van. The redhead, maybe? Nick had thought she was either unconscious or dead, but she could have revived and put the description out on the radio.

Whatever the source of the bad luck, it was here and he just had to deal with it. He whipped the van into an alley.

More bad luck. The far end of the alley was blocked by a truck parked behind a store to make a delivery.

Nick slammed on the brakes, threw the van into reverse again. As he came out of the alley, a cop car screeched out of nowhere and plowed into the van's left rear. The collision slewed the boxy vehicle around. Nick hit the gas. It still ran, although the left rear wheel was making an ugly thumping sound.

Cop cars skidded up ahead, turning sideways to block the road. More behind, Nick saw in the mirrors.

Looked like his streak of not going to jail was finished. He took his foot off the gas.

“What are you slowin' down for?” Harris yelled. “We gotta get out of here!”

“There's nowhere to go,” Nick told him. “We're boxed in.”

“You're supposed to be the best wheelman in the world! You said so yourself! Now get us away from those cops!”

“We can't get away. It's over, Harris.”

“The hell it is!” He reached under his shirt, pulled out a hideaway gun, a little .32. He twisted in the seat to reach across his body and jab the barrel into Nick's side. “Drive, you son of a bitch!”

Nick could see only one way this was going to end—in a shootout with the cops that would probably leave both him and Harris dead, because with two of their own down the boys in blue weren't going to be in the mood for anything else—so he did what Harris told him. He drove.

He turned the wheel and drove right into a parked car.

The van was old enough that it didn't have a passenger side airbag, only one for the driver. It exploded out into Nick's face and cushioned the impact for him, but Harris was thrown into the windshield hard enough that it shattered and shredded his flesh as he wound up hanging halfway out of it, unconscious.

Nick kept his hands empty and in plain sight as cops surrounded the van, dragged him out, and threw him roughly to the pavement.

He wanted to ask if that cute female cop had made it, but he didn't figure that would be a very good idea.