The 5th Witch (10 page)

“For God’s sake, Detective, this is an open line.”

“What do you want me to do, tap it out in Morse code? That SWAT team is in serious jeopardy. You don’t have any idea how much. Deputy Chief Days needs to call this operation off until I’ve had time to talk to him about it.”

An even longer pause. “You want to talk to Deputy Chief Days and tell him to cancel a full-scale SWAT operation?”

“Pretty much. That’s it. Yes.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Dan Fisher.”

“Okay, Detective Fisher. I’ll make sure that the deputy chief is aware that you called.”

“But—”

The line went dead. Dan thought of trying to call back, but he knew that it was futile. He called Ernie instead and said, “Ernie? We’re on for tonight. Wear your vest. Oh, and Ernie? Wear your crucifix, too. The largest one you have.”

Orestes Vasquez, the White Ghost, lived in a $3.5 million house screened from Rosewood Avenue by a row of tall, dark cypress trees, but with views from the rear of the property up to the canyons and out over the Silver Lake Reservoir. It was a modern house, faced with prawn-pink brick. It had three stories and three balconies and looked more like a medieval castle than a family home.

Dan and Ernie were already parked across the street when the SWAT team arrived. They were sitting in Dan’s Torrent listening to
tamboraza
music on the radio and drinking hot chocolate, which Ernie had brought in a flask. Dan didn’t usually like hot chocolate, but Ernie’s wife brewed it so rich and so dark that drinking it was like committing a sin, and he felt almost as if he ought to go to church and confess it.

“Here they come, God help them,” said Dan, as two black vans pulled up in front of them. Seven other police vehicles were positioned around the immediate neighborhood—squad cars and SUVs—with twenty-one uniformed officers and a dog handler. Less than half a mile away, on Silver Lake Ridge, three ambulances were waiting, too.

“Who’s this?” said Ernie, turning around in his seat, as a black Lincoln Town Car came up the slope and stopped right behind them.

Dan checked his rearview mirror. “Jesus. Deputy Chief Days. Looks like he’s come to oversee this little operation in person.”

Ernie switched off the music. “I hope for his sake that this doesn’t go as wrong as you think it’s going to go.”

The doors of the black vans swung open, and two six-man SWAT teams climbed out, all dressed in black fireproof coveralls and black bulletproof vests, with black Kevlar helmets that made them look like clones of Darth Vader. They were carrying 9mm Heckler & Koch submachine guns and .45-caliber Colt automatics, as well as breaching shotguns for blowing open doors, flashbang and stinger grenades, and rifles that fired bean bags at high velocity.

Dan climbed out of his SUV and made his way across to the SWAT team’s senior officer, a grim-faced sergeant who looked as if he had been the model for Major Chip Hazard in
Small Soldiers
.

The officer was waving to two high-grounders who were positioning themselves on the roof of the house next to the Vasquez residence. Dan flashed his badge and said, “Detective Fisher, Sergeant. Homicide, West Hollywood.”

“Appreciate your support, Detective, although I don’t think we’re going to be having much trouble picking these particular clams out of their shells.”

“As a matter of fact, sir, I didn’t come to give you backup. I came to warn you off.”

The sergeant was making complicated signals to one of the marksmen on the roof. When he had finished, he turned to Dan and said, “Excuse me, Detective, you’ve come here to do
what?
”

Already Dan could hear the deep throb of helicopters approaching over the hills. “You don’t fully appreciate what you’re up against, sir. It’s not easy to explain this, but Orestes Vasquez has some very powerful people to help him.”

“Detective, members of our team have been keeping this house under close surveillance for the past nine hours, and we know exactly who’s in there, where they’re located, and what level of threat they present.”

The beat of the helicopters grew louder, and Dan began to grow increasingly worried. “You
think
you know how dangerous these people are, and under normal circumstances, yes, sir, your assessment would probably be spot on. But these are not normal circumstances, and these are not normal people.”

“You want to explain that?”

“If I tried to, you wouldn’t believe me. All I’m asking is that you postpone this operation until I’ve had the chance to prove how dangerous it could be.”

The SWAT teams were hurrying across the road now, their soft-soled urban boots pattering on the blacktop. They gathered around high, studded gates that shielded the White Ghost’s mansion from the world outside. Two officers began to fix a C2 explosive charge to the locks.

As they did so, two black Huey helicopters appeared over the hilltops, shining floodlights down onto the Vasquez house. They hovered only thirty feet over the chimneys, and Dan was deafened by the thump of their engines and the
whack-
a-
whack-
a-
whack-
a
of their rotor blades. Their doors were already open, and four SWAT officers had fastened ropes to the D-rings at the rear, ready to rappel down to the roof.

The SWAT sergeant was shouting orders into his helmet mike. “Go! Go! Go! Let’s breach that gate!
Blue leader, make sure you knock out those security cameras. Go!”

There was a muffled bang as the gates were blown apart, and brown smoke billowed across the street. The SWAT sergeant stalked toward the entrance, taking out his automatic as he did so, still barking instructions.

Dan followed him and shouted, “Sir! You still have time! I swear to God, you need to call this off!”

The helicopter’s floodlights were swiveling all around, which made shadows lean at impossible angles, as if they were dancing or drunk. The SWAT teams were yelling, “
Go! Go! Go! Go!
” They ran up the driveway between Orestes Vasquez’s five shiny black SUVs and vaulted over the ornamental flower beds and the decorative fish pools.

Dan stayed back by the blown-open gates. Maybe he was totally wrong and Orestes Vasquez would surrender without putting up a fight. But on the other hand, maybe he wouldn’t, and before he got too close, Dan wanted to see if the White Ghost was going to retaliate—and if he did, how. Helicopters were beating over the rooftop, police armed with submachine guns were running all over the gardens. Yet nobody had switched on a single light inside the house, and so far Dan hadn’t seen a single face at any of the windows.

“Let’s have those doors open!” shouted the SWAT sergeant, striding up to the wide porch.

Two explosives officers set another small C2 charge between the double oak doors. At the same time, the four rope-sliders were beginning their descent from the helicopters.

Ernie came up behind Dan and said, “So much for black magic. Looks like we’re going to collar Vasquez without even breaking a sweat.”

But at that instant, there was a blinding crackle of lightning, right over the top of the house. It was so
dazzling that Dan could still see it on his retina after it was gone, like the wriggling, jerking branches of an immense upside-down tree.

The two Hueys dipped and tilted, their engines moaning, and almost collided with each other. Below them, all four ropes were on fire, and the SWAT officers clinging to them were blazing, too. Dan could hear them screaming as they were swung around and around in fiery circles.

There was a bellow of thunder that made the driveway shake underneath his feet. Ernie crossed himself and said, “
Madre mia!
”

There was another blast of lightning, and this time it seemed to split itself into four convulsive snakes—each of which struck at one of the burning rope-sliders. The men exploded in a shower of scarlet flesh, with heads and arms and rib cages flying in all directions, as if they had been bombed.

Thunder bellowed, and the ground shook so violently that mock-Greek statues tipped over, and the surface of the fish ponds shuddered. Dan could see the SWAT sergeant shouting into his helmet mike, and although he couldn’t hear what the officer was saying, he could guess because the two helicopters abruptly angled away from the roof of the house and headed back toward the hills, each still trailing two burning ropes behind it.

As the beat of their engines faded, the explosives experts hurried away from the front porch, yelling, “Fire in the hole!”

There was a long pause. Then they yelled it again. “
Fire in the hole!
” But still nothing happened.

The SWAT sergeant stalked up to them in fury. “What the hell is wrong here? Blow those goddamn doors!”

Dan said, “I have to stop this. This is insane. It’s going to be a massacre.”

Ernie said, “Dan—”

“For Christ’s sake, El Gordo, admit it! It’s black magic! They don’t stand a frigging chance!”

Dan dodged his way across the garden and ran across the driveway. Blood and smoking flesh were splattered everywhere. One of Vasquez’s SUVs was draped in pale pink intestines, like a wedding car, and there was a Kevlar helmet with a head still in it lying in one of the flower beds.

Dan climbed the steps to the porch. The SWAT sergeant was pacing in agitation while the two explosives experts were desperately fiddling with the C2 charge on the door.

“This was supposed to be a surprise operation!” the sergeant was shouting at them. “A frigging
surprise
, get it? You might as well have sent them a polite letter to tell them what time we were coming!”

“It’s the C2, sir. It’s changed consistency. For some reason it won’t detonate.”

“It smells bad, too. Jesus, it smells like something dead.”

“Sergeant!” said Dan. “You really have to call this off. What I told you—you’ve seen it for yourself! Vasquez has the power to wipe out all of us if he wants to, just like those poor bastards on the roof.”

The SWAT sergeant ignored him and beckoned impatiently to three of his men trotting up the driveway, carrying a heavy, black breaching ram. “Let’s have that baby here, now! If we can’t blow this goddamned door down, let’s knock it off its goddamned hinges.”

“Sir,” Dan persisted. “What do you think happened up there with those rope-sliders?”

“A goddamned flamethrower by the look of it, and grenades. How should I know? Now clear the area, Detective, before I have you forcibly cleared.”

“There was lightning, sir. And thunder.”

The SWAT sergeant looked up at the sky. “Do you see a storm, Detective?”

“No, sir, I don’t, and that’s my whole point. That lightning was created by unnatural forces.”

“Right!” shouted the SWAT sergeant. “Stand back and let’s effect some dynamic entry!”

Six of the SWAT officers positioned themselves around the porch, their submachine guns aimed at the doors, while one of them hefted up the breaching ram.

“Hold it!” Dan shouted. “I swear to God, you don’t want to do this!”

The SWAT sergeant lowered his head for a moment like a man trying very hard to keep his temper. Then, without looking at Dan, he said, “You have three seconds to give me a three-word reason why not.”

“There’s a witch inside. Vasquez has a witch. She can kill you as soon as look at you. Or blind you. Or worse.”

“A
witch?
As in, The Wicked Witch of the West?”

“Not a fictional character, sir. A real witch. She was the one who caused the chief to puke up a toad, and she was the one who killed those guys on the roof just now.”

At that moment, Deputy Chief Days came striding up, accompanied by Captain Kromesky and Lieutenant Cascarelli. He looked around at the lumps of flesh that littered the driveway, and his mouth turned downward in disgust and disbelief.

“You shouldn’t be here, sir,” said the SWAT sergeant. “We’re just about to breach the front doors.”

“Oh,
now
you’re going to breach the front doors?”

“We had a technical glitch, sir. It’s all under control.”

“It’s all under control, is it? Four good men have been blown to smithereens and the media are starting to show up, and you’re standing around here with your finger up your rear end.”

“It’s my fault, sir,” Dan put in. “I’ve been advising the sergeant to exercise extreme caution. The White Ghost has a woman in there with very dangerous capabilities.”

“A witch, apparently,” said the SWAT sergeant.

Deputy Chief Days stared at Dan and said, “I saw you before at the hospital, didn’t I, when the chief was taken in?”

“Yes, sir, you did, sir, and I was trying to warn you about the same woman then. Or women. There’s more than one of them. Four, in fact.”

“Are you
on
something, Detective?”

“No, sir. You’ve seen it for yourself. The hurricane at Chief O’Malley’s house. The toads. And now this. These four guys getting blown apart.”

Deputy Chief Days closed his eyes for two or three seconds. Then he said, “Get this officer out of here. I’ll deal with him in the morning. Meantime, I want those doors open right now, and I want Vasquez and everybody else in that house arrested on every charge you can think of.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, then,” said Deputy Chief Days. “If that two-bit Colombian
traqueto
thinks he can declare war on the entire Los Angeles Police Department and get away with it, he has a very rude awakening in store. I’ll have his balls.”

“Everybody in their positions?” shouted the SWAT sergeant. “Let’s do it!”

“Listen!” said Dan. “You should at least know what you’re up against here! Cordon off the house, don’t let Vasquez leave—but before you try to break in there, I have a friend who can tell you exactly what these witches are capable of!”

“I said, get this loony tune out of here,” said Deputy Chief Days.

One of the SWAT officers took hold of Dan’s arm and firmly pulled him away from the house. “Okay, take it easy,” Dan told him. “I’m going.” All the same, the SWAT officer took him all the way back to the gates and pushed him out onto the sidewalk.

“Just keep back, sir, please? Sergeant Miller’s not the kind of guy you need to get riled.”

Dan said, “You want some advice? Stay out here in the street. Make like you’re having trouble persuading me to go home.”

“What exactly are you talking about, sir?”

“I’m talking about saving your life, son. That’s all.”

“I’m not chicken, sir.”

“I never suggested you were. But one day you’re going to find out that there’s a difference between ‘chicken’ and ‘prudent,’ and I just hope it isn’t today.”

Ernie was waiting for Dan outside. On the other side of Rosewood Avenue, behind a police cordon, a crowd of reporters and TV cameramen had already gathered, as well as local residents in their nightwear.

“I’m sorry,
muchacho
,” said Ernie. “You can’t explain anything to people who won’t listen. We have a saying in Mexico: You can tell a joke to a stone but don’t expect it to laugh.”