The Gatekeeper (21 page)

M
adison covered her ears. It was like being in the middle of a war movie, but so much louder in real life. She’d had no idea guns were so deafening. She didn’t know how anyone could stand shooting them.

The commando-boys had stashed her, Audrey and Bree behind a rickety shed on the outskirts of a ranch. There was a house a few hundred feet away, but despite the noise nobody had appeared at the windows—probably empty. They’d been headed there, hoping to find a working phone, when all hell broke loose. Maltz had ordered them to stay down while he and the other men handled the situation. That was what he’d called it, a “situation,” as if this was all a big misunderstanding, not life and death. She had no idea how many people were out there trying to kill them, but it sounded like hundreds. The three of them huddled together, hands over their ears, terror in their eyes.

“There are too many of them!” her mother yelled as a spray of bullets sent a chunk of wood flying off the shed.

Bree spoke, but her words were overwhelmed by a rapid pounding that tore up the ground twenty feet away.

“We have to run for it,” her mother said, eyes wild. “Get to the house, call for help.”

“I can’t run, Mommy,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

“I’ll go,” Bree said.

It took a second for Madison to process the words and realize that Bree was serious.

“No, honey…risky…” her mother’s voice was drowned out by another explosion.

Madison recognized her sister’s grave expression, the same look of intense concentration that terrorized opponents during field hockey games. She reached out a hand to stop her, but Bree was already on her feet, running for the house.

She zigzagged crazily, bullets spitting up clods of dirt around her. It was amazing that Bree knew to swerve like that, Madison thought, impressed. She’d already covered half the distance. Madison had forgotten how fast she was, she’d been an all-star forward back in California but ditched field hockey after the move. Bree said the team at the new school was lame, they’d never win, but Madison figured she had another reason. Watching her slip through the trees, fast and sure-footed, it looked as though she would have dominated every game.

“Is she going to make it?” As her mother spoke there was a brief lull in the shooting, and her voice was overly loud. She sounded hopeful, and scared.

Madison didn’t answer. She watched, riveted, as Bree vanished into another stand of trees. There was more cover now, she’d made it through the open field and only had ten feet to go. “She is,” Madison breathed, hardly believing it. “She’s going to be okay.”

Suddenly a figure emerged from the shadows on Bree’s left. Madison opened her mouth to scream a
warning, but it was too late. The man lunged for Bree, driving her sideways with a long sweeping tackle. Madison felt her mother clutch her hand, heard her shrieking as they both watched Bree vanish beneath him.

“I’m getting really tired of warehouses,” Rodriguez said in a low voice.

Kelly didn’t answer, but silently agreed. They were in a cluster of warehouses on the outskirts of Houston that were nearly indistinguishable from the ones in Laredo. It made Kelly recall what Jake had said the other day, about always feeling as if he was getting off the freeway in the same place.

It was nearly four o’clock. They’d managed to grab the last two seats on a flight from San Antonio and landed a half hour ago. True to his word, Agent Taylor had wrangled a tactical unit from Houston to participate in the search. Not before Kelly got an earful from ASAC McLarty, however. Apparently the Phoenix D.A. had thrown a press conference announcing arrests in the Morris case, and the Bureau was happy to have everything tied up with a bow. McLarty was less than thrilled to discover that not only did Kelly suspect the Salvadorans were innocent, but that one of the nation’s most prominent businessmen might be involved. He’d told her in no uncertain terms to tread carefully.

“You don’t find anything, I want you on a plane home tonight,” he’d thundered.

“And if I find something?” Kelly asked, unable to keep the challenge from her voice.

The only response was a dial tone. She suspected that no matter what happened, she probably couldn’t count on a good reference from McLarty in the future. Which was a shame, since he was the reason she’d transferred to this
unit. But when her case in the Berkshires went sideways, Kelly quickly learned there was only one job McLarty was interested in protecting: his own. She shouldn’t have been surprised. During her tenure she’d served under her fair share of ASACs. But she’d thought McLarty was different. It was incredibly disheartening to have the wool ripped from her eyes.

Kelly stood back. The tactical unit was going in first, for which she was secretly grateful. Over the past few days she’d had enough busting down doors to last the rest of her life. Rodriguez looked moderately better after catching a catnap on the plane. She still felt like crap, and hadn’t been able to reach Jake in California. She hated when they fell out of touch like this. The worst part was admitting that after a few days, she had to remind herself to call him. She suspected that wasn’t a good sign.

Kelly shrugged it off, trying to get her game face on as the tactical team swarmed through the door. A series of calls echoed through the warehouse and bounced back to her and Rodriguez.

“Ready to see what’s behind door number three?” Rodriguez asked, eyebrows raised.

“I’m hoping for a brand-new car,” Kelly said drily.

“All clear!” someone yelled from inside.

Kelly reholstered her Glock as she entered. The warehouse was dark, solely illuminated by a dim bulb in the far corner. Suddenly, the lights clicked on—one of the agents must have found the switch. This warehouse was about double the size of the other two. On the near side of the room, a set of rickety card tables had been pushed together and were surrounded by folding chairs. Beer bottles, empty chips bags and decks of cards littered the surface and the surrounding floor.

“Tire tracks,” Rodriguez noted. “Something big came through here.”

“Definitely,” Kelly agreed.

There was a pile of clothes in the center of the room. Two of the tactical team officers knelt beside it. The rest of the warehouse was bare.

“Uh-oh,” Rodriguez said.

Kelly crossed the distance quickly. As she got closer the clothes resolved themselves into a body lying in a pool of congealed blood. Two more steps and she could make out what was left of his face. He was in his mid- to late-forties, tall and thin. He was wearing jeans and a button-down shirt.

“Dead.” One of the officers glanced up at her. “You know him?”

Kelly shook her head. “No ID?”

“Not on him. We’ll check the rest of the place, but who knows…” He shrugged helplessly. “You should see those back rooms, they’re a mess. Looks like they had a small army camped out here.”

“Doesn’t look like a skinhead, and he’s definitely not Mexican,” Rodriguez said.

“Minuteman, maybe? And there was an altercation?” Kelly said.

“We’ll get a team out here to dust for prints, have the ME give us a time of death,” the officer said.

“No rigor, so not long ago,” Kelly said.

“Unless it already passed,” Rodriguez remarked.

“He looks too good for that. In this heat, no AC, even in a sheltered area he’d be in much worse shape.” Kelly wasn’t a doctor, but she’d seen enough dead bodies to get a sense of these things. She wondered who he was, and why he’d been killed. She shook her head, frustrated. This case kept raising more questions than it answered.
“I want his photo run against missing persons reports filed in the past week.”

“Just in Houston?” the tactical agent asked.

“Let’s start there, then expand to the rest of the state.”

“Look on the bright side,” Rodriguez said. “We made good on the warrant. That should get McLarty off your back, at least for now.”

“Maybe,” Kelly said, distracted. There was something glowing twenty yards away, toward the rear of the warehouse. “What’s that?”

Rodriguez followed her across the warehouse. Kelly knelt to examine the strange powder: it shimmered iridescent blue, almost seeming to pulse.

Rodriguez reached a finger toward it. Kelly grabbed his hand, stopping him. “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t your mother ever say if you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it?”

Kelly waved over the head of the tactical unit. He trotted toward them, slowing when he saw the powder.

“Holy shit,” he said in a low voice, stopping a few feet away.

“Can we get a—”

“Everybody out! Now!” he hollered, turning and circling a finger in the air. At his tone the rest of the unit froze, then retreated for the exits.

“What is it?” Rodriguez asked, sounding scared. He took a few steps back, tracking it. His footprints glowed phosphorescent.

The agent noticed. “Sir, I’m going to ask you to remove your shoes without touching them. Then we go outside and wait for a Hazmat team.”

“Shit, are they ruined?” Rodriguez looked down, panic seeping into his voice. “I love these shoes.”

“What do you think it is?” Kelly asked the tactical commander. They watched from twenty feet away as Rodriguez gingerly pulled off one shoe with the toe of the other, then beat a path to them in his socks, careful to avoid the small puddles of blue.

“Not exactly sure, ma’am. All I know is if it glows, we go. Standard procedure.”

“How long until we can get a crime scene unit in here?” Kelly asked, following him to the door.

He shook his head. “I got a feeling,” he said grimly, “that this is going to be a hell of a lot bigger than one dead guy.”

M
altz had his back pressed against a tree. He could see Fribush and Jagerson behind a tractor about a dozen yards to his left. Jagerson had taken a hit. He was clutching his leg while Fribush bent to examine it. They were pinned down. There were two, maybe three hostiles at twelve o’clock, about twenty yards away from him. Another two at ten o’clock, aiming at Fribush and Jagerson. The rest had either fallen behind or were holding their fire, though he doubted these amateurs would be that smart. So far they’d been tentative—a good spray of fire was enough to send them diving for cover. But Maltz was running out of ammo, and they knew it. They were getting bolder, advancing. Dangel had never made it back from the van run, which meant he was probably down, and if Jagerson couldn’t be moved, Maltz didn’t love the odds of them completing this mission. To be brought down by a group of hacks would be the ultimate insult, he’d prefer to swallow his gun. And he hated the thought of these rednecks getting hold of the girls and their mother, even if they were the biggest collective pains in the ass he’d ever had the pleasure of dealing with.

Where the fuck was Syd?
he thought, checking his radio again. It spit out a stream of static, and he cursed silently. If he made it out of this alive, he was definitely upgrading, this subpar civvy shit was worthless. He tried transmitting their position via Morse code again, compressing the talk button, hoping someone out there was paying attention.

“We got her!” A voice yelled. Maltz’s heart sank. He craned his head around the side of the tree, careful to stay out of the line of fire. A guy in a leather vest with scraggly hair was dragging one of the girls—the older one, without the cast. Crap. Maltz wondered where the other two were, if they’d been smart enough to hide.

“Stop shooting or I kill the bitch!” the guy yelled.

Maltz braced himself against the tree trunk. His rifle was specially equipped with an infrared laser, allowing him to see exactly where the shot was going, even at a distance of a few hundred yards. He sighted down his rifle: Bree was an inch too tall, just blocking a perfect head shot. Maltz gritted his teeth, mentally willing her to move to the side, duck down, something. She stumbled slightly and his finger tensed, but the guy yanked her up again. They were fifteen feet away now. If he had a good opening, there was no way he could miss. The girl stumbled again, and he had a clear shot. Maltz steadied his aim, braced to squeeze the trigger…

“Wait! Please don’t hurt her.”

Maltz squeezed his eyes shut in frustration as the mother emerged from the shadows, hands held high.
Jesus,
he thought, shaking his head.
Civilians.

The scraggly guy’s head pivoted, ruining the angle, and Maltz sighed. Another figure appeared, hopping on one leg—the youngest.
Fucking perfect time for a family reunion.

He glanced over to Jagerson and Fribush. Fribush shrugged and indicated that he didn’t have a clear shot, either. Maltz clenched his jaw as the guy gathered the women in front of him. “All right, assholes, stop shooting or I’ll start.”

Maltz hadn’t fired a shot in a few minutes, and neither had his men, but he figured this wasn’t the time to point that out. A pro would have demanded they throw down their weapons and show themselves; the fact that he hadn’t meant they still had a chance. He signaled for Fribush to keep a line on the guy. If Maltz could draw him away from the women, into a position where Fribush had a clear shot…

“I’m coming out! Don’t shoot!” Maltz yelled, leaning his rifle against the tree. The guy’s head swiveled, searching for him. Maltz took a step forward, still obscured by the shadows. He had a Glock 19 tucked in a holster behind his shoulder. If necessary he could access it quickly.

He heard voices approaching and took another step forward, breath tight in his chest. He hoped the rest were still leery of getting too close, otherwise they might be doomed.

“Bunch of crap you put us through,” the scraggly guy griped, “crossing the river and shit.”

“Yeah, well.” Maltz stepped to the side, and the guy tracked him. Untrained adversaries tended to follow with their bodies as well as their eyes, an instinct that only served them in dealings with other amateurs. One more step to the left and Fribush would be able to pick him off without risking the women. “Just doing my job.”

“Who the fuck hired you?” The guy shifted as Maltz took another step, turning with him.
Good,
Maltz thought.
Just one more foot…

A sudden noise, from the direction of the house. They all froze. The guy reacted a second after Maltz, spinning to face it, opening himself up….

They didn’t end up needing the radio to find Maltz and the others, all they had to do was follow the gunfire. It bounced off the hills, sending them down a few wrong turns as they tried to pinpoint it. They were backtracking, and had reemerged on the main road when a cop car tore past, blazing lights and sirens.

“I guess someone dialed 911,” Jake said.

“Sounds like World War III out there,” Syd said. “Hope Maltz and his boys have extra ammo.”

Jake hoped so, too. He was a little nonplussed by how calm she was. The hairier the situation, the happier and more at home she appeared. Something about that scared the crap out of him. George sat in the backseat, purportedly to keep an eye on them.

“Yeah, stay on this guy,” he said into his radio. “And make sure your vests are on before you get out of the car.”

Syd gunned it, hot on the heels of the cop car.

“The sheriff knows we’re coming, right?” Jake asked.

George shrugged. “He should. But it might not be a bad idea to keep your hands in sight when you get out of the car.”

“Get him to shut those damn sirens off,” Syd said. “We gotta go in quiet.”

George glanced at Jake and raised an eyebrow. Jake shrugged. “What the lady said.”

“Okay, boss.” George conveyed the message to his team in the other car and the sheriff. The sirens abruptly stopped. Another cop car appeared behind them.

They crossed a bridge over the river, bouncing over a cattle grate on the opposite side. The sheriff’s car took a
sharp right onto a narrow lane that turned out to be a driveway. He wrenched the car onto the shoulder a few hundred feet from the house. Syd pulled in next to him, and the other cars followed suit.

A lanky guy in a sheriff’s uniform and hat climbed out, tucking a rifle over his shoulder before approaching. His eyes narrowed slightly at the sight of them behind George. “Good to see you again, Agent Fong.” He shifted his gaze to Jake, then Syd. “You the folks kicked up this shitstorm?”

“That would be us,” Syd said. “We’ve got a family out there, mother and two teenage girls.”

“Alone?”

“Three of my men are with them.”

The other FBI agents, two men and a woman, joined them. Everyone was wearing their vests, faces tight. Jake recognized the air of expectation. There was a palpable rush of adrenaline before a fight, when you were dreading it and itching for it, all at the same time.

“So I’m guessing you’re in charge here?” the sheriff asked George.

George glanced sidelong at Syd, then stepped forward. “’Fraid so. Looks like a biker gang is after them.”

“Sure, the Rogues. Been trying to run them out of town since I got the job. You want to take them off my hands, you’ve got my blessing.”

“How many are there?” Syd interrupted.

The sheriff shrugged. “Eight, maybe nine now. Busted a few for a meth lab a while back, so they’re serving time.”

“Corcoran?” Jake asked.

“Hell if I know.” Sheriff shrugged. “And don’t much care.”

There was a break in the gunfire, and they all cocked their heads. “I’m guessing that’s our cue,” George said.
“I’ll take the lead, the rest of you fan out. Remember,” he said, looking directly at Jake, “we only shoot if they pose an immediate threat.”

Jake wanted to point out that warning was more appropriate for Syd, but when he turned to see if it had sunk in, she was already gone. He could make out her blond hair ducking into the trees.

George shook his head. “Okay, head for the house. It sounds like the worst of it is up there.”

A sharp crack split the silence. Maltz instinctively dropped to a crouch, his right hand snatching the backup weapon from its holster. Another shot, and the scraggly guy’s gun went off as the side of his head exploded. He staggered a few feet before dropping. In response, a volley of shooting poured from the woods.

“Down! Get down!” Maltz waved frantically at the women, who had frozen in shock. The older girl reacted first, flattening herself to the ground, followed a second later by her mother and sister. Maltz watched as they covered their heads. Over the barrage he could hear them screaming.

A figure appeared by the farmhouse and Maltz leveled his gun, ready to pick him off. Something about the shape stopped him: the guy was wearing a baggy windbreaker. Feds, had to be. Syd had come through after all.

The sound of gunfire retreated. Reenergized, Maltz spun and pursued it through the trees. Shadowy figures dodged ahead of him in an all-out rout. Someone was coming up behind him, running hard. He spun and spotted Syd.

“About fucking time,” he said. She grinned in reply, dropping to one knee and squeezing a few rounds off at the heavy guy puffing away from them.

The guy dropped his gun, raised his hands in the air and waved them. “I surrender!” he yelped.

“Christ,” Syd said, shaking her head at Maltz. “Civilians, right?”

Madison sat beside Bree. Her mother stood at her shoulder, wringing her hands and emitting a long, unbroken moan. Bree was so pale, her breath coming in short rasps. Madison couldn’t remember ever feeling so scared, this was worse than the boat, worse than the house burning down around them. Her sister might die, and it was all her fault.

“It hurts,” Bree said, breathing hard, teeth clenched.

“Try to relax,” the man said soothingly.

Madison recognized him from the hospital, his name was John or Jay or something like that. He gently cradled Bree’s injured arm, carefully shifting it from side to side as he examined it. He eased up Bree’s shirtsleeve, pulling slowly where blood plastered it to the wound. She winced, hissing out through her teeth.

Madison had to turn away at the sight of the nasty hole in Bree’s arm, it looked like someone had carved through the skin all the way to the bone. She fought the reflex to retch, heard her mother saying, “Oh my God, oh my God,” over and over again.

Madison focused on the dead man fifteen feet away. For some reason the gore didn’t bother her, it was like looking at a Halloween dummy from a cheesy haunted house. And she was glad he was dead, she thought with a flare of anger. She wanted them all dead, everyone who had chased her and taunted her and sent her fucking e-mails pretending to be a great guy. She wanted everyone involved with this dead and gone, then maybe she could go back to her normal life and pretend none of it ever happened.

“It passed right through, which is good,” the man said. He looked at her mother as if weighing her, arrived at some conclusion and turned to Madison instead. It was only then that Madison realized she was crying. He mistook her tears of rage for sadness and said, “Don’t worry, kiddo. It’s gonna be all right now.”

Madison didn’t answer. He handed her something, and she gazed blankly at it. It was a piece of cloth.

“Keep pressure on the wound, okay? I’m going to check the sheriff’s car for a medical kit. Ambulance should be here any minute.”

Madison let him place her hand on Bree’s arm. She kept her eyes averted, trying not to see the steady trickle of blood flowing around the cloth. The man trotted back a second later holding a white box.

“Got it,” he said, kneeling beside them again. He drew out a few items before gingerly lifting her hand. “This is going to burn for a second, but I want to get it clean,” he said clumsily.

As Bree’s howls erupted, Madison squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her hands over her ears, trying to keep from screaming herself.

Jake felt shaky. It had been a long time since he’d administered medical attention to someone, and the last time hadn’t exactly been a success story. But with any luck the kid was going to be okay, it looked like the bullet went straight through. It was hard to tell with all the blood, but it didn’t even appear to have nicked the bone: probably a ricochet from that final barrage. Luckily the bullet had already slowed, energy dissipating, by the time it hit her. Still, the mother moaning and Madison’s jagged expression—they got to him. Jake took a deep breath, glancing back at them. The ambulance had finally arrived,
and they were climbing in after the stretcher. George was going to follow to get their statement. He wanted Jake and Syd to meet them at the hospital, “In case I still need to bring you in,” he’d said, only half-jokingly.

Jake was bone-tired. All he wanted to do was lie down in the back of the car and go to sleep for a few days. His phone rang. Without checking the number he answered.

“There you are,” Kelly said warmly.

Hearing her voice made his eyes smart with tears. He chalked it up to exhaustion. “Yeah, sorry I’ve been unreachable.” He looked around. The dead guy was being zipped into a bag, and the remaining bikers sat on the ground in a semicircle, hands zip-tied behind their backs, waiting for the paddy wagon. The ground was covered with spent bullets and casings. He couldn’t even begin to sum up the situation, so instead asked, “How are you?”

“I’ve been better. If I never go into a warehouse again it’ll be too soon.”

“Yeah?” Jake said. Syd emerged from the trees, Maltz by her side. They were discussing something in low voices, glancing at the Feds. Jake’s eyes narrowed. Syd didn’t have the look of someone who planned on making herself available to the authorities.

“…and now they won’t let the techs in, not even to print him.”

“Who?” Jake asked, tuning back in.

There was a long pause. “Is this a bad time?” Kelly said coldly.

“No, I mean…yeah, it is, kind of.” He struggled to come up with a way to explain the last few hours. “But I’m listening. I miss you so much.”