Vertical Coffin (2004) (32 page)

I flipped him the bird and he laughed, then turned and limped on his walking cast back toward the offense. Sonny looked up when Chooch yelled. He was dressed in sweats and football shoes, with a towel around his neck. When he saw me, he scowled and immediately started walking in my direction. We met about midfield.

"I came to make a deal," I said.

"You got nothing I want."

I told him about Smiley's twin brother Paul, how Jo Brickhouse and I had found the tunnel at Hidden Ranch, and my theory about how easy it would have been for Vincent to steal those casings from the shooting ranges, commit the Nightingale and Greenridge murders, and frame both SWAT teams. When I was finished, he had lost the attitude.

"You and Jo Brickhouse turned all that?" he said, a little respect creeping into his voice and eyes.

I nodded, then added, "Jo was shot by that bastard this afternoon. She's in critical condition at L
. A
. County. She went to a house Smiley was using in Inglewood and he dumped her. It's all over the department and on the news. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it."

"I've been at practice here since two."

"I think I know where Smiley might be," I continued, "but I have a few conditions."

Sonny stood with his hands on his hips, his face a mask. I couldn't read him at all.

"First, I can't go after him alone. I need your word that if I tell you where I think he is, you'll do your best to deliver what I want."

"I'm not gonna promise anything, Scully. At least not until I know what you have in mind."

"All I want is your best effort. If you can't deliver, then you can't deliver."

"Let's hear." He took off the towel that was around his neck and dropped it on the grass. His team had stopped practicing, so he turned and yelled, "Hey! Keep that drill going. This ain't a break! We have the Chargers on Saturday!"

The boys again lined up and continued the tackling drill. Sonny looked back at me.

"I think Smiley went up into the Chocolate Mountains. It's a range out by the Salton Sea, south of Indio."

"So call the FBI. It's their case now. Turn it over to them."

"I want to arrest him myself. Two weeks ago he shot Emo, a guy I really cared about. This afternoon he dropped my partner. I really want this guy, Sonny."

"It's not like Sergeant Brickhouse was your real partner." He was hedging.

"Hey, she's my partner! And she's also my friend!" I almost shouted this at him. Calm down, I lectured myself for about the tenth time in two days. Then I put my hand on his shoulder. "Listen Sonny, if not for me or for Jo, then do it for Emo. You cared about him. Smiley deserves some first-person payback."

"You said you had a few conditions. I got the first one. What're the others?"

"I don't know how to mountain climb, and from what I've found out, I think he's going into some pretty rough terrain. I need help to get up there."

"How can I help you with that?" Sonny said. "I don't know how to mountain climb."

"SEB does. They teach their SWAT teams mountain rescue. I want you to get in touch with Scott Cook, tell him to bring the Gray team, or as many of those guys as he can, and have the
m m
eet me here and bring their climbing equipment. I'll call Cagel at SRT and see if I can convince him to loan me that unit too."

"SEB and SRT are barely speaking. Put 'em in the same place, and you could end up with people getting killed."

"Think about it. These are the two units that were hurt the most by all this. They weren't out killing each other, Smiley just made it look that way. What better way to bring these guys back together?"

"A joint op."

"Exactly. We work it together. Go up there and drag that asshole off the mountain."

"You oughta sell this to the Discovery Channel," he said dryly. But I could tell from his expression and the glint in his eyes, that I had him.

"Tell Sergeant Cook that my condition for giving him Smiley's exact location is that I go up there with them."

"He's not gonna go for that."

"He is if he wants to catch the guy who killed Billy Greenridge."

Chapter
43

GOOD TO GO

Whatta they doing here?" Gordon Grundy said, standing in the back of the SRT SWAT truck, which was parked in the Faculty Only area of the Agoura High School lot. He was looking across the tarmac as the SEB SWAT van's headlights swept across us pulling in. It was just after sunset.

"So far, the only thing all of us are guilty of is having a stupid fight in a bar," I said. "Nobody shot anybody. SEB didn't light up Greenridge and you didn't shoot Nightingale. Maybe it's time to bottle up some of this testosterone and aim it at the real shooter."

Grundy was a tall, hard-edged man, dressed in black Kevlar. A collection of right angles and hard surfaces, his jaw jutted and his knuckles looked like unmined calcium deposits. He wa
s f
lacked and jacked. His first scout, Nacho Rosano, was behind him, also glaring across the tarmac at the sheriff's van.

Grundy, Rosano, Happy Zant, and Ringo Wagner, the two other members of the ATF Situation Response Team, climbed out of their truck. They stood in a tight huddle watching the Sheriff's SEB team dismount from their van twenty yards away. From this distance, it looked like only SEB team leader, Scott Cook, and his first scout, Rick Manos had come. Then I saw Sonny Lopez jump down out of the back of their van. He was only supposed to be the messenger, so what the hell was he doing back here? Scott, Rick, and Sonny moved across the parking lot toward us.

"Let's talk to these guys," I said to Grundy.

He nodded, and along with Nacho Rosano, walked with me toward the SEB team. Once we got to within a few feet, everybody stopped. There was enough electricity here to start a power company.

The sheriffs wore tan jumpsuits with Glocks in low-slung outside rigs strapped with Velcro to their right legs. They were carrying long rifle cases called drag bags. Each one was folded up around a long gun and contained a shooter's mat and sniper's pack, with a multifrequency radio and several bullet trays. All of them, including Sonny, were wearing heavy Cover6 Plus tactical vests.

ATF was in black jumpsuits with "SRT SWAT" in gold letters on the back. They also carried big holstered sidearms, wore Ultima flak vests, and were carrying fifty-pound mission packs.

Everyone traded appraising looks. It seemed it was up to me to perform the marriage ceremony.

"Okay," I said. "We need to get some stuff behind us before we start." Nobody said anything. "I think somebody needs to own up to what happened at Hidden Ranch."

Grundy shifted his weight. "We told your warrant control desk there was a possibility of automatic weapons in there."

"Not according to them," Cook said immediately.

"Excuse the expletive, but fuck 'em," Grundy said dangerously.

"Whatta you mean, fuck 'em? Fuck you! They said you only told them about the impersonating bust."

"That's bullshit." Grundy was getting hot. "Somebody, probably some six-dollar-an-hour civilian in your warrant office, is covering his ass. We told them there was a weapons complaint and that there was a possibility of ordnance at that address. We also--" He stopped and everybody waited. "Okay," he went on. "We put a low assignment risk on it because we'd braced Smiley before and, quite frankly, he looked to us like a feeb. We didn't see any trouble coming. In retrospect, we shoulda assigned a higher risk to the warrant delivery. That was a mistake. But we're not fucking mind readers. Nobody thought the shit was gonna jump off like it did. We backed up Deputy Rojas. We were just around the corner."

"Why didn't you serve your own damn warrant?" Cook asked.

"We thought it was unnecessarily provocative to roll in there with a SWAT team. We didn't think he had an AK-forty-seven, but we wanted to give your guy cover, so we parked nearby."

They were all silent for a long time.

"Look, we're sorry," Grundy said. "I know that doesn't cover the loss of Deputy Rojas, but the fact is, we feel pretty damn bad about it. We tried to come to the funeral, but you guys ran us out."

Scott Cook looked at Sonny Lopez. It was almost as if he was asking Sonny's permission to go for this. Finally Sonny nodded.

"Okay," Scott said. "We accept the apology." Then he put out his hand and Gordon Grundy shook it. After that we shook all around.

"I understand this guy is in the mountains up on rough terrain." Grundy was getting right to business.

"Right," I said.

"Okay, we're good to go," Grundy said. "We're all V-five
-
certified climbers."

"So are Rick and I," Scott said. "But Sonny Lopez couldn't climb off a whore's ass in the middle of a vice raid."

"Then what's he doing here?" Grundy asked.

"He came over to the SWAT house to give us the word, then wouldn't get outta the damn van."

"I'm going," Sonny stated bluntly.

"We can't take anybody who isn't certified. It's dangerous and it'll slow us down," Grundy said.

"I'm going," Sonny repeated.

"Me too," I said. "I didn't put this whole thing together so I could read about the capture in the newspaper."

"You're not going either, Scully," Scott Cook said. "Neither of you are."

"Then you're not getting the map," I answered. "I'm the only one who knows where on that mountain Smiley went. Those are the terms."

Scott and Gordon glowered at me. Again, I was the problem.

"Okay, if that's the way you want it, you guys can come. But we're not waiting for either one of you. If you can't keep up, we're leaving you."

"Fine," I said. Sonny nodded.

"Is that all you've got to wear?" Grundy said, looking at my jeans and cotton shirt.

"I'm sure you guys have another one of those snazzy lookin' bunny suits in the truck."

Grundy turned to Rosano. "Nacho, get this asshole suited up."

Nacho headed to the truck and I followed. As I was changing my clothes inside, putting on the jumpsuit and Tac vest, Gordon Grundy and Scott Cook walked over to the back door.

"Okay, so where the hell am I going?" Grundy asked.

I pulled the book that Marion Bell had given me out of my briefcase, and flipped it open to the Chocolate Mountains. "He's heading for a Navy SEAL camp. Right here." I put my finger on the spot marked Silver Pass.

Chapter
44

THE CHOCOLATE
MOUNTAINS

We were all in SRT's SWAT truck, because it was bigger, newer, and had better toys. Gordon Grundy drove, while Sonny, Rick, Scott, Nacho, Ringo, Happy, and I sat on the benches in the back facing each other with tight, blank expressions, dressed like Gulf War commandos. We sped along the 210 on our way toward Palm Springs, lost in our own thoughts. Too many friends had died or had been injured in the last two weeks.

I thought of Emo, remembering his easy smile, the way he had of looking at you without judgment. I had once seen him in a booking cage telling jokes to a guy he had just busted, both of them doubled over with laughter. He could arrest somebody without making a power trip out of it. He understood human weakness and always seemed to be able to communicate, eve
n w
ith the most hardened criminals. Emo was the kind of cop I had joined up to be.

Before we left Agoura, I had called the hospital and Bridget reported that there was no news. Jo was still in ICU and critical. Bridget sounded like she was beginning to come apart, her voice tight, verging on shrill.

As we rode toward the desert, I was feeling very alone in the crowded state-of-the-art SRT truck. I knew I had been going through a simultaneous process of growth and degeneration. I was slowly exposing the vulnerable parts of myself, taking the chance that the people I cherished the most wouldn't hate me for those weaknesses. While this helped me in my personal life and on the job, I no longer saw the landing lights, unsure of why I was even on the mission or if I would ever find the answers. Then along comes this one moment of moral certainty. Find Vincent Smiley and make the sonofabitch pay. As if his destruction would somehow restore order to my fractured value system.

Jo Brickhouse and I were coming from the same place emotionally. The order we both craved from police work had only produced confusion and disillusionment. But she was lying in a hospital close to death as a result of my bad police work, and I was in this SWAT truck roaring across the desert to avenge a shattered sense of justice, telling myself I was doing this for Jo, a woman I hadn't even liked a few days ago and had badly mis
-
evaluated, and for Emo, a man I'd admired but hadn't spent that much time with.

Was this just a big, ugly piece of street theater? Was I making a splashy move to convince myself I was still relevant? Could I put an end to my moral slide by stepping on the back of Vincent Smiley's neck and jamming his face in the dirt? Would that restore my values, make my work seem worthwhile again?

Even as I raced toward the Chocolate Mountains to apprehend him, I couldn't forget the look of hatred in that Compton grandmother's eyes. What the hell was I really looking for?