Kirk Russell - Dead Game

“Come on, answer your phone,” Ehrmann said. But the phone abruptly shut off.

The SWAT commander decided to flash-bang a door and use bullhorns to call them out. Marquez watched onscreen as four of the SWAT moved between the old Mercedes and the minivan. He could barely make out their shapes, and he overheard that the reason the door wasn’t being popped open with their “Peacekeeper” vehicle was that there wasn’t enough room to get between the Mercedes and minivan. He looked away from that monitor to one that was hooked to infrared cameras and recorded the heat images of the men who’d been in the meeting room moving past its screen.

“They’re out of the room,” Ehrmann said, and an audio tech said he could hear SWAT loud and clear calling them out with bullhorns. “No way they don’t hear that,” Ehrmann said. “No way.”

Then there was a rapid series of light flashes that the inside cameras caught and Marquez read as automatic fire. A shooter kept a steady stream of fire toward the door that had been breached, and then outside along the front there was a flash of light so brilliant the transmitting of it momentarily lit up the room here. There was a second bright flash and yelling and chaos as a fireball formed and rose where the Mercedes had been. It took a full second or two before they realized the cars parked out in front of Weisson’s had detonated.

“Omigod,” an agent to the left of Marquez said. “Oh, Jesus, no.”

The SWAT commander whose voice was broadcast live in the room was yelling as he aborted the bust and called everyone back, and the extrication team started forward with the Peacekeeper’s armored body leading. Then there was hesitation, fear of secondary explosions, and a couple of minutes lost before the Peacekeeper moved in through the fence. The helicopter’s searchlight showed the two vehicles burning and nothing moving. Six of the SWAT team had been inside the fence. The helicopter’s light swept the pavement looking for them, and the pilot’s voice ended with the word “shit,” and there was a loud bang.

The SWAT commander kept his cool, reported, “The copter’s been hit. It’s going down.”

Then abruptly the helicopter showed on a monitor as it struck Weisson’s high along the east corner. It was in flames, and the tail section folded as it hit the ground.

Marquez watched the extrication team move in and around the burning vehicles, and the only voice in the room was the SWAT commander broadcasting through one of the speakers. There was a moment where no one said anything or moved.

“It’s all over CNN,” Cairo told him about an hour later.

Marquez had moved outside. All visitors and nonessential personnel were out of the building, and he’d told Ehrmann he’d get one of the team to pick him up.

“Better come get me.”

He gave Cairo directions, and as he waited learned that Douglas had taken a ricochet gunshot wound to the head while helping get the injured out. Now Cairo called.

“I can’t get to you. They won’t let anyone within a mile. Can you get a ride out?”

“No, but I’ll walk.”

He tried to get more information on Douglas before leaving. Cairo drove him to the field office, and it was difficult retrieving his car. They had to get a hold of Ehrmann to release it. From the safehouse Marquez tried to find out where they’d taken the wounded and gave up using the phone and listened to the TV, which seemed to be the best source of what was happening. CNN was calling it the worst loss of life during a raid in the history of the Bureau. Three suspects were at large. Karsov’s face along with several of his aliases were shown on screen, and Marquez couldn’t figure out how they got past the SWAT team along the back face. There were four or five FBI snipers back there, and if they’d fought their way out, then how could they escape by vehicle with all the helicopters in the air? An hour later CNN reported a tunnel had been found running from inside Weisson’s out to a large storm drain, and it was believed they’d escaped through the tunnel and used cell phones to call in people to pick them up. TV coverage of Weisson’s showed the carcasses of the vehicles that had exploded, an armored carrier on its side, the downed helicopter, the TV correspondent calling it a picture from a war zone, comparing it to images he’d seen in the Middle East.

“Seven confirmed dead,” a reporter said.

When the hospitals where the injured had been taken were named, Marquez drove to Mercy Hospital. He found the waiting room filled with the families of injured officers, then got asked if he was family and shook his head.

“Then go home.”

He drove back past Weisson’s, listening on both police band and regular radio where the FBI director was making a statement, speaking first to the loss of life, then to the manhunt under way for the three men whose faces were now being broadcast nationally. Klieg lights cast a glow in the sky. The streets were blocked off, and he couldn’t get to the command center where he hoped by passing a message to Ehrmann he could get word on Douglas. The director described elements of Eurasian Organized Crime, Russian mob elements in California they’d first identified through contacts in Brighton Beach, New Jersey. He sketched arms deals tied to Karsov and returned to answering questions about the dead and wounded.

Marquez drove past Ludovna’s house. His headlights were stark on the bare trees, the dark lawns of the street. No lights were on in Ludovna’s house, and he didn’t see the BMW in the driveway. He drove back to the safehouse, brewed coffee, and called Katherine, who had gone to bed without knowing anything about a blown bust. She walked out and turned the TV on while she was on the phone with him.

“Why were you there?”

“It was a mix of things, some crossover of suspects I’m not clear about yet. Charles Douglas has been wounded.”

“Do you know how badly he’s hurt?”

“Not yet.”

He talked another hour with Katherine, and the TV was on in the background as Kath came up to speed. She’d met Douglas but hardly knew him. She liked him, but he was yet another law enforcement friend of Marquez’s, and she was more worried that he could have been shot himself.

When he hung up with Katherine he moved outside to the patio. There was nothing to do but wait, and periodically he went in and checked the TV. But he was outside at dawn watching the red-rimmed sky lighten and thinking about what was being speculated about on TV, that the cars were packed with C-4 or some similar explosive and that the criminal gang involved feared the FBI and had created the car bombs as a way to repel a SWAT team. How anyone in the media had gotten this information Marquez had no idea. He couldn’t see the Feds releasing anything at this point. Shauf found him outside on the patio.

“They’ve gone national with Burdovsky’s face, and they’re saying she’s wanted for questioning in connection with last night,” Shauf said.

“What are they calling her?”

“A person of interest. The other three are still at large.”

“Is there more about that?”

“Some. They’re replaying it every few minutes. Come in and watch it, and let’s eat something. You look like you need it. I’ll scramble some eggs if you make coffee and toast.”

They put a breakfast together, and he sat with Shauf and drank several cups of coffee, thinking about torture killings he’d seen in the DEA. A snitch had his eyes removed and his testicles stuffed far enough down his throat for him to choke before he bled to death, but not before he was dotted with cigarette burns and his wife raped and killed in front of him. You found a way past those things by finding the explanation-the cartel wanted to make an example to frighten others. You never forgot the images but if you understood why they were killed, it was the first step to dealing with it.