Stephen Cannell - King Con

"She was in makeup, Joe. I didn't recognize her. She was pretending to be Laura Luna, the company's Financial Officer. See Chip Lacy, he's the President of the company, but he had a heart attack and…" Tommy stopped because Joe rubbed his forehead in disgust. "Listen, this whole thing sounds stupid, I know… but if you'll fucking listen, Joe, just listen to me, I'm sure you're gonna-"

"You know why I quit clipping guys and started letting you do it?" Joe interrupted for the third time.

"Look, Joe, this whole fucking thing… I can explain it."

"Reason I quit was I couldn't stand listening to dead men whine. You used to be a man; don't go out whining. Not that I care about memories anymore… but why don't you help me here and stop it? You're nothing but a walking piece of yesterday. A disappointing part of my personal history."

"Joe, how can you say that?"

"Only reason I don't put you down right now," Joe continued, "is this suit is raw silk, and at this range, I'm gonna get pieces a'you all over me from the back spray."

Tommy looked into Joe's eyes and saw such cold clarity that he knew his brother wasn't kidding.

"Joe, please listen… just let me…"

But Joe thumbed back the hammer and fired a shot. The driver of the van jumped and almost ran off the road. The bullet tore through Tommy's chest, puncturing his lung. He jackknifed forward from recoil and landed on Joe's lap, pouring blood all over the black, raw silk suit.

"Nuts," Joe said softly, then pushed his stunned and bleeding brother back into a sitting position. "Now shut up, will ya? I don't wanna hear any more."

They arrived at the Presidio entrance on Lombard. Reo pulled the Lincoln around in front of the van, got out, and, using a padlock key he had in his pocket, opened the gate of the old, abandoned military base. It sat on fourteen hundred acres of prime waterfront land and used to be the military command center for the eight Western states until it was closed because of budget cuts. The site was magnificent, with its wood-frame, turn-of-the-century architecture. The clapboard structures were built in the 1870's, with large bay windows that looked out on the Golden Gate Bridge. Reo stood aside as the Lincoln, driven by Doughboy and containing Reefer, Beano, and Victoria, pulled through the gate, followed by the sharpshooters in the white van with Joe and Tommy. Once they were through, Reo locked the gate. Then he got in the Lincoln and they pulled up Presidio Boulevard, past the deserted Letterman U.S. Army Health Clinic with its low eaves and slanting roof. They passed the old wood-frame Army Headquarters, which was closed up and abandoned. They turned left on Arguello Boulevard and headed up into the hills, leaving the base and the road lights behind. They drove south on the old rutted road, climbing toward the wooded hillside where Reo and his squad had done their LURRP training years before.

"They're in the Presidio," Grady said into the mike as he hunched over his GPS unit in the back of the van. He had a slight tinge of annoyance in his voice. "They could get lost up there. Let's move in. I'm gonna take the Lombard gate, you guys go in on Presidio Boulevard. Don't fuck with the lock, break it off if you have to."

Denniston was already out of the van and had taken the tire iron and busted the lock on the Lombard gate. He got back in the van, and they drove up into the Presidio… Following the GPS, they turned south, heading up into the hills that overlooked the old military base and San Francisco Harbor beyond.

The sharpshooter parked in a wooded area and set the hand break on the white van. An unusual gale wind several months before had blown trees down in this area of the Presidio. It was dense with fallen trees and thick underbrush.

They got Tommy out of the car, still handcuffed. His legs were weak, and he stumbled in front of his little brother. He didn't look like he would last much longer or make it much farther. Blood was running down the front of his shirt and also out a large exit wound in his back.

When Beano saw him, he knew they were in trouble. The entire con depended on keeping Tommy alive to testify. He hadn't thought Joe would shoot him in the van. With Tommy dead, they didn't have a witness. Joe Dancer would get away clean.

They moved through the underbrush, and Reo found a foot trail that led into a clearing. This was the place where Reo's weapons team had done Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol training. Reo and his crew knew every inch of this terrain, especially the underground network of caverns that had been built to prepare them for tunnel fighting. Reo's S.I.O.P. called for them to kill Tommy, Victoria, and Beano, then drag their bodies down into one of the abandoned tunnels and, using a physics package made up of C-4 and a radio detonator, collapse the tunnel, burying the three bodies fifty feet down under tons of soft earth. They would never be found.

The group of nine moved along the footpath, and finally out into the clearing. Reo kicked back a big piece of wood that had been covering a man-sized "spider-hole" trap door just like the ones Charley had used in Vietnam.

"On your knees," Joe said to the three of them.

Tommy was coughing blood now. He half dropped to his knees, and the loss of blood was making him dizzy. It was all he could do to stay upright.

Beano knew they were all just seconds from oblivion.

Doughboy had set up down the road to guard their backs. He heard cars coming, so he edged up on the ridge and looked down at the road below through a Starscope. He could see a blue van with a satellite dish, being followed by several cars full of men. He made them instantly as Feds, and grabbed his mike.

"I got a number ten situation here," he said.

Reo had his Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machine gun out. He slowly lowered it and triggered the walkie-talkie instead. "Whatta you need to fix it?" he said.

"Send Reefer with a Zippo unit. I've got less than a minute."

"Wilco," Reo said. Then he turned to Reefer. "Get the flame thrower out of the back of the van and set up down the road with Doughboy. Unfriendlies coming."

"Shit," Reefer said, and he took off running toward the van. He opened the back, grabbed a small flamethrower unit, and started running down the road, shouldering the two tanks as he went.

Grady didn't know what hit him. They were driving up toward the woods at the top of the hill when, all of sudden, the entire satellite van was awash in fire. Then almost immediately, and without warning, the gas tank exploded, and he was shot through the roof of the van and was dead before he hit the underside of the metal satellite dish.

"Holy shit!" the FBI Agents said in the sedans behind, as the van, billowing smoke and fire, rolled out of control toward a sheer drop and tumbled off, taking all three men with as it fell.

The FBI Agents in the follow cars hit reverse and squealed backwards as Reefer, carrying the flame thrower, ran across the top of the hill and down the opposite bank, then took up a fire position on the road below. The cars full of FBI Agents roared past him, still in reverse. He pulled the trigger and let them have a stream of liquid death. The cars both caught fire. The Agents all dove out while the cars were still moving. Some men were burning and rolled in the dirt to extinguish themselves; the others came up pulling their weapons. They laid down a cover fire and chopped Reefer down with a hailstorm of hollow-point Devastators. One of the rounds hit the Zippo tank and Reefer exploded in a rolling orange cloud that singed everybody and lit the sky above them in a ball of raging rocket fuel.

In the clearing, they all heard the thundering explosion as Reefer was blown to cinders. Joe pointed his gun at Tommy.

"Joe, don't do this," Beano said. "He's been telling you the truth. It's all been a scam." Beano was on his knees, his hands cuffed behind him.