Т Паркер - Swift Vengeance

LARK

All over him, Sarge.

Hector set his hands on his thighs and looked around anxiously. Raised his arms over his head, arched his back, and rolled his shoulders like a boxer. A small girl in pink sweats and boots charged Hector, touched his bench, then fled squealing back to her surprised parents. Dad raising an open hand to Hector. Mom petting the little girl’s hair. Hector on his phone again, nodding, then sliding it into his hoodie pocket.

He reached down without looking and pulled the briefcase onto his lap. I hoped the others knew exactly what Blevins meant by “take possession.” I didn’t. O’Hora and Lark easing in now. Taucher and Smith, too, looking toward Hector but not directly at him.

Hector lowered one elbow to the case, raised his fist, and set his chin on his knuckles. The Thinker. Seemed to come to a decision. Took the handle of the briefcase in his left hand, stood, and started across the mall toward North Harbor Drive.

O’Hora and Lark closed, badges proffered, free hands on their guns, still holstered.

I moved closer. Saw Hassan at the edge of my vision.

O’Hora, not unfriendly: “Police, Mr. Padilla. We need to have a word with you.”

“Who are you?” asked Hector, not stopping.

“Drop the briefcase and raise your hands, Mr. Padilla.”

“But I just found it.”

O’Hora, louder: “Drop the case and raise your hands , sir .”

Hector stopped. “I’d like to see some ID.”

Lark: “That would be these badges, Mr. Padilla. Now, please drop the briefcase and raise both hands.”

A ripple of silence widened around me, spreading from person to person like a secret. Bodies in retreat and advance. Bodies uneasy.

Shaking his head, brow furrowed, Hector walked toward O’Hora and Lark with unusual purpose, then did a funny little soccer step that angled him away from them.

O’Hora and Lark drew their weapons.

Shrieks and curses and a disordered scramble. Air taut with fear. Some held their ground and some crept closer, crouching, cell phones brandished.

O’Hora, gun steady on Hector: “Police! Drop the case! On your knees with your hands up!”

A young woman: “He doesn’t have a gun!”

Hector, turning toward the agents but not stopping. “I found this briefcase. I can use it at work!”

A middle-aged man: “It’s just a briefcase!”

O’Hora, loud: “I am Agent O’Hora of the FBI! Padilla — to your knees!”

Hector stopped and faced Agents O’Hora and Lark with a flummoxed expression on his face. Guns ready, Lark stepped closer to Hector while O’Hora circled behind him.

Hector dropped the briefcase. Looked around, went to his knees, and raised his hands. In a fluid rush, O’Hora holstered his firearm, charged from behind, and slammed Hector to the ground, face-first.

The agent pushed his knee into the small of Hector’s back, straight-armed his face to the dirt, and raised a plastic tie from somewhere inside his coat.

The blast was sharp and loud, blowing O’Hora and Hector raggedly up and out. Concussion. Power. Cries and wails, bodies swaying like trees in a sudden gust. A hot jab to my face. Lark blown flat. Bodies scrambling and circling and frozen in place. Little girl in the pink sweats and boots screaming clumsily toward her parents. Vietnamese couple running hand in hand. Smoke and sparks and the sweet reek of burnt flesh, parts of things dropping from above, some flaming, some smoking, and a downward lilt of fluttering leaves that were twenty-dollar bills.

Time paused.

Turn of earth, dome of sky.

Time creeping back, cautious, half-speed.

I stood back up and ran into the storm.

Taucher, Smith, and Hassan were already near the blast site, weapons drawn. We faced one another over the bloody heaps of Hector and O’Hora, and I saw Taucher’s helplessness and her anger, but most of all I saw her disbelief. And with the return of my equilibrium, I realized exactly what had happened.

Instinct took my eyes to the Tuna Lane parking lot, where the door of the black Town Car swung open and Blevins jumped out just as a white sedan slowed behind him. The pop of gunfire, flashes in the darkness, the sedan jumping into the line of cars streaming onto North Harbor Drive.

I barreled through tourists, a clot of them rushing against me, toward a tour bus parked on North Harbor. Then past the Town Car, where Blevins lay sprawled faceup on the asphalt. An older woman had kneeled beside him, praying in a language I didn’t recognize. I drew my weapon and angled toward the exit as the white sedan turned onto North Harbor, headed for downtown, a thousand streets, two handy freeways, and freedom.

Traffic moving. The sedan disappearing into the city.

I trudged back to Blevins.

I watched from the comfort of my home office as Caliphornia was loosed upon the world.

An evil, a star.

At first he had no name except to us.

The social media were first: scores, then hundreds, then thousands of shared Facebook postings and YouTubes of the carnage, all multiplying dizzily — an explosion on this side of the world instantly fanning out to the other and back again.

At first it was all amateur video of carefree San Diego, America’s Finest City, the moody bay and the invincible Midway , Hector’s confrontation with O’Hora and Lark. Then the sudden, vicious, oddly small-looking explosion that ripped apart O’Hora and Hector so finally. Followed by jerky video of onlookers running in various directions, their cries and wails and many languages, the pounding of shoes and the squelch of wind on microphones, hanging smoke. Eyes wide in faces slack with fear. Money fluttering in the air. Brief, shaky video of a woman praying over a man in a parking lot. Neither one of them clear enough to identify.

Next, the professionals — networks, cable, PBS — regular programming canceled or delayed. Even most of the advertising. Fast as you could turn channels, graphic scenes of Caliphornia’s violence flashed past; the man himself was neither pictured nor named.

Terror has apparently struck again in America tonight, this time in San Diego, where two FBI agents, a suspect, and two bystanders have been killed in a wave of coordinated public attacks just moments apart...

Reporters and stunned witnesses muttered under the light-blanched Unconditional Surrender , San Diego’s chief of police and mayor, a U.S. representative, and, later, a senator all weighing in. Followed by a hurried press conference with FBI, Homeland Security, and JTTF.

The two dead FBI agents are Directing Special Agent Darrel Blevins, sixty-three, and Special Agent Patrick O’Hora of San Diego FBI, who was forty-four... The dead suspect has not been identified.

I turned on the radio, too, and every time I landed on a strong signal, it was about the terror in San Diego.

Also reported dead at the scene are two visitors, possibly in port aboard the Azure Seas.

Just before nine o’clock, the IS-affiliated news agency Amaq claimed through Al Jazeera that “an IS detachment has claimed four lives in San Diego, California, and one IS martyr has entered heaven.”

At nine p.m. Caliphornia introduced himself to the world. He posted on the big popular platforms — encryption and secrecy be damned. He was after fame and he was ready to crow:

I am Caliphornia. I pledge bayat to Islamic State. San Diego is mine and Bakersfield is mine and Grass Valley is mine. I am Caliphornia. I am a part of you and I am inside you. You will know me by the knife, the bullet, the bomb, and the fire. You will know me well but not at all. I am everything you see and fear. I am Caliphornia. Mashallah.