Jad Bell: Bravo Part 21

"I am going to pay this one in full," Bell says.

Nessuno nods once, then points past his shoulder, and Bell looks to see the call light blinking beside the headset mount. He pulls the phones over his ears, jabs the b.u.t.ton.

"Warlock, we have Brickyard."

"Go for Warlock."

Ruiz's voice. "Jackpot. Ledor, first name Michael. You are being diverted to Provo, Utah. Your mission is to capture this a.s.set for interrogation, to capture this a.s.set for interrogation. Stand by for briefing."

Bell listens, confirms, and from the corner of his eye, he can see that Nessuno has shifted in her seat, pivoting to face him, leaning forward. She catches his eye, but Bell just shakes his head slightly.

"What's the support?" Bell asks.

"Local only, SWAT," Ruiz says.

"They know we're coming."

"They will be aware. I need answers, Master Sergeant. This man can give them. Bring him to me."

Bell replaces the headset on its hook, reaches for one of the gear bags he pulled from the tunnel storage. He indicates the second one, the one Nessuno had brought aboard.

"They've located one of the names, Ledor. We're going to bring him in," Bell says.

"I'm not a shooter," Nessuno says.

"Local will effect the breach. You'll stay on me," Bell says.

"You'll trust me that far? Put a loaded gun in my hand at your back?"

"You want to go through first, be my guest."

"We square?"

"For the moment. They'll take the door, deliver the first bangers, we'll b.u.t.tonhook the entry. You know what I'm talking about?"

"I know what you're talking about, but you're not hearing me. I'm not a shooter. I can't cover you right."

"You hit what you aim at?"

"Most of the time, yeah. I'm out of practice. I'll get us killed." She pauses, shakes her head. "I'll get us both killed."

Bell has his bag open in front of him, looking at the equipment neatly strapped down and arrayed, the magazines and the extra rounds and the weapon, the grenades. All the tools, all of them treacherous if not granted respect, and even then all of them willing to betray their masters at the slightest hint of negligence. Doubt kills. Doubt in ability, doubt in your fellows. To do this, he has to believe in her absolutely. To do this, she must have the same belief in him.

He turns in his seat, reaches out, and takes her hands in his. The tiny medallion she wears has come free from where it was tucked inside her shirt, swaying gently on its chain.

"No, you won't," Bell says. "I'm going to walk you through this."

"Jad."

"It's just playing another role, Chief."

"No, it's not."

"Right now it is. You're going to do this. Today you're a shooter."

She closes her eyes, exhales, opens them on the inhale.

"Talk me through it," she says.

The doctrine is simple. Speed, surprise, and violence of action.

Speed. Hit fast, as fast as possible, so fast there's no time to think. Surprise. Don't let them know you're coming, don't strike where expected, when expected. Violence of action. Hit hard, hit so f.u.c.king hard they can't think even if they weren't surprised, so hard that they can't fight back even if they want to.

The mallet hits the door, and the door hits the floor. Bell turns his head as the banger sails past, hears its muted blast behind his ear protection, and the SWAT team is through the door in a fluid rush. Another banger detonates, then a third. He hears the first "Clear!" and goes into motion, enters fast and going right, gun high and ready, and Nessuno, bless her, is stacked tight behind, covering left.

The first room is a rectangle, and they've entered at one narrow end. Thin curls of smoke from the banger hang in the sunlight coming through the now-broken windows. Bell sees a couch, a low table, a television, screen also cracked. He sees newspapers and a box from Domino's and a half-empty bottle of Sprite Zero. He does not see a man who might be named Michael Ledor.

There are three doors, two left, one right, and an open square of kitchen. SWAT has moved left to clear, Nessuno's side, giving good cover, and they bust the near door open, give it a banger, and one pokes his muzzle in and there's another "Clear!" It's outside of Bell's sector, his slice of the room, and he doesn't dare look away to confirm what he's heard. He hears another door burst, another bang, and "Clear!" and the team is sweeping into his field, and only then does he change his aim, and they take the door and he turns his head to dodge the blast of light, and, doing that, he sees the first door, left, hanging broken and open, sees it's a bathroom.

Two things happen at once then.

Behind him, the door right, the door the team has cleared. An explosion from within, a scream that makes it through the protection at Bell's ears. He knows it's a grenade without thinking, knows the sound intuitively, knows it's a b.o.o.by trap, maybe a trip wire; knows at the same time that someone wasn't discreet, that they never had surprise.

Michael Ledor knew they were coming. Somehow, some way, he saw something or heard something or someone just wasn't as careful as he needed to be, but Michael Ledor knew they were coming.

He knows all this, understands all this, as he looks past Nessuno into the bathroom and sees the man lurching up and out of the tub, the long gun in his hands. It's an instant impression, flash-burned, the a.s.sault rifle and the man. Blue jeans and a checked blue-and-white overshirt, unb.u.t.toned to reveal a white T, untucked and splotched with water from the tub. Black hair, slight curl, almost to his shoulders, stubble over his mouth and on his chin, as though he's trying to grow in a beard. The glimpse of neon orange, earplugs to protect from the blast.

Then the third thing, the thing he couldn't teach Nessuno, because there wasn't the time. He could teach her to cover her sector, he could teach her to b.u.t.tonhook the entry, he could get her to trust him, he could make himself trust her. But to teach her not to react to the unexpected explosion, to the grenade and the scream, that takes more than he could give. That takes years, working day in and day out, live fire in the shoot house and on the field and in battle, and her reaction is human, instinctive.

She turns away and gives the man that Bell believes must be Michael Ledor her back.

Bell has no shot.

He lunges, hand out, grabs hold of Nessuno by the front of her harness, yanks her down with him. The gunshots wrack the small apartment, rip the air overhead, and Ledor is firing like a pro, controlled bursts, over and over again, and Bell is on the ground, tumbling on top of Nessuno to cover her, and he sees SWAT falling. They're wearing all their protection, but Ledor is firing 7.62, Bell knows, and there's only so many of those that threat level III body armor can take before the protection gives up and allows the rounds to do their business. Everything goes clumsy, he's atop her, tries to roll free, but Nessuno's arms are around him, holding him against her, trapping him there, as if in some mockery of that night they shared, and he senses the movement above and behind him more than sees it, more than hears it, and he goes limp. Something hits the floor, a follow-through vibration of footsteps beating retreat, and she slackens her grip. Bell rolls off her, tries to get his weapon up, but Ledor is out of the room, an empty magazine on the ground not a foot from where they lie, and he understands. Ledor should've stopped, he should've delivered rounds to them, but he must've believed they were down, too, or else he'd certainly have paused to finish the job.

Then Bell is up, keying his mike, officers down, he's rabbiting, he's rabbiting, he's armed. Nessuno shouts something after him, but he doesn't understand it, and he doesn't stop, rushing out of the apartment and into the railing in time to see the man and his rifle break out of the doors to the street in a flood of too-bright daylight.

Bell vaults the railing, lands badly, tumbles down the stairs, back to his feet. His ankle tells him that was a stupid f.u.c.king thing to do, but he's ignoring everything now, running with gun in hand and crashing through the doors and into the sunshine. He's thinking of Tom O'Day turning to deadweight on his feet and Stephanie and Callie and Amy and Athena and they're bleeding, and Ruiz wants this one alive, and, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, so does Jad Bell. He can hear Nessuno in his ear, calling it out, they've got a runner, rabbit, rabbit, one in pursuit. Officers are down, repeat, officers are down.

The apartment complex is off South Meadow Drive, two identical structures built facing one another, separated by their carports. One police car is here, pulling to a stop, and Bell strips the phones from his ears, lets them fall, immediately hears the chatter of that a.s.sault rifle once more, another terse, controlled barrage. Someone, somewhere, screams, but it sounds like terror and not pain. Bell sprints in that direction, cutting between parked cars, between pockets of shadow and washes of sunlight, comes around the south side of the building to see the man who is-and please G.o.d let him be-Ledor perhaps sixty feet ahead, crossing a new stretch of parking lot.

Bell skids into the side of a parked car, braces himself on the hood, dimly aware that there's someone behind the wheel. He tries to control his breath, sights, and fires twice. It's a h.e.l.l of a distance for a pistol shot, would be the first break they've caught if he manages to land a round, and he's both a little surprised and, more, grimly satisfied when the man stumbles, tumbles, skids along the pavement. He loses the rifle. The driver hits her horn, screaming at him behind the windshield, but Bell doesn't care, he's already running again.

And the son of a b.i.t.c.h is up again, too, now forcing himself forward. He's got a hand at his left side, and there are trees at the end of the property line, and that's where he's heading. If he's slowed down at all, Bell isn't seeing it, and his own lungs are beginning to burn and the sweat is beginning to race down his back as he sprints after him. There's more chatter through his earpiece, police response, calls for backup, for ambo, for evac, for information. Four officers are down, the suspect is armed and dangerous.

Through the trees now, and green gra.s.s that ends in yet another parking lot, another set of paired apartment buildings, and Bell can see that the man is slowing, because Bell himself sure as h.e.l.l isn't getting faster. His ankle renews its protest as he comes off the gra.s.s, chasing between the buildings, onto the asphalt at the end of a cul-de-sac. He sees the safety orange of the earplugs on the ground, wonders idly if they've fallen or if he somehow missed Ledor, if it is Ledor-it must be Ledor, please let it be Ledor-removing them. Forty feet between them now, and Bell is definitely gaining. He can hear someone running behind him, one of the cops, perhaps.

The cul-de-sac dumps onto South Stubbs Avenue, and the man continues across, and Bell has closed to thirty feet but loses at least ten when he has to dodge traffic, a little black Fiat that swerves the wrong way. He spins about, sees it's Nessuno behind him, sprinting for all she's worth, arms pumping and knees high. He finishes his turn, and Ledor hasn't changed direction, straight for the retaining wall against a berm dead ahead, a hard earth slope, and atop it the interstate, where midday traffic is roaring at them from above. Ledor goes over the wall, and seconds later so does Bell, and his ankle makes it a point to tell him what it really thinks of that the moment he comes down. The man is scrabbling his way up toward the road, and Bell shouts at him to stop, to stop or he'll shoot. More blood has fallen, turned black on the dry earth. He sees Nessuno drop down beside him, her weapon up and ready and in both hands.

"Stop!" Bell shouts. "Michael Ledor, stop!"

He's at the top of the slope, and Bell and Nessuno are at the bottom, but somehow, Ledor hears him over the traffic. He rises unsteadily, turns to look down at them, and Bell sees he's got a second weapon, a pistol, in his blood-soaked left hand, held limply at the ground. Bell has a good shot, can take it, but he wants him alive, and he holds his fire, and Nessuno does, too.

"Michael," Bell shouts at him. "Drop it, come down here, we'll take care of you. You're out of run, you understand? You've got none left."

Michael Ledor looks at the guns pointing at him, then the one in his hand. There's a wide stain of blood along his left side, and Bell thinks the man must be close to decompensating, that the shock from the blood loss will take him down in just a few more seconds. In his ear, Bell hears officers saying they're en route, they see the suspect, they're close.

"Just drop it," Bell says again.

Michael Ledor drops the gun.

Then he turns and throws himself into sixty-five-mile-an-hour traffic.

Chapter Twenty-Two.

LARKIN IS WAITING at Four-Four-Two when Brock arrives, but this time he's not at the bar. Instead he's in a private room on the second floor, what was maybe a bedroom once but has been since converted into a study slash card room. The floors are hardwood hidden beneath Oriental rugs, and the furniture is all wood and leather, and the books on the shelves are bought by the yard and bound in leather, too, or at least imitation leather. There's a Waterford crystal clock on one of the shelves, and it's creeping up on one in the morning.

"What?" Larkin demands. His mood shows his age, brings out the lines around his mouth and eyes. He's wearing a tuxedo, the bow tie loosed and his collar unfastened. Brock wonders whether the meal was political or business or whether Larkin even differentiates between the two.

Brock moves to the sideboard. He's never liked being anyone's whipping boy, didn't like it when his father did it, didn't like it when he was at West Point, didn't like it as he worked his way through the ranks, and one of the perks of being a f.u.c.king general, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, is that he doesn't have to take it now. He picks up a gla.s.s and ignores the ice in the bucket, pours what he thinks is bourbon from an unlabeled decanter, drinks most of it before refilling. It is bourbon, and, unsurprisingly, a good one.

"Emmet," Larkin says. He says it, Brock thinks, as though he's issuing a warning to one of his snot-nosed grandchildren.

"Where are the others?" Brock asks.

"I saw no reason to bring them in."

"Despite what I said."

"Precisely because of what you didn't say. You want all of us in one place, you need one h.e.l.l of a good reason for it, and it's not something that can be done quickly, anyway. Anderson is in Vienna right now, and Lenhart is fishing in Alaska."

"You're going to have to reach them," Brock says. "You're going to have to have them come here."

Larkin takes a moment to study him, then sits in one of the overstuffed armchairs. The room, Brock realizes, is decorated in an American version of some British manor-house fantasy. There's even a bellpull by the curtained windows.

"This isn't like you, Emmet," Larkin says. "You're acting alarmingly close to petulant. You know how this works, the way this has worked from the start. We don't work for you."

"And I don't work for you," Brock says.

"We're all in this together, always have been."

"It's good to hear you say that, Bobby," Brock says. "I'm glad to hear you say that. Because that means you're fine with us all going down together, too."

Larkin doesn't like Brock using his first name, likes him using the familiar diminutive even less. He likes his final implication least of all.

"Perhaps you better tell me what's happened."

"Our partner paid me a visit today."

Larkin's reaction isn't anywhere near as gratifying as Brock had hoped. "He met with you in person? I a.s.sume with discretion?"

"Oh, he was discreet," says Brock. "What he's done, not so much. All you need to understand is that I'm two days, at the outside, from having army counterintelligence so far up my a.s.s they'll be able to count my fillings. From me, it's not a long walk to you, and Anderson, and Lenhart, and Frohm, and our dear, departed Jamieson."

Brock finishes his drink, pours another. Larkin sits back in his chair, starts to open his mouth to speak.

"I'm not done," Brock says. "There are two positives in this. The first is that, according to our friend, everything is moving forward. The contingency is in motion, and he's promising we'll see it this weekend. So that'll coincide nicely with my arrest."

The humor is either too bitter for Larkin's taste or missed entirely. "And the second?"

"The second is what's going to save us. Our exposure will expose him, and he sure as h.e.l.l doesn't want that to happen."

"If he didn't want it, he should've been more careful in the first place."

"It doesn't matter what he should've been, Bobby. What matters is how it is right f.u.c.king now, and right f.u.c.king now I'm in the crosshairs, which means we're all in the crosshairs. He used intelligence I gave him to kill four people. Like I said, we've got two days at best before that leak gets traced back to me."

"You're certain of this?"

"Process of elimination." Brock gets halfway through his third drink, finally, gratefully, beginning to feel the edges of the alcohol. He exhales, looks at the gla.s.s in his hand. "They get me, they're getting everything."

That, finally, seems to get a reaction from Larkin. The man straightens, his jaw tightens, and the look he gives Brock is savage.

"I thought you were a patriot, Emmet."

"You don't get to question that," Brock says. "You never get to question that, you arrogant f.u.c.k."

"You'd betray us, that's what you're saying."

"Once they put me under the gla.s.s, they're going to trace it all, don't you get it? It's all going to come out. All of it, including him, including you, and I don't have to open my mouth. There's a f.u.c.king trail here, and once they find me, they're going to find it. He understands that, at least. You need to understand that, too."

"Two days?"

"Outside."

Larkin thinks, his gaze going to the books on their shelves. The Waterford timepiece is silent, and Brock thinks that's wrong, that what this room needs is a ticking grandfather clock with its pendulum swaying. There's no other noise, not traffic at this hour, not music piped from some unseen source, not even the sound of movement from the hall.

"In two days, I would think they'll be too busy to care," Larkin says. "If he's done what he's promised."

"And that's why we need to meet, all of us. Because that's what he's holding. He gets a meeting with all of us, he'll give the go-ahead."

Larkin shakes his head. "No; impossible."

"Then we need to start looking at real estate in countries that don't extradite."