One Clean Shot Read online

  One of these days, he was going to gather the courage to find out.

  The van stopped at the curb about twenty yards south of the two cars and Lopez cut the engine, lifted his tool belt off the floor, grabbed his toolbox, and exited the van for his post down the street.

  As soon as the driver’s door clicked closed, Hal felt the circulating air inside the van slow until it was like breathing through a straw.

  Streetlights on either end of the three central buildings created a glowing box around the cars and the street front where the sale was due to occur. The department had probably sent down folks from PG&E earlier in the day to make sure the lights were functional because unlike almost anywhere else in the city, there wasn’t a single light out the entire block.

  The target cars sat quietly at the curb, their windows dark—no sign of action from inside. It was now only a question of when they decided to come out.

  “You okay?” Ryaan asked and he nodded, but she leaned across Gibson and flipped a switch to turn on the generator and low-level fan system.

  Hal felt the wind on his back and was grateful.

  “You sure you want to do that?” Gibson asked.

  “Just sounds like a cool down cycle from out there,” she answered. “Can’t leave it on too long, though.”

  Despite the fan, the air continued to thicken with the odors of so many people in the cramped space. Gibson gave off the gritty stench of cigarettes, which mixed with the taste of stale chewing gum in Hal’s mouth and the bitter scent of sweat—his and the others’.

  Mind over matter. Hal shifted slightly in his seat and put his face close to the van’s cool metal wall, hoping these guys didn’t sit in those fancy cars much longer.

  One of the Lexus’s doors cracked open. “Here we go,” Ryaan announced.

  No motion from the BMW, but four boys eased out of the Lexus.

  They could’ve been his sister’s kids, in their hooded sweatshirts and low ride jeans, boxer shorts exposed like the stripe of a flag across their backsides.

  Only the bulges at their sides and ankles suggested they weren’t just a bunch of harmless kids.

  “Shit,” Ryaan whispered, pulling the radio to her lips, her voice low and tense. “We’ve got four in the first car, not two. Expect as many as eight.”

  Hal palmed his gun, trying to remember the last time he’d been involved in an active shooting. It was almost six years ago now. Not since he was a patrol officer. A fleeing suspect had shot at him and his partner, a kid from New York, Jimmy Delucca. They’d lost the perp and when he’d gotten home, he’d felt battered himself.

  His wife, Sheila, had been working the night shift at the hospital when the rape victim came in for treatment. She hadn’t worked with the victim, but she’d seen her and it sparked her dark curiosity. Sheila came home and had wanted every detail of the crime.

  Three days later, photos had disappeared from his case file.

  Then the next day the victim had complained that someone fitting his wife’s description was following her, striking up conversations in the grocery store and appearing on the street when the woman emerged from her house.

  Though Sheila was never brought in for questioning, Hal had seen her odd voyeuristic streak one too many times to be fooled. He had no doubt that it was Sheila who had followed the victim to her home.

  The breaking point was the night he came home to find Sheila in the bathroom with a man who clearly had AIDS. The stranger had been sitting on the edge of the tub, while she sat the toilet seat, stitching a cut in his forehead with her bare hands.

  Two days later Hal left with his father’s chair, a coffee table Sheila had never allowed in from the garage, his small music collection—which she’d never liked—and his clothes.

  Within six months, before the paperwork was finalized, she had managed to leave him with just shy of forty thousand in credit card debt—which he was still paying off.

  He’d managed to find a reasonable rate loan but he still had four years worth of payments left.

  Sitting now in the heat, sweat dripped down his spine. The van air was completely still. He released the gun magazine, checked it and snapped it in place again as the BMW’s doors cracked next.

  Five more boys emerged and the radio crackled to life as officers prepared to move.

  “Count is nine not eight,” Ryaan said into the radio. “Hold for my call.”

  Hal wondered who had done the reconnaissance. So far their numbers were way off. He hoped they had enough backup to cover it.

  The boys from the BMW joined the others.

  The group milled around the Lexus. They looked like regular old kids, talking and slapping at the black roof. Hal had done the same thing when he was a kid though these cars were nicer than anything in their neighborhood and his friends had been whiter.

  Besides his sisters, there were only a handful of other black kids. Four miles down the hill was Oakland Tech, ninety-eight percent black and Hispanic.

  Whatever crimes his father had committed before his death—if he’d committed them—he’d done to prevent Hal and his sisters from ending up down that hill.

  Hal shifted his focus back to the boys in the street.

  “Whitie here’s got three,” Ryaan said, pointing to the guy in the white hooded sweatshirt. “See it?”

  “Right pocket and back side,” Jefferson added.

  “And right ankle. Watch how he turns,” Ryaan went on.

  The kid stepped back from the car and the subtle bulge was visible above his shoe. Damn. Three guns.

  The jacket on a kid whose jeans hung off his ass to expose canary-colored boxers flapped open and Ryaan pointed out a North China Industries 7.62 SKS. “Guy in the yellow-striped boxers has got a Norinco SKS,” she said into the radio.

  The van hushed.

  The Norinco held armor-piercing rounds.

  Erickson beside Hal touched his hands to his vest. “That’s a cop killer.”

  “Right. We take the cop killer first,” Ryaan announced into the radio. “I’d expect about three weapons on each guy but be ready for a fourth,” she said to the group. “Overkill is key here, emphasis on kill. Drop them if you need to. It’s them or us.”

  Hal shifted in his seat. The chance of something going wrong—of someone getting killed—was high. Either one of them or one of these kids. He hated the idea that they would all witness someone die.

  After a moment, the driver of the Lexus slapped the top of the car and swaggered down the street, heading north. He displayed maybe five inches of red boxer shorts, his dark hood pulled down, his Afro like a Q-tip coming unraveled.

  “Where’s he going?” Ryaan asked into the radio. No one answered and the Q-Tip didn’t turn back. “Who’s got a line on the walker?”

  “He’s headed for a dead spot,” Gibson said. “If he gets beyond the hydrant, the sharpshooters won’t have an angle on him.”

  “Roof’s going to lose him in fifteen feet,” came the crackled response.

  “Just hold as long as you can. I’ll go for the loner myself.” She clicked off the radio and turned to Erickson and Michaels. “You got that?”

  The other kids ignored the walker and paused in front of a cement building, its front windows broken, the gray surface painted white in big patches where someone had attempted to cover graffiti.

  Next to the white patches were a series of tags done side by side and on top of each other as though the artists were competing to see whose art would prevail. Beneath their feet, cardboard littered the streets and newspapers blew softly down the sidewalk like urban tumbleweed.

  “Is the loner still in sight?” Ryaan asked into the radio.

  “For about four feet.”

  “Where the hell’s he going?” Erickson asked.

  Hal imagined the kid might be meeting another contact, or g
oing to take a piss in private or maybe just getting the hell out of there, which would make him the smartest of the bunch.

  The radio crackled. “He’s gone.”

  Ryaan leaned across the van to see the computer screen. “Any way to adjust your position on the roof?” she asked.

  “Not without giving ourselves away,” came the response.

  She shook her head. “Hold your place, then. We’ll try to pick him up from the street.”

  Hal tightened his grip on the gun, felt the slip of sweat and palmed his pants to dry his hand before returning the gun to it.

  The radio crackled with officers shifting, ready to move, but Ryaan thumbed the radio button, gave her order. “No one goes until I call.”

  Outside, the boys grew louder, more animated as two black faces appeared through the broken glass of the storefront and scanned the sidewalk before stepping outside.

  One clearly in the lead. Probably in his early twenties, he was geriatric compared to his teenage counterparts.

  The other hovered behind, looking very much like the kids who had emerged from the cars.

  “Front one’s our buyer,” Ryaan said into the radio then turned to Jefferson. “You keep on him.”

  Hal wouldn’t have been able to distinguish the buyer from the rest of the kids. He wore the same baggy pants, the same oversized sweatshirt and he didn’t look a day older than eighteen.

  The buyer said something and Whitie laughed, his shoulders drooped and relaxed as the buyer led them toward the car.

  The boys had no clue that the police were watching.

  Standing around the trunk, the cop killer scanned the street slowly, his eyes only grazing over the police van before reaching to open the trunk.

  Despite the weapon and the bravado in his stance, his small eyes, partially hidden by the hood, were narrowed in fear.

  Ryaan spoke crisply into the radio. “Hold until the merchandise is confirmed. Then we go. Nobody moves till then.”

  The cop killer touched the latch on the trunk and the metal popped open.

  “Roof unit one has arsenal in sight,” came a voice over the radio. “Quick count… around sixty.”

  “Go on three,” Ryaan said and Hal felt the adrenaline cooking his muscles, revving his heart like a car engine until he thought he might burst from the van. “One, two, go. Go. Go.”

  Erickson slid the van door open.

  “Police. Get your hands up where we can see them!” Ryaan shouted across the street.

  The task force swarmed in and a bullhorn demanded the boys put their hands in the air.

  Whitie dropped to the ground, hands on the back of his head like he knew the drill, but the cop killer reached for his gun.

  Hal started to shout when Ryaan aimed and fired, but the kid was dead before her bullet reached him—someone on the roof fired first.

  Hal turned to see a kid in a black hood shot as he dug into his pants for a weapon.

  Down the street, the loner was on the run now, out of the sharpshooters’ aim.

  “On the roof,” Ryaan called into the radio. “Make a move so you can cover me. I’m going for the loner.” She waved at Michaels to follow.

  Hal spotted one of Whitie’s arms vanish from view.

  “Watch out!” he shouted, jumping from the van.

  The gun fired. The bullet caught her.

  Ryaan dropped.

  Bullets exploded from the roof, taking down Whitie.

  Hal was beside her. Panting, she fingered her lower right side. “It’s in the vest.”

  Paramedics rushed in and Ryaan nodded after the loner, her face tight. “Get that guy.”

  Michaels ran. Hal followed, bent at the waist behind the line of parked cars and halting where the curb was exposed from no cars parked.

  Sirens howled behind them.

  A black and white sped off to block the loner from the next street as he vanished around the corner.

  When he was out of sight, Michaels sprinted down the street. Hal stayed close behind until they reached the next car. They crouched behind a maroon Honda Civic and Hal peered across the car’s hood at the corner where the loner had disappeared.

  The screaming sirens shrilled as the black and white rounded the block and sped toward the kid’s corner.

  The kid would have no choice but to come back toward them.

  Hal kept his gun out and waited. His heart drummed a steady beat in his temples. They didn’t risk making a run for it. Damn it.

  The barrel of the loner’s gun glinted under the streetlight, giving Hal and Michaels just enough time to drop down to the ground.

  The shot rang out.

  The bullet struck the windshield of the Honda, passed through, and shattered the building window over their heads. Glass rained down around them.

  Michaels cursed.

  Shaking the glass from his collar, Hal looked back for direction from Ryaan. She shook her head, pressed his palm down. Sit tight. Too much exposure to move.

  They had to wait it out.

  Michaels emitted a strangled noise.

  Hal turned to see his face was pale, his breathing ragged. “Are you hit?”

  He shook his head and raised his hand to wipe the sweat off his lip, the Sig trembling in his fingers.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” There was no blood. Where had he been hit?

  Michaels bucked forward and Hal lurched to grab him, his shaking reverberated up Hal’s own arms.

  Leaning against the car for support, Hal shouted to the task force, “I’ve got a 999.”

  “Shots fired?” Ryaan yelled.

  Hal scanned Michaels’s face, felt the cold sweat on his cheek. “I think he’s having a heart attack.”

  The trembling crested into violent rocking. Hal struggled to wrap his arm around Michaels’s chest and inch them toward the safety of the van.

  He reached as far as the tail end of the Honda before Michaels kicked out of his arms, knocking the Sig from his fingers. Michaels’s head slammed against the pavement, the convulsing continued, his gun hand now clasping his left arm.

  Hal scanned the ground for his gun. Gone.

  The crackled warning from Michaels’s radio was too late.

  The loner appeared beside the Honda’s rear bumper—only feet from where Michaels lay.

  Where the hell was his gun?

  “Shit,” he cursed and before he could locate the weapon, the loner reached Michaels’s head, tugged the officer against his torso like a heavy blanket.

  A shot blasted from the roof and the kid’s sweatshirt jumped at his shoulder.

  Hal spotted his gun as the kid howled and sank to the ground fast.

  For a second, Hal thought they might escape, but the loner moved nimbly and Michaels not at all. The loner jammed the barrel to Michaels’s temple and released the safety with his thumb. “Lose the gun or I’ll pull.”

  Michaels’s face crumpled, red and swollen, his breathing shallow and his grip latched to his limp left arm.

  “You’re okay,” Hal whispered and while Michaels nodded, it was clear to both of them that he was lying. This was probably as far from okay as Michaels had ever been.

  “Lose the gun, asshole!” the loner shouted, voice cracking. Hal saw his face—the broad nose, the dark wide eyes. Fear was wet on his cheeks, pain creased in his brow. “Now!”

  “Okay,” Hal said. “Hang in there, Michaels.”

  Michaels closed his eyes, shook his head.

  The kid grabbed Michaels’s collar, using it to hold the officer as a shield in front of him. Hal’s empty hands were cold and clammy. His arms still felt Michaels shaking like aftershocks of an earthquake.

  Hal tossed the gun into the middle of the street and prayed someone could get a shot off before this kid killed them both.


  Chapter 3

  Jim was not a model patient. By the time Dee and Hailey persuaded him into an ambulance and the Northern District patrol officers exhausted their questions, more than three hours had passed since Hal’s first call.

  Hailey’s pager told her that the situation downtown was now a 187-999.

  The ‘999’ suggested an officer was down but when she called for an update, they’d told her that the situation had escalated. An officer was being held hostage.

  No casualties.

  Hal would be okay.

  But he didn’t answer his phone. Hailey buzzed with adrenaline and too much albuterol.

  She headed to the scene as soon as she could leave the hospital.

  The three blocks were blocked off with bright yellow crime tape.

  Patrol officers, their hats pulled low to avoid losing them, manned the tape and kept the crowd of curious neighbors and hungry reporters back.

  The patrons of the bar on the corner had emptied onto the street. Men in torn jeans and plaid wool shirts swayed against the building, watching the crowd while men in business suits, probably on their way to the local strip clubs, lurked in the doorway.

  In the street just outside the bar, two drunks were fighting with pool sticks while the bar owner shouted at them. “You gonna pay for those sticks. You hear me, Dan? Steve? You’re paying for them!”

  Two cops had intervened to disarm them.

  Hailey showed her badge at two separate checkpoints and made the last blocks on foot, wishing she had worn a heavier jacket. Once the sun dropped, the bay cooled the city quickly and the raincoat Hailey had grabbed from her trunk barely buffeted the rising winds.

  The scene looked like someone was filming a movie.

  Freestanding lights were set up behind the line of black and whites.

  Cops crouched behind their windows, waiting for a shot.

  Bruce Daniels stood off to one side, talking on his phone. She veered away from him, heading towards Linda James, patrol captain for the district that included the Tenderloin. The Tenderloin was one of the roughest neighborhoods in the city. Like other areas of San Francisco, the Tenderloin also had great live music venues and restaurants. It was all a matter of staying on the right block.