Troubleshooter Read online

  He disappeared out a side door and returned accompanied by a thin East Asian kid with orange hair. The smell of cigarettes lingered in Larry’s jacket. His eyes were hidden beneath mirrored Oakley Blades. Larry held out his hand like a surgeon requesting an instrument, and Tim laid the crippled phone in his palm. Larry took it to his workbench, Tim following and looking over his shoulder as he worked. After casting an annoyed glance at Tim, he screwed earphones into his head and turned the volume up so loud that Tim could make out the tinny lyrics—something about blood devils and suicide pacts.

  Tim glanced back at Bryant. “You explain to him what we need?”

  “Oh, yeah. Lar’s on it, dude.”

  Lar swapped the battery, then dissected the casing, threading a series of wires over to a brand-new cell phone of the same model. He turned on the new phone, made some minute adjustments with what looked like an eyeglass-repair screwdriver, and tugged the earphones down around his neck.

  Tim’s Nextel chirped—the radio signature—and he keyed the “talk” button. “Go for Rackley.”

  Freed’s voice filled the small service room: “The twins’ bodies turned up, dumped naked in the wash by the Tujunga Bridge. Predictable incisions. Aaronson’s handling the workups. What do you want him to do next?”

  Tim pursed his lips, studied the tip of his boot. Bear and Guerrera exchanged a weary look—they’d all known it was coming, but that didn’t make the reality any more pleasant.

  “Clean up the bodies as best he can and give the parents a burial.”

  When Tim signed out, Bryant looked a touch queasy.

  Tim raised his eyebrows at Lar—let’s get back to business. Larry’s face was softer than before, his tone agreeable. “Okay. You got the brains of the old phone on the display of the new phone.” He handed the linked phones to Tim. “Be careful.”

  Bear and Guerrera crowded around as Tim trial-and-errored his way through the elaborate phone menu. He arrived at the address book, his hands sweating with anticipation, and clicked the icon. It was empty—no saved numbers.

  His disappointment was sharp, but he couldn’t say unexpected. If Kaner knew enough about investigative technology to want to destroy and hide his cell phone before being killed or taken captive, he probably wasn’t dumb enough to input Den Laurey’s numbers. Bear made various sounds of irritation, and Guerrera took a step back and sank his hands into his pockets.

  But Tim kept his focus on the cell phone, using the arrow buttons to reach the submenus. All outgoing calls had been deleted. He thumbed around some more, and the missed-calls menu popped up, also empty. He backed out, highlighted “incoming calls”—the final play—and punched “OK.”

  Amid seven “blocked callers,” the same phone number came up three times.

  54

  From the street nothing was visible, just a dark room off an unlit third-floor balcony, parted polyester drapes billowing in the breeze like languid belly dancers. The three-hundred-dollar-a-week, four-story apartment-hotel, ambitiously named Elite Towers, overlooked a quiet throw of street. Crowded along the far side were a parking lot, a biker bar named Suicide Clutch, complete with neon martini and padded door, and most critically, a wall-mounted pay phone.

  Standing ten feet back in the hotel room behind a tripod-mounted, high-powered rifle, Tim observed the pay phone through the Leopold variable-power scope at 5x. If he zoomed in to 10x, the faded phone number above the pay phone’s black receiver—the same number listed three times in Kaner’s incoming-call log—would fill his field of vision. A KN250 attachment provided him night vision, more essential every minute. The drapes flickered, never intruding on the two-foot gap that provided Tim a clear line of sight. The only interruptions in his field of vision were the uprights of the balcony railing through which he aimed and a crisscross of suspended electric cable too high to matter.

  After tracing the number to the location, Tim had organized the takedown, then headed home to retrieve his sniper rifle. He’d oiled and run a patch through his bolt-action Remington M700, which held four in the well, one in the chamber, then gone back to the master to shower. After staring at the unmade bed and Dray’s Gap sweats kicked off in the corner, he’d upgraded to his match-grade M14. It was semiauto, accommodating twenty magazine-fed rounds, and, if the necessity arose, it could turn Den Laurey into pink mist.

  Based on his knowledge of the Sinners’ chain of command, Guerrera surmised that Kaner took his marching orders from Den Laurey alone. The deputies assumed that Den Laurey was using the pay phone to place sensitive calls that he didn’t want traced or logged. There was little question that Den still needed to be in contact with the higher-ups—Uncle Pete, the Prophet, the money launderer, or whoever was coordinating the drug-money exchange.

  The breeze, unchecked even by a screen door, pressed against Tim’s face. The tail end of dusk turned the street shades of gray. The air was grainy, dreary, heavy, like war footage. Tim remained frozen in a supported standing position, rifle butt to his shoulder, fiberglass stock pushing up his cheek, his face 3.25 inches back from the scope for proper eye relief. The end of the stock was slotted in the padded U atop the tripod. The rifle was balanced; if he let go, it would remain in position.

  As dark overtook dusk, Tim turned up the illuminated mil-dot reticle so the crosshairs glowed red. He’d been standing motionless more than three hours, and he’d seen little more than a few off-the-assembly-line full-dressers come and go, and the occasional biker stumbling out of the cocktail dive. It was still too early for anyone but the dregs and the die-hard lushes. A parking attendant sat on the curb in front of the lot smoking a cigarette, ignoring the well-fed homeless guy crushing cans in the alley. A refrigerator van idled in front of the bar, a phallically tilted Miller Genuine Draft bottle rendered on its side.

  Statue-still in the dark room, Tim watched and waited. The soldiers in sniper training had square jaws and calves like softballs, and they all smelled of tobacco and Right Guard. They were funny in the darkest manner, a mordant kind of funny that kept moving so despair wouldn’t overtake it.

  Like Ma Bell told you. Reach out and touch someone.

  Gonna give motherfucker a case of instant lead poisoning.

  The Good Lord said it’s better to give than receive.

  Tim had never joked much. He’d stayed quiet and hit his targets, and somehow the others had found that all the more heartless. In joking they released their discomfort, but he’d taken his and swallowed it live, held it in the vise of his body as it banged against his insides, held it until it disintegrated. Dray had taught him, slowly, painstakingly, how to open himself up to the world instead of trying to contain the world inside himself. She’d taught him to be alive, and having Ginny had forced him to be alive, and then he’d paid the price, felt the searing pain at his tender core. Dray could manage pain and intimacy. Dray could balance private cause with public duty. Dray was the best part of him. If she died as Ginny had died, and if he continued as he would have to, he was not sure who he would be.

  He heard the chopper before it came into view. His jaw tightened at the angry crackle of the engine, and then a helmeted biker eased to the curb near the pay phone and dismounted. The bike had none of Danny the Wand’s telltale markings. It had been spray-painted black, and the license plate was illegible, caked with mud. The engine appeared to be a knucklehead, but Tim couldn’t determine whether it was Den’s. The street was quiet, almost desolate, the only noise the distant whine of traffic, the muffled thump of Whitesnake from the Suicide Clutch juke, and dead leaves scraping the empty sidewalk.

  Tim’s earpiece activated with a hiss of static, and then Bear said, “Got him?”

  Tim spoke softly so as not to vibrate the rifle, the receiver on his Adam’s apple picking up his voice. “Yeah. It’s a chopper, but I don’t recognize it. Can’t make a positive ID.”

  Bear shifted in his homeless garb, sending a few crushed cans scattering. “Want us to hammer him?”

  “Not un
til we make the positive ID.” Tim shifted the scope to the parking attendant at the curb. The rifle stock felt like a part of his face. “Guerrera, you got an angle?”

  Guerrera held the cigarette to his lips so they wouldn’t be seen moving. “Nope. Eye visor’s still down.”

  Tim tilted the rifle, following the biker to the pay phone. The biker paused, pulling off his helmet.

  Den Laurey, magnified five times over, loomed before Tim’s right eye.

  Tim’s voice came high with his excitement. “We got him.”

  “I’m within range for the takedown,” Bear said.

  The hum of the refrigerator van accompanied Thomas’s voice. “Let’s move.”

  Malane cut in on the primary channel. He was in one of five FBI sedans positioned up the street. “Not until he makes the call. That was the deal.”

  “You have one minute,” Tim said. “And if he so much as breathes wrong, we’re swarming him.”

  “Not until we get a line on the drug swap.”

  “The deal goes through with or without Den Laurey.”

  “Yeah, but without this call we don’t know where.”

  “I’m not losing this guy.”

  “Just take it easy, Rackley. He’s not going anywhere. We’ve got plenty of boots on the ground.”

  Casting a wary gaze over his shoulder, Den stepped in close to the pay phone. Tim kept the rifle steady, his trigger finger alongside it. With his left thumb and forefinger, he adjusted the dial, pulling back to 4x, which allowed him to fit Den’s entire body in the scope picture and watch the surrounding area for civilians.

  Bear’s build suited him to playing homeless. Rags shifting about him, he dug in his shopping cart while red-vested Guerrera lit a new cigarette off the butt of his last. Den crossed his arms and leaned against the wall beside the pay phone. His sharp eyes picked over the scene, coming to rest on Guerrera. Guerrera played it cool, no eye contact, no rush, no angling for the Glock tucked into his belt.

  From his post in the MGD van amid Thomas and six other ART members decked out in Kevlar and toting MP5s, Miller said, “Screw this. We don’t move, he’s gonna eyefuck Guerrera.”

  “He’s not making a call,” Tim said.

  Malane said firmly, “Then he’s waiting for one.”

  “We don’t have the luxury of waiting with him. He’s gonna make Guerrera. We gotta move.”

  “Give it a second,” Malane hissed.

  The phone rang. Tim exhaled through his teeth. “Hold. Hold your positions.”

  Malane said, “We’re sending the phone splice through.”

  Keeping his eyes on the street, Den picked up the phone.

  A quiet, accented voice on the other end: “I have an obligation to see that it arrived safely.”

  Den’s lips barely moved. “So you can turn it back over to us?”

  “I shall see with my own two eyes. Tomorrow, as we discussed.”

  “Noon.”

  “There had better not be a drop missing.”

  “There won’t be. You can weigh it yourself.”

  Dhul Faqar Al-Malik said, “I intend to do more than that,” and hung up.

  “Let’s move,” Tim said.

  “Wait!” Malane’s voice was hard, driving. “We couldn’t get a trace. He rerouted the call through UCLA’s switchboard.”

  Den hung up the phone and started for his bike.

  Tim said, “Sorry. You missed your shot.”

  “Are you kidding? Laurey’s going to the stash house tomorrow. He’ll lead us right in. We have ten agents here—we can tail him until tomorrow.”

  “No way,” Tim said. “You know how easy it is to lose a bike.”

  “We won’t let him out of our sight. Not for a minute.”

  “That wasn’t the deal.”

  “The deal just changed. We couldn’t trace the call.”

  “We can take him,” Miller said. “This instant.”

  Den passed the mouth of the alley, crossing before Bear. Behind him, Bear offered Tim a frustrated glare.

  “On three,” Tim said.

  “Goddamnit,” Malane said, “we have Rich undercover right now, risking his life every minute to tie this thing up. Don’t cut us short.”

  “One …” Tim said.

  Malane was shouting, “We’ve got no drugs. No money. No terrorist. You play cowboy now, we lose the trail to the biggest threat on the West Coast.”

  Den paused beside his bike, securing the helmet over his head.

  The handle on the beer truck’s loading door rotated slowly until it pointed at the asphalt.

  “Two …”

  “You take down Laurey, the next 9/11 is on your head.”

  Miller’s voice was high and angry. “We gotta move here. Now.”

  Tim lined up the crosshairs on Den’s chest and hooked his finger inside the trigger guard, ready to give the final order. The FTW tattoo stood out through a sheen of sweat on Den’s collarbone. Tim pictured the burst of flame erupting from Den’s fist. Dray’s boot, empty and upright on the asphalt. The stain at the crotch of her olive sheriff ’s pants. His head swam with desire; for an instant he forgot that he was here to provide overwatch for the ART team, not to execute a kill.

  “We can do this,” Malane urged. “We can tie the whole fucking thing up tomorrow.”

  Bear growled, “He’s gonna walk outta here, Rack.”

  Tim listened for Dray’s voice but for the first time couldn’t hear it. She was done playing conscience. Everyone else was hidden, lost in disguise, holed up in trucks and sedans, phantom voices in his ear. Wind whistled through the balcony rails, cutting into the silence.

  Bear again: “What’s it gonna be, Rack?”

  It was just him, the Troubleshooter, with the crosshairs on the man who’d shot his wife.

  Den threw a leg over the bike and kick-started the engine.

  “What’s it gonna be?” Bear said.

  Tim said, “Let him go.”

  Den carved a sharp turn, passing within feet of Guerrera. Scope to his eye, Tim watched him float unopposed up the street. The frosty MGD bottle flew by in the background. Den passed Haines’s and Zimmer’s Broncos, facing out of opposing driveways, ready to rev forward to form an instant barricade. Up the street a dark FBI sedan—probably Malane’s—eased out from the curb behind the bike.

  Moving through headlight splashes, Den drove evenly up the street, abiding the speed limit, signaling at the turn. Tim watched the black bulb of his helmet until it disappeared from sight.

  55

  Squeeze, Dray. C’mon. Give a squeeze.”

  Tim finally slid his index finger from his wife’s limp fist. Her hand fell open to the sheet. He walked around the bed and tried her other hand, but to no avail. Someone shouted from a nearby room, and he heard the tapping of running feet in the hospital hall, the clatter of gurney wheels. He sat for a few minutes in perfect silence.

  Then he retrieved Dray’s brush from the bag he’d brought and ran it through her hair, working out the tangles. He wet one of her washcloths in the sink and cleaned her face. He traced her hairline, circled her eyes, rode the bridge of her nose. Then he stopped to feel the warmth of her curved belly. Gently, he pulled up her eyelid so he could see her iris. Her eyes were emerald—true emerald—an arresting shade that had depth and layers like the infinite refractions of the gem itself.

  But now they seemed flat and vacant, devoid of inner light. No longer did he hear her voice in his head. He wondered if that meant he’d lost her already, if she’d drifted beyond the pale of recovery.

  “I could’ve killed Den Laurey,” he said. “And I didn’t.”

  But if he was looking for approval or absolution, he’d have to look elsewhere. He let go, and the eyelid pulled back into place.

  Night crowded the hospital window. From his place by the bed, Tim could see neither stars nor streetlights, just the black square of glass, the opaque end of a corridor of darkness. The hospital might have been the last ou
tpost of civilization; it might have been perched on the edge of a cliff or drifting through outer space.

  He rose wearily and stretched Dray’s legs, her arms. Her face, slack now for four days, no longer retained the lines and shapes that made her unique, that made her Dray. In another few days, the muscle tone would start to weaken. And her chances of recovery would weaken with it.

  He was massaging her jasmine lotion into her hands when a noise at the door made him look up.

  Malane came in an awkward half step, one arm still clutching the doorframe as if to indicate his willingness to extract himself from the intimate scene should Tim desire it. Tim nodded, and Malane entered and sat in the opposing chair, facing Tim across Dray’s body.

  “I’m sorry to bust in on you.… Bear told me you were here.”

  Tim continued rubbing Dray’s hands.

  Malane flared a few fingers at Dray, a small, awkward gesture. “I, uh, I hadn’t realized …”

  “That’s the job. For better or worse, it’s part of the job.” Tim blinked a few times, then said, “But that’s not why you’re here.”

  Malane took a deep breath, blew it out, and said, “The good news is, Den Laurey stopped again up the road, used a different pay phone to place a call to Babe Donovan.”

  “He addressed her by name?”

  “Yeah. He calls her Dunny. We got him on the parabola mike. He told her to drop the car tomorrow in the Taco Bell parking lot at Pico and Bundy.”

  Tim rotated Dray’s foot, the cranky ankle tendons putting up resistance. “And the bad news?”

  “We lost him.”

  Malane watched him closely, but Tim merely continued with Dray’s hands, lost in the smell of jasmine.

  “We were closing in, and he dropped into a ravine and disappeared. Trails. The cars couldn’t …” Malane’s hands flew up, clapped to his knees. “We have a line on the drugs, Rackley. That’s most important. We’ll pick Den up again tomorrow.”

  Tim looked at him, expressionless.

  Malane’s eyes jogged back and forth, and then his voice softened. “I’m sorry. I promised something to you, and I didn’t deliver. I, uh, I at least wanted to tell you myself.”