Dead Zero (19 page)

“The neighborhood used to be Jewish when Baltimore was the Jerusalem of the East Coast. Lots of big old homes, built by prosperous business owners, bankers, furriers, restaurateurs, that sort of thing, at the turn of the century through the twenties. It’s now what you call a ‘changing neighborhood.’ It’s about sixty percent black, forty percent what we’d call ‘mixed ethnic.’ Real estate has been depressed for a few decades as the rich people move farther out. One of the things we’ve seen is a kind of ‘rooming house’ phenomenon. A restaurant guy, who depends on cheap labor, some of it possibly illegal, will buy one of these big old arks at low cost, do absolutely nothing to fix it up, and turn it into a kind of dormitory for his low-end labor force. With some of these, you’ve got continuous problems that generate a lot of complaints, fights, drugs, parties, noise, trashed property, sometimes a killing, which requires a lot of police activity.

“The Filipinos, though, are different. Never a fight, never a party, no drinking hardly at all, very tidy, lawn is always mowed, no rubbish anywhere. You’d never be able to tell that 1216 Crenshaw has ten occupants, all single. These are usually rural guys; they’re not from the big, crazy cities like Manila or Cebu, they’re not sophisticated and criminally inclined. What they do, they get the visa, they sign up with an employer, a restaurant guy who needs the cheap labor, and they come over here for seven years. It’s pretty awful, living four to a room in a country whose language they don’t speak and whose culture they don’t even get. But they work hard, live very simply, and manage to send home a pile of money. They’re really helping out their families. After the seven, very few of them jump and go illegal; they go back, having done their duty, and another family member comes over. So what you’ve got at 1216 is just that, a houseful of very quiet, hardworking guys without English skills at any level who just want to go home.”

Nick said, “Captain, we may want to raid tomorrow morning at dawn. These guys work late, and our best bet to nab all of them is early morning. I’ve got people at the federal level trying to get a search warrant, I may have to bring Immigration in, but I’m wondering if you’d provide perimeter security for our team, and if we need it, I’m hoping you could make a phone call to a local prosecutor on our behalf, and we’d go in under your flag. It’s not a hard bust, a kick-ass raid. I don’t want to disturb or harass these guys, but I need to contain them totally, and run a careful search for a possible terrorist suspect of Filipino heritage. This seems like our best possibility for apprehending him, if he’s there.”

“Sure,” said the commander. “Happy to.”

“I’m going to give you over to Special Agent Matthews,” Nick said, “for further coordination and logistical requirements.”

He handed the phone off.

“Okay,” he said, “Swagger and I are going to drive out there discreetly and take a look. You guys get on with the planning; again, let me emphasize, this is about containment. I don’t want any battering rams or flash-bangs, I don’t want any SWAT monkey suits or MP5s and Ninja Commando Force 9 bullshit. I want a lot of people in civilian clothes, wearing comfortable shoes and FBI raid jackets, I want to flood that zone, I want it all to go smooth and quiet and I don’t want any of these subjects to have cause to complain of police harassment, is that clear?”

PIKESVILLE, MARYLAND

THE 1200 BLOCK OF CRENSHAW AVENUE

0130 HOURS

Bob and Nick sat in Nick’s government-issue Crown Victoria, across the street and four houses down from the big dwelling at 1216, which just sat there in Gothic splendor, a many-turreted old beast of a house that had to have been built by a jeweler or a dry-cleaning magnate of the century before. Trees overhung the streets, and the houses, all of them big and most of them dark, were smothered in landscaping—though it was shabby and overgrown, as the original owners, with their American dream of success, had long since moved on, and the inheritors didn’t pay as much attention to the details. It was actually only a few minutes’ drive from the FBI office via a one-exit trek on the beltway. But Bob didn’t like sitting there.

“I don’t advise parking here.”

“I want to see if there are any surprises. We have the house plan, we have satellite photos from National Reconnaissance satellites, but I want to make sure no doors or windows are boarded up, or there are any new entrances. Relax. It’s dark.”

Nick was examining the property through his own night vision binoculars, and taking notes.

“This guy has radar for aggression,” said Bob. “That’s how he’s stayed alive so long. If he’s in the house, he’ll note that we pulled up and nobody left the car. Maybe he’s got binocs on us right now.”

“Okay, okay,” said Nick, “almost done.”

“Suppose one of ’em comes home about now and sees the two white guys in the big black sedan spying and tells the others.”

“I hear you, I hear you,” said Nick. “All right, I’m going to pull out, pass the house, turn right on Dickens, and you run a check through these from that side. I’ll go slow.”

“Don’t go slow,” said Bob. “He’ll notice if you go slow. He notices
shit like that. He’s a sniper.”

“You mentioned ‘radar for aggression.’ You’ve got it too, I know. Some buried ESP synapse left over from reptile days. All you tactical people have it. Maybe that’s why you become tactical people. But do you feel anything now? You seem jumpy and I’ve never seen you jumpy.”

“I’m worried that this ain’t right. It’s a big gamble.”

“It’s smaller than it seems,” Nick said. “If he’s here, ball game over, we win the Oscar, our class gets the Bible. If he’s not, so what? It’s not as if we’re overcommitting to this. I’m not taking resources that would otherwise be deployed as countersnipers tomorrow. The same number of guys will be on the street. What I’m doing, frankly, is a little management-level ass covering, that’s all. I have to work it hard so no one sitting on the fifth floor with four martinis in him says, ‘Oh, if only you’d done
that
.”

Bob was quiet as Nick pulled out. The car glided down the street, took the right, and Bob got a good ambient-light view of the southern and the western, that is, the right side and the rear of 1216, seeing nothing out of the usual, no movement, nothing but a big old house dozing in the night, probably looking better because its shabbiness was veiled by the darkness.

“Okay,” Nick said as the car pulled away, “now tell me why you’re
really
jumpy. What came up on the Swagger aggression radar?”

“Ahh,” said Bob, “you FBI guys, you don’t miss a damned trick, do you?”

“I’m Dick Tracy, didn’t you see my picture on the lunch box in the cabinet?”

“Well, it ain’t nothing,” said Bob. “It’s just . . . something.”

“Nothing, but something. Yeah, I get it. That’s perfectly clear.”

“Don’t know what. Like a hair tickling me somewhere, like somewhere someone’s watching me. Maybe it’s because I’m so goddamned tired and a little over a week ago I got whacked in the head by a flying desk. I got nothing I can point at and say, now, yessiree, that’s it, that’s the thing. It’s just an oozy feeling I used to get in the bush when
bad hombres moved in. I’d say it’s my imagination, except I don’t got no imagination.”

“You need some rest.”

FBI RAID TEAM

SECURITY HEADQUARTERS TO 1216 CRENSHAW

0530 HOURS

He got some rest, three hours’ worth, on the SAIC’s couch. He was awake before they came for him, and stepped into general chaos. He followed the swell of personnel down the hall to the elevator, down that to the entrance to the parking lot where, as if lit for the movies and oh so SWAT-team dramatic, the raid was staging. Special agents buckled on body armor, then pulled raid jackets with
FBI
emblazoned in huge yellow letters across the back. Most wore jeans, athletic shoes or assault boots, carried their Glocks in cowboy-cool tactical rigs that held them to midthigh, below the extension of the body armor beneath the waist. Everyone had a radio and the air was alive with the crackle of static as call signs and nets were checked. Nick talked earnestly to Matthews, his raid commander, and when it seemed everybody was done being dramatic, Matthews turned, gave the whirlybird rotation with his fingers, meaning “Guns up,” and everybody piled into the six SUVs.

Matthews led, followed by the five SUVs, and last came Bob and Nick in Nick’s sedan. No need for flashing lights at this time of morning, as Beltway traffic was nonexistent. To the east, over downtown, just the tiniest glaze of a pinkish blur colored the sky. The parade roared its one-exit hop, got off on Reisterstown Road, and turned inward toward the city. Now the red-blue dance of the flashing lights began, as the few motorists on Reisterstown yielded to the federal convoy as it blazed through the three stoplights, and into what comprised “center-city” Pikesville, and at the corner of Reisterstown and Crenshaw turned the hard right.

Bob could hear the radio chatter between the feds and the on-scene county police locals.

“Baker-Six-five, this is Twelve-Oscar, we are inbound.”

“Roger, Twelve-Oscar.”

“Be there in a minute or so.”

“We are set to cover your perimeter, Twelve-Oscar. Area is cordoned off.”

“Very good and appreciated, Baker-Six-five.”

Dramatic spurts of color splashed against the trees and houses as the convoy, lights flashing, passed down the corridor of old big houses that was Crenshaw, and came at last to the corner house, 1216, where they halted, then turned spotlights inward to illuminate every turret and gable of the old place. Bob watched as the raid theater continued.

The men piled out, no long guns among them, but hands resting comfortably on or near their holstered Glocks, and went to assigned doors and windows, making egress impossible. That took a minute, as the federal team was well trained.

“One, in position.”

“Two, I’m set.”

“Three? Three, where are you?”

“Sorry, Command, my radio switched off as I was pulling it from the holster. I am in position.”

“Four, I’m ready too.”

“Okay, let’s open her up.”

With that, Matthews, carrying a radio unit but no sidearm and two other agents with drawn pistols but nothing exotic, walked swiftly up the front walk, and pounded.

And pounded.

And pounded.

“Oh, shit,” said Nick. “I wonder what’s wrong.”

Matthews tried the door. It opened to his turn of the knob.

He disappeared inside and came out in a few minutes. He yelled something to the other men, who started to put away their pistols and file into the house. Then Matthews walked straight to Nick. His face was grave.

“I don’t like the looks of this one fucking bit,” said Nick.

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

TWO BLOCKS FROM FBI
HQ

WOODLAWN

1230 HOURS

THE PREVIOUS DAY

See,” explained Crackers the Clown, “I’m just not that into this. I’m an operator, a rock star, an action-Jackson guy. I blow shit up and kill people. I learned from the best.”

“You learned from
Soldier of Fortune
magazine,” said Mick.

“Mick, no, I wasn’t SEAL or DELTA but I was forces, just like you. And I did some shit for an outfit I can’t talk about.”

“The Boy Scouts of America,” said Tony Z. “He got his merit badge in Advanced Paintball.”

Laughter.

“Hey, paintball’s
tough
. Tougher than Airsoft!”

More laughter. The three of them sat in their by now rather-well-lived-in Explorer. Ahead, the only large building in this zone of cottage industry and light manufacturing, the one whose three floors comprised the Baltimore FBI office, loomed against the sky. As it was somewhat creamy in complexion, though undistinguished architecturally, it was easily visible and its burning lights made it all the simpler to mark.

“I don’t like this shit either,” said Mick. “I don’t like sitting on my ass like some vice cop outside a Korean massage parlor, waiting for a politician to show up. Give me a nice torture interrogation or a shot at laser-designating a Sadr militia warehouse for the Mavericks, that’s my preference. I also really like that big gun and watching them toss when you knock them off at a mile.”

“That’s so cool,” said Tony Z. “I like that part too.”

“But we are stuck on this sucker until we make it go away,” said Crackers.

“I think he has a morale crisis,” said Z. “I’d make an appointment
with him for the chaplain.”

“My morale improves with pussy. Any suggestions?”

“We kill this guy, and go someplace with a lot of pussy.”

“You have muscles, so you get chicks who give it out easy,” said Crackers.

“Plus, you’re a psychopath, a great advantage in fucking chicks. Me, I’m a rather nice guy and I always empathize with them. They like me. They don’t want to suck my cock, they want to tell me about their mothers. I have to go someplace special.”

“By ‘special’ he means ‘whorehouse.’”

“Can I help it if I’m not sexually competitive?” said Crackers. “I thought going forces would get me laid more, but so far it hasn’t panned out that way.”

“I thought that’s why you got married.”

“Funny, that hasn’t panned out sex-wise either.”

They laughed.

“Okay,” said Tony Z, his eyes drawn to the BlackBerry in his hands, “got movement.”

Crackers made a doodley sound along the lines of the 7th Cavalry’s famous “charge” bugle call. All three men tried to shake off the dreariness that had turned them to putty over the last few hours.

Mick, behind the wheel, started the SUV and nudged it out into the road. He did not turn on the lights.

Up ahead, advanced by its own blazing headlights, a sedan exited the FBI parking lot and turned right, then left, toward the close-by beltway entrance.

“He’s in that car,” said Tony. “I have him clear.”

“Have they sent him out to get doughnuts, I wonder,” said Crackers.