Greed: A Detective John Lynch Thriller (33 page)

CHAPTER 88

 

Lafitpour and Hickman stepped out of stairwell and started across the sixth floor of the garage. Half empty up this far. They walked to the wall Hardin had told them to.

“We’re here,” Lafitpour said into his phone.

“Hang tight,” Hardin answered.

 

Al Din took his ticket from the machine, waited for the gate to go up, and then started up the ramp.

“Do you know what floor they are on?” he said to the phone.

“They just passed the cam on five,” Tokyo answered. “Only got six and the roof left.”

Al Din accelerated.

 

On five, Hardin started seeing more empty spots, things really thinning out at the back of the floor, toward the ramp to six. That’s why he’d told Lafitpour to meet on six. Hardin had scouted the garage a couple days earlier. This time of day, six was still mostly empty. Hardin didn’t want to go up to seven. Seven was the rooftop, no overhead cover. If somebody managed to put a long gun in play, he didn’t need to make it easy on them. Wilson cut the wheel, started up the ramp to six.

The SUV followed, half a floor back.

As soon as they made the curve on the ramp, out of sight of the SUV, Hardin nudged her arm. “Floor it. When you hit six, get to the far end as fast as you can. I’m going to roll out behind the pillar there. Pull in to the right, wait until you see them make the turn at my end, then get out. You’ll have the car for cover. If they don’t see me, we’ll have them between us.”

Wilson nodded, her face hard and unmoving.

She shot out of the ramp on six and across the floor, slowed as she made the turn at the far end. Hardin opened the door and rolled out onto the cement. Wilson sped away.

 

Lafitpour and Hickman stood by the wall at the east end of the sixth floor, turning to look as they heard a car accelerating up the ramp. A black Honda shot out and across the floor two rows to the west of them. Lafitpour just caught a glimpse of Hardin as the car passed. The black compact slowed radically as it turned at the far end. Lafitpour had just enough of angle to see Hardin roll out of the passenger door and come up with a pistol in each hand.

He heard another engine straining and saw a black Explorer erupt from the ramp, four men inside, the man in the passenger seat holding a submachine gun at port arms.

 

“Where’s the fucking car?” Hernandez yelled as the Explorer charged onto six.

“There,” the driver answered. “To your left.” Hernandez saw it, parking head in near the elevator. Bad angle, too much shadow to see in the windows. The driver pushed the truck hard, braked, tires squealing as he made the turn at the far end, circling back toward the Honda. The driver’s door opened, the woman got out.

 

Hardin squatted down on the west side of the pillar making himself as small as he could, a minivan to his left, blocking the view from the direction of the ramp. He heard the truck accelerate across the floor. He didn’t look, just straightened to a crouch as the truck passed behind him, screeched around the curve. Hardin held both pistols out in front of him. He’d be more accurate one handed, but he was a good shot with either hand, or with both, and there were times when more lead mattered.

 

“Where the fuck is Hardin?” Hernandez said as the truck curved around the pillar at the far end of the floor and zeroed in on the Honda. Better angle from here. Wilson was standing on the other side of the car and he couldn’t see anyone in the passenger seat.

Wilson dropped down behind the Honda’s engine block, her S&W in a two-handed grip, her arms braced on the hood of the car. To his left, Hernandez sensed movement and turned just in time to see Hardin, to see the back driver’s-side window shatter, to see the Skull shooter’s head explode. Hernandez rolled forward, trying to squeeze down into the footwell, feeling a ripping burn across the back of his shoulders as a round tore a furrow through his flesh. The air was full of the sounds of gunfire, a steady staccato beat from behind and to his left, Hardin firing, and then a slightly higher pitched ripping as Miko cut loose with his MP5 out the front passenger-side window.

Hernandez started to straighten, went to swing his MP5 up at Hardin, but a flurry of rounds slammed into the window pillar of the driver’s side, into the back of the driver’s seat. The driver slumped forward and the truck slewed left. Hernandez lost his balance, tipping against the front passenger seat. The dead Skull fell across Hernandez’s lap, knocking the MP5 from his hands.

 

Hardin saw the truck make the curve. The driver couldn’t shoot, not while he was driving, so Hardin took the guy in the back passenger seat first. Kill shot, the guy’s head exploding. Big guy on the far side of the seat dropped down, might have been hit, might not have been. Might have been Hernandez.

Hardin turned, tracking the car, putting out as many rounds as he could at the driver. Must have hit him. The Explorer swerved radically left, then slowed, drifted.

Hardin looked toward the Honda, Wilson behind the engine block; arms locked, rock steady, squeezing off shots. He heard an automatic weapon rip from the SUV. The left drift gave the guy in the passenger seat a straight shot at Wilson. Hardin saw a line of holes stitch across the Honda’s front passenger side, creeping up, a furrow opening across the top of the hood, Wilson not even blinking at that, just firing. Then the firing from the truck stopped and it rolled into a green BMW across from the elevators, crunching to a halt.

Hardin holstered the pistol in his left hand, ejected the clip from the one in his right, slammed in a spare, pulled the slide. He advanced on the SUV, the single pistol in a two-handed grip and trained just over the sill of the rear passenger window. He still didn’t know about the guy in the right rear, but if he saw even a hint of movement, he was ready to open up. Wilson came out from behind the Honda, reloading her S&W, closing on the truck from the other side.

The guy in the front passenger seat tried to rise up. Wilson put two through his head, changed her angle just a touch, and gave the driver a double tap, too, just to be sure.

Hardin got to the driver’s side of the SUV, looked in the back window. Shooter on his side was done, down across the seat, half his head missing. Hernandez was bent over behind the passenger seat, trying to dig a weapon up off the floor.

“Don’t fucking move,” Hardin said.

Hernandez looked up, froze for a second. “Why not, so you can shoot me?” Then Hernandez made another frantic move for the pinned weapon.

“No,” Hardin said. “So she can.” Hardin stepped to his left, out of Wilson’s line.

From the passenger’s side, Wilson’s S&W barked five times, tearing off the top of Hernandez’s head and shredding his back between his shoulder blades.

Wilson straightened and looked across the top of the SUV at Hardin.

“Thanks for waiting,” she said.

“I figured you had dibs,” Hardin answered.

 

CHAPTER 89

 

“You gotta go faster, man.” Paco, one of the Skull shooters Hernandez had up from Mexico. He was riding shotgun in the other SUV, two more Skulls in the back, the black gangbanger driving.

“You want some cop lighting us up? Doing the best I can. And keep that fucking gun down, will you? Some do-gooder sees it and 911s us, we’re gonna have company we don’t need.” The Skull kept holding the submachine gun up across his chest. He lowered it to his lap, below window level.

The driver was pissed. Fucking snakebit damn Honda turning into that garage behind them; hadn’t seen that coming. He taken a quick right onto Wells figuring he’d have to circle the block, shot left around a FedEx truck that was blocking the right lane, and that meant he saw the Wells Street entrance too late to make the turn. Next cross street was Madison, but that was one-way east, went through that intersection, cut up Arcade, more of an alley, really, but it would get him back to Wacker. Except there was a truck blocking it, hazards blinking, some kind of delivery. Reversed back out to Franklin, over to Munroe, up to Wacker, more red lights, the whole thing taking forever.

“Buzz your guys,” the driver said to the Skull while they sat at the light at Wacker and Madison. “See does he still want us in the entrance or what?”

The Skull made the call, loud Spanish voice, sounded worked up; driver couldn’t understand any of that shit, but then gunshots. Lots of gunshots. Didn’t need any translation for those. The Skull yelling into the phone, nobody answering.

The driver punched it. Way they timed the lights on Wacker, if he hauled ass, they’d make the green at Washington, be in the garage damn quick.

 

Al Din was halfway across the fifth floor when he heard gunfire from six. A lot of gunfire. It was time to pause, assess his situation. He parked at the end of the row. He could hear at least three different weapons, one of them automatic. Then the shooting stopped.

“There is shooting on a floor above me in the garage,” he said into his phone. “Do you have anything on camera?”

“Uh, I got a black SUV crunched in to what looks like a green Beemer, got some windows shot out. OK, I got a guy walking up to it. It’s your guy, Hardin. And here’s Wilson.”

Al Din heard a tightly spaced group of shots. Five of them.

Tokyo spoke. “Um, I don’t know who was in the SUV, but I hope they weren’t friends of yours.”

“Competitors,” al Din answered.

Al Din thought for just a moment. Hardin and the woman had taken out the men in the SUV. It would be just the two of them, alone. They had no reason to suspect he was here. And al Din had been in his share of firefights. When you have won, when you have survived, your system crashes a little, the adrenaline bleeding off. You let your guard down. Right now Hardin and the woman would be sloppy.

He wouldn’t drive up the ramp. A car they would hear and there was still plenty of parking on the floor below them. They would know that. They would be sloppy, not stupid. But the door to the stairs was behind him and to his right. He could be on six in seconds, could enter quietly, with any luck could get at least one of them before they even knew he was there. That would leave one. They were both good, but al Din would take his chances one-on-one with anyone in the world.

He got out of the car and ran for the stairs.

To his right, he heard a car roar up the ramp, heard the tires squeal as it turned hard toward him, heard it screech to a halt, still running. He turned his head, still running toward the door. He saw a black sedan stopped almost even with the stair doors, but in the main traffic row, two rows in from the wall. Both front doors flew open, two men out, weapons coming up.

“Al Din! Police!” The taller man shouting. The man on the driver’s side.

Without slowing, al Din swung his weapon taking the first available shot, the smaller man on the passenger side, firing two shots, the first slightly, high, but adjusting, the second punching through the window of the open door, hitting the smaller man in the chest.

 

Lynch had just nosed the Crown Vic onto the ramp up to five when he heard shots from above.

“Sounds like we’re late to the party,” Bernstein said.

Lynch put the hammer down, rocketing up the ramp and onto five. Halfway across the floor, he saw a man sprint from the line of cars parked to his left headed right and toward them at an angle. It was al Din.

He slammed on the brakes, him and Bernstein both leaping from the car, bringing their guns up.

“Al Din! Police!” Lynch shouted.

 

Al Din heard the car behind him, did the geometry in his head, got ready, but kept moving. He was in the open, wanted to be closer to the door if it came to shooting. But when he heard the policeman call out his name, he knew he had to change the equation, put their heads down, buy some time.

He made sure the weapon was at chest level as he turned. He didn’t want to have to worry about elevation, just had to be ready to squeeze the trigger when he tracked across the target. A smaller man on the passenger side of the vehicle. Al Din fired twice, his bullets punching through the window of the car. Early on the first shot, but he knew the second was on target.

That should freeze them for a moment. He continued his spin, kept running for the door.

 

Al Din surprised Lynch. Didn’t even pause, just spun, firing twice. Lynch heard glass break, heard a grunt, saw Bernstein drop out of the corner of his eye.

Al Din was almost to the door of the stairwell. Lynch sighted there. Al Din would have to slow to get in the door.

 

Al Din knew he would have to pause at the door. But he had the range now, could picture the larger man behind the driver’s door of the car. Just before the door to the stairwell, al Din spun again, the weapon leveled, waiting for the barrel to cross its target. He fired, fired again, shocked that the man wasn’t moving, wasn’t down. The first shot should have been perfect, but it slammed into top of the car’s window frame just in front of the man’s chest. The second shot may have been wide. Still, it should have been enough, should have had the man ducking for cover, but the man stood perfectly still, gun steady.

The larger man fired. Al Din felt the round hit him near the right shoulder. Didn’t mean it was over – al Din had been shot before. He switched the pistol to his left hand, was raising it for another shot when the next round slammed into the center of his chest.

Al Din fell back against the door, slid to the floor, his brain still racing through his options but his body no longer cooperating. How wide was that window frame? One inch? Two? That was the difference. His shot had been perfect. The other man should be down; al Din should be through the door, gone.

Al Din saw the man come out from behind the car, his weapon still raised, still trained on him. Al Din looked down at the pistol in his left hand, concentrated, could still feel the fingers, tightened them on the grip, focused on his arm, started to raise the weapon.