One by One (43 page)

New murmurs erupted.

‘OK,’ Hunter said loudly, quieting everyone down again. ‘Graham Fisher still lives in the same house he shared with his wife and son in Boyle Heights. The address and the house schematics are all inside the folders on your desks. And we already have a warrant for his arrest. So how about we go take this sonofabitch down?’

One Hundred and Two

The police convoy was made up of two black SWAT SUVs, three unmarked police cars and two black and white units. Four SWAT agents occupied each of the SUVs. Hunter, Garcia and Captain Blake were in the first unmarked car, heading the convoy. Michelle Kelly was in the vehicle just behind them, together with two LAPD SIS agents. Three more SIS agents occupied the third unmarked car. The two black and white units were there just as a backup precaution.

The LAPD Special Investigation Section (SIS) was an Elite Tactical Surveillance squad that has existed for more than forty years, despite efforts from various human-rights and political groups to shut it down. Their kill rate was higher than that of any other unit in the department, including SWAT. SIS teams were mainly used to stealthily watch apex predators – individuals suspected of violent crimes who would not cease until caught in the act. Masters of surveillance, SIS officers waited to observe a suspect committing new crimes before moving in to make arrests. Lethal force was often used, and they were all expert marksmen.

The address they had took them to a small hilly street in the west quadrant of Boyle Heights, a working-class neighborhood just east of downtown Los Angeles.

All the houses were set back from the street but without any foliage. The street was devoid of trees. It was an unusually uninviting place. In the summer the heat probably turned the street into a relentlessly dusty place, where tensions and angers multiplied with the same intensity that bacteria did.

Graham Fisher’s house, number 21, was tucked away right at the top of the hilly street. The house itself was much the same as all the others in that road, a medium-sized, two-story, three-bedroom home, with air conditioners hanging from a couple of windows. Three narrow steps led up to the concrete front porch. The house was painted a faded blue, with the number 21 hand-painted in white near the front door. All the windows were shut. All the curtains were drawn. All appeared quiet. The front yard had a neglected look to it, streaks of dirt sidling up against grass choked with weeds. A white, thigh-high steel fence circled the property. The back alleyway that serviced the entire street wasn’t wide enough for any of the vehicles to drive down. The convoy parked at the bottom of the road.

‘OK, listen up,’ the SWAT captain said in an authoritative voice as everyone gathered by the two SUVs. ‘Alpha team – Morris, Luke and myself – will blast in through the front door. We’ll clear the living room, the dining room and the downstairs washroom, here.’

As he spoke he indicated the locations on the house schematics that he had spread open over the hood of one of the cars.

‘Beta team – Johnson, Davis and Lewis – will come in through the back door that leads directly into the kitchen. They will clear that room first before moving on upstairs, where they will clear both bathrooms and all three bedrooms. Gamma team – Lopez and Turkowski – will follow Alpha team inside through the front door and then proceed to the basement.’ He paused and looked up at Captain Blake. ‘SIS agents and HSS detectives will
only
enter the house once
we
have radioed in that we’re all clear inside. Is that understood?’ He made harsh and determined eye contact with everyone who wasn’t part of the SWAT team, hammering his point through.

‘Roger that,’ Hunter, Garcia and the SIS agents replied back.

The SWAT captain turned and faced his team.

‘OK, badasses. We have everything in our favor this morning. This sick puppy doesn’t know we’re coming for him today. So let’s hit the house fast and hard and give him the surprise of his sorry-ass life. We all know he’s a psycho, but not the gun-slinging kind of psycho. So even though he might have a firearm in the house, chances are it won’t be close at hand. Nevertheless,
watch your six.
No mistakes. No hesitations. This guy is as clever as they come, full of fucking surprises, and you all know that the only surprises I like are the ones we spring up on them. As soon as a room is cleared, radio it on. If anyone spots the target, arrest the fucker. Lethal force
only
, and I repeat,
only
if called for. No happy triggering today. Are we all clear?’

‘Clear, Captain,’ all seven SWAT agents replied in unison.

‘OK, badasses, let’s lock and load. I want this whole thing wrapped up in sixty seconds or less. Take positions, and let’s bring Judgment Day to this piece of shit.’

Twenty seconds later the SWAT captain heard the first status update through his earpiece.

‘Beta team is in position. Ready to blast some doors, Cap.’

Beta team was the only team traveling down the back alley. Alpha and Gamma teams were coming in through the front door.

To reduce the chance of pre-warning the subject, a SWAT agent slowly drove one of the SUVs up the hilly street. The remaining agents, forming teams Alpha and Gamma, crouch-ran together with the vehicle, hiding on the other side of it.

‘Roger that,’ the SWAT captain replied via his helmet microphone. ‘We’ll be in position in less than ten.’

‘Roger that, Captain.’

‘OK, let’s move,’ the captain ordered teams Alpha and Gamma.

They moved fast and stealthily. The captain took point while the other agents assumed standard 2x2 cover formation. They all cleared the steel fence by jumping it instead of going for the gate with rusty hinges – no noise, no warning.

At the porch the captain updated the teams’ status.

‘Alpha and Gamma are in position.’

‘Roger that, Cap,’
Davis from Beta team replied.

Agent Morris, Captain Fallon’s second in command, quickly slid a small fiber-optic tube under the front door. The tube was a fiberscope, connected to a three-inch screen monitor.

Davis did the same at the back door.

There was no movement coming from anywhere inside.

‘Kitchen is dead,’
Davis transmitted.
‘No one here.’

‘Negative for movement at the front room too,’ Morris confirmed.

‘We’ve got a very sturdy lock back here, Captain,’
Davis reported.
‘We’ll need to blast the whole thing off with the breaching shotgun.’

The captain quickly checked the lock and the hinges on the front door. So did Morris, who nodded back at Captain Fallon, agreeing with Beta team’s assessment.

A breaching shotgun is nothing more than a regular shotgun loaded with breaching rounds, also called ‘TESAR’ or disintegrators. These are shotgun shells specially designed to destroy door deadbolts, locks and hinges without risking injury or lives by ricocheting or by flying on at lethal speed once they get through the door. The rounds are frangible, made of a dense, sintered material, most commonly metal powder, in a binder, such as wax. The round will destroy a lock or hinge and then immediately disperse. Jokingly, SWAT agents have nicknamed these rounds ‘master keys’ and their use is referred to as ‘Avon Calling’.

‘Roger that and agreed,’
the SWAT captain replied, signaling Luke, one of the agents, who was carrying a breaching shotgun.

Luke moved forward, readying the weapon. From a distance of about six inches, he aimed it at the door’s top hinge. A very subtle head nod told Captain Fallon that he was ready.

‘OK, Beta,’ the captain said into the microphone. ‘Avon Call on my three count . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .’

BOOM.

One Hundred and Three

The shots exploded through the otherwise quiet morning, echoing off the other houses. At the front door, Luke had blasted off two hinges and the deadbolt lock in less than three seconds. As soon as the last shot was fired, Captain Fallon kicked the door hard, throwing it flying into the living room.

At the rear of the house, Johnson had also blasted the hinges and the deadbolt lock off the door in just as many seconds. Davis was the one who kicked the door in.

All eight SWAT agents were carrying Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns – a 9mm compact weapon exceptionally powerful and accurate in close-quarters combat. All eight of them had been expertly trained for such situations.

Still crouch-running, all three teams moved forward into the house with immense agility, their MP5s’ red laser target sights bouncing around the room like disco lights.

The front door led directly into a small, rectangular-shaped living room. With the curtains shut, all the light came from the now wide-open door. Plumes of smoke and dust danced in the air, spotlighted by uneven streaks of sunlight.

In a three-man wedge-shaped assault formation, Alpha team stormed into the living room, checking every corner and possible hiding place with incredible speed and accuracy. There were two armchairs, a couch, a television on a wooden module and a low coffee table. The walls were bare, save for a single, stiffly posed wedding photo.

It took Alpha team four seconds flat to take control of the room.

‘Living room is clear,’ Captain Fallon announced through his microphone before crossing the room and exiting it through the door at the other side.

Gamma team simply followed them in.

At the rear of the house, Beta team took no time to clear the small kitchen, made even smaller by the square wooden table pushed up against the east wall.

‘Kitchen is clear,’
agent Davis called through his mike.

He and the two other agents in Beta team proceeded fast across the kitchen and through its door, which took them to a hallway, leading to the front of the house and the stairs that would give them access to the second floor of the property. As they reached the top of the staircase, Alpha team came through the door at the opposite end of that same hallway.

Alpha team immediately turned left into the dining room. The door was already open. This room was smaller than the living room, and most of it was taken by a square, four-seat, glass and steel dining table and two large bookshelves. More bare walls. The room was empty, and there was no place for someone as tall and as well built as Graham Fisher to hide.

‘Dining room is clear,’ the captain announced.

Morris, one of the two other agents in Alpha team, had already kicked open the door to the downstairs washroom, smashing it against the white-tiled wall. Two of the tiles cracked with the impact. The room was empty.

‘Downstairs washroom is clear,’ he called.

The staircase had taken Beta team onto a twenty-three-foot-long hallway upstairs. There were five doors – two on the right, two on the left and one at the far end of the corridor. From the house schematics, all three agents knew that the first door on the right gave them access to a small storage room. That door was closed. The second door on the right would lead them into the first of the three bedrooms, a medium-sized one, probably the one that used to belong to Brandon Fisher. That door was also closed. The first door on the left was the first bathroom. That door was open. The second door on the left would take them into a smaller bedroom. Door closed. The one at the far end would lead them into the master bedroom, inside which they would find the second bathroom. That final door was also open.

The team moved lightning fast, clearing the first room on the left – the bathroom – and the first room on the right – the small storage room – in two seconds. Both empty.

While Davis and Lewis pushed open the second door on the left side of the corridor, the one that led into the smallest of the three bedrooms, Johnson held fast on the hallway, covering their backs.

The room had been transformed into a simple study. It was a barren space – a pressed wood desk with a computer and a printer, a black-leather desk chair, a crammed bookcase and a beige-metal filing cabinet, nothing else. The room was empty.

‘Bedroom one clear.’

Both agents exited the study and moved on to the second room on the right – bedroom number two. Johnson tried the door – locked. The lock didn’t look too strong.

‘Breach it,’ Johnson said, stepping back.

Launching his body forward, Lewis rammed the heel of his boot against the door lock. That was all that was needed. The door slammed back hard, splintering the frame. The room was dark and smelled of age and disuse.

Johnson immediately reached for the light switch. As the light came on, he and Lewis entered the room, leaving Davis to cover their backs this time.

They’d been right. This was the room that had belonged to Brandon Fisher, and it looked like not a single thing had been touched since his suicide. The walls were covered with posters of music groups, cars, sport stars and girls in tiny bikinis. There was a large chest of drawers with a black stereo on it to the right of the door. Next to it, a two-door wardrobe. An old and scratched desk with a laptop computer and a printer was positioned by the window. A nicely made up twin bed had its headboard pushed up against one of the walls. Everything was covered by a thick layer of dust, as if the room hadn’t been entered in years.

The agents quickly checked everywhere, including the wardrobe.

No one.

‘Second bedroom is clear,’ Johnson radioed it on.

From there Beta team moved with purpose toward the end of the corridor and the last bedroom. This one was much larger than the previous two, with a king bed, an ottoman, a leather armchair in one corner, an old-fashioned wooden dresser with a rectangular mirror by the window and a sliding-door wardrobe taking the whole of the west wall. There was a sweaty smell lingering in the air, as if the room hadn’t been cleaned and the bedding hadn’t been washed in months.

They checked every corner, under the bed and inside the wardrobe.

No one.

The en suite bathroom door was ajar, and it was hastily kicked fully open by agent Davis.