Red Ice (6 page)

“Can you read the license plate?” Dante asked.

Stephen shook his head. “It’s obscured by some sort of glass.”

They went past Twenty-Fourth Street, both doing better than twice the speed limit. The Buick crossed the intersection with Twenty-Third, just missing a panel truck making a turn into Illinois. The Suburban missed the truck by even less.

The radio crackled to life. “3-Boy-15 to all units! 10-53! 3-Boy-19 has crashed at intersection of Twenty-Fifth and Illinois! Shots fired! 10-56! Suspects are in pursuit of us in a dark gray van!” The sounds of automatic weapons mixed with breaking glass and bullets hitting flesh stopped the transmission.

In the rear view mirror, Liam watched the rear-most police car veer off-course, cross the oncoming lane and crash into a parked car with enough force to send both vehicles onto the sidewalk.

“3-Boy-22 to all units!” a different voice said. “3-Boy-15 and 3-Boy-19 are both10-80! 10-56!”

Liam raised the radio mic. “3-Boy-22, this is Oscar-2. Take the lead in pursuit of the Buick. We’ll handle the 10-56.” He glanced back at the two men. “Steven, Danny, change seats. Dante, get ready to let Boy-22 past us, then block the road. Stephen, roll down the window and get ready to fire.” He lowered his own window.

Behind the police car, Liam could see a gray van coming up fast. “Dante, Now!”

Dante twisted the wheel to the left and the Suburban sped into the opposite lane, clear of traffic for the moment. The police car shot past the van. As soon as the car sped past, Dante jammed on the brakes and turned the SUV’s wheel to the right. The three-ton vehicle straddled the center line, blocking the road in both directions. As soon as the Suburban made the turn, Liam and Stephen had their P-90s out the windows, pointed at the oncoming van.

Someone in the van stuck an AK-47 out the open cargo side door. Liam snarled, “Fire!”

Firing 900 rounds per minute, it took both men less than four seconds to empty each fifty-round magazine. The van’s hood was ripped apart and the windshield shattered as a hundred slugs pierced both with ease. The van slowed and veered right, plowing into a pair of parked cars.

Liam and Stephen changed magazines amid the chaos.

“Danny!” Liam barked. “Cover us! Stephen, with me! Dante, get ready!”

“There’s an MP5 the bag!” Stephen yelled as he opened the door and climbed out. Choi dug into the bag until he found the German submachine gun.

Liam and Stephen advanced toward the crashed van, weapons held at the shoulder and pointing at the vehicle. Fifty feet from the van, the driver’s door was shoved open. The driver staggered out, wearing a cheap suit and clutching an AK-47 assault rifle. Blood covered his face, chest and hands, and the left side of his face had been ripped open. His left eye was missing. He screamed in fury as soon as he saw the pair and slowly tried to bring his weapon up to fire.

Both Liam and Stephen fired short bursts that struck the driver and staggered him, but he continued raising the assault rifle. Liam shifted targets and put a burst of 4.7mm rounds into the man’s head. With most of his head gone, the body dropped to the road.

The pair continued advancing. In the distance, they could hear more sirens, getting closer as they moved nearer to the van. Steam poured from the shattered radiator, forming a translucent cloud shrouding the front of the van. There was a thud from the back, something striking the doors. Another thud and the doors flew open. Both men stopped as another player climbed out of the van’s rear. As he shuffled into view, both OUTCASTs couldn’t believe what they saw. The man’s right arm was gone at the elbow, a belt strapped halfway up the upper arm. He had clearly been struck by several bullets in the torso and leg, but he still moving, a pistol in his good hand.

“Freeze!” Choi yelled, his MP5 up and pointed at the horrendously injured man.

The target, his face filled with hate, raised his pistol. Before he could aim, Liam shot him in the head with a four-round burst. The nearly decapitated man dropped to the roadway.

“Did we walk into a zombie movie by mistake?” Stephen yelled.

“Gotta be drugs,” Liam said. “Dan, cover the front. Me and Stephen will go around the back and check for survivors.”

They reached the van but didn’t find any more survivors. There were two more bodies in the van, both dead from multiple gunshots.

Liam adjusted the channel on his radio. “Oscar-2 to CHP H-30. Are you still tracking the bad guys?”

“Affirmative. Suspects just passed Twentieth Street, three police cars in pursuit.”

A SFPD car came to a stop twenty yards behind the van. Both officers came out with guns drawn. Liam placed the P-90 on the ground and approached the cops, his Homeland Security badge held out in front of him at arm’s length. One of the policemen came forward, examined the badge and ID, then motioned to his partner to stand down.

Liam pointed to the van. “Secure this crime scene. You have four DOAs, and messy ones at that. These are the bastards who took out Boy-Fifteen and Nineteen back there. We’re going after the snipers who shot up the pier a few minutes ago.”

The squeals of wheels made Liam turn in time to see Dante backing up the Suburban until it was only a few feet away. He picked up the P-90 and ran for the big SUV as Stephen and Choi got back into the SUV. Liam barely had enough time to leap into the front seat before the Suburban shot away from the crash scene, siren wailing.

They barreled through intersections, weaving their way through traffic that would not or could not get out of the way. They reached Twentieth where there were multiple explosions in rapid succession a quarter of a mile ahead. Liam used the vehicle’s radio as a cloud rose into the air. “Oscar-2 to CHP H-30. What happened?”

“Explosions at intersection of Mariposa and Illinois. Street’s impassable with badly damaged cars.”

“Do you see the suspect car?”

Twenty seconds ticked by. “Negative, Oscar. Between the explosions and the smoke, we lost them.”

Liam slammed his hand down on the padded dashboard. “Damn it!”

“What do you want to do?” Dante asked.

“Shut off the sirens. Let’s get back to the DEA office. Maybe Tanner and the others had better luck.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
 

Naomi took one look at the building they were about to enter and shook her head. “This isn’t one of those hidden gems, is it?”

Vessler grinned. “Not by a long shot.”

Tanner frowned. “Are you sure this Alec W is here?”

“First place to look. If he isn’t here, there are a couple of other rabbit holes I know of.”

The North Bayside Hotel took up four floors of the five-story building, with a topless bar on the ground floor. The building was on the edge of San Francisco’s Financial District, within sight of the iconic Transamerica Tower. Despite the closeness to the city’s financial heart, the structure had a rundown look and feel to it. The light blue paint on the walls was faded and many windows had clothing hanging from them to dry.

They walked past the topless bar, its loud music grinding from within, to a rough wooden door with a steel kickplate. Faded letters on the wood named the hotel.

Inside, the smell of urine mixed with old cigarette smoke, body odor, and other less identifiable smells assaulted their nostrils. They found themselves in a hall six feet long and five wide, with unwashed walls and a dirty linoleum floor. At the end of the hall a flight of worn stairs led up.

“Okay,” Vessler began in a soft tone. “Alec Wong, alias Alec W, is a low-level pusher and Triad wannabe. He’s the one who told us about the pier pickup, and we think he’s the one who sold Dyachenko the Red Ice.” She glanced at her watch. “He should be awake by now — he usually hits a few spots where his regulars from the Financial District go for lunch. He acts tough, but he’s nothing but talk. Follow my lead, they know me around here.”

They climbed the stairs, the boards creaking alarmingly under their feet. At the top of the stairs was a lobby the size of a large living room. The front counter lay to the left of the stairs, surrounded by a cage of heavy steel mesh with only a small slot set in front. A few old chairs, a couple of ancient side tables and some dust-covered fake plants were scattered around the rest of the room. The reddish carpet was threadbare, and on the other side of the lobby, another set of stairs led up.

Tanner eyed the two occupants of the lobby. One was a gaunt woman with lanky brown hair, a vacant expression, wearing a faded flower dress. The other was an old man in a suit two sizes too large sprawled in one of the chairs, sound asleep. Tanner dismissed him as the man they were looking for.

Vessler went to the front counter. “Cordo,” she said to the man behind the counter.

The clerk, thin with little hair and a bulbous nose, glared at the three newcomers with watery blue eyes. “Agent Vessler,” he said in a flat, unfriendly tone. “What brings you here today?”

Vessler smiled. “Need to talk to Alec W. He in?”

Cordo turned to look at the room slots on the wall behind the desk. “Key ain’t there, so I guess so.”

“Still 203?”

“Yeah. You see him, tell him he’s two weeks late with the rent.”

“Thanks.”

The three crossed the lobby and trotted up the stairway. Like the stairs from the street, these steps creaked under their feet. Tanner felt the banister wobble under his hand.

Room 203 was the next floor up, two doors down from the stairs. Alec’s door, like the others they passed, was faded blue, cracked around the panels and sported a door handle tarnished to near blackness.

Vessler stood on one side of the doorway, while Tanner and Naomi took the other. Vessler rapped on the door, the sound echoing in the empty hall. “Alec? Special Agent Vessler. We need to talk.” Seconds passed. Vessler knocked again. “Alec? I just want to talk.”

Tanner motioned to the door handle with one hand while drawing his Heckler and Koch SOCOM pistol from a hip holster. Naomi pulled her own HK, while Vessler released her own Glock 22. Carefully, Tanner reached for the door, gripped the knob with his free hand, turned it, then released it. The door opened with a slight creak, then swung all the way open until it gently impacted the wall behind it.

Tanner slowly eased around the door jamb, his pistol up and sweeping the room. Vessler moved into the unit, staying below Tanner’s pistol as she traversed to the right. Naomi stepped around Tanner, to the left.

The room wasn’t large, and it matched the rest of the building’s faded decor. The walls were cracked and hadn’t seen new paint in decades. The furniture was cheap to begin with but now also quite old. The full-size bed was unmade, the filthy sheets more gray than white.

But the focal point of the space was the bruised and bloody man tied to the high-back wooden chair in the center of the room.

Tanner pointed to a closed door on Naomi’s side. The former ATF agent nodded and crept toward the door. Tanner surveyed the room, then joined Naomi. She was flat against the wall next to the door, pistol held in both hands, pointing at the door. Tanner flattened himself on the other side and nodded. Naomi stepped back and kicked the door in. The door slammed open. She darted in, low and quick. Tanner stepped around the door jamb and pointed his pistol into what was a dirty bathroom.

“Clear!” Naomi called.

Tanner relaxed and holstered his pistol. He turned to see Vessler checking the body. She had a hand on the man’s throat. Looked up and shook her head.

“Is that Alec?” Naomi asked, holstering her weapon.

Vessler nodded. “It was. Body’s cold.” She took out her phone.

“Someone worked him over good,” Tanner observed.

Vessler reached into her pocket and produced a bag of latex gloves. “We need to preserve the crime scene. Put these on.”

Once they were all wearing gloves, Vessler dialed the San Francisco Police Department and requested they send investigators. She pocketed her phone and said, “Figure we have about fifteen minutes to look around before the locals show up.”

“Looks like they caught him asleep.” Naomi motioned to the boxers and bloody T-shirt Freddy still wore. “They beat him badly.”

Tanner nodded. “Systematically, and took their time. A lot of broken bones and severe bruising.”

“Possible disagreement with a customer or his supplier?”

Tanner exhaled slowly. “Doesn’t have that type of vibe to me. It took more than one person to do this. They wanted him to suffer.”

“Alec was pretty much a nobody,” Vessler said. “He knew what was happening on the local streets, but not much more than that.”

Naomi circled the corpse. Alec hadn’t been a large man to begin with, and years of hard living and hustling and had worn him away even more. His hands were tied behind his back, and his chin rested on his chest. His arms, shoulders, and legs were black and blue. “Something like this should have brought the cops. There’s no way a beating like this could have been done quietly.”

Vessler shook her head. “In this place, even the bedbugs mind their own business. Cordo has the ‘I don’t see, hear, or know anything’ attitude down to an art form.”

“Naomi, check for his drug stash,” Tanner said.

Naomi walked over to a chest of drawers near the bathroom door. “Vess, what was Freddy into dealing?”

Vessler shrugged. “A little bit of everything. Grass, uppers, meth…”

Naomi opened the top drawer and grimaced at the cockroach that scuttled away under an old porno mag. “Anyone he worked for regularly?”

“The Black Dao was his main connection for some drugs, and a Mexican cartel for the rest.”

Tanner stood up. “How long was he a confidential informant?”

“Two years. Gave us just enough to keep him useful and out of jail. He probably knew more, but he never said anything until Dyachenko went off the deep end and we hauled his ass in for questioning.”

Naomi closed the first drawer and opened the second. “Sounds like he set you up.”

Vessler nodded. “It looks that way.” She stared at the dead body. “And afterward, they killed him.”

Tanner went over to the nightstand and opened the drawer. A few wrapped condoms and a baggie of weed occupied the drawer. “Not much of a life.”

“Same old story,” Vessler said, averting her gaze from the deceased to lean against the door. “Hopes and dreams brutally crushed by reality.”

Tanner tipped the bedside lamp forward and examined it. He spotted something the size of a button attached to the lamp, just under the light bulb. “I’ve seen it enough times myself.”

He replaced the lamp carefully back into place. “Do you think Cordo will tell us anything?”

“Doubt it,” Vessler replied. “It’s how he keeps his job.”

Tanner moved silently to Naomi, who had finished looking through the second drawer and was opening the third. He tapped her on the shoulder and when she looked up, cupped his hand behind his ear as if he was listening for something, the pointed to the lamp. She nodded.

“What are you—” Vessler began, but Tanner put his fingers to his lips in a gesture of silence.

“There are a lot of vermin around here,” Tanner said, walking toward Vessler.

“Tell me about it,” Naomi said, sliding open the third and lowest drawer of the chest. “Oh!”

Tanner spun. “What’s wrong?”

“Damn big cockroach.” Naomi motioned for them to get out as she rose. “Any bigger and ISIS would be using them for suicide bombers.”

“What in the hell—” Vessler began, but Tanner tackled her, their momentum carrying them out of the room and into the hallway. He rolled them both off to one side of the doorway. Naomi reached the door and threw herself in the opposite direction just as the room exploded in light and flame.

#

Out on the street, the suddenness of the explosion caught everyone by surprise. The window of 203, along with a large chunk of the wall around it, exploded outward, showering people below with glass and chunks of debris. Passing cars were damaged and fender-benders occurred as panicked drivers slammed on their brakes. Shouts and screams rent the air, soon accompanied by the wail of sirens.

Amid the confusion, no one noticed the three Asian men sitting in a pizza parlor across the street from the hotel. They stood, threw some money on the table and left. They watched the scene for a few moments, and then walked away into the thick crowd. The tall man with the long scar on his face looked unmoved by the disaster, but was inwardly pleased.