The Hunted (39 page)

“That’s Jonathan Waller, isn’t it?” Archer asked, indicating a spot twenty feet away.

“Hard to tell. According to the photos and stuff you pulled up on everyone in the op, I’d say maybe.”

“Sure looks like him. But he’s out of position.”

DeSantos shook his head. “Like I said last night, bro, this is going to get all fucked up.”

“We make do with what we’ve got. No guarantees in this biz.”

“I can’t believe Knox left us so goddamn bare. We’re probably being watched right now. And nobody’s got any idea who we are.”

“Nobody ever knows who we are. That’s what makes us so effective.”

DeSantos nodded, but felt uneasy about the entire mission. He knew they had to improvise and think on the fly—he had no problems with that. It was the way this thing had been thrown together, with little preparation and even less intelligence. He couldn’t escape the feeling in his bones that something bad was going to happen. It wasn’t something he could articulate, even to Archer. Whatever it was, though, his intuitions were usually accurate.

“I’ll get as close to the wife as I can,” Archer said, pulling a newspaper from his briefcase. “Now that I see where she’s at, I’ll take a seat on that brick wall and read. Whoever sees Scarponi first will signal the other.” He moved his mouth down toward his jacket collar and spoke into it. “Testing, testing. Do you copy?”

DeSantos touched his earpiece. “Yeah, I copy. Look, how about we both go. Instead of splitting up, we huddle together, play it like we’re standing and talking—”

“Now’s not the time to change our plans, Hector. We go with what we have, it’s a decent setup. I’ll be near Chambers and you’ll be on the roof of the bank, letting me know if something bad is going down.”

“Before it happens.”

“Preferably, yes.”

“Doesn’t this remind you of Zebra Fifty-nine?” DeSantos was referring to the disastrous operation of nearly eight years ago when he’d taken a bullet from a Russian mobster who was attempting to establish ties with a syndicate operating out of the D. C. area. Their mission ops plan was much like the one for their current assignment—more than one federal agency engaged in clandestine maneuvers, with none of them briefed on what the other was doing, or going to be doing. The result was confusion... and a trip to the ICU for DeSantos. Afterward, Archer went on a private manhunt, eventually catching the Mafiya member and instituting a little outlaw justice of his own with the help of a few Special Ops buddies. The mobster, while marginally recognizable after they were done with him, just didn’t have the head for intelligence anymore.

“Honestly,” Archer said, “no. Zebra Fifty-nine was a different time, different place.”

“But there are parallels, you do see that.”

Archer nodded. “I see it. But there’s no time to change the op.”

DeSantos knew his partner was right. It was go forward now or don’t go at all. “Besides, with all the plainclothes around, someone’s bound to see him,” Archer said as he pulled a stick of Juicy Fruit from his pocket. “I would think they’ve all been briefed on the possibility Scarponi will show up here.”

“No one else knows about the planted message Knox sent. As far as they’re concerned, it’s the remotest of possibilities. For that matter, we can’t even be sure Scarponi got it.”

“Then this should be a cakewalk.” Archer winked and folded the gum into his mouth.

DeSantos patted his partner’s arm and said, “May the force be with you.”

Archer smiled and started to reach for his door handle when suddenly he grabbed his groin. “Ah!”

“What?” DeSantos shouted, moving for his gun.

Archer slid aside his coat and looked at his phone’s display. “Trish. She’s in labor.”

“You sure?”

Archer showed him the screen. “Her water broke and contractions are five minutes apart.”

“Hate to be rude, bro, but tell me quick—what do you want to do?”

Archer shifted his coat back into place. “We’ve got a neighbor, we’re covered.”

DeSantos’s eye caught the clock on the dashboard. “Then let’s do it.”

“Scarponi better surrender,” Archer said, then popped open his door. “I’ll never forgive him if he makes me miss the birth of my daughter.”

DeSantos tried to smile. “I’ll be sure to tell him that. Right after I yell ‘Freeze.”’

Their doors clicked shut and they headed off in opposite directions.

From a distance, Lauren watched as a man resembling her husband first passed a pottery store and then walked by a man wearing a Redskins knit cap. Her heart began racing
again—Michael was only thirty feet away now.

Waller glanced up from his newspaper and watched as a forest green Dodge Neon pulled over to the curb in front of the Princess Anne Building. He tucked his chin down toward his lapel mike and spoke.

“I’ve got a green Dodge stopping in front of Target A. Four men are getting out. I’m on it.”

Nick Bradley peered through the small binoculars he had trained on Lauren’s face. The sun had set and dusk was descending on the town. A couple of small antique streetlamps provided a muted, yellow hue. Despite the dim illumination, he was able to make out a smile spread across Lauren’s lips; she had obviously just caught sight of her husband. But just then, her face hardened.

She was talking to Michael, so what could be wrong?

Suddenly, a man wearing a leather bomber jacket and holding a newspaper stood up, obscuring his vision.
Who the hell
is
that?
Bradley dropped the binoculars down from his eyes and tried to orient himself. Four other men in dark coats were moving in on Lauren, encircling her and Michael. The man in the bomber jacket was moving in as well.

“No!”

Bradley was unsure if he had actually screamed the warning or if he had merely thought it. But before he could get completely out of the car, a barrage of suppressed gunshots spit forth—and amidst a forest of legs, he saw Michael Chambers crumple to the pavement.

Lauren was screaming and
someone was trying to get a hand across her mouth and
Brian Archer was bringing his gun up, trying to make out the
faces, so many faces, and
a gun was shoved into his chest against his Kevlar vest and
multiple rounds exploded
into him.
Cough cough cough
the suppressor thumped-thumped in his ears and
it was then,
it was then that he realized he’d been hit
and it was then that Zebra
59
flashed in his mind
and it was then that he realized he was falling to the ground.
And it was then
that he thought of
Trish.

Bradley’s fingers tightened around the nine-millimeter SIG in his pocket. Where was Lauren? His eyes scanned the street, trying to sift through the crowd of leather jackets. He tried to track the escaping men as they approached the corner of Princess Anne and George Streets.

More gunfire exploded as bodies fell. One of the men attempted to get up, but stumbled—then righted himself and ran off. He’d been hit all right—but by whom?

“Converge, converge!” Waller shouted into his lapel mike. Haviland was already in full stride and passing him, turning left onto George as a black Chrysler peeled away from the curb. Waller also hung a left, hoping to catch a glimpse of the injured man who had run off, disappearing somewhere amongst the stores and shops.

Haviland called off the license plate and location of the vehicle into his two-way and turned back to confer with Waller, who had yielded the task of canvassing the area on foot to the cops of the town of Fredericksburg. As Haviland waited for an affirmative response over his radio, he ran toward Waller, who was examining one of the two bodies that were sprawled across the pavement in front of the Princess Anne Building, thirty feet apart.

“Please tell me that’s not Harper lying there dead—”

Waller shook his head. “It’s not.”

“Then who is it?”

Waller removed the wallet and consulted the driver’s license. “Sean McCracken.”

Haviland shook his head. “Who the hell is Sean McCracken?”

Waller stood up and scanned the street. “How the hell should I know?” He pulled the mike on his collar toward his mouth. “Anything?”

He pressed the receiving plug deeper into his ear. “Stand by. We’re in pursuit,” came the response. Waller stood and moved toward the other body lying face up in the street. “This one’s alive—call an ambulance!” As he knelt down beside him, a man came rounding the corner, gun in hand. Waller did a shoulder roll and brought his weapon to bear. “Hold it! FBI!”

The man stopped immediately, but he appeared not even to see Waller. His attention was focused on the downed man. “No...” he said in a low moan.

“Who are you?”

DeSantos heard the voice somewhere off in the distance, tinny and muffled. After all, this was just a dream, wasn’t it?

“Who are you!” the voice demanded again.

DeSantos suddenly became aware of the man kneeling on the ground a few feet from Archer’s fallen body, the barrel of his weapon aimed squarely at his chest.

“I’m a federal agent,” DeSantos answered in a low, breathless voice.

“ID,” the man shouted back.

DeSantos reached into his back pocket.

“Slowly! Toss it over here.”

“That’s my partner,” DeSantos said. “I need to help—”

“Ambulance is on its way,” the man said as he flipped open the credentials case. “Department of Defense? What the hell? We weren’t briefed—”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you were briefed on,” DeSantos said as he knelt beside Archer. He lifted his partner’s jacket and unhooked the protective vest. The rounds had penetrated the Kevlar. “Holy fuck.”

“That... bad.” Archer’s voice was weak, and his eyes were still closed.

“Stay with me, bro. Just... stay with me. Hang in there. Ambulance is on its way.”

But try as he did to make his voice strong and convincing, DeSantos knew in his heart Brian Archer was not going to survive. DeSantos had seen the wound. He’d seen
many
wounds over the years, and this was just not the kind you recovered from. “Think of Trish—of Presley. They need you, Brian.
They need you.”

It was a plea to God as much as it was to his friend. His eyes began to water and he brushed against them with his forearm, trying to keep his vision clear. He grabbed his partner’s hand and squeezed. “Stay with me.”

“Take... care. Of... my girls...”

“I will, man, I will. I promise.”

“Zebra...” Before he could finish his thought, Archer’s hand went limp. But his partner understood the reference.

“No!” DeSantos screamed at the top of his lungs, a deep, agonizing scream that seemed to echo into infinity.

“No!”

“No!”

“No!”

Jonathan Waller watched the DOD man whose credentials identified him as Enrique Ramirez. Waller had once seen a partner of his die, many years ago. The memories were still fresh. The way he’d cradled his friend’s body, how lifeless it was. Waller had sobbed right then and there, in front of the whole homicide division, the first time he had cried in nearly a decade. It was his first assignment in the unit, one that he would never be able to forget. He later decided that his partner had died because Waller had followed the rules, and the rules said stay—when his instincts told him he should have gone. That was the last time Waller would do what the rule book said unless in his heart it was what he felt should be done.

He knelt beside DeSantos and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m Waller, FBI.”

“I know who you are.”

“Sorry about your partner. If there’s anything I can do—”

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” DeSantos said, shrugging off Waller’s hand and rising to his feet.

“Who?”

“Anthony Scarponi. Which way was he headed?”

“Scarponi?” Waller looked confused. “We were here for Payne.”

“There were four perps in leather jackets.”

“I hit one of them, but he got away.”

“Was it Scarponi?” DeSantos asked.

“I don’t think so, I didn’t get a good look—”

“Which way did the other three go?”

“Look,” Waller said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re all worked up—”

DeSantos grabbed Waller by the collar of his jacket and pulled him close. “I don’t care what you think! Which way?”

Waller nodded in the direction of George Street. DeSantos released his grip, then ran off, leaving his dead partner behind.

“He’s a fool,” Haviland said, coming up behind Waller.

Waller shook his head, still watching as DeSantos’s body disappeared into the darkness. “It’s exactly what I would do.”

“No word yet from Fredericksburg PD on our wounded foot soldier,” Haviland said, bringing his partner’s attention back to the matter at hand.

Waller grasped his lapel mike and held it in front of his lips. “This is Waller. I hit one of the perps; there’s some blood on the sidewalk but my guess is he’s pretty mobile.”

“Copy that, already passed on to FPD,” the voice replied.

Waller ground his teeth and looked at his partner. He felt strangely agitated and didn’t know how to deal with it.
Focus,
he told himself.
Focus. Get back on track.
He spun around, his eyes first taking in the carnage, then roaming the street and surrounding buildings.

Haviland kicked at a rock. “All that and we didn’t even get Harper.”

Waller turned to face his partner, his features suddenly relaxing. “Yes, we did,” he said matter-of-factly, exuding the confidence of someone in complete control. “He’s in the bell tower of the church to your left, across the street.”

Nick Bradley made a quick survey of the area, then walked briskly down the street as three law enforcement personnel—by the looks of them, FBI agents—were hovering over the fallen men. With the shooting having ceased, people were slowly emerging from their shops, attempting to get a glimpse of what all the commotion had been about.

As he walked, Bradley kept his right hand on the SIG beneath his coat, just in case it was needed.
When plans get broken, when promises aren’t kept, anything can happen.