“Absolutely,” the Army lieutenant answered.
The agent nodded and looked to the three others with him. They all wore the familiar blue windbreakers with the bright yellow FBI stenciled on the back, and two had their high-capacity 10mm autos in hand, locked and loaded. At the back of the Watch Office two MPs stood waiting. They wore full combat gear, flak vests and Kevlar helmets, and carried their M-16s ready to fire.
“Okay. Everybody ready?” All the parties nodded.
Their location, one building away from Private Sammy Jackson’s post at the base armory, also housed the base telephone exchange, an ancient piece of equipment by standards of the day. Its antiquity would be useful, though, in the trickery they were about to attempt.
No calls had come through for the armory yet this evening, and Sammy had made none, making the operation all that much easier. One of the agents was from the Technical Services arm of the Bureau. He had with him two devices, both of which were plugged into the telephone-switching system, specifically the lines to the armory. One of the devices blocked all inbound calls, but recorded their origin.
The other suitcase-size apparatus would display any number dialed, but would not allow it to go through. “We’re ready,” the bespectacled agent announced, looking the part of a computer nerd.
The lieutenant waited for a go-ahead from the lead agent before buzzing the armory.
“Armory, Private Jackson.”
“Jackson, you get any calls?”
“Nah. Not tonight, Lieutenant.”
“Son of a… Your brother called and the switchboard couldn’t put it through. Goddamn ancient fucking wires!”
“When’d he call, sir?”
“A few minutes ago. He wants you to call him back, pronto.” That was a gamble. Did Sammy know where to contact his brother Marcus?
“Yeah, okay. Thanks for the message, sir.”
The scar-faced agent smiled with a crooked mouth of teeth. “That was good. Get moving.” The other two Bureau men and the MPs left for the armory.
“Hey,” the lieutenant said. “Go easy. Nothing’s been proven. He’s innocent until, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” one of the arrest team answered sarcastically before closing the opaque-windowed door behind himself.
“The phone’s up.” Attention turned to the digital readout connected to the line and the agent sitting on the floor next to it. “He took a few seconds to pick up. Maybe he’s spooked.”
“Or maybe he was just getting the number,” the leader responded. The TS agent agreed with a look.
“Dialing.”
“Whiskey One, copy?” Scar-face called on his portable.
“Whiskey One, go.”
“You in position?”
“Ten seconds.”
“Ten-four, stand by.”
The phone number’s eleven digits came up on the display as dialed, and the outgoing line was locked out. All Sammy Jackson heard after dialing the last number was a dial tone.
“Whiskey One, move in.”
The stupid phone had to act up now! Sammy dropped the receiver into its cradle and took a deep breath. He just wanted his shift to be over so he could get to the airport.
He jumped when the door opened hard and swung back against the wall. Within a few seconds there were two men behind him with their guns pressed against his back as they pushed his nearly bald head down on the desk.
“Fucking traitor,” one of the MPs mumbled, incorrectly labeling his onetime comrade.
“Stow that crap, soldier,” one of the agents ordered. “Samuel J. Jackson, you are under arrest for murder, and for conspiracy to assassinate the president. Do you understand?” The handcuffs clicked shut.
“Yes,” he answered in a quiet voice. The nineteen-year- old high school dropout hadn’t expected this. His big brother promised him that everything was going to be fine. All he had to do was sit tight for a few days. He had done that. What went wrong? Sammy wondered.
“I’m going to read you your rights, Sammy.”
“Go ahead,” he said, with no hint of defiance in his shaking voice.
Scar-face had already transcribed the phone number onto a cipher pad for transmission to the L.A. office when the word came from the arrest team that Sammy was in custody. This had been easy, but then most busts were, contrary to popular, uninformed belief. This perp was just a stupid, scared kid, who had no idea what he had gotten himself into — wrong: what someone had gotten him into.
Los Angeles is a city unlike any other, especially its weather. Seasons rarely follow a pattern of normalcy. Summer, the predominant and most miserable of all, usually began its reign in March and continued all the way into November, autumn being just a week or two of pseudo- summer with the added humidity of the coming winter.
One level above the Bureau’s parking garage the city was winding down from another day of choking heat and smog.
The thermometer still read ninety-two and was expected to drop only nine degrees before midnight. It was cool in the basement lot, and in the cars. Four rows of nondescript government sedans filled the area to the right of the elevator, but Art and Eddie exited and turned left, to the row of “boss’s” cars parked parallel to the gray cement wall.
“You wanna pack anything bigger for this?” Eddie asked.
Art opened the trunk. They discarded their jackets and took the dark gray flak vests from the compartment.
“Nope.” Art patted his gun, as much for reassurance as for demonstration.
“It’s gonna be hotter than hell in these things,” Eddie observed, pulling the Kevlar one-piece vest over his head. It hung down in front to cover his groin area. Velcro straps cinched it snugly around his sides. “We’ll crank up the A/C, right?”
“You bet.” Art looked down into the trunk. There was a stockless semi-auto shotgun and a fully automatic CAR-15 on the floor. He held his hand out and down, gesturing for Eddie to choose one.
“Me neither, boss. Too much noise,” he explained, then closed the lid.
One nice thing about pursuit vehicles was their reliability. Art’s car was serviced every three weeks, as were the others. The Chevy started up immediately and its tires squealed when Art cranked the wheel full to the left to pull out of his spot. On the way up and out they passed the cover cars, ones that few agents would choose to drive. They served the purpose of looking like ordinary cars, unlike the official sedans with their small hubcaps and dull one-tone paint jobs.
“You ever drive that old Torino?” Eddie asked. Art shook his head. “The sucker hauls. Mostly duct tape for upholstery, though.”
“Yeah.”
The reflected sunlight hit the car as it emerged from the underground garage. Art flipped the visor down and took his new sunglasses from the elastic holder. Eddie already had his on, but not the ones he liked. Off duty he wore his flashy rainbowed Oakleys.
Eddie checked the car clock against his watch. “The other units should be at the park.”
Next to the Sheraton Townhouse was Lafayette Park, one of the urban oases that the city somehow never managed to keep free of crime, mostly drug dealing. It was appropriate that Marcus Jackson should choose the hotel next door to lie low. Thank God for his idiot brother, Art thought.
The drive down Wilshire to the Townhouse would be short in distance, but a fight with traffic the whole way, not to mention the dipping sun that would shine in their eyes continually. Time wasn’t much of a concern, thankfully. One team was already in a room next to Jackson, after notifying the hotel manager and admonishing him to keep quiet. Three other teams would assist in the arrest.