“Come on,” I said, watching the black-and-white patrol car disappear around the corner, bouncing as it jumped the curb and joined Sepulveda Boulevard. “Come on, Sal. We can’t do anything for him. But we can catch that scumbag.”
My words snapped Sal to his senses. He ran to the car, climbed into the passenger seat and said, “Go!”
My foot was already on the accelerator. As the Lincoln gathered speed Sal got on the radio.
“Dispatch, this is Detective Mattera. Officer Stotter is down, in the alleyway behind the Hyland Inn. I did what I could, but...”
He trailed off, and for a moment I thought he might break down, but he composed himself. “We are in pursuit of a suspect heading north on Sepulveda in Officer Stotter’s patrol car.”
“Copy that,” the dispatcher replied. “All units be on the lookout for patrol vehicle seven-zero-four-nine-five. Suspect is believed to have been involved in an officer shooting and is to be considered armed and dangerous.”
The radio filled with responses from nearby patrols. Cops all over the world share the same sentiment — harm one of their own at your peril.
By the time we hit Sepulveda, it sounded as though an army was being mobilized to catch this guy.
Sal turned on the lights and siren and I wove through the traffic, pursuing the patrol car, which also had its reds and blues going.
“You get that, Winston?” Sal said into his radio.
“We got it,” he replied. “We’ll go for an intercept.”
“Suspect turned off Sepulveda onto Kittridge Street,” Sal said, and I zipped past stationary traffic to reach the intersection.
I swung a hard left onto a quiet road lined with retail units and warehouses. I slowed down as I saw the patrol car abandoned in the middle of one lane. The driver’s door hung open, but the engine was still running.
“Trap?” I suggested.
“Could be,” Sal replied. “We move carefully.”
I nodded. Pursuits were frustrating because a violent suspect could often flee with much less caution than those on his tail.
I rolled up behind the patrol car and Sal got out, gun at the ready.
Chapter 12
Sal crouched low and approached Officer Stotter’s vehicle. The engine purred ominously as he closed in, arms outstretched, pistol raised. I stayed back, unarmed, conscious of the fact the gunman might be lying across the front seats. Salvatore got an angle on the interior.
“Clear,” he said, before leaning through the driver’s door and popping the trunk.
He moved round the back of the vehicle and lifted the lid to reveal a semi-auto shotgun in the trunk-space locking mount. He unlocked the quick release and handed me the gun along with a box of shells.
“For use in self-defense only,” he told me.
The Benelli M4 tactical shotgun came with a pistol grip and was a reliable weapon that carried six shells. I checked the gun was fully loaded and emptied the box of twenty-five further shells into my pockets, splitting them between the side pockets of my tux.
The surrounding buildings were all occupied apart from one warehouse directly left of the patrol car, which looked empty and derelict. A demolition notice was pinned to the gates, and a strip of the mesh fencing had been torn open at some point in the past and curled back through regular use by intruders. The warehouse beyond was covered in graffiti and peppered with broken windows. A late-twentieth-century build, it was a large, functional place that stood three stories high. A lot of places to hide in there.
“Should we wait?” I asked, feeling more confident with a gun in my hands.
The sirens weren’t far off.
“He might slip out the back,” Sal replied, before speaking into his phone. “Winston, we’re outside of a warehouse on Kittridge Street. Suspect has fled into the building on foot. Tell dispatch to notify responding units. We are going into the building after him.”
“Copy that,” Winston replied. “We’re no more than three minutes out. We’ll have your back.”
Sal pocketed his phone and started toward the hole in the fence.
“Quickly and quietly, sweep the place,” he said. “Check the exits. Make sure he hasn’t escaped.”
I nodded and followed him through the fence. We double-timed it across the disused parking lot and were about sixty feet from the main entrance when the yard erupted with the crackle of gunfire.
Sal went down almost instantly, caught by the shooter, who was using a sub machine gun to shell us from a second-floor window. I replied with my shotgun, knowing it had little chance of doing serious harm at that range, but it was noisy, and few people could stand tall in the face of a semi-automatic at any distance.
My gamble worked. The shooter backed away from the window. I kept firing as I rushed toward Sal, who was on his back, moaning.
I grabbed his pistol, which had fallen a few feet from him, and fired a brace of shots at the window. The FN 509 carried seventeen rounds in its magazine, so I used it to tell the shooter I had a more accurate short-range weapon.
“You okay?” I asked Sal.
I could see he wasn’t. His right arm had been shredded, and an unknown number of bullets had pierced his abdomen. Blood was spreading rapidly across his shirt front. I saw the shooter back in the window and fired the pistol again, unleashing another pair of bullets to send the man cowering away.
I dropped the shotgun, grabbed Sal by his good arm and dragged him with my left hand, while laying covering fire with my right. My shots weren’t accurate, but they shattered what remained of the window and did exactly what I’d intended, scaring the shooter off.
I pulled Sal back through the fence and dragged him behind the patrol car. I found a fresh clip in his holster and reloaded the pistol. Staying alert to danger, I put the detective in the recovery position and used his belt to tie a tourniquet around his mangled arm. I spoke to him constantly, encouraging him to hold on while we waited for help, which, judging by the incoming scream of sirens, was only seconds away.
Chapter 13
I stemmed the bleeding from Sal’s arm and talked to the badly wounded, delirious man, keeping him conscious until the first police units arrived. SWAT were on the scene, and the team medic sprinted over to me. The unit commander, who I assumed was Winston, was a few yards behind.
“Jeez, Sal,” he remarked.
The medic got to work immediately, and I stood and faced the SWAT commander.
“Jack Morgan,” I said. “I was working with Detective Mattera.”
“John Winston, SWAT team leader,” he replied. “Shooter?”
“Second-floor window,” I said, pointing at the location. “Just above the entrance.”
“This man needs to be moved to a hospital immediately,” the medic said.
“Ambulance is two minutes out,” Winston said. “We’re going in.”
He assembled his unit near their van and issued instructions. I crouched to help the medic apply pressure to Sal’s wounds as more police vehicles approached, sirens blaring. I couldn’t hear everything he said to the team, but it was clear they were going to sweep the building.
The ambulance arrived moments later and pulled to a halt a few feet away from the patrol car. Two paramedics jumped out of the vehicle and ran over to us, carrying gear bags.
“What have we got?” the lead responder asked.
“Multiple gunshot wounds to his arm and abdomen,” I replied. “Bleeding pretty bad.”
“Tourniquet is holding,” the SWAT medic advised.
The lead paramedic sank onto her knees beside Sal and opened her bag.
“Name?” she asked.
“Detective Salvatore Mattera,” I replied. “He likes to be called Sal.”