"We were closing in, and he dropped into a ravine and disappeared. Trails. The cars couldn't…" Malane's hands flew up, clapped to his knees. "We have a line on the drugs, Rackley. That's most important. We'll pick Den up again tomorrow."
Tim looked at him, expressionless.
Malane's eyes jogged back and forth, and then his voice softened. "I'm sorry. I promised something to you, and I didn't deliver. I, uh, I at least wanted to tell you myself."
Tim said, "I appreciate that."
"You cut us in on your operation, now I'd like to cut you in on ours. You want to work with us on this thing tomorrow morning?"
Tim set Dray's hand by her side, smoothed her fingers flat. He rose and pulled on his jacket. "Yes."
Malane nodded. "Let's have us a takedown."
Chapter 56
The morning sun blazed off the windshields of the parked cars. A few gardeners sat in the back of a dinged pickup, eating breakfast burritos and slurping soda from big plastic cups. One of them stood and belched, a splash of Fire Border sauce embellishing his dated FREE KOBE T-shirt. Gordita wrappers rolled across the asphalt, urban tumbleweed. Though it was past 11:00 A.M.-beyond the sticky reach of morning rush hour-still the intersection was clogged with runoff from the 10.
Tim sat in the passenger's seat beside Malane, the Crown Vic's air-conditioned leather a considerable upgrade from the dog-chewed bench seat of Bear's Ram. Bear had parked strategically across the street. Malane offered Tim the bag of sunflower seeds, and he took another handful and continued spitting shells into an empty plastic Coke bottle.
Bear came through the radio for the fifth time in as many minutes, and Malane stifled a smile. He'd given Bear and Guerrera FBI-coded Nextels for the operation, and Tim was getting the sense that the agents tended more conservative in their radio banter.
"Now, this fucking guy," Bear started, Guerrera the ongoing person in question, "this fucking guy, now, he says he thinks A-Rod's got it on Bonds in batting. Batting. Not in the field."
They'd been sitting on the Taco Bell since 8:00 A.M., and, as on most stakeouts, conversation was running thin. Aside from the Harley parked in the farthest parking-lot space that, at this point, they were presuming belonged to a TB employee, nothing had yet demanded their attention.
A background murmur came through, to which Bear responded, "I don't give a shit if A-Rod's younger. There's Barry Bonds, and there's everyone else. Don't give me your ethnic bias." Then, more clearly, "What's the vote?"
Malane said, "A-Rod," at the same moment Tim replied, "Bonds."
"All right," Bear said. "Then we go to Car Four for the tiebreaker."
An FBI agent cut in on the primary channel. "Eyes up, eyes up. Babe Donovan approaching in a…looks like a Pinto."
"A Pinto?" Bear said.
The car drifted into view. The orange coat had given way to rust, the subtle contrast lending it a strangely camouflaged appearance.
Babe Donovan parked the car in the tiny parking lot and hopped out. The gardeners let out a volley of whistles and catcalls that silenced immediately as soon as her Sinners property jacket came into view. One of the guys tugged off his Dodgers cap as she passed, offering her a deferential little bow. She ignored them, hopping onto the Harley and pulling out, heading opposite the direction she'd come.
"We'll take it." Bear's rig, parked facing east, eased out and drifted behind her.
Tim eyed the run-down Pinto. The AT, no doubt, was secured in the trunk. They only had to follow it home.
"Just shadow her," Malane said. "Don't take her into custody until we get to the stash house. We don't want to alert-"
Wristwatch Annie turned the corner on foot, sliding along the fence line behind the restaurant. She fumbled with a set of keys, then climbed into the Pinto and sped off.
Ten vehicles in the surrounding four blocks went on alert.
They followed her in shifts, each pair of cars turning off after a few blocks to be replaced by another. Malane and Tim carried her into the finish, a well-kept single-story house in a middle-class section of Mar Vista. She pulled into an open garage, which closed immediately behind her. They drifted past, turned around, and parked up the block, waiting for SWAT to move in.
Tim sat, working sunflower seeds between his teeth, occasionally shaking the Coke bottle so the soggy shells inside gave off a wet rattle. His focus, like Malane's, remained on the platinum Jag convertible parked across the street from the house, though neither had commented on the obvious.
Malane keyed his radio. "Sully? You on the rear fence line?"
"Yup. Got the parabolic on the rear window. Want me to cut you in?"
"Please."
A faint transmission played through Malane's radio.
The sharp feminine voice said, "…we all eyeballed it now, so we start with a clean accounting sheet. I don't want one of you whining that ten cc's dropped out of the deal."
The Prophet's velvet voice: "We are agreed."
"Same goes for the cash. Count the down payment again now if you have to."
"It is all here."
"Seventy/thirty to the producer this round."
"I am aware of the deal."
"Then you won't mind touching all the bases so there's no misunderstandings. The deal's on consignment-the money down gets laid off against profit. We hold up our end, next one goes sixty/forty. Then an even split between producer and distributor. I handle the money coming and going. That's what you signed off on. Agreed?"
"That is correct. I look forward to a long collaboration."
Rustling.
"Wait. I have not tested the product."
There was a faint rumble of tires, and then, from all directions, black trucks poured onto the street. SWAT members hung off the vehicles, riding the running boards, their vest pouches bulging with flash bangs. The trucks stopped, sealing off the street and giving the target house a half-block buffer. SWAT pulled into entry formation, at least forty agents closing the divide on foot, an organized swarm of black flight suits. A Sheriff's bomb dog led the charge, positioned to check the front door for booby traps. Only now did Tim spot a rippling of bushes at the back fence line.
He clicked on the radio. "Bear? Take her. We're going in."
The no-knock entry would've made the ART squad proud. The battering ram left the door flat on the entrance floor for the agents to trample. Tim and Malane crossed the street at a jog. Inside, there were shouted commands and a few yells, but no gunshots. Smith amp; Wesson aimed at the floor, Tim rode in on the aftermath, the safest lineup position he'd ever taken on a kick-in. His heart was pounding nonetheless. He moved room to room in search of Den Laurey.
The Prophet, Dhul Faqar Al-Malik, lay facedown on the shag carpet of the living room, a streak of dust coloring his dark hair like a skunk's stripe. A still-packaged extraction needle lay on the carpet where he'd dropped it, beside a portable lab kit. The FBI agents had uncovered a modest weapons cache in the front closet.
A shrill voice said, "Get your fucking hands off me."
Tim stepped around the corner, where two agents were securing Dana Lake. She glared at Tim, her milky cheeks flushed a sunset shade of magenta. The money launderer-nice WASP name, clean record, just as Smiles had predicted.
"What was your cut, Dana?"
"This is ridiculous. I'm here to broker a surrender for my client."
Behind her, Wristwatch Annie was being frisked. She laughed into the carpet and said to the SWAT member, "Easy, tiger. Any more and it'll cost ya."
Two translucent balloons filled with clear liquid sat on an electronic scale. The digital readout glowed red: 2.015 KG. A few agents regarded the spheres with awe. The bomb dog sat beside the table, eyeing a pizza box on the kitchen counter with interest. Next to the scale, an open computer carrying case displayed packets of hundred-dollar bills. Agents stomped through the house, industrious as insects.