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  “This guy, on the other hand,” Bloch continued, pulling out a second photo and passing it to his left, “would stand out on Mars. Martin Julio Benavides, a.k.a. Cuchillito, a.k.a. Chillo. He’s the real deal, lady and gentlemen. Twenty-eight years old, five-six, one-fifty. Time in for manslaughter, battery, rape, weapons possession, you name it. We think he was a heavy borrowed from a San Antonio mara to put the hit on a half-dozen cops around the Metro area to, ah, facilitate Rodriguez’s dreams of expansion. I want him. Very badly. Very very badly. If it were a trade between pulling in Rodriguez or Chillo, I’d settle for Chillo. But we’re going to nab both.”

  “How are we going to pick him out?” McDonald asked. The pictures hadn’t reached him yet. Bloch gestured for Rhee to hold the photos up. Chillo’s sleepy-eyed, nightmare face, covered in tattoos, stared back at us.

  “Jesus fuck,” McDonald said. “Okay, I’ll remember him.”

  “Weapons?” Huston asked.

  Bloch glanced at Rhee. “Detective, you might have better intel.”

  Rhee’s expression didn’t change, but I could tell he was pleased Bloch had deferred to him. “Rodriguez is probably packing or has access, but I don’t see him throwing down. He’s lasted this long because he uses his head more than his stones. He knows, or thinks he knows, he can get a lawyer to bail him out in a day. Why get shot by a cop when he could be out tomorrow?”

  “What about Scarface?” McDonald asked.

  “Chillo? Different story,” Rhee said. He glanced at Bloch. “Would this be his third fall?”

  “Yes.”

  Rhee shook his head. “Prison don’t hold the same fear for these dudes that it does for regular crooks. Back in San Salvador, it’s like Holiday Inn to them. Still, Chillo’s probably had a taste of the good life. No reason to go to jail, now, right? So, he ain’t going to roll over for us. He’s a dangerous motherfucker. Expect the worst.”

  “How do we know they’re in the same pad?” Ramsey asked Bloch.

  “Detective Rhee, here, has been keeping an eye on things for me. It’s pretty clear that they want to ship Chillo out ASAP, back to San Antonio where he came from. He’s been in NOVA for a couple weeks enjoying himself. Smoking dope, screwing, doing his thing. But he’s their smoking gun. We’ve got intel that Rodriguez is getting nervous having him around. So he’s keeping him close, real close, until they can get him in a car bound for Texas.”

  “Civilians present?” This was from Carlson.

  “There are three girls who hang around. Maria Paseo is Rodriguez’s girlfriend, the other two are passed among the gang members. All three are probably there. And there’s at least one child under two, a little boy. He’s Rodriguez’s kid by the girlfriend.”

  Carlson grimaced. “Complicated.”

  Bloch nodded. “Not easy. That’s why I asked specifically for you all. Every one of you has a reputation for being solid. I need us to be on the same page: we cuff Rodriguez, keep the non-coms quiet and safe, and dogpile on Chillo when we see him.”

  Everyone was quiet then, for a second, thinking. Then I felt their attention swing to me. Bloch did, too, and met it head-on. “Marty here has thirty years of experience with the MPDC, which is more than any two or three of us put together. I realize it’s highly unorthodox to have him in the crew, but we wouldn’t be conducting the raid without Marty’s legwork in the investigation that’s led to here. He’ll be sixth man in the stack. With orders,” Bloch raised his eyebrows meaningfully at me, “to play it cool and let us do the heavy lifting. We don’t want to screw up his retirement.”

  “I’ll try not to shoot myself,” I said.

  “Any questions?” Bloch asked, spreading both hands and looking at each member in turn. “Okay, let’s—”

  Rhee’s cell phone rang, a jangly hip-hop beat. He snatched at it and checked the screen, then emphatically raised a hand for quiet as he answered. We watched him, puzzled. Rhee spoke rapid-fire Spanish, his answers clipped and staccato. At one point he turned around and scanned the street bordering the Safeway, his eyes roving back and forth. I could see Ramsey listening intently as Rhee spoke. About halfway through his call, she swore softly, an expression of worry and surprise on her face. Rhee spoke a little more, forced a laugh, then hung up.

  “Someone made us?” Ramsey asked him when he put the phone away.

  Rhee nodded, concerned. “That was one of the chicos I got contact with. Not one of Rodriguez’s crew, but deals with him. He called me and told me to stay away from the MLA tonight, ’cause he was cruising with some homies and told me there’s a bunch of narcs in a Safeway parking lot ready to bust the place. Didn’t want me to get shot if I was out chatting up the Latinas.”

  “He’s talking about us,” Ramsey said.

  “He just drove by and saw us?” Bloch said, stunned. Our heads swiveled around, scanning the parking lot, as if the guy were hiding behind a shopping cart.

  “Two minutes ago, man,” Rhee said.

  “You think he’ll warn Rodriguez?” I asked.

  “Don’t know, Singer. He might. To earn some points, maybe? Or he might just stay away, hoping not to get caught in the crossfire.” Rhee consulted Bloch. “What do you want to do? Cancel and rewind?”

  Bloch bit his lower lip and thought for a second. He looked at me.

  I shrugged. “Might be our only chance at Chillo.”

  Bloch turned to the group. “Fuck it. Get your vests and guns. It’s on.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Moving at double-time, we hurried to trunks and backseats to grab flak jackets and guns. What should’ve been a semi-leisurely activity—almost a ritual to help calm the nerves—was a rushed affair. I fumbled with the straps of my vest and had to take a breath and concentrate on each buckle.

  “Who’s got the long gun?” Bloch yelled. He had donned a blue windbreaker with large yellow letters spelling out “HIDTA” on the back.

  “Here,” Carlson called back.

  “What do you have?”

  “M4.”

  “That’ll do,” Bloch said. He tossed me a HIDTA jacket identical to his. “Let’s move it, people!”

  I slipped the windbreaker on and jumped in the passenger side of Bloch’s Elantra. McDonald and Rhee got in the back. Ramsey, Huston, and Carlson got in the cruiser and we pulled out of the parking lot in tandem. It seemed silly to drive three blocks, but what do you do if you have to engage in pursuit? Or transport three or four cuffed suspects? Call a taxi?

  “Good thing we didn’t take your Integra,” I said to Rhee over my shoulder. “You can hear that thing coming a mile away. Rodriguez would be hanging out his window, wondering who woke him up.”

  Rhee grinned. “Hey, man. It’s my style they sense, not the muffler.”

  “Fucking thing sounds like a jet,” McDonald said. His face was a ruddy pink color and he seemed squeezed into everything: the vest, the jacket, the seat.

  “Jerry here is pissed because he has to drive around in an Astro van all the time,” Rhee said, still grinning. “What he really wants is a Mustang to hold off that mid-life crisis a little longer, but his old lady won’t let him.”

  “Four fucking kids won’t let me,” McDonald wheezed. “You ever try driving four kids to a soccer game in a Mustang, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Okay,” Bloch said, wanting us to put a lid on it. I always thought banter was good for the nerves, but Bloch seemed to be built different. “We’re here.”

  He pulled over and the cruiser slid in behind us. Landsdowne was a derelict old apartment complex from the ’60s or ’70s, three stories high with nondescript gray stucco walls. We were about a half block from the leading edge of the apartment building. A scrubby courtyard with three park benches separated the street from the front of the building. External stairs leading to street level separated every ten apartments or so. Busted-out lights and dim EXIT signs capped each stairwell. Most of the apartment lights were dark, though here and there a flickering blue light in the window proved
that someone was up too late—or too early—watching the tube. We watched for a full minute, wondering if Rhee’s buddy had tipped anyone off. But no one ran screaming from the building or fired shots out a window, yelling “You’ll never take me alive, copper” or anything else. Bloch glanced at me.

  “Looks good,” I said.

  We got out and formed a loose circle, looking husky and awkward, inflated by the bulletproof vests and paramilitary outfits. Hands were shoved in pockets or hooked into belts except for Carlson, who had the wicked-looking M4 at a low ready position. Faces were serious, alert. Not a first dance for anyone. Not so routine they were complacent. Bloch had picked well.

  “This is it, folks,” Bloch said. “Cell phones, beepers off? Radios down? Okay, time check?”

  Rhee tilted his wrist to squint at his watch in the lamplight. “4:57.”

  Bloch pointed to a corner of the building. “Two-oh-six is second in from the corner. Second floor, obviously. Ramsey, can you make it from the back?”

  “I can count.”

  “We’ll give you five to get in position. Give me two clicks on the radio when you’re set.”

  “I’m gone,” she said, and started off towards the rear of the complex at a brisk walk.

  “Who’s on the ram?”

  Huston raised a hand. “I got it.”

  “Okay, stack order is Huston, Rhee, McDonald, Carlson, Bloch, Singer. McDonald, sit on the women and kids. Rhee, you’re translator in case someone wants to play dumb. First priority, though, is Felix Rodriguez or Chillo. Any questions?”

  No one answered. We stood there, quiet and keeping our own thoughts. I was chilled in the early-morning air and stamped my feet. I rubbed my fingertips together, trying to get the feeling back into them that chemo had robbed. Huston and Carlson checked their belts and weapons. Rhee did some stretches. I could hear his neck popping from where I stood.

  Bloch suddenly glanced down at his belt, checking his radio. “Ramsey’s set.” He turned to Huston. “Okay, Detective. Take us in.”

  We got in our stack order and broke into a jog-trot towards the building. At this point, guns were holstered, but most of us kept our hands on the butt anyway. It made moving awkward, but was worth it for the peace of mind. Huston must’ve been stronger than he looked, because he made carrying the thirty-pound battering ram seem easy. We crossed the courtyard and scuffed our way up the concrete steps closest to 206. I was a little out of breath as we pulled up outside the door and made a mental promise to get back to the gym. If I didn’t get shot in the raid and survived cancer, of course.

  Everyone drew their weapon. I heard a faint snick as Carlson unlatched the safety on the M4. We gathered ourselves mentally and physically in the stark pause before entry. My heart was beating fast and not because of the run up the steps. I heard Carlson swallow. Bloch’s eyes were wide as if in mild surprise, but I knew this was how he translated the tension. Huston readied the ram and glanced back. Rhee made quick eye contact with each of us, then made a chopping movement with his hand. Huston started swinging the ram, building momentum. On the third swing, he smashed the ram into the apartment door and the world exploded.

  Huston stepped to the side and dropped the ram while the rest of us in the stack burst into the apartment at a run. We spread out, trying to get clear of the doorway where ninety-nine out of a hundred people will shoot when defending themselves from a break-in. Bloch yelled “Police! On the floor!” while Rhee shouted the same in Spanish. I was fumbling for a light switch when Huston bull-rushed in.

  Somewhere in the room a woman started screaming. A male voice, panicky, shouted in Spanish. I finally found the switch and the room flooded with light from an overhead lamp. There was a skinny, half-naked guy and an all-naked girl, their eyes big as eggs, sitting up on a pull-out couch, looking terrified. Beer cans and ashtrays littered a coffee table sitting to one side and the place reeked of pizza and pot smoke. Sliding glass doors opened onto the balcony. Bloch and Huston dragged the two lovers off the bed and put them facedown on the rug. Huston pulled the sheet off the bed and covered the girl, who was squirming, trying unsuccessfully to cover herself while keeping her hands glued to the back of her head.

  Rhee, his gun out, ran down a hallway leading off the living room with Carlson right behind him. McDonald followed and I trailed last, throwing lights on as I went. More screaming erupted from a bedroom down the hall, followed immediately by the rising wail of a baby. Rhee pointed at the room and yelled, “McDonald!” then headed for the last room off the hallway. McDonald peeled off to try to contain the mother and the baby, while I followed Carlson and Rhee into the last bedroom. The early-morning chill was long gone and sweat rolled into my eyes. I swallowed over and over, trying to get rid of a metallic tang in my mouth.

  The three of us burst into the bedroom. Based on the picture we had, Rodriguez was there, trying to pull a pair of jeans on over his boxers, incongruously obsessed with getting it buckled right even as we swarmed into the room, shouting. He was shirtless, showing the dozens of tattoos Bloch had told us about. A girl with dark, tousled hair was sitting up in the bed with the sheet pulled up to her neck. Tears streamed down her face and her heavy makeup, which probably looked fine six hours ago, was paying the price now.

  Rhee tackled Rodriguez while Carlson covered the room with his elephant gun. I moved to the girl and firmly coaxed her out from under the linens. It didn’t do much for her modesty, but if she had a 9mm under there, it wouldn’t be the first time a cop got shot for being gallant. I pushed her down to the carpet like Bloch had done to the two in the living room, then covered her with the sheet when I was sure she was clean. Rhee was yelling at Rodriguez, “Dondé esta Chillo? Dondé esta Chillo, motherfucker?” even as he cuffed him, but the little man was silent, hardly even registering what was happening to him. Then again, maybe he couldn’t: we’d kicked the door to the apartment down less than thirty seconds before.

  Carlson did a quick check of the single closet in the room. “Anything?” Rhee asked. Carlson shook his head.

  Bloch came in and scanned the room. “Chillo?”

  “No sign,” Rhee said, then shoved Rodriguez’s face into the carpet. “This piece of shit isn’t talking.”

  “Dammit,” Bloch said. His radio squawked. He put a hand down to it and turned the volume up so we could all hear.

  It was Ramsey. “Bloch, lights on in unit 208, next to you. I can see some activity through the windows.”

  “Bodies?” Bloch yelled into the radio, heading out of the room at a run. I sprinted after him with Carlson close behind.

  I didn’t hear the answer as he tore through the living room and out the door. McDonald had brought the mother and baby to the living room. He and Huston looked at us from where he was covering the couple, still lying on the rug. I was halfway out the door when I thought of something and stopped dead in my tracks. Carlson plowed into me from behind, nearly knocking me off my feet.

  “Jesus, Singer,” he said, shooting me a look and running after Bloch.

  I turned back to the living room.

  “What the hell is going on?” McDonald said.

  “Chillo isn’t here,” I said, hustling to the glass doors. “Ramsey said she saw action from the next unit over.”

  “Does Bloch think he’s dumb enough to come out the front door?”

  “That’s what I was wondering,” I said and unlatched the sliding door. I did a quick peek-a-boo out and back, then stepped onto the balcony, gun ready. There were more beer cans and a turned-over bistro table with a cracked glass top. I glanced to my right, towards 208. I could hear muffled thumps, maybe as Bloch and Carlson kicked the door down. Light spilled out from the windows and I could see the shadow of frantic movement translated for me on the floor of the balcony.

  I squinted, searching for Ramsey and spotted her two floors down in the parking lot of the complex. Her gun, like mine, was trained on the balcony of the unit next door.

  “Bloch and Carlson ar
e on it,” I yelled down. “Anything on your end?”

  As she opened her mouth to answer, I heard a small, almost tinny clack-clack sound behind me. Ramsey screamed my name at the same time I threw myself flat. There was the briefest instant of deep silence and then the insane chatter of automatic rounds stitched the air. The sliding glass doors next to me shattered like they had been hit by a grenade. Thick chunks of glass rained down on my head and neck, getting stuck in my hair and finding their way down my collar. Dozens of bullets hit the thin balcony railing, making pinging noises as they dented the cheap metal. I heard four rapid, singular shots as Ramsey returned fire to the balcony, not to the right of 206, but the left, the corner unit. Inside the apartment, McDonald swore and Huston yelled.

  I risked a glance from my position facedown on the concrete. A shadow had separated from the darkness of the balcony and was now jumping over the far side railing, risking the fifteen-foot drop to the ground. I scrambled to my feet and hauled myself over the balcony, holding on to the deformed metal railing before letting go and dropping the remaining eight feet. A shoulder roll took some of the impact of the fall away, but I was as graceful as a rhino on skates and felt something in my ankle go funny, like a rubber band being stretched too far, then twanged. Ramsey sprinted past, yelling “Foot pursuit!” into her radio as I struggled to my feet. There was pain, but it was being shoved down by the adrenaline that had my pulse up around 200. It would be ice bags and elevation later but, for now, I limped after Ramsey as fast as I could.

  The shadow that had to be Chillo was fast, weaving in and out of the cars in the lot. He turned twice to fire a wild spray of bullets in our direction. Ramsey and I ducked behind cars and trucks as windshield glass shattered around us. I crabbed to the right, trying to cut him off or at least herd him towards Ramsey. If we got lucky, Carlson and Bloch might catch up to us. As long as we could keep pace with the shadow, we’d outlast him, since he was spitting bullets faster than he could replace them. The trick was to not get caught in the last half-dozen bullets he had left.