Chapter Zulu #4
“What can you do for me that my RPD crew can’t?” Jefferson asked Burke, getting in his face.
“The RPD doesn’t know dick about the federal task force that’s in town focusing on you. I’m not sure what you moved that brought attention to you, but something did.”
Jefferson sneered. “Is that right?”
“Yeah, I can get you intel, but it’s going to cost you,” Burke said.
“How do you know him?” Jefferson asked Davis.
“We’re fucking the same whore.”
Burke’s stomach clenched at that statement. He wanted to pummel Davis. “Do you want my services or not?” He purposefully made his voice sound impatient.
Jefferson laughed. “That isn’t the way this shit works. I check you out first, and I offer the terms. You’re here. You’re already mine. There’s no going back for you now. And if you don’t check out or fall in line, I’ll fucking put you down myself.”
“Let’s get this straight: nothing’s decided yet. I don’t care about your activities. I’m just looking to pad my bank account,” Burke said.
“If you work for me, my business activities will become your business activities. You better care about them because if I go down, you go down.”
On the street, Dupont saw the Cadillac pull up and park behind the minivan. The two men who got out and approached the front door looked like bouncers. “You’ve got company; two coming in the front door,” he broadcast.
Through comms, Burke heard that the camera surveillance room was secure. He knew there was one more Tango on the first floor and two outside of the door. Two more being added to the party was not good news.
Dupont watched them. When they found the front door unlocked, they paused and didn’t enter. He saw them both place calls on their phones. “The party crashers are holding at the front door and are on their phones.”
Just then, a phone ringing on the other side of Jefferson’s door was heard.
Burke reached out and grabbed Jefferson by the neck with his left hand as he drew his weapon, his hand clenching around Jefferson’s blood and oxygen supply. Jefferson gurgled and tried to fight him off with flailing hands. Burke spun him so that he held Jefferson in front of him as a shield.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Davis demanded.
“Our party’s about to be crashed,” Burke said. “Where’s that safe?”
“Behind this painting,” Davis said, pointing at a wild color-splotched painting on the wall, just as the door opened and the two men came in, guns drawn.
One of the men fired, striking Davis multiple times in the chest. He was knocked back and crumpled to the floor.
Burke fired at the two men, striking them both. They both went down.
On the first floor, from the back hallway near the security room, the three team members heard the gunshots clearly.
“Secure him and then meet us upstairs when it’s clear, Lah-lee,” Wilson ordered as he and Rogers rushed back through the door that emptied behind the bar.
Just as they came into the bar, the Tango who’d been in the private room came running out, weapon in hand.
His gaze was focused on the elevator door, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two men behind the bar. His head snapped to view them.
“Freeze!” Wilson yelled.
“Drop it!” Rogers’s voice echoed his.
The man swung his pistol at them. Both men discharged their weapons. The man collapsed on the floor.
“Tango neutralized,” Wilson reported.
“The two from outside are entering,” Dupont broadcast as he watched the two men enter through the front door.
“Fuck,” Wilson cursed quietly. He and Rogers took up positions behind two booths, their aim on the doorway from the entryway.
The two party-crashers slunk into the room, keeping themselves as concealed as they could behind pieces of furniture. They had to expose themselves when they crossed into the open to go to the elevator.
That was when Wilson and Burke aimed over the banquette. “Freeze!” Wilson yelled. “Put them down. We won’t miss at this range.”
With no furniture to hide behind nearby, and the two men who had weapons aimed at them concealed enough that they had no clear shot, the two men raised their hands into the air.
“The weapons! Toss them to the side,” Wilson ordered.
The men complied. When ordered to do so, they dropped to the floor and assumed the position, spread-eagle on their stomachs. Laura Lee joined Wilson and Burke.
“Two more Tango’s secure,” Wilson reported.
In the apartment, Burke saw the blood creep away from him as it soaked into the white carpet beneath Davis.
“Davis is hit,” he transmitted, still holding Jefferson, whom he allowed to get a little bit of oxygen, just enough to stay conscious, but not enough that he had much strength to fight him.
He’d prefer a teammate was in the room before he let go of the man’s neck.
“On my way,” Rogers broadcast. He left Wilson and Saxton to secure the two men. He entered the stairwell and ran up the two flights of stairs.
As soon as the two men’s hands and feet were bound in zip ties, Saxton and Wilson followed him up the stairs. They came into the room and stopped momentarily at the two downed men. The one whose neck Laura Lee checked for a pulse did not have one. The wound in his chest was right over his heart.
“I’ve got a pulse,” Wilson declared, though the man whose neck his fingers pressed on was unconscious he wouldn’t be putting up a fight. The bullet had entered his chest through the side, its trajectory most certainly penetrating a lung.
“Okay, really easy, Jefferson,” Burke said. “I’m going to let go of your neck and take your hands behind your back at the same time.”
Jefferson was just this side of unconscious. There was no fight in him. His gaze remained fixed on Laura Lee. He stared at her with recognition.
“The safe, you’re going to give us the combination to open it,” Burke said.
Jefferson still stared at Laura Lee as he slowly regained full consciousness. “I know you,” he finally squeaked out.
Just then, Rogers helped Davis sit up. He helped remove his jacket. “It’s just a graze to his shoulder. The vest stopped two rounds. You’ll be sore, but you’ll live. Hound dog, when it’s secure, we need two ambulances.”
“Roger that, Powder,” Smith replied.
“Whatever you take from my safe won’t hold up in court,” Jefferson said.
“Sure, it will when the report reads that one of your men went rogue and brought two law enforcement officers up here to kill them, who then overpowered you and your men. That’s how the reports will read.
And your dead men won’t be able to dispute that’s how it went down,” Burke said. “The combination, now.”
Wilson had the picture swung to the side, revealing the safe.
“It won’t take much for us to get it open without your help. I guess it doesn’t matter much if we destroy your place to get it open.”
“Why not?” Jefferson said, thinking he still had the upper hand. He provided the combination.
After it was opened, Burke sat Jefferson in a chair. Smith called in the ambulance and the DEA as the Shepherd Security Team leafed through the many journals which were dated. Laura Lee took the one that covered the years when Charles Saxton was killed. She flipped through the pages.
“It’s here,” she announced. “He recorded that he killed my father. He has IAB spy written next to his name.”
“That’s how I know you,” Jefferson said. “Holy fuck, you do look just like your mother, Ruth Lee. Saxton did adopt you, son of a bitch.”
Burke stood beside him, leafing through the book with the most recent dates.
It was there, the name of every cop currently on Jefferson’s payroll.
He was sure past books would have the other names.
He didn’t see him flinch, didn’t see him draw a weapon.
He heard the single gunshot as the round tore through La Vonn Jefferson’s chest. Everyone’s gaze went to Leo Davis, who held his P320, still aimed at Jefferson, the pant leg of his right leg up just far enough that the empty holster near his ankle could be seen.
“What the fuck, Davis?” Burke asked.
“I promised Charlie he’d never know where or who Laurel Lee was.”
***
Donna sat on the bed with her back propped against the headboard. The television was on some stupid movie just to have some kind of background noise. Her mom lay on the other bed, taking a nap.
There was a knock at the door. Donna went to the door and looked out the peephole. Rich, Laura Lee, and Brad stood in the hallway. She unlocked and swung open the door, immediately noticing there were bloodstains on Rich’s clothing. Donna stared at him, her eyes taking in the blood on his clothes.
Burke instantly took Donna into his arms. He held her tightly to himself despite the blood spatter on his clothes.
“Whose blood is it?” Donna asked softly.
“Jefferson’s. He’s dead. It’s over.”
Donna let out a breath and collapsed into him.
“And his records confirmed our father was killed because Jefferson found out he was working with IAB to set a trap to get every cop who worked for him,” Laura Lee said after she’d entered the room with Dupont.
He’d closed the door behind himself. “It was all there, everyone at RPD and the DA’s office who covered for him. ”
“Well, of course that’s why Charles was killed,” Dorthea said, sitting up. “He’d been working on the La Vonn Jefferson case for six months before he was killed,” she said.
“You knew, Mom?” both Laura Lee and Donna asked, nearly in unison.
“Of course I did. Your father and I had no secrets from each other. You forget that I was on staff at the RPD back then. His IAB contact thought it best we never spoke of it, to protect Laura Lee, well, to protect all of us from La Vonn Jefferson.”
“Well, he’s no longer a problem,” Burke said. He stared into Donna’s eyes, his heart relieved that this was done and could be left in the past. “Come on, let’s go pack up your place so we can move you to Illinois and we can begin our new life together.”
Donna kissed him and then whispered in his ear, “Nothing would make me happier. I love you, Rich.”
He pressed a kiss to her cheek. He felt emotions wash over him that he’d never felt.
He experienced an intense love, a contentment that felt like he was a little boy wrapped in his mother’s arms, as well as an all-consuming sexual need to have her, all at the same time.
That night he’d make love to her like he’d never made to anyone.
“I love you too, and I love the life we’re going to have together. ”
The End