Chapter Thirty-Five
WITH HIS JACKET collar turned up, helmet in his armpit, and suppressed rifle pulled tight to his body beneath the blanket, he walked over the cracked, dilapidated sidewalk toward the eighties-era Cadillac Sedan DeVille propped on cinder blocks in the driveway of an empty house.
Good concealment. The passenger-side door was missing so Walker slid into the seat without excess movement.
From here it was seventy yards to the dealer’s house.
He pulled the blanket from his shoulders and adjusted the helmet and NOD on his head.
He then deliberately loosened his sling and set the rifle’s handguard on the dashboard with the suppressor protruding just over the hood.
The DeVille was missing its front window, so Walker had an unobscured line of sight to his target.
It’s not a target.
Yes, it is.
“I’m in position,” he whispered into the built-in mic of his earbuds. “Go off Bluetooth and switch to speakerphone.”
“Okay,” she responded. “Going off Bluetooth.”
Walker heard rustling as she unzipped her pocket and switched her phone to speaker so the earbud wouldn’t draw attention. He heard the zipper close.
“How’s this?” she asked.
“I got you. Remember, I won’t talk but I’ll be able to hear the exchange.”
“I know. Okay, I’m going in.”
“I’ve got you, Belle.”
“Quit worrying.”
He could hear the BMW’s engine whine as Belle fired it up and made her approach. Her headlights illuminated the green glow of his night vison monocle. A moment later the car drove into view and pulled to the curb in front of the trap house.
He watched her exit the vehicle and heard her via comms.
“Hey, can I come up?” she asked.
He couldn’t hear the reply, but watched the broad-shouldered dealer wave her in. She stopped a few feet in front of the cooler. Walker scanned the porch. The young man with the flat-brim hat said something.
“The Garden,” Belle replied. They’d rehearsed that she was a failure-to-launch, entitled Tulane dropout who lived with her parents in the Garden District, just in case she was questioned, though they hadn’t thought it would really come up.
The responding tone of voice suggested the dealer was telling Belle to get lost. The flick of his wrist suggested the same thing. Interesting. Why didn’t they want her money?
Don’t push it, Belle, get out of there.
“I need it,” she said. “Dying, man. Come on. I’m looking for Snowball.”
Again, the answer was no, the body language telling her she was not welcome.
Walker tensed and adjusted his grip on the rifle.
“Beat it, bitch,” Cooler said.
It looked like Flat Brim was typing something into his phone.
What is going on?
She pulled out her roll of cash.
“Six hundred,” she said.
The man with the flat brim was coming down the porch steps. He wore high-top sneakers, a New Orleans Pelicans T-shirt, and shorts. He was still on his phone.
Come on, Belle, time to go.
Flat Brim circled around Belle, focused on his device.
Shit.
Now, with his back facing the street, he could see that Flat Brim had a shiny pistol jammed in his shorts. His hands were occupied with the phone.
“My girlfriend told me I could get Snowball here,” Belle said.
“Get outta here, girl,” Cooler said, his voice taking on a brasher tone.
Take his advice, Belle. Get out.
“Nah, hold tight, pretty girl,” Flat Brim said. “Why you so interested in Snowball?”
Damn you, Belle.
Walker pressed the pressure pad on the rail of his rifle, and an IR beam visible only to him cut through the night. He centered it on Flat Brim’s upper back.
“Fine, fuck you. I’ll get it somewhere else,” Belle said, stuffing the cash back in her jacket pocket and turning to go.
Flat Brim grabbed her arm.
“Don’t rush off,” he said. “Maybe we can hook you up. Then you hook us up.”
Walker flipped the selector from SAFE to FIRE and brought his finger to the trigger.
As he started to exert pressure, his NOD lit up from the headlights of a fast-approaching vehicle that screeched to a halt behind Belle’s BMW, blocking Walker’s view.
He studied it through his night vision. New-model Dodge Charger. Black. The silhouette of a male head in the window. He was wearing a hat and appeared to have short hair. The car had thick tires over plain wheels.
Cops?
Walker tried to look through the Charger’s windows, but the tint prevented it.
If these were cops, then she would not get into trouble if she kept her mouth shut. She had no drugs on her, just money. She wasn’t in possession. Maybe this was a good thing. It would settle matters peacefully.
The man in the undercover police car stepped out, his interior light off. He was tall and thick, dressed in civilian clothes but wearing a black plate carrier with a Velcro badge. Walker could see there was someone else in the car. A partner?
The dealer by the cooler stood up for the first time. Flat Brim made no attempt to hide his gun.
What the fuck is going on here?
He listened to the interchange through Belle’s phone.
“She’s looking for Snowball. Says she’s from the Garden.”
“The Garden, huh? Where?”
“Why the fuck should I tell you, Sasquatch?”
“Because, honey, I’m the law.”
Belle went quiet.
“Let’s figure this out inside,” the cop said. He touched something on his belt.
Must have been a radio, Walker thought, because the other man in the police vehicle got out and approached. He was thinner than his partner but wore the same jeans, shirt, hat, and gun belt along with a plate carrier clearly identifying him as NOPD.
“Let go of me,” Walker heard Belle shout over comms.
Cops. Dealers. Shit.
“Inside,” the cop ordered, marching her up the steps and into the house.
“What the fuck is this!” Walker heard a man yell in his earpiece. The line went dead.
They had found her phone.
Belle screamed.
Walker sprang from the vehicle, weapon up, thumb of his left hand on the IR pressure pad. He moved into the street toward his target.
He would have entered the gate while Cooler was still looking back at the house had it not been for the headlights of a passing car that swerved around the corner.
The Honda Accord accelerated away, undoubtedly freaked out by the sight of a man with a rifle in mid-stride closing in on the house they were probably about to approach for a drug buy.
Damn it!
The man by the cooler stood up. He reached behind his back.
Walker depressed the pressure pad. An IR laser appeared on Cooler’s chest.
Cooler’s hand holding a Glock 17 was rising when four of Walker’s bullets tore through his chest. His body contorted around the wounds, and he fell forward into the weeds. Walker put another round in his head as he passed by.
Had Flat Brim and the cops heard the gunfire? Even though suppressed, his shots were not completely silent. Whether or not they heard would depend on how loud things were inside the house.
He climbed the stairs, crossed the rotting porch, and put his hand on the knob. He doubted it was locked with a sentry out front.
He paused for a moment. Were they waiting for him inside, weapons trained on the door? Maybe.
He thought he heard Belle’s voice telling someone to “fuck off” coming from deeper inside the house. She was probably loud enough to have kept them from hearing the suppressed shots.
There was no time for a safer, deliberate combat clearance.
This was hostage rescue and required a more dynamic approach.
Walker turned the knob and entered, breaking left to clear the corner and then sweeping back to the right as he continued out of the doorway’s fatal funnel.
The room contained an overturned card table and a couch with springs exposed.
Insulation drooped through gaping holes in the drywall.
As he moved down the wall of what was once a living room, he tripped over something at his feet.
He regained his balance, confirmed the room was clear, and then looked down at what he thought was a pile of old blankets to find that he had stumbled over a skinny naked black woman.
Now awake, she looked up at him, her eyes wide with annoyance and confusion.
“Just a bad dream,” Walker whispered, pushing across the room to a threshold hung with strings of Mardi Gras beads.
He could hear the woman muttering behind him.
The house was dark, which still gave him the advantage.
He pushed through the beads, this time going right.
He was in a kitchen filled with trash, smelling of rotting food, decay, and mold.
The counter was cluttered with cardboard boxes filled with plastic bags.
He stepped closer. The Ziplocs contained pills and small sealed pouches that he didn’t recognize.
The pouches were about the size of ketchup packets at a McDonald’s.
A stairway was to his left. He heard male voices and stepped past the still-swaying Mardi Gras beads.
I’m coming, Belle.
The blow landed on the back of his helmet, which took the brunt of the hit. Walker staggered forward and spun to see the naked woman he had left behind holding a wooden Louisville Slugger. Her scream was almost as painful as her first hit.
As she wound up to deliver another home run, Walker rotated and drove his rifle into her chest, reset, and slammed it into her neck.
She paused the bat mid-swing, like she was checking up on an outside ball, allowing Walker to pivot his feet and send her careening through a flimsy plywood-covered window with a spinning back kick.
With that scream, they know I am here.
He heard footsteps on the stairs. A second later Flat Brim appeared, stainless Beretta 92FS in his right hand.
“Patricia, shut the fuck up, girl!” he shouted.
Walker’s first three rounds ripped through the Pelicans logo on Flat Brim’s chest. A fourth found his forehead, knocking the hat free. As gravity took hold of his body, he tumbled down the narrow staircase, coming to rest in a heap at its base.
“NOPD!”
The shout came from the top of the stairs. It was followed by the beam of a flashlight.