Chapter 15.

Elsa met him at the door. Always vigilant when her Carly was away, she had watched for the sweep of headlights coming into the drive. Nick checked his sleeping daughter and then got out and opened the back door. He slipped his hand under Carl's legs and as he lifted her from the seat she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck and lay her head on his shoulder, her eyes still shut. He carried her in as Elsa held open the door: "Aaayyy, pobrecita, esta cansada," Elsa. said. Elsa. said.

In Carly's bedroom, the covers were already turned down. Nick laid her in her bed, took off her shoes and watched her scrunch her body into the pillows and heard her exhale contentedly. He bent to kiss her forehead, then turned out the dimmed lamp and started to leave.

"Good night, Daddy."

Nick turned back.

"Faker," he whispered and knew her smile was there in the dark. "Thanks for going with me."

"You're welcome."

In the hall, he asked Elsa to make him some coffee and then went out to empty the car. It was ten o'clock when he sat alone at the kitchen table and ate the saltenas saltenas from the cooler and sipped his coffee. Why did Hargrave want to meet with him in a seaside bar, of all places? Not in his office. Not with Joel riding shotgun. He had been rolling the possibilities in his head since the detective had hung up and wasn't any closer to a solid guess. It was well out of character for the guy, and Nick kept running the conference-table scene through his head, trying to pick out who in that room had gotten the worst of Hargrave's skepticism and distrust, and decided it hadn't been him. from the cooler and sipped his coffee. Why did Hargrave want to meet with him in a seaside bar, of all places? Not in his office. Not with Joel riding shotgun. He had been rolling the possibilities in his head since the detective had hung up and wasn't any closer to a solid guess. It was well out of character for the guy, and Nick kept running the conference-table scene through his head, trying to pick out who in that room had gotten the worst of Hargrave's skepticism and distrust, and decided it hadn't been him.

"You are OK, Mr. Mullins?" Elsa said, breaking the silence with her quiet voice.

"Huh? Oh, yes, yes, Elsa. I'm fine," Nick said, shaking his head back into the present. "We had a good day. But I have to go out again."

The housekeeper pointedly looked up at the kitchen clock.

"I'll lock up when I leave."

Elsa did not bother hiding her worried brow.

"It's OK, Elsa," Nick said. "I'm OK."

"You are going to talk to Ms. Julie and Lindisita?"

Nick had once confided in Elsa, told her of his night trips to the cemetery. He guessed that her heritage, her acceptance of the souls and ghosts of the dead, led her to be wary, but not overtly concerned. She wasn't going to call the loony bin to come take him away.

"You will be home to take Carlita to church, yes?"

Sunday was the one day of the week that Elsa spent with her own family since the accident. Her grown daughter and now teenage grandsons would be expecting her. She'd given so much to Nick, he would never deny her that. But he was also feeling an apprehension in the old woman's eyes. His late nights before the accident. The heavy drinking she had witnessed afterward.

"Yes, Elsa," Nick said. "I will be back."

Nick let the valet park his old Volvo because it was the only way at JB's. n.o.body in South Florida puts a parking lot on the waterfront, so restaurants and bars were forced to purchase alternative spots for their clientele, and they sure weren't giving it out for free.

Nick took the stub, walked into the restaurant foyer and immediately wished he'd taken a shower and shaved. JB's was an upscale place and the late diners looked wealthy and hip. A scruffy-looking guy in blue jeans and a polo shirt didn't get so much as a look from the maitre d'. That was OK by Nick. He figured Hargrave for the outdoor bar and walked right on by the WAIT TO BE SEATED WAIT TO BE SEATED sign and worked his way back. As he stepped out through the gla.s.s doors, the live, the slightly sour scent of the ocean washed up into his face and although the smell of low tide was pleasant enough to Nick, he wondered how the to-be-seen people could dine with the odor washing over their food on the humid breeze. He moved toward the bar and let his eyes go first to the corners, where he knew a cop like Hargrave would have his back against a wall. He found him there, sitting on a stool, his thin back straight as a stick, his pointed elbows stuck into the bar top. Nick thought of a praying mantis and then walked over in full view so the detective could see him coming. The burly sergeant was nowhere to be seen. sign and worked his way back. As he stepped out through the gla.s.s doors, the live, the slightly sour scent of the ocean washed up into his face and although the smell of low tide was pleasant enough to Nick, he wondered how the to-be-seen people could dine with the odor washing over their food on the humid breeze. He moved toward the bar and let his eyes go first to the corners, where he knew a cop like Hargrave would have his back against a wall. He found him there, sitting on a stool, his thin back straight as a stick, his pointed elbows stuck into the bar top. Nick thought of a praying mantis and then walked over in full view so the detective could see him coming. The burly sergeant was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, how's it going?" Nick said, never knowing for sure how plainclothes detectives wanted to be greeted out in the civilian world. He noted that Hargrave did not unlace his fingers to offer a handshake and he slid onto the open stool.

"Sticky," Hargrave said.

Nick thought what multiple meanings that statement held and then fell back on the weather.

"Yeah, pretty humid," he said and listened for a moment to the sound of the surf brushing up onto the sand fifty yards out into the darkness.

"Buy you a drink?" the detective said.

"Just iced tea."

Hargrave's hands hovered over a bourbon gla.s.s and with a nod of his head got the attention of the bartender and ordered Nick's tea. Nick had not taken a drink of alcohol since he'd gone on a six-month bender after the accident, but he did not begrudge others their habits.

"Thanks," he said to Hargrave when the tea arrived and they went quiet, both having run out of manners.

"You seem to have some kind of relationship with Ms. Cotton, Mullins. We're the ones that caught Ferris, but she wants to talk to you first. What's that all about?"

Nick waited until he finished ripping a couple of sugar packets and dumping their contents in his tea. A stalling tactic, to get his answer straight.

"Can't say that I know," he finally said. "I talked with her a few times when it happened and then only a little during the trial. She seemed to like the stories I wrote. I got the sense she liked being, you know, respected."

Hargrave took a sip of his whiskey, looked down into the gla.s.s. "Yeah, I read your stories. You never called her homeless. The rest of the media kept calling her a homeless woman bringing her kids up in a car."

Nick remembered the arguments he'd had with editors over that.

Hargrave let him think and then said, "She give you anything you didn't tell us about in that room?"

This guy was going to be hard to slide anything by, Nick thought. "Not really," he said, taking a long drink of the tea, trying to judge the guy. Hargrave was pushing this investigation, up late on a Sat.u.r.day, reworking the already unusual ground of talking to a reporter. Would it hurt to give him the mention of the letters? Would the detective give him anything in return? Nothing ventured, as they say.

"You get the letters she said her attorney kept forwarding on to her? The ones from sympathy folks and people encouraging her?" Nick said.

Hargrave lifted one eye at him, making Nick think maybe something was wrong with the guy's peripheral vision. "No. It wasn't mentioned."

"She said that she had held on to some of them, put them in a box someplace. I figured, you know, that I might go back," Nick said, avoiding Hargrave's look. "Might be some names, maybe some threats against Ferris, you know, 'We'll get that son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h' types."

"We'll have to look into it," the detective said, but Nick could see the mental note-taking going on in Hargrave's head. He'd probably be at her door Monday morning, if not sooner.

He drank his tea. Maybe it was time to get something back.

"So what's with the federal guy at the meeting?" he asked, knowing Hargrave would have checked the guy out with his own law enforcement contacts as soon as he could get out of the lieutenant's sight.

"OK," Hargrave said, recognizing the game of give-and-take. "He's with the Secret Service. Sources say he's down here as security on a political junket, but he's got this hairbrush up his a.s.s about snipers. They say he's got a whole list of shootings that have anything to do with long-distance kills and high-powered rifles."

"They say? Who's they?"

Hargrave let something that might have been a grin come onto his face. "My unnamed sources."

Nick tried to give the information an appropriate "That's interesting" response. But he was thinking about his own list of shooting victims, the one he'd asked Lori to put together. It was still in his computer at work and he hadn't taken the time to look at it all.

"You've seen this list?" he asked Hargrave.

"No. But Fitzgerald's definitely got a hard-on about it. And with all this homeland security s.h.i.t, that puts the pressure on us to cooperate with him."

"And with me," Nick said.

"The guy's on a timetable," Hargrave said, sipping again at his drink, but Nick could see there was nothing but ice left in the bottom.

"What do you mean?"

The detective again gave Nick another sideways look, while sucking a cube into his mouth and then gnashing the thing between his teeth.

"Jesus, Mullins. Don't you read your own paper?"

"Yeah, but I only believe half of it," Nick said.

Hargrave looked over the top of his whiskey gla.s.s as though he were trying to tell whether Nick was serious or joking. Nick shrugged.

"He's Secret Service. The Secretary of State shows up next week for a meeting of the Organization of American States down at the convention center," Hargrave said. "I figure this guy to be part of the advance team, but he's a little too focused on the sniper bit. That's usually taken care of in protocol, part of the overall security plan."

Nick knew about the upcoming OAS confab. Representatives from most of Latin America would be present. Miami was pretty much the gateway to the United States for the Hispanic and Caribbean world now, and the Broward County convention center was north of Miami. Protestors would have a harder time getting there and the center was right next to the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport. They picked the site because it meant less travel for the dignitaries and was easier to secure. In fact, Nick figured Deirdre would be pulling him aside to do a piece about that security anytime now. But as a rule, Nick rarely paid attention to politics until it lapped over into his coverage of death or law enforcement. He recalled the time he was asked to write a story about some dustup after the President started using scenes of September 11 in his reelection advertis.e.m.e.nts. The editors came to him because Nick had interviewed families in South Florida who had lost loved ones in the Twin Towers. He had at least a fledgling relationship with them, along with their contact numbers. Death revisited. It was a s.h.i.tty a.s.signment, having to call people still emotionally raw and ask stupid questions. But he did it. And everyone he talked to said they were bothered by the use of 9/11 in any advertis.e.m.e.nt, political or not. Nick had written their responses, and had only the President's press secretary's reb.u.t.tal to balance it. The next day his phone and e-mail were filled with angry readers p.i.s.sing on Nick personally and the "Liberal press" in general for being one-sided and taking a political stand against Republicans. Nick endured until the eighth or ninth call and then spouted off at some condo political captain: "It's not a political story. It's a human story, man. It's about people's feelings. It's about people who lost sons and daughters and family and felt like they just got gouged again. Can't you understand that? It's about humans, not politics."

The guy on the other end of the line just laughed at what he considered Nick's naivete. "Everything's about politics, young man. You'll learn that."

Nick went back to his regular police reporting that day when the dismembered body of a prost.i.tute was found in a Dumpster only thirty yards away from Federal Highway, and Nick was taken off the political advertis.e.m.e.nt story.

"You think the Secret Service has some kind of credible threat that a sniper is tailing the Secretary of State?" Nick said.

"Christ, I don't know," Hargrave said, hissing between his teeth. "I'm sure as h.e.l.l not thinking that my guy is a.s.sa.s.sinating felons just to warm up for the Secretary of State. But if he finds something to link our guy to whatever he's looking for, I'll take the help. Right now I've got a homicide to work even if no one else gives a d.a.m.n."

Nick wasn't sure how many whiskeys Hargrave had downed, but the reticent man was showing the pressure. The detective pushed his gla.s.s toward the bar gutter and peeled off a few bills and left them as a tip.

"I'll give Ms. Cotton a visit on Monday for those letters, and maybe if I get a look at Fitzgerald's list, I'll let you know."

He got up and slid past Nick without so much as letting his coat sleeve make contact. Nick said, "Thanks," to his back as the thin man walked away.

Chapter 16.

Get in. Kill quickly. And get out without being seen.

Sniper Theory 101. He had learned it and earned it in his first stint with the military, and gave it all up after the first Gulf War when he came home to be a cop.

Out here in the civilian world, he'd also learned intelligence and careful planning and specific targeting and, he admitted, a h.e.l.l of a lot of patience and frustration had replaced the kill-quickly rule. He'd been proud of his abilities in both theaters before. He had always, in his head, done the right thing. And now, he told himself, he was doing the right thing again.

From the parking lot a block behind a row of street-side businesses Redman sat in the dark van, doing surveillance. His gear was in a bag stuffed in a concealed drop box in the floor. He'd had a welder hang the box under the frame, just behind the rear axle, so he could get to it easily enough. From the outside it was hard to spot, obscured by a low-hanging license plate and a trailer hitch that would never be used. The mechanic had used reverse hinges so the plate door was nearly seamless and difficult to recognize from inside the van. If he was stopped for any reason, he wasn't going to be caught carrying an H&K sniper rifle and try to say he was going deer hunting in the Glades.

With patience, he watched the coming and going of traffic for an hour, long past midnight. He'd already used a night-scope spotter to check the fire escape that led to the roof of the office building he wanted. From the front he knew the business plaque read: MYERS & HOPE, ATTORNEYS AT LAW. MYERS & HOPE, ATTORNEYS AT LAW. But back here it was just as dark and unpainted and weather-stained as all the rest in the line. He'd already spotted the burglar alarm lights on the back door and the magnetic slide bars on the windows. But he wasn't going inside, and no such devices were on the fire escape. But back here it was just as dark and unpainted and weather-stained as all the rest in the line. He'd already spotted the burglar alarm lights on the back door and the magnetic slide bars on the windows. But he wasn't going inside, and no such devices were on the fire escape.

He'd long ago unscrewed the bulbs inside the van, so he held a small Maglite between his teeth and scrambled between the seats and into the back. He opened the drop box, left the rifle and took out a night spotting scope and a laser range finder. If he got caught on a dry run, there would be no sense getting caught with a gun. He might get picked up for attempted burglary, but he wasn't there to steal anything. He got out quietly through the rear doors and clicked them shut.

The fire escape took him to the roof and he stayed low crossing the graveled tarpaper, stopping at an air-conditioning unit that was as big as his van. The thing was humming. It was after one AM, but the air temperature was still in the high seventies. He could feel the heat of the day coming off the roof surface when he went to all fours and crossed to the building's front edge. Down on his belly, he checked the street north and south and then brought the scope to his eye. Across the avenue and one hundred yards down the line, he focused and watched the BAIL BONDS BAIL BONDS sign twitch through the green glow of the scope lens. A slip to the right and he found another door with its own small letters painted on the gla.s.s: sign twitch through the green glow of the scope lens. A slip to the right and he found another door with its own small letters painted on the gla.s.s: DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. He had always found the locations humorous. The bail bondsman sitting right next door to the parole office. One-stop shopping. He had always found the locations humorous. The bail bondsman sitting right next door to the parole office. One-stop shopping.

From a computer printout, Redman had the specifics of the felon he called Mr. Burn-Your-Girlfriend-to-Death. Out on parole after doing time for attempted murder, Trace Michaels was required to show up at this office every second Monday of the month. Due up in two days. And a bullet with his name on it would be waiting.

Redman took out the laser range finder, pointed it at the door and checked the distance: one hundred twenty-eight yards. A fish-in-a-barrel shot. And from this far back, he'd be down the fire escape and in his van before people could figure out why a man was suddenly lying on the sidewalk. Redman would be driving in the opposite direction. No reports to fill out. No s.h.i.t to take from the media. He gla.s.sed the building again, thought about a night just like this three years ago.

He and the SWAT team had been after bad guys that night too. The ATF unit out of Fort Lauderdale had turned a pile of investigative tapes over to the sheriff's investigators. On the recordings, three wannabe gun dealers in Deerfield Beach were trying to set up a buy for several 9mm handguns and supposedly an MP5 semiautomatic rifle, the same kind the SWAT members carried. Everyone on the team gathered in the planning room and listened to the men brag to the potential buyer, "We got the firepower, man. And we know how to use them too."

The confidential informant said he wasn't looking for that kind of trouble. He had the cash and just wanted a smooth deal.

"You wanna smooth deal, you be smooth."

The CI and the gunrunners set the sale at a two-story motel just off the interstate. Easy in, easy out. Two hours ahead of time, the SWAT sergeant met with the motel manager and cleared the rooms of other guests with quiet requests over room phones. The team then set up in an unmarked van in the horseshoe-shaped parking lot. Three officers were in the van, watching a video screen. They would send in the CI with a bag of money and a concealed camera and the guys outside would be able to see exactly what they were dealing with. Michael Redman was the ultimate backup. He was in a second-story room on the other side of the horseshoe, directly across from the dealers' room. He set his tripod on top of a dresser shoved four feet back from the window so that no pa.s.sersby would see the barrel of the sniper rifle. When the team went green-light, he would open the sliding half of the window and have a perfect line on the bad guys' doorway, just in case someone came out shooting. It wasn't likely, but the voices on the tapes had convinced the team that these a.s.sholes could talk the talk. They weren't taking chances they might walk the walk.

The team had also rigged the room next to the gun sellers. Like most cheap motels, it had a suite door that connected the rooms. One of the team had disabled the dead bolt, but left the turn k.n.o.b intact. The bad guys on the other side could throw the bolt, it would feel and sound like it was locked, but two members of the team would simply spin the k.n.o.b on their side and charge on in. Complete surprise.

When everything was set, the team commander sent in the informant. From the van, half the team listened to the audio and watched the video being transmitted from a hidden camera in the CI's bag. Three men were inside, 9mm in their waistbands. The CI played it pretty cool.

"Hey, man, come on, ya'll. I ain't carryin' nothin', just like you said, man. How come ya'll bristlin' with your personal s.h.i.t an' all?"

"We told you we know how to use what we sell," said the dealer, who called himself Freddy. "You do things smooth, they don't come out."

The CI said he was only there to do business and asked to see the merchandise out on the bed. On the video screen the SWAT sergeant watched six handguns and the a.s.sault rifle being placed on the mattress. He made a determination that moment: The team was not going to let those weapons back out on the street. That contingency plan had already been set. When the key words came out of the CI's mouth, the team would move simultaneously. Most of the men in the van were holding their breath when the informant said, "OK. This all looks right. I got your money right here."

The sergeant called a "Go" on his radio. Redman already had his scope on the door and even from his distance he heard the whump whump of the inside suite door as one of the team gave it the shoulder and rushed in on the dealers shouting, "Police, don't move! Police, don't move! Police, don't move." of the inside suite door as one of the team gave it the shoulder and rushed in on the dealers shouting, "Police, don't move! Police, don't move! Police, don't move."

At the same instant three deputies jumped from the back of the van and headed for the stairs. They were dressed in black with yellow letters across their chests and back: POLICE POLICE.

Two team members also burst from the front door of the room next to the dealers' to cover the second-floor walkway. Redman let a breath out and pulled two pounds of pressure on the three-pound trigger. Despite the order not to move, the bad guys did.

The first man out of the dealers' room was a guy with a baseball cap. He instantly wore Redman's crosshairs on his chest. Redman saw that the grip of the man's 9mm was still sticking out of his belt and held off as the deputies on the walkway continued yelling. But Baseball Cap kept going, starting down the outside stairwell as the team had figured, funneling into the hands of the van team. The second man out had his gun in his hand. When he came out the door, Redman put the scope on him. When the guy turned to look at the deputies on the walkway and began to raise his 9mm, Redman fired a .308 WIN boat-tail bullet into the man's chest, one inch below his heart and slightly anterior. It sheared the breastbone as it went in, and the velocity expansion that fans out three inches in diameter around the bullet pulverized the two right chambers of the heart. He was dead within seconds.

That was when Redman heard the reports of the van team's own MP5s. The first man down the stairway had pulled his 9mm from his waistband but did not get the chance to fire. Redman moved the scope down in time to see two blossoms sprout on the man's chest like tiny roses opening in an accelerated-time-flash film.

Voices continued to sound and Redman swung the sights and caught a glimpse of a booted foot leaving the targeting field. He moved his eye from the scope and watched a man leap over the walkway railing and hit the ground. The guy rolled, using his rifle to absorb the shock, and scrambled to his feet: a runner. Up on the walkway, the deputies plowed full into the fourth man who stepped out of the room, tackling him but also losing chase on the runner. Watching the confusion, Redman lifted his rifle, slid on his a.s.s across the top of the dresser and took two steps to the window. From there he had an angle on the runner, who had in his hands the automatic rifle he'd been trying to sell. The parking lot deputies never saw him and Redman called out, "On the fence! On the fence!" as a warning and then swung his scope to the right, steadying the rifle against the window frame. He had a full view of the runner, who had made the chain-link fence and was scrambling up. He watched him throw one leg over and then, straddling the top, sling the rifle up to his shoulder and aim back at the parking lot. Redman's shot was perfect given the circ.u.mstances. The boat-tail caught the man just below the left sideburn, half an inch in front of the earhole. He was dead in a millisecond.

In the investigation that follows every time a lawman fires his weapon, the operation came out clean. The SWAT team acted exactly as it had been trained to. They'd done an a.s.sessment of the danger and secured the room. They'd a.s.signed adequate overwhelming force. When hostile weapons were identified, and when those weapons became a danger to team members, those members shot to kill. It all went down as it should have under quickly changing circ.u.mstances.

Only the media questioned the operation, which, Redman knew, is what the media does. When someone dies by the hand of a cop, journalists seem to be sent out to determine if it was a fair fight. But SWAT officers know it is never a fair fight. It's never supposed to be. It's not a game.

The sheriff was adept at spinning the local media. The public information officers dealt with the reporters they had relationships with. But it had been Redman's fifth killing in the line of duty. The editorial writers, dusty white collars in isolated offices who only watched TV and hadn't been on the streets in years, had their opinions.

Redman could still quote the editorial written in the Daily News Daily News only two days after the SWAT shooting: only two days after the SWAT shooting: