Cash Landing (28 page)

T
he FBI communications van was abuzz. Andie and Agent Littleford were in the middle of it.

The surveillance team had followed Jasmine to the Sunset Motel; Andie's “old-fashioned” tail on Betancourt had led to the same place. She and Littleford rendezvoused with the van just before two a.m. in the parking lot behind Snuffy's Tavern, a local dive across the street from the motel. The Stingray had locked onto the signal from the burn phone used by the kidnappers to call Betancourt. The wiretap on Betancourt's cell had picked up the entire conversation. The kidnapper's parting words—“your brother-in-law dies”—left Andie few options. She keyed the microphone and radioed the SWAT van, which was parked down the street.

“We have a direct threat against the hostage. New location: Vagabond Motel, corner of Calle Ocho and Red Road.”

“Roger that. Room number?”

“Unknown. We are transmitting wire-card identification now to your Kingfish.” The Kingfish operated like a Stingray, but it was handheld and could literally pinpoint a cell phone to a specific room.

“Roger. Mobilizing now.”

Andie keyed off the radio, and Littleford gave the next order.

“Let's pick up Betancourt.”

“I think we should let the ‘exchange' play out on this end.”

“There is no exchange.”

“That's my point,” said Andie. “Based on that last phone call, it sounds to me like there's another player involved, some kind of double cross among thieves. It could be Jasmine, or maybe somebody else. If we pick up Betancourt now, we get only Betancourt. I say we watch, see who shows up, and move in against all of them. Clean sweep.”

Littleford seemed to like the idea, but with reservations. “We need to wait for backup.”

“Tell them to hurry.”

“And put on your body armor.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ruban walked around to the back of the Sunset Motel, found a relatively private space behind the Dumpster, and opened his backpack. It was time to gun up.

He removed the Uzi-style rifle and unfolded the stock, which extended the weapon to its full thirty-one-inch length. The magazine clipped into place without effort, thirty-two rounds of 9-mil ammo. He doubted that any additional clips would be necessary, but he stuffed the extras into the pockets of his windbreaker anyway.

Jasmine had definitely tried to scam him. The kidnapper's reference to “fifty thousand dollars” had confirmed it: he was completely unaware of the two-million-dollar renegotiation. Ruban couldn't deny Jasmine's street smarts, but a move like this one had Pinky written all over it. Ruban's read was simple: Pinky had duped his partner into holding down the fort at the Vagabond with Jeffrey, waiting on the fifty-grand ransom, a sitting duck for the police if something went wrong. Pinky and his co-whore were at the Sunset, double-crossing Pinky's partner, thinking they could double-cross Ruban.

Way too clever for your own good.

Ruban ran one last weapons check. Pistol on his belt. Backup strapped to his ankle. The rifle was semiautomatic with closed-bolt action, which meant that it would discharge only as fast as his finger could squeeze the trigger, which was fast enough. All was in order. He stepped out from behind the Dumpster and started toward the west stairwell.

The Sunset Motel had four wings, each forming one side of a square that surrounded an open-air courtyard. Ruban stepped carefully across the courtyard. Weeds had sprouted between the stone tiles, some knee-high. The moonlight shone on a broken old fountain in the center of the courtyard.
Pitch a Penny for Luck
, the weather-faded sign read, but the fountain was dry, and Ruban had nothing smaller than a hundred-dollar bill anyway. He continued past the fountain and kept toward the edge of the courtyard, invisible in the shadows. He stopped a few feet away from the stairwell and pressed his back to the wall.

With his finger on the trigger, he waited. He listened. The night was eerily silent, but not for long. A noise in the distance changed everything. Sirens. No question about it: police sirens. It was time to move, and not slowly.

Run!

P
inky drove like a demon down Calle Ocho, tires screeching as he pulled a hard turn at the traffic light.

He'd left the car and Pedro back at the Vagabond Motel. He was in a four-door pickup with double-cab seating, just like the truck used in the heist, only this time Pinky was behind the wheel. Jeffrey was in the backseat, half sitting and half lying on his side, his hands bound and his mouth taped. He kept quiet until a string of potholes turned the ride into a virtual off-road excursion. Jeffrey's head slammed against the bench seat in front of him, and he groaned loud enough to be heard through the tape.

“Zip it, fatty!”

Jeffrey fell silent. Pinky kept driving.

Pinky didn't disagree with anything Pedro had told Ruban on the phone, but that brief call to Ruban's cell hadn't come close to expressing the depth of Pinky's anger. From the day Ruban and Savannah first started dating, he'd disliked Ruban. After she'd married that asshole,
hated
was a better word. He'd dug into Ruban's background himself, had even uncovered rumors about a seventeen-year-old girl. He'd held his tongue, however, never saying a word to anyone. Pinky had his own dirty laundry. He didn't stand a chance in that battle of accusations.

The truck stopped at a red light. Pinky leaned over the bench seat and grabbed Jeffrey by the collar, forcing eye contact.

“Listen to me, Jeffrey. We're going to call your brother-in-law. When I hand you the phone, you're going to say exactly what I tell you to say. You got that?”

Jeffrey nodded.

Before the start of the night, it had been Pinky's plan to turn Jeffrey loose if Ruban paid the ransom. No more. Ruban and Jeffrey would both get what they deserved. Ruban would tell Pinky where the rest of the money was hidden, and then Ruban would watch Jeffrey die. Ruban would follow him to the grave.

Pinky spotted an Italian restaurant ahead. It was closed for the night, the windows were dark, and the single row of parking spaces in front was empty. The engine rumbled as Pinky steered down the side alley to the larger lot in the back. Bumpy asphalt gave way to the crunch of gravel. He drove all the way across the lot and parked by the battered chain-link fence, away from the lone security light that shone above the restaurant's rear entrance. He killed the engine, then leaned over the seat, pressed his pistol to Jeffrey's forehead, and told him what to say. The burn phone didn't have Ruban's cell on speed dial, but Jeffrey's did. It made more sense to dial from a number that Ruban would recognize, anyway. He was more likely to answer.

Pinky dialed on Jeffrey's phone and let it ring.

Ruban was driving toward the expressway when he heard the ringtone—his cell, not the burn phone. He checked his pocket, but the phone wasn't there. He wasn't sure where he'd shoved it in his hurry to get away.

The backpack?

He'd left unfinished business at the Sunset Motel, but everything was secondary to staying out of jail. He wasn't sure whom he might have encountered in the stairwell if those sirens hadn't wailed in the distance, but he was confident that he would have been the better armed.

The ringtone continued. Ruban steered with his left hand while fishing through the backpack on the passenger seat. His cell was all the way at the bottom, wedged below the folded stock of the assault rifle. He pulled it free and checked the display. It pulsed with the personalized caller ID generated by his contact list:
Cokehead.
It was Jeffrey. He answered. The voice on the other end of the line wasn't the one he'd expected, but it didn't shock him.

“Guess who,” said Pinky.

Ruban scoffed. “I knew you were behind this.”

“Unfortunately for you, this is one of those situations where knowledge
isn't
power.”

“Kiss my ass, Pinky.”

“Your brother-in-law is in a black pickup truck parked behind the Blue Grotto Italian restaurant on Red Road. I don't have time for this shit anymore. Keep your fifty thousand. Just take him.”

“I don't want him.”

“Stop being such an arrogant prick. My business partner is ready to put a bullet in his head. This is your last chance to see Jeffrey alive.”

“How do I know he isn't dead already?”

Ruban could hear the tape ripping from Jeffrey's mouth, followed by the cry of pain that had become all too familiar. Then Jeffrey recited his lines through broken teeth.

“Bro, ah-yin thuh pickuh thuck. Cumma gemme!”

The line went silent; the call was over. Ruban tucked his cell away. He knew it was a setup, but he didn't care. If Pinky wanted a showdown, Ruban was cool with it. Ruban had the Uzi.

At the corner, he pulled into a gas station and turned the car around.

A
ndie kept her distance, careful not to tip off Betancourt to the bucar that was tailing him. Littleford was in the passenger seat.

“He's turning around in that gas station,” said Littleford. “Don't go in there. Drive past the station and then pull a U-ey.”

Andie would have figured that one out on her own, but Littleford had seemed compelled to give her a lesson in good old-fashioned surveillance since leaving the Sunset Motel.

Andie had been moments away from moving in to make an arrest. Betancourt had clearly come prepared. His assault rifle had been clearly visible through Andie's night-vision binoculars. For Andie, that was the end of the line: it was too dangerous to let him roam motel grounds so heavily armed. Something had spooked him, however. He had suddenly collapsed the rifle, stowed it in his backpack, and run to his car. Andie still wanted to make the arrest, but she was overruled: “Let him run a little longer,” Littleford had told her. “See if he leads us to the kidnappers.”

Andie drove past the gas station to a fast-food restaurant, where she turned around.

“He's picking up speed,” said Littleford.

“I see him.”

The radio crackled as Andie swung the car around and resumed their pursuit. It was the surveillance team from the communications
van. The wiretap on Betancourt's cell phone had intercepted an incoming call.

“Play it,” said Littleford.

Andie listened as she followed the orange taillights down Red Road. It took less than a minute, ending with Jeffrey's slurred words:
“Cumma gemme.”

Littleford immediately called for backup at the Blue Grotto restaurant. Andie radioed the SWAT leader at the Vagabond Motel.

“Hostage is no longer at the Vagabond,” she said into the microphone. “Repeat, hostage is no longer at the Vagabond.”

“Kingfish is still getting a cell-phone signal from room 207.”

“Subject two is unaccounted for. He could still be there.”

“Motel manager has confirmed that the only second-story room occupied on that wing is 207. Subjects specifically requested an isolated room when they checked in. MDPD has evacuated the first floor. Are you green-lighting a breach?”

Breach
was the SWAT term for a tactical team's forced entry. Not a good idea when a hostage's whereabouts were unknown, but that was no longer the case.

Andie glanced over at Littleford, who nodded.

“Green light,” said Andie.

Pedro went to the window of room 207 and peeled back the corner of the curtain for another look at the parking lot. Nothing had changed. Same empty spaces. Same parked cars.

He checked the clock on the nightstand. It read 2:37 a.m.

It had been almost fifteen minutes since Pinky left with Jeffrey in tow. “I'll take care of him,” Pinky had told him. “You wait here.” Minutes later, police sirens wailed, louder by the second, as if approaching the motel. Pedro had expected to see blue flashing lights in the parking lot at any moment. Then there was silence. No swirling police beacons. Nothing. Nothing but
waiting. Possibly the police had blown right past the Vagabond on their way to some other crime in progress. Maybe they'd stopped Pinky's truck. Maybe Pinky was already dead, killed in a shootout. Or in custody, ratting out his partner.

They could be out there, watching.

Pedro turned on the TV. “Breaking news” updates on police activity were a criminal's best friend. Nothing useful was airing. Channel after channel of the usual wee-hours programming—mostly infomercials for mattresses, sleep aids, and anything else that might spur insomniacs to open their wallets.

Pedro reached for his burn phone. Pinky had told him to avoid cell usage—
“Burn phones still have an air card”
—but he needed information. It was time to make a move. Sitting in a motel room was no strategy at all.

Suddenly, a blast of white light shone through the crack in the draperies, slicing across the room like a laser, brighter than the morning sun. Pedro dropped the burn phone, grabbed his pistol, and turned off the lamp and the television. The slice of light pierced the darkness, searing a white line down the middle of the room. As quickly as he could move, Pedro flipped over the double bed, shoved the mattress and box spring against the window, and barricaded the door with the dresser. The line of light was gone.

The room's landline rang in the darkness. Once. Twice. Pedro yanked the wire from the phone jack. Silence. Seconds later, his burn phone rang, as if to tell him how the police had found him. Technology had given him up; the cops had literally plucked his phone number from the air. Pedro took the call and answered with two words.

“Blow me.”

“It's over. You're surrounded. Give yourself up and save your own life.”

“I said blow me.”

He ended the call, tossed the phone aside, and checked his pistol. Fifteen rounds of 9-millimeter ammunition in the magazine.
Two spare clips in his pocket. Maybe not enough to get out alive, but enough to go down fighting.

The window shattered on the other side of the barricade, and purely as a reflex, Pedro fired into his own protective barrier, squeezing off five quick shots into two feet of foam and springs. Smoke poured from inside and behind the mattress, the launched grenade having burrowed through the fabric. A cloud of chemical irritants burst forth and “Pyro Pedro” was savvy enough to realize that heat from an embedded smoke grenade could quickly set a foam mattress afire.

They're trying to burn me alive.

Something between panic and an acute sense of urgency washed over him, and in the back of his mind were the screams of Marco Aroyo, the hiss of Pedro's own blowtorch, and the smell of burning flesh. His memories vanished as the tinny voice of authority sounded over a loudspeaker from somewhere in the parking lot.

“Leave your weapon. Come out with your hands over your head.”

The cloud of smoke thickened and crept across the room. Pedro's eyes began to water. He grabbed a pillowcase and covered his mouth and nose. It didn't help. He could barely breathe. Visibility was almost zero, nothing but smoke and darkness. Then he saw the flame, a burst of orange from the sheets and blanket on his mattress-barricade. Smoke grenades were nonlethal, but heat was heat, and this one was turning deadly.

“Thirty seconds,” the man with the loudspeaker announced, “or we're coming in.”

Pedro didn't wait. He pulled the dresser-barricade away from the door and flung it open. A blinding spotlight only exacerbated his temporary loss of vision from the smoke grenade, but he kept running, guided by instinct alone, exploding out of the room at full speed, squeezing off shots from his semiautomatic pistol even faster than his feet were moving.

The pop of return gunfire cut through the night, multiple shots from a host of strategic positions. Pedro felt a crushing blow to his chest, another to his shoulder, and an explosion in his belly. The repeated crack of his discharging weapon melded with the barrage from law enforcement. It was a single ballistic cacophony as he felt his hips slam into a railing, felt his feet whirling over his head, and felt himself floating in slow motion. For a brief but bizarre instant, he could see himself falling from the second-floor catwalk. He watched the pistol drop from his hand. He could even see the assortment of gold caps that spilled from his coat pocket and caught the flash of police searchlights in midair.

He saw the glint of gold all around him as his body slammed into the pavement.