“Huh?”
Julie pulled her hand away from her mouth and pointed at the word on his notepad. “There. Hittite. What’s that mean?”
“Oh,” Tower said. “Uh, nothing. It’s unrelated. A history thing someone asked me about.”
Julie nodded slowly. “I see. Well, just in case it’s important, Hittite has three T’s in it, not two.”
Tower frowned.
“It’s H-I-T-T-I-T-E,” Julie spelled.
“I know,” Tower replied, tossing the clipboard into the back seat. “I was...just writing fast.”
Julie smiled and blew on her hands.
Tower dropped the car into gear and pulled away from the curb. Half a block away, he smiled, too.
TWELVE
Sunday, April 21st
Graveyard Shift
2204 hours
“Are we done yet?” yawned Anthony Battaglia, rubbing eyes with the heels of his palms.
“Don’t do that,” Sully said.
“Do what?”
“Yawn. Don’t do it. You’ll get me started.”
Battaglia sighed. “This is never going to work. We’re wasting our time.”
The two officers sat in a gray 1978 Chevrolet Caprice, affectionately dubbed “The Gray Ghost” by the officers in the patrol division. The Ghost was the only civilian vehicle currently available to patrol for use in any undercover operations. Parked along the curb at Corbin Park, they watched Katie MacLeod walk around the park, feigning a workout in the cool, wet air.
At least it stopped raining,
Sully thought.
The park ran about six blocks long and two across, making it a natural place for joggers to get in a run. Detective Tower sat alone in a small Toyota truck on the opposite corner of the park. With this configuration, MacLeod never left the sight of at least one cover team.
“Why won’t it work?” Sully asked, suppressing a yawn.
He had to admit he had his own doubts, but he was curious why Batts thought so, too. He watched as MacLeod approached a modest copse of trees near the far end of the park. That was a worry spot, according to Tower, given the rapist’s methods. If he was going to make a move on a woman in this park, the detective had told them that his bet was on that small treed area.
“There’s only about six billion reasons,” Battaglia answered.
“One for every person in the world, then.”
“Huh?”
“One for every—oh, never mind,” Sully shook his head. “Just give me some of those reasons, my brother.”
“I will, my brother.” Battaglia held up a finger. “First off, we’re sitting here in the Gray Ghost. Every criminal in River City knows this is a UC vehicle. This car is so burnt, charcoal pieces fall off as we’re driving down the street.”
“True,” Sully conceded. “But this guy probably isn’t your typical doper or thief. He might not know it’s an undercover ride.”
Battaglia snorted. “
Everyone
knows the Gray Ghost. And even if by some strange chance this maggot didn’t, how hard is it to figure out that two guys sitting in a car like this for any length of time are cops on a stakeout? Even an Irishman could figure it out.”
“Oh, tha’s a fine funny jest,” Sully said in thick brogue. “You’re a laugh fest. So what’s your solution?”
“To the car problem or the two guys problem?”
“Either.” Sully shrugged. “Both.”
Battaglia took a deep breath and let it out. “Well, Tower’s a dick, right?”
“I thought you said he was an asshole.”
“Haw, haw, haw,” Battaglia guffawed. “I meant detective. He’s an
investigator
.”
“Duh.”
“So, duh, maybe he could talk to his detective buddies over in Narcotics and get us a decent ride that isn’t like driving around a neon sign that says ‘cop’. I mean, come on. Some of those guys are driving Mustangs and BMWs.”
“Not all of them.”
“Bull crap. It’s like frickin’
Miami Vice
over there. Plus they’ve got extra cars they’ve seized.”
“Those are the cars they use for undercover buys, right?”
Battaglia shrugged. “So?”
“So I’m sure they don’t want them getting burned off in a patrol operation,” Sully pointed out.
Battaglia’s eyebrows flew up. “A
mere
patrol operation? Well, I suppose not, but last time I checked, this was an investigative operation, headed up by a detective and commanded by the Major Crimes Lieutenant, so–”
“Okay, okay.” Sully raised his hands in surrender. “Even so, according to you, we’re still going to look like two cops sitting here, no matter what we’re driving.”
“That’s easy.” He pointed toward MacLeod as she emerged from the other side of the treed area. “She’s past the red zone.”
Sully grunted. Maybe Battaglia was right about this being a waste of time.
“So you solve the two guys problem like this,” Battaglia continued. “Get me a woman partner.”
“Oh, I’m sure Rebecca would be totally cool with that happening.”
Battaglia shrugged, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Rebecca doesn’t have to know every little thing I do.”
A spark of anger flared in Sully’s stomach. “Now you’re just being an idiot.”
“What? How?”
“You’d step out on your wife? That’s stupid. And with someone here at work? That’s even stupider.”
Battaglia raised his hands in a placating gesture. “Easy, Irish. I’m just saying that if it was a man and a woman sitting here, it might look like a date or something. That’s all.”
“It might look like a couple of folks committing adultery, too.”
Battaglia laughed. “I suppose it might. But either way, Mr. Rapist Asshole isn’t going to pay too much attention, is he?”
Sully scowled. “Not nearly as much, no.”
“When did you get so Ten Commandments, anyway?”
“I’m not. Rebecca’s a good woman, that’s all.”
“I know. I married her.”
“I know. I was there.” Sully pointed to his chest. “Best man, remember?”
“I do,” Battaglia said, “though right now you’re acting more like you were the maid of honor.”
Sully fell silent. He knew Batts loved his wife, but he sometimes thought his partner took her for granted. He hadn’t figured out yet if that was because Battaglia actually did take her for granted or if he himself put Rebecca on too much of a pedestal. He figured it might be some of both. In any event, Battaglia and his wife seemed oblivious to his feelings and he intended to keep them that way.
“Check this out,” Battaglia said in a slightly lower voice.
He pointed, and Sully followed his gesture. A pair of men in dark clothing had appeared out of an alley and walked quickly to the edge of the park. After looking left and right, they turned and strode purposefully in MacLeod’s direction.
“Did Tower say anything about this guy having a partner?” he asked Battaglia.
Battaglia shook his head. “Nope. But what would that asshole know?”
Sully didn’t answer. The pair was less than two blocks away from MacLeod’s location. With both sets of people walking toward each other, the distance closed rapidly.
Battaglia lifted the portable radio to his lips.
2206 hours
“Adam-122 to Ida-409, you seeing this?”
Tower pressed the mike. “Affirmative.”
“You want us to move on them?”
He clicked the mike again. “Negative. Let’s see if they make a move.”
There was a pause, then an abrupt click in response. That was Battaglia’s way of telling him that he and O’Sullivan didn’t agree with his decision. Tower didn’t care. Instead, he focused on Katie’s exercise-walk gait as she rounded the corner of the park and turned to face the oncoming duo.
He wondered briefly if it were somehow possible that there were two rapists. He’d read cases in which rapists had partners, but they were rare. Especially when you factored in that it was a serial situation. Most partner jobs were spontaneous and had a definite alpha male forcing the issue.
Still, the purposeful stride of the two men in dark clothing concerned him. Were they planning to rob her? Or had he and Renee made a colossal error in analyzing the evidence?
He pressed the transmit button on his radio. “-409 to Adam-122.”
“Twenty-two,”
came the clipped reply.
“See how close you can get,” he instructed, “but stay darked out.”
2207 hours
“Copy,” Battaglia said, then tossed the radio over to Sully. He put the car in gear and gave the accelerator a light nudge, sending the Gray Ghost rolling forward.
“Flip a U-ie,” Sully told him. “Come in from behind them. Otherwise, they’ll spot us and know something’s up.”
Battaglia waited until they reached the intersection where Howard Street ran into the park. Avoiding the brake pedal, he swung the car in as tight a circle as he could, turning around and facing the other direction. Without hesitating, he accelerated to the far end of the park. He made the turn northbound without braking and without chirping the tires.
“They’re about thirty yards apart,” Sully estimated. He lifted his small binoculars to his face and peered through them. The motion of the car made him jiggle too much to get a clear picture through the glasses.
“You think they’re going to rob her?” Battaglia asked him.
“I don’t know.”
Battaglia grunted in response. He turned west and pointed the Ghost directly at the pair of walking men. He accelerated as gently as possible, easing the car up to speed.
“Get right up on them before they have a chance to attack her,” Sully ordered.
“Tower said to wait—”
“I don’t care,” Sully said. “I’m not waiting until they club her over the head or something.”
Battaglia shook his head. “She sees them. She’ll be fine. Let’s wait until they make a move.”
Sully took a deep breath and let it out. He knew Battaglia was right, but it rankled him to put MacLeod in that kind of danger. Then again, she was a cop. She had to see them approaching, as they were within twenty yards now. Besides that, she had a gun in her fanny pack.
“Okay,” Sully agreed. “But get close.”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
“Imitating Driving Miss Daisy.”
Battaglia didn’t bother to reply. He let off the gas and put the car in neutral, allowing it to roll forward at fifteen miles an hour. “It’s like a Stealth Chevrolet,” he whispered to Sully.
Sully smiled absently. “It’d be nice if it came equipped with missiles, because these two are going to bolt as soon as they spot us.”
“One for each of us.”
“And MacLeod gets dealer’s choice on who she wants to chase.”
“Where the hell is Tower?” Battaglia groused. “Is he some kind of chicken or something?”
Sully didn’t answer. He watched as the two men closed the gap between them and MacLeod.
Ten yards.
Now five.
Three.
2208 hours
When the first man reached for her fanny pack, Katie twisted forcefully away. She turned her left side toward him and pulled her Glock.
“Police!” she shouted, pointing the muzzle into the face of the more aggressive of the two. “Don’t move!”
The man’s eyebrows shot up. Surprise flashed across his rugged features.
“
Chto?”
he asked in a guttural tone.
“Don’t you move!” Katie repeated. “Show me your hands!”
The man’s surprise melted into a cold smile. “Okay, yeah,” he said, raising his hands slowly.
A blur of movement came from his right. Katie jerked her pistol in that direction, but a crushing pain exploded at her elbow. Her gun flew through the air and fell clattering onto the pavement beside her. She cried out and staggered back a step. Before she could recover, the man who’d struck her glided forward, his eyes intense. His leg flashed out, catching her in the upper thigh. A shockwave of pain blasted down to her toes and upward into her chest. Her air left her. She sank to her opposite knee, struggling to keep her hands up.
Without hesitating, both men bounded away.
* * *
“Jesus! I told you!” Sully yelled. “Go, go,
GO!
”
Battaglia gunned the engine and fired up the headlights at the same time. The two shadowy figures scampered off to the north. As soon as they hit the north curb, they split up and ran in opposite directions.
“I got this one!” Battaglia shouted, pointing at the one running west. He slammed on the brakes, jammed the car into park and leapt from the driver’s seat in foot pursuit.
Sully scrambled out of the passenger seat and sprinted toward where MacLeod knelt, holding her leg.
“Are you okay?” he leaned down and asked her.
“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. She reached for her gun, picking it up off the asphalt. “Go.”
Another set of headlights flashed on, bathing her in a yellowish glare. Sully glanced up at the lights, then straightened and raced eastbound after the second suspect.
* * *
Tower watched the attack on Katie in horror. For a moment, he froze in place. Then a pair of headlights flooded the scene in front of him and spurred him into action. He started the Toyota’s engine and hit his own headlights.
O’Sullivan was leaning over a kneeling MacLeod. He glanced up in Tower’s direction, then dashed away toward the northeast.
Tower cursed at his own hesitation. He dropped the small truck into gear and tore up to MacLeod’s location. As he arrived, the young officer stood up, clearly favoring one leg.
“Are you hurt?” Tower asked, slamming the truck door and walking toward her.
Katie laughed ruefully. “I think my pride just took a serious beating.”
“How’s your leg?”
Katie tested it gingerly, limping for several steps. She grimaced each time she put weight on her left leg.
“It’ll be fine,” she told him through a pained expression.
Tower brought his portable radio to his mouth. “Ida-409 to Adam-122. Update.”
There was no response.
“Adam-122, an update!” Tower barked into the radio.
Katie reached out and grabbed his wrist. He met her eyes and she shook her head. “Can’t you hear it?”