Until Judgment Day (21 page)

M
ONDAY
, J
ANUARY
13, 8:00
A.M.
S
ANTA
R
ITA
C
OUNTY
C
OURTHOUSE

“
H
OW DO
I
LOOK?
”
Emma turned around slowly twice, arms out, so Dave and Kathryn could admire her new dress.

“Beautiful, sweetie,” Kathryn told her.

“What do you think, Dave?”

“You're a fox.”

For the first time in weeks, Monday morning broke bright, warm, and clear, the cloudless sky a deep sapphire blue. They waited outside Judge Reginald Keefe's chambers where, through the Court Building windows, they watched the sun heat up the lawn, sending a layer of steam into the air like smoke from countless tiny grass fires.

Kathryn checked the morning newspaper, folded it, and stuck it her handbag. A shoulders-up photo of James Fields in a black suit coat, clerical shirt with Roman collar, glasses and a mustache accompanied a Living Section story introducing the new priest at Holy Ascension Catholic Church.

“Exactly what we wanted,” she told her husband. “Let's hope he takes the bait.”

“He'll take it,” he assured her.

Emma sniffed one of the pink buds in her bouquet. “Mmm, the roses smell great. Thanks, Dave.”

“You're welcome.”

“Where's the camera?”

He pointed at his briefcase. “With a new roll of film.”

“Mine's in my handbag,” Kathryn told them.

At eight-thirty, Keefe's clerk came out and summoned them into chambers. Judge Keefe was wearing suit trousers and white shirt with bright red braces and matching tie. He introduced himself to Emma, said good morning to Kathryn, and turned to Dave with a smile.

“Morning, Sheriff.” He pointed at a manila folder on his desk. “The adoption order is ready. Have you signed that final document I sent to your office?”

“Yes.”

Dave pulled a single-page letter from his briefcase and handed it to Keefe, who checked the letterhead and Sheriff David Granz' signature, then read the letter carefully.

“This is my copy?” Keefe asked.

“That's right.”

He put it in his desk and locked the drawer. “When will you deliver the original to the party we discussed in Sacramento?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Excellent. Let's get started. You look very pretty, Emma. Did you bring a camera?”

“My mom and Dave did.”

Keefe slipped into his judicial robe, buttoned it, and straightened his tie. “Then why don't we take a couple of pictures.”

Dave and Emma posed with Keefe, then with Kathryn, then Emma posed with her mother, holding her roses. When Keefe's clerk had shot a dozen photos, Keefe opened the manila folder and pulled out a Superior Court adoption order.

He leaned over his desk and twisted the top off a maroon Mont Blanc pen. “You have consented to the adoption, Emma. Once I sign this order, neither of you can change your minds.”

She put her hand in Dave's. “We won't change our minds.”

“All right, then.”

Keefe signed the order and handed it to his clerk. “Record this and have certified originals sent to Ms. Mackay's and Sheriff Granz' offices.”

Keefe shook Kathryn's and Emma's hands, then held his hand out to Dave. “Congratulations.”

Dave ignored it. “Thank you, Judge.”

“Thank
you
, Sheriff.”

“That's it?” Emma asked when they were back in the hallway.

“Yep,” Dave told her. “Sorta anticlimactic, huh?”

“I guess—whatever that means. Are we gonna celebrate?”

“I made seven o'clock reservations at The Shadowbrook,” Kathryn told them.

“I meant something like ditching school and going to the boardwalk.”

“Fat chance.” Dave grabbed her hand. “C'mon, I'll drive you to school.”

“Aww, Dave!”

When they pulled up to her school, Dave leaned over and kissed his daughter on the cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Dave.”

“Think you might ever feel comfortable calling me Dad?”

“Sure, but I'm used to calling you Dave.”

“I know. It'll take time.”

He was driving past Holy Ascension Church when his cell phone chirped. “Granz.”

“How does it feel to be a father?”

“Hi, Kate. Terrific.”

“I have to work a little late,” Kathryn told him. “I'll meet you at home so we can all go to the restaurant together.”

“I have a five o'clock meeting. How 'bout you take Emma and I'll meet you there.”

“No problem, see you later.”

He punched the End button and dropped his cell phone onto the console. “Yeah—later.”

M
ONDAY
, J
ANUARY
13, 6:05
P.M.
S
ANTA
R
ITA

T
HE OLDEST
N
ORTH
M
ONTEREY
Diocese parish, Holy Ascension sat on a knoll overlooking the ocean in one direction and a freeway in the other. Dormant flower gardens flanked the parking lot that connected a frontage road to the small, meticulous, historic chapel built entirely from rough-hewn coastal redwood.

Inside, at the back of an elevated altar platform that resembled a theater stage, a door opened into an add-on rectory. Besides the chapel's main entry, the only exterior door led from a rear corner of the platform to a detached shed that stored garden tools and trash cans.

Fields got there before dawn on Monday, parked the police-impound Ford near the chapel's front steps, unlocked one of the double doors, crossed himself, and shut the door behind him. He had on the same black cassock, clerical shirt, glue-on mustache, and fake horn-rimmed glasses he'd worn for the photo in that morning's newspaper.

He switched his cell phone to vibrate and hooked it inside his belt, under the cassock, beside his pistol holster. After checking the exterior door's lock, he switched off the chapel's interior lights and settled in.

Twelve uneventful hours later the cell phone buzzed against his hip.

“Yeah, Fields.”

Although alone, he spoke in a hushed voice that the hardwood floors, raw plank walls, and varnished oak pews amplified and bounced back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball in an echo chamber.

“How's it going?” Granz asked.

“No problems, except all I found to read during the day was an old
National Geographic.
”

“What, you don't read the Bible?”

“
National Geographic
has better pictures.”

“Funny,” Granz said. “The building secure?”

Fields sat at a hinged drop-down wooden table built into the wall beside the open rectory door, in the glow of a video monitor that cast shadows across his face.

“Lights are off except a couple of lamps in the rectory to make it look like the priest's at home. The shooter'll have to walk in the front door and down the aisle in the chapel to reach the rectory. The key is for me to spot him before he gets inside.”

“How do you know he won't come directly into the rectory?”

“Can't—windows are too high, and there's no door from the rectory to outside. It was built before building codes required two exit routes.”

“Is the front floodlight bright enough for Yamamoto's surveillance camera to pick up any movement in the parking lot and approach to the main door?”

He glanced at the glowing green and white still-life of the parking lot. “Yeah, the feed's bright and clear as a bell. I saw a deer in the monitor a few minutes ago, damn near had a heart attack.”

“Good—keep a close eye on it.”

“It's the only edge I've got—I'm watching that screen like Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was playing in full color.”

“The element of surprise'll work for you if you sit tight and make the shooter come to you when he shows.”

“
If
he shows.” Fields looked around nervously, then grinned in self-conscious embarrassment.

“Not
if,
Jim—
when
.”

“What makes you so certain?”

Granz hesitated. “Instinct.”

“My instincts say the same thing.”

Fields tugged at the collar of his clerical shirt. “Tell Kate next time I dress up like a priest, to get me a bigger outfit if I've got to wear it over body armor.”

“There won't be a next time, he'll come after dark.”

Granz glanced to the west, where the sun's flaming orange corona was melting into the deep blue liquid horizon. “Sunset was half an hour ago.”

“I'm ready.” Fields hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.

“You better be. If he spots you first, you're dead.”

“I'm inspired by your optimism.”

Granz ignored the sarcastic anxiety. “Make absolutely sure the only way the shooter can get in's through the front door. Go check the exterior door lock one last time, get your ass in a shadow, and stay alert.”

Fields disconnected, walked to the platform's back corner, twisted the dead bolt, rattled the door, strode back to his chair, pulled it close to the table, and stared into the monitor.

It took him sixty seconds—long enough that he didn't see the black-clad man drop a device into his jacket pocket and dash across the parking lot toward the church's main door.

 

One final check—he ejected the pistol's magazine, made sure it was full, and jammed it back into the weapon's handle.

A Glock-19 and fifteen rounds of ammunition weighs more than two pounds. With its reassuring weight in the right front pocket of his black chinos, he bent his knees and sprinted across the dimly lit parking lot, ducking behind each parked car along the way like a soldier zigzagging through a mine field.

It took just seconds to cross the lot, climb the stairs, move to the corner of the landing, squat, and lean back against the wall to catch his breath, in the blind spot directly beneath the surveillance camera.

 

Fields saw the monitor's picture shudder. He rocked back in his chair and rubbed his eyes—the picture was rock solid now—probably an electrical surge or gust of wind.

 

He gulped in cold damp air and held his right hand out in front of his face. Steady—it was time.

He pulled out a tiny can of WD-40, sprayed the door handles and hinges, tugged on a pair of black lambskin gloves, zipped up his black jacket, rolled the black ski mask down over his face and neck, and released the Glock's safety.

 

Fields wondered if this would turn out to be a waste of time like most stakeouts. But it was a fleeting doubt because, like Granz, every cop instinct he'd developed over thirty years told him the killer would show, and soon.

He checked his pistol one more time, set it on the table, and forced his eyes back to the glowing monitor.

 

He depressed the latch cautiously and swung the door open slowly. It creaked almost inaudibly. He ducked into the vestibule of Holy Ascension Catholic Church.

 

Fields tilted his head, listened, tiptoed to the edge of the platform and listened again.

•   •   •

It was at least a hundred feet from the door to where the priest stood; too far to aim the Glock in the dim, flickering light and guarantee a hit. He knew he'd get only one shot and it must be perfect.

 

Fields listened for a few more seconds. Heart racing, he shrugged and said aloud, “Musta been my imagination.”

 

He closed the door, took a quick step to the left, and stood motionless.

 

Fields sat back down at the monitor table and, with shaking hands, slipped on a Bushnell night-vision goggle headset, buckled the chin strap, and pivoted the infrared illuminator lenses down in front of his eyes, locking them in place.

 

When the priest turned away, he crept down the aisle between the pews and lay on the floor, back against the vertical edge of the platform where he couldn't be seen from above. He heard nothing—he hadn't been detected.

 

Fields watched the shooter sneak toward the altar. Coughing loudly to mask any sound that might betray him, he dropped to his knees and crawled several feet to the side of the table. Hoping the shooter's first move would be toward the monitor's glow where he'd last been, he thumbed off the safety of the SW99 Smith & Wesson automatic and pointed the pistol at the spot he estimated the man's masked head would appear over the platform's edge.

 

When the priest coughed, he gripped the Glock in both hands, sucked in a breath, jumped to his feet, and spun toward the glow of the video monitor in a hunched-over shooter's stance, Glock at arm's length, sighting down the barrel.

 

Fields guessed right.

In the infrared goggles the assassin popped up in the exact spot he'd figured, a fluorescent pea-green silhouette against a black background in his gun sight. Fields lowered the front ramp to the intruder's chest.

 

“Shit.”

The priest had moved and he could no longer see him. He knew of only one way to find his target in the dark—by sound—get his adversary to talk.

“I know you're there.” His voice was muffled by the mask.

He spoke loudly, swinging the Glock left to right and back again, frantically searching for the bulk of a man's body.

He turned his head sideways and listened. “Are you a cop?” he said.

 

“That's right.”

Fields' voice was calm, belying a pounding heart that hammered thunderously in his ears. His left hand tightened on the big Smith & Wesson's Melonite grips.

“I've got you lined up in my sights,” Fields said. “Do what I tell you or I'll blow your head off.”

 

“No you won't. Cops're trained to shoot second, never first—it's their biggest weakness.”

He stepped to his right and kept talking. “I figured you'd set me up sooner or later.”

 

“You're so fucking smart, why did you show up?”

 

He moved a couple of steps to the left, to change the angle of the cop's voice. He thought he knew where it came from.

“Does it matter?”

 

“Not to me.”

Fields fought to stay calm. “Drop your weapon and put your hands behind your head.”

 

“I don't think so
.”
He moved back to his right and listened again.

 

Fields knew he should shoot but figured that as long as he controlled the situation he might force an outcome other than a shootout—it could be a fatal mistake, but despite the talk about shooting first and asking questions later, the assassin was right—he couldn't simply gun the man down.

They were fifteen feet apart.

“Last warning—you don't have to die,” Fields said.

 

Blind in the dark, he triangulated on the voice, pointed the Glock toward the cop's calculated position, and flipped off the safety.

“One of us does.”

 

“Bad choice.”

 

“On your part.”

 

Fields realized he had waited too long—the shooter had drawn a bead on him.

 

He could have shot first, but hesitated an instant before squeezing the trigger.

 

“Oh, shit.” Fields fired.

 

The Glock's recoil jerked his arm upward a split second after he saw the Smith & Wesson's muzzle blast.

 

A ten-thousandth of a second later Fields felt the impact knock the air out of his lungs, fling him back, and slam him to the floor. It probably saved his life—the Glock's second slug whistled over his head, smashed into an urn of holy water, and showered him with liquid.

 

The Smith & Wesson's huge, 10-millimeter hollow point magnum slug smashed into his chest just right of the sternum, ripped through his internal organs, blew a hole in his back, and took out two ribs as it exited.

Before he collapsed he heard the cop struggle to his feet. He tried to lift his arm, but it refused. The Glock fell to the floor.

 

Fields felt wet but not sticky, and all his parts seemed to work—as near as he could tell, the Kevlar vest had caught the first bullet and the second had missed. Wheezing to catch his breath, he climbed to his knees and crawled to the edge of the platform.

Rising up on his elbows, he peeked over and spotted the assassin sitting upright against the front row pew, head flopped onto one shoulder, legs stretched out in front, arms dangling uselessly at his sides. The man's knuckles were immersed in black shiny blood that had pooled under his buttocks, and was spreading across the hardwood floor.