Kill Zone: A Lucy Guardino FBI Thriller (19 page)

As the holiday season is upon us, Pittsburgh is experiencing anything but a silent night, holy night. In an unprecedented move, authorities have imposed an emergency curfew on the entire region.
 

A spokesperson for the Mayor’s office told Channel 2 that unidentified gangs were responsible for the spate of bomb threats and shootings. She implied that drugs might be involved and reassured the public that the local police had matters under control.

“Again, we want to make sure everyone understands that while we have things under control, we do ask that everyone in your viewing audience return home and stay there for the duration of the emergency. Police will need roads clear of all civilian traffic in order to respond as fast as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience but we’re sure that the citizens of Pittsburgh want to help us deal with these isolated incidents as quickly as possible.”

Chapter 21

“What’s the plan?” Haddad asked Lucy as they turned off the Busway.

“I was hoping you had one,” she said only half jokingly. Two of them against Lord only knew what kind of opposition and civilians in the mix. “Turn left here.”

“Is this even a road?” he asked as they bounced over pavement that was more dirt than macadam. They passed an auto body shop, a line of graffiti painted corrugated metal-walled buildings on one side and a faux-Tudor house, condemned and sagging off its foundation, on the other.

“Believe it or not, it’s called Finance Road.” They swerved to avoid an abandoned tractor-trailer covered in graffiti.
 

“Alley is more like it.” The Mustang took a pothole hard and he slowed down marginally.

“Small enough I’m hoping the Rippers won’t bother with it. It will take us right to the bottom of Ruby Avenue.” She rolled down her window again as they passed the Morewood Terrace public housing units. It was quieter here. No sound of gunfire, the sirens all in the distance. Go figure: on a night where the rest of the city had descended into chaos and destruction, its most dangerous neighborhood was an oasis of peace.

There was definitely something wrong with that picture.

Pittsburgh would never be the same after tonight, she realized. Police presence in high-risk areas like Homewood, the North Side, Oakland, and the Hill would be intensified, diverted from low risk patrol responsibilities. Homeland Security would probably get involved, given Zapata’s narcoterrorist designation. The CC TV initiative that had stalled would be placed front and center, until most of the city’s populace was monitored.

The city’s already strained budget would struggle to meet the new demands for protection against gang warfare. Lucy guessed that lower priority line items: social services, public transportation, nonessential police units like the bike patrol, parade unit, river patrol, school program… would all be curtailed or canceled outright.

The media would have a field day with it. Pittsburgh’s psyche, its pride in emerging from the smoggy haze of its steel industry origins to become one of “America’s most livable cities,” would be forever scarred.
 

All because of a handful of men in a few short hours.

“Do they have the roads blocked off to keep us out?” she asked Haddad. “Or to keep everyone here in?”

He didn’t answer, concentrating on avoiding the assortment of garbage cans, abandoned vehicles, and incongruous random objects—a kitchen oven, a wheelbarrow, a sleeping vagrant—that blocked their path and turned the narrow alley into an obstacle course.
 

As they approached Ruby Avenue, Lucy tried her radio. Nothing. The antenna had snapped off. No wonder it’d been so quiet. Dumb, dumb, dumb. She should have monitored communications instead of mooning over Haddad’s Afghanistan deployment and calling Nick. She blew her breath out in frustration. She knew better. The emotions that had swept over her after what happened at the 911 Center were clouding her judgment. She couldn’t let it happen again.

“Your radio working?”

“Here.” He reached inside his vest and handed it to her. “I turned it off to save the battery since we had yours.”

“Broke mine at the Comm Center.” She clicked his on and listened to the latest on the NIMS channel. If anything the chaos and confusion had multiplied. Then she switched to the training channel. “Galloway, Walden, come in, this is Guardino.”

A few moments later Taylor answered. “Hey, boss. Good to hear from you.”

“Taylor. Tell me you have good news.”

“For everyone else in the city, no joy. But I was able to trace that guy Andre Stone’s phone—all the cell companies are being super responsive given the level of emergency. He’s at 411 Ruby Avenue. Place called Kujo’s.”

“The Rippers’ HQ.”

“That’s why it’s good news. Jenna thought it would give you one target instead of two.”

Lucy didn’t like it. Too pat. But it was their only lead. “Jenna, you there?”
 

“I’m here.” The sounds of a hospital could be heard in the background.

“How’s Walden?”

“He’ll be fine. The doctors have to operate, repair a blood vessel in his leg, so he’ll be here overnight.”

At least he’d be safe.
 

“Taylor, any luck with Raziq’s phone? A location on that would help.”

“Last location on his phone was on Lexington, at the 911 Center. They must have ditched it because it hasn’t moved from there. Jenna gave me the plate on the Escalade you saw. It's a rental. Traffic cams tracked it to Ruby Avenue, but there’s no cameras on Ruby, sorry.”

Haddad stopped the Mustang. They’d reached Ruby Avenue. All roads led here.

“Good work. Anything else that could help us before we head in?”

“We need more intel,” Haddad put in, craning his head to look up and down the street.
 

Given the chaos disrupting the city tonight, Lucy thought they were damn lucky to get what they had already. Then she had an idea. “Taylor. Can you call your buddies over at the Air National Guard and see if they can help with a helicopter?”

“They’re already dispatched. So are the Staties. Boss, we’re fielding calls for help all over the city. There’s just no one left.”

She heard the strain in his voice. Nothing like the frustration of being on the ground in the middle of this mess. “How about one of those drones they used during the last Presidential visit?”

“Good idea. Those babies can read the warning label on a pack of cigarettes in your pocket. I should be able to feed you real time data once we get one up.”

“Make it happen. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye out for Andre Stone, look for Raziq and his family, and see if we can find Victor Zapata while we’re at it. Anything else you guys want while we’re out and about?”

“Pamela’s isn’t far, I love their homemade macadamia nut brownies,” Taylor said, his grin almost audible.
 

“Any chance for some backup?”

“I can get there but I’m not sure how long it will take me,” Jenna said.

“Get here as fast as you can. But be careful. The gangs are blocking the roads—they might have more snipers out there as well.”

“No problem, I can do stealth mode.”
 

Right. With her looks, the only place Jenna’d pull off “stealth” would be on Project Runway.

“We’ll tell you where to meet us. Until then we’re going radio silent.”

“You got it, boss.” Taylor clicked off.

Lucy gathered her breath and turned to Haddad. “Head up Ruby Avenue, past Kujo’s, see what we can see. Then we’ll decide on the best approach.”

Haddad nodded and made the right hand turn onto Ruby Avenue.
 

In some ways this neighborhood mirrored Raziq’s in Point Breeze North. Closer to the Busway were the more commercial properties. As they drove away from it, they passed vacant lots where empty houses had been torn down by the city in an effort to curtail squatters and criminal enterprises. Then another of the Terrace public housing projects: 1970’s-era ugly yellow brick single story duplexes crammed together. They were supposed to be less conducive to criminal activity than high-rise units, but she doubted it. A few charming Victorians, most of them brick but a few wood frame, stood among condemned houses and boarded-up stores.

The first vehicle they spotted was idling at a cross street. Lucy tightened her grip on her Remington. Then relaxed. It was a white church van driven by two nuns, complete with short, navy colored veils. As the Mustang drove past, the nuns looked just as startled to see Lucy and Haddad as they were to see the nuns.

“Slow down,” Lucy said as they reached the base of the hill. Five brick row houses, each with its own individual flare when it came to ornamentation and trim, filled the block to their left. On the right side of the block there were several single-family frame houses that looked well cared for despite their crooked fences and sagging gutters. “Kujo’s is two blocks up the hill. On our right.”

“What’s that church at the top?”

“Holy Trinity.”

She wished the Mustang were another color. Black would have been nice, because  as they began up the hill the number of people on the street—all men, all armed—went from zero to a dozen.
 

“That’s it,” she pointed to a red wood frame Victorian that had vehicles, mostly SUVs, triple-parked out front, almost completely blocking the road. A makeshift safety perimeter, Lucy realized.
 

Metal shutters covered the windows and men with machine-pistols patrolled the porch and stood on the roof on either side of the chimney. No sign of Victor Zapata’s Escalade, but they couldn’t dawdle long enough for Lucy to get a look at all the SUVs’ plates.

Loud rap music boomed from the house, making Lucy wonder if anyone else actually lived on the block or if they’d long since been driven out by the noise.

“Can’t see anything with those shutters. Keep going to Holy Trinity. We should be able to find a place to hide the car near there. Then we can come back on foot so we won’t be so obvious.”

Haddad drove up to the top of the hill and circled the block containing Holy Trinity church. There were a few lights visible in the convent behind the high stone wall that surrounded the compound. No lights visible in the church. So much for churches acting as sanctuaries in times of need, Lucy thought. After investigating as many clergy-related child abuse incidents as she had, she’d grown cynical about all religions.
 

They found a service drive on the block behind Ruby Avenue and backed into it, facing out so they could make a quick escape if they needed to.

They got out of the car and did a quick inventory and weapons check. Lucy’s parka was long enough to conceal her ballistic vest and the Remington. Thankfully the parka was black, which hid the blood covering it, although she couldn’t do anything about the smell. Haddad’s overcoat was even longer, easily hiding his vest and M4. They both had their pistols and spare ammo. They were as ready as they were going to be.

“You sure about leaving the car?”

“It’s too obvious. And it's not like it offers a lot of protection against automatic weapons.”

“Times like this, I wouldn’t mind driving a Humvee,” Haddad muttered.

“Times like this, I wouldn’t mind being bored to tears by
The Nutcracker
.” She smiled, imagining Nick sitting in front of the TV, feet propped up, cat on his lap and dog by his side, snoring as he waited for her to come home. She closed her eyes for a second, letting the feeling sink into every fiber of her being. Nick and Megan were why she did what she did.
 

No way in hell she wasn’t going to make it home to them, she vowed.

<><><> 

Morgan glanced out the window of the SUV to check on Nick’s progress. He’d wrestled the bike up the embankment and over the guardrail. Now he was crouched down, examining the front tire.
 

Perfect. His prints would be all over the damn thing. She reached for his phone, took a deep breath in, and got ready for her performance. 9-1-1, her fingers pressed. The irritating tone of a busy signal answered.

What the hell? 911 couldn’t be busy. They
had
to answer.
 

She tried again. Still busy.

Stabbed the digits one more time. This time there was a recording:
We’re sorry, all circuits are busy at this time. Please try your call again. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Inconvenience? Her plan depended on that 911 call coming from this phone, linked to this location, at this time. Recorded, irrefutable evidence.

She threw the phone down, wanting to scream.
 

Nick rapped on the window. “You okay?” he asked. “You look upset.”

She stepped out of the car. “Just thinking how pissed off my dad will be that I wrecked my bike.”

He carried the bike to the rear hatch. “It
is
a nice bike. But I think he’ll be glad you weren’t hurt.”

Together they loaded the bike into the back. “Yeah, I guess. It was a birthday present. More money than he and mom could afford, but I really wanted it. I feel a little guilty now. Should have been more careful.”