Chapter 34
Buy ReWire now on Amazon for only $3.99
The SWAT captain knew his career was dead in the water as long as Yan was his boss. He needed glory so Yan would let him transfer. He was going through the door first. His Lieutenant wasn’t happy because this was a change in plans. Fuck him, the fucking fag. He and his “partner” had the balls to invite him to their wedding.
Their intel said there were two people in the room and maybe three. After the score from the dykes’ apartment, they were sure to be high. The odds were they were doing meth and heroin, based on their history and the size of the score. They’d never shown this tendency for violence before and never used a gun in any of their crimes. The Captain had a piece he’d taken off a dealer back when he was in narcotics. The dealer wouldn’t pay the price. Idiot! If he had to, he could plant the piece to justify any shooting. The only real risk was the chance they were cooking meth in the room.
The SWAT Captain gave the prearranged signal to kill the power to the room at the same time his men punched the lock. He went in low with his head up just like he’d been taught in high school football. He moved fast and felt good. Then he saw the man on the couch, holding the shotgun aimed right at his head. Then he tripped the ether-soaked cotton yarn that pulled the man’s finger on the shotgun that fired the load of buckshot that hit him in his face and neck. He died instantly as he fell on candles melting down to the accelerant designed to turn the building into an inferno, obliterating everything but the unconscious innocents and the planted evidence. His fire retardant uniform and vest snuffed out the candles.
His lieutenant followed him in, watching the events unfold, not really understanding them. He had just flipped the safety off his FN to spray the room, grabbing his Captain’s ankle with his left hand to drag him out. He stopped and yelled out, “Freeze!”
Thanks to him and not his now-dead and no longer interfering Captain, his team was superbly trained. They froze. He reached down to check the pulse in his Captain’s neck when he realized it wouldn’t be necessary. The left side of his neck was missing, with much of it being on the lieutenants face shield and the door frame behind him.
The lieutenant stepped out of the room and said to his second in command, “Move everybody back to the turn in the hall. Let no one, I repeat no one, pass unless you clear it with me.” Then he called Yan on his cell. “Captain Yan. Butch is dead. Killed by a booby trap. This place was rigged to blow. Would you please come up here and take a look before Crime Scene gets here?”
Yan had heard the shot and fought the urge to run forward to protect his men. He walked through the men crouching behind their armored shields, inside their helmets and body armor, thinking they looked like Roman Centurions holding ground, ready to die for Caesar.
SWAT Sergeant Bobbie Vu stood up and stepped in his way. “Sorry, Captain. The Lieutenant said not to let anyone pass.”
Yan said, “Well done, Bobbie. The Lieutenant is on my phone.” He handed the phone to Bobbie who quickly confirmed that he could pass.
Yan walked into the room and stopped. The Lieutenant moved to the side. Yan walked further into the room and looked around. One man lay on the sagging, stained couch, vomit down his shirt. The shotgun had been wedged into the corner of the couch and the cushions. A string passed around the man’s finger. The string was now slack, its work done. Another man lay unconscious or dead on the mattress on the floor, vomit drying on his lips, face, and stained wife beater. A third man looked like he had passed out face first onto the kitchen table. He was still tied off, with the works on the floor at his feet.
Yan reached into the inside jacket of his sports coat, and removed computer printouts. He walked up to each man, leaving the man on the couch until last. Yan walked up to the tattooed, emaciated man sprawled on couch. He looked at the picture of the man and the mug shot picture on his printout. He compared them again and then slipped on gloves, pulled down the incongruous-looking turtleneck the man wore, first checking to see if the man was still alive. He was, and deeply unconscious.
Buy ReWire now on Amazon for only $3.99
Yan looked down at the missing patch of skin on the man’s neck. From the looks of the missing patch of skin, it had been expertly removed. He compared the man’s picture to the picture on the mug shot with the DNA match to the skin underneath the fingernails of Meghan McDonald’s left hand. She was still unconscious in the hospital, guarded by Mr. Robert E. Lee White’s minions under the instructions of Mr. Jack McDonald. Captain Alvin Yan decided then and there that a uniformed policeman sitting in a chair outside that hospital room would be of benefit.
Someone, and when he found them he would be very interested in knowing who these people were, had gone to enormous trouble to make it appear as if these poor men had broken into Ms. McDonald’s apartment and nearly killed her in a robbery attempt. Alvin Yan was certain he would find property taken from the robbery in this flop. He was certain he would find cash money paid by a fence for property taken from the apartment. Alvin Yan was absolutely certain the only way this sham could work would be if the flop burned down. What Captain Alvin Yan was not certain of was whether or not he would let the apartment burn.
He called the lieutenant in. “Roberto, I must commend you on your quick thinking. If you had gone in firing there is a very good chance your Captain would have lost his life in vain. There is an even better chance we would have convicted these poor men of a crime they did not commit. The man, or men who actually committed the burglary would go free. They would be guilty of four murders, that of your Captain and the three men in this room. Now…”
Just before Yan asked the question of the lieutenant he most wanted to ask there was a tinkling of breaking glass and the whoosh of fire. The lieutenant and Captain Yan leaped to the left of the door, diving as far as they could as the accelerant in the room ignited in a near firestorm as any physical evidence that might contradict the lie was obliterated forever.
The lieutenant, his fire-retardant clothing protecting him, did two things at once, “Clear the building now,” he yelled. The other thing he did was to put out the fire on Captain Yan’s favorite wool sports coat and his brand new gray slacks. While he was doing this the lieutenant heard Yan calmly talking on his cell phone, “I want a five-block perimeter around this building sealed. Now. Look especially for bicycle and motorcycle couriers. Have the men search every trash can in that radius. Look for a sling or sling shot.”