and I think Rodriquez is candy flipping-heroin and Ecstasy. The only straight guy you got is VanKirk, and he just sits in that fuckin' helicopter playing Game Boy. You got a mess here, Jody.'
'I gotta cut 'em some slack. I can't ride 'em too hard anymore, or they'll mutiny. The only one I'm seriously worried about is Victory… He used t'be a good hammer, but you're right… Lately his brains are on tumble dry. He quit functioning even before you shot him. But I'll handle it. Leave him to me. We'll all be straight when the deal goes down.' He paused and leaned back against a rock outcropping.
What deal? Shane thought, but didn't ask.
'Back in the beginning, before we started doin' doors for Medwick, I had a tight group,' Jody continued. 'These guys were the best- handpicked. But once we began committing felonies, the LAPD Rules of Discipline and Engagement didn't cut it anymore. At first Mayweather just had us doin' low-grade stuff, and only against big-time organized criminals. We'd break into some shot caller's house and go through his desk, find out what his action was. Then we'd either dime him out to the appropriate division in the department and let them make a bust they could take to trial, or we'd swing down outta some tree and start capping the assholes, handle it ourselves, y'know? The drug-use thing started slow. At first I didn't know they were using, 'cause they did it in their own cribs at those damn airport houses. But once I thought about it, it made sense.'
'Cops using drugs?… That's never gonna make sense.'
'These guys were warriors, man-the best of the best-and the department had them committing crimes. It was fucking them up. So after some low-grade B amp;Es, a few started doing a line of coke here and there, maybe a little Mexican grass… Nothin' too nasty, just a little chemical help after a confusing day. But after we took down Medwick and Shephard, a couple a'guys started seriously freaking. I even had t'lose a guy. He went completely haywire. We buried the poor motherfucker on a beach up in Oxnard. Right now I'm just trying to keep some balance here. I only need to hold it together for a little longer.'
'Jody, you've been hanging with 'em too long. You've lost your perspective. These guys don't give a shit about anything… Not money… Not life or death. They don't want what you want.'
'You got 'em all figured out, huh? You're here six hours and you got the whole thing scoped,' Jody said angrily, but handed Shane the bottle. 'Give it a rest, Salsa.'
They sat on a rock and watched the sun go down. A quarter moon came up and rode low on the horizon, reflecting on the silver-black ocean. Shane looked over and saw Jody staring out to sea; his expression was fixed but strangely wistful.
'I'm not saying it's not my fault… I shoulda seen it coming.' Jody was silent for a minute before turning toward Shane. 'When you cut to the chase, we all just got sold a buncha shit- end of story.'
Shane wasn't sure what he was talking about. Whatever was going through Jody's mind, Shane couldn't fathom it. Somewhere along the way, Jody Dean got lost and this new person he didn't even recognize had taken his place.
The almost-empty tequila bottle slipped from Jody's grasp, then clattered onto the rocks and broke. 'Protect and serve… Respect for individual dignity, compliance with lawful orders, duty to report misconduct… Courtesy, gallantry, and morality in the service of the public trust. What a crock, huh?' Jody sounded drunk. 'These Glass House swivel-chair commanders write this shit up. They put it in The Management Guide to Discipline. They force- feed it to us at the Academy, and we swallow it whole, like a buncha brain-dead assholes. It's a worthy ideal, but it's ill-conceived because you can't give life-or-death power to a bunch a'eighteen-year-old testosterone cases and not have a recipe for disaster. And the strange part is, the bosses in the Glass House don't give a shit; otherwise, they wouldn't sanction units like SIS or SWAT and fill them up with adrenaline junkies.'
Shane remembered the discussions they'd had at the end, just before Jody faked his death and disappeared. Back then, Jody had argued that the department needed these two controversial units. He said it was cutting-edge law enforcement like the Special Investigations Section and Special Weapons and Tactics that held back the tide of criminal pollution.
'I thought you loved SIS.'
'I was wrong. They finally let me see what a crock a'shit the whole deal really was.' He paused, took a deep breath, then went on: 'Right after the Vikings were formed, we were working a big drug laundry out of Southwest. We had forty Mexican bankers bagged and tagged and ready for the bus. Had these guys dirty, on videotape… Big guys, white-collar crooks, at big banks like Bancomer and Banco ProMex. We had the pricks. The case was solid, so we took it to the bosses, Medwick and Mayweather… And guess what?'
'They cratered the investigation.'
'Worse. They farmed it out to Justice because they were afraid of the political repercussions. If we arrested all these white-collar crooks in the Mexican banking system, they were afraid of the international pressure that would come down. Then, of course, Justice shut down the investigation to avoid the political turmoil. The same people who keep preaching about how we have to protect our children from drugs limited the scope of the investigation so it wouldn't become an international banking scandal for our NAFTA buddies in Mexico.
'When over a year's work hit the wall, we were already set up on this new sting, the one we're working now. It's even more potent. But instead of working it for the department so they could throw it away when it was time to book the perps, we decided to go ahead and work it ourselves. We had already stumbled onto an independent criminal contractor who was into something too good to turn down. We… How do I put this? We moved in on him and took over his action. We eventually had to lose him, too, but now we're runnin' his operation and interfacing with his criminal targets. Only this time, nobody gets busted. This time, we're keeping what we make. We're gonna say good-bye to that pile a'bricks up in L. A., split up and live on the Riviera or some damn place… Anonymous millionaires.'
'You had to lose him?' Shane asked. 'You mean you killed him.'
Jody turned and smiled suddenly at him. The smile seemed wide and loose and tinged with madness.
'So what is it?' Shane finally asked, changing the subject to get that scary look off Jody's face. 'What's the new play?'
'Not yet, Hot Sauce… Not yet.' He pushed himself away from the rocks and stood. 'We're outta here soon as I make a phone call and get the okay. Come on… I don't like to leave 'em alone too long to plot against me.' He was grinning, but they both knew it was true.
It was after midnight.
Shane was on the beach, trying to sleep, but hadn't been able to shut his mind down. He had his head buried in the crook of his arm, while thoughts of Alexa tormented him. His ankle tattoo was throbbing. Twice earlier that evening, he had asked if he could check the locked motor home for bandages, but the Vikings just looked at him with dead eyes, as if they didn't want to waste precious medical supplies on a walking corpse.
Jody had been up the beach arguing with somebody on a portable satellite phone, so Shane didn't bother him. Finally, he had just torn off the bottom of his shirt, wet it in tequila, and wrapped his lower leg.
Shane was looking up at the stars, the ache of Alexa's loss deep inside him. Then he heard something…
He lay still and heard it again: a rustle, like a puff of wind blowing dry grass.
He felt movement on the packed sand nearby. Although Jody still had his Beretta, Shane had found a palm- size granite rock earlier and had put it next to him for protection. He reached out and slowly curled his fingers around it. The round, smooth surface filled his palm. His heartbeat quickened; neck hair bristled. He knew without looking that the man who was snaking up from behind was about to strike. He waited until he felt the ground quiver.
Shane lunged violently to his right.
A knife thundered down exactly where his chest had been. He scrambled to his knees and tried to spin around, but Hector Rodriquez lunged forward and grabbed him. The Mexican's muscular arms locked around Shane's neck, his gray eyes shining. The knife fell out of his hand onto the sand.
'Motherfucker,' Rodriquez grunted, bearing down now, closing Shane's windpipe.
Shane dug his heels into the sand for traction as Rodriquez shifted his grip, going for the police choke hold. Shane had to move fast before his carotid artery was closed, shutting off the blood supply to his brain.
'Die, motherfucker,' Rodriquez rasped into his ear, ratcheting down even harder. Shane felt consciousness dimming. He was out of options. He swung the rock in his right hand as hard as he could.
It hit with a mushy thud, and Rodriquez screamed. The Mexican let go of his throat, so Shane struggled up onto his knees, then spun around to face the big Hispanic, whose crushed nose was now spread across his face. Blood, lit by moonlight, appeared almost black and dripped from his chin, splattering in ugly Rorschach patterns on
