That cat was out of the bag, then. “Yes,sir.” Zoe kept it respectful. She had noticed that the level of cooperation onefound from elderly witnesses was often directly correlated to the amount oftimes you called them sir or ma’am.
“Out at the pit.”
“The pit?” Zoe repeated. There wasnothing like interacting with local knowledge as an outsider to make you feelstupid.
The old man grunted again, giving her animpatient shrug of his shoulders. “The pit. Where all them boys go.”
“Do you mean the gang members, sir?”Shelley took over, her tone low and soft.
The Hispanic man rubbed fingers gnarledwith arthritis across the top of his head, almost bald but for a few lingeringstrands, and nodded. “All them boys. No secret around here.”
“Could you give us directions, sir?”Shelley asked. “We’re not locals.”
The old man looked her up and down, thenburst into a laugh that exposed three missing teeth. “No, you ain’t,” he said,then laughed again, long and hard.
Zoe tapped on Shelley’s arm. “Better offcalling the local PD,” she said, gesturing with her head back toward the carbefore setting off in that direction. Behind them, across the twenty-four stepsback to the car, the old man’s laughter still pealed out, following them like abad smell.
Zoe sank into the driver’s seat andslammed her door, perhaps harder than necessary.
“What’s the plan?” Shelley askedbreathlessly. There was pink in her cheeks. This whole encounter had been outof her depth.
“I am going to call the station,” Zoesaid. “We get some backup, and the location. The locals will know what itmeans. And then we go in.”
She dialed the number on her phone,already weighing up the amount of force they were going to need to ask for—andwhether it was going to be prudent to ask for bulletproof vests, too.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Zoe adjusted the straps on her vest onemore time, feeling the reassuring grip of the Velcro against its counterpartand how tightly they held together.
The back of the police van was cramped.Shelley sat opposite her, and then eight men and women from the SWAT team, allof them outfitted in full assault gear. Zoe was unused to the feeling of the helmeton her head, the way the padded sides pushed at her cheeks. Still, it wasbetter than going in as an exposed target.
They were idling on a dead-end road ashort distance from their target, the hangout that the gang members calledhome. The Pit. It turned out to be a bar, or at least a front of one, the kindof place where outsiders were very much unwelcome. Going in was going to be afull-out raid situation. The local captain had made it clear to them that therewas no other option with men like this. Go in unarmed, unprotected, and as acop, you’d come out dead.
They had a map stretched out betweenthem, a printed plan of the venue. It amounted to little more than black squareoutlines, approximations based on what had been observed on previous raids incombination with city blueprints.
“There are three exits—here, here, andhere.” The unit commander was pointing them out, one in all compass directionsbut south. “This one is the main entrance, where we will enter, off the road.The other two will both be used. From experience, the gang will split roughlyhalf in each direction, trying to divide our forces as well.”
“What is this structure here?” Zoeasked, pointing to a rectangle within the building itself.
“That’s the bar area. Normally we willexpect to see the highest concentration of bodies around there, with tables andchairs scattered around this area here. Back there, behind double doors, is themore private clubhouse. Senior members spend their time in there.”
“That is where we will find Cesar,” Zoesaid. It was a comment, rather than a question. They all knew that he wassenior enough. That was one of the unwritten rules of a gang like this: onceyou did time for your fellow members without ratting, you were one of the innercircle.
“Over here, we have the garage. It’sonly a covered roof. The front and back are both open to give them a quickgetaway. They’ll have a number of SUVs in there, probably motorbikes andsmaller vehicles as well, depending on which members happen to be in theclubhouse at this time.”
Zoe watched the map, seeing it populatebefore her eyes. Dots that represented people to her, the way they would millaround, how they would run. Angles and trajectories.
“Cesar is most likely to flee that way, directlyfrom the private room through to the garage and out in one of his vehicles,”the commander concluded. “We’ll park the van here, stop them from leaving outthe front. That will only leave them the option of the back exit. Clark,Marino, and Neil, I want the three of you to go around the building to thegarage when we enter through the front. Keep an eye out for Cesar and grab himif he leaves that way, before he can get to a vehicle.”
Zoe’s mind was racing, but she could seeit. She could see it clearly.
“No,” she said. “He will not go thatway.”
All of the other faces in the van,including Shelley’s, turned to look at her in surprise.
“No?” the commander repeated.
Zoe pointed to the map, to the seconddoor to the private clubhouse which opened into the area behind the bar. It waslabelled “kitchen.” “He knows this place intimately. He will go through here,into the safety of the kitchen, while you guys storm through into the privateroom. That buys him extra seconds. He only needs to cross a very small spacefrom this door, which leads from the bar into the kitchen, and the other exit. Verylittle exposure, and he knows that lower-level members will be running fromthat door already and causing chaos. It is his best chance of escape. Out ofthe side door and into the neighborhood, dispersing down smaller roads or intoa familiar property.”
The commander shook his head. “Look, yougirls can do what you like. But we know these men. We have a tried and testedway of doing this, all right? Agents Rose and Prime, I’m putting you by thesecond exit. Again, get around the building and grab whoever comes out, stophim from getting
