Like ripples in a pond
Two cop cars with sirens screaming passed them going the other way. Luke stopped stashing his gear and looked up at the windshield.
“They don’t even notice me,” Sam whispered under her breath.
The sirens screamed then faded. Luke finished changing out his gear and moved into the passenger seat like a ghost.
“You’re getting superstitious with it,” he said without looking at her. “Those cops weren’t stopping for shit. They got officers down in the street. Turn Here.”
She turned onto a gravel road surrounded by warehouses and industrial buildings. Two guys in front of a construction equipment place watched them pass.
“They’re not gonna call the cops. They don’t trust cops.” Sam said in the same whisper, like she was trying to assure herself.
“You don’t know that,” Luke laughed. “But they probably stare at every car that goes by. Bullet marks are on the other side anyway.”
Their earpieces chimed.
“I got a body shop a little ways from there.” Philip's voice pounded through with a familiar rock melody behind it that Gradie couldn’t place. “Zoey sent you the address. Leave the machine there and split up for a while before you meet us at the post. I left your rides in the bays. Keys got your names on em. Max out.”
Sam followed the dash navigator through five blocks inhabited mostly by Pitbulls boxed into front lawns. The shop was a white sheet metal building surrounded by brick walls topped with razor wire. Sam punched in a code and the black gate rolled open.
Gradie saw Luke doing something on his phone and took his own out of his pocket, trying to remember everything about it.
It was bulletproof, but that was its least interesting feature. There were apps to spoof key fobs, put a tracker on any cell phone in range, drop devices off wi-fi, crash any security camera you pointed it at, and a million other things that Gradie wasn’t aware of. It was also linked to his watch and would automatically overheat until everything inside was melted into slag if it was off his person for more than a few minutes. Usually, the earpieces worked off of it, but they could operate even if it was destroyed.
Gradie opened the map. EP had added a new pin labeled “Shop”, right in front of him, and another labeled “storage”, a few miles away. “The Machine” was labeled right beneath him, and he could request to ping the location of his other teammates, draw a route, and request a full data mine, names and wifi networks and tax history, of any address he chose. At least he would have been able to, if EP hadn’t locked half the functions.
Sam drove into the open garage and tapped her phone. The doors rolled shut and they sat sighing in darkness for a few seconds until the lights came on. The garage was a fully stocked auto shop with tools and jacks everywhere. The sheet metal walls had been reinforced with cinder blocks and gunslits, and screens halfway up to the ceiling played camera feeds of the lot around, one of which was a drone shot at least three hundred yards up in the air, circling.
Luke stepped out of the SUV and glass and shell casings crinkled on the concrete floor. Sam rolled down the driver-side window, popped the hatch, and left the keys on the driver's seat as she got out.
“Bye bye baby!” She patted the side of the SUV and pouted at the mirror windows.
Luke walked around back and refilled his mag pouch then put it in his backpack and set it on the edge of the floorboard. He took off his flannel shirt, tossed it on the ground, and dug another button-up, this one a dark grey, out of one of the bags and put it on. Gradie remembered his own gun.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Where’s the Five seven mags?” he asked. Luke opened up one of the cases and handed him two.
“Just so you know, Max is gonna give you shit about running out into it like that.”
“I got four of them.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not a kill count game. We don’t get that token, we don’t get paid.”
“So what? I shoulda just waited in the car while you got shot at?”
“You asking me? No, I appreciate the help, I’m just letting you know Max is gonna give you shit so you don’t jump off and get yourself killed just cause it worked out this one time.”
Luke shut the hatch and led them towards a door in the back.
“He care if I get killed?” Gradie asked.
“Yep. Think of it like this. We’re his guys, his pieces. You get killed he can’t maneuver you how he wants to.” Luke made a motion with his hand like playing invisible chess.
“I’m the horsey,” Sam said. Luke snickered.
The door crunched open like a seal had been broken. The dry air of the office felt like it hadn’t moved in days. Sunlight glowed at the edges of the blinds and drew beams in dust. Luke looked around for a bit.
“Call Max.”
A few seconds later he asked the dusty air where the keys were. After a moment, he nodded and pulled the top drawer out. There was a small envelope stapled to the back of it.
“Yeah, got it. Out.”
Inside were three sets of keys. Each had a small colored tag on them with names written in sharpie. Luke handed one to Gradie. The tag said ‘kid’. He ripped it off the ring. Sam ripped her tag off and let it fall to the floor. It said ‘Monkey’. Luke left his tag on the ring and put them in his pocket. Gradie thought his said ‘buddy’, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Let’s see what he got us,” Luke said.
The cars were parked outside on a shaded gravel lot under a sheet metal awning. A jeep chirped as Sam pressed her fob.
“See yall at the base.”
There was a gunmetal grey Dodge Charger, a hail-damaged white sedan, an old purple Ford ranger, and a turquoise minivan. Luke slipped into the Charger. Gradie sighed and unlocked the sedan. He sat there waiting for the AC to kick on as the other two squealed and roared out onto the road, but it never got below “somewhat less hot”, so he cursed and backed out. Next time he’d just steal his own fucking ride.
****
It was absolute carnage and eerily silent. Detective Williams wasn’t used to the quiet. The EMTs were all long gone, their sirens faded. A detour routed traffic away from the main road. The scene was blocked off and the last screaming, crying bystander had been sent home or brought down for statements. Normally, this was the time in the investigation when the scene was alive with chatter. Detectives throwing out theories, comments, observations, all peppered with gallows humor and dry laughter.
But there had been four cops lying dead in the street and their blood and brain matter still stained the ground, and the cruisers, inside and out. The men standing around now drove cars just like them. Carried guns just like the ones that had failed to defend them. Would have died just the same. Or would they? Surely every cop here was looking for answers in the gore. Something to tell them how the deaths could have been avoided, how they would have survived in their shoes, or how they could survive if it happens again.
“Twelve five seven casings inside the store, multiple five five six and nine mil on the east side of the cruisers.” Fritz, the other detective rattled off. It seemed a therapeutic exercise for him.
“A trail of .300 blackout over next to those cars. Another cluster of .300 next to those little stairs. 7.62 and 5.56 all down these rows. Most of it shit not sold to civilians. Twelve-gauge shells…”
“Who the hell were they arresting?” Williams cut in.
“Uh, Cooper Davidson. Cashier slash B and E guy. Robbery picked him up, if you can believe it.”
“Who’d he rob? Anything that would explain this?”
“Nothing I know of would explain this shit, short of an international fucking incident. This screams cartels or something.”
“Anyone they picked up got ties across the border?”
“Well, everyone they picked up’s dead, besides the fucking cashier.”
“What’s taking prints so long?”
“Nothing. They came back with a bunch of goose eggs in half an hour.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean so far it looks like a bunch of guys who’ve never been picked up for anything worse than half an ounce of weed, got together on a Friday to shoot a bunch of giggle-switched fun guns at each other over a shoplifter who occasionally breaks into houses.”
Fritz had been getting excited all night. Probably his way of coping, but Williams tried to reel him in.
“So were they from across the border, or—”
“David said they all looked very American.”
Detective Williams let the next series of questions forming on his tongue stay there. For the third time that night, he felt the scene demanded silence.