I came around enough to notice the SWAT officers arrayed around the entrance to the building. Men in black jumpsuits, black Kevlar helmets and goggles, black bulletproof vests. My mouth thick with dread, I asked my question again.
“She’s safe. She’s gone. Just sit there and take it easy.”
I focused on Chief Deputy Kimbrough, looking dapper in tan slacks, blue blazer and a rep bow tie on a blue and white striped Oxford shirt. The paramedic peeled the blood-pressure cuff off my arm and called out a number to his partner-at least I wouldn’t die of high blood pressure.
“She’s safe,” Kimbrough repeated. “We had to move her. There was a security breach.”
“What the hell?” I got on my knees and tried to stand, wobbled, then found a lamppost to support me. Every joint in my body felt swollen and stiff. I asked, “What breach? Why do you have SWAT teams here?”
“Somebody tried to get into the building,” Kimbrough said. “After you called Lindsey she called down to the deputy in the lobby. He called backup, and they found a ladder leaned up against the building.”
“What?”
“Just listen and breathe, Mapstone. You look like you’re about to pass out. We found a ladder that had been leaned up against a second-story balcony. Nobody was home in that apartment, but the balcony door had been pried, and the door to the hallway was unlocked. We got her out. Now we’re searching the building. Our friends from PPD think it might just be a burglary or a careless maintenance man. But the sheriff didn’t want to take a chance.”
I shivered in the warm breeze blowing down Central. “Show me.”
I limped along the front sidewalk, then through some hedges to the south of the entrance. Sure enough, around a corner and just out of view, an aluminum ladder was raised to the balcony. A SWAT officer on the balcony glared down at me.
“So much for the safe house,” I said.
“Peralta thinks Yuri found it by following you.”
I stared at the chief, too sore to argue. He went on, “Whoever followed you this afternoon might have been trying to keep you away from here. So they could make their move. They want Lindsey.”
“I guess they succeeded in keeping me away,” I said quietly.
“Obviously it’s not just Yuri. He’s got help.”
“And we can’t seem to do anything to stop him.”
“Did you get a tag?” Kimbrough asked.
I shook my head, a jolt of pain driving into my shoulder blades. I ran through what happened, from the time I noticed the Hummer on my tail. Then Kimbrough wanted it again, from the time I left the condo that morning. I was certain I wasn’t being followed. Yes, I had gone through all the agreed upon procedures. No, I couldn’t be sure that the blond man at Encanto Park was a bad guy. When I was done, I just wanted to go to Lindsey.
“You can’t,” Kimbrough said.
I asked why.
“It’s a federal case. The FBI has taken over, moved her to a secure location.”
“Sounds like a kidnapping.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, this is serious. This was a close call.”
“No shit,” I said. “How do you know she’s safe now?”
“I know!”
“Where is she?” I knew I was babbling. I couldn’t stop myself.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “They won’t even tell me.”
“Then how do you know anything?”
“My detectives took her to a rendezvous with the feds. One of our men will be with the federal agents. You remember Patrick Blair, from Robbery-Homicide Division? He’ll stay with her.”
“Damn it!”
“You don’t have to shout,” Kimbrough said.
Amid all that was coming at me, I realized my ears were ringing loudly. In a lower voice, I asked, “When can I see her?” Kimbrough said nothing, and the frustration made every ache worse.
I tried it another way. “What if she’s asking to see me?”
“She’s being told the same thing,” Kimbrough said. “Every member of her team is now in protective custody.”
“So she doesn’t have civil rights, just because she works for the Sheriff’s Office? This is nuts. You promised this would be for two weeks. Now, she’s gone God knows where, and you have nothing to say to me?”
“I don’t have the answers, David. Wish I did. You’re lucky you’re not in jail after what you pulled on the freeway with DPS. You’ve got to be a professional about this. Lindsey is at risk, and any of us could bring her into danger without even realizing it. I feel like I had a role in this, too, finding a way for you two to stay together when maybe that wasn’t such a smart thing. Now we’ve got to let the people with the real experience deal with this.”
A city cop came up and told Kimbrough the building was clear. Whoever had used the ladder was gone. The cop was all of twenty-five, with a dirty blond crew cut, and he kept calling Kimbrough “dude.” Kimbrough glared at him each time, but the kid was oblivious to social skills, protocol, or any breaches thereof.
Kimbrough watched the cop walk away. Then he reached in his coat, and his features relaxed into a benevolent smile. “Here’s a voucher for the Hyatt. We’re shutting down this safe house. You need some rest. The sheriff will get with you tomorrow. I know he’s interested in the progress of your case. He’s at a fund-raiser at the Boulders, or he’d be here now. I promise we’ll get you some information about Lindsey as soon as possible.”
I waved the envelope away. “Nothing personal, Chief,” I said. “You’re a good guy. But this situation is fucked. I’m going home.”
Kimbrough gave me an alarmed stare. “You can’t. .”
“Yes, I can,” I said. “I’m going upstairs to get the cat.”
I pointed down Cypress Street, into the lush old trees of the Willo district. “Then I’m going home.”
A fleet of thunderheads over the South Mountains was set ablaze by the fading sun. The sunset seemed to electrify the prism edges of the Bank One Center, tallest building in downtown, until the tower was defined by the bright straight lines of reflection from the west. Airliners took off from Sky Harbor, two by two, flashing in the last of the sunlight as they made their turns. Gradually, the sky gave way to an infinite, India ink blue-black, silhouetting the palm trees against the incandescent twilight.
Under this vault of big sky, I was a puny human sitting on his front porch, in front of the 1924 stucco house with the big picture window. The porch was dark and the house behind it was dark. I was in a dark way, not feeling quite human, aware of the comforting bulk of the submachine gun on my lap. The grass needed cutting and mail had gathered inside the door. Lindsey’s old Honda Prelude-the bumper sticker read KEEP HONKING. I’M RELOADING-needed washing. Otherwise, the house looked much as we had left it more than two weeks before. Just to make sure, Lindsey’s old gray tabby, Pasternak, prowled every room. That left me to assess the damage of a large highway patrol trooper hitting me from behind at speed, sandwiching me in between him and the pavement. The knees of a pair of Tommy Hilfiger chinos were a lost cause, and beneath them David Mapstone’s knees weren’t doing much better. The small of my back felt on fire, with devilish little arsonists spreading the blaze to each vertebra. My earlobes hurt-go figure that out.
I thought about whether I had really put Lindsey at risk. Whether I had been protective or selfish in demanding to be with her after the Scottsdale shooting. “Protective,” my heart said, for this was apparently an open-ended threat, and our friends in law enforcement had proven remarkably inept in dealing with it. My head stayed silent in the debate, preferring to concentrate on its headache.
All these SWAT cops in their paramilitary attire, what did this mean for the health of American civil society? Like surveillance cameras everywhere, pre-employment drug tests, and other subtle assaults on the Constitution. Was it this way with the Roman Republic, the gradual loss of liberty under the guise of continual warfare? Cicero, eloquent, impotent…(Yes, David, distract yourself with a Big Thought.)