“Director, we have secured most of the compound with no casualties to our forces. A few of the subversives have locked themselves inside apartments. We are eliminating those one by one.” More gunfire erupted inside, and another explosion. Apparently they were using grenades.
“What have you found in the cleared areas so far?”
“Nothing yet,” said Larsen. “No hard drive. And we have not found their leader yet, this David Kaplan. He doesn’t match any of them.” Larsen pointed over to a row of covered bodies lying on the sidewalk, at least a dozen of them, with pairs of PSF tactical personnel carrying out several more. Dark, thin rivulets seeped out from underneath them and drained into the gutter.
There was more shooting from inside.
“Let me look at the dead ones. Our spies may be among them, but I doubt it. We would have casualties of our own if that were true.”
They began walking toward the field mortuary, the security team roughly clearing lesser PSF and PBI personnel from the Director’s path. A female wearing PSF tactical gear pulled back the tarps, exposing the faces of the dead, one after another. Several men. Several women. Some kids. And Jacob, shot through the windpipe, his eyes wide and afraid.
“What did you find?” Larsen asked; he had been coordinating the final assault on the top floors.
“No one important,” Rios-Parkinson relied. “The spies are not here. If they did escape the sector, they could not have done it with a vehicle so they likely did not get here before your forces did. They are still in Los Angeles, and without the hard drive. Find them.”
There was a commotion around them that the Director did not immediately understand; his security men brought their weapons to the ready position. Now people were pointing upwards. Rios-Parkinson looked up too.
A man stood on the edge of the rooftop above them. Rios-Parkinson could make out a skullcap. Larsen glanced at his tablet’s screen.
“I think that’s David Kaplan,” he whispered.
“Get him,” Rios-Parkinson said, and Larsen turned away, shouting orders into his radio.
David stood on the edge of the rooftop for a moment, his eyes closed, his mouth moving as if he was speaking. Was it…a prayer? Rios-Parkinson watched fascinated – the man really believed all his superstitious nonsense.
David tumbled forward, rolling in the air, hitting squarely on the spiked fence. The crowd gasped – there was no question of him having survived.
“It has to still be in there. Find it,” Rios-Parkinson said, staring at the body. But Larsen had the radio to his ear, listening. He put the radio down.
“There has been a reported shooting of two PSF officers somewhere to the west, near Fairfax and Rosewood. It’s a confused situation, but all units not engaged here are responding.”
“It has to be them,” said Rios-Parkinson. “Send everyone available. Seal off the entire area for a dozen blocks. Go house to house. Kick in every door. Find them. And kill them. No prisoners. Do you understand me?”
“Absolutely, Director.”
Rios-Parkinson savored the feeling or relief, the feeling of victory. They did not have the hard drive. He would find it. And he would find them.
But Larsen was overcome with a deep unease, and against his better judgment, he shared it. “There’s a story about the Jews. They were surrounded on a hilltop by Romans. There was no way out, so they killed themselves rather than being taken alive. It was called Masada.”
Rios-Parkinson looked at his deputy with a measure of disgust.
“So?”
“I was just thinking that the Jews, well, they’re still around. And the Romans…they aren’t.”
Rios-Parkinson’s face was stony and blank. “Just find me the hard drive.”
Turnbull and Junior crossed Wilcox toward the PSF building, which looked like it was probably an edgy harbinger of the not-too-distant future when it was built in the 1960s. It had gone downhill considerably since, and had been partially rebuilt after the post-Split rioting had destroyed some of it. The old Los Angeles Police Department signage was all pulled down, replaced with the words “People’s Security Force” on the dirty brick face. A central stairwell led up to the public entrance where a dim light shone.
“Put in your plugs,” Turnbull said, jamming the plastic baffles into his ear canals. There were some people wandering about – none uniformed – but the two men in what looked like plainclothes carrying weapons and wearing old, black plate-carrying vests that had “PSF” spray-painted on the front and back in yellow drew little notice.
They reached the sidewalk and Turnbull charged his weapon. Junior did the same.
“Don’t come back out the front if you can help it,” Turnbull said. “Find the keys, head to the south side, come out in the lot.”
“Okay.”
Turnbull checked his watch. “It’s 10:43. If I am not out there in the impound lot at 10:53, you take your sister and get the fuck out of here. Don’t come after me. If I’m not there it’s because I’m dead.”
“Okay.”
They turned up the steps to the public entrance. Inside, a blue sat at a counter typing something, taking no notice. A few sad, dour people sat on bench seats lining the foyer.
“Hard and fast,” Turnbull said, and pushed open the front door.
The PSF officer looked up and Turnbull opened fire with a burst into his upper chest. He spilled backwards out of his chair. The attackers rushed forward, heedless of the civilians screaming and taking cover around them.
Behind the counter was an empty work area with two doors. One read “IMPOUND OPERATIONS” and went off the rear. The other read “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”
Junior leapt the low barrier and went to the dead officer’s work station, looking for, finding, and then pushing a green button. There was a buzz, and Turnbull, weapon up, pulled open the “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” door. It opened to a long hallway occupied by three PSF officers who were rushing forward, one with her Beretta out, two more struggling to remove theirs from their holsters.
Turnbull squeezed off a burst one-handed, then rushed through the door and raised the weapon to his ready position, firing again. The walls erupted with geysers of plaster and dust as the first officer staggered back under the impact. Turnbull fired again, at face level, and the other two went down as well. There were doors along the hallway which turned left at the end. Turnbull charged down, trying to cover any angle of potential attack. A blue with a mug stood stunned in an office as he passed; Turnbull fired again and he went backwards and crashed over a desk, blood and coffee mingling on his stomach. The M4’s bolt locked back and Turnbull seamlessly replaced the magazine, hundreds of training iterations in the close quarter battle houses at Bragg paying off.
Despite the plugs, his ears were ringing. He reached the end of the corridor and sliced the turn left 15 degrees at a time. Another long hallway, and two more PSF officers were in it. He fired and could make out the center mass impacts on the first one. The second got off a shot, then a second with his Beretta. They were wild – Turnbull had no idea where they went, glad only it was not into him. His next burst caught the shooter in the upper chest, neck, and face.
There was a sign – just what he was looking for. It said a number of things, but he paid attention to “CELLS,” “EVIDENCE LOCKER” and “ARMS ROOM.” The arrow for all three pointed down the hall. Weapon ready, Turnbull moved out.
Junior let go the buzzer and stood back, looking for a telephone box. It was there, in the rear of the front office. He raised the M4 and shot it to ribbons. No more calls, in or out.
Then he raised his weapon and kicked open the “IMPOUND OPERATIONS” door, finding no one inside. On the wall was a mounted key box. Someone had lost the key to it long ago, and jimmied the lock with a screwdriver. Letting his M4 hang by its sling across his chest, Junior started flipping through the two dozen sets of car keys and the paper labels clipped to them. There was a hell of a lot of firing going on elsewhere in the building. He stepped it up.