Like Caliphornia, I thought, if he was good to his word.
When Salvano went silent, Burt and I wandered over. Salvano sat still, arranging his phones in front of him, squaring them minutely, as if their symmetry were mystical.
I saw him smile for the first time. “I’ll be goddamned. They went for it. We’ve got two snipers and a bomb squad on their way. And seventy-two hours to make it happen.”
Taucher jumped and threw a punch at the air. “Yes!”
By sundown we had the basics:
Dick and Liz in Liz’s casita number six, farthest from the main house. Stay away from the windows and lock yourselves in the bathroom if you hear gunfire.
Burt and Lindsey in the barn watching the back road. Lights out after dark.
Bomb squad in casita one, closest to the patio — our hoped-for point of contact.
Sniper Reggie in my upstairs office, windows with good sightlines.
Sniper Daniel on the barn roof.
Clevenger hidden in the thicket of oleander near the gate, piloting his drone out of eyesight and earshot.
Zeno locked in Lindsey’s casita three, well positioned on the long odds that Caliphornia even got near her front door.
Salvano, Taucher, and I, the welcoming committee, inside the main house.
Salvano to take down and cuff, Taucher and I to cover.
If Caliphornia ran, resisted arrest, or showed a weapon or cell phone, the snipers would shoot him dead, head-shots best in case of armor.
After all, with bombs, hero is another word for dead.
Loose or lumpy clothing, a backpack, bag, or any type of package meant explosives, so cover, cover, cover.
All agents wear their armor; the bomb team was bringing extras for the civilians.
Plan B is hit at the plate.
Fast but loose.
For Darrel and Patrick.
It all felt unreal. For a moment I let myself float up and look down on us, gathered under the palapa, making our plans. I hovered like one of Dale’s drones. There we were, small humans at work. I liked my plan. I saw things that could go wrong. What worried me were the things I couldn’t see at all.
44
Life is waiting.
Just before dusk, Burt and Lindsey brought back pizza from Vince’s downtown. I watched on Clevenger’s tablet as they made their first delivery to Clevenger himself, hunkered in the oleander down by the gate. Lindsey waved up at the drone she couldn’t see, though she was very clear on the HD feed. So was Zeno in his armor, seemingly aware of the heightened threat level. Clevenger stepped from the bushes, zooming in on himself and Lindsey. The camera was so powerful you could see their expressions and the moving of their lips. Lindsey laughed. Clevenger moved the controller to one hand and accepted the white pizza box.
A minute later, Burt Short’s relatively gigantic Cadillac Coupe deVille came up the drive and rolled to a stop. Out came Burt and Lindsey, bearing stacks of boxes, delivering them from casita to casita.
Later I lit a fire in the great room and sat well away from it, my FBI tactical vest on the back of a chair. The armor was lighter and covered a little more area than that issued by the San Diego sheriff’s office just a few short years ago. Clevenger’s tablet sat propped on a steamer trunk beside my chair, streaming his aerial surveillance of my home and property, eerily green in infrared.
The dark made everyone jumpy and fretful, except for Taucher, who hummed to herself contentedly as she carried Clevenger’s tablet back and forth from Salvano in the kitchen to me in the living room, where she would look from the screen to me with her brown hawk eyes, fiercely beautiful within her heavily made-up face. She said that Lark and Smith had wanted to be a part of this, but they were running You Got It surveillance, which was Salvano’s call, and Salvano knew this kind of business better than anyone. Said it a little loudly, so he could hear. Joan’s nice-girl routine was sweet and funny if you knew her.
Back and forth with the tablet.
Forth and back.
For me it was coffee and memories of a woman I loved, snippets of dreams unlived. And a growing wonder at the things we human beings do to one another.
Barn lights out at eight. House lights out at ten.
The slow crawl of hours.
If there’s a dead of night, why no dead of morning?
At 3:17 a.m., Taucher came across the room, looking down at the tablet screen. “I’d like you to come to my home and meet my people someday,” she said.
“I’d be honored, Joan.”
“Yes, I think you would be.”
I saw a pair of headlights far down on the road. Then a glimmer in her eyes when she looked up at me.
“A white Taurus just went by the gate,” she said.
Salvano came to the window beside me. We watched the car go past and disappear.
Five minutes later the Taurus approached from the opposite direction, slowed at the gate, and turned in. Pulled up to the keypad as the motion light came on and driver’s-side window went down. The driver reached out to punch the numbers and I got my first clear, high-def look at Caliphornia. He resembled his father and his sister — the trim face, slender nose, and heavy eyebrows. Younger-looking than his twenty-two years, a mass of black hair, clean shaven. Eyes bright as he watched the gate swing open. Beside him the silhouette of a woman, shrouded in a darkness that even Clevenger’s infrared camera could not fully penetrate.
Up the drive slowly, headlights off, running lights orange in the dark. I buckled on the tactical vest. We stood away from the windows and drew our weapons. I heard the creak of the floor in my upstairs office — Reggie the sniper settling in.
The car came up the drive between the house and the barn, setting off the motion lights, then continuing past their beams. In the semidarkness farthest from the house, the driver half-circled the vehicle to face back down the drive, and parked.
No movement inside that I could see. Stillness, as the seconds slid into minutes and the motion lights went off. Then the car doors opened. Ben Azmeh emerged. Taller and heavier than I had imagined. Jeans and athletic shoes and a half-zipped U.S. Air Force sweatshirt over a dark T-shirt, the hood now pulled over his head. He shut the door softly with both hands and a nudge of his hip. In the faint light from the house I saw the glimmer of a gun just above his belt buckle — easy access, up front and in the open.
Kalima came around the passenger side. Tall, trailing layers of silky fabric — a caftan or a full-length duster — billowing pants and combat boots. Hair tied back, bunched at the top and flowing behind her.
And a bundle in her arms. She looked down at it, adjusted a blanket.
I saw what looked like a small face within the bundle.
Thought of Ben’s letter to Marah: Want to marry Kalima and have us a baby!
“Oh, Christ no,” whispered Taucher.
Salvano groaned softly.
Another little squeak from the floor upstairs.
I remembered Joan’s description of the full Bakersfield video: Someone walked past that security camera thirty seconds before Caliphornia... A woman... Carrying something against her side...
Had Kenny Bryce opened his front door not only to a woman, but to a woman and her newborn?
Kalima led and Ben followed. Practiced and purposeful but not in a hurry. Silent on the concrete, touched by weak moonlight, Kalima cradling her infant, Caliphornia with his hoodie up. A young family. The future ahead. They came along the shadowed edge of the driveway, toward the house and the branching walkway that led to the patio. Caliphornia tall but swift, Kalima tall, too, striding more heavily with boots and infant.