Tropical Depression (Billy Knight Thrillers 1)

Just like that. That was the captain’s style.

I blinked. I didn’t know if I was going to throw up or laugh. What he had said was so wildly improbable I couldn’t take it at face value. There had to be something else, some strange metaphor he was trying to make.

“Excuse me, sir?”

He nodded and looked even grimmer, never breaking eye contact with me. “They came down to the station to see you. You were in court and they left.” He ground his teeth. “We’re not real sure of what happened. We think the perps were hanging around outside the station. Maybe they figured they’d grab a cop. Maybe figured your wife and kid would work better.”

I found myself shaking my head, as if I could keep it from being true. “What do they want?”

“They want a trade. Your wife and daughter for a buddy of theirs.”

I heard myself breathing. I was panting, on the verge of fainting from hyperventilation. Everything was flip-flopping between horrible slow motion and fast-forward. I felt like Wile E. Coyote. I opened my mouth; Captain Spaulding was already shaking his head.

“We can’t do it, Billy. The guy they want is gone. We had to let him go about two hours ago. Two feds showed up with extradition papers and we had to ship him back east on a homicide charge.”

The last sentence dropped several octaves down as things slowed down again. I’d heard people describe the LSD experience, and that’s what this felt like. Spaulding’s words were terrible slow globs and his face looked like a Cubist painting. I couldn’t remember how to breathe.

Captain Spaulding slapped my face. It hurt a lot. Normal time returned.

“You okay, Billy?”

“No, sir,” I said. “I’m not okay at all.” I concentrated on getting some air in and felt it steady me. I turned to look at the flop. “I’m going in there.”

His fingers gripped me tight enough to break the skin. “No you’re not, son. Listen to me. Lesley Bishop is already on the line with these guys. She says she’s getting somewhere and I’m going to let her run with it for now. Lieutenant Mendez has his SWAT guys all lined up and you know they’re good. We can do this, Billy, you know that. We can take care of this with our own people and do it right. We take care of our own.”

It was true. Lesley Bishop was our negotiator and she really believed she could sell sh

it to a dog. The SWAT guys were top-notch too—the whole crisis team was. Most often the precinct cops are better at these situations than the feds or anybody else that might get thrown in.

There are two simple reasons for that. First, the precinct knows its own turf. Second, its people get more practice. There are more snatches, stand-offs, blow-ups and fuck-ups every day in every precinct in L.A. than the FBI’s local office handles in a year.

That also explained why there was nobody from the press here yet. If the TV cameras showed up, so would the FBI; and about two dozen more county, state, and federal agencies. Captain Spaulding was keeping it quiet. He’d even made sure the call I got wouldn’t tip anybody monitoring that something newsworthy was going down. By keeping the press away he kept control. It was my wife and my daughter, and I was one of Spaulding’s men. Every guy on the watch would drop whatever he had going and come help if it was necessary. Like the captain said, we take care of our own.

One side of me could appreciate that. The other side wanted to grab a twelve-gauge and kick down the door.

Of course, Spaulding knew that. That’s why he was meeting me personally, clamping his steel-spring hand on my elbow, leading me back to his improvised command center, and sitting me down in the front seat of his car. “This is going to work out fine, Billy,” he said. “It’s going very well.”

“Very well,” agreed Lesley Bishop. She had a cellular phone beside her and one of those electronic travel alarms. She used the phone to talk to the perps and the clock to time herself, so when she said she’d call back in five minutes, she’d watch the clock, wait carefully for ten minutes to pass, and call back. It was her favorite negotiating technique.

“Where are we, Lesley?” Captain Spaulding asked her, clearly for my benefit.

She smiled. She was obviously pleased with herself, but that didn’t mean much. She usually was. “Right on target, Captain. Nothing oddball about any of this, straight out of the book. They want their buddy released, half a million bucks, and a chopper to LAX. We have to have a jet waiting to take them all to Mexico.” Her smile got bigger. “I got them going on the money. I told them we could do it but that much took time.” She nodded at me. “It’s one of my tricks. I get them thinking just about the money. That gets their greed going and they start mentally counting the haul. They forget about everything else.”

I just looked at her. She looked briefly puzzled that I didn’t congratulate her on her brilliance, then looked very startled as she realized why. “Oh!” she said. The smile returned. “Your wife and daughter are fine. One of them says he has a daughter the same age. He’s playing with her.”

Her travel alarm beeped and she turned away to pick up the telephone.

Captain Spaulding leaned over me and re-inserted his fingers into my flesh. I was starting to feel like I’d have to have them surgically removed. “Okay, Billy? We got two guys in there and it’s all under control. Our reading is, they’re just gangbangers who went a little further than usual. These guys are not that good. We can take them. We can do this one. Lookit—” He pointed at the Rossmore. “Second floor. They got a corner room.” He chuckled. “That’s what I mean, these guys are D-U-M-B. They got two windows at right angles. See? So SWAT can get about eight shots into both of them in under two seconds.” He kneaded my shoulder. I managed not to scream in pain. “We’re going to take them, Billy. As soon as I get the word from Mendez, I’ll give him the go. We can do this. You just take it easy. Your family will be fine, Billy. You stay put.”

He turned away. I stayed on the seat; the habit of discipline is strong, and anyway, I wasn’t sure what my legs would do if I tried to stand.

The radio spat. “Mendez.”

Spaulding spoke back, staring up at the Rossmore. “Spaulding.”

“Blue ready. Red ready.”

“Stand by,” said Spaulding and put down the radio. He turned to me. “They’re in place. Clear shots on both guys. We worked it out ahead so even if the perps can monitor they can’t know what we’re doing.”