Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(25)

“Are they packing?”

“Rarely, but sometimes. They’d rather kick ass with boots and clubs and they like to use their skateboards as weapons. It keeps them out of jail and it doesn’t give the media reasons not to love them.”

“You know a lot about antifa,” Nate said.

“I’ve only scratched the surface, nature boy.”

“What’s the street action all about?” Nate asked.

Gernomio shrugged. “What do you got?”

“Why don’t the cops just round them up?”

“The cops have learned it’s useless, even though they could do it in one night. There’s not that many of them, maybe fifty or so. But we’ve got a progressive DA that cuts them all loose without charges. These yahoos are back on the street hours after they’re arrested. They get arrested, get released, and do it all over again. Rinse and repeat. It makes it seem like there are more of them, but there aren’t.”

“There’s no law enforcement?”

“Hey—I’ve been pulled over thirteen times for Driving While Black. And you just have to look at me to know some of these cops are just begging for a reason to light me up.”

“But they let you go?” Nate asked.

“They do now. All they have to see is this,” he said, pointing to the BLM stencil on his jacket. “Get-out-of-jail-free patch, is what it is. It’s the word from on high.”

“I don’t understand,” Nate said.

“And I don’t have time to explain right now, my man.”



* * *



—

They approached the location Geronimo had scouted through a long narrow opening between two buildings. Nate didn’t like the situation they were in at all. It would be too easy to trap them in the pathway by blocking both ends. The only way out would be to scale the brick walls.

He felt a wave of relief wash over him when they emerged into the dark alley. He looked over his shoulder through a space between the buildings and could see the top of the Palomino Lounge in the distance. That’s where Geronimo had seen and photographed Axel Soledad’s SUV.

“This is it,” Geronimo said. “I scoped it out after Soledad left, to find out what they were doing here.”

Geronimo drew out his cell phone and punched up the flashlight app.

“Check this out,” he said.

Against the wall of one of the buildings was a large pile of something covered by a blue tarpaulin. The corners of the tarp were held down by rocks.

Nate watched as Geronimo kicked the two nearest rocks aside. He leaned down and grasped the corner of the plastic and whipped it back to reveal a big pile of primitive ordnance: loose bricks, three-foot lengths of one-inch steel rebar, dented aluminum baseball bats, sledgehammers, crowbars, cases of commercial fireworks, and a few single-blade axes.

“So that’s what they unloaded,” Nate said. “Is it to fight the police?”

Geronimo nodded while he used his phone to call up another app.

“The exact location of the cache was posted on a secret geocache site tonight at eighteen hundred hours. Everybody out here on the street can find it if they need it.”

“How?”

“We have our ways,” he said. Then: “Encrypted software and message boards. It just looks like chaos out there, and sometimes it is. Other times, it’s very, very organized. These weapons were left here tonight to mess up the police in case things get out of hand.”

Nate nodded. “So Soledad is equipping them.”

“He’s equipping someone, for sure,” Geronimo said cryptically.

Nate knew there was much more to the story, but he was distracted by the figure of a man darting across the mouth of the alleyway. He’d been silhouetted by the ambient streetlight beyond.

“What?” Geronimo asked.

Nate gestured to the opening as another figure ran across it. Then two more. The group of protesters they’d seen earlier had turned around and come back.

Geronimo doused his flashlight and whispered, “Looks like we’ve got us some antifa assholes.”



* * *



—

Nate and Geronimo stood their ground shoulder to shoulder. It was too dark to see clearly, but they could make out that the four visitors were approaching them as quietly as they could along the left wall. One of their boots crunched on a piece of glass as they got close.

Then a bright light came on and bathed Nate and Geronimo. Nate lifted his left arm to shield his eyes. He kept his right hand free and ready to reach up for his weapon. The light swept across him and settled on Geronimo.

“Hey, man, what are you doing?” the man with the flashlight asked. His voice was muffled behind an opaque face shield and a bandana mask.

“Checkin’ out this treasure here,” Geronimo said.

“That’s cool. What’s with the mountain man? Is he with you?”

“He’s with me,” Geronimo said.

Nate noted that Geronimo’s vernacular had suddenly become “street.” He found that telling.

“Are you in touch with your brothers?” the first antifa asked. “Are they on their way?”

The first antifa, apparently the spokesman of the four, also lapsed into a faux “street” cadence.