Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(70)

“So how’s this gonna work?” the Blade asked.

“We need to be in the right situation,” Axel said. “We need to be in the middle of a full-fledged riot. Fog-of-war conditions. That’s what all of this has been leading up to. We need a situation with absolute chaos. Cops fighting antifa or BLM. Or antifa just burning everything down.”

“Then what?”

“Then we light the fuse,” Axel said. “That’s why I’m dressed like this.”

“Like a golf pro or some such?” the Blade said, chuckling.

“Yeah. I need to look like a local white businessman who maybe found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally, I’ll choose to be on the side of the cops in their riot gear. I’ll keep my head down until the time is right. Then I’ll pull this,” he said.

Randy imagined Axel showing the Blade one of the guns they’d stolen earlier in the day. He imagined it to be one of the .40 Glock pistols Axel had claimed “were the weapon of choice” for law enforcement personnel across the country.

“You’ll be positioned in a window or on a roof with your sniper rifle,” Axel said to the Blade. “I’ll pop a couple antifa or BLM guys from within the crowd of cops. I’ll take down as many as I can without exposing myself. It’ll all get caught by people on the side with their phones and on police body cams. No one will know who did the shooting, but they’ll know it came from the cops.”

“Meanwhile,” the Blade said, “I’ll target a couple of cops in the cross fire.”

“Exactly,” Axel said. “The scene then will go absolutely ballistic with dead bodies on both sides. Someone will remember our Signal post of where to find the weapons cache. It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s antifa or BLM. I just want them finding those guns and going back out on the street to hunt cops. A few citizens will get taken out in collateral damage, but that’s to be expected.

“It won’t stop here,” Axel said, his voice rising. “Not if there are actual bodies in the streets. Especially if there are bodies in the streets and actual video showing it started from within the line of cops. Maybe someday they’ll work it out and realize it wasn’t a cop that fired first. Maybe. But in the meanwhile the riots will spread from city to city like it’s done before. We’ll burn this motherfucking country to the ground, just like we swore we’d do when they left us over there to die.”

The Blade whooped. “You think big.”

“What’s the point of thinking small?”

Randy closed his eyes. He’d never felt so betrayed. He slumped against the wall and didn’t even care if his plastic bag wrap stuck to the wads of chewing gum.

Just then, his radio crackled.

“Anything going on?” Axel asked. His voice had returned to normal. It was the passive tone of a sociopath, Randy thought.

Randy had trouble speaking. Finally, he keyed the mike and said, “Nothing.”

“Shit. Shit-shit-shit. Keep me informed.” Axel keyed off.

Randy let the handheld drop to the pavement. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to stand back up and walk away. Then he heard Axel curse again from the shadows.

“What is wrong with them?” Axel shouted to the Blade. “What kind of pussies are we dealing with? A little rain keeps them away? Rain? Imagine if they had to hike a hundred miles through enemy territory in a rain forest like we did? See what I mean about them?”

Randy waved his hand as if dismissing Axel for good. He’d had it. He wasn’t even going back for his phone. Instead, he’d find a pay phone somewhere and call his parents and beg them to buy him a plane ticket back to Denver. They’d object at first, but then he knew they’d cave. They always did.

That’s when a cop suddenly appeared on the other side of the street. One cop, on foot. Eyeing him. Randy turned his head away and picked up his pace. But instead of the cop giving chase, he turned toward the alley where Axel and the Blade were located.

Randy had no way to warn them, since he’d ditched the radio. And he had no good reason to do it anyway, since Axel had revealed his true colors.



* * *



—

Axel lifted his radio to contact Randy again when he heard a grunt from behind him and scuffling shoes on the alley pavement. The Blade heard it, too. Someone was approaching them from the gloom, from deep within Gum Wall alley.

Axel clipped the handheld to his belt and drew a flashlight from his blazer pocket and turned it on. He choked down the beam and shined it behind them.

Two disheveled men were shuffling toward him and both stopped and held up grimy bare hands against the bright light. They were homeless men, obviously, and Axel caught a glimpse of several makeshift tents farther down the alley.

The vagrants were Black men, both in their fifties or sixties. They wore several layers of clothes, which made them appear bigger than they actually were. One had an impressive snow-white beard and the other was so dark-skinned Axel could barely make out his facial features.

The bearded man growled, “This is our alley, motherfucker. You need to get gone.”

Axel and the Blade exchanged glances. Axel tried not to shift his eyes toward the covered cache of weapons against the alley wall, so as not to direct their attention to it. The bearded man took another step toward them.