Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(82)

Axel looked away, disgusted. He firmly believed that only the weak got themselves injured. He’d always thought the Blade had more integrity.

“This is your fight, not mine,” the Blade said through clenched teeth.

“Hey, it’s our fight,” Axel said. He reached over and squeezed the Blade’s shoulder. “We made this promise to each other, remember? Now it’s all coming together.”

Axel had looked at his phone as they drove south. The murders in Seattle were blowing up. People were angry that a cop had killed two Black men. Some reports said it was four Black men, and they’d been shot execution-style. It was crazy and it was perfect.

“Can you help me unload the guns?” he asked.

The Blade simply moaned.

“Fine,” Axel said. “I’ll do it myself.”

As he climbed out of the van, he thought of four rivers coming together: antifa, BLM, cops, and a cache of loaded firearms located right in the middle of them. All he’d need to do was unload the weapons and announce the geocache location via his Signal app.

He’d headline the post:


FIGHT BACK!



Then he’d drive to the airport so he could be there when his buyers showed up first thing in the morning.



* * *



—

“There it is,” Geronimo said, holding up Tristan’s phone as they turned onto Broadway. He turned the screen of the phone toward Joe so Joe could read it.


FIGHT BACK!



Along with a Google Maps graphic that showed the exact location.

“How close are we?” Nate asked from the back.

“Close,” Geronimo said.

Joe sat with his shotgun muzzle down on the floorboard between his feet. His stomach roiled and he felt way out of his league. This was an unfamiliar urban hellscape and he’d lost track of directions. Where was north?

He said, “Nate, I’m going to call 911. We need to get the local cops involved.”

Nate said to Geronimo, “I told you he was Dudley Do-Right.”

“I’m not participating in an ambush,” Joe said. “I don’t have any authority here. You guys need to think real hard about this. We’re just three out-of-state dudes armed to the teeth driving around downtown. I’m not sure we could talk our way out of charges.”

Nate said to Joe, “Forget for an hour that you’re law enforcement. You’re a stranger in a strange land. Roll with it.”

“We don’t want to blow it when we’re so close,” Geronimo said.

“Think of the cops as backup,” Joe said. “We might need their firepower.”

Geronimo shook his head. He wasn’t convinced.

“Do what you have to do,” Nate said. “But don’t screw this up. It’s our only chance.”

Joe was well aware of that as he punched in 911 on his phone and raised it to his ear. Although he didn’t know his way around downtown Portland, and all of the one-way streets they took confused him, he knew they were minutes away from the cache location and Axel Soledad.

“This is the 911 emergency network,” said the woman on the other end of the line. “What is your emergency?”

Her tone wasn’t as serious or urgent as Joe had expected. She had a distinctive nasally voice.

“I want to report a couple of suspicious men driving an out-of-state van downtown. Colorado plates. We think they’re supplying weapons to potential rioters.”

“What is your location?”

Joe peered out the window and saw a street sign. It was covered with stickers, but he could make it out.

“Burnside Street,” he said.

“We’re well aware of the situation developing,” the dispatcher said wearily. “There have been many calls.”

“It’s not just the protesters,” Joe said. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. We think the men in the van are here to escalate the situation by giving the protesters guns and live ammunition. You’ve got to send units to stop them now.”

“Units are on standby, sir. Order of the mayor.”

Joe was poleaxed. “On standby?”

“Yes, sir. Welcome to Portland. But thank you for your call, sir. We’re carefully monitoring the situation near North Park.”

“Then do something about it.”

“We get these calls every night and—well, it’s about manpower. It’s frustrating, to say the least.”

“People may get hurt, ma’am,” Joe said.

“Thank you for calling 911 emergency dispatch.”

The call dropped and Joe lowered his phone to his lap.

“You tried,” Nate said from the back.

Joe turned to his window with despair as Geronimo cornered the van on a side street. As he did, Joe got a glimpse down an opening between two boarded-up buildings and he saw it: the nose of a black transit van poking out between two brick structures.

“Did you see that?” he asked Geronimo.

“See what?”

“Axel’s van. He’s right on the other side of these buildings in some kind of alley.”

Geronimo turned immediately and raced the wrong way down Burnside.

Joe looked to his left to see knots of antifa gathering under the lights of an open park. He looked to his right to see the small square behind the hotel.