The Investigator (Letty Davenport, #1) (103)

The two guards were sitting on black plastic chairs outside the single door into the jail. Kaiser had parked the Explorer a block away on a side street, out of sight of the guards. A pickup, with a gunman in the back, rolled past a block over, visible as a flash between houses. The guards turned to him as he moseyed up: they both had AR-15s sitting across their laps, hands on top of them, but not engaged with the triggers, and their eyes showed nothing but innocence. They had no idea.

Ten feet away, Kaiser reached back, caught the stock of the shotgun and swiveled it forward, the muzzle falling across their faces, and as they gawked, uncertain, he said, quietly, “I’m with the Department of Homeland Security. If you fight me, I’ll kill you both. I can’t miss from here. This thing is loaded with number-three buckshot.”

One of the guards said, “Bro . . .”

Kaiser snarled, “Fuck that bro shit. I did eight tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya, and I’m more than ready to blow you guys up. I want you to take those rifles and prop them against the wall behind you.”

One of the men said, “You’re in a world of hurt.”

Kaiser nodded: “Maybe. But you’ll never know, because if I wind up in a world of hurt, you’re gonna be in a world of dead. Prop the rifles against the wall . . .”

They propped the rifles against the wall and Kaiser said, “Now go inside. Go inside. Line up, and go inside. If you think you can take me with those pistols, I can tell you, that’s been tried, and I’m still here. Go inside now. Be good. No, no, don’t put your hands over your heads, walk inside normal-like.”

They did that, and one of them said, “We’ll hunt you down like a rabid dog.”

“Good luck with that,” Kaiser said. He’d closed up behind him, the shotgun’s muzzle three feet from the second man’s shoulder blades. He said, “You, second guy. If your friend makes a play here, you’ll have a hole in your back the size of a basketball. Then I’ll kill him.”

Then they were inside. The interior was lit by a single window; the overhead lights were turned off. Kaiser said, “Stretch out on the floor. On your backs. On the floor.”

The men obeyed, kneeling, then stretching out. Kaiser took in the jail’s interior. There were three cells with yellow-painted bars, two side by side on the long back wall, another on a shorter side wall to the left. A bathroom with an open door and a window the size of a paperback book. There was nothing sophisticated about the cells, they were simply barred cages meant to hold drunks until they got sober, or other miscreants until they could be shuffled off to the jail in Van Horn.

“What’s going on?” The cells held three men and two women, and Kaiser said, “I’m with the Department of Homeland Security.”

One of the women blurted, “Thank God . . .”

“Not yet,” Kaiser said. “I’m here all alone. Who’s got the keys to the cells?”

Neither of the men on the floor spoke, and then one of the jailed men said, “The guy with the beard.”

The guy with the beard turned his head to see who’d spoken and Kaiser prodded him with the shotgun muzzle and said, “Give them up.”

“Fuck you, man—”

The guy got three words out and Kaiser kicked him in the ribs, hard, with an impact like a punt in pro football, and one of the council members said, “Oh my God,” and the man on the floor bounced sideways and groaned and Kaiser said, “If I have to kick you to death to get the keys, I will. So now you’ve got some broken ribs. Next thing I kick will be your hip and I’ll break your fuckin’ hip bone off. Gimme the keys.”

The bearded man groaned again, hurting when he tried to roll up on his side, but he dug in his jeans pocket and produced three keys.

One of the prisoners, a woman, asked, “What are you doing?”

Kaiser: “They’re about to put you on trial for treason. The penalty for treason is death.”

“What!”

“Ask the guys on the floor.” He handed the keys through the cell bars to one of the women and said, “Try the locks.”

One of the councilmen asked the bearded man, “Were you going to shoot us?”

The bearded man, now curled into a fetal position, said, “Fuckin’ traitor.”

Kaiser looked at the city council prisoners and nodded. “Tell me your names so I can talk to you.”

They were all wearing jeans, including the women, and all had dark hair and eyes. A tall man in a white dress shirt said, “I’m Harry Lopez, I’m the mayor.” He pointed at the two women: “Janice Moreno in the pink blouse, Veronica Ruiz in the white, the bald guy is Doug Hall, the other guy is Antonio Alonso.”



* * *





Moreno had gotten her cell open, and Ruiz stepped out behind her. Ruiz pointed to the beardless guard and said, “This one put his hands on me. Can I kick him in the head?”

The guard said, “Don’t do that . . .”

Kaiser smiled at her and said, “No, that’s not a good idea. You could break a toe, and you’ve got to walk to my car.”

Moreno freed the three men and Kaiser pressed the muzzle of his shotgun into the stomach of the uninjured man and said to a councilman, “Get his pistol.”

When they had both pistols, the councilmen took four .223 magazines and four nine-millimeter magazines from the men’s belt pouches.