The Unwilling(109)

“All right, man. Shit.” Monroe’s frown deepened. He pulled off the shades, and showed some seriously unhappy eyes. “Captain Martin called a press conference for five fifteen. He’s going live, man. He wants Gibby’s face on the six o’clock news.”

French’s fingers tightened into a fist. He couldn’t help it.

Monroe understood. “He thinks he’s helping, all right, that a press conference is the best way to bring Gibby in and keep him safe.”

But French didn’t see it like that. A clean takedown required control, and a press conference ceded that control to a city full of fucking idiots. “Where’s the press conference?”

“Usual.”

That meant the station house media room. Thirty seats. Good lighting. The captain was very proud of it. The time was 4:37. Thirty-eight minutes before they opened the doors, and the news crews piled in. “Martinez and Smith will be there?”

“What do you think?”

French chewed on a fingernail, an old habit he’d abandoned in his twenties. He studied the street, the station house. Captain Martin would run the press conference, but Martinez would have face time. He’d paint a bad picture. Another escalation. “All right, buddy. Thanks for the information. You might want to make yourself scarce for a while.”

“Are you planning something?”

French said no, but that was a lie, and both men knew it. “You go on and take off, okay? Have a drink at the Dunhill, and tell Mary to put it on my tab.”

“I don’t like this.”

French didn’t, either. His wife watched the six o’clock news. “Make it two drinks. Take a lady friend, if you like.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go on. Get out of here.”

“If that’s how you want it.” Detective Monroe slipped the dark glasses back over his eyes. “I do have a lady friend.”

When he was gone, French went to his dark place, working out the steps and asking hard questions like how far was he willing to go.

Leaving the alley, he worked his car through the neighboring blocks until he found what he needed, a three-story building in mid-renovation, and partially gutted, a half-dozen trucks still on-site. The clock was ticking down, but French had yet to meet a construction crew willing to work more than a minute after the five o’clock bell. This crew was little different. At five, they started packing up. Seven minutes more, and they were gone.

French gave it a fifty count to make sure no one had forgotten a lunch pail or tool belt, then pulled in behind the building, and parked. The lot had been ripped up, too, and that meant red dirt under his tires, a row of trees with dusty leaves. There were other buildings, built close. People could see him if they looked; it wasn’t impossible. He honestly didn’t care. His wife liked to watch the news on WBTV, and he could see her on the sofa, unsuspecting.

Six minutes.

Quitting the car, he took the back steps, and shouldered the door without slowing down. It was a construction door, plywood and flimsy, and the screws tore right out. Inside, it was bare studs and gypsum dust, but the stairwell was intact.

Goddamn right.

Back at the car, he snatched a gun case from the trunk, and strode back to the building as if he owned it, moving faster inside, second floor, the third. A voice said, This is not you, but he told the voice that thirty years of cop meant fuck-all next to his wife and child. On the roof, he checked his lines of fire, then dropped to a knee, unzipping the case.

Three minutes.

Reporters would be lined up outside the pressroom door, techs inside checking mics and lighting, as cops got ready. French could see that, too: the captain with his cue cards, Martinez chewing his lip like it was made of bacon and butter.

The rifle was as familiar as an old friend, but nothing special, a Remington 760 in .308 with a Bausch & Lomb 4× scope. Not a sniper rifle, not even police issue. But .308 was the right cartridge.

French glanced over the parapet. The station was a block away, the first transformer half that distance, a gray, metal unit silhouetted at the top of a tall pole. Maybe it fed the station, and maybe not. There were options, though. A second transformer was twice as far and west, but still an easy shot. The third was on the other side of the station.

Two targets, then.

Maybe three.

French had no idea how many bullets it would take to short out a transformer. How thick was the steel casing? Was there one best place to hit?

Not enough time to worry about it.

French fed in cartridges, and chambered the first. Second thoughts? Not even close. He was running dark, and wanted the station the same way.

“For Gabrielle,” he said.

The first shot took out four city blocks.



* * *



Reece was drowning in a wealth of riches. First, he’d beaten X. No, he thought gleefully, broken him. X might pretend to be aloof, but he hated losing to anyone not considered his equal or his better. How many times had Reece heard him blather on about respect and clarity and purity of purpose? It was exhausting. Admittedly, there’d been a time when Reece had wanted that respect—had craved it, in fact—but things had gone a different way.

Not my fault …

The sense of richness dimmed for a moment, in part, he knew, because some piece of him still craved that admiration. There was also a splinter of fear he didn’t quite understand. X would never break his word, and he’d been very clear.