23rd Midnight, page 20
part #23 of Women's Murder Club Series
CHAPTER 90
A DUN-COLORED ARMORED vehicle pulled into a parking spot behind us. It was an MRAP, an army surplus light tactical vehicle originally made for military use in Afghanistan; now some were used by municipal police departments who needed them. I was glad to see this one.
Brady’s voice sputtered over the radio.
“Boxer, Conklin, the core perimeter is in place. The secondary perimeter is nearly set. The command post is on Ivy and Hayes. I’m there. So is Alvarez. Stand by.”
I heard the squeal of a bullhorn, then Covington’s voice boomed loud enough for us to hear from the storefront around the corner.
“Bryan Catton. This is your SWAT captain Reg Covington speaking. You are surrounded. Come out nice and slow with your hands up. No one needs to get hurt.”
Back behind the parking lot, eight men in full tactical gear scrambled out of the MRAP and grouped around it. I knew one of them, Lieutenant Chris Martin. Black, late thirties, five ten, he’s a former Ranger and experienced in dynamic entries and special equipment. He came over to my side of the car and made the universal sign to roll down the window.
He said, “Sarge, Conklin, can you come on out for a minute?”
When we were standing alongside our car, Martin opened a foam-lined transportation case and showed us a robot mounted on tanklike treads and that looked to be twenty inches wide by nearly forty long and thirty high.
“This is Mastiff,” said Martin. I’d taken two classes in SWAT robotics and had worked around similar bots. I knew Mastiff weighed over a hundred pounds.
Martin said, “If you haven’t seen this SuperDroid before, introducing HD2-S Mastiff, an all-terrain tactical robot, new and improved.”
“Impressive,” I said, impressed.
“I’m now giving you a crash course in bot reconnaissance. First, why do I need you outside at the controls? Because I need your eyes with Mastiff while we’re inside a dark place we’ve never been, looking for a homicidal maniac, likely armed, and a hostage.
“Second, the bot is programmed and knows its job. The controls are intuitive, less complicated than your phone.
“Third, if you need to get out of here, you’re inside a vehicle. If you need to talk to your commander, you have the radio.”
Martin continued the lesson, opening a large Pelican case. “Here is the Operator Control Unit, easy as one, two, three.”
I tried to take in what Martin was telling me, but the one message that was as easy as one, two, three was that Martin was putting me in charge of Mastiff. I knew the tactical breach and clear drill. Flash-bangs went in first to stun any living thing. Next, the robots went into the room and scoped out the place, sending visual to the tac team outside. If necessary the robots knocked down doors. Before the tactical team went in, we would have received full images of the interior. If a subject was found, he’d be down and out for a few minutes, enough time to find him, disarm him, cuff him, extract him. If no one was home, the same procedure would be repeated in the next room.
Mastiff’s control board and view screen looked like a laptop computer game. The joystick was at the top of the screen surrounded by marked buttons for override manual control. But I knew this bot could go full auto if needed.
Martin said, “She’s called Mastiff after the Alpine dogs by that name. These treads allow her to travel over sand, gravel, water, riprap. She can climb stairs and can bust down a door. She’s a two-way radio programmed to do a grid search in any kind or size of room.”
Lieutenant Martin was describing the six-axis extending arms with grippers this beast could use to deliver a meal or a bomb or a phone. Mastiff operated off a base that could rotate 400 degrees to capture floor-to-ceiling images with its pan-tilt 20× optical zoom camera.
“Take the stick, Boxer. Give it a shot.”
I pulled back on the joystick and the camera turret rose a few inches on the robot’s neck. I swiveled the stick and the camera behaved accordingly. I pressed the button at the top of the stick and the camera snapped a picture.
“Very good,” said Lieutenant Martin. “Hold down the button and you’re shooting a video. If you see something, say something. We’ll hear you and you’ll hear me. The bot knows the way.”
I told Lieutenant Martin, “Copy all of that,” and my partner and I got back into the car. Rich was at the wheel and I had robot controls on my lap.
I was sweating. My blood was hot. Feeling that Blackout and Cindy could be yards away inside the bookstore was making me hyper. What Rich was feeling must be incalculable. But Martin was right not to take us into the bookstore. We weren’t SWAT trained, not geared up for an out-of-control firefight.
Martin handed me a small construction-grade flip phone.
“If you need to tell me something in private, press Call. I’ll answer.”
I pressed the Call button. Martin grinned, picked up, and put his phone to his ear.
I said, “Lieutenant. Get Cindy Thomas the hell outta there. Do it now.”
“We will damned well do our best,” he said. “And that’s a promise.”
CHAPTER 91
THE SUN WAS just an orange streak on the horizon as I gripped the protective case with the bot control panel inside. Lieutenant Martin deployed Mastiff across the asphalt lot, with his team in a line behind him. They passed the gray car and jogged up the stairs to the elevated loading dock. A tac team officer lobbed a stun grenade overhand through the open door that appeared to lead into the warehouse.
He closed the door.
A second later, I saw the blinding flash through the transom window. The bang was muffled, but my car’s window frame vibrated. As I watched, Lieutenant Martin opened the door so that Mastiff could move onto the warehouse floor. It was black inside, black on my screen, then the robot’s LED lights came on.
Martin’s voice came through my speaker. “We’re a go. Copy?”
I said “Copy. I hear you loud and clear.”
As I watched, Mastiff’s four lights cut a swath about sixty degrees to each side of center. The laptop screen broke into a quadrant of four views. I saw familiar objects: cartons and odd bits of furniture. I heard muffled sounds of footfalls, and someone calling out that, as expected, there was no electric power in the store.
In the upper right quad I recognized the section of floor where Blackout had dragged Cindy by the wrists, yanked the tape from her mouth, and told her to stop screaming. Or else. Richie seemed paralyzed as he stared at the images, looking for a mad dog killer and his girl. We saw SWAT legs, boots, and camo, but I didn’t see Blackout. And I didn’t see Cindy. I’d begun to doubt that they were there when the bot’s lights focused on a closed wooden door.
Martin called out, “Mr. Catton! Come to the door with your hands up. At the count of ten, we’re coming in. Need I say, we’re armed? To the teeth?”
Sitting in the car with Rich beside me, only yards away from the action, I counted to ten while staring at the image of a standard hollow-core wooden door. I touched the stick and rolled Mastiff up to the door. A member of the tac team was ready with a flash-bang when a voice, not Martin’s, came over the audio on the laptop.
“Hate to tell you but she’s not here,” the voice said.
It was Blackout’s voice. Even in one short sentence, I recognized the cadence, the emphasis on the last syllable.
I pressed the call button on the phone. Martin said, “Yes?”
“That’s Catton. Out.”
Martin shouted at the door, “I’d like to take your word for it, Mr. Catton, but that’s not how we do things.”
It was eerie to hear Blackout’s loud, steady voice coming from the controls in my lap. He shouted, “I said, she’s not here! She’s. Not. Here.”
Martin’s voice: “Seven, six, five, four. Last chance to open the door.”
A tac team commando stepped in front of the robot, kicked in the door and chucked in another flash-bang. Mastiff rolled into what had to be the bookstore’s main room, the storefront rounding Hayes and Gough. The commando closed the door behind the bang and the bot. I braced for an explosion of sound and light. But nothing happened. I heard a man’s voice curse the dud.
A second stun grenade was lobbed into the main room. My screen bleached to white from the blast, and when it cleared, “I” was with the robot as it searched the room, north to south, east to west, around the bookshelves and sparse furnishings in the main room. I was mesmerized until Conklin broke the spell.
“Lindsay. Look. Over there.”
He was pointing, not at the screen, but to the parking lot fronting the loading dock. A man was crossing the asphalt toward the gray sedan. He was wearing black everything and barely visible against the setting sun and pale moon rising in the sky. But I recognized him. He looked to be just under six feet and was keeping his head down as he walked.
I phoned Lieutenant Martin, told him that the suspect was on foot in the parking lot and we needed backup.
Rich switched on the engine and swerved away from the curb, then wrenched the wheel hard right, and drove straight into the parking lot I knew by heart. He braked between the man we knew as Blackout and his gray sedan. Blackout had been nonchalant, certain he’d make his escape. He didn’t know what was coming.
“Lights,” I said.
Rich turned on the high beams and blinded by the light, Catton shielded his eyes with the crook of his elbow. Rich set the parking brake and we bolted from the car, weapons drawn.
I yelled, “SFPD! On your knees. Hands on your head. Do it, now.”
CHAPTER 92
SIRENS SCREAMED. GRILL and roof lights flashed red and blue from blocks away as squad cars broke from the perimeter and converged on our location. The man in black recovered from his momentary high beam blindness and continued trying to evade us and get to his ride.
My Glock was in both hands. I shouted again, “Get down on your knees! Hands on your head. Do it. Now.”
But Blackout turned on his heel and ran toward Linden Street. We were in close pursuit and then he tripped. My partner, faster than me, was on him. Grabbed his collar with his left hand, pressed his gun to the side of Blackout’s face, and jerked him to his knees.
I came in close and stared at the subject of night terrors. Yes. It was Blackout. The man I’d seen on too many murder videos. Real name Bryan Catton.
I yanked his arms behind his back as he resisted. I had cuffed his left wrist and was working on the right. Rich kept his gun on Catton and began to pat him down. But the bastard was strong, and he pulled out of my grasp and backed away toward the loading dock.
He pulled a gun from somewhere and aimed it at me. Conklin was behind me. Julie’s face came into my mind. And Joe’s. The blood left my head and pooled in my knees.
Catton shouted, “Freeze!”
I stiffened my legs. That was all I could do.
And the man who’d told us to freeze at the point of his gun, shouted with military authority. “Lie facedown, both of you! My gun is mad. I can fire or I can bolt. Choose option two. When I’m outta here, we all live.”
I knew “we all live” was a ruse and that someone would die in the next few seconds. I was rigid. It was a lose-lose situation. We could die here. Or, if we killed Catton, we might never find Cindy.
I said, “All right, all right. There’s my gun.”
I dropped my weapon and began to kneel. I was buying only seconds to give Rich a better shot.
He fired. Twice.
We are trained to fire two shots to center mass but Catton was an athletic genius. He’d turned sideways, avoiding probable kill shots, taking a .9 mm round in his right forearm. He grabbed his shattered arm and as blood streamed down, he screamed, and his weapon clattered to the ground.
As Rich bent to pick up the gun, Catton took the opportunity to knee him in the face. Rich’s head snapped back from the blow, but he wasn’t out. He balled up his fist and delivered a bone-breaking punch to Catton’s nose.
Catton screamed again. Blood flew from his face. My cuffs were dangling from his left wrist. Richie’s cheek radiated red even in dim light, but he was otherwise unharmed. Catton was wailing, Rich rolled him onto his belly and I finished cuffing the monster.
When Catton was immobilized, I leaned over and grabbed a handful of his hair. I lifted his head from the ground and looked into the bloody face of the man who’d murdered so many innocent people, who’d taunted us, who’d abducted our close and beloved friend.
I said, “Where’s Cindy? Tell me where she is and I’ll help you. This offer expires in ten seconds.”
This man had talked before, sent video evidence of his murders with cinematic flourishes. Now he said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Stepping back, I said to my partner, “He’s all yours.”
Rich Conklin and a uniformed officer hauled Catton to his feet. I fished my phone out of my vest, set the camera to video, aimed it at the bloody tableau in front of me, and pressed “record.”
Inspector Richard Conklin said, “Bryan Catton, you’re under arrest for murder. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you …”
Brady pulled up in his SUV, Alvarez in the passenger seat. Our Godlike lieutenant got out first.
He called out, “Is it him?”
“Yes, sir.”
Brady went over to Catton, asked him questions starting with “What is your name?”
Our prisoner had taken the right to remain silent to heart. He said, “Lawyer,” and then he didn’t say another word.
CHAPTER 93
BROOKS’S BOOKS WAS an active crime scene inside and out.
Spectators gathered across Gough Street asking questions, taking photos, getting in the way. A satellite truck arrived from one of the big three networks. Damn it. Local press showed up, too.
Inspectors Michaels and Wang drove Catton back to the Hall to be booked. At the same time, Catton’s gray sedan was on a flatbed truck speeding out to the crime lab. A CSI mobile edged through the crowd and set up on Gough. They snaked electric cords from the van to the store and set up klieg lights in both the main room and warehouse. Until San Francisco PG&E turned on the power, CSI would have no shortage of light.
The store was filled with police and crime scene techs who couldn’t work until other law enforcement cleared out. We couldn’t leave yet. I was overwhelmed by my own near-death experience and still focused on Cindy. I desperately wanted to find her alive.
Brady was senior officer and with his okay, Alvarez, Conklin, and I began pulling bookshelves away from the walls in a frantic hunt for an access point to the building next door or hidey hole where Catton could have stashed Cindy.
Lieutenant Chris Martin stood near me in the wreck of the former bookstore and spoke into his vest mic saying, “The hostage has not been located. We need Holmes and Crispo.”
Who?
A white van pulled up in front of the plate glass window at the front of the store. Martin opened the doors and we heard excited barking as two canines and their handler exited the van. Holmes and Crispo, both German Shepherds, were trained search and rescue dogs. They ran into the store, eyes bright, muzzles lowered, pulling along Sergeant Betsy Park. The handler for SWAT’s K-9 division was a white-haired woman in her sixties, wiry, strong. She gave sharp one-word commands and unclipped their leads. The K-9s immediately went to work sniffing out corners, cabinets, and cartons, before going into the warehouse.
Cappy arrived. He found Conklin and as requested, handed Rich a sky-blue cardigan that Cindy had left in his car. Rich handed it off to the canine handler, who called the dogs and gave them a good sniff of the sweater.
While the search and rescue dogs looked for a living, breathing person, I took a seat at the long service desk at the rear of the main floor and began to snoop.
If Catton had been bunking here or even just dropping by, he might well have left some artifacts for us. I opened the center drawer and aside from some pushpins and Post-it notes, it was empty. Next, I went to the left-hand pedestal of the old desk. There were two drawers of empty file folders and three-ring binders filled with book invoices. I opened the file drawer in the right-hand pedestal and found sandwich bags of men’s toiletries.
I opened the last drawer in the desk with low expectations, but there was one intriguing item in that last drawer. It was a leather-bound journal, a diary. The title was “Blackout. Last Night in Helmand Province,” by Bryan Catton.
I nervously flipped through pages of heavy-grade paper that had a handmade feel, scanning for names that I may have known. Finding none, I flipped the book open toward the end. If Catton had kept this journal up-to-date, there was a chance that he’d recorded what he’d done with Cindy.
But the journal didn’t end with Cindy. She wasn’t even mentioned. The date on the last entry was three years prior to Blackout’s appearance in our lives. A huge disappointment, yet, when I started to read the final pages of the journal, I couldn’t stop.
CHAPTER 94
IN THE DIARY, Catton wrote that he was in country, a door gunner inside a helicopter on an enemy suppression mission in Helmand Province.
The sky was hidden by dense cloud cover, what he thought of as a blackout. He was wearing a headset and night goggles, listening to the pilot when he saw muzzle flare coming from the ground below them. The situation went ballistic, he wrote.
I had to stop reading.
There was a loud commotion from Holmes and Crispo. I didn’t know which was which, but the one with the black muzzle and matching saddle was barking at me from my left side. The other was yelping at my feet, digging at the wooden floorboards under the chair behind the desk.
I stashed the journal in the drawer.
My mind was half in a helicopter in Afghanistan, half shrinking from two large K-9s who saw me as an obstacle. I like dogs, love them, but my supply of adrenaline was depleted and I didn’t know what to do.
