Brothers In Arms (3 page)

Across the street, Dale Miller kicked his table out of the way and came up out of his seat, drawing his Browning High Power as he came.

In the surveillance van at the top of the hill, Sanders shouted, “Marcus! They’re all down!”

“Stay put!” Williams said. “We don’t engage, we don’t engage.”

“They’ll get away!”

“Make sure we’re getting good feed, make sure we’ve got the tape. That’s our job, keep your mind on it.”

Williams’s hands sped over the camera controls, zooming the lens in on the two women.

The pixie-cut blonde dropped her smoking machine pistol into her open courier bag and put both hands on the handlebars of the moped, pushing forward with her feet as she gave the moped gas. Her partner held her weapon in one hand and pushed with her legs as well. Charley sprinted forward, both hands on his pistol extended out in front of him, and cut through the crowd like a football player on a broken field. For an instant he had a clear shot and he took it, a fast snapping shot at the back of the ponytailed blonde.

She hunched suddenly and looked back over her shoulder,
extended the Skorpion in one hand and fired a burst single-handed at him, forcing him to duck to one side, then between a building as the silenced rounds whipped around him.

Dale leaped across the low flower planters that separated the courtyard from the sidewalk and crouched behind a car parked directly in front of the coffee shop. From here he had good cover and a stable brace for his pistol. He saw the man he’d been watching come up and snap a shot at the two blond assassins, then duck behind the cover of a building with all the sure moves of a pro.

He didn’t know who he was, but he was on the side of the angels today. Dale braced himself and took a quick shot at the moving moped before fleeing passersby blocked him. He moved quickly along the back of the car, hoping for another shot, but the moped was off and away before he could get set again. Across the street, the man he’d been watching eased out from around the corner of the building and leveled his weapon at the fleeing women.

Charley had the ponytailed blonde in his sights for just a second before an innocent passed in front of him, obscuring his vision. It was no good. The blondes were gone around the corner, and he could hear the moped accelerating away. Pros—and there was no doubt after watching their performance that they were pros—would have a separate vehicle standing off to pick them up. They’d be gone in moments, and the sirens of responding police vehicles hadn’t even started yet. He reholstered his pistol and took out his cell phone to call in. He looked across the street and saw the man in the big sunglasses reholster his pistol and come toward him.

Charley watched him come while he spoke briefly to the dispatcher. There had already been plenty of calls already, the dispatcher said, and Charley could now hear the sound of sirens. Too late for everybody involved.

The man from across the street was of average height but thick through the shoulders and thin-waisted, with the build of someone who trained for strength and not for show. He stood in front of Charley, balanced as though ready to spring in any direction.

“You on the job?” the man said.

“Yeah,” Charley said. “I already called it in.”

“Guess we’ll have some questions to answer.”

“No doubt.”

The man held his hand out. “I’m Dale Miller,” he said.

Charley reached out and took the offered hand. It was hard and strong, and he noticed on the web of the hand the scarring that came from catching the slide of an automatic pistol.

“Hey, Dale Miller,” he said. “I’m Charley Payne. I’m not a cop, but I’m working with Minneapolis.”

“That makes two of us,” Dale said. “What do you do for them?”

“Forensic photographer. You?”

“Special reserve, work with the training unit and the ERU.”

“Running and gunning, eh?”

“Yeah. You?”

“I’m too old to play with those guys. I can’t keep up anymore.”

“Did you get a make on those two?”

“Not much. Real pros, though . . . I wonder who the hell they were?”

In the surveillance van, videotape hissed as the two operators recorded the conversation between the two men. Williams zoomed the camera in on them.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Sanders said. “You know who that is?”

“I used to work with him,” Williams said. “He was one of us.”

“They’ll be going bugfuck over this back at base,” Sanders said.

“No kidding,” Williams said. “What are the odds? Dale Miller and Charley Payne on the same street on the same day as a major hit. There’s more to this than meets the eye.”

“They weren’t shooting at the BGs . . .”

“No, they weren’t, were they? Check the computer for any other faces in the crowd.”

A cell phone trilled in the back of the van. Williams picked it up and said, “Hello?”

After a moment he said, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I recognized him once we got a clear picture of him. We got it all on tape and we’ll send it via satellite feed. We’re out of here now.”

He set the phone back into its charging cradle and said to Sanders, “Let’s break it down and get out of here before the cops get set up.”

“Is that it, then?”

Williams said, “No, young Jedi. That’s not it. This is just the beginning.”

Four blocks away, the blondes drove their moped right up the ramp of a small parcel delivery truck. As they rode in, the driver shoved the ramp up behind them and pulled the door down and shut it. He got into the front, started the vehicle, and pulled away even as the two women laid the moped down on its side. They stepped clear, then kicked off their shoes and pulled the dresses off over their heads. They stepped into matching overalls set out for them, pulled them up and zipped them closed. Then they checked the Skorpions, charging the weapons with fresh magazines. One went to sit by the backdoor, the weapon in her lap, the other one crouched in the well behind the driver.

The driver had a portable police scanner set on the floor beside his seat. The van’s occupants could hear all the instructions, directions, and call information coming across the police secure net.

“We’ll head south on France Avenue,” the woman crouching behind the driver said.

“Right,” said the driver.

“Marie?” the crouching woman with the ponytail said. “Would you like some water?”

“Please, Isabelle. I need to rinse my face. Some of that last one’s on me,” the pixie-cut blonde said.

Isabelle reached into a bag behind the seat and pulled out a bottle of drinking water and tossed it underhand to her partner, who caught it one-handed, then opened it.

“Do you have a napkin?” she called to Marie.

“On the other seat,” the driver said. Isabelle reached onto the seat and took several napkins from the small stack there, then scuttled into the rear of the moving van and handed them to Marie, who poured some water on them and dabbed at the blood spray on her face.

“Did I get it all?” she asked.

Isabelle took the damp napkin from her, and touched a few spots beside her nose.

“There,” she said with satisfaction. “Good as new.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips against Marie’s. “How are you feeling?”

Marie smiled and pushed her away gently. “We’re still working. Go on, get back up front.”

Isabelle pouted, then went back to the front, her Skorpion handy. “Who were those two, you think? The two shooters who came at us?”

“I don’t know,” Marie said. “I’m glad we got free of them. Perhaps off-duty police.”

“They were professionals,” Isabelle said. “I don’t think most policeman would have been that fast.”

“I don’t know,” Marie said. “But no worry. They’re behind us and we’re away. We won’t see them again.”