Chapter 9: Taking Fire

Saturday May 24, 1 AM
Driving To Work Takes A Detour

Falling into a routine - even one that is unconscious - is dangerous in my business, and I guess I had done exactly that. If I did not see it I guessed nobody else would. WRONG!

I realized after the fact that I tended to come to work taking a particular expressway exit and a set of streets for the last few blocks of my trip. Also, lately I did not rotate as many vehicles as I liked to use. The pickup truck I was in was not the worst vehicle to get ambushed in, but it was close. What really tripping me up was the time when I came to work. It seemed that the fourth Saturday of every month I arrived at work between 12:30 and 2:00 in the morning, driving the new Chevy pickup or the look-alike 3-year old pickup it replaced. I had not realized, but I checked my schedule after the incident and for the last 6 months, the pattern was solid.

Yeah, these are the things I always think of too late.

I was minutes away from my office at the law firm when things got interesting. I was on a deserted street, so I did not have the cover that usually comes with driving a common vehicle. The street was not straight but curved - sort of like the magazine of an AK-47, you will see why that came to my mind - with trees in the median, moving through a complex of office buildings. Ahead, at the end of the block, I can see a guy stroll out to the center of my lane where he stops. I can’t see his hands, they are behind his back. As I get closer he casually pulls out this AK-47 from behind his back, puts it to his shoulder, and and I see the flashes of bullets coming my way.

The pickup is relatively new, still had that “new car” smell, and it has very little protection. There is an armor plate in front of the engine and radiator, and another between the cab and the bed. No protection on the sides (on order), no bulletproof glass (on order), no rifle built into the trunk, nothing. I had my pistols but shooting at this range was a waste of ammo even if I could sight the thing, and I was sorta busy driving. The one thing that was in my favor was that the guy had his rifle on full auto, and unless the Hulk is pulling the trigger the AK simply can’t be held on target at full auto. The first bullet was low - he probably had the range wrong. Maybe whoever paced it off mixed up feet and yards, it would not be the first time. About three bullets hit the windshield and the rest were all pretty random, including one that took out a streetlight. In full auto guys tends to empty the clip real fast.

I did a 180 with that truck as quick as I could, hopping the median in the process. The shooter calmly pulled out a second clip, switched to single fire and did a better job on range so he put some bullets in the side and back of the box but that was it. Trees in the median caught a few bullets that could have caught me. I took off as fast as the standard V-8 could. In the mirror I saw a big SUV come around the corner, pick the guy up, then it came after me. I turned a corner and tried to think of my options.

Moments later I saw the SUV slide around the corner behind me, drifting the turn perfectly. I’m guessing it was a block or more back, but it was gaining so that cut down my choices. The move and speed said this was not random. I could not outrun these guys. I might lose them, I knew my way around here, but it would be tricky with my brake lights working, giving my moves away (normally I have a switch to kill all the lights, but it is on order). Plus, if I did lose them I would have no way to find out who was shooting at me and that was unhealthy. I was too far to call for a 49 Fast Response team. So much for the bad news.

It really presents an interesting problem: how to extract men with guns from a metal box (the SUV) without getting killed and leaving them in good enough shape to have a nice conversation afterward because, otherwise, what is the point? If they get too broken to talk (TV and movies always to a spectacular crash with lots of fire) then it has to be called a wasted opportunity, and I hate wasted opportunities.

One option was to even the odds quick and dirty, again like they do on TV or in the movies. With a few turns I could get to a point where I could stop and get out of the truck without my brake lights being seen. (TV writers never think of that part.) Then, if I was tall and handsome like Will Smith and Tom Cruise (actually, I am a bit taller than Will and more handsome than either, or so I am told) I could position myself in the dark to ambush the SUV right where it would stop, shooting them up broadside, emptying my three full mags of my Glocks. I would get at least 2 on the first pass, maybe all of them. (The SUV was too quick to have armor.) But that TV plot has a couple of big downsides. First, I could trip over a curb or sprinkler head or sleeping homeless guy in the dark. Second, somebody would likely return fire with the AK, throwing lots of lead in my direction at short range, so they could get lucky. Third, if I guessed wrong about where they stopped then I lost my advantage of a free shot. Then we went to a ground game in the dark where they had the numbers on their side. Also, if they had night vision (I didn’t) I was really screwed. Finally, if I got them all, I had nobody to question and LAPD on the way.

That didn’t sound like the good answer for the Prince. If only I could surround them with my own men in a canyon someplace, with night vision. Then we could just wound them all and add some military grade knockout gas so we could talk later in a comfortable setting. Here is where them being in a common large SUV was a break for me.

It meant playing the long game on LA streets. I had a preset trap if I could get there, but it required a little luck and some real skill from me. Like a deep sea fisherman with a prize fish on the line, I had to keep the SUV close enough to see me, but not close enough to shoot me, and I had to do it for about 5 miles on city streets with no accidents or cops. It was late so traffic was light. If I kept them on the line I could pull them into my net.

Once they were trapped in my net it was game over. Then it was my turn to play a game of “20 Questions - the Pain edition.”

Yeah, I was going for the long street game. This ride was going to be a lot more exciting than researching water rights rulings from the 9th circuit. I admit I was curious why they were shooting at me.

I hit speed-dial on my phone, it rang twice before Tango answered. “Boss, what can I do for you?” He sounded like I just woke him for a casual conversation, so I had to impress upon him a degree of urgency.

“Shots fired, no blood. Iron Alley, repeat Iron Alley, 10 minutes, full force flash. Assume 4 to 6 hostiles. I want all these bastards alive enough to torture for a week. Angel trace. ZAP. Out.” That should wake him up.

I had told him he had a few minutes to get all the solders to their fire locations around “Iron Alley.” As it was night they would be armed with their favorite long rifles equipped with silencers so as not to disturb the neighbors and wearing night vision. There was no time and no need for body armor. The men were in a barracks a block from the alley, they had practiced the move a few times and knew their spots. There were service tunnels and secured skywalks, guys with rifles would not appear on the streets. This time of night the area was essentially deserted, but a random patrol car or drunk would be a problem. Any cops in the area would be distracted with a 9-1-1 call someplace else. Any other witnesses would be taken and held and fed lots of cheap vodka.

The “ZAP” meant that my guys would overwhelm cell towers in the area with a computer-generated deluge of calls. It would not last long.

Now all I had to do was get there without getting shot, or losing the SUV, or having an accident, or attracting the cops. The “trace” would also help with that. A few moments later our radio guy Angel was on my speaker, telling me where to turn to avoid LAPD roaming and stationary cars. This time of night there was not much out, so he talked me through it easily.

I laid a trail that seemed to head for the airport, I did not want to telegraph my route or destination in case they had buddies out there. The SUV stayed with me, it was clear they had me on horsepower but it was not NOZ or anything radical. The driver was good, he kept up without making any mistakes. Twice the SUV got close enough to tempt them to shoot, but that was futile, they were shooting by leaning out the window with the AK or just sticking out pistols, in either case aiming was impossible.

Finally I pulled into Iron Alley.

The entrance is a parking structure, after entry I hung a hard left instead of going through the ticket thing. Then came a tight-S, a turn right and I was out of the parking structure and into this narrow alley between the parking structure (6 stories) and a building (8 stories) with no windows facing the alley. The narrow alley ended in a T-intersection with the main alley which ran behind more tall, windowless buildings.

There is no reason for anybody to come here, to see the alley. Garbage trucks use the wider main alley to service the buildings. From that end Iron Alley looks like a crowded dead end. People in the parking ramp stay on the main path, they don’t turn off early on the left turn, or if they do they make a second left back to the street. Only somebody who deals with parking ramps and walks around in them knows about the narrow alley. Toad spotted it while scouting the area years ago.

The deal is, a number of large metal dumpsters line both sides of the alley, which is narrow but there is just enough room for a full-size SUV or pickup to drive. However, if you stop with the dumpsters on each side, there is not enough room to open the doors of a full-sized SUV or pickup, because both sides are fully lined with the dumpsters.

Now, you might be asking why bad guys, chasing me with guns, would stop in the alley. It is not something they would choose to do. That is where Tango comes in.