No Safe Place (Joe Hunter Thrillers Book 11) (17 page)

She snorted at my attempt at humour. ‘We’ve got intel on the home invasion crew. The task force are about to mount a raid and I intend being there when it goes down.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Holker would shit a fur ball.’

‘So?’

‘So this is
our
gig, Joe. Mine and Holker’s. I’m not about to mess it up for him; no way.’

‘The guy dislikes me that much? Look, I promise to be a good boy…’

‘I don’t want a good boy,’ she said, as she approached her car. Remarkably it hadn’t been stolen, broken into, burned out or jacked up on bricks. ‘I only want to get these bastards, and I can’t afford any distractions. Sorry, Joe, but you can call a cab, right?’

‘I understand,’ I said. ‘You can’t turn up with me, but at least tell me where you’re going.’

She was getting in the car. ‘Why, so you can follow me?’

‘You’d expect anything different?’

‘Shit. Get in, buckle up and shut the hell up.’

‘What the hell’s Hunter doing here?’
Detective Holker gritted his teeth to hold back any expletives. ‘Goddamn it, Bryony! What were you thinking?’

‘What did you expect me to do with him; drop him in the middle of nowhere?’ Bryony glanced back at where she’d parked her car, out of sight and sound of the target building in Tampa Heights. Joe Hunter sat resolutely in the passenger seat, as he’d been instructed. But how long would that last?

‘You could’ve dropped him in the Bay for all I care,’ Holker growled. He was vested up, had his badge on a lanyard round his neck.

‘So what are you bothered about? Don’t worry, he’s under strict instructions to sit there and not move.’

Holker shook his head and stormed away, heading towards a tactical response team leader, who was currently instructing his men on the plan of attack. ‘I haven’t time for this shit,’ Holker said. ‘Just keep him well away from me. I’d like to live to see the end of the day.’

Bryony shook her own head, but it was at her decision for allowing Hunter along for the ride. Holker was already suspicious enough, without allowing superstition to add to his dislike of Hunter. She’d already kicked off her heels and squirmed into a pair of sneakers she’d brought from her car’s trunk. She also strapped into her own ballistic vest, cinching the Velcro tight, then checked over her department issue Glock. She gave Hunter one last stern look, and he waved, offering a supportive grin. Rakish son-of-a-bitch, she thought, but couldn’t help smiling. She turned, all professional-like and headed to join Holker and the other Tampa PD officers preparing for the raid on the building out of view around the corner. Prep would have to be swift, because already members of the public had noticed the arrival of the police, some with no love of cops, and word would reach the ears of their targets imminently. There was a second team of officers, backed by another tac-team a few blocks to the north, ready to coordinate their movements with Holker’s assigned team. Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies had formed a cordon that encompassed the neighbourhood between Woodlawn Cemetery and the western boundary of Robles Park, as far north as Martin Luther King Jnr Boulevard, and south to Columbus Drive, ready to move in as manpower necessitated. The plan was for a pincer manoeuvre, go in loud and fast, and catch the home invasion crew with their pants down: but as the clock ticked onward, their window for monopolizing the element of surprise was narrowing. If they didn’t move soon, the bad guys could be the ones coming with all guns blazing.

There was the genuine possibility of a counter attack, and Bryony was aware that there was an element of residents in the neighbourhood who packed enough weaponry to give them a real fight. If you believed the FBI-reported violent crime rates, and certain opinion polls, the Tampa Heights district was once in the top twenty most dangerous neighbourhoods in the nation, with residents having a one in nine chance of being a victim of crime. That was a few years ago now, and some refurbishment and business revitalization schemes had helped rejuvenate the neighbourhood, but those who had to patrol it still regarded it as a crime-ridden blemish on Tampa’s good name. Early opinions said the crime rate was beginning to decrease, but ask any cop and they’d tell you it was bureaucratic bullshit, politicians playing fast and loose with the statistics to make them look good. There were many law-abiding, decent, hard-working people living there, but it only took a minority – responsible for the majority of criminal activity – to keep a neighbourhood down.

Bryony glanced at the armament wielded by her colleagues, regretful that the good folks of Tampa Heights should witness what amounted to an invading force, but she was also grateful that the team was fully equipped. Who knew what they faced once they stormed the seemingly derelict office complex the robbers had commandeered for their base of operations? Another thing she was thankful for was that it was a Sunday evening, and therefore there were no kids around, especially when the office complex was in earshot of a nearby academy, and a play park. There were a few small businesses in the vicinity too, auto-repair shops and junk yards primarily, but all were closed for the night, so there was lesser chance of collateral damage from members of the public strolling into the danger zone.

The tac-team leader was finishing up his instructions as Bryony arrived alongside Holker, swiping off-screen the blueprints of the office complex he’d brought up on a tablet. They all trusted the construction plans meant little to its current state, but the blueprints had given them an idea on the main ingress ports into the building. Undercover officers had added extra intelligence, and Bryony caught the leader instructing two of his guys to cover the second floor windows, in case they came under fire from above. Bryony didn’t require a briefing as such, because her and Holker and the half-dozen other detectives on scene would be following direction after the hard entry of tactical support. Already one team of six heavily armed and armoured TRT officers was queuing up at the near corner, and Holker moved to join the rear of the queue, his sidearm drawn. Bryony moved in close on his heels. She could smell nervous anxiety, gun oil, and not a little testosterone, and fleetingly wondered if the scent was rising off her.

Another tac squad trotted away along the block from where they’d assembled, their plain-clothed counterparts joining the back of their line, while other specialist officers moved to vantage points where they could offer cover. The team leader coordinating the raid was talking through the secure radio channel, but Bryony had no idea what was being said. Instead she watched the point man on her team for instruction; waiting as he counted down with his fingers, then gestured them to move. In a huddle they went forward, Bryony feeling like the tail end of an armoured caterpillar bristling with guns. As they approached the last corner, the point man again gave silent instructions and the stack of bodies drew to a halt. He used a mirror to check around the corner, and was happy the approach was clear. He relayed as much into his helmet-mounted microphone, then waited as another countdown began.

Greenlight!

The tactical response team surged forward, slick and practiced, ready for any eventuality. Further up the street the second team moved parallel to them, aiming for rapid entry via a fire exit door at the far right corner of the office complex. Bryony’s team angled for the original entrance foyer, where the glass doors had long since been vandalised, but were reinforced with graffiti-daubed steel shutters. In instances where doors required breaching, the usual order of the day was by the use of Hatton rounds, a charge of compressed zinc powder fired from a shotgun into the locking mechanism, but in this instance the dedicated breach officer lugged a set of industrial strength bolt-clippers. They made short work of the sturdy chain padlocking the shutters to the doorframe, an instant before a second tactical support officer prised the door open with a short crowbar. The screech of twisting metal was obliterated by the shouts of the remaining four armoured cops who swarmed inside, clearing the vestibule. The breaching couple went inside after them, after swapping out their tools for more deadly ones. Only then did the detectives follow on their heels.

No shots were fired during those first few seconds, by either cops or villains, and Bryony hoped the status quo would last. Best-case scenario was that the gang were overwhelmed and controlled before anybody got a shot off, but that was expecting a lot. As corners were cleared, the tac-team moved on, and a size eleven boot breached the next door via a swift kick to the handle. The tac-team went inside, shouting commands. Distantly Bryony could hear the other teams making equally noisy ingress, and now another sound. There were startled shouts, and the rumble of feet.

The first gunshot sounded like the clap of hands. It emanated from down a corridor and beyond walls. It was faint, but it sent an electrical charge through Bryony that left her scalp tingling. She knew it was the herald of more gunfire to come.

‘Stay tight,’ Holker said to her.

She was so close she was almost climbing his back as it was.

Helmeted heads bobbed before them as the tactical officers covered a narrow hallway, ready to rain down overlapping fields of fire but there was no sign of resistance. Vandalised offices stood vacant along the hall, but each had to be cleared before anyone moved on. But the team was slick, and well practiced, so each room took a case of seconds before the calls of “clear” rang out.

Another gun fired. It was on semi-automatic. Three snapping sounds followed by a second of dead silence. Then the trio of snaps repeated.

‘Contact, contact,’ one of the tac-team barked.

A figure had materialised from an open doorway ahead. Bryony could barely see the man, but one of the tac officers fired a second before she heard the thunderous bark of a shotgun. Scatter-shot drilled holes in the suspended ceiling above the leading officers, and shredded polystyrene tiles dropped like a blizzard of confetti at a wedding. Commands were barked in short order, but the gunman wasn’t listening. A single shot rang out, and was rewarded by the clatter of a falling body.

Most of the team surged onward, with one cop crouching to clear the weapon from the fallen man. Another checked him for vitals, but Bryony knew from the seeping wound in his chest the man was no longer a threat. She briefly wondered if she knew the man’s face, but it was slack in death and being malformed by the second bullet didn’t even look natural let alone recognisable. She glanced at Holker, who also checked out the man with a frown. He raised his eyebrows at her in question. Before she could reply in the negative, they were moving once more.

There was a stairwell to the left, another door dead ahead. On their right they were blocked from the street by nailed shut windows, or ones replaced by sheets of warped plyboard. It was a shooting gallery, should anyone come up behind them. Bryony was mindful of an attack from the rear, but was as keen to get through the door as the others in the team. Gunfire crackled from beyond the door, and she could tell from the way the point man flinched that shouted updates were coming fast and furiously through his earpiece. One of the team paused to guard the stairs; the others went through the door. Holker had his gun up near his right shoulder. Bryony’s was in a two-handed grip at waist height.

Bullets scorched the air around them.

By the time they turned, the tac guy was returning fire up the stairs. A black youth, no more than in his late teens, ducked back from the bannister rail as the cop’s bullets punched holes in the ancient wood.

‘Tampa Police! Drop your weapon!’ the cop yelled.

The youth’s response was to fire again, but they were pot shots, his arm over the rail, but his body hidden by the upper level floor. Bryony skipped aside as one of his poorly aimed bullets exploded through the window next to her. Beside her, Holker fired. The armoured cop was already advancing up the stairs. Bryony would prefer to follow the team into the next room where larger numbers of the home invasion crew were sequestered, and by the sound of things giving almost as good as they got in the gun battle, but the lone tac guy needed support. Holker and she were it. They went up fast, following the cop to the head of the stairs. Holker took a knee, covering as the cop went to his belly and swung around the bannister. ‘He’s running,’ said the cop.

He must have been running backwards, because the youth was still shooting. Bullet holes pockmarked the wall adjacent to them. Challenges rang down the corridor from both ends. The cop levelled his gun, preparing to fire.

‘He’s just a kid,’ Holker whispered harshly, and the cop’s finger paused on the trigger.

A kid who’d shoot them all like mangy dogs given the chance, Bryony thought. But her partner was right. The youth was shooting out of desperation and fear, and it might not be seen as a justified shooting if he was killed. Besides, they needed a live arrestee, and by the way things were going there might not be a robber left standing judging by the fury of the gun battle raging below them.

The youth stopped shooting, but only because he’d made cover at the far end of the corridor and didn’t have a target. In a bunch, they moved forward, the armoured cop again taking point. Here some of the windows were open to the elements. Bryony was conscious of the snipers outside, feeling a prickle of unease at being in their crosshairs. Last she wanted was for any of them to be caught in a blue-on-blue shooting. She listened as their colleague made a running commentary, up-dating their progress, she thought: she wasn’t the only one wary of being taken out by an itchy-fingered sharpshooter.

The youth peaked out from the far corner.

‘Police! Put down your weapon. Now!’ roared the tac guy, even as he brought up his M16.

The kid’s response was to fire.

The bullet took the cop in the chest, and he went to one knee, huffing out in pain. Thankfully his Kevlar vest saved him, but he was momentarily winded. Bryony patted him on the shoulder, as she stood to protect him while he was vulnerable. Holker’s gun was up and firing, and a split-second later Bryony’s Glock joined in. It was one thing hoping for a live captive, but not at the expense of a dead cop. The youth fled.

‘That little punk isn’t getting away,’ Holker swore.

They raced after him, the armoured cop now on his feet again, but a tad slow to follow.

Holker made the corner first, and dipped out.

‘He’s going down,’ he announced, and Bryony swerved around him and took the stairs three at a time. The young man was fleet-footed, his Converse sneakers slapping the steps on his way down. Bryony heard him pause, rather than seen him, and she flattened her back to the wall as she hit the landing where the stairs turned back on themselves. Now she covered while Holker came down. He bobbed out.