Swift Vengeance

38

Four p.m. the next day, a Tuesday. A pewter sky bellied low over Balboa Park, breeze rising and daylight falling. I had been cast in the role of armed bodyguard in this FBI Repertory Theater performance of Busting Caliphornia. The curtain was scheduled to rise in half an hour.

I was given no lines but was allowed to drive my own truck and pick out my own clothes and accessories. I had chosen a navy suit, white shirt, and yellow tie, my .45 handgun in my leather inside-the-waistband holster.

One hour ago I had driven into the heart of the park like any other visitor and parked near the Mingei International Museum. As scripted, a black federal Town Car was waiting. I opened a rear door and stepped in. FBI Special Agent Ali Hassan, flown in from New York, sat in the spacious backseat. He was young and trim, with black hair, a goatee, and an expensive suit. We shook hands.

Our black-suited chauffeur was none other than Directing Special Agent Darrel Blevins, who introduced the cast as soon as I sat down: Mike Lark the homeless was under the tree right there, Joan Taucher and Patrick O’Hora in the white Challenger over by the exit, Darnell Smith circling on a damned motorcycle in case high-speed pursuit ensued.

“He’ll come buzzing by here again any minute,” said Blevins.

We had a good view of the benches outside the Mingei, where Caliphornia claimed he would meet Hassan and his bodyguard at exactly four thirty. It made sense that he’d choose a busy, outdoor public place with fading daylight for the cash pickup — easier for him to remain unrecognized, and more difficult for law enforcement to operate — if Raqqa 9 and the Warrior of Allah were not who they had claimed to be.

But as I looked out the darkened Town Car window, I saw that the blustery weather and short daylight had kept some of Balboa Park’s usual holiday visitors away. A young couple hustled from the Mingei and across the parking lot toward their car. An old man with a cane rose from one of the benches and headed bent-backed toward the museum. A flock of pigeons lifted off the grass nearby, and the old man turned to watch. Lark, smudged and ragged, slouched against the trunk of a huge coral tree, his heavily laden shopping cart beside him. I pictured him in my barn, young and bright-eyed, stating his affection and respect for the beleaguered Taucher, telling me that he was the same age she’d been when she started out in the Bureau. And making the crack about his boss stepping in the dog’s mess.

Balanced across Hassan’s knees was a well-used leather briefcase containing fifty thousand dollars in twenties. He opened it so I could see. There were fifty bundles of fifty bills each, printed on five-plus pounds of paper. The Bureau had decided not to deploy exploding dye packs — too much risk that the suspicious Caliphornia would ask Assayed Hassan or his trusted bodyguard to handle or transfer the money first. Each bill number had been recorded, on the slim chance that Caliphornia might get away and start spending it.

“Yep,” said Blevins. “There goes Smith on his Kawasaki.”

I watched the leather-clad, black-helmeted agent coming down the drive and past the Mingei, the Kawasaki’s stinger burping in the afternoon quiet of the park.

Blevins turned and beamed us, implants perfect and polished. “Don’t screw this up, PI,” he said. “Just do whatever Caliphornia says, and we’ll take care of the rest. Remember, if either of you runs his left hand through his hair — we are coming in fast and hard. That’s your call-in-the-cavalry signal: left hand through hair. So keep your left hands far away from your damned heads in the meantime.”

Ali shot me an annoyed look as he clicked the briefcase shut. “We’ll manage.”

“I love stuff like this,” said Blevins, turning away from us to face the windshield and the Mingei. “Gets my mojo up. What’s that in your waistband?”

“The gun that any armed bodyguard would carry.”

“Know how to use it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Makes me feel better, too, what with all the heads rolling around lately.”

A silent beat while I scanned the parking lot for a metallic gray 4Runner.

“You were in Fallujah, weren’t you?” Blevins asked.

“The first one,” I said.

A half-turn, and half of the dazzling Blevins implants. “When it all went to shit.”

“A lot of bad things happened all at once,” I said.

“That was when I finally realized how much they hated us,” said Blevins. “Killing those American civilians like that.”

I cocked my head, figured why the hell not. “If they showed up here with a hundred and fifty thousand troops, you might hate them, too.”

Blevins growled. “So us being there excuses everything?”

“It set the table for people like Caliphornia.”

“We were helping them,” said Blevins. “You want to weigh in on this, Ali?”

“I was born in the U.S.,” he said. “I married an American woman. I’d fight to the death to defend my country from occupiers. Like anybody anywhere.”

“What gives Islamic State the right to cut off American heads?” asked Blevins.

“They’re fanatics with no country to defend,” said Hassan. “We should run them into the ground where we find them.”

“You got that right,” said Blevins.

Again I studied the lot for Caliphornia’s gray 4Runner. And again for a black Cube. At four twenty Blevins asked if we were ready. Helpfully, he reminded us not to screw this up.

Looking through the windshield, I saw the empty benches outside the museum. A security guard came from the building, looked around for a moment, then went back in.

“Good luck,” said Blevins.

Ali and I walked side by side on the nearly empty footpath, took a detour away from the Mingei, passed the visitors’ center and the Prado Restaurant. He carried the briefcase in his left hand. Wore wraparound sunglasses and a blue shirt open at the collar.

We looped back to the Mingei and my heart fell a little when I saw the empty benches. No Caliphornia visible on this late blustery afternoon in a beautiful park. Hardly anyone at all.

Hassan went to a bench, lowered the briefcase, and sat. I walked across the thin grass and stood under the big coral tree, thirty feet away from him. Buttoned my coat, snugged my lapels, mentally registered the gun against my backside, then checked my phone. All of us on the takedown team had linked our Telegram apps to group-receive from Caliphornia, but only Ali would answer.

Four thirty came and went. The darkness closed and headlights came on and I could see Blevins’s vague outline behind the wheel of the black Town Car. The darkened windows of the Challenger revealed no one inside at all. A moment later Agent Smith came whining down the drive on his motorcycle, revs high but speed low, apparently taking in the fetching scenery around him.

Then a buzz from my phone.

Ali and I walked south toward the Spreckels Organ Pavilion. The amphitheater sat empty in the near-darkness. Hall of Nations to our left. United Nations Gift Shop. Christmas lights. Palms and eucalyptus towering high and lit from below. On President’s Way, a blue Mustang went by, then an older 4Runner. White.

We walked along Pan American Plaza and another parking lot with more spaces than cars, our heels sharp on the walkway. Businesslike. Executive. Confident. An oncoming covey of teenage girls broke rank to let us through, lost in laughter and their phones.

“He’s seeing if we’re alone,” said Hassan. “When he’s satisfied that we are, he’ll leave. My guess is he’ll ditch this park altogether.”

“I agree,” I said. “He’ll want a better crowd to feel safe.”

“Are there usually more people here?” he asked.

“A lot more,” I said. “The fabled San Diego weather let him down.”

We stopped a few yards short of the entrance to the Air and Space Museum. The building is bulky and cylindrical, an old version of futuristic. Plenty of room for air and space. Out front, scale models of iconic fighter jets rise on pedestals — an old X-15 and a modern F-16. A huge, spotlighted banner above the entrance announced the current exhibit:

Around the building, streetlamps glowed and eucalyptus trees swayed in the cool breeze.

Under the X-15, Ali set down the briefcase, hiked a shirt cuff, and checked his watch. I walked off a hundred feet or so, stood just outside the pale pool of a streetlamp with my back to the building. Feet spread, hands folded dutifully in front of me. Roland Ford, bodyguard.

Felt like a smoke, but you can’t do that here.

Had some thoughts, none of them interesting.

Ten minutes later I saw Ali walking toward me, looking down into the glow of his phone. I read the message:

“That’s the nurse and the sailor kissing,” I said.

“Crowded?”

“Always.”

Then Darrel Blevins, group-texting the team:

Ali and I strolled back to my truck, stood outside, and snuck a couple of his cigarettes. Kept an eye out for park security. Laughed quietly at ourselves. Schoolboys. Waited. Our ten minutes felt like an hour.

Then we launched.