The Viking Funeral

Chapter 21

THEY FLEW STRAIGHT out over the ocean, staying under the radar, skimming the whitecaps kicked up by a gusty Santa Ana wind. Once they were six miles out to sea, they banked south toward Mexico. Occasionally, Shane could see a large fishing boat off on the horizon, drifting lazily in the chop, packed to the rails with beer-drinking day fishers.

They streaked over a school of dolphins, twenty or more, humping playfully along in the same direction.

Then after an hour, Jody screamed something at the pilot that Shane couldn't make out over the roar of the engine and slipstreaming air that was rocketing in through the missing side doors. It must have been a shouted direction, because a minute later the pilot altered his course and headed northeast, until they passed over the rugged shoreline of Mexico. Then they were flying low over the open sandy beaches of the Baja Peninsula, streaking along above the windblown surf, the seven o'clock morning sun climbing out of the mountains to the east, lighting the frothy tips of waves and throwing long streaks of sunlight across the white windblown beaches. The helicopter's shadow chased beneath them on the sand, catching up to them a foot at a time as the sun began its slow climb.

It was morning on the worst day of Shane's life.

He sat stoically, the racket of the engine and the buffeting wind mercifully killing Jody's normal inclination to talk.

Shane was trying to find a way to deal with his devastation over Alexa. He knew if he didn't get his head working, he would end up just as dead.

He was suddenly struck by the realization that his own death could be a release. Death would take him out of this pain, and transport him to another place. He would be free of himself, away from this soul-destroying guilt.

Or would he?

There was still Chooch to think about. He could see his handsome son in his memory, standing on the other side of the airport metal detector, holding his pads and duffel.

Don't fuck this up with some whack move, Chooch had warned.

Shane had destroyed it beyond their wildest dreams. It was off the scale. But didn't he still owe it to Alexa to see the mission through?

Or should he just dive out the open door- DFO into the sand at eighty miles an hour, snap his neck, cartwheel into the black, leaving it all behind?

In the end, he knew he couldn't give Jody an easy way out. If he was going to die, he'd take Jody with him. He'd have more honor as a kamikaze than as a suicide. He would bring Jody down… For himself and for Alexa. He would do it without mercy or regret.

Then, as if he could sense Shane's murderous pledge, Jody shivered and zipped up his wind-breaker.

"There!" Jody yelled, and smacked Shane on the shoulder, pointing at a deserted beach at the mouth of a river.

Shane nodded as the pilot again altered his course, shooting across the beach and up a narrow wash, slowing as the hills narrowed on both sides of the low flying chopper. The Bell Jet Ranger continued a few hundred yards up the gully, swapped ends, then hovered over a patch of grass.

A short way off, Shane could see a dusty new blue-and-white, thirty-six-foot, double-axle Vogue motor home parked on a dirt clearing- an expensive rig with all the extras. A satellite dish poked up from the roof. Two men were standing in front, shielding their eyes, shifting and turning away from the swirling rotor sand as the helicopter settled. Even at that distance, Shane could see that one of the men was gargantuan, leaning on crutches, his left leg bandaged from ankle to hip. The last time Shane had seen him, they were faced off over gun barrels behind the noise-abatement house. Shane felt the skids touch ground, and the pilot started flipping switches as the engine wound down.

"Let's go." Jody was out of the helicopter first, followed immediately by Tremaine and Hector Rodriquez. As Shane started to exit, he looked into the expressionless, hazel eyes of the pilot, who wore his weathered complexion like a snake's skin.

"David VanKirk. Jody calls me Lord of the Skies," the man said. "I was in the Police Air Unit until IAD terminated me for flying drugs up on weekends. Now I drive this taxi for the Vikings. Personally, I don't give a shit whether you get a piece of this or not. I'm on a flat deal. But you got trouble here. Watch out for Rod, and Sawdust."

"Sawdust?" Shane asked.

"Yeah. The tall thin guy over there by the motor home. Sergeant Lester Wood-Sawdust. Get it? Jody's got nicknames for everyone."

"Always did."

"See the steroid case on crutches, next to Sawdust? That's Victory Smith. His real name is Peter. You shouldn't a'shot him… Jody thinks he can control them but most a'these guys are doing heavy drugs now. My guess is, you won't last the day."

David VanKirk turned away and finished shutting down the helicopter.

"Thanks for the heads-up." Shane got off the backseat and reluctantly followed Tremaine, Rodriquez, and Jody over to the two men waiting by the Vogue coach. Jody turned to him as he approached.

"This is Hot Sauce" Jody said, laying a protective hand on Shane's shoulder.

All four men glowered at him in silence. Shane found himself trading eye-fucks with the barrel-chested monster on crutches. When they'd exchanged gunfire, Shane had been so jacked on adrenaline that he'd missed Victory's overpowering brutishness. Now, standing in this Mexican wash, he took a better inventory. Viewed piece by piece, he was impressive, but the combined effect was awesome.

Victory Smith was propped up on crutches, the massive slabs of muscle on his shoulders rising and falling slowly with each breath like plates on a weight-lifting machine. His neck triangulated down on overdeveloped trapezius muscles. A MAC-10 was tucked in his belt, and a webbed bandolier full of magnum nines was stretched across a sixty-inch chest; his biceps flexed at least twenty-five inches. Riding atop this angry tower of muscle was a narrow face, pinched and mean, with a complexion as rough as lunar lava, pockmarked and rutted by steroids. Prehistoric, reptilian eyes never moved off Shane, tracking him mercilessly. He was predatory, deadly, and barely in control.

"Our code name is Vikings," Jody was saying. "It was given to us originally by Captain Medwick. I kinda like it, so we've kept it. Hector Rodriquez and Peter Smith are 'Hot Rod' and 'Victory.' They're both ex-SWAT. Tremaine Lane, here, is 'Inky Dink,' and this too-tall, half-mute Texas motherfucker dressed like Clint Eastwood is Sergeant Lester Wood: 'Sawdust.' They were in SIS with me."

Shane had hardly noticed Lester Wood, he'd been so focused on Victory Smith. Now he glanced over and saw a man who radiated silent disapproval. Wood was close to six-four and unnaturally thin, dressed in dusty, worn cowboy clothes. A silver rodeo buckle divided faded jeans from a denim work shirt. He had on a new windbreaker vest, rough-out bull-rider boots, and old-style Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses that were coldly studying Shane from under the brim of a custom-made Charlie Tweddle cowboy hat.

"Shane, I know you two had a little run-in a while back," Jody said, indicating Victory Smith. "But I want you guys to get past it."

Shane didn't say anything; a few more amps of pure hatred spread across the weight lifter's steroid-cratered face.

Jody put his arm around Shane. "This is my old Little League catcher. He's in for an equal share. Nobody fucks with Hot Sauce, or they deal with me, personally. Now, let's break out that beer an' get a fire going. We got plans to make. Bring all that shit down to the beach." Pointing at three coolers sitting on the ground near the motor home, he opened the door and disappeared inside.

Shane found himself looking at four seething ex-cops. Nobody spoke.

"In literature, this is called a pregnant moment," Shane finally said, trying to break the tension.

"Hey, asshole," Victory Smith whispered, "I don't know what you think you got goin' here, but far as I can see, you're just a walking corpse."

"Maybe you should take that up with Jody," Shane answered.

"Fuck Jody," Victory growled. Moments later Jody bounded out of the motor home and set down a cooler of beer. He saw the anger, hesitated, then started pulling cold brews out of the ice chest and flipping them around at the circle of men.

Smith made no move to catch his. It ricocheted off his crutch and landed in the sand.

Jody tried to talk their anger down. "To begin with, let's get a few facts straight. This ain't his fault. He saw me on the freeway. My mistake-not his. He did what any one a'you woulda done if you saw a friend you thought was dead. He looked into it."

Now they were all glaring at Jody.

"He shot an LAPD sergeant for us. Killed the acting head of DSG and took this file." He reached into his back pocket, pulled out the folded manila folder, and waved it at them. "Hot Rod and Inky Dink were there. Right? Tell 'em what you saw."

Reluctantly, Tremaine Lane and Hector Rodriquez nodded, but the nods were so subtle, they were almost imperceptible.

"This file is in code, but it says we're all still alive. Fortunately, it's the original and there are no copies. Right, Hot Sauce?"

"Right," Shane answered.

"It was only hours from being sent to the Questioned Documents Division. We were all about to get made. Without Scully, our whole deal was dust. So, in my opinion, that gets him a piece."

"Then give him your piece," Smith said darkly.

"And what're you gonna do, Victory? You gonna lead cheers and be in charge a'that fuckin' crutch? Who's gonna handle your end of it, now that you're draggin' one leg?"

"I wouldn't be draggin' it if yer buddy here hadn't shot me," Victory said, but his eyes shifted briefly away, then came back.

"You're supposed t'be a SWAT Home Incursion Specialist, so how come you're the one ended up stopping a round?"

Victory didn't answer, but he leaned down, and with a long arm, scooped his beer out of the sand. He ripped the tab off; the can chirped and hissed foam.

"Okay. Let's go have this cookout. Sawdust, get the tattoo kit. Since Hot Sauce is a Viking, we gotta give him his leg piece."

Nobody moved.

"Is somebody gonna have to shed blood over this?" Jody asked softly.

"I ain't down with this shit, and I ain't sharin' my end with this peckerwood," Tremaine growled, but the rest of the Vikings turned, and Tremaine finally followed them toward the beach.

After they left, Jody smiled. "Give 'em a little time, Hot Sauce. They'll get over it."

"Right…" Shane said softly. "I'm gonna count on you to make that happen." Then he followed Jody down to the beach, feeling intense emotions directed toward his childhood friend-frustration, disillusion, and murderous rage.