Troubleshooter

Chapter 51

Bullets spit up chips of tile. Tim kicked Guerrera in the hip, and Guerrera flew back through the open bathroom door, rolling into the master. Tim charged behind him as chunks of drywall fell and the light fixture showered sparks.

They returned fire, but their handguns were no match for the invisible firepower. Bullet holes chewed up the bedroom ceiling as Kaner mirrored their movement overhead.

Bear grabbed Tim and Guerrera and practically threw them down the stairs. They tumbled over each other, Bear miraculously there before they landed, yanking them to their feet again. They reached the front door, Bear going a mile a minute into his radio.

Breathing hard, Guerrera reloaded and started back inside, shooting Tim an inquisitive look. Tim shook his head, so Guerrera ran outside to keep an eye on the upstairs windows until backup arrived.

Tim and Bear waited in the entry, sweating, weapons drawn, eyes on the stairs. Though the automatic weapon had silenced, dust rode the air down from the second floor, depositing sediment on the top steps. Tim pressed his ear to the doorframe and listened to the house, picking up the thump of boots two floors up and the chink of a new mag in the well. A creak as Kaner sat and then, most unsettling, the silence of the patient hunter.

Eighteen units responded within five minutes. Tim directed them into position while Bear continued to coordinate with the comm center. Even before the street was cordoned off, four major news-channel helicopters circled overhead, one painted KCOM's trademark banana yellow. The front door remained open, Bear's baton still wedged in the hinges, leaving a clear view through to the staircase. Sheriff's quickly determined that there were no live telephone lines going into the house; if they wanted to talk to Kaner, a deputy would have to risk his ass running up to deliver a phone. Malane was there with three suits from Operation Cleansweep. They kept a respectful distance, huddling behind the sawhorses, recognizing that the Service took lead-for now-on the biker front. As soon as the operation dovetailed back with the AT investigation, they'd roll up their sleeves and plunge in.

Sheriff's SWAT was up on the neighboring roofs, scopes glinting in the sun. Sniper-qualified with the Army Rangers and SWAT-certified as a deputy, Tim was eager to get his eye on a scope, too, though he knew that his job today was on the ground. He'd done his retraining at the Sheriff's Academy before adopting the more media- and law-enforcement-friendly title of countersniper, though he had to confess that his precision-marksman instinct was still to play offense, not defense. The military had permitted him ample opportunity to hone his proficiencies; law enforcement had taught him restraint.

The ART squad gathered in the street behind the Beast, a retrofitted ambulance they used for deployment. Tannino jogged over, bent at the waist until he had the oversize vehicle between him and the house. Tim grabbed a ballistic helmet from the Beast and tossed it to him.

Tannino screwed it down over his poufy Erik Estrada do. "How much ammo you think he has in there?"

As if in answer, a burst of automatic fire blazed from the gable window, drilling holes in a Sheriff's Department car. A few of the younger ART members crouched, despite the Beast's protection. The tip of the AR-15 withdrew into the darkness of the attic.

"Not sure," Tim said.

"What's the play?"

Miller spit through his front teeth. "Burn it down."

"We want him alive," Tim said, as if Miller had been serious.

"Let's go in there and get him," Guerrera said.

"He's got position on us," Bear said. "We march up those stairs, we're gonna get our asses shot off."

"We've got numbers."

"Great-we can share the body bags."

Miller said, "From the roof?"

Tim said, "We're not going in at all."

A few puzzled glances made the rounds.

Thomas said, "What's left, Troubleshooter?"

"We'll make him come to us."

Maybeck braced himself against the Beast and fired the short, bigbarreled breach projectile launcher. An OC canister flew from the 37-mm, punching a fresh hole in the top of the blacked-out gable window. Within seconds, white-gray smoke wisped up into view. Tim lowered his binocs and nodded at Maybeck, who popped the breach open, ejecting the spent casing, and loaded the next round.

A persuasive blend of three hundred varieties of pepper plants, OC was ART's preferred weapon for area denial. OC not only redlined pain receptors in the mouth, nose, stomach, and mucus membrane, but it could incapacitate the esophagus, trachea, respiratory tract, and eye muscles.

Maybeck, as the resident breacher, managed the less lethal weaponry under Miller's supervision. His first day in the district office after his transfer from St. Louis, Maybeck had won a steak dinner at Lawry's, spelling oleoresin capsicum on a chalkboard in the old squad room when Jim snidely bet him he couldn't unwind the abbreviation.

Tim tipped his head, and Maybeck let another perfect shot fly.

"He's fighting it right now," Maybeck said. "Got his shirt up over his head, probably. Give it a minute."

They waited as the plume of gas escaping the shattered window rose and spread. Then a violent hacking came audible, and the sound of Kaner stumbling around in the attic.

"Wait till Bear and I get in position, then fire in another," Tim said. "Hit the rear of the ground floor heavy-I want that back door fogged off. Lose the shotgun and throw grenades if you have to for better aim."

"Make sure you cook the grenades for three or four seconds after you pull the pin so he doesn't have time to send 'em back our way." Miller shot a glare at Thomas. "Sound familiar, jackass?"

Tim and Bear broke from the cover of the Beast, sprinting across the front yard. They shouldered up on either side of the doorjamb. Tim reached across and yanked Bear's baton from the hinges. The door banged closed.

Tim watched another canister disappear into the house. A loud thump as Kaner deserted the attic, jumping down into the bathroom. Tim signaled at Maybeck, holding up two fingers, and Maybeck fired three more canisters through the second-floor window.

Wheezing and gagging. Shoes scrabbling across the upstairs floor.

"Come on, big boy," Bear muttered. "Come to the fresh air."

The house shook as Kaner stumbled down the stairs to the first floor. Through the door they could hear him gasping and grunting, less than ten yards away. Tim signaled again, and Thomas and Freed ran along the sides of the house, heaving grenades through the windows. The bark of Kaner's cough grew louder.

Kaner's raspy voice rose into a warrior's roar, rage tinged with pain. Tim white-knuckled the side handle of the baton. Bear settled down on one knee a few feet back from the hinge side of the door, the stock of his Remington braced against one shoulder, the barrel aimed gut level.

Kaner's footsteps quickened as he thundered toward the front door. Tim tensed his knees, his shoulders, watching the doorknob six inches from his hand. Heart hammering, he drew back the baton, starting his windup. Still bellowing, Kaner hit the door like a 'roid-raging line-backer, knocking it clear off the bottom hinge and splintering the wood. His momentum carried him onto the porch, the AR-15 rising in his right arm. Tim pivoted off the wall, meeting Kaner's skull with the baton and dropping him flat on his back.