Kill or Be Killed Read online

  As the room cleared and the smoke lifted, I took stock of the damage. The double main doors were nearly unhinged, but the destruction was slight. The bomb seemed more like a diversion than a forceful explosion meant to kill, maim, or destroy property.

  A bailiff helped Parisi to his feet. Judge Crispin pulled himself up from behind the bench, and the jury was led out the side doorway. Conklin headed toward me as the last of the spectators flowed out the main doors and cops ran in.

  “EMTs are on the way,” he said.

  That’s when I saw that the defense table, where the King had been sitting with his attorney, had flipped onto its side.

  Penney looked around and called out, “Help! I need help here!”

  My ears still rang from the blast. I made my way around overturned chairs to where Kingfisher lay on his side in a puddle of blood. He reached out his hand and beckoned to me.

  “I’m here,” I said. “Talk to me.”

  The King had been shot. There was a ragged bullet hole in his shoulder, blood pumping from his belly, and more blood pouring from a wound at the back of his head. There were shell casings on the floor.

  He was in pain and maybe going into shock, but he was conscious.

  His voice sounded like a whisper to my deafened ears. But I read him, loud and clear.

  “Elena did this,” he said. “Elena, my little Elena.”

  Then his face relaxed. His hand dropped. His eyes closed and he died.

  Chapter 33

  Jorge Sierra’s funeral was held at a Catholic cemetery in Crescent City, a small northwest California town on the ocean named for the crescent-shaped bay that defined it.

  Among the seventy-five hundred people included in the census were the fifteen hundred inmates of nearby Pelican Bay State Prison.

  It was either irony or payback, but Elena had picked this spot because her husband had asked to be imprisoned at Pelican Bay and now he would be within eight miles of it—forever.

  The graveyard had been virtually abandoned. The ground was flat, bleak, with several old headstones that had been tipped over by vandals or by weather. The chapel needed paint, and just beyond the chapel was a potholed parking lot.

  Several black cars, all government property, were parked there, and a dozen FBI agents stood in a loose perimeter around the grave site and beside the chapel within the parking lot with a view of the road.

  I was with Conklin and Parisi. My partner and I had been told that Sierra was dead and buried once before. This time I had looked into the coffin. The King was cold and dead, but I still wanted to see the box go into the ground.

  Conklin had suffered along with me when Sierra had terrorized me last year, and even though justice had been cheated, we were both relieved it was over.

  The FBI had sent agents to the funeral to see who showed up. The King’s murder inside the courthouse was an unsolved mystery. The smoke and the surging crowd had blocked the camera’s view of the defense table. Elena Sierra and her father, Pedro Quintana, had been questioned separately within twelve hours of the shooting and had said that they had hit the floor after the blast, eyes down when the bullets were fired. They hadn’t seen the shooting.

  So they said.

  Both had come for Sierra’s send-off, and Elena had brought her children to say good-bye to their father.

  Elena looked lovely in black. Eight-year-old Javier and six-year-old Alexa bowed their heads as the priest spoke over their father’s covered coffin at graveside. The little girl cried.

  I studied this tableau.

  Elena had many reasons to want her husband dead. But she had no military background, nothing that convinced me that she could lean over the railing and shoot her husband point-blank in the back of the head.

  Her father, however, was a different story.

  I’d done some research into Mexican gangsters and learned that Pedro Quintana was the retired head of Los Toros, the original gang that had raised and trained Sierra on his path to becoming the mightiest drug kingpin of them all.

  Sierra had famously disposed of Quintana after he split off from Los Toros and formed Mala Sangre, the new and more powerful drug and crime cartel.

  Both Elena and her father had motive to put Sierra down, but how had one or both of them pulled off this shooting in open court?

  I’d called Joe last night to brainstorm with him. Despite the state of our marriage, Joe Molinari had background to spare as an agent in USA clandestine services, as well as from his stint as deputy to the director of Homeland Security.

  He theorized that during the power outage in the Hall, a C-4 explosive charge had been slapped onto the hinges of Judge Crispin’s courtroom doors. It was plausible that one of the hundreds of law enforcement personnel prowling the Hall that night had been paid to set this charge, and it was possible for a lump of plastic explosive to go unnoticed.

  A package containing a small gun, ammo, and a remote-controlled detonator could have been smuggled in at the same time, left where only Sierra’s killer could find it. It could even have been passed to the killer or killers the morning of the trial.

  Had Elena and her father orchestrated this perfect act of retribution? If so, I thought they were going to get away with it.

  These were my thoughts as I stood with Conklin and Parisi in the windswept and barren cemetery watching the lowering of the coffin, Elena throwing flowers into the grave, the first shovel of dirt, her children clinging to their mother’s skirt.

  The moment ended when a limo pulled around a circular drive and Elena Sierra’s family went to it and got inside.

  Rich said to me, “I’m going to hitch a ride back with Red Dog. Okay with you?”

  I said it was. We hugged good-bye.

  Another car, an aging Mercedes, swung around the circle of dead grass and stone. It stopped for me. I opened the back door and reached out to my baby girl in her car seat. She was wearing a pink sweater and matching hat knit for her by her lovely nanny. I gave Julie a big smooch and what we call a huggy-wuffle.

  Then I got into the front passenger seat.

  Joe was driving.

  “Zoo?” he said.

  “Zoooooooo,” came from behind.

  “It’s unanimous,” I said. “The zoos have it.”

  Joe put his hand behind my neck and pulled me toward him. I hadn’t kissed him in a long time. But I kissed him then.

  There’d be plenty of time to talk later.

  Epilogue

  Chapter 34

  The limo driver who was bringing Elena Sierra and the children back from a shopping trip couldn’t park at the entrance to her apartment building. A long-used family car was stopped right in front of the walkway, where an elderly man was helping his wife out of the car with her walker. The doorman ran outside to help the old couple with their cumbersome luggage.

  Elena told her driver, “Leave us right here, Harlan. Thanks. See you in the morning.”

  After opening the doors for herself and her children, Elena took the two shopping bags from her driver, saying, “I’ve got it. Thanks.”

  Doors closed with solid thunks, the limo pulled away, and the kids surrounded their mother, asking her for money to buy churros from the ice cream shop down the block at the corner.

  She said, “We don’t need churros. We have milk and granola cookies.” But she finally relented, set down the groceries, found a five-dollar bill in her purse, and gave it to Javier.

  “Please get me one, too,” she called after her little boy.

  Elena picked up her grocery bags, and as she stood up, she saw two men in bulky jackets—one with a black scarf covering the bottom of his face and the other with a knit cap—crossing the street toward her.

  She recognized them as Jorge’s men and knew without a doubt that they were coming to kill her. Mercifully, the children were running and were now far down the block.

  The one with the scarf, Alejandro, aimed his gun at the doorman and fired. The gun had a suppressor, and the sound of th
e discharge was so soft the old man hadn’t heard it, didn’t understand what had happened. He tried to attend to the fallen doorman, while Elena said to the soldier wearing the cap, “Not out here. Please.”

  Invoking what residual status she might have as the King’s widow, Elena turned and walked into the modern, beautifully appointed lobby, her back prickling with expectation of a bullet to her spine.

  She walked past the young couple sitting on a love seat, past the young man leashing his dog, and pressed the elevator button. The doors instantly slid open and the two men followed her inside.

  The doors closed.

  Elena stood at the rear with one armed man standing to her left and the other to her right. She looked straight ahead, thinking about the next few minutes as the elevator rose upward, then chimed as it opened directly into her living room.

  Esteban, the shooter with the knit cap, had the words Mala Sangre inked on the side of his neck. He stepped ahead of her into the room, looked around at the antiques, the books, the art on the walls. He went to the plate-glass window overlooking the Transamerica Pyramid and the great bay.

  “Nice view, Mrs. Sierra,” he said with a booming voice. “Maybe you’d like to be looking out the window now. That would be easiest.”

  “Don’t hurt my children,” she said. “They are Jorge’s. His blood.”

  She went to the window and placed her hands on the glass. She heard a door open inside the apartment. A familiar voice said loudly, “Drop your guns. Do it now.”

  Alejandro whipped around, but before he could fire, Elena’s father cut him down with a shot to the throat, two more to the chest as he fell.

  Pedro Quintana said to the man with the cap, who was holding his hands above his head, “Esteban, get down on your knees while I am deciding what to do with you.”

  Esteban obeyed, dropping to his knees, keeping his hands up while facing Elena’s father, and beseeching him in Spanish.

  “Pedro, please. I have known you for twenty years. I named my oldest son for you. I was loyal, but Jorge, he threatened my family. I can prove myself. Elena, I’m sorry. Por favor.”

  Elena walked around the dead man, who was bleeding on her fine Persian carpet where her children liked to play, and took the gun from her father’s hand.

  She aimed at Esteban and fired into his chest. He fell sideways, grabbed at his wound, and grunted, “Dios.”

  Elena shot him three more times.

  When her husband’s soldiers were dead, Elena made calls: First to Harlan to pick up the children immediately and keep them in the car. “Papa will meet you on the corner in five minutes. Wait for him. Take directions from him.”

  Then she called the police and told them that she had shot two intruders who had attempted to murder her.

  Her father stretched out his arms and Elena went in for a hug. Her father said, “Finish what we started. It’s yours now, Elena.”

  “Thank you, Papa.”

  She went to the bar and poured out two drinks, gave one glass to her father.

  They toasted. “Viva Los Toros.”

  Their cartel would be at the top again.

  This was the way it was always meant to be.

  Heist

  By James Patterson

  with Rees Jones

  Chapter 1

  The thief’s gloved fingers beat against the steering wheel, a rhythm as hectic as the young man’s darting eyes.

  “You’re doing it again,” the woman beside him accused, rubbing at her face to drive home her irritation.

  The thief turned in his seat, his wild eyes quickly shifting to an angry focus.

  She wouldn’t meet the stare, he knew. She never did, despite the fact that she was five years his senior, and tried to order him about as if she had the rank and privilege of family.

  “Doing what?” He smiled, his handsome face made ugly by resentment.

  The woman didn’t answer. Instead, she rubbed again at her tired eyes. Her name was Charlotte Taylor, and anticipation had robbed her of any sleep the previous night. Instead she had lain awake, thinking of this day. Thinking of how failure would condemn the man she loved.

  Charlotte tried again to hold the gaze of the man beside her, but she couldn’t meet his eyes—she saw the past in them.

  And what did he see when he looked at her? That a once pretty girl was now cracked from stress and sorrow? That her shoulders stooped like a woman of sixty, not thirty? Charlotte did not want to feel that scrutiny. That obnoxious charity she had suffered from family and strangers for nine years.

  “It’s OK if you’re scared,” she baited the thief, knowing that aggression would be one way to distract her from her niggling thoughts.

  “Me? I’m excited,” the younger man shot back.

  And he was.

  Today was the day. Today was the day when years of talking, months of planning, and weeks of practice would pay off.

  Lives were going to change, and it would all start here.

  “I’m excited,” the thief said again, but this time with a smile.

  His name was Alex Scowcroft, an unemployed twenty-five-year-old from northwest England’s impoverished coast. Today the thief was far from home, his white paneled rental van parked beneath a blue October sky on Hatton Garden, the street that was the heart of London’s diamond trade.

  Charlotte was not excited. In truth, she was sick to her stomach. She had never broken the law—not in any meaningful way, anyway—and the thought of being caught and convicted turned her guts into knots. And yet, the thought of failure was infinitely worse.

  As she always did when she needed comfort, Charlotte pulled a blue envelope from the inside pocket of her worn leather jacket. The letter was grimy from oily fingers, and teardrops had smudged the ink. The blue paper was the mark of military correspondence, given to soldiers at war so they could write to their loved ones.

  Hoping to take strength from the words, Charlotte looked over the faded letter.

  Catching sight of the “bluey,” Scowcroft stopped his fidgeting. “Was that—”

  “His last one.”

  “He never wrote me any letters.” Scowcroft smiled. “Knew I couldn’t write one back.”

  Charlotte folded the letter away, replacing it into the pocket that would keep it closest to her heart.

  “You’re his brother, Alex. You two don’t need to put words on paper to know how you feel about each other.”

  Uncomfortable at the sincerity in her words, Scowcroft could only manage a violent nod before turning his gaze back out of the window, his chest sagging with relief as he saw a man approaching.

  “Baz is back.”

  Gaunt-faced and stick-thin, Matthew Barrett entered the van through its sliding door and pushed his bony skull into the space between Charlotte and Scowcroft.

  “Same as it’s been every day,” he told them in a voice made harsh by smoking only the cheapest cigarettes. “The shops are opening. No sign of any extra security. If he sticks to the same pattern again today, our man should be here in ten.”

  Scowcroft exhaled hard with anticipation. “Get your gear on.”

  Behind him, Barrett changed from the street clothes of his reconnaissance into a similar style of assault boot and biker jacket worn by his two accomplices. Finally, he pulled a baseball cap tight onto his head, and brought up the thin black mask that would obscure his features. Eyeing himself in the mirror, Barrett thought aloud: “Assume that we’ve been spotted as soon as we pull off. Don’t try to be stealthy. Maximum violence. We get out. We shock. We grab. We extract.”

  “I know the plan,” Scowcroft grunted.

  “I know you do, mate,” Barrett told him with the patience of a mentor. “But there’s no such thing as going over it too many times. Five minutes,” he concluded, looking at the van’s dashboard clock.

  Scowcroft turned the ignition, and four minutes passed with nothing but the throb of the van’s diesel engine for distraction. It was Charlotte who broke the silence.


  “If they get me, but you two pull this off, I don’t want Tony to see me in prison. I don’t want him to see me like that.”

  Barrett reached out and placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. “Since when does anyone tell Tony what to do? He loves you, Char, and when he’s back to us, he’d be seeing you on Mars if that’s what it took.”

  Charlotte eased at the words and rolled down her balaclava, her piercing blue eyes afire with righteous determination.

  “For Tony, then.”

  “For Tony,” the two men echoed, voices thick with grit and love.

  Barrett looked again at the van’s dashboard. “Five minutes is up.”

  In the driver’s seat, Scowcroft’s fingers began to beat against the steering wheel once more.

  “He’s here,” he told them, and put the van into gear, pulling out into the lazy traffic of a Friday mid-morning.

  A few pedestrians, mostly window-shoppers, ambled along the pavements, but Scowcroft’s eyes were focused solely on a burly skinhead who looked as if he’d been plucked from a prison cell and clad in Armani. More precisely, Scowcroft focused on what was in the man’s hand—a leather duffel bag. A leather duffel bag that would change their lives.

  The big man’s stride was slow and deliberate. Scowcroft reduced the van’s speed to a running pace and glided close to the curb.

  The moment had come.

  “Go!” he shouted, overcome by excitement.

  Then, as they had practiced dozens of times, Charlotte threw open the heavy passenger door so that the metal slammed into the big man’s back, the leather duffel bag flying free as he collapsed onto the pavement.

  “He’s dropped it, Baz! Go!” Scowcroft shouted again as he stood on the brakes. Barrett threw himself from the van’s sliding door, his eyes scanning for the bag and finding it beneath a parked car.

  “I see it!” Barrett announced from outside, but Scowcroft’s eyes were elsewhere. And widening in alarm.