The Big Gamble - Michael Mcgarrity [110]
The team went in low and fast, using palm trees along the driveway as cover. Clayton hit the staircase at a full run, two steps at a time. He heard the sound of the battering ram against the heavy front door as he reached the landing. Narvaiz appeared suddenly in a doorway, semiautomatic in hand, blazing away. The first loud round hit Clayton’s vest, spun him sideways. The second round knocked him on his back. His chest felt like a freight train had hit it. He lifted his head, spread his legs, raised his weapon, and watched Narvaiz walking toward him, grinning and firing at the agents crouched on the stairwell behind him. The officers returned fire, bullets screaming above Clayton’s head.
He emptied his magazine at Narvaiz. Rounds from three weapons tore into Fidel’s flesh and gouged holes in the open door on the landing. Blood splatter from a neck wound arched over the wrought-iron railing and cascaded down to the driveway below.
Clayton fed in another clip, aimed his weapon, and watched Narvaiz fall. He heard rounds shattering glass and pulverizing plaster walls inside the house and sent the two agents to lend support.
The firing stopped before they got down the stairs. They went in calling out names on their handheld radios, asking for status and location.
Clayton got to his feet on unsteady legs and walked to Narvaiz’s body. He counted twelve bullet holes, all leaking either dark fluid or viscous gray matter. Was it adrenaline or just plain fear that had him shaking?
He waited for a feeling of revulsion to overwhelm him, but nothing came except an emptiness that made him feel dark and bleak.
His handheld hissed his call sign. Feebly he keyed the microphone and answered. Rojas was down, probably dying, and one officer had a superficial leg wound.
He stepped back from the body and ordered ambulances and crime scene techs to roll. Would he ever be able to tell Grace about this? Really tell her?
He doubted it. But maybe one day he could tell Kerney.
Please read on for a special preview of Michael McGarrity’s next thrilling Kevin Kerney novel
Everyone Dies
Jack Potter, perhaps the most successful and best-known attorney in Santa Fe, had recently attended a gay rights costume ball dressed as Lady Justice. The following morning a photograph of a smiling Potter wearing a shimmering frock and a curly wig, and holding the scales of justice and a sword, appeared on the front page of the local paper.
Today Jack Potter wore a tank top, shorts, and a pair of expensive running shoes that looked brand-new to Detective Ramona Piño. He was faceup on the sidewalk with a bullet hole in his chest. He’d bled out in front of his office across from the county courthouse early on a warm July morning. From the blood trail on the sidewalk, Piño saw that Potter had crawled a good fifty feet before turning over on his back to die.
Ramona was more than slightly pissed at the man who’d discovered Potter. Alfonso Allesandro had spotted the body as he passed by in his newspaper truck, and called the city editor on a cell phone before dialing the cops to report the crime. As a result, a photographer had hurried over from the newspaper offices a few blocks away and walked through the blood trail to take pictures before the scene was secured.
Both men were now waiting in the panel truck with a uniformed officer while Piño cordoned off the entire block and worked the crime scene with the techs, searching for a shell casing and anything else that looked like evidence.
Dozens of little orange markers were placed at every cigarette butt lying in the gutter along the street, the broken toothpick found a step away from Potter’s body, and the small puddle of fairly fresh crankcase oil in a vacant parking space. One tech dusted all the parking meters for fingerprints while another worked on the door and front porch to Potter’s office.
Ramona inspected the small lawn in front of the building for any signs that shrubbery and grass had been disturbed or that fibers, threads, or hair had been