The Parker Trilogy Read online

  “God. Please forgive me,” Hector said.

  The words echoed and The Smiling Midget froze, his knives stuck against the floor, as the room suddenly erupted in a bright, gray light, which vaporized The Smiling Midget in a cloud of ash and dust.

  “Hector Villarosa?”

  The voice was deep, authoritative and came from somewhere to his right.

  Hector turned to face a tall man with a gray face, who was in a gray suit and wore a gray hat that sat evenly over his white hair. Hector’s eyes began burning with pain just from looking at him.

  The Gray Man stepped forwards, out of the shadows. “You have sinned greatly, Hector. But you’ve asked for help, and you have been chosen as a ‘one.’”

  “A what? Wait. Hold on. I’m sorry. I am.”

  “Don’t apologize, Hector. Because with what now lies ahead of you?” The Gray Man said grimly, “You may regret that your prayers tonight were ever heard.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Parker had just looked away from Guero to check on Jin’s location again when, beyond all belief, shots rang out. Three of them, actually. An orchestra of screams erupted into the air, sprinkled with shouts of profanity, as bodies scrambled in all directions at once, some ducking, other diving and falling. Instinct told Parker that the shots were meant for him, but his common sense, and his military training, told him to find the focal point of the panic; it was nowhere near him.

  Everyone was running away from one direction: the bar on the main floor, about thirty feet away.

  Parker squinted. One of the bouncers, clutching at his chest, was fleeing down the side of the bar, trying to escape his assailant, a cholo who looked oddly familiar. Parker was stunned. It was Hector Villerosa. The man who quoted Kibran. He was still pointing a gun at the bouncer and firing off rounds. Two, to be exact, both of which missed, one striking the bar and the other the display behind it, causing the glass shelves to collapse, one on top of the other, in a cascade of crashing liquor bottles.

  It was completely beyond Parker’s comprehension how something could go so completely sideways so quickly. What were the odds, really, that a random shooting that had nothing to do with them or their reason for being there would go down at the same time and place? Astronomical.

  But oddly, almost terrifyingly, when he glanced quickly up to the balcony again, Parker could swear that he saw Guero Martinez smiling at him. Just sitting there, in his chair, with his drink in one hand, looking down on them all like he was watching a movie. As if he’d paid the price and knew the show time. Had he manufactured this moment somehow, as a diversion? Was that even possible?

  A voice came to Parker, familiar but incomprehensible. It’s possible.

  Parker was gobsmacked. No. It can’t be. That voice . . .

  It was finally happening; he was losing it. Completely. He was frozen in place, paralyzed by what was happening all around him, and now he was hearing voices too.

  With all the music the gunshots were partially muted, but many of the ears in the room knew the sound of a gun by heart, and those that didn’t still had eyes. Fear had come to join the dancefloor. A girl next to him cried out as she was sent sprawling into a cocktail table face first, one of her heels flying off as she was kicked in the shin by someone crossing her path.

  Campos screamed over the radio. “What the—”

  Then it was Davenport’s turn. “Move! Move! Move!” She’d evidently had enough and was sending in her unit.

  “Shit,” Parker said.

  The bouncer fled through a side door and the cholo followed.

  The crowd parted and closed, parted and closed, in waves of shock and panic, as the tactical team came rolling in like a rugby team, knocking people out of the way as they moved to contain the situation. When Parker looked up to the balcony again, he could see more of them pierce through the curtains upstairs and begin making their way down to Jin.

  Guero and his entourage stood and put their hands straight up in the air. Even Felix, who at first looked like he might do something stupid, raised his hands after Guero barked at him.

  Okay, Parker thought, this still might go as planned. All Jin has to do is be a good boy and raise his hands too and then—

  What Jin Yeung did next made Parker’s jaw drop and recalled to mind, instantly, all those history lessons back in grade school about John Wilkes Booth, the assassin who killed Abraham Lincoln.

  Jin stood and jumped right over the railing of the balcony and down to a clear area of the dance floor below.

  Like Booth, one of Jin’s legs seemed to partially give way when he rolled. He got up and pulled a gun from inside his jacket. Hobbled, he began to flee towards the same side door the bouncer had fled to seconds earlier. There was no way that was an exit, unless it led to the kitchen and . . .

  What if there’s a service elevator or a delivery door we missed on the blueprints? Shit.

  “Davenport?” Parker called out. But it was no use now. The noise of the music, which was still thumping loudly after the DJ had abandoned his stand, and all the screams was too much.

  Parker plunged into the crowd, drawing his gun and forcing himself to snap out of it, pushing people out of the way and hoping the SWAT unit didn’t accidentally pop him. He had to get to that side door.

  He was making good progress and closing in on Jin when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Campos, off to his left, moving in to cut Jin off too, his gun drawn, his mouth screaming something at Jin, just before a heavyset man, panicked and in a shiny blue shirt, accidentally ran into him, partially knocking him sideways into the wall by the side door, ruining his aim and—

  “No!” Parker screamed.

  Jin took deadly aim and squeezed off two shots, one striking Campos in the shoulder, the other in his side.

  Instantly, Parker was back at Evergreen Park, his mind melting into the hot grass while little Efren screamed for Napoleon Villa, his uncle, Parker’s partner, to still be alive. Screamed and cried. Cried and screamed. Such horror had no place in a child’s voice.

  Not again. Not again. Not again.

  Campos hit the wall and slid down it as Jin ran past him and through the side door.

  No. No. No.

  When that other voice that sounded so familiar to him earlier came to join him a second time now, it was like cymbals between Parker’s ears. Enough, Parker! Focus!

  As if he were shot out of a cannon, Parker closed the distance between him and Campos in what felt like milliseconds. He dropped down next to Campos and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Campos? No! Not again, man! Please. Not again. Be okay. You’re okay!”

  Campos’ eyes were doing a wobbly dance but eventually he looked at Parker and was able to focus. “Son-na-nitch!” he said bluntly, then grimaced in pain.

  Out of nowhere, Murillo rushed up from the right and slid on his knees to the two of them, supporting Campos by the back of his neck. Parker couldn’t move and that weird sense of detachment was coming over him again.

  But Campos was having none of it. “Parker!” he shouted.

  Their eyes met. “W-what?” Parker managed weakly.

  Murillo began applying pressure to Campos’ wounds.

  “Look at me, Parker,” Campos said firmly. “It’s not happening again. Do you understand? I’ll be fine. It’s not happening again.”

  Parker was stunned.

  “What’re you doing here?! Get that son-na-nitch who shot me!”

  “Parker!” Murillo screamed. “I got Campos. Go!”

  How many times in the desert had Parker seen a man go down and get back up again? You had to. Because fighting was always better than dying.

  He leaped to his feet and charged through the side door on a mission. On the other side was a kitchen, where the cooks were currently cowering in one corner, hiding behind a vegetable cart. Past them was a narrow hallway. Once he got to it, his heart dropped when he saw that it split at the end into two tunnel-like hallways, one that went off to the right and one
to the left.

  Damn it! He’d been right. There were two service corridors for the kitchen. Maybe they both led outside, maybe one did and one didn’t, maybe neither did. He could run back and ask the cooks what was what, but that would only give Jin more time to get away, and even though he was hobbled, he’d gotten a good head start when Parker had stopped to check on Campos.

  The corridor to his left led off into darkness, with the dim light of a side room outlined about forty feet away, with cases of beer stacked on either side. The corridor to his right showed a wooden door with a metal handle. A freezer or meat locker. Beyond that was another door at the very end.

  He had to figure out which way to go.

  It was then that the decision was made for him.

  To his left he heard someone say, “Why? I just work here, man.” Then a pause, before a scream of rage. “She never loved you, anyway!”

  Then? A single gunshot, followed by a distinct silence that Parker knew very well. It was the silence of death, having arrived at its appointed time. For someone.

  Hector the cholo had evidently found and cornered the bouncer. Parker sighed. He had no choice now but to go after him. A crime had been committed. It looked like Jin would have to wait until another—

  The meat locker door flew open and Jin came lunging out. Parker was at a clear and fatal disadvantage. He’d already started turning to his left and was pointing his gun in that direction, to begin making his way cautiously towards whatever had happened down there.

  As a result, Jin had a clear and easy shot, from not ten feet away.

  Every soldier knows when their time has come.

  Still. Parker was devastated that this was his.

  Hadn’t he just found love? And a tiny scrap of happiness? Trudy. How would she ever . . .

  He stopped himself from thinking and waited for the pain, wondering where the first bullet would strike him.

  Instead, his eyes became liars.

  Brutally so.

  They gave him the image of Jin Yeung, almost smiling, as he drew down and began to pull the trigger . . . and then they gave Parker nonsense.

  They gave him a ghost, dead and gone. They gave him something so impossible that Parker wondered if he was already dead.

  They gave him the clear image of Napoleon Villa, stepping out of thin air, glowing a faint sort of tannish-white as he zipped into existence for one split second, his hands striking Jin’s wrists, forcing his shot to careen wildly off into the wall to the right of Parker.

  Then he was gone.

  But he’d given Parker a gift: time.

  Just enough to pivot, aim and put three bullets directly into Jin’s chest, repelling him violently backwards, his arms flying open as he dropped his gun and it went skittering down the hallway, his eyes full of shock long before he was shot.

  He saw Napoleon too. He did!

  When Jin collapsed to the floor, he gasped violently four or five times, his arms shaking, before he died.

  Parker heard the tactical team coming up behind him.

  “Parker?” It was Davenport.

  His legs were gone. He leaned against the wall and slid down into a seated position, his gun hand draped over his knees. “Yeah.”

  “Situation?”

  “Jin is down, here to my left, in front of a freezer door. But down the hall in the other direction, the shooting that started all this shit? The two involved are that way. At least one of them is armed.”

  Davenport looked at him intently from behind her goggles, then motioned over her shoulder for three of her men to follow her. They made their way down the hallway, the barrels of their AR-15s looking like spear tips in the contrasting light.

  Parker, meanwhile, put his hand over his face and began to cry.

  Napoleon. His friend. His partner. Had saved him.

  And, just like that, Parker knew there’d be no more running from the truth.

  One Way or Another

  The Parker Trilogy Book 2

  Tony Faggioli

  For Sophia, thanks for being the daughter that

  always brings a smile to my heart.

  Prologue

  Special Agent Olivia Clopton pulled her blue FBI-issued Chevrolet Caprice down the narrow driveway of Dock 42 in San Pedro, California and braced herself for what was coming.

  The night was at its peak, the moon muted behind a few lingering storm clouds and casting barely enough light to outline the ships in the harbor, their sterns and hulls like a steel geometry lesson of acute, obtuse and straight angles.

  Up ahead and down a small slope of paved asphalt was a staggered grouping of sheriffs’ vehicles, lights flashing, and another unmarked FBI car that had slid sideways into a Ford F-350, the suspects’ vehicle. Agent Schmidt’s car, no doubt.

  In the middle of all the vehicles, lit by their headlights, was a faded orange shipping container, the number 584-12 stenciled beneath a spray-painted logo of a fake produce company in Thailand.

  As Clopton pulled up, her tires slid on the metal ramp at the end of the driveway, causing all the men gathered around the container to turn and look. Off to her right, a few sheriffs had pinned one of the suspects to the ground, and the other was cuffed and lying face-first against the hood of the truck.

  She put the car in park and hopped out, noticing as she walked that she was the only female law enforcement agent there, and the irony of this fact was so thick it made her heart sink.

  “Agent Clopton?” asked one of the sheriffs. He was an older man with white hair and had a chevron on the left shoulder of his shirt.

  “Yes.”

  “Sheriff Briggs,” he said, sticking out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Same here,” she said, shaking his hand as she glanced over at Schmidt, who was approaching them and looking a little frazzled.

  “Hey there,” he said, his brown hair pushed over his scalp in the wrong direction.

  She squirreled up the corner of her mouth. “Tussle?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Schmidt responded. “They didn’t want to go down without a fight.”

  With both of them working out of the FBI Office in West Los Angeles, Clopton had worked more than a few cases with Schmidt. But this was the first one of this kind for either of them, and as such, their nervousness was obviously mutual. Schmidt raised his eyebrows at her and tilted his head, guiding her attention toward the shipping container.

  “We have the dockworker here yet?” Clopton asked.

  Briggs nodded, then barked, “Mr. Esguerra?”

  A burly Filipino man with a Fu Manchu goatee stepped out of the darkness with a set of tools. “Yeah?”

  “You set?”

  He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Somewhere in the distance, the ocean was doing a few wavy turns and splashing against a dingy, which was clanging in protest.

  Clopton motioned to the door of the container. “Let’s do this, then.” But it was brave talk. Because how could she not be worried? This was not a drug bust, and she was feeling like she’d give her right arm for it to be. Cases of cocaine, she was used to dealing with. But this was different. Or could be, if their source was correct.

  Esguerra stepped forward with a small blowtorch, a thick spike and a crowbar. When he went to work, everyone fell silent, including the two suspects, who up until that point had been cursing at each other in Spanish. It took longer than one might expect, but eventually the lock on the latch was cut and then broken off entirely. Then came the latch itself and a support bar that fell to the damp cement with a clamor.

  When the door finally came loose, Esguerra looked to Briggs, who looked him off and motioned toward Clopton. She nodded, and the door was pulled open.

  The picture that unfolded next was like some horrible painting of the damned: colors too stark, eyes too wide, horror too pervasive. All women.

  At first only a half dozen of them were visible, and then somehow that horribly bleached moonlight made its way through the cracks in the do
or and further into the container and began to reveal more of them. A dozen, then two dozen, then four. The wide eyes began to fill with wonder as they saw all the lights and the badges. Some of them began to weep and call out to the rest.

  My God, Clopton thought, her mind going numb, there’s more?

  The smell of human sweat, urine and feces that began flooding out of the container caused instant nausea in her stomach. The fact that it was cut by the heavy salt air that already carried with it the smell of gasoline and seaweed didn’t help. But she forced herself to keep her dinner down as another group began to scurry forward from the very back of the container, expressions of relief, exhaustion and shock twisting their faces like clay.

  She heard Schmidt sigh loudly, as if he’d been holding his breath the whole time and finally given in to the protest of his lungs.

  As the women emerged, they began to share the same look: humiliation. They were all either partially or totally naked. Many of them were trying to cover their breasts with trembling hands.

  “Someone get them some covers!” Clopton said through gritted teeth as she looked away. She called over one of the ambulance drivers and gave him her suit jacket, and Schmidt did the same. She pointed at the suspects. “Get their damn shirts and jackets, too!”

  There was a scurry of activity as paramedics and sheriffs ran to gather sheets and shock blankets from their vehicles, but still it wasn’t enough.

  Briggs spoke into his radio, calling for more backup. “Bennie!” he shouted at one of the other sheriffs nearby, a tall man with a dark mole on his left cheek. “Hop in your car and get over to the Red Cross building on Ocean Avenue. Tell them what we’re up against and get all the sheets, blankets and clothes they can spare. If they don’t have clothes, then get scrubs. They’ve gotta have those. And food and water.”

  Bennie nodded, trotted to his car and drove off urgently up the same driveway that Clopton had pulled down.

  “You okay, Agent Clopton?” Briggs said, startling her out of her trance. He’d somehow walked right up next to her without her noticing.