The cartel attack
Natalie's viewpoint
The place reeked of blood, gunfire and smoke; it stank like violent death.
I'd got the call at lunch. Ana had a meeting so I was eating at my desk, eying the remains of a salad sandwich. Now I was wishing I hadn't eaten anything.
The crime scene looked like an outtake from a bad action movie; I'd had to walk the last block after ducking under the tape to start the long trek towards the senior officers on site.
The first thing I saw was a shot up black and white with two covered bodies sprawled next to it. I stopped for a moment to sadly pay my respects, two more funerals, two more officers' names to be inscribed on the LAPD role of honour, two more destroyed families.
Nearby I could see a body sprawled against a wall, with the FID Sergeant I'd spoken to a few days ago examining him, together with another officer. There was an assault rifle lying nearby, a hole in the dead man's face and his brains sprayed across the wall behind him. It looked like one of the officer's hadn't died alone.
Sighing heavily I walked on to a warehouse with firemen still cleaning up; the blackened exterior testimony to the ferocity of the fire still raging. The dozens of bullet holes smeared across the walls spoke of violence of another kind, while the main door appeared to have been blown in by an explosion.
I saw Chief Johnson and Commander Raydor standing together, with members of their respective teams standing around them. I stopped well away from them, no one knew anything really so there was nothing really they could tell me, nothing to tell the media yet.
I looked around, trying to take in the scene, work out what had happened here. What had brought such violent death to a decaying industrial neighbourhood? Standing not too far away, looking at a shell casing, was one of Major Crime's people, their new female detective, Jane Rizzoli. With nothing better to do I walked her way. She looked up at me as I approached.
"Detective Rizzoli, I'm Natalie Dearing…"
"Yeah, the media liaison, I remember from the other night" I nodded.
"What seems to have happened here" She stood up and pointed.
"Near as we can work out, the guys working in the warehouse were attacked by a group armed with heavy automatic weapons that had surrounded the place. There's a couple of dead near the rear exit, they appear to have been gunned down trying to get out the back.
The attack only lasted a couple of minutes at most. The attackers apparently either set fire to the place or a fire started inside. As they were leaving the first uniforms arrived, drove straight into this…" She gestured around her. " and didn't have a chance"
"I'm sorry"
"Yeah, we're police not soldiers, but this is a war zone"
"This doesn't look like your usual gang shooting, does it?" She shook her head.
"Nah, had to be at least five or six shooters, split front and back, in a coordinated attack. From what it looks like the attacks started at the front with the shooters at the rear waiting for the vic's to flee out the back before cutting them down" I nodded.
"That's not your usual ganger MO; most of them think organising a drive by is the height of tactical planning" She looked closely at me for a moment, then nodded.
"Sorry, I forgot you've been attending crime scenes for a while, you're not really a civilian" I smiled sadly.
"Detective, I've been attending crime scenes for almost eight years, five as a journalist and three with the Seattle PD and I've never seen anything like this' She looked around, before shaking her head.
"Me neither, I heard stories of some of the mob crime wars for control of the docks back in Boston, long before I was around, but they were one, maybe two shooters. Nothing like this"
I looked around, noting the hundreds of cartridges scattered everywhere, far too many to individually catalogue.
"Figure at least three or four guys, each armed with an assault rifle, plus whatever the hell they used to blow in the front door" She was talking again, walking it through in her mind.
"Two or three at the back, figure at least two or three more to drive the vehicles to carry that many, plus a spotter or two looking for the first response. That's a lot of manpower for a single gang" Our eyes connected as I replied.
"A lot of people, with a lot of military grade firepower"
"And willing to gun down cops on the way out" She grimaced. "Fuck! I hope I'm wrong here"
I nodded, thinking the same. Generally this sort of attack had stayed south of the border, but it sure sounded like the sort of attack the Mexican cartels pulled off.
"Do we know what was happening inside the warehouse" She shook her head.
"Not until we get inside, but I'm betting it's nothing good"
I looked up as I heard the sound of heels approach, to see our pretty new M.E. walking towards us. The detective turned as I spoke.
"Hello Doctor Isles"
"Hello Ms Dearing. Please call me Maura" I nodded.
"Only if you call me Natalie, or Nat" She smiled and nodded, turning to her friend? Partner?
"Hello Jane" She looked at Maura and smiled back, their eyes met and a lot passed between them in a second.
"Hi Maura, I'm afraid it's going to be a busy day" She nodded.
"I have called my entire team in, after hearing preliminary reports. This is going to be a bad one, do we have total numbers yet"
"Not until we get the all clear from the fire fighters, we don't have any idea how bad it's gonna get inside. There's definitely four dead out the back of the building" Maura frowned, obviously doing the maths, at least seven dead and who knows how many more inside the building.
"Well, I might as well start with the ones I can get to. If you will excuse me, I will start with our downed officers" I nodded while Jane Rizzoli spoke up.
"I might as well come with you; it might be a while before we get inside" I looked over and saw another burst of flames through the roof. Yes, it could be a while. I looked back to Maura.
"Not sure how bad it is inside Maura, you may not have a lot to work with, between the flames and the water damage" She simply nodded, before turning and walking back towards the black and white and it's dead crew with Jane by her side, matching her stride.
They might be friends, but with that level of intimacy they should be more. They could talk to each other with a look.
I turned and wandered up to where the two senior officers were standing, discussing the incident. I stopped a few feet behind them and shamelessly eavesdropped, interested to see how these two worked together. I'd heard that at one stage they had found it almost impossible to stand one another, but apparently had worked through it and now were, if not friends, allies.
They were certainly striking; Chief Johnson was all Southern charm, a tumbling mass of blonde hair, long legs and a slim figure that her dark green skirt suit did nothing to hide.
Commander Raydor was dark and intense, her obviously tailored dark blue pantsuit outlining a shapely body, while her long dark hair and glasses framed a face that would be beautiful if she smiled more often.
It became obvious that the Chief was itching to get into the building and get started, while Commander Raydor was quietly reminding her that walking in there right now may not be the best of ideas, as it was a bit hard to conduct an investigation while the building was still burning. Chief Johnson replied that she thought Sharon was simply unwilling to get her Armani pants suit dirty, while the Commander expressed her surprise that Brenda even knew who Armani was.
I smiled; they talked like friends.
As I watched members of their teams came and went, reports on the bodies at the rear, the results of interviews with witnesses, of which there were few, most had kept their head down when the shooting started. Prudent I supposed but not helpful.
Finally the Fire Chief walked over to Chief Johnson, pulling off his helmet and wiping the sweat off his face.
"Well, it's out, although I'll have men here for hours, watching for any flare up. It's not real safe but I know you need to get in there" She nodded.
"Thank you Chief, I appreciate it"
"Just tell your people to take it easy, it's not totally stable in there"
"I will; thank you"
Calling her team together the Chief led her team towards the warehouse while Commander Raydor turned to walk back towards the wrecked black and white, pausing when she saw me.
"Natalie" I nodded in return.
"Commander Raydor" She regarded me with a cool eye.
"It appears you will be busy"
"As will you and Chief Johnson"
"Indeed" I felt she was assessing me, seeing what I would do. Inwardly I shrugged, I was used to having to prove myself, most people thought I'd been hired for my looks; it usually took them a while to see past that.
"I'll swing by and see you in 30 minutes, by then we should have enough info to keep the media at bay for a while" She arched an impeccable eyebrow at me, before nodding once.
"As you wish"
I smiled as she walked past.
Commander Raydor had a reputation as a ball buster, or at least that's what most of her male colleagues thought. I'd spent a few nights anonymously trolling police social and chat sites to pick up the chatter in the LAPD before I had started and the terms 'bitch' and 'cunt' seemed to get a heavy workout when directed at her. That usually meant someone who was either attractive but unattainable, or extremely efficient; I assessed her as probably both.
Chief Johnson seemed to bring out a completely different side to her though, based on what I had observed, so the 'ice queen', another popular online term, had a human side.
I wandered towards the warehouse, but stayed back from the entrance. My place wasn't in there, they had more than enough to do and I would find out what happened soon enough.
For the next 30 minutes I observed as Major Crimes moved through the warehouse, carefully cataloguing the scene. Maura had moved in to examine the bodies and several teams from the M.E.s office hung around waiting to get the OK to start removing them.
I rang Ana, who was at the Bureau's local office talking to the Mexican cartel specialists, looking to see if there was any intel that might assist the case. So far almost nothing, if it had been planned in advance, no one had even whispered so much as a word, or at least nowhere near a Bureau informant.
I followed some of Maura's people round to the back of the building, to see them collect the four dead men near the rear exit. Obviously they had never had a chance, all of them had been hit with multiple shots and had probably died almost instantly. I noticed at least two handguns near the bodies, suggesting that the dead weren't exactly innocent factory workers.
Wandering back round the front, I watched as Chief Johnson walked out in conversation with Maura; I picked up the tail of the conversation as they approached.
"However, I realise that there's little really to work with Doctor; but I appreciate that you'll do your best. Please call me if anything unusual crops up" Maura nodded and stated directing her team to remove what turned out to be five bodies, all badly burned and waterlogged, from the building.
The Chief spent the next couple of minutes directing her team to concentrate on various tasks, before turning to me
"Ms Dearing, nice to see y'all today"
"And you Chief Johnson. What can you tell me about the incident, so I can try and put together something to give the media without giving away too much?"
"Well, it appears that the people inside were running a drug distribution warehouse. We found several drums that had survived the heat intact, with cocaine packaged inside, waiting to be broken down for sending on to smaller dealers" I nodded.
"I understand that the attack was well coordinated and involved at least two teams of shooters plus support" She looked at me for a moment.
"You're quite well informed" I shrugged.
"I listen and I can make educated guesses"
"Well, you're quite close to the mark. Probably six or seven shooters with military grade weapons, mostly assault rifles, plus some kind of rocket launcher" I shrugged.
"Looks like our week for military grade weapons, whatever happened to criminals using shotguns and Saturday night specials?" She smiled.
"I believe that's called progress Ms Dearing"
"Or evolution. A new, better armed breed of criminal is evolving" We looked at the walls of the building, pockmarked with dozens of bullet holes. She sighed.
"I'm afraid you're right. So, what are you going to tell the press?"
"Well, I'll have to speak to Commander Raydor, but I think we might go with two LAPD officers lost as they responded to reports of a shootout between rival gangs" I looked back towards the shot up Black and White, now sitting alone after the officers bodies had been removed. "I'll concentrate on the lost officers, partly to distract the media, but mostly because they deserve the recognition"
The Chief followed my gaze as we watched Commander Raydor walk back towards us, followed by several of her officers.
"I'll check with HR to confirm the families have been notified before we mention names" She nodded.
"That sounds best, let's concentrate on our dead; after all, these people aren't going anywhere" We waited for Commander Raydor to join us. She looked tired. The Chief spoke first.
"Anything turn up Sharon?" She shook her head.
"No witnesses, but the story is pretty straightforward. Officers Kelly and Liao arrived and were ambushed by a man with an assault rifle, the dead assailant. Kelly died instantly; Liao took down the assailant with his second shot, before being shot from behind by the second ambusher, who shot from cover" The Chief frowned.
"A deliberate ambush, our officers drove straight into the crossfire"
"It looks that way Chief. They really didn't have any chance of surviving the ambush" We paused for a few moments, each lost in our thoughts, before Raydor spoke again.
"So Natalie, what are you going to tell the ghouls?" She waved off behind her to where we could all see the TV trucks gathered"
"That two of our own died this morning, racing to respond to reports of a crime. That they leave friends, family, loved ones and colleagues behind who will mourn them and that the LAPD will not rest until their killers are brought to justice" They both nodded.
"Of course I will add the usual about asking for witnesses and anyone with information to come forward, but, well, I doubt we will get much help there" The Chief shook her head.
"I don't 'spose you will, but we have to ask, don't we"
"Yes, maybe someone will feel guilty about our two dead officers, but it's a faint hope" The Commander looked over at the Chief.
"I don't think the cartel used anyone local Brenda, even if they did they're probably halfway to Mexico by now"
"Very likely, but if we don't shut them down, quickly, then they'll be back, to do it again"
I looked at her.
"I didn't think they brought their wars across the border into the US" The Chief smiled without any humour.
"There's always a first time for everything, isn't there Natalie?" I slowly nodded, looking around at the evidence scattered across the landscape.
"I guess there is"