The Darwin Protocol: A Thriller (The Last Peak Book 1) Read online

  Come on! Come on! Buy the expensive sugar water!

  “Hey man, mind taking the picture for us?”

  “What?” Mason ducked his head and turned his back to the approaching gang member.

  “The pic.”

  Ryan stepped behind the register and threw his arm around the cashier like they were old friends. He took the phone and held it out for Mason.

  “Selfies never get the best angle.”

  This was not good. This scene within the scene was attracting too much attention. He had to get it over with. Snap the pic and get the line moving.

  “Fine.” He took the phone and snapped a shot.

  “Whoa, now. Let’s give her something to remember.”

  The V10 shot caller drew closer. Dammit.

  Mr. Famous leaned in and kissed the cashier’s cheek.

  The cashier shrieked.

  Mason snapped another pic.

  “Got it. Good?”

  “One more!” she said and planted her lips on Ryan’s before he could pull away.

  Mason snapped pics as fast as his finger could tap the screen.

  “There! Got plenty. Can we move this along now?”

  Ryan returned to the customer side of the register.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God! Juanita ain’t never gonna believe this!”

  Mason picked up the vitamin drink and handed it to her.

  “Ring it up please.”

  Ryan looked at him, through him.

  “What?” Mason asked.

  “You know this guy?”

  Shit.

  Mason turned his head, cap still low. He came face to face with Cesar.

  And barely managed to duck as a fist the size of a brick flew through the space where his head had just been. Not meeting flesh, the fist continued on and thundered into Ryan’s nose. It smashed like a ripe tomato. Blood splattered on the cashier’s maroon frock. His legs crumbled and he fell to the floor.

  Through slurred, wet words, he yelled, “Not my nose! Not my nose!”

  Mason didn’t have time to worry about the actor’s billion dollar nose because Cesar lunged at him. They both went down, fists flying fast and hard. He landed a knee to the shot caller’s chin that should’ve knocked him out. It barely fazed him.

  A thunderous punch slammed into Mason’s kidney and pain shocked his body, blurred his vision. Another blow struck his temple and his head bounced off the tile floor. He knew he couldn’t last. The savage ferocity and brute force would break him.

  Mason rolled underneath Cesar and got a foot up under his hip. He pushed with all his strength and managed to get some separation. With the space created, he snapped a kick at Cesar’s groin and felt a satisfying impact.

  Cesar groaned and his hold weakened. With a gigantic heave, Mason shoved the larger man to the side. He scrambled to his feet as Cesar did the same.

  Their eyes locked.

  Mason had no intention of getting tangled up with him again. He reached under his shirt and had his Glock 19 up and aimed in less than a second.

  The cashier ducked behind the register.

  “Don’t make me do it, Cesar!”

  Ryan curled into a ball on the ground.

  “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”

  People surrounding them screamed and pushed back against those leaning in and over to get a better look.

  Mr. Famous blubbered and wept, making the situation more dangerous, more charged.

  Mason kicked him in the butt. Hard. But not too hard.

  “Shut up!”

  “He’s gonna kill me!” Ryan hid his face in his hands.

  “Shut the hell up!”

  “Someone get my agent! Get my agent!”

  Cesar’s cold gaze never left his. His hand eased behind his back. Mason knew he’d have a weapon at the small of his back. One thin layer of wife-beater was all that held back whatever he had back there.

  “I’ll shoot you dead!” Mason yelled, hoping the threat would keep him from having to do it.

  “Drop the weapon!”

  Mason turned to see a .38 Special not five feet away and pointed at his chest.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The round-bellied LAPD officer stood to the side of Mason with a well-worn revolver clamped in his hands. His hard gaze steady as the muzzle covered him.

  “Okay. Easy now,” Mason said.

  Cesar’s hand was still behind his back. Mason couldn’t let him draw.

  The guard didn’t appear afraid. He held position in a modern isosceles stance. He’d been in gunfights before.

  Ryan crawled to the officer and clung to his leg.

  “This guy threatened to shoot me! I can’t die! I have a sequel about to be green lit!”

  The officer tried to shake him loose but the actor had a death grip on his leg. Mason noticed that the officer, while distracted with the begging actor, still kept his gun aimed at Mason’s chest.

  Cesar grinned and slowly raised his hands, acting the part of the victim.

  “This crazy guy pulled a gun on us. He wants to kill us all. He’s loco. You gotta shoot him!”

  “Drop the gun, now!” The officer thumbed the hammer back and it clicked into position.

  “Listen, sir,” Mason said. “I’m not the dangerous one here. It’s this guy.” He nodded at Cesar. “He’ll kill us both if I lower my weapon.”

  “You’re the only one with a gun in your hand. This is your last chance to drop it.”

  Mason instinctively felt the Glock’s front sight hovering on Cesar’s center mass. He glanced back and forth, from Cesar’s satisfied smirk to the guard’s intense stare.

  He was stuck.

  If he lowered the Glock, the guard wouldn’t shoot him, but he had no doubt Cesar would a second later. The guard would probably die too. If he shot Cesar, the guard would shoot him. If he somehow survived, he’d have a hell of a time convincing a jury the shooting was a justified use of deadly force.

  Things were moving too fast. Too out of control.

  “Save me!” Ryan screamed as he tried to climb the officer’s leg. He grabbed the officer’s belt and tried to pull himself up. The officer stumbled forward and his aim fell to the floor as he fought to keep from falling down.

  Mason lunged at the older man, his offhand reaching for the hand holding the revolver. If he could just get it under control, he could defuse the situation. His hand wrapped around the officer’s wrist. The officer yanked back and the revolver fired.

  A bullet ripped through the right side of Ryan’s face. His previously flawless, high cheekbone spurted blood across the tile floor. The actor collapsed, holding the wound.

  “My face! Oh my God! My career!”

  Somewhere in a distant part of Mason’s brain, he registered the screams of the surrounding store patrons.

  The officer was stronger than he looked. He stubbornly fought to retain his firearm. Mason chopped down on the his strong hand wrist with the composite Glock frame. Thin bones snapped and the grip gave way. Mason stripped the revolver from his grasp and turned to cover Cesar.

  BOOM.

  Blood exploded from the dark blue cloth covering the officer’s chest.

  Cesar held a polished chrome .50 caliber Desert Eagle. Smoke wafted from the end of the barrel.

  Mason dove behind a health drink mini-fridge as another round fired. Carbonated spray misted the air. He dropped his shoulder and continued the roll, landing in a crouch.

  He brought the Glock up and the front sight aligned on an exposed portion of Cesar’s shoulder.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  The Glock jumped in his grip and a red hole punctured the beefy shoulder. Cesar dove behind the end of the counter.

  “I’m gonna kill you, blanco!”

  Mason looked at the actor lying on the ground. He screamed about his face, his future in acting. He was lucky to be alive.

  The officer’s head lolled to the side and their eyes met. He held his heaving chest like h
e could hold in the air escaping from his punctured lungs. His hands covered the wheezing, crimson wound. He choked and gagged as red bubbles frothed out of his mouth. He wasn’t going to make it.

  Shit.

  Mason couldn’t continue the fight here. Cesar had no compunctions about killing every bystander unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. None of these people deserved to die.

  He had to draw Cesar outside. Away from the crowded checkout lines. At least in the parking lot, there would be plenty of steel to stop bullets instead of plenty of flesh.

  In a low crouch, Mason ran down the length of the checkout lines and made it to the entrance. He peeked over a counter and saw Cesar lying on the ground holding his shoulder.

  Cesar spotted him.

  BOOM.

  Mason ducked as a round shattered the glass deli display case behind him. He had to get outside. He took a quick breath and broke for the automatic doors.

  BOOM.

  A round zipped behind him as he dove to the sidewalk outside. He scrambled behind a low concrete wall and brought his front sight up on the entrance.

  Now he had him. As soon as Cesar showed his face outside, Mason would have him dead to rights. He looked around. Several patrons stood frozen in the parking lot, apparently shut down by being caught in a shootout like they’d seen in the movies.

  They were collateral damage waiting to happen.

  “Get out of here before you get shot!”

  That got a couple of them moving away from the entrance. Incredibly, a few still remained rooted to the pavement. They were going to get themselves killed.

  Mason pointed the Glock in the air and fired off two shots.

  That did it. The last few statues fell over themselves heading for expensive German cars.

  Mason looked back to the entrance, to the fatal funnel of fire. Cesar would show up any second now and that second would be his last.

  Sirens blared in the distance.

  The automatic doors slid apart.

  Mason sighted and curled his pointer finger inside the trigger guard.

  Terrified customers spilled out of the store and ran for the parking lot. One saw him and screamed.

  “There’s the killer! There’s the shooter!”

  Several others screamed and ran away from Mason.

  Him? The killer?

  The sirens got louder.

  A spray of bullets blasted the concrete wall around him. Flecks of masonry bit into his arms and hands. He glanced over and saw one of Cesar’s lieutenants from that morning behind a car, an assault rifle held over the hood firing in his direction.

  Mason was exposed and outgunned.

  Three black and whites screamed down Lincoln and screeched to a halt at the parking lot entrance. He knew they’d have no idea what was going on and that they’d be just as likely to target him as the gang members.

  This wasn’t a battle he could win. Not without taking lives that didn’t deserve to die.

  Another blast of bullets chewed into the asphalt a few feet away and sprayed fragments in his face. Chunks slammed into the dark lenses of his Wiley X ballistic sunglasses. The lenses held.

  It was an impossible tactical situation. He didn’t want to leave such a dangerous opponent on the loose. Not after that opponent had shown such a willingness for extreme violence. Cesar’s freedom put Mason in danger.

  Worse, it put his family in danger.

  The shot caller needed to be taken down. Sent to jail or sent to the grave. Mason didn’t have a preference. But continuing the fight wasn’t an option. The likely collateral damage would be catastrophic.

  Mason ducked behind a line of shopping carts and took off.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The sun sunk toward the western horizon. An orange glow burned across the sky. Mason tossed Max’s favorite tennis ball across the yard and wondered what he should do next. The fiasco at Whole Foods was a huge cluster bomb of crap waiting to explode on his life. The question was how to deal with it.

  He could turn himself in. He knew he was innocent. Surely, the police would determine that fact in short order. He wished he believed that. But people got railroaded all the time. Mistakes were made. Eye witnesses swore to less-than-accurate accounts of what happened. Once a narrative got established, it could be nearly impossible to turn that train around.

  He had no intention of becoming a statistic. The innocent man convicted kind. He needed to talk to Oscar. Though retired now, his neighbor had been a stellar criminal defense attorney. He’d know how to proceed.

  Oscar and Mabel should be home any time now. He’d consult with the old pro and then follow his suggestions. That would keep the complications to a minimum. An experienced defense attorney was key in a system where blind justice sometimes had a hard time seeing the truth.

  Max brought back the grubby, slobber-soaked ball and dropped it with a wet slap in Mason’s hand. He threw it to the far corner of the front yard. Far corner in Venice meant about twenty feet away. Their million dollar mansion was a three bed, two bath Craftsman that had gotten few updates over the years. A front yard with just enough space to set out a few chairs and a barbecue. A back yard with not even that. He frequently had to stop himself from remembering that a similar patch of real estate in another area of the country would go for a tenth of the price they paid.

  Dwelling on that was ulcer-inducing madness.

  As long as you didn’t think about it, everything was fine. LA was kind of like that. A beautiful land of endless sun and summer. But madness bubbled underneath. The condition was by definition. Who in their right mind lived in a metropolis of ten million people that had to import over eighty-five percent of its water?

  The miracle of technology and human achievement.

  It worked well. Amazingly well. Until it didn’t.

  Mason pushed the thoughts away as Max ambled back with the ball in his mouth. A fresh layer of sticky goo coated its surface. Mason held it, reflecting on the things you do for those you love, and aimed another throw. This one at the other neighbor’s wall.

  He didn’t know much about the neighbors on the opposite side. They were new on the block and weren’t big on socializing, and their property reflected it. They’d leveled the tasteful old Craftsman soon after purchasing the property and replaced it with a modern glass and concrete structure. To Mason’s experienced eye, the result looked more like a bunker than a house.

  It stuck out on their street like a sore thumb. The eight foot concrete wall surrounding the front yard didn’t help.

  One of Oscar’s favorite past times was bagging on their house and the uncharacteristic flavor it added to the neighborhood. Mason didn’t know them, so he would just listen to the rambling indictments and nod.

  That said, smearing Max’s spit on the gray matte finish of their wall gave Mason a small satisfaction. He also didn’t mind that a spit-soaked ball sometimes ended up in their front yard. It always ended up in his own yard by the next morning.

  He winged it at the tall wall and the ball hit with a wet slap. Mason smiled. Max turned and trotted off to retrieve it. It took around an hour of fetch to wear the energetic bullmastiff out and Mason could tell without checking his watch that they were nearing that mark.

  Mason looked to the west and caught the last peek of the sun as it descended over the single block of houses that separated his house from the beach and the Pacific Ocean beyond.

  For fundamental madness, it sure was beautiful. There were few things that instilled awe like a perfect sunset over the Pacific. On that account, Venice had an astonishing record. You could count on a couple sunsets a week reaching the level of jaw-dropping spectacular. A few more that would have tourists oohing and aahing. And then maybe one or two that everybody agreed wasn’t worth a second look.

  A desperate meow made Mason jump.

  Mr. Piddles sat on the Crayfords’ front porch looking at Mason with expectant disdain. His ample belly covered his paws completely. He looked more
like a furry ball than a cat.

  “Time for dinner, huh?” Mason said.

  Max ambled over to Mr. Piddles and dropped the slobbery tennis ball. Max could tear the fat cat in half if he believed it was possible, but he had no such knowledge. When Max was a puppy, Mr. Piddles had set the pecking order with numerous sharp claws to wet nose.

  Though Max outweighed the cat by nearly a hundred pounds, the cat was still king.

  Max sniffed at Mr. Piddles and then went in for a lick. Mr. Piddles hissed and slashed a claw at his muzzle. Max jumped back and dropped his front to the lawn with his rear held high. His tail wagged furiously.

  Mr. Piddles hissed and bared little fangs.

  “Give him some space, Max,” Mason said as he walked over between them, worried more for Max than Mr. Piddles.

  “Want some dinner?”

  Mason slowly extended his hand and attempted to pat Mr. Piddles’ back. A paw flew at his fingers and he yanked back just in time.

  Mason laughed and wondered what the old feline would do if he tried to pick him up. That would probably require Kevlar gloves and body armor. He was about to turn back to retrieve the Crayfords’ house key when a thumping bass caught his attention.

  He turned and froze as a red 1964 Impala turned the corner and headed down the street.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Metallic red paint and polished chrome. The frame floating inches above the street. It approached at a slow speed, slower than any normal person drove.

  Mason dropped his hand to the Glock 19 tucked inside his waistband.

  Dark tinted windows hid the occupants. The thumping music grew louder as it approached.

  Was it Cesar and his soldiers?

  Theresa and Holly were inside the house. They’d be out of the field of fire if it came to that.

  He didn’t recognize the vehicle, but it wasn’t unknown to see gangbanger rides cruise down their street. The law wouldn’t back him up if he unloaded on a car with no more provocation than a suspicion.

  The Impala crept toward his house and then passed by and kept going.

  Mason kept his hand at the ready as the low rider cruised down the street.