Free Black Friday by James Patterson Page B

morning sunrise party at the Alvarez house. Being a seagull seemed like a pretty good idea right now, but he had never been much for vocational planning.
    The ocean wind was pleasantly warm. It carried a curious scent of salty fish and orange blossoms. The sun was already intense, too blinding to look at without a hand shade.
    “Elegant house Diego has for himself. Run about three, three point five million with Sotheby’s. When I give the signal we’re going to put men in every wing of the villa.”
    Carroll remained silent. These were Sommers’ men. This was Sommers’ little planet where he reigned supreme. Carroll looked at the FBI man for a moment then finally took his handgun out again. He pointed the massive black barrel upward, a safety precaution where people were concerned, though not seagulls.
    Just then, as Carroll knelt in a sniper-shooter’s crouch, the heavy wood door of the Alvarez house came flying, crashing open. The door banged hard against the pink stucco front wall.
    “What the fuck?” Clark Sommers whispered out loud.

Chapter 20
    FIRST A BLOWZY white-haired woman in a tattered Maranca shirt stumbled outside. Then came a dark, well-built man bare chested in white trousers. All across the front lawn automatics and revolvers clicked off their safeties.
    Then Diego Alvarez suddenly began to scream at the FBI men. “You motherfuckers! I shoot this old lady, man. She jus’ innocent old lady. My cook, man. Put down all those motherfucker guns!”
    Sommers was suddenly quiet. His beach-hero tan seemed to be fading.
    Carroll glared in the direction of the drug dealer. The dark eyes of the man were frantic, desperate. There were flecks of saliva at the corners of his mouth. Then he turned to Sommers and said, “We have to take him. No matter what, we have to take him.”
    Sommers continued to be deadly quiet. He didn’t even look over at Carroll.
    “We
have
to take Alvarez. There are no other options.”
    Sommers barely glanced at Carroll. His look still said,
You’re a New York City cop, this is my backyard, we do things my way down here.
Carroll had a vision of Alvarez escaping, and it was an exasperating vision. That was a possibility he had to prevent Sommers didn’t know what was involved here.
    Diego Alvarez was awkwardly pulling the fat cook toward a red Cadillac parked outside the garage. The drug dealer had on white flare-bottom trousers. He was almost black in skin tone, as well-muscled as a pro fighter. The cook’s eyes were as wide and round as coffee saucers.
    Carroll tried to sort through the chaotic confusion of the moment. If he controlled his breathing, he could usually concentrate better, which was something he’d learned during his combat days.
    He had an idea—one solution that came to mind.
    Carroll waited for Alvarez to eye-check the FBI agents on the far left. As he did so, Carroll smoothly slid behind a flower-decked wall which concealed him from the drug dealer.
    He waited a few seconds to see if he was missed, then continued hustling down behind the flowered wall, back through the side yard between Alvarez’s and the house next door. Sparkling clean garbage cans stood in a neat silver row.
    A green watering hose snaked up the walkway to a swimming pool with a floating rubber horse which looked ludicrous to Carroll as he started to run. He stopped when he was back out on the street where the FBI team had parked their cars.
    A very disturbing thought entered his mind as he climbed into Sommers’s Grand Prix.
    He never would have done this if Nora was still alive.
….
Never in a thousand years would he have tried this stunt.
    Even as he had the thought, which cut deeply, Arch Carroll eased the FBI sedan to the corner, where he made a sweeping right turn, then a quick left onto South Ocean.
    A block ahead, he saw Diego Alvarez backing into the Cadillac. He was still holding the white-haired cook against his bare chest. He was screaming wildly at the FBI men, his words lost