Free The Beltway Assassin by Richard Fox Page B

embrace.
    “That can’t be right,” Tony said through the earpiece. “The SWAT team is at a domestic dispute three miles away from you. Are you sure you saw cops? There’s nothing on the scanners or on my trackers.”
    “Then who the hell were the bunch of guys in the uniforms that read S-W-A-T? Wait. What trackers?” Shelton asked.
    Ritter reached under his watchband and pushed a switch that shut off his earpiece.
    He spotted a man who might have been Garcia underneath the filth and a week-old beard. He was on his hands and knees next to a broken window, peering over the sill.
    “Hey, buddy, can you help me out?” Ritter asked.
    “Fuck off. They’re out there, man. They’re out there, and they’re after me,” the tweaker said. Paranoia was common among meth addicts, which didn’t make Ritter’s job any easier.
    Ritter glanced out the window and saw the white van.
    The tweaker looked at Ritter and froze. “Oh shit. I saw you like ninja those two guys. Don’t ninja me, bro,” he said.
    “Is your name Garcia?” Ritter asked, kneeling next to the man.
    “Yeah, yeah, I’m Garcia.” His words came out like bullets from a machine gun. He nodded with equal ferocity.
    “Who’s after you?” Ritter asked.
    Garcia scratched his face like a dog working at a flea. “Hell if I know, man. They came looking for me, bunch of men in black types, where I sleep near L’Enfant Station. Roughed up my lady friend. I bugged out and cut off my tracker. I don’t need that shit, not when I’m trying to get clean, you know?”
    “You come with me, and I’ll get you someplace safe, okay?” Ritter said.
    “Wait. Did the Iranian send you?” Garcia asked, he looked at Ritter with hope
    Ritter learned early in his career as a spy that ties work best when they can hide between truths. He knew nothing about this Iranian, but if he could coopt Garcia with a falsehood, then so be it.
    “Of course he sent me, how else did I know your name?” Ritter asked.
    “Cops! La policia! ” rang out from the bottom floor. Garcia bolted to his feet and raced across the floor before Ritter could grab him. Ritter tried to get up, but a skeletal man who’d been lying against the wall in a drugged out stupor prior to that point grabbed onto his coat and started screaming nonsense at him.
    Garcia picked up a stool and jammed it through an already-broken window. He scraped it along the bottom to clear the away through the jagged glass, then leaped through the second-story window. Ritter shook free from the clinger and ran to Garcia’s ersatz emergency exit. Garcia was on a bike, speeding away. Ritter spoke into the microphone on his wrist.
    “Greg, he’s on a bike heading west. Tan coat, dark-red hoodie, blue jeans. Can you get him?” Ritter said.
    He never got an answer.
    Gunshots sent bullets through the floor, shattering the wood like broken bones. Ritter ran for the stairwell and took three stairs at a time as he went up. He tore past the reeking meth lab and burst through the door to the roof.
    Dead pigeons littered the roof. He looked toward the white van; the doors were open, and men in black tactical suits with rifles were clustered around it. One pointed right at him. Heads snapped around to look at Ritter.
    “Well, balls,” Ritter said. The next building over on his right was two stories higher than where he stood. To his left and across the roof was a building of the same height. The gap between was maybe ten feet…
    A bullet snapped past his head. He ducked and ran across the roof. He looked like any other meth addict trying to flee the building, and he wasn’t carrying a weapon. Why the hell were the cops shooting at him? Another round snapped past his face as he closed the distance to the ledge.
    He opened his stride and used the last six inches of real estate to launch himself through the air. A second into his flight, he realized he’d severely misjudged the distance between the buildings. What should have been an