Dying For LA by Ian Jones (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

They were all being carefully examined and dusted with fingerprint powder.

There was one more trunk, and this contained ammo. Boxes of a variety of shells and many magazines, which he could see were loaded.

‘John!’

He looked up. Reed was standing with Brady next to something, and there were more CSIs there. He walked over.

On the floor was a body. A man. A big man. No actually a huge man. Not like Reed, this one was fat, with a massive head. His eyes were open, staring accusingly up at them. He had been shot in the head. There wasn’t a lot of blood, the bullet had clearly not gone all the way through, which John found surprising. He was lying almost comically flat, hands at his side, as if he was out in the sun.

John crouched down to see if he knew the face, but he had never seen him before. He stood up and looked at Brady, who gave a small shrug.

‘No ID so far. But they are still looking.’

The CSIs were meticulously going through the weird vast robe type outfit the body was wearing. He didn’t envy them that task he decided. He looked at the man again. Big round face, no colour which was to be expected, thin lips. Maybe mid to late forties, but that was just a guess. Greasy light brown hair. But very distinctive.

‘Anybody recognise him?’ he asked Brady, who shook his head.

‘Not so far. But he could be from anywhere in the world, this could take some time. They found this on him though, which we are checking right now.’

He held up an elderly mobile phone.

‘Ok.’

‘Not a lot else on this floor,’ Brady resumed, ‘other than this.’

He pointed out a suitcase, which had money in. Stacks of hundred-dollar bills, with a lot of loose notes dotted around.

‘Drugs?’ John asked.

Again, Brady shrugged.

They walked up to the next floor. Same layout, apart from a basic kitchen area where the office had been on the first floor. Some bits of battered furniture and not much else, but everything being examined. Then it was up another flight. This floor had mattresses dotted around, with sleeping bags here and there and a door with steps outside which led to the flat roof, and the bridge across to the warehouses. John made his way over. There was another body on the far side, which he had expected. Lying propped against the panels was a man, no more than thirty at the most, black hair and a big bushy beard. Another head shot. This was the man John had killed when he was behind the car. Reed was examining a machine gun which John had passed as he walked over.

‘M60. But prehistoric. The army keeps these guns forever, but this thing must be one of the first,’ Reed told him as John walked across.

The gun had been thrown to the floor, there was a bandolier of bullets still sticking out the side.

‘Right shells wrong links,’ Reed explained. ‘We got lucky. This thing would have killed a lot more of us if it had kept firing, but this is for another gun altogether, looks Chinese. Everything looks a lot closer together, this baby must have jammed. Like I said, that was lucky.’

‘I suppose this could have come from anywhere right?’ John asked.

‘Yeah, pretty much. They’ve been around a long time. Bad guys all over use these things, they turn up pretty much everywhere. Rebel armies someplace, pirates, tiny guerrilla armies in Africa, they all use them, and I guess they must be easy to find if you know where to look. I don’t think these guys struggle to find weapons.’

There were three more assault rifles lying along the section of the bridge, and they looked at them all. AK-47, Steyr, M16. All the guns had 1-Too burned into the stocks.

John shook his head and looked over the bridge to the road. The van and the squad car were right there in clear sight. If Oakes had pulled up where they suggested they would have all been out of sight. Such a waste. He leaned on the railing, and Reed joined him.

‘Made it real easy for them,’ he commented.

John nodded and then turned, to look at the end of the bridge. There was a single rusty door which was standing open, he could see the gloom of the warehouse beyond, so he walked over and looked inside at a simple metal platform with a guard rail. They were close to the roof, and it was a long drop to the floor below. The platform ran off to the right then a long flight of steel stairs which ran all the way to the bottom. There were several police officers moving around, and he could see some vehicles parked up but other than that it was just a huge empty space. There were massive double sliding doors open, presumably into the warehouse next door. He turned and looked at Brady.

‘Are we ok to go down?’ he asked.

Brady nodded.

‘Sure. Why not.’

They made their way over to the stairs and walked all the way down then across to the sliding doors into an identical warehouse next door, this one being completely empty. Then they crossed over through another set, into the same again but this one had massive doors open at the side so was well lit in comparison.

There were more police here, gathered around outside. They walked across and John stood in the wide-open doorway looking across a deep concrete loading bay and then a dozen railway tracks nestled close to each other. Every now and then a train would clatter across loudly in either direction. On the far side was a chain link fence and then a stretch of wasteland where more police were moving until a line of office and apartment buildings. A freeway ran across high above to the right.

Brady started talking to the officers who were here, who basically confirmed what they had already guessed. The men had run across the railway