Read the Viking Funeral (2001) for Free Online

violation) or hung out making criminal plans with some other "yoked" and "sleeved" ex-cell soldier (also a parole violation). They wouldn't bust the target for these violations but would wait until he and his ex-con buddies finally pulled some major Class A felony: a holdup, armed robbery, kidnapping--you name it. The members of SIS would follow the targets away from the crime and exercise their patented car-jamming maneuver. This consisted of speeding up in two or three department plain - wraps, then jamming the target vehicle to the curb.. . W hereupon six or seven adrenalized, heavily armed cops would do high-risk takedown. As a result, SIS had bought a large percentage of these assholes seats on the ark. Because of the high body count, and growing number of incidents where civilians were accidentally injured or almost killed by stray gunfire, city activists were constantly gunning for the unit, and SIS was always in the pot, on slow boil.
    Jody had been in SIS for almost a yea r b efore he ate his gun in the division parking lot. A lot of people said it was the pressure of the unit that brought him to suicide, but Shane knew that Jody relished the work there. He said he loved the rush, the adrenalized risk taking. But most of all he loved "capping assholes."
    They had discussed SIS a month before Jody died. It had turned into one of their few really bad arguments. Shane hated the unit and everything it stood for. SIS was holding court in the street and, to his way of thinking, was little more than a death squad. Shane had left Jody's house moments before the argument got violent.
    Alexa's office was down the hall, on seven. She was the XO of the Detective Services Group and the only sergeant officed there. She'd been given a small room, with no window and a shared secretary. As Shane and Alexa waited in her office, they heard Mark Shephard come in and get his coffee. They were told by his secretary that he would see Shane after he went through his mail.
    "What'd you tell him about why I wanted to see the file?" Shane asked while they waited.
    "I told him the truth, that you saw somebody who looked like Jody on the freeway and that you wanted to set your mind at ease."
    "Jesus, Alexa, I'm in the middle of a ding - a-ling review. That's all I need right now."
    "What else can we tell him?"
    "I was gonna say Lauren asked me to look at the file. That she needed some information for his life insurance or something and couldn't bear to see that stuff again."
    "He's not a moron, Shane. He wouldn't go for that. Besides, we can trust him. He's a friend."
    "He's your friend. I barely know him."
    "They don't call him the 'Good Shepherd' for nothing," she smiled. "He's good people; he won't blow you in."
    A uniformed lieutenant in her late twenties appeared in the doorway. "The commander is ready now."
    Mark Shephard was a climber in the department, but he was an unusual mix--a uniform-friendly commander who also had Glass House suck and deft political skills. He reminded Shane a lot of his first Boy Scout leader: tall and good-looking, with a tan complexion and blond hair. Mark Shephard's blue eyes crinkled with what seemed like ever friendly amusement.
    "Sorry to keep you waiting, Sergeant," Shephard said. He wore his blue-steel revolver on his belt in a Yaqui Slide holster, the flap snapped down over a black checkered grip. A lot of Glass House politicians, who had done the minimum amount of street work, packed chrome-plated, custom-gripped artillery-- but not the Good Shepherd. This was a no - nonsense piece. He had his coat off, and Shane could see that he stayed fit.
    "Thanks for seeing me," Shane said.
    "Any friend of Alexa's... I'm really proud about the ceremony, her getting the MOV. As her commander, I'm honored to be reading the citation this Sunday, before Tony gives her the award." Tony was the new chief of police-- Tony Filosiani--a street cop from New York who had applied for the job of top cop in L . A . after Chief