What the autopsy report told me was that whoever killed Echevarria wanted him seriously dead. It also confirmed that the killer was no pro. The oversized caliber of the murder weapon was proof alone of that. Professionals typically prefer .22-caliber pistols.A .22 is quieter, smaller, more easily concealed. Granted, a .22 slug is roughly half that of a .40-caliber round and offers considerably less stopping power, but a .22 often causes greater damage than larger bullets, with just enough power to ricochet off bones and through vital tissue, bouncing around inside the body like a pingpong ball. The professional also knows that a .22 bullet is made of soft, unjacketed lead. It deforms easily. That and the fact that it is the most common round made in America makes it virtually impossible to trace. But that wasn’t how I knew definitively that Echevarria’s murder was the work of a non-pro.
It was the location of the wounds themselves.
Firearms rarely kill instantly. Unless it’s a clean head shot, victims often are able to fight on for several seconds before succumbing to shock caused by their catastrophic loss of blood. A dying shooter can squeeze off a lot of rounds in that amount of time. The trick, then, is to place your shots in such a way that your adversary has little chance of returning fire. The technique we used in Alpha, the same technique taught to virtually all trained killers, goes by many titles — the “Mozambique Drill,” the “Rhodesian Drill,” the “Failure Drill,” “Body Armor Defeat,” the “2+1 Drill”—but it’s all essentially the same concept: two quick shots fired at the target’s center mass, or chest, followed by a deliberate third shot to the head.
I learned the method from an alcoholic, chain-smoking former Spetsnaz commando, Laz Kizlyak, who served as Alpha’s senior weapons instructor. Laz had honed his craft kidnapping and executing dissidents in Chechnya and Afghanistan before defecting to the West.
“Trauma of impact and wound channel from two shots to center mass cause reflexive nervous system to collapse ninety-six percent of time,” I remember him saying in his thick accent my first day on the range. “In other four percent, adrenaline or stimulant drugs will override reflex. This, my lovelies, is why you put third bullet in motherfucker’s brain.”
I don’t know where he got his numbers, but the man knew guns like Hef knows the female form. The only time I ever saw Laz’s hand not trembling was when it was holding a loaded weapon. He taught us to double-tap our first two shots, aiming at the target’s center, pausing a millisecond to reassess, then squeezing off the head shot, ideally between the eyes. Any higher, the bullet could deflect off skull bone. Any lower, and it was unlikely to produce the kind of catastrophic damage to the nervous system that Laz liked to call, “The gift that keeps on giving.”
We practiced shooting until the process became reflexive muscle memory. Then we practiced more. I would eventually put Laz’s lessons to good use in the field more times than I care to remember. Two quick shots to the chest, reassess, then one to the head. The industry standard.
I got good at it. Arlo Echevarria got even better.
I sipped some coffee and watched a scruffy panhandler shake down a couple of Japanese tourists too frightened to tell him no. Then I read the LAPD’s report. Every witness said they had heard a single gunshot that night, a pause, then two more shots in quick succession. All three bullets had been delivered to the torso. None to the head. Poor technique. Too much gun.
And then there was Echevarria’s own perplexing lack of defensive countermeasures. The nine-millimeter Beretta that the LAPD found wedged in the small of his back, though fully loaded, was effectively worthless. He would’ve first had to draw and chamber a round before using the weapon against his assailant — a split-second response that in a tactical environment could mean the difference between death and life. A trained hunter-killer doesn’t open his front door with such complacency to a stranger late at night in a shitty neighborhood if they legitimately fear someone is out to harm them. You come to the door with pistol in hand, ready to rock. Either Echevarria felt he had nothing to fear, or he’d simply grown complacent in his retirement. Or maybe the whiskey he’d drunk that night had dulled his instincts. I pondered the irony of it: the master caught flat-footed by some bush leaguer. It happens sometimes, I suppose.
I got up to toss my empty coffee cup when Lamont Royale called. He said he was outside the pro shop of the Las Vegas Country Club and couldn’t talk long; Carlisle was inside, testing out new putters. Their tee time was in five minutes.
“I tried calling you back last night,” Royale said. “I heard explosions, then the line went dead.”
“I was gearing up for the Fourth of July.”
“But it’s November.”
“When you’re a true patriot, it’s never too early to celebrate the birth of our illustrious nation.”
“OK, whatever,” Royale said.
“You said last night you had some information about Echevarria?”
“Actually, it’s more about his first wife.”
Royale told me he’d overheard a heated phone conversation between Savannah and Echevarria less than a week before he died. Savannah was out visiting her father in Las Vegas. According to Royale, Echevarria’s ex-wife, Janice, had discovered a diamond ring missing from a safe deposit box. Echevarria, cheapskate that he was, had given Savannah the ring for their engagement without revealing how he’d acquired it. Janice had demanded the ring back.
“He admitted to Savannah where he got the ring, and that if his ex-wife didn’t get it back, she was going to put a contract out on him — and she had the resources to do it, too,” Royale said. “Savannah was so mad about him giving her some other woman’s ring in the first place, she threw it down the garbage disposal.”
“Did you tell the LAPD this?”
“I didn’t think it was my place, considering I was listening in on a private conversation. I don’t know whether it means anything or not. But I thought I should mention it to somebody. Whatever you do, I’d really appreciate you keeping my name out of it. I don’t want to upset Mr. Carlisle more than he already is.”
“Heaven forbid,” I said.
Savannah agreed to meet me that afternoon at a little café across the street from the Santa Monica Airport. The walls were decorated with pictures of classic airplanes and posters advertising old barnstorming movies, the kind of films in which rock-jawed flyboys in leather helmets and silk scarves always get the girl. My kind of place.
I tied down the Duck and made the three-minute walk to the restaurant.
Savannah was parked in a corner booth, behind her big designer shades.
“They make a mean mushroom burger here,” I said, sliding in.
“What’s so important, you had to see me right away?” she said.
I asked her about the diamond engagement ring.
“You flew all the way down here to ask me that?”
“You know me. Any excuse to fly.”
Savannah picked nervously at her lower lip. The busboy brought over menus and glasses of water. She waited until he moved off.
“Did Arlo tell you his ex-wife threatened to kill him?”
“He said it like it was a joke—‘She’s gonna put a contract out on me if I don’t give it back.’ I’m sure she was angry with him, just like I was. I probably said I was going to kill him, too. Heat of the moment, Logan. People say things. Arlo didn’t take any of it seriously. He knew it was just talk. Hell, I was afraid he might put a contract out on me for throwing the ring away after he told me where he got it.”
“Did you tell the police about any of this?”
“And waste their time? What for? Arlo wasn’t murdered because I threw away his ex-wife’s ring, Logan. He was murdered because of who he was, what he did. He was killed by a professional.”