Shot Down

by Steven Sheiner

  “Zero,” he replied emphatically.

  “Okay, good.”

  “Good?!” I said, not sure I heard her right.

  “Yes, good. When she comes, the FBI will be ready. They’ll catch her and this will all be over.”

  Agent Stamper stood with his arms folded, a satisfied grin on his face, nodding along as Sara spoke.

  William took a step back from Sara, a look of disbelief on his face. “Is that what you think?” He looked around the room. “Is that what you all think? That the Escalantes will simply walk away after the murder of one of their own? That this ends with Christina? You’re all fucking kidding yourselves.” He pointed a finger past Sara directly at Agent Stamper. “And you know I’m right, asshole.”

  Sara put a hand on Stamper’s chest as his weight shifted in William’s direction.

  I hadn’t really thought about that. I don’t think Sara had either.

  Agent Stamper had painted such a pretty picture, making us believe this would all be tied up in a neat little bow in two weeks, that I hadn’t considered much else. But William knew the Escalantes. And he had far more experience in these matters and with these types of people. It was hard to ignore what he was saying.

  “William,” I said. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “There’s only one thing you can do.”

  We all stared at him, waiting.

  “Run.”

  I sighed. That’s what I was afraid he would say. “We can’t run, William. Our life is here. My practice, Sara’s job, our kids. Everything is here.”

  William said, “Your life will be over if Christina finds you.”

  “If she really wants to find us, it won’t matter where we go. Right?”

  Agent Stamper nodded. William said nothing, which meant I was right.

  “No. We’ll do what the FBI suggests, and hope for the best.”

  William scoffed.

  “It’s all we can do,” I said.

  Chapter 25

  “I’m going to kill you,” she said.

  Her choice of words made me wince.

  I had called the office to check in and Vera answered. She and Alexis were relieved to hear from me and glad I was okay, but they were not happy with me right now. I told them they needed to reschedule all of our patients for at least two weeks, something they hated doing. It was my office, but they cared for it like it was their own.

  When I finished apologizing, and thanking them, I answered their questions as best I could. Agent Stamper and William listened in, and if there was something they didn’t want me to tell them, they waved a finger and I just said, “I can’t answer that right now.”

  Vera chastised me for bringing a gun into the office every day without telling them. They both felt deceived. Despite my best efforts at an explanation, she wasn’t hearing it.

  “You should have told us.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  I’d never really considered their feelings about it. I genuinely believed I was doing it for the right reasons. And that if the need ever arose, I would be able to protect whoever I was with.

  We talked for a few more minutes about how to handle things at the office for the next two weeks. I wasn’t excited about being out of touch for that long, but they didn’t need me to tell them what to do. They ran the place, I just worked there. If it wasn’t for them, my office would fall apart. They knew it, and I knew it.

  I told them I’d be in touch, although I wasn’t sure that was true, and hung up, grateful that my practice was in such good hands.

  “When we leave here,” Agent Stamper began, “you will have to surrender your cell phones. We can’t afford the risk of someone tracking them, or you getting tempted to call a friend or family member.”

  Agent Stamper was about as by-the-book as you could be. You could tell just by looking at him. He was clean shaven, his hair closely cropped, his shirt neatly pressed, his silver tie pin perfectly aligned, and his shoes brightly shined. He could have been the FBI poster boy.

  Just as I was about to object to giving up my cell phone, it rang.

  “On speaker please,” Agent Stamper said.

  I pressed the green button and the call connected over the speaker.

  “Dude, what the fuck?!”

  It was a classic Ingo greeting. He’d called a couple of times before, but I wasn’t ready talk. To anyone.

  “Well, hello to you, too,” I said.

  “Where are you?”

  Finger wags from Stamper and William.

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Tell those assholes to piss off!”

  You had to love Ingo. Much like William, he always spoke his mind with little to no sugar coating, but Ingo’s Rhodesian accent made everything sound cooler.

  “What happened?!” he asked.

  More finger wagging.

  “I’m not allowed to talk about it yet. There’s an investigation pending.”

  “Investigation my ass. You had every right to do what you did. They should give you a fucking medal and send you home.”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

  Stamper shot me a look, warning me to be careful. I knew I could tell Ingo anything, but I had to play by their rules.

  “I’ll tell you everything when I can,” I said.

  “How you doing? You okay?”

  “I’m alright. I’ve been having nightmares about it.”

  “Yeah, that’ll happen. They’ll fade over time.”

  Just hearing that made me feel a little better. Ingo knew better than anyone what I was going through. Although his outlook on killing was somewhat different than mine.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Cheers, mate. Keep in touch. I’m here if you need anything.”

  “Thanks, Ingo. I appreciate it.”

  I hung up and tossed my phone onto the bed.

  “What a peach,” Stamper said.

  “I kinda liked him,” William said with a smile.

  I walked over and stood next to Sara. We were both looking forward to getting out of this cramped room and to being with our boys.

  “So what now?” I asked.

  Agent Stamper picked my phone up from the bed, then walked over to Sara and held out his hand. She extricated her phone from her bag and reluctantly handed it over.

  “Now you disappear,” Agent Stamper replied.

  “Yeah. For two whole weeks,” William added.

  Ignoring him, Stamper went on. “There’s a convoy waiting for us downstairs. They will deliver you safely to your destination, and watch over you for the next two weeks. We will have eyes on your home, your office, and most importantly, Miss Escalante.”

  “You’re not coming?” I asked, not really sure what answer I was hoping for.

  “Not yet, but I’ll be along. We need to handle the investigation into what happened at the bank. Detective Lawton and I will have questions. The FBI is expecting your full cooperation, given the lengths to which they’re going to protect you.”

  William chortled at that.

  “What about you?” I said to William.

  “When they start asking questions, I’ll be there. You don’t say anything unless I’m there, got it?”

  I nodded.

  “What about our kids?” Sara asked. “When will we see them?”

  “As soon as you get to the location. They’re already there waiting for you.”

  “We have a dog…” Sara added.

  “And?” Stamper replied.

  Sara turned to face him with a stern look. I knew that look. “And she’s a part of our family. She goes where we go.” It was the same tone she used whenever she was mad at me. It was fun to hear it directed at someone else for a change.

 
“Where is the dog?” he asked, grudgingly.

  “With a neighbor. And her name is Mandy.”

  “Yeah, I don’t care.”

  Thirty minutes later, Mandy was sitting on Sara’s lap in the backseat of a white panel van, licking my face and wagging her tail. Sara was smiling, having once again gotten her way. We were both nervous as we headed to destination unknown. Not knowing where we were going was unsettling. Not knowing when Christina might make her move had me on pins and needles. But we were excited to see Jordan and Brock, so we tried to focus on that.

  Chapter 26

  When we first got to the hotel, there were lots of hugs and kisses, and plenty of licks from Mandy. The boys were happy to see us and vice versa. Everyone was okay, and we were back together.

  The boys had a lot of questions. They’d been getting messages from their friends, many of which did not paint me in a favorable light. They called me a murderer, a killer, or worse. They’d also seen the story online and didn’t know what to believe. I sat them down and I told them what happened, and why I did what I did. I left out the graphic details. I didn’t want them having nightmares too. Brock was very sensitive, and he didn’t need me planting horrible images in his head.

  They listened intently, and when I was done, they both seemed to think I had done the right thing. They told me how proud they were, and called me a hero again. I wanted to tell them why I wasn’t a hero. That I had killed a man, and that I was having a hard time dealing with it.

  “I sure don’t feel like a hero,” I said.

  “But you saved everyone in the bank!” Jordan exclaimed.

  “And who knows what would have happened if you didn’t shoot that man? Maybe you wouldn’t be here,” Brock reminded me.

  I nodded. Right now, I was their hero. On the van ride up, Sara had urged me not to spoil that. They were smart kids, but it would be a long time before they were old enough to understand the psychological ramifications of what I’d done. “For now,” she said, “be their hero.”

  Night came quickly and I was exhausted. But I was also afraid to go to sleep. I kept my concerns to myself, but it turned out I had good reason to be scared.

  Shortly after midnight, the two FBI agents standing guard outside the room came barreling through the door, guns up, heads on a swivel. They heard the scream, reacted quickly, and raced inside, ready for action. But the room was quiet and there was no visible threat.

  The looks on their faces said it all: Who screamed? And why?

  It was me. Another horrific nightmare had jolted me awake. This time, my scream had carried over from the dream world into the real one. Sara woke at the sound, then screamed herself as two armed men burst into the room in the middle of the night. Mandy added to the pandemonium, barking her head off at the intruders.

  “It’s okay!” I shouted to everyone, holding both hands out. “It was just a bad dream... I’m sorry.”

  The agents took one last look around, holstered their weapons, and retreated from the room.

  “Are you okay?” Sara asked. She turned on a light.

  “Yeah,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

  Mandy jumped up on the bed and began licking both of us. She wasn’t sure why we were all up in the middle of the night, but she was happy about it. Sara coaxed her into lying down at the end of the bed.

  “What was it this time?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “You can tell me, Simon. It’s okay. Maybe you’ll even feel better talking about it.”

  I let out a long breath. “He was coming after me again. Spiders were crawling from the hole where his eye used to be and suddenly they were all over his face and head. The skin on his face was slowly peeling off, exposing tissue and bone. Spiders fell to the ground as pieces of his face fell off, but more kept coming. He started coming toward me and I couldn’t move. When he grabbed me, the spiders raced down his arms, and crawled all over me. Pretty soon, I was covered with spiders, and he smiled this wicked smile. He laughed and blood poured from his mouth. That’s when I screamed.”

  “Oh my god, Simon,” she said, with a look of horror on her face.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “They’re getting worse.”

  I just nodded.

  “The second we get home, you’re going to see someone.”

  “If I’m still alive.”

  “Stop that! I told you, I don’t want to hear that!”

  “Sorry.”

  “I don’t know if it’s post-traumatic stress or shock or if this is completely normal, but you need to talk to someone. We need to get you some help for this.”

  “Ingo said it was normal.”

  “Ingo has been to war. He’s been killing people since he was eighteen. You’re an optometrist. Maybe what’s normal for him isn’t normal for you.”

  I closed my eyes and exhaled. I could still see the images vividly. Sara rubbed my back and tried to comfort me. She was right, of course. The nightmares were getting worse. The imagery was more graphic and the dreams felt more and more real. I could still feel the spiders crawling on me. I shuddered, and rubbed my arms, sweeping away the non-existent spiders. Maybe talking to someone would help.

  Brock and Jordan were in a separate room next door, hopefully still sound asleep. They both slept like the dead so, with any luck, they didn’t hear any of the chaos. It was my decision to put them in a separate room. The FBI was willing to put us in a bigger room with two bedrooms, but I didn’t want to take any chances. If Christina tried anything, I wanted the boys away from me. I’d even tried to convince Sara to stay with them, but she wasn’t having it. “Families stick together,” she’d said.

  “What about Xanax?” Sara asked now. “Think that would help?”

  “I don’t know. Do we have any?”

  “No. But I’m sure we can get some. Want me to ask the FBI guys?”

  “I think they’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

  “Okay, but you should ask them tomorrow. Or do I have to do it?”

  “No, I’ll do it. At this point, I’ll try anything.”

  Sara held my hand, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “Why don’t you try to get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day.” Her sarcasm was not lost on me.

  She clicked off the light, and we laid back down. She was snoring in less than a minute. Despite my exhaustion, I was wide awake, thinking about Carlos, still seeing spiders, and wondering what new horrors were awaiting me in my dreams.

  Chapter 27

  The next two weeks were easily the most boring weeks of my life. I used to wish I could sit around all day and do nothing. As they say, be careful what you wish for. Two weeks cooped up in a hotel room, not allowed to leave or even go outside, not allowed to take a walk, watch the sunset, or even open the shades on the window. It didn’t take long for Sara and me to start feeling the effects of cabin fever.

  The kids were even worse. Two teenage boys not allowed outside to run around and burn off energy is a recipe for trouble. They spent their days eating, reading, sleeping, watching movies, and playing video games. Sounds like a teenager’s dream, but they soon got bored, and boredom led to frustration, arguing, and fighting.

  Our rooms were adjoining, so we could separate them as needed, but replacing one stuffy room for another was not an ideal solution.

  Sara and I tried to keep them entertained as much as possible, but it wasn’t always easy. I goofed around with them every day. We wrestled, had pillow fights, and even played Nerf football inside the room. We laughed a lot. It kept them entertained and kept me from thinking about what would happen when we had to go home. But there were too many hours of the day and only so many things to do cooped up inside a hotel room.

  The highlight of our two week stay came on the eighth day. Agent Stamper, Detective Lawton, and William showed up
to ask me questions and hear my version of the shooting. They each assured me it would be quick and painless, and if my story jived with what they’d heard from the witnesses and what the surveillance video showed, I’d be cleared and the investigation would soon be closed.

  I spent the first half-hour huddled in a corner with William. He told me what not to say, what words to avoid, and how to phrase my answers to certain questions he was expecting.

  “You didn’t shoot your gun,” he said, “you protected yourself. You didn’t kill anyone, you ended the threat.”

  Lawyers and their jargon.

  The next several hours were spent answering questions and walking them through, to the best of my recollection, exactly what happened in the bank. They all took notes in the event they would need to refer to them at a later date. There was even a digital recorder running on the table between us.

  “What were you doing in the bank?” Agent Stamper asked.

  “Making the weekly deposit. I walk over every Friday just after five. Been doing it for years.”

  “Had you ever seen Carlos before that day?”

  “No.”

  “How many shots did you fire?”

  “Three, I think.”

  “Did he fire back?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many times?”

  “I can’t be sure. Twice, at least.”

  Between my statement and their questions, I covered every detail of that day at least three times.

  At one point, William got fed up and started interjecting his own questions.

  “How many lives did you save?”

  “How many medals did you receive?”

  “How much time are we wasting with this bullshit?”

  I didn’t answer, and Stamper and Lawton did their best to ignore him. He didn’t make it easy.

  When all was said and done, William said it came down to three elements defined by Florida law that determined whether the use of deadly force was justified.