Jack Daniels Six Pack

by J. A. Konrath

  I crawled faster, full-blown terror taking root in me like I’d never experienced before. I tripped another wire, and a gunshot peppered the shelving unit to my right, but I didn’t stop, I picked up speed, climbing over a body, pushing away dead limbs, biting the inside of my cheek, eyes blurry with tears, had-to-get-out-had-to-get-out-had-to-get-out—

  I reached the end of the hall and pulled myself through a doorway, entering a small room. The gas was dissipating, and I could finally see again. My stomach felt like a giant knot, and I teetered on the verge of throwing up. I was also holding my breath, freaked out that gas had gotten inside my suit.

  Calm down, Jack, I said to myself. Calm it down. You’re still alive.

  I opened my mouth, trying to taste the air without breathing it.

  Not surprisingly, it tasted like bile.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, shaking from the lack of oxygen, I took a shallow breath even though my body craved more air.

  No reaction.

  I took a bigger breath, and began to laugh and cry at the same time.

  “Jack! Are you there! Jack, please answer!”

  “I’m still here,” I said, my voice sounding very far away.

  I looked around me, saw I was in a bedroom. There was a bed, a closet, a dresser, and a full-length mirror.

  I stood up on wobbly legs and walked over to the mirror, getting a profile view.

  There were a dozen tiny holes in my suit where the buckshot had ripped through.

  “My suit has holes in it.”

  “Stay calm. As long as there’s positive air pressure, nothing can get in.”

  “You son of a bitch—”

  “McGlade, you little—”

  “Give me the headset, lardass—”

  “I’m gonna kick your—”

  An oomph sound, coming from Herb.

  “Jack! It’s Harry! You need to get your ass out of there! That tank is almost empty!”

  Once again, panic wrapped around me like a blanket.

  “Your fat sidekick punched me in the nards before I could tell you. I figure there was maybe four, five minutes of O2 left in that tank. How long have you been in there?”

  About four or five minutes, I figured. I looked back down the booby-trapped hallway, gas still lingering in the air, and made my decision.

  “I’m going out the back window. Get the paramedics to put a ladder—”

  I stopped in mid-step. Both bedroom windows were surrounded by black pipes that didn’t look like they came standard with the house.

  “I’m seeing some sort of pipes, sticking out of the window frames.”

  “Describe them.” Rick again.

  I didn’t want to get too close, but I forced myself to lean forward.

  “Black. They have M44 written on the side.”

  “Cyanide bombs. Used for killing animal predators. Don’t go near them.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

  Unfortunately, that meant I had to go back through the hallway to get out of there.

  I began to hyperventilate, which made me even more light-headed than I already was. I got on all fours, reasoning that I’d already tripped the traps at that level and there wouldn’t be any more. The gas had thinned out to the consistency of steam. Crawling over my fallen brethren was even worse this time, now that I could see their bloody faces up close.

  “Look, Jackie, if you don’t get out of there alive, I want to be sure that someone helps me out with this liquor license thing.”

  Harry sounded so close, I almost turned around, expecting to see him standing over my shoulder.

  “McGlade, get off the—”

  I was halfway to the stairs when I paused, wondering why the voice on the headset had gotten so clear.

  It took me a moment to realize the radio reception hadn’t gotten better—I could hear it better because there was no background noise.

  The low, droning hiss of the SCBA had stopped.

  I was out of air.

  Chapter 10

  I DIDN’T THINK. I moved. I made it through the gas and to the stairs in less than three seconds, and the. I slid down the first few on my belly like I was sledding.

  The suit proved to be slipperier than I thought, and I picked up speed.

  I stuck my hands out in front of me, trying to stop my momentum, but my gloves couldn’t get a purchase on the carpet. My chest felt like I was getting repeatedly kicked, and my head bounced around on my neck in whiplash jerks.

  BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP. The ground floor rushed at me, blurry and off center.

  And then I remembered the nails on the bottom step.

  They were less than a body length away. No time to turn. No time to stop. I arched my back, reaching out my hands, palms up, trying to grab the shoulders of the dead cop slumped at the bottom of the staircase. I hit him, hard, my elbows bending from the impact, holding my chest a few inches above the deadly nails.

  I did a push-up off of Buhmann, got my feet under me, and eased myself over the trap. Fresh air was only a dozen yards away, out the front door. I got ready to sprint for it.

  “...help me...”

  I didn’t move.

  Stryker was still alive. It had to be him, because the only SRT members I hadn’t seen yet were him and the woman.

  I took a last, longing look at the door, then headed toward the rear of the house, to the kitchen, the only room I hadn’t yet seen.

  “Jack, are you still there?”

  “I’m here, Rick. I think he’s in the kitchen.”

  I concentrated on slowing my breathing. I don’t know what poisons were clinging to me, or if anything had gotten in through the holes. Plus, the air inside the space suit was quickly becoming stale, since no new air was being pumped in. The less I breathed, the better.

  Two steps into the kitchen, I found the female cop. I had no idea what killed her, but whatever it was made her eyes pop out of their sockets.

  “Stryker, dammit, where are you?”

  Static, then, “...base...”

  “Who’s got a floor plan? Where’s the basement?”

  It was more talking than I wanted to do, and it emptied my lungs. I took a shallow breath.

  “I have the floor plan, Jack.” Rick. “There’s a door in the back of the kitchen.”

  I spun my shoulders, taking in the room, and saw the refrigerator was open. I also noticed, sitting on a plate in the fridge, something horrible.

  “The bomb squad is here, they’re coming in.”

  Passing the refrigerator, I saw the basement steps, Stryker clinging to the top. His gas mask was also caked in vomit, but his chest was rising and falling.

  I grabbed his belt and pulled.

  It was like hauling a bag of bricks, but the tile floor helped, and I was able to yank the groaning SRT leader across the kitchen, toward the back door.

  Three feet away, my vision began to cloud. My legs had become two sacks of jelly that could barely support my weight.

  Two feet away. I felt hot and cold at the same time. A wave of dizziness swooped down on me, and I fell to my knees. Everything started to get dark.

  A foot away. Beyond that doorway, fresh air. No more deadly traps. No more poison gas. Twelve inches away was Herb. Latham. Life.

  I reached the jamb, straining from the effort of pulling Stryker, and then felt the floorboard shift beneath my hip.

  I froze. My eyes followed the floorboard to an electrical outlet, under the sink. Attached to a cord, atop the loose floorboard, was a metal sphere the size of a golf ball. Surrounding it, like a jail cell, were metal bars. Next to the contraption was a fire extinguisher, its nozzle pointing at my face.

  Even in my oxygen-deprived brain, I knew what I was looking at. If the floorboard moved, the metal ball would roll, touching the metal bars and completing a circuit, spraying me with whatever deadly substance was in that fire extinguisher.

  I shifted my hip imperceptibly, and watched the ball roll forward, heading toward th
e bars.

  I moved my hip back, and it returned to the center of its cell.

  Things were really starting to get dark now. I didn’t know if I’d been poisoned, or if I’d breathed too much of my own carbon dioxide. I tried to focus, tried to concentrate. The board beneath me was only a few inches wide. If I eased myself off of it slowly, keeping an eye on the ball, it would return to its original position and—

  “...please help me,” Stryker groaned.

  Then his foot kicked out, connecting with the trap.

  Chapter 11

  INSTANT INFERNO. The flame that shot out of the extinguisher soaked Stryker, and covered the lower half of my body. I leaned over, trying to beat the fire off of him, but it stuck to my gloves like glue.

  His screams cut into me, and then cut into me again through my headset. I wiped my hands on the floor, trailing fire, and then I looked around—for what, I’m not sure—maybe something to smother the flames, maybe something to end his agony, and then a powerful force yanked me backward.

  I twisted around, trying to fight it, fearing what horrible trap had me now, wondering if I’d be gassed or burned or poisoned or punctured, and I lashed out with both hands, and one fist bounced off something fleshy and I stared up at Herb, pulling me out of the house.

  “The suit,” I tried to warn him. It was covered in God knew what kind of deadly substances. “Don’t touch me.”

  But Herb didn’t listen. He dragged me over to two firefighters waiting with a hose. They opened it up on us, knocking Herb over, pummeling me with water that looked, oddly enough, like a car wash through my visor.

  Then Rick was there, yanking off my face mask, stripping off that horrible space suit, and paramedics were wrapping me in blankets. I glanced at Herb, my hero, and said, “Thanks, partner.” He shook his head, his hound dog jowls jiggling, picked up a blanket, and walked away.

  “Jack, look at me.”

  Rick had his arms around me, his face very close to mine. This time I was sure I felt his breath. It smelled like mint.

  He looked at one of my eyes, then the other.

  “Do you feel okay?”

  “Headache...legs hot.”

  “First-degree burns from the homemade napalm. Like a sunburn. I could rub some cream on them, if you’d like.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  I disentangled myself from his arms and took a last look at the house.

  “Thanks.” I took another deep breath, grateful for the clean air. “I probably wouldn’t have made it out of there without your help.”

  “What, you think all Feds are brainless, regulation-spouting automatons who hinder local police departments’ investigations?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Rick smiled, and pretended to tip his hat.

  “Happy to prove you wrong.”

  “Hey!”

  We turned to look at McGlade, who was prodding the still-smoking space suit with his toe.

  “Somebody owes me a space suit.”

  I ignored Harry, looking beyond him to try to find Herb. Two paramedics wheeled a gurney over. I declined. They insisted. I compromised, and they escorted me as I walked. The scene in front had become a mad house of cops, media, and gawkers. I scanned the faces of the crowd. No Herb.

  Joshua James, the SRT member that I prevented from running into the house, walked over to my car, tight-lipped and morose.

  “They’re all dead.” He said it as a statement, not a question.

  I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  James hitched his thumbs into his belt and stuck out his chest.

  “Sorry doesn’t mean shit. Next time, let me do my fucking job.”

  His stare challenged me to say something back. I didn’t. Then he turned his gaze to Rick.

  “You got something to say, Fed?”

  “In fact, I do. You need to focus your anger on the man that did this, not the woman that tried to save your team.”

  “She fucked up. I should have gone in there.”

  Rick jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing at two bomb squad cops, draped in so much body armor and protective gear, they each looked like the Micheli. Man. Stretched between them was a body bag.

  “See that? If you went in there, they’d be carrying you out in one of those.”

  The cop went to shove Rick, but Rick sidestepped the move and caught Joshua’s wrist in a joint lock, forcing the larger man to his knees.

  “They knew the risks,” Rick said. “Don’t disgrace their memories like this.”

  He released him, and Joshua glared at Rick, then at me, then at Rick again, and stormed off.

  I grabbed my clothes and my purse from my car, and was then led to the rear of the ambulance. Again they tried to force me to lie down. Again I fought with them, insisting that I didn’t want to go to the hospital.

  “Let them help you, Jack.”

  Rick. He’d somehow eclipsed Herb as my omnipresent voice of reason.

  “I just want to get home to my fiancé.”

  I coughed, feeling something wet in my lungs, and all thoughts of Latham were replaced by thoughts of the terrifying toxins I’d been exposed to. Rick caught my look of panic.

  “Just because you seem to have avoided all of the fast-acting agents doesn’t mean a slower one hasn’t breached your suit. Like BT. Or something worse.”

  I coughed again, and let them strap me down. An EMT pushed Rick out of the back, shut the door, and they carted me off to the hospital.

  Chapter 12

  I WOKE UP AT FIVE in the morning in an ER bed, feeling like someone had beaten me up and used me as a pincushion. Antibiotics, antitoxins, and numerous vaccines had been administered. I was a little woozy, but it didn’t seem like anything toxic had taken hold.

  That was good enough for me. I had work to do, and it wouldn’t get done with me lying down.

  I called a cab, and he took me back to my car, still at Alger’s house. During the ride I thought about Latham. I’d phoned him repeatedly from the hospital—at my house, at his apartment, on his cell. He hadn’t picked up. What did that mean? Phone problems? Was he asleep? Watching TV too loud and didn’t hear the ring? Or was he angry at me?

  Yesterday, I’d called Latham my fiancé—twice—even though I hadn’t officially said yes to his proposal. It felt...right.

  I’d been married before. It hadn’t worked. And even though my ovaries still had a few parting shots left in them, forty-six was too old to start thinking about babies, and families. If I got pregnant now, I’d be in diapers myself by the time the kid was old enough to buy me a beer.

  So why did I feel all gooey inside when I pictured Latham and myself leaning over a crib, watching our child sleep?

  The cab spit me out at my car. I paid the hack, and used my cell to try Latham again. No answer. So I turned my attention to the Alger house. Seeing it again made my stomach do flip-flops.

  A few police vehicles and the SRT bus were still there. A bombie saw me and approached.

  “Lieutenant Daniels?” Her name tag read Wells. She wore enough body armor to protect her from a point-blank bazooka hit. “There’s something in the house you need to see.”

  My reaction was physical. The thought of going back into that chamber of death scared me more than anything had ever scared me in my life.

  Wells seemed to sense this. “We’ve cleared the remaining traps. There were only two left.”

  “There may be others.”

  “We went in with X-ray, ultrasound, and a K9 unit. The house has been disarmed. You can use my mask...” Her voice trailed off, implying the if you’re afraid.

  “No need. Let’s go.”

  I had to will my legs to move, as they’d suddenly become stiff. It was like approaching a firecracker that should have gone off but hadn’t.

  Bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It’s the ability to still function when fear overtakes you. Some people are naturally brave. Others, like me, learn to fake it. I still had no idea if faked brave
ry and real bravery were the same thing. Cops didn’t talk about their fears. Instead they drank, got divorced, committed suicide, or all three. It beat dwelling on being killed in the line of duty.

  So into the house we marched, stiff upper lips in place. Wells took me past the living room, past the staircase, and back into the kitchen, where a black, charred stain marked the linoleum where Stryker had burned alive.

  The refrigerator was open.

  Curiosity overtook my jitters and I peered inside.

  Standard fridge contents. Milk. Cheese. Lunch meat. Beer. Condiments in the door. But one item was out of place.

  On the top rack, laid out on a CorningWare plate, were three severed fingers.

  I knew immediately whose they were.

  Officer Scott Hajek, my lab guy, was short, plump, and needed both hands to carry his crime scene kit, housed in an oversized Umco tackle box. He came into the kitchen and set the heavy case by my feet.

  “Anything good to eat in there?” Hajek asked.

  “Only finger food,” I replied.

  Hajek squinted into the fridge through Coke-bottle glasses, then frowned.

  “That’s bad.”

  “It was that, or a hand on rye joke.”

  “Where’s Herb? He has that gallows humor schtick down to a science.”

  I had no idea where Herb was. After he’d disappeared last night, I hadn’t heard from him.

  Hajek opened up his case, the hinged drawers expanding to three times the size of the base. After digging around for a few seconds, he came up with a vial of black fingerprint powder—to contrast the white appliance—and a horsehair brush.

  He found several latents on the door handle, and several more on the front surface of the fridge. He used Pro-Lift stickers to remove and mount the prints.

  “Got a glove mark.”

  He handed over the Pro-Lift card, and I noted the black oval smudge, no ridges. Someone had opened the refrigerator wearing gloves. I compared two other decent partials to a laptop display showing Alger’s prints, and found that they matched. The homeowner used his own fridge; no surprise there.

  Hajek then printed the severed fingers. He used modeling clay to avoid getting ink all over, and as I’d suspected the fingers belonged to former Chicago police officer Jason Alger.