Encounter in Atlanta

by Ed Howdershelt

said Cade. Avery stepped back as Cade grabbed the frozen guy's coat to pull him to his feet and insistently repeated, "Get away from the window, dammit!" The man's eyes fixed on Cade's Glock and he said nothing, but as bits of debris pelted down on the street outside the window, he stood quickly on shaky legs and tried to comply. His knees failed and he wound up kneeling, then sitting on the floor. Avery came over to get a grip on the guy's other shoulder and they dragged him away from the windows. The rain of unidentifiable debris slackened quickly and seemed to end, and Avery started back toward the window to look up between the buildings. "Avery!" said Cade. "Not yet. Count to thirty before you go near that window." Cade put his Glock back in its shoulder holster under his field jacket and looked around again. Nine people. Five men, four women. Two had apparently left the cafe. He heard more debris-rain hit the street and buildings outside and saw Avery cast a wondering glance at him. "Some of it had farther to fall," said Cade. As if to punctuate his words, a car bumper slammed into the street, narrowly missing a black Lexus, and spinningly bounced out of view toward the intersection. Glancing past the group clustered by the cafe entrance, Cade saw the two missing women hurrying past the reception desk and he took off after them at a trot. He caught up with them by the elevators and didn't bother with introductions; they'd likely remember him. Stepping in front of them, he said, "Ladies, get back to the cafe. You're witnesses to a shooting." "I'm not going back in there!" the one on the right said in a near-hysterical tone. "I'm not! You can't make me!" Snatching her purse off her shoulder, Cade said, "I won't have to. The cops'll find you with whatever's in this." Turning to the other woman, he asked, "Are you going to give me a hard time, too?" Shaking her head slightly, she said, "No. I didn't think we should leave, but Judy..." Interrupting her, Cade said, "Cool. Let's go, then." Putting his arm through hers, he led the way back to the restaurant. After a moment, Judy followed. Cade turned the ladies and Judy's purse over to Avery, then stepped away from the group to have a look at the street below the window. The street was empty of people. Between the blonde hauling the car upstairs, the gunshots, and the blast in the sky, most of them had at least had sense enough to get off the sidewalks and under the cover of the Rivage's drive-through. The rent-a-cop who'd been directing foot traffic across the street between the hotels was one of those under cover. Cade whistled to get his attention and pointed to the body on the sidewalk, then yelled that he should keep people away from it. The guy nodded and headed toward the body. Cade went back to Avery, who was talking to someone on his radio. Avery finished his immediate conversation, then turned to Cade and said, "Teams five and nine got lucky, too. Two dead and one in custody. The guys on the roof are coming down, so we'll have some help here in a few minutes." Nodding, Cade said, "I'll go out and keep the tourists away from the one on the sidewalk." Extending a hand, Avery said, "Okay. Hey, if I don't see you again, it's been good working with you. Why won't they tell us where you extra guys came from?" Shaking Avery's hand, Cade said, "Damned if I know. I'm from Florida, if it helps any." "Oh, yeah," laughed Avery. "That helps a bunch." "Great. Later, then." Moving past the coffee bar, Cade stopped and looked around for the attendant, then knocked on the counter. A man in a suit separated himself from the crowd by the door and came to say that the coffee bar was closed. "You're management?" asked Cade. "Yes, sir. Look, we're rather busy at the moment..." "I'm the guy who shot out your window and I have to go guard a body on the sidewalk. How much is a coffee to go?" The man seemed to have to find a way to attach the two concepts in his mind before he said, "Uh, just take one, sir." "Thanks. Why not offer all those spooked people a cup, too? It'll look great on your record if you take charge and keep them quiet and happy until all the note-taking is finished." The guy glanced at the group and seemed to realize that this was his middle-management chance to achieve some favorable and potentially useful self-publicity. He nodded and stepped behind the counter to draw Cade a coffee as he called the attendant over. "Yes, Mr. D'Angelo?" asked the attendant. Handing the coffee to Cade, D'Angelo said, "Go ahead and open back up, Manuel. Free coffee for anybody who's supposed to be in here until the cops are gone." "Yes, sir," said Manuel. "Could I have an extra coffee?" asked Cade. Manuel drew another coffee and handed it to him. Cade thanked him and headed for the stairs to the street. The rent-a-cop was standing by the body, as requested. He said, "You're the guy who told me to watch the body." Cade handed him the extra coffee and said, "Yup, sure am. Here, I brought you a coffee." Someone aimed a camera toward them and Cade turned to face the cop -- Davies, by his nametag -- as the camera flashed. He kicked the gun that had fallen into the bushes over by the body and toed it under a fold in the coat. "Should you be moving the evidence around like that?" asked Davies. "So tell 'em I kicked it. I just came down here to get your name and badge number for the record and secure the scene." Shrugging as he looked around, Cade said, "Now the scene is secure, I have my info, and you have your coffee. Just stay put until the cops get here." Davies almost choked on his first sip of coffee. He glanced down at the body, then stared at Cade as he asked, "But... You mean you aren't a cop?!" "Never said I was," said Cade. "I've just been working with them today. See you later." As Cade turned to go, the guard said, "Hey, wait. Is there any word about the blonde? The woman who, uh... who flew off... with the car?" "I haven't heard anything." Glancing up at the sky, Davies said, "God, I hope she wasn't still hanging onto that car when it blew. I was looking right at it, but it was too far up... Do you think she...?" "No idea," said Cade. "Later." With that, he headed back up the steps and into the hotel, where he gave Davies' info to Avery and refilled his coffee cup, then sat down in a corner of the cafe with an incident report form to wait for Lieutenant Bain.

  Chapter Two

  Mandi Steele had landed behind a support column in the drive-through of the Rivage Hotel, then stepped out to briefly join a group of costumed conventioneers on their way up the walkway ramp. As she neared the taxi at the front of the line, she spun the two-foot piece of pvc tubing she'd found behind the column like a baton. Letting it escape her grasp in the direction of the taxi gave her a pretext for going through the motions of pretending to look for it as she studied the car. The paint was new, but the car wasn't. It was full of luggage and rode so low that it must have had a ton of extra weight aboard. No normal luggage would weigh that much. Mandi pretended to search for her missing baton beneath the taxi's rear. She discovered that the inner side of the fender was solid, not hollow. A pinch of the clay-like plastique came away between her fingers and she let it fall under the car before retrieving the bit of pipe and standing up. In the rearview mirror, the driver's eyes were focused on her legs. Mandi saw that he was none other than Ahmed Mussafi, a 'suspected' terrorist whose face had graced several of the wanted posters she'd studied before she'd left Las Vegas. The anonymous tip to Gary's office about a suicide attack had been gospel, after all. Now; how to neutralize this situation? How to handle the driver, who likely had some kind of a detonator close at hand? To a typical Middle-Eastern man, just about any visible female flesh would hold his eyes like a magnet. Pretending to adjust her uniform, Mandi tugged her skirt and brushed imaginary dirt from her breasts. Her motions guided his eyes over her body as she pretended to continue past the car on her way up the ramp. As she came even with his window, Mandi took advantage of the fact that his eyes were firmly locked on her breasts, snapping a punch at the side of his head that knocked him cold as it sent him across the seat. She let the punch become a grab for the gearshift, took the car out of 'drive' and into 'neutral', then she went to the rear of the car, grabbed the bumper, and began hauling the car down the ramp to the street. The first order of business was to get the car a safe distance away from everything and everyone. In the heart of downtown Atlanta, that could only mean going up. At the bottom of the ramp, traffic prevente
d her from dragging the car into the street, so Mandi pulled it onto the broad sidewalk. She jumped over the car to the front of it, lifted the front of the car, got a firm grip on the strongest part of the frame, and powered upward. Remembering what Gary had said about possible watchers who might set off any explosives, Mandi nonetheless kept her