Give Us This Day

by Tom Avitabile

.G.

  Since her run was the longest, Brooke checked the layout drawing they had been using as a map. She decided on the French doors off the main room as her point of entry. She got both George’s and Walters’ clicks within a few seconds of each other. She flipped down the night vision goggles and scanned the room through the glass, hoping to see the family sleeping on couches and chairs. No such luck. She tried the door handle but it was locked. She judged the door not to be dead bolted into the floor and ceiling because there was some play. That made kicking it in at the handle and lock the best way in. She took a deep breath, clicked her mic three times, grabbed her machine gun, and punch-kicked the door with a full Mae Tobi Geri style jumping front kick. The door flew open and a wailing alarm sounded.

  .G.

  At that same instance, George had come through the porch door of the kid’s room. The man in the bed shook and was startled at the alarm. He didn’t immediately sense that George was in the room until he felt the barrel of the George’s H&K. His eyes popped wide and George just uttered. “Uh, uh, uh.”

  .G.

  Walters broke the glass in the window of the room he was assigned. The rousted guard scrambled for his gun on the nightstand. Walters laid down a burst onto the nightstand. The splintering wood and shattering lamp caused the man to recoil from his reach.

  .G.

  Brooke heard the shots but it didn’t distract her from her main goal of securing the family. She looked up. The heat signatures she’d seen in the center of the house must have come from the room above; she took the stairs two at a time. At the top, she stopped and peered around the corner. Over the ear-piercing sound of the alarm she thought she heard screaming. She proceeded slowly down the hall, opening every door she encountered with a swift kick then going in low. Expecting to get shot is a good way to stay on your toes.

  She kicked the third door in and the screams and whimpering were louder. She went in low and saw four people huddled in the corner of the room. She saw a huge ring bolted to the floor from which chains went to shackles on each of their legs.

  Just then the major came over her comm. “Director Burrell, there’s someone else in the house, maybe from the basement. I see you with the four. He’s heading to you.”

  Brooke looked at the scared folks. “I’m here to rescue you. You’ll be fine. I have got to go for a minute but I’ll be back. This will all be over soon.”

  The older woman, the mom, said in a half-cry, half-whisper, “Thank you.”

  Out in the hall, Brooke looked left, the way she’d come. Her memory of the layout of the house was that the other way, down the hall behind her, lead to a dead end. There was a credenza along the wall of the hallway just beyond the door to the bedroom. She took cover behind it.

  She trained her sights on the top of the steps. She saw the barrel first. Then both hands as the gun was pointed into the hall by the person behind the wall. The muzzle flashed as the person just fired blindly into the hallway. Brooke got smaller behind the furniture as it definitely took a few hits. After spraying what must have been a whole magazine. She saw the gun withdraw. He’s reloading, she thought. Before she consciously told herself to do so, she was up and running to the stairs. The last few feet, she stretched out low and slid on her back across the polished wood floor with her gun pointing up.

  The gunman was seating the mag, but had not yet pulled back the bolt to chamber the first round. He saw Brooke on the floor in full body armor, night vision goggles, a helmet, and with the H&K pointing at him. For a second it looked like he was going to try and pull the bolt back, aim, and shoot at Brooke. She jutted her gun further out from her body as if to say, You really think you are going to do all that and get a shot off before this bullet goes from here into your chest? The gunman had second thoughts and dropped his weapon.

  “Turn around,” she said.

  With her leg, she kicked his rifle down the stairs. “Hands against the wall. Spread your legs.”

  At first he didn’t comply, so she let out a three-shot burst just by his ear. “I ain’t fucking around with you, asshole. Now hands on the wall.”

  That got his attention and he put his hands on the wall. Using her leg again, she nudged his feet out further so he was off balance. She got up on one knee, then the other. She got behind him and, with her hand on his collar, swept his feet from under him. Once on the floor, she put her knee on his neck. “Clear!” she called out. Then zip-tied his hands behind his back and hobbled his feet with another one.

  She ran back to the room. She humped a mattress off one of the beds and dragged it in front of them. “Stay behind here.” She then shot at the floor around the ring that was bolted down. As the bullets shattered the wood, she tugged on the chain and felt the mount give. One final tug and the ring was free. She then shot at the chains and two snapped free. The bolt of her gun locked open as she ran out of bullets. George came in and saw what she was trying to do. “I got this,” he said as he shot the other two chains free. “Walters has the two others on the porch. The guy you got hogtied in the hall makes three.”

  “George, take the kids down and out of the house. Mrs. Prescott, is there anyone else we should know about?”

  “No, there were only three.” She started shaking. Brooke wrapped her arms around her and even through her body armor and gear, felt the woman relax. “Your family is safe and you will be back in America in a few hours.”

  Brooke led her out of the room. When they got to the stairs the gunman was still tied up on the floor. She noticed Mrs. Prescott’s lip start to quiver. She shook again.

  “What is it?”

  “He’s the one. The one. It’s him.”

  “The one, what?”

  “The one who raped me.”

  Brooke looked down.

  Mrs. Prescott kicked him. “You son of a bitch. You filthy bastard.”

  Brooke let her get a few more shots in, and then gently nudged her back. “That’s enough. He’ll pay for what he did.”

  “It won’t be enough. He raped us.”

  “Us?”

  “Yes, this pig took my daughter! My sweet Polly. She’s only nine!” She kicked him again as she sobbed.

  Once again, Brooke stopped her from kicking. “Mrs. Prescott. Sometimes accidents happen.”

  The woman recoiled from Brooke’s comment, speechless.

  Brooke took out her knife and cut the zip tie that was around the man’s ankles. She got the man to his feet and turned him towards the staircase. She put her leg out in front of him, and threw him down the stairs. He landed with a bone-shattering crunch at the bottom. Walters ran over to the moaning, groaning man and looked up to Brooke.

  “He tripped.”

  Outside the house, medics were treating the family and soldiers were removing the shackles from their legs. The rapist was on a hardboard stretcher with his head immobilized. She overheard the paramedic say it looked like a spinal fracture and that he would be paralyzed from the waist down.

  The chargé d’affaires was at the site. “What do you want to do with your three prisoners?”

  “Get all you can out of them, then I don’t care. Let the locals take them or send them back for prosecution. I got bigger fish to fry back in New York. She looked at the paralyzed man on the stretcher. “Besides, justice has already been served.”

  .G.

  From one hundred yards out, Paul watched as the Grenadian authorities did a final sweep of the Prescott estate then sealed the main house and left. He chided himself for being an hour too late and knew Dequa was not going to like this development.

  .G.

  Four hours later, back in New York, the Prescotts were reunited and Brooke was sleeping in her own bed. Her last thoughts before slipping away were of her husband Mush and then she imagined him asking her how her day went. She laughed to herself in her reverie. It had been one hell of a day.


  .G.

  One of the horses in the stable kicked and brayed so loudly that Warren Cass jumped out of bed. He was in a cold sweat. He was scared and shaking. He reached into his drawer and pulled out a .38 revolver. He started for the stairs. His wife stirred. “Warren? What is it?”

  “They’re down there. I know it.”

  “Who? Who’s down there?”

  “Stay here.”

  .G.

  Sharon Cass’s blood immediately turned to ice as she shivered under the sheets, calling out in a loud, nervous whisper, “Warren, let the agents handle whatever it is. Get back in here.”

  He disappeared into the dark hallway.

  She turned and hit the panic button by the bed. Immediately alarms rang. All the lights in the house and on the grounds went on and she heard men shouting.

  Then a shot rang out from inside the house. She screamed.

  An agent came through the door. “Are you all right, Mrs. Cass?”

  “Yes. Where’s my husband?”

  “Please come with me,” the agent said and then averted his eyes as the woman pulled off the covers and put on her robe and slippers. She hustled out of the room.

  Sitting halfway down the staircase was her husband. He had his face between the newel posts of the stairs. He was breathing hard. An agent sitting next to him had Warren’s gun in one hand and had his other hand on Warren’s shoulder in a comforting gesture.

  His wife slipped between them. “Warren, Warren, what’s going on? What’s the matter?”

  Warren just kept looking through the posts.

  The Federal Protective Service agent filled her in. “Mrs. Cass, he just fired a shot at one of my men. Luckily he missed. I came up from behind him and wrestled the gun out of his hand. Then he saw it was me and said, ‘Oh, my God.’ And now he’s not answering me or you.”

  The woman’s eyes filled with tears and she just put her arms around her husband.

  Chapter 33

  Hell Hath No Fury

  Harris hated the feds. They always came in and screwed the pooch. Glory boys. Cops did the dirty work and then they came in and announced, “We’ll take it from here,” while keeping their hands clean and manicured. He hated feds. Therefore, being here at the security checkpoint in the New York headquarters of the FBI really burned his butt.

  “I am on the job,” he said showing his ID and gold detective’s badge to the uniformed security man.

  “Place your gun and cell phone in this metal box.”

  He did. The guard locked it and handed him the key with the tag number seventeen on it.

  “You’ll get it back upon leaving the building.”

  “Thanks. Now I feel all comfy.” There wasn’t a cop in the world comfortable with surrendering his weapon. But he knew the drill.

  He didn’t get two feet past the checkpoint when a skinny kid not more than a year out of college asked, “Who are you here to see this morning?”

  “Director Burrell.”

  “Follow me.” He walked towards an elevator apart from the rest. “ID please.”

  “But I already . . .” he sighed and handed it over.

  The kid scanned it on a reader on the wall. The elevator opened and he pressed the floor button and got off before the doors closed.

  Harris looked around the elevator, figuring this Burrell guy must be some real prissy fed.

  When the doors opened, a blonde was standing in the hall. “Harris?” she said.

  “Yes, I am here for Agent Burrell. Where is he?”

  “Follow me.”

  The blonde was good looking and had nice legs from behind, and a nice behind from behind. She led him to an office at the end of the hall. They entered and Harris went to the man standing by the desk. “Special Agent Burrell? Detective first grade Rolland Harris, Midtown North Squad.”

  “I’m George Stover, US Treasury.”

  “Where’s Burrell?”

  “You walked in with her.”

  Harris closed his eyes momentarily. Shit. He turned and smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were you.”

  “I’m sorry to let it go on for so long but it’s a long way between humorous interludes here.”

  “Nice to meet you, Agent Burrell.”

  “It’s director.”

  “Okay, now I am oh-fer-two. Sorry.”

  “Look, let’s get something straight right from jump street. I was head of New York FBI for three years. I am very aware that we feds are considered glory hounds; that you do all the hard work and we lap up the cream. Well, Harris, I run this little outfit and I am telling you that none of that shit happens here. In fact, if you haven’t already, you should soon get a call from the chief of detectives informing you that you have been temporarily reassigned to my office.”

  “For how long?”

  “We don’t know how long we have, but you may or may not have stumbled across a part of a plot that could go down today, tomorrow, or the next day. That’s why I am not going to get in your way. You need more help, you can take ’em from your squad or old friends or you might even learn to trust us here in the federales camp, but I ain’t expecting any miracles. You got any problems with what I have told you so far?”

  “As long as it’s my collar when the shit clears.”

  “If we are all still here then, yeah, go ahead, knock yourself out. Until then, though, you run everything you learn, connect, or discover, by us. We are literally calling audibles here day and night until we ascertain the nature of the threat.”

  “How long you guys been on this?”

  “It grew out of a routine money laundering case I was heading up when we stumbled on this terrorist plot. It had been in the background for months. George will read you in on where we are now, but we need to know fast where the explosives went and if they have anything to do with our trying to stop these skels before they hit us. Any questions?”

  Harris liked this broad . . . woman, especially since she used NYPD lingo and was aware of the bad smell the feds left in most precincts. “Do I report here or to the squad?”

  “Your cases have been off loaded to other dicks in your squad. You’ll have a desk here, exclusively, 24/7 till either we stop ’em or we all get blown to hell. Whichever comes first.” Brooke saw the look in his eye. “What?”

  “When was the last time you were in the field?”

  Brooke looked down at her watch. “In ten minutes, it’ll be eight hours ago. Look, Harris, I am not a desk jockey. I’ve been in some tight shit and lived to lie about it.”

  “We all make our exploits grander than . . .”

  “No, not exaggerate. I mean, non-disclosure, need to know only, the old, ‘I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you,’ kinda stuff. So don’t ever think I don’t know what I am asking you to do or that I don’t know how tough it is out there. I am one of you. If you got a different opinion and if there’s time, I’ll listen, but otherwise, never try to second guess me or ignore me and we’ll get along fine.”

  Harris smiled. It was exactly what he would have said . . . if he had two days to think about it. “Sounds good.”

  “Welcome to the team. Don’t spend more than a half hour with George. He’s got a shit load to do too.”

  The men left and Brooke opened the report she’d started three times already this morning.

  .G.

  “Wow. She always like that?”

  “Actually, no. It must be you. Your whole New York cop persona brought out a side of her I’ve never heard in the four months I’ve been on this case.”

  “What happened, two minutes and eight hours ago?”

  “Not much. Director Burrell, Agent Walters, and myself just cowboyed in to an extraction mission, violated the sovereignty of a Caribbean nation, shot it out with hostiles, then apprehended them and rescued
four hostages and we were wheels down JFK at five a.m.”

  “I think I am going to like it here.”

  .G.

  “So it was for the whole weekend?” Diane Price chewed on the end of her pencil as her confidential source on the phone was confirming what had previously only been baseless rumors. “And the first lady was at the Vienna Women’s Conference during all this?” She scribbled down Vienna Women’s Conference right under a doodling of the name Brooke, where the os were filled in to look like two eyes. Diane was playing by her source’s rules. The person on the other end, a high-placed White House official agreed to only confirm or deny the statements Diane made. Offering up nothing, adding or subtracting nothing, just responding in the narrowest sense. “Did they leave together? Did they arrive together? Oh, that makes sense. Of course they wouldn’t . . .” She let that conclusion-like statement hang without speaking, hoping the source would jump in and fill the silence, or object to the implication, but neither happened.

  Ten minutes later, Diane had triangulated her story but she was still not satisfied. Although she had all the surrounding facts and the corroborating statements she felt she didn’t have the actual story itself yet. Of course, the two people involved may be the only ones who knew those details. If her primary source making the allegation hadn’t been the Secretary of the Treasury, she would have written it off as rumormongering. However, the secret service logs she was allowed to see, the confirmation that they were both at Camp David at the same time that the wife was in Vienna, certainly boded well for the claim that an affair was afoot. Affair afoot, she thought and immediately admonished herself for the cheesy tabloid headline. Then she thought again, Is what I’m doing any nobler? Still it was an astonishing accusation. She took a deep breath and decided she had enough to go to Eddy with and let him make the call.

  .G.

  When Diane laid out what she had to Edward Knowles, the executive producer and senior editor of the network’s nightly newscast, he was shocked. He had covered Mitchell’s fledgling campaign as he made his dark horse, third-party run at the top job. Knowles always thought that maybe the former Air Force officer was a little off his rocker, making that kamikaze run at the oval office. Everyone in media wrote it off as the old fighter pilot trying to make a political point and to possibly garner enough votes at a second run four years hence.