Orlando leaned, raised his gun at the ready, and held the doorknob with his left hand. “At the count of three, I will open this door. Lisa, allow no distance between you and Lieutenant,” Orlando said. Lisa looked at the Beast, who was taller than the both of them. Orlando began counting. “1, 2 ---”
“Stop,” Lisa interrupted, her voice sounding frightened. Both the Beast and Orlando turned to look at Lisa. “I have a better idea. I think I have a better idea.”
She put her gun on her left hand and pulled up her nightgown to reach into her right pocket. She brought out Charlene’s calling card. She took the laptop with her right hand and knelt on the floor as she placed the laptop on the floor. She leaned to lay her gun next to her laptop. She opened the laptop.
The laptop opened to the same PDF document. Lisa clicked “Email.”
The email app of the laptop opened. Lisa read Charlene’s email from the calling card as she typed the email address next to “Recipient” in the app. Then she clicked “Send.”
As the word “sending” appeared on the screen, Lisa brought out her smartphone. She read Charlene’s number from the calling card and dialed it on her phone. She lifted the phone to her ear.
Charlene answered the call right away. “Charlene, you are about to receive an email,” Lisa said with a steady voice. The police outside the door started shouting his warnings and orders again. Lisa continued speaking, “Send it to your boss ASAP and publish it if it’s authentic. Also, put this call on your live broadcast right now.”
“Will do,” Charlene replied. Her voice moved away from the phone as she said to someone, “Put this on.”
“And last, Charlene, go to Concrete Street. The other end, not the end along Marble Street,” Lisa added.
“Canyon Street,” Charlene said.
“Yes, I’ll give you the Beast. And keep all your cameras on. It’s your lucky day,” Lisa said.
“Seriously?!” Charlene happily exclaimed at the other end of the line, but Lisa removed the phone from her ear and held it in her left hand.
“Sent” appeared on the email app in the laptop. Lisa closed the laptop. She stood up and put her phone into her left pocket without ending the call.
She looked to Orlando and said, “Now, we can go out like you said.”
Orlando and the Beast bent down to place their guns on the floor.
Lisa switched on her walkie-talkie. “Hold your fire, hold your fire,” she repeated on the walkie-talkie.
Orlando pulled the door open and slowly walked out, his hands raised. The Beast followed him, hands also raised.
“The door opened, and Marcus is walking out. He’s leading the suspect,” the policeman outside spoke on his walkie-talkie.
Lisa followed. She slowly raised her hands up in the air as she stepped out of the door.
Policemen in anti-riot uniform were lined up before them. The covers of their helmets were down, and their bodies were covered with their shields. Extending beside each shield and pointing at them were the policemen’s guns. More policemen in anti-riot uniforms blocked both sides of Concrete Street. Their black helmets glistened against the streetlights.
Lisa stood close behind the Beast, and glanced up at the roof of 7F. A formation of anti-riot policemen was crouched on the roof, guns pointed down at the Beast. “Hold your fire,” Lisa said to them. “The suspect has surrendered, and he will be taken into FBI custody.”
“No, Lisa,” Gerard’s voice spoke on the walkie-talkie. “Leave him and move aside. We will shoot him. He is a violent man. You saw what he did to his girlfriend.”
“No!” Lisa exclaimed. “Let us through,” she said with a pleading voice to the policemen who were blocking the end of Concrete Street.
“Leave him to us, Lisa,” Gerard said firmly. “We will just say to the press that he took you hostage and we had to shoot him. You will have a survivor story to tell them and be famous like Charlie. You don’t have to do anything else, Lisa.”
“This is a wrong procedure and you know it,” Orlando said to the policemen. “The suspect has surrendered. Let us through. We will take him into custody.”
“Oh, shut up that prick,” Gerard said upon hearing Orlando’s voice. “You know he has turned against us.”
“He hasn’t turned against us, the Feds, or the country,” Lisa said angrily. “In fact, he never left the law when he protected Lieutenant from you and your people.”
“Mason,” Gerard said.
“Yes, sir?” the policeman in the middle of the line replied.
“Kill these sons of bitches right here right now,” Gerard ordered Mason.
Orlando, the Beast, and Lisa looked hopelessly at the guns that were pointed at them. But nothing happened. “Mason?” Gerard asked. “What did I tell you? I told you to shoot them up right now.”
The policemen stood still, looking at the trio. The street grew quiet, with only Gerard’s voice crackling on the walkie-talkies of all the policemen as he went wild. “Now! What the hell has fucked with your heads, men? You have killed people before. This won’t be any different. Just shoot those guns while pointing them at those three, and they will be dead. I’ll speak to the press for you. I’ll tell them great stories about you. Promise!”
“You’re live on Channel 7, Gerard,” Lisa said on her walkie-talkie. Gerard started screaming insults at everyone.
Some of the policemen lowered their guns and moved aside to make way for Lisa and her companions. Orlando led the way through the sea of policemen, the Beast and Lisa trailing behind. Lisa glimpsed heads of policemen watching them from the shadows of the windows, roofs, and rooftops of the buildings and apartments along the street.
“This is an unlawful order! You have the right to disobey!” A woman’s voice was shouting from behind the policemen ahead.
As Lisa and her companions moved ahead, they caught sight of Charlene forcing her way through the policemen to reach them. She was illuminated by the bright light of the camera of the cameraman who was running behind her. She was holding her mic.
“Lisa,” Charlene called upon seeing Lisa, her voice having the combination of laughter. “Thank God you’re alive! Thank God, you’re still complete. Thank you, thank you.”
Charlene turned to each of the policemen around her to thank them as she reached for the Beast. “Come here, hold my hand,” Charlene said. The Beast lowered his left hand to hold Charlene’s hand while his other hand remained raised. Charlene walked next to him, helping Lisa and Orlando cover him. Charlene said to her camera man, “Greg, walk to his right.”
Orlando, Lisa, Charlene, and Greg covered the Beast as they led him out of Concrete Street through the groups of policemen. Greg kept his camera focused on the Beast’s face. “We have the suspect, Lieutenant Sebastian Castro,” Charlene continued to tell the news as they walked.
Canyon Street looked a lot like Marble Street. People were starting to hurry out of their houses, shouting at the policemen, “Don’t shoot them!”
The news van was waiting at the corner of Concrete Street and Canyon Street, its backdoor open. Orlando stopped and moved aside to let the Beast enter the van first. The Beast climbed into the van, and Lisa climbed after him. Lisa sat next to the Beast, looking out to the street at the policemen they left behind. Orlando and Greg followed, sitting across from Lisa and the Beast. Charlene was last to enter the van, still telling the news.
Charlene sat between Lisa and the chubby guy, who closed the doors of the van as they moved away. The van carefully moved through the crowds of policemen and onlookers along Canyon Street. Everyone just watched the van leave. The van increased speed when it was farther from the crowds, moving into safety.
4:00am
“Different terrorists were arrested across the country after Lieutenant Castro was taken into the Witness Protection Program, most of them tipped off by ordinary citizens who recognized the names from the list,” the voice-over by Charlene said as a closeup image of the PDF document was shown on the TV, followed by differen
t footage of politicians and sheriffs in different states being arrested as terror suspects. There were also footage of Charlie and Angel being arrested from their houses.
Before the news ended, Lisa’s interview at the news van was replayed. The camera was focusing close on her face as she said, “I joined the bureau because I wanted to save people’s lives. There are criminals out there and we need to fight them. They are running in the streets, and hiding in shadowy alleys. But this day has taught me that the worst criminals are not out there, they are within. They are among us. And that you do not have to be an FBI agent to save people’s lives. Ordinary people out there, even the media, can save the day if they get enough understanding to work together.
It was a huge, flat-screen TV and it was resting on a table that was on the corner of the room where Gerard’s shelves used to stand.
Two armchairs were facing each other at the front of Gerard’s old desk. Lisa was sitting on the one that was farthest from the TV, leaning to the left to watch the TV that was behind Orlando.
“Lisa,” a man’s voice interrupted Lisa’s concentration on the news. It was the voice of Alfredo Nixon, Lisa’s new boss. Lisa turned to Alfredo. “I love that speech you made. Those were the exact words on my mind. The enemies are closer than we thought. They’re eating the foods we eat, breathing down our necks. I trained Gerard when he was still a hopeful for the FBI. He was my most brilliant student. No wonder he seemed to be already trained when I trained him … And now I have to take his place even though I should be retired already. Anyway, that’s not the point. I was going to give you something.”
Alfredo was a tall, thin man with broad shoulders. His white hair was cut close to his head. His green eyes peered at Lisa through his thick, rimless eyeglasses. Despite his white hair, his eyebrows were dark gray. His nose was crooked, and his lips were barely visible. His face was white and extremely wrinkled. He was wearing a green jacket that had its zipper open, exposing his blue shirt inside. He was sitting on Gerard’s chair like a stick puppet. He was handing a folder to Lisa. “You have a new case.”
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