Storey pushed up the wood gate.
“Oh, man,” Troy moaned. “Those rusted old cables are going to come loose from the roof as soon as we jump on.”
His argument would have had more force if the fire hadn’t spread across the entire width of the warehouse, and wasn’t also racing along the ceiling. It was close enough to feel the heat, and the smoke was getting thick.
Beth holstered her backup pistol and took off her flak jacket. Holding it open in front of her, she said, “Ladies first.” And leaped across the void onto the cable with the jacket wrapped around it as a brake. After a loud yelp from the pain in her ribs, she slid down out of sight.
Storey and Troy looked at each other, then shucked off their ammo vests to do the same thing.
Storey pointed to the cable. In this particular case the senior man went last.
Troy jumped. The cable was seriously frayed. He went down about twenty feet then stopped. This was not his idea. Beth’s vest was covered in tough nylon, but the cotton of his hung up on the ragged steel. Shit. He felt Storey coming down and yelled, “Hold up!”
Storey dug in the soles of this shoes and squeezed the cable. He came to a stop right above Troy’s head. “I don’t want to rush you or anything, but I’m having a lot of trouble staying stopped here.”
Really pissed now, Troy hung on to the cable with one arm and shrugged the AK off his back. He tore the webbing sling off and let the rifle drop. He was thinking about the ropes loggers used to climb up and down trees. He’d seen it on ESPN or something once. The opening up above them was full of smoke.
He whipped the sling around the cable, wrapped both one end around each wrist, and let go, leaning back from the wire.
Holy shit, now he was going down like a rocket. Troy squeezed the cable between his feet. It wasn’t helping much, even though it felt like his feet were burning off from the friction.
He piled into the top of the elevator and lay there with the wind knocked out of him.
Storey came sliding down as easy as you please, coming to a gentle stop. “Anything broken?” he asked.
“Fuck you,” Troy gasped.
“You okay, Lee?” said Beth from down below.
Troy rolled off the top of the elevator, wincing as his feet touched the warehouse floor. His hands were killing him. Okay, two big second-degree burn blisters were starting to bubble up on his palms.
Storey hopped down, holding the nylon daypack across his chest.
Troy just stared at it.
“I reconsidered the cotton vest after you went down,” Storey said apologetically.
“Guys?” said Beth. The upper floor at the front part of the warehouse was already starting to collapse.
“What about Nimri?” said Troy.
“Fuck him,” said Storey. “He’s either going to make it out into custody or his ass is going to burn.”
“We better keep our eyes open in case he shows up before that,” said Beth. When they reached the back door she tried her walkie-talkie. No longer working. She put the flack jacket with the gold FBI lettering back on. “Let me go out first by myself, see if I can keep you from getting shot by the good guys.”
“Try to get everyone unfucked before the place burns down,” Troy urged.
Beth went out the front door with her hands above her head. Storey closed it behind her, turning back to watch the warehouse for signs of Nimri.
“Yeah, I know,” said Troy. “You always get ambushed on the way back to the boat.”
“Better get rid of your daypack.”
The fire was raging now, with big pieces of the upper floor dropping down into the warehouse. They could no longer see the front through the flames. Troy kept sneaking glances at the ceiling over their heads.
Then Beth’s amplified voice could be heard. “Everyone hold their fire. Okay, come on out, guys.”
Storey slung his AK, muzzle down. “Better keep the hands up.”
“Shit, just thinking about all the trigger-happy cops,” Troy muttered. “My asshole’s puckered up worse now than during the whole op.”
They walked out the door, blinking into the bright sunlight. And they didn’t get shot.
The FBI only let the Laredo fire department set up hoses to keep the fire from spreading. Otherwise they kept everyone away until the warehouse walls collapsed and the entire structure had burned to the ground.
Beth, Storey, and Troy didn’t get to see it. They were immediately hustled into an ambulance and taken to Doctors Hospital.
Beth had the gurney, and Storey and Troy sat along the side with the EMT, who was the classically chatty type. A real people person.
“Boy, that was some fire,” he said. “Who would have thought they’d have a meth lab that big right in the middle of town?”
The three of them just looked at each other. So that’s what the story was going to be.
“Yeah,” the EMT went on. “You all were really gutsy. Especially that SWAT guy.”
Beth sat up halfway in the gurney. “What SWAT guy?”
“The one in the black fatigues, with the gas mask,” said the EMT. “He came out the front, just as it was burning down. Waved the firemen in, gave them directions. Then he collapsed. He said the fire had melted the gas mask onto his face. We only had the one ambulance on site, so the cops told us to stand fast, they’d take him to the hospital in a police car.”
All the Chechens had been wearing black fatigues. “What happened to him?” Troy said.
“I’m sure you’ll see him at the hospital when you get there.”
“We don’t want to use an open radio net,” Storey said to Beth.
Beth threw her legs over the side of the gurney and opened up her cell phone. “Ben? Beth. Yes, I’m still on the way to the hospital. Shut up and listen. Have you heard about the cops taking a SWAT guy in black fatigues and a gas mask to the hospital? Well, I suggest you ask around. Because everyone inside was wearing black fatigues, and there was no SWAT guy with us.” She closed the phone. “He hung up. Must have been in a hurry.”
“Son of a bitch!” Troy exploded. “Doesn’t anyone ever get the word?”
“Uh-oh,” said the EMT.
“Just between you and me,” Storey advised the EMT. “You’re going to be really tempted to tell this story. Career-wise, you don’t want to do it. Take my word for it.”
“Okay,” the EMT said in a small voice. And then, “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Storey said kindly.
They x-rayed Beth’s ribs, CAT scanned her brain, and bandaged her head.
At Storey’s urging, Troy also had some x-rays taken. While he was getting his hands treated they told him he had a hairline fracture of the tibia and put his leg into a cast.
Storey didn’t have a scratch on him.
Beth and Troy ended up in adjoining stalls in the emergency room. Storey was sitting on the edge of Beth’s bed. For something to do he’d broken down her pistol, and was examining the parts.
“Here we go,” he said, peering into the receiver. “Your slide-stop spring broke when you were shooting. The part you saw fly out must have been the slide lock. No slide lock, nothing’s holding the slide on but inertia.”
“But it kept on shooting after I saw the part fly off.”
“That’s inertia for you. You’re lucky it didn’t fire out of battery.”
“Great. How often does that happen?”
“Slide-stop spring breaking? Never heard of it happening. Of course, any part can break.”
“Figures. It would have to happen to me. By the way, you were right about my backup piece. I definitely needed to reload. Your present saved my life.”
Storey could feel himself blushing.
They didn’t notice themselves talking louder than usual, since without earplugs their hearing had been affected by all the gunfire and grenades.
Troy’s voice came from next door. “What present?”
Storey groaned, waiting for it.
&nb
sp; “Ed gave me my backup gun,” Beth said loudly.
“Now isn’t that sweet?” said Troy.
“It saved my life,” Beth said defensively.
Storey just shook his head.
“A gift that keeps on giving,” Troy sang. “You always miss what’s right in front of you. I can’t believe I never thought to give a woman a handgun. Takes a redneck to come up with something like that.”
“It saved my life, Lee,” Beth said sternly.
“Am I interrupting anything?” said Supervisory Special Agent Benjamin Timmins, appearing from around the corner.
“Oh, Christ,” Troy groaned at the sight of him. “Look, the last time you chewed our ass for saving your ass. I don’t want to hear it this time. You want my ass chewed, go talk to my boss and have him do it. But I don’t want to hear it right now.”
“I’m not here to chew your ass,” said Timmins.
“Imagine that,” said Troy.
“No, on the contrary, I’m here to praise you,” said Timmins. “You didn’t follow procedure at all, for the most part, but everything you did forestalled an attack and then kept the opposition from getting the incident they came for.”
Beth said, “Ben, how’s Sondra?”
“She’s in ... another ward getting looked at,” said Timmins.
“She was okay,” said Troy. “She just wasn’t ready for the kind of contact we rolled into.”
Storey wondered where the hell that came from. Or maybe his partner was going to ask for her phone number after she finished her psych eval? “What about the guy in the black fatigues and gas mask?”
“The Laredo cruiser never made it here to the hospital,” said Timmins. “We’re looking for it. Did you happen to find out what their objective was?”
“No idea,” said Storey. “I don’t reckon there’s much evidence left in either the Expedition or the warehouse.”
“No, there isn’t,” said Timmins. “Don’t worry, we’ll get him.”
“Sure you will,” said Troy. “You might even find another snotty note from him in that police car.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Normally, any sign on any bar advertising karaoke night was Ed Storey’s personal signal to go elsewhere. But tonight he didn’t have that option. This was a command performance. And he was late.
The place was crowded, but he’d been told to go right up in front. And sure enough, at the table right in front of the little stage was Beth, Karen the Spook, and Karen’s husband Kevin.
A drunk fat guy was singing “Bizarre Love Triangle.”
He pushed through the crowd, and heard Karen yell, “Ed!”
“I’m sorry I’m late,” said Storey. “We got hung up at work.”
“No, no, no,” Karen said reassuringly, giving him a hug. “You called. You were good. We’ve been waiting for you.”
In contrast to Karen’s bubbly mood, Beth was scrunched up in her chair, arms across her chest, chin down, the very picture of defiant sullenness. She still had her coat on, and her usually rosy complexion was an even deeper red this evening. “Hi, Ed.”
“Hi, Beth.” Storey tried to fight off the smile he knew would put him in serious jeopardy. He shook hands with Kevin.
“We already ordered you a Coke,” said Karen.
“Many thanks.” Storey settled into the chair beside Beth.
“Oh, don’t thank us,” said Karen. “This is all Beth’s treat. We’re going out for dinner later.”
Storey turned to thank her, but the vibe coming across was such that he chose to remain silent.
The fat drunk finished his song to unenthusiastic applause.
Karen raised her hand to the master of ceremonies. “C’mon Beth, it’s showtime. After all, the Red Sox haven’t won the World Series in what, a hundred years or something?”
Beth spoke her first complete sentence of the evening. “I want to thank you, Karen. You’ve taken an event that should be the ultimate cathartic moment in the life of every Red Sox fan, and turned it into something cheap and degrading.”
“Stop or I’m going to cry,” said Karen. “C’mon now, get your ass up on stage. I had to get the machine programmed special just for you. It’s amazing,” she said to Storey. “People just don’t seem to want to karaoke to Joe Cocker anymore.”
“You are such a bitch,” said Beth. “You are the evil bitch of all time.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Karen. “Get on up there. And don’t forget your coat.”
Beth stood up. Storey also stood up, to take her coat.
“No, Ed,” Karen said firmly. “I’ll take care of this.”
She peeled the coat off Beth’s shoulders. Beth was wearing jeans, and the T-shirt tucked into them had been custom made. It was white, and embossed across the front with a full-face portrait of Karen. And the legend beneath it said: My Idol.
The sight made Storey real glad he hadn’t helped her with her coat.
Beth trudged up the stairs as if it was execution block, looking like she wanted to open fire on the crowd.
Karen turned her chair around so it was facing the stage.
The MC, having been both well tipped and coached by Karen, gave her an elaborate windup, finishing with, “And let’s have a big hand for Beth!”
The crowd responded, Karen turning around briefly to egg them on. Storey wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to have Beth see him clapping.
The MC handed Beth the microphone, which she held like a billy club. The lights went down, and the music came up. Beth began to sing, to Karen, “ You Are So Beautiful.”
Karen was sitting with her face cupped in her hands, gazing dreamily at Beth. And it was affecting Beth’s performance.
Storey and Kevin just looked at each other and shrugged.
It was coming across like a punk version, mainly because of Beth’s attitude. And maybe because that made it totally unlike the usual karaoke performance, the crowd was responding with whistles and whoops after every stanza. Which only served to piss Beth off even more.
Storey heard the guy at the table behind them say, “What is this, some kind of lesbo thing?”
Storey turned around and told him, “Like most things in this life, it’s probably what you least expect.”
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Copyright © 2006 William Christie
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