The Take Down

by Mark Anthony

  “Jessica, that’s all good. And it sounds nice. But get in touch with my lawyer. Get my guarantees down on paper and if the guarantees are there for me then I’m wit’ it,” Horse boldly said.

  “Okay,” I replied as I dialed Sherry on my cell phone and summoned her back to the hospital room so that she could place Horse under arrest. And although he wasn’t a flight risk because of his being paralyzed, we still would have to handcuff one of his wrists to the railing of the hospital bed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Sherry returned to the room rather quickly.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Yeah, everything is all right. Sherry, I need for you to place Horse under arrest. I spoke to him and he’s willing to—”

  Before I could finish my sentence I felt my hair being grabbed very violently and pulled back and I then heard the sound of a gun being cocked and I felt what had to be the barrel of a gun being pressed against my skull.

  Sherry turned and saw what was going on.

  “Bitch, if you even flinch, your girl is dead!” the strong deep-sounding voice stated.

  Sherry immediately held her arms up in the air to show that she was surrendering full control to the person that had the gun to my head. My heart immediately began pounding as I knew that this was now something serious.

  “Horse, whatever you do just don’t say my name,” the man instructed.

  “I ain’t gonna say your name, nigga, I just wanna know what took your ass so long to come from up outta that bathroom?” Horse stated.

  The guy didn’t give Horse an answer as he brutally yanked me to the ground by my hair.

  “Test me if you want to and see if I don’t spill this bitch’s brains all over this floor!” he yelled at Sherry. “Keep your hands up in the air!” he instructed Sherry as he reached and felt all over me for my gun.

  After he took my gun and my cell phone he rammed my head to the floor and kicked me in the head. I felt like I was gonna pass out but I willed myself to stay conscious because a big part of me knew that if I had blacked out that I probably would never have opened my eyes again.

  “I said keep your goddamn hands in the air!!! Bitch, you think this is a fucking game?” the dark skinned short, and stocky guy asked Sherry as he walked in her direction. I was finally able to see his face. He definitely didn’t look familiar and I had no idea who he was.

  Whack!!!

  The guy slapped Sherry with his gun and he must have knocked out the entire top row of her teeth, or at least it looked that way as Sherry fell to the ground with pools of blood spilling out of her mouth.

  “Where your gun at?” the guy asked as he searched Sherry until he found it along with her cell phone.

  “Horse, what’s the deal? Speak to me, niggga!” he ner-vously asked as he went and locked the door of the hospital room.

  “Get me the fuck up outta here! That’s what’s up,” Horse replied.

  “Nah, I’m saying, you was just fronting with all of that talk about cooperating with the feds, right?” the guy asked.

  “Yo, Haz, come on, nigga! I knew you was in the goddamn bathroom! You know I ain’t a rat! Come on now. Just get me the fuck up outta here!” Horse replied as he desperately tried to move his weak and crippled body with no luck.

  “Why the hell you saying my name?” Haz asked. He made it over to Horse’s bed and yanked at the rails as he attempted to move the bed.

  “A’ight this how we gonna do this. I’m calling for a nurse and me and y’all two are gonna be behind that door, so when she comes, I’ll unlock the door and let her in and then lock it right behind her. And if y’all scream or talk or try something slick, that nurse is gonna be wiping up your brains from off the floor!”

  As Haz held the gun on us he pressed the button near Horse’s bed in order to summon a nurse to the room.

  “A’ight, move!” he yelled at us as he grabbed me in sort of a yoke hold and held the gun right at my cheekbone.

  Many thoughts were running through my head. For the first time in a while I thought about my fiancé and family and wondered if I would ever see them again. I thought about how desperate Haz and Horse must have been feeling and I knew that criminals were at their most dangerous when they feel a sense of desperation. I also thought about trying to grab at Haz’s balls to yank them from his body in an attempt to subdue him and save myself and Sherry.

  In all of the training that I had received and with all of the experience that I had gained over the years, I knew that one of the biggest mistakes that Sherry or I could make was to allow another person to come into a hostage situation. Haz already had me and Sherry and we couldn’t risk another innocent person coming into the mix.

  “Listen,” I struggled to say as the force of Haz’s yoke hold made me cough.

  “Yo, did I tell you to talk?” Haz asked as he whacked me in the head with the butt of the gun.

  My legs became very wobbly and I almost passed out from the blow. Haz had to grip me very tightly to keep me from falling to the floor. It felt as if my head was bleeding but I wasn’t sure. The only thing that I knew was that I was seeing stars and I quickly nixed the plan of preventing another hostage from coming into the room. Haz acted and seemed as if he meant business and I knew that staying alive was more important than preventing another hostage from coming into the fray.

  “Get behind the door! If either one of you opens your mouth there’s gonna be a bunch of muthafuckas catching a slug up in this hospital!” Haz warned.

  As we were positioned behind the hospital-room door, Haz loosened the grip that he had on me and reached to unlock the door. We waited for the nurse to arrive.

  “Horse, we’ll be up outta here in a minute!” Haz stated as he returned me to the yoke hold.

  As we waited for the nurse to arrive it was as if you could hear every heartbeat of every person inside the room. I wondered what Sherry was thinking. I wondered if she would make some type of attempt to spring us free. She also knew that it was a no-no to allow anyone other than law enforcement into a hostage crisis.

  As we waited in fear I heard what sounded like my cell phone ringing. The sound of it distracted everybody and just at that moment the doorknob to the hospital room started to turn. I guess that Sherry sensed that Haz might have been distracted and she let out a yell as she grabbed for Haz’s gun.

  Haz completely let go of me. I lost my balance and fell to the ground as Haz and Sherry battled over the gun. The nurse that walked in didn’t have a clue what was going on.

  “Excuse me! Hello! People, this is a hospital!” she yelled at Haz and Sherry.

  At that point Haz kicked Sherry in the midsection. She quickly doubled over in pain and gave up her struggle for the gun.

  “I’m calling security!” the nurse shouted as she must have seen the gun for the first time.

  Haz quickly ran over to the door and closed and locked it before the nurse could exit. The nurse yelled for security. She screamed at the top of her lungs until Haz was able to grip one of his hands around her mouth. Even with her mouth covered she continued to try and yell as she made inaudible muffled sounds.

  Haz threw the nurse to the ground and she landed on her back. He stood over her and put the barrel of the gun inside her mouth. That move finally made her take notice and she stopped resisting.

  “Listen to me!” Haz instructed. “There is only one way that we are doing this. And that way is my way! You see that bitch over there with the wind knocked out of her and her teeth missing? She didn’t wanna do things my way! Now let me explain this to you and I’m only explaining it once. I’m gonna stand you up, you gonna unplug whatever tubes you gotta unplug for my man over there, and you are gonna wheel him outta of this room and out of this hospital all together. You got me?”

  The nurse nodded her head in agreement.

  “If you open your mouth I swear on my life that I will murder you and not think twice,” Haz said in a very convincing manner.

&n
bsp; “Horse, you a’ight man?” Haz asked. Horse replied that he was.

  At that point what sounded like my cell phone began to ring again.

  “Yo, who is that calling y’all?” Haz asked.

  No one replied.

  “Haz, come here real quick,” Horse instructed.

  Haz went over to Horse and he whispered something into Haz’s hear. Haz nodded as if he agreed with whatever was said.

  “Aight, I asked y’all who was that calling y’all. And I’m still waiting on an answer! And don’t say that y’all don’t know!” Haz screamed.

  “Can I look at the caller ID or can you tell me what number it is that was on the phone?” I asked.

  Haz ignored me and unreasonably demanded to know who it was that was calling me.

  “You don’t need to see no caller ID! Tell me who the hell is calling your phone!” Haz demanded to know.

  I didn’t know what to say or do but I knew that I had to give some kind of an answer. “It might be my boss,” I said.

  Haz looked at Horse but they didn’t say anything.

  “Where is your boss at?” Haz asked.

  “He’s outside with a bunch of other agents,” I lied.

  “Muthafucka!” Haz yelled.

  He paced back and forth trying to figure things out.

  “Listen, he’s probably calling to check on me. And I can tell you that if he doesn’t hear from me real soon that he will be on his way up here if he isn’t already,” I said in an attempt to rush Haz into making some kind of mistake.

  “Haz, we gotta call Supreme and tip everybody off to what’s going down,” Horse stated.

  “Nah, we gotta get up outta here first. They probably got the nigga’s phone tapped or trailing the nigga or something,” Haz stated.

  He then asked the nurse if she could get access to an ambulance or a similar type of vehicle. And she stated that she could.

  At that point there was a knock on the hospital room door.

  Everyone in the room froze.

  Haz held up one finger to his mouth, signaling for everyone to be quiet. Then he motioned for the nurse to go by the door and he went with her. He held a gun to her back as he said some things into her ear that only she could hear.

  “Who is it?” the nurse asked.

  Someone answered on the other end but I couldn’t hear what was being said.

  “Oh, okay. Well, this is Nicole. He had called for a nurse and I responded. But I might be a while. Something happened that he is sort of embarrassed about and I don’t think you really want to bear the smell, if you know what I mean,” the nurse said.

  She had done a great acting job, apparently, as the person on the other side of the door bought her story and walked away.

  “Haz, let’s get up outta here!” Horse stated in his weak-sounding voice.

  “Horse, I got this! So can you get this ambulance or not?” Haz asked more aggressively.

  “Well, the ambulances are run by the city. This hospital doesn’t have its own ambulances but we do have ambulettes which we use to transport patients and I am sure that we can get one of those,” she responded.

  “Okay listen. We’re gonna wheel my man outta here. But when we do, I don’t want no kinds of tricks,” Haz stated. Then he looked at Horse and Horse nodded to him.

  There was a pause for about thirty seconds and no one said anything.

  After snapping out of his trance, Haz walked over to the nurse and frisked her. “You ain’t got no cell phone, do you?” Haz asked.

  When she replied that she didn’t Haz instructed the three of us to all go into the bathroom and wait for him. We did as we were told. And as I made it into the bathroom I felt uneasy like I never had before. I hated the fact that Haz held so much power over us. It is not a good feeling to have your life literally hanging in the hands of someone else and being subjected to their every beck and call.

  “We’re gonna be okay,” I assured Sherry and Nicole even though I didn’t sincerely believe that.

  “Nicole, if it will assure you any, Sherry and I are both FBI agents,” I stated.

  “What?” Nicole asked in disbelief. “I know I’m gonna die today. I know it! Why did I come to work today? I knew I should have kept my black ass home!”

  Sherry still looked to be in a ton of pain. Her lips had ballooned due to the swelling from being hit in the mouth by the gun. She didn’t say anything and I could tell that she, like me, hated that feeling of desperation and powerlessness that was surrounding us.

  “Nicole, he has our cell phones on him and they have this global tracking device. We’ll cooperate and go with him but once we are gone for too long or the Bureau finds out that Horse is missing or they can’t get ahold of me they will track us through the phone and send an army to come get us. But it’s key to remain calm and do whatever he tells us to do,” I whispered as Sherry nodded in agreement.

  Haz walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

  The room was deathly silent and I didn’t like what my senses were telling me. Haz looked at us with one of the coldest stares I had ever seen in my life. He didn’t say a word, just opened up the door and walked back over to Horse. He took the pillow that Horse was laying on and handed Horse the remote control to the television set that was hoisted in the air.

  “Yeah, turn that shit up as loud as it will go,” Haz instructed before coming back into the bathroom and closing the door behind him.

  He was holding a white pillow in his hands and had instructed Horse to turn up the volume on the television. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Haz was thinking and I needed to break that train of thought.

  “Haz, you don’t have to do anything drastic, especially if it’s not necessary,” I said.

  Haz ignored me. He commanded us to turn around and face the toilet bowl.

  “Kneel down!” he barked.

  I did as Haz instructed but I was beyond nervous as hell. I blew out some air as I sighed.

  “Mister, please. I have two little babies at home,” Nicole attempted to say. She too was fearing the worst.

  “Everybody shut the fuck up!” Haz screamed, which almost caused me to violate my underwear. “This is what y’all don’t understand! I’m running this show. Now turn around and kneel at the toilet bowl!”

  We all nervously did as he said.

  Haz then placed the pillow over the gun and put that combination at Sherry’s head and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

  “Oh God!” Nicole screamed as Sherry’s blood and brains splattered all over the bathroom.

  I remained silent, wanting to throw up from fear and the gruesome sight.

  “Y’all see that?” Haz asked. “That was for that little stunt that she pulled when she tried to grab my gun!”

  Nicole and I remained silent as we kneeled at the toilet bowl expecting the worst. I could see chunks of Sherry’s skull and patches of her hair along with her blood floating in the toilet bowl. Sherry’s motionless, lifeless body didn’t say a word as it lay limp on the cold, hard bathroom floor.

  Like a cold-hearted psychopath, Haz proceeded to talk. “Now this is what we’re gonna do. We are gonna calmly walk out of Horse’s room and wheel him to that ambulette thing that you were talking about. But I want y’all to look at this chick right here,” Haz said, referring to Sherry.

  “She tested me and look at her ass now! I’m telling the both of y’all this one more time. Test me if you want to and see if y’all don’t end up like this bitch! Cooperate with me and y’all will have no problems.”

  Neither Nicole nor I said a word. We both knew that Haz meant business and therefore our only option was to cooperate.

  “When we’re making our way out of here I want everybody looking as calm and as normal as possible. A’ight?” he asked.

  Nicole and I nodded our heads. Haz then instructed us to both get up and make our way out of the bathroom as he held his gun on us. Horse turned down the volume on the televis
ion.

  “Nicole, take us to this ambulette thing. You better know where you’re taking us and don’t play no games!” Haz commanded as Nicole and I made our way over to Horse’s bed and began to prepare to roll him and his bed out of his hospital room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  As we wheeled Horse out of his room and into the tenth-floor hospital lobby, Haz held close by me and Nicole. If either one of us had tried anything we would have definitely caught a bullet in our backs. So we were certain not to make any false moves. There were doctors and hospital staff walking around but since Nicole was with us, nothing must have looked out of order.

  I was trying my best to make eye contact with someone so that I could rapidly blink my eyes at them and try to alert them in some way. But unfortunately the opportunity did not present itself.

  After the one-minute walk, which seemed more like an eternity, we had reached the elevator. Nicole pressed the down button and no one said a word. We didn’t even look at each other. I was sure that all of our hearts were pounding very rapidly due to the anxiety that we all had to be feeling, including Haz.

  As we waited for the elevator, two nurses and a doctor walked past us. One of the doctors seemed to do a double-take and he stopped.

  The elevator reached our floor and the doors opened up. Just our luck, the elevator was empty.

  “Excuse me! Nicole!” the doctor who had done the double-take yelled.

  “Don’t pay him no mind, let’s go!” Haz commanded.

  Nicole looked at the doctor but then turned her attention back to the elevator and proceeded to press the button of our desired floor.

  “Nicole!” the doctor yelled again.

  The doors to the elevator began to close.

  But just before they were fully closed the doctor stuck his foot in the door.

  “Nicole, didn’t you hear me calling you? Where in God’s name do you think you’re taking him?” the doctor asked in a pissed-off manner.

  All of us froze.

  I had two choices. I could have either tried to blow up Haz’s plan, but that would have been risky and it could have caused us to bring another hostage into the situation. Or I could have played things off in an attempt to limit any bloodshed or loss of life. I opted for my second choice and I knew that I had to speak before Nicole spoke.