by DL Barbur
Henry looked cool as a cucumber as he went to work with his tools on the walls of the kitchen. Casey stood by the front door with her grenade, and Dalton and I stood by the back door. I stood there for long minutes with nothing to do but listen to the sounds from next door. The music cut off, leaving only the sound of computer-generated gunshots and screams from whatever video game they were playing. The absence of the pounding music was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders.
I heard what I thought was a woman crying and strained my ears.
“Shut up!” a man screamed from next door. He was loud enough that the sound in my earpieces was distorted, but I could hear him through the wall too.
“Settle down, man.” Another voice. Also male, but younger.
Henry walked in the living room, gave us a thumbs up. He held up the tablet and showed us the view from the camera he’d just placed. It was working great. There was nobody in the kitchen.
This was the tricky one. There were at least three sets of eyes in the tiny living room of the apartment next door. Presumably, Gina wouldn’t say anything, but we had a real problem on our hands. Casey walked up, leaned in close to me and Dalton.
“Once Henry finds his spot, I could go over and ask to borrow something else, a corkscrew maybe.”
Dalton nodded. Henry pulled a thermal scanner out of his bag. Unlike in the movies, it wouldn’t let him see through the walls. He held it a few inches from the wall separating the two apartments and started moving it around. The ghostly images of the studs and the electrical wiring showed up on the screen, then he moved it up and back and forth in a zig-zag pattern. I realized there was a faint rectangle on the wall that was slightly warmer, several feet wide by a couple feet high.
“TV,” he said. “A big one.”
It would do little good to place the camera behind a TV. It was also the focal point of the room, where the two men would be watching. Instead, Henry picked a spot near the back door and started drilling at an angle so the camera would aim toward the front of the apartment. I heard Gina mutter something, then sob.
“I said shut up! I’m tired of you.”
The guy sounded a little unhinged. Not good.
“Hey man, be cool. Curtis told us it wouldn’t be much longer.”
“Fuck Curtis! Fuck you! And fuck this bitch! Where’s my pipe? I’m tired of this shit.”
“Curtis told us he wanted us to stay clean while we had the woman.”
“Fuck Curtis! Where’s my pipe.”
Henry nodded and gave Casey a thumbs up. He was almost through. Balanced on tip-toe, he pulled the drill out, and fed the fiber optic camera into the plastic tube in the wall. The only thing between us and a view of the room was about a millimeter of drywall and some paint.
Casey carefully laid her grenade on the floor, took a deep breath, and walked out of the apartment. A few seconds later we heard her knock and a man appeared on the camera aimed at the foyer and kitchen. He was short, kind of chubby with a hoodie and a smear of acne across his face.
“Hey,” he said as he opened the door.
“I’m really sorry to bother you again,” Casey said, putting on her best airhead impersonation. “But I like totally forgot a can opener. Do you have one?”
“Uhhh… Let me see.”
With the slightest push, Henry put the camera in place. He’d set the tablet on a split screen view, half of the kitchen and foyer, the other half the living room. As the camera broke through the wall on the other side, the screen lit up with a picture.
We were looking at the back of a shirtless man. A giant Nazi eagle was tattooed across his back. He was big and had the kind of muscles I’d come to associate with prison inmates who had way too much time to pump iron.
Gina was bound in a chair, just like we’d seen her in the cell phone picture. The guy with the tattoo was pointing a gun at her face. The muzzle was inches from her nose. Tattoo Guy had his back to the camera and was looking towards the front door, but Gina’s eyes were looking directly into the camera.
“She saw it come through the wall,” Henry whispered.
“Yeah. Hopefully, she won’t blow it,” I said.
“If she does, we go,” Dalton said.
“Ok.” I busied myself making sure my gear was arranged correctly and breathed deeply.
On the kitchen side of the screen, Pimple Face went back to the front door.
“Sorry, can’t find it,” he mumbled. He seemed like he was in a hurry to get Casey out of there.
“No worries. Thanks, dude!” Casey chirped.
She hurried back through the front door of our place and picked up her grenade again. On the screen, I watched as tattoo guy stuck his pistol in the waistband of his jeans. He started rooting around in a duffel bag on the floor. I realized I recognized him. The night I’d been ambushed by the skinheads in Portland, he had been the younger man who had muscled Gina into the SUV.
Gina was no longer looking at the camera, she had her eyes closed and her lips were moving silently. I wondered if she was praying.
“Nice work,” Dalton said to Casey. He motioned us to follow, and we all went upstairs to the back bedroom. Henry slaved all the cameras to a single laptop and we now had a view of the whole apartment. Tattoo Guy was puffing on a pipe. Meth. The windows in both apartments were open, and the sweet, chemical odor of burning methamphetamine wafted through.
Tattoo Guy took a big drag, then handed the pipe to his partner, who took a puff reluctantly. This wasn’t good. If they’d been passing a marijuana pipe around I would have welcomed it. Tattoo Guy’s raging meth withdrawal symptoms were now going to be replaced by an actual manic high. He started pacing around the living room. He pulled the pistol out of his jeans and started playing with it.
“I think we should just have some fun with her and then do her, and then get out of here,” he said, sighting down the barrel of the pistol at Gina’s head.
“Curtis said…” Pimple Face started.
Tattoo Guy wheeled and pointed the gun at Pimple Face.
“I don’t give a FUCK what Curtis said. I’m in charge here.”
Dalton keyed his mic.
“Bolle, this is Dalton, how far out are you?”
Bolle answered right up. “We are just now crossing the river. There was a four car pile up on the Glen Jackson Bridge. We’re monitoring your feeds. I’m guessing twenty minutes minimum, maybe as much as thirty.”
“Copy. We may go early.”
Bolle didn’t answer for a few seconds. “It’s your call,” he said.
“New plan,” Dalton said. He grabbed a satchel off the floor. “Bring the laptop in here.”
We all followed him into the front bedroom. He used the thermal imager to find the studs in the walls, then opened his demo kit. He pulled out a reel of cord that looked like clothesline, but I recognized it as explosive detonating cord, or “det-cord.” Dalton handed me his roll of duct tape.
“I need pieces three inches long,” he said.
Dalton started making a rectangle on the wall, wide enough to bridge across two wall studs and tall enough for us to walk through. As I handed him strips of tape I kept one eye on the monitors. Tattoo Guy was pacing around the apartment mumbling to himself and playing with his gun. Pimple Face guy was back to playing video games. Gina looked like she was shivering. It was warm, so it had to be from fear and not cold.
Dalton finished his rectangle, and with a speed clearly born of long practice, hooked up a pair of blasting caps and connected the whole thing to a firing device. He motioned us out of the room and followed behind, trailing electrical wire behind him.
I looked over Henry’s shoulder at the screen. Tattoo guy was still pacing around. Pimple Face had apparently resigned himself, and was sitting on the floor puffing on the meth pipe. Gina sobbed and Tattoo Guy whirled.
He put the gun against her head.
“I can’t take it anymore. BE QUIET!”
“Shit,” Dalton said.
&nbs
p; Gina had reached her breaking point. She gave a scream.
“We’re going,” Dalton said. He looked at Casey. She was still carrying her grenade.
“You bang the front door,” he said. Casey nodded.
He pulled a flashbang off the front of my vest and handed it to Henry.
“You bang the back.”
Henry took the bang without hesitation and he and Casey headed downstairs.
“I’m ready,” Henry said.
“Me too,” Casey said a few seconds later.
The laptop was on the floor where we both could see it. Tattoo Guy still had his gun pointed at Gina’s head. His finger was on the trigger. We now had to choose between watching him shoot Gina, or detonating the explosions, which might startle him into pulling the trigger anyway.
Pimple Face put the meth pipe down. “What will we do after we shoot her?”
Tattoo Guy turned to face him. The muzzle was no longer pointed at Gina’s head.
“Execute. Execute. Execute,” Dalton said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We didn’t have enough people to do this correctly, so we were making up for it with explosives. The two flashbang grenades detonated within half a second of each other. Score one for the nerds. Then Dalton pushed on the detonator for the wall charge.
The flashbangs had been loud enough to rattle the windows. I remembered to open my mouth right before Dalton blew the wall, but it still felt like an icepick shoved in my ears. Instantly everything sounded like it was underwater, except for a high keening whine in my ears. The lights went out and the room in front of us filled with drywall dust and smoke.
Dalton charged forward. I was right behind. I flinched when a bunch of water hit the top of my head and ran down my back. I’d noticed that this apartment complex had a sprinkler system in the ceiling. Apparently, the explosion had ruptured one of the pipes.
The hole in the wall was big enough that I didn’t even have to duck. We entered the other apartment at the top of the stairs. We turned left and started down. Dalton paused two-thirds of the way down, plucked a flashbang off his vest and held it up where I could see it. I slapped him on the shoulder with my left hand to let him know I was ready. He pulled the pin on the grenade and tossed it. He banked it perfectly off the kitchen counter so it dropped into the living room.
The blast felt like a punch in the chest. My ears shut down completely. I couldn’t hear anything but a sound like waves at the ocean. We charged down the stairs. I looked through the red dot scope mounted on the little rifle in my hands, careful not to point it at Dalton’s back as we charged into the living room. Dalton broke left, hugging the wall, so I followed the wall on the right.
Pimple Face was lying on the floor with his hands over his eyes, screaming. Dalton soccer kicked him in the abdomen and he went still. Gina’s chair had tipped over and she lay on the floor screaming. Tattoo Guy was behind her on the floor, sitting on his ass with a dazed expression on his face. Somehow he’d managed to hold onto his pistol the whole time.
I screamed, “Police! Drop the weapon!” as loud as I could. It sounded like my voice was coming from miles away. Gina was on the ground squirming, still bound to the chair. I hoped she didn’t figure out a way to stand up, because she’d be right in my line of fire.
The skinhead had a blank, thousand-mile stare like he was somewhere else. No doubt he was concussed, and maybe even blinded by the grenade. His head swiveled from side to side. The pistol was aimed at the ground, but his finger was on the trigger.
“Drop the gun!” I screamed again. I put the red dot of the sight on his face. I kept both eyes open, so I could see his hands.
He started to raise the gun, so I shot him, taking the quarter of a second to settle the red dot of the scope on the bridge of his nose. I was shooting over Gina, so it had to be precise. The little carbine barely recoiled, giving me the slightest tap on the shoulder. The sound of the shot didn’t even register to my abused ears.
A fan of red hit the wall behind him and he hit the ground in a boneless slump. The pistol fell from his hand and didn’t fire. It was over.
Gina’s mouth was open, and she was screaming, but I could barely hear her.
Dalton was getting Pimple Face into flex-cuffs, so I walked over to Gina and started cutting her loose from the wraps of duct tape that held her to the chair. I helped her up, and she leaned against me.
“Dent? Dent?” I could barely make out Casey’s voice in my earpiece over the whooshing noise.
“Standby,” I croaked into my microphone. My throat felt like it was full of dust.
Dalton had Pimple Face well under control. He had a knee in the guys back and was turning out his pockets. Tattoo Guy was lying in a puddle of his own brain matter, so we didn’t have anything to worry about there.
“I’m walking one out,” I said. Dalton gave me a thumbs up.
I steered Gina around some skull fragments on the carpet and out the back door. A couple people were standing in the green space between the apartment buildings, at least one woman was holding her cell phone up, taking pictures or video. Another reason to hate cell phones.
We went inside. Henry was talking on the radio with Bolle. I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation if I concentrated hard enough. It sounded like Bolle was succeeding in letting the local cops know they shouldn’t come and shoot us. That was a bonus.
“Stop,” Gina said and bent over. I managed to get my shoes out of the way just in time to avoid the vomit. She collapsed to the floor, crying.
I sat down next to her. As the adrenaline burned out of my system I felt a wave of fatigue wash over me that felt like I was being crushed to the floor by a massive hand. I wanted to just curl up there on the carpet and go to sleep. My hearing was slowly starting to come back. I could hear Casey trying to comfort Gina.
Dalton’s voice came over my earpiece.
“We’re drawing quite the crowd outside, and it sounds like the cops are on their way.”
Come to think of it, I could hear sirens off in the distance.
“Jack is in the air over you,” Bolle said. “I’d like to get the hostage out of there before the locals show up and we have a jurisdictional dispute.”
“Dent, get the hostage into our vehicle,” Dalton said. “Casey can drive you back over to the fire station. Send Henry over here to help me with the other guy.”
I made myself get up. Casey coaxed Gina to her feet.
“Come on. We’re going somewhere safe,” she said.
We walked out the back door, with Gina supported between us. The crowd had grown and there were more cell phones out, but nobody approached us. The word “police” stenciled on the front of my vest, coupled with the wicked looking gun hanging around my neck probably helped.
“Need you to drive,” I told Casey as I dug in my pocket for the keys. I felt like I was moving in slow motion. My hearing was better, but I still felt like I was underwater. I was probably mildly concussed from the blasts.
We saw red and blue flashing lights heading towards the apartment complex as we pulled out, but nobody tried to stop us. Jack was circling the fire station in the Little Bird and landed as we pulled in. I helped Gina out of the minivan and started walking her towards the helicopter with my arm under her shoulders. I was afraid she would collapse if I didn’t hold her up.
Eddie and Alex got out of the helo. Eddie clapped me on the shoulder as he ran by to join Casey in the van. Alex’s face was blank as she helped me load Gina into the helicopter. I climbed in beside Jack and we were off.
Jack circled the apartment complex once. There was a sea of red and blue lights in and around the complex, with more coming from all directions. Bolle had been smart to get us out of here when he did.
I looked over my shoulder. Alex took Gina’s blood pressure and other vitals then pulled a syringe out of her bag and injected it in Gina’s arm. Whatever was in the syringe, it worked quick. Gina became glassy-eyed and still.
“How
is she?” I asked over the intercom.
“Bumps and bruises,” Alex answered. “And really freaked out. I gave her enough Ativan to chill her out for a while.”
“So we don’t need to go to the hospital?” Jack asked.
“Nope,” Alex said. She didn’t sound particularly sympathetic towards Gina. I didn’t blame her.
“Ok. I’d like to land at the airport and transfer you guys by vehicle. Landing at the factory is liable to attract a bunch of attention.”
Alex looked at Gina, who was staring out the window. Her mouth hung open and she was blinking.
“She’ll be fine.”
Speaking of attracting attention, I was still wearing an assault vest and a gun slung around my neck. I started pulling them off.
“There’s an empty duffel bag under the rear seat,” Jack said.
It was hard in the cramped confines of the Little Bird, but I managed to pass the stuff back to Alex so she could stow it in the bag. She didn’t make much eye contact with me, but once when our hands touched, she gave it a little squeeze.
Jack slowed the Little Bird down and flared for a landing in a far corner of the Troutdale Airport, where one of Bolle’s ubiquitous black Suburbans was waiting for us. I’d seen the gridlocked traffic and had to admit the Little Bird was an excellent idea, even if it did attract attention.
Jack handed me the keys to the Suburban and we transferred Gina to the back seat. She was glassy-eyed and stoned, but much easier to manage. I felt like I could drive but I still took it slow. As I approached the back door to the factory it rolled up, courtesy of whoever was watching the cameras. I helped Alex settle Gina in the makeshift infirmary, which had once been the plant safety supervisor’s office, and went in the watch room.
Drogan was manning the phones, radios, and cameras. She seemed non-plussed to be left out of the action. I monitored what was going on for a while. Bolle was working with the local cops to secure the apartment building until he could get a warrant to search it. Reading between the lines, there was more than a little friction.