Promise Me

by Jack O. Daniel

  Their radios crackled as they were preparing.

  ‘In position.’ It was Alex getting them the head’s up.

  ‘Stay sharp, almost there,’ Logan said.

  He and Bill worked on their anchors for the descent on the building. Then, they put on their harnesses in a well-rehearsed manner, having done it a thousand times in training.

  In a synchronised manner, they clipped the carabiners to the rope and prepared for the abseil. They rappelled down the side of the building, stayed in position as close to the balcony as possible, without being spotted by anyone inside the apartment.

  Logan whispered into his concealed microphone, barely opening his lips, he said, ‘On my go.’

  ‘Copy!’ replied Alex and Toby, who were positioned with a battering ram outside the door.

  Logan peered into the office apartment through the huge balcony window. Alarmingly, he couldn’t see anyone from his vantage point.

  ‘I don’t see anyone.’

  ‘Maybe he’s in the bedroom?’ asked Toby.

  ‘That would be a serious worry, said Bill, ‘We’re counting on being able to subdue him quickly.’

  Logan peered in more carefully. He spotted a landline phone in the living home.

  He fished out his cell phone from his pocket and speed-dialled Dylan Lane.

  ‘LOGAN, TALK TO ME.’

  ‘Can you ask Mrs. Lee to call George?’

  ‘Hold on.’

  Lane conferred with Mrs. Lee, who immediately took her cell phone out to call her son.

  They could hear the phone ring, but no one came to answer it.

  Mrs. Lee let it ring until it rang out.

  ‘No joy,’ Logan whispered.

  ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT TO do?’ asked Bill.

  ‘We have no choice. We have to get in there. Maybe he’s left a clue on what’s he’s going to do next.’ said Logan.

  Alex piped up. ‘It could be booby trapped.’

  ‘Fuck, you’re right.’

  Logan called Lane, ‘Send someone to check for booby trap, ASAP.’

  ‘Consider it done.’

  Lane called Kearns to tell her what needed to get done.

  ‘On it,’ she replied.

  She spotted April, ‘Come on’, she said as she opened the door of the SUV. The dog seemed to understand. They climbed into one of the bomb squad’s fully equipped SUVs.

  Kearns put it in gear. With traffic being non-existent, they were there in no time. She retrieved a black shoulder bag.

  April came out and followed her to the twelfth floor where Alex and Toby were waiting with a battering ram.

  ‘Took you long enough,’ said Toby with a pretend scowl.

  ‘Had to put my makeup on.’

  April had a sniff under the door and indicated she couldn’t smell any chemical traces of a bomb.

  ‘Good girl,’ Kearns said as she took out an extendable electronic camera and a small monitor from her black bag. ‘Not that I don’t trust you, girl, but we gotta do this by the book.’

  She slipped a small snake camera through the gap under the door and turned on the monitor, which she handed over to Toby. ‘Tell me what you see.’

  She moved the camera in a sweeping motion, left to right, and back again.

  ‘Clear,’ said Toby.

  Just to be triply sure, she also used a handheld explosives trace detector. ‘The room’s clear,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, get back,’ said Toby.

  ‘Like far behind,’ said Alex.

  Kearns gave them a smirk, grabbed her black bag and April’s collar.

  Suddenly, it was ‘Go, go, go.’

  Simultaneously, Logan and Bill swung into the balcony as Toby and Alex took the door off its hinges.

  They walked in, followed by Kearns and April. As one, the men turned. Logan asked, ‘What are you here for?’

  ‘I can help,’ she said.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Logan, shaking his head.

  They looked around. There was nothing of interest but the putrid mess. ‘It’s a pigsty,’ remarked Kearns who cringed at the filthy room. Filthy being an understatement.

  ‘Hey, there’s a laptop here.’ Toby had discovered it under a pile of old newspaper. ‘I think it’s gone to sleep. He must have left it in a hurry; could be the clue we’re looking for.’ The On light was on, winking, inviting them to see what’s in it.

  Logan tapped the space bar. It remotely exploded a bomb hidden in a rubbish bin just as a police officer was peering down it.

  The explosion blew the metal can out of its steel housing and flew into the air. Everyone looked up, screamed and ran in all direction to avoid the missile now coming back down to earth. The shattered and sheared metal can land on the ground with an enormous thud. Screaming filled the air, as panicked people scattered for safety.

  Steel instinctively covered Bianca and May with his body.

  Knight made himself small, covered himself with his shield, which he had a good sense to take with him.

  Jess’ voice came over the radio, screaming, ‘Man down, man down. Fuck, man down.’ He was the first to rush in, to give aid, but the police officer was gone. The blast had cut the man in half. Shaken and distraught, Jess retched on the ground.

  Logan felt as though the earth had opened up and swallowed him whole.

  Jesus, the bomb wasn’t in the room, it was out there.

  ‘Fucker.’ Logan’s screaming was primal. It rose from the pit of his belly and came out unrestrained. He gave the wall a good punching, the way he always gave vent to his rage. When he was spent, he slumped on the floor; his team standing motionless at his feet.

  Kearns walked out to the balcony. Tears streamed down her face, watching the smoke that was billowing skyward. ‘Asshole,’ she whispered.

  Not far from them, George Lee was laughing his head off.

  BACK AT SWAT HQ, TEAMS Two, Three and Four were deployed immediately.

  Holleran ordered Team One to be recalled.

  ‘Boss, we did everything right,’ said Logan.

  ‘No-one’s saying you didn’t. In this job, you can do everything right, but something can still go wrong. You need to come back. Let us look after you.’

  Uniformed police arrived to give them a ride back to HQ.

  On the drive over, Sam Logan beat himself up for pressing that goddamn space bar although he couldn’t have known. No possible way he could have known it was the trigger for a bomb.

  Silently, Alex and Toby, on their own were beating themselves, too. If only I recognised him sooner.

  If only-itis, the first responders’ disease.

  MRS. LEE CRIED SORROWFULLY. Cried for her son, herself and everyone he’d hurt. What in God’s name have I done to bring this on to so many?

  Taylor put an arm on her shoulder, ‘None of this is your fault. George is sick. None of this is your doing.’

  It didn’t make her feel any better.

  Moments later, the whole area had been combed top to bottom and was given the all clear.

  Yamamoto turned off all the RF jammers. Instantly radio link was back on, but no one had anything to say!

  The human toll. The tragedy it wrought upon so many was costly.

  10: Tangled

  THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL TEAM attended to the injured. Majority of the wounded were on-lookers, hurt from being crushed underfoot as they raced out of harm’s way. Some were squashed against barriers. Triage was set up in the next suburb, just in case there were other bombs, though authorities were confident there were no more explosives.

  One thing was also certain and it bothered them: What’s to stop George from planting them once more after an area had been cleared?

  They didn’t need to be told, but Holleran said it regardless, ‘We need to find this bastard ASAP.’

  ACROSS THE COUNTRY, police came under heavy condemnation for using portable RF jammers instead of opting to disrupt the wireless communication throughout the City of New York. Armchair experts were al
l of the same opinion.

  A man in a hospital’s waiting room agreed and yelled out his agreement. A nurse overheard him and said, ‘Don’t listen to TV experts. They don’t know jack shit.’

  While authorities have the means to isolate emergency services number so that citizens could still call 911, emergencies were far from restricted to hospitals, police, and the fire brigade. Cutting people off from each other was the action of last resort. George Lee’s murderous scheme had been entirely unforeseen.

  ‘But how does one prepare for the plan of the insane?’ asked Taylor, as he surveyed the damage wrought by this one individual.

  AT HQ, TRAUMA COUNSELLORS waited for the return of Team One. Also on standby were members of the internal investigation unit. They came to ask some hard questions regarding the operation.

  Exhausted members of SWAT Team One arrived back at HQ, went straight to the locker room and shut themselves in. They cried themselves in the steaming hot shower.

  The reckoning could wait.

  MINUTES HAD PASSED. The dust had settled.

  All the attention returned to Steel and Bianca. Long-range cameras were trained on them. After all, the media couldn’t be denied their perverse, voyeuristic need. Thankfully, they couldn’t pick up their voices, which was good for there are sacred moments in one’s life.

  Steel wiped his wife’s face. She was covered in grime, sweat, and tears. Looking at the tangled wires on the vest bomb, he urged Bianca, ‘Let’s play Tangled.’ With their high-pressure jobs, they had mutually agreed on watching animated movies by Disney and Pixar as a means of decompressing.

  She smiled. ‘I’ll start,’ she said. She would be Rapunzel and her Tommy would be Flynn Rider.

  ‘Who are you and how did you find me?’

  Steel cleared his throat, ‘I know not who you are, nor how I came to find you, but may I just say ... Hi, how ya doin?’

  It was a silly little game, but if his intention was to make her feel better, it was working.

  ‘I’ve been looking out the window for eighteen years, dreaming about what I might feel when those lights rise in the sky. What if it’s not everything I dreamed it would be?

  ‘It will be.’ Steel, as Flynn Rider, said with conviction.

  ‘And what if it is? What would I do then?’

  ‘Well, that’s the good part I guess. You get to find a new dream.’

  She reached out to touch his face, leaned forward and kissed him gently, ‘You’re so sweet,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t do that.’ He said pretending to rouse on her, ‘you’ll make me cry. And what will everyone watching on TV think, huh?’

  She laughed mildly. Then, she switched gears and said, ‘Have you figured it out yet?’ she asked.

  ‘The bomb, you mean.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her soft brown eyes stared at him, willing him to be honest with her. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We’re about to come to that.’

  Quoting Rapunzel again, Bianca said, ‘I have made a decision to trust you.’

  In the movie, Flynn Rider had said, ‘A horrible decision really.’ Well, Steel wasn’t going to say that!

  Instead, he said, turning his mic on, ‘Boss?’

  ‘Yeah Easy, what’s up?’ said Lane alert to Steel’s flat tone.

  Steel in flat tone didn’t sound good.

  MEANTIME, NOT FAR FROM them, in disguise as a priest, George Lee was wearing a vest bomb. If Steel could figure out this bomb, then he would meet with them face-to-face. Hold them in his embrace and they could all go to oblivion together.

  He just couldn’t be denied.

  11: The Bomb

  ‘YEAH, EASY?’ LANE SAID again. ‘Speak to me.’

  Steel got his brain in gear. Get a grip, he scolded himself. He couldn’t afford to lose the plot. Not now.

  ‘This bomb,’ he began explaining as he gazed into Bianca’s eyes, ‘is rather unique.’

  Her eyes spoke volumes. He could see she was clinging to her last thread of courage so instead of averting his eyes, he kept them on her. Smiling to reassure his beloved, he said, ‘I’ll start with the good news. The pipes, all 12 of them, are empty. No shrapnel inside them.’

  One by one, he took them out, raised them up in the air one at a time so everyone could see it through their rifle scopes or binos. He had disconnected them earlier by snipping the wire attached to each end of the pipes. He tossed all twelve to the ground.

  The bomb squad looked at each other with furrowed eyebrows. Still, a little confused Lane said, ‘That’s good, Easy. That’s really great.’ He locked eyes with Ron Taylor, who was somewhat perplexed.

  ‘The other good news is I’m ready.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Lane replied. But why in heaven’s name is he acting so strange.

  Steel kissed Bianca on the forehead, traced a thumb over her lips and whispered, ‘Be right back.’

  He went to Martin, who was still watching, close by. He gave him a man-hug and said, ‘One man down range. Please tell Knight to let April come.’

  Jean Martin, who’d had the pleasure of serving with him for less than a year, blew out air from his lungs and said tearfully, ‘See you soon, buddy.’

  Steel nodded.

  Martin walked back to his team and told Knight to let the dog loose. It was all the German Shepherd was waiting for. She bolted out and ran to her family, golden hair flying in the wind.

  Steel awaited her arrival; she jumped up into his arms and he allowed her to lick him happily before he set her down to be with Bianca and May.

  He then removed his Kevlar vest and protective helmet. They expected him to wear the bomb suit, but he didn’t. He looked at Bianca and said ‘Are you ready?’

  Dylan Lane’s voice crackled in their headsets, ‘What are you playing at Steel? Put that bomb suit on or I’ll have your ass! That’s an order!’

  Steel looked in his direction; he knew Lane could see him clearly through his binoculars. The instrument he was using was four times magnification. Indeed, Lane could see not only the lines around his eyes but also the exhaustion and the determination.

  Steel spoke to him directly, ‘Boss, this bomb ... is very sophisticated. Typically, amateur home-made bombs are simple. You cut one wire, and the circuit is broken.’

  He laughed softly, ‘In the movies, the hero would go “Is it red? Blue? Yellow?” This, however, has several wires that extend beyond that. Cut the wrong wire, the timer could speed up. Or, cut the wrong one and a secondary trigger could blow it up.’

  He turned his focus on Bianca like he was just telling her something about what he did for a living. ‘The most dangerous part of bomb defusal is opening it; that’s why my tack knife is my best friend on the job.’

  He replaced stray strands of hair back behind her ears, ‘I uncovered the bomb and found the wire that mattered. Well, I’m confidently sure I have, but with these things...’ he left the rest unspoken.

  Besides, they all knew that George Lee had already proven a point, hadn’t he? That he was quite capable of thinking outside the box. What other surprises might he have in store for them?

  He kissed her lips lightly, ‘It’s a cruel bomb, in that it’s meant to punish me, not kill me. It would be unfair to leave the defusion to someone else; no one should ever be put in this predicament.’

  Once more, he looked to Lane’s general direction, ‘Boss, he made sure there was only enough C-4 to kill one person, most of it was just putty. What I’m saying is... if... if I get it wrong... and I’m wearing a bomb suit, there is only enough C-4 in the vest bomb to kill Bianca. The last memory I would have of her would be seeing her disintegrate before my eyes.’ His voice hitched.

  ‘If I'm wearing my Kevlar vest and helmet, and this goes off, I would be disfigured. Blinded and disabled but I would be alive. Alive, but alone; crippled, damaged and beyond repair.’

  She turned his face towards her and cupped it with both hands. ‘Then give me the cutter. Tell me which one to cut. You’re sure yo
u got it right, then we’ll both live, but if you’ve got it wrong, then there’s no reason we should both die.’

  Ignoring the multitudes listening in on their radios, he said, ‘Without you, it would be a fate worse than death.’

  She stifled her sob.

  So did Kearns, and Yamamoto and Martin and Knight and Lane and Taylor and Mrs. Lee.

  It was a dilemma for Lane.

  How the hell do I tell him it's against protocol? He just thought fuck that, sometimes you just have to be a human being first before you’re a cop.

  The timer said 1:15:20. Plenty of time, but why prolong the agony?

  ‘Are you ready for this?’ he asked her again.

  She nodded, ‘I am, and I trust you.’ It brought a smile to his face.

  He looked down at the two canines, their daughters, and companions, issued a stern command, ‘Go.’

  They wouldn’t.

  ‘Okay then,’ he said, surrendering to their will.

  He hugged her firmly to his chest, one ear next to his heart. ‘Listen to my heartbeat,’ he said. He slowed his breathing down. Bianca closed her eyes and listened. All she could hear now was the rhythmic double beats of his heart.

  ‘Dub, dub.’

  ‘Dub, dub.’

  Yamamoto stood up from her chair, removed her earphones, turned to Lane and tearfully said, ‘Boss, I can’t do this.’

  Like a father bird who gathered his chick under his wings, Lane enveloped the youngest-ever recruit of NYSP Bomb Squad Unit in his arms. She cried quietly into his shirt.

  In the silence, they heard Bianca say to Steel, ‘Whatever happens, we have eternity written in our hearts.’

  He replied, ‘To Eternity.’

  They stood fused together for a while, just a couple of lovers slow dancing to an inaudible music, and then...

  And then...

  And then...

  Steel snipped the wire.

  12: OMG!

  ONLY HE KNEW IT WAS done and dusted-, and here they were still standing.