Big Bad Bite
Page 7
The Police Chief took in everyone’s reaction, and then continued, “This is what we’re going to do. There’s a small outer access door that leads to a crawl space above the restaurant here on the side of the building. There’s an inner access door that then leads from the crawl space to directly above the kitchens here.” He pointed to the blue prints on the table. “We’ll send someone inside to breach the crawl space and drop below into the kitchens. Once there, after they’ve secured the area they need to let three other team members inside through the back door, here. The remaining six in this team will be stationed near the front doors and windows in case anyone tries to escape. Does everyone understand so far?”
A chorus of “yes sirs” sounded off.
Wiping the sweat from his brow again, the Police Chief looked at Capt. Nelson. “Assign the positions, Captain.”
“How big is the access door, sir?” Capt. Nelson’s eyebrows furrowed.
The Chief looked at him with a grim expression. “Pretty damn small.”
Turning back to face his team, Capt. Nelson looked at them thoughtfully, his eyes scanning the entirety of the unit as he analyzed their sizes. After a few seconds, his gaze settled on Jenna. “O’Conner, you’re going through the access door. Kent, Dubinski, and Walters, you’re going to go with O’Conner and make sure she gets in that door. Once she does, double back around the building to the kitchen exit and wait for her to open it for you. You’ll be the four going in. Put comm. links on before you go.”
As a group, the four SWAT members walked to the next table, strapping the comm. links to their ears as the Captain gave the remaining members of their team positions to cover between the windows and front entrance of the restaurant. Once they strapped helmets on, Jenna’s group ran through the shadows to the back of the restaurant, circling around to the side where the outer access door to the crawl space was located. Snug against the brick wall, she and Kent looked up to find the small one and a half by two foot wood panel entrance approximately nine feet up the building. She would need to quietly knock the panel in to get inside.
As the familiar, anticipatory drip of sweat traveled from her neck and down to her back, she told herself that it was due to the muggy North Carolina night combined with the weight of her uniform and weapons. It was not because her nerves were suddenly tense with the knowledge that if somehow she failed tonight, it could cost the lives of the politicians, their families and the officers trapped inside, as well as the members of her team. Blowing out a mighty breath of air to relieve the tension in her chest, Jenna clamped down on the overwhelming feelings of what-if.
Looking at the three men surrounding her, she grunted, “Going to need a boost up boys.” Pulling the silencer that connected to the riffle out of one of her cargo pockets, she screwed it on to the end of the barrel as Kent and Dubinski joined their hands to give her a lift. With the silencer in place, she slung the riffle across her back by its strap, and stepped onto their joined hands. Lifting her quickly and efficiently, her hands connected with the thin wooden paneling gluing the access door closed. Jenna braced her hands on both sides of the panel, then pushed forcefully until a pop and rush of uncirculated air leaked out. Most humans would have probably had to punch at the panel repeatedly to loosen it. Luckily her strength was enough to breach the panel in a way that she could pry it open without making noise.
She set the loose panel down inside the crawl space as Kent and Dubinski lifted Jenna another foot up so that her head and arms easily slid through the space, enabling her to pull the rest of her body through the small hole. Pushing up on to her glove-covered hands, she quickly scanned the area. The space was only four feet high so she was unable to stand, forcing her to crawl to the other side of the space to the trap door that led down to the kitchen. The air was thick with dust and itched her sensitive nose, forcing her to scrunch it up to stifle the urge to sneeze. Ever so quietly, she made her way on hands and knees with the riffle still strapped to her back. The sound of a man shouting below helped to cover any minute noises she might have made in the process.
With the trap door now in front of her, she pulled the riffle around and squared it against her shoulder. Lying down on her belly, she grabbed the rustic wooden handle with her left hand and started to inch it open slowly until two inches were available for her to look through and scan some of the area below. Through the crack she saw a line of stainless steel stoves against one wall with nothing else in sight. Holding perfectly still, she counted to ten to pass some time in case anyone might have heard her, before easing the door open another few inches. Still no movement from below. Using the half a foot of space she’d acquired, Jenna craned her neck in every direction, looking for signs of a possible threat. Taking a deep breath, she tested the air for scents. There didn’t seem to be anything in her immediate area and the small snippets of sound she could hear seemed to drift from further beyond the confines of the kitchen.
Taking one last deep breath to steady her, Jenna pulled the trap door open while dropping flat against the floor of the attic crawl space. Bracing her weight with hands on either side of the entrance, she then lowered her body to the floor below to finally drop in a crouch low to the ground. After a furtive glance around to make sure she hadn’t been seen, her mind worked quickly to scan the kitchen, assessing for possible threats. The kitchen was altogether abandoned. It seemed as if the assailants had moved everyone to the confines of the front room.
Turning her head to the right, she spotted the ‘EXIT’ sign over the back door and started to move towards it. But before she reached it, an unmistakable smell caught her attention. Shifter. More than one person in this restaurant was a shifter, and she’d bet her trigger finger it was the assailants holding the people hostage. That would explain why they were able to overpower Team 2; because they were faster and stronger than the average human. Even a highly trained law enforcement official didn’t stand a chance against a shifter. But why would shifters do something this blatantly in the eye of the public? Did they not care that they were risking exposure of the entire supernatural community to the humans? Surely the possibility of ransoming a few million dollars wouldn’t be enough to commit anything this dangerous.
The situation had now transformed from bad to ‘FUBAR’ in a matter of seconds, and she had to think quickly on how to salvage it without risking any casualties to the hostages, or to her team outside. Running over the options quickly in her head, she came to the grim conclusion that only she and Kent had a chance of going up against the suspects in the other room. Dubinski and Walters would end up being more of a liability than an asset at this point. The best use for those two would be to try and get hostages out of their way. As Jenna moved stealthily towards the back door, the electronic panel box on the wall caught her eye and gave her an idea.
Focusing her thoughts towards Kent, she hesitantly reached out telepathically for him. “Kent? Can you hear me?”
A small moment of shock colored her thoughts before his response, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m in the kitchen about to open the door for you guys, but we have a problem. I smell shifters. How much you want to bet they’re our gunmen?”
“Fuck.”
“Exactly. Dubinski and Walters will more than likely get in our way.”
“What do you recommend, Jenna?”
“What if we turn out the lights? The panel box is in the kitchen. You and I can position ourselves, have one of them shut the lights off and then they can start grabbing hostages to maneuver out the kitchen door. What do you think?”
Worry flowed through the tentative mental link they shared. “Eight is a hell of a lot of shifters for two of us to take out on our own. Think we can draw any of them into the kitchen before we shut the lights off and then charge the main room?”
“Possibly. I’ll let you guys in. We’ll tuck ourselves behind the racks in here, knock a pan over, and then see who comes. we can proceed with the lights out plan then, how’s that sound?”
Closing the mental connection, she took one last look around and then travelled the few steps to the back door. As she pushed the bar to open the door, a loud buzzing sounded indicating movement from the door. Silently cursing and faces filled with alarm, Kent, Dubinski and Walters shuffled into the kitchen to tuck themselves behind counters and conceal their presence. Just then, a startled voice from the front barked orders for someone to go check on the noise.
So much for just knocking a damn pot over.
Kent’s hands flew in furious signals to the team as he dispatched orders while the sounds of rapid footsteps approached. The smell of fear, anxiety and shifter pulled closer until Jenna could see the forms of two large men easing cautiously into the kitchen. With their guns drawn, they each turned from side to side as they put one slow step in front of the other, edging closer to Jenna’s small four-man team hidden in the rear. When the two were only a few feet from them, Kent gave the thumbs up signal and Jenna launched out from behind the counter with him as they used the butts of their riffles to knock the two men unconscious. Dubinski and Walters leapt forward, grabbing the arms of the now lifeless bodies to pull them out of the way while she and Kent stalked to the entrance that led from the kitchen and into the main room beyond. Mere seconds later, a booming voice asked the status from the two men who had come to investigate. Dubinski then reached the panel and started flipping switches to shut off all of the lights.
Screams erupted out of the darkness that followed. Kent and Jenna used that cover to burst through the door as mass confusion set in. Puffs of air popped from her gun as she leveled her aim at one of the two suspects still standing near the front door; Kent made his own shot while diving for cover behind the bar. The terrified customers huddled on the floor beneath their tables, while the remaining four suspects scattered throughout the room taking cover. With the kitchen door propped open, Dubinski motioned for the hostages at nearby tables to crawl to them so that they could be directed towards safety outside.
A guttural voice yelled from the other side of the room, “I’ll kill them! You better fucking believe I’ll kill them all!”
She and Kent peered over the edge of the bar to take stock of where the remaining suspects were stationed. Several shots rang over their heads, forcing them to duck back down to safety. Taking a deep breath, she analyzed the scents and tastes of others around her. Fear was paramount in the room. Anger was the next overwhelming scent. Past that she could taste blood. Probably that of the two officers they were told were already dead. The saltiness of tears was faint. Everything she would expect from the situation. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as Dubinski and Walters stationed themselves, crouched on either side of the door, waiting for the next signal.
Kent’s baritone flowed into her mind. “There are two to the left, at the Senator’s table. Did you see where the other two went?”
“Only one that is in the right hand corner. The fourth is hiding somewhere. What do you think we should do?”
“We’ve got four on four now. I say you and I take the two at the senator’s table, and send Dubinski and Walters after the third in the corner. We can flush the fourth one out from there.”
“Sounds like a plan. Wanna give the hand signals to Dubinski and Walters?”
“Done. Be ready to move in five. Four. Three. Two. ONE!”
In unison, they popped up from behind the bar as their other two teammates pounced to the right-hand corner across the room. The noisy shots of the suspect’s guns echoed throughout as bullets flew past Jenna and Kent. In one synchronized move, the two targets on either side of the senator’s table dropped to the ground from the shots that they volleyed at the pair. Jenna’s suspect went down with a shot to the head, while Kent’s suspect dropped to his knees with a shot to his shoulder. He must have jerked a few inches to the side as Kent had fired his shot.
Simultaneously, two shouts were suddenly heard. One from a middle aged platinum blond that the wounded suspect grabbed, shielding his body with hers as he raised the gun and pointed it at Kent. The second shout came from behind them as a body thumped to the floor. The hairs on the back of Jenna’s neck rose. As if time stood still, she watched Kent turn towards the shout behind them, looking for the trouble. His face recognized the owner of the sound being Dubinski. From her peripheral she watched Kent as he raised his weapon, aiming it at someone in that same direction. What Kent failed to see was what Jenna now faced. The stocky, dark haired suspect with a shoulder wound and a human shield leveled his pistol and aimed it at the back of Kent’s head. There were only two parts of his body left exposed behind the poor screaming woman he held around the neck in front of him; his head, peering from just behind the woman’s right shoulder, and the hand holding the gun.
With no time to analyze which shot to make, she aimed her gun with a muffled curse. Her finger eased on the trigger and the flash and puff of air moved in front of her riffle. A searing sting struck the outside of her right arm at the same time as multiple shots being fired echoed around her. Another flash of burn grazed her left ribs. The platinum blond dropped to the ground behind the table screaming like a banshee as Jenna ran forward after her. Her mind raced in panic as she vaulted over bodies and tables towards her target, praying that she hit the suspect instead of an innocent civilian. With the riffle still squared into her shoulder, ready to aim and fire, she vaulted onto the senator’s table just as the lights flashed back on in the restaurant.
The lady in a beige sheath dress screamed and scrambled backwards from the man that used her as a human shield because he now lay face down with a gaping hole in his head. The breath Jenna hadn’t realized she’d been holding eased out as the comm. link in her ear screamed with voices.
“Walters clear!”
“Kent clear! Dubinski down!”
The word ‘down’ snapped her back to reality. Circling in her spot on the table top, an array of faces flashed before her eyes. Husbands holding their screaming wives. Mothers covering their crying children with their own bodies. Dubinski lying on his back groaning while Kent knelt over him as blood poured from his side and onto the floor. With all of the chaos surrounding them, the most notable thing clicked into her head at that time. All eight of the gunmen were now down. The threat had been neutralized.
Capt. Nelson’s strained voice came through the link. “O’Conner! Are you clear?”
Pressing the button on the link in her ear, “O’Conner is clear. Bring in the paramedics, the area is secured.”
Her heart had finally stopped its jack hammering thirty minutes ago, and now Jenna sat on the ledge of the back of the ambulance. Thank God for dependable sports bras, because the paramedic had insisted on taking her shirt off when he saw the blood on her side. With her left arm held up over her head, the paramedic cleaned a six inch nasty red graze from the bullet that had sliced the skin over her ribs. She had a second graze from a gunshot on her upper right arm that was already cleansed and bandaged. Poor Dubinski was in worse shape though. He’d taken a shot in the abdomen and was on the way to surgery to have it removed and repair any possible damage.
After the cavalry rushed through the front doors, they found the two officers already suspected dead. The other four had been found unconscious, duck taped by their wrists and ankles, and thrown into the woman’s bathroom to be kept out of the way. One officer had been shot in the chest and was in critical condition, while another had been shot in the leg. The remaining two officers only had an array of bruises from when they had been subdued. Thankfully, none of the hostages had been injured. Apparently the sound of gun fire was enough for them to have the common sense to hit the deck for cover when the shit hit the fan. As the paramedic started to bandage her ribs, Kent strolled up with a satisfied grin and his shirt hanging open to show his own bandage from a graze across his waist.
“Looking good
there, Jenna.” His eyes roamed over her body with complete interest. Apparently a half naked woman getting bandaged up from a round of violence was just the thing to get Kent’s motors going.
Rolling her eyes, she stretched her neck from side to side to ease some of its tension. “Get a close look Kent. It’ll be the closest you ever get to seeing me naked.” He groaned as if desperate, and the side of her mouth tipped up. She had to admit he was fun to have around.
Kent’s playful attitude slipped away as he rubbed the back of his head with one of his hands. “All joking aside, I just wanted to thank you for saving my ass in there tonight. I might be on the operating table, best case scenario, if you hadn’t taken that guy out.”
“Right back atcha, Kent. You saved my bacon as much as I saved yours. So don’t mention it. That’s what partners are for.” And Kent honestly had saved her butt. Apparently, as she was taking out the gunman aiming at Kent, he was taking out the gunman who had been shooting at her. Luckily, Kent was able to get him before he was able to take a better aimed shot than the two that had already grazed her. After tonight, she knew without a doubt that she could trust her new partner with her life. He’d already saved it.
Part of her wondered if this meant maybe she could trust him with her secrets, as well.
Probably not.
More flashes went off from the reporters crowded along the curb. She grimaced at the thought of her half naked picture ending up in a paper somewhere. That might be hard to explain to Mama.
Shaking off the thought of Mama’s strong southern temper, her thoughts turned to more pleasant things to look forward to. Like her head hitting the comfortable pillow on her warm bed. There was nothing in this world right now that could look better to her than her own damn bed.