“Strike another cop off the list,” I said. “He ain’t getting up from that for a while.” I switched the monitor feed back to the front door and flipped on the intercom. “Hey, O’Mally, your guy up on the roof might need a medic when he wakes up.”
“What did you do to him?” O’Mally asked, his whiskers twitching in anger.
“He’s fine, he just took a bump on the noggin,” I said. “But maybe don’t send anyone else up there, huh? If you can’t come in through the front door, don’t try to sneak in through the back.”
“Eddie, you need to give yourself up,” O’Mally said. “Don’t make me do this.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there, Edison,” I said. “You’ll just have to try to work your way in as best you can, and I’ll just have to try to stop you.” I shut off the intercom and sat back, a foul mood descending on me. I didn’t like playing the bad guy, even if – especially if – I’d been forced into it by circumstances beyond my control. I knew it was tearing O’Mally up to be at odds with me like this, but I didn’t see that there was any other way.
“One way or another,” I said to myself, “this ends with blood.”
IX.
We hit something of a stalemate that afternoon. O’Mally couldn’t find another way in and so he sat there, his cops and SWAT team twiddling their thumbs as they surrounded our building and made sure we didn’t go anywhere.
Not that we had any intention of going anywhere. We were safe for the time being, cozy behind our walls. Unless O’Mally’s guys figured out how to block out the sun, we’d have power in perpetuity, and water was plentiful for the time being since they hadn’t bothered trying to cut that off yet. We also had enough food to last for months, especially if we ate sparingly. Really, there was only one problem.
“I’m out of cigarettes,” I said. “That’s it, I’m calling O’Mally and surrendering myself. Maybe he can get me a pack to smoke on my way to jail.”
“Eddie, relax,” Ellen said, pulling out a pack of nicotine patches.
“Ugh, those just aren’t the same thing at all,” I moaned. “There’s no satisfaction to them, y’know?”
“Try to deal with it,” Ellen said, tossing the box of patches to me. “And go easy on those. We don’t have any more than that.”
I opened the box and fished out a handful of patches. “So, like, just two at a time, then?”
Ellen rolled her eyes at me. “I don’t think they’re going to try anything else today. They’re just sitting there. I think they believe they can wait us out.”
“Jokes on them, then,” I said. “Unless they start blasting Van Halen, then all bets are off.”
* * *
True to our predictions, O’Mally and his team seemed comfortable just sitting and waiting for the rest of that first day. The helicopter pilots must’ve gotten bored, though, because they disappeared fairly early and gave me a chance to sneak back up onto the roof as evening fell.
“You really shouldn’t be out here,” Vera said behind me as I scooped up the SWAT guy who’d been taken out earlier. I’d already confiscated his weapons and equipment, including one of their walkie-talkies.
“Yeah, I should be back inside where they can’t take a shot at me, blah blah blah, being a poor leader, yada yada yada.” I reached the edge of the roof and attached a rope to the guy. “Wanna help me shove this guy over the side?”
“No,” Vera said.
I shrugged. “Suit yourself.” With a push, I sent the cop over the edge. The rope caught, and I slowly lowered him with a pulley we’d installed a few months back for situations just like this.
Okay, maybe not just like this. A situation like this one was difficult to predict. But you never know when you’ll need to dump a body – dead or otherwise – or some other large, ponderous, bulky object over the side of your roof with no questions asked.
I unhooked the rope from the pulley and let it fall to the ground several stories below. “I’ll let O’Mally know where he can pick up his man,” I said to Vera.
“I have increasing concerns about this whole…thing,” Vera said. “I do not think you have thought this through to its logical conclusion.”
“I have, though,” I replied. “I know that O’Mally and his men will keep hitting the building over and over again, wearing us down, figuring out our defenses, until they finally spring the trap, bust in, and handcuff us all. That’s the best-case scenario. The worst case…well, it doesn’t bear discussion right now. But yeah, I know how this all ends. Trust me, Vera. That’s all I ask.”
Vera gave me the hairy eyeball. “You think you’ve got a plan, don’t you?” she said.
I shrugged. “Do I look like the sorta person who plans ahead? Nah, I’m just trying to make it one day at a time.”
* * *
I was the only one awake that night. I was keeping an eye on the monitor in case O’Mally decided to try something sneaky, though that hardly seemed like his style. No, I’d known Edison O’Mally for several years, and I knew he was more of the head-on assault type. Subtlety wasn’t really his strong point, but that was fine. It meant he’d keep trying the front door, or maybe the roof, but that was about it.
So I was a little surprised when someone came up right behind me and said, “It’s awful quiet tonight for a siege.”
I yelped and nearly jumped out of my skin. Turning around, I saw Cornwallis standing there. “How the hell did you get in?” I asked. “This place is nigh-impenetrable!”
“There’s a big difference between ‘nigh-impenetrable” and ‘impenetrable,” Cornwallis said calmly. He took the seat next to me. “The police persist?” he asked.
“Yeah, they’re apparently not gonna give up just because I ask nicely,” I said. “But we’ve held the at bay so far.”
“That can’t last much longer,” Cornwallis said.
I sat there quietly for a moment. “What brings you here, anyway?” I asked.
“The gentleman who came with you when you first found me,” he said.
“Xavier? He’s not here,” I replied.
“I do not seek him. I’m here to speak to you about him.”
“Oh, well, um, I don’t really know the guy very well. He was friends with my dad, I guess,” I said.
“No, he was not,” Cornwallis said. “I knew him. Or rather, the first version of me knew him, years ago. He was an enforcer for the Organization.”
“Oh, yeah, I know about that. He worked for Genevieve Pratt for years, then switched to Vera when she became the Boss. But what does that have to do with my father?”
“Well, your father was not in any way associated with the Organization. He was in the military,” Cornwallis explained.
“Okay, sure, but what does any of this have to do with anything?” I asked.
“It means Xavier has ulterior motives,” Cornwallis said.
“Sure he does. Everyone does. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ellen and Maya have ‘em. That’s just the world we live in, man. Unless Xavier means to kill me or mine, I don’t really care what his ulterior motive might be.” I stood up. “Now, you should get out of here. God only knows what they’d do to you if they caught you.”
“Just…be careful if you see Xavier again,” Cornwallis warned. “He’s dangerous.”
I chuckled. “Isn’t everybody, at this point?”
X.
O’Mally started up again first thing the next morning.
“Two teams, one on each side of the building with grappling hooks,” Ellen said. She was at the monitor this morning, a mug of coffee held between her hands. I hadn’t told any of them about Cornwallis’s visit the night before. Why bother? It hadn’t changed anything for us. If Xavier wanted in, he’d just have to wait by the door like all of the cops.
“Going for the roof again, I guess,” I said. “Makes sense. That’s the weakest point.”
“Almost like you did that on purpose,” Ellen said.
I gave Ellen my shocked face. “Moi?
I think you have me confused with some other devilishly-handsome criminal mastermind.” I pointed at Maya. “Miss Janovich, if you would kindly activate the countermeasures on the walls, please and thank you.”
Maya flipped a couple of toggles, and suddenly the walls were glowing.
“Damn, that’s bright,” I said.
“But I don’t think pretty lights will be enough to stop them,” Vera said.
“They’re warming lamps, actually,” I said. “They can get up to about three hundred degrees Celsius.” I watched as the men on the walls got woozy then slid off. “Or, if you tweak them, about a thousand degrees.” I gestured at Maya, who turned the lamps back off as the men retreated. No reason to run them constantly and drain our power.
“Another team is taking a shot at the front door again,” Ellen said.
“Countermeasures, Maya,” I said in response. A metal plate slid into place in front of the door, and another one came down right behind the door. The door was secured.
The rest of the morning proceeded like that: O’Mally would attempt to get inside, we’d implement a countermeasure that repelled them. It was exhausting, even if we didn’t actually do anything but press a few buttons and sit there fretting and stressing. That’s what usually ends a siege. Not violence or getting starved into submission, but the constant high alert you have to be on wears you thin, until you make a stupid mistake like forgetting to lock the front door when you turn in that night or leave the drawbridge down and allow the enemy army into your castle.
I collapsed onto the couch around noon, heaving an exhausted and frustrated sight. “Can’t we just skip to the bit at the end where everything exciting happens?” I asked. “This stuff is wearing me out.”
“There’s no fast-forwarding through time,” Miss Typewell said from across the room.
* * *
Night was falling and O’Mally and his men were settling in for the evening. We all sat back and breathed sighs of relief.
“I thought they almost had us when they dropped that squad from the helicopter,” Maya said.
“But then you pressed that button and the fog machine started up, and then the rotating rooftop…they ended up wandering right off the edge of the building,” I said. “Good times.”
“Um, guys,” Ellen called out from her station at the monitor. “I think we’ve got trouble headed this way.”
I refused to get up off the couch. “Just hit the appropriate countermeasure and call it a day, Ellen,” I said.
“I don’t think that’s going to cut it this time, boss,” Miss Typewell said.
I sat up. “Why not?”
“Um, because they’ve got tanks.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “So? Hit a few more charges as they roll over ‘em. Problem solved.”
“They’re not coming that close,” she said. “They’re real, actual tanks, with the big gun bit and everything.”
“Wait, what?” I asked as an explosion ripped the front door right off its reinforced hinges.
XI.
A klaxon started going off inside the office. Everyone jumped up, but was unsure where to go.
“Hit the emergency door!” I shouted at Ellen. She flipped a switch and the backup front door slammed down behind the original, or the spot where the original had been until it was blown up by a tank.
At least, that was the idea. “It’s stuck!” Ellen called out. On the monitor, we could see that the door was blocked by debris from the aforementioned blown up first front door.
“Is it at least mostly closed?” I asked.
“Yeah, about eighty percent,” Ellen said.
“Good enough,” I said, grabbing my coat and hat and a belt loaded with supplies. “Ladies, it’s time we started planning our getaway. Everyone down to the basement, pronto!” The ladies all gathered their stuff and made for the back stairway.
Over the stolen walkie-talkie, I suddenly heard someone say my name. “Hey, Eddie, y’all in there? You ready to surrender, or do you need to change your britches first?”
I picked up the walkie-talkie and hit the button. “Ah, Clarissa. I didn’t expect they’d bring you and you thugs in this soon. How’s tricks?”
“Well, can’t complain too much, y’know,” Clarissa Williams said. “They do let me blow a buncha shit up, so that’s nice.”
“Well, they will just give a gun – or a grenade, I guess – to anybody these days, won’t they?” I buckled the belt around my waist, pulled on my coat and hat, and headed for the back stairway after my companions. I stopped for a moment, though, and flipped on all the countermeasures and set the building to implode in about fifteen minutes.
“Hey, just so you know, Clarissa, the building is rigged with Compound 15 and probably won’t be standing in another, oh, ten, fifteen minutes. Just FYI.”
“That’s right-neighborly of ya, Hazzard,” Clarissa said. “I’ll have you caught by then, though.” The back wall of my office blew inward at that moment, and there was Clarissa, hanging on to the chain of a wrecking ball that she’d just sent slamming into my office. “Howdy, Eddie,” she called out. Clarissa was exactly as I remembered her: short, maybe 5’2”, with an undercut that was dyed a riot of colors. She wore combat fatigues and was holding an assault rifle. There was a bandolier over her right shoulder that held enough grenades to blow up a small country. She had the gun pointed right at me.
“I’ll thank ya kindly to put yer hands up and wait to be captured, Eddie,” she drawled. I reached for the sky as she jumped off the wrecking ball and landed in the office. “So, you put up a right-nice tussle, Eddie, I’ll give ya that. But it’s over. I’ve got you surrounded. Time to give it up.”
“Hey, I know when I’m beat,” I said, my hands held high. “Right now isn’t that time, though.” The countermeasure for the conference room went off at that moment: a massive flashbang grenade that blinded Clarissa but that I was ready for. I kicked her gun out of her hands and took off for the staircase, hoping like hell I had enough time to get down at least a few stairs before she opened up with that gun or one of the other half-dozen I was sure she was carrying.
My luck held. I leaped down the stairs three at a time, breathing hard and praying I wouldn’t feel a bullet between my shoulder blades anytime soon. When it didn’t happen, I put on a burst of extra speed and hit the door to the basement.
It was dark down in the basement. I could hear the generators chugging away far across the basement, but none of the lights seemed to be working down here. “Ellen? Maya? Vera?” I called out. No one answered. Maybe they were already out of the building and getting away? I hoped that was the case, but I feared the worst. “Ladies? Are you down here?”
“Just me,” came Clarissa’s voice from behind me. I whirled around just in time to be hit by a taser. Thousands of volts surged through my body, causing convulsions and dropping me to the floor in a twitching heap. “I gotta admit, that was an impressive effort, Eddie,” she said as she ambled toward me. “Not impressive enough, mind ya, but you were up against the best.” Clarissa stood over me triumphantly. “Nice to know our final battle went exactly the way I thought it would.”
“This is, like, the third time we’ve ever even come across each other, and one of the earlier times was when you cut in front of me at the DMV,” I replied, clutching my chest. I didn’t think I was having a heart attack, but I wasn’t not having one either, from the feel of things. Pro tip: Tasers are not toys, kids.
Clarissa reached down and grabbed me by the lapels. Turns out she was deceptively strong, easily hauling me back up to my feet and holding me upright. “Know what your problem is, Hazzard?” she asked.
“No, but I’m sure you’ve got some cliched answer to your own dumbass question,” I said.
“You’re a loser, Eddie Hazzard.” Clarissa said. “Always have been, always will be. An’ me? I’m obviously a winner.”
“That seems overly harsh,” I said, frowning. “But wanna know what your problem is?”
Clarissa chuckled. “Please, do tell.”
I held up my right hand and the four grenade pins I’d pulled. “Your problem is, you’re kinda dumb.”
Clarissa shoved me away and started struggling with her grenade bandolier. I touched a button on my belt and ducked as a shimmering barrier rose up around me: a personal force field.
Clarissa had managed to remove the bandolier and tossed it across the basement. It skidded across the floor before exploding, throwing shrapnel everywhere. Some bits pinged off the force field surrounding me. Clarissa wasn’t so lucky. Some shrapnel caught her in the chest and flung her back. She hit the wall and slumped down onto the floor.
I got up and crossed over to where Clarissa lay unmoving. I had to deactivate my force field to check her pulse, which was strong. Clarissa would live, probably thanks in no small part to the heavy-duty Kevlar vest she was wearing under her fatigues.
“God, I hate you,” I muttered, “but I guess I’m glad you’ll live. Um, assuming your guys come down and get you before the building collapses.” I tipped my hat to her and made a break for the exit. Behind me, I could hear people clomping down the stairs like a herd of incontinent elephants. The rest of Clarissa’s Pinkertons had arrived, and I had no intention of sticking around to meet them.
The basement exit was a hallway that winded and twisted around for a few hundred meters before it opened out into another basement a few blocks away from headquarters. I hit a button next to the door to this new basement and a rumble ran up the corridor behind me as the hallway collapsed. No use letting Clarissa’s goons have an easy time following us, after all.
The Long Fall Into Darkness Page 13