Muffled Echoes

by G. K. Parks

  I twisted around, surprising her by reversing our positions and using the momentum to flip her over my shoulder and onto the floor. The other two came at me simultaneously, and in this compromised position, I was thrown sideways to the ground. While one of them straddled my hip and threw punch after punch at my face, I threw my arms up to defend my head while the other kicked me in the back.

  “Get off of her,” someone said.

  I struggled to move, but I was pinned in this position. In my injured state, I was too weak to fend them off. Every blow resulted in white-hot pain, further diminishing my ability to get free.

  “Hey,” one of the hookers yelled, “get in here. They’re gonna kill her.”

  I managed to shift onto my stomach, knocking the woman who was on top of me off balance. Her own momentum from throwing punches pushed her sideways, but before I could subdue her or retaliate, another hard kick landed on my previously bruised back. Rushed footsteps raced down the corridor, and I heard the sound of a gun being cocked.

  “Stop,” Lucca commanded, aiming at the women. The barrage stopped, and I shifted slightly, afraid to move. “Get this door open now,” Lucca yelled to the cops who were slow to respond. “Now.” The cage swung open, and the three women were handcuffed at gunpoint and pulled out of the cell. Lucca entered and knelt beside me. “We need a medic.”

  “No, we don’t. I’m fine. I just suck at making friends,” I said.

  “That’s an understatement.”

  My heart was pounding, and I was dizzy and shaky. It hurt all over, especially my back and side which were probably bleeding again. Luckily, I had a black t-shirt on that concealed the bloodstains. “I let them win. I didn’t think I could afford to have assault charges added to my arrest record.”

  “The sad part is I believe you.” Lucca gave the cops a stern look. “She’s not leaving my sight. I want an explanation for this, and I want it now. Get Delaney and Collins down here.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “No one did anything wrong. Apparently, those ladies didn’t like the way I looked or smelled.” I grunted and placed my hand on the bench to steady myself. “At least I’ll have defensive wounds this time.”

  “It’s not funny, Parker,” Lucca warned. “Stop protecting them.” His eyes conveyed a message that I didn’t understand. “I want her transferred somewhere else. There’s an obvious bias, and her safety is in question.”

  From the appearance of a white shirt with bars, I knew the captain had come down to see what the commotion was about. Lucca left me for a moment, standing and speaking to the man in charge. Normally, that would be Jablonsky’s job, but he wasn’t here. At least my partner had my back.

  After a few minutes, I pulled myself to my feet. Since I was standing, the police decided that my injuries weren’t life-threatening. At Lucca’s insistence for a transfer, Jablonsky was called and our meeting place was changed to the district attorney’s office. The DA agreed to review the evidence personally and make a decision as to whether or not the police could keep me in custody. Transportation was readied, and I was handcuffed and led to the garage. An officer opened the back door of the SUV and helped me inside.

  “We’ll bring her right back here once the DA sees the evidence we have against her,” the police captain said. “Regardless of your assertions, she’s wanted in connection to the murder of a police detective, and that’ll be taken very seriously.”

  One officer sat in the back with me, and two men piled into the front. Apparently being assaulted meant I posed a greater danger now than when I was originally brought into the station. Go figure.

  “I’ll tail you,” Lucca said. “And if anything else happens to her between here and there, so help you.” They grumbled a response, and off we went.

  Twenty

  “Dammit, can’t you take off these cuffs?” I asked. My hands were behind my back, and my entire arm ached. I felt panicky, and I contributed that to being bound. It was one of my triggers from previous trauma. A sheen of sweat covered my skin, and my breathing was coming in shallow gasps. I couldn’t get enough oxygen in, and considering the way my heart was behaving, I suspected I might be hyperventilating. “I won’t go anywhere. I promise.”

  The officers ignored me, so I inhaled deeply, shut my eyes, and slowly blew out a breath, trying to calm myself. As soon as my eyes closed, the dam broke, and my mind was flooded with images and lost memories. At last, I knew what happened.

  I’d been at work that day, researching Shade. The increased activity at their base of operations had seemed suspicious, and I discovered an unknown shipment was destined for delivery soon. Unfortunately, DHS, the CIA, and the rest of the intelligence community had yet to determine what Shade was selling, but something about the passports had bothered me.

  Evidently, one of Shade’s leaders, Niko Horvat, had a cousin in the United States. They looked extremely similar on their passport photos, and I suspected that could be how Niko managed to travel freely without triggering an alert. DHS had heard whispers that he’d been within our borders recently, but without any passport dings and no sightings on private or commercial aircraft, it seemed unlikely until now.

  Horvat was the most common surname in Croatia, and no agency had taken the time to run down all of Niko’s familial connections. However, I didn’t have anything better to do. Leafing through the phonebook, I had scanned the pages and decided that a field trip was in order.

  The small Croatian community was already being monitored by the closest precinct. Apparently, they’d received numerous reports from tourists of counterfeit goods being sold, thefts and robberies occurring, and some isolated incidences of what might be gang violence. Most of these claims were minor and unsubstantiated, but it never hurt to check.

  After my trip to the prosecutor’s office that morning, I detoured to the police station before returning to the federal building. Somehow, I’d forgotten this detail, and I considered the unnerving possibility that some of the fog had been due to an emotional aspect of the trauma. Shaking it off, I continued replaying the details in my mind, letting the flood of memories wash over me.

  Upon entering the precinct, I’d been sent to Detective Greg Donaldson, robbery division. After briefing him on the possibility of a terrorist cell in the making, he contacted his confidential informant, Ivan, in order to aid in gathering additional intel. Ivan had been skittish, but after a bit of arm twisting, Det. Donaldson got him to agree to answer a few questions.

  I’d left the OIO that evening, expecting to meet Ivan and the detective in some back alley. Instead, Donaldson met me outside the restaurant, told me that Ivan was tending bar, and that he had reason to believe that Niko’s cousin was also working at Pepper. Apparently, a lot of the cooks and busboys were Croatian.

  I entered the restaurant alone, took a seat at the bar, and waited for Donaldson to follow. A few minutes later, he sat down next to me. Ivan barely said anything to either of us, but he wrote notes on our napkins and placed them beneath our drinks. It was an odd way of asking questions, and I didn’t feel right about being exposed with a potential target somewhere inside the restaurant. However, the detective had given me little choice since he hadn’t provided any details about his CI other than a first name, which might have been an alias.

  Pepper was practically empty by 9:30, and by ten, Donaldson and I were the only patrons left inside. It was a small operation, and Ivan told his boss he’d clean up. The servers bolted once the floors were vacuumed, and I didn’t think any of the other staff remained. Ivan had gone into the kitchen to see if the chef or any dishwashers were straggling behind, and I had gone outside to wait.

  From an onlooker’s perspective, I was a single lady calling for a cab which might have been why I wasn’t gunned down immediately. Someone had seen me talking to Donaldson all night and figured I was his girlfriend. It was a busboy or maybe a waiter that had come up to speak to me. That detail was fuzzy, but he had pushed me back inside without ever revealing his identity. He
wore a hooded jacket that he kept over his head, and the shadows had concealed his face. His voice was nothing more than a few grunts. Upon reentry, the dining room was empty, and I didn’t know what happened to Donaldson or Ivan.

  Before I could say or do anything, a gun was shoved in my back. I was led into the kitchen where Donaldson was tied to a chair. Ivan was being beaten. The room was dark, and I couldn’t make out details, just the silhouette of figures moving around.

  “Let her go,” Donaldson said. “She has nothing to do with this. She’s just some woman I met. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “We can use her,” the man who was beating Ivan said. He left the nearly unconscious man on the floor and tossed Donaldson’s cuffs to the man behind me. “Chain her to a chair. She might be useful.”

  Donaldson gazed at me, shaking his head. I didn’t want to play along, but I didn’t know what was going on. He did. Or at least I thought he did. I let the man cuff my hands behind my back around the chair, and while I sat there, listening to the sounds of Ivan being beaten and questions being asked in a language that I didn’t understand, I felt the nail in the bottom of the chair.

  For the next twenty minutes, I dug my fingers into the wood, gouging out tiny chunks and tugging on the stubborn piece of metal. When Ivan became completely unresponsive, likely unconscious, the man turned his attention to Donaldson.

  “What do you want? Why are you here?” he asked.

  “Do you have any idea who you’re messing with?” Donaldson asked, full of moronic bravado. “I’m one of this city’s finest.”

  I began tugging more frantically at the nail. Donaldson wasn’t trained to deal with interrogations or torture. He hadn’t dealt with this before, and he was going to get himself and the rest of us killed. I shouldn’t have followed his lead. I should have done something sooner. I could have subdued the man who had me at gunpoint and stopped the shooter. Now, it was too late.

  Questions and rebukes continued in rapid succession. I couldn’t remember what they were about. Half of them weren’t even in English. At some point, when Donaldson’s lack of response had failed to appease the interrogator, the bastard crossed the room to me. He placed his hands on the seat of my chair and leaned over me. I could feel his breath on my neck. He inhaled deeply, letting out an amused sigh.

  “You’ll be fun,” he said. Donaldson screamed a protest, and I heard a cry of pain come from Ivan who must have woken up. “Maybe I’ll torture you first and see if that breaks his resolve.” Pushing my heels into the ground, I made the chair teeter backward, but his grip on the seat kept me from going over. “Naughty, naughty.” He waggled a finger in my face.

  “She doesn’t have anything to do with this,” Donaldson repeated. “She’s an innocent bystander. If you want to hurt someone, hurt me.” Apparently, chivalry wasn’t dead. It was just fucking stupid.

  “Who is she?” the interrogator asked.

  When Donaldson failed to offer a response, the man that had brought me back inside reached into my jacket. “Comrade, we have a problem.”

  Shit, my mind raced. He had spotted my gun. If he kept looking, he’d find my credentials too. My nails dug deeper, and I bit my lip to keep from screaming as the wood shards embedded themselves beneath my fingernails. He took my gun and held it out for Donaldson’s inspection.

  “Who are you?” the interrogator asked, turning back to me. “You’re with him. Are you another cop?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” I asked, finally prying the nail halfway out of the wood. “What the hell is any of this even about?”

  “You have a mouth,” he said. “This should make you more compliant.”

  He picked up a bottle of vodka from the top shelf where the cook had left it. He opened the bottle and leaned over me again. Grabbing my hair, he pulled my head back and forced the bottle into my mouth. The liquid burned, and I choked. I couldn’t breathe, and my body took over, swallowing and gasping at the same time, hoping to find a way to clear the airway and get oxygen inside. When the bottle was empty, he released the grip on my hair and threw the bottle into the wall. It shattered, and he picked up a piece of glass, returning to Ivan and Donaldson.

  I was drenched in vodka and dizzy from the ordeal. Taking a few breaths, I continued working on the nail, hearing voices and mumbles fill the room. My mind was drifting, and I felt disoriented. As soon as the nail was free, I manipulated it around, placing the end into the keyhole in the cuffs and struggling to unlock them.

  The interrogator crossed the room, angry and irate. He held the muzzle of my gun to my temple, barking questions at Donaldson. I felt the metal of the handcuffs release, and I dropped the nail, moving the metal link outward so I could get my hand free. The man turned the gun toward Ivan and fired twice before I was able to get my hand onto the gun. We struggled, and another shot went off.

  The other man, who had held me at gunpoint, tackled me from behind. He pinned my arms at my sides and forced me back into the chair. My gaze was locked on Donaldson, seeing the aftermath of the bullet that had gone through his skull. I vomited on the interrogator’s shoes, seconds away from my own oblivion.

  “You stupid pig,” the interrogator said, grabbing the back of my neck and slamming my head into the nearest counter.

  Everything went black, and the next thing I knew, I was being dragged outside. An SUV was parked close to the building, and inside the trunk were two plastic covered corpses. Then darkness returned.

  Opening my eyes to the sound of voices, I realized someone else was driving. The man who had conducted the interrogation was above me, sitting on the back seat, and my eyes stared at the dome light in the ceiling. It took a few moments before I realized I was lying on the floorboard. They were speaking Croatian, but from what I gathered, they were going to kill me and dump the bodies. That or we were all going to the Russian tea room. Even in my impaired state, I didn’t think this was about tea. The asshole noticed I was awake and pointed my own gun at me. I managed to sit up, and I stared at him.

  “Are you going to do it?” I asked.

  He aimed, and I grabbed the gun, shoving the webbing of my hand between the hammer and pin. He pulled the trigger, but it didn’t fire. A yelp escaped my lips, and he jerked the gun upward, but I refused to let go. We fought over the gun, and he snapped my wrist back with a pop. This time, I howled. He aimed again, and I grabbed the door handle, tumbling out of the vehicle before he could fire.

  I didn’t feel the impact. The alcohol acted like a numbing agent, and the pain from my wrist blocked a lot of my other nerve receptors. I must have blacked out momentarily, but when I opened my eyes, the violent spinning had made everything unbearable. When it finally stopped, I crawled out of the street. I had to get away. They’d be back in a second. They would kill me, and I couldn’t let that happen. I had to get help. Without knowing where I was or even cognizant of what I was doing, I stumbled forward. I had to get to the cops before the men could get to me. Someone had to survive to tell the police what happened to Detective Donaldson.

  A sudden squeal shook me out of my memory and back to the present. I was inside the police vehicle being brought to the district attorney’s office so the allegations against me could be assessed. Holy shit, who were those men at Pepper, and how could this be happening? The police vehicle veered to the right like the entire truck was off balance.

  “Radio for back-up. We’re under fire,” one of the cops in the front said. “Who the hell is shooting at us?”

  Suddenly alert, I sat up straight. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Before anyone could answer, something exploded at the side, and the vehicle tipped over onto the passenger’s side, sliding along the asphalt with a metallic shriek before coming to rest a few dozen yards away. Gunfire echoed outside, and glass broke. Shit. A few shots ripped through the truck, and I heard a groan. No one returned fire, and I managed to right myself from where I’d fallen against the side door. The man next to me was unconscious. His head had c
ollided with the window, and I didn’t know the extent of his injuries. The other cop seated on the passenger’s side was in similar shape. The driver had been shot, but he was breathing. Thankfully, it didn’t look like a fatal wound since I wasn’t in any condition to help anyone.

  Dammit, my hands were bound, and I was stuck between the two sets of seats. Finally, I slipped one leg down against the door and righted myself, inching sideways toward the cop beside me.

  “Hey, officer, look alive,” I said, hoping he was. “Wake up.” He grunted but didn’t move. Flipping onto my back, I wriggled around, lifting my legs until my feet touched the opposite door, and I could slide my hands down past my butt and upward. Bending my knees, I rolled forward, landing on my face but freeing my hands from behind my back. “At least that’s a start.”

  The growing sound of gunfire made my panicked state worse. Prioritizing my actions, I awkwardly felt for his pulse with my handcuffed hands. After finding a steady rhythm, I searched through the unconscious officer’s pockets, but I couldn’t find his cuff key. So I took his service piece, figuring I needed it more than he did at the moment. I leaned into the front seat. But with my bound hands and the sideways vehicle, I couldn’t maneuver around to check the vitals on the man riding shotgun. The windshield had sustained a few bullet holes, and one of them had gone through the driver. It pierced his chest on the right side below his collarbone. He was gasping.

  “Hey, take easy breaths,” I said. “I’m gonna get you out of here.”