Knuckles turned the doorknob, gave me a shake of his head, and I nodded. He dropped his bag, withdrew a small steel battering ram that looked like a cut-off telephone pole, cinching his hands into the handles on top. We called it the Bam-Bam, for obvious reasons.
He looked at me, knowing this was the endgame, and I rotated to the door, putting my barrel on the window.
I turned behind me, seeing my men spread out in security positions, protecting against all threats.
Into the radio, I whispered, “I have control. Stand by.”
The barrels of all weapons rotated to the door, the team closing into a stack.
“Five . . . Four . . . Three . . . Two . . . One . . . Execute, execute, execute.”
Chapter 48
Jennifer let the cable car door close, then took a seat across from the family of three—a man and a woman and a small child of about six.
She ignored them, turning to the window at the front of the car. The mother asked, “Where are you from?”
Not looking away, she said, “The United States.”
The father said, “Really? So are we. Whereabouts?”
She heard Dunkin say, “I’m not doing shit until you prove Nicole is alive.”
Torn between the mission and compromising herself with the family she was with, wanting them to just shut up, she turned back around and said, “I’m from South Carolina.”
On the radio, she heard, “Hey, hey, there’s no reason to pull a gun here. You won’t get the information on this thumb drive unless I give you the password.”
Jennifer pressed herself against the glass, wanting to jump between the cars, knowing what was coming. She heard the Asian through Dunkin’s radio, delivering the damage. “You still don’t get it. You are the password. And now I’ll cut it off.”
The mother said, “South Carolina? We’re from Florida. We’ve been to South Carolina. Small world.”
And Jennifer heard the bark of a pistol.
My mind now in assault mode, everything happened in slow motion. I saw Knuckles wind up, then hit the lock with the Bam-Bam, splintering it. The door bounced off of its jamb, and Knuckles ripped it open. I exploded inside, the first man in, and immediately went to the stairs I knew were there, hearing the team behind me. I entered the second level and found a man making a sandwich in the kitchen, wondering what the noise was about. I put two rounds into his head and kept going, racing down to the lower level, trying to find the ant pile of enemy.
I reached the family room at the lower level and saw two men leaping up from a couch. One of them raised a weapon, and I hit him with a double tap, then saw the second one spill over backwards from someone else’s rounds.
I kept clearing, reaching a door, then heard, “Jackpot. I say again, Jackpot.”
I entered a small storage area, bounced back, and found Knuckles with me.
He began racing down the hallway, and I followed, Brett right behind me, all of us thinking the same thing: speed. Clear every room. Eliminate the threat.
A man popped out of a room in front of us, saw the devil, and dove back inside. Knuckles kicked the door in, entering and shooting. I saw him go left, saw a body on the floor and went right, finding the room empty. We flowed back out, hitting room after room, but the rest of the house was empty.
Two minutes later, we were done. The house was clear, and Nicole was secure.
We’d killed five men, including one in the room with Nicole that Veep had dealt with.
He’d brought her downstairs, and she was almost catatonic. She had no idea what was happening, blubbering like she thought we were going to kill her. Brett, our designated medic, started working on her, checking her for wounds and monitoring her vital signs.
To the others, I said, “Start SSE. Find me something for Jake Shu.”
Knuckles and Veep started digging into the house like they’d just killed Osama bin Laden, and I turned to the girl, saying, “Hey, are you okay?”
She continued crying, not answering me. Brett said, “She’s stable. No wounds, and she can walk.”
I knelt down in front of her and took her hands, getting her attention. “Hey, it’s over. It’s all over.”
Her breath hitched, and then began to drop into a steady rhythm. I said again, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
She said, “Dunkin? Where is Dunkin?”
“You’ll meet him soon. I promise.”
She nodded for the first time, and I turned to Brett, saying, “Okay. Get her out of here. It’s a long trek back to the ferry, and we can’t afford to miss the next one.”
Chapter 49
Hearing the gunshot explode over her radio, Jennifer leaned forward into the glass, trying to see what had occurred in the car in front of her. The woman behind her said, “What part of South Carolina are you from?”
Jennifer didn’t respond, watching the cable car skirt the roof of a two-story animal enclosure, giraffes roaming around the ground outside. She saw the door open, and a man appear. He climbed out, hung for a moment, then dropped out of the car onto the roof, rolling over and scurrying to the wall. Inside the car she could see a body slumped over.
Dunkin.
She saw the killer slide over the side, hang for a moment, then drop out of sight. He appeared again, running across a small corral. He leapt over a moat, climbed a chain-link fence, flopped to the other side, and began sauntering back down the hill in the regular pedestrian path. Nobody seemed to have noticed the escape. No one pointing, no one chasing him, no nothing. Not even in her own cable car.
The mother said again, “What part of South Carolina? We’re from Naples.”
The edge of Jennifer’s car crested the building, the roof about a ten-foot drop away. She turned around and the mother recoiled at the expression on her face, pulling her child into her body. The husband stood up and said, “What’s wrong?”
Jennifer said, “I’m sorry. I have to go.”
“What?”
She jerked the emergency handle at the roof of the small car and the door slid open robotically. The mother screamed and the father advanced on Jennifer. She turned around and said, “Back off. I’m not going to harm you unless you try to stop me.”
He saw the same look the mother had, held up his hands in surrender, and sat down, protecting his family with his body. She nodded and swung out of the car, holding the railing on the outside of the door. She lowered herself to the bottom of the chassis, reached underneath, latching on to another rail with one hand and letting go with the other. Now hanging underneath the car, she looked below her, seeing the roof passing by, and let go, absorbing the fall with her legs and rolling over.
She stood up, seeing the husband glancing out the door as the car traveled on, a look of amazement on his face. She sprinted to the wall the killer had used and studied what was below her, not wanting to drop into a pen of lions. The corral was empty.
She slid over the side, grabbed a drainage spout, and began sliding down it as fast as one of the monkeys in the zoo. She jogged to the edge of the moat, judged the distance, then backed up, returning at a sprint. She launched herself into the air and cleared the far side, rolling again. She sprang to her feet and leapt up to the fence, clinging to the chain link like a lizard, scampered higher, then flung herself over the side, landing in a patch of bushes. She exited onto the walking path of the zoo, and just like the killer, nobody noticed her antics.