Chapter One: Trapped
March 2013
"Carter, I'm following him into the Federal Reserve Bank on Liberty," John Reese spoke into his cell phone. He paused a moment to listen for Joss Carter's response.
"I'm almost there," Joss answered back, her voice raspy from walking very fast. She knew that the present situation John was in was potentially dangerous, and she didn't want to take any chances.
Their current person of interest was 33 year old Martell Russo, and John and Finch had narrowed down the perpetrator to be Martell's estranged husband, Dominick. Martell worked as a teller at the Federal Reserve Bank, and Dominick was rushing there clad in a long black overcoat covering his body, dark sunglasses covering his face, and a New York Yankees baseball cap covering his head.
The moment John had spotted Dominick that morning hailing a cab, he knew that the husband looked as though he was ready to take action—whatever that was. As John followed him closer and closer to Liberty Street, he knew Dominick was heading to the bank and it wasn't going to end well for someone. He then called Joss.
Joss knew that when John launched the emergency flares, he really needed her. He didn't call as often as Finch did because John, in her estimation, took way too many chances. So she abruptly left her desk and headed toward Liberty Street.
As she entered the building, Joss could see John standing in the center of the large lobby with his arms outstretched. Other people also stood motionless throughout the room. Many looked as though they had been trying to seek refuge under a table or behind anything that might shield them from the impending danger.
As Joss entered the doors, all of them—except for John—turned to look at her and away from the unkempt, unshaven, stocky man in the long black overcoat. He was in the lobby between John and the teller counter where Martell stood frozen with an expression of horror on her face. That was when Joss saw what John and the others had seen: Dominick holding a semi-automatic pistol with one hand and his coat open with the other, exposing the bomb vest he was wearing.
John's eyes continued to be dead-locked on Dominick.
Dominick's hands were shaking as he screamed out, "I told you till death do us part!"
"It doesn't have to end this way," John calmly stated.
"Who are you? Why are you involved in my business?" Dominick yelled as he looked over at John.
John could hear Finch talking in his ear through his earpiece.
"John…John…this situation looks really bad. I'm…I'm not sure what to do," Finch muttered from the library into his cell phone to his partner. Finch continued after taking a short breath, "I just don't understand why the Machine is not giving us enough warning anymore." He was greatly worried about the Machine and about John. However, he had witnessed John getting out of some pretty harried situations, so his focus shifted back and forth between the failings of the Machine and his partner.
"Mr. Russo, let us help you," Joss said as she approached where John was standing.
"I told my baby we would be together forever," Dominick cried with his heavy New York accent. "I meant till death do us part…. I meant it baby…I meant it. I thought you meant it, too."
Tears began running in pelts down Martell's face.
"I meant it baby…don't you understand?" Dominick said as he, too, wept.
John interjected, "It's going to be okay Dominick. Can I call you Dominick?"
Dominick turned around again to look at John with an inquisitive look on his face. "Who are you? How do you know my name?" he quietly and slowly asked John.
John didn't immediately answer. After a few silent moments, he calmly stated, "I'm here to help you."
"I don't care who you are!" Dominick yelled as he reached down, fumbling his hands throughout the vest as he maintained eye contact with John. He then broke their stare and looked down toward the bottom of his bomb vest.
John wasn't sure what Dominick was doing but hoped that the heavy vest was getting uncomfortable.
At that moment, several people saw that Dominick was preoccupied and began scurrying toward tables and chairs under which they could try and shield themselves from harm's way. Dominick didn't respond to their movement. His target was behind the steel and Formica counter; the others were irrelevant to him.
"That vest looks heavy and uncomfortable, Dominick. Why don't you go ahead and take it off. You've made your point," John stated as he glanced up at Martell, seeing her face smeared with black lines of mascara that had joined her tears as they ran down her cheeks.
Dominick frantically fumbled with the vest. He then threw down his gun and allowed both hands to pat at the bottom of the vest.
John saw the gun coming to the floor as a positive sign that perhaps Dominick wasn't as prepared as he should have been.
Joss, on the other hand, was still quite alarmed by the vest, "I'm NYPD! Get down under the counter!" she yelled toward the tellers. "The rest of you take cover as best as you can!"
Within a few seconds, Martell and her fellow tellers ducked under the countertop. Several people in the lobby began running toward the bank's side exit door.
"Marty, don't you get it?" Dominick screamed. "You took the same vows! It was till death do we part. Don't you see? We have to go out together…. Here…now."
Martell could be heard weeping under the counter.
"Our vows didn't say you could leave me...and then screw someone else!"
Joss yelled toward the counter, "Do not come out from under that counter! Stay where you are unless you hear me telling you otherwise!"
Dominick turned to look at Joss, his expression shifting to manic.
John likened Dominick's expression to Jack Nicholson's in The Shining when he imitated Ed McMahon. He then began moving toward Dominick.
Joss could see that John, as usual, was not thinking about his own safety. For as long as she had known him, he always acted as though he carried a death sentence. He was always so eager to sacrifice himself and put himself in harm's way. She reached forward and grabbed John's arm. "No," she whispered. "We need to get back. Martell…the others…are out of the direct path of harm. Now I need you to do the same."
John looked at her. He wasn't used to such genuine concern. He had been growing accustomed to Finch, but now there was Carter entering into the equation. He tensed against her grasp.
"John…listen to her!" Finch yelled into his cell phone.
John reached up and turned off his ear piece, cutting his direct tie with Finch. He knew things might not end well, and he didn't want Finch to also have to endure this situation in the event that it didn't end well.
Joss clinched down harder onto John's arm as she said, "No John." Her eyes then caught his. She could tell that he was torn as to what to do.
Then they both were alerted by Dominick's actions. He abruptly moved his hands upwards away from the vest until they could see that he was holding a small cylindered object connected to a wire to the bottom of the vest.
It was the kill switch.
"He's got the kill switch in his hand," John calmly whispered to Joss, who continued to clinch even harder on his arm.
Joss knew that John's instinct would be to rush forward and tackle the man.
John recognized what she was doing, and he could feel her fingernails digging into his arm. "My piece," he said, as he wriggled free of her grasp. "We need to take him out of commission."
Joss grabbed at John and caught his hand, pulling him back away from Dominick.
John allowed Joss's insistent tugs to force him backwards. He never made a move he wasn't sure of, but in this instance, he had to trust that Joss knew what she was doing.
Dominick was getting increasingly nervous, constantly glancing up at the clock on the wall behind the teller counter. His hands were shaking almost uncontrollably, and sweat and tears continually ran down his face.
Getting behind a center column, both John and Joss reached for their guns to take Dominick down. But, before they could even level their weapons, they heard the explosion. Neither of their brains had time yet to comprehend that Dominick had already pushed the kill switch. The explosion was massive.
Everything at that moment felt like slow motion to them both.
John's brain focused on protecting Joss. He needed to make sure she was safe...having brought her into that situation. He then grabbed her as the explosion pushed them backwards and then down. He shielded her underneath him.
Joss conceded to John's protective instinct.
John could feel debris flying around and pieces of the ceiling caving in on top of him. He was cognizant of continuing to shield Joss under his large frame to protect her from the fallout of the explosion that was happening all around them.
The next moment all was dusty and black with screams and coughs coming from various places throughout the bank. John could hear that a water line had burst. Then he heard the buzzing and hums of computers and other electrical appliances that had been caught in the cross wires of the bomb. Sparks continued to fly all about the bank.
Bloody chunks of Dominick had blown all over the bank.
As the aftermath of the explosion calmed, screams then crashes could be heard as people moved debris to free themselves from the fallout.
"John…John…are you alright?" Carter muttered as she tried to catch her breath. She could feel John on top of her like a baseball glove.
"I'm okay," John softly spoke. "But it feels like something has my legs pinned."
"Let me squeeze out and see," Joss answered. She maneuvered her body out from underneath John's protective shield and slid around to his legs to see what was on top of him. "It looks like part of the ceiling…I think," she finally said. She could see that a beam had ripped the flesh on his right leg, so she believed it had to have been greatly damaged or even broken.
"Go check on the others, Joss. I'm okay. Check on the tellers and the others who were still in here."
Joss hesitated but knew he was right. She crawled out and then moved throughout the bank to try and find survivors. "If you're alive and able, please show yourself!" Joss screamed. She coughed as the dust burned her throat. "I'm NYPD! Please come out if you can!"
John clicked on his earpiece and stated, "Finch, we're okay. Dominick took himself out…."
"Oh thank God," Finch answered. "Martell…the others?" he asked.
"I don't know yet. Joss went to check."
"John…" Finch exclaimed, his voice revealing his relief that John was alive. "Are you hurt?"
"Just my leg. I'm pinned, but I'm alive," he answered. "I'll check in with you as soon as I can. Okay Harold? Try not to worry."
"Okay, John," Harold answered, exhaling a long pent-up breath. He got ready to tell John that he would take care of everything on his end but noticed that John had hung up. "First things first," Harold muttered aloud as he bustled throughout the library, not really thinking clearly.
John could hear Joss in the distance continuing to call for people to answer her if they could.
The six bank tellers, including Martell, each screamed out that they were trapped and slightly hurt but still alive, having been protected by the steel counter. Several other people lay about on the floor with injuries from the ball bearings, nails, and screws Dominick had used to make his vest. As Joss made her way around the lobby, she located three of the customers who had perished in the explosion. The others, although injured, seemed to have been protected fairly well from the immediate result of the blast.
Hearing the slight sound of sirens in the distance, Joss breathed a sigh of relief that help was on its way. She turned to go back to where John was lying to get an overall estimation of the extent of his injuries. As she crawled back, she could see the stream of water from the burst pipes running throughout the old oak floor.
John could hear Joss coming back to him and was conscious to control his breathing. His leg was in a great deal of pain. Cold air from the opening created by the blast in the side wall near the ceiling and the cold water running in streams toward him made his body temperature drop below normal. He could feel places on his forehead, arms, and chest that had been pierced with pieces of the shrapnel or debris. That pain was tolerable, though, he concluded. As he lay on his side, he could feel something sharp under the side of his rib cage, which caused him discomfort as he breathed. But as he saw Joss coming into sight, he brought his breathing back to a normal state so as to not alarm her of his injuries. He needed her to remain calm.
"John, you still okay?" Joss asked as she approached him.
Without moving his head, John shifted his eyes upwards to catch Joss's eyes. He forced a smile on his face. "Still here, Carter," he smirked at her.
"Did you hear the sirens?" Joss asked.
John raised his eyebrows.
"Help's not too far away. Just hang in there with me. Okay?"
"How many didn't make it?" John asked.
From his voice, she could tell he was in pain and having a difficult time breathing. She then felt the frigid March air and saw that the cold water had saturated his clothes and was running off from him in little bloody pools. "John, I want to try to see where all you've been injured."
John didn't respond. His eyes were closed, and his breaths were short and sharp.
Joss began moving off of him all of the debris that she could lift so she could get a better idea of his injuries.
"John! Stay with me, okay?" she said as she looked him over as best as she could. Most of his wounds looked painful but not life threatening.
"Talk to me, John. Okay? Tell me something I don't know about you," she said as she dabbed with her shirttail at the wound on his forehead near his temple.
As he felt her hands dabbing at his head, John opened his eyes and looked at her. He was feeling groggy from the wound but knew that she was right.
John gave out a little laugh. "That's quite an exhaustive list...and could take a year or more," he spoke in a low, calm tone. "And I hope it doesn't take that long to get us out of here."
"Come on, John. You know what I mean. Tell me something. Just talk to me. I don't care what it is. You need to stay alert until the emergency crews get us out of here.
"Okay," John said. Then there was a long pause.
Joss could tell that he was trying to decide what he would share with her. She waited without saying anything but then shifted her weight in her seated position to be closer to his face. She sat upon a few pieces of debris to avoid the direct path of the cold water flowing toward them.
"Did you know I was born in Puyallup, Washington?"
"I knew somewhere in Washington State," Joss answered.
John then paused a moment. "You know, I wasn't always like this," he stated a few moments later.
Joss thought that that was a strange thing to say but held back responding.
"When I was in the Army, I loved my job…I believed in what I was asked to do. I understood the differences between right and wrong…good and evil. The enemy was clear…. I always knew what I needed to do…and I understood why. My country needed me, and I gave her everything."
"I know exactly what you're saying," Joss interjected.
"I know you do." Then he paused for several more minutes. "As a Green Beret, I believed…"
Joss heard John's voice trail away but saw that he was still awake and alert. She waited quietly beside him.
"I served nine years before…" John said as his voice trailed off again.
"Before what?"
"Before…the NC...S…." John answered with the S spoken at barely an audible level.
Joss shook her head up and down. She knew that he was in the National Clandestine Service of the CIA, but she didn't know anything about his CIA career except that he was connected to many crime scenes around the world. Much of his CIA career, however, was classified with crime scene reports having been redacted. She herself had destroyed the only file she had been able to obtain from when he was in the Special Forces stationed at Fort Lewis in 2001.
John slightly shook his head from side to side. "In Operation Enduring Freedom, my mission was unconventional warfare. But it made sense." He then paused. "I made a difference."
Joss waited quietly. She knew that even though this had to have been hard for him, she believed he needed a friend to talk to.
"While in Afghanistan, we had a joint mission with the Special Operations Group. I was proud to be a Green Beret. I never intended to leave." John shook his head as though he realized he shouldn't be talking.
Joss knew that CIA training drilled complete secrecy into its officers. Even though people skills were important to get into the CIA, she knew that the training and the service itself made people detached and devious. Most agents were unable to maintain personal relationships as a result.
She presumed that this is what John was trying to say.
"I wasn't always like this," John repeated after another long pause.
"I don't understand," Joss quietly answered.
"A monster," John responded as he closed his eyes.
Joss wanted to reach forward and touch his hair or face but held back, not knowing exactly how John would respond to physical contact at that moment. She felt her throat burn with pain as she held back the emotional response her body naturally wanted to release. After a several moment pause, Joss finally stated, "Oh God, John. What have they done to you?"
Her question required no answer, so they remained there together during that moment in time in silence.
