"Heartbeat"
By: Sarah Carey
8:06 a.m.
"Benson? Lieutenant Benson?" a nostalgic sounding voice whispered and crackled, pleading from the other end of the phone. Her accident was thick, combined with hints of fear and possibly pain. The sound sent chills down Olivia's back,
"This is she," Olivia offered, sitting up abruptly out of bed. She began rubbing her head with her free hand, spider senses now tingling and she was thankful Lucy had taken Noah for a sleep over.
It had been a grueling few weeks at work, having a serial rapist on the loose. The perp was somewhat of a brilliant yet sick mind and they'd had a hard time discerning his MO let alone tracking him. If it wasn't for the yellow rose he'd left with each of the victims before assaulting them, there'd be nothing linking them together at all.
And last night when she came home after yet another twelve hour shift, she'd seen it there. A limp and lifeless yellow rose laying against the door. She had decided to let Lucy take Noah, that way if it wasn't just someone playing a prank she'd know he'd be safe. Shaking away the cobwebs she tried again,
"May I ask who I'm speaking with?" she inquired politely; when the person hadn't spoken up. The faint sound of their shaky breath was the only indication the call hadn't dropped.
Looking at the clock on the night stand, she saw the time reflected back at her as she hopped out of bed.
8:07 a.m.
She made a mental note of it as she dressed in haste. She had been doing this job long enough to know when something was wrong. The woman on the other end began speaking against, confirming her suspicions.
"I was told to call you, if I ever… if anything-" she began unable to get the words out properly.
"If you can't tell me who you are, perhaps you could tell me how I can help?" Olivia questioned reassuringly, hoping to get some answers.
"They have guns, lots of guns, and the children will be arriving soon…" her voice faded replaced now with inexplicable sobs. "I'm their principle, the vice president is dead, and I think the secretary is dead. I don't know if you're the right one to call, they didn't check emf or a phone and I knew this was my only chance, I knew I had to," she spoke fighting back the tears.
Before she could question any further she heard the woman rambled praying incoherently to herself on the other line. She replayed the women's words I her mind as quickly as she could trying to pick out the facts. What schools were near her? Had she dealt with any victims who were teachers lately? Was this somehow some sort of sick trick?
"Is anyone in any danger," Olivia probed, knowing she needed to treat this case as seriously as if it were unfolding in front of her, "are there children in danger?" she clarified, halting her motions, half-dressed.
If this was serious, this could be an immediate all to the FBI, to their SWAT. This was out of the rank or jurisdiction of SVU even if she was a Lieutenant now. At the mention of guns, and children Olivia felt her own blood begin to seethe. The understanding that this didn't feel like a prank washing over her. Her eyes were wide as she braced herself for a response, trying to gage the severity of the situation.
"Yes," the woman confirmed, muffling a sob.
"Mam, where are you?" Olivia inquired, grabbing a pen and pad from her night stand while scribbling down everything she could remember. The woman's accent sounded Hispanic, maybe Cuban? Definitely older, distraught but coherent, she worked at a school, there were possibly two dead, men with guns,
The more she wrote the more terrified Olivia became.
8:09a.m.
"St. Theresa's Charter School for girls," the woman responded, now feeling far away, "the one in the Bronx," she added as an afterthought knowing they were all over the city.
"You don't have much longer," she cried, "Please help the children."
"Are you hurt?" Olivia asked, hearing the turn in the conversation.
"I'm in a janitor's closet, and yes, I've been stabbed," she offered, now breathless.
"Mam, just try to stay with me. Leave the knife wherever it is. I'm going to get you help. But I need you to help me first, how many men did you see? I need to assess the situation so we can get a team in there,"
"Four," the woman offered, her voice sounding quieter and farther away. "Maybe more."
Olivia could hear gun shoots erupting in the back ground.
"Mam, are you still there?" Olivia pleaded, putting the phone on speaker and ripping on her boots.
"I have to go now," the woman whispered, almost inaudibly over the gunfire. There was a break in the shoots, when Liv heard men screaming in a foreign language she couldn't make out,
"And Olivia," the woman addressed her, as informally as if they'd met before, "take care of my Rafa"
The gunfire exploded louder, evidently ricocheting off the surrounding walls. The woman's voice remained even, but she spoke no longer. Liv's fingers encircled the phone, gripping the device as tight as she could. As her knuckles were turning white she swore the device may snap in half from the force she was exerting. There were few times in her life she experienced this feeling of helplessness, and now as the muffled prayers of this stranger resounded through the phone, was one of them.
Rafa?…- Olivia considered, still holding the phone to her ear, hoping this woman could feel her unspoken support through the phone. She wasn't alone, she was going to find her. But why did that name sound so familiar. The voice, the accent, eliciting feelings of nostalgia until suddenly her hand dropped the phone.
The weighted item slid through her now sweating fingers, until it dropped to the floor, hiding on the bottom edge creating a thud noise and flipping to land on its screen. No! Olivia whispered, her heart now thumping painfully against her chest.
She could feel her hands, the tingles spreading like wildfire through her body. She leaned over grasping at the ground for her phone. Her eyes could barely see through the tears now beginning to well up, when she realized that she knew exactly who was on the other end of that phone.
"Mrs. Barba!" Olivia mumbled, attempting to clear the emotion from her voice, but she must have set her phone down because all Olivia could hear was a barely audible praying, in a rushed mumble like fashion before the praying was replaced by a thunderous crashing sound.
The gunfire erupted louder, and faster, until the call was dropped.
12:03p.m.
The only rebounding noise inside the squad room was the printer shaking, as it spit out various documents. The sound of the old rickety machine gasping towards its last breath- was the only one plaguing the air of the distinctly quite squad room. The eerie silence, coupled with the egg shells everyone seemed to be walking on, was creating an uncharacteristic scene in the 16th precinct.
Carisi opened his desk drawer to search for a pen when he heard the printer finish, upchucking its final massacred tree particle. Rollins opened her desk drawer to retrieve a clip, and stood to grab the papers. A buzz from her cell phone shook her back pocket, and caused her to jerk; causing the warm stack of papers she just retrieved, to explode in her hands, and glide towards the ground in a tornado like fashion.
Blueprints of the layout to St. Theresa's Charter – Bronx, littered the ground, alongside fire escape routes, and google maps of the surrounding perimeter.
A tin container of paper clips knocked over and cascaded across Carisi's metal desk, when he turned around and kneeled down to help his best friend. The paperclips washed across the desk, down onto the dirty linoleum, subsequently adding to the noise.
Carisi's cheeks blushed, when he saw his hands tremble slightly as he handed a few sheets of paper back to Rollins. Just before he stood up, he turned around, knees still bent, and smacked his cheek directly into his desk drawer.
"Son of a…" he called out, stroking his cheek gently as he slammed the offending drawer shut.
Fin rubbed his hands over his face, attempting to imagine himself anywhere else at the moment. A man of few words, and many hidden emotions, he tried to keep his thoughts in check. When Liv had called him into her office earlier he was concerned she was at her breaking point. But that was two hours ago, and he wasn't sure how much more she could take.
They had been in a lot of tough situations together, and they'd made it through them, but none quite like this. Every one of them had been on edge since receiving their Lieutenant's call around 9 o'clock that morning. Making it back to the squad room in record time they were quickly updated on the specifics of the case.
Liv had alerted Dodd's first who assured her he'd call the appropriate channels and for her to meet him immediately. After filling everyone in she assured him she was ready to move in but was told by 1PP, and hostage negotiations they needed to sit back, and wait. There was something about the look in Liv's eyes, the uncharacteristic way her hands shook. This case, 1PP feared, was too close to home.
Hearing something smashing into the wall of her closed office door, the team knew better than to ask for an update. It was rare for Liv to become so unhinged; even after William Lewis she never seemed to allow her façade of composure to be broken. After a few more seconds of debating Fin decided to make sure Liv was OK.
They team had been doing all the preparing they could in case they were called in for back up. Or, more likely, a rouge operation. None of them were happy with the Dodd's decision for them to stand down. While they knew they would never be allowed to take point on a case so far out of their jurisdiction they were shocked they weren't allowed on scene as a professional curtesy.
Rafael hadn't been seen in over a year, but the loyalty and ties of friendship bound them together for eternity. However, now Lucia was the only family Barba had now that he had "moved on" from SVU. Knowing this, they'd be damned if they didn't' do everything in their power to save her.
Dodd's and Olivia quickly decided that they wouldn't call Barba, until they knew something concrete. They weren't even entirely sure they still knew how to get ahold of him since his subsequent transfer back to Bronx. There had been talk of him receiving a promotion a few months back, but since then no one had really heard anything.
Rollins stood to align their bullet proof vests, gunshot shields, ammunition. Carisi now arranged their blueprints making sure everything was stacked up on a table underneath the bulletin board. Easily accessible items if Liv were to make the call they go to the Bronx to access the situation themselves.
Each of them knew that they could lose their jobs if they crossed out of their jurisdiction, after being given a direct order to stand down. But they were willing to do it, if Liv only asked.
12:11p.m.
As Fin stood to approach her office door, a single loud pitched ring sliced through the air of the squad room. A ring heard so infrequently in the modern age, that it took everyone a second to realize the sound was coming from Finn's desk phone. He went to reach for it, locking eyes with Rollins, when suddenly hers began ringing as well.
Fin's hand stilled mid-air, as the entire room came to a halt. Then three, four, five, different desk phones began ringing at the same time.
Olivia stepped out of her office cautiously, donning mascara stained eyes. There was a small cut on her cheek, obvious ricochet from whatever it was she had smashed. When she stepped into the bull pen, to check her hearing she instinctively reached for her weapon, as the entire squad mirrored her actions.
While she wasn't sure what good it would do, but the gun had become an additional limb and a comfort when facing the unknown. Carisi reached to grab for his phone but Olivia held her hand up, stopping him.
"Finn," Olivia countered confidently, motioning to her Sargent to instruct him to grab the phone.
With a simple nod he reached for the receiver almost anxious for the news. They'd been pacing the floors for hours waiting on hostage negotiation or ESU to give them some sort of update. Dodd's had assured him he'd taken care of everything, and would update them but they hadn't heard a word in over an hour.
An hour ago, when Dodd's did finally call Liv he told her to stand down; not once, not twice, but three times. They threatened to pull her shield if she violated a direct order again, and it wasn't until then that she finally calmed down enough to listen to them. The entire school had been taken over and there were a few hundred children being held hostage at gun point. Lucia, was the principle of the charter school.
"Yeah," Fin replied noncommittally, and after a voice on the other end said something else, he replied "yes," more confidently before touching the speaker button, and motioning to Liv to come there.
"Captain Murphy for Lieutenant Benson, NOW" Murphy barked his baritone voice echoing off the squad room walls unable to contain his rage.
"Captain here," Olivia replied curiously, stepping closer to phone. Dodd's hadn't mentioned anything about Murphy being involved. If someone from their Manhattan team was already there, why wasn't her squad allowed to assist?
"We had to use the landline, your cell phones maybe tapped. Don't use them, or the radios." He ordered, as Olivia looked to Finn wondering why they were hearing from their ex lieutenant turned Captain. Murphy was supposed to still be undercover working a sex trafficking ring. The same sex trafficking ring that produced the father of Olivia's foster son.
"The sting goes deeper than we thought, it leads all the way back to what I started working undercover on the west coast," Murphy spoke quickly, as the team huddled around Liv trying to make out what he was saying. "The teachers Olivia, they're a part of the ring," he added, hoping she was understanding his involvement.
The ringing phones began echoing again in the background, and Rollin reached to answer hers, when just in time, Murphy yelled,
"Don't take any other calls, unplug those phones now, or you won't be able to follow the next order I give you,"
Rollins looked at her boss, hand resting upon the not retrieved receiver.
"Do you still trust me Liv?" Captain Murphy asked, realizing no one hadn't spoken a word since she took the phone.
"Yes," she replied automatically, knowing that this man had risked his shield for her, and she would damn well return the favor.
"Then get your team down here now, Bronx hostage team and their SVU unit have been infiltrated by the ring, I can't trust any of them, and I can't alert them by calling FBI. Dodd's is being told to stand down and he specifically ordered me not to call you. There's a school of three hundred and fifty kids in there, being locked in the auditorium by a half dozen members of the ring."
Olivia's mind was racing a mile a minute. It was finally Finn who spoke up,
"But what does the ring want to do with some measly charter school in the Bronx?" he asked, placing words to the questions lingering in all of their minds.
"They know Bronx SVU arrested their general and they're trying to negotiate for his release. I'm second in command in Bapoloa, but this is the Degante Sector and I have no pull her. Thankfully my UC hasn't been compromised, but they've already killed a few people. I can't take them on alone, and I can't trust Bronx to keep me alive."
"So what do you need from us?" Rollins asked, huddling next to Liv and Finn.
"I can get you inside the building, have you ever seen it?" Murphy asked,
"We have a blue print of layout, we can see fire exits two and four seem like the best routes," Rollins answered, carrying the layout over to the bulletin board and pining it up.
"Use exit point two before the auditorium entrance, can you see it?"
"Yeah, we got it," Carisi responded.
"I'll disable the fire alarms now, and Lieutenant, Rollins stays back, or none of you come, that's an order" Murphy declared. Liv turned towards Rollins quirking her eye brow for a second, before turning back to the phone.
"Deal," she agreed, holding her hand up before Rollins could protest. "We'll be there stat,"
12:14p.m.