5:37 p.m.
Emily had slept about eight hours and now Alex, Mark, their boss, Jeff Thompson from D.C., Cheryl, her boss, Greg Mathews, his boss, Bob Krone, both of whom flew in from D.C., Donald Bilburn, a PR guy from D.C., and the Captain of the State Troopers were all crammed in her room to finally hear her speak. This would be their first glimpse of what happened at the barn- the phantom recordings were still lost. The troopers were now insisting they sent the recordings over to the OPC, but OPC was insisting that they hadn't gotten anything.
Frank, Duff, and Lia weren't allowed in (Lia offered to rig Cheryl up with a mic, but they were afraid it might interfere with all the machines Emily was hooked up to) and waited nervously outside with Emily's now irate family, as they were also not allowed in.
"Alright agent Lehman, we're going to record you, and I'm warning you now not to lie." Bob Krone warned her.
Emily nodded weakly at the man she'd never met, turning to Cheryl for a little guidance. Cheryl went against her better judgment and mouthed that everything would be fine.
"Alright, you can start now. When did everything go wrong?" They were not being gentle with her at all.
"We'd been trying to negotiate with the HT, Roy Donovan for several hours. We'd tried everything we could to convince him to give up, but every time we got close, the other three would talk him out of it." She paused to cough quietly and sip some water before continuing her story in her harsh rasp.
"Matt told him that his kids would be taken by child services, because his wife wouldn't be able to afford to take care of them on her own. He said that his kids would probably be split up, and that their foster families would tell them that their daddy was a bad man who tried to hurt lots of people. He seemed-" She was cut off.
"Whose idea was this tact?" Krone demanded.
"Mine," she said closing her eyes momentarily against the pain that had only be slightly numbed by the morphine. Krone and Mathews gave each other solemn looks and shook their heads.
"He seemed to be responding well, he asked Matt what he had to do to stop that from happening. Matt told him that if he gave up and let the hostages go, we'd talk to child services and get his wife financial assistance. Matt told him that the FBI would do everything it could to help their wives take care of their children. He said he'd think about it and hung up. That's when Cheryl called."
"What time did you call?" Mathews barked at Cheryl
"A quarter to one that morning sir." He nodded.
"Go ahead Lehman."
"Everything was going well, so I told her that. I filled her in on what had been going on, said we were making progress and then hung up." Mathews and Krone turned to Cheryl, who nodded confirmation.
"Donovan called back and said…"
Barn: Wednesday: 1/10/06: 12:52 p.m.
"We want to do this, we want to let these hostages go, but how do we know you'll keep your word?" Donovan demanded of Matt.
"You're going to have to trust me, I don't really have anything to prove my honesty." Matt explained.
"That ain't good enough man, we need somethin' more than that." He demanded back.
"What if we tell your wives? You four might be in prison, but your wives will be out, they can hold us to this." He suggested using the plural to make sure he knew the FBI was behind it, that it wasn't just Matt promising this.
He was silent for a while, before finally speaking. "Alright, but I want to hear you people explain this to them, leave the line open while you talk to them."
"I can do that, will you hold on for a minute?"
"Yeah, I ain't goin nowhere."
"Thanks." Matt said, before covering the phone with his hand, about to gesture to Emily to get the wives, though she was already on her way. Ten minutes later she'd returned with four angry women in tow.
Matt took the phone off hold, "Okay, Roy we've got them hear, and I'm going to explain this plan to them." Matt only heard silence back though.
"Roy, you still there?"
Again he heard nothing, but then a distant, "stupid douche," and a click.
"Roy? Roy? Roy! Man what happened?" Matt called into the phone just before it gave a dial tone.
"What happened?" Emily asked frowning.
"I don't know, he was there and then…shit, shit, shit." Matt waited a minute and then tried redialing the phone, Emily and four nervous women watching him.
It rang and rang but nobody picked up. He hung up, waited another few minutes and dialed a second time. Again, nobody picked up. He was starting to get very worried.
"I'm going to take them back across the street." Emily told him, before leading the women away.
"I ain't a head a cattle lady!" Andrea Baker spit.
"Stop whining, it's less than a thirty-foot walk." Emily hissed back. Matt heard a slight bit more bickering until they were out of earshot.
He paced in front of the phone, trying it over and over again, but nobody would pick up. He ran a hand through his hair, sweat beginning to dot his forehead. What had gone wrong? He was going to give up, what had happened? Why wasn't anybody picking up?
Emily returned shortly, looking both pissed (evidently the wives had stopped cooperating), and worried. "What's going on Matt?"
"I don't know. He was there, no he isn't, no one's picking up now." He rambled.
"Alright, we're going to have to go tactical." She said unwavering.
"Are you serious? Em, we don't have HRT with us, and we don't lead assaults."
"We've been trained, and I already talked to the state police, and have two teams ready. One of us can go in the back, the other the front."
"You prepared for this?" He asked incredulously.
"Matt, you know how hard negotiations are when there's more than one HT. We've been here for hours, yeah I prepared for it. I would have ordered them send of agents if I thought they'd get here in time. But it's just going to be us and these state police."
"This is such a bad idea." He mumbled.
"You don't think I know that?"
"I know, I know. We lost contact we have to go in, it's our only option." He knew she was right, but he didn't like, and as he looked at her, he could tell she didn't like it either.
"So whose taking the front, whose taking the back?" She asked, cocking her head to the side.
"Flip for it?"
"Sure, heads."
"Uh I was going to choose that."
"Fine, I'm tails."
"We're flipping for who goes in the back or the front?"
"Do front."
He nodded, tossed a quarter in the air, and caught it flipping it over. "Uh, it's Washington. I'm in the front then."
"Alright, the hostages are closer to the back, so my team will go in first, okay?"
"Sounds good, do the cowboys have rifles?" He asked wearily.
Emily laughed, "Yes, not quite as fancy as Frank's toys, but they have some less pimped out semi-auto things. You're taking your side-arm right?"
"Of course, my aim is much better with this," he said patting his holster.
"Alright lets go round up to cowboys." She said trying to lighten the mood.
Ten minutes later Emily was positioned at the back of the barn, and Matt was in the front. She saw her dozen companions behind her, checking their weapons and looking way to eager to have any real experience in what they were about to do. Second later they heard the first few hollow pops of gunfire. Shit.
She gave the signal and they rammed the heavy steel post against the door, breaking in. Emily went in first, gun drawn, troopers quickly filing in behind her. The room was already thick with the smoke of recently fired weapons, but even she couldn't see it, the smell of gun powder was so strong it stung her nose. The HT's were less than ten feet from them, and they turned to their vistors, three continuing to focus on them, as the other one fired on the last standing hostage.
The other seven hostages had already become bodies littering the floor. Emily could feel her hands sweating and she struggled to grip her gun, and aiming she squeezed her trigger twice, and twice more, the troopers beside her following suit. Simultaneously, the HTs began firing at Emily and her troopers. Her ears were ringing, as she crouched down, struggling to find any sort of protection against the assault of bullets. She could here the awful wet thuds of bullets impacting the bodies of the troopers that came in with her. Worse she could feel the spray of their blood on her hands, her clothes, and her face. She could hear the soft crash of a body hitting the floor now and again, but didn't dare turn her head to look- she had to keep her aim steady and straight. Struggling to fire and stay low, she suddenly tasted the salty, bitter metallic taste of blood- the spray had landed in her mouth.
Running out of bullets, Emily ejected her empty clip, and slammed a fresh one in, chambering around before point her weapon back at the quartet of armed psychos. She only got three rounds off before she heard the squishy thud and felt an intense sting in her abdomen like none other she'd felt before. Clutching her stomach and momentarily sinking to the floor, she gasped in pain. Then finally get a look, a really good look, she saw seven of her troopers already on the floor already. Breathing heavily, she steadied her hand, and stood up once again, one arm practically holding her abdomen together. She found her target, one of the three HTs still standing, and fire off, round after round after round, ignoring everything else around her, including the sound of the front doors bursting open.
Then she felt another bullet rip through her flesh, this time further up, and fell helplessly and exhausted to the floor. She could hear another dozens shoes gathering inside, and another barrage of guns entering the fight. She ever saw the rest of her team move over toward Matt's, literally stepping over bodies…including hers. That was when she rolled over and saw Matt firing on the HTs. She could barely make him out through all the smoke, but he was there. She saw him come toward her, saw him shoot down and HT, and then he fell…
Sacred Heart Hospital, Woodbridge: Friday: 1/12/07: 7:01 p.m.
"That's all I have. I remember seeing him fall, and then waking up here." She rasped out, exhausted, her voice almost gone after weaving the story.
"Thank you Emily," Cheryl said softly seeing how tired the other woman was, before turning to the suits that surrounded her, "We need to let her get some rest now."
The suits all began nodding at each other and filing out, however Krone turned back to her before leaving, "We'll have more questions for you later Agent Lehman."
Emily nodded miserably, praying for them to just get out of her room, and let her enjoy her drug-induced sleep in peace. Cheryl squeezed her hand reassuringly, and gave her a sympathetic half-smile, before turning to leave.
"Cheryl?" She asked as loud as her voice would allow.
"Do you need a doctor?" Cheryl asked, turning back to face her.
"No. No, can you come back later?"
Cheryl nodded, before leaving; she didn't even need to ask for what. She expected Emily to give her twenty questions about the past 20 hours that she'd missed.
Emily was left in the desolate quiet of the empty hospital room. Now her only distractions from her thoughts were the steady beep beeping of the heart monitor, and the hollow drip from the IV bag. They proved fairly useless distractions, as her mind began to wander through that morning, or well, she supposed a few mornings ago.
The way too early wake-up call from Cheryl, the dead mouse rotted to the floor, her and Matt's mutual desire to do nothing, but spend the day naked in bed. That caused her mind to turn to Matt, Cheryl had said he was on a respirator, and that scared her more than she ever thought it could. She'd give anything to have him in bed with her right then, anything to feel the heat of his body against hers, as it had been so many nights over the last almost year.
I have my files back, so Just Breathe is once again up and running. Thanks for hanging in through another hiatus (I promise not to try and do this many stories at once again, it's just too hard to keep them straight). Thanks for reading, and reviews are always appreciated!