Flash
by RoadrunnerGER
Same ole song: I don't own them!
Ch 7
"Can you take them out?" Deakins asked.
"Negative, Sir," one of the snipers came over the radio. "The venetian blinds are limiting the view into the room. I'd risk hitting the hostages."
"Dammit!" Mike swore and expressed what they all were thinking.
"I couldn't take them out all at once anyway," Alpha Two told them. "Only the leader is close to the door, together with Detective Stabler, the woman, and the kid."
"What about the others?" Tippe asked.
"Negative. All the windows are covered by blinds."
"Can you see the second man? Green?"
"No, Sir."
Tense silence fell. Goren was approaching the door, carrying the box with food, drinks, blankets, and handcuffs.
Handcuffs, Deakins thought. To control the hostages. I guess they want them for the men they're holding. Just to be on the safe side.
On the monitor they saw Red and Elliot from behind. Closer to the door were mother and child. Green stood more to the left. Right then the woman moved to open the door and let Bobby in.
He sat down the box, presented himself to prove that he did not carry a weapon and showed his ankles, too. Then he brought the supplies further into the bank. Red and Elliot turned, but did not follow him.
Green was giving the orders now. Deakins wondered why they had switched roles. In his gut he could feel that it was not a good sign. Instinctively he understood that Red did not avoid talking to them in general. He avoided talking to Bobby.
God, just let them get out of there now.
Anxiously Deakins watched how Bobby picked up Alex from the cushions and carried her to the door. The tension he felt was awful. It chewed him from the inside out.
Only a few more steps. There she goes, opening the door. Go!
That was when low beeping sounds shattered the tense silence in the bank. Deakins could see Bobby tense and then push the woman and her child trough the door.
"No!" Deakins yelled.
"We have two of the hostages," Alpha Four said on the radio.
That was small comfort for Deakins whose insides seemed to explode as he and all the others in the command center had to watch helplessly how the situation in the bank threatened to get out of control.
xXx
"Get away from the door!" Red bellowed, strengthening his hold on Elliot.
The detective did not even try to resist, yet Red's fingers dug painfully in his arm and the muzzle of the gun now pressed under his jaw robbed him of his breath. Pushing with the gun and pulling on his arm Red made Elliot stand up again.
"I said, get away from the door!"
Red's voice almost broke with rage. It thundered in Elliot's ear.
Still holding Alex in his arms Bobby now rushed to follow the order. As he walked toward the counter he could hear the beeps even better.
"What the fuck's that beeping?!" Red screamed.
"M-my phone," Alex rasped breathlessly.
"Explain to me! We collected them all. It should be turned off!"
Alex swallowed her fear and was about to answer when Red fired his next words.
"Tell me!" he roared, giving the gun another push to emphasize his order. "C'mon, tell me!"
"I dropped it," Alex said, struggling to get out of Bobby's arms. "When you came in I dropped it. In the chaos it slid under the counter. I couldn't reach it when you told us to give you the phones."
Wow, that's my Alex, Bobby thought as she stood in front of him now, ready to defend them all even though she had to be in pain from her labor. As it was advanced he suspected that she would not be able to keep standing for long.
"Are you kidding me?!" Red shouted. "Don't fuck with me, bitch!"
Now he's showing his real face, Elliot thought.
"I'm not lying!" Alex spat. "It's right under this… counteeer!"
Another contraction hit her and made her writhe. Bobby caught her fall and lowered her on the cushions.
"Let go of her!" Red ordered. "Let go!"
"She needs help!" Bobby replied, his voice carrying his fear for Alex and the babies.
"Well, thanks to her cell phone she won't get it! Now let go of her!"
To emphasize his demand Red hooked Elliot's neck with his right arm and pressed. As he now had a better grip on him, Red let go of the detective's arm and pulled out his knife again.
Hesitantly Bobby moved away from Alex.
"Now find that damned phone!"
So Bobby squatted down and tried to reach the phone under the counter. He glanced at Elliot.
Fear contorted his colleague's features, his eyes were wide, and his mouth open as he gasped for air. Given the escalating situation he did not care if he gave away his anxiety. To hell with it, he was scared to death. With his hands cuffed behind his back he was rendered helpless, unable to defend himself.
"Here it is," Bobby said, holding up the corpus delicti.
"Why's it beeping? Is someone listening there?" Red barked.
"The battery's low," Bobby said, keeping his voice soft and low. "It's…"
Right then the noises stopped.
"It's completely discharged." Bobby held it up. The display was dark. "It can't send anything."
"But it was on before, right?!" Red yelled. "Who did you call? Who was listening? Your colleagues? Did they listen to us?"
"Nooo," Alex groaned. "It… just was on standby."
"It better has been," Red snarled.
Elliot gasped for breath as much as he could. The arm pressing on his throat threatened to suffocate him. His blue eyes pierced Bobby who was still holding the phone, his arm outstretched to indicate that he would not try to mess with it.
"Put it on the counter and step aside!" Red ordered and barked right next to Elliot's ear, "The other side!" when he saw him approach Alex again.
Slowly Bobby moved in the opposite direction. He saw Red force Elliot down on his knees again. What was the man up to? Should he intervene? The phone started to ring but no one reacted.
"Travis Newcombe," Bobby said, getting Red's attention at once. "There's no need to make the situation worse. Talk with Lieutenant Jaenicke."
"I want to talk with YOU!" Red barked, poking his finger at Bobby. "That's why I asked for you as negotiator. You'd do anything to save your wife and now you're here!"
"That's right, Travis," Bobby said calmly even though it cost him everything he had. "You got what you wanted, so you can let her go now."
"Nobody's going anywhere!"
Red pushed Elliot further down to the floor so that he came to lie prone. Then he let go of him and advanced on Bobby instead. With his gun he hit the side of the detective's head. Bobby swayed a bit, but then he recovered quickly. He had to protect Alex and the other hostages.
"You'll surrender without any condition," Red snarled right into Bobby's face. "Or she's dead… and the babies with her." He took Bobby's left wrist and ratcheted a handcuff around it. Then he attached a second handcuff to his right wrist. "Don't pregnant women lean against their partners when they give birth? Sit behind your precious Alex… C'mon!"
Herded over to his wife by Red, Bobby complied. He remembered Travis Newcombe. Before he joined Major Case Bobby had been with Narcotics and during one of his sting operations he met Newcombe. Back then the man had been a low rank dealer who tried to use the success of his brother within the organization to move up the food chain, too. He had tried to dispossess their local distributor and take over the business… just before Bobby and his colleagues blew the ring and brought them all to trial.
All except one.
It had not been Bobby who shot Theo Newcombe, but he had been the one infiltrating the drug ring and subsequently the reason why Newcombe's brother died.
Now Travis Newcombe was seeking revenge.
Bobby dreaded what Red had in store for him. In his mind's eye he saw Alex, their twins resting in her arms, a bullet hole in her forehead. In another scenario her throat was slit, blood spilling all over their newborns.
Bobby shuddered.
Slowly he knelt down behind Alex. Gently he pulled her to his broad chest and sat on the cushions. She sighed.
"Now, cuff yourself to her," Red ordered. "Left hands together, right hands together. C'mon!"
Bobby had no idea what the bastard was up to. Right then he just was glad that he was together with Alex, holding her in his arms, feeling her slim form lean against his broad chest. She was about to give birth to their twins, their first children, their love children.
"Bobby?" she groaned as he took her right wrist and snapped the metal eight shut around it. "What are you…?" The left closed with a distinctive clicking sound that sent shudders down Alex's spine. "You idiot!" she panted and writhed in his embrace when another contraction hit her back. "Whoaaa!"
Still the phone was ringing. Unnerved by the repeating sound Green stepped over, lifted the receiver and threw it back down on the phone.
"And here I thought you'd be glad to see me," Bobby whispered into her ear.
"I could kill you!" Alex groaned.
"Don't let me stop you…"
Taking that as permission, she tried to swing at him, but having to drag his solid limbs along behind her own slight frame made her movements jerky and uncoordinated and she only succeeded in making his cuff collide with her own forehead.
"You did that on purpose!" she snapped.
"Sure I did. Try again?"
Red and Green got quite a laugh out of their combined clumsiness.
xXx
"What now?" Mike asked. "What are we gonna do now?"
Deakins wished he knew the answer. By the look of them Lieutenant Jaenicke and Sergeant Tippe did not have a bright idea either. They all stared at the monitors where they saw the detectives being dragged back inside of the bank.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
"We need to get them out!" Mike yelled. "Don't let the bastards get them!"
"Alpha Two, can you fire?" Tippe asked.
"Negative, sir. They are too far inside from my angle."
"Alpha Three, what about you?"
"Negative. The venetian blinds still are drawn and limiting the view into the room. With the men moving around I don't have anybody in the line of fire."
"We can't just stand and watch!" Olivia panted. "We have to help them!"
Helplessly they watched how Bobby found the cell phone, Elliot got pushed to the ground and then Bobby cuffed himself to Alex.
"There must be something we can do!" Logan grumbled.
"Yes, there is," Deakins said. "We can talk with the freed hostages. Jaenicke?" He saw the lieutenant turn his head to him. "Try to get back in contact with them."
"I will."
"Logan, let's go."
So Mike followed his captain outside. A uniformed officer showed them the way to the bus where the woman and her daughter were being treated by paramedics.
"Ma'am? I'm Captain Deakins, Detective Logan. Can we talk?"
"Yeah," the mother said, her voice shaky but her features set with determination.
"Just give us one moment to get finished," one medic told the captain before he turned to his patient again, "Blood pressure, heart rate and breathing are fine all things considered. Still we would like to take you to the hospital."
"Do we have to?" the woman said. "Michelle's a bit shaky, but I don't think that we need to go to the hospital."
"There's no urgent need to admit you or your daughter. But you should follow up with your regular physician, just in case."
"Okay, thank you."
The medic nodded, packed his bag and left the ambulance to give them space to talk. He and his partner would stay in case they were needed.
"Thank you for getting us out, Captain," the woman said to Deakins.
"You're welcome, Mrs…"
"Brenda Montgomery."
"Mrs. Montgomery, what can you tell us about the situation in the bank?"
"What specifically? I mean, a bunch of people are being held hostage by bank robbers. What more do you want to know?"
"Do you know any of the other hostages?"
"Only Miss Bryson, by sight. I was waiting at her counter when the men drew their weapons."
"You would help us very much if you could tell us everything about the initial moments of the assault."
"There's not much to tell," she sighed, hugging her daughter who was climbing into her lap. "Suddenly a man drew a big gun and fired into the ceiling. He ordered everyone to get down on the ground. That's what we did."
"What else did you see?"
"Not much."
"What did Miss Bryson do?" Deakins tried to direct her to her memories. "Did she go down, too?"
"No, the tellers stayed behind the counters at first."
"Detective Stabler, what did he do?" Mike wanted to know.
"You mean the cop who was on the phone for them?" she asked back. "He… was on the ground, too," she remembered. "I don't think that I saw anyone standing once things settled down. And then… that stupid boy tried to attack one of the men."
"Which boy?" Deakins asked, surprised.
"He said his name is Dustin."
"Dustin Worthington?" Logan pushed for confirmation.
"I think so. Why?"
"The boy actually attacked one of them?" Deakins brought her back on track.
"He tried to, but he was stopped as one of the other hostages jumped at him and held him back. They were fighting. That man… that was your detective."
"So Detective Stabler stopped the boy from attacking them?"
"Right."
Both Deakins and Mike nodded. They had an idea of what happened next now.
"And that's how the robbers found out that Detective Stabler is with the NYPD?" Deakins asked.
"Yes. When he brought the boy down they were fighting. He got hit in the head and was unconscious for a while. When he woke up again he got tied up and separated from us."
"What else do you remember?" Mike threw in.
"That boy needs brain surgery," Mrs. Montgomery snapped. "He tried to sneak out the backdoor. One of the men, I think he's called Green, he noticed him and wanted to shoot him, but the detective saved his life again. Later Red made the boy apologize to him for not appreciating his sacrifices. Then he tied the boy to the stairwell… the right place for him if you ask my opinion. Tied up he can't cause any more trouble."
Her last words she said with unconcealed loathing. The cops were not surprised. Hearing about Dustin Worthington almost causing the death of their colleague filled them with rage, too.
"So the robbers' leader made Dustin apologize to Detective Stabler, is that right?" Deakins asked for confirmation even though they had witnessed that over the surveillance system.
"Yes."
"Okay, Mrs. Montgomery, did you have any contact with other hostages? Can you tell us anything about the situation among them?"
"We were ordered not to talk… and no one was stupid enough to break that rule." Thoughtfully she bit on her lower lip. "If you're asking if someone's close to panicking or something… I don't think so. Everyone seems to be holding up pretty well. I… I'm just not sure about the robbers. They're scary."
As if the cops would not have noticed that.
"Captain Deakins?" an officer addressed him. "You're needed at the command center."
"Okay, I'm coming. Thank you, Mrs. Montgomery."
"I hope I could help."
"You did. Thank you very much." That said Deakins turned and Logan followed him back to the truck.
xXx
Elliot was still lying on his stomach. His position made breathing hard, but he did not dare to ask anything. So far he could endure it. He did not want to annoy Red or Green without good reason.
From where he was lying he could not see Alex but he could hear her strained breathing and Bobby whispering to her. It would not take long now until the babies would come, he was sure of that. So Elliot hoped that Red would keep his promise and release him to let him help her when the time came.
The one person he could see was Dustin Worthington. The boy sat tied to the stairwell's handrail and was sweating. It could not be due to the temperature as that slowly diminished since the air conditioner got turned back on.
Serves him right, Elliot thought. He could have gotten us all killed. Let him sweat with fear for a while.
For once Elliot did not regret such thoughts. What Dustin had done was irresponsible. He really deserved having a hard time.
"Hey there, Elliot. Are you enjoying your stay?" Red sneered from bending down over him.
Sure, Elliot thought. I'm hell bent for more.
"If you're not playing by the rules…"
Oh, right. I have to answer. "As much as you are," he groaned.
Red snorted derisively.
"I forgot, we have a little joker here."
"Just some gallows humor," Elliot grumbled.
"I see." Red grabbed his right arm and pulled him up. "I'm quite sure that…"
The ringing of the phone interrupted him.
"…the phone soon will ring again." Red chuckled. "Right on time. Let's go." So he shoved Elliot over to the counter and activated the speaker.
"Yeah?" Elliot said.
"This is Douglas Jaenicke," the lieutenant reintroduced himself. "Elliot, what happened?"
"We got nervous due to an overlooked cell phone. The situation is stable now."
"What about Alex, Red? You agreed to let her go."
Elliot waited in vain for Red to prompt. Instead Red pushed his gun against Elliot's head.
"That deal was cancelled when her cell phone went off. Dear Elliot here will help her deliver the babies and if or when you're forthcoming we can talk again about letting her go."
"Red, I would like…"
"I believe that. You'd like to blow our brains out right now, huh? No way. We have the hostages and so we'll give the orders. You won't do anything but follow them or Elliot is the first we'll send to hell. Got me?"
"I understand…" Before Jaenicke could say anything more Red cut the connection.
"So, Elliot," Red snarled close to his ear, now pressing the gun under his chin. "You know the rules. Don't act up when I release you."
"I won't."
"Good." Red put the gun aside and fished for the key. Then he opened Elliot's handcuffs. "Then go, help her."
"I could do with some soft cloths, maybe a sweater or two," Elliot told him, rolling up his sleeves. "Towels, scissors for after…"
"Scissors?" Red laughed out loud. "You really think I'd provide you with a weapon?"
"The umbilical cord will have to be cut," Elliot explained. "Hot water, blankets and…"
"Just get the babies out."
"I'm planning to do that." Elliot stared him right in the eyes, trying to read him. "Hmmm, I'll need something to tie off the cord."
That was when Alex groaned loud with the pain of a new contraction.
"Go help her," Red ordered and pushed Elliot in her direction.
Without hesitation Elliot squatted down in front of her. Karen still sat beside her but did not hold her hand anymore as Alex now pressed Bobby's hands firmly.
"Okay, Alex. We'll help you to undress now, okay?" Elliot said and gestured Karen to assist him. Together they freed Alex of her pants and underpants.
Alex groaned and leaned heavily against Bobby. She pressed even harder when the next contraction made her arch her back.
"It's okay, Alex. I'm here," Bobby murmured, pressing her hands in return. "How far along is she?" he turned to Elliot.
"Far," he replied. Much farther than he had thought, actually. Because when he looked closer at her now he could already see the first baby crown. "It won't take long now. When the next contraction comes you should…"
"Push!" Alex panted. "I know!"
Worriedly Bobby looked at Elliot who ignored him because he concentrated solely on Alex.
"Okay… now push!" Elliot prompted her.
Alex screamed with the strain.
tbc…
