Day Five: Stern St Apartments, surveillance
If Days Three saw her quiet and contemplative, and Day Four saw her tired and mean and stingy, Day five, which chases yet another night of drinking and forgetting and an uneasy, quick-to-wakefulness sleep, is a blow to the senses. Gail wakes up feeling drained before she even leaves her bed.
Day five starts out hard, and just keeps getting harder.
The boy assigned to work with Traci and Gail in the van are rookies. Real rookies too. Gail doesn't ask them how long they have been on the job, but she can guess from the way they talk that they are only two or three months into the job. Experienced enough for what is demanded of them today, but definitely green. All they have to do on this assignment is sit there, quietly, huddled in this van outside the Stern street apartments. And, if what Guns and Gangs think is going to happen to today happens, they have to help catch some people if and when they exit the building.
Gail is pretty much on her own. Traci has her surly on. Something about a mix up on a case she was heading. She's frantically crouched against the back of the driver's seat doing paperwork in her lap while they wait for the deal and for their call to move. Gail sits back against the van door, her elbows on her knees, her head against the hard metal, nursing her headache, and listens to the rookies chat, anticipating the action and trying their hardest to be cool in front of these two women they have suddenly found themselves answerable to for a shift. The tall one is the leader, she can tell, but probably only holds that rank by sheer force of his ego. He's probably the best— or at least the bravest—of them and he's cocky about it. Gail dislikes him immediately. The skinny blond one talks the most, but it seems like nervous chat, like he is drowning out the doubts in his head with everything he puts out there. The other one, the big, broad one with curly hair doesn't say much at all. He looks like he gave up trying to break the banter barrier with these two a long time ago. He listens to their chat, occasionally adding something, but mostly staring at his hands or plucking at the button on his sleeve.
Every now and then one of them flicks a quick glance in her direction. She knows her silence, and the fact she is openly watching them and listening to them is making them slightly uneasy, but she doesn't care. Why should she?
Eventually, inevitably, though, the boys run out of conversation and the van is returned to silence as they wait. Taking advantage of the hush, Gail shuts her eyes, resting, feeling the slow beat of blood around her body and wishing she'd had a good night's sleep. Tonight, she promises herself. Tonight she'll go straight home and sleep away the last four days. She feels the van shift slightly under her as one of the rookies adjusts his sitting position on the hard, dirty floor. The movement makes her queasy. She wishes she knew where she left her water bottle. She slowly opens her eyes and finds Traci looking at her from the other side of the van, a Traci look on her face.
"What?" Gail rubs her eyes.
"Nothing. You look tired."
"I am tired."
"Are you okay?"
"Stop asking me that." Gail turns to look across the van through to the front windscreen, where she can see the wind tossing clumps of snow from the branches of an elm.
"Okay, but…"
They both jump as the tinny sound of voices bursts into the van. One of the Rookie has put his radio on the wrong channel. It's the skinny one.
"Switch it off or I will kill you," Traci tells him before Gail can.
Flushing red, he fumbles with his radio. Traci looks at Gail, wide-eyed, shaking her head. The tall one smirks. Gail throws him a look but he doesn't notice.
Traci returns to her work. Gail sits up, stretching her aching back and neck. She better be awake now, for when they get the call to move.
The boys start talking quietly again, about the job. It is the first time they have been assigned to help Guns and Gangs, it seems. She half-listens to them go over what they learned in briefing and remembers how excited she and the others got too, after the initial nerves, every time a new kind of operation or crime or experience was thrown their way. They were like kids in a candy store, champing at the bit to partake of every new experience. It is funny, Gail thinks, the rookie trajectory, from frightened, to excited, to all of a sudden capable. That's all Gail feels about this task now. She's not nervous or excited, just competent and ready, despite her exhaustion. She hopes jaded is not next.
As soon as Traci gives them the signal, Gail turns and pushes open the door. She feels the weight of the eager officers behind her as she jumps from the van and runs quickly around the apartment block. She can hear the heavy footsteps of the big one, who she has been assigned the alley with her, just behind. When they get to the entrance, she reaches back and waves him past her, to the other side of the fire escape where a tall wire fence blocks passage through to the next street, and positions herself near the entrance to the street. This way she can put herself in the direction any oncoming person is likely are most likely to run. Not knowing this kid's capabilities or his speed, she feels better that way.
She adopts her stance, raises her gun and sweeps her eyes over the windows of the bottom half of the building. The apartment they are raiding is on the second floor, so she expects if anyone comes this way at all, it will be from there or nearby. Of course, Steve and his people are hoping to get to the apartment and get it contained without anyone escaping, but still, you never know and that is why they are here. She listens carefully to the sounds of the mid-afternoon. She can't hear any discernable noise from the apartment except feet except the occasional bang and footstep, but these could be the everyday sounds of the apartments block. She has no idea.
The alleyway smells, predictably, like old garbage and pee. It also smells, less predictably, like old fryer oil. She wrinkles her nose and wishes she'd chosen not to position herself downwind. She flicks her eyes over to her rookie. He is standing, ready, mirroring her stance, about twenty meters away. She can see the rise and fall of his belly as he breathes. He is a little too close to the outside of the laneway than she would like, rather than centred so no one can slip by him and over the fence, as she would like, but it is too late to talk until they are given the clear.
Just as she is considering waving him at him, gesturing to him to move closer to the centre, the door to the second floor bursts open, smashing loudly against the brick wall. Footsteps clatters down the short stretch of metal steps and the next thing Gail knows she is locking eyes with a short, thick guy in a baseball cap. She sees his eyes widen as he registers her presence.
"Stop!" she yells. He doesn't. Instead he turns tail and runs toward the rookie. The rookie stiffens, and raises his gun higher. The guy keeps coming at him. Gail sees the panic in his eyes, recognises the fear. No, he won't, she thinks, and then realises she was wrong.
"Don't!" Gail screams at the kid. But it is too late. He pulls the trigger. The bullet seems to whizz past the guy's head, lodging somewhere in the wall behind him. The guy spins again. Gail catches the look of sheer terror on his face as he takes off toward her. He runs in her direction like panicked, stampeding cattle. Just as he is about to try and ram past her, he trips on the uneven stones and falls forward, straight into her. The weight of his shoulder colliding with the soft flesh next to her hip is excruciating, and it is all she can do not to cry out loud. Gritting her teeth she automatically drops down so her knee is pressed into the small of his back, pinning him onto the ground. He struggles underneath her, still panicked and kicking.
"Don't move," she gasps, although she can't blame him. He is terrified. "Come here!" she yells to the rookie, but he is just standing there, the gun hanging from his hand, a look of terror on his face.
Gail hears footsteps sprinting around the corner and hopes it is help. Still struggling to breathe from the blow, she places her arm over the back of the teenager's neck, pinning his face to the pavement and quickly looks up. It is Traci and the rookies. Thank goodness. The tall one immediately rushes over, throwing himself onto the bottom half of the flailing teenager. Freaking hero, Gail thinks.
"He's armed?" Traci calls to her, looking around for evidence of a gun. "I heard a shot." Gail just shakes her head and flicks her head in the direction of boy rookie who is still just standing there.
Traci's eyes widen. Gail nods. Traci turns, sees him standing there with his gun out, and walks quickly over to him.
As soon as the tall one gets the guy contained, Gail pushes herself up, fighting the urge to use his shoulder as leverage. She stands there, bent over, breathing hard. Before she can return to fully upright, a wave of nausea passes over her.
"You okay?" she hears someone behind her ask.
"I think I'm going to be sick." Gail gasps, walking over to the tall fence and resting her hand on her stomach spasms. She breathes slowly, waiting to see if the tide is going to turn in her favour or not.
"I'm going to take him round to the front." It's the tall one. He has the guy, who looks a different kind of scared now, cuffed and standing.
The rookie has a weird looking on his face. It takes a second for Gail to realise he thinks she is sick because of fear or the shot, not because she has suffered a human projectile to the guts. He thinks she is freaking out.
She just nods quickly, so he will go away, and returns to trying to breathe as slowly as possible, clutching the fence for balance. Her stomach is roiling. She is pretty sure the four-day hangover probably isn't helping things either. Eventually, when her insides calm and she feels safe enough to stand, she straightens. The alley is empty now. Even the kid and his gun and Traci are gone.
"That idiot. That stupid, stupid idiot," she mutters as she gingerly walks back to the front of the building, wondering if his career is over before it started.
As soon as she is back to the street, where a number of police cars are now crowded around the building, she straightens up, trying to assume a normal stance. Just doing so hurts. She whimpers quietly to herself. She is going to have a hell of a bruise tomorrow.
When she gets back to the van she looks around for her rookie, but he is nowhere to be seen. Poor kid, she thinks. Gail remembers the fear she felt that early day as a rookie when Noelle had planted her in the backyard of an apartment building, waiting for a shooter, and had told her not to move. She remembers the petrifying fear she felt when the shooter actually did appear, the way her legs seemed to fix to the ground as she watched him, gun clutched in her hand, knowing she had every chance to catch him if she could just give chase. Instead she'd just stood there and watched him spin and run away from her. Her orders not to move was her excuse when Noelle had asked why she hadn't gone after him, but Gail knew she probably couldn't have anyway. She was terrified. It was the same reason this kid had needlessly pulled the trigger, their reactions to fear had just been different.
Traci emerges from the crowd of police standing near the entrance of the apartment block and jogs quickly over to Gail.
"Hey. Things went a bit crazy around there?"
Gail nods. "Where's the kid?"
"He's waiting in a car. He's got to give a statement, do the whole business for an investigation."
"But he didn't hurt anyone."
"Doesn't matter, apparently. Lucky he has terrible aim, though." Traci says, frowning, "Someone will want to get a full statement from you, too, back at the station. You mind if I get the short version now?"
"The short version is kind of the only version." Gail shrugs. "The guy comes out of the building, sees me, turns and runs toward the kid. The kid gets a fright, shoots, misses. Guy turns for me again, runs, trips and I get a human battering ram to the stomach and collar him." She shrugs again.
"Ouch." Traci flinches. "You okay?"
Gail nods. "Can I talk to him?"
Traci shakes her head. "I am pretty sure you can't until after the statements are done"
Gail nods. Of course, freaking protocol. It's probably good. She has no idea what she'd say anyway.
"He just panicked, Trace. You know?" Gail folds her arms across her chest and leans back against the van. "I saw he was going to do it, but I couldn't stop him."
"Of course you couldn't stop him. It all happened too quickly."
Gail sighs. Traci thinks she is trying to defend her own part in the event, that she is worried about the consequences for her. The thought makes Gail feel a little bit sick. She is not. She is trying to help him. She doesn't bother trying to explain.
"Do you think he'll lose his job?" she asks instead.
"I have no idea." Traci tells her. "We better get going." Traci tilts her head in the direction of the scene. "They're making a move."
All the cars, now full of the apartment occupants, are starting to pull away, headed back to booking. Gail can see the kid's rookie pals clustered on the footpath opposite, talking quietly. She hopes they are nice to him, that they really are his friends. And she hopes that they don't think they are inured from the same thing just because what they think the worse— the worst of their rookie fears— has now happened. She thinks of all the mistakes that she and Chris and Andy and Dov and even Traci have made since starting. Nope, those boys still have a long way to go.
"Remember the day we started at 15?" she asks Traci ,as they climb into the van. "Were you scared?"
"Kind of." Traci shrugged. "I think I was more excited, though. Were you?"
"No, not really." Gail says, gingerly lowering herself into the seat.
But she was. She had been terrified.
It had been such a surprising sudden-onset terror, too. All through police training she had been fine and she'd even liked it the challenges of all they did and learned. She had no idea at all that she would be scared until that first morning, when, before she even opened her eyes, she was seized with a gripping terror of the day ahead. There she was, back in her parents' house, where she'd moved while she undertook her training, realising that learning was okay, but the thought of actually performing?
Not so much, it seemed. She lay there bathed in shafts of filtered early morning light paralysed with the thought she would now have to go out there, somehow, before the eyes of everyone who knew who she was and who she was related to, and execute. Never had she wanted more to remain inside the claustrophobic confines of her adolescent bedroom. In fact, she already knew that if her father hadn't been there to drive her to work, or her mother to call and remind her not to screw up, there was a reasonable chance Gail may have never made it to that first day at 15.
It had taken months for that feeling to go away. That feeling of being constantly scared, of wanting to freeze or duck or hide, because the humiliation of choking was better than making an epic mistake like this kid has done today.
She rests her head on her hand as they slide away from the scene and head back to the station. She wonders what she can say in her statement that will help this kid. Will it help to tell them she knows what fear can do, that it can cause you to make bad judgements, to pull the trigger too quickly, before you even know that something is wrong?
She hopes so.
To be continued...
Day five occurs across two chapters. The next part will be up shortly, if it is not already.
