Chapter 15: nowhere; under the overpass; incoming wounded; 222;
The 24-hour diner, blocks from Harold, same day
Harper and the Russian waitress hunkered down next to some old metal ductwork on the roof. After scouting the perimeter, Joey walked back and knelt down next to them.
"NYPD is everywhere down there. They're at the back in the alley, on the side over there on the street, and at the front. We'll just have to wait," he said. He looked for a long moment at the waitress, sitting there in the wind with just a sweater on over her uniform and he slid off his jacket to wrap around her shoulders.
"No," she said, waving her hand at him. "I fine."
"Suit yourself. It's gonna get colder up here." She barely acknowledged and he looked over at Harper, who shifted her eyes to his, nodding.
"What's your name?" she said, offering her hand. "I'm Harper."
"Yana – Ilyana," the woman said, very softly. She didn't make eye contact.
"So, Yana, it must have been pretty crazy when those goons came in," Harper said, watching the woman's reaction. She was blank for a moment and then looked confused.
"Goons?"
"Yeah, the guys with the guns."
"Yes. I scared. Hide in bathroom," she said, looking from one to the other with her arms out to her side.
"How long have you been working there – at the diner?" Joey asked.
"Few months." He noticed she looked edgy. Her eyes shot down to the ground.
"So you know the people then – the ones who were tied up in the store room?" She just nodded without looking up.
"Why didn't you call the police?" She didn't answer.
The other two just waited. Silently. Watching her. Her eyes were still focused on the ground. She started to fidget, to twist the hem of her sweater in her hands.
"I – I – " she started. But she hesitated.
"Go on, Yana," Harper said.
"Don't have papers. They give me work, but no papers to stay." Joey nodded. If Yana was undocumented, that explained why she wouldn't want to be there when the police showed up. But why didn't she run when she had the chance – before he and Harper got there? There was plenty of time for her to leave. And she didn't seem to have much concern or reaction when she saw her co-workers tied up in the store room. And how about her scaling the drainpipe the way she did? Things didn't make sense.
Joey felt his phone buzz in his pocket. On the screen when he swiped it, was a single word: look. His eyes went up to Harper's and then he made his way to a spot near the edge of the roof where he could see over. He glanced down at the knot of police cruisers surrounding the diner, and then at the pairs and triplets of officers below them in the parking lot. That's when he spotted Fusco walking in from the back alley of the diner.
He watched him stop to chat with some of the officers, and then glance up toward the roofline. Joey, for a split second, raised himself up where he could see him. Fusco talked on for a little while longer with the men, and then shook himself as though he was cold. He complained and shooed the rest of the officers toward the back of the diner, then inside, where they could all get warm again.
"Any coffee in here? It's cold out there!" Joey heard him say, as the men disappeared inside with Fusco. The door shut behind them, and then a few minutes later, on his cellphone screen: go now.
Joey turned to the women and motioned for them to follow. He let Harper go down first, waiting on the roof with Yana; and then she stepped around the drainpipe and grabbed on, lowering herself down the wall, walking her hands down the pipe with a strong grip. About halfway down, she stopped for a moment and looked back up to the roof at Joey. He could see it in her eyes before she dropped. She knew what she was doing. No accident.
Yana pushed off from the pipe and dropped down, right on top of Harper, who crashed underneath her to the cement. Yana popped up and stepped back one step, then launched a kick right at Harper. Joey didn't see where it landed. He was already half-way down the pipe, going after her - and Yana took off through the alleyway. He jumped down the rest of the way, and pulled his gun, but held off firing to scare her. Firing would only give them all away, and the cops would come looking. He holstered the gun, and leaned down to check on Harper.
She was just rolling over. Joey gave her a hand up, and then the two of them ducked around the fencing and took off after her. At the corner, they looked both ways for Yana - no sign of her on the street either way. They split up then and walked in opposite directions, peering into the shops that had opened today.
Yana was nowhere.
Bronx, same day
"Aqui," Root said, pointing to a spot on her cellphone map. It was miles away, near some deserted factory buildings, under an overpass. Rosa's sons nodded. They knew the place. It was a good spot to leave the van.
Rosa had given her some empty soda and beer bottles, and food wrappers from the garbage pail. She had two unopened bottles of beer left, and she had some bags of snacks she'd opened on the dash of the van, where the contents would bump around and drop all over the floor as she drove.
By the time she was done with it, the van would be properly trashed, like a party van. She'd slosh beer all over the inside, and leave the empties and wrappers. The music would be blaring out of the radio. It wouldn't be long before the cops found it, abandoned under the overpass. Kids.
Root gave Rosa a hug, and jumped into the van. Her sons waited a little while before they left and then followed by a different path; but they'd end up nearby, where they could pick up Root leaving the site.
Harold's office, same day
"I've got her. The waitress," Logan said, softly, looking back to Harold at his computer.
"Don't lose her, then," Harold said. He was watching his Team at the diner, Miss Rose and Mr. Durbin untangling themselves from a problem at the back of the diner, then racing after the waitress.
They'd sent in Detective Fusco, when they'd seen the trio climb up to the roof of the diner to escape the NYPD. Detective Fusco had rolled in, ostensibly to coordinate the NYPD response to this break-in at the diner.
Harold had sent him, instead, to draw the officers away and allow Miss Rose and Mr. Durbin to leave with the waitress. There was no audio inside the diner, so Logan and Harold could only watch and infer from the video. The Team had found her inside the diner, and kept her with them as though her status was uncertain. Not a prisoner, but not an innocent, either.
So, when she ran for it, down the same alley as Miss Shaw and Miss Groves, Logan had followed her on his feed, while Harold kept the Team in view.
"No. Not there!" Logan said, shaking his head.
"What's wrong, Mr. Pierce?" Harold looked up at him, concerned.
"She's heading right into the same block where the shooters went. Do we send our Team after her?"
"No. We don't have enough people on the ground. We'd need a full Team for backup," Harold said.
Logan agreed. They didn't know where the men chasing Root and Shaw had gone. Too risky to send in Joey and Harper, alone.
"Where's Reese, by the way? I haven't seen him."
"Returning from a task. Let's think this through, Mr. Pierce," Harold said.
"Miss Groves stole a van, and brought Miss Shaw, who is injured, to a location in the Bronx. She's far from any of us, and far from the safe-houses. She's tried to block communications with us, presumably because she is worried about being discovered." Logan nodded at each point. Then he spoke up.
"Shaw's wounded, and she needs attention. They're gonna have to go to the safe-house. Which one is the one with all the medical gear?"
"222," Harold said. And that gave him an idea. He pulled his cellphone out and sent the message to Mr. Reese: 32s. That would alert him he should make his way to the safe-house, and be prepared for incoming wounded.
"I'm sending Mr. Reese there. It's highly likely Miss Groves and Miss Shaw will make their way there."
Westchester, same day
Reese was down as far south as lower Westchester, but still north of the City. His cellphone buzzed on the seat, and he tapped the screen: 32s.
Three two's. Harold was sending him the apartment number, 222, for one of their safe-houses, the one with all the medical equipment that Shaw had set up. Someone was hurt, then, Reese said to himself. They only used that one when one of the Team was hurt. He'd re-direct there, then – instead of going to the office where Harold was.
He thought about Shaw. Ex-ER doc, ex-NSA black ops specialist. And how many times had she scraped him up off the floor from some situation where things had gone sideways? And not only him. She'd had her hands on all of them at one time or another, stitching them up, digging out shrapnel, and bullets, setting broken bones. Whatever it took, and sometimes it took a lot. That's why she'd set up that safe-house: 222. He'd lost count, now, how many times she'd saved his life. Only once – so far – had he been able to pay her back a little bit.
Down in the basement of the hair salon in Queens. They were prisoners, run off the road, and pulled from their car by the Zheng. They woke up in the basement, Shaw tied face down on a table, and him hanging by his wrists from the ceiling. The Zheng had doused them with cold water, and he remembered Shaw turning her head to face him, glass from the windshield falling from her hair, and then seeing him hanging there.
She'd made some kind of comment, and one of the Zheng pulled out a wood baton, solid and hard, to smack her across the legs. But instead of stopping her, it just made her spout off more, and they hit her again, harder. She seemed to be ready to take them all on herself, but then someone behind them was speaking Mandarin to the thugs, and the Zheng came for him, instead. They broke his leg with the baton.
And then they went back after Shaw. He'd heard the voice speaking Mandarin again from behind them, and then he saw the look in the eyes of one of the Zheng. He started to pull her backwards down the table, toward him. He was smiling, looking up at him hanging there – barely conscious – doused again with cold water after they broke his leg. He knew what was going to happen next to Shaw.
He used his long frame, and swung backwards on the rope, the fibers tearing the skin of his wrists. He kept his focus on them so he wouldn't think about the rest; on the swing forward, he lunged out with his broken leg straight into that smiling face. One of the last things he remembered was seeing the fat man crumple in a heap on the floor.
When he woke up again, they were alone. Shaw was on the floor, next to him. He remembered finding her there, and covering her with his jacket. They were both wrecked, beaten with the wood batons; and for Shaw, worse.
Fusco found them. He'd called 9-1-1, against orders from Reese. And then he'd stayed outside their rooms at the hospital that night. Before morning, though, Shaw had slipped the two of them out, and they'd made it together to the safe-house – 222.