Chapter 29: "I can handle this, Finch."; Couldn't sleep; Shots fired; mystery guest;
Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...
Motel room 160, Queens, NY, January, 2015
"The place is a maze of tunnels and who knows what else is waiting for us." Fusco looked around at the rest of them, and then took another sip of coffee. He grimaced, and walked over to the bathroom sink, dumping the rest, and then rinsing the blue and white paper cup.
"And we still don't know where she is," Joey said.
Fusco walked over to the small credenza near the front door and reached inside the opening. A foil pouch from a basket inside emerged, pinched between his fingers. He smiled down at it and tore the top off it, sliding the pod into the top of the coffeemaker. Once he tapped the button, it wasn't long before water gurgled and the smell of coffee brewing filled the room. A few perked up with that. Like Reese. He made his way over next to Fusco. At first he didn't say anything, and Fusco looked up. Tall, Dark and Dangerous seemed to have something on his mind. And that wasn't usually a good thing for him, Fusco thought.
"How's the eye?" Reese said, in his whisper-voice.
Fusco looked down with the good one. So, that's it, he thought.
He had a patch over the right eye - doctor's orders; and a couple of surgeries so far since the run-in with Greer's people. One of them had kicked out at him at the last moment before he was ready to fire his weapon; she'd hit him right across both eyes with her boot. His right eye took the brunt of it. At first the docs were hopeful that everything was going to be okay. But by a month later, things were worse. He woke up one morning and his vision was gone in that eye. Glasses had sent him to some specialist in the City - retina guy of some kind. Two surgeries since. The Doc had said the chances were slim, and left it up to Fusco to decide. He didn't have to think about it. In his line of work, he needed both eyes. If things went south, he might be looking at early retirement, on disability and that just wasn't part of the plan at this point in his life. He was just making a comeback, getting his life together again. So, he went for the surgery.
"Ah, you know - can never get a straight answer from these guys," he said. Reese watched his expression.
"Look, we're gonna need a wheel man to get us outta there in one piece. Someone we can trust." Fusco looked up at him, fire in his eye.
"Me? The wheel man? You're gonna need help in there with those creeps! We don't even know what we'll be up against," Fusco retorted. Reese kept his eyes on him.
"I guess I could call Finch back, or maybe Logan. They might be able to handle it." He leaned over and poured himself some of the coffee, then held the pot up for Fusco. Fusco held his cup out and Reese started to pour for him. Fusco didn't see that the cup wasn't lined up with the spout. Coffee poured onto the floor, and Fusco jumped back. "Watch it!"
Reese stopped, and looked up to Fusco, who stared at him, one-eyed, and then turned away. It took a minute, and without turning, Reese heard him mumble, "I'll drive."
Shaw walked into the middle of the group and laid her tablet on the end of the bed where the rest could see it.
"Look at this." She tipped the screen up and pulled a pillow up behind it to prop it there. Then she started the video, the same one she'd seen in the car on Harold's laptop, and the same one the group had watched once Reese and Shaw had arrived. Shaw fast-forwarded to a spot on the video and looked at the group expectantly. They watched for a few moments, and Shaw stopped the video. The team looked at her. She could tell they hadn't seen it, so she backed up and started again.
"Watch there in the corner," she said. The video showed a shot of a door closing and then the hallway with the long fire hose extending down the hall back to a metal structure surrounding a thick water pipe – the supply line for the fire hose in the corner at the end of the hallway.
"See the number? Next to the pipe?" she asked.
Reese straightened and realized what she meant. He reached for the tablet, stopped the video and swiped to the top of the screen. Then Reese opened one of the other waiting tabs – back to the architectural drawings for the buildings he and Shaw were studying on the way over with Finch. He flipped through page after page, looking for that pipe's number in the drawings. Then, he stopped at the drawing where he saw the numbers matched.
"This building, here," he said. "It's the same number on the pipe in the drawing. Let's see which building." He swiped between the pages of drawings until the top-down view appeared. It was one of the shops in the middle of the block.
"That's where they're holding her. Basement level," he said, looking around at everyone nodding, acknowledging. Shaw watched, her eyes emotionless, as Reese started to lay out a plan for an assault with the rest of the Team. Then she chimed in at the end with a way they could take out the Zheng without it becoming a bloodbath. While the group went through it again, working through the timing for each step, Shaw's cell phone buzzed silently inside her pocket. She backed away from the group and stepped inside the bathroom to take Harold's call.
"Miss Shaw, I've arrived at the safe-house, and all preparations are underway for your arrival with Miss Groves." She waited for the next part, but Harold didn't go on. Shaw's eyes narrowed. There must be something else. He wouldn't have called like this unless there was something on his mind.
"Finch, we know where they're holding Root. A numbered pipe in the hallway on the video matches one in the drawings we have. They might have made changes to the rest of the building, but they wouldn't have changed that." She heard him considering the information, but he was still hesitating.
"Finch?" Then she paused, waiting for him.
"Miss Shaw," he started. "Are you certain that bringing Miss Groves here is the correct approach? Wouldn't it be better to bring her to a hospital nearby and –"
"I can handle this, Finch." He could hear it in her voice that there would be no compromise in this. She was going to see this through on her own terms.
"Very well, then, Miss Shaw. I am arranging faster transport for you and Miss Groves. They can be there in less than 10 minutes after you inform me. Tell me what you'll need on the transport."
Zuma Rock, North of Abuja, Nigeria, January, 2015
Olawale opened his eyes. Hard night so far. He'd gone to sleep early after the sun went down and everything went dark in his lab. He kept the lights off in his living space, too, and went into the room where his cot sat. With all the stress and strain of the day, he thought it might be hard to fall asleep, but he'd dropped off quickly. The pressure of his body on the hard mattress, though, kept waking him. He couldn't find a comfortable spot to rest. Greer had done quite a number on him, and it was catching up with him now after all the adrenaline had drained away. Couldn't sleep.
He sat up, grimacing, holding his hand over his ribs.
It was cool tonight inside Zuma rock. Goose-flesh lifted on the bare skin of his legs below the fabric of his cargo shorts; up on his bare arms, too. He stood up slowly, padding over the smooth rock floor toward the kitchen. At the crock, he pulled the handle and let water fall into a small cup he kept nearby. He turned next to the little standing cupboard he used as a pantry. Inside it he kept a few things from the pharmacy on the top shelf. By feel, he tried to find the paracetamol bottle. A couple of those might help ease the pain, so he could get some sleep before morning.
It wasn't working - he'd need a light to find what he was looking for. There was a battery-operated lantern on the floor, and he lifted it up, pushing the button on its base. Blue-white light glared on, and he had to hide his eyes for a minute from the glare. Inside the cupboard, he found the bottle, and he sat the lantern on top of the cupboard while he opened the bottle and shook out two of the tablets for himself. He popped them into his mouth and took a swallow of water with them. Then he clicked off the light and made his way in the darkness back to bed.
Fingers snapped, and Kara looked up from her seat in the car. One of the men from the team in Cameroon signaled her to come and take a look at something. She got up and went to look through his scope at a spot on the face of the rock. A light had come on, suddenly, in the middle of the rock. She could see what looked like an opening there on the surface; and a light coming from inside the opening. There were two light-colored splotches on the rock, the eyes of the human face that everyone talked about. In one of the eyes, she could see a large opening near the center of the eye, like the opening of a cave. It must be a thousand feet up, halfway up the steep, almost vertical, slope of the rock. Getting to a spot like that was going to be a challenge.
"Let's move!" she said. Then she lowered the scope and handed it off to the soldier. Others were taking the coordinates of the light on the face of the rock, relaying the data to their team waiting nearby. In short order there would be boots on the ground and in the air.
Queens, NY, January, 2015
Reese went first, Shaw next, then Harper. Joey brought up the rear. They traveled in a closely-spaced line in the same cadence. The four were dressed in black tactical gear, and night vision goggles. There were rifles over their right shoulders, except for Reese, who preferred to shoot left-handed most of the time.
Reese held up a hand and the group paused. He turned to the side and pointed with two fingers to his eyes, then down at the floor. About six inches above the floor they could see a thin bright line stretched across from one side of the hallway to the other and then squeezing between a hallway door and its jamb – a tripwire. Reese carefully stepped over it and watched as Shaw did the same. She watched as Harper stepped, and Harper watched Joey. Then the four advanced down the hallway past the device. Each of them scoured the floor, walls, and ceiling for anything that could take them out.
Up ahead, they were approaching a corner. Around that, and a bit further along would be the end of that short stretch of hallway, where the numbered pipe would be. At the corner they were going to hold that position, and check for hostiles with their night-vision goggles. They anticipated that this would be the likely location for the main body of Zheng resistance. Once the hostiles knew they were there, more would likely come in to reinforce them. The Team would be quickly outnumbered.
They stopped just before the corner. Reese inched forward and peered around it; Joey squatted low, turning back to keep watch through his goggles for anyone approaching from the rear. Through his goggles, Reese could see hot-spots clustered along the far end of the hallway – hostiles. He counted and then turned back to show his Team the number. Eight that he could see. Harper passed two black spherical objects up to Reese and Shaw. Reese did a countdown from 5 down to 1 and everyone prepared. At one, Reese and Shaw armed the smoke grenades and tossed them, together, down the hall. The two stepped back behind the corner of the wall, while the two grenades tumbled. They clanged as they rolled, spewing smoke as they tumbled. Soon the hallway was filled with dense smoke and the first shots rang out. Reese fired back, laying out a cover pattern, and Shaw readied herself, as the fire from the far end of the hall stopped momentarily under Reese's cover fire. Shaw knelt low and stayed right, on the hallway wall, while Reese kept up fire on the left side, above her head.
Shaw reached the doorway where Root should be, and knelt beside it. She pushed it open, and swung her goggles and gun in a sweep around the room - empty except for a body on the floor opposite the door. The room was completely dark otherwise. Shaw entered the room and crossed to the body, lying on the floor in a pool of cold water. She reached for her blade and a tiny flashlight. The light she held in her teeth, pointing down on the body, which was wrapped in a sheet. The knife snicked open and the sharp silver blade reflected in the flashlight.
Shaw reached down and drew the knife blade across the sheet, slicing through and revealing the body inside. Root. Shaw slid off her glove, and felt for a pulse. Root's skin was cold, and Shaw wasn't feeling a pulse.
Outside in the hallway, a gun battle had started and the noise was deafening. Shaw sensed someone behind her, blocking some of the sound, and turned. Reese was there, inside the door, behind her. Shaw moved her flashlight up a little higher and saw the chain on Root's wrist. She yanked on it, but it didn't give. She swung the light all along her body, down to her feet; and saw the chain around her ankle, too. No key to get the chain off Root. She'd have to cut the chain. Shaw stepped up past Root's head and lifted the chain, well away from Root, then shot at it. It took two shots to damage it enough to pull the links apart and free Root. She quickly did the same for the one around her ankle. Reese had been working on something behind her, and then came up and stood behind her, looking down at Root. He didn't say anything, but Shaw knew what he was thinking.
Shaw leaned down and scooped Root off the floor. Her body was limp in her arms.
She swung around and handed her off to Reese, and then the two moved ahead to the door.
"On my mark," she shouted over the gunfire. Then she counted down from three, and they could hear a metallic creaking sound. About ten seconds later, they could hear the sound of water spurting from the end of the fire hose lying in the hallway. It was stretched out, pointing to the end of the hall where the hostiles were clustered. For a moment, the shooting stopped from that end of the hall, as water gushed on the floor towards them. Shaw and Reese were standing in water, too, and if they hadn't lifted Root, she would have been lying in deeper water on the concrete floor.
"Clear!" Shaw said, and she waited for 2 seconds, then dropped the wiring that Reese had prepared into the water in the hallway. The wires sparked and the socket flamed, as current flowed from one of the outlets in the wall down into the water. Anyone standing in water down the hall had current passing through their bodies right now.
All firing stopped. After a few more moments, Shaw lifted the wiring and yanked it out of the socket, which was smoldering now.
The two raced down the hallway with the Team firing cover fire just in case. Root didn't hear any of it, clamped against Reese as they rushed along. She laid there in his arms, limp and gray.
"Chopper's on the way," Harper shouted out as they passed. They rounded the corner and kept going while the Team backed themselves down the hall after them. Shaw called out the tripwire before Reese got near, and he stepped over. Shaw went next and she waited for Harper to round the corner behind her to point to the wire. Then she went running down the hall after Reese. He was climbing a stairwell up to the main floor. At the top, Reese stood to one side, while Shaw caught up and pushed the door open for him, aiming her rifle around outside, scanning for any hostiles.
Once they were outside, they made their way to the grass near the street. There were no trees or overhead wires here, and a chopper could drop down, scoop, and run. While Shaw took over with Root on the grass, Reese turned around. Harper and Joey were just coming out of the doorway. A black van swung around the corner, accelerated, and then swung into the driveway a store away.
Thumping sounds came their way in the air, and up over the rooftops a helicopter flew over the top of their group, swooping around to face them, and slowly lowering to the ground in the street. When it touched down, a blue-clad male in a jumpsuit hopped out and started pulling a gurney out. The legs dropped down as they cleared the side of the opening and then the man started rolling it over to where Shaw was kneeling next to Root. She said something to him, and the two gathered the sheet, one at her head and one at her feet and lifted her onto the gurney. The male rolled it to the side of the chopper, and started to push it inside, collapsing the wheeled legs one at a time, underneath. Shaw turned back to the Team. Reese was standing there, flipping a burner phone open in one hand. He dialed 911 and waited.
"911...what is your emergency?" came the woman's calm voice. Reese aimed his rifle at a tree down the block and fired six times, with the phone next to the rifle. Then he carefully laid the phone down on the grass. He could hear the operator's voice coming from the phone as he walked toward the chopper. Shaw was already climbing onboard, and the other team members were getting into the black van, with Fusco at the wheel.
"Shots fired," Reese said in his whisper-voice, as he boarded the chopper. They lifted off a minute later, and he could see the van backing out of the driveway and speeding off - on the way toward the highway to bring them into Manhattan.
"Gimme your stethoscope," Shaw said, and the nurse pulled it from around his neck and handed it over. She ripped the sheet open, down lower over Root's torso, and listened on skin for any heartbeat. If it was there, it was too faint for her to hear.
"Hypothermia," she told the nurse over the sound of the rotors. He was trying to feel a pulse in her neck or on her wrist. He shook his head, no.
"Do you have the blankets and the fluids?" He nodded and went for them, and Shaw started pulling the EKG machine over. She placed 3 sticky electrodes on Root, and attached the wires. A slow rhythm lit up on the monitor. Root had a heartbeat, but it was way too slow. Hypothermia, exposure to low temperature, had shut down her body and her brain, to really low functioning. It was protecting her brain right now, and she could still come through this intact.
In cold exposure, you're not dead until you're warm and dead. The two of them placed warmed IV fluid bags in her armpits and at her groin on both sides, and covered her with layers of warmed blankets to start to re-warm her externally. Reese watched from the side, his eyes on Shaw.
The chopper headed for the safe-house in Manhattan. Shaw could do anything there that she'd done in the ER when she was a doctor.
Zuma Rock, Nigeria, January, 2015
Thumping. Way off in the distance. Thumping. Then nearer. Nearer.
He'd just gotten back to sleep, and was sleeping hard by then, when the sound penetrated into his head. That shouldn't be happening here, not way out here. It sounded like a motor, a rotor. A helicopter – he sat bolt upright, and threw the blanket off him, heading for the lab.
Still pitch black all around him, but he knew his way so well, he didn't need lights. When he got to the computers, he reached over from the wrong side of the table and slapped the key to wake his machine. The sound of a helicopter, maybe more than one, flying close by, came through the opening of the lab to the outside. Then a few seconds later, behind him, there was a scuffling sound at the opening.
His machine was waking.
More noise behind him, and then footsteps running toward him.
He saw the screen, and the green LAUNCH button there in the middle. Olawale moved the cursor over the top.
There was a sharp stick in his skin. A needle.
He pushed the button, and the screen went dark – his plan, so that others would learn too late that chaos was happening inside.
He noticed he felt odd. There were hands on him, dragging him back away from the computers. He felt like he wanted to wave goodbye, but he couldn't seem to move his arms. Something dark dropped down over his head, and then he could feel something wrapping around him. Loud thumping noises seemed very close. Odd. That hadn't happened before.
Then he heard metal clicking and something pulled tight around him, lifting him. Maybe he was going to go for a little ride. He smiled. That might be fun. Someone was there next to him, holding onto him. Don't worry, he wanted to say to the stranger. Everything is going to be okay. Don't be scared. I'll be with you, he thought, and smiled.
The harness pulled tighter and the soldier at his side backed the two of them to the opening, They stood on the edge, looking out into black space, and then the soldier said something out loud into his radio; up to the others above him in the chopper. It swung away from the Rock, pulling the two of them off and away from the steep rock cliff; into the air below the chopper. A winch began to pull them higher, and they swung away, heading to the base camp.
Greer and Kara Stanton were just arriving, waiting for their mystery guest.