Disclaimer:
I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, I intend no monetary gain off of this, and don't wish any kind of copyright infringement on Top Cow production or TNT or whomever.
In honour of the officers of the NYPD who served and protected their last on 9-11-01
Chapter Six
"So Petzini, yous got a little roughed up, huh? How long dis gonna take?" Dante breathed heavily, pluming putrid blue smoke, and making Sara want to gag from the stink of his cheap cigar.
"Not long, it's just dislocated, I should be out of the sling in a week or so," she lied, bald-faced, but she knew the Witchblade would back her up.
"What 'bout dis, psycho person then, eh? Yous lost our prime suspect, I don' like dat." Dante was really on his dignity now, twirling the slimy butt end of the cigar and pretending to examine it, "Find her Petzini, or yous gonna be in more trouble than a sling, you heah?"
"Yes Sir" she snapped crisply, and pushed her way through the smoke into the clean air of her own office. Breathing deeply, she tried to make the buzzing in her head stop. Her sinuses really didn't like cigar smoke.
"Whew, you stink; Dante got something stuck up his butt again?" Jake asked.
"Yeah, he wants to know where little Miss Cleo is." Pez opened a window and let the crisp autumn breeze drift into the building. "I don't think he likes 'we lost her' as an excuse."
"Well, she was in the car," Jake protested, "and then she wasn't. She just vanished."
"Yeah well 'vanished' isn't a good excuse either," Danny came back in, clutching a stack of small colour photos, "C'mon let's get these distributed."
"Where we headed?" asked Jake, "Psychic's R Us?"
"Something like that," Sara temporised, "I know some people, who know some people, who'll get the word spread in the right quarters that our Miss Cleo wannabe is on my list."
"We'll also hit Penn station, Grand Central, and a coupla Airports; make sure she hasn't gone out of the area." Danny split the stack, "Pez, you take the Funny Platoon, and Penn Station. Jake and I will hit Grand Central, the Bus Depot, La Guardia and the plainclothes offices. Make sure everyone knows she's wanted for questioning. We'll meet you at JFK."
"Great," Pez accepted the stack of mug shots, "Keep your heads up, people, good luck."
Sara climbed on her Buell, fastening the chaps securely around her hips and tucking the jacket snugly around her shoulder. She took the sling off temporarily, so she could drive, but kept it wrapped up in the tight brace. Technically she had the longer list of places to go, but this would take her as nearly as much time. Firstly, her bike could make traffic a lot better than the car, and secondly, the real weirdoes, the ones who believed, trusted her.
She gave them a fair rap, unlike most of the officers, and protected them from too much harassment over futuristic predictions, the occasional tourist scam, and the habitual 'divine intervention' through mind-altering drugs. They'd keep their eyes open, because they didn't want to lose the support of one of the few cops that didn't laugh them out of the station.
It wasn't hard, making nice with strange people, she sipped innumerable cups of green tea, listened to countless, and sometimes completely contrary, predictions for the future, and made like an all around good cop. She distributed Miss Dominique's photo to the right places and knew that the undercurrent of the community would latch on the one who'd compromised their good relations with the NYPD.
Next stop was Penn Station, on the other side of the big post office and a block or so away from Macy's. She had always thought it curious that one of the big rail lines in and out of Manhattan was named Pennsylvania Station, but she didn't name it, so that really wasn't her problem.
The place was crawling with soldiers and uniformed cops. She didn't walk more than five feet in before one of the Army guys stepped up and asked her, very nicely, to give up her weapon. She flashed the proper ID; the soldier looked at her arm and her stack of photos, and waved her in. She had nothing against the soldiers, even though she felt that the City was the responsibility of the Police and not the Army. There was something reassuring about a big, burly, man with camouflage dress, an M-16, and the arrogant stride that said he knew how to use it.
The ride to JFK was a hike, and by the time she got there her shoulder was protesting the long trip. Her helmet insulated the sounds of people cursing and planes taking off pretty well, it also helped that she had an earpiece that ran on the police radio channels, picking up on the day-to-day chatter from dispatch.
"Hey Pez!" Danny waved her over. They were temporarily parked by the Army loading area, a place taken over by the soldiers when they assumed responsibility for the airport security.
"Afternoon Detectives, what can I do you for?" a pleasant looking man, with a golden bar of rank on his shoulder met them at the gate.
"Got someone you need to be looking out for, mind if we come in?" the soldier nodded opened the gate. They were ushered into a hanger, where several off-duty grunts and some loose equipment were hanging around. They gave a copy of their suspect to the on-duty commander and posted one in the common area of the hanger.
Danny talked to the on-duty commander and Pez wandered out, over near the mouth of the hanger, and took in the sights. Planes flying in and out, whining jet engines, the cursing and shouts of workers as they serviced and prepped the planes for their turn-around trips. Suddenly memories assailed her…
They'd been digging, trying to avoid the smoke of fires that had yet to be put out, dust and gravel and steel and paper all crunched under her feet. They were one of a line, an old fashioned bucket brigade.
On her right was a fire fighter, his name was Jack he'd been a rookie on one of his first runs, on her left was the Lieutenant of the Company, they'd run ladder trucks through the downtown. They were the only two left of their house. The rest were somewhere under all this rubble. They said they'd keep digging until they'd found them all.
People walked by them or near them, sometimes it was a Senator, or a head-of-state, President Bush, Senator Clinton, Tony Blair, Mayor Rudy and she couldn't count how many other famous or powerful people stopped to look, listen, or just breathe in the wonder of the powerful destruction.
She didn't care, not all that much, she didn't register anything much beyond the bucket immediately to her front and the slick footing under her feet. Even through her thick police issue boots she could feel the heat, the burning fumes of the fire within.
"Heads up!" someone shouted.
They dropped their buckets where they stood and pelted for the relative safety of the perimeter lines of the Site. Somewhere along the massive heap of detritus came a clanging ring of falling debris. They waited a few more seconds, to make sure that nothing else was coming down, then packed back up and moved back in.
They stopped, every once in a while, though time seemed to stretch and dilate while they were there. The smoke blocked out the sun, at least for the first few days, and even at night, the powerful lights kept the work alive. Water and food were passed out, down the line, and she ate and drank mechanically, ignoring the gritty dust that flavoured everything like chalk.
Suddenly, while she was seated, trying to ignore the pains in her legs and arms, she heard a deep whining sound. Everyone froze. It had been too long, and too much destruction had taken place for everyone not to recognise the sounds. Pez caught on in a few seconds.
It was a jet engine.
Reflexively she drew the battered pistol at her side, heedless of the ludicrousness of trying to ward off a jet airplane with a .45 calibre Colt. Everyone looked to the sky, trying to place the sound.
"There!" someone shouted, and everyone turned, praying it wasn't yet another doomed airliner.
Far from being another airliner, Sara heard the whine of two Pratt and Whitney engines pumping out nearly 8,000 pounds of thrust behind the most beautiful sight in the world. A pair of F/A-18 Hornets screamed defiance over the broken remains of the World Trade Centre.
A ragged cheer downed out the whine of the turbines.
"Well hot damn," said one of the shaggy, worn out, firemen, "that's the best thing I've seen all day."
Privately, she agreed.
"Pez, Pez," Danny grabbed her good shoulder and gave it a shake.
"Yeah," she said faintly, still focused internally.
"You were there, weren't you?" asked a deep voice, Pez reflexively whirled around, hand automatically dropping to her gun. The speaker was a black man, with a deep chest and voice that begged him to say 'This is CNN'.
"Maybe," she temporised, looking him over. His name patch said "Williams", over that was a parachute, with wings flaring over to join at the top, on his collar was stitched the insignia of two bars, a Captain.
"I been there once, damndest thing I ever saw. I've been to proving grounds that didn't look that tore up. Y'all got cajones," he looked at her with admiration.
"Thanks," she muttered, breaking away from his gaze, slightly embarrassed "We try."
"Detective," he said mildly, "I have been an Army Ranger for twelve years, I served in the Gulf and in Somalia and I can tell you, personally, that never in my life have I ever seen something like that. If I'd have been there, I'd have run screaming for my momma an' not come back. I don't know how y'all did it."
"We had to," she responded, trying to shrug, but hampered by her sling.
"Yeah," he said, softy, "I know the feeling. Listen y'all ever need anything, give Captain Ronnie Williams a call, I can get men down there in no time flat." He stuck out his hand. She took it.
Danny and Jake stood by, kind of surprised, having not expected the Green Beret, all six-foot four of him, to look on their partner, all five foot five of her, with quite so much respect.
"Thanks" she smiled, and was rewarded with a white toothed grin that made his mouth look like it was full of little sugar cubes.
She climbed back on her bike, Danny pulled up next to her in the car, they both headed out together; somehow he knew that her shoulder was bothering her more than normal.
Something was bothering her now, but it had little to do with her shoulder. The Witchblade was too quiet. It was blocking out the pain of her broken shoulder like it usually did, but it was as if the vision had sucked something out of it. There usually wasn't a day that went by without it tugging her in some direction. She thought that time without that would be good, but instead it bothered her, like a fly in the back of her head.
Usually after a vision, she couldn't get the stupid thing to shut up. Especially after one so powerful. She signed off of the psychic case, for the moment at least, and concentrated on some other things, the jumped/pushed prostitute from Vice and some gunshot victims. Grunt work, essentially.
She got home with a sigh, unlocking the deadbolt, knob, and other deadbolt, and switching on the light.
"Nottingham!" she exclaimed and whipped out her gun, squeezing off one shot before remembering that this was not the time or the place to be shooting at things.
"Lady Sara," he, for the first time in their aquaintance, looked a little shaken up; he probably hadn't expected her to take a pot-shot at him when she came home. He bowed his head, not looking her in the face.
"Sit down damnit," she had her gun still drawn, but left the round unchambered, no need to tempt fate again, "Sit down, stop bowing, and tell me what in the name of God you're doing here, before I really get ticked off."
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