Xander received a round of quiet nods as greetings.
"So, what's goin' on? What's happening?"
"Man, you a chatty bitch today," Deke said. "You got lucky last night, didn't you?"
"Heh," Xander said. "So, what's the sitch?"
Deke leaned around the truck and pointed. "Bus," he said. "Hostages and a demand for... I don't know. Vegetarian food or something, I think the guy's a vegan."
"Oh," Xander said. "I was wondering why the bus was there. What's with the car, though?"
"Crashed when the bus stopped in the middle of the intersection."
"Ohh," Xander said before turning to his other teammates. "Jim, Boxer, Sanchez, nice to see you guys. Hondo around?"
"He's up front in the truck," Boxer said.
"You all right?" Sanchez asked him. "You're lookin' a little jumpy."
"Fine," Xander said. "I just need to talk to Hondo. In private." He pointed. "Now."
"Everything all right?" Boxer asked.
"Fine!" Xander called as he ran off.
With no further explanation, Xander high-tailed it to the front of the truck and knocked on the door. It swung open and Hondo looked out. "Not now," he said. "We're planning things."
"Um... okay," Xander said nervously.
"You all right?" Hondo asked.
"Uh, yeah! Great! Just... need to talk to you when you get a chance."
"Can't it wait until after?" Hondo asked.
"Do you want me this jittery during whatever it is we're going to do?"
Hondo looked at him for a minute, taking in the nervous tics, the fake grin plastered on his face, all things that were so opposite his normal cool, collected calmness.
"All right," Hondo said, then turned to the other occupant of the truck, said something, then hopped down. "What's up?"
Xander walked around the front of the truck with Hondo, then glanced on both sides to see that none of his teammates were close.
"Okay, so, you know Boxer?" Xander asked.
"Yeah, what about him?"
"You know he has a sister?"
"Sure," Hondo said. "Lara. He's real protective of her. In fact, him and Street got into a fight about her on the first day we got together, cuz she had just broken up with him."
Xander grimaced.
"Why?" Hondo asked.
"Well, the thing is," Xander started, "I was supposed to meet the guys at the bar last night, right? But I got there about fifteen minutes early, and I start talking to this girl, and we hit it off, and we go somewhere else... and, well... it seems I might have slept with Boxer's sister."
"You did WHAT?" Hondo yelled.
Xander held his hands out to quiet his boss down. "I didn't know until this morning," Xander said.
Hondo took a deep breath. "Okay. Are you serious about her?"
Xander shrugged. "I don't know... maybe. She seems nice, although a little quick to jump to conclusions. And lash out."
"Conclusions about what?" Hondo asked.
"Well," Xander said. "Faith might have dropped in this morning. Wearing short-shorts and a sports bra. And using her own key."
"And the lashing out?" Hondo asked.
"She uh... insulted a good friend of mine who's in a coma."
Hondo blinked.
"I mean, she didn't know she was in a coma... just kind of assumed she's an ex who I cheated on. Which, I guess, is technically correct... but that was a long time ago."
Hondo blinked again.
"Okay," he said after a minute. "Do you have any plans with her?"
"Uh... she has my phone number."
"My real question," Hondo said after thinking for a moment, "is why the hell you're coming to me with this. Shouldn't you just talk to him?"
"Well," Xander said, "Lara said he's way over protective, and I thought maybe you would have an idea on, you know, the best way to approach the subject. I mean, I don't think I should just kind of walk up and say 'Hey, Mike, I slept with your sister. Let's go shoot –"
"You did WHAT?" yelled a voice from behind him.
Xander froze.
"I'm gonna kill that fucking kid," Boxer grunted, pulling the binoculars up to his eyes.
"Calm down, man," Deke said as he adjusted the focus on the scope attached to his rifle. "It's not like he knew."
"It doesn't matter," Boxer said. "He should have known. He should have found out and-"
"Exactly how?" Deke asked. "Come on man, the guy finds a girl, a girl he likes. Girl comes on to him, they go out, they talk, one thing leads to another... it's not like he was settin' out to mess with you."
"Yeah?" Boxer asked. "How do you know that. You've seen the people he hangs around. What they are, what they do. Maybe he was –"
(Boxer Hondo said over the radio. Deke, you guys in position?)
"Yeah, boss," Boxer said. "We're all set up here."
(Good) Hondo said.(And Boxer, don't let it get to you. Deal later. You can duke it out or whatever, but not until we're done here. Focus.)
"I read you," Boxer said.
(Good. I'll call back when we're ready for something.)
"See, now that wasn't too hard," Deke said, lining his sight up on Xander's head as Xander crept towards the bus, alone. "Besides, you're not the one who has to deliver the phone."
Boxer laughed. "Yeah," he said as he watched Xander toss the telephone unit into the bus while three of the men in the bus trained their guns on him.
"Got it in on the first toss," Deke said. "Pretty smooth."
"I never said he's a bad cop," Boxer muttered. "Just that he's a bastard."
"Actually, I think his parents were married," said Deke.
"Maybe," Boxer said, as he watched Xander stroll calmly back to Hondo's position at the front of the SWAT truck. "Look at that. He's all cool and collected, like nothing bugs him. Literal bastard or not, I'm keeping my eye on him."
"Jesus Christ," Xander said, when he got back to the truck. He wiped an inordinate amount of sweat from his brow and bent over, panting like he had just run a marathon.
"Fun, huh?" Hondo asked.
"Fun?" Xander asked incredulously. "Man, did you see those guys? One of them was swinging his gun back and forth the whole time, and the other two, I could see their hands shaking from thirty feet away! If I had been shot, it was gonna be by accident!"
"Uh huh," Hondo said. "So what did you learn while you were up there?"
"Don't sleep with Boxer's sister?"
Hondo laughed. "No, really, what'd you see?"
Xander sighed and leaned up against the truck. "Well, there's five of them, but we knew that. They have AK-47's, but we knew that, too. The ones up front didn't have any spare ammo clips that I could see, but that's not saying much because they're wearing those big-ass trenchcoats – which are not leather, by the way."
"And?"
"And, the guy in the back on the left is in charge," Xander said.
"How can you tell?" Hondo asked.
Xander shrugged. "The others are afraid of him. He yells, and they jump, then do what he says."
"Okay," Hondo said. "Good to know. Anything else?"
"Yeah, if we shoot anybody, we need to be really careful."
"We're always careful," Hondo said.
"Yeah," Xander said as he pointed to the undercarriage of the bus. "But we don't usually have to shoot our guns around open streams of gasoline."
Hondo lifted his binoculars to his eyes and looked under the bus, where he saw a small stream of liquid falling.
"Shiiiiit," he said. "That goddamn car must have ruptured the gas tank."
"What are these guys after, exactly?" Xander asked.
"That's not our territory," Hondo said. "We have negotiators for that. We're here to enforce whatever happens. I want you to pick up a rifle and go set up on the building to the left of Street and Sanchez. Contact me when you're in position."
"Got it," Xander said, heading for the back of the truck.
"And Harris," Hondo called.
"Yeah?"
"Did you do anything wrong?"
"What?" Xander asked.
"Last night, with Lara. Did you do anything wrong?"
Xander looked at Hondo, and shook his head.
"So why are you so scared of what Boxer will do? He's got a temper, yeah, but are you gonna let him being angry upset whatever there may or may not be between you and her?"
Xander cocked his head to one side. "No," Xander said.
"Then what the hell is there to talk about?" Hondo asked.
Xander nodded at him once.
"And nice spot on the gas. Now get going."
Xander tossed Hondo a lazy salute and trotted off to his sniper position
----------
End Chapter 12