Chapter Five: Rules of Engagement May Not Apply
The rain had gotten warmer. As the temperature increased, so did the intensity of the storm. LAPD Sergeant Brandon Hicks readjusted his poncho and mumbled to himself as he made his way across the sidewalk toward the police barricade. The wind kept trying to blow his hood off and rain kept dripping off his hair and running down his neck. It had already saturated the collar of his blue uniform shirt. He shook his head with disgust as he made his way around the black SUV that blocked the center of the courtyard. Those jokers from the FBI really thought they were something. First the guy parks on the sidewalk, now that…. woman…had ordered him to move the barricades and push the crowd back to the end of the block. She said the crowd was making her nervous. That was a laugh. A bunch of curious onlookers were hardly cause for alarm. They just wanted a good seat for when they started hauling body bags out of the building. This interagency cooperation thing was a load of crap.
He called out to the group of patrolmen who were guarding the perimeter.
"Folks, the feds seem to think we need to push this party to the end of the block. Let's move 'em back."
Sgt. Hicks had always considered himself to be an observant man.
But, if someone were to ask him later, he would have to admit that he had never seen it coming. The patrolmen were pushing the parameter and the crowd suddenly decided to push back. A group of young men began to shout at the officers who were requesting that they move. Without warning, the sound of a discharging weapon rang though the morning sky and a patrolman fell.
The other officers instantly scattered as they ones closest to the incident drew their own weapons.
Sgt. Hicks hit the ground behind the black SUV, and another series of gunshots were fired, and the window above his head exploded. He grabbed his walkie-talkie from his belt.
"We have an officer down! Officer down and we are taking fire! Multiple shooters, courthouse perimeter. I think our escapees may have had backup! Do you copy?"
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Megan wasn't sure why the crowd had seemed unusual to her. It was a Thursday morning and people are bound to gather when an incident occurs. They always do. It's like a train wreck. Everyone wants to stop and see, hoping to catch a glimpse of something they had never seen before. It may have had something to do with the rain, or the fact that there was a male majority, but this crowd had made her weary. She had left the control room to tell the LADP officer in charge of the police perimeter outside the building to move that barricade back.
She was halfway back across the lobby when the first shot was fired.
From inside the building, the repercussion was muted and could have easily been mistaken for a car backfiring if it hadn't been followed by a stream of bullets, several of which found the series of glass panels that enclosed the courthouse lobby.
The FBI's initial response team had made the lobby their command center. There were also about a dozen LAPD officers who had just finished clearing the building, not to mention the group of Federal Marshals who had decided to stick around. The sound of shattering glass and rapid gunfire evoked a common reaction among the group of well trained law enforcement professionals. The whole room dropped to the floor, almost in unison, drawing their own weapons.
The gunfire continued just outside the now open lobby. Megan scrambled across the floor, taking cover behind a black vinyl chair, just as Colby's voice spoke in her ear.
"Reeves? What the hell's going on out there?"
"Granger? Where are you?"
"I'm heading up the stairs with HRT. Why does it sound like all hell just broke loose in the lobby?"
Another round of bullets hit the shatter proof glass in the central window and the pane fell out onto the floor with the others. With the windows gone, the next gust of wind tore through the lobby and Megan had to yell to hear her own voice.
"THAT'S 'CAUSE IT DID, GRANGER! I think Don was right about the Mara 13th being a part of this thing! I'm going to issue a TAC alert and we're going to need LAPD to bring the SWAT team around front."
"Are you ok down there?"
She glanced around at the variety of officers who had begun to make their way to the doors. The gunfire had ceased and Megan cautiously rose to her feet.
"I think we've got it covered. They've already started running, but I'm gonna let SWAT know to wear the riot gear. Just in case. I'm heading back to the control room."
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David stepped aside and let the special ops team run past him, up the stairs. Colby had slowed his pace while he was talking to Megan.
"Can you believe that? The 13th just busted up the lobby."
Colby's astonishment was apparent in his voice.
David shook his head in disbelief.
"They've gotta know they don't stand a chance."
"Yeah, Megan said they're not sticking around. Just shoot and run."
"Well, I called Walker before we loaded up. I thought his insight might be helpful up here. He was headed for the control room. Megan can get his take on it."
"David? I didn't mention it before, but you should know..……Charlie's in there, man. And it doesn't look so good. Robin's in there with him."
David slowed his pace and turned to face his partner.
"What? Does Don know this?"
"Yeah, and he says he can handle it. But if this goes South……. …..David……we can't expect Don….."
"No. Of course not. I'll take care of it……..If…..."
Colby nodded and they both increased their speed catching up to the special ops team on the 9th floor.
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FPS Anderson stood and watched the LAPD SWAT team working to secure a perimeter and closing the nearby street that surrounded the courthouse. He watched the paramedics that had already been on the scene, loading an injured officer into the waiting ambulance.
"What did they hope to accomplish?"
Sergeant Hicks answered his question.
"Nothing. They're making noise because their guys blew the escape."
"I wouldn't assume that, Sergeant."
They turned to see Lt. Gary Walker standing in the doorway.
"The government picked a fight with the most violent, vindictive gang in the United States….maybe in the world. What did you expect?"
Megan shrugged her shoulders.
"Well, I didn't expect them to shoot up the federal courthouse and try to bust four low level punks out of lockup."
"No, I didn't expect you did. It's good to see you, Reeves."
He stuck out his hand, and she shook it.
"Likewise. I'm glad you're here. We have a problem, Walker."
He was eyeing the video that was streaming into the large center monitor. It was hard not to recognize a guy with hair like that.
"Is that who I think it is?"
Megan nodded silently.
Walker turned and watched the monitors that showed the street in front of the courthouse.
"The 13th was making a show of force. That's all this was. They were trying to prove a point…………it may not make sense to us, but to them……..even if we had taken them all out before they could run, they just told the US Government to kiss their collective ass."
"And other than making that point?"
"No. I doubt if there is more to it than that."
Lt. Walker shook his head.
"If their guys got out….okay. If they didn't…….well, they've made their point. Martyrdom is a big deal within these kinds of gangs."
Megan nodded.
"It's their own special way of achieving immortality."
He stared at her.
"Are you trying to profile a gang, Reeves?"
"Just the two in that courtroom."
"What are you thinking?"
She turned her eyes back to the center monitor.
"I'm thinking they don't intend to escape. I think negations might not be an option."
She motioned back toward the screen, and her voice took on a more urgent tone.
"And I think we just ran out of time. Something is happening in there."
Things had defiantly just taken a turn for the worse and as she watched the situation unfolding, she felt her blood run cold.
"Granger, are you guys up there yet?"
"Bravo team is in place. We're in the stairwell with Alpha on ten, making our approach. What's happening?"
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The two men had stopped pacing. They were now sitting on the Defense Attorney's table talking in quite whispers. The younger of the two, Manlio Salazar, was tossing his gun from hand to hand. He had been staring at her for several minutes now, and Robin was growing more and more panicked by his rapt attention. She was the prosecuting attorney and certainly he harbored more than a slight abhorrence for her. She knew his file front to back and the list of his offenses, both proven and suspected, were fresh in her mind. Trying to ignore him, she turned her attention back to Charlie. Frankie still had a firm hold on Charlie's hand and when Robin moved to readjust her own grip, Frankie looked up and met her eyes. His voice was a whisper.
"Is he gonna die?"
Charlie forced his eyes open and answered for himself.
"Not if I can help it, but I'm not making any promises."
His voice was weak and his speech dramatically slurred. But a strange calmness seemed to encompass his tone and Robin could tell he was beginning to sink into a state of delirium.
Robin felt Charlie squeeze her hand, as if to reassure her.
His grip was much weaker than it had been and his hand was cool and clammy. Robin tried to constrain the sob that was rising in her throat, but she failed.
Charlie lifted his eyes to the decorative clock that hung from the wall above the double doors that led into the hallway. Only twenty minutes had passed since the first shot had been fired. Only twenty minutes.
He had starting to feel very woozy when he had heard Frankie's question and putting forth the effort to speak had almost been to much. Charlie felt his mind start to wonder again as he watched the second hand circle around the clock
"Time is a comedian, Charles. A comic illusionist forever playing to an audience that is too captivated to look away. It's a trick done with lights and mirrors that are meant to hypnotize us and divert our attentions away from the important things. The passage of time is merely apparent and we must simply learn to ignore it. However amusing it may be."
Larry was trying to make a point that had had nothing to do with physics and Charlie had completely missed it giving him a standard textbook answer.
"The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom. You're a physicist, Larry. The isotope of an atom is used to measure time. It can be measured and you know it. It can be measured in units other than those of time itself, calculated to precise digits. That makes it quite tangible."
Amita had laughed at the exasperation on the older professor's face.
"You know what Larry, you may be right. We do live in the botox capitol of the world."
"Yes, no better place to ignore time."
Charlie chuckled as he watched the second hand circle the clock.
It was there and it was completely measurable and ignoring it wasn't going to slow those clock hands down….or speed them up.
Charlie began to count. He defined the cesium measurements for a minute….then twenty minutes…..then an hour. He might have continued his calculations into weeks, months and years if someone hadn't kicked him….hard.
"What the hell's your problem, huh? You got something to say?"
Robin's soft voice came to his defense.
"Please, he's delirious. He doesn't know what he's saying. He's just counting."
"Well, shut him up. We're trying to think, here."
Charlie felt so sluggish now. Nothing was moving at full speed. Through a haze of pain and fear, he realized quite suddenly that he now knew what if felt like to die.
With a monumental effort, Charlie shifted his eyes from the clock to the angry young man in the orange jumpsuit. He wanted to tell him that he would be quiet. He tried to focus, but his corneas wouldn't obey. The edges of his vision blurred and then the room began to spin around him. Charlie tried to fight for consciousness, but the reprieve from the anguish and horror that had filled the past twenty minutes was too tempting. His eyes closed, and Charlie slumped against the bench.
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Authors Notes: Everybody take a deep breath. Hoping to write like mad over the weekend….
Chapter Six: The Essential Condition of Life