Hang on for some action in this one. Thought it couldn't get any worse? Think again. Enjoy.
"I don't believe it," Jamie whispered, perplexity in his eyes when he looked at his partner. Eddie had just told him about what Ray Parson had talked about when she was tied up in the chair. "Someone has been playing them right from the start, and now Danny is involved," Jamie said, ready to punch out a few teeth. And not to make everything worse, they were trapped, with no way out. A cell phone buzzed near them, causing them both to jump. Eddie moved a little bit slower than Jamie, when they looked for the source, which was clearly inside the room. Hope grew in both their eyes, when Eddie opened a full sized cabinet with a coat on a hanger inside.
"Jamie, over here," she called and rushed through the pockets with her one good hand. The other one was loosely hanging in the improvised sling Jamie had made from a scarf that was thrown on the table he had moved. She handed it to Jamie and he looked at the caller ID. Unknown. He glanced at Eddie and she nodded, encouraging. He hit the green button.
"It's me… they have your guy's faces," a deep, sonorous voice echoed on the line. Jamie didn't answer and Eddie stared at the phone. "The detective is on to you, it is only a matter of time, before he knows too much. If he gets too close, I'll have to… here he is, I got to go," the voice finished and the line went dead. Eddie's mouth had dropped, and she looked at Jamie, not knowing what to say.
"We have to call Danny," she mumbled and could only think about what was running through her partner's head, right now. "We'll call him, and he'll come get us out of here," Jamie only looked ahead, into the empty air. "Jamie!" Eddie hissed, raising her voice a tiny fraction, so that Jamie would react. The tone in her voice, snapped him back to reality and his eyes told her that he was partly confused, partly angry and totally helpless. She put her good hand on his shoulder. "If you brother is anything like you at all, he can handle what's coming at him, trust me," she said and held his eyes with hers. She trusted Jamie and believed in the Reagan's. Her face was pale, and her eyes rimmed with red, but to Jamie, she had never looked better.
"You are right," Jamie mumbled, and Eddie looked a little bit stunned for half a second, then she smiled, and her shoulders relaxed. Jamie wrapped his fingers around her wrist and smiled at her. The close proximity was comforting both of them. The phone still in hand, he looked at the display and dialed his brother and put it on speaker. Two rings later it was answered.
"Reagan," Danny huffed when he answered the phone, even more irritated and grumpy than normal, while working a long case. This was taking its toll on him, almost gave him more gray hair than he already had.
"Danny, don't say anything and listen carefully, you have to be careful and watch your ba…" Danny froze involuntarily when he heard the voice of his brother. A cold sweat broke out in his tightened hands shortly after, when the line was disrupted. He was filled with every emotion known to mankind. He was happy to hear his brother alive, angry that he wasn't next to him, scared of the cause that cut them off. He looked at O'Hara, who had just finished a call and looked quite tense. Baez, Johnson and Salazar had followed him out of the tech room and talked, presumably about the case and what to do. Baez looked to be in charge of the two men, as this was her precinct, and they were guests. Danny motioned for her, that he needed to talk to her alone, and the look in his eyes told her it was important. Seconds later they were standing in the observations room and Danny let her in on the recent call.
"Are you sure he said 'watch your back'?" Baez asked, puzzled. She was impressed with Danny, who had not uttered a word, when receiving the call. "Wait, do you think they have a mole in here?" she asked and looked at the door with furrows in her brows. Danny pulled his shoulders and hummed.
"I don't know, the line went dead before he could say anything more," he answered. And that had made him uneasy. It was quite the understatement, but he kept his head cool. His mother, Mary, would have been so proud of him, he briefly thought. "Let's keep it quiet until we know anything. Have someone keep an eye out for any unusual 9-1-1-calls, still in the city. Then I want you to go down to 1PP and update the Commissioner," Danny said and looked at the door. "I'll try figuring out what the hell is happening," he finished, just as Baez's phone started buzzing.
"Yes… say again… no, we'll be right there in, say fifteen minutes?.. great," she hung up and Danny looked at her, expecting some good news.
"Well?" he asked as soon as she had pressed the end-button.
"They have been spotted, heading west in another van, plates unreadable," she said and they walked out of the observation room.
"Let's go take a look," Danny said, almost whispering it, when they got closer to the three men. Two of them were fairly impatient but calmer than the giant, who was pacing next to them, wearing a hole in the floor. "Thanks for the update on the two ID's," Danny said and grabbed his jacket off of the back of his chair. "We'll take it from here and call you with any updates," he said, while he slid on his jacket and secured his weapon. He and Baez walked to the elevator and out of sight from the three men.
"O'Hara seems a little edgy," Baez commented quiet. Danny looked back over his shoulder. He did seem in a hurry to make a call before and he did end it quickly, when Danny walked up behind him. And that was just seconds before he received the call from Jamie.
"Jamie?" Eddie coughed because of the smoke and all the dust particles in the air. Rubble and fragments of the door and ceiling were scattered around them. Jamie had been standing between her and the door, when something outside it exploded. It had knocked them both to the ground, before they could react, and now Jamie's body pinned her to the floor, the angle a little askew. "Reagan," she said hoarsely. Everything hurt, when she tried to push the dead weight off of her. "Jamie, wake up," she coughed again. Her eyes and throat were burning. A tear trickled to her ear and left a cleat stripe on her darkened skin. Her heart skipped a beat, when she felt Jamie stir. "Hey, hey, hey, Jamie, open your eyes… we have to get out," she smiled hesitantly when he lifted his head from the floor. His eyes tried to focus and he squeezed them together when he felt the pain. Blood trickled from the right side of his head, above his ear. "Move, Reagan," she said, more determined and he managed to roll onto his side so that Eddie could slip away from under him. He moaned painfully when it caused him to move.
"Eddie," he huffed with deep furrows in his face. Cuts dripped and the sod made him look awful.
"Yeah, I know, I know, it hurts, but we have to get out. You have to help me," she said and tried to stand up. She didn't need to be a doctor to see that his left shoulder was busted. She needed a lot of help, to get him out, no way, she could do it on her own, not even without a bullet wound in her arm. Two shapes formed in the blown away door.
Danny demanded the young officer to play the tape, and shortly after he had put out a BOLO on the white panel van, an older Ford Explorer. Not even five minutes later his phone rang, he and Baez were walking back to the car.
"Reagan," he said, stopping his movement to open the car door, when he heard the background noise of sirens.
"Detective Reagan, this is Lieutenant Lewis out of stationhouse 2-7, we just located a van, matching the description in your BOLO," a hoarse, exasperated voice sounded.
"Where? What happened?" Danny asked, catching a glance from Baez from the other side of the car.
"In the south-east corner warehouse at Tallman Island Wastewater Treatment Plant," Lewis said under his breath. "There has been an explosion, now…" he stopped talking when Danny cut him off.
"Explosion? Anybody hurt?" Baez's eyebrows shot together, questioning and terrified.
"We do have it under control, and we found no one inside. Only the van," Lewis said, talking calmly and clarified.
"All right, we'll be there in ten minutes, don't touch anything," Danny ordered and hung up, rushing in to the car and down the road while he updated Baez.
Not even eight minutes later they found the Lieutenant surrounded by a couple of firemen, all of them looking at blueprints on the hood of a car.
"Lieutenant? I'm Detective Danny Reagan, this is my partner, Detective Baez," Danny started, eager to get going. It had calmed him a little bit, knowing there had been no people inside, but he was still anxious to find out how the explosion was related to his case.
"Detective, how are you doing?" he started whit a smile to Baez. "I trust you will take a look at the place, before you let your CSU guys take over?" he asked when he excused himself from the group. He was a tall, lean man with broad shoulders and a square face. His voice was just as big as his body. Clearly used to the hard work of being a firefighter. He waved at a seemingly young firefighter and gestured to Danny and Baez. The young man ran off and soon after he returned with two hardhats, one in each hand. "The ceiling in unstable," he explained, almost apologetic, when they put them on. Shortly after they walked in through an open door with a new keypad and headed through the almost empty warehouse hall. "The van is over there?" Baez asked confused when they walked past it in the corner and headed to what was left of a possible office room.
"Yes, but I think you might want to take a look at this first… watch your step," Lewis said and stepped through a hole in the wall. He stepped back and Danny walked past him with Baez behind him. They both looked around. A door and an old desk were blown to pieces, almost unrecognizable. Filing cabinets had been knocked over and most of every surface was black. The foul stench they had smelled when they had opened their car doors, was even worse in here.
"What are we looking at?" Danny asked slightly confused. He didn't do a lot of exploding grime scenes, so he didn't know what to look for. It hadn't burned per say, just exploded in immense heat and died just as fast.
"You see how every surface is covered in sod? And this spot right here?" the lieutenant asked and pointed to a cleared spot on the floor just in front of them. He squatted down on one knee and tracked a finger over the clean floor. "No sod means something covered this surface when it all went boom. And this foot print, too small to be that of a man," Lewis explained.
"Eddie," Danny mumbled. Baez looked at the lieutenant.
"I thought, you said, no one was here?" She asked, clearly still confused.
"I said we didn't find no body, dead or alive. Someone was here when it all exploded, and then they left, before we got here, which was approximately ten minutes later," Lewis said. He could see the distress in the two detectives faces. "Not to contribute to the bad day, you are clearly having but this here," he pointed to a smeared out patch on the floor. Dark red, crusted and with a lot of dust on the surface. "This looks like blood to me," he noted and looked up on the wall. "Like that handprint over there, equivalent to the size of an average man," Danny looked up in the same direction and walked to wall next to the hole. A bloody, smeared out, handprint in shoulder height. Danny guessed it could have been someone leaning on the wall. He suppressed the thought of it being his kid brother. He very much tired to.
"Let's check out the van," he said and walked through the hole that had once been a door. "Do you know anything about the explosion?" he asked when he led the way to the van.
"Caused by a very small amount of Pentaerythritol tetranitrate," Lewis answered, almost sounding proud and well-read. "PETN is a compound in SEMTEX, used for demolition," he explained when Danny looked like he was about to bite his head off. Baez glanced at him with apologetic eyes.
"Only certified people can get their hands on SEMTEX," Baez said when Danny opened the back of the van with a gloved hand. He didn't have high hopes of finding anything, but he was still disappointed when it turned out to be empty. He checked the cabin too, which was empty as well.
"Have CSU turn this place upside down. We might be able to track down the SEMTEX," Danny said and walked outside in the now darkening city. It was almost eight, ten hours after his first phone call with Jamie had been interrupted by a hail of bullets. Baez stopped next to him and looked at his tense and strained face.
"Why don't you go home for that Sunday dinner of yours and a nap? I'll handle this for a while," she offered, slightly bossy, but still kind. When he was about to contradict her, she held up a hand to stop him. "Go home. Eat. Take a shower. Sleep. No but's. I'll take care of this. If anything happens, you'll be my first call. Go. Now." Danny looked stunned at his partner for a second but didn't dare to utter a word before he walked to the car. He knew she could handle it. He knew he needed the rest and the food. And a shower.
The house was almost silent when he walked through the kitchen, even though everyone was still here, except for his brother. Jack and Sean were probably playing upstairs, and if he had to guess, his father was in the study. Linda, Erin and Nicky would be in the living room, talking, and Pops would sit in the armchair with the paper and a drink. Danny looked through the door and when Erin saw him she stood up immediately which caused the others to look up as well.
"How is it going?" Erin asked and stepped closer. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her hair was a mess.
"It feels like I'm three steps behind, all the goddamn time," he growled and enveloped Linda when she silently walked into his arms.
"You will find him, right, Uncle Danny?" Nicky asked and Erin put an arm around her daughter. Nicky was clearly worrying too.
"Of course, I will," he said, trying to sound more hopeful than he felt. Frank had appeared, only seconds after Danny had said the first words. They exchanged a glare and Danny gave Linda's arm a little squeeze when he walked to his father. Danny sat down on the steps in the hallway and Frank stood in the middle, hands behind his back, waiting patiently for an update. Danny started talking his father through the day, Jamie and Eddie going for breakfast, how their first chat this morning had ended, the empty warehouse, and when he mentioned the DEA, Frank had to sit down next to him. He went on about the search for the car, the BOLO's, the search for the second car, the call from the Lieutenant Lewis, the explosion and the evidence in there. When he had finished talking, it was almost nine in the evening and he headed for the kitchen for a late dinner. Afterwards Henry commandeered him upstairs to take a shower and go to bed.
"You won't do anything good, if you pass out in the middle of everything," had his closing argument been.
"Danny, you need to be rested and sharp. Baez will call you if she gets anywhere, so go get some sleep," Erin commented, so Danny swiftly kissed Linda and headed upstairs, too tired to even start an argument with any one with the name 'Reagan'.
Jamie watched, no, stared blankly at Eddie in front of him. They were both lying on the floor in a new location, this time it hadn't been kept a secret. They were surrounded by the East River, the Manhattan Bridge and to the other side, he had seen the Williamsburg Bridge. So he had concluded they were somewhere in north Brooklyn, close to the Navy Yard. At some point their fingers had connected and now they held on to each other. He closed his eyes for a second, it wasn't hard for him to imagine being in a bed instead of the cold floor. With his partner next to him. He opened his eyes again and looked at her tired body. Her skin was pale, she had dark rings under her eyes, and her face was dark with dust from the explosion. She had a few tear stripes down her cheeks. He brushed his thumb over her fingers, still soft, he thought, when she opened her eyes.
"Reagan," she whispered with exhaustion in her face and voice.
"We'll get out," he whispered back. "I promise, I'll get you out of here," he said and smiled, fully exhausted and sore as hell. "I promise," he said and they both smiled.
Their luck will turn soon enough. Thanks for reading. Let me know, how I did, will ya? You're awesome! :)