Waiting Chapter 4
Jim marched deliberately toward the elevator, making his strides even more determined when he heard Simon behind him. Standing side by side at the elevator, however, forced Jim to acknowledge the company.
"Save it Simon," He pre-empted, "Fire me if you have to. I'm going to get Blair."
"You're playing right into their hand, you know."
Jim turned savagely, "I don't care!"
"I just mean that if you happen to find Blair, and if they don't just kill him anyway to keep him from identifying them, do you really believe they don't have orders to kill you on sight?"
"I really believe I don't care!" Jim stepped into the elevator and was followed by Simon.
"I can't believe they've gone to all this trouble only to have the case postponed and have you testify another day."
"I don't…"
"…care! I know! But I do! And Blair does!" Simon still tried to reason with Jim. "If you go in there half-cocked, with blood in your eyes, all you're going to succeed in doing is getting killed along-side Sandburg."
As Jim exited the elevator and started toward the parking garage, he clipped. "I don't plan on going in half-cocked. Out for blood, yes, but not without a plan. If I hadn't had to talk to you all the way down, I was going to use the elevator ride to call for backup."
"You know where you're going?" Simon was genuinely surprised.
That stopped Jim for a second. "Of course I know where I'm going!" He resumed his progress toward the parking garage. "They're in an old warehouse. I thought it was an abandoned office building at first. They had him taped to an old office chair and I saw a desk in the background. But they moved him in the video. When they left the office, they took him to a large room with what looked to be meat hooks on the ceiling. They lowered one and hung him up on it, and started beating him again…with a pipe!"
"That doesn't really narrow it down that much. I can think of three abandoned warehouses that might have had meat hooks, just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are more."
"Maybe. But most of them are in the warehouse district, so that narrows it down a little." Jim argued. "And," he said as he reached the parking garage and started toward his truck, "I'm sure not all of them have a view of St. Peter's church."
Simon stared blankly and stopped, amazed when Jim stopped briefly too. "How do you know that it has a view of…"
"I saw the spire through the warehouse window behind Blair." Jim then continued more softly. "I can find him Simon… I have to find him."
Simon started moving again, but toward his own car, pulling Jim with him with his voice. "I'll drive Jim. We'll find him, but if you drive right now, you'll just wrap yourself around a telephone pole or something. Hell, I don't know how you keep from doing that on a good day, with the way you drive, but today…"
"Fine. Whatever." Jim started toward Simon's car. With Simon driving, he could study the video some more and narrow down the search even farther. "But don't drive like a grandmother; Blair really needs us Simon."
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Simon sped through the city streets at a velocity that made Jim proud. Ellison had just ended a call to Rafe and Brown to have them meet them in the warehouse district when Jim's phone rang in his hand.
"Please let it really be Blair," Jim whispered before he answered the phone.
"Call your lawyer, Ellison." The mechanical voice started up. "It doesn't do us any good for you to leave if they just postpone the trial. The lawyers have been in the judge's chambers since just after you left. If the trial is postponed, the kid dies."
"I can't influence what the judge might decide," Jim said, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. "I'm just a witness."
"Well, you better figure out a way, because the hippie dies otherwise." The phone call ended and a tone sounded on the phone to indicate a new video. Jim hesitantly opened the file. As bad as Blair looked in the last video, Jim didn't really want to see any more. He was right. They had the kid strung up on the meat hook, still, and were beating him with the pipe, again. Jim saw, and heard, the pipe impact Sandburg's head and ribs, several times. Jim turned up his hearing to concentrate on his friend's breathing. It wasn't good. Jim figured that that last blow collapsed a lung. Blair was wheezing, and was now unconscious. With his hearing up, Jim heard a train pass the warehouse, just as the thugs slammed the pipe into Blair's elbow. The sentinel tried to focus on the train, and not the cracking bone.
"Simon, there's a train in the background, and I can see a street sign." Jim zeroed in on what he could see through the window. "He's west of St. Peter's, just off of Third Street, near the railroad track."
Simon swung left at the next intersection, and poured on the speed. "Call Rafe and Brown and have them meet us there. Tell them what the time stamp was when you heard the train. Maybe we can narrow it down even more."
Jim opened the phone to do just that and then called the DA just in case, and thought, "Hang on Blair. We're coming."