No More Games

Chapter Seven

"Tara, what do we have on this guy?" D asked with a tone of disparity to his voice. It had been bad enough when this yahoo was waving a gun in the air and all of his possible victims could be accounted for in the main lobby of that bank. But with what he had strapped to his chest, there could end up being countless others dead at his hand.

"I've been running his image through facial recognition software. Nothing back yet, though," she added with a sigh.

D massaged his temples, hoping it would help to ease the dull ache in his head and neck, but Tara's information had just made it worse. He groaned. "I was hoping you wouldn't say that." Pinching the bridge of his nose, he looked toward Myles who was conversing quietly with Lucy at her desk. "What about you two?"

Lucy ran her ringers through her hair and licked her lips. D already knew by those two minor, unconscious actions that he wasn't going to like what they had to say. "Metro is standing by one scene along with medical personnel. And SWAT has snipers set up around the bank." She paused and glanced toward Myles.

The Bostonian shrugged his shoulders and swept his arm forward in a motion of invitation. "Go ahead. You might as well tell him."

D closed his eyes and groaned. The bad news just wasn't coming to an end. "Tell me what?"

Myles took a step back to allow Lucy to rise from her chair, a remote control in hand. With a push of a button, the appliance came to life revealing the image of the bank from one of the dozens of news cameras set up around the fray. At least the cameras couldn't see inside the bank. That was definitely a blessing.

"And this isn't the only channel it's on, D. Even cable news stations have picked up on this. It's a media frenzy."

Blowing out a breath, D nodded as he considered their options. He watched as the image changed to Chopper-View and showed them all just how many passers-by were standing in the streets, awaiting the end of this.

Despite his better instincts, he knew they would have to pull the snipers out of there. The repercussions of keeping them on scene—even for safety reasons—could be too great. He was already getting enough pressure from the brass. He didn't need any more.

Turning back to Lucy, he said, "Get a hold of Shane. Tell him to pull the snipers, but to keep the rest of his men on the ground. And let Metro know that they need to get as many officers as they have available to get down there for crowd control. Some idiot is going to try to go in for a closer look. I just know it."

Lucy and Myles both nodded and quickly reached for their phones to carry out the orders. D then turned to Bobby.

So far, the Aussie had remained quiet as he stewed over a few pictures of the man in the sweatshirt and the device he had strapped to his chest. Setting down the magnifying glass he'd been using, he picked up the best photo of the three and stood up with a grin.

"Oh please tell me that you have good news." D wasn't usually a begging man, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Bobby's grin widened and the sparkle returned instantly to his eyes. "I have good news." He crossed the room, and held the picture in front of Tara's face. "What does that look like to you, luv?" He pointed to a spot on the photograph and Tara's eyes narrowed as she tried to discern what she was seeing.

"Blasting caps?" she asked. At least, that's what it looked like to her.

"That's what I thought at first, too. Until I took a closer look." He turned back to the rest of the room, to show them too. "These," he pointed to the pieces that looked very similar to blasting caps, "aren't blasting caps."

D raised an eyebrow as he studied the picture a little more closely. To the untrained eye, they did look like blasting caps. "So, what are they?"

"They're fireworks," Bobby replied with a grin.

"Fireworks?" Myles asked, skeptically.

"Yeah. Roman Candles most lightly. They have the same shape and form required for this sort of style of suicide vest. And though it could cause a few minor burns if this thing is actually wired to go off at all, it won't kill anybody."

"So, if you were to make a vest like this and you knew it would cause only minor harm, why go through all the trouble in the first place?" Lucy asked as she hugged herself from the sudden chill that raced down her spine. She didn't know why, but there was still something that wasn't sitting right in her stomach.

"That's the million dollar question, it seems," D sighed. His headache had eased slightly from Bobby's news, but there was still a throb at the back of his head that would remain until their suspect was in custody.

"Anybody ready for some more good news?" Tara asked from behind her monitor where she'd started working furiously again only a few seconds before. She smiled as the rest of the team turned in her direction; it was a triumphant smile. "We got a hit on our guy."

Jack rubbed at stinging pain in his jaw. He'd been hit plenty of times in his career, but almost no pain could compare to being hit with the butt of a gun. It almost felt like something between a punch to the stomach and a bullet lodging itself in one of the plates of his Kevlar vest.

Forcing himself to sit up, his tongue flickered out to brush against the cut on his lip. It stung, but he didn't allow his pain to show if only for the sake of his wounded pride. The metal tang of blood invaded his taste buds, which made him immediately spit it out.

"You knew I was armed." His eyes never wavered from the gunman's. "And yet you let me keep my gun. Why?" It was the one question that had been burning to life inside of him since that first shot had been fired off. Why, indeed?

The cool, blue-eyed expression smiled back at him in such a way that made the hairs on the back of Jack's neck stand on edge. "I was just curious about how far you would go to protect your little sweetheart over there." His gaze promptly turned toward Sue as he received an angry, icy glare from the man still sprawled out on the floor. He couldn't help but look at the blonde appreciatively. She was certainly beautiful, but his heart would forever belong to Shannon—whether she would accept it or not.

Sue's glare in return only made him chuckle which raised Levi's hackles. She felt her canine companion tense beside her and then his deep growl as he prepared himself to protect his mistress. She managed to calm him by gently stroking his ears and a few gentle words to which he responded with only a soft whimper.

Turning back to Jack, the gunman carried himself with an almost swagger to his movements. Suddenly he seemed very confident and that worried Jack more than the device strapped to the man's chest. "As least I know how far you would go to protect her, but how far will you go to protect the rest of them?" His arms swept around the room to remind the other man of the other victims in this vicious game of his.

As if he needed to be reminded. "I'm not in the mood to play games," especially when it came to innocent people's lives, Jack countered coldly.

His response was met with a grin. "Good. Because neither am I."