Thank you all for your overwhelming response to the last chapter, and also thank you for not murdering me! (let's keep that up please.)
Warning: there's some not-entirely-academic language in this chapter, because it turns out, Andy is very angry over last chapter's developments, too.
A Tangled Web (18)
Rusty was failing to process much of what went on around him.
There were flashes of red and blue from all directions, lighting up the surrounding darkness, and some orange rotating lights near the – the parking garage…or what was left of the parking garage… and… people talked over each other, radios crackling, uniforms marching around the perimeter, turning and shouting, but he had no idea what anyone was saying.
His gaze was lost in the smoldering ruins of the building, and what he heard most was his uneven heartbeat.
"Turn the car around." His voice had come out a strangled croak, when he'd finally been able to speak.
Buzz had already had his phone out, dialing Lt. Provenza. "Rusty – I can't. We're in the middle of the inters –"
"Turn the car around!"
And when Buzz still hadn't done so – he couldn't even if he'd wanted to, traffic had come to a halt all around them – Rusty had opened the door and leaped out before Buzz could stop him, ducking between cars and gawking people, back in the direction of the mall, ignoring Buzz's shouts…
He'd gotten to the end of the block and felt a wave of relief slam into him – the mall had looked fine, still there, standing, just as it had ten minutes before… But the relief had been short lived, because just as he'd finished that thought, his brain had caught up with what his eyes were seeing: the smoke was coming from the parking garage, the three-level structure pitching and crumbling with hair-raising metallic shrieks...
They'd made him keep his distance, and Rusty had – aware that there was nothing he could do to help, he'd stayed where they'd put him in the back seat of some car, and he hadn't moved an inch in… hours, it must've been hours… His legs were dangling out the open passenger door, heels resting on the ground, and his knees shook – how could hours pass without news? How…? It had been maybe seven-thirty when – when… it was what, one a.m. now? Two? How was that possible?
"Rusty."
It took hearing his name a couple of times to look over; Buzz stood by the car, towering over him, a water bottle in his hands. Rusty shook his head.
"Take it," said Buzz. "If you're not thirsty right now, just hold on to it, okay?"
But he didn't want water, what he wanted – what he wanted was to know that everything was okay, to know… anything! He looked up with beseeching eyes, but there was no answer in Buzz's expression. When the man didn't volunteer any information, Rusty tried to force his throat to work.
"Have – have they…?"
A slow headshake. "They haven't found anything yet, the bomb squad and the rescue teams are still searching…"
Oh god, oh god how was it possible to not find anything after six hours? If – if – shouldn't something have happened by then? "How…?"
Buzz crouched a little to put a hand on his shoulder. "Listen… they haven't found anything, okay? That's… that's good. It means that it's…possible, that…"
Rusty's hand clenched around the water bottle until the contorting plastic creaked mournfully.
Buzz sighed. "Just hang in there." He squeezed Rusty's shoulder. "Do you need anything?"
The boy shook his head.
A hundred yards away, a utility vehicle backed out from a large pile of rubble, causing a cloud of dust to rise into the air.
"How the hell haven't they found anything yet?!"
Lt. Flynn didn't even bother to keep his tone down anymore; knowing that he was within earshot of some of the rescue team members only made him want to shout louder.
"Sir, we should be in there looking." Sanchez had been itching to go since the second he'd arrived on scene, several hours before.
"Yeah, we should!"
"You're not trained in this kind of retrieval action," Taylor said quietly, having wandered back to their group at the signs of increased agitation. "Let the search teams do their jobs. They'll –"
"These search teams are a joke!" Flynn waved his hand furiously in the direction of the crumbling building. "It's been hours, and all they can give us is some cheap-ass excuse about unstable structures and – that douchebag field commander hasn't even let the dogs run through yet! The Captain could be trapped in there –"
"They've run heat scans of the building," the Chief reminded them, "there were no signs of … a human presence, inside."
"The dust, small electrical fires and residual heat from the explosion could be affecting the heat scans," Tao pointed out, "and the acoustics devices that the search teams are using. If I could just set up the microwave life-detection system that I mentioned earlier –"
"I understand that that system hasn't been tested yet," Taylor tempered, "and there are…concerns, about its effects on an already unstable structure."
"The vibrations it emits are negligible if it's calibrated to –"
"It's not up to me, lieutenant." They'd had variations of the same discussion five times over the past few hours.
"Then who the hell is it up to?" Flynn was not getting any calmer. "If Tao has a better system to detect where those people are in there, we should be using it, instead of waiting for these incompetent assholes to tell us that they can't find anything!"
"The search teams are going as fast as they can, given the circumstances. I just talked to their commander again, made clear that he needs to pick up the pace."Taylor shook his head. "Look, I want to –"
"'Pick up the pace'? You should've told him that six hours ago…!"
" –I want to find Captain Raydor as much as you do –"
"Really? Because –"
"Flynn!" Provenza raised his voice enough to make his partner stop, then lowered it again. His face was grim. "That's enough – all of you." He glared at Sanchez and Tao as well, for good measure. "We can't go inside that damn garage yet, so until someone persuades the search team or the bomb squad otherwise," (he gave Taylor a look), "I suggest we find out how the hell this happened in the first place, and find the asshole who did it."
"Sir, how is that gonna help the –"
"It's gonna help," he cut Julio off, "more than standing here complaining about the things that we can't do. Ah!" He held up a finger when the detective wanted to add something. "I'm not kidding here, Sanchez."
"Provenza's right," the Chief agreed, "the best thing that Major Crimes can do right now, is track down the person responsible for this attack."
Andy passed both hands through his hair. "The best thing we can do," he said frustratedly, "is to go in there and look for the Captain!"
"Everything is being done to find any survivors. Please…" Taylor sighed, his expression as somber as theirs, "let's just have a little more patience. I'm going to talk to the bomb squad," he promised, "tell them to let the dogs run through the wreckage…"
With that, and one last concerned look at the smoldering remains of the parking garage, he turned away, toward one of the other action centers in the perimeter, losing himself in the crowd of uniforms and rescue crews.
Andy rounded on his partner. "What the hell's the matter with you?"
"Cut it out, Flynn," the older lieutenant said in a tired tone. "We can't go charging in there with no idea how to search a collapsing building. The garage is already a wreck, and the mall might follow at any second – you're not gonna do the Captain any favors if you go in and end up bringing the whole place down on both of you."
"We're not doing her any favors waiting out here sitting on our hands, either."
"And that's not what we're going to do," Provenza assured. "But getting into it with the rescue crews – or Taylor for that matter – is a waste of time, and," his expression grew even graver, "it's not even our time that we're wasting. So cut it out."
The ensuing silence was still tense with dissent, but it lasted long enough to convince him that they were at least willing to go with a better plan, now.
"Tao." He took a deep breath. "This… microwave system that you mentioned. Is it actually gonna cause the building to collapse further? Because that is not something we need right now."
"It's not," said the lieutenant, "I can calibrate it to emit minimal vibrations, and at a safe frequency."
"Can you set it up from out here? Get it to detect … whatever it is that it detects, inside the garage?"
"No. It can detect human heartbeat and breathing through up to ten feet of rubble – but not from here. I'd need to be at least…" Mike glanced at the wreckage, and shook his head, "I don't know, thirty, forty yards closer. Maybe by that safety cordon at the corner of the building."
Provenza followed his line of sight, and nodded. "Alright… you set up whatever you can here, and then we'll figure out a way to get you in the right place. Try not to let Taylor see you… wait, Tao." He called the man back when he'd turned away. "Before you go do that… run us one more time through what the Captain said when you called her."
The lieutenant grimaced, rubbing a tired hand to his neck.
Unbelievably, he'd been on the phone with Captain Raydor when the whole thing had gone down.
It almost made everything worse. He couldn't stop wondering, at the back of his mind, if there was more that he could've done. If he could've acted faster. Or maybe if he hadn't called her at all…
She'd picked up the phone with something resembling a sigh. "Yes, Lieutenant…?"
"Captain – I know you've gone home for the evening, but you told me to call you with the results of the background check, and, uh, we might have another problem."
Her words sounded a little unclear, interrupted. " –what problem?"
Maybe she was in a bad reception area, he'd thought. "Erik Jensen – the research scientist and ex-project engineer who we think was Donnell's accomplice… he's also Susan Crowley's ex-husband."
There had been a long moment of silence, on the other end.
"So, well, we might be looking at a whole different motive for blowing up the shopping center," he'd added when the Captain still hadn't said anything for another few seconds. "Actually – maybe you want to hold off on getting Rusty's car back from 'Sun Plaza'…? I mean, it's probably –"
She'd said something else, then, a long string of words so garbled by the poor reception that they had been impossible to make out.
"Captain, I can't really hear you, I think your reception's a little bad. Can you repeat that…?"
"Mike." Her voice had come through clearly, then, for a few seconds, and there was frustration mixed with anxiety in it. "I'm in the parking garage, at 'Sun Plaza', level C, and I think Erik Jensen is here."
He still remembered the second of complete stillness while his brain had processed that, and then the way that time had started to run faster.
" –and I couldn't hear her very well, either. She said – I think she said something about someone else being there, but… " Tao shook his head, frustrated. "Parking level C is two floors underground, the phone signal was awful…"
Two floors underground… They'd already told the rescue teams and the bomb squad where the bomb had likely gone off, but level C was all the way at the bottom of the garage, four other stories in various states of collapse above it. That's why it was taking hours to find anything. Three tons of wreckage to sift through to get to the epicenter of it.
But the very bottom floor was also closest to the foundation. It would be the most reinforced; its walls were least likely to have collapsed. Barring the initial blast, if there was enough air… Damn it, if only they'd let him set up the microwave life-detection system already!
The same questions poured from the others, again. Had the Captain seen Jensen with the bomb? Had she said anything else? What was the timeline? But no matter how often they circled back to the same conversation, Mike had no new answers to give.
Events had precipitated so fast…
" –call the mall and tell them to evacuate, and send back-up and a bomb squad."
He'd had one hand on the landline, one hand on his cell, and somehow he was typing up an emergency notice to the whole department, too.
"Captain – I'll have back-up for you there in minutes – uh, don't … you should…" He wasn't exactly in a position to give her orders, but…
He could hear her talking to someone else, then, still in a hushed tone. The reception had been terrible, nearly impossible to make out words. But it had sounded like she was instructing someone to leave. There must've been other people in the parking garage. She'd try to clear them all out…
"Captain, you need to get out of there."
Another two or three hours passed, and still nothing.
Anxiety had left Rusty exhausted. His eyes were dry, from the smoke or the chilly night air or the unblinking stare that he'd fixed on the wrecked parking garage. His heart felt tired. His chest hurt.
He still hadn't moved from the back seat of that car, but no one had brought him any more news. Sirens still flashed silently in the darkness. Radios still went off around him. Only the sounds of crumbling concrete had died down, eventually, as all parts of the building that were going to collapse had done so, and utility vehicles had cleared all the rubble they could.
And no one was telling him anything.
How was it possible, that all these people had been at it the whole night, literally the whole night and – and they hadn't… and – there wasn't… why wasn't anyone saying anything?! How could they let a whole night pass, hours, hours and not find Sharon? How could they…?
Rusty pushed himself to his feet.
Stinging pain shot up his numb legs; the empty water bottle slid unnoticed to the ground. He had no idea where to go, what he could do, but he couldn't just keep waiting there. Not when he'd seen police dogs go into the ruins hours earlier, and still no one had come to him with news. Not when the urgent shouts of the rescue crews had slowly faded to tired monosyllabic exchanges, and all but one of the ambulances had cleared out.
His legs were shaking as he walked over to the yellow tape.
" – don't care about your idiotic 'protocol'! Which part of 'prioritizing rescue efforts' are you not getting?!"
A dozen yards or so away, Lt. Flynn was shouting at a man in a blue and orange uniform.
"We need access to that evidence right now!" Sanchez had pushed his way forward, as well.
Evidence? What evidence?
What about Sharon?
The rescue crew member looked angry, too. " – told you hours ago that there was no one down there, and that microwave life-detection system that you insisted on using told you the same, and now we just confirmed for the third time!" His voice echoed across the perimeter. "There are no survivors to prioritize! So if you'll–"
What…?
An icy fist squeezed Rusty's insides, until he felt that he couldn't breathe.
"Listen you little shitbag, Captain Raydor was –"
"You listen, lieutenant! I understand and I'm sorry about your captain, but at this point she's no longer my responsibility –"
…what…?
Noises around him all died down at once, the only sound that of his blood rushing to his head. A terrifying second when time froze – and then the world caught up again, exploding in lights and noises that made no sense anymore.
" –and you need to stop interfering with our job, or I'm going to tell your Chief that –"
" –you can tell him whatever the hell you want, but we're getting –"
" – file a misconduct complaint –"
" – when there's a police officer involved –"
"Oh my God – Rusty!"
He wasn't sure how he'd processed Buzz walking toward him, but he backpedaled frantically because he did not want to be talked to, didn't want to be touched, he didn't want –
Suddenly there was nowhere left to back up, a tight grip on his upper arm. "I told you to stay in that car."
He just yanked back violently, his throat burning.
Buzz just walked closer. "No, Rusty –"
The boy pulled back again, he didn't want to hear an explanation, or, or details, he didn't…
"What the hell's going on here?" Lt. Provenza's gravelly voice rang in his ears again; a few feet away, he might've heard Lt. Flynn swear.
"The Captain –"
"Let go!" His arm twisted painfully in the lieutenant's grip.
"She's not dead!" Lt. Flynn had marched over, too. "Damn it!"
Rusty yanked back again.
"There were no victims – Rusty, she wasn't in there, okay? There were no victims."
It was hard to register what was happening anymore.
In the background, Det. Sanchez was growling at the rescue crew leader.
Rusty's eyes fixed desperately on Flynn's face.
"The Captain wasn't in there," the lieutenant said again. "There's nobody in that garage."
"But – "That didn't make any sense. If there were no victims, then… "Where's Sharon?"
No one had an answer to that.
In the distance, the dark sky was turning slightly grey with the first light of dawn.
This is all working toward a resolution, I promise. And that resolution will contain answers. And hugs. (And probably antacids, because I'm clearly giving everyone stress ulcers before we get there.)
To those of you who like cryptic foreshadowing, here is a potentially relevant snippet: just like with this chapter, the titles for all of the following chapters of this story will cycle through the same list as their counterparts from the first half ;). So, you can sort of get an idea of how this will all turn out!
Thank you for reading :)