Chapter Five: Tactical Entry
Lou had to open his hand before he inadvertently crushed the microphone as he updated the auto-transcriber. "11:43 AM. First telephone contact terminated by subject. Threats uttered to hostage and police units." He looked over at the Sarge. They couldn't lose Alanna. It would shatter all of them, but worst of all, it would shatter one of the strongest men Lou knew.
Sarge's expression as he set down the telephone was blank; the man was using his training to mask his inner horror and fear. "All right. He's not reestablishing." Grim, Sarge hit his comm and called, "Hey Ed…"
"Holding in position," Ed reported.
"I can't reestablish. If you go in…" Sarge trailed off, looking as if his throat had closed up.
"Dangerous for the girl." Lou wondered how Ed could be so matter-of-fact as the Team Leader continued, "but if we don't go in…"
Sarge swallowed and finished, "Dangerous for the girl."
"Copy that," Ed acknowledged softly. Lou looked up at the Sarge, praying they'd get the little girl back alive. For all their sakes.
Ed jogged through the gravel alley, anger rising and an anxious Wordy on his tail. We're getting her back, and we're doing it now. As he passed Team One's tech he ordered, "Spike, head to white, keep your eyes on the front."
"Copy that," Spike called as he raced off.
As Ed and Wordy reached the back, Ed ducked into the neighbor's vehicle and turned the stereo up. With hip-hop music playing in the background, Sam shoved down on the gorilla bar and forced the garage door open. As it rose two meters off the ground, Team One rolled underneath the door.
"We're in the garage," Ed reported on the comm.
Penny whirled to the redheaded girl. "Help me," she ordered. "Help me tip the table."
Violet eyes locked on her and Alanna bit her lip. She looked down at the shotgun, then nodded and helped Penny tip the table. "Don't hurt them," she begged, to Penny's shock.
"What?" Penny asked faintly, certain she had misheard even as she dragged her bed into position.
"They're my family," Alanna told her. "Don't hurt them."
Penny tipped her shelves to complete the barrier, mind whirling. How could they be Alanna's family?
As a shot rang out, Penny hurried to her door and regretfully closed it. Where is he? Where's Gerald?
Sam fired at the door between the garage and the house, shattering the lock. "Garage door breached," he reported, with a touch of viciousness in his business-like tone.
Wordy stepped to the front, sweeping the door with his extendable mirror even as every instinct demanded he charge the house to get his…no, their…adopted niece back. If Lance and Alanna had started out as 'just' Sarge's nipotes, they had become Team One's nipotes. Quite frankly, Wordy was more than a little tempted to make sure Alanna's captor never made it out of this house alive. He'd never do it, of course, unless he had to, but it was very tempting. "Entry clear," he called, voice low.
The Team entered the kitchen, Wordy in the lead, searching for any signs of Alanna or the subject. As Wordy checked what turned out to be a closet, Ed took up position at the entrance to the living room and waved Sam and Jules on ahead.
"Kitchen's clear," Ed hissed. "Boss, table's set for three."
"Clear."
Sam's voice drifted in from the living room, almost overlapping with Jules' "Living room's clear."
As Wordy poked around the kitchen, Ed rounded the corner and growled, "He saw us coming."
Wordy's announcement on the heels of Ed's growl was far more troubling. In an angry tone, Wordy reported, "Sarge, I'm looking at a box for an electric dog collar." Team One stilled for a moment, trading furious, horrified looks. There was no dog in the house, meaning that the collar wasn't for a dog, it was for Alanna.
Sarge's voice trembled with suppressed rage. "He might have a containment around the house." The rage cracked through as he ordered, "Cut the circuit."
"First floor clear," Jules called. Ed signaled Sam and Jules to head upstairs.
Wordy followed the Team Leader, angling to follow him up the stairs when Ed paused at a sound from below them. Both men looked down, toward the basement of the house. "We got something downstairs," Ed hissed. With that both men headed down the stairs, intent on finding their prey.
Sam maneuvered the snake cam to the gap in the two white doors of the room he and Jules had heard noise from. He blinked as something brushed against his skin and a sense of someone asking What took you so long? danced at the edge of hearing. It 'sounded' like Alanna, only older and with a touch of…he didn't even know what to call it. The Squib-born focused on the camera's monitor as he twisted the cam to see better.
"We got eyes," Jules whispered over the comm as she stood behind Sam.
The camera twisted once more and then he saw them. Over the comm, the Boss sounded utterly relieved. "Okay, we've got Alanna Calvin with another young woman, approximately 16 years of age in…" The Boss's voice trailed off as he paused, probably checking the house blueprints they'd pulled. "…looks like the master bedroom. No sign of Duglin." His voice dropped down on Duglin's name, leashed rage leaking through. Forced calm marked the last few sentences. To Lou, Boss ordered, "Let's transmit that to Kira, see if she can ID that other girl. Possible accomplice." Another order snapped in Sam's direction, "Hey, Sam, can you get another angle of the bedroom? See if Duglin's in there?"
"Copy that," came the reply as Sam adjusted the cam, searching every corner of the room. Sam's gaze focused on the screen and he finally announced, "He's not in there, boss."
Wordy's eyes narrowed as he checked the basement with his mirror. Behind him, Ed queried, "Boss, Alanna's upstairs, correct?"
Guarded relief was in Sarge's voice as he replied, "That's affirmative. Where are you?"
"Basement steps."
When Wordy nodded, the Team Leader took the lead, charging into the basement. His orders and Wordy's clashed and overlapped as they yelled.
"Police Strategic Response Unit!"
"Police! Get down!" Wordy roared.
"Weapons on the ground! Hands in the air! Weapons on the ground!"
"Police! Let me see your hands!"
Sam's eyebrows arched as Jules sneaked her boot out and used her foot to gently tug a piece of paper out from the room's doorway. It was yellow and covered in writing. Aloud, Jules reported, "Looks like somebody's been transcribing a book. By hand." Jules paused to look down again and spotted a book. "Paradise Lost."
Impressed, Sam filled in the blanks. "Milton. Adam and Eve in paradise." With a there and gone shrug he added. "Good stuff. Fire and brimstone, my dad's kind of book." From Jules' look of distaste, he knew the underlying message had been received and understood.
Alanna studied her companion, biting her lip in thought. The sense she had gotten before of Penny was someone who was trapped, hurting, and lonely. And Penny hadn't helped with her kidnapping; she hadn't even known about it until Alanna was in the house. Decision made, Alanna asked, "How long have you lived here?"
"A long time," Penny replied.
Plaintive, Alanna pressed, "Don't you ever want to go home?"
Penny looked up, spotting what even Alanna hadn't spotted until right then. The snake cam, peeking through the gap in the doors. "Get down," the older girl ordered, hefting her shotgun.
Alanna hurled her words as she would her magic, "Look out!"
Alanna's warning overlapped with the Boss's "Guys, she's armed."
Before either Sam or Jules could react, a shotgun blast echoed through the house. Sam pulled the snake cam back, inspecting the damage. "Yes, she is," he agreed. Dropping the broken camera he added, "Camera's down."
A trace of panic marked the Boss's next order, "Stand by for immediate action." Sam brought his sidearm a little higher as the Boss continued, speaking to Lou. "Let's get up closer to the house."
Lou briefly switched channels, so Sam didn't hear his orders to the uniforms, but the Boss soon came back on. "Eddie, check in. Where are you?"
Ed and Wordy surveyed the basement, frustration all but coloring the air around them. With an ill-concealed snarl, Ed snapped, "Boss, I don't know how he did it, but he's completely disappeared. We lost him."
Grim and practical, Greg replied, "Go careful. Duglin's not upstairs. We're on the move."
Ed didn't bother to copy, instead he turned his attention to the far more immediate issue, catching their prey. "You heard that, right?" He looked around, scanning the basement. "It's like a…like a scraping sound or…"
"Ed," Wordy called. As Ed turned, he saw Wordy standing near an old cabinet. "Look at these marks on the floor."
"Go. Go. Go," Ed ordered, bringing his corner-shot up and aiming at the cabinet.
Wordy pulled the cabinet back in one smooth motion, reporting, "Sarge, we found a tunnel."
"We're going in," Ed followed up.
"Okay," Boss replied. "You go for it, but keep me posted."
The pair pulled on their night vision helmets and entered the dark tunnel, on Duglin's trail again.
Kira's fingers danced over her keyboard. Over her shoulder, Lance was staring at what she'd found with barely-concealed outrage and a few muttered words that Kira was pleased she couldn't hear. "Sarge, I think I got a match on your girl. Sending it through now."
Sarge's focus was predictable, but wrong. "Rap sheet? Any priors?"
Kira shook her head as she brought Sarge up to date. "No, sir, found her in Missing Persons. Matches an aged picture of Penny Westler."
"Who?"
Grim, Kira filled in the blanks. "Missing child taken from her own backyard eight years ago: stranger abduction. No arrest made."
Silence draped the comm as Team One absorbed the information. Kira looked over at Lance to see he was pale as a ghost; obviously imagining losing his sister for years and years. Finally, Sarge managed to say, "Oh, my Gawd. She must be seventeen by now."