Chapter 6
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A human hand. Buck shoved himself away from the table so hard and fast water sloshed out of many of the Seven's glasses. The waitress began to scream, and did not stop.
"Nathan!" Chris barked across the table. "Get her out of here and try to calm her down. Then call Denver PD. They're going to want to get down here. Nathan nodded, steering the trembling, now hysterically shrieking waitress out into the next room.
"Josiah, get a call to Ezra. I don't care what he's doing, I want him here ASAP." Josiah nodded, whipped out his cell and left to make the call where he could be better heard.
In the meantime, Buck settled his breathing and approached the box. The hand had been severed at the wrist, and the wound appeared cauterized. It belonged to a female, long pink tipped nails sitting atop bloodless skin. Beside the hand, lay a name tag, Ashley. Buck started to feel ill. Beneath the name tag rested a small, folded piece of paper with Buck's name written across it in block lettering. Looking more than a little green, BUck reached in and pulled out the paper. He unfolded it, and began to read.
"What does it say Buck?" JD questioned.
Buck raked his teeth over his lower lip. When he started to talk his voice was unsteady. "Buck Wilmington," he began with a deep breath, "This city holds you up as men of honor and law, but in upholding the laws of men, they and you forget God. Repent and find your lord. This woman suffers for it. This city had need of cleansing, and you and your brethren must be shown to be false idols. So here, Buck Wilmington, is your sin. You have 24 hours. And then I shall lead you to judgement."
He let the note drift out of his fingers as he sat heavily in his chair. "Ashley," he muttered dully.
"That was the girl," Vin prompted, " the one from earlier tonight, wasn't it?" Buck nodded, not looking at the sharpshooter.
"Wait," Chris interjected, " you saw this girl today?"
"She was in the lobby when we were headed out," Vin answered.
The table shook for the second time that night as Chris slammed his palm down. "Damn!" This guy has been watching us, probably been right under our noses." The blonde's face was a mask of fury. "JD, soon as you get the chance I want you scouring every second of security footage in the building for the last two weeks.
"My sin?" Buck murmured quietly. Chris fell silent, and he placed a hand on Buck's shoulder. "Ashley ain't no sin, she's just a waitress. A pretty lil rosebud..."
"We'll get this figured," Chris reassured. "Whoever this guy is, is twisted in the head. He ain't right. We'll find him, and her."
Vin glanced over at Sam, who had yet to say a word. She had her right hand stretched out in front of her and was staring at it, and her fingers trembled. "How you doin?" he asked her softly, mindful of the others.
Hunter tore her eyes up to meet his gaze. Her hand snapped back into a fist, and she pulled it quickly beneath the table. "I'm fine." She forced a smile. "Guess in the grand scheme of things a few fingernails isn't so bad huh?"
Vin shook his head. "Sammy..."
"Vin, I'm fine." She cut him off sharply.
The sharpshooter bit down on the inside of his lip. She wasn't going to let him push this, not here. So instead he just said, "Your sense of humor is terrible, you know that?"
She breathed a small sigh of relief. "So I've been told."
-/-
Ezra showed up a few minutes after the Denver PD. Vanessa tread like his shadow a few paces behind. "I take it Ms. Hunter's assailant has once again graced our ranks with his version of the Holy Word?" Chris silently held up the box containing Ashley's dismembered hand. "Lovely."
"She's alive," he told the undercover agent. "or so he claims. Says we have 24 hours to find her, or he's going to make a very public display of her death, and this thing is going to spin out on us. As soon as Josiah gets back I want you helping him go through records. Anyone we've busted with strong religious affiliations."
"I take it then, that Mr. Tanner and I will no be making a sojourn to Cheyenne in the morning?"
The blonde leader gave a sharp shake of his head. "Too risky. I'm handing the case off to Team 2. If Henderson has any questions I want you to fill him in."
"But that's our case," Vanessa protested, speaking for the first time. Chris wasn't entirely sure, but he thought her eyes looked red.
"Yeah, well now this is," Chris said. "This girl's going to die if we don't do something."
"And how many people are going to die if those weapons hit the streets? Let Denver PD handle this. Henderson's team isn't..." She trailed off when she noticed Chris' icy glare.
"Did I give you the mistaken impression that this was up for discussion?" Chris asked lowly. Vanessa clenched her teeth and met his gaze. Silent for a long time, Chris finally said, "In any case, with this nutjob coming after us, I'm not about to send two members of my team undercover in a potentially volatile situation. There's no was to know how much this guy knows. But if you're dead set on this, go join up with Team 2 and leave us to our business." It was no less than a dismissal.
Color rose in Vanessa's cheeks. Their business, as in, not her, not one of them. Angry, hot words pressed at her lips, but she only spun on her heel and stalked away out of the restaurant, shooting Ezra a smoldering glare as she passed him.
Chris watched Vanessa leave, parting a wake between officers as she went. Indifferent, he'd never felt that way about a member of the team leaving before. But then, the team had become like a second family, and family Vanessa was not. The thought didn't thrill him, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.
"And you," he turned his sights on Hunter. There was a barely perceptible widening of her eyes, before she shut down, and her face closed itself to him like a bank safe. "We need to talk."
"About?"
Chris barely suppressed an eyeroll. She knew full well what, she just wanted to be difficult. She was always difficult. Hunter, a perpetual thorn in his ass, just like the rest of them. He didn't bother answering what he surmised to be a largely rhetorical question. "Go give your statement to the PD. I'll have a squad car take you back to Ezra's, but I want you in my office bright and early.
Arguing would have been pointless, so Sam didn't even try. Simple dread wound its way through her stomach. "Yeah," she nodded, mouth like cotton, "sure."
/-/
The next morning was a somber one in Team 7's bullpen. None of the had made it home the previous night, and it showed. When Sam walked in at nine in the morning, six sets of dark circled, bloodshot eyes greeted her. Good morning seemed completely inappropriate, so she kept her mouth shut, shoved her hands in her pockets and headed toward Chris' office, trying to shake off the sick feeling she'd had since he'd said they needed to talk. She was walked through a group of half dead men to her own execution. Ugh. It was a stupid, irrational thought really, but then, rational rarely won out in the face of stupid.
Buck barely registered Sam's presence when she passed him. His eyes were fixated on his computer terminal clock. It had turned traitor on him, mocked him, it taunted. Thirteen hours left, and each minute that ticked by dug him a little deeper His sin. His fault Ashley was in such a mess. And at that particular moment they were not a lick closer to finding her than when they'd started. Buck could have yelled. Instead he took another deep swallow of his long cold coffee.
Someone plucked his cup straight out of his hand. Buck glanced up at JD before taking the new cup from him. "How you holding up?" JD asked.
"Just can't figure it kid," he answered. "In that note he goes on about punishment for my sin, so why take Ashley? Why not just come after me his own self? I could stomach that a whole heap better."
"He's a coward Buck. It's sure got to be a lot easier for him to go after a bunch of helpless, unsuspecting women than one of us."
Buck grunted a little. "I wouldn't let Hunter or Vanessa hear you call them helpless. They some pretty little Texas rosebuds to be sure, but those thorns are mighty sharp."
JD cast a mildly apprehensive glance toward Hunter's receding back. "Well, I didn't mean them exactly."
"Somehow," Buck sighed, leaning against the back of his chair, "I don't think either of them would see the distinction." He sipped his coffee. Hot, and black as tar, just like the kid always made it. There was something comforting in that. "Josiah come up with anything useful on the religious angle?"
JD shook his head and frowned. "Nope. He calls it your sin, but Josiah pointed out we're all sinners, if you really want to take a hard look at it. Just, none of our sins seem like they'd amount to justifying murder in retribution."
"She ain't dead yet," Buck's voice was quiet, firm.
"We'll find her Buck." The ladies man looked to his taunting clock once more. Twelve hours, forty-eight minutes.
-/-/-
Sam rapped lightly on Chris' door before slipping inside. Phone pressed to his ear, Chris glanced up at her and pointed to a nearby chair. Sam sat. This was already looking to be a less than pleasant conversation, no use starting him off on an irritated foot.
"Yes... yes... thank you detective. If my team turns up anything, or if he tries to make contact again you'll be the first to know." He set the phone back into it's cradle. Steely gray-blue eyes stared silently through her for a long moment. Then he got up, walked to his office door and shut it. Sam squirmed in her seat. Yeah, definitely one of THOSE conversations. She'd only ever had one other closed door, private meeting with Larabee. She'd fucked up, badly, and he'd handed her her ass on a platter, deservedly, but still.
Chris perched on one seat bone on the edge of his desk. "PD faxed me a copy of the sketch artist's depiction of our guy based on the waitress' description." Reaching behind him, Chris grabbed a sheet of paper and handed it to her. "Look familiar?"
Hunter took the paper from his hand, but didn't glance at it. She put it in her lap, face down. "I told you, I didn't see the guy's face."
"Yeah," the team leader nodded, those damned eyes never wavering. "Take a look anyway."
"I don't see what possible point..."
"Look at the picture Hunter," Chris said again.
Her heart slammed against her chest, hard. Not only did she not want to look at the sketch, she wasn't sure she could. So it came out as anger, and she just yelled. "What the hell do you want from me Chris!"
"I want you to be straight with me!" he bellowed back. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Chris' anger was more than a match for her own. "I know from the word go you've been holding back on me. Doc at the hospital said you were doped up with amphetamines. I know you were awake, and I know you remember more than you've been saying."
"I told you everything that would be helpful," Sam hissed, the paper crinkling in her hand as she made a fist.
"That's not good enough Hunter," Chris pressed. A small niggling voice of guilt pressed at him, but he pushed it aside. He couldn't let himself care. He had to know. "Look at it."
"Why? What's the point? So I can have his face in my head too?" Fueled by anger and resentment, the words began to pour out. "Do you want to know how it felt when he took a pair of pliers to my busted hand and ripped off my fingernails? Or maybe the dread when he came at me with that stupid fucking knife and started playing Picasso with my ribcage? Or the feeling of dirty water from the floor of that stinking room that he'd throw me back into when he was done?"
"The floor was wet?" Chris asked suddenly.
"Yeah it was wet! It was wet and it smelled like rotting eggs and..." Sam's voice trailed off. "Like eggs," she murmured. Green eyes met blue. "Like sulfur." Chris nodded. Samantha sighed and shook her head. "You suck Larabee."
"Tell Vin and Ezra and have them start looking. Trains transporting sulphur head through the Front Range all the time. There are plenty of manufacturing uses for it around here, especially fertilizer. You thought you heard tracks. See what they can find, and if you're up for it, go with them. See if anything jogs your memory."
Sam nodded, rose, and headed for the door. At least now there was a plan, and she felt like she had a purpose. It was better than wallowing in self pity by a long shot. "Hunter," Chris' voice stopped her short at the door.
"Yeah?"
"If we couldn't forgive each other every time one of us screwed up, we wouldn't have much of a team left." Sam felt an upswell of affection for the man in black. The corner of her mouth quirked upward. It wasn't absolution exactly, but it was a start.
/-/-/
Vin and Ezra managed to locate three sites adjacent to railways that had connections to sulphur, and were near enough to water sources that a wet basement floor would not seem out of the ordinary in an older building. The first location, off 76 nearing Golden, turned out to be a bust. So Vin had turned around, and headed for Aurora.
Vin's truck was not exactly the most trusty vehicle, and Ezra's Jag too small for three people, so they had borrowed one of the ATF's black Excursions. Sam sat quietly in the back, gazing mutely out the window. In the front seat, Vin and Ezra were hardly any more chatty.
Finally Ezra broke the uncomfortable silence. "I can't help but feel like you have something you want to say to me Mr. Tanner," Ezra said blandly.
Vin's teeth clenched, Ezra watched the muscles of his jaw flex. The sharpshooter gave a tight shake of his head. "Nope."
"Really? Nothing at all? Not even about my liaison with the lovely Ms. Navarro?" Sam sat up a little straighter in the back seat. This had the potential to be way more interesting than the landscape sliding past.
Vin's hands flexed on the wheel, his chin tilting ever so slightly sideways. "Nope." Sam slumped back down. So much for interesting, Vin wasn't biting.
"Because truly, if you have some seldom heard pearls of wisdom regarding office space romance I would be all ears, as they say." He was like a pit bull with a bone. "I'm sure it came as a bit of a shock..."
"A shock?" Vin repeated. "Straight outta left field is closer to it. And as far as me and my pearls? I only got one, don't do it. I mean seriously Ez, Vanessa? Really Vanessa? And then you didn't even think to mention it to..."
"Stop," Sam's voice cut in from the back seat. Her mouth was suddenly dry. Her open hand slapped Vin's shoulder, and the Texan started, the Excursion swerving slightly. "Stop!" This time she yelled. A cloud of dust rose up around them as Vin quickly pulled off the road and hit the brakes.
Ezra turned in his seat. "Would it be possible for you to NOT to terrorize the man driving the vehicle?"
Sam wasn't paying attention. Fumbling with her seat belt, she scrambled out of the SUV, eyes riveted across the street. Exchanging a look, Vin and Ezra followed her. "That sign," she said, pointing to a half lit, blinking red gas station sign across the street. "I remember that sign." She closed her eyes, and suddenly she was back there, in the van, hands and feet trussed together. "I saw it, through the rear window."
"That fertilizer plant is two blocks from here," Vin murmured to Ezra.
"Feeling in the mood for a walk Mr. Tanner?"
"I'm thinking so." Vin trotted back to the Excursion, grabbed a few extra clips and two radios, and handed one to the southerner. "Stay here Sammy," he ordered.
"The hell I will," the command snapped her back into the present. "I'm not staying here while you two go marching off into God knows what. It'd drive me nuts. Give me a gun, and I'll come with you."
"I can't believe you wouldn't give me a gun," Samantha hissed a few minutes later. "Not like you two don't carry extra." The three of them approached the deserted fertilizer plant in the shadow of the neighboring building. Vin and Ezra walked two abreast in the lead, Sam just behind.
"Forget it Sammy," Vin said, voice hushed nearly to a whisper. "You're way too jumpy. Probably wind up taking a pot shot at some stray cat, or lay a slug into one of our asses."
"Mr. Tanner, I implore that you not give her any ideas. Hunter, get that look off your face."
"What look?" Sam asked, feigning innocence.
"That look."
"You're in front of me, you can't even see my face. There's no way you can know about a look."
"I assure you, I absolutely can."
"Enough!" Vin snapped. "Both of you." He shook his head. Next time, he assured himself, he was volunteering someone else to work with them.
The three of them approached a side door. They'd fallen quiet, all pretense of levity and banter cast aside. Vin led, and Sam tucked in close behind Ezra at the rear. The side door had no window, so Vin pressed himself flat up next to it. Ezra leveled his weapon as Vin reached out for the door handle.
The door swung inward with only the faintest creak. Sam tensed, half expecting... something. But all remained still and quiet, and after a moment Vin made his way inside. There were no lights on inside, the corridor stretching before them black and seemingly endless. Vin and Ezra both pulled small flashlights. They moved stealthily inside the darkened hallway, lights aimed at the floor just in front of their feet. Vin led, treading carefully around errant piles of debris and crumbling mortar. The air held a lingering dampness. Some twenty or thirty yards beyond the entrance the corridor split in a T. To the left, a staircase, wrought iron, leading down deeper into the belly of the dark.
Vin peered back over his shoulder. In the beam from his flashlight he could tell that Sam's face had turned gray. 'Down,' she mouthed silently. The sharpshooter nodded and began to descend, wincing a little with each squeak of the stairs. At the bottom of the stairway lay another hallway, two doorways either side. The smell of mold and wetness was stronger here, as well as Sulphur and something metallic. Vin had the sickening thought that it was probably blood.
Using hand signals, he motioned for Ezra to check the room on the left, while he cleared the one on the right. In the dark, with virtually no light, it would be far too easy for someone to sneak up behind them from an unchecked room. So they'd split up, clear each, and move on from there.
Ezra moved cautiously into the room, weapon raised and ready. He swept the light everywhere. The room was empty. A stack of old pallets rested haphazardly in one corner, and the walls were streaked by dark grime. Ezra hit his radio. "All clear."
The southerner scanned the room one last time. "What in the..." Ezra trailed off. He'd moved his light up along the walls and noticed words scrawled everywhere in dark paint. They were difficult to read, the dampness making the paint drip and run. "Excess of ambition, which to cause a transgressor's ruin," he murmured. The words felt like something familiar just out of reach. He rolled them over and over again in his head. It was right there, he knew it, but didn't know why.
"Hey Hunter," he called away into the darkness behind him, "come here and take a look at this."
"Uh..." Sam's voice shook. "Ez?"
He turned to look at her. He stopped cold in his tracks. His gun arm snapped up reflexively. Samantha's face wasn't just pale, it was completely bloodless. "Let her go," he ordered.
The man had a heavy, muscular arm snaked around Sam's shoulders, the barrel of a 9mm pressed close to her temple. "Now do you see why I wanted a gun?" she asked, strain accentuating each syllable.
"Shut up Hunter," Ezra growled. "Let her go," he repeated.
The man wasn't especially tall, and carefully kept his head shielded behind Sam. Ezra had no shot. The man tightened his arm around her, and began to press her for the open door. His words came out in a low hiss. "One word of warning to your partner and I blow her head off."
"Ah hell," Sam breathed. "Don't tempt him."
"Hunter," Ezra's voice edged on exasperated, "are you trying to get shot?"
"Not in particular, but come on Ez, girl's entitled to some last words right? Might as well make em quippy."
"That was not quippy," Ezra told her.
"Get out of the way," the attacker snapped. "And lower your gun."
"Personally," Vin appeared in the doorway, "I think you might need to worry about me too. Two against your one," the Texan drawled, "your move."
"I will kill her," he snarled.
"Well then that'd give me a right easy shot on you, wouldn't it?" Vin asked.
"Would somebody please just shoot him?" Sam couldn't take any more. She shook like a leaf.
"Shut up Sam!" Ezra and Vin yelled together.
Then the barrel of the 9mm peeled away from her temple, and Sam felt herself being flung sideways, straight into Ezra's line of fire. At the same time, the attacker sent two wild shots in Vin's direction. The sharpshooter threw himself sideways as he pulled his own trigger, but the shot went wide. The kidnapper bolted forward, throwing his shoulder into Vin's midsection. He lifted the small man off his feet, slamming him back into the doorjamb, before sprinting away down the hall.
Blood pounding, Vin was instantly on his feet again. "I'm going after him," the sharpshooter yelled. "Ezra get Sam out of here."
"Vin wait!" It was wrong. Ezra knew it in his gut.
"He can't get away," Vin flew after the man into the dark hall.
"Sam?" He swung the flashlight into the middle of the room. Sam scrambled to her feet. His light found the painted words once more.
"I'm fine. Go!" The undercover agent didn't move. "Ezra?"
"Hubris," he uttered the word, heavy as a brick.
"Excuse me?"
"Hubris," he repeated. "He seeks to punish us for our sins. Pride." Fear bloomed. "It's a trap."
-/-
Ezra raced alone the corridor after his partner as fast as the darkness would allow. He'd tried the radio twice already, but was met with only static. But he was gaining, he could hear footsteps ahead of him now. Sam kept pace on his heels.
Meanwhile, a hundred yards ahead of Ezra, Vin's arms pumped at his sides as he ran. He couldn't shoot. Couldn't risk it in the dark at a dead run. They needed him alive to find Ashley. So he gave chase, and the gap was closing. He felt it in his bones, and his legs pumped faster, breath heaving.
Ahead of him, maybe twenty yards or so, illuminated in the narrow beam of Vin's light, Ashley's attacker slipped through a heavy door in the middle of the passageway, slamming it behind him. Vin flew. He'd wrenched the door handle, opening it a scant number of inches when Ezra's warning behind him reached his ears. "Vin, stop!" The sharpshooter froze, fear and dread welling and overflowing.
The explosion was deafening. For the briefest moment, Ezra's eyes were filled by blinding brilliance. It was like daylight in the caverns of hell. It surrounded Vin, before the billowing cloud of debris and destruction obscured him from view. The ground beneath Ezra's feet shook wildly, cracks shooting along the walls as the entire building groaned in protest. He felt Samantha pressed close to his back just before the shock wave carried him from his feet, threw them both to the ground, and the roof caved in.
-/-
Chapter 6
Please let me know what you thought! I'm having fun writing this, hope you're having fun reading it.