Hank had taught Trish the finer points of scaling walls with hand and foot grapples, but it was the JSOC Tactical Rappelling Operations Course that had taught her the ins and outs of rappelling down the sides of vertical surfaces like buildings. It had taken a week, and all of the instructors had spent as much time trying to screw her as they did trying to teach her which had, on occasion, also given Trish the chance to practice her hand-to-hand combat training, but she was a quick study, and the three-story difference between buildings was no real challenge, and it took no time at all for her to be standing in front of the woman dressed all in leather.
"Who the fuck is that?" Julia asked in Beth's ear, "And how did you know she was there?"
"It seems we have a mutual friend," Beth said to the woman who was only about an inch shorter than Beth was.
"You know, if you're going to wear a wig like that as a disguise you should probably not wear it out to dinner," Trish replied.
no fucking way, Julia thought.
"No fucking way," Beth said after three seconds.
"You really didn't recognize me?" Trish asked.
"Usually I never forget a pair of tits, but the hair and mask threw me off. And the ears."
"Oh for Christ's sake, they're not ears, they're Forward Looking Infrared emitters. They project an image onto the eyepieces of my cowl."
"So she can see inside the building?" Julia asked.
"So you can see inside the building?" Beth repeated.
"Usually. The rain is making it difficult."
"Ask her what wavelength she uses," Julia said.
oh for fuck sake, Beth thought.
"Sorry," Beth said to Trish, "Jules is geeking out on your headgear."
"Right, I forgot," Trish said, "she's your CNC. Can she hear me?"
"Hear you, and see you."
"Hi, Julia," Trish said as she waved her hand in front of Beth.
"Hi, Trish," Julia replied even though the woman couldn't hear her.
"Brain to eyeballs does not compute," Caitlin said as she shook her head and looked at the image on the computer monitor.
"You read my mind," Julia said.
It was at that moment that a white box truck covered in gang tags and graffiti pulled up and parked in front of the repair shop.
The two women watched as the driver and the passenger got out, scanned the street, and walked into the parking lot of the shop.
"Showtime," Beth said.
Four women and two men had eyes on the truck when it arrived, and none of them needed an explanation as to why two men would wear army surplus field jackets on a warm July evening.
"They have automatic weapons," Rita said into her radio.
"Copy that," Michael Woodward's voice replied.
"A little warm for jackets tonight, don't you think?" Beth asked Trish.
"Yup," Trish said as she stared at the men, "I can see the shadows of their weapons through their jackets."
"Can she tell what they're carrying?" Julia asked.
"Jules wants to know what they're packing."
"Looks like some version of MP5. Maybe an SD3 by the shape of the hand guard and stock."
"Huh," Beth said.
"What?" Trish asked.
"We were gonna hit a site; it was right before the WMD thing, but someone beat us to it and then handed everything to the NYPD. Julia did some digging and found out..."
"A couple hundred honey-badgers, a couple hundred MP5s, and about twenty large in cash?" Trish asked.
"How the fuck did you know that?" Beth asked.
"That was me. I beat you to it. I handed everything to the NYPD."
"No fucking way," Caitlin and Julia said in perfect sync.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Beth asked just as she noticed the car and the two women inside it.
"Ruh-roh," Beth said.
"You didn't notice them before now?" Trish asked, "There's another one at the other end of the street."
"It's not just that," Beth said.
Trish turned around and looked in the direction that Beth was looking.
"Ruh-roh," Trish repeated.
"Yeah, she's looking right at me," Beth said.
"Who's that on the roof?" Rita asked as she got her face as close to the windshield as possible.
"There are two people up there," Connie said as she leaned to her right to bring more of the roof into her line of sight, "Christ, it's some of those costumed assholes."
"They're watching the same fucking building we're watching," Rita said.
"Now we know who's been leaving us presents the past few months," Connie said, "Shit they spotted us. They're looking right at us."
"Goddammit," Rita said as the two people on the roof stepped back far enough to be out of her line of sight, "what the fuck am I gonna do now, ignore them or confront them?"
"You could always thank them," Connie said with a smile.
"Yeah, huh?"
"You'll never catch them. They'll bolt the second you head towards that building, and we've got bigger assholes to fry."
"I just hope they stay out of our way."
"You should really consider a mask, and maybe a wig that doesn't glow in the dark," Trish said after she and Beth had moved away from the street and out of sight of the police.
"Ask her where she got her mask with the FLIR!" Julia said like a little girl telling Santa what she wanted for Christmas.
"Jesus, would you give it a rest?" Beth asked her.
"What?" Trish asked.
"Jules is having a wet dream about your mask. It's all I'm gonna hear about for a fucking month."
"Hey Julia, when's your birthday?" Trish asked as she looked at Beth.
"April 28th! April 28th! Tell her it's April 28th!"
"I think it's April 28th, but I could be wrong," Beth said dryly.
"Huh. When's your birthday?"
"January 26th. Why?"
"Because I'm not sure who's getting the present I have in mind."
"Me! It's Me!" Julia said excitedly.
"You have created a fucking monster," Beth said just as the two men reappeared, walking calmly across the parking lot to their graffiti-covered truck before getting back in and backing the truck into the lot and up to the shop.
The men had just entered the shop again when the two police cars on the street began to move.
"Guess we should have brought popcorn," Trish said as the two women stood silently and allowed the NYPD to do their duty.
"15 Special to all units, go, Go, GO!" Rita said into her radio before starting the engine and dropping her foot deliberately on the accelerator.
Rita's car was the first one into the parking lot, but only by a second. Kilik and Woodruff were right behind her as she placed her car in park and her rearview mirror began to fill with the image of the large van that held the ESU. By the time she had exited her car, the road was filled with cars, but no flashing lights. It was as silent an operation as twenty men and women could manage; no slamming doors, no sirens, no screeching tires, no advanced warning for the skels inside the repair shop.
"Your case, your door," Rita said to her two detectives, who were only too willing to take point.
They had to move fast, but they also couldn't bunch up as they entered the only door that seemed unlocked. Rita's first act upon entering was to find the controls for the roll-up doors and open them all. There was a short alley behind the shop, but it dead-ended onto the back of another building. Anyone who went in that direction would be trapped with no way out except back through the shop.
The order was set. Kilik at the front, Woodruff right behind him, Rita third. She took one more look behind her, past the blond woman who had been her partner for more of these dances than Rita could count, and saw that everyone was in place.
Rita turned back around and tapped Woodruff on the shoulder. He repeated the gesture with his partner and as soon as Kilik felt the hand on his own shoulder he pulled the door open.
"POLICE! EVERYBODY, HANDS IN THE AIR!"
"That is a lot of cops," Beth said as she watched the men and women of the NYPD exit their vehicles, "is that who I think it is?"
Trish looked at the dark-haired woman standing next to the blonde.
"Jesus, is there anyone from that dinner that's not here?"
"It looks like they brought the entire NYPD," Beth said.
"Better to be prepared," Trish said.
"Yeah, but that seems…"
"Shit," Trish said as the sound of automatic gunfire came from the shop.
"Guess those MP5s weren't just for show," Beth said just before a stray bullet struck the windshield of one of the police vehicles.
The boom of shotgun blasts, the popping of 9 mm and .40 caliber pistols, and the rapid fire of automatic weapons all turned the quiet evening into a soundscape of turmoil. But as loud as the distant noise was, it was not loud enough to mask the approaching sounds from Trish's enhanced hearing.
"Somebody's under the street," Trish said as she walked to the edge of the building and looked down.
"They're heading towards the parking garage," Trish said as she looked to the left at the structure that stood one building over from where they were standing, on the opposite side of the street as the repair shop.
"How the fuck can she hear that?" Julia asked.
"They must have an escape route," Beth said.
Trish did a quick scan of the rooftop, and a quick mental calculation, before making a decision.
"You ever do any repelling?" Trish asked her.
"Not really my thing."
"OK then," Trish said as she pointed her arm upwards and shot a spike tether into the wall she had repelled down before wrapping her arm around Beth and jumping off the roof.
"What the FUUUUUUCK!" Beth yelled as the ground approached at an alarming rate just before their fall was arrested and their feet touched down gently onto the sidewalk.
"Sorry, no time for the stairs."
"Jesus, fucking Christ!" Julia said, "I think I'm having a heart attack."
"You're having a heart attack?" Beth asked as she started to run after Trish, her heart rate still hovering around 200 beats per minute.
Trish was running while trying to listen to the noise beneath their feet.
"Where are they gonna come up for air?" Beth asked as the blood continued to pound in her ears.
"I don't know yet, but it's somewhere in this building," Trish said as she bowed her head slightly before rotating it back and forth as her enhanced hearing sampled the noises coming from below.
The sounds of gunfire had been dying down to occasional individual shots for the past thirty seconds before finally ending.
"There," Trish said as she pointed and moved in the direction of the left rear corner of the parking garage.
There was a square metal plate about three feet by three feet on the floor, the diamond plate metal slightly rusted.
The sounds from below were clear now that they stood over the metal-covered hole.
"Four people," Trish said before the sounds ended. The two women looked at each other for a moment before Beth raised her eyebrows, a silent question to Trish on what was happening. Trish answered with a shrug of her shoulders just before both women heard the sound of someone climbing a metal ladder.
"It's too solid," the ESU officer said as he and Rita looked at the heavy metal door at the back of the shop, "We'll need equipment to cut through it."
"They'll be long gone by then," Rita said.
Three perps dead, three cops wounded including James Kilik. They had barely entered the building before bullets had started flying, the majority of her men still outside waiting for the men and women in front of them to clear the doorway.
Rita had emptied one magazine and had just performed a combat reload when Connie had hit the door controls for the two roll-up doors. Michael Woodruff was laying down suppressing fire as he helped James Kilik move behind a heavy toolbox and workbench. One man lay dead almost in the center of the shop. James and he had shot each other, the first shots that were fired. The sound level had gone up considerably when the roll-up doors opened and ESU had brought their own automatic weapons to bear, and they had accounted for the other two dead. One of the detectives from the 4 - 12 shift and the ESU sergeant were wounded in the intense exchange that had allowed the four perps to lock themselves behind a heavy steel door that would take special equipment to open.
"15th Special to Central K, 10-13, three officers shot, put a rush on a bus to 15 Lafayette St. NOHO Auto Repair." Rita was saying into her radio, "We need Special Operations ASAP to cut through a heavy steel door."
"Put pressure on it," Rita could hear Michael saying to his partner.
"Man, that's a lot of blood," James was saying, the fear clear in his voice.
"You're fine. Jesus, don't be a fucking baby," Michael reassured his partner.
Connie was standing with them when Rita got there.
"Shoulders always bleed like that," she said to him, "They always look worse than they are."
"You've been shot in the shoulder, Cap?" he asked.
"Me? Fuck no. I know how to duck."
The sound of sirens had been growing louder for the last minute, as the units from the FDNY station right up the road at 253 Lafayette Street finally arrived on the scene. Rita made the rounds, checking on the other wounded members of her special detail.