Ernesto took off for the fire escape, cursing as he did, knowing he wouldn't be having an easy day. The rusty metal creaked under his weight, and he winced, hoping the sound wouldn't carry too far.
Rick walks around the abandoned apartment they were able to break into on the sixth floor. As he looks out the window, he pulls the gun from his waistband behind his back. He ejects the magazine and finds out that it is empty. He slaps the magazine back in and tucks the Glock back behind his waistband in the center of his back. His mind races - he needs to find more ammo, and fast.
He turns to see Kate sitting with her back against the wall, her knees up to her chest and her hands interlocked, holding her legs together at her shin. Once she sees him looking at her, she signs,
"How did they find me?"
At first, Rick doesn't understand because she's signing too fast. When he asks her back in his limited signing abilities what she's talking about, she re-signs her question. This time she uses her voice as well, not that he can hear her all that well, but she does anyway. Her brow is furrowed with worry, and he can see the fear in her eyes.
Kate speaks as she signs her question. It doesn't take long for him to answer because he knows what's going on. So he tells her the truth.
"I don't know how they found you, but if it were my guess I'd bet that someone was working on the inside, someone who gave away who and where you were. A mole in the department." He pauses, letting the words sink in.
"They must have gotten to someone, maybe threatened their family..."
"Why?" She signs again, her hands shaking slightly.
"Because they don't want any loose ends. They want to kill you. If they know you're alive then they will be able to be arrested for this murder." He takes a deep breath, trying to stay calm.
"We need to get you out of here, now."
They both look at each other before Rick confronts Kate with what he thinks he knows. Then, he opens his mouth, which turns out to be the wrong thing to do.
"My partner looked up your record. I saw the overdose kit in your medicine cabinet in your apartment. You weren't out there taking pictures that night were you?" He realizes his mistake as soon as the words are out of his mouth.
Kate looks at him like he's lost his mind. She signs to him that he has her all wrong.
"I don't use drugs!" Kate's hands move so fast that he can't understand what she is saying. Her face is red with anger, and he can see tears welling up in her eyes.
Kate slows down and regroups her thoughts. Then she tells him,
"The overdose kit is for my use to save kids who do drugs in the building. If you looked under the cabinet where the sink is you'd see I have four more of them down there. Since I kept them I've had to use them more than once."
Her voice cracks, and she takes a shaky breath. Kate waits patiently for his response and when she gets it she's put a little at ease. Rick signs and speaks at the same time,
"I'm sorry."
But she notices that his delivery of the word sorry in sign language is not sorry, it means dead. And they both know he's not dead he just got his signing mixed up.
She shows him the correct way to sign the word sorry in sign language and he understands now. He feels a flush rise to his cheeks, embarrassed by his mistake.
He knows he needs to contact his partner and he asks her if she knows where they can get a phone.
She replies that she doesn't know where to get a phone only because this is not her floor. She doesn't know the people here.
"I never come down to the lower floors," she signs. "There are too many weirdos."
"How many people are still left in the building?" Rick asks and signs at the same time.
"Half of the building's tenants moved out about two months ago. Mostly from the lower floors." She shrugs.
"It's not safe here anymore with all the renovations and the criminal element."
Rick signs back to Kate and he speaks the question.
"How many people are on this floor I mean?" he says as he points to the floor.
All Kate does is shake her head no. Then she signs to him,
"One person lives in one of the apartments one floor up. All he does is play loud music all day. I can feel the floor vibrating, that's how loud it is."
"I know I hear him and his heavy metal head-banging music right now." He rolls his eyes. "Great, just what we need."
Kate smiles at him knowing that he's right.
Rick needs to find a way to gain an advantage, and staying in one place for too long is not the answer.
"Kate, we need to find a phone. I need to call in for backup." He looks around the empty apartment, but there's no phone in sight.
"Do you think that guy upstairs would have one?"
He motions for her to get up. Once she does they head for the front door. On the way to the door, Rick stops Kate from moving forward. He turns to her and looks at her with a sad look. His hand goes to his hearing aid in his left ear once he hears the telltale signs of the battery starting to die. He needs these to be able to hear.
"The battery in my hearing aid is dying." He tells Kate as he signs his statement. Panic starts to set in - he can't afford to be cut off from his hearing right now.
She just looks at him with fear etched on her face.
Jim's gaze darted between the bank of security screens in front of him, his eyes scanning the feeds with a practiced intensity. The hum of the monitors and the soft thrum of the room's air conditioning were the only sounds breaking the silence. That was until the front lobby door swooshed open.
He looked up, his focus shifting. A young African-American woman strode into the lobby, all long legs and confident poise. There was something about her - an aura of sharp professionalism, a crackling energy that commanded attention. Her eyes, dark and piercing, swept the space. They lingered on the security cameras for a beat before moving on, cataloging details with a keen intensity.
Jim found himself smirking, a wry comment rising to his lips.
"Well, sweetheart, did you come to join the party?" He leaned back in his chair, fingers laced behind his head. The woman didn't break stride.
"What room?" Her voice was crisp, and professional. No room for banter there.
Jim recognized the futility of further small talk. He rattled off the apartment number without looking away from the screens. "Ten G."
The woman turned on her heel and strode towards the stairs. The click of her heels echoed through the lobby, a rhythmic counterpoint to the hum of the monitors. Jim watched her go, a frown furrowing his brow. Something about her didn't sit right. A prickling sense of unease skittered along the back of his neck, raising the fine hairs there. Jim raises the two-way radio and tells Julio that she is on her way up to him.
"Mother Theresa is on her way up" he adds, using the codename they had established for the medic.
"Good. Gerry is on his way down to you. When he gets there I want the both of you to sweep everything from the ground up. I want them found! If you have the chance to put a bullet in their brains then do so."
Julio responds. His voice is firm, betraying no hint of the unease gnawing at his stomach.
Julio walks toward Angel who is lying on the sofa and sees that he's in pain. He's been shot before so he knows exactly what Angel is feeling. But his wounds were worse than Angel's were. He's making it seem like he's dying. He's moaning and grimacing and holding his side as if all the life in his body is going to leave him. He's had enough. A flicker of annoyance crosses Julio's face before he schools his expression into one of calm concern.
"Angel you're not going to die. It's a through and through and help is on the way so just chill."
He tries to inject a note of reassurance into his tone, but can't shake the feeling that time is running out.
Julio takes a seat at the kitchen table and waits for the medic to get here. His gaze flicks to the clock on the wall, the slow tick of the seconds echoing in the tense silence.
Rick opens the door slowly and peeks out to see if anyone is in the hallway. He looks to the right and sees no one then opens the door a little more sticks out his head and looks to the left. The coast is clear. Then just as he walks out he spins around and puts his hand up to stop Kate from leaving the apartment. At first, she's confused. A furrow forms between her brows as she signs a question at him, her hands moving swiftly with agitation.
She asks him why he stopped her from leaving when he should be letting her go with him. Her expression softens as comprehension dawns, followed swiftly by a stubborn determination.
He signs back to her (very badly she might add) that he is leaving her here because he can't risk her life he would never forgive himself if she were to die while he was trying to find a way to get to a phone. She adamantly tells him that staying here would be bad for her only because she can't hear anyone if they come in. A flicker of fear dances in her eyes, but she squares her shoulders, ready to face whatever may come.
"When I leave lock the door. Keep an eye out for any police cars that might show up and I'll be back."
He tries to imbue his signs with a confidence he doesn't quite feel, for her sake more than his own.
She signs back to him that she won't be able to hear him if he knocks on the door. Then she has an idea. A spark of inspiration ignites in her gaze, and a small, triumphant smile tugs at the corners of her lips.
"Give me your wallet." She holds out a hand expectantly, her mind already racing ahead to the plan taking shape.
Rick reluctantly takes his wallet out of his jacket pocket not knowing why she wants his it. She flips it open and pulls out a ten-dollar bill. She holds the bill in her left hand and gives him back his wallet. Then she holds it up to him and explains that He can slide this under the door jamb and she will see it knowing it's him when he wants the door unlocked once he finds a phone. Rick catches on and he puts his wallet back in his jacket pocket. A relieved smile breaks across his face at her quick thinking, a sense of hope flickering to life in his chest.
"Good idea." He signs, feeling a weight lift from his shoulders as he turns to leave, his steps lighter despite the danger that lies ahead.
He turns away from her and heads down the hallway. He never hears the lock locking as the door closes. The soft click of the door shutting behind him is a reminder of the fragile barrier between Kate and the potential threat lurking outside.
Julio hears a light knocking on the door. He gets up and the second he opens the door he sees the medic. When she walks through the door he says,
"He's right there. Lying on the couch." He steps aside to admit her, his eyes flicking to Angel with a silent plea for urgency.
The medic walks into the living room and sees her patient. Julio starts talking telling her about his wounds.
"He has a gunshot wound to the lower…" he doesn't get any further before she cuts him off. Her dark eyes, devoid of emotion, flick to him before focusing once more on Angel.
In a Jamaican accent, she says,
"I have three rules…" Her voice is a steady, calm monotone, a stark contrast to the tension crackling through the air.
Julio speaks over her.
"No, I know the rules…" Impatience sharpens his tone, his mind centered solely on getting Angel the help he so desperately needs.
"One, no names. Two no details of any illegal activities are to be discussed. Three I will only participate in the job that was provided to me by the broker." She continues unabated, her gaze never wavering from Julio.
"Yes, I understand…" He trails off, a scowl etching deep lines into his forehead.
The medic keeps speaking cutting Julio off yet again.
"In return, I will not reveal any details of this job to any third parties, including law enforcement. Do you agree to these rules I have set forth?"
There is a quiet finality to her words, a reminder that Julio is at her mercy.
Julio has no choice so he agrees.
"Yes. I agree with your rules. Now will you please help the man!" Julio demands as he hears Angel whimpering in pain. The words are ripped from him, tinged with a desperation he can't conceal.
The medic looks away and then back to Julio.
"Help me get him up." Her attention snaps back to the injured man, her expression shifting into one of clinical focus.
Rick finds a set of stairways that doesn't look like is used very often. He opens the door and walks through. When he's through, the door slams shut and even with his diminished batteries for his hearing aids it makes a lot of noise. The sound echoes ominously, making him wince despite himself. He walks over to the stairway looks down then looks up deciding which way he should go. He looks once more and decides that going down is the choice. With a deep breath to steady himself, he begins the trek downwards, the concrete underfoot a cold reminder of his precarious situation.
The medic quickly checks the wound to see if it left any fragments of a bullet in him when it hit. When she finds nothing, she injects lidocaine into the wound site and staples the front of the wound together. Even though this was a through and through the back side of his wound is a lot larger than she had expected so she gets to work. Her gloved hands move with swift precision, the only indication of the severity of Angel's injury.
Kate is already going crazy and it's only been ten minutes since he's left and she can't shake the feeling that something will go wrong. She starts pacing the empty apartment walking back and forth looking out the windows. Her feet carry her across the worn carpet on autopilot, her mind consumed by the endless possibilities of what could be happening. When she looks to her left she sees the woman across the courtyard in another apartment building talking on her cell phone smoking a cigarette on her balcony. She jumps up and down and waves her arms desperately trying to get the attention of the woman so she can call someone for her.
For a good two to three minutes she's making all sorts of hand gestures, banging on the window, and jumping up and down. At one point just before the woman goes inside after she snuffs out her cigarette she thinks she looks over but she enters her apartment and shuts the door. A pang of disappointment strikes Kate's heart, the brief glimmer of hope extinguished all too soon.
Knowing that her efforts were futile she directs her attention to the parking lot. That's when she sees an NYPD cruiser pulling in and park. She gets her hopes up knowing that Rick must have gotten through and was able to call in some backup. A wide smile stretches across her face, relief washing over her like a cool balm. She watches as the two patrol men get out of their car put on their hats and start walking towards the fire escape of the apartment building. Smile knowing that her ordeal will finally be over. She watches as they walk towards the building and then her smile turns into a frown. She sees Ernesto walking up to the two cops fist bump both of them and that's when she knows that they're not there to help her. They're going to be hunting for her and Rick. Her heart seizes in her chest, the blood draining from her face as comprehension dawns, replaced swiftly by a primal fear.
The two dirty NYPD cops follow Ernesto to where Jim is sitting at the security camera console. The second Jim sees them arrive he jumps to his feet and meets them in front of the desk they ask,
"Are they armed?" the first cop asks.
"No," Jim replies.
"How many tenants are here?" The second cop asks.
"There's only about twelve tenants left here and eight of them are at work. So you have the run of the place."
Both cops walk away one going to the east staircase and the other to the west staircase to start working their way from the first floor. Ernesto takes the south side staircase, and Jim takes the north side.
Rick looks down the staircase once more before descending to the next level. He hears voices in his head and at first he thinks it's his hearing aid going wonky on him. But as he looks down the voices coincide with a hand he sees holding onto the handrail ascending the staircase. Now he doesn't know what to do because he's a sitting duck. A cold dread trickles down his spine, his mind racing with the implications of discovery.
The medic has finally stitched up Angel. He sits there on the couch holding his own IV bag and she injects him with some morphine to take away the pain. She turns to Julio and says,
"Get me a wet towel." Her voice is a forceful command, a hard counterpoint to the tension thrumming through the air.
"Sure thing," Julio replies and turns to get the towel. His movements are automatic, his attention never wavering from Angel's pale face. As he walks toward the kitchen he looks at the fireplace mantle and sees a cell phone sitting on top of it. He missed it earlier but as he takes down the cell phone and looks at it it comes alive in his hand. It has a biometric lock so he can't access what's on it but when it does come alive the wallpaper has the shield of a detective from the NYPD. Julio picks up the 2-way radio and starts transmitting. A surge of hope courses through his veins, only to be swiftly quashed by the grim reality of their situation.
"Listen up everybody. They don't have a phone. But you better believe that they are going to be looking for one or the internet to make contact with anyone. Find out which of these apartments are occupied and hit those first I want these people found. Jake, Farrell clear the building first I don't want any witnesses. Ernesto, you watch the back exit and the fire escape I don't want these two doubling back and getting away. Jim, you contact dispatch and make sure that all 911 calls from this building are rerouted to us. Listen to me and listen good, if either of these two gets out and makes contact with someone on the outside we're screwed. Everyone has everything on the line here, so don't fuck this up" The words are ripped from him, laced with a desperate urgency that mirrors the turmoil churning within.
Julio throws the cell phone on the ground and starts stomping on it with his foot destroying it. Then he kicks it across the room. The phone skitters across the floor shattered.
The cops that are on the take start moving to each apartment from the second floor up knocking as they go. It turns out that the first four floors are uninhabited. Ernesto was stationed outside at the fire escape and the back door so they were not getting past him. Jim called dispatch and anything that comes in from this building will go directly to him.
Rick decides to head back to the apartment that they were in before he left. He takes the ten-dollar bill out slips it between the space between the door and the jamb and starts moving it back and forth on the inside of the apartment so Kate can see it. It takes a little bit but Kate finally sees the bill moving back and forth by the door. She opens the door glad to see that Rick is still alive and he's back. The second he comes into the apartment she starts signing her thoughts. She's moving so fast with her hands that Rick can't understand what she's trying to tell him. So he tells her to slow down and she does.
"The police are here!"
She signs as she puts her hand to her heart imitating a police badge.
Rick is beyond happy now that he knows that the cops are here to give them a hand and he signs back to her.
"Come on let's go! We can finally get out of here." Relief floods his face, only to be replaced by a stunned disbelief as Kate's signs register.
"Rick, they're not here for us. Well, not to help us I should say. They met with one of the guys who was chasing us and once they got out of the car he brought them into the apartment through the back door by the fire escape." Her hands move swiftly, the words tumbling from her in a panicked rush.
Rick stood not wanting to believe what she had seen. He knew the NYPD was corrupt, but he didn't think it would be from his precinct. A bitter taste fills his mouth, his mind reeling with the treacherous implications of her words.
"They're on the take which means they'll be searching every floor. They'll have more cops here to guard the exits so we can't get out. It will only be a matter of time before they find us." The words are a grim pronouncement, a ticking time bomb that threatens to destroy any shred of hope they had managed to cling to.
Rick stood there, his mind racing as he tried to decide what to do next. He turned his head to the right slightly, his eyes scanning the unfamiliar surroundings, and saw an intercom mounted on the wall. A spark of hope ignited within him – could this be their way out? He quickly walked over to it, his heart pounding in his chest, and signed to Kate,
"What is this connected to?" He asked the question, barely daring to hope that it might be a direct line to the NYPD.
Again, he was taken aback by how fast she could sign using her hands. It was a language he was still struggling to master, and her fluency only highlighted his own inadequacies. But she seemed to know exactly what he was thinking, and she quickly told him that the intercoms had been disconnected when they started working on the building to renovate it. A pang of disappointment shot through him, but then her hands went into overdrive as she started talking about an elevator, and he quite couldn't decipher what she meant.
He signed back to her, frustration creeping into his movements, saying,
"What are you saying, Kate? I don't quite understand."
He hated feeling like an outsider in this silent world, hated that he couldn't communicate as easily as she could.
But Kate was patient, and she signed back to him that there was an elevator right in the hallway. His reaction was immediate and instinctual – he automatically cut her off, his hands moving swiftly as he told her, "If we use an elevator, they will see us coming, Kate, and they'll be waiting on the floor we stop at." Elevators were death traps, confined spaces from which there was no escape. He couldn't believe she would even suggest it.
But she shook her head, a determined glint in her eye, and signed again. "That's not what I mean. All the elevators have emergency phones in them. If we can find one, we can call out." Her hands were insistent, persuasive, and before he knew it, she had taken his arm and was pulling him towards the front door of the apartment. When they emerged into the hallway, he was struck by how much darker it was than usual. The sun had already set, he realized, and his eyes had to struggle to adjust to the dim light. He pulled out the empty gun from his waistband, holding it tightly as if it might offer some protection, hoping against hope that they wouldn't be challenged.
They started heading towards the elevators, their footsteps echoing ominously in the silence. And then, just as they were approaching the elevators, the sound that Rick had been dreading announced itself – the high-pitched whine of his hearing aids dying. His heart sank as he stopped Kate in the middle of the hallway, his hands moving apologetically as he told her that his batteries were dead and he couldn't hear. Even with his limited hearing, he could feel the silence like a palpable weight, and he removed his hearing aids, snapping his fingers next to his right ear and barely hearing the sound, then doing the same to his left ear and hearing nothing at all.
Kate saw the desperation creeping into his eyes, saw the way his gaze was slipping past her as if he could no longer even see her standing there. She shook him once, gently but firmly, and started signing to him, her hands moving with a calm confidence that seemed to belie the danger they were in.
"Rick, you don't need those hearing aids. If anything, you not hearing is an advantage for us. We can use sign language so they won't hear us talking. So let's keep moving forward." Her words were like a balm to his frazzled nerves, and he felt a spark of determination ignite within him.
With renewed resolve, she pulled him towards the elevators. Once they got there, Kate pushed the button, her finger jabbing at it decisively, and the elevator started moving, the machinery rumbling to life beneath them.
It didn't take long before Jim heard the electric motor kick in and the elevator started moving, the display above the doors ticking upwards as it climbed to the 6th floor. He was quick to get on the radio, his voice crackling with urgency as he let everyone else know that the elevator was in motion.
"Elevator on the move," he barked, his eyes fixed intently on the display screen. He started calling out each floor as it passed, his finger hovering over the transmit button. When it hit the sixth floor, the doors slid open with a soft whoosh, and he could see the two of them step inside, their figures flickering on the closed-circuit TV feed.
"They're on six, they're on six!" he shouted into the radio, his heart pounding with excitement. They had them now, he thought, a triumphant grin spreading across his face.
The two cops were already moving, their footsteps echoing down the hallway as they sprinted towards the West staircase. They would cut off the stairs, and trap their prey. They had them right where they wanted them, and they knew it. With a shared nod, they started heading upstairs to the sixth floor, their guns drawn and ready. They had them now, they thought.