Halfway Heroes

by Dustin Martin

  Chapter 48—Reliance

  Two officers on their way into the station fell in a hail of bullets from across the room. Others overturned long wooden work desks and sought shelter behind them. Gould kicked the doors shut. They were hidden from the snipers. “Now what?” he shouted over the guns.

  Down the narrow hallway, Lydia spotted three armed gunmen. They were positioned by doorways to offices and behind file cabinets. Large rifles fired in her direction and gas masks dangled from their necks. Clip after clip was unloaded into the temporary shelters of desks the officers had made.

  “If they would let up for a moment,” Sylvia said, “I think I might have a shot.”

  “I could run a desk into them!” Lydia shouted. Splinters popped out of her desk, flying by her head as the gunfire was sprayed through the room.

  “You’ll get torn apart!” Rogers said. “We need a distraction! Someone to go around!”

  All eyes trailed to Jando, the one farthest away from the action. He was right next to the opening of a hallway that stretched beyond the gunmen and turned into a set of parallel halls that met up before an exit. One could sneak down one hallway, keeping low beneath its line of windows for a top half, and then come out behind the gunmen from the other. He caught their gazes. “Forget it!” he said, his voice almost drowned out by bullets sheering his cover away. “They’ll get me!”

  One of the SWAT members volunteered. He rolled from cover to cover, squeezing off shots from his own assault rifle. But when he was a table away from Jando, he stopped. Ting, ting! The SWAT member shouted, “Grenade!” as the table exploded into flying wooden pieces. Now there was an open space between Jando and anyone else, too wide to cross safely.

  “Jando!” Sylvia shouted.

  “No way!” he said.

  “We’ll give you an opening!” she said. “Roll in there!”

  “And do what?” A burst of gunfire hit his desk’s edge. “That hall is really thin! They’ll massacre me!” It was true. The station’s walls were mere paper before the guns. But there was no other option.

  “Jando!” Lydia shouted. “Give us a shot and I’ll take them out!” He still hesitated. “Trust me!”

  After one more round of gunfire, he nodded his agreement. Sylvia fired her pistol into the air, breaking the suppressive shooting. Jando dove into the hallway. A minute passed, then two. Jando wasn’t showing. Aidan muttered about how he couldn’t believe they were placing their lives in Jando’s hands. “You actually expect him to sneak up on anyone? Him?”

  Lydia stuck her head out of cover briefly. The desk they were hiding behind was nearly useless. Sylvia placed her hand on Lydia’s shoulder. “Be ready to move,” she said.

  “Hey! Someone’s there!” a woman said, pointing at the hall. Two of the gunmen changed their direction and shot at Jando.

  Lydia hefted up her desk. Aidan grabbed hold of one side and together they charged down the hallway, holding it in front of them like a shield. His feet lifted off the ground, pushing the desk faster. He maintained his glide through the air, with Lydia holding tight to her end of the desk and running hard to keep pace. The only gunman firing their way got his partners’ attention too late to help him. The desk smashed into the face of the man in front.

  Aidan pinned the unconscious man underneath the desk. Lydia socked a nearby woman square in the jaw before she could lift her rifle. The last sniper fled away from them down the hall. The gunman fired at them sporadically and fumbled with a walkie-talkie. “Hey! Team two to team one!”

  “He’s calling for backup!” one of the officers shouted.

  “Fire! Aim to wound!” Rogers shouted. Lydia and Aidan ducked as the police unloaded their clips. Bullets pierced the fleeing man’s thigh and hip. His rifle and walkie-talkie tumbled from his hand as he clutched his leg and side. He fell wailing to the floor.

  Lydia searched for Jando. He was in the side hall, head covered, sitting next to a closed door, a bullet-riddled wall above him. He raised his head when the officers walked by. When he saw that it was safe, he hopped to his feet and dusted himself off.

  He strolled casually toward Lydia. “Nice teamwork, partner.”

  Aidan glared at him from his entanglement in the desk. “Thanks for trusting us,” she said, indicating Aidan. Lydia lifted the desk and Aidan got to his feet.

  “Yeah. I guess Seagull did alright,” Jando said.

  “Hello?” the walkie-talkie hissed. Rogers picked it up. “Hello? Team two, come in.”

  Rogers squatted next to the wounded man and held the walkie-talkie to his ear. He tapped the man’s face with the antenna. “Hey, up here,” Rogers said. The man moaned and opened his eyes. “Tell him everything is fine.” The man grinned up at Rogers, and then spat on his cheek. Rogers wiped it off with his sleeve, butted the man with his pistol, and pressed the barrel to his forehead. “I don’t have time to ask nicely. Tell him,” he said, his finger gently squeezing the trigger.

  “Team two here,” the man said into the walkie-talkie.

  “Claude? What’s going on over there?”

  Claude narrowed his eyes at Rogers, who pressed the pistol harder into his head. “Nothing. Just a few cops, but we got them.”

  “Alright,” the walkie-talkie said. “Be on the lookout. That other group might be in town soon.”

  “Roger that. Claude out.”

  Standing, Rogers nodded to the officers. They lifted Claude, who hissed and kicked as they handcuffed him to his unconscious partners. Then they tied each to a chair, stripping them of their gas masks and any remaining weapons. The woman was deemed to have a broken jaw, thanks to Lydia’s punch.

  Rogers ordered the police to check the rest of the floors as Gould tampered with the police radio. The younger agent examined the added-on equipment, scratching his head. Then he set about detaching various components with another officer’s help.

  “Okay, that bought us a little time,” Rogers said. “Good thing the snipers didn’t join in, but if they’re still around, they might call for backup. Be careful of the windows, people, and let’s make this quick.” He assigned an officer to watch for any enemies outside.

  Sylvia sent Lydia, Aidan, and Jando off to search for survivors while she interrogated Claude. A few other policemen were mourning their dead and checking the corpses, some of whom were full of gunshot wounds. Others were contorted into frightening, painful poses but had no apparent injuries. “Poor Mitchell,” Lydia heard one say over a particularly twisted body. The floor was sticky and many of the office carpets were coated red. Chunks of the walls had been blown wide open, and the walls left standing had hundreds of bullets embedded in them. The exits were all locked from the outside, but no one dared venture out alone to unlock them. They were all too busy looking for any fellow men and women alive in the destruction.

  Lydia, Jando, and Aidan happened upon only one living victim: a woman, collapsed in her chair, torso spread out on her desk. A few gunshots had exited her back, lodging in a cabinet behind her. When she saw the three teenagers, she mouthed, “Help.” She coughed, choked, and then one last soft breath escaped her, blood dribbling down her lips. Jando closed his eyes and crossed himself. Lydia turned away, covering her mouth and leaving the office.

  Jando went on ahead, checking the last couple of rooms. Lydia recovered soon, but Aidan stopped and leaned against a wall, absolutely exhausted. “You alright?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Just wondering what I was thinking by deciding to come along.” He gave a forced chuckle.

  “Yeah, I was surprised you did,” Lydia said. “After all, it doesn’t look like you’ll get your cure.”

  “Eh, I figured maybe I could find something at Rooke Pharmaceuticals,” he said, shrugging. “It beats hanging out with Dilbert. Or being sent back to the Cave with nothing to do, but wait for—for everyone to come back,” he said, stumbling on his words. He gazed away, down the hall. Lydia leaned beside him and they waited for Jando to finish.

  Jando�
��s search resulted in nothing new—only walls blown apart by explosions and more dead cops. When they returned to Sylvia, Rogers was helping her to interrogate the captured gunmen. An officer stood nearby, brandishing a first aid kit. Lydia saw that Claude’s eyes seemed to look longingly at the kit. He winced in pain. Gould was fixing the radio. The cop Lydia had helped outside was resting on the floor, covered in sweat. His chest was being dressed by two fellow officers.

  Rogers gripped the chair’s armrests. “I’ll ask you this one last time. How many of you are there? How do we shut off the canister upstairs?”

  “There’s one here?” Aidan asked. “We need to get out, then!”

  “It’s fine,” Sylvia said. “It’s not set to go off. Yet.” She jerked her head at Claude. “All we got so far is that they’re private military contractors.”

  “Private what?” Jando asked.

  “Mercenaries,” Sylvia said.

  “And I already said I’m not talking,” Claude said. Rogers raised a fist, but Sylvia stayed him.

  “If you don’t tell us what you know, then everyone will die.” She leaned in close to him. “Including you. I’ve heard it’s a bad way to go. Haven’t you?” She eyed Rogers. He caught on and agreed. Claude’s chest started to rise and fall rapidly.

  “After all, as our prisoner, we can’t let you out of our sight,” Rogers said. “Which means you’ll suffer like us.”

  “All the agonizing pain,” Sylvia said, breathing in Claude’s ear. Beads of sweat slid down his brow.

  “All the horrendous torment,” Rogers added. He playfully shivered. “Chills me to think about.”

  “Alright! Alright!” Claude said. “There were twenty-four of us!”

  Rogers gave Sylvia a look of approval. She stepped aside and allowed him to continue the interrogation. “Tell me about the canisters,” he said. He motioned to the officer with the kit to join them. The officer tended to Claude’s wounds.

  “They’re on a timer. Set to go off one after another.”

  “What about the one upstairs?” Sylvia asked.

  “Remote detonation. Same thing we used to gas this place when we took over. That one’s a spare made to catch any stragglers like you.” He hissed as a bullet was taken out of his thigh.

  “You used one already?” Jando asked. “Is it still in the air? Have we breathed it?” He lifted his shirt over his mouth. Lydia and Aidan covered their faces and looked around as if expecting the gas to peek out from a hiding spot.

  “No, the SN91 moves fast and disperses quickly. If it was still here, we’d be dead by now.” Sylvia returned to Claude. “Where’s the remote for the canister?”

  “Emeryl has it,” Claude said. “My boss. Guy on the walkie-talkie.”

  “How do we shut down the other canisters?” Sylvia asked, kneeling to his level.

  “You need a code, four numbers long. But the code we put in isn’t working. We think Rooke reprogrammed the code. He means to kill us all!” He wiggled in his bonds. “We already tried shutting it down at the first set!”

  “Which is where?”

  “Hunter Memorial Hospital. Fourth floor. Supposed to cover the area for a few blocks.”

  Gould looked over his shoulder. “This must be the only radio you were plugged into, right?” Claude nodded. Gould turned on the radio. “Attention. This is Agent Gould of the FBI. Any units who can here this, report to Hunter Memorial Hospital immediately. We will rendezvous there.”

  Sylvia and Rogers huddled together away from Claude. Lydia joined them. “Okay, listen, BEPs. We’ll,” Rogers thumbed Gould, “look for Rooke. All of you secure the hospital.”

  “What if Heather and Finster are guarding Rooke? I think we should look for him,” Sylvia said.

  “They’re not,” Claude said. “They’re trying to find him and shut down all of the canisters. Look, we’re on your side. We want to stop Rooke, too.” He indicated his bonds. “So let us free, huh?”

  “Says the man who was shooting at us,” Rogers said.

  “Still,” Sylvia said, “if Heather and Finster are searching for Rooke, it’ll be much harder if the two of them are nearby.”

  “I’ll lead a team to the hospital,” Gould volunteered.

  Rogers looked between them and clucked his tongue. “Fine.” He tossed Sylvia a set of keys. “Cars are on the side of the building. Call us on the radio if you need to. Grab what you need and let’s move.” He faced the officers awaiting orders. “That includes you people, too. Get every gun you can carry.” He picked out a group from the bunch. “You four, with me. I want everyone ready in five minutes.”

  Lydia saw a clock on the wall. Less than two hours left. She wished time would stop. That the doomsday clock hanging there would halt for a while.

  Hold on, Mom. We’re coming.

  * * *