Within

by Charlotte Steel

  Lisa ran to the door, screaming, “Let him go. We will break down this door!”

  Orlando stayed outside the internet cafe, pulling Lisa by the arm. Lisa turned to him. Orlando shook his head as he looked at her, saying, “Stop. Don’t say that to a hostage-taker.”

  Lisa retreated. She and Orlando stood on the sidewalk in front of the internet cafe. Orlando took out his smartphone and made a call. “He’s got a hostage, and many other possible hostages,” he said on the phone. He looked around him, then said, “I don’t see a street sign, but we ran across the woods from Lieutenant Castro’s next-door neighbor, and we came upon a deserted street along which there’s an internet cafe. The name of the internet cafe is Hack You.”

  Orlando was looking at the white sign that was hanging from the door of the shop, reading its multi-colored letters as he waited. “Okay, thanks,” he said on the phone and put it back in his pocket.

  “They’re on their way,” he said to Lisa in a calm voice.

  9:15pm

  Two police cars were parked in the middle of the street and a crowd had gathered around them. Their voices filled the silent night. Lisa was standing next to the negotiator, who was standing next to Mack and a resident from the nearby house. They were studying a huge paper that had the map of the internet cafe and talking. The negotiator held his loudspeaker in his left hand as he listened to Mack and the resident.

  “There’s a parking lot behind Hack You,” the resident was saying as she drew a square area behind the internet cafe on the map with a pencil.

  A police truck arrived from the right of the street. It was a huge, black truck with all-terrain tires. It stopped next to the last police car. Lisa left the group and walked toward the truck, passing by the police cars. Policemen in anti-riot uniforms were jumping off from behind the truck and running toward Hack You. They were wearing black helmets with covers on their faces, bulletproof vests over black uniforms, and combat boots with black pants. They were carrying huge, rectangular shields that were black and long guns. Their heavy footsteps sounded on the ground and their weapons can be heard as they passed by Lisa.

  Lisa stopped and watched them. Some of them hurried toward Mack, some ran across the street to take position behind the trees in the woods, and some ran to both directions of the street to take position in the nearby houses behind plants. Then there was another sound.

  It was a gigantic, white news van. “Channel 7” can be read on the fat side of the van in green colors as it sped past Lisa through the farthest lane. Its speed blew a wind against Lisa. It stopped right in front of Hack You, parking in a diagonal position in the middle of the street. The two doors at the back of the van flew open and a woman’s beautiful legs stepped off the van. The woman walked away from the van, pointing the policemen who were hiding in the trees to someone in the van.

  The woman had shoulder-length, brown hair and a rounded face. She was petite and a bit chubby. She was wearing a red vest over a yellowish blouse. She was wearing a red skirt, and black high heels. She was carrying a mic that had the name, “Channel 7.” She was being followed by a tall cameraman with black hair.

  Lisa looked up at a loud sound in the sky. A white helicopter flew above, “Channel 7” written across its belly in green letters. It hovered over the area.

  Lisa breathed deeply and turned away to walk past the police truck. Orlando’s car was parked five meters away. He was standing outside his car, his back resting against the side of his car. He was texting on his smartphone and grinning to himself. Lisa walked along the sidewalk.

  When she finally reached him, she said, “Thank you for driving me back here in your car. You are quite the driver today.”

  Orlando kept looking at his smartphone and said as he continued texting, “It’s amazing, Lisa. Two seconds after I posted about the hostage crisis on my Facebook, the media arrived. Fantastic!”

  “What?!” Lisa almost shot up to the sky as she angrily shouted at Orlando. Orlando was startled. Lisa pointed at the van behind her. “You did this?!”

  “Of course, what’s your problem?” Orlando said, putting his smartphone into his pocket and giving Lisa a helpless look.

  “Don’t you know what Gerard says about the media? He hates them. How can I tell Gerard you are the reason why the media found out about this?! You idiot! You say you’re here because we were childhood friends. Well, you remained a child!” Lisa turned and angrily walked back to the internet cafe.

  She calmed herself when she reached Mack at the first police car, but was still breathing heavily. She stood next to Mack and listened to the negotiator across the hood of the police car. The reporter was already filming the negotiation, standing next to the negotiator and holding out her mic to him. “He’s not answering,” the negotiator said as he held his smartphone to his ear.

  Lisa looked angry again when she realized that Orlando had followed her and was standing next to her, listening to the negotiator also. Lisa was still glaring at Orlando when a grumbling sound was heard behind Hack You. A black, tinted car appeared at the right side of the internet cafe. It slowly drove on the grass.

  “A car is moving out of the parking lot,” Mack announced on his walkie-talkie. “But it’s not passing through the driveway. It’s moving eastward.”

  All the policemen ran toward the car, including the ones who were supposed to be hiding. They were pointing their guns at the car. Orlando left Lisa to chase the car. Lisa hesitated, and then followed him. The policemen’s footsteps sounded in the night. The locals were exclaiming.

  The car turned toward the street. Orlando sprinted ahead, getting way ahead of Lisa and way ahead of the car. He stood in its way as it moved out of the grassy area and into the road, taking out his gun and pointing it at the front of the car. Lisa tried to catch up, running faster, but she was too far away.

  The car swerved to avoid Orlando. The driver’s door opened as it passed by Orlando, and an arm grabbed Orlando around the waist.

  “No!” Lisa screamed, but her voice faltered as she ran as fast as she can.

  The driver dragged Orlando along the road while the car moved. Orlando tried to fight the driver, but the driver pulled him into the car. The door of the car closed, and the car sped away.

  Lisa ran on and on, but the car got smaller and smaller in the distance. Soon, it was a dot on the deserted street in the distance far ahead. Lisa slowed down and then stopped. She bent down, putting her hands on her knees as she panted and watched the car get away. The red and blue blinkers of the police cars were flashing against the trees on the side of the street and their sirens can be heard behind her, accompanied by the shouts of a policeman in a loud speaker. “Move the news van! Make way for the police!”

  Lisa turned and walked back to where she came from. Her body was slouched in an exhausted posture, but she kept walking back to Hack You. The news van was still parked in its diagonal position across the street, all of the police cars stuck behind it.

  Lisa felt like she was about to explode into an angry ball of fire. She angrily ran toward the van. When she reached it, she climbed into the van. “This is all your fault!” She yelled once she was inside, pointing at the people inside.

  The walls inside the van were white. There were blue benches against each wall and there was a brown mat on the floor. Huge, flat screen TVs were lined up against the inner walls. Different news channels were showing on each TV. There were foldable tables that carried computer keyboards before some of the TVs, and people who were wearing headsets were sitting on foldable chairs before them. The female reporter was sitting on the left bench, holding her mic. A chubby guy was sitting on the same bench, but closer to the doors of the van. The cameraman was sitting on the opposite bench, his camera resting on his lap. The van was air-conditioned and smelled of a woman’s strong perfume. Everyone in the van were looking at Lisa, expressions of puzzlement and fear on their faces.

  Lisa stopped pointing at them and sat on the cameraman’s bench, but continu
ed, “You pesky, useless reporters! You follow crimes like flies around rotting corpse, taking what is for you and being annoying to everybody else!”

  Nobody talked back to her, and they all continued staring at her with wide eyes. Only the reporter moved, turning her head a bit and opening her mouth to say something. She had cheeky, blue eyes and straight eyebrows that were thick. She had a low nose and small lips that were red with lipstick. The foundation and powder on her face were so thick, that she looked like a geisha. Her obvious blush-on made her look more like a Russian babushka doll. She stopped herself from what she was about to say, and forced a smile instead. “Well,” she said, looking at Lisa. She reached into the pocket of her vest to bring out a white, rectangular paper and handed it to Lisa. “My name’s Charlene Reyes, at your service.”

  Lisa took the paper and looked at it. It was a calling card. “Bullshit! I know you reporters really want to be celebrities. You’re just not that beautiful. So you run in the middle of disasters and be like, ‘Notice me! Notice me!’” Lisa said, making faces and gesticulating with sarcasm.

  “Breathe deeply, Miss Cornwell,” Charlene said in a soft, child-like voice. “You just need to cool down. I know, I know, the job is so hard, especially this one.”

  “Don’t tell me to cool down, you sick bitch!” Lisa yelled at Charlene. “You always mess up our jobs for us. Us Feds!”

  “Enough,” Charlene said, her voice louder and motioning to the other people in the van. “One more insult from you and I’m going to broadcast that FBI Special Agent Lisa Cornwell is attacking me verbally and calling me names.”

  “Well, go on, I’m not afraid of you,” Lisa said, glaring at Charlene. “You broke into my chase and blocked the road, so my partner got kidnapped ...”

  “Absolutely,” Charlene said, but Lisa continued to talk. Charlene’s makeup was too thick to show the redness of her face, but her neck was going red with fury. “Melissa, broadcast this. Show everyone how newbie Lisa Cornwell is ---”

  “Stop it, girls,” the chubby guy at the doors of the van interrupted. “We are all just suffering from the crimes of the Beast. What we must do is to understand each other, compromise, and cooperate. Do not fight. It’s what the criminals want us to do.”

  Lisa wasn’t listening to anyone and was still talking about Charlene’s faults that night. Charlene screamed above Lisa’s voice, “Okay, he’s right! Listen to him. We should cooperate.”

  “If you really want cooperation,” Lisa said. “First, take the chopper off the sky. The Beast used its live aerial footage to find out where to escape.”

  “Done,” Charlene said. She turned to the fat woman who was sitting before a keyboard next to her. “Melissa, call our boss to call the helicopter off the skies. We can do without him.”

  The van suddenly moved. Everyone in the van gasped and held on to anything to keep themselves from falling. “What’s going on?” Lisa asked as she held on to a handlebar on the wall next to her.

  The guy at the doors pulled the doors close. “Hey, let me go down,” Lisa told him.

  “I’m sorry, Ma’am,” the guy said apologetically. “We were ordered to leave and keep moving to not get in the way of the police cars chasing the Beast. You will have to stay with us until we can stop. Melissa, give her a walkie-talkie.”

  Melissa pulled out a drawer from beneath her table and took out a black walkie-talkie. She threw it at Lisa and Lisa caught it. The voices of the policemen outside can be heard on the crackling walkie-talkie. Lisa stared at the walkie-talkie. “How did you get this? You’re eavesdropping!”

  The van hit a bump on the road.

  “This is so unfair,” Lisa said, her tone of voice close to panic. “You’re kidnapping me.”

  “Hey, first, you called me names. And now, you’re accusing my whole team of doing a crime? When will you ever be done?” Charlene shouted at Lisa.

  Lisa opened her mouth to retort, but her phone rang. She pulled up the side of her night gown to get her smartphone and answered the call. “It’s James from the lab, Ma’am,” a man’s voice said on the other line said. “The autopsy of Angela Perez shows pieces of Lewis’ skin surface under her fingernails, meaning she scratched him. Lewis’ body shows the matching scratches. Angela’s autopsy shows that she was raped.”

  “Of course, she was raped,” Lisa said. “She was raped with the knife.”

  Charlene took out a notepad and pen from inside her vest and started taking notes. “Stop it,” Lisa shouted at her. Charlene quickly hid the notepad and pen into her vest.

  “Ma’am?” James asked on the other end of the line, sounding puzzled.

  “No, not you,” Lisa said. “Are you saying Lewis ... did it?”

  “The lacerations from the knife were on the outer part of her,” James explained. “The inner part of her shows different lacerations. And Lewis’ DNA is in her.”

  “Oh,” Lisa said. “Okay, thank you for the information, James. Good job.”

  “Please visit the lab for the autopsy report after you chase him, Ma’am,” James said, and then hung up.

  Lisa put her smartphone back into her pocket. Suddenly, the walkie-talkie came to life. “This is Gerard, head of the FBI in this jurisdiction. The suspect is found at an internet cafe in Melbourne Town with an FBI agent.”

  “The lone internet cafe in Melbourne Town,” Charlene and her companions shouted to the driver, and the van sped up. “That’s our next destination.”

  “I’m giving a shoot-to-kill order for Lieutenant Sebastian Castro, aka the Beast,” Gerard continued. “Shoot him when you see him, whether or not he is holding a hostage.”

  “N-no, no, no! My partner is in there!” Lisa screamed. She frantically fumbled with the walkie-talkie, then finally found the button that switched on the mic. “Orlando is in there, Gerard! You can’t shoot.”

  “Shut up, Lisa,” Gerard said. “You have no experience in these types of things. Shoot Orlando with him if he’s with Orlando.”

  “No!” Lisa screamed, close to tears. Everyone in the van was sadly watching her. She dropped the walkie-talkie on the bench and looked at it like it was the most useless thing in the world.

  Chapter 5

  “Here’s the internet cafe,” the driver’s voice called from the front of the van. Charlene signaled Lisa to the window of the van next to her, a look of concern on her face. Lisa sat next to Charlene and looked out the window.

  Charlene checked if her mic was working, and her cameraman was restarting his camera.

  The internet cafe was on the corner of Marble Street and Concrete Street. It was the only store in a neighborhood of residential homes, most of them for rent. People had crowded across the street, watching the police cars and the policemen who were standing along the road. The police truck was also there. The police cars had stopped in the middle of Marble Street, turned to become perpendicular to the oncoming traffic to block it.

  The policemen were evenly distributed on the side of the street. They were holding out their arms to stop the people from going to the middle of the road. Other policemen were managing the traffic ahead, using silver flashlights to signal the oncoming cars to make a U-turn and look for some other routes to their destinations. Dozens of policemen in anti-riot uniform were jumping out of the truck and running toward the store.

  It was a small store at the ground floor of a white, three-story building. It had a blue door that had a small, glass window on its upper part. The light of the store glowed from inside the glass. The store had glass windows all around, but the white curtains of the store were blocking them.

  Lisa left the bench. She opened the door of the van and jumped to the street without waiting for the van to stop, making Charlene scream behind her, “N-no! Stupid!” Charlene made a loud noise when she hit her knee with her hand in frustration.

  Lisa landed firmly on the ground and began running. “Keep that camera off!” Lisa shouted as she ran along the road, pointing a threatening finger at Charlene
in the open door of the van.

  The van slowed down, and Lisa ran ahead of it toward the police truck. The police truck was parked behind the line of police cars. Lisa climbed up the back of the truck and into the truck. She put Charlene’s calling card into her pocket. Extra bulletproof vests were attached to the upper walls of the truck inside. Helmets were placed on top of each other near the front of the truck, behind the driver’s seat. A group of police shields were leaning against each other behind the passenger’s seat.

  Lisa grabbed a bulletproof vest and wore it. She adjusted its straps around her and attached her walkie-talkie to the shoulder area as she hurried toward the helmets. She took a helmet and wore it, lowering its cover over her face as she grabbed a shield.

  Lisa jumped down the truck and ran toward the store, passing by the policemen who were also running toward the door as she brought out her gun. “Surrender now, Lieutenant,” she yelled at the door. “If you do not surrender, we will break down this door and arrest you ---”

  Something began flashing from inside the store. “Explo… --- Flashes,” Lisa shouted at her walkie-talkie. “I’m seeing flashes inside the store. We will open the door now.”

  She moved aside to let the first policeman charge forward and kick down the door. The door instantly flew open with a loud bang and the policemen hurried inside, Lisa following the second policeman as she gripped her gun.

  “Upstairs!” A male voice shouted from inside the store.

  “Clear,” Lisa’s walkie-talkie crackled as the voice of the first policeman spoke on the line.

  The walls and tiles on the floor of the store were all white. The people were still lying flat on the floor. Most of them were covering their heads. Only one of them was standing. He was a short Indian and he was pointing to the spiral staircase at the back of the store, saying, “They went upstairs. They took one of my laptops!”

  Lisa glanced at the table that was nearest to the door. A welding machine was resting on the table instead of a laptop, and the end of the metal pole that used to hold the laptop was still burning. Smoke rose up from the burning metal. Despite the air-conditioning, the air smelled burning.