Refuge
Page 7
Simon, who had just ushered the judge inside, felt his own stomach clench tighter. Suddenly, automatic gunfire shattered the kitchen windows. Everyone ducked and dashed into a central hallway in the middle of the house. "Damn it." Simon looked at his best detective. "The hill?" Chris, for once confused, glanced back and forth between the tall Cascade detectives.
Jim listened, then nodded. "Clear. Let's go!"
Chris opened his mouth to object, only to have Vin shove him towards the side door. "Trust him," the sharpshooter whispered, then coughed.
Damn. Vin was the important one here. Chris would do everything in his power to protect the younger man, even if it meant relying on others who knew the terrain better than he did.
Larabee shielded his friend the best he could with his body as they dashed after Standish and Sandburg up the slope, who in turn were following Banks and Travis. Ellison urged Buck and JD out of the house then checked their enemies' positions. One of the six men from the car in front spotted them, ordering the others to fire. The sharp sounds of bullets surrounded the law officers, sending spurts of dirt into the air about their feet. They had to reach the ruins of an old mining operation at the top of the hill in order to have a chance. Jim sighted the old water tower and forced his feet to run faster to the goal. Shots continued to pierce the night. Everyone made a final push to get up to the crest of the hill.
However, the five men from the second SUV anticipated the move. They ran up from another angle, reaching the top before the police and agents. They ducked into a cement sluiceway under the water tower and opened fire.
"The wall!" Simon shouted as he guided the Judge. Instantly seeing what Banks meant, Chris shoved Vin down behind the rotting woodpile of a crumbling building. Noting the close range, Vin immediately pulled out his backup piece. The rest joined them. Behind the scant shelter, the men began trading gunfire with the group under the tower.
Blair glanced back down the hill, seeing the first group climbing the slope. "JIM! BELOW!" Turning, Jim along with Buck and Simon began firing at the first group, forcing them to duck behind the boulders scattered about the slope. Buck flinched as a bullet grazed his arm.
However, even Blair could see that they were in a really bad position. Gunfire was coming from behind and in front, trapping them in between. Then he glanced at the tower. He could see that water dripped from the hatch under the tank into the cement sluiceway where the second group of enemies had taken cover. The huge tank was probably filled with years of rainwater. The young man smirked when he spotted the lever to the hatch on the side of the tank. Taking careful aim, Blair took a deep breath, let half of it out, and fired.
The bullet hit the lever, setting it to spin crazily. The hatch sprang open, dumping the water on top of the second group. Pushed by the force of the water, the five men were swept down the sluiceway and out from underneath the tower. All but one of the men from Denver felt their jaws drop. "Nice shot, Blair," Vin complimented him as Jim sent his partner a proud smirk.
"Other side of the wall!" Simon commanded. They all scrambled over the cover to shield them from the enemy coming up the hill.
As they exchanged fire, a grim smirk suddenly drew across Jim's mouth. Blair glanced at him. "Backup?" he whispered hopefully. Jim nodded as he continued to fire. Soon everyone could hear the sirens racing up the lane. Once the bad guys were pinned between the two sets of law enforcement, they surrendered.
Chris finally stood up. Now that the danger was over, it was time to start working on their case. "Okay, Wilmington, Standish, Dunne, I want you to check on the guys that were washed down the sluice." He paused, noticing the blood on Buck's arm. "Strike that. Buck, you stay here and get your arm checked out."
"I'm fine. It's just a graze." Buck argued. Jim gently grasped his arm to take a look at the injury.
"Now you sound like JD," Chris scolded him with a roll of his eyes. "Get it checked out."
"Sandburg, you go with the agents," Simon ordered.
Blair grinned widely, feeling like a true detective instead of just Jim's backup.
"Sandburg." Blair looked at Jim before following Ezra. Lifting his head from examining Buck's arm, Jim pointed at a forty-five degree angle from the hill. "That way's North." Blair simply rolled his eyes, taking the jab at his non-existent sense of direction.
Jim then patted Wilmington's back. "He's okay, Larabee." Chris indicated with his head that Buck should follow the others after all. Giving his old friend a grin, Buck trotted to catch up.
"Remind me never to get involved in one of your shootouts again, Chris." Judge Travis brushed the dirt from his jacket. "I'm getting too old for this."
"I know the feeling, sir. You should try riding with Ellison when he's in hot pursuit." Banks then guided the much shorter federal judge back down the hill.
"How are you doing, Vin?" Chris asked. Jim, too, glanced at the younger man.
Tanner was still sitting on a stack of wood huddled in Chris' coat. "I'm okay. Just a little tired."
"Headache? Dizzy?" Chris inquired, not fooled for a minute. Vin shrugged his shoulders, which Chris took to mean 'yes'. "Why don't we..."
A loud boom suddenly thundered behind them. The three men turned to the safehouse. Most of the roof had blown off while flames began to lick up the walls to the sky. "Damn," Jim exclaimed as he began jogging down the hill, worried that some of his fellow officers had been caught in the blast.
"Stay here," Chris commanded Vin as he followed Ellison.
Alone in the growing darkness, Vin sighed. He wanted to follow his friends to help possible victims. However, his adrenaline level was dropping since their mad dash up the hill. His head was spinning just enough to potentially cause a misstep on the rocky hill and possibly twist something. If he did that, the guys and certainly Chris would never let him live it down. After another sigh and a bout of coughing, the agent checked the clip in his backup piece to find it empty. He began patting the pockets of Chris' coat for the extra clips Buck had tossed him earlier. Then the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Turning on the log with his empty gun held in the firing position, Vin found himself face to face with Rat Tail.
Michael Rattall had gained a little weight since the Army, but otherwise the ugly man still looked dangerous. The cruelty Vin remembered in his eyes had grown with additional years of hate. Yet there was a sense of eager anticipation that made shivers run down the young agent's back. Vin could feel his stomach begin to churn. A covert glance showed the rifle lying a yard from his right foot; a close yet impossible-to-cover distance with Rattall's gun trained on him.
"I guess the best way to do a job is to do it yourself." Smirking, the man chuckled. "I just had to wait for your watchdogs to disappear."
Vin continued to aim his gun unwaveringly at the man. His only chance was to hold out long enough for a distraction or for one of his friends to return. He just prayed his friends wouldn't walk into trouble. If only he could bluff like Ezra.
"For that matter, I should have done you back in the Army. You're just a scrawny street rat that doesn't deserve to be taking up space."
Fighting back a cough, Vin grimly asked, "Then why didn't you?"
"With watchdog Ellison around? I'd have had an easier time robbing Fort Knox. But now I have my chance."
"I don't think so." A tight smile stretched across Vin's face as he recognized Ellison's voice. A swift glance located Jim just off to his right.
Rattall smiled even more widely. "Ah, little runt Vinnie still needs big bad Ellison to protect him?"
"No," Jim replied steadily. "Tanner's a better man than you'll ever be, Rat Tail. Even back when he was just a teenager."
Anger flared in Rattall's eyes. "Well, your 'better man' is empty, Ellison. And you can't drop me before I pull this trigger." Vin held steady, even though his secret was apparently out. If he was going down, he'd at least die trying. His muscles tightened in preparation to move. "Say goodbye to your friend, Ellison."
Then a gun ba
rrel was pressed against Rattall's temple. "Who says Tanner only has one friend?" Chris Larabee glared his mostly deadly stare at the man who was at the root of his friend's troubles. "Drop it NOW!" Rattall began to loosen his hold on the gun when Vin noticed a shadow behind Ellison pointing a gun at his friend's head.
"Cap'n!" Vin shouted as he rolled to his rifle. Coming up with the weapon, he shot at the same time as Ellison ducked out of the way. The gunman fell.
"Rattall," Larabee growled again. This time, the militia man dropped his weapon. Vin leaned over to rest his forehead against the ground. It was over.
"Ah, Slick? It's 'Jim', now, remember?"
"Okay, Cap'n."
Five days later, Federal Building, Denver, CO
"...So our lead to the arms dealer selling weapons to the militias was actually a guy WITHIN the Liberty Brigade?" JD asked, incredulous.
Chris grimly nodded. He hated it when they went into a situation not knowing everything they needed to.
"Too bad we couldn't do more than make a dent in that organization," Nathan commented bitterly. They had come too close to losing several members of their team for his comfort. It would have been nice to have a little more to show for it.
"At least we cleared out the mole from the Judge's office and one dirty ATF agent," Buck pointed out, trying to cheer up the rest of his teammates.
"Yeah, but we never found the fake FBI agents from the hospital," Vin inserted.
Josiah nodded. "Too bad we can't get Miss Maddock to talk. And until she, Rattall, or the others start talking, there isn't much else we can do."
"Agree." Chris picked up the folder on the conference table. "Thus we are to consider this case closed. Dismiss."
With grumbles and sighs, the various Team 7 members wandered out of the room. Josiah gently nudged Ezra with one of his crutches as he walked by. "There's something I want you to see."
Before Vin could follow them out, Chris stopped him with a hand on his arm. "How you feeling, Cowboy?" It was the agent's first day back.
"Much better," Vin told him with a smile. "The headache just about gone and so's the cough. I'm going to have to have Sandburg ship me more of his uncle's tea. That stuff really works."
Chris nodded, remembering the nervy, intelligent kid. But Sandburg wasn't the Cascade detective he wanted to know about. "Vin, why haven't you ever mentioned Ellison to me?"
Vin sighed as he sat back down. Chris leaned against the table as he waited for his friend's answer. "Ellison was my first CO in the Rangers, and pretty much the first decent male role model I ever had. I really looked up to him. I was on his team for several assignments, then I was sent somewhere else when he went to Peru. It wasn't until later that I heard about what had happened." As Vin paused, Chris remembered what Ezra had told them about Ellison's time in Peru. "The whole team went MIA when their helicopter crashed into the jungle and were presumed dead. I knew those guys, Chris. I'd worked closely with just about all of them, not just the Captain. If I had gone to Peru, I would've been on that chopper."
Chris felt his stomach tighten. If Vin had been on the helicopter, he would have died before they had met. But he also heard something else in the voice. "You feel guilty about that."
Vin shrugged. "I kept wondering if I could've done something to have prevented it if I'd been with them. Or maybe I should've been the one to die instead of one of the other guys." Chris reached over and rubbed the tense shoulder, wishing he'd been in Vin's life then. He would have liked to have given his friend support through what must have been a very lonely time. "But mostly, it was the start of my disillusionment with the Army. I began to notice things that didn't seem quite right. That's why I didn't re-enlist."
"And when Ellison came back?" Chris asked softly.
Vin shrugged again. "I tried to reach him at first, but the Army pretty much had him under wraps. Then I was afraid he wouldn't want to talk with me anyway. I was still feeling pretty guilty for not being there. After he got out, I didn't even know where he'd gone."
"And now?"
Vin smiled. "Now we have a friend in Cascade if we ever need him." Vin looked up into his friend's eyes. "Jim has found his place just as I have found mine."
Chris gave Vin's shoulder a final squeeze, acknowledging Vin's assurance. "Then why don't you get back to your place and start working on your reports."
With an exaggerated groan, Vin stood up and walked out of the conference room. He casually glanced into the video room as he passed. The wide-eye look on Ezra's face brought him into the room. On the screen was Blair Sandburg facing a horde of reporters. Vin's heart went out to his new friend as the young man declared that his dissertation was a fraud and apologized to anyone he had hurt. "What the hell is this?"
"I knew the name Blair Sandburg sounded familiar," Josiah explained softly.
Ezra was still shaking his head in disbelief. He was usually a fairly good judge of character, and nothing he saw in Sandburg would have suggested this. "Are you sure it was not an undercover assignment?"
Josiah slowly shook his head. "From what I can tell, Mr. Sandburg walked away from years of school and study. He's never taught again, nor has he made any attempt to receive his degree from Rainier or any other school." He looked sympathetically at Vin who was still staring at the screen. "I wanted Ezra's opinion on whether there was more than one mole in the system."
"So when the University screwed him over last year, Simon gave him an offer to join the PD."
Jim felt that the University was at fault. What happened that would have forced Blair to declare his work a fraud? Vin turned to his big friend. "What exactly was Blair's research in?"
"A bit of Burton fantasy." At Vin and Ezra's puzzled stares, Josiah chuckled sadly. "The explorer Richard Burton once wrote about a watchman for primitive tribes that he called 'The Sentinel'. Supposedly, this man had all five of his senses heightened well beyond that of a normal man, giving him an advantage in guarding and aiding his tribe. Sandburg's theory was that such people exist in the modern world."
"You mean, these sentinels would be able to see farther, hearing things from way off, smell faint scents like a dog, and so on?" Vin questioned intently. Josiah nodded.
"Peppermint... Echinacea... lemon balm... licorice?"
"Company! Chief, your room!"
Hell, I'd even bet that's why their place is so clean. The Cap'n can probably see even specks of dirt. Vin gave both Ezra and Josiah a hard stare that would have made Chris proud. "Drop it."
"What?" Josiah asked, confused.
"I concur," Ezra replied, remembering Ellison finding the tracker on the rental car bumper.
Josiah glanced between the two younger men in confusion. "But if this Sandburg committed fraud, how would we know he's not into something else?"
Ezra shrugged as he stood up. "If it was illegal to misinform the media, most law enforcement officers would be incarcerated."
"If it was..." Josiah softly repeated, trying to figure out what he just missed.
Vin patted him on the back as he followed Ezra out the door. "In the words of Jim Croce, 'You don't tug on Superman's cape'."
Josiah watched his colleagues leave with his mouth hanging open, the chorus of the old song ringing in his mind.
You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim.
The End
7/10/00: Whew! There's one plot jack rabbit down! Now onto my next BPP ep and hopefully then Charming the Hawk.
The chorus above was taken from the song, 'You Don't Mess Around With Jim', written and sung by Jim Croce.
Anyone interested in reading more Mag 7:ATF stories, please check out the main archive at:
Cindy
p;
Cindy Combs, Refuge