"I'll hold this end," Marty said with a wink. "You go first." Carl grabbed the bottommost handholds and noticed that they were soaking wet. Smart. He passed them over to Marty.
Marty wrapped the loops tightly around his wrists. "Climb fast. I don't think this is strong enough to support bo—"
With a huge crack, the roof broke free. Carl dove forward, barely wrapping his fingers around Marty's belt. The pair of FBI agents swung like a pendulum through the burning fifth floor and crashed into the smoking wall. Carl's hair shriveled from the heat. His lungs burned. He couldn't open his eyes.
He tried to ignore the panic clawing at his brain. He couldn't let himself breathe in. He felt the rope shift upward, and he churned his legs against the wall to help Marty support his weight. He could feel the soles of his shoes melting. With a surge of adrenaline, they clamored over the edge of the wall, only to Tarzan-swing into the brick façade of the building next door.
Carl swung wildly as Marty smashed full-force into the wall. Carl's knees slammed into the bricks. His heart jumped into his throat as they dropped. He closed his eyes and braced for impact. They fell less than a foot. Carl looked up in shock. Marty had let go of the makeshift rescue line, but the loops wrapped around his wrists held firm. He gasped for breath, his head lolling back in pain.
Oh, shit, Carl thought.
He breathed a sigh of relief as Marty's hands re-closed around the loops. Marty opened his eyes and met Carl's gaze, a fierce grin on his face. "Still some work to do, Carl. Move your feet. Like this." Marty began to walk up the wall. Carl tried to help, but was facing the wrong direction.
They rose slowly, Carl dangling from Marty's belt. His elbow was in agony. As they neared the roof, Carl heard grunts of exertion echoing from above. He did his best to use his legs to ease the burden, but there were no ledges or sills, and he didn't have any leverage.
Marty made it up over the ledge and onto the solid flat surface of the top of the building, and Carl was dragged to the roof lip. A team of exhausted men and women grabbed the makeshift rope and pulled again. With another heave, he was up. Carl couldn't let go of Marty's belt. His hands wouldn't respond. He collapsed onto the cool stone of the rooftop and just breathed.
A rousing cheer drowned out the inferno as people of all shapes and sizes came to their aid. Strong hands pried his fingers apart and hauled him to his feet. Men slapped him on the back. Women hugged him. Smiling, sweaty faces greeted him everywhere he looked, except for a lone figure in the back of the crowd.
Paul Renner wasn't smiling. He stood with his arms folded, watching them. A few exhausted men stood nearby, congratulating each other on a job well done. A man clapped Renner on the back and hugged him.
"Thank you all, so much," Carl said, shaking hands and taking hugs, tears of relief filling his eyes. "We have to go. We have to go." The crowd pressed in and threatened to smother them with good will.
"People!" Marty barked. He held his hands up to stop the crowd. "I can't tell you how wonderful you all are, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. But we're on FBI business, and we have to go. Thank you again!"
Marty herded Carl toward the rooftop doorway. As they reached it, another chorus of cheers erupted behind them. They turned and waved one last time. No one was looking at them. Instead, Paul Renner was receiving an adoring send-off.
"I've never seen anything like that in my entire life."
"You're a hero, man."
"That was unbelievable!"
"I didn't think there was any way when you jumped."
"I'm glad men like you are on our side."
Paul shook hands, kissed cheeks, and smiled from ear to ear. He extracted himself from the crowd and approached the two agents, his smile vanishing.
Carl put his hands in his pockets. "Umm…thanks, Paul."
Marty moved in close and leaned down, his lips pulled back in a sneer. "This doesn't change a motherfucking thing, killer."
Paul frowned. "Don't let a little thing like me saving your life get in the way of you hating me, Agent Palomini." He turned to Carl. "Sorry, I had to borrow this. I didn't figure you'd lend it to me." He held Carl's pistol in his outstretched hand. Carl opened his mouth in shock, then closed it.
"Uh, thanks," Carl said and took the weapon.
The trio headed down the stairs with a score of proud apartment dwellers in tow.
Chapter 16
January 9th, 8:18 PM EST; South Manhattan Municipal Hospital storage facility; New York City, New York.
Now confined to a wheelchair just to deal with the pain, Gene had ridiculous amounts of paperwork to fill out. Swarms of policemen gathered scattered files and brought them back to Carl and Doug. They set aside anything that matched one of their victims and piled up the rest to let hospital interns organize at a later date.
They found the body of the sniper on the roof of the western building. He had suffered a single round to the throat and had drowned in his own blood. The man wore normal civilian clothes and had apparently hidden the rifle under his heavy winter coat. He had a USMC tattoo on his right bicep, and Sam confirmed that his ID was fake.
The NYPD had conniptions about Officer Mullins. When he had shown up at the courthouse to pick up the warrant, the desk clerk hadn't recognized him. Following protocol, she had run his ID. His Personnel Record File showed that he was a six-year veteran of the force, but no one had ever heard of him.
With Sam's help, they determined that his credentials had been loaded into all relevant systems less than an hour after Gene had called for the warrant. The e-mail that requested an officer deliver the warrant still sat in the court clerk's "Sent" folder, but had been deleted at the server right after it had been sent.
Meanwhile, Jerri reviewed her notes from her witness interviews. Juan Martinez' Mexican accent was thick enough to be charming but clear enough to be easily understood. She found herself reading and re-reading his testimony.
You're not going to believe this. Hell, I saw it with my own two eyes, and I don't believe it. I'm up on the roof for a cigarillo when I hear the glass break. I see the man with the rifle shooting into the other building. I'm two floors up, si? So the man with the rifle, he don't see me.
I see the smoke, and the roof door, it opens a crack. The rifleman shoots POW-POW-POW, and the door, it clicks back shut. Then the roof door flies open, and Señor Paul dives out. He comes up and POW, the man with the rifle drops.
Now, I see a lot of blood, but Señor Paul I don't think can see it. He don't know if he hit the man with the rifle, si? So he run across and up onto the fire escape and jumps! Hijole! I never seen a man jump so far! He land two floors down on the other fire escape. I don't know how his legs stay unbroken, you know?
So he run up the stairs, and he see the man with the rifle lying bleeding, and he run to the edge of the roof and jumps again! I tell you, Señora, at first I think Señor Paul is just a brave man, but now I know he is touched by God. It's not as far to my building from the other, but when I tell you he jumped again, he jumped again! He's loco.
I don't see where he land, but he come running up the roof yelling "Rope! Rope!" I see you and the two guys get out, but still he yell "Rope! Rope!" So I run inside and he with me, and we get the neighbors and make the rope from the towels and the sheets, and Señor Johnson, he weight the end with his boy's trophy-ball. And Señor Paul throw it over to the other men.
When the roof fell, all we see is sparks and the men disappeared. So we pull, and they come out, and they're okay! I tell you, Señora Bates, Señor Paul is like Spiderman. In all my years, I've never seen such a thing.
"Hey, look!" Carl yelled, distracting her. Though missing eyebrows and oddly lustrous, his face beamed with triumph. He held up an old photograph from one of the files gathered from the street. "It's Jeanette Santiago; victim number four. She matched no pre-1980 medical records, but here she is. She's listed here as Jane Doe, Name Refused. I think that pretty much proves Doug pegged the connection." He looked at
the burned building and the multitude of flashing red-and-blue emergency lights. "Well, plus someone doesn't want us to see where this trail leads." He trailed off and looked back to the file. "It says she was here for only one week, treated by Dr. Abraham Lefkowitz."
Doug held up a paper. "Larry Johnson, Jr., also with no pre-1980 records. He's right here, treated by Dr. A. S. Lefkowitz."
"Okay," Sam chimed in from HQ. "Here's a resume less than ten years old. Lefkowitz worked for South Manhattan Municipal Hospital's Methadone Clinic as a general practitioner and 'addiction rehabilitation specialist' from 1973 to 1978. Give me a minute to find where he is now." She mumbled to herself over the COM while she dug through data. Her voice rose as she found relevant information and shared it with the team.
"Currently's got a private practice in Manassas. Home info unlisted, I'll find that in a sec. Left the clinic to go work in pharmaceutical development. Started his own lab. Sold some patents for–wow!–seventy million dollars. And his current home address is 132 Alabaster Circle, just outside of good old Manassas, Virginia."
Gene had been shaking hands and passing out business cards when he had paused so he could listen to Sam. To those without a COM it looked like he was staring off into space, listening to nothing. He punched the air triumphantly. "Saddle up, people!"
Carl gave some final instructions to the cops in charge of retrieving the rest of the documents. Doug and Jerri stuffed their briefcases with files, folders, and laptop computers. Marty, his face pink and shiny, missing both eyebrows and most of his moustache, disentangled himself from the local Bureau guys. Paul Renner sat in the SUV, under guard.
* * *
January 9th, 9:52 PM EST; JFK International Airport; New York, New York.
Ninety minutes later Paul found himself on yet another small commercial jet as it taxied toward the runway at J.F.K. Gene and Marty sat near the front, across the aisle from each other. A small Chinese man had offered his front-row seat to Doug. This put him by himself at the front of the cabin, but it gave him a great deal more leg room. Carl was stuck all the way in the back by himself. Jerri switched seats with a businessman to sit next to Paul.
"That was a pretty crazy day." Jerri sighed and sank into the window seat. Paul took note of the frown on her reflection as she looked out the window. "I hate it when all I can see is wing." She turned back and glanced at Paul's hands, then away. "That was an amazing thing you did today."
Paul gingerly lowered himself into his seat. "If you say so. I just did what anyone else would've done, if they could." He sighed in relief as the chair took the brunt of the pressure off his battered body. As if it were waiting for him to get seated, the fasten seatbelt sign came on.
"I don't know about that," Jerri said. "Marty hates you. He really, really hates you, and you know it. But you put yourself on the line for him. I mean, your ribs aren't even healed from your fight with Gene, and you mangled your hands." The plane rolled away from the gate.
Paul turned his hands palms-up with a chuckle. "I think 'mangled' is a bit exaggerated." His palms were red, scraped, and blistered. The EMTs had washed out as much of the grit as they could, and although it stung like hell and itched like crazy, it looked a lot worse that it was. "Like I said, I don't think I did anything that anyone else wouldn't have done."
"I don't know," Jerri said. "It just doesn't fit with what we know about you. You were a hero today. I wouldn't have expected it."
"Agent Bates," Paul said. "Don't ever make the mistake of thinking I'm not the bad guy. People who get in my way get hurt. We just happen to be headed in the same direction." Punctuating his point, the plane accelerated down the runway.
"You can't be all bad," Jerri said with a tiny smile. "You didn't kill Carl or me when you got the jump on us, you didn't kill Gene after he broke your ribs, and you rescued Carl and Marty today. Why?" she asked. "What makes you tick? What led you down the path to D Street?"
Paul wondered if her curiosity was genuine. "You first. What makes a pretty little Irish girl grow up to be an FBI agent?" The landing gear left the runway, and they were airborne.
"Ugh," she said. "Calling me 'pretty little' should earn you a punch in the mouth. I deal with sexist bullshit twenty-four-seven."
"Well, you're not exactly large, and you're attractive. And I don't buy into people getting offended by the truth."
"I'm not offended," Jerri said. "But being a woman in a male-dominated field means you can't let people call you 'pretty little' anything."
"Fair enough," Paul said. "So what makes a petite, attractive woman want to join a male-dominated field like the FBI?"
Her cheeks colored a touch. "You can't laugh."
Paul affected his best poker face. "I won't." She said nothing for a long moment. Paul smiled at her. "I said I wouldn't laugh."
The words escaped softly from her mouth. "Agent Scully." A crimson rush covered her face.
Paul almost suppressed a grin. "From the X-Files?"
She nodded, and her cheeks deepened to nearly purple. She replied through clenched teeth. "You said you wouldn't laugh!"
"I'm not laughing." He laughed. "Tell me more."
Paul followed her gaze to the front of the plane. Gene and Marty leaned toward one another, bickering. Doug had leaned his seat back, and he looked to be asleep. Behind them, Carl sat in the back where he plugged away at his PDA, oblivious to the world. "Paul, I swear if you tell anyone—"
"I know how to keep a secret," he said. "Why her?"
"Scully was just so strong and smart. In the turmoil of the whole show, she grounded everything in reality." She looked sheepish. "I wanted to be just like her."
"And is it everything you thought it would be?"
"It's nothing like I thought it would be. It's better, just in totally different ways. I mean, obviously some parts of it suck. The paperwork is crazy. Dead-ends are frustrating. You are frustrating. We took your taunts personally. Why do you do that?"
"Let's just say that the FBI aren't always the good guys they think they are."
"What does that mean?"
"It means what it means," Paul said.
"Uh-uh, not good enough. Scully buys me more than that, Paul."
He looked in her eyes and said nothing. She waited. He grinned. "Maybe you'll find out one day. But not today."
Her petulant frown was more cute than angry.
"Did you ever find any aliens?" Paul's eyes lit up with the jab.
Jerri laughed. "Screw you, Renner." She laughed again. "So anyway, that wasn't an answer, so it's your turn."
"Quite the interrogator, aren't you?" He smiled to take the edge off the question.
"It's my job. How'd you get where you are?"
"Gillian Anderson doesn't buy you a story that long, but it'll buy you a start. I was a normal middle-class kid from a middle-class town. My mom died when I was little, and my father never remarried." He smiled to hide the memory. "My dad's a great guy. I'm an only child, so he and I were best buddies. To make a long story short, I had a choice to go to a community college or into the service for the GI Bill to go to a better school. Well, every bumfuck town in this country is packed full of entry-level workers with community college degrees, so I picked the military."
"Which branch?" Jerri asked.
"It doesn't matter." He smiled at the annoyed look on her face. "I found out that I was real good at violence. Firearms, hand-to-hand combat, explosives, whatever. If it involved killing something, Paul Renner was your boy. Well, when Uncle Sam owns your ass and you have a skill he can use, he's a dirty old uncle who likes touching you in your naughty place." He paused. "I think that's more than enough payment for Agent Scully. Where'd you grow up?"
"Pittsburgh," Jerri said. "All the bad parts of a big city combined with all the bad parts of a rural Midwest town."
"Oh, come on, I've been to Pittsburgh lots of times. It's a great town."
"Yeah? Says you."
"That's right," he said, folding his arms. "Say
s me." He grinned, amused at himself. "Okay, no home town talk. Inspired by Agent Scully, you dyed your hair red and applied to the FBI. How'd that go?"
She rolled her eyes. "It's natural. And I applied three times before I got an interview. I have a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice, but so did everyone else. I think the janitors at Hoover have a BA in Criminal Justice. Anyway, once they called me for an interview, I knew I was in. I can talk my way through anything. They made me an interrogation specialist. Good Cop, mostly, although I can play bitch queen with the best of them. It's not chasing UFOs with David Duchovny, but it's interesting in its own way.
"They skipped me off to the New York field office for a couple years. Then Gene requested that I join his team, and here I am." She cracked her neck and stretched. "Your turn. You're in the service and found your niche. What next?"
"I traveled the world," Paul said. "Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, Australia. Always outside the U.S., no uniform, no dog tags. They'd give me a target and a deadline, and off I'd go. Sometimes I'd have to plant evidence, sometimes remove it. Sometimes I'd have to make it look like an accident or a random thing like a mugging. Sometimes it had to look like it was on purpose. At times, months would go by and I'd just sit on base doing nothing, getting paid to wait for the next job."
"What base?"
Paul ignored the question. "Sometimes they'd bounce me from job to job so quick I'd barely have time for a shower and a cup of coffee before the next briefing started. So, anyway, after four years of dedicated service to my country, I left to go to college and put that well-earned tuition money to good use."
"Which college?"
"Do you want to hear the story or not?"
"You know I do."
"Then quit asking questions you know I won't answer." The amusement in his voice disappeared as he went back to the story. "So I got an associate's degree in Computer Science and transferred to a great four-year school for my bachelor's. Two months in, after two and a half years of no contact, I get a phone call. A threat to national security needs to be removed, and they need me to do it.
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