A Second Chance

by Edward Kendrick

  “It’s extinct,” Ez pointed out, gripping Ben’s shoulder when he started to get up.

  “Get your hands off me,” Ben growled.

  “Ben, calm down,” Zach said softly, coming around the desk to squat in front of him. “I know your knee is a hell of a lot better than it was when we first met. You’ve been working hard to make certain it is and I admire that.”

  “Admire? Gee, thanks. Now I’m some sort of charity case you’ve been helping out?”

  “Stop! Stop it, now.” Zach rested his hand on Ben’s knee. “It’s not that at all and you know it. I meant it when I said it only takes two of us to do the recon. Would I have sent you with Ez, if things were different? Maybe. But they aren’t.” He looked squarely into Ben’s eyes. “You’ve said it yourself. Your leg, your knee, will never be prefect. Why take the chance of stressing it when you don’t have to? I need you on the team for what you have to offer, and it’s not crawling up some damned fire escape in the dead of night.” He smiled. “Well, not unless you have to be on a rooftop to take out some son of a bitch we’re after. As a sniper, you’re great and I’d send you up without a thought if I needed you there. For a simple recon? Like I said, why take a chance you could screw up you knee and end up in the hospital again.”

  Ben sucked in a deep breath. He knew what Zach was saying made sense. Still…“All right, I’ll buy that, this time. But so help me, Zach, I’m going to call you on it anytime I think you’re—”

  “Babying you?” Zach grinned as he stood up. “That will never happen. I don’t baby anyone who makes it onto the team, ever. Ask them.” He nodded toward Ez and Hayley.

  Hayley rolled her eyes. “He couldn’t if he tried. He’s totally a big brother and they don’t ‘baby,’ they push. Or so I’ve been told.”

  “He’ll push hard when he thinks it’s necessary,” Ez said. “Like now. Just to let you know, in case I haven’t said it already, I think you’re a great addition to the team, Ben. We all have our limitations. If we didn’t, we’d be working solo. For now, why don’t we go get dinner? Then you and Hayley can come back here and,” he snickered, “discuss the plight of the dodo while Zach and I play super spies.”

  Ben nodded as he stood. “I apologize for blowing up. I’ll try not to do it again.”

  Zach shrugged casually. “As we keep saying, we’re a team. We’ll have our differences but when we do, we’ll work them out. It comes with the territory.”

  “So deal,” Hayley said as she headed to the door. “And move it. I’m starving.”

  An hour later, they returned to the office. They had been there a few minutes, talking more about what they would do once they found out which truck the hijackers were going to target next, when Zach’s phone chimed. Answering, he listened for a few moments, said, “That eliminates one possibility,” thanked the caller and ended the call.

  “That was Mr. Grant. It didn’t take a long as he expected for him and Allan to compare employee files. There wasn’t anyone on either of them who has worked for both companies, so I’d say we can eliminate an employee with a grudge against both of them.”

  “It was a long shot, anyway,” Ez said. “But worth checking out.”

  They continued their discussion until it was time for Zach and Ez to leave.

  “Let us know what you figure out about the dodo,” Ez said with a grin. That rated him a laugh and a raised finger from Ben.

  * * * *

  Zach and Ez arrived at the building across from the distribution center a few minutes after ten, parking in the same lot they’d used before.

  At Ez’s suggestion, they brought along the thermal imaging goggles they’d used while rescuing Joe Stevens. They put them on, checked their weapons, and then exited the car. The fire escape was deep in the shadows on the side of the building, with no light coming through any of the windows or exit doors, although there was minimal light from the street. Because they were dressed in black jeans and cargo jackets, they melded into the darkness as they made their way up to the fire escape’s sixth floor landing.

  “Boost me up,” Ez whispered, pointing to the edge of the roof above them. Zach did. Peering over the top, Ez checked to be certain there was no one else up there, saying quietly, “All clear,” as he pulled himself over the low parapet. Then he leaned over to give Zach his hand to help him scale the wall.

  “How would he get up here on his own?” Ez wondered aloud.

  Zach ran his hand over the parapet. “Best guess, from these grooves, he uses a grappling hook, which means we’re undoubtedly on the right track.”

  With a nod, keeping low, Ez made his way to the front edge of the building with Zach right behind him. Taking a small pair of high-power binoculars from one of his jacket pockets, Ez knelt behind the parapet to check what he could see of the loading docks across the road at the distribution center. “With something like these, he’d have no problem seeing what was being loaded into a truck,” he said, handing them to Zach.

  “You know that’s what he’s got,” Zach replied while looking through them. “Maybe even bigger and more powerful, given what he’s looking for and the fact that there are trucks lined up from the front to the rear of the buildings.”

  Ez eased back, brushing dust and grit off the knees of his jeans, and smiled suddenly. “That’s where he kneels or sits while he’s watching.” He pointed to a relatively clean, if barely visible area a few feet from where they were.

  “We know one thing now for sure,” Zach replied. “Choosing the target truck isn’t an inside job. But then we figured that after Grant’s phone call.” Taking a miniature listening device from one jacket pocket, he moved to the spot the hijackers’ surveillance man used. Feeling under the lip of the parapet, he found a place to adhere it so that it would be invisible even in daylight. It could transmit up to a third of a mile, and had an eight-day battery life, meaning one of the team could park at the diner or the fast-food restaurant and hear when the watcher called to let his cohorts know which truck they would be looking for once it hit the highway.

  “Okay, let’s go back and let Hayley and Ben know what we found,” Zach said.

  * * * *

  “Now all we do is wait it out,” Ben said when Zach and Ez reported what they’d learned.

  “Yep,” Zach replied. “Starting tomorrow evening, one of us will be listening for the hijacker’s phone call to his buddies; the rest of us will be ready to move when it happens. We’ll use either my jeep or Ez’s van, pick up whichever one of us is doing surveillance, and head out as we planned, once we know which truck they’re going to target.”

  “One of many plans,” Hayley pointed out.

  “True. We had to cover all contingencies. Now we know what’s what, so we’ll go with that one.”

  She nodded. “We still have to settle on the final details about what we’re doing once the whole thing goes down.”

  “It’s late. How about we do that in the morning?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Ez replied. “I my mind works better if I’ve gotten a few hours’ sleep.”

  Everyone agreed it would be a good idea, so they took off, Zach, as usual taking Ben back to his place.

  When they were halfway there, Ben said quietly, almost under his breath, “I didn’t mean to blow up at you.”

  “I know. You already apologized.”

  “It was…Look, I know you’re going to tell me I’m crazy and maybe I am, but damn it, I’m scared.”

  Zach shot him a look of surprise. “Of what?”

  “Of not living up to your expectations. That’s what was behind my outburst this afternoon. I figured if I got you to admit you didn’t think I could handle the climb it would prove I was right.”

  “You’re looking for something that isn’t there,” Zach replied. “If I didn’t know you could handle what we need you to do, I’d have had Durand reassign you to something else. You already proved yourself with the kidnapping job. I’m well aware you were hurting by the end of it, but
you didn’t let that stop you.”

  “I’m used to it,” Ben said, instinctively rubbing his knee.

  Zach put his hand over Ben’s. “It’s a lot better now than it was when we got back from the last job.”

  Ben glanced down at their hands but didn’t move his as he replied, “Thanks to you.”

  “No, that was all your doing. You decided to work on it and you did. Yeah, I suggested the gym, but you could have ignored me.”

  “I might have, if you weren’t so pushy.”

  “I am not pushy. Bossy, maybe, but that comes with the territory.” Zach squeezed Ben’s hand then returned his concentration to driving.

  “Pushy,” Ben muttered, chuckling when Zach raised his middle finger.

  A few minutes later they pulled up in front of Ben’s building.

  “Feeling better about things?” Zach asked.

  “Yeah. Nerves about the job more than anything, I guess. You’d think by now I’d be used to it.”

  “Ben, you spent over a year being out of touch with anything to do with being a cop. Then, at a moment’s notice, you’re dumped back into it again. Sure, it’s not police work per se but it’s just as dangerous, maybe more so, although—” Zach tapped Ben’s knee, “—you’d probably debate that given what happened to you.”

  Ben chuckled. “Maybe I would, if I’d made the SWAT team. In a lot of ways that’s what we are, only without the body armor.”

  “We’ve got that, and sometimes we use it. We might for this job. Those guys have proven they’re dangerous, deadly, so I think it would be a good idea to be prepared. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  “Meaning I better get out of here so you can go home,” Ben replied as he opened the car door. “Thanks for the ride, and the pep talk.”

  “You’re welcome. I need you on the team, so it was all in a day’s work.”

  Ben nodded getting out. “Whose shoulder do you cry on?”

  Zach shrugged. “No one’s. I’m the strong, silent type, or so I’ve been told.”

  “Yeah? Well if you ever need to vent, I’ll listen.”

  “You know what? I think you mean that.”

  “Yeah, I do, so remember it,” Ben replied before walking quickly to the front door of his building.

  “You’re an interesting man, Ben Mercer,” Zach said as he watched him disappear into building. “A strange mix of tough and protective, and yet always on the defensive because you think you know your worth, but you’re afraid you’re wrong. I intend to change that. Not sure how, but I will.”

  Chapter 7

  Tuesday morning the team met to finalize their plan for catching the hijackers. Although the hijackers could have struck that night, or one of the following two, they didn’t, so it would take a week before they found out if the plan would work.

  “Got one,” Ben heard over the transmitter the following Tuesday, as he sat in the parking lot of the diner where he had a partial view of the side of the building. The hijacker relayed the license plate and DOT numbers to his cohorts. Ben did the same to Zach, then, as he waited to be picked up, he saw the man scramble down the fire escape, getting to the bottom at the same time that a dark sedan came to a stop a few feet away. He jumped in and the sedan took off, heading, Ben was certain, to the highway entrance two blocks away.

  “Took you long enough,” Ben muttered when Ez’s van pulled up beside Hayley’s car three minutes later. He got in, taking his place behind the driver’s seat. Hayley was next to him, Zach was riding shotgun.

  Reaching over the back of the seat, Hayley grabbed a tactical vest, giving it to Ben. He put it on before retrieving the rifle he’d be using—the reason he was seated where he was.

  The plan was that as soon as they spotted the hijackers—in their guise as highway patrol officers—pull the semi over, Ez would stop a few yards behind it. He’d still keep the van’s headlights off, as they would be once the highway traffic had thinned enough to make it feasible without calling attention to themselves. They had no intention of alerting the hijackers they were behind them until the time was right.

  As soon as the van came to a halt, Ben would get out, his rifle aimed at the driver’s side door of the semi. Based on what they’d been told had happened in the previous hijackings, one of the hijackers would come around, open the door, and force the driver out. Ben’s job was to keep that from happening while Hayley and Zach dealt with the other hijackers.

  “Damn, how long are they going to wait before they stop the rig?” Ez grumbled. A rhetorical question as none of them knew the answer. They’d already driven over twenty miles—the last ten between desolate stretches of farmland with no houses in sight and almost no traffic—using the semi’s tracking system to follow a good half mile behind it. They’d gotten occasional glimpses of the hijackers’ car, which was traveling with its lights on as if it were just another vehicle on the highway.

  A quarter of mile later, they saw what they’d been waiting for—blue lights flashing as the hijackers’ feigned being a highway patrol squad car.

  “Easy, easy,” Zach said when Ez started to speed up. “We need to catch them in the act.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Ez said, sounding frustrated at having to slow down again.

  The semi’s brake lights came on as it pulled to the side of the highway. Moments later the hijackers had drawn up beside its right front fender.

  “Now,” Zach ordered when three men exited the car, one of them visible for a second before he disappeared around the front of the rig.

  Ben was out the back door almost before Ez came to a stop, biting his lip when his knee protested but otherwise ignoring the pain. He brought the rifle up, using the night scope to zero in on a man dressed in black, wearing a ski mask and holding a gun. As the man reached for the driver’s door, Ben hollered, “Drop the gun, put your hands behind your head, now, or I shoot.” Then, to emphasize his order, he fired a warning shot that missed the hijacker’s gun hand by a fraction of an inch. The man dropped to one knee, raising his gun, and Ben fired again, this time hitting the man’s arm. The man gave a shout of pain as the gun flew from his hand, but rather than obey Ben he rolled under the cab of the truck.

  At the same time, Ben heard Zach order the two hijackers on the far side of the semi to freeze—followed by a volley of shots from at least two pistols—and then Ez turned on the van’s headlights. From where he stood, Ben could hear Ez slam the van door shut before racing to join Zach and Hayley. Another shot echoed through the night.

  Ben had other things to worry about—the hijacker under the truck. Not about to take a chance the man didn’t have a second gun, Ben dropped to the ground, lying prone, his rifle sweeping back and forth as he tried to locate his target. The headlights from the van and the hijackers’ car gave him barely enough light to see the man crawling toward the front of the semi. Tightening his finger on the trigger, Ben fired again. His shot hit the man’s shoulder, he heard the crack of bone shattering, and the man fell face down without a sound.

  Moving forward, using his elbows to propel him, Ben made it to the edge of the semi, parallel to where the man had fallen. Blood streamed from the wound in the hijacker’s shoulder. He had had another gun, which was lying by his outspread hand. He wasn’t moving, so Ben pulled himself into a crouch, using the door handle above him, and then inched his way around the front of the semi, fighting to ignore the pain in his knee.

  Peering around the right front wheel, he saw Zach sitting with his back against the hijackers’ car, his hand pressed to his bicep. Ez was cuffing one of the hijackers while Hayley had her gun trained on the other man, who was bleeding badly from wounds in his side and upper arm.

  Hearing movement behind him, Ben started to turn, afraid there was another hijacker they’d missed in the foray. The semi’s driver stood there, a knife gripped in his hand.

  “Nothing like bringing a knife to a gun battle, but it’s the best I have,” the driver said as he held out his free hand. “Need some help
getting up?”

  “Please,” Ben replied through gritted teeth.

  The driver pulled him to his feet, and then put his arm around Ben’s waist to keep him standing, asking, “You shot?”

  “No, but my friend is and I need to get to him.” Ben gestured to Zach. The driver walked him over, and Ben asked, “How bad?”

  “Not horrible,” Zach told him. “More blood than damage from the feel of it.”

  “Do you mind if I take a look,” the driver asked, helping Ben down to sit close Zach. “I’m a volunteer paramedic in my off hours.”

  By then, Ez and Hayley had joined them. “I’ve called for an ambulance,” Ez told them, “And the cops, God help us.”

  As the driver cut away Zach’s shirt, he shot Ez a fast look. “Private security?” he asked, tapping Zach’s tactical vest.

  “Yep,” Ez replied. He shook his head in obvious disgust. “The idiots were supposed to surrender without a fight since we had them out-gunned. Guess no one told them that.”

  “I’d say not. Hell of a flesh wound,” he said to Zach, “but you’re lucky. As far as I can tell it missed arteries and bone. Hang in there while I get my first aid kit from the truck.” He looked at their wounded prisoner. “If I’m feeling kindly, I might check him out when I’m done with you.”

  “What happened to the third man,” Hayley asked.

  “Under the truck, injured but still alive, I think,” Ben got out between pinched lips.

  Zach took one look at him and ordered Ez to take him to the van. “And make sure he’s sitting on the back seat, with his leg straight out.”

  “I’m fine, damn it,” Ben protested weakly as sirens sounded in the distance and then flashing lights came into view. Moments late an ambulance and two highway patrol vehicles slammed to a stop, blocking half the highway.

  Troopers jumped out, guns drawn, while three EMTs exited the ambulance, one heading toward Zach, the others to the wounded hijacker. At the same time, the semi’s driver reappeared carrying his first aid kit. “Guess I won’t be needing this after all,” he remarked with a nod to the EMTs.