Chapter Fifteen
It was now the middle of March and in Atlanta, that means warmer weather. The middle of the day it might get up to 73 degrees and the nights might get down to the 40s. My favorite time of year. I always preferred the colder temperatures, but this had been home for a long time now and I liked it here. If we wanted the beach, it was no more than a four or five hour drive. Then Disney and the beautiful state of Florida was not far. We didn’t have to evacuate if there was a hurricane, the most we might get was heavy rains or a tornado now and then.
It was just after six in the morning and I was on my deck enjoying the quite, sort of; I was listening to some music and drinking coffee. I was still in a wheelchair, since it was just over a month that I was out of the hospital. My leg was healing well, but it still had a long way to go. It was a lovely site with all the traction bars going all the way around it. I was already sick of it. Not one who likes to sit still for some time, I was going a little crazy. Thank goodness for having a little money from the 90s, I went out and bought everything I needed to be as mobile as possible. Since Mac was mostly the one who helped, he was in a hurry to get the house wheelchair friendly, especially since he still had some healing to do. He stayed with me when he got out and has been my roommate. My youngest still lived with me, but there was no way I was putting any of this on her. My oldest was planning a wedding, but she still made it over a couple of days a week to check on me. Annabel and I were developing a good relationship, she was over a lot and I went to see her when I could. I still couldn’t drive, but Mac didn’t mind or one of my girls. Annabel and I had a lot in common and agreed about most subjects, which was a relief.
The door to the house opened with Mac stretching with a cup of coffee in his hands, he set it on the table next to me and got down and did 10 pushups and hopped up. I just shook my head. He normally did a lot more, but as I said, he was healing. He saw me shaking my head, “What, don’t act like you wouldn’t do any if you could,” he said.
“That’s the problem; I just want to hop out of this damn chair and do something. I feel like I’m wasting away here.”
He looked at my stomach. “Nah, you’re actually growing some.”
“Nice, that helps,” I said. “I have got to start exercising.”
“How much longer before you can do something besides eat?”
“Probably another month or so, they say,” I said.
“Geez, good luck with that,” he chuckled. “You need anything before I take off for the day?”
“Nah, Annabel will be here soon with breakfast and the nurse is coming over soon to get my leg cleaned up later, but thanks. You going to see Toni?”
“Yep, meeting her for breakfast before she starts class.”
“Then get out of here and have fun,” I said just as his cell was ringing. He answered and just listened for a few seconds, then he stood up quickly, which got my attention and he started looking around.
“Make it fast, we’ll be in the safe room,” Mac said on the phone and hung up.
“What the hell…” I didn’t even get to finish my thought before he grabbed the wheelchair and started pushing me into the house. “Okay, you want to fill me in on what is going on.”
“James says the cartel is up from Mexico and is on their way here.”
“Like here to the house?” I asked.
“Yep, he says they are on their way, but for us to get somewhere safe while we wait.”
I started to reach for my phone, but was having a hard time with all the movement going on. I needed to call all my girls and make sure they were safe. He noticed, “Just wait until we get in the room, you can use the phone there.” He was right, as soon as we got in the room I would lose my signal anyway. Besides, the steel walls there were also almost two feet of concrete surrounding the space. It was more like a hotel suite with a full bathroom in it. It wasn’t as nice as a hotel room, but it had everything you would need for weeks if needed.
Once in the room, I called James back and told him he needed to get to my girls, including Annabel and her daughter and Toni for Mac. He asked me where they were and I told him where my daughters were and passed on Toni’s location via Mac. “I’ll have to call you back about Annabel and her daughter.” I hung up and called her. She was on her way, but still a ways out. I told her to get her daughter, get home, and wait for another call.
Mac said, “How did she take that?”
“She did not sound very happy,” I said as I dialed James back.
I passed him her location and he told me, “We should be there in another ten minutes or so.”
Just then, we got an alarm saying that someone was in the house, we turned to the camera monitors and saw about five guys with MAC-10 going through the house silently.
Mac turned on the house intercom system and told them where we were so they would come look for us and try and get in, which would take them some time. If we were lucky, it would be enough for James and his team to get to us.
I still had James on the line, “They are here, and you might want to step it up.”
“Okay.”
Mac handed me a shotgun and Glock 40 from the collection we keep in this room. He has a similar space in his house just down the street and we have pretty much matching items in our rooms. There are cameras just outside of the room in bulletproof boxes so we can watch the show. Mac opened the intercom just to listen to the boneheads outside.
The guy who seemed to be in charge tried to open the door, but it was locked. He told one of the other people to shoot it open. It was just a regular looking door so the guys thought they had a chance. He put two bullets in the door and you could hear the bullets hit metal and they started to look around at each other. He pulled on the knob and it went with his hand so the door opened a little to reveal the safe door on the other side, except this door opens from the inside and it fit so well you couldn’t even get a putty knife in the slots. When the leader looked at the door, he just shook his head. In Spanish he said, “It’s time to go.” The others didn’t look like they agreed with him. The leader started to leave and the guy who opened the door took a few shots at the door. The bullets didn’t even make a dent. That made him mad, so he decided to try the whole room. He emptied his whole clip at the room and nothing. Mac and I just chuckled. Then one of the others had an idea. He got a little closer and I guess had the idea to empty his clip in one small area. After about ten bullets, something bounced off the wall and hit his head and he dropped like a rock. We couldn’t tell from the angle of the camera if he was okay, but he wasn’t moving. The other guys were standing there just looking at him in disbelief.
I looked over at one of the other cameras and saw their leader walking out the front door. He was shaking his head when he got in the SUV. In another couple of seconds, he drove off, leaving the others behind. I was able to get a picture of his tag and him. There was another truck, but my guess was that these people were offered a lot of money to take care of us and they didn’t look like quitters. Which is normally good, but you also need to know when something is not going to work out for you, like the leader did.
Another guy walked over to the wall and saw that there was a small hole in the concrete. He waved his friends out of the way and stood to the side so he was shooting at an angle.
Mac looked at me, “You think they have enough bullets to get through?”
“Nah, but I wish I had some popcorn or something. This is getting good.”
That guy emptied his clip and took a closer look and the hole was a little deeper so the next guy stepped up and did the same thing. They each seemed to have two clips so they put a good dent in the wall but they didn’t get through. Maybe six inches in. But then they stood there looking at each other wondering what was next. The guy on the floor still hadn’t moved and they didn’t pay any attention to him. Loyalty isn’t what is used to be.
From the other camera, I could see James finally pulling up. He had an entry team with him
.
“Now that they used all their bullets up I wonder if they will just give themselves up or run,” I asked.
“Good question. You are right, though, we could use some popcorn.”
We sat there watching them look at each other and then you heard James and his team hit the door and yell out, “FBI.”
That got everyone’s attention, one of them said, “Damn, what the hell are we going to do now? All the bullets are gone now.”
Another guy looked out the window and I am guessing noticed there were agents all around the house. He just put his gun down and lay spread eagle on the floor. The others looked at him and decided it was probably the best idea, because they all followed him.
“Man, it was just getting good guys; that’s all you got?” Mac asked into the mic.
One of the quiet ones gave the camera the finger.
Mac said, “At least you can count.”
James and his team came in the room and put cuffs on them and we opened the door. When we got out of the room, I said, “Wait until you see the recording.”
James turned to us, “Will it explain how this guy is dead?” He pointed to the guy that shot himself by accident.
“Unfortunately, it will,” I said.
James looked at the wall. “Oh, never mind, I think I know what happened.” He shook his head, “What a dumb ass.”
“Yeah, I hope these guys got some money upfront. However, my guess would be they didn’t. Maybe the guy who left got paid, but these guys are not the smart ones,” I said.
With that, James turned to me and I handed him a flash drive with the video and pictures I captured. “You probably won’t find him with this, but it’s worth a try.”
I called Annabel back and told her she should be fine now and she told me she was on her way to me. I told her I would meet her somewhere, since my place was a crime scene now. She agreed.
Mac looked at me and I said, “Go man, I’m fine here.”
He turned and started out the door, I heard him say he would call a service to pick me up.
I looked at James, “I forgot for a minute I couldn’t just jump in my car and take off.”
“How’s that coming along?” James asked.
I explained it was getting better, but I was ready to at least be able to drive.
“You could get a car set up for handicap people,” he said.
“Nah, it would be a waste of money. I’ll be better before we know it. I’d rather pay people to take care of me for a shorter time than a machine I will only use for a short time. I could become lazy using a machine.”
“Yeah, you would say something like that. You know you could donate the vehicle to a good cause after you are done with it. I’m sure someone out there could use it,” he said.
I just stared at him for a moment, “I never thought of that, but now it should only be another two weeks before I switch to crutches, so I’ll just stay where I am. If it were the right leg, I might reconsider. But I can just push this one to the side for now.”
On the Streets for Alison Page 15
