by Mike Ryan
“For who? It’s not for us.”
“One can never be too sure of anything in this line of work. You, above everyone, should know that. Everything is not what it appears.”
“I’m well aware. I didn’t say we should just roll in there in our tuxedos and plop ourselves down in the middle of the room and wait to be served. But if there’s a remote chance this is somehow connected to Vincent’s issue, then we need to check it out.”
“It appears I’m being outvoted.”
“We should probably get going if we’re gonna scout the place out ahead of time,” Haley said, mindful of the time.
“Yeah,” Recker said, grabbing his weapons. “We’ll call you with the details.”
“I’ll be anxiously awaiting your call,” Jones replied.
Recker and Haley rushed out the door and into a car, traveling down to the abandoned building together. They got there with about half an hour to go before the meeting was supposed to take place. They drove by the building a couple of times to see if they could spot any activity going on or anyone else who happened to be waiting outside. They didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, however. Nothing other than it appeared to be an abandoned building. Judging by the heavy-duty equipment stationed all around it, along with the barriers that were set up everywhere, it looked like it was about to be demolished. It was a perfect spot for a meeting. Nobody around.
“Definitely looks like a good place,” Haley said.
Recker drove around for a few minutes until he found a good place to park, eventually settling for a nearby parking lot. It was a couple blocks away and the pair quickly got to the abandoned building, trying to keep out of sight at the same time. They stuck to the sides of buildings, staying out of the light as much as possible. They snuck over a barrier in the back of the building, getting into the building through an opened window that had previously been knocked out. Once inside, Recker gave Jones a quick text letting him know they were there. After that, Recker and Haley worked up a plan. It was a large ten-story building they had to go through. They didn’t know if anyone was there yet and they didn’t know exactly where the meeting was supposed to take place. They wanted to clear the building first to make sure they weren’t surprised by anyone already inside, but they also didn’t want to be checking the building and have someone enter without them knowing.
“If we’re both up there on different floors and someone comes through here without us knowing about it, we’re gonna be on the outside looking in,” Recker said.
Haley hesitated in replying, thinking about the situation before he offered up his own solution. “How ‘bout if one of us stays down here out of sight to keep an eye on anyone coming in? The other one checks the other floors.”
Recker thought about it for a minute, eventually coming around to the idea, figuring it was probably their best option. “All right, who’s gonna stay down here?”
“I’ll take down here. If something comes up, I’ll shoot you a message.”
Recker nodded and took a deep breath before taking off, running through the first floor to look for the stairs. As he finally found them, Haley took another look out the window for visitors. After seeing the streets empty, he went around to check the other openings. Considering there were at least five or six doors, along with tons of windows, someone could have slipped in almost anywhere. Haley wouldn’t be able to stay in one place and keep his eyes open on one spot. He’d have to keep moving around and checking them all. It was a tall task.
In only a few minutes, Recker was moving at a frenetic pace. He had already cleared both the second and third floors. With the building having seen better days, not all the walls were still standing, and most of the fixtures were no longer intact. But there were also no lights working so it was tough to see in the dark. Recker thought about attaching a small flashlight to his gun to help him see better but decided not to use it as he didn’t want to risk giving his position away by someone seeing the light before he got there. As he got to the fifth floor, Haley was starting to get anxious, wondering if they had company yet.
“How you making out up there?”
“No action yet,” Recker answered. “Anything your end?”
“Quiet as can be.”
“If this meeting’s legit, we should be seeing something pretty soon.”
Recker was more right than he knew. Almost immediately after saying the words, he thought he detected movement not too far from him. It sounded like someone stepping on some of the debris that littered the ground, mostly pieces of the walls and ceilings that had started crumbling down. Recker stopped dead in his tracks and listened for a minute, hoping to hear the sound again. And he did. He thought it sounded like too heavy of a step to be any kind of animal that would be up there on the fifth floor. He assumed birds, mice, or other smaller types of animals could have been up there, but none of them would have created heavy footsteps as they walked or scurried along. Only a person would have made the sounds he was hearing. As Recker listened, it sounded like the steps were moving away from him. He wasn’t sure if he’d been made or if someone was doing the same thing he was doing, only doing it first.
Recker quickly moved in the direction he heard the footsteps moving to, hoping to catch up to whoever it was. Though he wanted to catch up to the person quickly, Recker didn’t want to move so fast that he gave his own position away. He still tried to move as quietly as possible. He followed the sounds for several minutes until he reached the stairs. He let Haley know as he threw open the door.
“Chris, think I got someone up here. Going up to the sixth floor now.”
Recker ran up the steps to the next floor, expecting to get a reply from his partner. He never did though. Now alarm bells were starting to sound in his head. There was no reason Haley wouldn’t respond unless he had found himself in trouble. But if he was in a jam, Recker figured Haley would have let him know something came up. Or he assumed he would have heard shots. It was strange. Recker tried one more time.
“Chris, you there?”
Again, he got no reply. Now Recker had two choices. Continue after the man he heard or go back down to the first floor and check on Haley. In the end, Recker figured it was better to keep moving. Maybe it was just a bad connection preventing him from communicating with his partner. Or maybe Haley was seeing something but was trying to keep silent to keep himself hidden. And just maybe the man Recker was after could give him more answers than if he had gone back down to the first floor.
Recker threw open the door and slowly stepped out of the stairwell. Once he was completely inside, he was stunned and jolted to feel the cold steel of a gun pressed against the side of his neck. He closed his eyes, incredulous that he let himself walk right into it. His mind was preoccupied with what was happening with Haley that he didn’t concentrate fully on his own actions.
“Turn around slowly,” the voice told him.
Though Recker hadn’t yet complied with the directive, he knew that voice. It was one he heard before. He slowly turned his head to the right as the gun was taken away from his head. While at first, his eyes gravitated toward the gun pointing at him, they eventually looked past it and at the man that was holding it. Recker was more than a little surprised at the face he was seeing. When he and Haley were en route to the building, Recker envisioned a lot of scenarios unfolding, but none of them included Jimmy Malloy holding a gun to his head.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Recker asked.
Malloy took his finger off the trigger of his gun and slowly brought it down to his side, eventually putting it back inside his jacket, letting Recker know he wasn’t there for trouble. At least not with him. “Probably the same thing you are. Got wind of some type of meeting going down with possibly the people that hit us before. Boss sent me to investigate.”
“Where’d you get wind of that?”
“On the street. One of our informants.”
“What are you doing up here?” Recker asked.
&
nbsp; “Didn’t know where the meeting was taking place. Wanted to clear all the floors to make sure it wasn’t going down up there. You?”
“Same thing.”
“Hope it’s not going on downstairs while we’re up here.”
“I got someone down there keeping a lookout.”
Malloy smiled. “Ahh, the ever elusive partner we’ve been hearing about. Finally bringing him out of the shadows, are you?”
“Have to unleash him sometime, I guess, huh?”
They continued discussing what they knew of this meeting, wondering if either of them had heard anything different than the other. They hadn’t though. In fact, they’d both heard the same story. Almost word for word. Not one different detail.
“Almost like someone wanted us to know,” Recker said.
“Oh, you get that feeling too?”
Recker’s head turned to look at their surroundings. “Got a bad feeling about this.”
“Yeah, I hear ya,” Malloy said. “You wanna soldier on and clear the rest of the floors together?”
“Yeah, I guess. I’m not sure we’re gonna find anything to our liking though.”
“Or maybe we just won’t like what we find.”
They took separate paths as they cleared the rest of the floor, Recker still trying to contact Haley. After determining the floor was empty of other visitors, Recker and Malloy spent the next few minutes clearing the rest of the floors. Once they finished up with the tenth floor, they stood in the middle of the room to discuss their options. Their next move was to descend to the main floor and figure out why Haley wasn’t answering. If there was a crowd of people there, they’d have to be careful how they entered.
“Ready to go?” Recker asked.
“Let’s do it.”
Before they could enact their plan, though, the door to the stairs swung open, several men rushing through it. Gunfire erupted before Recker and Malloy even knew what was happening and could respond. Bullets were flying everywhere. Recker and Malloy dropped to the ground and removed their weapons to return fire.
“Looks like we got ambushed,” Malloy said.
“Yeah, we were set up all right. Question is which one of us is the target?”
“Maybe both of us.”
The sound of bullets ripping through the air and glancing off concrete was all that could be heard for several minutes as the battle ensued. Recker and Malloy were pinned down with what appeared to be five or six men attacking them.
“How we getting out of this one?” Malloy asked.
“Not sure yet,” Recker replied, reloading his gun.
As the back and forth continued, no one appeared to be gaining the upper hand. Considering they were outnumbered, they thought it was strange their attackers weren’t trying to get closer. They seemed to be content in how things were going.
“A little strange they’re not being more aggressive, don’t you think?” Malloy asked.
“Maybe they don’t have to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this is the plan,” Recker answered. “Maybe they just wanna keep us busy for a while. Or maybe they got more people coming. Maybe they don’t need to take any risks at the moment. Maybe they just figure on waiting us out.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.”
“Sure is.”
“I got one more,” Malloy said.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe if we don’t move soon, we’re gonna get so up against it we’re not gonna be able to get out.”
Recker couldn’t help let out a small laugh. “Maybe.”
“So, what do you wanna do? Go out like gangbusters? Rush ‘em?”
“Ehh, I dunno.”
Their plans were soon made for them as the door to the stairs swung open again. This time, it was Haley coming through it. He heard the ruckus and immediately rushed up the stairs. As soon as he came through, he got the jump on the other guys, immediately taking out three guys on his right. As he did, the three guys on his left jumped up and started firing at him. As they did, Recker and Haley saw their attackers making themselves visible, and the two men jumped up to fire at them as well. With everyone out in the open, bullets started flying in every direction. Men were dropping everywhere.
After taking out his initial three guys, Haley was shot by the others and immediately went down. Recker and Malloy unleashed their barrage at the three men, who had a little time to shoot back before they perished. Malloy also went down in the fray. Once the dust had settled, the only man left standing was Recker. He looked down at Malloy, who was holding his stomach and bleeding. He then rushed over to the men who had ambushed them to see if any of them were still alive. They were dead though. With not having to worry about anybody jumping up and shooting at him, Recker turned his attention to Haley.
“You all right?” Recker asked, looking at his wounds.
Haley coughed and smiled. “I’ve been better.”
Recker looked at Haley’s leg, which looked like it had several entrance wounds in it. He then put his hands on Haley’s chest and arms, feeling for any other bullet holes. “You’re not hit anywhere else?”
Haley laughed. “Isn’t this enough for you?”
“Well, could be worse I suppose. You able to put pressure on it?”
Haley stuck his hand out for Recker to help pull him up. Once he got to his feet, Haley took a step, but the pain was unbearable, and his leg couldn’t support his weight, causing him to crumple down to the ground again, though Recker caught him as he fell to cushion the blow.
“Looks like we got a problem,” Haley said, trying to make light of the situation.
“Yeah, and you’re not the only one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well I ran into Jimmy Malloy up here,” Recker said. “Turns out he was here doing the same thing we were.”
“Guess he knows about me now, huh?”
“That’s the last thing I’m worried about right now.” Recker turned his head to look in Malloy’s direction, but he was still down on the ground, hardly moving. “He got hit too. I’m gonna go check on him.”
“Go ahead. I won’t move. I’ll stay right here.”
Recker smiled, then hurried over to Malloy’s position. He could tell right away that his wounds were a little more serious than his partner’s were. It looked like he was bleeding heavily from his midsection, but he was still alert as he held his stomach.
“Guess that was your partner saving the day?” Malloy asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good deal.”
“Yeah, well, not so good,” Recker said.
“Why not?”
“’Cause now he’s down too. All the bad guys are gone but both of you have been shot and looks like neither of you can move very well.”
“Guess that is a predicament,” Malloy said.
“And it’s not my only one. Not only can I not carry both of you at the same time, I don’t know if there’s any more of them down there waiting for us?”
“I’ve heard you can do just about anything.”
Recker smiled. “Just a rumor.”
“You tried calling for help?”
Recker pulled out his phone and dialed Jones’ number, but it kept saying he had no service. Whoever it was must have been jamming the signal. He had a look of disgust on his face, giving Malloy all the answer he needed.
“Guess that’s a no, huh?”
Recker let out a deep sigh as he looked around the room. “I’ll figure something out.”
8
Before doing anything about trying to escape, Recker’s first order of business was to tend to the two wounded men. He tore some clothing off the dead men to use on Haley and Malloy to close off their wounds and try to prevent any more blood loss. Haley couldn’t put pressure on his leg which meant he needed to be carried out. Recker didn’t even want to attempt moving Malloy out of fear he might kill him by moving him. Recker went back over to Haley to brainstor
m.
“So, what’s the plan?” Haley asked.
“Don’t have a good one yet.”
“I suppose calling for help’s no good?”
Recker shook his head. “Afraid not. Think they’re using a cell jammer to block the signals.”
“Figures. They sure set this up good.”
“The way I figure it, we got two choices,” Recker said, not really liking any of them himself. “One, I leave both of you here until I can bring in the cavalry.”
“Which is? We don’t exactly have the police on our side you know.”
“Probably Vincent. His guy’s here too. He’d bring the rest of his crew and descend on this building like there’s no tomorrow.”
“And option two?”
“I put your arm around me and help carry you out of here as you’re hopping on one leg.”
“It’ll take you forever to get out of here doing that,” Haley said. “And if there’s more down there waiting, it’s not gonna be easy.”
“I know it.”
“What about Malloy under that scenario?”
“I’d have to come back for him. I can’t carry two people out of here and he’s too banged up to try.”
“There’s a third option,” Haley said. “We all just stay here until help arrives. You know once Jones doesn’t hear from us he’s gonna get antsy. Once he tries to contact us and figures out he can’t, he’s gonna be worried.”
“Who knows how long that’ll be? The downside to that is we didn’t come here loaded for bear. If they brought a lot more people to the fight, we’re gonna be low on ammunition pretty quick. I don’t know how long we’d be able to hold them off.”
“So, what do you think the play is?”
Recker sighed and looked around the room. “I dunno. I don’t really wanna leave you here.”
“But it’s probably the best move,” Haley said, finally saying what Recker wouldn’t. “You’ll move faster without someone weighing you down. Besides, I can stay here and protect him while you’re gone. He’d be a sitting duck if we’re both gone.”
Recker reluctantly agreed and helped Haley get back to his feet, putting his arm around him so Haley didn’t have to put pressure on his injured leg. Recker helped him hop over to Malloy’s location, setting Haley back down beside him.
