Rose City Free Fall

by DL Barbur

  Next came the outer tactical vest. I grunted as I lifted it. The panels inside were ceramic, much lighter than the old steel ones, but it wasn't something I'd want to wear out dancing. The plates would stop assault rifle rounds though, so they were worth toting around.

  The outside of the vest was covered with pouches. I filled them up with flex-cuffs, chem-lights, a couple of door wedges, a small mirror with a collapsible handle. All of your basic supplies for a gunfight in a confined space.

  I went over to a crate by the wall and grabbed a pair of flash-bang grenades. Made by the Def-Tec corporation, they had machined steel bodies with a cardboard cap at one end and a conventional hand grenade pin and spoon at the other. Unlike a military hand grenade, the bodies of the flash bangs didn't burst into fragments. Rather they blew out the cardboard end, unleashing one hell of a roar and a blinding flash, but no fragments. They were technically non-lethal, designed to distract and disorient, but if one landed in your lap you were bound to have a bad day.

  I examined them carefully, bending the pins just right and then taping them down with some electrical tape. I was making sure the pins wouldn't come out if they snagged on something, but I could still pull them out if I wanted.

  Somebody, probably Eddie, had thoughtfully attached a panel of shotgun shell loops on the front of the vest. I filled the top row with buckshot, the bottom with slugs. That way I would be able to tell which kind of ammo was which, even in the dark.

  Next came the shotgun itself, a Benelli semi-automatic. I worked the action a few times with it unloaded. It was nice and smooth. The gun looked like it had been fired just enough to break it in, no more.

  I practiced shouldering the gun, found the sweet spot where the glowing tritium dot in the front sight would land right on the target each time. I threaded seven rounds of buckshot into the magazine. The side saddle attached to the receiver held six more. I put four slugs in ammunition holders in the stock. I put my radio into a pouch on the vest, ran the wires for my earpiece and throat mike through the channels built into the vest. Then came a black Nomex balaclava, and last a helmet.

  I pulled on goggles and thin Nomex aviators gloves. I had no exposed skin, and most of what I was wearing was fire resistant. SWAT operators had gotten heavily into fire-resistant materials because drug labs had a bad tendency to blow up when you threw things like gunfire and flash-bang grenades into the mix.

  I jumped up and down a few times, tried a few deep knee bends. Considering the weight I was carrying, I had pretty good mobility. I found a few pieces of gear that rattled when I moved. I adjusted them so they were quiet, then jumped up and down again. Perfect. I was as silent as a 250-pound man wearing 40 pounds of gear could get.

  I set my helmet and gloves next to the shotgun, then pulled the balaclava down off my face. There was no sense in wearing all that stuff until the show was about to start.

  "You look like you've done this before." It was Big Eddie. He was standing there looking like a black tactical version of the Pillsbury Doughboy. The M-4 rifle slung around his neck looked like a scale model next to his bulk. The ceramic plate on his chest covered a pitifully small area. I wondered if it was worth his while to even wear it.

  I smiled. "Yeah. A couple of times. At least I'm not jumping out of an airplane this time."

  Eddie gave me a long look, up and down. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied by what he saw. Part of me bristled at that. Who the hell was he to look my gear over like I was some kind of rank newbie? I relaxed when I realized I'd been doing the same exact thing to him. I had to smile.

  Eddie reached over and smacked me on the back with a blow that would have knocked over your average ox. "Looks like you're good to go, man. We’ll be home in time for lunch."

  "Sounds good."

  Eddie nodded and walked off.

  I did one last check of my gear, making sure my hands knew right where to go for everything: shotgun ammo, pistol magazines, flash bangs, extra flashlight. I was satisfied that everything was good to go, then shoved it out of my mind.

  Gear was a funny thing. If you didn't have the right stuff, didn't take care of it the right way, or have it in the right place, you could die. Professionals always took a keen interest in gear. But you could take it too far.

  I'd known guys, both in the military and in law enforcement who obsessed over gear. A half a dozen glossy gun magazines came out every month, their pages full of gun porn. The latest pistols were spread out in living color, bigger than life-size, just like the playmate of the month with a staple in her belly button. It was easy to spend thousands of dollars and all your time chasing the latest perceived edge you thought you were getting with a custom pistol, a new knife or a brighter flashlight.

  All those guys were trying to buy control. They knew sooner or later, on an airfield in some third world country, or in some dark alley that was covered with broken glass and used needles, they were going to have to fight to live. The thing nobody wanted to talk about was that you could have all the right gear, be trained like a Delta Force ninja, make all the right moves, and still die from a bullet out of a $50 pistol fired by some street punk who shut his eyes when he jerked the trigger.

  I think that was what made some guys lose it. Not the thought of going up against a trained adversary, or even going up against somebody better armed. It was just sheer random chance. Some guys just couldn't get over the fact that the universe wasn't fair. They thought if they bought the right stuff, did enough work, they deserved to be invincible.

  My life had been a long exercise in learning that life wasn't fair. I guess I started learning it at my mother's graveside, learned it some more when the jail cell door slammed shut and learned it well and truly when Audrey's voice sounded so far away on the phone and I knew she'd left.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and for a second I could smell Audrey's skin, feel her hips under my hands, hear her playing her cello. I shivered. I'd been trying very hard not to think about Audrey. Part of me couldn't believe she was gone. The other part wondered why I'd ever expected anything different. I could count the number of girlfriends I'd had on one hand. I'd never been very good at that sort of thing.

  "Hey, stranger." In my disconnected state, I mistook her voice for Audrey's for a second, but when I opened my eyes, Alex was standing there, in jeans in a gray turtleneck. Her hair was tied up in a loose ponytail and she had an H&K pistol holstered on her hip. A medical bag was slung over one shoulder.

  “Hey yourself,” I said. “You're going to be part of this dog and pony show too, huh?”

  She shrugged. “I'll be sitting a half a mile away while you guys do your thing. Hopefully, you won't need me.”

  “Yeah. Hopefully.”

  We stood there for a second in uncomfortable silence. I nodded at the bag she was carrying.

  “It's good to know you've got me covered.”

  She frowned. “Is it? I don't know much about this sort of thing, but isn't this a half-assed plan? If it wasn't for you and my dad, I'd get away from this place as fast as I could.”

  I hesitated. She probably knew more than she let on, and she was right.

  “I dunno, Alex. I just feel like I need to see this thing through to the end.”

  I hesitated again, debating, then I told her about my plan B, about the arrangement I'd worked out with Mandy's dad, stepping close to her and lowering my voice as I talked, so we wouldn't be overheard.

  She nodded as I talked, stepping closer herself. When I was done she didn't step away, she reached out, took my hand.

  “Dent…”

  Eddie interrupted, yelling down from the top of the stairs. “Alright, let's saddle up. Everybody in the vehicles.”

  She leaned forward and kissed me, then wrapped her arms around me. I was surprised at first, but I found myself kissing her back and liking it. I wondered why the hell I'd been waiting for so long. I felt cheated by the vest I was wearing, it kept me from feeling her pressed against me.

  “That means
you too, Miller,” Eddie said from the top of the stairs.

  I didn't want to, but I pulled away, fumbling for something to say. There was a brief distraction when I realized my shotgun sling had somehow gotten tangled up in the strap to her medic's bag and we both laughed, grateful I think for something else to focus on.

  I finally got untangled. “I gotta go.” It was all I could think of to say.

  “I know. Good luck.”

  I turned and walked up the stairs, trying hard to shove what just happened out of my mind.

  Chapter Thirty

  I managed to sleep on the drive down. I could write a book about the weird places I’ve slept: in the back of a C130 before we all jumped out, in police cars, under my desk in my office.

  You’d think it would be impossible to sleep with two ceramic plates strapped to your body and thirty pounds of other stuff hanging off, but I leaned my head back against the cold metal inside the van and dozed off before we even hit the freeway.

  I dreamed about Alex and I was glad. I’d been a little afraid to dream, the way things had been lately. I dreamed about kissing her for a good long while, then, right as things were getting interesting, I woke up, partially due to the dual discomforts of an erection and a full bladder, partially because we were getting off the freeway. Maybe my subconscious knew where the dream was heading and just couldn’t do that with Al sitting in the passenger seat.

  I shifted, tried to get more comfortable, and had to settle for less uncomfortable. I took a look around the van. Eddie looked like a mountain in the darkness, fast asleep with his back against the driver’s seat.

  I didn’t know the driver, some guy in his early thirties with a much older man’s eyes. Bolle and Al were betting that in the darkness, the guard at the gate would confuse the driver for Gibson Marshall long enough for us to get inside the perimeter.

  Mickey sat across from me on the floor of the van. He looked keyed up and nervous. His eyes were a little wild, and he had a death grip on the forestock of the AR-15 planted muzzle up between his knees.

  He noticed that I was awake and looking at him. He looked at his watch.

  “Not long now.”

  I nodded, not really wanting to talk.

  “Why the shotgun and not a rifle?” He asked, nodding at the Benelli hanging on its sling.

  “Just like ‘em I guess.”

  “Buckshot or slugs?”

  “Both,” I said.

  “Neither one will go through body armor.”

  “Nope,” I said.

  He patted the receiver of his rifle. “I’ll stick with my rifle. I’m glad we managed to get the 77-grain ammo instead of the 62.”

  At that, I shut my eyes and gave up any pretense of participating in the conversation. If Mickey was worried about a 15-grain difference in the weight of his ammo, his priorities were all wrong.

  That was the main thing that was bugging me about this. Always before when I went into action, it had been with guys I knew. When you hung out with a group of guys and trained together, you knew who was good to go and who wasn’t. Some guys were screw ups and there was nothing you could do about it, but at least you knew.

  Mickey, the kid driving, even Big Eddie, I didn’t know much about them. I didn’t know if they would fold up under pressure. I didn’t know who would shoot wildly at a sound in the dark, who would refuse to shoot at all.

  I opened one eye half-way. Mickey was messing with the rear sight on his rifle, muttering to himself.

  It didn’t look good for the home team.

  The road noise under the tires changed and I perked up. We were pulling off the freeway and onto surface streets. The back of the van had no windows, so I had to open my eyes and risk another conversation with Mickey to see out the front windshield past Al and the driver’s head. We were winding our way around some side streets in the light industrial area by the airport.

  I was hoping to catch a glimpse of some street signs. Another thing that was bugging me about this operation was that I didn’t know the area. I’d memorized a map of the streets around the airport but that wasn’t the same as having a good working knowledge of the geography.

  The van rocked to a stop. Bolle’s voice crackled over the molded rubber plug in my ear.

  “We’re going to hold here for ten minutes. Then it’s show time.”

  We were parked in a dark alley, about half a mile from the airport, if I’d gotten the street names and landmarks correct. I opened the back door of the van and slid out, almost falling down when I discovered that my right leg had fallen asleep. I limped over to the gutter and started the laborious process of getting to my fly under all the layers of gear. The two Suburbans were parked behind the van, their headlights dark.

  “Miller, what are you doing?” It was Bolle’s voice in my ear again.

  Between holding my body armor and shotgun out of the way, I had my hands full, but I managed to key my radio.

  “Pissing. And stretching. I’m not going to go into action with a full bladder and my legs asleep.”

  There was silence on the radio for a moment, then the sound of doors opening, as men piled out onto the street to line up on the gutter like some kind of firing squad. Too much coffee and too much sitting were taking its toll. I think the cold was good for us too. Sitting in a nice warm vehicle in the wee hours of the morning had left us sleepy and sluggish.

  I zipped up and did a few jumping jacks to get my blood flowing. When I was done I felt much better.

  “Alright, let’s load up and go,” I couldn’t tell if Bolle sounded faintly amused or faintly irritated. Maybe it was a little bit of both.

  Mickey piled back into the van with me, still mumbling to himself. At least he wouldn’t be able to wet himself if things went bad. Al climbed in the back too. For this next stage, it would be important that only our driver was in the front of the van. Bolle and the others in the Suburbans would wait here until we took care of the gate guard.

  “Thirty seconds.” Our driver may have been young, but he sounded cool.

  Eddie and I slid around so we were sitting at the rear of the van, with him facing one door, me the other. I put a hand on the door release. Eddie had a Taser in one hand.

  I pushed all my thoughts of bailing out on the operation out of my mind.

  There was no turning back now.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I eased the door open and slid out with Eddie close behind.

  The security guard was an old guy, maybe seventy, too damn old to be standing out here in the cold and the rain.

  I turned on the light attached to my shotgun, and he stood there in stark relief, his nose red and runny over his little doughnut duster mustache. The uniform was cheap polyester khaki under an even cheaper blue nylon windbreaker. His piece was some kind of revolver in an ancient clamshell holster.

  “Federal Agents! Don’t move!” I gave him my best yell, put the glowing dot of the shotgun’s front sight on his chest, watched his hands, and hoped for the best.

  We’d glossed over this moment, back in the briefing. Todd and the rest of his cronies were bad dudes, criminals, armed and dangerous. I had no problems smoking one of them, but this security guard presented a problem for me. He was armed, and therefore a potential threat, but he was also probably somebody’s grandpa, working for maybe ten bucks an hour and no benefits.

  So I pointed the twelve gauge at him and hoped he would give up.

  He pulled a hand out of his windbreaker. My jaw clenched and I felt my finger move off the frame of the shotgun. But the hand went up to his face, to shield his eyes from the light mounted under my Benelli.

  “Ehh?” was all he got out. Then I saw a little red pinpoint of a laser sight dancing around on his chest like a firefly, just before Eddie pulled the trigger on the Taser.

  The guard hit the ground and I breathed a sigh of relief. I let the shotgun hang on its sling and moved in, grabbing one of the guard’s wrists and flex-cuffing it to the other. I gave the sl
ightest tug on the butt of his gun and it popped into my hand. Maybe I’d make it up to the guy and buy him a decent holster.

  I slid the revolver into a pouch on my vest and sat the guard on his skinny haunches.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  I ignored him and busied myself with pulling the Motorola radio out of the holder on his cracked leather duty belt.

  “We’re the FBI, pops,” Eddie said. The old man winced as Eddie plucked the Taser barbs out of his skin. “We got no beef with you. We’re here to raid your employer.”

  The two Suburbans slid to a stop behind the van, their headlights dark as Eddie and I each grabbed one of the guard’s arms and started marching him towards the guard shack.

  “What the hell for?” the old man asked.

  “Overdue library books and cutting the tags off mattresses,” Eddie said, straight-faced as he lowered the man to the floor of the guard shack. There was a phone inside. I unplugged the handset and tossed it out into the weeds.

  Eddie positioned the man so he would be by the heater. “Now you just sit tight here and keep your head down. This will all be over soon.”

  As Eddie and I ran back to the van, I finally noticed the low-pitched buzzing drone that had been in my ears. It was a plane coming in for a landing and to me it sure as hell sounded like a C-130. God knows I’d jumped out of enough of them to know.

  “The plane’s coming in right on schedule,” Henry’s voice came over the plug in my ear. “Touching down right… now.”

  The engine note changed as the pilot started braking. Eddie and I jumped in the back of the van with our legs hanging out. We didn’t bother shutting the doors. Al and Mickey were hunched by the open sliding door on the side of the van. We took off with a jerk that nearly sent me tumbling out and under the wheels of the Suburban behind us.

  We barreled west down the access road. I saw glimpses of an office building and dark silent hangars rushing by on either side. We hung a hard right onto the apron and the two Suburbans overtook us on either side, the red and blue lights mounted under their grills flashing. I craned my neck around to see through the windshield.