Albatross (30 page)

“That might be a problem with ‘Mr. German’ unless I hit him worse than I thought,” the guard explained.

“What the hell is a German doing shooting at us?” Davis asked. Davis replayed the last few moments in her head.
This guy is pretty jumpy
, she thought.
Why did he assume I was on his team?
He spoke to her but kept his gun pointed up the stairs.

“I don’t know! Why is the world going to the shitter?”

Davis had to calm this guy down. He was ready to shoot anybody at this point.

“So that was German I heard. Do you know what he said?”

Davis watched the guard wipe sweat from his brow, and he seemed to forcibly slow himself down so that he could clearly think about a potential answer. “Something about ‘you’ll need more to finish me’ or something like that. Look! My buddy is up there. I know I hit the bad guy. It’s been quiet,” the guard finished. Then in tactical hand signals, the guard indicated that they would need to stack up one right behind the other and rush the shooter. The guard indicated he would take the lead, low and center to the left. Davis shook her head no and indicated that she would go first, taking low and center toward the left of the vault. Before the guard could object, she got in front of him and continued to reinforce that he needed to go high and center to the right of the vault. Because both knew where the vault door was, they would be able to capture the entire kill zone in seconds. The main reasons she wanted take the lead and go low and to the left was because she did not want this guard shooting the bad guy, who might be very important for intelligence. Davis also wanted to cover the vault door, which was more to the left side of the room. Reluctantly, the guard nodded yes, and Davis gave the signal to move on a three count. The two readied themselves, their backs against the wall, and then they both bolted up the remaining three stairs and turned the sharp corner. The guard was right on top of her, but it was manageable. The first thing Davis saw when she broke cover was an unconscious guard sitting in the chair, handcuffed to the side rail on the wall. The alleged German shooter was also unconscious and lying on his back, his hand also handcuffed to the wall rail. The thing that momentarily confused Davis was the fact the shooter was half naked and missing his shirt.

A fraction of a second may have elapsed before it became clear to Davis that there was a problem. Before she could turn her gun toward the fake guard, a sharp kick hit her hand and knocked the gun clean from her grip. The pain was sharp, and he had the advantage of a strong kick because he standing above her. But his position also worked against him as Davis’s legs uncoiled from her low position upward like a spring at her new target. She hit her target with great force, and she was positive she heard his ribs crack with a sharp exhale. Once she was standing up, she made sure to strip the target’s hand of the gun. She was successful, but she had dislodged a stun gun of sorts. As she refocused, she felt one elbow graze her chin. Any closer and it would have knocked her out. It was the stomping for her foot and punch in the stomach that separated them from a clinch. The target attempted a punch her jaw; however, Davis blocked the blow, and then she captured the arm. Once captured, she began a maneuver. Davis thought she had him, and she was preparing to strike her assailant in the head; however, he then countered by turning his whole body into her. Her enemy now had the momentum to push her over the desk with him on top of her. The target rolled off relatively quickly. He was injured but not out. Davis moved a bit faster, and she pressed the advantage to kick the target in the ribs. Somehow, the target moved his trunk out of the way and then captured Davis heel and continued the arc of her kick upward above her head. This made her fall forcefully backward and hit the floor with great force. Davis was dazed. She could move but only very slowly. Davis knew that most hand-to-hand combat lasted under a minute. She wished she had more time. As she attempted to roll on her side and get to her knees, she saw her adversary take out a Taser.
He’s taking no chances
, she thought. The stun gun she had knocked out of his hand was for close-quarter combat. The Taser allowed for distance. Davis couldn’t tell if she was just dazed or genuinely confused, but she kept focusing on why her target kept his gun holstered.
Why won’t he use it?
she thought. That was the last cogent question she had before the edges of her vision seemed to tunnel in. She then saw the Taser shoot and the electrodes hit her chest. Davis had been positive she would pass out from the hit to the back of her head, but now she was really going out. Her eyes continued to dim, and then she felt every cell in her body burn. There was a sudden bright aura she saw as her muscles became rigid. Then there was darkness and a release of tension. If her body was convulsing, she was not aware of it.

Burns was relieved as he watched his adversary finally fall to the ground. For whatever reason, as important as this mission was, he could not bring himself to shoot an unarmed person, no matter how dangerous she was.
She was just doing her job,
he thought. David had warned Burns that in times of stress and danger, it was very likely that he would have strange thoughts. A few years ago, Burns wouldn’t have thought twice about killing someone to complete the mission; it would be no problem for him to be in a firefight, kill as many targets as possible, and then have a beer, eat, and have sex with anyone available an hour or two after his debriefing. Burns was struck by the fact that he thought of Matthew’s biblical verse:
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul.

It took Burns seconds to regroup and think of his friends and the next steps in the plan. As he breathed again, he felt the pain in his ribs. Maybe it was only two ribs that were broken, but it felt like three or more. Burns had to move. He turned the woman over and went through her pockets, and then he found what he was looking for—a magnetic key. He approached the door of the vault and ran the key through the slide. Instead of opening, however, a recessed handprint pad emerged. That was a surprise.

“I guess things do change,” Burns said to himself. Then he dragged the woman over to the pad, picked her up from behind, and put her right hand on the pad. The pad turned from red to green, and the door hissed open. Burns placed the woman back on the ground and handcuffed her arm to the wall rail like the others.

For nearly four years, Burns had waited for this moment. He entered and found a deceptively large room cramped with monitors on a wall. Burns went to look for the files and hard drives, but there was none to be found. He did find a large file cabinet, which he unlocked with the same magnetic key that had given him entrance to the room. Within the cabinet, he found two large cases of cash, all small denominations and most likely unmarked as they would be used to pay off informants, operatives, and hired hands. In addition to the cash, there was one large legal binder with about ten blank passports and a handful of blank birth certificates. Clearly, this site was also a way station for providing key resources to field agents and their private, independent contractors. Farther in the back of the cabinet, there were some files of protocols but still no classified information. All of these were helpful but not the goal of four years of work. Burns felt his scalp and hands starting to itch near his scares. A sense of panic was forming in his gut.

Burns looked frantically in the room until he saw that in front of four pairs of monitors and four individual CPUs, there were four corresponding docks. They were empty. He looked again, and still, there was nothing. Burns stood still in the middle of the small room, his hands rubbing his head and pain radiating from his lungs every time he breathed.

“I’m missing something. Something simple,” Burns said to himself as his scalp and arms began to itch.

Then it hit him. He had watched various operations center staff enter the bank always with a briefcase or bag. The woman had donned a bag when she had come in. Burns ran to the stairwell, saw the bag, and opened it. Four long years, and here it all was—a treasure to barter for five lives and their freedom. If only he had known that they had changed the protocol so that the operator actually transported the hard drives from one secured position to another, it would have been so much easier to take out just one person rather than creating a national disaster that looked as big as the 9/11 attacks.

“It would have been so much simpler if I’d just paid more attention,” Burns chided himself.

Was I more focused on Sam than my work?
Burns thought. Instead of expressing more anger, he smiled. He couldn’t help but think she was such a wonderful distraction. He was also surprised that he had no memory from his past life of being distracted by someone he cared about.
I’m okay with that
, he thought. Burns noticed his scalp and arms seemed to stop itching.

Burns brought the bag up to the desk and took the contents out of backpack and placed all the pieces in his own paramedic bag. Burns then emptied the cash, passports, and birth certificates from the cabinet into the same paramedic bag. Once he was packed, he lifted the bag and felt his ribs begin ache. Burns suppressed the pain and focused on taking the stairs two at a time and making a quick walk to the ambulance. The walk to the ambulance seemed so much farther than it had when he had arrived. Once behind the wheel, he turned the siren on and drove away. Driving fast with an ambulance would not draw a lot of attention. Not on a day like today. He had to catch up to the team as rapidly as possible so that they could split up the cache of money and data and be on their separate ways before all of their diversions were all contained.

By the time Burns arrived at the rally point, Becky and Emma were already at a rest area two exits into New Hampshire. Just as he was putting his vehicle into park, Samantha and David were pulling into the same area. Burns was relieved to see that everyone was there. He was happy to see Samantha especially. Burns was fearful when he saw only Becky’s car that something had happened to Samantha and David. He realized that they, like him, were stuck in traffic because everyone in Massachusetts seemed to have decided it would be safer outside of the state rather than at home. While the traffic was moving, it was heavy.

Samantha immediately hugged her sister. Burns could easily see that she was just happy to see her again. Then Emma and Becky embraced David. Emma let David know about the donuts, and as always, he smiled. Emma could do no wrong in both Burns and David’s eyes. As David and Emma talked about their days, Samantha and Becky began to look over the luggage and exchange specific pieces. Finally, Burns went to the back of his small SUV and started pulling out some luggage and important items. One of the benefits of having years to prepare for an operation is making sure all rally points and secondary points have caches of weapons, money, and vehicles. In this particular situation, Burns had been able to abandon his ambulance on the last exit before he had entered New Hampshire and exchange it for a less visible transport.

Before Burns got down to business, he pretended to steal Emma’s nose and eat it. Emma in return always jumped so that he could catch her. She did, and Burns held on; however, the grimace of pain on his face did not remotely describe the full meaning of cracked ribs. He was sure his face expressed volumes.

Once Emma was promptly given back her nose, Samantha was the first to state the obvious. “Looks like you got fucked up a bit.” Burns saw both concern and relief that he was there in Samantha’s eyes.

I’m just thrilled were all alive and together,
he genuinely thought.

“Okay, everyone … children are around,” David said as he blindly fumbled to put Emma back in her car seat.

“I ran into a little trouble, but we’re good to go,” Burns said with confidence.

“Yeah … right.” It was easy for him to see that Samantha did not believe him, but she knew enough not to press now, though maybe later.

Burns went on with the final in-person briefing. He handed Becky and Samantha the hard files of classified protocols as well as the majority of the cash.