I cocked my head to one side trying to locate Charlie. I was keenly aware of the other two people as well. The newcomers. These guys were trained professionals. The one glimpse I’d had of the SWAT team in the hallway told me all I’d needed to know. They wore black. A couple of them had on black ski masks. Only their eyes had been visible. Intense and sharply focused. They were trained to overpower armed men with their bare hands, and if necessary, to kill.
I heard the crunch of glass underneath a shoe. Had to be Charlie stepping on his own glasses. Maybe twenty feet away. I took the opportunity to move. I was hoping to find an unlocked door or window in a nearby vehicle. Some place to hide. Now that I was away from Charlie’s gun in my face, I was hoping to squirrel myself away somewhere until it was over. One way or another.
I crawled out from under the Expedition, stood up slowly and moved two cars down where I remembered a pickup camper was parked. I was moving toward the door where the negotiator was standing, but I kept crouched down in case a sniper with night vision goggles was looking for me. When I reached the camper I felt my way around to its back door. It was locked. I reached for my picks, then I remembered that Charlie had taken them.
I heard a distant burst of static in the dark. It came from Charlie’s radio sounding like he’d moved to the far corner of the vehicle bay. My hand brushed against a vertical object next to the camper’s door handle. I felt it over and realized it was the access ladder for the roof of the camper. My own camper back in Seward had one just like it. Without a moment’s hesitation, I climbed.
When I reached the top I spread out and crawled forward making myself as flat as possible. There was an air conditioning unit on top, a vent and some kind of antenna folded over for travel. I settled in on my belly beside the air conditioner to wait. I cupped my hands around my face and tried to block out the gasoline fumes.
After a few moments I rolled slightly and peeked out over the edge of the roof top. The darkness was gradually lightening as my eyes adjusted. At least it wasn’t pitch black anymore. I could see the vague shapes of the vehicles below me. And something moved.
I froze. The crouched shape slid with smooth movements from behind one vehicle to another, working its way toward me. It had to be a cop. He was working his way in front of the vehicles parked face in against the wall. I was guessing his partner was doing the same thing along the other side of the garage.
I pulled myself back to the center of the camper roof and lay as still as I could. No more peeking over. If I could see them, they could see me. But up where I was, over eight feet above the floor I was hoping I was out of sight.
I tried to play it all out in my head. What was going to happen next? Were the cops going to hold fire? Surely they knew that bullets flying around in here would set off the gas. Did Charlie have another lighter? Did he find the one I’d kicked away?
The cops were being cautious, but I could sense them in the dark. Their tentacles were moving through the black ink, feeling their way. Nerve endings tensed to detect any motion, any sound.
The one nearby me moved closer. I could hear a faint rustling of cloth rubbing together and rubber soled shoes carefully padding one after another on the wet metal deck. And I heard the leather on his equipment belt squeak just like I'd heard the troopers squeaking when they'd climbed in my plane.
The camper moved slightly as if the cop was resting against it and peering around the corner. If I’d leaned over the side of the camper I could have reached down and touched him. That’s what my ears told me anyhow, but I wasn’t moving for anything.
I squeezed my eyes shut again and felt hot tears squeeze their way out trying to wash out the traces of gasoline that hung heavy in the air. The acrid vapors tore at my throat and the inside of my nose. I fought off the urge to sneeze.
I'd lost track of Charlie. Did he find the gun? He had to know the cops were almost on him. And he must have known that firing at them would be his last act. Unless he was ready to kill himself and Greta too, I couldn’t see him firing any shots. But when he was finally cornered, who knows what he might do? I tried not to think about burning alive in a metal dungeon.
Several seconds passed in total silence before I heard movement again. Across the garage back where I’d heard the static, there was a thrashing sound, like feet kicking and a grunt and a muffled yelp. My imagination went wild trying to make sense of the sounds.
The camper rocked again slightly as I felt the creeper below me move away into the dark. Footsteps and squeaks faded into the distance and minutes went by. Lying there on the camper roof exhaustion pulled at my eyelids. Above the battle and hidden from view I was close to passing out from the fumes. Only two things were keeping me awake. Pain and terror. I tried to move my head slowly, carefully stretching the tortured tendons in my neck while listening to tiny clumps of calcium crunching inside and echoing inside my skull.
“Charlie, we need to talk,” Larry voice called out into the black cavern. His voice sounded different in person and not over the radio handset. And he sounded worried.
Charlie didn’t answer.
“What about you, Wainwright?" he called again. "You in here?”
I didn’t answer either. I didn’t trust anybody. Only the darkness was my friend.
“Charlie?” Larry tried again louder this time. His voice was coming from the same corner where I’d last seen him in the doorway. Still no answer.
“Team, check in,” Larry said then. As much as he was trying to send out the command in a calm voice, I thought I heard it quaver.
“Johnson’s over here, Sergeant,” called a new voice low and in the distance by the far vehicle door. It sounded like a person crouched behind a vehicle near the floor. No one else spoke.
“Miller?” Larry called in the dark. No answer.
A few moments went by. “Miller?” Larry called out again.
Then a rasping sarcastic snarl broke through the stillness. “Miller’s not going to be checking in.”
It was Charlie’s voice and it sounded like he was somewhere between me and Johnson. I rolled to my side and looked in that direction.
Suddenly the lights came back on. Charlie was standing in the middle of the garage in the open lane between two rows of cars. He was facing in my direction. His bloody t-shirt was pulled up over his nose and face and a pool of gasoline all around him shimmered in the dull glow of the overhead lights. He raised his arms and held them out in a strange posture like he was beckoning a large audience. I could see his chest heaving and the t-shirt slipped down to reveal his raggedy beard and open mouth panting.
There was a dark shape crumpled on the deck at his feet. Charlie was holding the blood soaked Ka-bar knife out from his body in his right hand. His left arm extended from his side, his hand clenched in a fist. Charlie’s chest was covered with blood. So was his right arm. The huge knife dripped heavy red drops to the deck.
I tore my gaze from Charlie's odd pose to the body at his feet. It had to be Miller. Thick red fluid spread slowly in the puddle of fuel at Charlie’s feet.
Behind him in the far corner I could see Larry on the metal stairs in front of the door where we'd picked up the food. Closer to me Johnson was leaning over a car hood twenty feet from Charlie with a handgun leveled straight at Charlie’s chest. He was dressed in black and had a ski mask covering his head and neck. Even his hands were covered in tight black gloves.
I squinted and tried to see what was in Charlie's hand, but if there was a lighter in there it was concealed.
“Nobody move,” Charlie warned. “I swear to God I’ll light this place up.”
He shuffled backwards and turned trying to look toward both policemen at the same time. I could tell his eyeballs were rattling wildly back and forth but without his glasses he was only guessing at the shapes around him. His head whipped back and forth as he tried to keep track of both adversaries.
“Let me take him, Sarge,” called Johnson. “I got the shot.” His voice sounded like heavy sheets of sandpap
er scraping together in a barely controlled rage. He moved out from behind the car and crept in a deadly crouch toward Charlie, his dark lethal shape moving steadily like a snake through the weeds. The handgun was pointed straight at Charlie’s chest.
“Stop right there, goddamn it!” Charlie’s voice raised in a tight shriek. “I’ll do it, I swear.” He thrust his closed fist toward the dark crouched man only ten feet away.
“Hold up, Johnson,” came Larry’s voice, his calm shredded. “Any shot could set this off.”
“What are we going to do here, Charlie?”
“You’re going to get me a goddamn helicopter, that’s what you’re going to do, or I set this place off.”
“Are you really ready to die, Charlie?” Larry’s voice was back in control. He was standing on the landing in front of the closed door. Through the round window I could see two other faces crowded in and trying to watch. Their expressions were tense and focused on the standoff in front of them.
“If that’s what it takes, you bet I am. Are you?” Charlie said, but his knife hand was shaking, and he wiped at his face with his other fist trying to fight off the fumes. When that didn’t work he pulled his t-shirt up to cover his mouth and nose again.
“You’d take almost two hundred people with you, including Greta and Tambourine? Don’t you care about them?” Larry called.
I crawled to the edge of the camper roof. I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
“Yeah, what about that, Charlie?” My voice startled him. His head jerked in my direction, but he didn’t want to take his eyes off Johnson and quickly snapped back. He slapped one foot on the deck and splashed gasoline toward the cop.
"Get away from me, I swear I'll do it," he hissed.
Johnson had stopped his advance but he didn't retreat.
“I thought you said Greta meant everything to you, Charlie” I called out.
“You shut up!” he screamed, glancing over his right shoulder trying to see me. His t-shirt slipped off his nose, and his scraggly hair flipped across his face, tangling in his beard wet with sweat, gasoline and blood.
The cops looked toward me too, and I felt their eyes lock on me. Johnson stared at me over his shoulder just for a moment like I was a bull’s eye at the target range, but his weapon stayed pointed at Charlie’s chest. I raised my hands in surrender and swung my legs over the side of the camper.
“Come on, Charlie. You know this is over,” I said. I wasn’t sure what to say or do, but I knew I had to do something. This was it. I had to act.
“I said shut up, Johnny. You ready to die too?” His feet were shuffling in small steps and his head swung back and forth between me and the cops.
“Give me a break, Charlie. You think you're impressing anybody with that weak horseshit. Look at you. You’re a pathetic mess. And we both know you don’t have a lighter anymore. I kicked it away.”
He bristled and shook his fist at me. “Yes, I do!” he shrieked again in a high pitched screech. I was far enough away that his myopic vision had no clue where I was. But then with a wildly wicked grin he opened his left hand and held up the green plastic lighter.
Johnson charged and flew through the air hitting Charlie right above the knees. Both men collapsed to the deck.
My eyes went crazy. I rolled away and covered my head expecting flames and a huge blast. My head smacked into the air conditioner and I saw stars, but I scrambled backwards anyhow, crossed the camper roof and found the ladder with my feet.
It was a clumsy struggle but somehow I made my way down the ladder and around the corner of the camper in time to see Johnson on top of Charlie. He had Charlie flat on his back. One of his hands held Charlie by the throat and his other fist was slamming into the big man's face over and over. Charlie’s arms were flopping, trying to ward off the assault, but it was useless. He'd dropped the knife and the lighter too was gone.
Charlie was finished. His limp body and bloodied face took the attack without resistance. His body bounced with the impact of each blow.
I stopped where I was and watched as Larry came flying toward them. On his way he pointed a finger at my face and yelled, “Don’t you move.”
I put my hands in the air and stared at the rampage in front of me.
Larry grabbed Johnson's arm and shouted in his ear. “Enough, enough,” he yelled. “He’s done, he’s done.”
Johnson stopped then with one fist still in mid-air, his chest heaving and his whole body shaking. He raised up from his knees and tore off his ski mask but he kept staring down at Charlie ready to attack again at the slightest movement.
Larry stepped in front of him and rolled Charlie over on his face. He pulled his arms behind him and fastened handcuffs on his wrists. Then he dragged Charlie’s still form out of the pool of gasoline and looking back toward the door, he waved.
The door burst open and dark shapes poured through. A stream of men in white uniform shirts and yellow fluorescent vests ran down the steps. Larry stepped over Charlie and moved over to kneel over the dark blue shape lying face down in the gas.
“Miller?” he shouted turning the man over. But he immediately recoiled seeing the open unfocused eyes and the open bloody neck wound.
Johnson was watching but then he too pulled himself away. He picked up the pistol he’d dropped and pointed it at me.
“Turn around,” he barked.
I did as I was told. I spun and spread my arms and legs. He pushed me against the hood of the camper and forced my head against the cool metal while he kicked my feet in opposite directions. I endured the body search in silence. I could see yellow vested crew members unrolling red hoses and spraying water in every direction washing gasoline into drains. The main loading doors were open and fresh air poured through. I felt handcuffs snap onto my wrists.
When Johnson was through searching me, Larry came over. I stayed against the hood but turned my head to look at them. The two men towered over me.
“Help them with Jimmy,” Larry nodded toward Miller’s still form. Johnson’s head and eyes dropped, and he slowly turned away.
Larry tapped me on the back. “Turn around,” he said softly.
I straightened up and turned around. The vehicle deck was buzzing with activity. It was strange to see so many people moving around the space that had been my dark and deadly dungeon only minutes earlier. Cold air off the ocean felt like a million bucks.
I leaned back against the camper and looked at Larry. The SWAT sergeant was almost as tall as Charlie who was still laying on his belly coughing and spitting nearby as a stream of water from a red hose sprayed up and down his body. I took a deep breath of relief seeing Charlie’s hands cuffed behind him.
Larry’s eyes drooped and his jaw slowly worked back and forth as he took deep breaths and looked me over. My gasoline soaked clothes were reeking with the fumes. He stood in front of me with his arms crossed, holding himself together. Then he ran one head through his thick hair, his nostrils flaring with each inhale.
I waited. My knees were shaking, and I was glad for the support of the vehicle behind me. I moved my head around to work the kinks out of my neck. The hose guys were throwing heavy streams of water in all directions. I watched as small waves of foamy clear liquid washed across the deck and disappeared into drainage slits.
“You Wainwright?” Larry finally asked.
I nodded. “Yes, I am.”
He studied me closely, his gray eyes looking into mine. I knew enough to hold his eye contact without overdoing it. He uncrossed his arms and rested his wrists on his equipment belt. The leather squeaked from the weight of his arms.
“Sorry about Miller,” I said in a low voice.
His lips pressed together, and he looked down at his shoes. He nodded, but then shook his head slightly and turned his head away from the sight of Johnson helping two crew members with a stretcher beside us.
“What were you doing in here? They told me you were locked in a supply room.”
“I came in to help m
y friend, Rainey. And I thought I might be able to talk Charlie into giving up. You saw my note, right?” Give me 30 mins then cut the lights. "You got it, didn't you?"
He reached into a pocket and pulled out the soggy receipt. He opened it up to reveal an illegible smear of blue ink on the torn paper.
"You mean this?"
I closed my eyes and shook my head. "I thought you knew I was going to jump him."
He listened with sad tired eyes. His breathing was slowing. “That was either very brave or very stupid.”
I nodded and shrugged. “Stupid probably.”
He didn’t agree or disagree. “Look, Mr. Wainwright, I don’t know what your story is. Some people are saying you’re flaky. I don’t know, but you did help us in here. I saw that.”
I felt faint. My knees wanted to let go. I closed my eyes and leaned an elbow against the camper behind me so I wouldn’t slip to the deck. I was taking deep gulps of air into my lungs. I couldn’t believe it was over. I’d been operating on adrenaline for so long, I just wanted to lie down and sleep for days.
“Thanks for saving my ass,” I finally managed to say.
He just looked at me. “Don’t get relaxed,” he said. “We’re not done.”
“What do you mean?” I felt my throat tighten again, and my heart began to pound.
“Greta,” was all he said.
My mouth must have dropped open. I was about to ask him to explain when a cold stream of water from a red hose hit me in the chest washing away the gasoline, dirt and whatever peace of mind I had left.