Page 2 of Flash and Bang
“We hear ya,” Sarah said. “Just got here. Keep going. Location, Wolfe?”
“I’m in elevator two. Suspect’s elevator stopped at nine. Jarrett, they may be headed for the roof.”
“Roger,” Jarrett said, breathless. “Just passing seven.” He was genuinely panting as he rounded the corner for seven, staring at its door as he passed. His thighs burned with the effort to sprint up the stairs, grateful that he’d been doing his workout with Thayne at 24 Hour Fitness every day. Above him, he heard a door to the stairwell open and shut, then the sound of pounding feet. “Someone’s in the stairwell a couple floors up from me,” Jarrett gasped. “You’re right, Connor. Headed for the roof.” He panted as he climbed. “Jesus, I’m too old for this shit.”
“How the hell are they gonna get away?” Sarah said into the earwig. “No connecting buildings. Are they planning on flying down?”
“Be careful, Evans. They’re gonna be cornered up there,” Thayne’s voice came through loud and clear and Jarrett could hear the genuine concern.
“Thanks, Wolfe.” He heard another door wrench open above him, then slam closed again. He passed the door to the ninth floor as he headed for the roof door. Once he got up there, he knew he’d be outgunned and exhausted from running when the three suspects had taken the elevator all the way to the ninth. His legs and lungs protested loudly as he approached the landing to the roof, half a floor up from the door to the tenth. “At the roof door,” he gasped, “Suspects are on the roof. Repeat, suspects are on the roof.”
“An LAPD aerial unit is five minutes out,” Stanger called. “It’s too dangerous to go out onto that roof alone, Evans. With all three suspects packing semi-automatics, we need to let Metro handle it.” The SAC’s growl came through Jarrett’s earbud like the hum of a mosquito.
“I got this, sir,” Jarrett growled.I just ran up ten flights of stairs. The fuck if I’m letting LAPD have all the fun.He reached out and turned the handle to the metal door, inching it open a crack. A volley of automatic gunfire exploded from the other side of the door and noisy thumps clanged against the metaldoor a second after Jarrett pulled it closed again.
“Shots fired! Shots fired! Son of a bitch,” Jarrett shouted. He was determined to get out on to that roof but opening the door was suicide. Jarrett had no idea what kind of cover he’d find out there and trying to take on three suspects with semi-automatics alone was a sure fire way to end up six feet under in that cemetery they’d just come from.
“You open that door again, and I’ll shoot you myself, Evans!” Thayne screamed in his ear.
Jarrett wanted to laugh but instead he inched the door open another crack and noticed a large metal air-conditioning unit a mere twelve feet away from him. Another metal structure was located another twenty feet beyond that, and still another paralleled the second, separated from it by twenty-five feet. One of the suspects was hunkered behind the first larger structure, peeking his head out to look toward Jarrett. One was on the other side of the one parallel, and the last behind the air conditioner closest to Jarrett and the stairwell door.
“ATF! Throw down your weapons and put your hands behind your heads!” Jarrett called through a crack in the door. An answering retort from a semi-automatic silenced him as more rounds hit the metal door in front of him.
“Fuck this,” he muttered. Jarrett stuck his Glock through the crack in the door and fired at the suspect closest to him, getting him just above the bulletproof vest in the V between his clavicles. Blood sprayed out of the hole in his neck and the man dropped to the rock roof instantly, his arms thrown wide, his semi-automatic skittering away across the gravel.
A shot to the brainstem like that one was something the sniper in Jarrett was adept at. The man’s fingers never got the chance to squeeze off a single shot which was the whole point. Jarrett opened the door and rushed out, sprinting the twelve feet that separated him from the air-conditioning unit and took a flying leap toward it, rolling as he hit the ground, and slamming into the metal box beside the dead man as automatic gunfire from the two remaining suspects peppered the unit.
“One suspect down!” he shouted.
“God dammit, Evans,” Thayne screamed in his ear. Jarrett could hear his breath, panting as he sprinted up the stairs, probably having exited the elevator somewhere around the floor where the suspects got off. “Can you ever follow orders, idiot?”
Jarrett smirked. “Nope.”
“Still on the party line, Evans!” Stanger screamed into Jarrett’s ear.
Jarrett reached up and tapped his earwig. “Can’t hear you.” He paused. “Com’s…” he paused. “Cutting…” Jarrett made the sound of static and then… “There’s something wrong with this com,” he said, yanking the unit out of his ear canal. He crushed it on the rock roof with the butt of his Glock, knowing he was going to get read the riot act. But the way Jarrett figured, he’d already broken protocol and disobeyed orders. That left very little to lose in his book. He peeked his head around the A/C unit and spotted the two remaining suspects.
“Nowhere to go, assholes. Give yourselves up!” he shouted.
Just as Jarrett said it, he noticed one stepping into a nylon rock-climbing harness. He was unwinding a long rope, looking for an anchor to tie it off. The only thing on the roof besides the metal buildings offering them cover was the A/C unit where Jarrett squatted. A few covered vent pipes stuck out of the flashing that attached them to the roof but they’d never hold the weight of a full-grown man in a bulletproof vest and rappelling gear. The other suspect aimed his MAC-10 at Jarrett and fired. Little tufts of smoke rose from the tar paper under therocks as bullets pinged beside him. He ducked back behind the air conditioner.
Enough of this bullshit.Jarrett closed his eyes, forming an image of the two men and their positions which he’d mentally marked in his mind only seconds before. He took a deep breath and stood up, pivoted, and aimed his Glock at the suspect behind the first building… the one who’d been unwinding the rope. He squeezed off two rounds and the suspect dropped the rope, falling to the ground and clutching at the holes Jarrett had just opened in each knee. Jarrett dropped back behind his A/C unit.
“Told you to give yourself up,” Jarrett shouted as the guy screamed bloody murder.
Jarrett stuck his head out again, noting the final suspect standing behind the last metal building staring at his friend who was howling in agony as he rolled back and forth on the roof, holding his knees, the rope forgotten at his side. Knowing he’d have a better shot at the last suspect if he could make it to the side of the guy he’d just kneecapped, Jarrett shot out from his cover behind the A/C unit, firing his Glock as he tore across the roof, sprinting at full speed. Automatic gunfire followed him as the third suspect opened up with the MAC-10 he carried. Jarrett ran fifteen feet and took a running leap at thesecond suspect, tucking into a roll and coming up in a squat as he took cover behind the metal building while the man he’d shot writhed in pain only five feet from him. Semi-automatic gunfire pinged off the roof beside him.
“What the fuck, man? That was cold!” the suspect shrieked at him. “I’m never gonna walk again!” He burst into sobs.
Jarrett grinned at the guy, poking his head out from behind the building, only to note the third suspect watching him from behind his cover of the second building, holding his MAC-10 at the ready.
“Sorry, dude,” he said, unsympathetically. The guy was still rocking back and forth holding his bleeding knees. “Crime don’t pay.” The guy’s auto-loader was lying ten feet from the man and it was a good thing. If he still had it, Jarrett was pretty sure he would look like Swiss cheese by now.
“Fuck him up, Billy!” Kneecaps howled at his friend. “All he’s got is a Glock!”
A spray of automatic gunfire answered him.
“Shut the hell up,” Jarrett said, reaching for the black nylon rope a few feet away. Outgunned, Jarrett was pretty sure the third suspect was going to figure out that he was a sitting duck in a matter ofseconds. The way he saw it, he had only one option. He glanced around for a place to anchor the rope. There was nothing. The building providing his cover was too large and he had no way to circumnavigate it to tie a rope around it without getting shot. The only other thing on the roof besides him and the two remaining suspects were those flimsy vent pipes coming up out of the roof. He swept over the roof with a second glance, stopping on the suspect he’d kneecapped. He was still wearing the rappelling harness.