Page 70 of Flash and Bang
“He’s going to be all right, Wolfe,” she said simply.
Thayne felt his face flush with heat and color. He hadn’t planned on outing himself and Jarrett so thoroughly and there were few things he could hide from Sarah. She’d known him nearly nine years and seen him through thick and thin as his best friend. She knew he didn’t date and though they’d never talked about his sexual orientation, he knew it was possible she had it all figured out. She wasn’t a stupid woman and he realized staring at his partner was probably a bad idea under the best of circumstances. When they were facing a firefight and the possibility of being blown sky high, well, it just heightened everyone’s awareness even more.
He shrugged. “I know. Now, turn around and mind your own business,” he said with a chuckle. He was only slightly embarrassed.
They turned their attention to the task at hand and watched as the lead S.W.A.T. guy counted down on one hand. A second later, he raised the massive battering ram and slammed it into the door. It sounded like everyone started yelling at once as the LAPD ran into the building. A second later the massive garage door began to roll up and Thayne realized S.W.A.T. must have hit the switch the moment they got inside. Thayne was surprised to see Mary Mason standing calmly beside Beth Quinn and five men. Anthony Revilla was not among them. Mary had one hand up and the other on the switch of a detonator. It took Thayne only a second to realize that the five men and Beth all wore bomb vests. Behind them, a truck had been pulled into the unit and the back door was open. Inside it, Thayne counted at least ten fifty-gallon drums wired with explosives. The C4 and wires stuck to the top of devices attached to the drums were easy to see.Son of a bitch.Everyone stopped dead in their tracks as Mary spoke.
“You cops… get out. Don’t come any closer,” Mary Mason calmly said. “There is enough C4 in this building to take out a city block and I won’t hesitate to take you all out with me.”
“Evans. Hold your fire,”a voice crackled in Thayne’s earwig and he realized Snow was speakingto Jarrett in the com units they all wore.“She’s got a detonator in her hand and a truck packed with fifty gallon drums that are wired to blow. Besides her, there are six more here wearing vests.”
“Roger,”came Jarrett’s calm voice in Thayne’s ear.“I see them. I’ll wait for your go.”
The words made Thayne shiver. He had no idea how they were going to take Mason out without getting everyone there killed. They’d been prepared for one or maybe two killers but for some reason, he didn’t think anyone had anticipated bomb vests on six crazed fanatics and a truck packed with enough explosives to take out a city block and the tract of homes behind the storage facility. Thayne knew Jarrett was one of the best snipers in the world, but even Jarrett couldn’t take out six bomb-wearing suspects and one crazy lunatic before she set them all off with the detonator in her hand.
“I want S.W.A.T. to back out of that building now,”Snow said.
Thayne watched as the men who’d breached the storage unit backed out and set up at least thirty feet from the rolled-up door.
“Now, I’m going to tell you exactly how this is going to work,” Mason said calmly. “You’re going to call us a chopper and you’re gonna do it now. If youdon’t, you’re gonna see fire and brimstone rain down on this city block like the wrath of the Lord. Is that clear?”
“Just remain calm, Mason,” Special Agent Snow said. “No one wants that.”
“Good, because we’re not finished yet. The fun stuff starts tonight and this country is going to see God’s face tonight,” she said. Thayne was horrified to realize she was actually smiling.She’s fucking nuts.“Now, call for that helicopter.”
“Fine.” Snow grabbed the radio and called for a helicopter. Thayne knew he wasn’t bluffing as he radioed for the copter. When he’d finished, he turned back to Mary Mason. “It’ll be a few minutes so while we’re here, why don’t you tell us why you killed your husband.”
“Greg stopped being my husband the moment he threw in with my father. He knew how my father treated me. At first he was sympathetic but then he began to buy into all of his misogyny. It was only a matter of time before I couldn’t tolerate him anymore. I should have done him a long time ago.”
“So you weren’t one big happy family,” Special Agent Snow said. “What made you decide to make your move now?”
“I couldn’t handle him anymore. We finally got a hold of the bootleg fireworks to carry out our final solution and he balked about it,” she spit. “Greg told me he didn’t want anything to do with illegal fireworks even though we needed the black powder. We had a good thing going. Suki Chang cleared the path from her friends in China but that wasn’t good enough for Greg. He said it was a matter of pride and that he wouldn’t use the fireworks the Brigade brought up through Mexico. Do you have any idea how difficult getting them across the border was? Do you have any idea how much we had to pay the Chinese for them? Greg didn’t have a heart for the cause anymore and that was the final straw.”
“I see,” Snow said. Why don’t you tell us what you’re planning on doing? And where’s Reverend James Elroy now?”
Mary’s laughter was chilling as she let go with peals of it. “You’ve got to be kidding. You think he’s running this show? He gave up that right years ago.”
“Where is he, Mary?”
Mary laughed harder and Thayne watched her thumb shake over the button on the detonator she held. It made him nervous as hell. “That old bastard drove my mother to drink with his whoring. She died when her liver gave out which left me in the hands ofan abuser and a pedophile. He began using me at age ten! What kind of father does that? Reverend James was never a father. He was an abuser and a monster. I followed him because it’s all I knew. I tried to be the good daughter to him but I could never please him. But it doesn’t matter anymore. He hasn’t been in the picture for a very long time.”
“He’s still in charge of the Freedom Brigade though,” Snow said. Thayne knew he was trying to get as much information about Elroy’s location as he could before the chopper arrived.
“Daddy’s pushing up daisies, FBI man.” She punctuated FBI as though the letters burned her tongue. “You’ll find him in my garden.”
“Son of a fuckin’ bitch,”Jarrett said through the earwig.“Just when you think there’s a bottom to the craziness, there’s a crazy underground garage.”
Thayne would have laughed if it weren’t so true. She was nuts and if what she said was true about her father, he didn’t blame her for going off the deep end. He heard other agents chuckling at Jarrett in his earwig and in the distance, he heard the sound of an approaching helicopter.
“Let them board the helicopter,” Snow said. “Repeat. Let them board. No one is to shoot. We cannot risk the pilot’s life if they decide to set off oneof those vests.”
Thayne heard the murmured response from the gathered agents and S.W.A.T. personnel. Letting Mason and her crew get away was a terrible risk but what else could they do? Thayne watched as Mary looked up to see the helicopter as it appeared, hovering over them. Snow motioned for the pilot to land and Thayne pulled the face mask of his helmet down to keep the dust from pelting him as the large chopper set down about thirty feet from the entrance to the storage unit. Mary and her crew began walking toward the chopper and Thayne was stunned when one of the men went around to the pilot’s door and yanked it open. Before anyone could blink, the man raised a gun that he held and shot the pilot in the chest. The man tumbled out of the helicopter, landing with a thud on the ground as Thayne’s com unit erupted with swearing and curses from the other agents.
“Hold your fire,”Snow hissed in the com unit.
The man climbed into the pilot’s seat and once all Mary’s men and Beth were inside the helicopter, it began to rise off the ground.
“Take out that chopper, Evans. Make them pay for killing that agent,” Snow bellowed in the earpiece. “Everyone else, fall back!”