Night and Day (Book 2): Bleeding Sky (38 page)

“Okay,
it’s gonna come loose right....now,” the man with the cutter said. The other
person strained for a moment, then lifted the circular piece and slowly laid
it in the floor behind them.

“Light,”
the man with the cutter said.

The
one still standing stepped close and pointed a flashlight down into the
hole.

“Shit,
shit, shit,” the man with the cutter said. “Okay, pull me up and get me out
of the suit.”

As
his companions helped him get out of the heavy bomb suit, he caught sight of
me and Anna standing just inside the doorway, watching.

“You
shouldn’t be in here, sir,” he said. The man was younger than I thought he’d
be, with a lock of blond hair plastered to his sweaty forehead.

I
smiled. “What, we’d be safer down the hall?”

“You’d
be safer away from here,” he said. “As away as you can get.”

“Sorry,”
I said. “The lady can’t go outside till the sun goes down. Just get on with
it, trooper.”

“It’s
sergeant, sir,” he said. “Sgt. Wallace.” He pulled off the pants of the suit
himself and stood there, barefoot in a blue Security Force coverall, staring
down into the hole.

“It’s
about three feet down,” he said. “Somebody hang onto my legs.”

Wallace
opened the bag that was still hooked to his suit on the floor, and pulled
out a light attached to an elastic headband and a pair of needle-nose
pliers. He slipped the headband over his head, turned on the light, and got
down on his belly.

“Okay,”
he said. “Let’s see what we got.”

One
of his teammates, knelt behind him and grabbed his legs as Wallace slid
toward the hole. “Going down,” he said. He slid his upper body over the lip
and into the hole.

We
all stood silently, waiting for some indication of how serious it was, maybe
even how long we had to live.

“Oh,
isn’t this just fucking great,” Wallace said, his voice muffled.

I
looked at the two other members of the team. “What does that
mean?”

“What
have you got, sarge?” a woman’s voice came from the suited trooper standing
over the hole.

“Get
me up,” Wallace said.

The
two members of his team pulled Wallace out of the hole. He wiped some sweat
from his face with the back of his hand, then sat up and pulled his suit
close. “This is Wallace,” he said leaning forward as he tapped the spot on
the front of the suit that opened the radio channel. “All units, stand down.
I repeat, stand down. No threat. No threat.”

Wallace
tapped the suit again and pushed himself to his feet.

“You
disarmed it?” I asked.

He
laughed. “Nothing to disarm,” he said.

“There’s
no bomb?”

“Oh,
there’s a bomb all right,” he said. “From what I could see, a really big
fucking bomb. Big enough to take out at least a city block with the blast
wave. Problem is, it’s like that B99 outside. Not hooked up to anything.
Just a whole lot of plastic explosive.”

“I
don’t understand,” I said.

“Neither
do I, sir,” he said. “Bomb’s there, trigger’s there, but it’s dead. Somebody
already disconnected it.”

“Who?”

He
grinned. “You find out, I’ll buy him a beer,” he said. He glanced at his
team. “Okay, out of the suits and let’s wrap it up.”

I
heard heavy footsteps from the hall and Lt. Johnson came into the room.
She’d stripped off the upper part of the bomb suit, and her uniform shirt
was soaked with sweat. “Mr. Welles, Captain Bristow needs to speak to you.
Immediate.”

She
pulled off her headset and held it out. I had to get right up next to her to
get it over my head. “Welles,” I said.

“We
got him,” Bristow said. “Shuster.”

“Where?”

“Right
here,” he replied. “They’re bringing him into the square now.”

“Keep
Heymann where he is until we know what’s going on,” I said. “This could be
another trick.”

“Yes,
sir.”

I
pulled the headset off and pushed past Johnson. Anna smiled and wiggled her
fingers at me, then walked toward the back of the trailer. I headed for the
hatch.

It
took a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust to the daylight when I
stepped out on the ramp. Then I saw him. Shuster wore a tee-shirt and khaki cargo pants,
had his hands on his head and was slowly walking in my general direction.
There were half a dozen troopers around him in a wide circle, their rifles
pointed at him.

He
saw me. He smiled.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

Shuster
stopped walking as I neared him. He was still smiling.

“Guess
things didn’t work out the way you planned, Shuster,” I said.

“You’d
be surprised, old buddy,” he replied.

“Has
the prisoner been searched?” I asked, my voice a little louder.

One
of the troopers nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “We frisked him. He’s
clean.”

“Do
it again,” I said. I grinned at Shuster. “Strip search him. He’s a tricky
one and we wouldn’t want to miss anything.”

“Right
here, sir?” the trooper asked.

“Right
here.”

“Jesus,
is this really necessary, Charlie?” Shuster asked as two troopers pulled off
his shirt. Another was working on the buckle of his belt. “I’m
unarmed.”

“You
always enjoyed a good prank, Shuster,” I said. “Just pretend that you’re
streaking.”

A
minute later, he stood naked in front of me, his hands on his head. “I told
you, I’m clean” he said. I could see the dark purple bruise in the middle of
his chest, where Martinez’s bullet had hit his body armor the night before.
Without that body armor, he would have been dead.

I
pushed the toe of my shoe through the clothes that lay on the ground around
him. Nothing but cloth. “Okay,” I said. “Get him dressed.”

While
they helped him back into his clothing, I looked over my shoulder. Bristow
and Martinez stood at the foot of the command trailer steps,
watching.

“Martinez!”
I yelled.

She
looked to Bristow, he nodded, and she came running. Bristow followed at an
easy walk.

“Sir,”
she said when she reached me.

“Find
three pairs of handcuffs.”

She
nodded and walked toward a group of cops that were watching us from the
curb.

“Come
on, Charlie,” Shuster said. “Now you’re just being an asshole about
this.”

I
stared at him silently until Martinez returned. “One on each ankle,
connected together with the free cuff,” I said. “Other pair on his
wrists.”

“Front
or back, sir?” she asked.

“I
think front will be okay,” I said, staring into his eyes. It would be harder
to maintain his balance with his hands cuffed behind him. And as amusing as
it would be to watch him fall a couple of times, I wanted to get him out of
the square before somebody on his team put a bullet through his head to keep
him quiet.

Shuster
smiled and shook his head slowly. “You’re just wasting time,” he
said.

“It’s
my time to waste,” I replied.

He
let Martinez move his legs to attach the cuffs, then put his hands together
in front. The cuffs clicked and she turned to me. “Prisoner is secure,
sir,”

“Put
him in my office,” I said. “Martinez, I want your sidearm out and ready. I
want a trooper standing in the doorway, rifle aimed at his head. If he does
anything that you don’t like...” I paused and stared at him, hard. “Or says
anything you don’t like...blow his head off.”

“Yes,
sir,” Martinez said, pointing at one of the troopers. She took Shuster’s arm
and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

“See
you in a bit, Charlie,” he said over his shoulder as he shuffled
away.

“What
about Heymann,” Bristow asked.

I
watched Shuster for a moment, then shook my head. “Leave him where he is
with the close protection team,” I said. “I’m still not sure what’s going
on.”

Turning
back to the troopers, I asked, “Who found him?”

Two
troopers in the back stepped forward. Both women. Unlike the others, they
wore gray and black camouflage coveralls and had baseball caps instead of
the Security Force beret. There was a solid red hourglass on the front of
each cap.

“Trooper
Greatorex, Naomi A.,” the one on the left said with a salute. “B Company,
Command Platoon.”

“How’d
you find him, trooper?”

“Gab
and I were on patrol on the south side of Fredericksburg, sir...” she
began.

“Gab?”
I asked.

The
trooper beside her saluted. “Trooper Greatorex, Gabrielle A.,” she said. “B
Company, Command Platoon.”

“Sisters?”

“Yes,
sir,” they said in unison. Looking at them, I could see the
resemblance.

I
looked back at Bristow. “Really? Sisters?”

“Company
sniper team,” he said. “Pulled them off their position when we went to Red
Alert.” He paused. “Naomi is the sniper, Gabby the spotter. They can be a
bit much sometimes, but they’re probably the best sniper team in the whole
Security Force. Other teams call them the Black Widows.” He smiled. “So we
put a black widow’s hourglass on their caps, just to rub it in.”

“Martinez
told me that guy you have in the crane is the best shot in the Security
Force,” I said.

“Best
trooper not on a sniper team,” Bristow replied. “We don’t let snipers
participate in the competition, to keep it fair. Even Gabby there, a
spotter, can shoot rings around Cooper.”

I
turned back to them. “Okay, Naomi A., what happened?”

She
nodded. “Well, sir, like I said, me and Gab were on patrol on the south side
of Fredericksburg. Walking the sidewalk. We went past the Scooters
restaurant heading east and didn’t see anything. When we came back, heading
west, I saw him at a table by the window. He smiled at me.”

“He
winked at you,” the other sister, Gabrielle, said. “And I saw him
first.”

“As
you were,” I said, putting a little bite into my voice. “Continue, Naomi
A.”

“Yes,
sir,” she said. “So we were patrolling and
I
saw him, so I drew down
on him and had Gab call it in. When additional troopers arrived, we took him
into custody.”

“Did
he resist?”

“No,
sir,” she said. “Just kept on smiling.”

“Did
he say anything.”

She
hesitated and her sister said said, “He asked us why it had taken so long,
sir.”

“He
was against the west wall, sir,” Naomi said quickly. “I couldn’t see him
when we approached from that direction.”

“Put
a sock in it, trooper,” I said. I paused. “Good job, both of
you.”

“Thank
you, sir,” they said through identical smiles.

“Do
you want them to stand down or resume their post, Mr. Welles?” Bristow
asked.

It
was a good question. We had Shuster in custody. In theory, the primary
threat was over. But Shuster wasn’t acting like somebody who’d lost. And the
Greatorex sisters, if they were as good as Bristow said, would be best used
as snipers, whatever the threat.

“Put
them back in their sniper position,” I said. I turned back to them. “You’re
dismissed, troopers.”

They
saluted, then jogged off to the left toward Second Street. It sounded like
they were arguing as they ran.

“Maybe
next time you can find yourself some twins, lieutenant,” I said.

“Find
me a pair of twins that can shoot the hair off a gnat’s ass at a quarter
mile and I’ll consider it, sir.”

I
smiled. “Keep your troopers on alert until I can figure out what kind of
game Shuster is playing. I’ll be in my office with him.”

When
I brushed past the trooper in the open doorway of my office, I saw that
Martinez had followed my orders to the letter. She had her pistol out and
ready. Aimed at Shuster.

“You’re
dismissed, trooper,” I said.

He
lowered his rifle. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Door open or closed.”

“Close
it,” Shuster said.

Interesting.
I met the trooper’s eyes and nodded. “Yeah, go ahead and close
it.”

As
the door closed, Shuster glanced at Martinez. “You’re the one who put a
bullet in my chest, aren’t you?” he asked. “You definitely weren’t wearing
your blue suit, but the face looks familiar.”

“Yeah,
it’s a real shame that you were wearing that body armor,” I said, sliding
into my chair behind the desk.

“Impressive
shot, none the less,” he said. “You were on point even after I fired at you.
No hesitation, no flinch. Just fired and hit your target. Center body mass,
just like they teach you.”