Chapter 16

When we left, we reversed course, pouring Jake into the limo and then decanting him and Liz from the Limo and pouring them both into the helicopter at the convention center. We couldn’t pull off the same return spot though, the helicopter was not cleared to the roof because of some LifeFlight activity nearby, so we had to land on another just a block away.

That caused another problem though, in that our armored vehicles were not ready and we had to arrange for someone to come in who was off duty and pick one up. The rest of the duty people, except the one watching the elevator in the building where the penthouse was, were all in Fort Worth still, or driving back again.

Jake, being three sheets to the wind, decided that it was a good excuse to detour into the hotel bar on the first floor for another drink!

“What the hell, Jack! I am already potted, so another won’t kill me tonight. Tomorrow, maybe, but not tonight!”

I thought it was funny that Dave gave the old man a hug, until he stepped away and surreptitiously handed me Jake’s baby Glock 9mm. “Better a sober person has it.” Dave said with a wink.

Jake, Liz, who was also potted, Cam and I were able to find a small table. Dave, Steph, Dean and Deb had formed a loose cordon of sorts around us, making sure no one got too close or too familiar. It was odd. The place was packed, but there was a nice calm area around us that people seemed to avoid.

It wasn’t anything overt, but more like people instinctively knew that ‘There be dragons here!’. The only exceptions were those who were as potted as Jake was! A couple stumbled past and were helped along the way by a friendly hand on an elbow or, in the case of some drunken Lothario who thought he had a shot with Steph, a well-placed high heel!

When the driver finally arrived, Dave got a text and he rounded us up again. I made sure to give the waitress a fifty, it should more than cover Jake’s unfinished drink and Liz’s two martinis.

Outside, the crew spread out a bit and made kind of a corridor for me to help Jake to the suburban. It was cool to see how they made it seem casual, but they had the angles covered and, when Jake and Liz were in, they collapsed back and entered the vehicle quickly and efficiently.

Back at our building again, the process started to reverse itself, the rear doors opening and the security team began to unload with Dean and Dave first. That was when I heard the first shots.

“GUN! GUN!” one of them yelled, but I wasn’t sure who. I dove in front of Cam, Liz and Jake who were all sitting in the seat facing backwards. I had that little baby Glock out, but I couldn’t see shit! Steph and Deb both had guns out and Dave was climbing back in, facing out. Dean wasn’t though!

Steph had moved to Dave’s side and was trying to cover him so he could get in, but leaving the passenger side, where Dean had exited, uncovered. The driver was yelling about closing the doors, but Dean was still out there.

Dave was in and Deb was firing out the door on the sidewalk side. I couldn’t see shit on my side, but I heard a moan and fuck, where was Dean? Fuck this shit.

I was out of the car in a heartbeat, slammed the door closed and slapped the side of the vehicle to tell them to just go!

Dean was down, laying on his side but his gun hand was up, searching for a target. Down the street, next to a sedan with a shattered windshield, were two bodies in the street. I was next to Dean in a heartbeat, dragging him by his collar over to another car at the curb, the Suburban had driven off like it should but it took our cover with it.

There were several more gun shots, sounding like they came from rifles, and I felt a tug at my jacket, a burning feeling on my back. Down now, behind the car, I risked a peek and could see three guys, all with rifles. Two were firing at the suburban that was speeding away and the third had been firing at me.

The third guy was changing mags so I instinctively opened fire on him. I had aimed for center mass but that little nine was snappier than I expected and pointed differently. At least one round hit him in the forehead, not sure where the other two went and I was ducking back again.

Dean was trying to get his belt off so I helped with that, then tightened it around his thigh above where the bullet had gone. He was panting, but aware, and I took his G21, handing him the baby 9mm. Inside his jacket, he had two more mags and those went into my pocket.

Even today, I can’t tell you what made me look up, but I did and coming around the vehicle in front of us was a very dark-skinned guy with bright, bright teeth that were in a feral snarl. His weapon was coming up and I just fired from the hip, pushing out and up like Dean had trained me. The adrenaline had me amped and I watched each one of those rounds hit. One hit his right hand on the pistol grip of the AK, shattering the wood after shattering his hand. The second hit and ricocheted off the receiver while the third passed over the AK and struck the man high in the abdomen.

The fourth was center mass in his chest, the fifth into the hollow at the base of his throat and the last hit him just inside his right eye, snapping his head back. I stopped firing long enough to switch targets to the second gunman who had been blocked by the first. Now that the first was falling, I had a clear line of sight and I hit him twice in the face, once through his cheek and a second round through his temple as he rounded the corner of the vehicle behind his buddy.

I remember changing magazines and then looking for more targets, but the cops chose that moment to arrive, pulling up with lights and sirens blazing, their bumper close enough for me to touch. They scrambled out of their car screaming something that made no sense and was almost inaudible with the siren still going a foot from my ear.

Dean was leaning against me with one hand wrapped in the belt around his leg and the baby Glock in the other. I felt him moving and looked down to see him setting the Glock aside and reaching in his jacket.

That was so not smart right this second, Dean! I raised both hands, waving them, and set the G21 on the hood of the car next to us, then pointed at my ears, trying to get those idiots to turn off that fucking siren, anything to distract them from Dean digging in his damn jacket!

Dean, meanwhile, got his wallet out and I figured out what he had been doing, he was getting his badge! Go Dean! Great plan, shitty timing.

More and more police cars were screaming up, now that it was all over, and cops were running everywhere like ants when you kick over their hill. The cop that almost hit us finally turned off the siren, thank god, but a dozen others were going off too so it was only a little bit of help.

When things calmed down enough to get Dean in an ambulance, I learned that he had a through and through to his thigh, going from one side to the other through the quads. There was a bunch of muscle damage, but it didn’t hit the bone so he got lucky there. Once Dean was gone, I was cuffed and shoved into another ambulance where the attendant cut my sweet suit up trying to get at my back.

Fuck, it had a hole in it anyway, right?

I had an ugly, but not even close to serious, groove along my back. They were even nice enough to space it just between two ribs so there was no bone damage! It took thirty-two stitches to close that fucker up. Thirty-two!

I thought for sure that Dean would spring me, or arrange for me to be sprung, but he had gone right into surgery. There had been more blood than they expected when they took the tourniquet off so they knocked him out and opened him up.

Dave had taken Jake, Liz and Cam to a safe location and started making calls. Everything was so messed up and confused, that no one seemed to know where I was! It was okay though, I was in a nice, safe, if somewhat smelly, cell in the city jail! At least I was by myself because of my injuries. No roomies to worry about.

I was still there the next morning when someone forgot to bring me breakfast, or pain pills, or even my antibiotics. Lunchtime rolled around and dang if they didn’t forget again. I know I sound like I am making light of this, but I was more than a little freaked out. Why hadn’t Dean or Dave or Jake or fucking somebody come looking for me yet?

Turns out the FBI were looking and, after threatening to storm the building with Federal troops finally got them some cooperation, they were able to locate a John Doe in medical isolation.

I was so relieved when I heard someone turning a key in the cell’s door that I would probably have danced, if it didn’t hurt too much to move.

“Jesus Christ on a fucking pogo stick, son. You look like hell!” Judge Arturo Ramirez had never looked better, standing there with his fists on his hips.

“I’ve felt better, Judge. If you have any pull around here, could you get them to give me my anti-biotics and maybe even a some Ibuprophen for this gunshot?” I asked, manning up even though I felt like crying. I mean ... I would have felt like that, if I wasn’t such an all-around bad ass.

Bite me. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.

You know in the movies where you see crusty old drill sergeants giving a classic ass chewing to some screw up recruit? Yeah, R. Lee Ermy is impressive, but he has nothing on a sixty-year-old Tex-Mex federal judge who has a serious case of the ass at someone fucking up by the numbers. I wish I had a tape recorder and could have gotten that rant down for posterity.

They let me out of the cell and escorted me up to the intake area where there were a whole crowd of suits, a few uniforms and, more importantly, Cam.

“JACQUES!” she screamed pushing and shoving until she got to me. When she would have thrown her arms around me, Deb, who had been following her, grabbed her around the waist.

“What are you...”

“CAMMILE! He was shot, you can’t jump on him” Deb said, holding back a struggling Cam. That stopped her in her tracks, her face white and Deb let her go again.

“Oh, Jacques, I was so frightened for you. When you got out and shut the door, the driver pulled away and he would not stop. You are a mess, my poor baby. I wish I had a gun to shoot these idiots who threw you in a cell like that!”

The venom in her voice had more than a couple of uniforms edging away, one with his hand on his service weapon.

I gave her a kiss and calmed her, taking a second to thank Deb for stopping her. That would have hurt like hell.

Also present was Jake, Dave, Liz, Steph and a half-dozen very determined looking men in windbreakers that looked suspiciously thick.

“Mister McCoy...” I turned to look at who was talking and found myself looking down into the eyes of a very short guy. Not little person short, but five foot tall, if that, short.

“Mister McCoy, I am Will Larson, the District Attorney. I don’t know what kind of screwups had you kept in there, but if it was malfeasance, I will find it. If nothing else, you can be assured that a complete audit of the jail will be coming. I know that doesn’t make you feel any better or alleviate the uncomfortable time you spent here, but I wanted you to know it wouldn’t be brushed under the carpet.”

“Thanks, Mister Larson. I am not someone to hold a grudge. I was not mistreated or anything, with the exception of withholding my meds, so unless someone was trying deliberately to screw me over, I am not going to sweat it too much. I don’t imagine you get too many terrorists shooting up downtown Dallas so things were a little confused for a bit.”

He seemed grateful that I was not immediately calling for an attorney, at least. He did think it was at least a little amusing when I asked him to look into training for patrol officers as well. When I explained what had happened with the patrol car parking its siren a foot from my head and then the officers screaming and pointing guns when I couldn’t even hear them, he just shook his head and took a couple of notes.

Jake was there, waiting impatiently for the DA to finish, and was shaking my hand, apologizing for it taking so long to find me. Dave looked angry, though not at me. Or, at least, I didn’t think he was angry at me. Maybe he was just angry in general, at the guys with the guns, or the cops, or the jail ... please, let it not be me!

Liz gave me a kiss on the cheek and then I was braced by a quartet of FBI Special Agents.

“Mister McCoy, we just need to know if you want to file an official complaint about your rights being violated by the Dallas police or their Jail. We were instructed by our Director to tell you than any official complaint would receive the most stringent investigation and, if upheld, we would be just as vigorous in prosecuting.” the lead man said, sounding very important.

If you have never run into a person who can do that, count yourself lucky.

“Thank you, but no. If the DA finds that there was some monkey business, I trust him to deal with it. I was not mistreated, simply lost in the system. Training, not a takeover, is what is needed, I think.”

They all seemed satisfied with that except for one, who was scowling at anyone in a uniform. I think he was hoping he could run around barking at them for longer.

When we finally got out of there, I told them I needed to go back to the hospital to get checked. Sleeping on a concrete bench of questionable cleanliness with no shirt or blanket to cover my wound did not fill me with warm thoughts. Besides, I was not going anywhere until I saw Dean.

I actually got in to see Dean before I got my stitches looked at, which caused a minor crisis of its own.

He was in a private room guarded by two men, one on the door outside and one on the inside. The man outside checked us against a list of names, even checking IDs, before letting us in. Good.

Dean was propped up with his leg on some pillows, sipping some water from a paper cup, when we came in.

“Christ, I am paying you to lay around now?” I asked, first through the door.

Dean looked at me like I had kicked his puppy, but I could see the gleam in his eye. “Well, you got shot too, or so I heard, so I would rather be here with a hole in my leg than back at the house listening to you whine for the next two weeks.”

The security guy inside the room snickered but stopped when I glared at him.

I walked over to Dean, trailed by everyone else, and leaned close enough so only he could hear me.

“Glad you are okay, buddy. You really freaked me out back there.” I told him, laying my hand on his shoulder. “What happened?”

“Yeah, well, I caught a round as soon as I stepped out, only one leg out and it collapsed under me. I got my gun out and popped the two I could see, but everyone else was on the other side of the parked cars and the suburban. I kept hoping they would drive off like they are supposed to, giving me targets to shoot at. Then you show up, you god -damned fool.”

“Yeah, well, I was bored in there and you were taking entirely too long.”

He just shook his head and clapped me on the arm. “Thanks, Jack.”

We had been there about ten minutes when a nurse came in and started raising hell.

“What the hell are you doing in here looking like that? Who let you in here? Are you trying to kill my patient?”

I swear on a stack of bibles, that old biddy grabbed me by the ear and drug me out of the room. The security people, the ones we pay to protect us, were laughing! I was firing the whole lot of them!

Outside, the nurse sat me down at the station and barked orders at another nurse. Within a minute, I had two nurses cleaning up my back, changing the bandage and even putting in another two stitches because I had popped one. The whole time, they were giving me shit about being so dirty in the room of someone who had surgery the night before and was a hero who fought off terrorists and I was a bad person.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. I don’t know if someone ever straightened them out or not. I was fed up at that point. I was starving and exhausted and I hurt like hell and I just wanted to go home. I told the battleax that if she wanted me to stay out of the room, she could damn well tell the rest of my group that I was leaving.

I was out front, sitting on a little brick wall and hoping to spot a taxi I could wave down, when they rushed out looking for me. First Cam, then Deb and Steph started haranguing me about just walking out and without security and...

“SHUT IT. Not one more fucking word from any of you. I am not a child and I will not be treated like a child. Steph, you don’t work for me so you can go back over there to your employer and mind your own damn business. Deb, you need to figure out who pays your damn checks and Cam, I love you more than life, but I don’t need a mother. If you had been concerned, you might have followed that nurse who did her best to humiliate me and see what was happening. No, but forty minutes later you suddenly realize I am gone and you are mad at me?” I asked incredulously.

Cam looked horrified, Deb was looking down and Steph was too. Liz looked shocked and Jake was obviously a little embarrassed by what was going on. The only one who looked even faintly amused was Dave.

“Now, if you, all of you, are done tormenting me, I would like to go back to the penthouse and get some food. I haven’t eaten since Ruth’s Chris and I need to, in order to take the pain pills that I got but was denied all night. Lastly, I would like some sleep. If that is too god damned much to ask, I can get a taxi, some McDonalds, and sleep on the plane back to Key West.” I was exhausted and had enough. Maybe they didn’t deserve to be yelled at but I was in no mood to be reasonable.

“Come, my love, let me help you. Let’s go back and I will feed you and bathe you myself.” Cam whispered in my ear, kissing me and helping me to stand.

An hour later and I was face down and dead to the world.

I don’t know how long I slept, but I felt logy when I woke up, a sure sign it had been longer than normal. When I tried to roll over, the cut on my back told me I was an idiot. What did it know?

I finally scooted down the bed until I could worm my way over the end, lifting my torso that way instead of twisting it. Much less pain!

In the bathroom, I took care of my complaining bladder and brushed my teeth, then slipped on a lightweight cotton robe that had been here when we arrived. Not sure who it belonged to, or if it was just generic “guest room gear” but it was just what the doctor ordered for my back. A t-shirt would have been a bitch.

Downstairs, I could hear some discussion in the living room, but the kitchen interested me more. I wanted coffee and something to eat, in that order.

The cook gave out a little ‘Eek!’ when she saw me, then settled down and smiled at me, blushing a bit.

“Mister Jack, are you sure you should be up? There is a bell you can ring, we would have brought you breakfast!”

“It’s okay, thanks. I would kill for a cup of coffee to start with. Breakfast in a little bit? Or maybe it is lunch time?”

“How about brunch, Mister Jack? I can do a nice ham and cheese omelet, some fried potato, maybe some cantaloupe cut up in a bowl?”

“Wonderful, thanks! I’ll take my coffee with me to the balcony. Thanks again, Maria!”

I had barely eased myself into a chair, sitting forward to keep the pressure off my back, when there was a procession out the doors from the living room and soon I had a half dozen people in front of me.

“If you are here for your apologies for my behavior yesterday, it will have to wait until I have finished my coffee.” I said, trying to dispel the tension. Okay, so it was mostly my tension, but still, I deserved some, um ... dispelling?

Cam was first, giving me a warm, loving kiss and taking a chair, moving it next to me before sitting down.

“I am sorry for yesterday. You are right in that I laughed with everyone else. I didn’t think how you were hurting, you are always so strong. Things have been so tense, but you and Dean were okay, and he was smiling and...” I kissed her to shut her up at that point.

Next was Deb. She was standing at what Dean had told me was Parade Rest. How that came up in conversation, I don’t recall, but it stuck.

“Sir ... Mister McCoy, you were absolutely right. I was out of line. I ... I have let myself get closer to my principal than I should have and when she got upset, I got angry at you. I was still ... I am still, on edge from the other day, that I was helpless inside the vehicle, that you got out and I should be protecting you, not the other way around.” She paused, blushing but not looking away.

“Sir, if you will give me another chance, I would appreciate it.” she finished.

“Deb, you are safe as long as you do your job. You did what you should, protected Camille, the rest was just ... me being cranky. I won’t hold it against you, okay?”

“Thank you, sir.”

Next was Steph ... this was getting old.

“It’s okay, Steph, really. Everyone was on edge. I won’t even insist on an apology kiss.” I told her, trying to lighten the mood.

She grinned at me and shot back, “You should have insisted. I actually like men.”

Liz and Jake joined us at the table with Dave hovering in the background.

“Jack, this last couple of days have been brutal, on you and Dean especially. If you would forgive us for our lapses. I know you have had some hair-raising adventures in the last two years, and you have handled yourself with distinction. Most of us never see anything like that and, frankly, this week has made me respect you, and Dean and Dave more than ever. But if you would please give the rest of us a little leeway, we mean no harm.”

“I know, Jake, and you Liz, Steph, Deb and Cam, I just ... I was hurting and angry and that battleax was on my last nerve and I just wanted out of there, then you guys came out and started yelling at me. I meant no insult to any of you. If you can forgive me, I would appreciate it very much.” I told them, finishing the coffee in my cup.

I had barely set it down and Maria was there with a fresh cup for me.

After I had finished breakfast and folks had wandered off again, except for Cam, Dave approached me.

“You fucked up, kid.” he said, shaking his head then shrugged, sitting down. “But thank you. I found Dean for you, knowing you would become close. Hoping that he could help you. You were a mess back then, remember? Afraid of your own shadow. Two days ago, you dove out of an armored car to protect a man who spent ten years training and fighting in wars. Yet you, a seventeen-year-old kid, stood over him and put down three terrorists. So ... you fucked up. You should have stayed in the armored vehicle and, instead, you got out ... but fuck me if I am not happy about that.” Dave shook his head, stood up, and walked away.

Later in the day I cornered Dave again, but not about what he said. “What’s the news, any? What do we know about these fuckers who attacked us? Motive?”

He shrugged, his eyes on the skyline. “Somalis, all of them. I got two, Dean got two, you got three. No one left alive to question. My current theory is that the Dutch had our names down for that meeting the other day. I think the only reason they didn’t shoot us then is that they didn’t know that the people the Dutch were meeting were the people getting off the elevator. There are two more offices on that floor.”

“So, is this shit over?”

“No clue. How many men can they have in town? As soon as we can spring Dean, we get the fuck out of town for a while. Lay low. Do that tour the boss wants to do, all over hell and back.” Dave threw up his hands. It had to be hard on him. His job was to protect Jake, a man he admired, who he was personally close to, and he didn’t have the intel he needed to do his job.

I just nodded and turned to go, but Dave put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t leave the penthouse without being armed, Jack.”

Dean was released two days later and, rather than go out where we might be targeted again, we had him delivered through the parking garage. We had talked to him on the phone, of course, and he was 100% behind the plan, agreeing that it made no sense to risk anything.

Having said that, the first thing he said to me when he stumped back into the penthouse on his crutches was, “Jesus, I take a fucking bullet for you and you can’t be bothered to even visit me in the hospital?”

I felt kind of bad when the couch barnacle I launched at him took a weird flight path and it swept his crutch out from under him. I had aimed for his head, and he did land on a cushy ottoman, but it still had to hurt.

“Aaarrrggh ... You are going to pay for that, you little fucker. Wait until I am better, then it’s full contact every day for a month!” Everyone was laughing now, knowing that if he was threatening me, he was okay. Well, I wasn’t. Laughing I mean. You wouldn’t either if you had ever gone full contact with Dean.

I helped him up and was surprised when he hugged me. The look in his eye said it all.

“Thanks, Jack.”

That was all that was said about that.

Cam had her first phone conference with Gwen and a half-dozen specialists that Gwen had roped in to helping get this off the ground. Of course, Cam had pulled me in and we spent two hours just getting the basic goals of the charity roughed in.

The paperwork to be filed was routine, the funding was already in place, but we needed a director and some workers who were trained to process requests and receive donations. If we were going to solicit donations from corporate entities or the public at large, that required someone knowledgeable in the process, or processes, if the same person did both.

We had to decide if we were going to do individual grants or just grants to organizations. Would we be loaning money to organizations for any reason? Would there be strings on our grants or loans and, if so, what strings?

Would you believe we spent a half hour on the name? I was beginning to regret even getting started with this, but Cam seemed to be in her element. She kept us on track, on topic and was key in getting people to participate. I think she was born to run meetings. What a peculiar talent to have!

We agreed to several, smaller, trust divisions for the various efforts, but the name for the parent organization was still up in the air. I had shot down every variation that had my name in it, I wasn’t doing it for recognition and didn’t really want my name on any of it, not openly anyway.

We flew out the next day. A helicopter picked us up on the roof, with a police helicopter riding guard on us, we went straight to the airport and into Jake’s jet. We were off the ground in twenty minutes and on our way to Bismark, North Dakota, of all places!

The flight took a couple of hours, but plenty of time for Jake and me to get to those three real estate folders he had given me. He surprised me by saying that he agreed on the Century City, LA building, thinking that it could be a good investment. The REIT didn’t interest him too much though, as you could lose more than you make if you pulled it out too fast. Brokerage fees would eat up any small profit over on a few days or a week, and that was usually about how long he had liquid capital between investments. If you could hold for a month or two, you could probably get a little profit out of it, but it was mostly a longer-term parking place.

We discussed the LA property for a while longer and Jake got thoughtful.

“You know, I think we should do this. Together, I mean. I have been on my own for so long, I have gotten pretty set in my ways. Maybe I need to branch out a bit, try something new. Besides, I have a guy who can run it for us and I think it will be fun, partnering with you on something.” He nodded his head, obviously making a decision.

“If we do, you have to run the deal itself. My guy, if you like him, will manage the refit and fill the building. He may not want to manage it long term, but he’ll find a good replacement, I trust him. What do you say, Jack? Want to go halves with me on this? It’s only a hundred and twenty.”

I laughed but nodded. “Only a hundred and twenty million, so why not?” I asked, marveling that I was right there with him on that. Most people would choke on a bill a tiny fraction of that size and here I was, shrugging and tossing sixty million in the pot on a bet. A good bet, but still a gamble!

“I’ll call Terry and tell him to expect a call. He can run the buy for me and be the liaison to your guy and the management contact. We’ll have the deal checked out, the building inspected, especially with the earthquake stuff out there. The folder said that all the retrofitting had been done, but I want to verify that. Anyway, we’ll get rolling on that and I think I will put some money in that REIT too.”

“Oh? How come?”

“I have had more than half a billion spread out among mutual funds for two years now! The return has barely average five percent over two years, I could quadruple the amount with this Real Estate fund. Even their worst year in the last twenty matched what I was already making.” I told him, shaking my head.