Chapter 32

... Ten minutes later, "Medic! Medic!" Carter's voice came over the radio. "Ingles isn't breathing."

Fisher's head snapped up from what she was doing. Turning, she met Jeff's eyes from halfway across the lab. He stared back at her. She had wondered when Jeff and Bill left together so ... casually. Now she suddenly knew. She had no idea how they had done it, but she knew they had.

The stare had lasted for three or four seconds when a smile twitched the corner of her mouth. She went back to work. I hope you suffered, you bastard, she thought, but then thinking of Ingles also brought up the memories of Jill sitting there telling her story — that look of horror on her face as she recounted what Ingles had done to her. Oh, God. I'll dream for years of the things Jill talked about. You bastard, she thought again, you'll never do those things to another woman. Fisher saw the others leave the lab, but she remained. I got my shot at that bastard when he opened the door. It felt good. Too bad the shot wasn't with my 9 mm instead of a stun gun. But I don't want to see him. I surely don't want to see them working on him. Hmmm, maybe I could hit him with that stun gun again — help him on his way. The face of the young woman set. Die you bastard.

Jeff and Bill stood in the doorway to Ingles' bedroom and watched the medics. The medics knew Ingles was irretrievably dead, but their helmet cams were on — they carried out their jobs to perfection. Lieutenant Richardson stepped between Jeff and Bill, putting a hand on the shoulder of each man. Making sure Jeff's helmet cam was off, Richardson quietly commented, "Well, it's good practice for the medics, anyway. Of course, now his body is full of chemicals that any pathologist would instantly recognize. Atropine and epinephrine, just to name a couple, aren't exactly something a normal body comes equipped with."

"If they have tissue to analyze," Jeff said. "With that much oxygen and acetylene, that isn't going to happen. When the medics get through, dress him in the clothes he had on yesterday and move him to the storeroom in the lab. I know the sergeant will check, but double-check to make sure this room is clean, just in case the medics leave something."

"Will do, Major." Lieutenant Richardson's voice turned grim. "The medics better not leave anything for either of us to find, else they will be running an extra five miles every morning for the foreseeable future. And I'm sure I can come up with a cadence for them to sing that will remind them of their follies while they do that extra mileage."

Jeff grimaced.

"Are you positive you copied everything, Lieutenant Fisher?"

"Positive, Sir. I made two copies of all his records, and I've double-checked every page. The copies are in the van."

"Okay. Put the originals in the safe where you found them."

"Already there, Sir."

"Lieutenant Campbell?" Jeff said as he turned to the young geek.

As Jeff's eyes bore into his, the idea about snapping to attention crossed Campbell's mind, but having been screamed at in the past over his sloppy attempts, he just answered smartly, "Ingles' hard disks are secure and in the van. His computers are set back up and ready to go, minus a charge on the capacitors, of course. We have his backup drives and his computer DVDs all secured."

Sergeant Gomez spoke up. "He had a large number of 'home' videos. We checked a quick random sample, and they appear to be sex and torture scenes with various women. We replaced them with a porn library we brought with us for that purpose. Also, Sir, our checklist is complete. Everything is in the vans."

What Gomez hadn't mentioned, because Bill was standing there, was that Gomez had already given Jeff two DVDs that had Jill Madison's name scrawled on their cases. Jeff had almost told Gomez to destroy them, but had decided to give them to Bill later, in case he might want to destroy them himself. Gomez had quickly assured him that neither he nor any of the team had looked at either of Jill's DVDs — they wouldn't do that to Captain Madison.

"All right, Lieutenant Richardson, you and Campbell start in the back room. Check the room against the original pictures we took to make sure everything looks right, in case something happens and the place is somehow not destroyed. Sergeant Gomez, you and Fisher do the same for upstairs. Have the outside people start wiping out our signs." Jeff knew the kitchen and Ingles' bedroom had already been cleaned up. "We roll in fifteen minutes."

"Yes, Sir," they both said.

Jeff stepped over Ingles' body to walk through the door and into the storeroom. "Two igniters?" he said with a grin.

"Yep," Butler replied as he stepped back to survey his work. "Timed and also with a remote trigger. The igniters will be consumed by even a low-heat fire, leaving no trace."

"I hope we don't do any damage to any of the houses in the neighborhood," Jeff worried as he checked out the timers.

"There will be an explosion, but at the distance his house is from the others, there is little chance for damage. Besides, with these rooms so far underground, even if the explosion is more intense than I expect, the force will go straight up. With all that dirt above us, plus the house on top of it, the explosion will be further confined. Besides, with acetylene, there will be more fire than explosive force. Guaranteed there will be one hell of a hot fire with all that oxygen in here to help out the acetylene."

"You sure you're going to be safe?"

"The house is all electric and there's nothing down here to cause an arc. I have my air pack. I'm just going to crack the cylinders and run like hell. Just get everyone in the vans and give me the word ... and don't get in my way after I set the igniters," he finished, laughing.

"All right. I'll give you the word when we have the house checked and everyone is in the vans."

Sergeant Gomez and Lieutenant Fisher stood in the back near the vans, the snow coming down hard, already beginning to turn their black outfits white, but the howling wind had died with the approach of dawn. "I need you to go out in the first van," Gomez said, hoping.

"No way, Sergeant." Before Gomez could speak, she continued. "The major has made it quite clear that Campbell and I rank no one here. That's as it should be. You people are a team, and most of you have been together for a long time. We're extra baggage. I'm not defying you, so please don't give me an order to get in that van. I'm not leaving until I see Major Matthews come out of that house."

"The major told me to make sure you were in the van and safe before he and Butler activated the timers..."

"Did he specifically say the first van?" Fisher broke in.

"No, but I..."

"Then I'll go in the last one. You won't be disobeying his orders."

"Head count, Sergeant?" Lieutenant Richardson asked as he walked up.

"All accounted for, Sir, except for Butler and Major Matthews who are still in the house."

Gomez turned his attention back to Fisher. "But he did say, 'in' the van, Ma'am — not standing outside." Expecting an argument, Gomez suddenly (desperately) said. "You can hold the door open for him from the inside, Ma'am, just as well as you can from out here."

Fisher hesitated for a moment, then got in, the door remaining open. "I better not regret this," she mumbled.

Richardson looked at Gomez and raised an eyebrow, but the gesture went unnoticed because of the night vision gear they were all wearing.

The other vans moved slowly down the driveway, with the one van remaining. Richardson communicated to Jeff on their command channel, "The first van is pulling onto the street now. They'll be leaving at random intervals, as you ordered. I'll let you know when they are all clear of the drive. Our van is still sitting in the back. Fisher and Gomez had a ... discussion about which van she was to ride in. She'll be with us."

Jeff repressed a chuckle. "Standing by for your word."

"Sir, you don't have to be down here with me. This stuff will go up by itself when it reaches the right mixture in the air. The igniters are just to make sure. I know I have to have a buddy with me, but it could be one of the other guys..."

"Will you shut the fuck up?" Jeff said in a teasing manner. "Can't I have a little fun, too?"

Butler, kneeling by the timers, looked up at Jeff. Only major I've heard of who would be down here with me. Most officers, well with the exception of Richardson, would be about a mile away giving orders — useless orders.

Butler grinned, "No problem, Major."

"That's it. We're ready," Richardson's voice came over the command channel. "When you two come out, just get in the van and roll. The sergeant and I are going to smooth out the tracks and meet you at the bottom of the drive."

"Affirmative," Jeff whispered into the throat mike. Closing his face plate, Jeff cleared the system and said to Butler, "Do it."

Butler activated his air pack, closed his face plate and set the timers. Turning to the acetylene cylinder, he spun the valve open as Jeff opened the oxygen valves.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," Jeff said, ushering Butler in front of him as they stepped across Ingles' body.

Not looking back, they jogged across the lab, down the hall, across the "sex" room and up the stairs. A few seconds later, Jeff snapped the lock on as they went out the back door, passing Gomez, who walked backward behind them wiping out their tracks in the deep snow.

Fisher squeezed Jeff's arm for a second as he and Butler got in the van, then she scrambled to the far back seat to sit by Bill and get out of the way. The driver dropped the idling van into gear and crept down the driveway as Richardson and Gomez hurriedly swept the tracks behind them. The disturbed snow was obvious, but those signs would quickly be gone as hard as the snow was coming down.

On the street, they moved into the tracks of the other vans and stopped. Shortly, Gomez and Richardson, breathing hard from their exertion, got in. The van began a leisurely trek around the circle and back toward the main street at the other end of the cul-de-sac. "I had one of the vans make a trip from the main street back down this one, and we brushed out our intersecting tracks from the driveway. This snow keeps up for thirty minutes, it will look like someone just drove down the street, made a loop at the end of the cul-de-sac and went back out. Of course, unless the fire department gets here quickly, our wiping our tracks out around the house won't matter. The fire will melt the snow, anyway."

"Agreed," Jeff said. "But we're not giving Murphy a chance if we can help it."

They all chuckled.

They didn't kill the street lights this time; there didn't seem to be any reason as the snow continued to fall as hard as any of them had ever seen it.

"Sir, you haven't given the order," the tech spoke up. "Want me to overload the phone trunk, and jam the cell frequencies like we planned?"

Jeff turned to look at him. "No, just hold up on that. I think the weather will take care of things for us. You can tell our guy at the power substation that we're done with them."

"Yes, Sir."

Jeff had been concerned about the fire department arriving in time to try and save the house — maybe even going inside and searching for victims. Not wanting to endanger a fireman, he had planned to overload the phone trunks and block the cell frequencies in the area to delay any calls from the neighborhood, but was concerned that someone might have a real emergency while he was doing this.

They stopped just past the intersection of the main street. "Still got a minute before the timer goes, Sir."

"Hit it," Jeff ordered as he cracked his window a little.

Butler flipped the safety off and pressed the button. They heard a faint "whumph," in the distance.

"Now we wait. And I hope some light sleeper didn't figure out what that was and call the fire department," he fretted.

They waited, unable to see anything because of snow still coming down.

Richardson, who had been listening on the longer-range radio, turned to Jeff. "The other vans are having problems with the drifts. Why don't we find someplace to hole up until the plows get out? The team is already near a strip mall. I suggest we use the parking lot there, and wait for a while."

"Fine, do it."

The white wall of snow continued. "Fuck this," Jeff said, wanting to see how far along the fire was as he continued to hope the fire department would be delayed.

Butler tapped him on the shoulder. "No fireman is going to go into that, Sir. No use to worry about it. The house is probably already totally engulfed. They're not fools; they do shit like that for a living."

As time progressed, Jeff's tension eased. Finally, twenty minutes later, they heard sirens in the distance. "Okay, let's move out," he said as they followed the tracks of the other vans.

A few minutes later, "Fuck," Jeff snarled, frustrated, as the driver fought to get the van into the parking lot with the others. "Next time we do this shit, I'm going to bring my big pickup with the plow." Everyone laughed except the driver, who thought it was an excellent idea, but wished that the major had thought of it before the mission.

An hour later, the snow slackening, they sat in the idling vans and watched a snowplow come down the four-lane. "Tell the lead van to go, Sergeant," Richardson ordered.

The last few blocks on the side streets were a bitch. Some areas were almost swept clear of snow by the winds, but the snow from the cleared areas went somewhere, sometimes in their path. They had all spent time shoveling before they were inside the warehouse.

Jeff was now relaxed since none of the firemen had apparently been endangered. The team had monitored the fire department on the radio. They had opted for containment, and didn't bother to put out what little of the fire was left by the time they got there. The house was totally consumed.

Jeff rummaged around the warehouse until he found a fifty-five gallon drum with the top out. It was half-full of trash. Finding a couple of cardboard boxes, he broke them down and added them to the trash in the barrel. Madison realized what Jeff was doing and grabbed one side of the drum when Jeff started to lift it. Outside, they placed it in a secluded corner.

Jeff took out the Ziploc bag with their gloves, paper towel and the container of the chemical used on Ingles. Tossing the bag in the trash barrel, he set the trash on fire. They stood well back and watched until everything was consumed. When the fire was dying down, the two Alphas turned to look at each other.

"I owe you one," Bill said as he put out his hand.

As Jeff squeezed his hand back, "I just hope this will help Jill to get over her fears."

"Maybe that bastard is stoking the fires of Hell right now," Bill answered grimly.

Stopping at the idling van for a moment, they checked on the sleeping girls. The driver's side window slid down as they had walked up. "They okay?" Jeff said, nodding to the back of the van.

"They're fine, Sir," medic Blackburn answered. "I gave them a mild tranquilizer and they're zonked out. I've done all I can for them until I get them back to the hospital. Lieutenant Fisher did a good job with them, though. They obviously trust her and they know they're safe now. I thought they would be afraid of me because I'm male, after that bastard raped them, but they're not acting like it."

Jeff chuckled. "Yeah, I've heard the women who have been raped are frequently afraid of men afterward. But the girls are young. Maybe that's it. Well, I never claimed to understand women, anyway. Hang in there, Blackburn."

Jeff sat leaning against the wall typing his after-action report on his laptop. Richardson was doing the same, but was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. "Leave it until later, Lieutenant."