Chapter 14

Tom pushed his shaking, rattling car to the limit, trying to get to Sam's Tavern as quickly as possible. When he arrived at the scene, he found that the area had already been cordoned off by a number of black and whites, their red and blue lights reflecting off the nearby buildings, alternately creating and destroying monstrous shadows. Tom wryly noticed that, despite the late hour, a small crowd of onlookers had already begun to gather outside the yellow tape.

As Tom exited the vehicle, the officer in charge of the scene rushed up to him, his relief at being able to pass off responsibility to another clearly evident. The OIC quickly briefed Tom on the situation, "Detective, glad you're here. We have the block secured and eyes on every exit, but, as per your orders, no one has gone inside. We got the call from a man who was out for a late night walk and saw blood seeping out from under the door. We have him over in one of the cars if you need to speak with him. We tried calling the bar's number, but there was no answer. I have a sniper and spotter on standby, but haven't deployed them as the bar's windows are too filthy to see through. Every man I have available from Zone Two is here, though we still have a few off covering for the, uh, losses in Zone Four."

Tom replied, "You've done a good job, officer. Could you do me a favor and secure and cordon off an additional block in each direction? We really don't want the press to be able to get any good pictures of the task force we'll be using. Also, as my task force arrives, please send them over to me."

The OIC nodded and replied, "You got it, Detective." He then moved off to shout orders at his men. The small crowd was quickly pushed back as a new line was formed, much thinner than the original but much farther away from the bar.

Mark and the other task force members arrived over the course of the next ten minutes. Tom quickly passed out sharpened dowels to Mark and eight of the men while retaining one for himself. He then divided the nineteen task force members into two spear teams of four each, headed by Mark and himself. The other eleven, including his eight experienced bowman, were divided up into two fire support teams of five each, with the most experienced archer commanding both.

Once they were prepared, Mark asked, "What if this isn't our boy's work and there's a guy with a gun in there? This is known as a rough place, you know."

Tom pondered this for a moment before answering, "If the blood was from a bar fight, the bartender or another patron surely would have called us. If someone, or a lot of someones, had been shot, there would have been calls reporting gunfire; this isn't exactly a secluded area. The parking lot is nearly full but there have been no signs of activity. That means that there are a lot of people still in there and they're not making any attempt to leave even though the bar was due to close for the night more than an hour ago. So either they're all dead or badly injured or they have been taken hostage. Were this a hostage situation, the hostage takers would have answered the phone to give their demands when the OIC called. I don't think this could be anything but our boy."

Tom called the OIC back over, the young officer looking askance at the team's choice of weaponry. Tom told him, "We're going to move in. Could you have one of your men bring over a hydraulic door ram and standby in case the place is locked up?"

After the OIC had nodded and moved off to make the appropriate arrangements, Tom turned to his task force. "Ok, here's the plan. My spear team will go in first by twos." Gesturing to one of his spear team members at random, Tom continued, "You and I will be the first ones in. Mark's team will follow immediately. Once the entrance is secured, the fire support teams will move in to cover us. We will then move as a unit to secure the rest of the building. Any questions?" There were none.

The task force moved toward the entrance of the bar, the bowmen staying around ten yards behind the spearmen. As they drew near, Tom noticed that there were a number of bloody footprints exiting the bar heading south across the sidewalk, but they were only barely discernable outside the door and quickly faded to nothing before they even reached the street. Tom pointed out the prints to the others in his team so that they could avoid stepping on what might be critical evidence, but cautioned them that the prints did not mean that there weren't still more hostiles inside.

Once at the door, Tom tried it and found it unlocked. Waving off the officer with the door ram, Tom threw the door open and he and his partner jumped in, spears at ready. A figure loomed in the darkness and Tom's partner lunged, his spear sinking into the figure with a meaty thud. Even as this occurred, the other spear team members completed their entrance and someone turned on the lights.

Tom could hear one of his team being noisily sick behind him. The entire bar area was in shambles. Shattered remnants of chairs, stools and tables lay willy nilly throughout the room. The entire floor was heavily coated in a layer of thickly congealed blood and it appeared that more had been sprayed, as if from a hose, over several places on the walls. Four bodies were scattered around the room while another had been nailed to the bar with a variety of switchblades and buck knives, its head fixed in place so that it seemed to stare toward the door. This last body also now sported a thick wooden dowel rod protruding from its chest. With an embarrassed shrug, Tom's entry partner pulled the makeshift spear free.

As the fire support teams moved into position, Tom assessed his task force; although all of them appeared pale and drawn, they also looked resolute and had their weapons at ready. With hand motions he directed them through the bar until they had secured the tap room, storage room and small, long unused kitchen. Once the sweep was complete, there was a collective exhalation as pent up tension flowed from them all.

Tom directed the team to follow him back outside and, once there, he called the OIC back over. "The place is clear. Call in CSI and tell the coroner's office that we have five stiffs, one of which will take some work to remove. Also, run checks on the vehicles in the parking lot and get us some names and addresses. Finally, contact the bar's owner and find out who was bartending and check that name against the list of vehicle owners and stiffs."