Delta Stevens 1: Taken by Storm (19 page)

Once in the bathroom, Delta double-checked the wires taped to her vest. Her heart pounded hard inside her chest, and her palms were already sweating. She wondered if Captain Williams was standing outside waiting for her. She wondered whether or not he was the least bit scared of her.. She wondered . . .

Pulling Miles’s badge out of her bag, Delta stared at it. “This is it, pal,” Delta whispered, shining the badge with her shirt sleeve. “It’s game time.” Dropping his badge into her left chest pocket, Delta buttoned it and took one last look in the mirror. Her eyes were small and hard, and her eyebrows formed a nasty frown. Delta looked and felt like a warrior off to battle. Yes, it was game time, and this time, they would play for keeps.

In the muster room, Taggart handed Delta a radio and her baton. “I got here a little early, so I fished out our toys.”

Delta took the radio and set it in the holder on her belt.

The baton she held in her hands until muster was over.

Throughout the entire room, Delta’s eyes moved from officer to officer, trying to get a read on anyone acting suspicious or nervous. But the squadroom had been uptight since the two deaths, and Delta knew she would not be able to tell simply by looking. No, only by acting would she bring them down.

When muster was finally over, Delta and Taggart made their way to their unit.

“How were your days off?” He asked as they buckled their seat belts.

“Interesting. I discovered a great deal about Miles’s death.” Delta threw this out early.

Taggart looked at her sideways. “What are you talking about?”

Delta turned the radio down. “You know what I’m talking about. You know why Miles was killed.” It was a wild stab, but she didn’t have time for guessing games.

Taggart’s face turned white. “But—”

“No. No buts. You’ve known about the selling of confiscated dope for a while now, haven’t you?”

Taggart said nothing.

“What you may not know is that there’s a list of who’s who, and you and I are on it.”

“What do you mean, a list?”

“You know, a hit list.”

“Be serious, Stevens.”

“Look, all I know is that our names are the next on the list. Don’t play dumb with me, Taggart. Our lives are in danger, and you know it.”

Taggart started the car and nodded slowly. “Yes, yes I do.”

“I’ve been making a lot of people uncomfortable with my snooping around, just like Miles did. They'll have to come after me tonight because they know I could nail them anytime.”

Taggart nodded again. “I hear you.”

Delta carefully examined Taggart’s every expression.

“What have you done to make them want your ass on a cement platter?”

Taggart slowed for a red light and turned to Delta. “I walked in on them one night when Larson and Owens were loading the dope. They gave me some half-baked story about shipping it to another station, but I could tell something wasn’t right. Since then, I’ve been running scared. I didn’t know who to trust.”

For the next half-hour, both officers were silent as they looked out over the dark, shadowy landscape of the beat.

Only the crackle of the radio returned them from their secret thoughts.

“S1012, there’s a 602 and possible 459 in progress at 600 North Hemingway. Neighbors believe suspect has already left the scene. Proceed with caution. S1019 will backup if necessary.”

Backup would be Patterson and McKlinton. The trap was beginning to spring. Taggart glanced over at Delta before switching on the lights. “And we’re off.”

Delta stared at Taggart for a long moment. Something didn’t feel right. There was something unfamiliar about his demeanor that bothered her. Maybe he wasn’t taking this seriously enough. Or maybe he was just too cool under the circumstances. Whatever it was, it raised the hackles on her neck.

Only now, it was too late. The black knight had played, and it was her move.

Slowing up to the south side of North Hemingway, Taggart shut the engine off.

“What do you think?”

Delta squinted into the darkness. One lone streetlight shone down on the street in front of them, illuminating the large parking lot and back alley. By her calculations, there were innumerable ways for someone on foot to escape once they exited the warehouse. The key would be to drive them out from wherever they came. She and Miles had been successful at that over a dozen times. For whatever reason, most burglars didn’t have brains enough to bolt out the front door. Instead, most made haste toward the only sure exit; the one they’d created in the first place.

As Delta continued her visual surveyalance of the area, the radio crackled: neighbors heard what sounded like glass breaking prior to seeing a flash of light from the interior.

Delta glanced over at Taggart. His face was uncharacteristically wrinkled in a frown.

“Let’s check the west windows first,” he offered, pulling the keys from the ignition.

Delta agreed. Reaching for the shotgun, Delta also grabbed two additional rounds and dropped them in her right chest pocket.

“Geez, Stevens, what’re you gonna do with that thing?”

Delta flicked off the safety switch. “The last time I didn’t take the shotgun, my partner was killed. Would you rather I left it?”

Taggart did not answer. “What about your flashlight?” he asked, dropping his six-cell into its holder.

“We can use yours if you want. I don’t like them. All they’re good for is announcing to the scum where you are. I like it better when the odds are in my favor.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Taggart mumbled to himself, “That Brookman sure taught you some weird shit.”

Carefully moving to the east side, Delta heard glass crunch at her feet. Instantly, she and Taggart were against the wall. As the noise ceased, Taggart shined his flashlight on the ground and saw shards of broken glass laying at their feet.

Delta stooped down, looked at the glass, and then back at the window. The window was barely above her eye-level, which wasn’t odd considering the age of the building. More than likely, she thought, the window was to the basement of the building, which extended beneath street level.

As Taggart moved over to the window, he signaled to her that he was going around to check other possible entry points.

In less than one minute, Taggart returned shaking his head and holding up one finger. This was the only point of entry, so they, too, would enter here.

Watching Taggart signal again, Delta nodded slowly.

The dark around them was so thick, it felt tangible upon her body. Handing Taggart the shotgun, Delta pulled herself up to the window, swung her legs over, and jumped down amid more broken glass. Fearful that the noise would alert the intruder, Delta dove, rolled, and ducked behind a steel girder. She had been right about the floor being beneath street level; the drop was almost twice that of the initial climb.

Peering through the black hole of a warehouse, Delta could barely see a thing. She was enshrouded by blackness that must have been the length of a football field, but was approximately less than half its width. Still, Delta could see it was a large building with outlines of boxes and crates scattered all around. The ceiling extended well over thirty feet, and Delta thought she could make out scaffolds ringing the entire room. She and Miles had been in an old warehouse such as this once. She remembered him telling her that scaffolding was the old way that warehouses had to stack boxes and crates.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Delta could faintly make out a giant forklift in one corner and other pieces of machinery in the other. There was a maze of cartons, boxes, scaffolding, and machinery - the worst possible layout. He could be anywhere. If her memory served her right, this warehouse had nothing but paper products and fig bars. The arson potential was extremely high, and Delta immediately started looking at the other windows for other ways out. One of her greatest fears as a child was burning to death. Since then, she always walked into a room scanning for every possible exit.

Suddenly, the streamline of the shotgun caught her eye, and she reached out and grabbed it from Taggart.

“Go,” he whispered, “outside.”

Delta knew this meant he wanted her to circle along the outside perimeter of the interior. He would follow, covering her rear.

As she made her way around the large wooden crate, Delta stepped into one of the anterooms on either side of the warehouse. There was a stillness in this area that gripped her like frozen wind.

“Taggart?” she whispered, breaking the rules of search procedure. But, if she broke them, Taggart didn’t. He said nothing.

Squinting in the darkness, Delta heard the crackling noise behind her. Whirling in the dark, the shotgun hit something sticking out and clattered to the ground. Picking it up, Delta took five steps and peered around the corner to view the entry way. No one was in sight; and neither was Taggart. He must have taken a farther position from her than what she was used to. Miles used to get right up her backside. She always felt safe knowing he was watching her back.

Delta turned to continue on, but something made her turn back to the window. She should get out. Why should she risk her life over some dumb fig bars? Besides, without Taggart in view, they were now in danger of shooting each other. Where had he gone? Weighing her options, Delta decided that retreat was the smarter maneuver.

Squatting down with her back pressed against the wall, Delta hugged the shotgun close to her, her finger resting on he trigger. She did not like the feel of this at all. Where in he hell was Taggart? She wanted to call for him again, but didn't want to jeopardize her position. Her heart raged in her ears, and sweat sat in neat beads on her upper lip. Why hadn't he at least signaled her with that damned flashlight? Inching her way under another window, Delta felt a panic rip her. Taggart hadn’t told her that all the other doors and windows were barred. If this was an arson job, she and the arsonist would be fighting for the same exit. If it was her hit, she was trapped with only one way out.

Delta was going to count to three and make a run for the broken window, but just before she got to two, large crates toppled over, landing in her path and crunching the remains the of the window pieces on the floor. If she hadn’t jumped back, the boxes would have crushed her as well.

Squatting behind a steel girder, Delta reached deep for her wits. Something was terribly wrong, and if the windows weren’t barred, she would have gone right through one. Squatting even lower, Delta listened.

There’s a different sound to a peaceful silence and a foreboding one. The silence prior to an earthquake is one that pricks up the ears of animals and leaves a heavy shadow upon the land. The silence of the forest in winter gives a serene taste of calm to all who listen. As Delta listened to the quiet, she knew she was hearing the foreboding silence warning her to be careful; telling her that this wasn’t an arson job, or a robbery. In that instant, in that one-millionth of a second, she felt Miles reach out and touch her.

That was it.

Licking her pursed lips, Delta turned away from the point of entry and moved back to the anteroom. The game was afoot, and now, she need not be afraid. Surely, they anticipated her to panic like a trapped animal and force her way through the sole exit. But panic was not her style. They counted on her to act “like a woman,” but they were way off.

They were playing her game now, and what they didn’t know about Delta was that she did not know how to lose.

Cutting back across the warehouse, carefully avoiding the moonlight maze dancing on the floor and walls, Delta hesitated. That same cold chill she felt earlier swept over her. Leaning against the crates, Delta heard heavy footsteps crunch across the glass as the boxes were being pushed aside. Maybe the crates had landed on Taggart. Maybe they weren’t meant for her. Delta swallowed hard. Maybe they were taking them both out right now. Whatever the case, they had done the one thing she had counted on them to do: they had severely underestimated her.

Moving slowly through the darkness, Delta felt no fear; only a cold, hard determination to push justice through the eye of a needle.

Feeling the bead of sweat roll down her back, Delta wanted to take off her j acket, but afraid too much movement would alert her hunter to her position. After all, it was so dark in there, he could be feet from her, and she might not know it.

As the crunching of the glass ceased, Delta rested the butt of the shotgun on her left shoulder. Its weight was a comfort to her now as she held it straight up toward the ceiling. She knew she could lower it in the blink of an eye and blast a gaping hole through a watermelon before most people could say “Bang!”

Looking around, Delta was not happy with her present position. She needed a vantage point—a place where she was in control and could see more. Right now, she felt like a rat in a maze, and she needed to be free. Eyeing the scaffold, Delta started her tedious journey across the cement floor.

Just as she reached the stairs, Delta heard her company bang into a box, and he cursed under his breath. He was somewhere between one and four o’clock to her left, and about twenty-five feet away. Looking up at the scaffold, she realized much of it was bathed in moonlight; too risky. She would have to make her stand someplace darker. If he continued moving toward her, his silhouetted figure against the window would come into full view. This would give her the best shot open to her.