Gifted

Chatper Ten

|Friday|

Lauren

The world screams by, colors and sounds all blurring together, as I jog leisurely to the station. I pass a man out with his Labrador on a walk—the dog leading the man more than the other way around—and glance back. He looks up, startled, probably having felt nothing more than a breeze. My chuckle carries away on the wind. Arriving before the front doors, I check my watch and grin: Fifteen seconds; that’s a new record.

I love my work. True, some days it’s just tedious paperwork (though, of course, I usually finish it half, if not three times, as fast as the others), but other days it’s quite, well, fun: drug busts and chases on foot...those parts of my job I enjoy.

“Hey, Lauren!”

Chief Thomas Briggs is making his way across the lobby, a sheaf of papers in his hands. I pause in the act of stepping through the side door into the officers’ lockers to put up my coat. He stops in front of me.

“Nabbed them at Sherman’s Street about an hour ago,” he informs me quietly. I nod. “The woman and her accomplice, a male in his twenties...glad they’re off the streets. James Oldwell Bank can reopen tomorrow, I think; to be sure, we’ll hire out a guard to stand at the door, since the detectors were destroyed in the attack. Sorry you couldn’t be there, Smith. That would’ve made it easier.”

He sighs.

“Trouble is, they told us they weren’t alone,” he continues heavily. “There’s a second group still out there somewhere, this one a rather more extreme branch. The woman confessed the second wing is going to enter the elementary school—Stonely, you know, on Pickle Road—today at three and take hostages, then hold them ransom for whatever money they can get.”

His unspoken request is clear: That’s where you come in.

“What else do we know of this other group?” I ask.

“They’re heavily armed...explosives, high-powered rifles, the whole works...it’d be a difficult and risky operation, ordinarily. Innocent lives might be lost.” His silvery eyes light on mine. “Though, of course, we have you, Smith. They don’t.”

. . .

I lean casually against the wall, staring at the school across the street. Dressed in plainclothes, I could be any ordinary person taking a nice relaxing stroll. But I’m not.

The little radio buzzes in my ear and I perk up at once.

“Ok, Lauren,” says Polsky, a junior officer who’ll be working alongside me today. “They’re coming down Pickle, man driving, other three in the back. And—wait—what? They turning away from the school, driving down Lewis now—where’re they going? Might be a ruse, though...okay, I’m tracking...they’re heading up Lovell now, and they just parked illegally in front of a café at the intersection of Lovell and Bradbury. Let’s move; seems like there’s been a change of plans...an easier target, maybe.”

“This is good,” Sands, nineteen and fresh out of high school, and another beat officer like me, crackles in over the radio in my ear. “This is actually really good. Change of plans. Looks like they’re going to try the café first, and if we can get them before they even head to the school, even better...”

“Get ‘em, Smith,” Briggs suddenly cuts in, a smug tone in his voice. “Cut ‘em off right there, and this ‘business’ can be arrested, booked, and on the way to court before lunchtime.”

“You got it,” I say, “Two criminals, well-served, coming right up.”

I tune out their chuckles and sprint slowly, at an “ordinary” speed, down Pickle and then turn left up Lovell, coming to a stop outside the café. I see their van parked at the curb, the front right wheel mounting the pavement: it’s powder-blue with the words Henry’s Dry Cleaning sprawling in black across the side panels. Probably stolen. I’ll add it to the charges, I note, preparing to head inside.

I glance through the wide windows fronting the restaurant. There they are, the four men standing with ski masks tugged over their faces, heavy assault rifles clutched to their chests. Three have arms covered in stylistic gang tattoos, while the fourth has his wrapped in bandages. I brush this intriguing nuance aside and draw my sidearm, and then shove open the front door.

“Pensacola Police! Drop your weapons!”

Astonishingly, three rifles clatter right to the floor. Amateurs. I had a 9 mm...

The fourth man, though, raises his to shoulder height, ready to fire...and slams into the ground half a second later, my hand pressed tightly against his throat. The gun skitters across the floor.

His eyes bulge behind the thick wool mask as he recognizes me. “You...! Hey, PJ, Lars, Sid, what you standing there for? Run, idiots!” In another two seconds, I’ve rolled him onto his stomach, jerked his arms back, and snapped cuffs on him, and then leap up after the others.

“Damn, he’s fast!” one man screams as he dives for the door, and I snag him around the waist and then cuff him as well. Another second and I’ve grabbed the fallen weapons and lobbed them over the counter, where they should be safe. I round on the third man...and find him passed out cold in front of the window; seems he mistook it for the door and ran into it: both are made of glass. Now for the final man...

“Stop!” I yell.

The man, cursing, keeps running down the street. I reach out and snag the hem of his shirt quite easily, and then an idea strikes me: The others are incapacitated; why not have a bit of fun of the last? These things are always over too quickly...

I release my grip on the man’s shirt so he thinks he’s free, and then start running up on my toes to reduce the sound, so he starts thinking I’m falling behind. He dashes into an alley and I follow near-silently. He finally stops and collapses against a wall, massaging his sizable paunch and sweating profusely, and then glances over his shoulder to see if he’s lost me yet.

“Yaaaaaaagh!”

“Missed me?” I say, and before he can react—or even blink in shock, for that matter—I have tugged his arms back and snapped cuffs over his wrists. “Come on, you. Back to the café, so we can round up your nice friends, and then it’s off to the station for a nice long break, ok?”

“Nice work, Smith,” Briggs says when Mr. Lucky and I enter the café again and find him, Polsky and Sands standing with the other three men huddled on the floor before them.

“Good haul today,” Sands says and we laugh. Even Briggs smiles. A good day’s work is always appreciated.