Chapter 16 of Princessa

Bang, You're Dead

Outside in the cold snow Smet is making his way along the fence line, surveying the house as he moves slowly, cautiously through the dark snow. There’s an occasional little ground light along the wall, snowflakes falling on them in bundles but melting away in the warm glow. He has to detour around these, going wide into the grounds toward the house, into trees and shrubs, then back out to keep everything in view, in front of him.

It’s slow going with his heart pounding in his ears, wanting to be in there with them on the inside, so worried about everything that’s going on, and out here alone, hoping they’re in alright, undetected, wondering if they’ve found some way to get to the girl, if she’s okay or still alive even. A spotlight illuminates his shadow on the snow in front of him. “Don’t move! Don’t twitch. Hands up, over your head. Right now!” The man behind him speaks into the microphone on his headset “got one intruder, northeast sector…”

With his left hand, Smet grabs the glove and empty coat sleeve on his right arm and lifts it high over his head. Then quickly turns and fires a long burst at the source of the light with the Uzi from under his coat. He sees the light shatter and the man behind it fall to the ground. The muffled gunfire is a little loud, like popcorn popping, nothing to scare the neighbors. But whoever else is here on the grounds is gonna be here quick.

The old man scrambles over and down behind the dead man, and replaces the magazine in his gun. He takes the flashlight from his pocket, switches it on and throws it over aways off to the left. Immediately he sees other spotlights running toward him, trying to get a fix on what just happened. Two men approaching from different directions speak quickly into their headsets with their carbines at ready. Once in range, Smet gives each a short burst of the Uzi, then repeats that at ground level ‘til the lights are out and there’s no more sound.

The basement area of the house is soundproofed, but the man in the control center feels his guts jump into his throat, like alarms ringing in a diving submarine. He hits the split-screen button on his computer and sees nothing but snowflakes outside. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he says to himself ‘shoulda been watching… motherfucker, now what.’ He quickly dials the phone to the observation room. “Sir! intruder outside…gunshots, got… uh, two men responding. No answer from, the third man… yet.”

“Right… okay” says Hayden “I’ll be right there.” The undersecretary looks through the glass at the girl and then runs across the hall to the brightly-lit control room. Upstairs the men in the kitchen are on their feet moving toward the back door. The phone rings on the counter beside the kitchen table “We got an intruder!” the voice says, trying not to sound panicky. “No shit, Sherlock” says the big man “anything else… well!”

“Uh, the northeast wall” says the voice “one man down… I think.” They draw their weapons and turn to leave. Andy and Jori bolt in from the hallway door. The big man with the bruises sees them for a split second. A short burst from the Uzi catches him in the chest. Then another for the man beside him. Jori aims at the man in the glasses but Andy grabs his hand.  “Wait” he yells “I want him alive.” The startled man has his arms out to his side, pistol still in his hand. “Drop it” says Andy, sharply, moving quickly over beside him, putting several more shots into the two men on the floor.

On the other side of the room the elevator opens. Jori fires repeatedly into the man who falls forward, before he can even get off a shot. Andy grabs the man with the glasses and sticks the red hot barrel of the Uzi into his ear. “What’s downstairs” he demands. “Uh” says the man, like a quick battlefield report “hallway, control room… briefing rooms.” “How many men?” “Uh, just two… one in control; one in, beside the, interrogation room.” “Which room, where’s the girl.” “The… uh, first room” the man stammers, trying to follow what Andy’s saying with the gun barrel burning his ear.

“You first” Andy says, pushing the man toward the elevator. He sees Jori starting to drag the dead man out of the elevator doors. “Wait, hold on... leave him.” There’re no buttons inside the elevator, no way to open or close the doors or go up or down.

“How’s it work” he asks the man with the glasses. “From control” he says “everything… works from the control room.” “Where the stairs?” He knows there gotta be stairs, even high tech facilities gotta have low-tech back up; just in case. “That door, over there” says the man “in the corner.” Andy puts the gun barrel up to his face. Tthe man had failed to mention that the elevator doors gonna close on them, be stuck in there, if Jori’d pulled the dead guy outta the way. “What else…come on, talk.” “Uh… steel door, at the bottom. Gotta get, buzzed through, from control.” “Okay. Jori, watch him.”

He opens the door, shines his flashlight down to the bottom, thinking about that poor guy going up in the elevator; hearing the gunfire, doors gonna open up on him automatically, nothing he can do but just… get filled full of holes where the blood leaks out.

There’s nothing in the stairway, they don’t use it, never had to before. He runs down the steps holding the beam of the flashlight on the lens of the camera mounted up on the wall over the door. Slams it aside with the butt of his gun and grabs the little backpack from his back. Quickly carefully he places several bags of the white clay over the hinges and latch of the heavy door and sets the fuses. Then decides to double the number of bags, and runs back up the steps.

“Get down!” he yells as the massive explosion knocks them to the floor and shakes the entire building like being hit by a wrecking ball from all sides at once and the house rocking up off the foundation. The kitchen bears the brunt of it, flooring ripping up from the doorway on in, chunks of ceiling and walls breaking collapsing, flying toward the far wall, windows shattering, cabinets flung open, all contents rattling breaking falling to the floor. Andy and Jori are down under the table, the chairs thrown over, landing on top of them.

“You okay” he asks. The boy nods and begins to lift himself up from the rubble. “Come on” says Andy, grabbing the man with the glasses and pushing him ahead as they run down the splintered broken-up wooden steps. The big steel door is completely blown off its hinges; just the eerie dim light of emergency lights flickering on from out of the cloud of dust.

Andy pushes the man through the open doorway. Instantly he’s splattered with bullets crackling through the hallway. The control room man fires repeatedly at the shape appearing through the thick smoke. He’s kneeling halfway down the hall, M-16 in hand, heart pounding, feeling like the last one left, a sacrificial lamb left for slaughter.

Andy and Jori empty their guns at the kneeling figure. He falls sideways onto the dirty floor, motionless now in his own pooling blood with the carbine still clutched in his hands. Andy grabs his Ruger and quickly checks the hall. The glass control room to the right is smashed to pieces, the smoldering steel door lying at the base of the wall. Lights are flickering on in the hallway and in one of the rooms to the left. He motions to Jori to cover the hall and rushes into the room.

Nothing in the first one, just the big heavy table and heavy chairs, but oddly arranged, like there’d been some kind of trouble in here. Someone had tried to push the table up to block the door. His heart begins to pound in his ears. Nothing in the second room either, but you can see through the glass into the first room. They were here, he thinks, just seconds ago.

He quickly looks down the hallway, sees the smoke and dust flowing outward from an opening about halfway down. “Tunnel” he yells to the boy, racing down the hall and finding the opened steel door to his left. He grabs the side of the doorframe and spins around just in time to see two figures moving at the top of the upsloping tunnel. Then he runs headlong up the rampway, the boy right behind him.

The man with the nice suit is frantically trying for the car door. But spins around bracing his back against the car just as they enter. His small pistol is jammed up against the side of the girl’s head “I’ll kill her” he yells, staring wild-eyed at the two armed men.

“So?” asks Andy, out of breath and just letting everything go blank now, not to think, just react. “Then what?” he asks the man. “Drop your guns” orders the man harshly “or I’ll blow her brains out... y’hear me!”

“Jori” says Andy, speaking English to him and motioning toward the man “go over and shoot him in the head.” The rodent-faced man looks at the young boy moving toward him and starts backing down the length of the car, jamming the gun harder into the girl’s flesh. “Stop!” he cries “I’ll kill her... I will.” The boy continues toward him, slowly, mechanically like he doesn’t even hear him at all. He raises his gun and instinctively the man points his own gun toward him.

Andy fires a single shot into the man’s forehead. Maria pulls free and runs toward the boy, crying and hugging him as Andy walks forward and fires several more shots into the dead man’s body. “We gotta find Smet” he says as the girl hugs against him too.

On the far side of the garage, a door leads out to the cold night. The chill wind and snow blow in on them as he pushes it open. Police sirens approach from the distance. One minute, thinks Andy, a little less maybe. And too much to do yet - blow the house, eliminate evidence, get their computers or their weapons - and no time to do it and still get away.

“Smet!” he yells loudly out into the dark. “Over here” says a voice, a few feet away in the blowing snow. They run up to the old man. “You okay” asks Andy. “More or less” he says, weakly. “Okay then, gotta make for the back gate, I’ll get it open.”

He runs down the drive, puts a small amount of the white clay on the latch of the large iron grates. Sets the fuse and runs back to the others. It blows apart with relative calm, leaving the two sides of the huge gate slightly open in the middle and warbling with the vibration of the blast.

“Go get the car” he says to the boy “take Maria with you.” They squeeze through the opening in the gate and disappear in the darkness. Andy helps the old man down the driveway. “How bad is it” he asks. “Oh... not good” says Smet. “Lower… left side, here” he says pointing with his hand. Andy helps him through the gate and across the street and then sees Jori coming fast with the car.

They put the old man into the back. Andy jumps in behind the wheel, then races the car down the street to the corner, turns, down a block, turns again then two blocks and turns again. He knows where he’s going, just wants to make sure he gets there alone. Maria looks at the old man in the back seat. “What’s wrong! Okkie… what.” “Is… okay” he gasps, breathing harder now.

Andy speeds up fast as he can on the deserted streets, mindful of everything around; cops, other cars, somebody out for a stroll on a lovely snowy night, whatever. But it’s all empty, quiet, no one around; too cold maybe, or just a good night to stay indoors. Soon they’re back to the turn off to the freeway. Then pushing the car to full speed for a couple of more miles, a couple of minutes, back to the Bronx and to the exit by the blue sign; things you remember if you pay attention to foreign terrain.

He sees the lights off to his right and quickly races the car toward the entry way of the hospital; then slams down hard on the brakes coming to a jolting stop in front of the emergency entrance. “Put your hoods up, scarves on” he tells them “don’t want anybody to see you here, okay.”

The two young men hurriedly pull the old man from the back seat and carry him in. The girl runs ahead, gets a wheelchair from inside the sliding glass doors. They set the big man down and push him up to the desk. “Gunshot wound” he says to the big black woman at the desk “hurry!” “Room three” she says “there, right there” pointing to an unlit room. “Jayla!” she calls, and a nurse steps out from one of the other rooms. The black woman dials a number from the phone at her desk “Dr. Leks, we got a shooting victim in ER.” “On my way” he answers “get x-ray.”

Moments later the doctor runs into the room. The nurse has cut away the bloody clothing and has a clump of gauze pressed tightly over the wound. Two other nurses in greens are starting an IV and hooking up various monitors to the old man. “Lemme see” says the doctor pulling on a pair of plastic gloves. The nurse steps aside, removing the gause.

The young doctor sees a small neat hole that’s quickly overrun with dark blood. He examines it, puts on a fresh pat of gauze to cover it up. “Hold that” he says to her politely. “We need blood” he says louder to one of the nurses in green. “AB positive” says Andy as the nurse hurries out and across the hall. The doctor looks over at him “next of kin?” “Yeah.” “Well, what’ve we got?” “Small caliber” says Andy “nine millimeter, I think… one shot, didn’t go through.” “Okay” says the doctor as the other nurse returns and hangs a couple of pints of the dark plasma “let’s do this.”

The other nurse is finished with the monitoring equipment and the doctor bends down to look at numbers as the nurses pull on surgical gown and mask over him. “BP’s… fading.” Then louder, more urgently “start Demerol, 10 cc’s.” The x-ray tech sticks his head inside the door “Doc?” “Stand by” he says. One of the nurses quickly cleans around the wound with betadyne, slaps a large sterile bandage over it (surgical prep) and pulls the plastic off the top. The other nurse slides a tray of instruments up as the doctor bends over to get started. He looks up at Andy “Uh…wait, outside; please.”

Andy watches for a moment, doctor and old man hidden there under the maze of wires and tubes, then takes the others and goes out to the waiting area.

Dr. Leksyan is just back from the Gulf War, given up his comfortable practice with the nice old family doctor. Decided to go into surgery; now interning in this very old run down hospital in the American war zone. But he can’t shake that feeling of ‘gotta save one more.’ And they get a lot of that here. Doesn’t bother calling in the surgeon on-call. Waste of time, he thinks. Same with x-ray; got a pretty good idea of what has to be done, just to do it right away is the main thing. You learn that, when you’re over there.

“What do you think” asks Maria nervously biting at her lip. “Old man’s been through a lot, a lotta shit” says Andy. “No reason… he’s a tough old bear” he says, holding the girl in his arms as she starts crying against his chest. The black woman from the desk comes into the room with a clipboard and paper. “Ees he okay?” asks the girl. “Sure” says the woman “sure honey, gonna be fine. We… see a lot of these.”

She sees the girl’s torn clothing and Jori’s black and purple face, mostly covered by hat and scarf. “Uh… have you two been, in a fight?” “Oh… no” says Maria quietly, feeling her sweatshirt with her fingers “ees the style nowday. Jori, fell, on ice reenk, today.” “You push me” he says, looking at her. “Deedn’t not” says Maria.

“Well” says the woman “I have, some questions, we need to fill out.” Andy goes with her, back to the desk, glancing over at the door to Smet’s room which is now closed. He explains to the woman about the accident; the gun going off while the old man was showing it to them. Something he’d just recently purchased for his own safety and protection.

Then he does his best to answer all the medical questions and the rest of the patient history info. They’re from Montreal. Just flew in yesterday, don’t speak that much English. Gramps met them at the airport, drove them to his apartment. They don’t know his exact address in the Bronx; will call back later to fill in any gaps.

The woman doesn’t believe a word of it, but notes it all down anyway. She’s heard about every story imaginable from the next of kin of gunshot victims. This one’s about the same as the others. She can almost fill in the blanks herself. Cleaning the gun, didn’t know it was loaded; didn’t know that if you point it and shoot it at somebody, they’d end up here.

Oh well, happens every day; gunshot, stabbing, car wreck. You sit around bored, doing the routine, then they wheel ‘em in, and the adrenaline starts pumping like mad. Nurses got it down pat. Don’t even have to say anything. She finishes the form without much interest and has Andy sign at the bottom.

“Okay” she says to him “you can wait with the others. Get some coffee or cookies. But… I have to notify the police, okay? On… any shooting; it’s the law, can’t, do anything about that. Alright?” “That’s fine” says Andy, unconcerned “no problem, we’ll just wait, in the waiting room. You’ll tell us, when he’s okay?”  “Sure” says the woman “of course I will. Don’t worry. Doctor knows what he’s doing.”

Andy goes back to the waiting area and a short while later, the nurse Jayla walks in. “Your grandfather’s gonna be alright. Got the bullet out, just stitching him up. He’s stable… gonna be okay.” “Oh God” says the girl “oh thank God.” She runs over to her and grabs her, tears streaming down her face. “I wanna see him.”

“The doctor will be down, to talk to you” says Jayla “once he’s finished with everything.” She leaves and Andy turns to the two kids. “We gotta get going.” “But I wanna see him” says Maria “we can’t leave Okkie… we can’t.” “Gonna be cops here” says Andy “any minute now. They have to notify ‘em, about shootings. Don’t worry, we’ll come back, get him. Just… give him some time to rest, is all; don’t worry.”

They quietly sneak away and get in the car. Andy drives back to the city, the long way, easy and slow. Nobody says anything, each of them lost in their own thoughts, not knowing what to say. Finally the girl speaks “thank you, you two, for… coming to get me.” “What did they do, to you” asks Jori, his voice full of rage. “They… tore my shirt” she says. “Oh…” says the boy “well, that’s something.”

“I was so scared” she says “that they’d… killed you; and I’d never see you again.” She grabs the boy and hugs him tight against her, crying now, the pent up emotion just all spilling out. “Yeah” says Jori “imagine how we felt.” They fill her in about the swim in the cold water and getting to the house and finally locating her, as she tells them about the interrogation and the worries of being all alone in that room and lost without them.

Their moods range from anger fear laughing and almost crying, to be all of them back together again and with Smet safe and sound in the hospital and out of danger now. After a bit, there’s back at their parking ramp near the diner again. “Now what?” says Jori. “I think we’re gonna stay at the Marriot tonight” says Andy “chill out for awhile.”