Lieutenant (An Ell Donsaii story #3) (12 page)

On the other hand, what if the Chinese had their own reinforcements? He whispered to his AI to pass a message to Ell, “I think the Chinese are here to try to pick you up. The rest of our team is on its way here. Consider that there are certainly more of the Chinese than the four who just came in the door. Nod if you want me to come pick you up and get you out of here
now
. Shake your head if you want to take them on now in an effort to stop them coming after you in the future.” Ell gave a little head shake and so Steve started sizing up their prospects for dealing with these guys.

The waitress showed up with Ell and Gary’s pizza. As she was putting it on a stand in front of him, Gary realized that a group of four Asian guys were sitting down at the table right behind him.
That’s weird,
he thought,
there are plenty of empty tables.

Zhou had seated himself opposite the brunette woman and now he tried to examine her without staring. That might be a wig, but it was hard to tell with the stocking cap over it. Her skin was definitely darker than Donsaii’s though. And her nose was wrong, a little too big he thought, though he wasn’t sure exactly what was different. He looked around the restaurant, wondering if they could have chosen the wrong girl, but none of the other women in there were slender enough, or young enough. His eyes narrowed, her knuckles were pinker than the rest of her hand! Perhaps as if a dark stain might have been rubbed off by striking things in her karate class. It
was
her! He looked around the room again, thinking how best to arrange her abduction. This was not a good place, there were too many observers. He sat back,
we’ll just follow her when she leaves,
he decided. The waitress came to take their orders and he ordered a single medium cheese pizza for the four of them, hoping to be through as soon as the girl and her friend were done so they could leave without it appearing obvious that they were following her.

Ell grimaced inside. For a little while she had thought that she might have convinced the Chinese men that they were following the wrong girl. She had Allan watching him through her AI video cameras though and the AI said, “The older Asian man focused on your hands briefly and seems to be satisfied about something.” Ell looked down at her knuckles and saw where the bronzer had broken down over her knuckles during their “strike” training. She sighed, wondering if they’d
ever
stop coming after her?
OK,
she thought,
they probably won’t make a grab for me in such a public place, but
I’d
like them to do it here where there are plenty of witnesses. We won’t get them thrown out of the country because we
suspect
they have ill intentions. Probably couldn’t even get the police to give them a good once over. But I don’t want them to come after me here in the main area of the restaurant where Gary or some of the other witnesses might get hurt if they get violent.
She reached into her pocket and got her pepper spray out, moving it into her waistband while staring the older Chinese man directly in the eye. Gary had been talking to her but she hadn’t heard what he said, she looked at him with a little frown, “Sorry Gary, gotta run to the little girls’ room.” She got up and made her way toward the back of the restaurant.

Gary watched Raquel walk gracefully away from the table. The shorts she had on emphasized her shapely slender legs.
Wow, she looks
great
out of a gi!
He looked down at the table—she’d again eaten half of a large pizza while he’d only eaten three slices and felt stuffed.
Damn! Where does she put it all?

Zhou realized that when Donsaii looked him in the eye she was as much as saying, “I recognize you for what you are.” Startled, he understood that it was as if she
dared
him! Then she got up and walked toward the back of the restaurant, Is she leaving?! He looked to the back of the restaurant and saw an exit sign! Just before he leapt to his feet in a panic, she turned into the women’s restroom.
But what if she climbs out a bathroom window, or comes back in and turns immediately to go out the exit?
He had his AI tell the team out back to watch for her.

Steve heard Ell’s voice in his earphone. “Steve, I want these guys to come after me here in the restaurant so we’ll have the restaurant’s video record for the police, as well as plenty of witnesses and our own AI video records. We need evidence of their ill intent so the State Department will ship them back home instead of leaving them here to regroup. But, I want them to come after me back here in the back of the restaurant near the restrooms so that, there is less chance that innocent people will get hurt if the situation goes out of control. My plan is to stay here in the bathroom long enough that they get fidgety and do something foolish. Can you forward your video to me so I’ll know what they’re doing?”

“Sure,” Steve subvocalized, “but what if they have lethal weaponry? Someone could still get seriously hurt, especially you!”

Allan put the video from Steve’s AI on Ell’s HUD. She studied it while she thought about it. The Chinese guys hadn’t moved but the fidgety older one was looking back toward the bathroom more and more. “I don’t know. Do you think that if they pull out guns I should just go with them until they get me into a less crowded environment?”

“No! That’s not a good option either! Let me think—by the way the other teams tell me there’s a couple of Asian looking guys sitting in a car out back, and five more in two cars out the front of the restaurant.”

Suddenly the older Chinese man got up and motioned to the other three who also arose. They all started toward the back of the restaurant. Steve’s time to “think about it” had just run out.

Gary sat, chin in hand, musing over his good fortune to be having pizza with such a pretty girl. Might she go for a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship? He realized belatedly that she’d been gone to the bathroom for a long time. He turned to look back toward the restrooms. He was surprised to see the four Asian guys from the table behind him, all up, heading to the bathroom together. He frowned,
what kind of guys do that?
Then they all stopped and stood together arguing in whispers with one another just outside the bathrooms.

Ell watched the feed from Steve’s AI on her HUD and saw the men approach the bathrooms. She got her Taser out of her purse and took it off safe. She put the business end into the open end of her purse, curling her right ring and small finger around the handle and holding the purse over the “barrel” with her thumb and long fingers. Her index finger was just off of the trigger. She looked up at the ceiling.
Am I doing the right thing? Am I crazy to think that I can take all four of them, even when I’m in the zone?
Ell sighed and wished she could be sure of what she was doing.
But I do
not
want to be dragged off like those other times!
Shrugging, she took the pepper spray out of her waistband and palmed it in her left hand. The men stopped outside the bathroom and argued with one another.

She reached for the doorknob…

Steve tensed and turned toward the bathrooms himself, lifting his satchel into his lap and reaching inside. He looked at Mary who’d gotten out of her chair and begun walking across the room as if she were going to the bathroom too. Randy glanced out the windows of the restaurant then turned his attention back to the Asian men…

Gary watched the four men in puzzlement, wondering what they were doing, then worrying again about what was wrong with Raquel. He started to get up. Then the door to the lady’s bathroom opened and Raquel stepped out. Instead of coming back to the table she took a power stance facing the men with her feet slightly apart. Her eyes were flashing in anger while she stared back and forth at the four Asian men. This didn’t look at all like the Raquel Gary knew in class! Or the Raquel he’d gone dancing with! She didn’t look pretty and slender, she looked… she looked scary!

Ell said, “What do you want?!” to the older Chinese man. She let herself fall into her zone and the world slowed down around her.

Lifting the lapel of his sports coat to show her the pistol in his shoulder holster, the older man nodded meaningfully. “You will come with us.” He waved with his right hand toward the rear exit door next to the bathrooms. To Ell this brief communication seemed like it took minutes which gave her more time to agonize over whether she was doing the right thing.

The man in the coverall reached out for her elbow.

Ell lifted the pepper spray with her left hand while allowing her little purse to drop off the barrel of the Taser. She curled her index finger tighter around its trigger as she raised the weapon…

Gary saw Raquel say something to one of the men and then the little group of Asian men began to contract around her. He watched with astonishment as Raquel’s hands blurred up and around. A hissing, popping noise came from the back of the restaurant, perhaps from her? The man on her left cried out and leapt back, hands to his face. The three men on her right fell, each quivering as if poleaxed. Their falls to the floor decelerated and just before they hit he realized that Raquel’s right hand had grabbed hold of the sleeves of the two men on her right and her left hand grasped the shirt front of the one on her left. She was leaning back hard to slow the impact of their heads with the floor. The one in the middle got away from her some, his head hitting hard enough to bounce a little. Gary belatedly recognized a black device skittering across the floor from where the incident had occurred. It kind of looked like a plastic pistol! A black man leapt up from the counter, stopped briefly, then came forward to take the elbow of the fourth Asian man who was still on his feet, crouched over, moaning, with his hands over his eyes. The muscular African American led the crying Asian man into the men’s bathroom. A woman who’d already been on her way to the bathroom continued to the group of Asian men where they lay on the floor. She pulled some stuff out of her purse. She tossed something to Raquel and knelt by one of the men, picking up his wrist and twisting something around it!?

Gary shook his head and stood, walking uncertainly toward Raquel. His eyes widened,
Raquel and that woman are putting handcuffs on those Asian men!
Raquel’s eyes were focused out the windows of the restaurant while she applied them. She glanced up at Gary and said, “Sorry Gar’.”

“What just happened?!”

She frowned and looked down at the men. Her speech was very rapid and hard to follow but he thought she said “These guys came here to kidnap me.”

Incredulously he said, “Kidnap you? How do you know?!”

She looked up at Gary then down at the older man. She reached down, flipped back the lapel of his coat, then, using two fingers, she extracted a handgun from the shoulder harness there. To Ell it seemed like she had done this very slowly and deliberately but to Gary it appeared so quickly done as to be reckless while handling a firearm. She looked up at Gary and raised her eyebrows. She set the gun behind her on the floor then leaned back over the man, quickly and efficiently patting him down. She did the same for the man in the coveralls, removing a gun from one of his pockets. The other woman did the same for the man she had cuffed. The men were starting to moan and move around. From the smell, at least one of them had voided his bowels. Ell pulled darts out of each of the three men and tossed the darts into the corner.
Ah,
he thought,
that “pistol like plastic device” must have been a Taser.

Raquel frowned and said, “Take cover Gar’, more of them are coming in the door.”

Ell’s stomach roiled. It felt like the situation was escalating out of control. The rest of the Asians were all carrying guns out and exposed. They looked agitated. It seemed like they were bound to shoot someone, by accident, if not on purpose. Getting everyone else down and herself out in plain sight seemed like the best way to focus the Asians on her and perhaps keep them from shooting a bystander out of frustration.

She stood and barked in a loud command voice, “Everybody down! Guns!”

Startled, Gary looked over at the door. Three Asian men were coming in the door and two more were running down the sidewalk and almost to the door. All of them had pistols in their hands! More people were sprinting across the parking lot toward the door! Raquel knelt and picked something up off the floor, then took several strides out in front of where the men lay. Over her shoulder she said, “Get behind the counter Gar’!” The command voice she used brooked no argument and to his surprise he found himself following orders and kneeling behind the counter. He glanced around. The other patrons of the restaurant were cowering on the floor.

The first Asian man in the door waved his gun, barking something in a foreign language. The second one, also waving a gun and apparently translating, said, “Put-a you han’s up! Not move!”

Ell raised her hands up in the air and locked them together over her head. Watching her, Gary realized she had something between the front hand and the back one where they were above her head, Ah, the pepper spray! Looking her over carefully he realized that she had her Taser again, mostly hidden in the waistband of her shorts! He realized that the handle of her model of Taser looked like an asthma inhaler.

The other people timidly crouching on the floor of the restaurant were lifting their hands so Gary did too.

Raquel slowly shuffled backward and the new men followed her toward the back of the restaurant, repeatedly shouting at her to stop moving. Her heels bumped into one of the Asians lying on the floor and she stopped. The men’s bathroom door behind her opened and the fourth Asian man from before shuffled out, ankles cuffed together, hands cuffed behind his back, eyes puffy and red, tears running down his cheeks and snot dripping down his upper lip. The muscular dark skinned man who’d taken him into the bathroom came out behind him. This resulted in more shouting from the Asian men with threats to “shoot on sight” or maybe “shoot dawn sigh?” Or “don sai?” Was that some kind of Chinese language threat? Slowly the black man knelt, then laid down on the floor in response to their threats and waving guns.