Violence (43 page)

Derek jumped out of the Expedition and scooted rapidly to the Impala. He picked up the Impala’s keys from off the ground, grimacing at the new but manageable ache from the gunshot injury to his thigh as he jumped behind the wheel. All in all he figured he was doing good. It was a victory ride now and he loved the eventual prospect of having a “couple of goes” with Jeannie somewhere before he killed her, but first he needed to get that ring in his hand. That’s if that gas bomb he rigged didn’t go off first. It was worth the chance. A hundred grand is a lot sweeter than fifty.

Derek started the car fast, threw it into gear and hit the gas, spraying dust and gravel as he sped away.

Driving off, Derek just wished Gabriel were still around. He would have liked to have shared his good fortune with Gabriel and shared Jeannie with him, too. But at least he avenged his brother’s murder. And he would have the opportunity to make Jeannie pay for Gabriel’s death, too.

CHAPTER 45

         “I
s this Jeanine Morgenroter?” Crotty inquired into the phone as he speedily moved the unmarked Crown Victoria through parting traffic. The car’s emergency high-beams cycled through alternating flashing patterns and helped signal the vehicles ahead of Crotty to get the hell out of the way. He and Peterson, who was in the passenger seat talking on his cell phone, were in a hurry to get to an open city park area where they were told they would be picked up by a Chicago Police helicopter.

Jeannie was hysterical when Crotty called her. The signal on her cell phone was very weak. It dropped at first completely. When he got her back on the static-filled line and attempted to calm her down, telling her that this was “Wayne Crotty of the Chicago Police,” trying to let her know that she had already met him and he was there to help her, all he heard from Jeannie was her shrieked questioning cry asking “is this Noel” and then her emotional gut-wrenching plea for him to “please come get me, I can’t hold on-” before the connection quit… for good.

Crotty had hoped to get Jeannie to call 9-1-1 herself before her cell phone battery completely drained. This is what Anderson had wanted her to do which would have allowed the call to be routed to the nearest emergency services center and the PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) where they could have used her phone’s GPS information to pinpoint, by satellite, where she was located to within a couple hundred yards, possibly to within even several feet.

As it was, Crotty had to put in an emergency request to have Jeannie’s latest location verified, as closely as possible, via her phone’s latest series of emitted pings. Crotty was immediately put in touch with the Secret Service through the Department of Homeland Security who “at times” help with “high-profile” missing person cases that “involved the immediate danger of death or serious bodily injury” to an individual. The Secret Service would be able to go right to the cell phone provider and expedite the immediate extraction of call records, including the latest cell tower connections. It didn’t take long for them to narrow down her location to “somewhere within about a six city block square area.”

Derek, duffel bag in hand, kicked off the cinder blocks that he used to weight down the plywood, and flung back the covering, shielding his face in case the bomb he made was ready to go off. He directed his flashlight on to the apparatus where he gingerly tore away the wiring, deactivating the firebomb with only two minutes to go until detonation. He angrily tossed the clock-timer workings and the condoms filled with flammables aside and trained the flashlight beam into the terror-stricken eyes of Jeannie.

“Oh don’t hurt me, please…” Jeannie pleaded as Derek set the flashlight atop a broken piece of cinder block and went down on his knees next to the trench drain, fishing in her nearest jean pocket for the engagement ring.

“Where’s that fucking ring?” Derek demanded, instantly frustrated in his attempts to locate the ring through the taut bindings of rope and duct tape he applied earlier to Jeannie.

“I don’t know about any ring!” Jeannie wailed.

“Where is it?!!!” Derek howled, his shouts resounding in the empty warehouse as he pulled her up out of the trench. He turned her tied-up body and checked her other pocket, pushing his fingers under the fastenings, feeling around fast but finding nothing. “I’ll fucking kill you, you bitch!!!” Derek slapped her hard across the face. “You fucking tell me where it is!!!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Jeannie screamed and wept.

“I’ll fucking kill you!” Derek bellowed, his mouth foaming with rage as he pulled the Sig Sauer from his waistband in one motion and brought it around to point it at her head.

“Hold it!!!” A man’s voice suddenly boomed from somewhere off in the pitch black void of the cavernous dank expanse.

Derek spun in the direction the voice came from, aiming the Sig Sauer into the dark
where Anderson soon stepped out of the shadows like a ghost holding a gun. Anderson’s shirt had several gaping holes and was blood-soaked but Anderson himself appeared to have no actual wounds.

Now it was Derek’s turn to stare at Anderson with shock and disbelief. Still, Derek wasted no time computing the possibilities as to how Anderson got there and hurriedly emptied the Sig Sauer into Anderson producing a deafening clamor in the vast space.

However, Anderson still stood! He didn’t even budge an inch from the impact of any bullets!

Derek looked at the Sig Sauer. He understood now what had happened. Anderson had loaded one live round in the Sig Sauer but the rest of the bullets in the gun he was holding were blanks!

“Stupid motherfucker!” Anderson hissed, eyes blazing with rage.

Anderson had filled some condoms with fake blood, attaching them to cardboard inserts on an abdominal-brace under his shirt to puncture and simulate getting shot when Derek unloaded on him by the river. Anderson had also figured Derek couldn’t pass up getting his hands on another fifty-thousand dollars and as soon as he, Anderson, hit the water he paddled to the bank knowing Derek couldn’t locate him in the dark and followed Derek to the warehouse in the Expedition, leaving his lights off. As far as taking the slugs out of the ammo and making blanks, that was easy. As easy as procuring a gun with ready cash on the streets. Which was the same gun he leveled at Derek now.

Derek threw the empty Sig Sauer at Anderson and dashed off into the dark with the duffel bag.

Anderson ran to Jeannie, took out a knife, and cut her bindings. She drank him up with her tear-filled eyes and wrapped her arms around him as soon as he freed her upper body.

“You’re all right. It’s okay.” Anderson calmed her as he finished getting her legs released from the last of her tethers.

Jeannie kicked the final sections of rope off her feet as she squeezed him tight.

“You have to stay here. You understand?” Anderson told her, turning his gaze away.

Jeannie didn’t want to let him go.

Anderson listened to the fading footfalls of Derek moving away into the immense interior of the warehouse.

“Just stay here.” Anderson instructed her, gently peeling her hands away. He took a cell phone out of his pants pocket and brought it up to his mouth.

“You still there?” Anderson asked into the mouthpiece and immediately getting the answer he wanted, said: “Okay, good.”

Anderson pressed the cell phone in Jeannie’s hand, guiding the phone to her ear as he carefully instructed her. “This is a 9-1-1 operator. The police should be here any minute.”

“Please, don’t go-” Jeannie worriedly implored Anderson.

“Just…” Anderson lowered his voice to a reassuring whisper. “…wait here.” Anderson didn’t give Jeannie time to protest again. He sprang to his feet, gun in hand, and moved off in pursuit of Derek.

A car killed its headlights as it rolled up to a stop next to the parked Impala and Ford Expedition outside the warehouse. A large man soon shut off the engine and exited the dark sedan. Whoever it was held a cell phone out in front of him and stared at the illuminated display as though he were reading some sort of text message. He shut the car door and looked quickly around to get his bearings. It was Al Ward.

Crotty and Peterson were already aloft, flying high over the city, strapped in the rear passenger compartment of “Helicopter One” a Bell 206 LongRanger chopper that was piloted by a special unit task force officer. They both wore bulletproof vests now. Crotty stared at the 12” monitor in front of him that provided a moving grid map of Chicago’s streets while Peterson gazed out the window at the city lights far below.

The co-pilot, in the forward crew compartment, spoke into his headset mouthpiece to Crotty and Peterson over the intercom system. “We’re getting reports of shots fired in the area near the cell tower where the possible victim last made contact. It looks like a vacant warehouse. It’s about a mile from where those other shots were called in.”

“How much longer till we get there?” Crotty asked through his headset.

“Few minutes.” The co-pilot responded.

“Thanks.” Crotty replied into his mouthpiece, looking over tensely at Peterson who heard it all and was equally edgy.

The “mile from where those other shots were called in” which the co-pilot mentioned was in reference to the Turn Basin area of the Chicago River where Anderson tussled with Derek. Some local residents called 9-1-1 and reported hearing gunshots there. Anderson, after climbing out of the water and finding the phone Derek gave him to call Jeannie (the one Anderson discarded in the fight), immediately called Emergency Services as well. Anderson informed the 9-1-1 Operator who took his call about Jeannie’s being buried alive, gave the operator her phone number, and suggested to the operator that they get in touch with Detective Wayne Crotty of the Chicago Police Department who was already familiar with the case. (Anderson had extra keys to the Impala in the event Derek knew how to hotwire a car and had left with the Expedition. Anderson had also furtively memorized the number off the handset display for the cell phone Jeannie had with her while he held the Sig Sauer to Derek’s head and had another pre-paid cell phone in his pocket in a plastic bag, along with one more in the Expedition, either of which he would have used if Derek had left with the cell phone that was used to connect with Jeannie. Eventualities that never materialized.)

Crotty right now was simply playing catch-up. He couldn’t figure it all out just yet. He was just reacting. He knew one thing, though, multiple reports of gunshots didn’t sound good.

Anderson, gun held ready, picked his way through the murky interior of the warehouse. He had to be careful not to be waylaid by Derek hiding in some warren. He looked in every direction but it was hard just to see your hand in front of your face. There were scattered rusted racks amid sorting bays where it would have been easy to get ambushed. It would have also been easy to get cut running into something unseen or step on a nail protruding from a broken-up pallet lying on the floor or go skidding on a sheet of glass shards.

Anderson hoped the police would have been here by now. He called 9-1-1 as soon as he pulled in behind Derek and gave them the exact coordinates for the location of the warehouse off of the GPS inside Roman’s Ford Expedition. That was why he was comfortable leaving Jeannie back there to wait. Anderson started to think, though: could Derek have doubled back somehow and gotten his hands on Jeannie again? Maybe he shouldn’t have left her?

There was a noise in the dark up ahead of Anderson. It sounded like a body hitting something metal and hollow. He heard a groan and saw the shining of a light there.

Derek had indeed tumbled over some steel drums. Derek turned on his flashlight to gather up the duffel bag which had fallen from his grip. He got to his feet, trained the flashlight beam forward and found an exit door.

Anderson saw the light ahead of him disappear. Was that Derek? Had to be.

More flickering, behind him, made Anderson snap his gaze around where the flashing blue lights of arriving police patrol cars could be seen now way back where he left Jeannie. Good, they would take care of her.

Anderson set his sights forward and continued on. It didn’t take long for him to get to the same exit door that he guessed Derek must have used.

Anderson, crouched low, poked his head outside where there was scant more illumination. He brought the gun up to waist level, stepped outside and listened. There were more noises everywhere: distant dog barks, the roar of an overhead passenger jet on approach to one of the area airports, the screeching wheels of some faraway rail cars intermingled with the rumble of a locomotive engine.

There was an overgrown open lot in front of Anderson. Did he hear a rustling somewhere out in the brush? Anderson focused his gaze on the dense foliage. There was a faint indication of movement then the clear outline of Derek running with the duffel bag for another abandoned factory building that was part of the same deserted installation.

Anderson had a split second to consider taking a shot at Derek but the “Saturday night special” that he held in his hand (and bought on the street) was preferably a one-use disposable weapon. It’s known as a “thug” or “junk” piece, made of pot metal with all kinds of problems from bad firing pins to jamming after one shot and coming apart right in your hand. It was also much smaller than the Sig Sauer and had no accuracy outside of a short range. It was hardly worth $50 but he gladly paid $500 earlier that day for it. Anderson had to ride up nice and easy near a drug-corner, stepping out of the Expedition to allay any fears that he was an undercover cop before a gangbanger dropped the gun in his hand. He took a chance on getting shot down right there (especially if they knew how much cash he had in the car) but Anderson felt it was worth the risk to have some weaponry to back-up his plan against Derek, which is why Anderson eventually called in Crotty and the cops, too.

Anderson hit the emergency exit doorway to the factory seconds later and threw the door back, taking the chance that Derek wasn’t waiting right there. Derek wasn’t.