Four

It was like a Hollywood script.

It was a friend of a friend of a friend, more an acquaintance really, that came up with a plan.  A plan that, if I’d been given a million years to think up, still wouldn’t

But in an odd way, I’d seen it all before.

I was dressed in a prison guard’s uniform, in a room with two others similarly dressed, and a woman who looked definitely in charge.  It was a detail, part of a plan to remove Latanzio from his prison cell at the police station where he was being held for the duration of the arraignment.

My disappearance, and that of Amy, the leader of my security detail, had sent the police into a frenzy particularly when after sifting through the human wreckage of the hotel, they found five dead police officers, and nine unnamed gunmen, all without any identification.

The police were not naming names, but the media were.  A blatant act of attempting to silence a witness and the most positive indication yet that Latanzio was guilty.

But the problem was, there was no evidence the witness was dead, and this being the case, the trial was put on hold until the witness was found, dead or alive.  The only lead they had was a man and a woman matching our description who had been seen landing in and leaving a helicopter in a carpark in lower Manhattan.  No one knew where they went after that.

It was now a day and a half after the event, and rumours were rife as to where the witness was, and who was to blame for the attack on the hotel.  Latanzio’s brother was quick to blame a rival family with whom they were locked in a territorial battle.  The rival family blamed the [name] family, and neither was backing down.

But for the innocent bystanders, there were two takes on these events, the first, a smiling [name] being escorted out of the court, and when a voice cries out ‘did you have the witness killed?’ he replied, ‘What witness?’.  The other, because of the seriousness of the situation, the police decided to move him from his current holding facility to a more fortified jail on fears that members of his organization, or their rivals, might stage a similar shootout attempting to break him out.

They were, of course, right, but it wasn’t going to be his organization or any other for that matter, nor was it going to be a break-in.

We just got the call to say that the real transfer crew was going to be delayed and that the call had not reached the police station but was intercepted by another friend of a friend.

Our mission was a go.

We walked out of the room and into a large warehouse where there were four motorcycle police and a van, the van an exact replica of that to be sent to transfer the prisoner from the police station to a real jail.  Everything looked very, very real.  We had all studied actual tapes of prisoner transfers, enough to know precisely how to act, remarkable given the time we’d been given.

It was a tense moment, there in the warehouse.  Then Amy said, “Mount up.  Time to go.  I’ll see you back here soon.”

There were more rooms, several set up for what was to come.  We had several guests, waiting in other rooms, waiting to be reunited with [name] knowing only that he was being rescued and they would be leaving for a non-extradition country.  It had been easy.  The arrogance had been staggering.

I was on autopilot, having snapped into a mode where at times I felt like I was looking down at myself.  I think it was the same for the others, having studied those tapes so many times, we became them.

The transfer went smoothly, no one suspecting we were not the real crew.

It was curious to observe [name] close up and feel the confidence, the arrogance of the man.  He was in no way intimidated by the fact he was being transferred, in fact, if I was not mistaken, he looked as though he knew he was being broken out.

And for a moment when he looked me directly in the face, I thought he might recognize me, but he didn’t.

The station police escorted him to the back of the van, we escorted him into the van, chained him up, and the doors closed, just as I heard, “He’s your problem now.” 

They would have to be relieved that he was no longer on their premises, and they would not have to fend off any attack.  But from the expression on the officer in charge, I got the distinct impression we would not make our destination, at least, not with the prisoner.

However, that had been accounted for in the master plan.

It was why the warehouse we were going to use as the ‘studio’ was not far away.

I was surprised that they had found a place that was part of a rabbit warren of interconnected buildings at the basement level and that it had two entrances, one at the front, and one at the back so it would appear the prison van was taking a shortcut.

The plan was to stop, briefly in the building, offload the prisoner, and then drive on, heading for the jail.  In that part of the city, there was no easy place to attack the van, that would, if it happened, come several miles from the building.

There were tracking devices on the van so anyone tracking would note the minor change to the route, and think it was an avoidance tactic.

Now, all we had to do was execute the plan, and hope anyone tracking us wouldn’t notice the subterfuge.

…

© Charles Heath 2024

Three

There was no going back down the stairs, or using the elevator, because there was nothing down below but people who wanted to kill me, and there were no other means of leaving the building other than by the helicopter that just landed.

And there was a distinct possibility that those down below were slowly moving upwards, to join those who had just arrived, a move designed to make sure I would never leave the building.  Except they had no way of knowing their team upstairs had been eliminated.

That left us with one and only one way of getting away from the building.

“We’re going.  Now,” I said, heading towards the open door where the pilot had just got out.

She seemed surprised.  “How?  In that?”  She was pointing at the helicopter.

“Come on.”  I climbed into the pilot’s seat, ran a quick check, then started the take-off procedure.

She came over just as the main rotor started spinning.  She climbed in and was about to close the door.

“Toss your phone,” I said.

“What?”

It was getting noisy.

I picked up one of the two guns I had and pointed it at her.  “Toss your phone.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Stopping them from tracking us.  Toss it.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“We’ll see.”

She tossed the phone out the door the closed it.  I put my gun down, and now ready for take-off, I took a deep breath and lifted the craft off the pad.

Amy looked furious.  But she had a gun and she could have used it to stop me leaving and she didn’t.   Not yet anyway. She put on a headset and glared at me.  I could feel her glare boring into me.

“Where are we going?”

Fortunately the pilot conveniently left the flight plan in the side door panel, and listed the takeoff and landing as the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, a training flight for a new pilot, but it had been anything but that, a quick hit and run landing and take off from a prohibited rooftop helipad, though how they obtained permission was a question no doubt answered when I called up control.

But it was going to be where I imagine I was to be taken if captured, the least likely scenario after my hotel had been stormed with the only outcome possible, and where my assailants would be picked up after a successful kill.

It made going there not an option, but I would have to appear like I was heading there until I came up with an alternate plan. At the very least I could head for the river.

Before I answered Amy, I had the aircraft controllers to deal with because I hadn’t notified them, I was departing the building, and was, momentarily an unidentified flying object.

I managed to convince them I was the pilot, but there were a few tense moments where I had to explain what had happened in what the previous pilot had been an emergency, and that he had to set down or crash.  I told them it had something to do with the tail rotor and if they were tracking me, they’d pick up the erratic flight we were taking.

After another few tense moments, they told me to return to the take-off point and then asked me for the reassurance I’d make it back, and that we were heading for Downtown Manhattan which was part of the flight plan, but stumbled over the reason for leaving early.  From the tenor of the controller’s voice, I got the impression we would be landing in trouble, so I needed another landing site.

“Somewhere other than where they’re expecting us.  If we’re lucky and I don’t crash into the river.”

“Do you really know how to fly this thing?”

Admittedly the way I was struggling to keep the craft under control, the controls required deft handling and that was difficult considering the shakes I’d acquired back at the hotel.

“For both our sakes, let’s hope I can.  We can’t go back to Downtown Manhattan where they will be waiting for us.  Any ideas about an alternative?”

“If you hadn’t thrown my phone away, I might be able to help you.”  She was still angry with me.

I had noticed when I got in that the pilot had left his phone on the console and had seven missed calls.  No doubt those waiting were getting anxious as to how their mission was running.

I handed it to her.  “Use this, its owner won’t be needing it.”

By her expression, and after an attempt to unlock it, it wasn’t looking good.  But, if she was as clever and resourceful as I thought she was, then that phone wouldn’t present a problem.

Then it started ringing or vibrating instead.  Somehow from disconnecting the call, she was able to break in and get the dialing screen.  From there she was able to get the internet, and a minute later said, “There’s a landing on the river, off West 30th street.  You’re heading in the right direction.”

Directions given, she made another call, to her superior.

There were no introductions.  “Yes, we got out, using the helicopter that brought in a kill squad.”

The next question would be where we were, and this would determine how much I could trust her, or that her mission priority was keeping me alive.

“Not sure, sir.  We’re kind of flying by the seat of our pants, but at least it’s over the water, and the control tower is not happy.”

Silence while she listened, then, “Not a good idea.  They’ll be watching you, and it’s best we remain footloose for as long as we can.  I’ll let you know when we land.  What happened in court?”

I saw a faint smile.  “Bet he wasn’t happy about that.  See you soon.”

I didn’t ask.  I just saw the helipad, and now had to make out that we still had problems, which might be a little difficult because I’d been ignoring the controller’s request for me to head towards Downtown Manhattan.  I had told him once that I was having difficulty maintaining level flight, but I was staying over the river, just in case.  But, a helicopter in trouble would get emergency services mobilized, so wherever we landed, we were going to have a reception party and unwanted guests.

Latanzio’s people would be looking and listening intently for our whereabouts, and that of an errant helicopter that would not be going back to where it should.  They’d know how many landing sites there were, how close, and how much pressure we would be under to land.  For all we knew, there might be a sniper waiting at each of the heliports.  Fanciful thinking maybe, but this was a very well-organized hit, and there would be contingency plans in place.

I could see the teleport landing and headed towards it, trying to make it look like it was going to be a difficult landing.

I didn’t have to try very hard.  There was a gusty wind making the craft pitch and had under light hands on the controls.

I could see an ambulance and fire truck just back from the landing site, lights flashing.  The controller had predicted there might be a problem, which meant if we touched down there were going to be awkward questions.

“That was quick,” Amy said.  She too had noticed The reception committee.

Oddly, I didn’t see a police car, or that is to say, a car with blue flashing lights.  Would the FBI be there?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light, and instinctively pulled the stick sideways and went into a deep sideways descent, just as a loud pinging noise came above the whine of the turbine.

A bullet, which if I hadn’t gone into evasive mode would have hit the engine, or worse, one of us.

“What the hell was that?” She yelled, looking around, thinking it was a problem with the helicopter.

“Someone is shooting at us.  Hang on.”

I pulled the stick in the opposite direction, at the same time getting away from the shooter as fast as possible.  The turn had a ghastly effect on my stomach, and I thought, for a moment, I was going to be violently ill.  Amy had also turned a shade of white too.

We were finally out of range, skimming about 100 feet above the water’s surface, slowing down after the panic, and looking for a spot, any spot, to put down and get away.

There, in the distance a car park blocked off and being repaired, but enough space to land.  I could hear the controller screaming in my ear demanding an explanation for my rapid and dangerous departure, but I didn’t have time to explain, nor would he believe me, not if he hadn’t heard the shots fired in our direction.

There were several workmen standing to one side, watching the arrival of a concrete truck as I came in low over their heads and set the craft down about fifty feet from them.

I shut the engine down and waited a minute before opening the door and jumping out, keeping low under the still-spinning rotor blades, and Amy joined me.

One of the crew started coming towards us, two others were taking photos of the helicopter with their cell phones and another was making a call, either to friends or the police.

“We have to go,” I said.  “No time to talk to the locals.  What you need to do is find someone who can hide us until we think of a next move.”

We ran towards the road and then dodged traffic to get to the other side.  We didn’t have time to wait for lights, or the traffic to stop.  Twice I was nearly hit by a moving car, instead, the squeal of rubber on tar.

On the other side, and temporarily safe, Amy was on her phone.

“Calling for backup or a ride?”

“Actually no.  I have a friend or a friend, you know the sort.  I think he can help us, but you might not like it.”

What was not to like if he could save us from the Latanzio’s.

“Call.  Anything is going to be better than acting as a live target.”

The call connected.  “Joe, are you busy at the moment?  No?  Good.  I need you to bring Hollywood to New York.  Today.”

…

© Charles Heath 2024

Two

Amy took out her cell phone and looked at the screen with a knowing expression.  “As I thought, they’ve made it impossible to call out, except on a landline.  A lucky guess on their part that we might hold off until out of the room to call for help.”

“Wouldn’t that also stop the use of the internal communicators?”  Like the unit, she used to talk to other members of the team.

“Most likely.”  She tried a grain to raise the others and received only static in return.

I didn’t think that meant there wasn’t anyone, but only a possibility they might have been taken out.  But not being able to raise them worked in their favor.

Still, I tried to sound optimistic.  “Then there might be help downstairs.”

But the thought of that possibility didn’t seem to brighten her mood.

I checked the clip in my gun.  Eight rounds.  The other, six.

Amy checked hers.  Five and seven.

“What now?” I asked.

“Carefully go down the fire escape.”

“Where do you think they’ll be?”

“First floor.  No one else will be there.  There are no conferences scheduled for obvious reasons.”

That there was a fugitive languishing within I guessed, and the hotel was minimizing the possibility of incidental casualties.  That in itself was a dead giveaway that I was being kept there.  Latanzio hardly needed a traitor to tell him where I was being kept.

Suddenly I had a very bad feeling.

I followed her through the fire escape exit and stopped at the top of the stairs to listen.

For what I was not sure, but no other sounds were coming from below or above us.  Something I did know and had not told anyone in a moment when I had managed to shake off my guards, was that there was a heliport on the roof.

It was why, just before I followed her down, I looked up, and shivered.  Trouble, if it was coming, would come from above, not below.

“Let’s go,” she said quietly.

I hesitated, and she picked up on it.

“What?”

It was hardly a conciliatory tone on her part.

“I think we’re underestimating the severity of the problem.”

She stopped halfway down the first flight of steps and looked back at me.  It was not the first time I had the feeling that she might shoot me herself, even when there was no reason to think that of her.

“How so?”

“The heliport on the roof.  Shouldn’t that be factored into escape calculations?”

“It was until we learned that it was declared unsafe a few months ago.”

“Convenient, don’t you think?”  I didn’t wait for an answer, I started heading towards the roof.

“Where are you going?”

“Up.  Something I learned a long time ago, is always do the unexpected.”

I didn’t wait to see what Amy was doing.  I had a hunch that any attack that might be coming would be from the roof.  I seriously doubted the helipad was anything but serviceable.

Amy caught up with me three floors from the roof.

“What makes you think the help is not broken.”

“Too much of a coincidence.”

We were at the door.  I could hear a noise that sounded like a helicopter coming in for a landing.  I opened the door and as I had hoped, the helped was about ten feet above the roof level.

I pushed the door open.  “Go around the back way.  If the chopper lands take out the landing party or cover the pilot and make sure he doesn’t take off.”

A nod, she brushed past me and headed for the other side.  In front of me to the right were the steps leading up to the pad.  I walked up the first few and saw a helicopter just coming in from the other side, about to land.

I ducked down and waited.

The noise grew louder, much louder as it hovered, and then set down.  I raised my head.  The door opened and three men jumped down, each with what looked like AK57s.  There was no mistaking their intent.

I jumped down off the stairs and his behind the staircase and waited.

Seconds later the three ran down the stairs heading towards the exit do it.  Six shots, three fewer thugs, they had no idea what hit them.

Another shot rang out, about the sound of the whirring of the helicopter’s rotor.  I saved up the stairs and saw the man who must have been the pilot, face down in front of the helicopter, now winding down.

Amy came running over.

“What happened?” I asked.

She stopped and was standing over the body.  “He heard the shots and was coming to you.”

I could see where he had been shot in the back.  It seemed more like he’d see her approaching with a gun and was running away from her, rather than running towards me.  He didn’t have a weapon, in his hand, or on the ground in front of him on the ground.

“Who’s going to pilot the helicopter now.  That was our ticket out.”

She looked resolute, not the expression I was expecting.

“He was coming for you,” she said.  “I wasn’t aiming to kill him.”

And yet she did, and given how good a shot she was, accidentally killing him was not an option.  I was starting to get another bad feeling.

I went over to the helicopter.  I’d flown one or two in my time, something a friend of mine had suggested I try since I had a pilot’s license in another life.  It wasn’t the most modern, so it wouldn’t be that difficult to fly.

“Come on.  We’re leaving.”

…

© Charles Heath 2024

One

I often wondered what it meant to go ‘stir crazy,’.

I think it had something to do with being in prison, locked away in solitary confinement, and, if it was, then I knew exactly what it was like.

I’d been locked away in this room for nearly two months, waiting to testify against a criminal who had, up until now, managed to ‘remove’ any obstacle in his path to remaining free to continue his illegal activities.

Not that I had any intention of ending up in the world’s tightest, secure facility.  It happened because Joe Latanzio, one of the most dangerous crime bosses, decided to kill someone in front of me.  Well, not exactly in front of me, but I did witness it, and I could very clearly identify him without ambiguity.  It had him arrested and sent to jail.

He knew there was a witness, but although he had a name, it was not mine, and it was untraceable.  That and the obscured photos in the papers also made it impossible for his cronies to find me.

All we had to worry about was whether one of the guards or the security detail would sell out to his family, who were offering a reward of up to a million dollars to spill the true identity of the witness.

Me.

And, so far no one had, or at least that was what they were telling me.  There was no way of knowing because my current residence was impenetrable.  If it had, we’d only find out the day I had to go into court and testify.

That day was tomorrow.

It was like I was the criminal, waiting on death row, having to have that final meal before execution.

And living with the expectation that I was going to die.

Unfortunately, there were no guarantees, and the head of my security detail, Amy Childern, competent and successful at her job as her resume testified, couldn’t rule out the possibility that there might be trouble.  All she would give me was her assurance she would do everything within her power to keep me alive.

But in having so much time to think about the ramifications of what testifying might be, I realized the court case wasn’t the full extent of the problem, but once the trial was over I knew it would be the beginning of a life of looking over my shoulder.

Yes, there was the option of disappearing into the witsec ether, but that was never going to be the answer.  There would always be the temptation on the table from the defendant’s family who would never give up looking for me, regardless of the outcome of the trial.

Put quite simply and based on what I had overheard from other members of my security detail, life as I’d known it, was over.

Not that my life amounted to very much before this happened.  I had no family, being orphaned very early in life, and bounced around the foster care system, so that there were no people I’d call parents.  And after a stint in the Army, I found myself at a loose end, unable to hold down a job, and just drifted, until I finished up in the wrong place at the wrong time

You know the sort. John Doe of no fixed address. That was me.  Except I had a name, or two, the current being Al Jones, and a photo that was deliberately diffused so that anyone looking at it would not recognize me in real life.

I also now had a social security number but that was only to make me appear a credible witness.  There was nothing to find other than a number and a name.

As Amy said, I’d come from nowhere and would be going back there once this notorious criminal was locked up. It was meant to be reassuring but it wasn’t.

But despite any misgivings I might have right now, I’d made a commitment and would honour it.

Nobody expected they would make an attempt on my life in the hotel.

As far as they were aware no one knew I was there, but to an astute observer who knew something of the motivation behind keeping witnesses safe, there would be no mistaking the number of out-of-place personnel in the hotel, starting at the lobby.

And for those working for Latanzio, they’d had close to two months to check out every hotel in the city and there would be people working for him who knew the witness protection procedures.  After all, there had been four before me, found and murdered before they got to court.

Those were odds that would tell anyone that this was a lost cause.

My detail for this morning consisted of four, headed up by Amy who said she would stay with me.  Outside Larry was number 2 and would be with me too.  Jeff and Wes made up the rest of the team and were stationed below in the garage waiting with a bulletproof car.

I made a joke previously as to whether it would withstand a handheld rocket, and Amy chose to ignore it.  Perhaps she had not seen what one could do or believe that criminals could get their hands on one.

After breakfast where again the condemned man had a hearty meal, it was a half-hour wait before we moved.  It was tense inside the room.  And outside where Larry was stationed.

At the appropriate time, he was to knock, Amy would answer, and it would be the all-clear.

I was down to counting seconds.

When the time came and Larry knocked on the door we both jumped.  A look passed between us.  The time had come.  We were not expecting trouble.

Amy opened the door, not completely, but just ajar.

It was what saved her life.

A second later Larry came through the door to the accompaniment of several silenced rounds.

Two events happened in quick succession.

As Larry came through the door and fell forwards propelled by the shots, he managed to free his gun and throw it in my direction.

A man followed him, firing more rounds randomly, none hitting a target, while Amy, taking a few extra milliseconds to realise what was happening, drew her gun and started firing at the figure who just passed the edge of the door.

He was not going to be the only one.

As more bullets were fired into the room, a second gunman from outside the room must have seen his partner go down and pressed forward.  He saw me the same time I had the gun thrown to me aimed at him and I squeezed off three rounds and put him down.  I mentally thanked the Army for teaching me to shoot.  If only I had a military issue M16.

Silence fell over the scene.

Amy was trying to raise the other two in the team but they were not responding.  Nor was the lookout in the foyer.  The was a slight hint of panic in her tone, especially when she realized there was no time to raise the alarm by phone.  It was now a matter of how many gunmen Latanzio had hired.

I picked up the two guns from the now-dead gunmen and threw one to her.  “How many men did he sent the last time,” I asked her.

She looked startled for a moment, then slipped back into battle mode.  “Six.”

“Then let’s hope he hasn’t rewritten the playbook.”

We didn’t have time to check and see if Larry was OK, but the glance I got showed no sign of life.  I don’t think, when he left for work this morning, he thought it might be his last day on this mortal earth.

I reached the door and closed it.  A second later several bullets slammed into it.  It was solid enough to withstand them.  Once shut, the door was locked and unless they had a key, they could not get in.

Amy nodded towards the connecting door to the room next door.  For the last week, she had been staying in it.  Now, it was one possible escape route.

The door handle rattled, and I heard a voice outside say, “it’s locked.”  They didn’t have a key.  For the moment.  Perhaps they should have frisked Larry first before killing him.

She walked backward slowly, gun raised and pointed at the door as I backed up in the same direction.  I went first, she followed, and then shut the door behind us.  Locked from her side, they would not get in, key or no key.

10 maybe 15 seconds later we heard the door next door open and then self-shut with a muffled bang.  Next, there was a voice, “Where the hell are they?”

There would be two or more on lower floors cutting off our escape out of the building.  There was two next door.  We were out the door of the room next door, and ready to catch them when they realized we had escaped, and they had to exit the room.

When they did, an agonizing minute later, they were dead before they took two steps into the corridor.

Whoever planned this execution, didn’t plan it very well.  Or maybe he didn’t know that I would be comfortable around guns.  If I hadn’t, we’d both be dead by now.

Time to take a deep breath.  This was not over.

…

© Charles Heath 2024