Page 58 of Under Cover
Garcia nodded, scowling at the officer who had spoken. “You. You get the fuck away from him.” He eyeballed a kid, a rookie, who was looking green, as though he might actually wet himself with fear and revulsion. “You, boot, you help him up. Gently. Unbroken arm over your shoulder, that’s it.” He glanced around and saw another cop—this one Latino—whose face was molded in granite lines of disapproval of the entire scene. “You, next to him. Doba. You help Trotter too. One on either side. Yes, the video is still streaming. Is it the press? Is it the DOJ? Is it the FBI field office? Who wants to find out?”
There was some grumbling, but the sea of blue parted to let the rookie, Henderson, and the older guy, Doba, help Toby to his feet and toward the double doors Garcia had just crashed through.
One step back and another. And another. And another. In spite of the cool March night, sweat ran down Garcia’s back, under his arms, and while he kept his expression locked, he was just waiting for it to run into his eyes.
There was a minor scuffle at the door, and then Chadwick’s voice. “Special Agent Gideon Chadwick. Open up and let them through. Garcia, I have my piece drawn, and I am facing the room.”
“Roger that,” Garcia said, still backing up, phone raised. “Doba, Henderson, keep him coming. We’ve got a bus outside to take him to the hospital. If this guy dies in your custody, it’s not going to be an accident, and nowsomany people know that.”
He continued to back up, aware that the eyes of the now-crowded precinct were staring at him, at Chadwick, even at Henderson and Doba, with absolute hatred. When he got to the door leading outside, he made sure his head wasnotaligned with the little lined window and the steel door was between himself and anything somebody outside cared to throw at him.
“We clear outside?” he asked, and Chadwick shook his head slightly.
“We’re going to stand, backs to the door, while your two friends there haul Trotter out,” Chadwick told him. Then Chadwick blinked, and Garcia knew he had his commlink in his ear. “Not good,” he responded to the voice in his ear. “It’s a good thing we’ve got the ambulance.”
Garcia didn’t have to see Chadwick’s flinch to know Harding had just let loose with a string of curses.
But it was Chadwick’s grim look that had Garcia’s back up.
Chadwick shook his head again and called to their friend with the nightstick who had followed hard on the heels of Doba and Henderson. “You? Asshole with the nightstick—yeah, we all saw you, you bullying motherfucker. We need you to walk out first.”
They both watched the guy with the nightstick blanch, and knew they were on to something. Well, shit. They couldn’t stay here, in this tiny old cracked-paneled room with all the hostile armed policemen advancing on them either.
But Chadwick wasn’t done.
“And you, Desk Sergeant Montillo. Yeah, you. You think I haven’t seen you pushing the button, asking for help? We’re federal fucking agents, and we are saving an innocent man from getting beaten to death by the police. If you’re looking for help, you’re looking for thugs in blue, and that makes you a bad person. You get out here with Nightstick. You two go out first.”
“But….” And Nightstick guy—his badge said Nichols—was shaking. “They’llkillus if we go out first.”
It was funny… Garcia liked Gideon Chadwick. Liked his fancy coffees. Liked the tender way he seemed to keep the volatile Joey Carlyle in line. Liked his spectacularly dry conversation and how he seemed to know all sorts of useless shit that turned out to help them at the oddest times.
But until the moment he looked Garcia in the eyes and nodded, ever so slightly, and said, “Better you than us,” Garcia had not known what it was to love a guy in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with their cold-fucking-blooded ability to make a decision.
Garcia nodded back at him and took point. Taking a breath, grateful for the Kevlar Crosby had insisted he put on, he got in front of the Toby Trotter protection sandwich while Chadwick got behind, back-to-back with Doba, his weapon out, as Nichols and Montillo preceded them, their hands raised in the air.
Nichols dropped first, the headshot so clean he didn’t have time to cry out, and before the report reached Garcia’s ears, Montillo dropped next. Garcia’s weapon was out, his cell phone still recording in front of him, and for a breathless moment, they stood there, Toby in the middle, the two cops on either side, Garcia riding point and Chadwick bringing up the rear.
From out in the darkness beyond the blazing lights and foggy halo that encircled the precinct, came two voices—Carlyle first. “Clear!”
Then Pearson. “Clear!”
“Bullshit,” Henderson practically whimpered. “I didn’t hear any guns go off. How can we be clear?”
Then Denison. “Clear!”
Thena muffled shot. “Clear!” shouted Swan.
Then Harding strode past the ambulance, his department-issue windbreaker ripped, a bleeding wound on his shoulder, and a honking bruise on his face. He pounded on the side of the ambulance and snarled, “Trust me, fellas, we’re clear. We’re gonna need a couple of coroner’s vans, though. If you could call for those while you’re working on Mr. Trotter…?”
Toby gave a moan, and that seemed to galvanize the three people who’d been hiding inside the bus. In a moment, they’d emerged and were swarming around Toby while Henderson and Doba helped him onto the stretcher.
Garcia slowly lowered his phone, his hand shaking. He didn’t realize how much until Harding walked up to him, two hands out, and coming from the side, he helped Garcia holster his weapon.
His hands were shaking too. For a moment they stood there, glancing around like feral animals, until the others emerged from the fog surrounding the precinct.
Gail was first, her hands covered in blood and a knife literally dripping from a holster at her waist. Denison came next, winding a string of bloody piano wire into the silver goddess necklace he’d seen her wear on the regular. Swan was next, his weapon held at rest position, and then Carlyle, who held the crossbow he’d apparently purloined from the last time he’d needed something silent and deadly.
Harding glanced around. “Garcia, I know you probably want to accompany Trotter, but you’re needed at the debriefing. Chadwick?”
