Over his shoulder, I could see two patrol cars parked in the near westbound lanes on the opposite side of the concrete barrier. The emergency lights on the vehicles were flickering madly, and passersby were already slowing to gawk.
“The driver is hurt,” I declared in answer. “She’s unconscious.”
The officer nodded as he looked over my shoulder at Ben and Felicity. I noticed that his arm moved almost instantly, and his hand rested on his firearm. I glanced back and saw that my friend’s jacket was pushed back, revealing the grip of his Beretta peeking out of its snug home in his shoulder holster.
“I’m a cop,” Ben told him, taking immediate notice of his posture. “Detective Storm. My shield’s on my belt.”
Ben moved his left hand slowly across and pushed back his jacket to reveal his badge. The uniformed officer relaxed noticeably and shifted his hand away from his weapon. As soon as the immediate tension faded, Felicity stepped forward and took hold of my arm.
“The driver of this vehicle is injured, and she is an FBI agent,” Ben added, shifting without hesitation into his professional mode.
The uniformed officer immediately keyed up his radio and began speaking. “Dispatch, Unit Twenty-seven,”
“Twenty-seven, go ahead,” came the static-plagued response.
“Dispatch, Unit Twenty-seven, ten seventy-two multiple vehicle accident with injuries on Interstate Forty-Four just west of Exit Two Eighty-eight. I have a federal officer down, over.”
The speaker hissed again. “Twenty-seven, repeat officer down, over.”
“Dispatch, Twenty-seven. Driver of involved vehicle is unconscious. Has been identified as FBI. One passenger identified as Detective Storm with homicide. He’s injured but conscious and lucid, over.”
“Twenty-seven, dispatch, rolling paramedics your location, over.”
“Ten-four, dispatch.”
I was rattled. It took a moment for me to realize that I was just standing there staring at the scene around me. I counted a total of five cars resting askew across the eastbound lanes of the highway. Mandalay’s vehicle sat at the center of a small cluster of three that comprised the crux of the accident. The other two were spread out like billiard balls, one canted against the center median, the other was farther back and pointing into the oncoming traffic.
To my left, another officer was igniting flares and tossing them to the pavement at various intervals to create a cordoned area. I glanced around and saw that the occupants of the other vehicles seemed to be in far better shape than us.
“Rowan?” Felicity’s voice called to me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, honey, yeah, I’m fine.”
“You’re staring off into space, then,” she pressed. “Did you hit your head?”
“No, really, I’m okay,” I said as I brushed her hair back from her face and gently touched her forehead. “How about you? You’ve got a pretty nasty cut over your eye. Looks like you’re the one who hit her head.”
“Aye, I’m okay. I’m worried about Constance though.”
I nodded. “Me too.”
I heard an electronic peal dance through the air, growing louder with each note and noticed Ben struggling to pull his cell phone from his belt with his left hand. By the time the device started into its next chorus, he had managed to snatch it up and thumb it on.
“Yeah, Storm here,” he said, then waited a moment. “Yeah, well excuse me for not hearin’ it. Uh-huh… Well that would be because somebody decided to hit us. Yeah… Uh-huh… Yeah, as in car wreck. Yeah, fuckin’ totaled. Yeah, I’m busted up and Mandalay’s hurt pretty bad but they’re okay. A little rattled but okay. Yeah… Uh-huh…”
I was just turning to watch the officer who was checking on Constance when I heard my friend bellow, “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me! Awww, Jeezus! There’s no way in hell I can get him there that fast!”
CHAPTER 32:
“Hell yes I know it’s only four miles,” Ben barked into the cell phone. “If the fuckin’ highway was open… Yeah, exactly. Uh-huh… There’s a pileup at Jefferson too. Yeah, we’re at Grand and Forty-Four, just west of the exit ramp. Yeah, can’t miss it, there’s a big friggin’ pile of cars and enough flares down to decorate my birthday cake… Yeah, we’ll be waitin’. Bye.”
“What’s going on?” I asked him as he made a few clumsy attempts to hook the phone back onto his belt then aborted the task and shoved it into the first available pocket he could find on his jacket.
“You were right, white man,” he confessed. “Porter went off the deep end.”
My stomach fell. I had almost forgotten why I was even out here in this mess to start with.
Felicity tensed against me and muttered, “Oh no…”
“He didn’t?” I asked, leaving the subject of the question a solid implication rather than a spoken reality.
“No. He hasn’t done anything yet that they know of, but he’s making the threats.” He spilled the details. “They thought they had him under control after they cut the line, but he escalated all of a sudden, and they haven’t been able to talk ‘im back down.”
Car horns were randomly sounding from the growing sea of impatient drivers, adding punctuation to the blend of noises issuing from running engines and passing vehicles. Police radios scratched out communications in bursts of intermingled words and semi-cryptic ten-codes to keep the officers updated on the ETA of the paramedics, fire/rescue, and countless other things.
Looking past Ben and back down the highway, I could see flickering red lights in the distance. Far off sirens warbled and provided a high-pitched background for the occasional burp of an air horn.
“I hate to say…” I started.
“…I told you so, yeah, I know.” He nodded his head vigorously as he finished the sentence for me. “Better just keep that observation to yourself, Row.”
“Yeah, I will,” I agreed. “So what are they doing?”
He continued his explanation. “They haven’t gone in because they still don’t know where he’s holed up in there. But he’s keepin’ tabs on them somehow ‘cause he knows what’s goin’ on every time they make a move, no matter which side of the building they go for. They’re thinkin’ he’s gotta have a police band radio or a portable scanner. Something like that.”
To my back, there was a droning hum that continued to grow louder by the second, throwing itself into the chaotic fray of sounds against an underscore of echoing thumps. It was the familiar sound of a helicopter. In the back of my mind, I wondered whose it was. It seemed too soon for an air ambulance, and I wasn’t sure the media would even bother responding to the pileup considering the drama that was playing out on the riverfront.
“Great,” I muttered with heavy sarcasm.
“Tell me about it.” He nodded as he raised his voice against the growing din. “Anyway, about fifteen minutes ago he started demanding that they bring you to the scene. Since you were already on the way, they had no problem consenting even though it was going to be on their terms.”
“Aye, that’s about when Constance got that call,” Felicity interjected.
“Yeah, exactly,” Ben said. “And right when we got nailed.”
“So can’t they just tell him that I’m still on the way?”
He shook his head. “They’ve played that out. It’s not workin’ anymore. He finally hit ‘em with an ultimatum. Says if he doesn’t see you in front of the building in ten minutes, he’s killing Sullivan, and that…” He paused and glanced at his watch. “…Was about three minutes ago.”
A heavy rush of icy wind whipped around us, lifting a cloud of loose snow and causing me to squint as my eyes watered.
“Ten… Seven minutes?!” I yelped, forcing my voice upward to compete with the sound of the helicopter overhead. “There’s no way…”
“Can you fly?” Ben shouted.
“Ben!” I returned. “This is no time for joking around. You know damn well that whole thing about Witches is just a myth!”
“No! I mean do you have any problems with flying?” He bellowed over the roar as he took hold of my shoulder and urged me to turn. “Cause right there’s your fuckin’ broom!”