David Dun - Overfall

Sam handed his radio to Shohei. “You might want to tell Scott and Grubb to follow those guys up here.”

Just then the chopper lifted off, climbing steeply and away from the building. Perhaps three hundred yards from the building the jet engine skipped horribly, went silent, and the bird dropped with its rotors nearly motionless. A loud crash came from the street level a quarter mile or more distant.

“Come on, come on,” Sam said to a stunned Anna. “I need your shoes.” She looked bewildered but took them off. Inside the utility building in the far corner, Sam found a green tarp and some sacks of fertilizer and vermiculite for the potted flowers. Turning the shoes upside down to create the appearance of someone kneeling, he jammed the heels under the bags and allowed the very tips of the soles at the toe end to protrude from under the tarp. With the tarp over the bags it was a powerful and convincing illusion.

“Sam, what are you doing?” He was rummaging through some tools; he pulled out a big wrench.

“Stay here,” Sam said, walking out the door to the elevator building. Sam used the wrench to break off the door handle with one big whack. The building was a mechanical room for the elevator motor, the cables, and assorted equipment.

Sam returned and grabbed a ladder from against the wall.

“Crawl up on the shelf,” he said.

“What are you gonna do?” she asked as she climbed.

“I’m going to invite some gentleman to beat me up. We hope it will be a form of aversion therapy. Shohei will be right here and he will make sure that nobody hurts you.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Self-defense is the only way we can legally break their body parts.”

Things were not going well for Gaudet. When he exited the rest room he saw Chellis’s little squad standing outside the glass entry door to the Dyna Science offices. He didn’t want them coming in and making people nervous. Reversing course, he got on the cell as he went back to the rest room.

“Go up to the roof. Verify that Anna and her group have left in the chopper. If they are still there call me. Don’t kill them unless and until I say so.” There was a second part to the plan, if they didn’t take the chopper. The backup was known only to Gaudet and he savored it. But he detested being thrown into a situation where he had to work with others. He hoped the morons could follow instructions.

Anna’s group had left an obvious meat man outside a conference room door. Good trick. Two seconds later a big blond athletic sort, the guy who no doubt could hook and jab in blurs, exited and Gaudet breathed a sigh of relief. Then he realized they also might be headed for the roof. With a throng of body mechanics up top he couldn’t be sure what would happen.

Gaudet peeked in on the man who’d met with Sam and Anna Wade. The good doctor looked like the real thing with his feet up on the desk, talking on the telephone. Gaudet walked swiftly but calmly to May at reception.

“I need to get into the offices and I forgot my fob. At the end of the hall they told me I might obtain a general-purpose fob that will access the various office doors.”

“For all but the executive offices,” she said. “I’ll need to check with Olivia or Mr. Feldman, though, before I hand it out. I’m sure you’re authorized, but they are so careful about giving these to contract maintenance personnel.”

“Of course. Maybe you could just come with me to Olivia’s desk? They asked if I’d go get you.”

She looked uncertain but rose anyway, then touched a button on her phone.

“Grace, could you handle the calls for a minute? I’m going down to see Olivia.”

As they walked down the hall, Gaudet waited until they were twenty feet from the women’s rest room and glanced around. No one was in the hall. Taking a significant risk-something he almost never did-he clipped her at the base of the skull and erased her consciousness, grabbing her as she slumped forward. Likely she would remember at least some events just prior to the blow. If it were not for his beard it would be a real problem, but then he never worked as himself. Quickly he pulled her into the tiled and mostly pink, beautifully papered, and wainscoted ladies’ room, where he peeled down her hose and her sky-blue panties and set her on a toilet. To make sure she remained unconscious, he squeezed off her carotid arteries for what seemed like a reasonable time.

After locking the stall door he slid underneath, and could barely imagine his good fortune when he got back to the hall undetected. The plastic fobs were in her top drawer right where he expected to find them. With the fob he entered the office of one Norman Rawles and had the good doctor unconscious in seconds.

After Anna was tucked away in the storage building, Shohei stood by Sam at the entrance.

“You should let me do this,” Shohei said to Sam. “These guys too easy for you. Not even good practice. Besides, your arms are not even healed.”

“I don’t know, Shohei. You’re good, but maybe a little light for a whole crowd?”

“You are just jealous.”

Sam smiled. “Have it your way.”

“Grubb,” Shohei said into the radio.

“Yo.”

“They show up yet?”

“Just here. But they turned around and walked out right after they came through the door.”

“Where did they go?”

“Don’t know.”

“Pull your guns and get up here. I’m guessing you’ll be right behind them.”

“Roger that. Say, there was a guy around here with a beard, May said he’s looking for spores. Some kind of Stackybachus.”

“Does she know him?”

“Seemed to.”

“Where is this guy?”

“I don’t know. He went down the hall somewhere. Seemed like he was taking dust samples from the carpet with a little vacuum machine.”

“Get up here.”

Shohei removed a 10mm pistol from his shoulder holster and stood back behind the elevator house. Sam retreated inside the supply room. Five men came through the door onto the roof. They spoke French. All but one were six feet plus. The small one seemed to be the leader and talked on a cell phone. They were apparently interested in where the helicopter had crashed.

Oblivious of any danger, perhaps because of their numbers or just foolishness mixed with bravado, they made for the roof edge. Only one held a visible gun-a nasty little Mac 10. The others had their hands under their coats, looking as if someone had told them to dress business casual.

“Hey,” Shohei shouted, and leveled his gun just as his own men burst through the access door, each with a semiautomatic pistol aimed at the Frenchmen.

“Drop the Mac,” Shohei said. “Hands up.” The leader was staring at the broken handle on the utility building door.

“Over here,” Shohei motioned.

The foreigners walked over, looking sullen, with soulless eyes and tough-guy stubble. They appeared either drugged or bent on a good round of senseless killing. Sam was almost surprised when they let Shohei put them against the wall to frisk them. He removed two guns and a knife each. When he took the cell phone from the leader, the man snarled some words in French.

“Perhaps you suffer the pain of a bad choice,” Shohei said to the leader. “You seem like you don’t like me. This is your chance to prove it.”

“Which one of us?” the leader said in good if heavily accented English.

“I think you bring all your friends,” Shohei said.

“What about those guns?” the leader said, nodding at the two men with Shohei.

“They are to protect them, not me,” Shohei said.

“I should throw you off the roof,” the man said.

“You are free to try.”

From his stance the man appeared to be a street fighter pure and simple. Undisciplined but not to be underestimated.