Schism

Chapter 23 part 2

Jared stopped outside the gate and pointed inside.  Martins nodded back and switched his cell for the scrambled walkie talkie.

"Car one.  Pull in.  Take care of the attendant," Martins said.

They waited as one of their team, in a tan sedan, pulled inside the storage lot and up to the side of the main building.  Two men climbed out, with baseball caps pulled low, and hurried into the small office.  Less than a minute later, Martins' walkie chirped.  "Clear.  Surveillance is down as well."

Jared nodded a thank you to Martins and pulled in.  Four cars followed him in.  As he pulled in and Martins directed the other vehicles, he saw images of the team at the warehouse, patrolling the aisles like the professionals they were, and each one dying. 

That wouldn't happen today.

Today, he would keep the men back, keep them safe.  More than anything, his goal today was to find out more about this man who had killed his soldiers, his friends.  If they were able to kill him, that was an added bonus, but Jared had far too many questions about him to simply try pulling the trigger again.

The lot was cut in half by a main road, with long garage units running perpendicular to it.  He counted as he circled around the outside, fifteen buildings on each side of the road.  He hadn't seen the killer down any of the alleys between the buildings, so he might have been hiding in the center or, less likely, he had somehow escaped into one of the storage units.  Jared doubted that, and hoped it hadn't happened as well.  If the man was inside one of the long garages, there was no safe way to flush him out.  They could try to burn the whole, long unit, but he knew they didn't have enough incendiaries for that.  Not for steel walls like these.

He turned around the last building and drove to the center road.  At the far end, car number one waited, but the killer was nowhere in sight.  "Okay," he said to Martins.

His new lieutenant signaled the cars at the outside to start towards them.  One pair would take the same route Jared had, and the last two would go around the other side.  With Jared and car one watching the road that cut through the middle of the buildings, they should be able to find and flush the killer out as the outside cars drove past each alley between the storage garages.

"Row one clear," the walkie said. 

"Check, row one," came a second voice.  Jared saw car one pull up towards them by one building.  He knew the cars on the edges had backup in case the killer came out the end, but he was car one's backup, and was too far away if the man popped out of the second alley near them. 

He took the walkie from Martins.  "Car one, stay back a row.  Don't bunch him if he comes out."

"Yes, sir." Ahead, car one stopped as the cars at the sides reported that rows two and three were also clear.

"Row four...see him.  We see him." At the news, Jared tossed the walkie back to Martins and sped forward to the sixth row.  He stopped, left the herding to his men as he jumped out and pulled two plastic bottles from the padded box in the bed of the truck.

Smoke twisted up in the fourth alley on his left, thick and black.  He glanced down at the bottles in his hands.  Harold's newest toys appeared to work.

When he looked back up, the killer ran out of the alley and stopped.  Jared watched him turn, take in the situation.  For a moment, their eyes locked.  Then, the man turned to run.    But before he could, car one's passenger opened his door and lobbed out one of the bottles.  There was a small spark as the bottle broke on the ground, then the gel inside caught fire and exploded in a spray of fire all over the pavement.

The killer stopped, stepped back from the fire.

Jared drew in a deep breath, smiled to himself.  The fire worked.  Thank God, the fire worked.  The man had moved so fast before, had even seemed to move around bullets and anything else his men could throw at him.  Jared hadn't been sure how he would react to the fire bombs.  But, this evident sign of fear dispelled the worries that had been growing in Jared's mind, worries that this man could do things that weren't supposed to be possible.

As expected, the killer darted down the fourth alley on Jared's right.  But Jared knew that wouldn't work for him.  Martins had already directed a car up that alley.  The cloud of black smoke a second later showed him the plan was working.  The men were staying back, safe, as the fire did its job of hemming the man in.  Jared waited until the killer came stumbling back into view.

Parts of his coat were on fire.  He must have been splashed with gel from the last bomb.  Jared frowned at the man's reaction.  Instead of tearing at the jacket or rolling and spinning frantically, the man became suddenly composed and simply lifted the bottom of the coat and folded it up over the rest and pulled it tight.  With no oxygen, the fire died immediately and the man let go of the hem, leaving only dark stains and burns on the fabric.  It was a calm, standing version of stop, drop and roll.