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Blood List(44)

By:Patrick Freivald


Doug and Marty helped Gene up the five flights of stairs. As they reached the fifth-floor landing, the stairs continued up to a roof-access door. Jerri swiped the key-card and opened the lower door. Occupying the floor-space equivalent to four large apartments sat rows of four-and-a-half foot high, four-foot deep, three-drawer filing cabinets. The room smelled of musty paper.

"Oh, for the love of Christ," Paul said to no one in particular. "More piles of papers to root through. Your guys' job sucks."

The files were well organized and well labeled, so it took less than ten minutes to find the records for the methadone clinic. The overhead lights weren't that bright, and although a rectangle of orange streetlight beamed through each of the three east-facing windows, they just reinforced the gloom. Carl pulled out files and handed them off at random. There were no chairs, so they leaned against filing cabinets while they flipped through records.

"Okay," Carl said. "It looks like the full clinic records are in these six cabinets, with patient records in these three right here." He patted the cabinet closest to him. "We either need to lug all of them downstairs or bring a scanner up."

"I vote for bringing a scanner up," Marty said. "Why the hell don't they have this shit on microfiche?"

"Fine by me," Doug said. Gene's foot wasn't broken, and he could walk on it if he had to, but it hurt like heck to do it. One quality scanner brought up sounded much better than dozens of trips down.

"Does anyone smell smoke?" Carl paused at the filing cabinets and sniffed the air.

"Yeah." Marty said as he walked to the west wall. Wispy tendrils climbed from under the baseboard. As he passed a window, a small glint of light shone from the top of the building next door. As Gene turned toward it, Marty tackled him. The window exploded inward. The unmistakable sound of a high-velocity ricochet was the only indication that a bullet was the culprit.

"TAKE COVER!" Marty yelled, turning his dive into a roll. Windows shattered and bullets thudded into filing cabinets while the team dove to the floor. Glass rained down on them.

Smoke poured in, faster now.

"We're taking fire!" Jerri yelled into the COM.

"Calling 911," Sam chimed in.

"Stay down!" Gene yelled as he moved to the door and shouldered it open. The stairwell was clear of smoke. "Let's go!" He limped downward on one crutch with his pistol leading the way.

He rounded the half-landing to the fourth floor, caught a glimpse of a waiting silhouette, and ducked back. Automatic weapon fire spattered off the concrete wall, sending jagged chips of concrete into the air. Gene fired several shots down the stairs to discourage pursuit and retreated back up the stairs.

He heard the fire roaring on the other side of the wall, and more automatic fire slapped against the upper landing. "Can't go that way!" he yelled and pushed Doug back toward the fifth-floor storage area.

They dropped to hands and knees to avoid the smoke and crawled to the rest of the team. "There's a gunman in the stairwell, and the third floor is on fire." Gene kept his voice calm and under control.

Marty filled in the details. "The fire escape is on the west side of the building. It and the roof are both covered by a sniper." His face looked grim. "We're trapped, and fucking Renner is missing."

"So's my gun," Carl added.

"Fire trucks are en route," Sam announced. "SWAT teams are scrambling."

"He's missing," Gene said. It wasn't a question.

"He's not here," Marty continued, "and Sam can't reach him on the COM. The son-of-a-bitch set us up, Gene."

Bright yellow flames licked out of the west wall where the first wisps of smoke had come from. The smoke was three feet from the floor and lowering. The room stank of burning insulation. Jerri looked dumbstruck. "We're going to die here."

Doug closed his eyes. "Our only chance is to rush the gunman on the stairs." He opened his eyes. "Maybe I can buy time for the rest of you to take him out." He checked the magazine in his gun and crawled toward the door.

"No need for heroics," Renner's voice crackled over the COM. "The sniper's down. The fire escape's clear. Move your asses!"

Carl yanked a drawer out of a filing cabinet. "We've got to get the files out!" he yelled. He took a deep breath, stood, and ran to the north wall. He threw the drawer into the window. The glass shattered. Most of the papers plummeted with the drawer sixty feet to the ground, while the rest fluttered away in the cold January air.

He did his best baseball slide back to the filing cabinets. He dropped below the smoke level and sucked in air. "Help me!" he cried, yanking out the next drawer.