Back Blast

27

The operator on the right had seen the bubbling vat of grease spewing, and he sensed trouble, but not in time to avoid it. Just as both men looked to the right, the center vat popped once, spraying red-hot grease into the air. Neither man was hit by either a round or the burning liquid, but a second after this, just as both men turned away to run for cover, the remaining eighty-nine rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition cooked off nearly simultaneously. The cacophonous explosion blew fire, bits of metal, and hot cooking oil in all directions.

The bullets were not traveling through rifled barrels, so they were nowhere near as deadly as actual gunfire, but they were still capable of causing serious wounds. The brass jacketed projectiles, along with the scalding oil, cartridges, and bits of the metal fry vat itself, slammed into both men as they tried to run, knocking them back through the passageway into the counter area of the restaurant.

As soon as the boom of the explosion diminished Court exited the door of the walk-in refrigerator, grabbed the metal ladder on the wall next to him, and climbed up. It was hot with fry grease and slippery as hell, but he held on, fighting his way to the ceiling access hatch. He opened the door, rolled out onto the flat roof, and rose to his feet.

Court ran straight to the front edge of the building, hoping to somehow shimmy down to the parking lot, but when he got there he saw a half dozen police cars rolling into the lot from the intersection, their lights flashing.

Shit. He turned and raced along the roof in the opposite direction.

He stopped at the south side of the building now, hoping no one would see him here. He looked over the side, a dozen feet straight down onto asphalt.

He couldn’t make that drop quickly without running a high risk of hurting a knee or an ankle, which would make his escape nearly impossible.

Court turned and rushed to the rear of the restaurant now, thinking the loading dock might be high enough for him to drop down onto. But quickly he saw that was no good, either. There were two Townsend men here, and although one man was wounded, both were armed, and the back door to the restaurant was open, allowing anyone inside a view of the loading dock.

Court ran to the north side, desperate for any option now. And an option presented itself immediately. As he ran he saw a Montgomery County Police Department SUV, its lights and sirens blaring, racing through the parking lot. Court knew where the officer was heading. He would be part of the cordon of the scene, moving to the alleyway to cut off any escape through the back door.

Court knew that this moving vehicle was his one ticket off the roof of this McDonald’s. He turned and chased after the SUV, running for the back corner of the roof as fast as he could, knowing the vehicle would have to come close to the building here to pull into the alley to seal up the back exit.

It was all about speed and timing now, and while Court knew he had the speed, he couldn’t see the SUV below the lip of the roof, so he had no idea about the timing. If he jumped too soon he’d land on the asphalt after a twelve-foot leap, and he’d probably also get run over by the officer in his sport utility vehicle. If he was too slow he’d just hit the asphalt behind the vehicle, and no doubt break a leg in the process and lie there till discovered by the cops.

Using the sound of the siren as his guide he ran on, then stutter-stepped near the edge to buy himself an instant of time. He launched off the roof, windmilled his arms and legs through the air, and pounded down feet first on the roof of the SUV, six feet lower than the roofline. His forward momentum propelled him off the moving vehicle, and the SUV’s forward momentum, as it moved to Court’s left, cartwheeled Court sideways. He spun in the air, tumbling down towards the parking lot. He landed on his feet but immediately crashed to his side, then continued his tumble into a forward roll off his right shoulder.

Out of the roll he snapped back up to his feet. This propelled him on even faster, and in just a few steps he was back in the air, leaping and then grabbing onto chain-link fence near the top. Hurriedly he climbed the rest of the way over.

The Montgomery County Police vehicle screeched on its brakes and the driver put the transmission in park and leapt out, but by the time he got around to the other side of his vehicle to pursue the dark figure who had just crashed down on his unit, the fleeing man had dropped on the far side of the back fence and pushed through a high hedge, and he was now running through the dark parking lot of a dentist office.

The two Townsend men were on the dock, but they’d missed the man leaping from the roof. By the time the uninjured security officer saw what was happening and tried to level his pistol at the movement, two police officers inside the restaurant saw him through the open back door and screamed at him, demanding he drop his weapon and raise his hands.

The young officer from the SUV watched the fleeing figure clear the hedge on the other side of the fence and run away. He reached for the radio on his shoulder, still not completely sure where the guy came from or whether he was involved in all the gunfire reported inside the building.

The cops dragged the two dazed and scalded armed men out the front of the smoke-filled McDonald’s, and they found two more men, dressed the same as the others, in the back alley. One had been shot twice in the lower legs and was dazed by shock and blood loss, but the other operator was more coherent than his colleague, so he relayed a version of events that had all the cops at the scene scratching their heads.

The Washington Post’s lead national security reporter Catherine King reached for the vibrating phone on her bedside table. Looking at the screen, she recognized the number.

In a sleepy voice she said, “You only call in the middle of the night.”

Andy Shoal’s voice, in contrast to hers, was alert, almost excited. “Talk to my editor. I only work in the middle of the night.”

Catherine asked, “What’s up?”

“Another shooting.”

She began sitting up. “Where?”

“Chevy Chase”—he paused—“and Bethesda.”

Catherine said, “Two shootings, then.”

“Sort of just one shooting. Picture a dead rich guy in Chevy, with four of the dead rich guy’s security guards chasing the killer a half mile to a McDonald’s in Bethesda.”

“Wow. Did they get him?”

“He got away, right under the noses of two dozen cops.”

“And I guess you are calling me because the CIA is there?”

“I don’t see anyone who looks like those two from the other night. But the victim is a guy named Leland Babbitt, and on Google it says he is—”

King interrupted. She was wide-awake now. “I know who Lee Babbitt is. He runs a PMC and investigation firm. Government contracts with the intel community.”

“Right,” said Andy.

“And someone murdered him?”

“Shot him dead and then fled across a golf course. Got in a gunfight with Babbitt’s security men in a McDonald’s and then disappeared. I was wondering if you might be interested in coming over and checking it out. I doubt there’s any relationship to the thing in Washington Highlands the other night, but considering the occupation of the victim, I thought this might be right up your alley.”

Catherine was already moving towards her closet to get dressed. “I’m coming from Georgetown. Fifteen minutes to Chevy Chase. Text me the address.”