True Faith and Allegiance

63

Dominic and Adara entered the Drake Tower, a thirty-floor co-op on Lake Shore next to the Drake hotel, by means of Caruso waving his creds at uniformed police officers on Lake Shore, which had now been closed off. He showed them again, to another officer, standing at the door to the co-op, and Dom could tell from the face of the lone CPD officer that he was well aware he was standing there, basically alone, guarding a door adjacent to an active terror incident.

The cop wasn’t happy about it, but he was doing his job.

Once inside the building the two Campus operatives took an elevator down to a lower level, and here they followed the plans on Adara’s phone until they found a narrow stairwell. They descended as low as it would go, and this led them to a locked door. Caruso pulled his lock-pick set out of his bag and had the door open in under one minute, then both of them drew their pistols and entered a dark hallway lined with rusty pipes. Dom clicked on his tactical flashlight, and switched to the red filter, because it was harder to detect at a distance, even though it didn’t appear anyone had made it down here from the Drake.

This was no drainage pipe, as it appeared to be on the schematic. It looked and smelled like this concrete hallway had flooded recently and it was filthy and disused, but at the moment it was completely dry.

They made a turn and found a set of concrete steps, at the top of which was another locked door. Adara held the light while Dom knelt and picked the lock.

Adara whispered, “What other skills do you have that I don’t know about?”

Dom said, “You won’t be impressed for much longer. Once Clark gets you back into training, you’ll probably be better at this than me.”

The lock clicked and Dom looked up at her. “But for now, I’m still cool.”

He opened the door carefully and peered in.

When he saw nothing but black, he used his red light again.

A storeroom full of cases of alcohol was as dark as the hallway behind him. He and Adara moved forward to another door, then cracked it open.

Here they were met by blinding light. It was the kitchen of the Coq d’Or, a famous and venerable restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel, directly below the lobby. Adara followed the plans on her phone and realized the elevators were not far from the exit to the bar, but an additional employee-only staircase was just to the right in the hallway below the lobby.

They moved through the dark and empty restaurant, their weapons in front of them, and they could see evidence people had left in a hurry. Drinks on the bar and on the tables still had ice cubes in them, and chairs and barstools were knocked over. There didn’t seem to be any victims down here, but it was clear how chaotic it must have been for the patrons when the volleys of gunfire and explosions kicked off in the lobby, right above their heads.

Dom moved carefully into the downstairs hallway, looked to his left, and saw the exit to the hotel. Police had moved back away from the door, but he could see two teams of CPD SWAT officers crouched behind ballistic shields across the street, and using the partial cover of armored trucks that had been moved there.

Adara came out behind Dom and spun right, her gun in her hands in front of her. She found the employee stairs and entered, and Dom moved behind her. They controlled the door so no one in the stairwell could hear it close, and they listened for movement above. There was a slight shuffling. They knelt together while Dom held his weapon up on the stairs, and whispered into Adara’s ear. “There could be civilians trapped all over the place, so make sure of your targets.”

She nodded, pushed back over her ear a wisp of hair that had worked its way out of her ponytail, and began leading the way up. Dom took her by the arm and passed in front of her.

On the landing of the main floor, they found three female hotel clerks crouched in hiding. One of the women sobbed loudly when she saw Dom and Adara with their guns coming up the stairs, but she grabbed her own mouth to stifle a scream. Dom moved up to them and knelt back down, while Adara covered up the stairs.

“You guys came from the lobby?”

“Yes, we were at the counter when it started.”

“How many bad guys?”

They looked between each other. Finally one said, “We never saw any bad guys. No one but police and guests. There was shooting and explosions. I saw people die. One of the police officers I had just been talking to dropped in front of the counter, I think he’s dead.”

She began crying.

Dom showed the women Adara’s schematic of the lobby on her phone and asked them to tell him where they were. According to the women, the other side of the door in front of them led to a back office behind the counter, and no one in the lobby would see them if he went in there.

Dom said, “Okay, good. Listen, it’s clear down these stairs out the front door. Does anybody have a cell phone?”

One of the women said, “Our phones are at the counter.”

Dom was worried about the women running out onto East Walton with a hundred police with rifles pointing at the door, but he didn’t have time to call ahead for them to warn Jeffcoat they were coming out. He said, “Go into the kitchen of the bar, through the liquor closet, and down the stairs. The long dark hallway leads next door and you’ll be safe over there.” He pulled a flashlight out of his backpack and handed it to her.

“Are you… are you sure?”

Dom nodded, squeezed Adara on the shoulder, and said, “I need to see what’s going on in the lobby. I want you right here doing what you’re doing, covering this stairwell.”

She nodded. “Be careful.”

Dom slipped into the office, staying low with his pistol in front of him. The door to the lobby was propped open, so he went wide of it and looked out into the large space.

He saw a few bodies on the floor, but looking across into the Palm Court, he could see two men holding Uzis on a group of guests cowering there. Another man was moving several roll-aboard suitcases around the group, and then playing wire out from a backpack. Men and women, mostly over the age of fifty, were seated in chairs and on the floor, and Dom saw panic in many faces, even across the length of the lobby, as the terrorist carefully attached wiring to something inside one of the cases.

Dom was certain the terrorists were prepping a massive bomb, big enough to collapse the higher floors of the building and kill virtually everyone inside.

Looking around, he was surprised he didn’t see anyone else in the lobby. Even the stairs down to the main level and the exit appeared to be unprotected by al-Matari’s cell members.

Dom took pictures with his camera, zooming in on the Palm Court and what he assumed to be three cases full of explosives, and then he backed into the office. Quickly he texted them to Jeffcoat, then he called him.

Jeffcoat answered, “You are in the fucking lobby?”

Dom whispered, “Listen to me carefully. I count only three tangos down here, covering two dozen hostages. They are rigging a massive daisy-chain explosive of some kind. In a couple of minutes this whole rig could go up, or they could set it on a dead man’s switch and we won’t be able to save these people. SWAT needs to breach now. I can engage them from here till they come through the front. It’s a straight shot to the left for them after that. All the lobby threats are in one place, but you have to act right now.”

“We can’t! We are missing SWAT officers up on the fifth floor. Al-Matari and Hembrick have them.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he called and told us! We sent eighteen men up there. Only five retreated down with some FBI agents, and their body cams show at least seven dead in the hallways. There’s some dead and missing FBI up there as well.”

Dom thought it over quickly. “Okay. Here’s what you’ll have to do. I’ve got access to employee stairs. I’ll go to the fifth floor with my colleague, take down al-Matari and Hembrick, and whoever the hell else is there, and you guys get to the lobby and end the threat here.”

“I don’t have the power to make that happen, Caruso.”

Dom thought for a moment. “Well, notify Russell of my plan. I’m about to start shooting bad guys on the fifth floor. Either SWAT comes through the front and stops these three tangos from setting off that bomb or they don’t.”

“No!” Jeffcoat shouted. “You will stand down and get the fuck out—”

“Three minutes and the shooting starts.”

“Wait!”

Caruso hung up the phone. He didn’t have a lot of love for his plan, but he saw the consequences of inaction in the next couple of minutes to be even more dangerous than what he and Adara were about to attempt.