Chapter 26
Chapter 26
“Brewster! Brewster!” Kip is screaming into his CB. He’s been trying to get ahold of him for three minutes, ever since they heard the gunfire.
Everything had been fine. Brewster relayed what he could see: a large picture window on the west end of the restaurant facing the cliff, revealing a few diners at their tables, but when Zimmerman asked him for a visual count of hostages and hostage takers, he answered in the negative. “I can’t get a good angle to see.”
“OK,” Kip replied. “Hold tight. Await further—”
“Wait!” Brewster said. “There are three people outside the restaurant, standing next to a van.”
“A white utility van?” Kip asked, eyeing the one in front of him that had been burned to a crisp.
“Yes. One of them is holding a gun!”
“Advise the person to drop their weapon.”
A few tense moments passed. “She didn’t do it. Do I have permission to engage?”
She? Kip thought.
No sooner had he replied “No! Hold your fire” than they heard a barrage of gunfire over the radio. “I said HOLD YOUR FIRE, not GO FIRE,” Kip shouted, and then they lost him, the line nothing but static for the next three minutes as Sandy and McLeod and Kip stared at one another, Kip’s heart pounding in his throat.
Now they hear what sounds like someone vomiting profusely over the crackle of the connection. Brewster moans.
“What happened? I told you not to engage!” Kip says.
“It was an accident! I panicked and pressed the wrong button.”
Kip squeezes his temples with his stretched-out right hand. “Did you hit anybody?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Retreat. That’s an order. Go back to the station.”
“I already left,” he says. He moans again. “Unnh. I hate this stupid bird.”
“So much for intel,” Kip says, kicking the tire of his police car.
Kip’s cell phone buzzes in his pocket and he recognizes the number as the one he’s been redialing for the past hour. He waits a beat to collect himself before answering. “Hello?”
“Are you insane ?” the deep, accented voice of Brick not-the-restaurant-manager booms. “Opening fire from a helicopter! You could have killed someone.”
Kip closes his eyes. This is likely not the best way to build rapport or gain Brick’s trust or impress Zimmerman. He swallows past the lump in his throat. “Yes, that was an unfortunate accident. Is everyone OK?”
Brick ignores the question. “No more helicopters, drones, flying machines,” he says. “If I see so much as a kite in the air, I swear to God, the only thing left of this restaurant will be online reviews. Understood?”
Kip nearly chokes on his own saliva. It’s not a request or a demand so much as a…“Is that a bomb threat?” he asks.
“Yes, it is a bomb threat!” Brick roars.
“So am I to understand you want the airspace clear?”
“YES!”
Kip nods, even though Brick can’t see him, and he hears Zimmerman’s words on loop in his mind: We won’t give him anything for free . “I will run that up the chain of command and get back to you,” he says weakly while he tries to pinpoint when exactly everything started to go so poorly.
And then—as if in answer to his unspoken prayers—he finally, finally hears the roar of engines racing up the hill toward him, and he puts his hand up to the glare of the headlights and breathes a great sigh of relief that he is no longer in charge.
The cavalry has arrived.