Whiskey
B ecca’s hands were still shaking when she reached her car.
She fumbled with her fob to hit unlock, forgetting that she didn’t need to.
Just hitting the button on the exterior door handle would unlock it.
She hadn’t driven in several days and her brain was in overdrive, thinking about all that had been said in James’ office and the ramifications of it all.
And as soon as she’d left his office, Winston broadcast to everyone, including her, that James Standish placed a phone call on his cell phone.
Brielle was running it down to find out to whom the call had been placed.
He didn’t broadcast to her what was said, though.
She suspected he told Carter and Jackson.
“Are you okay?” Eddie Winston’s voice again came into her ear.
She glanced at the van, parked beside her car, where she knew Winston sat in the back with the equipment.
Knowing there were surveillance cameras in the parking lot, Carter had driven her in her car from the office, stopping at a convenience store a half mile from Well-Life.
Jackson followed, and Eddie Winston followed them.
Flores and Robinson were already at Well-Life, their meeting with Marvin Ackman starting fifteen minutes before hers with James Standish.
Then Carter joined Jackson in the other vehicle, and she drove her own.
The three vehicles continued to the Well-Life parking lot, where they all parked beside each other.
“I’m fine, thank you, Eddie,” she insisted, knowing she wasn’t.
Her heart still beat wildly against her ribcage, in addition to her shaking hands.
“What did he say on the phone call?”
“We’ll go over that during our briefing when everyone is clear. Just follow the plan,” Winston said.
“We meet back at that convenience store.” Flores and Robinson had just left the building as well.
It would be another fifteen minutes until Tessman and Jackson were due to leave.
“Sure,” she said.
Then she opened the driver’s side door of her car and slid in.
Before she closed the door, two men suddenly appeared, one beside her, one in the center of her windshield.
Her adrenaline spiked higher.
She knew their presence put her in danger.
With no fumbling this time, she grabbed the handle and tried to pull the door shut.
He crowded into the space, preventing her.
“Let go of my door! Help! Eddie!” she yelled.
The side door of the van slid open, right beside her car, purposefully parked next to the driver’s side door for her protection.
Eddie Winston emerged and was quickly on the man.
He pushed the door hard, repeatedly, forcefully, into the man.
The man in the windshield drew a gun from under his open light blue button-down dress shirt worn over a dark blue T-shirt.
“Gun!” Becca yelled.
“Drop it,” Winston warned the second assailant.
He held the man beside the car by the hair, his own pistol at the man’s neck.
Becca watched what looked like a moment of indecision wash over the man’s face, who stood in front of her car, before he bolted to his right.
He didn’t even get three steps before another man tackled him, bringing him to the ground.
It was Flores who tackled him.
Within seconds, Robinson ran in and helped to subdue him.
The man standing beside her door with Winston said, “Lawyer. I want a lawyer.” His cocky grin was focused on Becca.
She read that to mean this man knew who she was.
“Maybe the police would care, scumbag. I don’t,” Winston said.
“Big Bear, permission to transport these two to one of our facilities.”
“Roger that, Needles,” Shepherd’s voice came through everyone’s comms, including Becca’s.
She didn’t know he’d be listening to all of this.
“We’re done fucking around with these guys. The one in custody from the DeSoto house is still hiding behind his attorney. You have permission to proceed with extreme prejudice at the warehouse with these two. And someone scoop up that Standish asshole. Do that one by the numbers and transport him separately to the warehouse but bag him too. And don’t let him see the two you have there.”
Becca wasn’t exactly sure what all that meant as she listened to the many voices that acknowledged Shepherd’s order.
And there was no mistake that it was an order by the tone of Shepherd’s voice.
The one voice she heard clearly was Carter’s.
“Needles confirm she’s okay,” Tessman said.
“Roger that, Moe.”
Becca gazed into Eddie Winston’s eyes after he’d replied to Carter.
She felt incredible appreciation for his actions, stopping the two men from whatever they had planned for her.
“Big Bear, Jax and I are proceeding to Standish’s office,” Tessman said.
Standish’s office was down the hall from the HR conference room they’d been working in.
“I’ll make the arrest, but I’m sure his secretary and other execs on this floor are going to make this messy and way too traceable if done by the numbers,” Tessman said.
He made eye contact with Jackson as they reached the outer office for Standish.
“Permission to just bag and transport him.”
“Make your case, gentlemen,” Shepherd said.
“I agree with Moe,” Jackson chimed in.
The outer office was empty.
“Not sure where his admin is, but she’s not at her desk. I say Moe and I quietly sneak him out a less than public exit.”
“You don’t have enough assets on site for this,” Shepherd said.
Becca watched the three men from Shepherd Security quickly secure both of her would-be assailants face down in the van, with their hands and feet zip tied.
They carried them and placed them on the floor of the van and then they slid black hoods over their heads, tightening them at the neck to completely blindfold both men.
Yes, that was exactly what she’d thought ‘bag them’ meant from the wild espionage movies she’d watched.
“We have these two secure,” Flores transmitted.
“Kegger and Needles can transport them and our girl. Let us know what door you’ll be coming out and I’ll meet you there for a pick up,” Flores said.
“Approved,” Shepherd said.
Flores pointed to the passenger seat.
“Sit up front.” He exchanged glances with Winston and Robinson and then hurried away, towards the car he’d driven there.
Becca immediately got out of her vehicle and locked it before climbing into the van.
She thought about the layout of the third floor of the building, where HR and the partners’ offices were, where her mother’s office had been.
“There’s a stairwell in the north corner of the building just down from James Standish’s office,” she spoke.
“My mom used to use it. It terminates at outer door number six.” Her gaze flickered to that corner of the building.
“Roger that,” she heard Carter’s voice reply.
“And thanks.”
She smiled to herself; glad she could help in even a small way.
Eddie Winston slid into the driver’s seat.
Behind her, in the bed of the van, she watched Elijah Robinson close the side door of the van.
He sat in the seat, his gun holstered, but a taser in his hand, pointed towards the two men lying on the floor.
Knowing the two men had meant her harm, she didn’t really care that their rights were being violated, even though she fully understood that they were.
No, as Shepherd said, they were done fucking around with these guys.
She wanted answers, not criminals hiding behind their lawyers.
***
Tessman and Jackson strode through the outer office and opened the door to Standish’s inner office.
He stood in the center of his office, coming to a stop from the nervous pacing he’d been doing.
His cell phone was pressed to his ear.
“I have to call you back.” After he disconnected the call, while the two men who had rudely come into his office without knocking moved closer to him, he spoke to them.
“Get out. Who do you think you are just walking into my office?”
Tessman had closed the door behind himself, something Standish hadn’t noticed.
He held his badge up but didn’t identify himself or the agency that had issued it.
“I’ll take this,” Jackson said, ripping Standish’s cell phone from his hand.
“Hands on the wall,” he ordered Standish.
“Get them up.”
James Standish looked completely confused, with eyes that wildly darted between the two men and the badge.
He complied, raising his hands into the air.
“On the wall,” Jackson repeated.
He pulled Standish over to the wall and helped him assume the position.
As Jackson zip tied his hands behind his back, Tessman checked the outer office.
Still clear.
“Are you going to tell me why I’m being arrested? And I want my attorney to meet us wherever you’re taking me. I have the right to a phone call,” Standish insisted.
“We’ll deal with that later,” Jackson said.
He led him back through the door, following Tessman, who led.
Exiting the office into the empty hallway, Tessman turned right, spying the stairwell door in the north corner of the building.
When they reached it, Tessman pulled the door open.
“Why are we using this stairwell?” Standish questioned.
“You really want to be perp-walked out of here through the front, public door?” Tessman asked, as if what Standish had asked was the craziest statement ever.
“No, this is fine,” Standish said, changing his tune.
“Thought so,” Tessman said.
They led him down the stairs, Jackson holding on to Standish’s arm so he wouldn’t trip even though Tessman would love to push this guy down the stairs.
But you didn’t get intel out of dead men.
And after that phone call, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Standish had intel to spill.
He couldn’t wait to sit this guy on the metal bench in the warehouse and interrogate him.
James Standish didn’t have what it would take to hold up against intense questioning.
Tessman would bet anyone who’d take the bet that Standish would piss his pants before the day was over.