CHAPTER 28

The line of fire trucks rolled up the central causeway of the park that sat aside the palace. They were moving rather slowly, in a column of two’s, and flashing their lights and blowing their horns as they went. Crowds began gathering on either side as the trucks came to a halt with the hissing of air from their brakes. The firemen began to climb down off the trucks and assemble in front of their vehicles, with axes and shotguns in hand. Almost twenty of the firemen shed their coats and hats and, if anyone cared to closely examine them, it would be quite easy to deduce that this motley group did not work for the fire department. That motley looking crew gathered in the center of the group who really were.

The only fire engine not parked in the two nice neat lines was sitting off, bye it’s lonesome, on the street curb at the edge of the park. The six firemen with it began shedding their coats and hats now that the real department had arrived. A ratty looking car and a white government four by four pulled up and parked behind this truck. Several real firemen got out of those two vehicles and approached their engine that was manned by those who were not.

Blake Tippet tossed a set of car keys to Norm and then commented, “not a scratch. Not that I think anybody would notice, Norm.”

Norm shot back, “now that you done my job for a day, you see why I drive that piece of shit.”

Barbara was busy smoothing out her real ranger uniform as she tossed the fire coat up to Tony who was lounging on the hoses. She then walked up to Blake and shook his hand, “that was gutsy Blake. I hated to ask you to do it.”

The fire chief actually laughed, “you call that gutsy? Try running into a burning building sometime. The German’s only think about killing you. You know the fire will.” Then Blake looked back to Norm and asked, “speaking of which. Why in the hell did you blow that building up? It almost took the whole warehouse district with it?”

Norm just shook his head, “don’t look at me.”

Barbara injected, “I can speak to this much Blake. He blew up a lot of things today but, that wasn’t one of them.” She then quickly changed the subject because Barbara was still not completely sure that she was telling the truth, “did we get all of the kids on the list?”

Blake nodded, “most of them. Some of them didn’t stick around and wait for us. A few, well, we never could get a hold of. Some of the contact info on that website was wrong.” He pointed back to the spectacle at the center of the park, “the ones that we did, they’re out there right now. Are we ready?”

Barbara spotted two more people wandering towards the fire truck and she recognized both of them. She was just not so sure she was seeing it right. She told Blake, “I have to take care of something, join you in one second.” As the fire chief walked off, Jake came strolling up with Cindy Brandt, right behind him. Barbara quickly snapped at him, “what are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to go to Kaiser?”

“Relax,” Jake told her, “we already been. Henna’s stable and Chuck’s with her for the time being. Once we’re done here, I don’t think Hochstetter and his boys will be all that anxious to find her anymore.” Jake then snapped his fingers, “speaking of which, what about Cal and Leslie?”

Norm told him, “they’re already back at the station. Bob called a few minutes ago and wanted to know where the bolt cutters were.”

Jake blinked, “why would he want to know that? Amy’s here?”

Amy was sulking in the open passenger side door of the fire truck cab. She did manage to look in Jake’s direction and sneer, “fuck you Jake.”

Barbara put her hands up, “enough!” She then motioned to Cindy, “no offense Cindy but,” she looked at Jake, “why is she here?”

Jake smiled and nodded to the collection of firemen in front of the palace, “she’s a lawyer. Those kids over there are her clients. I already talked to Jessie. She’s going to do an interview with Cindy here, and they’re going to spill the whole story about Brunner and Kohler. That way it’s all out in the open and this shit can play out in a public forum. That should keep the German’s off our backs.”

Norm rolled his eyes at the idea, “Jake, how long you reckon that story is going to hold? We don’t even know how true it is, for sure.”

“It’s true enough Norm,” Jake told him and made sure everybody else heard it. “It’s true enough that a little public scrutiny might make our bad guys scramble for some better cover. The one thing we do know about them, for certain, is a spotlight is the last thing they want. As for the Germans, they got a paper trail. Trust me, those people love paper trails.”

Norm remained unconvinced, “yeah, but you don’t really believe all that bullshit, do you? That this was a couple of crooks getting even with each other? I mean, we don’t even have Kohler, what if he turns up and comes up with his own bullshit story?”

“He’s not,” Jake said and that got Norm and Barbara’s full attention. Jake then dismissed it, “that’s for later. The point is this, Horst tried to make this look one way, and we made it look another. What we gave the UN might not be everything going on but, it was close enough to truth, so this whole thing can blow over. Things can get back to normal now.”

Still, Norm was unimpressed, “yeah, normal except that in the process we managed to piss off the Germans, the Governor, the city police, the Canadians, the Texans, the mercenaries, and every other heavily armed group in the arch.”

Tony suddenly showed up, on the truck, above them. He had crawled to the back of the truck on the fire hoses so that he could listen in. He talked down to Norm with some glee, “so Norman, what you’re saying is, this was a normal day for you.”

Norm snapped at the kid, “get your ass off that truck!”

Barbara just groaned and began walking off as she said, “if you’ll excuse me. I have to go let Helen run my blood pressure up now.”

Cindy ran to catch up with the Barbra and Jake let them both get out of ear shot before saying, “she wasn’t wearing that uniform when we left the station. Where the hell did she change?”

“I wouldn’t be worrying about that right now Jake,” Norm told him. He then looked around and took notice of where the others were. They were not paying him, or Jake, any particular attention so Norm figured it was safe enough. He had a lot on his mind right now, and most of it was about this man standing next to him and smiling. Norm decided to go at it from an angle, “so this is what you call the legal way?”

Jake thought about it and found himself surprised by the question, “yeah. Those people get their day in court. The guilty get punished, the innoncent go free, all that good stuff.”

“Uh huh,” Norm replied. He then pointed out, “and to keep things legal we committed at least sixteen felonies, including breaking an entering, aggravated assault, felonius mischief, oh and we started a gang war. I’m not sure if there’s a law to cover that one but, it can’t be good.”

“Well nobodies perfect,” Jake replied. Then he smiled and told Norm, “look at the bright side Norm.”

Norm arched a brow to that one, “there’s a bright side?”

“Yeah,” Jake replied, “Barbara doesn’t know that Shannon fire bombed a truck.”

Norm’s jaw dropped and he said, “excuse me?” Norm thought to ask for specific clarificatin but, in the end, decided he did not want to know. He just shook his head and walked off as he said, “Jake, watch your ass man. The people coming after it next might not be who you think.”

Jake mumbled under his breath, “trust me Norm. I already know.”