Chapter 33


   The fold out chair might have been cheap metal. Amy almost felt like she was going to crush the damn thing just by sitting in it. Unfortunately, the cuffs on her wrists were of a far better manufacture and, the guy who had put them on her, cranked them down as far as her wrists would let him. This guy was not a happy camper and made no secret that it was Amy who had shot, and killed, his friend.
In reality, Amy was not so sure that is what happened. She saw the guy go down but, was pretty sure the fire was coming from the other direction. Amy had no clue who it was that they were shooting at, when she first turned the corner. All she knew was the guy had seen her, from over his shoulder, had turned to shoot her, and then went down.

There was no reason to bother with telling that to his angry friend. The guy did not want to listen. When he pulled the blindfold off, and Amy found herself in some very empty office, his face spelled it all out. This guy was going to kill her and he planned on having fun doing it. He was beyond listening to reason. Amy figured she was only still alive because of the man, Greg, who was calling the shots.

It was obvious Greg wanted information but, Amy had none to give him. She quickly told the guy all she knew, “April came to us! Honest to god, these two hit men had tried to kill her. It was a man and a woman and we think their name was Bass.”

Greg stood next to the chair that Amy was sitting in. He pondered what he was told for a second and then, he back handed her. After that he got down in her face, “you stupid bitch! China and Barry Bass worked for me!”

“Hey!” One of the other armed goons in the room held up Amy’s phone and showed everyone the identification card on it’s screen, “this chick is a cop.”

Another angry goon grabbed the phone and looked at the identification and badge on the screen, “she’s no cop. This has got to be fake. It says here she’s a Colonial Ranger. There is no such thing anymore.”

“Oh yes there is,” said another man as he walked into the office. He took the phone from the angry goon and looked at it. Then he tossed the phone aside and said, “Agent Amy Hiller.” The guy was smooth and easy as he opened up another folding chair and sat down in it with the back rest between his legs. He propped his arms up on the backrest and asked, “how’s Barbara doing these days? Oh, can’t forget, what about Shannon? She must be, what, twelve or thirteen by now?”

Amy cautiously looked this guy over and replied, “fourteen. Who are you?”

The man did not bother to answer. He had his own questions. He pointed to Beckett, “why were you following dip shit here?”

Beckett growled at the man, “hey! I’m asking the questions here Trucks.”

Amy’s eyes lit up and she stared at the newcomer, “you’re Cannon Trucks?”

The angry goon complained now, “she killed Bosley!”

Trucks blew both of them off by saying, “we got plenty of Bosley’s and, you” he pointed at Beckett, “you can do better than that chick you been sneaking in here with.”

“Hey,” Beckett bowed up, “that’s none of your damn business Trucks. You just remember that you work for me and…”

Standing up and squaring off with the guy, Trucks told him in no uncertain terms, “I don’t work for you Beckett. Let’s get that clear. Bircham calls the shots.”

Beckett did not back down, “and he isn’t here, muscle head. You were hired by PBS and I’m the ranking official, of that company, right here and right now!”

Trucks did not seem overly concerned. He pointed at Amy, “I can always say she killed you in the fire fight.” Trucks then got in his face, “don’t push me. I’m not all that happy with you dragging my people down there to clean up your little mess.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Beckett replied. “Without me, PBS couldn’t have done half of what it has. What do you think Bircham’s going to say if I suddenly vanish. I don’t think he’d be willing to keep you on if you loose a va…”

The beeping sound stopped the conversation dead in it’s tracks. Trucks pulled out his phone and called up a camera image. He was pretty disgusted when he showed it to Beckett and told the man, “low level employees are not supposed to have access after the office closes. You just had to give it to your girlfriend, didn’t you? Gee, I wonder what Bircham is going to say about that?”

Beckett sounded more confused than angry, “I don’t get it? What the hell is Smokes doing here? Why is April…”

Trucks snatched his phone back, “he’s using her as a key, dumb ass! You gave her access to the biometric locks after hours so you could get a little. What? Does your office turn her on or something?”

“Well I…” Beckett began back pedaling, “it wasn’t like that, really.”

Trucks was fully disgusted with this middle manager. He decided to just ignore the guy and gave his own people the heads up, “go take care of the problem.”

Now Beckett put himself in front of the door, “you’re not killing them. I’ll handle this.”

The goons did not push there way past Greg. They looked to Trucks for orders. He rolled his eyes, grunted in frustration, and then pulled his pistol which he promptly pointed at Beckett’s head, “them or you?”

Beckett stepped out of the way and the goons rushed off to do their work. Then Trucks gave the man a smile just before pulling the trigger and leaving Beckett’s brains splattered all over the wall. As Trucks put his weapon away he looked back to Amy and said, “the guy always got on my nerves. God! That felt good.”

Amy gulped and gave a nervous smile, “but I don’t, right?”

“Tell me,” Trucks asked in a friendly enough way, “whatever happened to that new guy? You know? I used to surf with him out at the station. Barbara hired him to fly one of the choppers. He was just a kid back then, think he came out of the military.”

Amy tried to slide even further down in the chair, “Tony Tippet?”

“Yeah,” Trucks face lit up, “that’s the guy. Is he still around or did he finally manage to get fired? He was always around when things got screwed up.” The beeping on his phone caught Trucks attention and, as he looked at it, he actually told Amy, “excuse me.” When Trucks put the phone away he told her, “looks like you’re going to be useful after all.”