Chapter 18


The knock at the door was enough to send shivers up her spine. At least this guy was always polite enough to say who he was shortly after that. "Are you all right my dear? May I enter?"

She deflated in relief as she walked over to the door and opened it. He was polite like that. He always waited for her to open the door and never came right in, even if she said too. Sally had no idea why that was the case. As near as she could tell, there was not a single door in this entire building that had a lock on it. It was one more curious thing about this place but, all the rest put together was not as curious as the guy who ran it. How did a guy with the last name of Solomon end up with a first name like Enrique?

He was an older man with a graying beard and he wore robes that made him look more like a Catholic monk than a Jewish Rabbi. He was always quite polite and Sally wondered if she bugged him a little too much. Her questions were always the same, "have you heard anything?"

Enrique always sounded calm and quite reassuring, "I am sure that he will be back soon enough."

"No," Sally said with head dipped low, "I don't mean him. I mean, you know…"

"I'm sure we'll hear soon enough my child," the Rabbi told her. He continued, "in the mean time it might be wise if you got some rest. As I have been told, you had a long night and I know you have not slept a wink since you got here."

Sally sat down on the bed but, she would not lay. She could not force herself to do it. She tried pushing yet another tear back as she told him, "how can I? I got my best friend in the world shot, maybe even dead. I.. I, God this whole thing is such a big mess."

The next voice to speak was not that of the Rabbi. It came from Norm and he sounded and moved as if he were in a hurry. He walked right past Enrique and turned on the video monitor in the corner of the room. After he selected the news feed he stood back so the others could see. They all watched as Chief Summers told an assembled group of reporters, "we believe that this man, Norman Scoggins, was seeking revenge for last nights shooting of another Colonial Agent."

The reporters erupted in a roar of questions. Summers picked Jessica Walsh out of the crowd and answered her question first, "no we have no proof that Roy Kingsley was in anyway involved in last nights shooting. We just know that he was the victim of a deliberate explosion that killed both him and several by standers this morning."

Enrique looked to Norm and told him, "I do not believe you or the girl will be safe here any longer."

"Why do you think I came back when I did," Norm replied. "I heard this on the radio in my car."

Enrique nodded in agreement, "Hal will no doubt think of me first."

Sally was still sniffling on the bed when she asked with some concern, "I don't understand? I.. I thought you said nobody knew about this place."

"Nobody does Sally," Norm told her. "Only Enrique and I were partners for a lot of years when we worked for the department. Now that he's looking for me, the first thing Hal is going to do is start running down my old acquaintances."

Enrique added, "and it will not take him long to find out where I have been. He had no more love for me than he did Norman."

Norm pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the stop watch he had running, "he's already got my house staked out.  They've probably already questioned Darcy. That means he's going to be sending units to as many addresses as he can locate, right off the bat."

Enrique sighed in regret, "and Wallace Young is still in Warrants. He knows what I do and where. As I recall, Norm, he didn't much like you either."

Sally was shaking her head in disbelief, "I don't know if I can take much more of this. I just want to find Herb and vanish. He can get us out. I told you, he's got connections."

In a hurried fashion, Norm went to the closet and began pulling out his gear. As he did he told Sally, "unless I miss my guess, your doctor buddy is long gone." Norm tossed out his high threat level body armor onto the bed. Then he started pulling a few weapons out of the bag that was still in the closet. He asked Enrique, "put the rest of these back where I had them when we're gone, ok?" Then Norm said to Sally, "don't worry. This is almost over with. I found the truck."

Sally's eyes got big, "how? Where? I mean… were those men there?"

"Shake enough trees and the rotten apple is gonna fall," Norm told her.

Sally bit her bottom lip. She put a hand on her stomach and thought about what he had just said. She had been too busy running and being scared to think about anything that might happen after this. Now it just occurred to her, "I'm going to jail, aren't I?"

Enrique put a hand on her shoulder, "you did not know anyone was going to be killed. Your intentions in this matter were noble."

Norm was a little less comforting. He saw no reason to lie to the girl, "Natasha played you Sally. It's that simple. She played all of us."

"I can't believe," Sally fought to hold back more tears. "I mean… I knew her since third grade. I.. I can't believe she'd kill her own husband."

Still the comforter, Enrique told the young girl, "she may not have known."

Sally cried back, "I help set it up!"

At least some of the truth was good here. After sliding his vest on, Norm slipped his jacket back on over it and then told the girl, "he's right Sally. All we know for sure is that she tried to set him up. We don't know if she actually pulled the trigger." Norm stuffed some extra magazines in his pockets, "and one thing is absolutely for certain here. That was not a drug shipment in that warehouse. Maybe she didn't know ether. Doesn't matter now anyway."

A call sounded and it proved to be Enrique's phone that he had stashed in his robes. He answered, listened, and then told Norm, "they are already here. Do you have a safe place to take the girl?"

"I think so but," Norm readied his sub-machinegun and then shouldered his other bag, "I'm running short on time if I want to catch these guys."

"Then you must hurry," Enrique fanned them both towards the door, "god go with you my old friend. I'll stall them at the gate as long as I can."

There was one thing that Norm could never figure out. He could certainly understand how his old friend, one of the toughest bastards he had ever known, could give it all up and become some kind of weird Jewish monk. He could certainly comprehend how what started out as the shooting of one of his best friends could be spun around and twisted to look like it was his fault. What he could not quite figure out was how a girl, that was not quite half his age, could not even keep up with him as he ran with a hundred pounds of gear strapped to his body.

They had not even made it half way to his planned escape route when Sally had fallen hopelessly behind. Norm had to stop and go back for the girl who was bent over and gasping for air. He had to grab her by the arm and drag her along. She even protested, "I'll stay, they don't want me."

"Enough people want you out of the way girl," Norm told her as he pulled Sally into one of the many gardens on the property. He realized now that she was slowing him down to a trot. "You wouldn't be safe with the cops. You'd wind up dead, or worse, sooner or later."

"Worse than dead?" That thought bounced around in Sally's brain until suddenly she found herself looking at a brick wall that, by all appearances, belonged to the one that ran the length of the property. Then she watched Norm pull a bush out of the way that turned out to be a handle for a trap door. Sally was not so sure she wanted to crawl down into the tunnel beneath it. The place looked dirty!

Norm gestured for her to follow him at first but, she hesitated. He could guess why. He even told her it was clean but, then, Sally surprised him by asking an intelligent question, "how do you know the cops won't be waiting on the other side? Won't they have surrounded this place, or something?"

"It's a big property Sally," Norm told her. "They'll cover the gates but, unless they know I'm here for sure they won't have the man power to surround the place. Besides, this leads to another property that nobody knows the monastery owns."

"Oh geez," Sally then grunted after she got on her knees, in the dirt, and prepared to crawl in. She wondered what kind of Rabbi Jewish Monks would have an escape tunnel! She asked Norm and he replied, "the paranoid kind." He then pushed her into the tunnel. The only good thing that Sally had to say about the experience was that the tunnel was short. She found herself coming up in what appeared to be the back room of a, laundry? All she knew for certain was that there was a lot of clothing in plastic and hanging on some kind of conveyor belt system. There was also a little Chinese guy waiting on her. He was an even bigger surprise when he helped pull her out of the tunnel with a hand that he then used to shake with, "Sam Goldberg, nice to meet you Sally."

Norm crawled out of the tunnel with ease and then after a nod to Sam, both men slid a dry press machine back over the tunnel hole. Then Sam asked them, "you guys need a change?"

It was something that Norm had not even considered. He just looked himself over and decided there were no clothes that could hide all of the gear he was handling. He told Sam, "they don't know what we're wearing. I don't think we'll bother."

Sally was busy looking at the dirt on her clothes and all she could say to that was, "eww."

"We don't have time," Norm told her definitively. He grabbed Sally and began to pull her through the sea of moving clothes as he asked Sam, "is it clear?"

Sam followed them as he replied, "your car is right where you left it. Didn't see any cops." Sam peeled off when they reached the front of the store and sat back down behind his counter. His job was done now, "good luck Norm." Once the two fugitives were out of the store he added, "l'chayim. You're gonna need it."

This particular street was not very heavily trafficked. It was probably why the monastery wanted their dry cleaning business/escape tunnel here in the first place. There were no official openings, to the grounds, that led to this street so, as Sam had said, Norm saw no sign of a police presence. He was still not taking any chances as he drug Sally along towards his car. Then he felt her jerk away from his grasp.

That set off all kinds of alarm bells and, suddenly, Norm made sense of all that he had seen. A single man was in the car in front of his and, as the man got out, Norm realized he knew guy. It was Ted Hawson who was a well known heavy for the Texans. Across the street, in the direction that Sally was running, another similar looking car was parked with three men standing around it. Sally was actually running for one of the men! Suddenly Norm realized why she was doing it when he recognized the guy. Norm wanted to go after Sally. He thought about yelling for her to come back but, their time had run out.

The only thing that Norm could think to say when he saw Big Ted draw a weapon was the mumble that crossed his lips, "Hal you son of a bitch!"

Sally ran into Herb Cashton's arms and hugged him for all that she was worth. He too slipped his arms around her and held on tightly. When Sally heard the first gunshots, fired somewhere over her shoulder, she tried to jerk away and then, suddenly realized that Herb would not let go nor would he move from the spot they were standing. She looked up at him and he was smiling. She was confused. Then she saw the syringe in his hand. Then she saw nothing at all.