Family Ties (John Taylor #5) - Chapter 14

Taylor was focused as they drove. Since the last thing he wanted was to get pulled over and have a patrol officer look at the tied up guy in the back of the van, Taylor obeyed every traffic law, while still weaving through traffic to make up every second he could.

“So, what’s this additional security you set up?” Taylor asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

“A small fireproof safe that I bolted to the floor of the storage room. It’ll lose me my deposit, but they’ll either have to cut out a section of cement or cut into the safe to get the bolts out. Since they can’t take it with them, at least easily, they’ll need to cut into the safe there. While that’s not such a big deal, it seems unlikely Graf just has the stuff needed for that in his car. He’ll have to send someone out for it, and that’ll take some time.”

“We’re not that far behind him. Maybe five minutes, which means he’s just getting there now. He’ll either have to break in or badge the attendant and bluff his way in without a warrant. Either way, it’ll slow him down a little bit. Unless we hit traffic or something, we should show up not long after he gets into the locker.”

“Jesus, why didn’t you say ‘this is my last job before I retire’ while you’re at it. You can’t just say ‘unless we hit bad traffic.’”

Whitaker rolled her eyes but recognized his joking was a way to blow off some tension. Taylor’s shoulders were hunched, and he was sweating from the pain in his hand, which was steadily getting to him. Once things got serious, he knew the adrenaline would push that to the side, but right now, in the van, his hand hurt like hell.

“We need Graf alive, if at all possible. If he dies, most of the answers die with him. Alive, we could get something else out of him, and we need everything we can get.”

“Agreed. I promise I won’t shoot him dead.”

They pulled into a parking lot several buildings down from the storage lot. Graf was the kind of guy to set up precautions, even if he thought Whitaker and Taylor were entirely out of commission. Taylor was nearly certain he’d have some guys outside the storage place, keeping an eye out.

From around a neighboring building, Taylor saw he was right. Two of the guys that had been with Graf, still in their tactical gear and fake patches, were in front of the two-story storage building. Unlike the other one that Whitaker had used, this one was more upscale. Instead of a fenced-in lot with doors that opened up to outside paved areas, here, all of the storage spaces were inside.

People who rented one could park by a freight elevator and used the provided dollies to wheel everything inside.

One guard was by the front door of the building, and the other was by the freight elevator.

“Where’s your storage unit?”

“About ten feet in front of the freight elevator on the second floor.”

“I’m not crazy about being caught inside an elevator while armed hostiles are mobile outside of it.”

“Agreed. We’ll go in the front door. There’s a stairwell on this end of the building.”

“Good. We still need to take out both these guys, though. We don’t want either one coming up behind us.”

“Quietly, though. We don’t want the real cops showing up too soon, or alert Graf. I’ll take the guy by the freight elevator and meet you by the front door.”

Taylor nodded and turned back to the van to get one last item. The good thing going for them is the way the building was shaped the man by the elevator was essentially at the rear elevator. Not only could the two men not see each other, but they also couldn’t see the approaches to each other either. Taking the men silently would have been a lot harder if they’d put just one more man out who was able to see the two sentries. The current set up meant that neither knew if the other was still standing.

The other thing they had going for them was where the building was located. It was currently in the middle of the day. The area they were in didn’t have a considerable amount of foot traffic, with most people going places by car. If they’d been closer to downtown, they’d have to worry about spectators calling the police. Taylor knew these guys weren’t cops, but to the casual observer, it would look like Taylor was assaulting a police officer. This was going to be hard enough without a helpful citizen trying to do his part.

The sentry at the front door had clearly never been military or even a police officer, Taylor was reasonably certain. As he approached the side of the storage building, the sentry never even looked his direction. He was bored and just standing there, more than actually watching for any problems. If Taylor had to guess, he’d say this was just another criminal employed by Graf. The last set, at the other storage place, had been ex-military, but they’d been drummed out of their service. Years of extortion and brutality instead of training and focus had made this set the wrong kind of people for this type of operation. Which was fine with Taylor.

The main problem Taylor had was getting close enough to the guard to subdue him quietly. The guy was standing a foot or so from the front door, which precluded Taylor being able to sneak up on him. He might have been bored and not paying a lot of attention, but he’d notice if Taylor got close enough to make physical contact.

Which was why Taylor stopped at the van first. The guys had been fully outfitted to the same standards as Berlin’s normal tac team, so they looked right from a distance. Taylor could figure out why. Graf didn’t want Taylor and Whitaker questioning what was happening until he had them cuffed and in a somewhat private location. A shootout in the heart of Berlin would have brought other cops, who almost certainly weren’t on the Trust's payroll, which would have then brought questions Graf wouldn’t have been prepared to answer.

What all this meant was they’d gotten more than a pistol and a few magazines when they’d disarmed their prisoner after putting him in the van. Taylor stood at the edge of the storage building and judged the distance. It was about fifty feet to the sentry, too long for what Taylor needed. That meant, subtlety was out the door.

Taylor burst out around the side of the building and charged the sentry, moving as fast as he could with his left arm extended. The sentry noticed him after the first ten feet and started to lift his rifle. It was still further than Taylor wanted, but he couldn’t wait any longer. Pulling the trigger on the taser, Taylor sent two cables shooting out towards the man.

Since the man was a vest and full kit, he had to aim low since the barbs wouldn’t have penetrated on the man's torso. Thankfully his aim was on the mark, and both barbs impacted on the man’s thigh. As fifty thousand volts course into him, the sentry went ridge and toppled over. Taylor had been concerned he’d have his finger on the trigger, which would be bad considering the sudden muscle contractions. Thankfully, he hadn’t gotten that far, and his finger was still outside the trigger guard.

Taylor closed the ground, the button of the taser depressed the whole way to make sure he didn’t have a chance to get up until Taylor reached him. Time was still of the essence, and Taylor didn’t have time to wrestle with him before getting the man secured. As soon as he was on top of the sentry, Taylor smashed the taser into his face, and then a second time when he still seemed like he would be able to get up. The case of the plastic and metal weapon cracked, but the next step wouldn’t have to be quiet, so it didn’t matter.

The man’s body went slack. Taylor pulled the cuffs out of his belt and rolled him over, wrenching the unconscious man’s arms behind his back and snapping the cuffs on. He also took the man's weapons for safety's sake, figuring he could drop them inside somewhere.

A sound made Taylor whip around. Whitaker, who clearly made shorter work of her guy, came jogging around the corner.

“No problems?” Taylor asked.

“Nope. He won’t get up any time soon. Let’s get moving.”

With Whitaker’s help, they dragged the sentry from the front of the building around back, putting him with the man who’d been stationed by the elevator, to keep a random passerby from seeing the man and freeing him or calling the police.

That done, they circled back around and went in the front entry. Taylor had his borrowed pistol out in a single hand grip, his left hand still dangling at his side. Whitaker, who was in better shape to open doors, lead the way with her borrowed rifle. The stairwell was halfway into the building, down a long row of storage lockers.

They could hear Graf ranting in German before they got to the top of the stairs, clearly agitated about Whitaker’s surprise. As they got to the doorway at the top of the stairwell, Taylor and Whitaker paused, listening. Taylor only knew a smattering of German, but he recognized the word for phone and isn’t or doesn’t, along with Whitaker’s name.

Taylor guessed he’d tried to call his men and get the combination off Whitaker and was upset they weren’t answering. Taylor slowly pressed the push bar and opened the door, trying to peek into the hallway and get a picture of where everyone was.

For once, Taylor’s luck didn’t hold. One of the commands Graf was shouting out must have been for one of his guys to go back to the construction lot and find out why no one was answering because as Taylor peaked down the hall, he came face to face with one of the armed men.

Unfortunately for the other guy, Taylor had known they were there and had been prepared for something unexpected to happen, and had his weapon up. Graf’s man, on the other hand, had no idea there was anyone else in the building, and certainly wasn’t expecting an armed opponent. Taylor didn’t hesitate. Taking a split second to adjust his aim, targeting an area high on the chest above where the armored plate in the vest would be and fired.

For a brief moment, Taylor could see the man’s eyes widen before he dropped, twisting backward as he fell. Taylor had to hand it to Graf’s other men, they weren’t slouches, hardly hesitating before moving to cover and returning fire. Taylor barely had time to pull back into the small alcove created by the stairwell before the whizz of bullets ricocheting off the cement and metal doors.

Taylor stepped back to let Whitaker have the corner. Since she was crouching tall, Taylor leaned against the opposing wall, still undercover, kneeling low.

Whitaker blind fired back a few rounds to make them pull back before she leaned out and started taking steady aimed shots.

“We are short on reloads.”

“Did you see how many of them there are?”

“I saw two others, but not Graf. Cover me.”

Whitaker started firing a steady stream towards Graf, and his men as Taylor sat his gun down and crouch walked far enough to grab the guy he shot by the harness. Pulling hard, he managed to drag the man three-fourths of the way into the alcove.

Reaching into the web harness, he pulled out three magazines, plus a pistol and two more magazines the man had for that weapon.

“Here,” Taylor said, setting them all at her feet. “Keep them occupied, I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?” she replied, surprised.

“To flank them.”

Before she could ask any more questions, Taylor was through the stairwell doors and taking the steps two at a time. He stopped to see how the guy they left tied up was doing. Confirming the man was still asleep, Taylor found where they’d tossed the weapons and, more importantly, ammunition he’d been carrying and exchanged his half-empty weapon for the sentry's, along with an extra magazine.

That accomplished, Taylor dashed out the front door and around the rear of the building. As he passed the equally tied up rear sentry, he could hear Graf’s voice coming through the handheld radio. Taylor assumed he was telling his two men downstairs to come help.

Taylor ignored it and pushed the button for the elevator. While it was not a very big building, the freight elevator moved excruciatingly slowly. Taylor tapped his foot and waiting, hoping Whitaker would be okay. He didn’t want to abandon her, but he couldn’t see a way they could take out Graf and his men with the layout as it was. At least not without the strong chance of one of them being injured or killed in the process.

The elevator doors finally opened, and Taylor stepped inside, pressing the button to go back up. This would be the hardest part since Whitaker was firing directly towards the elevator doors. While Graf and his two men were inside of Whitaker’s storage locker, they would lean out to fire back at Whitaker. Considering she had to lean, take her shots, and lean back quickly to keep from presenting a stationary target for the shooters, she didn’t have a lot of time to aim. Some of the bullets were going to go into the elevator, which meant Taylor couldn’t safely leave the elevator until the hostiles were taken care of.

Here he was, in precisely the position he hadn’t wanted to be in, trapped in an enclosed space with the shooters outside of it. Of course, this way, he had Whitaker available to shoot anyone who tried to close in on the elevator, so he wasn’t completely vulnerable, but it still wasn’t exactly the position he wanted to end up in. 

Taylor moved to the left side of the elevator, which put him on the same side as Graf and his men. He would have had a better shot at them from the right side, but then so would they. The elevator reached its floor, and the door slid open. Just as he predicted, Taylor heard the snap-crack sound of a bullet smashing into the back of the elevator. Luckily, the elevator was designed to handle large, unwieldy freight and was padded to protect it from customers damaging it. In this case, it protected Taylor from ricochets.

Taylor peeked out and saw Whitaker pull back into the alcove she was using as cover. The Germans seemed momentarily confused by that. When she pulled back, they were also taking cover from her shots, and neither had been firing at her. They probably thought she was reloading, but Taylor hoped it meant she realized he had circled around.

The Germans didn’t turn to look into the elevator. Graf yelled something in German in his direction, and the other two men leaned out and began firing in Whitaker’s direction, probably in hopes of keeping her pinned.

Taylor lifted his pistol and squeezed off a shot at the German closest to him, smashing a bullet into the back of his head. The man was thrown forward, the body just missing his comrade. The other shooter paused, confused. He’d been looking in Whitaker’s direction and knew she hadn’t fired. He also saw that his friend had been thrown forward, not backward, from the impact. There was a separate part of his brain, which also knew that he had allies behind him in the elevator, coming to pick him up. These conflicting facts would have caused a cognitive dissonance in anyone.

He clearly had experience and only needed a second for his brain to work out the conundrum and tell him there was danger behind him. That one second usually would never have been enough, giving Taylor time to adjust his aim and fire again. Without his left hand cradling the grip, under his primary hand, to help counter recoil and bring the weapon back on target, Taylor’s hand was forced up, away from the second man.

It cost a precious second for Taylor to muscle the gun back down and take aim, making it a race between the German’s reacting to the danger behind him and Taylor being able to fire.

The German lost, barely. He began turning, pulling his rifle around from pointing towards the area Whitaker had been at and over to the threat from the elevator when Taylor fired. Taylor was forced to fire center mass, not having time to take better aim as he did with the first shooter. It caught the man in the vest, most likely in the protective plate, protecting him.

There’s a belief that a bulletproof vest offers complete protection from bullets. Movies make it seem like a person can be shot in a vest and keep fighting. This is usually never true. It does stop the bullet from tearing through the body, but it can’t do anything about all the kinetic force behind the bullet beyond spreading that force out across the body. At five feet, a bullet has a lot of kinetic energy.

The man slammed against the track from the rolling door of the storage locker, left hand coming off his rifle to grip at his chest. All of the air was forced out of his lungs, his face starting to turn blue as he fought to get them to expand again. There was a good chance one of the man’s ribs had been broken. In another situation, the man would have probably spent the next several days heavily bruised and sore across his chest where the bullet had impacted.

This wasn’t a different situation, though. Taylor needed more time, again, to get his weapon back on target. Now, however, he had the time. As the man struggled to get his breath back, Taylor adjusted his gun, aiming higher. His next shot was not stopped by the vest.

Graf had realized by now his mistake. Taylor was forced to press himself back to the side of the elevator as the inspector turned and fired. The only thing that saved Taylor was Graf’s being further into the locker, out of direct view of the elevator, so his men had room to work. As soon as Taylor saw him come into view, he’d jumped out of the way.

“Move up,” Taylor yelled at Whitaker, hearing her rifle bark out several times.

No more bullets had come into the elevator, giving Taylor enough hope to peak out. Whitaker was moving, crouched, forward towards the locker, sending a slow but steady metronome of fire into it. Taylor could hear more ricochets inside the room. Taylor added his fire into the other side of the room. He heard a shout of pain come from inside the room.

Whitaker moved to press herself against the wall next to the open bay door and looked at Taylor.

“Graf, give up. Your men are dead. You can still walk out of here.”

“Bullshit,” the German’s voice came from inside.

Taylor noticed the words were labored like they were forced through clenched teeth. Either Graf was struggling with something, or he was in pain. Since it didn’t seem likely he was still trying to get into the safe. Considering the number of bullets skidding off concrete inside the room over the last several minutes, Taylor was guessing it was the latter.

“You have my word. We don’t want you dead. We just want to clear Whitaker, and I guess my name. Throw your weapon out, and we won’t shoot you.”

“I’m not going to jail. Do you know what they do to cops inside?”

“Taking your chances with jail seems like the smarter play than getting dead right now. You have those powerful friends out there to help you out. It’s in their interest to keep you out, after all. A chance of getting out of this alive is a lot better than no chance.”

It was silent for a long time while Graf considered. Taylor started to worry that he would decide to go out in a hail of bullets rather than give up. While he had no problem killing Graf, especially considering everything he’d done so far to Whitaker and himself, they needed everything they could get to clear Whitaker. Taylor didn’t want to throw away what was probably their best source of information if he didn’t have to.

“Fine,” he said eventually.

“Good. Throw out your weapon.”

A pistol came sliding across the floor, bouncing off the foot of one of the dead gunmen. Taylor held up a hand to tell Whitaker to hold still. If this was a double-cross and Graf was still armed, he didn’t want them both in the line of fire.

Taylor stayed low, kneeling to try and not be in line with where Graf would assume Taylor would be, just in case. Weapon at the ready, Taylor leaned in to see Graf propped up against the safe Whitaker had bolted to the floor. His right arm was still in a sling. His other hand was gripping his thigh, blood seeping between the fingers.

Taylor gave a side nod for Whitaker to go in the room, not taking his eyes or weapon off Graf. She moved in, only slinging her rifle when she reached him. She’d grabbed handcuffs off one of the bodies near Graf. Gripping his shoulder, she rolled him over, pulled the arm in the sling out, and cuffed his wrists together. Graf howled in pain at her rough treatment. Taylor figured that considering everything he’d done to her, Graf should feel lucky he got out with only that.

Whitaker rolled him back over and sat him up, away from the safe. While she went to retrieve the journal, Taylor holstered his weapon and knelt in front of Graf, looking him in the eyes.

“Now comes the part you’re really going to hate. You’re a smart guy, too smart to trust that your bosses wouldn’t throw you to the wolves one day. You know their type. They’re only loyal to you as long as they see some type of value. If their balance sheets say they’ll make more money selling you out rather than backing you, they’ll do it in a heartbeat. You would have prepared for that, had something in your back pocket to make them look at their numbers a second time, or maybe even a third! I need whatever that is.”

“I don’t know what...” he started to say before Taylor smacked him on the top of the head.

It was an open palm smack, just hard enough to let him know he’d been hit, but not so hard as to actually hurt him.

“Don’t bullshit me. You made a big mistake, you know. She’s always been the type to do things by the book. She’s never had any patience for making exceptions when the situation requires it. You’re decision to frame her has made her rethink that, at least a little. Now, I’m not sure it’s gone so far as allowing me to beat the information out of you, but I’m not sure you want to test that either.”

“You said...”

“I said we wouldn’t kill you," Taylor said with a chuckle that would freeze nitrogen. "You’ll be alive. You'll just wish you weren’t. You’re a smart guy. You’ve looked into me, and you know exactly what type of person I am. The smart play is to give us what we want and hope you can use our... alternative methods of questioning as a wedge to get out of jail time. Hell, I’m fine with that. If you can weasel your way out on a technicality, more power to you, as long as you give me what I need.”

Taylor paused for him to respond when he heard the stairwell door bang open. His immediate thought was it was the police, either summoned by Graf or responding to calls of shots fired. Taylor stood up to go and see when he noticed the smile on Graf’s face. It wasn’t a smile of someone who thought, ‘I’m being rescued.’ It was the type smile someone has when they've pulled a fast one on someone else.

“Shit. He’s been stalling us. Those are more of his men.”

“Are you sure?” Whitaker asked, moving into position by the side of the bay door.

“Pretty sure.”

Taylor leaned out and then back in as quickly as he could, figuring if he was fast enough, they wouldn’t have time to react. It was almost the last mistake he ever made. The three men he could see in the hall were ready for something like that. As he pulled back, he could feel the air ripple as a bullet missed his head by inches.

“Shit. Three of them.” Taylor said, sticking his gun out and blind firing down the hallway.

Whitaker followed suit, firing off several rounds without looking. A hail of bullets answered, forcing both of them back into the storage locker. Whitaker cried out, his hand going to her side.

“Loretta!” Taylor called out, starting to go to her.

“No,” she said, holding up the hand now smeared with blood in a stop gesture. “I was only grazed by a ricochet.”

She stuck her rifle out and fired off several more rounds.

“The elevator doors just shut,” Whitaker said.

“Must be more of them, trying to do what I did.”

Taylor looked around the room, trying to work out a plan. They were boxed in and about to get flanked. They needed to figure something out now, or they were dead for sure. Taylor involuntarily ducked, getting close to the floor, when a bullet fragment whizzed past his ear. Looking up, he was only a few inches from the bodies of one of the men he’d shot and suddenly put together a plan.

Graf’s men had gone all out to impersonate a believable tac team, probably because Graf thought they’d find Taylor and Whitaker in a populated area, and he needed to make it convincing. Taylor hadn’t paid enough attention before, but they’d gone into more detail than they could have possibly thought was necessary.

Graf’s precautions were going to end up helping Taylor and Whitaker, now. The body of the man closest to him was completely decked out, including a flash-bang hooked onto his web harness. Taylor grabbed the man's leg and pulled hard with his one good hand, trying to get the body enough into the room to retrieve the flash-bang without getting shot.

Bullets were still whizzing around the small concrete room. He’d felt a couple get close, but so far he’d been lucky. He needed to end this soon, though, because that luck wasn’t going to hold. Taylor finally got the body back far enough and waved to get Whitaker’s attention. Using hand signals, since all the firing in the enclosed space had made hearing anything impossible, he told her his plan. With a nod, she readied for covering fire so he could step out.

Pulling the two pins on the flash-bang was agony since the forceful tug needed aggravated his dislocated thumb. Stepping out enough he underhand tossed the projectile down the hall, bouncing near the leg of the man he’d killed by the stairwell, earlier.

As soon as the flash-bang was airborne, both he and Whitaker pulled back, covering their ears and closing their eyes. They were already partially deafened by all the weapons fire in an enclosed concrete room, but neither wanted to add to that if they could help it.

Even though his covered ears Taylor could hear the distinct sound of the small explosive and see the flash from behind his closed eyes. As soon as the sound passed, they were both on the move. They found the three men covering their faces. One fired blindly down the hall, or attempting to, hitting a locker door to his right instead.

Since he was still holding a loaded weapon, Taylor shot him in the chest as they closed, not trusting, getting too close to an armed and panicking man. The other two had dropped their weapons, trying to clear their heads. They hadn’t discussed it, but both Taylor and Whitaker had come to the decision that they needed to take someone alive, hopefully, so the real police could question them.

Taylor pushed his free forearm against the back of the man’s helmet closest to him and slammed it into the wall. With the helmet on, he wouldn’t be permanently injured, but Taylor put all of his weight behind it. The man’s legs went out from under him, and he dropped, helmet scraping against the wall on the way down.

Whitaker had the second man down and on his back, slapping on the cuffs that the man had been wearing on his belt around his wrists. Taylor was moving to help her when he caught movement from the elevator doors beginning to open. He didn’t hesitate, firing off his weapon until the slide locked back as the doorway expanded. The two men, who’d been standing in the center of the doorway, never got a shot off as they were both hit multiple times.

After what seemed like forever, but had been less than ten minutes total, the storage area finally fell silent, or at least mostly quiet. The cuffed man near Whitaker’s feet was cursing up a storm, and his unconscious friend was starting to come too, moaning. While Whitaker restrained him, Taylor returned to the storage locker.

They were cutting it close. Ten minutes of gunfire was enough to bring every cop in the area down on them, and enough time for the first units to begin arriving. His plans fell apart the moment he rounded the corner into the locker.

On the ground lay Graf, dead. Taylor couldn’t see any immediate wounds, but it was probably one of the stray rounds that had been bouncing around the concrete room. They now had a couple of tied up muscle for hire who’d almost certainly lawyer up the second they were interrogated and some circumstantial documents. 

Taylor was trying to work his way through his plans, trying to come up with one that was still viable when the service door banged open again. More shouting in German followed.

Taylor pulled his weapon and began to rush out to back up Whitaker when her voice called out to him.

“John, stop,” she said, predicting his response. “It’s the police. The actual police.”

Taylor had just dropped his weapon when the first uniformed street cop came around the comer, gun at the ready.