Nightcrawler (8 page)

Tom was in a cheery mood, and she had to endure a few minutes of good-natured ribbing after Durham saw the purple bruise on her eye that the makeup could not cover up. Jon was at a loss for words as Durham filled him in on all the details that Sabrina had left out about their workout session last week. He found it hard to believe that she hit Tom so hard in the solar plexus that he nearly called a timeout. Even harder to believe was him saying she was tougher than most of the men he had sparred with.

“I had one guy who was pretty sore about getting outbid on this deal,” Durham knocked down a shot of Spanish brandy in a toast with them before signing the contracts. “I told him if he didn't like it, I'd put him in a room with the little girl who got it, and she'd beat the hell outta him.”

Sabrina told Hoyt all about it a couple of hours later as they met under the Brooklyn Bridge and walked over by the fenceline overlooking the East River before heading into the River Café for dinner. He winced at the purple welt alongside her face, and she gave him some excuse about something falling from a shelf at the lab. Regardless of the bruise, he could not help but marvel at her lovely profile against the majestic New York skyline across the River. The sunlight played across her auburn hair and gave a sparkle to her emerald eyes, her upturned nose impish as she gave him a Cupid's-bow smile.

“I was kinda wondering if you might be able to do me a favor,” she asked softly. “I want you to think about it carefully, and if it's out of the question I understand.”

“Whatcha got?”

“I think someone's trying to set up BCC, to make us look bad. We're ordering some potentially volatile materials for some experiments we need for some of the projects I told you about. I'm afraid someone might try to get us red-flagged to slow us down and make our clients go elsewhere.”

“How can I help?”

“I'd like to know what the investigators are coming across upstate, whether they're finding traces of chemicals that might have started the fires. If it's a case of arson, maybe I can find out what they're using and delay orders of those types of products. I can even look for alternative items so as not to disrupt our research.”

“Why, sure, Bree. As a matter of fact, I'm sure anything you come across would help our guys upstate. I know a couple of guys up in Catskill, I'll give them a call and see if there's anything they can pass along.”

“Great. Let's go inside, I'm starved.”

“Hold on. Can I look at that?”

He wanted to wait until they left, but could not hold back any longer. He reached over and cupped her face in his hands, gazing into her eyes before slowly leaning forward and kissing her lips. Her heart fluttered as she closed her eyes and cherished the magic moment.

“Gosh, Hoyt,” she caught her breath, “I—“

“Geez, I'm sorry, Bree—“

“Come on, silly,” she took him hand and tugged him along. “Let's eat.”

They got a table by the window and enjoyed a panoramic view of the New York harbor as they ordered their meals. Sabrina had the Maine lobster special while Hoyt tried the American red snapper. Hoyt splurged on the $100 three-course special, deciding that his first kiss from Sabrina was worth celebrating. They did not discuss the terrorists again, instead talking about places they had visited and how much fun it might be taking a run out of town to go sightseeing. Sabrina had not been to Disney World since she was a child, and they agreed that would be a great place to go one weekend.

They left as the sun went down, and Hoyt gave her a peck on the lips after walking her to her car, not wanting to embarrass her with people getting into a vehicle parked nearby. She exchanged hugs with him, and just as Hoyt walked off she got a call on her cell phone from Rick Alfonso.

“Bree? I was doing some checking around to try and get a handle on some of the stuff you were talking about. I got a call back from Rod Ramirez and he mentioned there was something you might find interesting. There's a firm called Anguiano Oil Exports operating out of Corpus Christi that has been moving barrels of oil to a location in Garrison, New York. I checked around and found that it's a warehouse that's been vacant for quite some time. Were you looking at Anguiano Exports for some reason? I'll be glad to check further if you like.”

“No, no, that'll be fine,” Sabrina replied softly. “I'll call Rod. Thanks a bunch.”

It was a ninety-minute drive to Garrison from Staten Island, and she would need to go back home and pick up her gear before taking the drive. She knew that she might be able to crack this case if she drove up and investigated it herself. If she tipped off the cops, it was highly likely that the Octagon would have sentries posted if they were behind the scheme. They probably already had an alibi, and if the cops failed to take them down then they would move the petroleum to a safer and more secluded location.

It was almost ten that evening by the time she reached the outskirts of Garrison. She used her GPS to locate the warehouse, and stopped at a gas station to prepare for the ride out. She began feeling her stomach and legs cramping slightly and realized she was about to have her period. She cursed her luck and considered calling it off, but she had driven too far and had too much at stake to back off now. She smiled wryly as she considered what a rough time policewomen must have, and was glad she was only doing this on rare occasions.

She changed into her ninja suit in the restroom, putting her dress suit in her travel bag. Nobody even noticed as she had pinned her hair back and scrubbed her makeup off to appear less noticeable to busybodies. She hopped into the Porsche and headed north on IH-87 over the Palisades Interstate Parkway en route to Highway 9. The backroads were poorly illuminated and she had to stop and verify her GPS coordinates before parking her car at the deserted truck terminal. She saw the three-story warehouse building about a hundred yards off the side road and knew she had reached her destination.

She snuck up to the warehouse and saw a vehicle parked in the rear of the building, though there were no signs of movement anywhere. She checked the sliding steel door to the loading dock and found it locked. She went over to the glass-paned door leading to the side office and pried it open with her crowbar, stepping into the darkened room. There was a second door leading to the warehouse, and she found it unlocked as she slipped through. The barren room was about twenty square yards in area, and the only illumination came from the full moon shining brightly through the ceiling windows. She saw a metal staircase leading to an upper floor, and quickly tiptoed up the steps to see if there was anything hidden there.

She opened the door to the upper floor and the odor of petroleum hit her nostrils. She stepped into the moonlit room and saw about thirty oil barrels lining the far walls of the dark room. The walls featured large paned windows that provided for low visibility as she crept towards the center of the room.

“At last we meet,” a voice thundered across the room as the fluorescent overhead lights flashed on. Sabrina shielded her eyes from the sudden brightness. She looked up and saw a tall, powerfully-built man walking towards the center of the room who she knew was the Reaper. To each side of him were two veiled figures, and on either side of them were two black-clad men carrying plexiglass riot shields. “It seems that all things come to those who wait, even Nightcrawlers.”

“You know what they say about people who play with matches,” she said, her voice distorted to a genderless growl by the device in her balaclava. “I've got the State Police arriving any minute now. I suggest you come on downstairs and give it up. If this turns into a shootout and one of these barrels explode, you people will be boiled alive.”

“There's no one coming,” the Reaper laughed as the two men circled around from either side of the room, shields at the ready. “The police are looking for you almost as hard as they're looking for us. You may have gotten in our way before but rest assured it will not happen again.”

She pulled her gas gun and fired it at the attacker to her left as he brought his shield up to block the cloud of DATKO before it hit him. She whirled and fired a back kick to the shield of the second attacker, sending him flying backwards across the room. The first man slammed the shield against her arm, knocking the gas gun flying before she pirouetted and knocked him senseless with a roundhouse kick.

The Reaper moved across the floor like a jungle cat, launching himself through the air with a flying front kick that caught her in the left shoulder and sent her crashing against the wall. She started to rebound but was at once hit with a stomach cramp that felt like her tummy had been stapled. She broke into a defensive stance but was beset by the Reaper, who hit her with a volley of kicks and punches that left her out on her feet.

“This is just a question of having the right opponent in the right situation,” the Reaper called back to his teammates as he stepped back defensively. “A bunch of useless Syrians were obviously no match for this one.”

He then stepped it with a brutal right cross that sent her reeling backwards into the wall where she fell to her knees. The Reaper then kicked her in the head with his steel-tipped boot, dropping her flat on her face.

“You see how it is with these people who watch too many movies and think they can take the law into their own hands,” the Reaper shook his head before grabbing her by the back of her collar and her belt, hoisting her up and throwing her onto a work table about ten feet away. “These stupid people think they can stick their nose into things that even Homeland Security can't handle!”

She felt the cramps doubling up as if she had been kicked in the stomach. She was still seeing double from the kick to the head and doubted she would be able to block him again, much less fight back. She had a knife in her rucksack but would not be able to reach it before he made his next move. She was in serious trouble, and realized she was just about out of options as the Reaper drew near.

“Let us take a look at this fool before we finish him off,” the Reaper chortled, grabbing her balaclava. “I think we'll leave him outside for the police after we get these barrels loaded up.”

Sabrina reached up and grabbed his wrist but was unable to stop him from tearing the hood from her head.

“What in hell is this?” the Reaper exclaimed. “This is not the Nightcrawler. This is a girl!”

“Obviously this must be a group going under the guise of the Nightcrawler,” the Tarantula came over to where the Reaper stood by the table. “This is not going to end the problem.”

“She's very pretty,” Vincent Gargano observed as he drew near. The eyes of the bisexuals narrowed with lust as they were aroused by the vicious beating. “Let us have some fun with her first.”

“You know,” the Reaper stared him down, “your proclivities can be offensive at times.”

With that, he grabbed her by the front of her jacket and her belt buckle. He swung her off the table in a short arc, and threw her through the air crashing out the paned window where she plummeted almost thirty feet to the ground below.

The next day, the Governor of New York called out the National Guard. They set a blockade around the forest fire to prevent anyone from accessing the area. The State Police and SWAT units raided the Garrison warehouse just before daybreak and confiscated the petroleum barrels though the Octagon had long since departed. They fled the scene immediately upon discovering the Nightcrawler had vanished.

Hoyt Wexford had followed a hunch and staked out Sabrina's home after they left the River Café Monday evening. He waited outside for about an hour until she left the manor in her Porsche, accessing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and heading north towards IH-87. He followed her carefully towards Garrison, watching and waiting as she entered the gas station wearing her dress suit and exiting in a black martial arts uniform. He felt his bowels churning as she drove a short distance to Highway 9 where she came to a halt and parked at the deserted warehouse.

He parked in the bushes alongside the road and crept onto the warehouse property, his heart filled with trepidation. He was almost sickened by the thought of her masquerading as the Nightcrawler, and wondered what would make her go to such extremes to uncover a suspected plot against her Company. He saw a truck parked in the back and assumed that someone had agreed to meet her out here. He only hoped that it was someone who had access to the property and that neither were trespassing or breaking into the building.

His heart sank as he saw her breaking into the warehouse, and wrestled with the notion of taking off so as not to be accused of witnessing the crime. Yet he would not leave this beautiful girl he was falling in love with, and decided to stick around until she came back out. He would let her see his vehicle leave the area and let her do some serious thinking about someone having seen her on the premises.

He received the shock of his life when she came crashing out the window, bumping and rolling in a heap on the grass twenty yards in front of him. He drew his gun and waited as a figure looked out the window at her before the lights went out once more. He waited a couple of minutes before darting from the bushes, picking her up in his arms and carrying her away. He had no idea of how many people were in the building and what he would be up against if he tried to take them on. If he called for backup, Sabrina would be in deep stuff if they connected her to the Nightcrawler or found she had broken into the building.

“Hoyt?” she managed weakly, trying to remain conscious as he loaded her into the back seat of his midnight blue BMW. “Don't go in there, there's too many of them.”

“I've got to get you to a doctor,” he insisted as he hopped into the driver's seat and gunned the engine.

“No! Don't you do it!” she gasped in pain. “You either get us a room or just leave me here. No cops, no doctors!”

“All right, I'll get us a room and check you out. If you need to be in a hospital, you're going,” he admonished her.

He drove a short distance along the IH-87 South and pulled into a motel run by an East Indian. He winced at the curry smell that permeated the office, paying with his credit card before getting the key and driving to the rear of the property. He opened up the door and carried Sabrina inside, laying her gently on one of the double beds.

“We need to get my car over here,” she said weakly.

“Baby, you're all wet. Is that blood?” he stared at her pants.

“I just started my period and that goofball threw me out the window,” she grunted. “Help me to the bathroom so I can get cleaned up. Why don't you call a cab and get my car while you're waiting?”

“Okay,” he agreed as she pulled her keys from her pocket and tossed them to him. He then came over and she struggled to her feet as he put his arm around her and walked her to the bathroom. He was nearly overwhelmed by concern for her, anger at what had been done to her, and the feel of her voluptuous figure in his arms. Even though he was handling her as the most fragile crystal, she was still the sexiest woman alive for him. He could not believe they were together this intimately in such a terrible situation.

“Oh, and can you stop somewhere and get me some tampons, and some aspirin?” she called before closing the bathroom door.

“Yeah, sure,” he was on his way out to the car.

“And some iron pills, and milk, and a hamburger if you see one.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he managed a chuckle, suspecting that she was somehow regaining her strength. He was filled with gladness, yet resolved that he was going to get to the bottom of this.

He would find out how in hell she ended up getting thrown out of that window.

She had sufficiently recovered to make the drive home the next morning before dawn, and Hoyt gave her enough time before calling the State Police. She called Jon Aeppli and told him she was taking the day off before arriving at the manor and nearly crawling from the garage to the house. She had the car radio on throughout the drive, but the news about the Guard was not broadcast until 8 AM.
Good Morning America
announced that a break in the Octagon case had resulted in a warehouse stacked with petroleum barrels having been raided. They also reported that the Governor had been notified, and he was deploying the Guard to the Catskills.

Miraculously, she managed to do a parachutist roll when she hit the grass outside the warehouse. She landed on both feet and rolled backwards, though she hit hard on her back and was sent sprawling onto her head and neck. She was sore from the fall, her face swollen and even more mottled by the head shots she took from the Reaper. To add insult to injury, this was all happening at this time of the month. She had cramps, a double headache, and felt like hunting down the Octagon and pulling their hair out.

Of all the things that weren't going to happen today, canceling supper with Rita was going to be the worst. She was really looking forward to spending some quality time with Rita and hopefully find the unmet friend. When she looked back on her life, most of her friends were what she considered periodic friends. They were the ones who were there for the season, then disappeared from her life. There were the pre-school friends, the grade school friends, the high school friends, those from NYU and the ones from John Jay. She could count her close friends on one hand, and hoped Rita would be a keeper. Hopefully she would be ambulatory enough to meet with Rita on Friday. The only thing that would keep her from making it would be getting thrown out another window.

Tomorrow was the Church meeting with the expectant mothers, and there was no way she was missing that. She would reschedule with Rita while firming up the Wednesday appointment. She would make that even if she had to walk in on crutches. Her only dread was that the Pastor saw her like that, and put two and two together. He would realize she went Nightcrawling, and he would jump on the bandwagon to make her quit. After the whipping she took from the Reaper, she did not think it would take a lot to make her change her mind.

She bared her soul at the motel last night, and he sat spellbound as she told him all about the Nightcrawler. He was very quiet as she gave all the details of the last couple of months, and they were both very tired by the time she finished. He left a wake-up call for five AM, and they woke the next morning engrossed in thought over the things they had to attend to this day. He hugged and kissed her but it was not with the passion of yesterday at the River Café. She hoped she had not lost him, but even more important, she prayed he would not betray her.

She began crying as she thought of how she was beginning to feel about Hoyt. He was strong, level-headed and devoted, the kind of guy every girl was looking for. Only his career meant everything to him at this stage of his life. He had just graduated from the Academy and was already getting choice assignments. He was ending up in the thick of major events, and the people on top were beginning to take notice. She did not want the Nightcrawler to come between them, and even worse, she did not want the Nightcrawler to put her in a wheelchair or a casket.

Only she could not feel a sense of pride in what the Nightcrawler had accomplished. She had stopped the Octagon three times in a row, and saved New York from disaster at least twice. There would have been no way the police could have captured the petroleum barrels if it were not for the Nightcrawler. Yet she was astonished by the fact that they were still looking for the Nightcrawler for possession of chemical weapons. It was almost as if everyone wanted for her to abandon an alter ego that had saved so many innocent lives.

It was the call from Rod Ramirez that turned her day topsy-turvy. She was not going to pick up at first, but realized that it was his tipoff to Rick Alfonso that made the Garrison gambit happen. She was apprehensive over the fact that he now had some serious weight on her, but she was also sure that he did not want to get caught up an investigation if the Feds tried to link the BCC up to Laredo Oil and Gas. Plus she did not want to do anything to show disrespect.

“Hi, Mr. Ramirez, how are you today?” Sabrina sounded cheery.

“Just fine, my dear. I wanted you to be among the first to know that I have retired to Southern Mexico.”

“What?” she was perplexed.

“A lot has happened over the past few days, my dear,” he seemed apologetic. “A lot of things that I have come to regret. Obviously things have worked out for the best, but I fear I will spend many sleepless nights thinking of how it all could have gone the other way.”

“What kind of things?” she tried to get up from her recliner in the living room but it hurt too much.

“Somehow Al Qaeda found out about how you traced that oil tanker from El Paso to New York,” he revealed. “They gave me a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, an ultimatum, if you will. They asked me to help entice you to send the Nightcrawler to investigate their storage depot in Garrison. Somehow they compromised my connection in Nuevo Laredo to divulge my involvement in discovering the rogue tanker. They offered to buy my company for ten million dollars and the chance to walk away with my life.”

“My gosh, Mr. Ramirez, they nearly killed me,” she said softly.

“I was fairly certain you would notify the police as you did at Manhattan Beach,” he insisted. “I did not think you would be foolish enough to try and take them on by yourself.”

“That's not how it went down at Manhattan Beach,” a tear of anger rolled down her cheek. “That's what the papers said, but that's not what happened.”

“Well, you are safe now, that is what matters,” he rationalized. “I just felt that the information I gave them along with my business was worth more than their equivalent of thirty pieces of silver. They told me they would kill me if they ever heard from me again. So, now I tell you what they did not think was worth paying for.”

“And what's that?” she asked intently.

“I'm pretty sure I know what the Octagon's Plan B is.”

The following morning, Sabrina returned to work and joined the rest of the staff at the Brooks Chemical Company to watch another
Good Morning America
exclusive. Undercover officer Hoyt Wexford had received a tip that helped police uncover over a thousand barrels of petroleum stored in an abandoned mine in the Catskills. The barrels had been rigged with C4 plastic explosives that would have started a firestorm high in the mountain area unreachable by firefighting units.

Sabrina tried calling Hoyt but his phone immediately went to voicemail. She was exceedingly happy for him and glad she was able to keep the Nightcrawler out of it. She called him as soon as she got off the phone with Ramirez and told him of the information she was given. It was Ramirez's measure of revenge for them having squeezed him out of a business he had devoted his working life to. The business itself was worth over $100 million, but Ramirez had invested so heavily that after liquidation, he might have been lucky to walk away with the ten million Al Qaeda gave him. Still, if he had been able to hang in for ten more years, he would have easily retired with fifty million. Asking for twenty million was not unreasonable, and when they spit in his face, he spit back.

What shook her to the core was an exclusive news bulletin by CNN that afternoon. Vincent Gargano and Walt Griffin were arrested shortly after the Homeland Security raid, and they both maintained that they had been blackmailed into the Octagon by an extortion ring led by the Nightcrawler. They said that they were just one of several people in the LGBT community that had been approached by the ring. They had been forced to divulge professional secrets and personal identity info of others under threat of having their own private information exposed. In their case, they had been forced to join the Octagon for what they were told was a project for a private overseas security agency. It was rumored that the ACLU was planning to represent the men, who were also being championed by the LGBT community.

“This is a perfect example of why this Administration needs to step in and eliminate sexual discrimination from our society once and for all,” LGBT activist Sheryl Harrington was interviewed on CNN. Harrington was a transsexual standing six feet tall with one hundred eighty five pounds set on an athletic frame. “Members of our community should no longer be forced to hide in closets for fear of being ostracized over their sexual identities. The LGBT community has been lobbying to have sexual discrimination against gays categorized as hate crimes. Issues such as these should cause our legislators to wake up and realize how this social injustice is threatening the safety and security of our very nation!”

Sabrina sat in her office trying to absorb the impact of what she had seen and heard when the phone rang. She glanced at her Caller ID and was relieved to see it was Rita.

“Hi, honey,” her Kentuckian drawl was chipper as always. “Just checking to see if you were still gonna make the prayer meeting tonight. We were also gonna discuss plans for a barbecue event on the Church property to benefit the women's shelter project. We were thinking about holding it this Saturday, and I wasn't sure if you knew about it because it had just come up over the last couple of weeks.