Published at 12th of November 2022 4:06 pm

Book 2: Chapter 146: The Best Laid Plans

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The first part of the plan went without a hitch. Dan escorted Rawls as far as the RED Building, then reappeared back in Austin while the fed went to file his precious paperwork. Dan spent half an hour at a rent-a-van company, just a few blocks away from the police precinct that held Dunkirk, and was handed the keys mere moments before a text from Rawls told him that it was time to move out.

Dan started up the vehicle, a standard cargo van, and trundled off to start some trouble. The short trip was entirely uneventful, but Dan imagined that someone, somewhere, was panicking over his impending arrival. Dunkirk’s imminent transfer had surely been leaked by now. Plans were being put into place, calls were being made, and assassins arranged. Dan didn’t plan to give them any more time than necessary. He pulled into the Northwestern district command’s lower garage, not twenty minutes after Rawls’ message. He found Cornelius waiting for him.

“Ambitious thing you’re attempting,” Cornelius greeted without preamble, his ever-present smirk just a little bit more strained than usual. “You sure about this?”

“Sure as I can be,” Dan replied with a nod.

“Ready for someone to take a shot at the van?” Cornelius pressed, staring hard at Dan. “You could always ask Gregoir to shadow you.”

Dan shook his head. “I’ve got a plan. Trust me.” That seemed to mollify Cornelius, if only just.

The older officer sighed, and waved Dan inside. “Come on. Let’s get this done.”

They entered the district headquarters and immediately went down, down into the bowels of its maze-like underbelly, where dangerous prisoners were temporarily held for threat evaluations. Rawls’ criminal informant was somewhere in here, placed in an artificial coma until something more secure could be arranged. Dunkirk, too, had his own cell. Though the fed wasn’t particularly dangerous by himself, the trouble he attracted more than justified his imprisonment in the district’s cages.

The two men walked side by side, their footsteps echoing across the narrow corridors. The halls were clear. Not a soul crossed their path. It was eerie by design; everything from the material of the walls to the color of the paint was meant to muddle the senses. The twists and turns Cornelius took would have quickly disoriented Dan, if not for his veil having already mapped the place. He could see where Dunkirk was kept, though the man himself was laying on a gurney, unconscious.

They walked quickly and, despite the distance and many turns, made it to Dunkirk’s cell within five minutes. An officer waited outside for them, a medic’s cross sewn into the shoulder of his uniform. He waved them inside, checking Dunkirk’s pulse as they entered. He nodded, more to himself than anyone in the room, and turned to face Dan.

“He should be out for around two hours,” the officer said. “He’ll be groggy when he wakes, but that will fade quickly. I expect him to be fully ambulatory within ten minutes of waking.”

“Plenty of time,” Dan offered awkwardly. He had no idea who this person was, and at this point, was too embarrassed to ask.

The doctor passed over some paperwork for Dan to sign. He scanned it briefly, taking in the expected contents. It was essentially an overcomplicated liability form. The APD was fully absolved of responsibility for Thomas Dunkirk. Any consequences that may occur during transportation were Dan’s problem, and his alone. Dan scrawled his messy signature where indicated, and passed it back.

“Alright then,” the medic said. “Let’s wheel him out.”

“Back your van up to the service elevator,” Cornelius advised Dan. “We’ll take him up.”

Dan nodded, and obeyed. He blinked himself back into the driver’s seat of his van, and carefully eased it against the entrance of the large elevator in the far corner of the garage. A minute passed, and the elevator dinged. Cornelius stepped out, pulling Dunkirk’s gurney behind him. Dan unlocked the back doors, and the two officers loaded in the unconscious fed. They stepped back out, Cornelius pounded the side of the van, and flashed a thumbs up in the rear-view mirror.

“Good luck!” he called out, and then Dan was off.

Time was of the essence, and Dan peeled out of the police station with nary a glance at the street. He knew people would be lying in wait by now, and he had only minutes to act before they realized he was driving away from the airfield. Fortunately, his target location was just around the corner. He made it to the shady parking garage without being shot at, and drove down to the lowest floor. Dan swept the garage once more for any kind of surveillance and finding nothing, took a deep breath.

His veil pooled in the wall before him in the shape of a square, ten by ten. With a flex of his imagination and a dash of willpower, the wall became a door, and the door opened. Where there once was blank concrete, was now the inside of the Summers’ private hangar. Dan wasn’t worried about being seen. Clients at this airfield paid top dollar to keep things out of sight. There was no surveillance in the building, and Dan gently eased his van through the opening.

The hangar was closed and empty, but the lights were switched on in preparation for Dan’s arrival. He closed the door behind him, effectively ending any possible pursuit. Dan swept his surroundings, more out of habit than caution, and found nothing out of place. He checked his watch and nodded.

“Five minutes till your plane arrives,” he told the unconscious Dunkirk.

There was no reply.

While he waited, Dan sent off a text to Rawls. “About to be airborne,” it said.

His phone buzzed moments later.

“Preparations ongoing,” Rawls replied, which wasn’t as comforting as it was probably meant to be. The flight to D.C. would take less than an hour. The Summers family owned a variety of super-fast private jets, and Abby had secured a lower-end model for use in this operation. It still blew commercial planes out of the water in terms of cruising speed, but a lot could happen in an hour. Dan planned to spend that time at the airport, scouting.

The longer flight time was something Rawls had argued for. While Abby could have requested a faster ride, Rawls believed that a one-hour time frame was something of a sweet-spot for planning purposes. It wasn’t enough time for anything subtle, or sneaky. It wasn’t enough time to subvert anyone who wasn’t already subverted. It wasn’t enough time to arrange for out-of-town help, at least not without being obvious. It was, however, just enough time to organize an attack that was loud, flashy, and obvious.

“An attack like that can only help us,” Rawls had insisted. “It would be strong supporting evidence of conspiracy.”

“Assuming you survive,” Dan had pointed out.

“Well, there is that.”

Dan heard a distant roar that quickly grew closer. Something heavy thudded against the runway outside, and slid to a stop far faster than its weight suggested possible. The door to the hangar shuddered, then opened. The plane Abby had chartered was parked right outside the hangar, twin rotors kicking up sand and dust as they winded down. The vehicle resembled nothing so much as a fat, rectangular frog; squat and boxy, with a cargo door that ratcheted open like steel shutters.

Dan didn’t bother waiting for the pilot to greet him. The man was under carefully worded orders, and would not be asking questions. So, Dan carefully eased Dunkirk’s gurney out of the van, then wheeled it up to the waiting aircraft. The sleeping fed’s chest rose and fell with each languid breath. His skin was slightly pale, and his cheeks sagged with fatigue. Even in sleep, he seemed stressed and uncomfortable.

Good.

The cargo bay was empty and unadorned. There were no seats that he could see, but there was a small indentation with some wall straps laying on the floor beside it. Dan eased Dunkirk’s gurney into the nook, locked down the wheels, and strapped it down. He glanced around, quickly finding a small intercom mounted on the wall.

He pressed it, and said, “Ready for transport.”

“Acknowledged,” the robotic crackle came back moments later. There was a soft hum, followed by the clatter of the cargo door shutting tight. The hum became a whine, which quickly escalated into a roar. The ground lurched beneath Dan’s feat, and the plane began to move.

Dan willed himself away. He had an hour to secure the landing site and anything else he might think of. The airfield was a good ways out of the city, on a flat plain surrounded by rolling hills. There were woods aplenty, with more than a few places to hide some asshole with a long rifle. He couldn’t do much about that, but he was determined to sweep every inch of the airfield itself. At the very least, he wouldn’t let Rawls get taken out by a bomb strapped to a wall, or something equally asinine.

But Dan had barely gotten started, when he received a call from Rawls.

The conversation was brief, and hurried.

“We just received intel—what I’m being told is reliable intel—that Champion has been spotted in Memphis,” Rawls rattled off in rapid breaths. “As head of the VRU, I’m being ordered out there. Right now!”

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