Ingrams & Assoc 4: Beneath the Surface Ch. 04

So that's what I did.

It took me about an hour to get everything set up. The van had several bags of slightly wet sand in them - wet sand molds to the places it's put, and dry sand doesn't, at least not as well - and I packed them in, around the 10 inch pipe that came off the main sewer I was working in. I'd put in a row of bags, then a pipe from the pump, and then a pressure sensor, then more bags on top, till the entire pipe was blocked.

It wasn't very pleasant work - normally when we do this kind of thing, we alert the houses up-wind of the work, so we don't get a ton of raw sewage being flushed down where we were working, but in this case, I didn't have that luxury. So, twice, I had to step aside as especially fragrant liquidized turds came swishing their way towards me. Such is the life of a water engineer in Boston. It's the shittiest job going, so they say. More sewer humor. Still not funny, I guess.

Then it was Time. I'd done the best back-of-the-envelope calculations I could on the house's air capacity, and voraciousness of the ether I had (finally a benefit from the three excruciating years of Chemistry I had to take as part of my degree) in order to try and work out the amount of ether I should be dumping out. It worked out at two complete cylinders over half an hour. By then it should have propagated through the entire houses, and everyone would be feeling the effects.

At the end of the half hour, I turned off the pump, and spent ten minutes crossing my fingers, and hoping to god I'd got it right.

Then I pulled out my phone and the card from Special Agent In Charge Trubas, and dialed the number.

It took three rings before he answered.

"Yeah?" Such a fine phone manner, these FBI Agents.

"Agent Trubas. This is Thomas Avaline. Please, just listen for two minutes. Megan is being held at the house on Kenney Street. I'm 100% sure of that, for reasons I won't go into right now, because I don't have time to argue with you about it. I've further taken action. You can arrest me later.

"The house she's in has been liberally dosed with a sleeping gas agent. When you send guys in, ensure they leave doors open and breath through a mask of some kind. The air will clear relatively quickly, but right now, those inside will be somewhat incapacitated. I don't know to what degree, but if they aren't outright asleep, they will be extremely groggy and not able to react. Now I'm going in to the house now to get Megan out. I suggest you mobilize whatever forces you have on standby and follow me in."

I could just make out Agent Trubas yelling, "Goddamit Avaline, what the fuck..." before I ended the call, put the phone in my pocket, took a deep breath and put on my facemask.

What I'd said to Agent Trubas was true; the air in the house was loaded with Sevoflurane, although it would start clearing quickly. Halogenated ether doesn't hang around in air long, since it's heavier than pure air, so it would start liquefying and make droplets on the carpet the moment I stopped pumping it in to the house.

Either way though, going in without a facemask was asking for trouble, so I had a basic mouth and nose mask, with very fine filter on it. I hadn't opted for the full on gas mask because they really tended to restrict vision, both in periphery and in clarity, since the mask tends to fog up and the plastic aren't great optics in the first place.

I ran up to the back door, via the alleyway. I wanted to go in the back because if the FBI was at all alert, they may have people out the front who would stop me. I had a pipe in my hands, as a basic weapon. I hadn't considered a weapon at all, but at the last minute, I figured it would be a good idea. Just in case. And it was all I had.

The back door was locked, so I had to make a decision. In the end, it was no decision at all - I had to get inside - so I just kicked it in, offering prayers once again to a non existent god, that I'd not fucked up and wasn't about to run into several alert, pissed off and heavily armed henchmen.

I was tense as I entered the back kitchen, and almost immediately ran into a stumbling-but-still-somewhat-alert thug. I had the element of surprise on my side, since I had been expecting him, and he wasn't expecting me. As his eyes were opening and he started fumbling at his pocket, I hit him in the head with the pipe. It wasn't subtle, but I wasn't in a very forgiving mood right then. He went down instantly. I didn't think I killed him, but for all I knew, I might have. I stopped very briefly to check and found him still breathing. I also checked his pocket and found a revolver in it. I felt far less bad about my actions after finding that.

The only thing that really mattered was Megan, and I'd do whatever I had to, to find her and get her out.

One thing I did think was "it's definitely the right house". I mean, I'd just gassed this house, run inside and brutally assaulted the first man I'd seen. If I'd been wrong - which wasn't something I'd even spent any time thinking about to be brutally honest - that would have been VERY BAD. I was very very glad I was right in terms of it being a house full of bad guys. It could have been very shitty if I was wrong, for everyone concerned. Maybe there was something to having experience in these situations.

I moved through the house, looking for doors that were shut. It stood to reason that Megan would be in a locked up room, so I tried the handles on every door. If it moved, I moved on. There was no point in running into a room where there might be some somewhat alert mob enforcers inside. I was brave, but I was also running on adrenaline right now, and I wasn't sure how smart I was being.

I stepped over four guys while wandering the house, who were totally out for the count, unlike the first guy I'd encountered. All guys in suits, with guns in harnesses strapped to their chests. Shoulder holsters were apparently de rigueur

for your well-dressed mobster these days. It was obvious that the closer people were to an outlet for the sewage system, the more impacted they were, as I had suspected. I did check two bathrooms on the ground floor and found shit all over the floor, and one with a guy collapsed in it. I could just imagine what they thought when the toilets erupted!

I went up some stairs to the first floor, after clearing the ground floor, and hit pay dirt almost immediately. Just around the corner at the top of the stairs, there was a guy sitting - dozing - on a chair, outside a closed door. I was pretty sure this was where they were keeping Megan, so after checking to make sure the guy really was out, I tried the door. It proved locked, and so I took my pipe and smashed the shit out of the door handle. It was surprisingly noisy, given the silence in the house, and I kicked the door open.

And there she was. She was awake, barely, but very out of it. Her eyes were opened but they were very glazed over. She was handcuffed to a pipe on the floor, and she had a nasty bruise on her forehead and cheek, burns up one arm, like people putting out cigarettes on her, but otherwise she looked unharmed. She did have a gag on her too.

I ran in and crouched down, looking for a way to remove the handcuffs, and after checking her over perfunctorily, I realized that there was no way to get them off without the key. Almost certainly the key was in the pocket of Mr. Snorey by the door. So I stood up and turned to go search him, and almost fell over the guy standing behind me.

He was shorter than me, nasty suit jacket, thinning hair, that had been slicked back, and he was pissed. There was no question about it. And he wasn't even remotely out of it. He was very alert - eyes full of anger and vim, as they said in 1965.

I just reacted. I swung the pipe at him - there was no question that he was anything but a bad guy and wanted to do me harm - but he was quick. He ducked and my momentum and the weight of the pipe swung the arm all the way around, missing him entirely, twisting my body round.

The asshole sprang up very fast, closing on me and suddenly I felt a thin cold pain in my side. It's hard to express, but it felt like cold fire. I looked down and his hand had the hilt of a knife in it, embedded in my side.

Without thinking I tried twisting back, so I was facing forward. My arm was up, holding the pipe, and my elbow smashed into the guys face. There was literally a crunch sound, as the tip of my elbow collided with his face, driven by the weight of the pipe swinging back. It was way more luck than skill; my long arms were just at the length were my elbow collided with his face, with maximum impact.

The guy dropped, instantly, and I just stood there, staring down at the knife in my side. Stupidly, I dropped the pipe and pulled the knife out. I now know that was the single worst thing I could have done - now the wound was open and would bleed, and it did exactly that. I was terrified that my lung had been pierced - my breathing was getting harder - and was debating what to do next when a sound in the door way made me look up.

There was another douchebag, in another ill-fitting suit snarling at me from the door. I noticed that, like the other one, he was fully awake and alert. I idly wondered where he'd been hiding and how he'd avoided the gas, and then I noticed the gun in his hand, on it's way up to point at me.

There was no way he was going to miss; it was point blank range. He was too far away for me to reach, and I wouldn't have tried anyway. I had to protect Megan. I jumped backwards, trying to land on top of her, so when he shot me, my body would take the bullet and protect her. I just had to hope I'd be able to absorb enough to keep her alive. It was a desperate move but all I had left.

I landed facing up at him. The pain in my gut got exponentially worse, my breathing more and more labored, and through the haze of sudden agony, I saw the gun center on me. I just sat there, mesmerized, looking down the black hole at the end of it, and waited for the impact of the bullet.

There was a loud sound, incredibly loud in the confined space. There was blood, I could see it and feel it. I was surprised it didn't hurt more; I didn't feel the impact like I was expecting and then it just went black, and I dropped into that space were you just don't exist any more.

I opened my eyes, groggily at first. They felt crusty. I had no idea where I was, or what had happened. I blearily imagined I must have a hangover, or something.

I looked around the room, all sterile grey and white, machines on wheels and motel like furniture. My gaze stopped on April, curled up in the chair next to the bed I was on and I must have said something or made some noise because April looked up from the book she was reading, exclaimed some non English word and she jumped up, smiling like her face was about to fall off.

"You're awake!" she said, unnecessarily. "How do you feel? Are you in pain?"

I tried shifting in the bed and a stabbing pain occurred in my stomach, bringing with it instant recall of everything that had happened. The walkup, the gas, the steel pipe, finding Megan, being stabbed and... presumably shot?

I grimaced at the pain, and April's happy smile instantly turned to a worried frown. "I'm going to get a nurse. Don't go anywhere."

And she was out of the room. I settled back, trying to find a position that didn't send spasms of pain through my gut.

She bustled back in almost immediately, with a starch white candy striper.

The nurse checked machine vitals, took my temperature with some new fangled thermometer that rolled over my forehead, and did other nursey things.

Eventually she grunted, and said, "All within normal ranges. He's just come out of normal sleep. I'll get some oxytocin for the pain though."

Two minutes later she was back with a little paper cup, two tablets and a cup of water. Honestly, the water felt great against my parched lips.

I swigged down the tablets, wincing at the on going pain.

"You'll still feel the wound," she said, looking down her glasses at me, "but the pain will fade in about half an hour. Don't do any laughing, that'll make it worse. You are going to be fine though. The knife only nicked your intestine, and all the damage was repaired by the surgeon."

"What..." I creaked, my voice coming out dry and cracking. "What about...the bullet wound?" I asked, my voice coming through stronger on the second attempt.

"Bullet wound?" The nurse asked, sounding puzzled. She turned to April and asked, "What's he talking about?"

"I imagine he thinks he was shot. The situation where he got stabbed ended in a shoot out, and Thomas passed out in the middle of it. I can imagine he believes he was shot. Thomas," she said, directing the last to me, "you are fine. That guy didn't shoot you. He was shot instead, do you remember?"

I creased up my forehead, trying to remember. There was the one guy I took out, then the other with the knife. I remembered feeling the cold as the knife went in, the sharp slicing pain. I remembered pushing the guy away, and pulling the knife out, being surprised at how much blood there was. I remembered the guy with the gun, staring down the barrel, the shot, a blood splat...

"Yeah, I think I do. The blood splat, that...wasn't me? It can't have been, can it?"

"No, that was... sorry nurse, this is a bit gratuitous, but he needs to know... that was his head exploding. The FBI was right behind him and caught up with him right at the moment he was going to shoot you. That was his blood everywhere, not yours. I don't blame you at all for passing out. We are all just amazed you did what you did. You took out five houses of people with that gas, you know? The FBI is not amused. Thankfully, our boss managed to convince them not to file charges against you.

"Those guys? Right at the end of your little rescue mission? They'd come as reinforcements. The best we can tell, when everyone started getting woozy, someone in the house called for backup. The FBI got your call, and then watched this car screech to a halt in front of the building, and four guys jump out and run inside, and the agent on the scene just made the decision to go in, without waiting for swat backup. And he saved your life too, with a split second to spare."

I sat there, absorbing everything. Then one thing jumped to my attention.

"Meg..."

"She's fine," interrupted April. "She's absolutely fine. Scared out of her wits, to be clear, but physically fine. Two scares, first for herself, then for you. She's tied up right now with the FBI, giving testimony. They still have to grab one man, at the top, and because of that she's in protective custody right now. But as soon as she's able she'll be in to see you. She's out of her mind worrying about you."

April's eyes twinkled.

"We've never seen this side of her before. You bring something out in her, Thomas."

I closed my eyes rather than answer. To be honest, I was more than a little tired of April, and all the rest of the Ingrams people. As long as Megan was ok, I was ok. I knew our time had come to an end - Megan had a job to do, and I had a life to get back to. Not the same life - my life could never be the same now. I'd call it MD - Megan Domini, like Anno Domini. Maybe I'd try and find someone... Maybe get some of that surgery she had talked about, weeks ago. Do something better than skulk in the sewers of Boston.

And as I thought about it, I drifted off...

The next time I woke up, April was gone and Dermot was sitting in the side chair. I just surfaced slowly, and blinked, and looked around, and he looked up at my motion, adjusting his bifocals and putting down his Ipad.

"Welcome back, Thomas," he smiled at me.

"How...long...?" I croaked, my mouth totally dry.

"Oh, just a day. You should be sleeping normally now, so I've been told. Most of the drugs they gave you to force you to sleep should be almost flushed out by now."

I just sat back. Even craning my neck at Dermot was too much. I was just tired.

Dermot removed his glasses and got up and came and sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at me, concernedly.

"Well, you be happy to know we've managed to head the FBI off at the pass. They are...aha...most unhappy with you. They had several charges ready to level at you, assault, terrorism charges, anything they thought they could make stick. Agent Trubas was very very upset about the whole thing.

"However, the fact is, you did force them into action, and you were 100% right that she was there, and frankly, from what I've been lead to believe, half the task force wants to string you up from the nearest lamp post, and the other half want to pin a medal on you. Well, Lad, way to make friends and influence people. Dale Carnegie would be quite proud."

I laughed and then instantly stopped as the stabbing pain in my side hit me. I ended up groaning instead.

"Well, Thomas, you won't be charged with anything. Our boss does have some friends in high places, and we do owe you for, well, everything. I would say don't do anything else though. Don't even jay walk. Some of these agents would love the opportunity to bust you for something. Anything, in fact. I think all your free passes are used up, right now."

"Where's Megan?" I croaked out, the most important question on my mind, craning my head again, even though it hurt.

"Ah, she's still in protective custody right now. The fact is, while the FBI found a lot of things in that house that point them at various things, they still haven't caught Mr. Big yet. Thomas, you may have taken out a house with sixteen people in it, and the FBI mopped up another twenty more, there are way more than thirty six people involved in the mob in Boston.

"But, what they did find in that house was more than enough to swear out warrants for quite a few people. They got most of them, but the top guy, he's gone in the wind.

Since he's currently AWOL they want to keep Megan and you safe for the time being. Megan more so than you, since she can testify for them. You because...well, mainly because you have the ability to piss off the Boston Mob more than anyone they've ever encountered. There's actually a cop sitting outside. I got asked for ID before they let me in here, so they are serious about keeping you safe from...repercussions, shall we say.

"But what's interesting is that now it's that guy who's on the run and hiding, not you. The shoes on the other foot now, eh? And it's one thing to have the mob looking for you; it's quite another to have the FBI after you. So take some solace from that."

"Now, rest my friend. Get well. Things are progressing about as well as they possibly can. Megan is safe and you are going to be fine, with no blow back. Something I'm very grateful for, and you should be too."

So that's what I did. I leaned back and thought about the past few weeks, smiling the whole time.

I was out of the hospital within a week. It's astounding how fast a belly wound heals. I was back in my little cave, and Mike Collins, my supervisor, stopped by to tell me to not to even think about going back into the tunnels until I was completely healed. At least two more weeks.

So I didn't. I lay around, watched the last season of Person of Interest, wondering the whole time what Megan would have thought of it. She never showed up, or called or emailed. I didn't spend time indulging myself over it - I wasn't going to be a victim again. She'd shown me a better way, and instead, I was just doing my best to be grateful for that which she had given me, instead of moping about how I was alone again. Without the one person who I would, quite literally, have died for. But, for the first time in my life, I felt real pride. I had had a relationship with a woman; I had moved people with music; I had learned to forgive; I had taken great risks for important things. Even though I was too tall. Even though I had scars; Even though I'd had a shitty life. Those things were just on the surface, but I could operate beneath the surface now. I had real depth. I was worthy. I had pride. I was a new man. And I owed it all to Megan. She had taught me to look beneath the veneer. This incredible woman had seen me for who I was, and that had liberated me to do the same.