Chapter 7: Taking Natasha

Chapter 7: Taking Natasha

The two of them huddled close behind some trashcans. Tom and Rene both had black smeared on their faces and were dressed in black, better to blend into the dark streets. They were only three blocks from the Church Headquarters, an imposing thirty story building that formally was the headquarters of an international corporation. Tom cradled an assault rifle in his arms and Rene had a .45 auto on her belt.

“She should be coming out soon,” whispered Tom. “She is supposed to be at the reception for Bishop Kapid in half an hour.” He turned to look at the Hotel Holy Cross across the street from their hiding place. Many of the windows in the building showed lights, and there was even a doorman standing before the main entrance. Cars drove up to disgorge fancy dressed people, many in clerical garb, all coming to honor the visiting Bishop of New York. “The memo I intercepted said that she would attend.”

Their view of the front was from one side because they wanted to cover the side entrance where only a rare vehicle stopped to deposit people who felt they were too important to wait in line in front. They figured that the assistant bishop would consider herself one of the important ones. From the trashcans they hid behind, it was only a quick dash to the door and the place where any vehicle should stop.

Rene felt Tom tense up as an official Church car passed by the front and turned into the small side street. “That’s it!” he hissed, and braced himself to dash forward.

The car stopped exactly where they thought it would. The driver, a Guard, got out and looked around before opening the rear door. The woman who emerged was tall and dressed in the black leather of a Nun. She stood there waiting while the driver went to open the building door for her.

That was when they made their move. Both of them stood and took rapid steps towards the two people. They heard footsteps and turned, the Guard instinctively reaching for the large automatic on his hip. Tom let loose with a three round burst from the ancient M-16 that caught the Guard in the stomach. He jerked backwards, slammed against the wall and stood there, looking confused. His hand continued to draw the automatic, so Tom fired another burst that punched three new holes in his chest. He slid down to a sitting position, the look of confusion still on his face, but he was dead before his ass hit the pavement.

Meanwhile, the assistant bishop was dropping the briefcase she had been holding and flexing her knees as she brought both hands up into a fighting stance. If Rene did not have the .45 pointed at her face as she ran up, the Nun might have launched into a vicious attack. As it was, she simply froze in position, recognizing that the odds were not in her favor.

Tom came up alongside Rene and swung the rifle around to cover her. “Get back in the car!” he snapped at her, waving the barrel towards the still open door.

Natasha Crosby did not move. All three of them still alive on that side street knew that very soon Guards would come running around the corner, weapons drawn and responding to the loud shots fired. Rene took a step to the side then swiveled on one foot to face Natasha. She lowered her shoulder and drove it into the woman’s midsection. The impact drove them both into the car, which is what Rene wanted. She shoved and crawled in herself, all the while keeping the .45 pointed at Natasha’s head. When most of them was inside, Tom pushed the feet in and slammed the door before diving for the driver’s seat. The engine was still running and he stomped his foot on the gas pedal. The big car jumped and the door slammed shut next to him as they accelerated down the street. Only a few seconds later the expected armed Guards came around the corner, but all they saw was the taillights of a car disappearing down the street.

Tom’s heart was racing as he began whooping and yelling. “Damn! We did it! Wow!” The adrenaline was pumping through his system, a natural but nevertheless potent high. “Damn! We did it!”

In the back seat, Rene was kneeling on Natasha, holding the .45 up against the side of her head. With her other hand she was reaching for a pair of handcuffs from her pocket. The older woman glared at her but said nothing as she clamped one cuff around a wrist. Without losing her concentration, she rolled Natasha over, dumping her on the floor face down. She twisted the other arm behind her and clicked tightly shut the other cuff.

In the front, Tom was coming down from his high – a little. He slowed down the car so as to avoid notice from the patrols, and then he began to tremble. The adrenaline excess was giving him a bad case of the shakes, along with the fact, just sinking in, that he had killed a man. That was something he had never done before. He remembered seeing the red blood pouring out across the front of the man’s uniform. It did not make him feel bad; quite the opposite, it exhilarated him; made him feel powerful.

They made it back to the garage where their entrance to the underground was without incident, although they heard sirens in the distance. Rene exited and waited with gun pointed while Natasha climbed clumsily from the car, having no hands to help herself. Once standing outside, she continued to glare at Rene in the dim light. Tom drove the car off to dump it someplace far away.

Rene opened the hidden doorway and waved the .45 towards the dark opening. “Down those stairs,” she ordered. From her pocket she took a small flashlight to show the way.

Once down the stairs and in the main level of the sewer lines, she led the high ranking Church official on a twisted, often doubling back, journey through the dark and damp tunnels. When she finally pushed her through the entrance to their headquarters, she was pretty sure that Natasha could not find her way through that maze. Matt was there to meet them.

He pushed her down into a chair and then bound her ankles to the front legs. More rope went around her body, lashing her solidly in place. Only then did Rene uncock her .45 and put it back in the holster.