C2Kelly

Sipping his coffee, Joe wandered over to his desk to check his paperwork. He'd swear his 'In' box never dwindled. Well, at least he'd had plenty of time to deal with the paperwork. It had been unusually quiet in the SIU that day. He pulled his chair back and settled into it, determined to make a dent in that stupid 'In' box. He'd been making good progress when Rachel dropped a file into his box as she breezed past on her way to her own desk.

"Thanks a lot, Rachel, as if I needed more paperwork." Grumbling, Joe pulled the file out of the box to see what this one was all about.

Laughing, Rachel sat down at her desk and flicked on the computer. "Hey, don't blame me, Joe. I just work here."

"Yeah, yeah. That's all I hear…excuses." It wasn't a bullet that was going to force him into retirement; it was writer's cramp. With a heavy sigh, Joe began reading the new file.

Having overheard the whole conversation while looking at something Harvey was working on, Nash couldn't help but laugh quietly. They were all going a little stir crazy. It had been way too quiet around the barge the last few days or so. Harvey had finally had the time to work on that new program he'd been talking about. Joe was catching up on paperwork, as was Rachel and Antwon.

Glancing at his watch, Nash made a decision. "Okay, gang, let's go to lunch."

Looking around at the others then turning back to Nash, Harvey looked at his boss in surprise. "What, you mean all of us?"

Suppressing a smile, Nash feigned confusion. "Well, of course I mean all of us. You act like we never go to lunch together."

Antwon tossed a file folder onto Joe's desk, earning a disgusted frown, and smiled at Nash. "Well, we don't. We're usually too busy."

"Well, today we are all going to lunch. If anyone has any errands to run after lunch, I suggest we take separate cars." They all split up, Joe riding with Nash, and met again at the Cherry Blossom Chinese restaurant for lunch.

Nash couldn't remember a time when the whole gang had been able to meet together at lunch, and he made a mental note to try to do it again. Harvey, Rachel and Antwon hadn't looked so relaxed in ages. Plus, it gave the three a chance to get to know each other a little better.

After paying their bills and laughing about their fortunes, they headed back to their cars. Nash and Joe returned to the barge, while the other three took off to run a quick errand or two before getting back to work.

Sighing in contentment as he and Nash boarded the SIU, Joe felt like he was going to bust. He never should have eaten so much. Stopping at his desk, he couldn't believe how much paperwork had been piled on it during lunch. With a groan, Joe sat down to try to make a little headway.

Having to deal with paperwork of his own, Nash just smiled in sympathy and headed upstairs to his own desk. He hadn't been there long, when he saw Joe taking a coffee break. "I'm surprised you can find room for that coffee, Joe."

"Funny, Nashman. I'm just taking a break from all that administration crap. Man, it’s been way too quiet around here."

Groaning, Nash shook his head. "Joe! You said the 'Q' word, man. What are you trying to do, jinx us?"

"Aw, come on Nash. You don't believe that stuff, do you?"

"Bubba, anybody in police work, firefighting or EMS will tell you the surest way to get a call is to say the 'Q' word." Nash shook his head, smiling. "I'm surprised you don't know that, Joe."

"Huh." Joe shrugged his shoulders and went back to his coffee.

When his cell phone rang, Nash pulled it from his jacket pocket and flipped it open. "Nash." He listened for a moment then rubbed his brow with his free hand. "Okay, we'll be right there."

Nash slapped the phone closed and dropped it back in his pocket. "Well, bubba, you jinxed us. There's a bank robbery over at First National and you'll never believe who's in there as one of the hostages."

* * *

Harvey and Antwon had gotten the call from Nash about the bank robbery while they were running some of their errands. Leaning back in the seat while his partner drove, Harvey asked out loud, “I wonder who put out the whammy on us. I was kinda enjoying having a little time to work on that program and getting a few other things done.”

“Me too. But what are you talking about? You don’t believe in that mumbo jumbo do you, Harv?”

“It’s a known fact that when you are enjoying an unusually inactive time and someone says the Q word, things get busy in a real hurry. It isn’t mumbo jumbo, bro. I’ve seen it in action too many times.”

“Whatever. I’m just glad to be busy. I’d rather be working on a case than paperwork. Nash had me pulling some old case files for that new data base that’s the newest hobby of the Deputy Chief.”

“Well, I would have preferred another day or two like the past few but I can see your point too.”

They got to the location of the bank and found Joe and Nash at the temporary command post that had been set up.

“So, what do we got, boss?”

“Hostage situation. As far as we can tell, we’ve got three gunmen in the bank with a total of ten hostages. Antwon, I want you checking with the merchants in the immediate. Check and see there’s been any unusual activity in the neighborhood during the past couple of weeks. Harv, the bank brought in one of their mobile security units. They’re getting connected to the security system now – they should be able to get us some pictures in a couple of minutes. I want you in there – you’re gonna be my eyes and ears on this.”

“Alright, boss. But it would be a lot more useful if I had the surveillance van here or at least my computer so I could connect with our systems too.”

“Already thought of that. Ronnie is on his way here right now – he’s got the laptop for you.”

“Great. Anything else we need to know?” Both men quickly caught the look that flashed between Joe and Nash. Harvey knew instinctively that it wasn’t a good sign.

“Nash, what’s going on? What aren’t you telling us?”

“Apparently, we’re familiar with one of the hostages.”

This caught both Harvey and Antwon by surprise. “Okay, I’ll bite. Who is it?”

“Our favorite FBI agent.”

“Katz? Oh great. This is just whatt we need. This day really is going from bad to worse. God has a really strange sense of humor sometimes,” Harvey lamented as he dragged Antwon away with him.

Nash laughed. He had to agree with Harvey on this one. Knowing that Katz was inside the bank during a robbery attempt didn’t make him feel any good either. The idiot was likely to identify who he was, try to negotiate with the armed gunmen and end up dead or getting several others killed in the process. Although somehow Nash didn’t think that he’d get lucky enough to have somebody else to actually do the favor of taking out Katz. It was likely that he’d end up getting only slightly injured and he’d be telling everyone stories about it for years.

Antwon looked at Harvey as they headed off to do their work. Even though they hadn’t been partners for long, he could tell by the look on Harvey’s face that something big was going down and Antwon wanted to know what it was. “Obviously I’m missing something here. Wanna fill me in?”

“The FBI agent that Nash mentioned. If you want to meet the poster child for egotistical, idiotic and inept maniacs, this is your guy. With our luck, he’ll end up making more of a mess of this than it already is. The man has nearly gotten several people on this team toasted in the past and something tells me he isn’t done yet.”

“Oh lovely. I’m starting to think that maybe you weren’t teasing about the hex on us.”

“Time will tell, Twon. You’d better get a move on. Let Nash know if you get anything. Hopefully we can find something and get this done before anybody gets dead.” Antwon nodded before heading a little further down the block. Harvey jumped into the back of the bank’s security van and got to work. Within a few minutes, he had some pictures to look at. Seeing the gunmen for himself, he called Nash on the cell phone. Nash appeared in the van a few minutes later.

“How’s it looking,” Nash asked, dropping into the chair next to Harvey.

“Not great. They’re searching the hostages now. Katz is acting antsy which is making him stick out like the sore thumb he is.”

As if on cue, one of the gunmen started to talk to Katz and in a matter of seconds the FBI man had a gun pointed in his face as he tried to talk his way out of the situation. Nash looked at his watch. “Katz has set himself a new record. I swear that he’s trying to get himself killed. I just keep trying to figure out why we always have to be the ones there to stop him.” This caused Harvey to burst out laughing.

“Keep an eye on things, Harv. Anything changes let me know. Rachel should be here anytime with the floor plan for the bank. You and the gentlemen here see if you can disarm the door alarms without notifying anyone inside as to what’s going on.”

“Piece of cake, boss. You really thinking that we’re gonna have to go in?”

“Probably. And I want to know what’s ahead of us if we do.”

Nash walked out of the mobile van and found Joe waiting for him. “Rachel is here. She and Antwon are checking out the bank layout now.”

“Great.”

“Oh, guess what Antwon found out when he did his little interviews with some of the local merchants?”

“That there’ve been lots of strange little things going on in the last week or so. False fire alarms, strange phone calls, vehicles appearing and disappearing and the like.”

“You always do this. How’d you know? Antwon hasn’t talked to you yet.”

“Even with a mask on, I saw the gunmen on the surveillance cameras. It was easy to pick out the leader, Stan Donohue and this scenario fits his MO like a glove. He’s probably been staking this out for a few weeks. Call the bank and speak to the head of security. I’ll bet that they’ve got a big shipment of something coming in here today. Get it diverted ASAP.”

Joe was already in the process of pulling out his cell phone and he went to find a quiet place to make his call. Nash found Rachel and Antwon busy looking over the bank’s floor plan.

“So how are we doing?”

“Fine, Nash. But you really got to talk to these criminals about their sense of timing. I was really enjoying having a chance to get a few things done before they messed things up.”

“You can thank Joe of all of this later. So, what looks like our best plan of attack if we have to go in?” The three of them busied themselves going over the best possible points of entry. All of a sudden, Nash’s cell phone rang. It was Harvey but Nash wasn’t able to make out what he was trying to say. Instead, Nash headed over to see for himself what was happening.

“Harv? What the hell is going on?” Taking a look at his friend, Nash found Harvey looking back at him, tears in his eyes.

“It’s Katz. You aren’t going to believe this one.” Pointing to the screen, Harvey let the pictures speak for themselves. Now Katz was surrounded by all three of the gunmen. But instead of being scared, the irritating man was continuing to talk, trying to get them to negotiate with him.

Looking at Nash, Harvey said, “I don’t know how but I think Dave may be saving his own neck this time. He’s talking a mile a minute. They even tried to get him to shut up by pulling a gun on one of the other hostages but he just kept going, all the more convinced that he could make a deal with them."

Shaking his head, Nash couldn’t believe was he was seeing. Patting Harvey on the back, he said, “Call SWAT and tell them to be on stand by. I don’t think that we’re going to need them.”

“You got it, Nash man.”

Joe looked at his partner as he emerged. Noticing the look on Nash’s face but not getting a comment right away, he spoke. “I think there’s something happening over there. There’s some activity over by the door.”

“I think you may be right. Let’s go have a look.”

The two men led the way over to the barricades in the street in front of the bank, with Antwon and Rachel following in step a short distance behind. When they got to the barricade, Joe went to pull out his gun but Nash waved to him to put it away.

A few minutes later, there was someone at the front door of the bank waving a tiny block of white fabric. “Don’t shoot, we’re coming out.” After being sure that they had been seen, the three gunmen emerged, dropping their weapons on the street as they came out and putting their hands on the back of their heads. Nash motioned for the uniformed officers to move in. Once they were all cuffed and searched, Nash told everyone else that it was all right to move in.

Walking over to the ringleader, Nash smiled. “Hey there, Stan, it’s nice to see you again. Looks like you just got your third strike, man. Too bad.”

“Bridges. I should have known that you’d had a hand in this. That idiot one of your guys?”

“Nope, I’m not taking any credit for him. Rather unique fellow though, isn’t he?”

“Does he ever shut up? I swear that he could talk rings around most women. I thought about shooting him but all I really wanted was the shipment. But it isn’t worth it if we had to put up with him one more minute.”

“I know the feeling.” Nash watched as Stan was moved off to the nearest patrol car. Just then, Katz walked out, his chest puffed out and confidence showing in his stride. He frowned for a moment as he saw Nash and his team. But it only lasted for a second.

“Well, Bridges, I guess you didn’t need to save the day this time. I did a rather good job on this one all by myself. I must admit it feels kind of good, seeing you being the one out in the cold this time. But I don’t think these guys were too professional. You think they would be more brazen and have loaded guns if they were really going to rob a bank.”

Nash was about to speak when a shot rang out. One of the uniformed officers had forgotten to put the safety on one of the firearms that had been in the gunmen’s possession. So when he picked up the piece, he accidentally touched the trigger and the gun went off.

After making sure that everyone was all right, Nash turned to face Katz. But the man was nowhere to be seen. At least, not until Nash looked down. Sprawled on the sidewalk unconscious was the FBI agent. Joe, Antwon, Harvey and Rachel were leaning on each other laughing hysterically.

“Let me guess. He fainted as soon as the gun went off.”

“Oh yeah – dropped like a stone. After he let out a huge whimper, that is.”

“That sounds like Katz. Too bad I missed it.”

“No you didn’t,” Harvey noted, pointing to the security camera on the top of the van. “We’ve got it all on tape. Might come in handy some day.”

“That’s mean and evil, Harv. You’ve been spending way too much time with Joe. Keep it up. Now, somebody help me get him up and into a cruiser.”

Antwon volunteered and it took the two of them a couple of minutes for them to lift Katz up off the ground. Nash instructed the officer to take Katz to the nearest hospital to get checked out.

“Thanks, Antwon.”

“Not a problem, Boss. All in a day’s work.”

“Well, I’m not sure about that, but it’s definitely been one for the record books. Let’s clean up here and then go home. We’ll meet back at the SIU in the morning. I don’t think that there isn’t anything that can’t wait.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Except for you, bubba. You gotta desk full of paperwork waiting for you.”

“Oh come on, Nash. It can wait.”

“Nope. You keep saying that stack never disappears. So you’d better get to it. Besides, this will be a good lesson for you. Next time you’ll be more careful about using the Q word.”

Everyone else headed off, happy to see the end of this very strange day. Joe stood there for a moment wondering which he should dread most, the paperwork waiting for him or the teasing that he was sure would come from his colleagues over the next several days. Either way, he had a feeling that he was in for a lengthy few days. He groaned before heading off to find Nash. It was going to a long ride back to the SIU.

THE END