Joel Kulseth (aviatorshades) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-05-20 12:32:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | # 2019 [05] may, jane rusten, joel kulseth |
Who: Joel Kulseth and Jane Rusten.
Where: The site of one of the Los Nahuales barricades, The MoPac Expressway Bridge over the Colorado River, near Zilker Park.
What: Joel and Jane investigate the remains of one of the panther’s barricades when a mysterious white van pulls up to their position. Shots are fired, an officer is shot, and the other vanishes without a trace.
When: May 7, 2019 - afternoon
Jane nudged a piece of debris aside with her boot and, upon finding nothing of interest, sighed. Coming out here to the barricade was probably a moot point but it never hurt to be thorough. Los Nahuales had been all but eradicated during their altercation with the Hellhounds and Jane (with an immeasurable amount of help from her anonymous team of associates) had put the stragglers behind bars. Even though the threat of the panthers was gone, the gang’s motivations were still murky at best. Joel and Jane had been keeping an eye on the barricades from a distance while they were still being manned but now that they had been abandoned, the two cops could safely approach the construction and scout for whatever clues they could find to shed light on the still open case. “Which one of the cats do you think was the structural engineer of this chicken shit outfit?” Jane asked, kicking the roadblock. A softball-sized piece of concrete, either a part of a cement road barrier or even some busted up street macadam, became dislodged from the top of the obstruction and rolled down, coming to rest next to Jane’s feet. The barricade was solid enough to stand but not so much that the Hellhounds couldn’t have knocked it over if they wanted to. Jane figured it was like Joel said, mostly done to send a message to the dogs and not a real attempt at cutting them off from the city. “My bet is on the one with the lazy eye.” “Ortiz,” Joel offered up from his place a few feet down from Jane. “Had the pleasure of trying to interrogate him in La Quinta. Boy, was that a treat.” Sarcasm dripped as he adjusted the metal frame of his aviators. “You pick him up on your little run in the North Loop?” He’d both seen and heard about the cats that Jane had brought in with CI information, and he’d about settled down enough that he didn’t sound like a father every time he mentioned it. Sure, he got that CI information was CI information, but nothing was urgent enough to cowboy up and ignore calling back up until it was resolved. One of the only reasons Jane hadn’t heard the riot act from him was that she was smart, and he believed she had reasons for operating the way she had. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t get his barbs in where he could though. “That was a sorry crew you rounded up. Like shooting fish in a barrel?” Jane forced herself to meet her partner’s eyes and plastered a confident-looking smirk across her mouth as she lied to his face. “Piece of cake.” Joel slid his shades down his nose and looked at Jane over the rims for a beat or two before he went back to scanning the terrain. “Still wouldn’t mind taking a run at ‘em, to see what they’ll spill. Even if they’re the C squad.” Not one of the heavy hitters had been present, and Joel had started to think they were probably in pieces at the blast site, since they hadn’t resurfaced again. Criminals laid low, but a hit like that practically begged for grandstanding retaliation, and there hadn’t been a peep. As much as Jane hated that she had to fudge the details of the tunnel raid on an official police case file, it was nothing compared to lying to Joel. Jane knew she had made a promise to Mina, one she intended to keep, but that didn’t shake the heavy, oppressive wave of guilt that washed over her every time she thought about heading into that abandoned building full of armed Los Nahuales without Joel. He should have been there; Jane knew full well how stupid it was to go in alone with only a handful of former addicts and her partner’s pretty, peace loving daughter as backup. The raid had worked out well enough but that didn’t shake the hateful, conscience-stricken thoughts about herself in hiding something so big from someone so important to her. “Guess it wouldn’t hurt to chat up the JV team,” Jane said, though the sentiment didn’t quite line up with her tone of voice. Jane knew that if anyone did a thorough interrogation of the cats she had rounded up, they might come to the conclusion it hadn’t been the one-woman operation Jane had made it out to be. Jane felt confident she could sway most of her colleague’s thoughts otherwise, but Joel, as always, was different. Jane was musing over the idea of talking to Mina again, thinking of ways the younger woman might be made amenable to confiding in her father about what she was doing with addicts in the tunnels when she heard a low rumble in the distance. Jane turned her head toward the sound. It wasn’t the loud, explosive detonation of an RPG, or the staccato crack of gunfire, or the aimless shambling footsteps of a herd of shufflers. Just the sound of an approaching vehicle, which wasn’t alarming in and of itself, but strange enough that Jane put a hand to her holstered service pistol. Since the walkers came out of the woodwork and initiated the majority of the country’s population into their ranks, traffic was an unheard of problem in their day to day lives. Usually, when Jane and Joel were out on patrol, they were the only living things out on the highways and byways but that apparently wasn't the case today. Still, it wasn’t necessarily a cause for alarm. Yet. Jane looked around the perimeter, unsnapping the latch securing her firearm in it’s protective holder, her head on a constant swivel trying to pinpoint the location of the engine. “Kulseth, you got eyes on any visitors?” On the same page as his partner, Joel had his hand hovered over his unsnapped holster also. A testament to how their cop brains seemed to work seamless the same way in some respects. Scanning the horizon, he took a few steps up onto the man-made barricade, testing the stability, mindful to still mostly stay low. It wasn’t the snarl of the raider gangs, their Harleys recognizable from a ways off. The comparison he’d make was one of their trucks, but even then it didn’t sound like the engines of the DoR. They wouldn’t have a reason to be out here anyway. “Got nothing so far,” Joel answered, turning his head one way and then the other. There was a set of binoculars in the cruiser, they’d work better than straining his eyesight trying to find whatever belonged to the engine rumble. “Give me a minute, going to grab those binoculars we got in the backseat.” He climbed back down off the barricade and jogged for their vehicle. The gear he’d been looking for was underneath a set of maps. By the time he’d unearthed them they weren’t necessary, since he spotted a van rolling their way at a good clip. “Look familiar to you, Rusten?” he called over, jogging back towards where he’d been. Jane, who had taken her service weapon out of it’s holster in the time it took Joel to locate the binoculars, shook her head. The cool, familiar weight of her firearm steadied her and gave her focus, but offered no clarity on who was hastily approaching their location. “Fuck if I know,” Jane replied grimly, her eyes flicking between the encroaching party and her partner. Jane kept her breath even and slow even as her heartbeat thrummed a little bit faster. There was no mistaking the vehicle heading their way as a coincidence now; it slowed to a stop a dozen or so yards from the other side of the barricade. The van was nondescript; Jane couldn't even make out the make or model from their position. The windows were opaque black, tinted to a degree that would have been illegal in the old days. The ramshackle roadblock offered them some cover, but not so much that Jane felt the least bit safe. The van doors opened. Four men dressed in dark clothing exited, each one heavily armed. They bore no leather cuts, sported no visible tattoos or symbols indicating any sort of gang activity or affiliation. If they weren’t armed like they were going to war, Jane could have mistaken them for a bunch of soccer dads that got lost on their way to a scrimmage. But this was no game and these men weren’t playing. Jane crouched behind the blockade, her gun at the ready. “You boys lost?” Jane called. “Pretty sure Austin City Limits has been cancelled this year. Why don’t you all head back the way you came.” Jane changed a glance over the partition. The tallest man, a blond Dolph Lundgren-looking mother fucker, stepped forward, his hands on his weapon. His three compatriots, slightly younger but just as comfortable handling the amount of firepower they were strapping, pulled up close on his six. They looked like the post-apocalyptic boy band of Jane’s nightmares. “Not lost,” he replied. His voice was calm, even. There was no hint of anger or malice, as Jane frequently experienced and expected when people talked to cops. “We’re right where we need to be. We’re not looking for a fight. We’re just here to talk. But not to you.” Joel’s hackles were up. If they weren’t talking to Jane, there was just one other option and that was him. He didn’t recognize the guys; they weren’t in the system, that he could recall. But Joel didn’t back down from where he stood on the barricade, his hand hadn’t moved where it was hovered either. But the heavy feeling in his gut told him he had some reason to think something was up. “You got something to say to me then you got something to say to her,” Joel responded. “And unless you’re going to show some kind of I.D., I don’t have the time for this bullshit.” Diplomacy, not so much a strong suit. He was out of patience with cloak and dagger, and people that he didn’t know but apparently they knew him. The talker didn’t even seem to flinch, but he moved closer to the barricade and further from the van. “We don’t. It’s got nothing’ to do with her,” the tallest replied, more firmly than before. Up close Joel could tell that the blond had half a foot on him at least, and about fifty pounds. Not great numbers when he and Jane were already outnumbered. “Just you.” And because Joel never shied away from things, he climbed over the barricade until he was standing on the pavement on the other side. There was still about five feet between him and the men that had climbed from the van. With his shoulders squared, and his hand still resting on his holster, Joel responded, “I’m not going anywhere. Talk here or don’t, those are your options, folks.” Jane, never one to leave her partner out on a ledge without her, hopped over the partition to stand next to Joel. Her stance mirrored his “I may have been left off the guest list to this boy’s club meeting,” Jane said icily. “But I’m sure we’d all feel a helluva lot more chatty if you all put down your weapons.” The leader shook his head. Joel’s fingers twitched just a little closer to handgun. “We’re not here to fight,” he reiterated calmly, like a mantra. He padded his firearm lightly while Jane mentally took inventory of what else he and his crew could be packing. “This is simply insurance.” He paused, his attention shifting from Jane to Joel. “We’re going to need you to come with us, Lieutenant Kulseth.” This was no coincidence, or happenstance run in. This was an ambush. Jane hazarded a sidelong glance to Joel. He gave her the barest of nods, complete agreement written into his stance. There was no way she was going to let these men take her partner. Not ever. “Over my dead body,” Jane hissed, venom dripping from every syllable, her hand hovering over her piece. “We’d rather it not come to that,” the blond replied, almost regretfully. He stepped closer to Joel and Jane drew her weapon. Joel didn’t draw his, but he backed up a couple steps when they advanced on him. “Stop,” she commanded, pointing her firearm at the leader. Drawing your service pistol was never to be taken lightly, even in these troubled times but she would never gamble the safety of her or her partner. If it was going to be her and Joel or these giant militia looking fucks, Jane was going to make damn sure that is was her and her partner walking out of this standoff and not them. Her eyes flicked between the four men, knowing they were outgunned and outnumbered in every conceivable way. “Turn around. Get back into your van and get the hell outta here. You don’t want any part of this.” “You’re right,” the leader replied, reaching for his gun. “We don’t. But you’re not giving us a choice. Lieutenant, come with us and we’ll let your partner walk away unharmed.” Joel knew the alternative, he’d run the options. If he put up a fight, if Jane put up a fight, it was one or both of them that wouldn’t walk away from this joyous little showdown. The talker hadn’t pulled a weapon yet, but there was a smaller, just as mean looking fucker by the van that had drawn his and aimed it at Jane. It was a split second decision to go with them, he didn’t have another choice. “Not without a guarantee,” He responded. “I got no names, no information on affiliation. You could haul me into that van and shoot her after the doors closed and I’d never know.” As a show that he wasn’t going to cause trouble, Joel clipped his handgun back into place and raised both of his hands. “I’ll go, as long as you let her leave first. Walk me all the way to the damn van, but I’m not stepping in until I see the tail lights of the cruiser leaving.” It was a risk, but Joel believed to his bones that if he didn’t cooperate they wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in Jane. Her safety was more important than his. Joel twisted at the waist so he could look at his partner, silently trying to get her on board with only a look. “Take care of things for me,” he told her. Take care of my family was the silent message inside that statement. Jane blanched, her gut dropping to her boots. She read what Joel was trying to tell her in his whole body; the resigned stance, the pleading eyes, the mournfully set mouth. He wasn’t asking her to take care of things. He was asking her to take care of his beautiful wife and daughters. He was sacrificing himself for her when he had everything to lose and she had nothing. Well, that wasn’t true. She had Joel and but she sure as hell wasn’t going to let these assholes lay one finger on him without a fight. Her dad walking out on them, her mother disappearing, Lenore OD-ing, Rosie leaving her, the walkers rising; drops in the pail for Jane compared to the idea of losing her partner, her best friend. Those things in her past had been inevitable, set in stone, immovable and unpreventable. But this? She could change fate. She could set this to rights. There was no way on God’s green earth that Jane would be able to bear knowing she had turned her back on Joel and walked away. “I’m real sorry Joel,” Jane said, meeting his eyes as she backed away. The bit of deception was necessary and she hated herself for it but the element of surprise was key. He had to believe she was going to leave him (as if she could) to give him a chance. Jane lifted her arms, indicating her surrender...and shoved Joel hard to the ground in the direction of the cruiser. Joel was caught off guard alright, hitting the asphalt hard, the brunt of the impact dealt to his right shoulder. Jane popped off one, two, three shots at the invaders, catching the big guy in the shoulder after the first two went wide, hitting only pavement. Jane dropped and rolled toward the barricade, standing so she could try and vault over the roadblock but not before aiming another shot at the men, who were now returning fire. She couldn’t see Joel, she couldn’t hear him, and she turned for a millisecond to find him, barely enough time to think a single thought, barely enough time to catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. Jane heard the bullet’s impact before she felt it; a roaring, monstrous sound, like standing on train tracks and moving the very last second before you get mowed over. The force of the bullet knocked her on her ass, her head smacking painfully against the blacktop. Her vision swam nauseatingly for a moment and then came the real pain. She couldn’t breathe; her chest was on fire, like someone had taken a baseball bat and beat the ever-loving piss out her right tit. Jane ripped open her uniform to find not blood, but battered Kevlar. She couldn’t stand, couldn’t breathe couldn’t see or fight or raise her gun. “Joel,” Jane croaked, finally sucking in a huge lungful of cordite-scented air as she struggled to stand. “JOEL!” At the sound of gunshots Joel rolled clear, then tried to get a read on who was shooting and where, but it wasn’t easy. Goddamnit, he was usually good at predicting Jane’s reactions, had even banked on her following his unspoken request, he hadn’t entertained the thought that she’d do what she did. Maybe he should have, it wasn’t far from what he might’ve done if the roles were reversed. Still, there was a low level hum of irritation at his partners heroism, at the danger she had willingly placed herself in to try and keep him from being hauled off. His life wasn’t worth hers. It was no sooner that he’d oriented himself and hauled himself back up to his feet that he watched Jane catch a bullet right in the chest and go down hard with a thud even he could hear from where he stood. “Jane!” he hollered before rational thought caught up with him. He burst into motion, the shootout an afterthought as his feet ate up the distance between them. Or would have if he’d been more focused on all his surroundings and noticed the thug just off to his right, the one that caught his already injured right arm before he had taken more than two strides and pulled him backwards. Immobilizing him effectively. “Goddamnit, let me check her out,” he growled, ice in his tone as he tried to struggle out of the grasp. Joel’s words fell on deaf ears though as he felt cool metal on his left wrist and the familiar click of a handcuff. “Rusten!” Joel was as panicked as he ever got, as he watched Jane without breaking eye contact. The hysterical tone of Joel’s voice, so unlike anything she had ever heard from him or anyone in her entire life, cut through the blurry fog of pain like a knife. Jane focused on it and found him through bleary confusion, her watery eyes meeting her partner’s anguished gaze. “Let me go, just get yourself clear.” don’t shoot again. The other handcuff clicked into place, and Joel resigned himself. He lost all the fight he’d been working up to, calculating his odds, he realized he needed to go without a struggle. The man with the handcuffs ushered Joel backwards towards the van, not roughly, but not all that gently either, his iron grip kept Joel from hitting his knees more than once as they traversed the uneven ground of the street. Jane rolled painfully to her side before flopping on to her stomach. She tried to stand, to run after him, to do everything her partner begged her not to but she couldn’t; she could only drag herself feebly across the blacktop, watching helplessly as Joel was forced backwards toward the van. “Jane, promise me,” Joel called over the widening space, as he heard the side door of the vehicle pulled open. “Swear it!” he yelled before he was shoved into the dark interior, before he heard any kind of response from her. “I swear,” Jane whispered hoarsely, choking back a sob. She extended a trembling hand toward the van; she couldn’t see him anymore, he was too far away, he couldn’t hear her, she couldn’t reach him. “I promise, Joel! Joel!” The van’s ignition drowned out her screams. It took off in the direction it had come, leaving Jane lying in the road. She maneuvered to her back again, wiping her streaming eyes with the dirty heel of her hand before pressing the button on her shoulder walkie to call in the 41-40. |