Glass crunched beneath his boots as he staggered into the stairwell and made his way down. Jack made it seven more flights of steps before he glanced over and could see firefighters and cops coming up. He entered the eleventh floor and dumped the handguns into a trashcan, covered his wound as best as he could with his jacket and went back into the stairwell. Firefighters asked him if he was okay and if there was anyone else in the building. Jack nodded. “Upstairs.”
They continued on.
Two officers made their way up, one of them told the youngest to watch over Jack while he continued on. Jack glanced at his nametag: Officer Danbury.
“What happened?” the cop asked.
Jack leaned against the wall. “Someone began shooting people. The guy’s name is Jeremiah Pope. He’s still in the building somewhere.” The officer looked up the stairwell, and told him to take a seat inside the eleventh floor. He got on the radio and put the word out about Pope.
“What does he look like?”
Jack gave him the description and stifled a smile as he gripped his side and winced.
Once the young cop had alerted the others he leaned over Jack. “You hurt?”
“Yeah. You think you can help me up?”
As the cop leaned down, Jack swung his arm around his shoulder. Before the cop could respond, Jack had Danbury’s neck in the crook of his elbow and launched himself backwards to the ground to take him down. Within twenty seconds the kid was unconscious.
“Sorry, but I have no choice,” Jack said as he dragged the kid’s unconscious body further into the office and began to strip him of his uniform.
It wasn’t an exact fit but it would suffice.
Minutes later, dressed in the cop’s uniform, he returned to the stairwell and quickly made his way down. EMT’s were on the ground floor when he emerged. One look at him gripping a ripped and bloodied shirt, along with the injuries to his face, and they hurried over. “I’ve been shot,” he mumbled.
There were no questions as to who, or what was his name was. All they saw was a wounded cop. They did what any EMT would and got him out of there as fast as they could. He was put on a stretcher and slid into an ambulance that screamed away from the tower with the siren blaring. At this point Jack went in and out of consciousness from the loss of blood. When he came to he found himself in the hospital being wheeled down to surgery.
Fluorescent lights zipped overhead.
Then he went unconscious.
Chapter 26
The data contained inside the notebook was intriguing. Kelly Armstrong had returned to San Francisco a day earlier, written up an article that was rejected by her boss, then pored over the vast amount of documents, photos, video and browsing history on Dana Grant’s computer searching for anything that could be of use. She got lucky. She’d come to believe that perhaps the story of Jack Winchester wasn’t as important as the one Dana was investigating before she disappeared. It was based on this that she hoped Johnson would overturn his decision to have them assigned to a different project. She sat there chewing on the end of a pen, reading some of the theories that Dana had compiled, when there was a knock at her apartment door.
She glanced at her watch, and crossed the room.
Peering out the peephole she was greeted by the sight of Zach’s ugly mug.
Opening the door he thrust a bouquet of flowers into her hands and brushed past her with a bottle of wine. “Armstrong, I’ve got to admit for someone who spends most of her time with her head in the clouds you continue to surprise me. I figured you for a Nob Hill resident. Someone who is still living off her daddy’s credit card and just wants to play reporter but I’m starting to think you are the real deal.”
He set the bottle down and continued wandering. Kelly stood at the door with her jaw slack. She closed the door and shook her head. She was starting to get used to his inability to think before opening his mouth. Half the time she couldn’t make sense of what he was trying to insinuate but it usually came across as an insult. She found the best way to deal with him was to avoid taking the bait.
He went into the kitchen and looked into the pot of spaghetti. Steam swirled up around his face. He looked in the next pan and sniffed it.
“And you cook? Well I never.”
“How did you make out with the data I sent over?” she asked.
“Oh that. Right,” he said looking through her cupboards.
“Wine glasses are to your left.”
“Ah,” he muttered, taking two and fishing out a corkscrew from a drawer. He returned with a smile on his face. “Johnson loved it. He took the bait, hook, line and sinker. In fact he wanted me to pass on his thanks.”
“No he didn’t.”
“Okay, I added that part in to make you feel good but he was all smiles.”
“Zach.”
He rolled his eyes. “He’s given us the go-ahead to look into it. One month. That’s it. If we don’t come up with something concrete, a good story that he can run, you and I will be sitting behind a desk writing obituaries, and you can toss any hope of a promotion out the window.” He yanked on the bottle and the cork popped. He glanced down at a bottle of wine she had set out and compared it with the one he’d brought. “Ah, a Merlot. I always figured you for a Pinot kind of woman. That’s what I brought.”
“Why?”
“It’s light, doesn’t have much depth but is surprisingly sweet.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know, Zach—”
Before she could say what she thought of him he cut her off. “I’ll dish up the food. Anyway, as we are
