Extravaganza 16 (but Anarchist Santas 15 :-))
Title: The Anarchist Santas - Part 15
Type: pre-slashish, AU.
Rating: teen
Word Count: 2,035
Summary: An attempt at a series. Jim and Blair are drawn together on a robbery investigation - nearly at the end now!
The Anarchist Santas: Part 15
It was close to 7pm and the snow was increasing as the Major Crime cars - without lights or sirens -drew up to Symphony Hall.
Since Brenda Clowes' first contact, to demand charges against her husband be dropped in return for Sandburg's release, Simon had been frustrated by the incompetence of the Mayor's Office in the art of negotiation, and Jim had worn himself and everyone else out in a relentless search of all premises once owned, used or even simply visited by Mr and Mrs Clowes, including their repossessed home and the houses of their former employees. And everywhere he had drawn a blank.
Both men were relieved to be finally doing something constructive, the lead provided by Sandburg's jotted musings in his notebook having given them focus. While Jim had driven, Simon had been continuously on his cell-phone, either coordinating the PD presence or getting updates from the Mayor's Office and others about the arrangements for that evening's concert. But they weren’t prepared for the development with which the Symphony Hall staffer greeted them.
"We've just cancelled the concert. The Director says the weather is far too bad."
"What?" yelled Simon and Jim, in appalled unison. The staffer - a young girl - pulled her scarf tighter around her face.
"There were very low numbers in the auditorium. And half the Orchestra is stranded in the suburbs still. If we went ahead, Director Hardy felt that people would be exposed to risk and that wouldn't be good for us at CSH…" Simon held up his hand to interrupt her.
"Young lady, the Director had been expressly told by the Mayor's Office that all the arrangements for tonight should go right ahead. We're pursuing a dangerous felon, here!"
"Too late for all this, Simon," broke in Jim. He turned to the girl. "How long ago did this happen?"
"Only in the last few minutes," she replied, her eyes wide with apprehension. "I'm sorry, no one told me about holding people back…"
"Which exits?" barked Jim, already scanning the frontage of Symphony Hall as best he could in the falling snow.
"Oh, we're bringing them out the front door. The plaza is clearer of snow than around the rear exits."
"And your VIP guests tonight?" asked Simon. "Were they in the auditorium as well?"
"They were still at the Director's Meet-and-Greet," replied the girl, looking bemused by the interrogation. "But they’re being brought down and they’ll be held in the lobby until their cars are brought round…" Jim turned to Simon, and spoke low and urgently.
"She's lost her chance to make a move in the auditorium, but those bank executives are going to be sitting ducks, all waiting in a bunch. Tell the guys to move them back, but quietly. No panic. We can't rouse her suspicions. Look, the audience is coming out right now. She’ll be there, and I'm going to look for her.
And with that, he made off across the plaza, hearing Simon already shouting into his cell-phone.
"Hey! Hey! Anyone out there? Anyone? Help! Help!"
Nothing; just the muffled buffeting of the snow-laden wind against the cabin windows. Brenda Clowes had left him no light, but the whiteness that blanketed everywhere outside filled the room with a blue glow, so he wasn’t in complete darkness. However, he did lack any form of protection against the bitter cold seeping in through every pore of the wood cabin. His old overcoat just about coped with winter in the city, but in the lower temperatures out here - wherever here was - it was no match for the steadily falling temperature.
The past three days, since Brenda had bushwhacked him, had been a surreal experience for Blair, not to mention deeply worrying and unpleasant. Having got him, Brenda didn’t seem to have any real plans for what to do with him. Blair mentally kicked himself continually for not having fought back at the very start. But she was nothing like he had dealt with before.
Oh, he had faced down unhappy tribes-people, complete with spears they were very willing to use, and aggressive cops in Central America, and unsavoury people demanding money with menaces at various study sites in numerous parts of the globe. But he had never met the kind of unhinged unpredictability that radiated from Brenda Clowes. The moment he had allowed that to faze him, and baulked from confronting her waving gun head-on, he had been lost. And once the handcuffs were on, and she had delivered a dazing blow on the head for good measure before stuffing him into first the trunk of the Volvo, thence into the backseat of an old saloon car, he found there was truly little he could do. His only chance, he realised, was to try to reason with her. And that turned out to be a hopeless task.
Oh, she had fed him - the same sort of sandwiches and mugs of tea or coffee she had been making for herself. The Clowes' had clearly been using this cabin as their base all along and so there seemed to be ample provisions. Moreover the fireplace heated a back-boiler which in turned sent heated water all round the cabin through the radiators. It wasn't a hugely efficient system, but while Brenda burned logs in the fireplace, Blair had been pretty warm. This was primarily because he was attached firmly one of the radiators; under the pressure of Brenda's wavering gun, Blair had looped the metal security chains around himself and then around the radiator, so that when Brenda topped it all off with a padlock, he was effectively trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey.
A bucket had been provided for Blair's comfort, so to speak. This had seemed to embarrass Brenda as much as it embarrassed Blair, but his blushes were mainly spared as he didn’t see much of her; she spent most of her time sitting in the bedroom which adjoined the living area. Blair had mainly just tried to talk to her, reason with her, convince her to turn herself in before anything more serious happened. But, glued as she was to the battery-powered radio, and reports of her husband's condition and of the City's abject failure to apprehend the missing Anarchist Santa, he made no headway.
When he realised she was leaving him with neither light nor heat, and with the blizzard worsening outside, he had felt panic rising. The sound of the cabin door slamming behind her plunged him into near hysteria.
After several minutes of mindless yelling and rattling his chains against the cold radiator, he forced himself to stop, listening to his own breathing finally slow to a normal rate in the silence of the cabin. Stay calm, he told himself. They'll find you. They'll be waiting for Brenda to make a move and then they’ll get the location from her. Jim Ellison might be an arrogant and unthinking sonofabitch, but he was a consummate cop - Blair was sure of that. Whatever Jim felt about Blair and his supposed 'betrayal', the man would move heaven and earth to find him again.
Because he was one of Jim's tribe, thought Blair, nodding to himself. Jim was the Sentinel for the tribe of Cascade and, as a citizen of Cascade, Blair was Jim's responsibility, whether Jim liked Blair or not. It was a duty he couldn't shirk.
Blair smiled wryly to himself. What a wasted opportunity this had been! If only they could have talked to each other. If only Blair had been able to get his priorities right and tell Jim upfront of his conflicting plans; they might have worked something out.
If only Jim could have taken his head out of his ass and take time to listen, and given the benefit of the doubt instead of rejecting it all - lock, stock and barrel. Were they really that mismatched? He hadn't thought so. When they were working together, it had felt like being with the other half of himself, a profoundly satisfying experience.
Maybe Jim would let Blair talk, when he found him? Maybe there was a chance to start over? Blair hoped for that with all his might. But then he thought about his need to prioritise, and so first of all he hoped with all his might that Jim Ellison would walk through the door with some bolt-cutters.
In the meantime, thought Blair, I'm gonna make some noise. Every fifteen minutes, as well as I can judge, I'm gonna holler for help and rattle my chains. Just in case….
The crowd leaving Symphony Hall was still milling around the Plaza. Jim did his utmost of make out a likely suspect amongst all the people. But in their winter coats and hats, people's features were difficult to determine. The falling snowflakes obscured even more.
Jim clenched his fists in concentration, and tried to think of what Blair might say. Just focusing on his sight gauge was a good start, Jim realised, and he tried to relax, letting his sight reach out. A woman who could be in disguise wasn’t an easy target. But this woman had a purpose there, Jim reasoned, and that would make her behaviour different to that of the other people around. So why not make that behaviour more visible? He pulled out his cell-phone.
"Simon? Get Henri and a few of the gang to take the overcoats of some of the VIPs - be discreet about it, huh? And then a few of them can walk to the limos…"
It was all that was necessary. The moment her prey came into sight, Brenda Clowes made her move, stepping out from a line of people and moving to take a gun from inside her coat. So focussed was she on the bogus VIPs, she didn't notice Jim Ellison's heading rush at her; before she could fire, Jim had knocked the gun from her hand, and they had both tumbled to the snowy flagstones.
A short time later, Brenda Clowes, cuffed and tearful but with eyes still blazing with hate, was ready to be transported back to the PD. Simon and Jim took her to one side.
"Mrs Clowes," said Simon, "it's time to stop this charade. Too many people have got hurt, including your husband. He's recovering well, and we can take you to him. But I need to know the whereabouts of Dr Sandburg." Mrs Clowes sneered at him.
"You think I'm going to co-operate now? Now everything's lost? Throw the book at me, I don't care." Jim felt like shaking her till her teeth rattled, but he tried to be as calm as he could.
"If Dr Sandburg is in danger, we need to know. Mrs Clowes, please don't let anyone else suffer in this sad story. Please don't risk his life. He's a good man. Just tell us where he is." Jim couldn't stop himself reaching out to the woman, grasping her arms and staring pleadingly into her face. Her remoteness and alienation scared him; he had no sense of any compassion within her that would allow her to make Sandburg's rescue a priority. The awful thought struck him that maybe that was because Blair was already dead.
But her hard expression seemed to falter, so Jim kept talking.
"I think your husband is a good man, too. You were both screwed over by the banks and I can understand your anger and your pain. To see your life in ruins… it's unbearable. But please, please, don’t waste another life to spite the bankers. They don’t care anyway. That isn't the way to get them. Lawyers and court actions are the only way to do that. Blair Sandburg is a fine and principled young man who tries to help people. I'll bet he talked to you a whole lot these past days about how you could make a good case for redress. He'll be on your side in this - please be on his!"
There was a long pause, and then Brenda Clowes sighed; all the fight seemed to go out of her. When she spoke, her voice was tired.
"Give me a pen and paper."
(Concluded in part 16!)
Type: pre-slashish, AU.
Rating: teen
Word Count: 2,035
Summary: An attempt at a series. Jim and Blair are drawn together on a robbery investigation - nearly at the end now!
The Anarchist Santas: Part 15
It was close to 7pm and the snow was increasing as the Major Crime cars - without lights or sirens -drew up to Symphony Hall.
Since Brenda Clowes' first contact, to demand charges against her husband be dropped in return for Sandburg's release, Simon had been frustrated by the incompetence of the Mayor's Office in the art of negotiation, and Jim had worn himself and everyone else out in a relentless search of all premises once owned, used or even simply visited by Mr and Mrs Clowes, including their repossessed home and the houses of their former employees. And everywhere he had drawn a blank.
Both men were relieved to be finally doing something constructive, the lead provided by Sandburg's jotted musings in his notebook having given them focus. While Jim had driven, Simon had been continuously on his cell-phone, either coordinating the PD presence or getting updates from the Mayor's Office and others about the arrangements for that evening's concert. But they weren’t prepared for the development with which the Symphony Hall staffer greeted them.
"We've just cancelled the concert. The Director says the weather is far too bad."
"What?" yelled Simon and Jim, in appalled unison. The staffer - a young girl - pulled her scarf tighter around her face.
"There were very low numbers in the auditorium. And half the Orchestra is stranded in the suburbs still. If we went ahead, Director Hardy felt that people would be exposed to risk and that wouldn't be good for us at CSH…" Simon held up his hand to interrupt her.
"Young lady, the Director had been expressly told by the Mayor's Office that all the arrangements for tonight should go right ahead. We're pursuing a dangerous felon, here!"
"Too late for all this, Simon," broke in Jim. He turned to the girl. "How long ago did this happen?"
"Only in the last few minutes," she replied, her eyes wide with apprehension. "I'm sorry, no one told me about holding people back…"
"Which exits?" barked Jim, already scanning the frontage of Symphony Hall as best he could in the falling snow.
"Oh, we're bringing them out the front door. The plaza is clearer of snow than around the rear exits."
"And your VIP guests tonight?" asked Simon. "Were they in the auditorium as well?"
"They were still at the Director's Meet-and-Greet," replied the girl, looking bemused by the interrogation. "But they’re being brought down and they’ll be held in the lobby until their cars are brought round…" Jim turned to Simon, and spoke low and urgently.
"She's lost her chance to make a move in the auditorium, but those bank executives are going to be sitting ducks, all waiting in a bunch. Tell the guys to move them back, but quietly. No panic. We can't rouse her suspicions. Look, the audience is coming out right now. She’ll be there, and I'm going to look for her.
And with that, he made off across the plaza, hearing Simon already shouting into his cell-phone.
"Hey! Hey! Anyone out there? Anyone? Help! Help!"
Nothing; just the muffled buffeting of the snow-laden wind against the cabin windows. Brenda Clowes had left him no light, but the whiteness that blanketed everywhere outside filled the room with a blue glow, so he wasn’t in complete darkness. However, he did lack any form of protection against the bitter cold seeping in through every pore of the wood cabin. His old overcoat just about coped with winter in the city, but in the lower temperatures out here - wherever here was - it was no match for the steadily falling temperature.
The past three days, since Brenda had bushwhacked him, had been a surreal experience for Blair, not to mention deeply worrying and unpleasant. Having got him, Brenda didn’t seem to have any real plans for what to do with him. Blair mentally kicked himself continually for not having fought back at the very start. But she was nothing like he had dealt with before.
Oh, he had faced down unhappy tribes-people, complete with spears they were very willing to use, and aggressive cops in Central America, and unsavoury people demanding money with menaces at various study sites in numerous parts of the globe. But he had never met the kind of unhinged unpredictability that radiated from Brenda Clowes. The moment he had allowed that to faze him, and baulked from confronting her waving gun head-on, he had been lost. And once the handcuffs were on, and she had delivered a dazing blow on the head for good measure before stuffing him into first the trunk of the Volvo, thence into the backseat of an old saloon car, he found there was truly little he could do. His only chance, he realised, was to try to reason with her. And that turned out to be a hopeless task.
Oh, she had fed him - the same sort of sandwiches and mugs of tea or coffee she had been making for herself. The Clowes' had clearly been using this cabin as their base all along and so there seemed to be ample provisions. Moreover the fireplace heated a back-boiler which in turned sent heated water all round the cabin through the radiators. It wasn't a hugely efficient system, but while Brenda burned logs in the fireplace, Blair had been pretty warm. This was primarily because he was attached firmly one of the radiators; under the pressure of Brenda's wavering gun, Blair had looped the metal security chains around himself and then around the radiator, so that when Brenda topped it all off with a padlock, he was effectively trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey.
A bucket had been provided for Blair's comfort, so to speak. This had seemed to embarrass Brenda as much as it embarrassed Blair, but his blushes were mainly spared as he didn’t see much of her; she spent most of her time sitting in the bedroom which adjoined the living area. Blair had mainly just tried to talk to her, reason with her, convince her to turn herself in before anything more serious happened. But, glued as she was to the battery-powered radio, and reports of her husband's condition and of the City's abject failure to apprehend the missing Anarchist Santa, he made no headway.
When he realised she was leaving him with neither light nor heat, and with the blizzard worsening outside, he had felt panic rising. The sound of the cabin door slamming behind her plunged him into near hysteria.
After several minutes of mindless yelling and rattling his chains against the cold radiator, he forced himself to stop, listening to his own breathing finally slow to a normal rate in the silence of the cabin. Stay calm, he told himself. They'll find you. They'll be waiting for Brenda to make a move and then they’ll get the location from her. Jim Ellison might be an arrogant and unthinking sonofabitch, but he was a consummate cop - Blair was sure of that. Whatever Jim felt about Blair and his supposed 'betrayal', the man would move heaven and earth to find him again.
Because he was one of Jim's tribe, thought Blair, nodding to himself. Jim was the Sentinel for the tribe of Cascade and, as a citizen of Cascade, Blair was Jim's responsibility, whether Jim liked Blair or not. It was a duty he couldn't shirk.
Blair smiled wryly to himself. What a wasted opportunity this had been! If only they could have talked to each other. If only Blair had been able to get his priorities right and tell Jim upfront of his conflicting plans; they might have worked something out.
If only Jim could have taken his head out of his ass and take time to listen, and given the benefit of the doubt instead of rejecting it all - lock, stock and barrel. Were they really that mismatched? He hadn't thought so. When they were working together, it had felt like being with the other half of himself, a profoundly satisfying experience.
Maybe Jim would let Blair talk, when he found him? Maybe there was a chance to start over? Blair hoped for that with all his might. But then he thought about his need to prioritise, and so first of all he hoped with all his might that Jim Ellison would walk through the door with some bolt-cutters.
In the meantime, thought Blair, I'm gonna make some noise. Every fifteen minutes, as well as I can judge, I'm gonna holler for help and rattle my chains. Just in case….
The crowd leaving Symphony Hall was still milling around the Plaza. Jim did his utmost of make out a likely suspect amongst all the people. But in their winter coats and hats, people's features were difficult to determine. The falling snowflakes obscured even more.
Jim clenched his fists in concentration, and tried to think of what Blair might say. Just focusing on his sight gauge was a good start, Jim realised, and he tried to relax, letting his sight reach out. A woman who could be in disguise wasn’t an easy target. But this woman had a purpose there, Jim reasoned, and that would make her behaviour different to that of the other people around. So why not make that behaviour more visible? He pulled out his cell-phone.
"Simon? Get Henri and a few of the gang to take the overcoats of some of the VIPs - be discreet about it, huh? And then a few of them can walk to the limos…"
It was all that was necessary. The moment her prey came into sight, Brenda Clowes made her move, stepping out from a line of people and moving to take a gun from inside her coat. So focussed was she on the bogus VIPs, she didn't notice Jim Ellison's heading rush at her; before she could fire, Jim had knocked the gun from her hand, and they had both tumbled to the snowy flagstones.
A short time later, Brenda Clowes, cuffed and tearful but with eyes still blazing with hate, was ready to be transported back to the PD. Simon and Jim took her to one side.
"Mrs Clowes," said Simon, "it's time to stop this charade. Too many people have got hurt, including your husband. He's recovering well, and we can take you to him. But I need to know the whereabouts of Dr Sandburg." Mrs Clowes sneered at him.
"You think I'm going to co-operate now? Now everything's lost? Throw the book at me, I don't care." Jim felt like shaking her till her teeth rattled, but he tried to be as calm as he could.
"If Dr Sandburg is in danger, we need to know. Mrs Clowes, please don't let anyone else suffer in this sad story. Please don't risk his life. He's a good man. Just tell us where he is." Jim couldn't stop himself reaching out to the woman, grasping her arms and staring pleadingly into her face. Her remoteness and alienation scared him; he had no sense of any compassion within her that would allow her to make Sandburg's rescue a priority. The awful thought struck him that maybe that was because Blair was already dead.
But her hard expression seemed to falter, so Jim kept talking.
"I think your husband is a good man, too. You were both screwed over by the banks and I can understand your anger and your pain. To see your life in ruins… it's unbearable. But please, please, don’t waste another life to spite the bankers. They don’t care anyway. That isn't the way to get them. Lawyers and court actions are the only way to do that. Blair Sandburg is a fine and principled young man who tries to help people. I'll bet he talked to you a whole lot these past days about how you could make a good case for redress. He'll be on your side in this - please be on his!"
There was a long pause, and then Brenda Clowes sighed; all the fight seemed to go out of her. When she spoke, her voice was tired.
"Give me a pen and paper."
(Concluded in part 16!)