It’s only a backpack
“Whaddya mean, ‘It’s not available’?”
Patrolman Eddie Milford cringed. Why did the sergeant have to ask him to make the call? “I asked them, sir. Told them we need it right away. But they said it’s not available.”
“Is it on another call, or broken, or are they just too lazy to bring it out?”
“Well . . .”
“Goddamit, you little boy!Gimme that!” The sergeant snatched Eddie’s cellphone out of his hand and started punching numbers. “Listen, you!” he said after a moment. “I had my guy call you and he says . . .”
After a few seconds, during which Eddie considered all manner of ways he could slink away—rejecting all of them—the sergeant tossed his cellphone back to him.
Surprised, Eddie lunged forward to catch it, and bumped his elbow into the sergeant’s ample belly. He grunted with the pain in his back. He hurt it in a touch football game over the weekend. He thought it had healed.
“Jesus!” the sergeant said. “What, are you having one of them epulet fits, or something? Get away!”
“Sorry, sir. I was just . . .”
“You’re just sorry, that’s all. A sorry excuse for a cop. That’s for sure. They should’ve known—letting someone in the academy at age fourteen.”
“Eighteen, sir,” Eddie said.
“Hah!” the sergeant said. “You’re barely twenty now, from the looks of you, anyway.”
Well, thought Eddie, if I entered at fourteen, and am twenty now, that would mean I spent six years at the academy. I would have learned a lot in that long a time.
“Epulet fits. You’ll be going out on disability, and not even old enough to vote. Shit.”
Eddie could just imagine what the reaction would be if took a day of sick leave for his back. He moved his shoulders and tilted his back a little, hoping the sergeant didn’t notice. It wasn’t too bad. He could stand it—as long as he didn’t make too many abrupt movements, like catching a cellphone.
“It ain’t coming, anyway,” the sergeant said. “We need to figure out what to do.” He peered through the visual tangle of squad cars, flashing red and blue lights, and a score or more of CPD and State Police officers, deputy sheriffs, and an assortment of plainclothes detectives, ATF agents, and, no doubt, a smattering of FBI special agents.
“Maybe it’s just something innocent that fell out of a car,” Eddie ventured.
“Looks like some kind of backpack,” the sergeant said. “That’s what they used up in Boston, you know, at that Marthernon thing a couple of years ago. Just dropped a couple of backpacks on the ground and walked away. ‘fore long the air was filled with arms and legs. Separate arms and legs, I mean.” He peered through the tangle again.
“Isn’t that the bomb disposal truck, right now?” Eddie asked. He continued thinking about how he could get away, but had come up with no good ideas, yet.
The sergeant was watching the bomb truck. Maybe he would approach it. Eddie hoped so. He would stay where he was.
“Maybe I oughta go down there, a little closer. See what it really is,” he blurted. The words were out of his mouth before he could bite his tongue off to stop them. Why had he said that? He didn’t want to get near a bomb. Still, it wasn’t a bomb, was it? People were just overreacting—way overreacting. He did want to get away from the sergeant, but he should go in the other direction.
“What?” the sergeant said, turning back to Eddie. “You?” His eyes roamed up and down, taking in Eddie’s close-cropped brown hair, his carefully pressed uniform blouse, his equipment belt, his creased trousers, his shined boots. Down and then up again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Milford.”
Something glimmered in the sergeant’s eyes that Eddie had not seen before. And he had called him “Milford,” instead of “kid.” The sergeant’s eyes met Eddie’s. Eddie resisted the impulse to avoid the stare, and accepted the momentary engagement.
The sergeant broke the moment and glanced back at the bomb truck. “Listen, kid. I ain't letting you go out there and get yourself blowed up. There’d be all kinds of paperwork.”
“It'll be okay, sir. I'll be careful.”
“We gotta wait for the bomb guys. That's what the directive says.”
“But they're already here, sir. They came with the truck. See?” He pointed to the bomb truck, shaped like a cement mixer, except that the barrel was made out of thick, rusty looking steel mesh. “They’re all standing over there beside it.”
“Yeah.Standing.The assholes. I guess they’re waiting for the robot now. We just have to wait.”
“But we have half the city shut down--Lake Shore Drive, the entrances to the expressways. Let me go down there, sir. I'll check it out. Like you said, it’s probably just something someone dropped.”
“No,” the sergeant said. “I’ll find out what’s going on.” He turned toward the bomb truck, paused, and then turned back. “But thanks, ki…Milford.”
“The sergeant was right. It was just a backpack someone had dropped. Probably off the back of a truck or something. He looked down the hill. The sergeant was now shouting at a lieutenant who seemed to be in charge of the bomb truck.
While they were arguing, Eddie looked up the grassy hill toward the roadway, trying to force his eyes to extract more detail from the black object lying in the northbound lane. He took a couple of steps closer.
Another truck pulled in beside the bomb truck—a tractor and semi-trailer, on which sat a piece of equipment. One of the men who had been watching the sergeant’s argument with the lieutenant broke off and approached the new truck. A new sound—the sound of a small engine starting—added its voice to the background noise. It stopped, then started up again. Several officers now surrounded the equipment. Orders and curses were shouted. After a few minutes, others augmented their numbers, and about a dozen of them lifted the machine off the trailer and set it on the ground.
The robot resembled a cross between a small bulldozer and a praying mantis. Like a small bulldozer, it had steel tracks in place of wheels. But like a praying mantis, it had a long, jointedprotuberance at the end. Maybe that part looked more like a backhoe. Suddenly, the treads started to clank. The contraption lurched forward. Then it stopped. Then it lunged forward again, then backed up, and stopped. It began to spin in a circle. The praying-mantis/backhoe arm raised and lowered, and then swiftly moved to the side and extended itself. The robot fell over on its side, its tracks now seeking purchase in the air.
“Goddam it!” someone cried.
Eddie moved closer to the backpack, remembering the feeling when the sergeant locked eyes with him. He glanced around, down the hill, up the road, behind him, and back. No one was paying the slightest attention to him; they were all watching the truck, the argument, and the robot.
More confidently now, he strode up the hill, closing half the distance between himself and the object. He smiled to himself. There would be no end of paperwork if he got himself blown up. Maybe some of it would involve a posthumous commendation. He remembered the photographs and inscriptions in the hallway at the Academy: “Officers killed in the line of duty.”
Maybe it was a bomb. This was not a good idea, at all. What if it just blew off a leg instead of killing him? What the hell would he do then? All he had ever wanted to be was a police officer, and he was one now. If he got . . . well, this was not a good idea. He should just go back to the others and follow orders.
“Milford,” the sergeant had called him. Not “kid.” Not “little boy.” That was the worst.
He looked around again. No one was watching. He inhaled, exhaled, set his teeth firmly together and began to walk steadily toward the object. The tension in his thighs and calves as his legs worked against the inclinefelt good—strong. They fueled his determination.
He could see more detail now. It was indeed a faded backpack, one strap intact, the other broken. It had a Bears logo on the flap. It looked to be empty, its fabric sagging against the pavement.
He needed some kind of strategy. Should he simply pick it up and examine it? Maybe that was not the most prudent course of action. If he could find some sort of stick . . . . He looked around.
Or maybe he should shoot it. Yeah. He could do that from whatever—well, almost whatever—distance he wanted. No. That was a really shitty idea. Talk about paperwork. And he’d be the laughing stock of the department. “You know that rookie? The one who looks like he’s sixteen.Well, I gotta tell you, he lost his cool big time. Over on Lakeshore Drive the other day?The bomb squad was already there, ready to do their thing, and this kid ran over and starting shooting at an empty backpack, firing all sixteen rounds into it—or in its direction, anyway. Mostly, he missed. It was just a backpack. What an asshole!”
He refastened the strap holding his Glock in its holster. He looked around again for a stick, as he moved closer. No sticks. He’d just have to be really, really careful.
A new sound intruded—a throaty buzzing. Eddie jerked his eyes away from the backpack, expecting to see a small motorcycle speeding down the drive. How could they let a motorcycle through? They supposedly had everything blocked off. That’s sure what it sounded like. Nothing appeared. All the closed-off lanes remained clear of traffic.
Then he saw it, about twenty feet over the southbound lanes. Two orange lights blinked rhythmically. Eight arms extended from the center, a spinning rotor atop each.
“What the hell is that?” The bomb lieutenant’s bellow eclipsed the buzzing. “Jesus Christ! It’s that deranged drone. That asshole! We’ve got this under control, and he’s talked to some deputy chief who must be related to the Mayor. I hate this fucking city! It’s our job. The directives are clear about that. We’ve got it under control!”
Eddie couldn’t see him all that clearly, but he envisioned the lieutenant spewing strands of saliva into the sergeant’s face.
The drone came closer, still twenty feet off the ground, and now only a few yards away from the backpack. A short cable dangled beneath, holding a metal claw.
“Goddam it!” the lieutenant cried. “Shoot it the hell down! We’ve got fifty police officers here and everyone has at least one weapon. Shoot it down!”
Eddie dropped his hand to his holster again. Maybe if he was the one who shot it down . . . .
The drone now was hovering over the backpack. The claw on the end of the line opened, and the machine began to inch lower. It paused, the claw opened wider, and it began to drop still lower, the fangs of the claw now nearly touching the fabric. Almost imperceptibly, the claw closed over the fabric. The drone stopped, and then Eddie imagined increased tension on the cable. The claw’s hold on the fabric stretched it upward ever so slightly.
The buzzing noise increased in volume, its pitch deepening. The little craft strained against the line. Slowly, gradually, it moved upward, until the backpack dangled a few inches above the ground.
More strained buzzing. The height increased a few feet. The drone with its slightly swinging cargo approached the bomb truck. The forces near the truck scattered. Several of them, including the lieutenant, had their weapons out, pointed at the drone. The lieutenant was still screaming.
The drone struggled higher, and the backpack now dangled a foot above than the lip of the open top of the steel basket on the truck. The drone moved across the lip, advancing a few inches, then stopping, then moving a little more, until the backpack was centered over the basket.
The drone hovered for a moment, minutely adjusting its position. Then the claw opened, dropping the backpack into the basket.
Nothing happened. Damn! If this thing hadn’t come on the scene, Eddie could have disposed of it himself. He had been to slow, too timid. Fuck!
The explosion knocked the lieutenant, the sergeant, and several others nearby to the ground. Tongues of orange shot through the voids in the steel mesh. Eddie’s ears rang. A puff of black and white smoke drifted above the truck.
Suddenly the drone emerged from the ballooning smoke, on its side now. The severed cable whipped up and was ensnared by one of its rotors. The mangled drone crashed to the ground not far from the lieutenant with a crunching and grinding noise, as the buzzing stopped.
Eddie flexed his hands and fingers, tightened and then relaxed the muscles in his legs, and walked down the hill. Maybe the sergeant needed his help.
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