City of Ports

by Jeff Deck

  I stick the 9 mm in my belt. Not like I’ll wave it around right now. Even so, Milly trains her own gun, a very familiar Sig 226, at my face in the next instant.

  “What are you doing, Jeong?” she shouts. She doesn’t take her eyes off me. “Is this how the FBI operates? Handing a firearm to a murder suspect?!”

  “She’s not a murderer,” the agent says. His voice is low but it somehow carries through the alarm blaring. “Pay attention to your gut for just a second, Officer Fragonard. Ignore the playbook and listen to your instincts. You’ll know Allard is innocent.”

  “The heck I will!” Milly snaps. “Get on the ground now, Allard! I’m taking your weapon.”

  I have my hands up. But I don’t move otherwise, except for nodding down the corridor. “We have to get down there, Milly. Our friends are dying.”

  She hesitates and looks in that direction. Her gun wavers in her hand. I could slap it out of her grip with ease, but I don’t. We all hear a single gunshot somewhere in the station. Someone cries out, “Jesus fuck!”

  Milly heaves a huge sigh and lowers her gun. “Come on. But you’ll all answer for this later, I promise you.”

  “I think I’ll stay here,” Barb Okefor says, bidding farewell with her briefcase as the rest of us hurry down the hall.

  I skid to a halt as I spot the bloodbath ahead. Ethan stops just short of crashing into me, and I fling out my hand.

  “Back, back!” I hiss.

  I haven’t seen the assailant yet. But Officer Burt Daniels’s face is locked in a silent, eternal scream as he lies crumpled on the floor, and that’s warning enough. Daniels, who wowed me with his pitching arm on the department softball team. Daniels, who showed avuncular disappointment rather than anger when I blew up at the department. I think I know now what his silent question was in the holding area: How could you have let things go this far?

  The body of another old colleague of mine, Detective Ken Berger, sprawls nearby. I only know it’s Ken because of that bracelet he always wears; the head has been damaged beyond the point of ID. My stomach lurches in horror and disgust.

  Milly and Jeong and I crowd into the nearest doorway, into the roll call room, just before a bullet streaks down the hall. That was meant for us.

  It’s a turkey shoot now, and we’re the turkeys. Hell, if there are any cops still left in this fight, one of them might be the one to blow my head off the first time I peek out the door.

  Time to get a head count. “Who’s in this fight?” I yell. “Anyone?”

  “Fuck, she’s behind us,” someone shouts. Sounds like Gary Piotrowski. Thick neck and bit of a thick skull, but a good heart.

  “No, you asshole, I just saw her,” I hear Akerman respond. “That’s the other one.”

  “I’m on your side,” I call out.

  “Then call her off!” the chief screams.

  I dare a look into the hallway, clutching Ethan’s Glock. I see a face poking out from the doorway to the prosecutor’s office, down near the door to the lobby—which is currently propped open by another corpse in uniform. That would be the reason for the blaring alarm. I can see only the legs of that one.

  The face down the hall meets my eyes.

  And there I am. With a Sig 226 of my very own. I’m soaked with the blood of my old colleagues. I must have grabbed the gun off the poor bastard wedged in the lobby door, whoever he is. I’ve killed at least three so far.

  No! Not me. Someone who’s wearing my face, maybe, but that’s not me. I am right here.

  Any observer could be fooled, though. Forgetting my caution, I’m fixated on Evil Allard now. For a crazy moment, I imagine that her movements are tied to mine, like she’s my reflection in a mirror. I raise my hand, but no hand answers me. Even at this distance, I can see that she looks like me down to every detail: shoulder-length black hair gathered in waves about a heart-shaped face with eyes wide and dark, prominent nose, jutting-out lips. Dark brown skin.

  And, as I expected, Evil Allard is wearing my favorite jacket. She is running what little remains of my reputation far deep underground, where the corpses lie.

  A rough hand pulls me backward into the relative safety of the roll call room. Jeong grunts into my ear. “Lucky you still have a head! Jesus. Sit rep?”

  I glance at Milly’s grimly focused face—she’s waiting for my answer too.

  “It’s me,” I say. “Another me. But I think I can talk to her.”

  Milly shakes her head. “Why did I run to you in the first place? I let Daniels and Berger die just so I could spring a crazy woman. What the fuck was I thinking?!” The swear is jarring, coming from her mouth.

  “You were thinking you needed an ally,” I say. “And deep down, you still want to believe you can count on me. Milly—let me try a conversation with her. Before you go out there with guns blazing and get yourself killed too. She’s me and I’m a hell of a shot.”

  Milly Fragonard raises her hand to me, and I’m half-convinced she’s going to whack me. But I don’t make a move to defend myself. Her palm lands heavily on my shoulder. It’s meant to intimidate, not to comfort, and she leans into me.

  “I’ll give you thirty seconds,” she hisses. “On condition that when this is all over, you explain everything!”

  “Done,” I say quickly, and I squeeze her fingers before I push her hand away.

  “Allard!” I call out. Because that’s what I would answer to—not Officer, not Detective, not Divya, not Psycho Doppelgänger. I answer to the name of my mother and father.

  “Allard,” she says back. I get the shivers hearing my own voice answer me. Okay, not just that: it’s hearing my own voice twist and writhe at its ugliest.

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath. Not me. I am me. Not me. I am me.

  I say: “You’re angry. I get it. I’m angry too. One of the many things we have in common. But this is not your vendetta. It’s mine, and it’s way past its expiration date.”

  “They wronged me, all of them, these motherfuckers,” Evil Allard screams. It’s me in the grip of full-on rage. “These pencil-licking, shit-eating bastards stopped me from finding out who killed Hannah. And then they dragged my name through the mud!”

  “That’s why you killed Kuhn?” I called out. Just to clarify, just to get it on the record for everyone in earshot. Her, not me.

  “Yeah, killing that asshat was a good start,” she says. “But I came here to get back to the source. And if you try to stop me, I’ll kill you too, cunt!”

  I pause at the novelty of hearing myself call me a cunt. It would almost be funny if literally everything about this situation were different.

  “Those wrongs you talk about—they didn’t happen to you!” I call back. “They happened to me. And guess what, I’m over them.”

  Now, at least.

  She doesn’t answer. But I can feel her, specifically her anger, radiating like a wave down the hall.

  “You’re like a baby,” I say. This is partly speculation, but it feels more and more correct as I go on. “You didn’t exist a couple of hours ago—you have to start fresh.” I gulp, and then say: “Let me help you.”

  Jeong stares at me like I’ve just grown another head. (In a way, I suppose I have. There just happens to be another body that goes with it.) Milly tries to get my attention by frantically waving her hand.

  “W . . . What?” says the other Allard. And then she falls silent. I dare to hope she’s actually considering my words. How much of a person is this creature? Is it even possible for her to view herself as a baby? Maybe she’s taken it as an insult. But maybe, she’s turning it over in her head, discovering that this new perspective could help her.

  Then Chief Akerman spoils that possibility by bawling: “We don’t negotiate with terrorists!”

  I peek back into the hallway just in time to see Akerman take a shot at Evil Allard. Imprudently, half of his body has surged out of the doorway to the shift commander’s office.

  He lands a hit, judging from Evil Allard�
�s scream. Then her scream turns to a roar. Evil Allard, blood streaming down her face, fires twice at my old boss. One goes wide, and that’s only because her vision is temporarily obscured by red. The second connects and rips into Chief Akerman’s leg. He grips the doorway and falls back into his office.

  That’s when Gary Piotrowski chooses to break cover from the SWAT office. Not toward Evil Allard, but away from her, toward us, or rather toward the side hallway directly next to us. I’m guessing he got the idea to head for the AR-15 storage locker in the evidence room. An assault rifle would end this quickly enough. I’d do the same if I actually wanted to kill Evil Allard.

  But Piotrowski has left himself wide open, even for just a second. He misjudged my—her—twitch speed. My doppelgänger pops out again and shoots Piotrowski in the neck. Screaming, blood spewing from his mouth, the cop joins the pile of bodies in the hall. I draw back, shaken by the execution, which I’ve just viewed from way too up close.

  Jeong is pale and grim. He steadies me. Milly is slower to recover. She just heard a friend die at close range. But I’m impressed to see her pull herself together a moment later, reminding me of the steel that runs through my former friend. Her courage boosts my own, and I can think again.

  Evil Allard could have killed me as easily as she shot Piotrowski. But she didn’t, did she?

  “The AR-15s,” Milly says. Doesn’t she know that was the same idea that doomed Piotrowski? “Give me cover fire, Allard. Only a few steps around the corner, and then I’m home free. I’ll get to the locker.”

  “No,” I say. “Number one, you’re not any faster than Gary was, and he had fewer steps to take. Number two, we can still do this without killing her. You’re not a killer, Milly.”

  Her face clouds in rage. “Oh no?! My brothers out there are dead. I’ll show you just who I am now, Divya. I used to think you weren’t a killer either—”

  “Enough, ladies,” Jeong says. Both of us turn to him, briefly united in redirecting our anger. He holds his hands up in surrender. “Whoa. Okay. I just . . . what if we don’t do either? What if we stay secured in here? The SWAT team’s got to show up real soon.”

  Out in the hall, Piotrowski has stopped gurgling.

  “Would still give her time to kill the chief before they blow her away,” Milly says. “No, we have to move now.”

  “I agree,” I say.

  But on the nature of that movement, I disagree. Before Milly can rush out and get herself killed, I block her by stepping out into the hall. Milly curses me but stays put.

  Evil Allard shoots at me immediately. And misses. I have the advantage of being a small target, unlike the big, lumbering guys lying in the pool of gore at my feet—but it still wouldn’t be a hard shot. Not for me. There’s no way she missed me by accident.

  I hear the chief groaning. That’s a good sign.

  I don’t heed Evil Allard’s warning shot, nor do I heed her yell: “Stay back!” I keep walking.

  I step around the bodies of my old colleagues. I’m shaky with fear, but I get as far as the shift commander’s office and then duck inside. Akerman sits on the floor, working on a homemade tie-off for his leg. He raises his gun shortly after looking up at me.

  “I told you,” I say, “I’m on your side. She’s the murderer.”

  “Fuck your whole family,” Akerman says. But he lowers his weapon, grimacing.

  “We’ll sort this out,” I say with more assurance than I feel.

  I’ve got to take the next step now or I’ll chicken out. I’ve been off the force for too long, immersed in the mundane world of vandals and loiterers and misplaced ID cards at the JIA security desk. I’ve gotten used to that soft feeling of not placing myself in death’s path.

  I call out: “I’m coming over, Allard. Let’s talk.”

  “I’ll shoot you for real this time,” she says. “I swear.”

  I march out of Akerman’s office and across the hall, flinging myself into the prosecutor’s office. I’m flying against every instinct of self-preservation that I’ve regrown in the past year, and it feels good.

  It’s a shock to see myself up close. Evil Allard is leaning against a chair, bleeding copiously from her ear. She holds her hand to her face, distracted by her own pain. It occurs to me that I could kill her, after all.

  It would be safer for everyone. It would end tonight’s body count with an exclamation point.

  But—call me a solipsist, but I don’t have it in me to blow away someone who looks exactly like me. Especially since, when I look at Evil Allard, I do see a baby. A big, angry baby, yes. But, if my theory is right, she’s still a newborn to this world, one lacking the life experience to develop a conscience of her own. The blame for her actions rests on her parents: the late Graham Tsoukalas and myself.

  All she is right now is a collection of my own worst emotions. Out of my ignorance, and my deep-seated flaws, I created her. I won’t now destroy her.

  Instead, I grab a big stapler from the desk and chuck it at her head. Evil Allard doesn’t get knocked unconscious—that would be too simple, too easy on me—but she does get thrown onto her side. The 226 falls from her hands.

  I jump onto Evil Allard and force her against the floor. I shove her gun a safe distance away from her and then toss away my own as well. She offers only token resistance. She’s trying to catch my attention.

  “Chief shot me,” she was mumbling. “I have to kill him. Chief shot me. I have to . . .”

  “You had it coming. Stay still.”

  I hear a rush of footsteps approaching. Evil Allard, though her head must be ringing like an alarm clock, squirms underneath me in a renewed burst of energy. She almost throws me off. She’s strong, like I’m strong. Maybe stronger. Maybe she hasn’t paid the toll of broken bones and moderate alcohol abuse and all the other insults I’ve inflicted on my body over the years (so much for the “body is a temple” theory). Divya Allard 2.0.

  Her elbow comes up and knocks me in the chin. I reel back, my face tingling, but now I have help. Agent Jeong and Officers Fragonard, McLaren, and Prince crowd around me with all their guns pointing at the wretch on the floor. She keeps struggling anyway, as if she wants to die by cop.

  Then Jeong and Milly, as if they’ve signaled each other, simultaneously drop down on Evil Allard’s wriggling body and keep her down while Milly slaps handcuffs on her.

  “What are you doing?” sputters Officer Mike Prince. He makes a jerking motion with his handgun. “All of you assholes, move out of the way and give me my shot!”

  “Going to shoot a woman in handcuffs?” Milly asks him. Sweat trickles down her wild-eyed face, and she looks like she could start screaming at any minute, but she’s not budging from her position. “Don’t think that’s in the manual.”

  “She killed Burt and Gary!” Prince screams. “Get out of the fucking way, bitch!”

  Officer McLaren, breathing hard, looks almost as turbulent as Prince does right now. But he gets himself together and puts his hand on Prince. “Easy, Mike. Easy! This isn’t who we are.”

  Prince snaps a hateful glare at McLaren. I know the look, because I know the man: a racial slur is likely on his lips. He chews on the words in his throat, then swallows them and slumps in defeat. He lowers his gun and steps back. “Fuck it, you all can take care of this. I got to call an ambulance for the chief.”

  Milly stares at me as he stalks off. “Prince won’t be the only one. Your sister, here, is going to get strung up Wild West style by a bunch of angry guys tonight if you don’t have a plan. Now tell me everything!”

  Jeong nods at her, all warmth and professional courtesy now that the crisis is over. “Thank you for your help, Officer Fragonard. We’re going to give you the explanation you deserve, by and by. But right now—my people need to take this clone, or whatever she is, into custody.”

  He’s said the strange word at a low pitch, so that only Milly and I, and possibly McLaren, could hear him. Milly looks at me for a long moment. Finally, she shows
me her palms, backs off, and guides McLaren away to the shift commander’s office.

  I have a feeling we’re still not best buddies. Maybe we’ll never get there again. But I’ve got bigger issues to worry about tonight.

  On trembling legs, I stumble out into the hallway. I can finally focus on the body wedged in the door to the lobby. I open the door wider. The glass case of memorabilia in the lobby has shattered. The front half of the body is lying in the glass, gun missing, giving credence to my idea that this was the guy who unwittingly armed my doppelgänger.

  It somehow doesn’t surprise me to see that Evil Allard’s ticket into the station was Officer Skip Bradley. He’d be just stupid enough to let her trick him into “capturing” her, thinking that he had the situation under control right up until the second he didn’t. But I’ve spoken enough ill of the dead.

  The parking lot is full of emergency vehicles and sound and light. The SWAT team has arrived, belatedly, along with police cars from the neighboring towns of Kittery, Newington, and Greenland. About a dozen guns train on our little party of me, Agent Jeong, and the captive Evil Allard before we can consider sneaking out.

  As we kneel on the pavement with our hands above our heads (well, Evil Allard with hers still handcuffed behind her back), Jeong shouts at the cops to check his pocket for his FBI badge. Once they do so, they let us up. They have strong reservations about letting us leave the scene with the murderer in tow, but Jeong promises them we’ll be back. His badge can move mountains, as can the mere mention of his boss, SSA Marsters.

  The cops do keep staring from Evil Allard to me and back again, understandably. One twin sister is evil, and the other isn’t? Doesn’t that only happen in soap operas?

  I can only imagine what the city council must be thinking right now, Stone and all her well-heeled cronies. Tonight’s body count is a little bit enormous, isn’t it? They must be ready to kill me with their bare hands just for the damage I’ve done to this year’s tourist season. I wouldn’t want to be in Akerman’s shoes tonight when he gets the first call.