Bio-Justice

by Scott Takemoto

  But Vogel heard something that made him stop. Sarkis was yelling out to the gallery, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I’m Dr. Sarkis. Don’t shoot!” as he waved his arms frantically, like a man on a deserted island spotting a rescue helicopter in the distance. Vogel laughed again as he raised his weapon and caught Sarkis in his crosshairs.

  Sarkis was hit twice through the heart but lived long enough to hear his executioner receive his retribution. The snipers, on edge for the longest time, now seized upon an opportunity of release. Twelve bullets cut through the thickening gas cloud, riddling Paul Vogel into a tattered paper target on a gun range.

  Lieutenant Davis leaned forward and whispered into General Winfield’s ear, triggering an immediate explosion. “No, no, no, no! Goddamn it to hell!” Dr. Conlan’s heart jumped at the sound; he didn’t know how many more of these detonations he could take.

  “Conlan, did you know about a hidden door?”

  “Yes…General.”

  “Then why in hell was I not informed, so I could station some units behind it?”

  “I didn’t think anyone would know about it, except maybe Dr. Sarkis,” Conlan said.

  Winfield groaned. The sound of Winfield’s constant dismay was becoming the theme song for the operation. “Well, Sarkis is dead.”

  Conlan felt his head spinning. His eyes closed and he went over all the reasons why the death had not been his fault. When he had exonerated himself, his eyes reopened.

  Winfield rubbed his jaw. “Doctor, I’m so glad you weren’t one of my advisors in Vietnam or Iraq, or I’d be a private by now.” And then, regarding Dr. Sarkis, Winfield asked the question that made Conlan think about how far he had strayed. “Can we absorb the loss, Doctor?”

  “Yes,” Conlan said after a moment had passed. “Dr. Sarkis will be missed. But he was expendable.”

  The secret door led into another laboratory room. The room was expansive, its perimeter lined with several counters topped by rotating stainless steel shelves with solutions at different testing stages. Centered between the shelves was a station with microscopes cabled to computer monitors and a master control panel. A padded examination table created an island of study for live subjects undergoing injections and blood transfusions. Danny’s eyes went to the restraining straps on the table.

  There were two exits from the room and O’Neal was the first to attempt his way out.

  As O’Neal opened the door, the whistling sound of two bullets immediately followed. O’Neal was struck in the neck, catching him mid-swallow. A dark, gurgling sound followed him to the ground.

  Dobie rushed to slam the door shut. “Oh God,” Dobie said, “we’re all going to die.”

  As if on cue, the other exit door swung open revealing three helmeted marksmen. Nina let out a scream.

  “Shit, I thought we just did this,” Caine remarked.

  “Winfield!” Danny screamed. “Let me speak to the General!”

  Danny was startled when Caine pressed his piece against the back of his head. “Nice crowd you hang with,” Caine said.

  “Caine, what the fuck—”

  Caine chuckled. “I just realized that I’ve been putting my gun to the wrong head. You’re the one they want. You’re going to be my ticket out of here.”

  The gray-uniformed soldiers were now in the room with more of them entering from the other exit.

  Danny made a motion to Felice to pull Nina back.

  “Caine,” Danny said as calmly as he could, “put the gun down. Every soldier has his gun trained on you. You sneeze and your head comes straight off.”

  Caine started to fidget, but then regained his composure. “Fuck that!” he said, almost courting death with defiant abandon. Caine halted the approach by thrusting out his open hand to the marksmen while his gun crammed up against the back of Danny’s skull. “Back up!” he screamed. “Back up, motherfuckers!”

  One of the tactical team received a message in his earphone and motioned for the others to withdraw. The soldiers suddenly shuffled backwards. Their retreat was quick—the scoped rifles never left their targets until they passed through the exit doors. And just that quickly, the soldiers were gone. The exit doors were now closed, leaving the captives alone again.

  “And that’s how it’s done,” Caine bragged, lowering his gun.

  Danny raged at Caine, losing it. “Pull a gun on me again, be ready to use it!”

  “I’m ready right now,” Caine said, not backing down.

  “Feel like you’re in control, Caine?”

  “I am in control,” Caine said. “And I’m calling the shots.”

  When Danny turned away from Caine in disgust, the butt of Caine’s pistol came crashing down on the back of Danny’s skull. Danny fell to the ground, barely conscious from the blow. Standing over Danny, Caine stomped on Danny, his heel crushing the soft of his belly.

  Nina buried her face in Felice’s shoulder, away from the horrific display.

  “Caine, come on,” Dobie said. “Leave him alone.”

  Caine tasted blood now and like a bully, he was now thriving on the fear he detected in others. He looked at Dobie straight on, daring him to look at him. “Come on, big shot. Why don’t you get involved? Come teach me a lesson.”

  Dobie shrank away, accepting his fear and acknowledging his cowardice.

  But Caine wasn’t done. His merciless eyes surveyed the room and stopped on Felice.

  “You, come here,” he said to Felice Bennett.

  “What—what do you want?”

  Caine pointed his weapon at Felice, his tried-and-true terror tactic. “I’ll tell you what I want when you come over here.”

  Nina, seeing Danny writhing on the ground and Felice being threatened, started to cry, that slow-to-build ambulance siren kind of wail that grabs attention.

  Caine noticing Nina, motioned Felice back. “Never mind,” he said. Caine approached Nina and touched her face with his thick, calloused fingers. Nina turned her head violently.

  “Dobie,” Caine barked. “Cover me. I want a piece of this one.”

  Dobie knew Caine was testing him, asking him to be complicit in something this vile, just to show him what a coward he was. Ashamed, Dobie yielded to his fears and let Caine define him as he kept his gun pointed at Felice and Danny.

  Caine’s index finger touched Nina’s lower lip like he was pressing on the petal of a delicate flower and then slowly the finger made a trail down her neck to the top button of her shirt. Nina trembled, her angry tears streaming down her face.

  “I hate you,” Nina said to Caine’s face.

  Caine chuckled. “That’s OK, sweetheart. That may make it better. Now take this off.”

  Felice jumped forward to intervene. “For God’s sakes, stop it!”

  Caine was going on full throttle sadism now. The fact that he was causing everyone to squirm was a dark delight in itself. “The more trouble I get from you,” Caine said, eyeing Felice, “the worse it’s going to be for this one here. Now shut up…please.”

  Danny was feeling his way off the floor. He was coming out of his fog but he was still gasping for breath. His eyes focused on Caine descending on Nina and his mind snapped clear.

  “Caine, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Danny said.

  “Oh, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  Danny’s voice broke as he spoke louder. “The girl is six.”

  Caine shook his head exaggeratedly as he stopped pressing up against Nina. “Six? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “The girl is six years old. Some pervert in their Research Department used Bio-Justice treatments to turn Nina here into an unwilling sexual partner.”

  Felice and Dobie heard the words tumble out of Danny’s mouth and their faces registered astonishment.

  Caine let out a roar of repulsive laughter. “The man’s my hero!” he said.

  Danny was on his feet now, holding onto a table for support. “Don’t touch her, Caine. I swear to God, don’t…touch…one�
��hair.”

  Caine brought his face to within an inch of Nina’s resisting mouth and slowly projected his tongue out.

  “No!” Danny screamed.

  Magdalena Sanchez first heard the disturbance from her kitchen. Her seven year old granddaughter Sophia, whom she was watching that night for her daughter and son-in-law, was in the front room in her pajamas and slippers, looking down at the street through the Venetian blinds.

  “Grandma, something’s happening. Everybody’s outside. Let’s go, please!” little Sophia pleaded.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Is it dangerous?”

  Sophia grabbed her coat. “Everybody’s outside. Come on. Hurry!”

  The grandmother could hear some kind of commotion going on, as her granddaughter was saying. She stepped over to the front windows and peeked out. There were two cars stopped at the light and two men were yelling.

  “I don’t know, Sophita,” she said.

  But Sophia had taken her grandmother’s initial hesitation as a yes and she unbolted the lock of the front door and scurried down the steps.

  “Wait!” Mrs. Sanchez said.

  When Magdalena Sanchez reached the street outside her building, a crowd was already there. She saw Sophia waving at her twenty feet away, excited that she had gotten the perfect viewing spot. Mrs. Sanchez hurried over to her granddaughter and wrapped her arm around the chest of the seven year old.

  It was hard for the old woman to be angry at the child. Hadn’t Magdalena inspired that excitement in her granddaughter when a month earlier, the old woman jumped out of her easy chair at the sound of squealing brakes which culminated in the audible crunch of two cars coming together at the very same intersection? Or the other times, when the braying sirens of fire engines stopped in front of the building next door to rush an elderly neighbor into a waiting ambulance. Hadn’t Magdalena made such happenings a cause for excitement, a spontaneous infusion of dramatic misfortune into their lives, a spectacle neither could afford to miss? But this time, the scene was ongoing, its conclusion yet to be written. And there was a dangerous quality that Magdalena had not differentiated with her granddaughter. So Sophia only responded to the chaos and the seductive excitement.

  Mrs. Sanchez’s view was from behind the volatile scene and now she could see the two men screaming at the driver in the car to get out.

  “Sophia, step back. Jesus, they have guns! Let’s go back in.”

  And then the whirlwind. A few seconds, faster than Mrs. Sanchez could react to, passed in a blink. The driver was now outside, pulling a gun on his two attackers. They were yelling. Mrs. Sanchez tried to yank Sophia away but the little girl had scuttled loose to get a better look. Finally, she grabbed Sophia by the hand just as the sounds of gunfire exploded in the night air. Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  “Oh my God, they’re shooting! Jesus! Jesus!” Magdalena Sanchez said in horror as the crowd rumbled in retreat. And then the grandmother, with her arm encircling Sophia, looked up and saw the mortally wounded driver as he fired the remaining shots. Pop! Pop! The assailant, his back to the crowd, fell to the ground, his head splayed wide open. Then, the driver dropped lifeless onto the black pavement.

  Magdalena Sanchez tightened her grip around Sophia’s chest. “Ay Sophita, tell me you didn’t see that. You’ll have nightmares for a week.”

  The voice sounded small, distant. “Grandma, I’m shot.”

  Mrs. Sanchez looked at the widening crimson spot on Sophia’s pullover pajamas. The bullet had passed beneath the grandmother’s arm by an inch and hit the child in the stomach.

  Sophia’s eyelids drooped heavy and then closed. Her body went limp in her grandmother’s arms.

  The police cars screeched to a halt surrounding the lone survivor at the intersection, officers popping out with their guns drawn. The remaining assailant stood over the two riddled bodies and looked dazed. But he was shaken from his state by the piercing scream of Magdalena Sanchez. The wail of horror and sorrow seemed like it would last forever.

  The miserable Pietà had Mrs. Sanchez at its center, her body shaking violently with sobs, cradling Sophia.

  Danny Fierro, surrounded by a circle of lethal force, seemed oblivious to his captors and instead stood transfixed at the sight of the lifeless little girl, her pajamas soaked in blood.

  CHAPTER 27

  “You stupid high-minded asshole,” Caine spit out. “Don’t you know that it doesn’t matter what I do or what you do? We’re the same. Society’s rejects. Nothing but worthless street scum. What I do to this girl won’t make a ripple in this sewer of a world, and all of the outrage won’t change evil to good. It’s all shit, just different levels of it. I just choose to be honest about who I am, so fuck you—and keep your eyes open because I don’t want you to kid yourself as to what we are.”

  Danny caught Dobie’s eye and saw cooperation there. As Caine pressed his heavy hand against Nina’s breast, she let out a scream. Dobie tossed his gun over to Danny but in his excitement the weapon hurtled a foot past Danny’s reach and went skidding across the floor. Danny scrambled for the pistol while Caine pushed Nina aside and slid his weapon from his belt. Caine swung his arm up and took dead aim at Danny.

  Felice screamed.

  Explosive sparks shot out of Danny’s gun as it fired until it was empty. Caine fell backwards—his body riddled with holes from the spray of bullets from Danny’s gun—and was dead before he crashed to the ground.

  But Caine’s gun was smoking, too.

  Danny looked with dismay at the clean hole through his stomach. He grimaced as his eyes struggled to focus.

  Felice ran to Danny before the thundering sound of the tactical unit smashing open the exit doors reached her ears.

  “Danny!” Felice cried.

  “Felice, do you have a phone?” Danny asked.

  Felice was confused by the question. “Yes, of course.”

  “There’s only one way to protect yourself, and Nina, and Dobie,” he said. “I want you to take a video of the three of you. Identify who you are, where you are, the date, time and that you are alive and well. Send the video to the papers or the local news immediately. They can’t touch you then. No matter how much they’re going to want to rationalize that you three were collateral damage, they can’t. Not with the footage out there. Do it, Felice. Do it now while everyone comes rushing in here, while they’re still distracted.”

  Felice herded Nina and Dobie to a secluded corner and did what Danny requested of her. A few of the soldiers took a disapproving glance over at the three without discerning why they were speaking in clear, even tones, the phone running out of sight.

  Danny was sitting on the floor, propped up against a dissection table when General Winfield entered, followed by Dr. Conlan. Winfield’s face looked horrified as he beheld the blood spreading like a crimson explosion across Danny’s shirtfront.

  “Good God, man, you’re hit!” Winfield shouted.

  Nina rushed over to Danny and wept over him. “No, no, no…” she cried.

  “Conlan, you need to stop the blood,” Winfield said.

  Danny’s outstretched hand stopped Conlan in his tracks. “General, before you start sopping the blood off the floor, I have some conditions.”

  “Go ahead,” Winfield said grimly. “Please hurry.”

  Danny gestured with his hand towards Dobie. “Dobie doesn’t take the rap for any of this. He’s clean. And he walks.”

  “All right,” the General agreed, reluctantly.

  Danny smiled warmly as he hugged Nina around the shoulder. “Nina here is a victim, of Dr. Conlan’s miracle science. She’s only six years old and she gets her childhood back.”

  The General looked over at Conlan to see if what Danny was representing was even possible. Conlan quietly nodded and his eyebrows raised slightly. “Done,” Winfield finally said, while trying to recall what he had conveyed to Nina in the hallway.

  “And Dr. Bennett—she’s to be left alone. She’s no fall guy…do you understand?”
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br />   “Of course,” Winfield said, curtly bringing a closure to the demands. Then he urgently motioned for Conlan to attend to Danny’s wound.

  Two tactical unit soldiers had their weapons pointed at the locker while security guard Eric Greenwood spoke. “I heard this sound and I thought it could be anything. Maybe a guy with a bomb strapped to him. That’s when I called for you guys,” Greenwood explained.

  “Open it,” one of the soldiers ordered. Greenwood unlashed the door and whipped it open, immediately stepping back.

  The dense, sour smell almost caused everyone to heave. Shaw was like a rancid piece of cheese left out in a sun-baked car. He popped out of the locker, his bounds and the duct tape still holding fast. His perspiration soaked body showed that he was still breathing. His half-closed eyes looked delirious.

  “Is he the guy you’re looking for?” Greenwood asked.

  The tactical soldier nodded.

  “Kind of looks like something from a monster movie, huh?” Greenwood said.

  Danny was fading. Dr. Conlan was able to slow the bleeding until more medical doctors were on the scene.

  “That’s all I can do, General. You’d better have your doctors take over. There’s already a considerable loss of blood.”

  “What about a transfusion?” Winfield asked Conlan.

  Conlan spoke low so Felice Bennett would not hear. “That wouldn’t be advisable. There’s no knowing what effect it could have on his blood.”

  Winfield snapped his fingers at the medical doctors who had arrived to work on Danny. When they did all they could for him, Winfield gestured for some attendants with a stretcher to hurry over. They loaded Danny onto the stretcher and strapped him in. Felice stood over Danny as the attendants took their instructions from General Winfield before they started to carry him out.

  “Felice,” Danny said weakly, “I used to be so…beautiful. You wouldn’t know it, but the ladies used to think I was fine.”

  Felice was fighting back tears. “I remember.”

  “All right,” Winfield said to the attendants, “get him to Operating Room Delta.”