by Adam Carter
About thirty metres away Hope could see several figures being tossed around. Jeremiah was in the middle of them, fangs bared, his eyes feral. Hope watched from a distance, a part of him unwilling to wade into that fight without reason. Two men came at Jeremiah, from different directions. He grabbed the first by the collar and tossed him even as he raked the fingernails of his other hand across the face of the man at his back. Dropping into a crouch, Jeremiah momentarily disappeared from Hope’s sight, and as he came up, two further men went flying. Hope saw someone pull a gun and went to shout a warning, but Jeremiah’s hand found a desk and tugged upwards, tearing the heavy piece of furniture from where it was bolted to the floor, the entire thing colliding with the gunman and crushing him.
Hope could see why Jeremiah had not wanted any backup.
“I’m beginning to wonder who we should help,” he said.
“How’s that?” Lin had come in with him, but was not focusing on Jeremiah. He could see that instead she was disarming the downed men, dropping all the knives and firearms into an unused bin.
“Jeremiah,” Hope said.
“You’ve found him?”
Hope looked back across the room, but Jeremiah was no longer there. He could hear noise of further fighting somewhere in the office and could imagine Jeremiah was having a jolly time.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hope said. “Any of these guys awake? I wouldn’t mind talking to one of them.”
“Wishful thinking. I’m heading out after Jeremiah.”
Hope stopped her with a look. “You really think he needs any help?”
“What are you talking about? That’s why we came with him.”
“Look around you, Sue. The man’s a walking arsenal. An unarmed walking arsenal.”
“I ... What?”
“That man. He doesn’t need any help with anything. Didn’t you just see him? Didn’t you see him at the gym?”
“You mean because he can fight?”
“Have you ever looked into the man’s eyes, Sue? Have you ever stared deeply into his eyes to look for the real man inside?”
She looked away, a little colour rising to her cheeks. He realised it was probably a tad insensitive. He also realised something else. Jeremiah could do many things better than ordinary people, but perhaps his greatest ability was that of deflecting attention. Because Hope remembered the handcuffs now: he remembered handcuffing himself to Jeremiah earlier. But he didn’t recall removing them.
Whatever else Jeremiah could do, he was a master of sleight of hand and hypnotism. He was a street illusionist on the payroll of the police. But ultimately it did not matter who he was or what he could do. So long as he was working for them his strange abilities could only benefit the force.
It was just upsetting to see someone as good as Sue Lin fallen victim to a man’s deceit.
“Come on then,” he said. “Let’s get after him.”
They ran together down the corridor, stumbling over the bodies Jeremiah had left in his wake. Blood spattered the walls, weapons were clattered all across the floor, and Hope could see several limbs turned in bad directions. But he could not see that any of the men was necessarily dead, and that was a good thing.
There was little noise by the time they found Jeremiah. In fact, the only sounds were from a frantic, whimpering female voice. They had come to a seating area beside a water cooler and a sink. Here they found Jeremiah, several more bodies, and a woman sitting in a chair and looking distraught.
Hope recognised her instantly.
“Mrs Dickson?”
“Thank you, thank you,” she said, throwing herself at Hope when she saw him. Jeremiah stood off to one side, out of reach. “They grabbed me an hour ago. Kept saying they wanted something from me. They wanted something.”
“Did you tell them where they were?”
“Where what were?”
“Your mother-in-law’s ashes.”
“My ... What?”
“That’s what they’re after. God knows why.”
“Then it’s a good job,” Jeremiah said, “one of us used to be on speaking terms with God. Sam knew where the ashes were being kept. She was the one who hid them, you see.”
“What?” Hope asked. “Sam hid them?”
“That’s why no one could just ask Mr Dickson where they were, because he didn’t know. It’s why I kept Sam with me the whole time. It’s also why I couldn’t take being handcuffed to you, Hope.” He smiled and Hope could see he knew Hope had remembered about the cuffs. “I needed to take a detour before coming here, you see. Sorry for keeping you, Lin, but I had to go fetch the ashes.”
“You have them?” Hope almost accused.
“No. I gave them back to Mr Dickson.”
“He has them back?” Mrs Dickson asked.
“Mmm. But no one wants the ashes, so it doesn’t put him in any danger or anything.”
“Hold on a moment,” Hope said. “I thought this was all about the ashes.”
“Oh, no,” Jeremiah said with the air of an innocent child. “It was all about this.” He held up a floppy disc. “It was hidden in Grandma’s ashes. The idea was that no one would open the lid, so the disc could be collected later. On the disc, of course, is all the records Grandma kept as insurance. And whoever owns this disc holds all the information necessary for starting up the business again.”
“I don’t follow,” Hope said. “Why put it in her ashes? I get that no one would root around inside, but surely it would be difficult for anyone to get to them without raising suspicion.”
“Oh, there are a few people who could get to them easily,” Jeremiah said, holding the disc between two fingers and pointing it accusingly. “Isn’t that right, Mrs Dickson?”
Mrs Dickson opened her mouth, closed it, looked around in fear. “What’s he talking about?”
“You can drop the act,” Jeremiah said. “I’ve read what’s on the disc.”
“That stupid girl,” Mrs Dickson spat. “Why couldn’t she have just done what she was told?”
Hope was at last following some of this. “So Grandma asked you to carry on the family business. But you didn’t count on your daughter’s morality. What a wonderful family we have here.”
“Where’s Sam now?”
“Out of your reach,” Hope said. “How could you hunt your own daughter?”
“I wouldn’t have hurt her. I just needed her to tell me what she’d done with the disc.”
Hope realised he had removed Sam from Jeremiah at the gym, only to almost deliver her straight into the hands of her mother. If Jeremiah had not returned to break her out, Hope could have ruined everything.
He caught Jeremiah looking at him and once more knew the strange man was reading his mind. He was man enough not to say anything out loud, however, and for that Hope had to respect him.
The sounds of a mob bursting into the office echoed eerily down the empty corridor and Hope knew uniform had arrived. He maintained his gaze with Jeremiah for several moments before nodding and going to deal with his own people. There were a lot of arrests to be made here today, but Hope was only confident of making a handful of them stick. Still, he was glad Lin had walked back into his department at last. Without her and WetFish he had no doubt this would have ended badly for the only person in this who mattered at all. The frightened girl buying some earrings for the mother she loved so much.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was all over. Arrests had been made, Samantha Dickson was in temporary care, pending an enquiry, and Mr Dickson had been told the truth about his wife and his mother. It had been an especially terrible day for him, and he would now be faced with the truly awful task of trying to convince the world he really was dense enough not to have noticed what was going on around him. Detective Inspector Hope knew, however, that this was none of his business. His role had ended, and now it was all in the hands of people trained to deal in the softly-softly approach.
Care in the community.
He may not have
agreed with Lin’s decision to join such a department, but at least he had seen something of what she did. He may not have understood it any better now than he had before all of this madness happened, but he had caught a glimpse into her new life. And, in all honesty, it scared him.
He walked her to her car and knew he would not likely see her again for another year, perhaps never would again. Sue Lin had always been something of a mystery, even when she had worked beneath him, but she was a good woman, and that was all that mattered.
“So this is it,” Hope said as he opened the car door for her. “You’re walking out of my life all over again.”
“Don’t be silly. This time I’m driving.”
He knew it was an attempt to lighten the mood, but they both knew this was the end. “Somehow, Sue, I’m thinking there’s more to Operation WetFish than just making cups of tea and handing out tissues to bereaved relatives.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Jeremiah can work wonders with a teabag.”
“Where is he anyway? Where’d he disappear to?”
“He’s probably gone for some sleep, Jon. Or maybe he’s still on a high and has gone to find out his next assignment.”
“But this wasn’t his assignment, was it? I mean, you’d tell me if it was, right? You said your DCI sent you after him because he thought Jeremiah was going to kill Sam. Why would your DCI think that?”
“Trust issues?”
It was more than that, but Hope knew he would not get anywhere through prying. He felt he should be overjoyed with what little he had gleaned from all of this, although it was the nature of detectives to want to push to find out everything. “And what is he?”
“What is he?” Lin asked. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes you do. He’s been trained to do all manner of weird things. Is that what your DCI does? He trains you all to be superhuman soldiers?”
Lin tried to laugh, but the sound came out strangled. “We’re not soldiers, Jon. We’re still police.”
“Sounds like your DCI’s waging a war on crime.”
“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?”
“No. We’re supposed to protect the civilians, defend people’s rights and solve crimes.” He could see his words were getting through to her, just as he could see she wasn’t prepared to accept them.
“How many others are there at your department like Jeremiah? How many others can beat up a dozen men and not take a scratch? How many others know street magic?”
For a moment it looked as though Lin was going to leap into her car, slam the door and drive off without having to face answering that question. Then she looked him directly in the eyes and said, “Since joining WetFish I’ve seen a lot of horror, Jon. Things which don’t give you nightmares only because they don’t let you sleep at night. It used to amaze me how low humanity can go, Jon. When I used to work with you, I would investigate the crimes, piece together the train of events leading up to people even wanting to commit such atrocities. But with WetFish ... I don’t know.”
“Is the type of criminal you deal with so much worse?”
“It’s not the type of criminal, Jon. It’s the people hunting them. We’re not human any more, none of us. Jeremiah’s a sociopath who sometimes lapses enough for him to save girls like Sam Dickson. Sanders is so driven, so obsessed, that he’d be willing to sacrifice the world just to save his city. I just ... I think I’m headed down that route.”
“Then come back. Come back to me, to your old job. Before you turn into a monster.”
She laughed at this, although it was a sickly noise: the most beautiful sound soured by life. “It’s too late for any of us, Jon. We’re circling the drain trying to take as much filth with us as we can.” She raised a hand, cupped his cheek and slowly she shook her head. “You’re a good man, Jon Hope. Don’t let the job change you. Work hard, retire, have a good life.”
She removed the hand and got into her car, taking care to buckle her seat-belt. Hope used the delay to try to think of what he should say, what he could say. But nothing he could think of sounded less than trite.
“The door’s always open,” he told her. “If you want to come back, I’m a phone call away.”
“And the master of cliché, I see.”
“I’m serious, Sue. You want to leave this WetFish behind, you call me. I don’t care how deep you think you’ve gone, you call me. And I’ll dig you out.”
She looked at him for several long, silent moments, then smiled a half-smile of self-defeat and closed the door. She drove off, out of his life, and Detective Inspector Hope knew he would never see her again. He had lost her to Operation WetFish. He had lost her to the monsters.
And he wasn’t ever getting her back.
Also available by the same author in e-book and paperback:
Dinosaur World books:
Excavating a Dinosaur World
Dinosaur Fall-Girl
Dinosaur Plague Doctor
Ike Scarman & the Dinosaur Slavers of Ceres
Dinosaur Prison World
The Dinosaur That Wasn’t
Awfully Wedded Strife
Tales of a Dinosaur Prison World
Deities of a Dinosaur World
Return to the Dinosaur Prison World
Nikolina Finch & the Dinosaur Utopia
Of Stags, Hens & Dinosaurs
Dinosaur World Gladiator
The Wounding Tooth
Dinosaur World Massacre
Dino-Racers
Dinosaur World Unscripted
Christmas on a Dinosaur World
Utara the Savage
Sheriff Grizzly:
Book 1: Sheriff Grizzly
Book 2: The Horse Thief Honey
Book 3: The Coyote Colt Kid
Book 4: Joins the Circus
Book 5: The Haunting of Athelstan Swift
Book 6: The Santa Claws Showdown
Book 7: The Kangaroo Claim Jumpers of Crumbling Gulch
Book 8: Gets a Reality Check
Book 9: Bets Against the Card Shark
Book 10: The Hairy Walrus of Truespire Peak
Book 11: The End
Book 12: In the Afterlife
Knights of Torbalia gamebooks:
The Return of the Stolen Jewel
Into the Massacre
March of the Demon Trees
The Thief of Tarley Manor
The Class War
The Haunting of Past Wraiths
The Hunt for the Adulterous Bard
A Peacock in the Den of Foxes
Attack of the Demon Trees
Miscellaneous gamebooks:
Lost Treasures of a Dinosaur World (300 paragraphs)
The Underworld Horror (300 paragraphs)
Sheriff Grizzly: The Good, the Bad & the Grizzly
Sheriff Grizzly: The Wild West Dungeon Adventure
The Christmas Adventure of Sam and Klutz
Operation WetFish: Vengeful Justice
Jupiter’s Glory: Oppression of the Press
Dinosaur World: The Forest of Fiends
Hero Cast trilogy:
Book 1: The Villainous Heroes
Book 2: The Heroic Villains
Book 3: The Forge of Heroes
Jupiter’s Glory:
Book 1: The Dinosaur World
Book 2: The Pirates and the Priests
Book 3: The Obsidian Slavers
Book 4: Just Passing Through
Detective books:
Who Slew Santa?
The Curse of the Genie’s Detective
The Prostitute Butcher
The Santa Worshippers
Dinosaur Frontier:
Book 1: The Lightning Angel
Book 2: Lightning Strikes Twice
Book 3: The Law of Ceres
Book 4: The Silk Caves of Ceres
Operation WetFish, Vampire Detective:
Book 1: The Power of Life and Death
Book 2: Chasing Innocence
Book 3: The
Hunt for Charles Baronaire
Book 4: Christmas on the Kerb
Book 5: A Necessary Evil
Book 6: No Comment
Book 7: Fear and Ecstasy
Book 8: Call of the Siren
Book 9: Happy Families
Book 10: A Step in the Right Direction
Book 11: What Money Can’t Buy
Book 12: ‘Tis the Season
Book 13: The Power Trip
Book 14: Trust and Betrayal
Book 15: A Gathering of Minds
Book 16: The Pain of Life
Book 17: The Happy Place
Book 18: The Terrible Truth of Barry Stockwell
Miscellaneous:
Holding the Nuts
One Week to Love: Speed Dating of the Gods
The Trojan Ant
Gauntlet of Daedalus
The Faerie Contract
Token Love
Sleigh Ride Slaughter to Saturn
Visit: https://www.facebook.com/OperationWetFish for news, illustrations, previews and short stories.