The Permit

by William B. Scott

  Purvis crawled from the booth, clutching his chest, staggered two steps and dropped to his knees. Intense, stabbing pain exploded beneath his sternum. Eyes bulging and features warped in agony, he vainly gasped for air, and pitched facedown on the faux marble floor. His body spasmed, then sagged, immobile.

  At the far end of the booth, Moore's back arched, hands clawing at his upper torso. A spear of excruciating pain had skewered his chest. A prolonged croak escaped from deep in his throat. He collapsed, head snapping forward, arms limp. Disbelieving vacant eyes stared into a salad, as the light of life faded.

  The shorter, elfin Woody Ryns was somewhat shielded from the deadly beam by the booth's upholstered frame. Rather than fully disrupting the heart's spiral waves, attenuated electromagnetic signals merely confused the fist-sized muscle's electrical controls, triggering atrial fibrillation. The heart's two upper chambers fluttered chaotically, out of sync with the lower chambers, precipitating shortness of breath, weakness, lightheadedness and palpitations.

  Immobilized, Ryns couldn't draw a full breath. His heart muscles spasmed and fluttered, unable to pump blood to the brain, lungs, vital organs and extremities.

  Confused and frightened, the slight district attorney panicked, trying to grasp what was happening to him. He wanted to stand, but arms and legs wouldn't respond. Eyes refused to focus. He wheezed, battling for air.

  Then an intense, searing pain exploded in his head, as if he'd been stabbed by an ice pick.

  The table, Moore, windows, and other customers disappeared. His field of vision contracted to a shrinking disc, as if the world were being viewed through a toilet-paper tube. Sounds came from far away, and consciousness dimmed. Everything blurred and faded to black.

  When Purvis had staggered from the booth and collapsed, Rodolfo counted to ten, and jumped to his feet, dumping the metal chair to draw customers' attention. He rushed to his white-haired, heavyset victim, dropped to a knee and grabbed the guy's shoulder.

  "Hey! You alright, buddy?"

  No response. Over his shoulder, Rodolfo shouted, "Somebody call nine-one-one! Now!"

  He placed an ear close to Purvis's mouth, as if checking the victim's breathing, then whispered, "That's for Erik, asshole."

  Stunned customers were frozen in their seats. Finally, a well-dressed woman stood, a cell phone clamped to her ear.

  A rotund waiter with curly hair knelt beside Rodolfo, gaping at the motionless body.

  "Shit, man! What happened?" he squeaked.

  "Beats me. He got up, then dropped like a rock," Rico explained, holding a finger against Purvis's neck.

  "No pulse. This guy's a goner."

  "Mary Mother of God!" the waiter exclaimed, crossing himself.

  Rico followed the man's eyes to the booth. Moore was slumped over, chin on his chest. Ryns had collapsed, face pressed against the window glass. He was moving, though, barely conscious.

  Shit! Missed him, Rico cursed.

  Patrons rushed to the DAs, bumping Rodolfo aside. A thickset judge took charge, bellowing orders. He shoved a customer out of the way and dragged Ryns from the booth.

  Uniformed courthouse guards burst through the restaurant's door and ran to the three victims.

  "Get back! Get the hell back!" they shouted.

  Rodolfo retreated, as a U.S. Marshal administered CPR to Purvis. Another pulled Moore's lifeless form across the booth's padded bench, then yielded to arriving emergency medical personnel.

  Feigning shock, Rodolfo closed his laptop and slipped it into a briefcase. The cluster of security and EMT personnel was working frantically, treating his targets.

  Gawking, distressed customers hovered nearby, pointing and whispering.

  Slowly, purposefully, the Checkmate agent slipped away, disappearing into the crowd and confusion.

  * *

  LAS VEGAS

  Ned Scott, KTNV's chief investigative reporter, was broadcasting live from the courthouse, updating the status of three Clark County officials. Both Charles Purvis and Curtis Moore were dead, victims of massive heart attacks. Dirwood Ryns was in critical condition at the University Medical Center, after suffering a massive stroke. Doctors confirmed the stroke was a by-product of atrial fibrillation, which had decreased blood flow to the brain.

  Among the first TV journalists on-scene, Scott was the only one to venture beyond a standard who, what, when and where news account. He shocked thousands of Las Vegas residents by asking questions that government spokesmen seemed averse to verbalizing: How could the county's district attorney and two of his most-experienced assistants all suffer deadly heart problems at the same time? Especially while engaged in nothing more strenuous than lunch?

  "Metro police sources suspect that the district attorneys may have been the targets of a deliberate attack. By what mechanism and by whom are matters of conjecture," Scott reported. "While officials claim they have no theory concerning a possible motive, or proof that this truly was an attack, they also have no viable alternative to offer, either.

  "One theorized that Ryns, Purvis and Moore may have been poisoned, but preliminary tests have not identified any toxic or dangerous substances in their food."

  Ned Scott and his fellow reporters were unaware that two Metro police officers also had been killed by unexplainable means. Nevertheless, the bizarre deaths of two county justice officials and the debilitation of a third sent a Richter-scale shock wave through Las Vegas. Thousands of alarmed postings on TV and newspaper websites boiled down to a couple of questions: Who would attack three district attorneys? And why?

  * *

  LAS VEGAS/ANTONE GALOCCI'S OFFICE

  "We're under siege, sir," Sheriff Alex Uriah declared. "We don't know who's behind these assaults or how our people are being killed. But we're on it, pursuing every lead… "

  "Save that bullshit for the cameras, Alex!" Antone Galocci exploded. "You birdbrains are totally baffled by what's going on here! And you're running in circles, scared stupid!"

  Uriah glanced at Captain Mikey Greel. Like schoolboys sent to the principal's office for a classroom infraction, the officers were perched on the edge of a leather couch in Galocci's spacious office. Hands folded meekly, the Metro sheriff and homicide chief could pass for the Grim Reaper's disciples—gaunt, hollow-eyed and beaten.

  "You dopes have lost control, and that's creating serious problems, ya see? I'll talk real slow, so you idiots might understand:

  "Aren't you handsomely rewarded for taking care of major issues?"

  Galocci glared at the officers, who nodded.

  "Well, hello, boys! This whole blasted town has come unglued, since that jacked-up Erik Steele shooting!

  "Explain something to this thickheaded old geezer! What the hell's so different about this incident that you highly trained professionals are suddenly out of your league? Can't you just take care of it?"

  Galocci was striding back and forth in front of the penthouse's floor-to-ceiling wall of windows, waving his arms. He ranted and berated the two officers, until his forehead and cheeks were mottled and flushed. Disgusting spittle collected at one corner of his mouth, creeping down a skin furrow.

  He halted and raised both arms to the sky. "Let's have some answers, boys!" he shouted. "Who the hell's killing off my cops and district attorneys?"

  The irony of the billionaire laying claim to government officials struck Greel as one hell of a commentary on what Las Vegas had become. Or always had been.

  "Sir, I don't know how he's doing it," Greel declared, "but that Win Steele son of a bitch—the late Erik Steele's old man—is behind these hits."

  He ignored Uriah, who was frantically trying to shush his underling.

  "Now, you and the sheriff can call me crazy, but facts are facts: Two police officers have been assassinated. Another one disappeared. And three district attorneys were killed or severely injured. Every man-jack was in the middle of that Steele case. All these attacks were done with exotic weapons that… "

  An ear pier
cing, warbling cacophony, a discordant blend of base frequencies and harmonics, overwhelmed Greel's commentary. The office was pummeled with powerful, numbing, acoustic energy—low, pounding vibrations that grew in amplitude.

  Behind Galocci, the expansive window exploded, showering the room with shards of glass.

  Uriah and Greel hit the floor, hands clamped over their ears. Above the din rose an agonizing scream. Galocci's body shook uncontrollably. Rising on his toes, arms outstretched and trembling, frantically clawing the air, the man was a possessed creature, wild-eyed and wailing. His whole body shuddered and convulsed, as if an alien were writhing inside.

  Bits of glass raining around him, Galocci emitted a terrifying, inhuman screech that trailed off as a pitiful whimper, then crumpled in a grotesque heap of clothing and flesh.

  Abruptly, the deafening racket ceased. A breeze swept through the saw-toothed, jagged breach that, seconds earlier, had been a solid barrier of safety glass. Prostrate, hands pressed to their ears and faces, Uriah and Greel were dazed and disoriented, virtually paralyzed with fear.

  Uriah was oblivious to a dark stain spreading across his slacks. The four-star officer had wet himself.

  "Mr. Galocci… !" The shapely young assistant burst through double doors and skidded to a halt. She slapped a hand to her mouth.

  "Oh, my God! Oh, no! NO!" the girl shrieked. She rolled a spike-heeled shoe, stumbled and fell. A tight miniskirt slithered upward, as she vainly kicked away from the shapeless mass sprinkled in bits of glass.

  The woman's hysterical screams mobilized Greel and Uriah, who cautiously circled the desk. Shaken and unsteady, Greel slipped on broken glass and dropped butt first, landing hard.

  Uriah tripped over the captain's spread-eagled limbs and face-planted into a sea of knife-like shards. Slivers sliced his palms, yet Uriah was oblivious to pain and blood, stupefied by the unreal scene before him.

  Battling a primal urge to run, Greel and Uriah crept toward the amorphous pile. A pungent, indescribable stench assaulted their nostrils.

  Galocci had melted like warm butter, as if his skeleton had been sucked from the body. His head was grotesquely deformed, a distorted bag of misshapen features. The macabre mask lay atop a pile of biological rubble.

  But for dark irises and a sprayed-stiff helmet of gray, the broken rag doll was not recognizable as human remains.

  Uriah recoiled and flicked a glance at Greel. The wide-eyed captain stared at a hideous mound that, minutes earlier, had been the most powerful human being in Las Vegas.

  "What in the hell… ?" Uriah breathed.

  Greel didn't answer, gaping in stark terror.

  * *

  GROOM LAKE, NEVADA

  "Zoom in tighter," Bishop ordered, trying to make out the figures on a color display. The Gremlin sensor operator thumbed a switch on his right-hand control stick and expanded a dark rectangle. The growing image gave an impression of flying into a man-made cave.

  On-screen, two men in tan uniforms were on all fours, hovering near a formless heap. That lump was Antone Galocci, Godfather of The Strip. One figure raised his eyes to what had been the window of a spacious office.

  "Mikey Greel," Manor muttered. "And that dipshit sheriff."

  He straightened and studied the screen. Two senior Metro cops in a Mafia don's office.

  Incontrovertible proof, the Checkmate director smiled.

  Intel troops had intercepted phone conversations between Greel and Galocci, but Uriah hadn't been definitively linked to the Mob boss.

  "Sir… ," the sensor operator said, drawing Manor's attention. "Those two were on the far side of the room, when we fired. Must have been shielded from the acoustic beam's high-energy core."

  "Outside the kill zone," Manor muttered.

  "Yeah. Should I zap 'em?"

  "No. We have other plans for those bastards."

  Manor squeezed the sensor operator's shoulder, and addressed the pilot beside him. "Great job, guys. Get the Gremlin back home and reconfigured ASAP. It's fragged for another mission tonight."

  * *

  LAS VEGAS/CORONER'S OFFICE

  "Alex, I can't explain it. I don't know what killed Antone!"

  An utterly frustrated and frazzled Dr. Jamey Cooper pointed at the debris on a coroner's stainless steel examining table.

  "It's… like his skeleton disintegrated, or was crushed from head to toe by a massive rolling pin! Every bone, from skull to femurs to metatarsals in his feet have been reduced to fragments. Not a single bone in this body is bigger than a pencil eraser!"

  Uriah and Greel were on the opposite side of the table, eyeing a deflated pink inner tube partially filled with nauseating fluid. A few hours ago, that mess had been ranting and raving, excoriating the two officers.

  "Doc, this gawdawful noise came out of nowhere, like a band of banshees," the sheriff said in hushed tones. "The window shattered, and Antone started shaking and screaming and… ,"

  Uriah choked. Not in anguish. Fear. Abject, bald-faced fear.

  Dubious, the coroner looked from one officer to the other.

  "Right. From where? This horrendous noise?"

  Greel flicked a hand absently. "Hell, I don't know. It was… everywhere. All at once. Then the window blew up. I thought a helicopter had hit the building. Then everything went quiet. Stone dead silent. And Mr. Galocci was… this.

  "It happened fast. Damned fast."

  The captain wagged his head, back and forth, in shock.

  All three gawked at the corpse. They had no context, no prior experience, not even a theory on which to hang the surreal sight.

  Cooper circled the table, placed a hand in their backs and gently maneuvered the officers toward steel doors. Outside, he stepped close to the rattled Metro zombies and lowered his voice.

  "Guys, if I were religious, I'd be scared out of my pious wits," the coroner declared. "I'd believe the devil himself is hunting down every poor bastard who was remotely connected to that Steele shooting."

  Greel blinked, nodding. "That occurred to us, doc. But what… who… can turn bones and guts to mush? Melt a guy's face and cook his brain? Trigger heart attacks and strokes in three healthy men at the same time? Without touching the victim or leaving a trace?"

  Cooper's bloodshot eyes flicked from Greel to Uriah and back. "Hell if I know, Mikey. Whatever's killing these guys is completely outside my knowledge base. But, in your boots, I'd be headed for Tahiti."

  He glared at both men, adding, "Your dumb shits—the half-wits who killed Erik Steele, then covered up his murder—are responsible for this nightmare."

  Cooper was well aware that two of those half-wits were looking back at him.

  "And the hunter's coming after you."

  CHAPTER 31

  ACCOUNTABILITY

  "Break the arms of these wicked men.

  Go after them until the

  last of them is destroyed."

  Psalm 10:15

  LAS VEGAS/INTERSTATE 215 WEST

  Dick Nardel punched the accelerator, felt the Cadillac's powerful V-8 surge and smoothly merged onto Interstate 215. Because southbound traffic was unusually light for a weekday evening, he stayed in the slow lane.

  He glanced at his passenger, scribbling in a Las Vegas Metro-issue notebook.

  "Hey, BJ," Nardel said, drawing the bald detective's attention. "What's your take on this Steele operation? Think Vader's Ravens can handle the old fart?"

  Detective Brian James hesitated. "I don't. I got the feeling Greel's already taken a shot at old man Steele. And the hunter didn't come home."

  "No shit?" The Las Vegas Police Protective Association director shot James a startled look. "One of the Ravens?"

  "Damn straight. When was the last time one of Vader's' crazies—like, say, that whack-job Oswald—bugged you or your PPA staff?"

  "Brad Oswald? The loco dude who hosed that Miles kid?"

  "Yeah. Has he shown up at the union office lately?" James asked pointedly.

  "Hell, I
don't know. For a while, after the Miles shooting, he was all over us. Scared shitless that the union would let him swing, if Uriah decided to make an example of him. You know, show how tough Metro is on shooter-cops.

  "'Course, I assured Oswald that the union damn sure would stick with him. No way one of my guys is going down, just to save Uriah's political butt! After that, I don't recall seeing Oswald. I figured he calmed down."

  "Not so, Dick. He disappeared. Vader same as admitted he'd sent Oswald to, quote, 'Clean up the Steele trash,' unquote. Typical Mikey BS, I figured. A few months later, I hit him up about it.

  "'Hey, Captain!' I says. 'How'd dumbass Oswald make out on that Steele cleanup job?' Vader mumbles something about not working out, then he bugs off, right?

  "I start askin' around, and it seems ol' Oswald is AWOL. Nobody's seen him, and nobody's talkin', so I drop it."

  Nardel nodded, focused on the road. The new I-215 loop around the west side of Las Vegas was unusually devoid of traffic.

  "Vader and Uriah called this afternoon," Nardel said, "claiming they've got a handle on these weird fatalities. They said cops are spooked and ready to go over the hill. Anyway, Vader said old man Steele is behind Krupa and Akaka gettin' waxed."

  "No way Steele offed our guys!" James laughed.

  "I hear ya! How's a has-been like Steele gonna get his mitts on the Star Wars shit that's killing our boys?"

  James paused a long moment. "You see those pictures of the bodies?"

  "'Course I did! Scared the fuzz off this kid's lip!"

  "Rightly so. Every swingin' dick in Metro's panicked."

  "Vader thinks old man Steele somehow sent those pics," Nardel asked. "That old geezer doesn't get it, does he? His precious Erik screwed up and our guys did what they had to do.

  "Get over it, asshole!"

  James sneered. "Spoken like a real head-up-his-ass union punk! You're starting to believe your own bullshit, Dick. The PPA zombies might swallow that Kool-Aid, but you know damn well what happened to young Steele. Krupa screwed up! He thought Steele's BlackBerry was a forty-five, shit his britches and murdered that kid!"