“Are you all right, Frank?” Marcus asked finally.
The Captain of Detectives nodded and his blind eyes found Williams’s face. “Oh, shit!”
“What?” Marcus saw Frank’s face go white.
“Last night. I was on the patio, waiting for my implant to recharge. I was having a drink and just lounging on the chair when I thought I heard something…or someone, that is, speaking.”
“Talking to you on your patio? From where?”
“I never found out. I couldn’t turn the implant on. It was recharging. Marcus, I thought I was tired and hearing things.” Frank thought the command to initiate his implant’s start-up sequence.
“Well, how the hell does he know where either of you live?”
“I’m not sure,” Campanelli said and shook his head. “I think he got access to the CPD computer somehow. How did you get here?”
“I took a cab,” Marcus explained, then took a long drink of his beer when he realized Frank was preparing to leave. “Tamara thought you could use a ride home.”
“Perfect,” Frank commented and blinked as he searched for some bills in his wallet. “Come on, get me home. I think Tam might be in danger.”
Frank and Marcus left in a hurry, Xiao noted as he waved. He hoped their haste was due to a break in the case.
Williams slipped behind the steering yoke and Frank, who was now able to see, but too inebriated to function behind the wheel, dropped anxiously into the passenger seat.
In moments, they arrived at the apartment building’s parking lot. Frank bolted out of the cruiser and into the building with Marcus Williams right behind.
Campanelli burst into the apartment, startling Tamara, who shot to her feet from the couch.
“Jesus, Frank!” she shouted. He returned his embrace and waved at Marcus. She and Williams shared a glance of concern. “Wow…you smell like a Chinese distillery.”
“Sorry,” Frank offered and looked into her face. “You haven’t heard anything out of the ordinary tonight? Any funny phone calls, knocks on the door, anything weird?”
“No,” she insisted. “What’s this about?”
Frank planted a hard, passionate kiss on her lips. It was brief, but effective. “Okay,” he said as he turned to Marcus, who had remained just inside the front door. “Last night, I thought someone was out there,” he said and gestured northward. “I don’t know for sure, maybe he was out there, standing on the L.”
“What?” Tam all but shrieked.
“That’s the direction I heard the voice come from.”
“What voice, Frank?” Billingsley begged to know.
“I thought I was hearing things…exhausted,” he explained, “I disregarded it. But considering what happened to Kirby…I think this FROG came here first…last night.”
“But how does he know where you and Kirby lived?” She asked with her arms crossed.
“Kirby and I figured that the son of a bitch was watching us Monday morning when we were looking over the wreck,” Frank said slowly as he processed his thoughts. “We were investigating the murders that happened Wednesday morning. They occurred right across the highway from the wreck. He was injured and didn’t get far.”
“So, he recorded your faces to his ‘plant and then what?” Marcus asked, but discovered the answer before he finished. “Your thought was that he hacked into the CPD computer and matched up the pics to the personnel profiles, but there would have been an indication.”
Frank nodded. “That’s not beyond the realm of possibility when we’re talkin’ about military implants. Is it, Marcus?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, the best that I’m capable of is guessing at passwords like the rest of you civvies. These FROGs were supposed to be a step ahead of us in every way,” Williams explained as he shook his head.
“Shit, Frank,” Tam groaned in fright and wrung her hands. “Are you saying that cannibal knows where we live?”
Campanelli nodded and stepped quickly to the phone. “Tam, if I’m right, we have time to get some protection, maybe move to a safe place temporarily. McLain shot him, so he may be resting a day to heal.” He picked up the receiver and punched numbers into it quickly.
“Calling Treadwell?” asked Marcus.
Frank nodded. “It’s almost seven, but he may be in.” A moment later, it was clear that he was not. He hung up the phone and accessed the CPD server across the street. “He signed out for the day. I’m calling him at home.”
***
Elliot was rousted from his healing slumber by the sound of heavy footfalls beyond the front door of his borrowed abode. It had only been a few hours, so the wound promised to be a problem. He got to his feet, snatched up his hat, and popped open the patio door. It creaked loudly, so he moved quickly outside and closed it with haste. Three-Seven climbed the ramped brick which led to the roof and stepped fleetingly and as quietly as he could manage to the northeast corner of the building. Sprinting at the end, he flung himself into the air and, with his powerful arms outstretched, grabbed onto the aged and rotting wood of a telephone pole.
He collided hard, as he expected he would. Further, the gunshot wound was reopened and bleeding once again. For a moment, Elliot clung to the pole and gathered the breath that had been forced from his lungs. As was his training, he did so without an utterance of pain.
Holding tightly, he descended the pole far enough to kick himself off, arching his body into a backward somersault, which carried him to the building across the alleyway. He coiled his body and landed on the roof of an aged sedan with a metal-bending whump! This was followed by the brittle tingling of shattering glass. Quickly, he jumped to the roof of the car next to the one he had just ruined, dropped to the paved surface of the raised parking garage roof, and ran off the edge of that structure as well. He landed gracefully on the concrete alley, crouched upon his hands and feet.
Elliot stood and looked about him, giving his body a moment to shake off the bone tingling impacts and his lungs a few passes at gathering much needed oxygen.
From above, he heard voices, so he broke into a stride southward as he tugged his black hat down over his eyes. He glanced to his left and smiled in recognition of the building where he had harvested the antique store owner. The smile faded when he looked forward again.
A police car turned into the alley and headed for him. In a flash of thought, Elliot broke into a blurring sprint to his right, toward the apartment building that he had just escaped from. Here, the structure recessed to accommodate the elevator shafts and joined two buildings into one. Three-Seven found several hiding places to choose from behind three large garbage receptacles. He crouched low and listened as the vehicle rolled on by him.
Wasting not a second, he moved to the edge of the wall and watched the cruiser turn onto the next street to the north. With it out of sight, he left his hiding place and ran southward. He kept to the wall and moved quickly, again sprinting across the street. He angled toward the first structure he picked up in his peripheral vision. As he sped toward it, he glanced upward and noted its relatively small size, peaked roof, and spire. Not bothering to slow himself, he raised his arms across his face and burst through the rear door, which disintegrated into long planks of rotted wood and strips of thick paint.
Elliot sidestepped into the shadows and listened with his hearing augmented to its full potential. Wind, creaking wood underneath his weight, and the movement of vehicles in the distance were all he could pick up.
He set his audio receptors to a few steps above normal and brushed the dust, paint chips, and splinters of wood from his overcoat. Three-Seven sauntered from the room he had just exposed to weather and found an interior door, which he treated with more respect by turning the knob and shoving it out of his way. He stepped up to a platform that he decided must have once been a stage. The floor was covered with an aged, dirty, and tattered maroon carpet. His footfalls thumped against the time-worn wooden framework, which creaked loudly with each step.
&
nbsp; Ahead of him and below the level of the stage was row upon row of great wooden benches, covered in dust and mold. Some had been dislodged from the floor and either tipped over or carelessly shoved askew from the rest. The wind whistled through the tall colored windows that featured bits of translucent artwork, none of which could he discern due to breakage or fading. All he could pick out was a face here or a star there. As it was of no consequence, Elliot dismissed it and stepped amidst the benches. Choosing one at the front, he sat down, unconcerned for the layers of dust which covered it.
In doing so, he sat facing the stage that he had walked across, only now noticing the back wall had once been painted a myriad of colors and reached high into the air, approximating the shape of a tower, which tapered to a point at the top. Like any other abandoned structure he had ever wandered into, Elliot knew that he was experiencing only a shadow of what the building had once been. The purpose of this one was lost on him, as it did not resemble any theater he had ever seen. Its stage was too small and there was no backstage area that he could find. The benches were too upright for a movie theater, which he had only seen once before. He catalogued the experience, just the same as he was doing now.
At once, it came to him. “A church!” He slapped the bench and smiled widely. “This is a church.” His mind had subconsciously run the items he was seeing into a search of his implant’s encyclopedia. He shook his head, amused that it had taken so long to come up with the answer. It had been a long time since he had seen such a place, and never from the inside.
The time was nearly five-thirty and Elliot Three-Seven knew that sundown was not far off. He closed his eyes and lay across the bench. He smiled as he realized that the item was properly called a pew. In seconds, he had descended into a light, healing sleep.
It was dark when he awoke to the sounds of a passing storm of various types of engines. His military implant instantly began analyzing the individual sources.
“Motorcycles,” he whispered in the dark, and got to his feet. He smiled and strode to the back of the church. He approached the open doorway cautiously and peered into the young night. Inhaling deeply, he detected an oncoming rainstorm. The air was clean and sweet.
He caught the view of a pair of receding red taillights to his left, heading east. Looking about, there was no sign of police cruisers or pedestrians in the area. Intrigued by the sounds of the antique vehicles, though some were of the more recent electric drives, Elliot stepped out of the church and walked in the direction that the sounds led him.
Three-Seven briskly walked past an abandoned commercial building and read the street sign as he crossed Michigan. It was Twenty-Fourth Street. Checking that against the map system of his FROG-Servlink, he deduced that the motorcyclists were heading for the sprawling convention center known as McCormick Place. The pack turned southward, so Elliot broke into a pursuing run, and turned onto a vacant Michigan Avenue. As he pumped his arms and legs, he was reminded of the gunshot wound in his lower left side. He gritted his teeth, too focused on the motorcycle gang’s doings to care.
Elliot came to a building covered in vines and bookended in tall weeds and skinny trees which waved at the behest of the evening’s damp breeze. Casting his eyes east, he glimpsed a flash of red lights. The bikers entered the parking garage area through what used to be an exit.
He walked on, exhilarated by the promise of feeding that emptiness inside him that begged for nutrients. Healing took its share of his body’s stores, and Elliot could swear he was becoming thinner by the hour. The pants he had stolen from the old man the other day seemed looser. The black running shoes flopped slightly, as if even his feet had shrunk, though he knew it was in part, due to the laces coming undone.
This area of the city had been long ignored, it appeared. There were no street lamps for quite a distance to the north and south and, together with the cloud cover, made the night seem almost indefatigable to the unaided eye. His night vision cut through it as if it were daytime.
Elliot followed the paved roadway into the depths of the parking garage, mostly featureless save for a mysterious door and a multitude of round columns. To his right and beyond this part of McCormick Place was a highway, an interstate his map system labeled, I-55. At the moment, not a car or truck was in sight.
The sounds of the motorcycle engines echoed against the concrete structure. A few of them were being pushed hard for some reason. Their engines raised in pitch until they screamed. He approached a corner, slowly moving around a column. His heart pounded when he saw that the facility opened up to his left. From within, the glow of electric light and fire ripped through the darkness, forcing Three-Seven’s lenses to compensate.
He smiled as he bent into a crouch and ran toward the glow. The hunt was on.
***
The showoff of the group held his front brake solidly, while his right hand worked the throttle of the ancient, gasoline-fueled motorbike. With practiced skill, his body nudged that of the bike, creating a curved black streak in the porous concrete floor. Abruptly, he let the brake lever go and balanced forward as the front wheel came up from the surface. The motorcycle screeched off for many meters with the front still in the air until the rider hit the brake.
The other riders, most of which having dismounted their rides, clapped or shouted sarcastic words of encouragement or nonsensical shouts and howls. The headlights of the motorcycles lit the area in electric blueish white, while fires set in large metal drums of black and rust spat yellow flickers along the concrete ceiling.
One by one, the motors silenced and the voices of the riders rose up to fill the void. As Elliot stepped forward, he bathed his face in a mask of dark gray, dulled his eyes to brown, and counted the different voice patterns. There were twelve of them, with two being women. He reached out with his FROG-Servlink, giving the group a ‘ping’ to see how many, if any, were equipped with devices. He found one, but it was a device of someone else in the building, not part of the group. Surrounded by such concrete and steel, the equipped individual had to be on the same floor.
Elliot Three-Seven smiled and pulled his bayonet from his belt. Thirteen, he thought and grinned. With two females for dessert!
***
Steed Yarborough was the leader of his pack, of which only a few had come out to ride in the ensuing poor weather. Others had packed it in alongside the road someplace, either stopping for repairs or to dodge the storm. Steed, his woman, Nan, nine members of the Warlocks and one recent addition, a younger woman named Trish, were the only ones to make the ride all the way downtown. They had beaten the rainstorm by minutes, watching the dark clouds and lightning strikes in their mirrors the whole ride from central Illinois.
“Asshole,” Steed grunted and smiled as he watched the showoff, nicknamed Blades, fill the expanse of the parking garage with tire smoke. He waved the whiteness away from his face.
The others near enough to hear him chuckled, including Nan. She had just taken off her helmet and hung it on the back of her bike. Nan was one of two females in the gang who had their own bike. The others rode with their men.
Steed watched Nan stretch, taking in the sight of her lithe body in the orange flicker of the young flames in the barrels. Her hair was matted from the helmet and her light brown skin shone with light sweat, making her quite attractive to him.
“Hey, Steed, Nan,” Gopher called just before tossing cans of beer to them. Gopher was one of the younger, shorter men of the gang, therefore, he rode the slowest, heaviest bike which carried their provisions in large leather saddlebags.
“Gimme one, ya lil’ rodent,” Ironman snarled. The tall black man had grown to like the newer guy. For weeks, his demands would be laced in unrestrained, curse-laden contempt. In contrast, “rodent” was a compliment.
Gopher obliged and handed Ironman a can, then tossed a few more to the other riders.
Steed watched Gopher’s eyes linger upon Trish, who clearly had taken a liking to Maxx, a little too long. “Hey!” he called and m
otioned the new guy over to him.
Gopher quickly moved closer to the gang leader. “Yeah, boss?”
“A word of friendly advice,” Yarborough growled.
Gopher nodded nervously. He had been caught staring and he knew it. His smile disappeared, but he watched Steed’s face intently.
“Don’t stare at other people’s women,” Steed warned and grabbed Gopher’s t-shirt and vest in one large gloved fist. Though the men were only around five years apart in age, Yarborough’s sheer size and weathered skin made him more intimidating. “Maxx catches you doin’ that, ain’t no one here’s stoppin’ him from guttin’ you, boy.”
“Yessir,” Gopher answered resignedly.
Steed let him go and smacked his cheek with that same heavy hand. “Good. Now, go get the grill set up. I’m fuckin’ hungry.”
The new guy turned and hustled to his bike for the cookware.
Nan took a deep gulp of her warm beer and moved closer to her man. “He needs to watch himself, huh?”
“You bet your sweet ass, he does,” Yarborough answered and wiped the excess beer from his blond horseshoe mustache. With one bare arm, he gave her leather-covered rump a playful swat and gathered her close.
It was then the screaming began.
Steed watched Maxx drop to the cement, clutching at something in his back. His new girl backed away with her hands over her mouth. Her scream covered the sound of her fancy, high-heeled leather boot heels as she retreated.
“What the shit?!” Yarborough howled as he gave Nan a tug to get behind him. He dropped the half-consumed can of brew to the floor and pulled the handgun from the inside of his vest. His first assumption was that Gopher had tried to prove himself by taking out Maxx, but that would have been a deadly mistake. Maxx was Steed’s friend. But something did not add up. Maxx dropped forward, toward Gopher, who stood behind his provision-laden motorcycle. The man was staring dumbfounded. Gopher’s hands were full of the pieces of the grill and whatever struck Maxx had done so in the back.
As the group turned to gather around Maxx, another man shouted in pain and dropped. It was the oldest man in the group, Chappy. The thin man gushed blood from somewhere high up on his neck. His beard-covered face, normally a dirty white, turned maroon as Steed watched. Pappy Chappy fell dead almost immediately.
Campanelli: Siege of the Nighthunter Page 13