After a second, the officer nodded. There was no way to verify the man’s claim, but no one other than another policeman would know who was in the room. “Okay. Yes, they’re in there.”
“Thank you,” Frank said and moved past him and stood next to a SWAT member just outside the door. “Let me borrow your pistol.”
“Get the hell back or I’m crushing this man’s throat!” bellowed a voice from within the hospital room.
After Frank identified himself for a second time to the SWAT officer, the man reached into his anti-bacterial suit and retrieved his semi-automatic. He handed it to the detective. “There was a scuffle. Somehow, Elliot was able to grab a hold of Quinne.”
“Thank you,” he said and checked it for a round in the chamber before dropping it into the pocket of his own suit. Campanelli squeezed into the open space and got a look at what was happening inside the room.
Elliot was still cuffed to his bed, but his right arm had bent the safety bar enough so that he had been able to reach Jerry Quinne, who was missing the hood of his anti-bacterial suit. The FROG’s long fingers had the FBI agent in a death grip. Quinne’s face was blue and his eyes bulged.
Marcus Williams, also sans hood, had his pistol pointed to Three-Seven’s head, but the wounded FROG simply stared hatefully back with a devilish smile on his pale white face. He was clearly not well, but still had considerable strength. Looking closer, Frank could see that not only had the bed’s guard been bent, a few of the links in the cuff were stretched. The strands of the cuff cut into Elliot’s forearm deeply, causing the fresh wound to bleed, but it did not deter the killer in the least.
“There’s no getting out of this, Elliot,” Marcus warned him. “There’s nowhere to go. Let him go, now!”
Three-Seven ignored Williams and caught Campanelli’s eye. “Well! The blind cop! Welcome. Come on in. Make room for the detective or I’ll squeeze my fingers together until they meet in the middle of this man’s crushed esophagus.”
“It’s okay, guys,” Frank spoke up. “He means me.” He patted the three SWAT members on the shoulders to let them know where he was. “Everyone give this man some room.”
“Frank, we got this,” Williams said through gritted teeth.
“I know you do, Marcus,” Campanelli said calmly. “I think we need to just have a talk with Elliot here and we need to clear the room.”
Reluctantly, the three heavily armed SWAT officers slowly backed out of the room. They had no intention of going much beyond the line of sight. Frank nodded at them as they went.
“Why, thank you, Detective Campanelli,” Elliot oozed. He let up on his grip and let Quinne suck in gales of air. Almost immediately, the man’s color improved and life came back to his eyes. Instinctively, the agent reached up to try to free his throat. Three-Seven shook Quinne hard. “Don’t touch me! Hands down!”
Jerry Quinne complied and dropped his arms.
“Just let him go, Elliot,” Frank ordered. “There’s no point to this.”
“I disagree, Detective,” the FROG responded almost kindly. “I want my freedom. I’ll kill this man to get it.”
“We can’t let you go, Elliot,” Frank explained. “You’re responsible for killing a lot of people.”
“Children, you mean,” Three-Seven scoffed and studied Campanelli’s face. “Barely conscious of their own existence. I reminded them of their fear!”
Frank and Marcus shared a glance. Even though their implants were prevented from communicating, their expressions made their thoughts clear to the other one. Elliot Three-Seven was quite insane.
Elliot laughed harshly and threw his head back. “You don’t get it. I am preying on the weak, the stragglers. Look at your citizens, now! Afraid to leave their homes at night, they are embracing their survival instincts once again. Like our ancestors once did.” As he spoke, Elliot increased the tension on the cuffs binding his left hand and began to tighten the muscles in his blanket-covered legs. He was determined to break free.
“A Marine detail is on its way here, Elliot,” Frank revealed. “You won’t be teaching anyone anything.”
Elliot’s demeanor changed from maniacal arrogance to subdued melancholy. His eyes lost focus as he recalled his home. “I will not go back there. Ever!” His left hand wrapped around the cuff’s links and pulled as his legs worked on their restraints. The metal frame of the bed groaned with the strain.
“Shit,” Marcus whispered. His fingers tightened on the pistol.
Frank slowly removed the pistol from the anti-bacterial suit’s pocket.
“I’ll kill this man, Detectives,” Elliot reiterated and squeezed Quinne’s throat once more. The man choked through groans of pain and turned a deep red.
Campanelli raised the pistol and took aim of Three-Seven’s chest. “This won’t work. We’re not letting some caged animal loose and we’re sure as shit not arresting you and putting you in jail. You do that and we’re just going to shoot your worthless ass.”
Williams glanced over his partner, checking for a sign of bluffing. There was none.
The bed creaked louder. The links in the cuffs around the FROG’s wrists strained and opened with a cry. Jerry Quinne’s face was now blue as Elliot and Frank stared at each other.
“You know, I hacked into your car and turned it off,” Three-Seven explained with a tone of amusement. “I did it to two others, too. I can hack into that implant of yours and blind you, Campanelli.”
“I don’t care,” Frank replied immediately. “You wouldn’t be the first son of a bitch I killed while blind.”
“Let him go, Elliot!” Williams shouted. Quinne looked horrific with his unseeing, bulging eyes.
“Williams, I like you,” Three-Seven said as the chains of the cuffs binding his legs snapped. “As an ex-SEAL, I don’t wish to kill you. You may go.”
Marcus smirked and remained planted.
“Listen, buster…” Frank started.
“Ha! Buster?!” Elliot shouted gleefully. “Honestly! Who talks like that?”
“Let him go!” Campanelli all but screamed. He could see that Quinne had seconds.
The FROG smiled that horrific smile once again as his wrists came free. With shocking speed, his left hand flew to the agent’s shoulder holster and pulled the handgun from it. At the very same instance, his right hand pulsed with tremendous strength, crushing Jerry Quinne’s esophagus with a sickening crackling sound. He dropped the body to the floor as he brought the handgun to bear on Campanelli.
Both detectives opened fire, repeatedly tapping the triggers as fast as could be physically possible for man and machine.
Quinne’s pistol dropped to the tile as Elliot Three-Seven’s body withered from the gunfire and fell back to the bed. His chest, still healing from the previous day’s surgery, had been opened afresh by sixteen nine-millimeter rounds.
Williams ceased fire before emptying his magazine into the FROG. He covered the bleeding body as Frank stepped forward. He had fired his borrowed weapon up to the last round.
“Frank,” Marcus warned. He halted the swarm of intruding SWAT members and other officers with a giant hand.
Campanelli approached the heaving body of Elliot Three-Seven. He wheezed loudly through the inhale and coughed blood on the exhale. His yellow eyes followed Frank’s approach. Slowly, he turned his head toward the detective.
“You…should finish…” Three-Seven began, but coughed, “…what you…st…start.”
Frank Campanelli froze for a moment. He could see the man was dying. The mattress was quickly filling with dark blood.
“You know,” Elliot spoke clearly in a moment of resolve, “you should really be sure that I’m dead this time, Campanelli!”
Frank stared into the face of the cannibalistic killer as the scales flourished with colors. With a roar, Elliot swatted his left arm out at him. Frank jumped back, took aim and fired his last round. It entered Three-Seven’s forehead and sent blood and brains through the large hole it created at
the rear. The wall behind the dead Marine became a mural of death in slow motion as the mess fell to the influence of gravity.
Campanelli stared for a time. Marcus stepped to his side and removed the empty pistol from his grip. “Are you hurt, Frank?”
“Huh? I don’t think so. Why?” Campanelli heard his voice say.
“Jesus, he sliced right through that damned suit,” one of the SWAT team said.
As if in a trance, Frank looked down and noted that the anti-bacterial suit was a tattered, shredded mess. Campanelli pulled the fabric away, frantically looking for evidence of a wound.
“We need a medic in here,” Marcus called loudly. “You’re sliced up pretty good, Frank.”
Frank looked up at his immense partner and nodded. “Bastard…fought right to the end.”
Marcus looked to the officers that had rushed to Agent Quinne. A shake of the head from one was enough to let him know that his friend and fellow SEAL was gone.
“Yeah,” Williams answered in a whisper and guided his sole remaining friend to the lounger in the corner. “Just relax, Frank. I can’t tell how deep you’re cut.”
Exhausted, Campanelli did not fight the blanket of unconsciousness that smothered him.
Epilogue
Captain of Detectives Frank Campanelli arrived home from Cook County Hospital six days later. He walked in without aid from cane or Tamara, though she remained close to his side. The ride home was made in silence, other than the rattling that the old German convertible made on its own along the way.
Frank hung up his newly replaced black overcoat, flipped his fedora up onto the shelf, and made his way to the living room, where he collapsed in his chair. The pain medication for his back pain was energy depleting, but effective.
“You hungry, Frank?” Tam asked from the kitchen.
“Starving.”
“Let me make you a sandwich. That’ll get you through until dinner.”
“Thank you, my dear,” he responded as he let his eyes go dark. He kept the CAPS-Link engaged for a time as he was expecting a communication. Williams had told him that CPD’s Internal Affairs Division, at least one of the five remaining officers of the group, was investigating the shooting and had taken offense that Elliot Three-Seven, a United States Marine Corps FROG, had been executed in his bed.
It was a laughable case, and everyone knew it except for the IA officer in question. Pictures of the body of Agent Jerry Quinne, Frank’s incurred lacerations, and his implant’s visual recording of the incident had been forwarded as well as that of Detective Williams.
Until then, Frank had been suspended without pay.
In his self-imposed darkness, he sat in his chair, at the moment uncaring about a single thing beyond the woman in his apartment. He hoped that the suspension would be a while. A few weeks, maybe a month would be healing and good. The bayonet slash was the worst of it, and would take the longest to heal.
Hell, maybe Tam’s right, he thought. Maybe we should get the hell out of here. Move to…where? California? Canada?
“Ha!” he barked suddenly. “Yeah, sure. Might as well try for the next ship to Alethea,” he murmured.
“What’s that, Frank?” Tamara called to him.
“Nothin’, sweetheart,” he returned and smiled, though he could not see if she was looking at him. “Nothin’ at all. Everything’s just fine.”
About the Author:
Frederick H. Crook was born in Chicago in 1970 and now lives in Villa Park, Illinois with his wife, Rae and their three dachshunds. In 2010, Frederick’s first novel, The Dregs of Exodus, was published. This was followed up with, The Pirates of Exodus in 2012. Throughout 2013, he continued writing and published four short stories for Kindle. In 2014, Solstice Publishing picked up his third novel, Campanelli: Sentinel. The novella, Minuteman Merlin was published in March, 2015. His fourth novel, Of Knight & Devil, launched in October, 2015.
Social Media Links:
Website: http://frederickcrook.wix.com/crooksbooks
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/FrederickHCrook @FrederickHCrook
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