Live Wire

by Caisey Quinn

  “I’m sure. It’s because of those things that I want to go.”

  Luke nodded and stood as well. Clearly Chase had made up his mind, and he didn’t have time to talk him out of it anyhow. “In that case, let’s roll.”

  Chase leaned down to give Vivien a good-bye kiss. Once again, Luke found himself torn between looking away from the moment of intimacy and wanting to stare and ask them how they’d so effortlessly managed to work out their issues in equal measure.

  “Um,” Annalise began, “be careful. Keep us posted please.”

  He met her soft stare. “Will do.”

  As they exited the precinct, Chase turned to him. “For real, what is your take on Campbell? You know him better than I do.”

  Luke sighed as he pressed the unlock button on the remote to his white Chevy Silverado. “Honestly? He’s always been kind of off. Truth be told, I don’t know him very well. And I get the impression he doesn’t know himself.”

  Chase’s face morphed into a mask of confusion. “Meaning?”

  Luke waited until they were both in the SUV to answer. “Meaning he’s one of those chameleon types that acts like whoever he’s around and doesn’t seem to have a specific personality of his own. Possible sociopath.”

  Chase huffed out a breath. “Great. In that case, this should be tons of fun.”

  “Oh yeah. A blast.” He checked for traffic then pulled the truck out of the parking lot and onto the main road. “Since he’s all gung ho about joining your EOD team, go ahead and text him. Tell him we’re grabbing beers and that he should join us.”

  Chase pulled out his phone and fired off a couple of text messages.

  They circled the parking lot of the apartment complex Jeffrey Campbell lived in several times. When he didn’t respond to Chase’s texts, they parked, and Luke knocked on his door.

  When there was no answer, they tried calling him. But his phone wasn’t accepting calls, according to the recording.

  Chase scratched his head as they turned the SUV back toward the precinct. “Where the hell did he go?”

  “Who knows?” Luke lifted a hand to his forehead. His migraine was on the verge of becoming debilitating.

  Things had just gone from bad to worse.

  The music festival was tomorrow. Eighty thousand lives were in danger. And the only man who could’ve possibly led them anywhere was nowhere to be found.

  “I’m calling Sarge,” he announced.

  “He won’t want to deal with a blue code issue. You know that,” Chase informed him.

  Luke grunted. “Shit. You’re right. Think I should go over him?”

  Chase shrugged.

  Neither of them had ever been in this situation before. Ratting out another officer for misconduct on the job was one thing, but this was so much more than that. They’d both seen Campbell break protocol or rough up a suspect, and they’d kept their mouths shut—honoring the blue code even when they didn’t like it. But this was the entire city on the line.

  “It’s still just suspicion,” Luke said, voicing his thoughts out loud. “But there are too many commonalities between Campbell and Lewis for this to be coincidence. He could’ve mentioned any of those things at any time.”

  “But he didn’t,” Chase finished for him. “And now the bastard is MIA.” He exhaled loudly. “I don’t like it. I don’t like him. And even if we’re wrong, how many times have you wanted to report him even before this?”

  “Too many to count on one hand,” Luke answered honestly.

  Chase gave him a pointed look, then nodded toward the phone in Luke’s hand. “Then what are you waiting for?”

  Thirty

  “This is not a drill, sir. I do understand the cost and the revenue loss. But if we don’t take this seriously, we’ll lose a lot more than money.” Like innocent fucking lives, Chase wanted to scream.

  Police Commissioner Samuel Pratt stared back at him and his Captain as they stood in the top-floor office pleading their case.

  They were out of time.

  After he and Luke had spoken with their Lieutenant, who made them report to their Sergeant just to follow the proper chain of command, they all four took their concerns to Captain Raeder. Who, in turn, scheduled an emergency meeting with the Police Commissioner. He had brought Chase along to explain the nature of the explosives in question.

  Turned out, Sergeant Michael Baines wasn’t a fan of Campbell’s either. And he took Luke’s and Chase’s concerns about the information Campbell had omitted seriously.

  Chase was thankful he did because they were out of time.

  The music festival was already moving forward. Stages were built, stands were erected, and buses were everywhere.

  And no one could locate Eric Lewis or Jeffrey Campbell. Lewis had ditched the tail on him by moving around by foot instead of car.

  “We have thousands of officers patrolling, correct?” Commissioner Pratt asked. “They’re all aware of the potential threat?”

  “Yes, sir,” Captain Raeder answered. “Be that as it may, there’s still—”

  “I trust that with vigilance and men on the ground, we can prevent this from becoming a catastrophe.”

  Chase frowned. They could be vigilant as fuck and it still wouldn’t matter where explosives were concerned. His Captain lowered his head but Chase wasn’t ready to walk just yet.

  “With all due respect, Commissioner, this isn’t a small-scale threat we’re dealing with here. This is someone looking to level downtown using military-grade explosives. We’re talking 9/11-type damage, sir.”

  The Commissioner’s thick gray eyebrows dipped inward. “I was told those materials were recovered by your unit, Officer Fisk.”

  He nodded. “Yes, sir, they were. The ones from the storage facility. But there’s no way to determine whether or not that was the entire supply. There could be more in an alternate location.”

  “And what leads you to believe this?”

  Chase squared his shoulders. Clearly this was going to be a debate, not a discussion He began to make his case. “We have reason to believe the perpetrators served at Holston while in the Marine Corps.”

  “Perps? As in more than one?”

  “We aren’t positive, sir. But we don’t think Eric Lewis is capable of pulling off something of this magnitude on his own.”

  Fortunately Captain Raeder broke in before Chase had to call out a fellow officer to the highest level of authority. “We don’t have concrete evidence of his involvement at this time, but we believe one from our house may be working with Lewis.” Chase noted that he didn’t name Officer Campbell. “Which means the perp or perps may have access to additional explosives and may try to breach the base or steal materials from the evidence containment area if they were desperate.”

  “I see.” The Commissioner folded his hands atop his mahogany desk. “And your solution is to cancel the festival now and evacuate downtown?”

  Chase realized exactly how drastic it sounded. But if they didn’t, he could already see the news coverage as Music City tried to pick up the pieces after being blown to bits and suffering mass casualties. Besides, Vivien was here and he had vowed to protect her. Never again would he watch his entire world disintegrate before his very eyes.

  “We realize this seems like an extreme measure,” Captain Raeder continued. “And we aren’t unsympathetic to the repercussions of canceling an event like this, sir.”

  “But we believe we’re looking at a terrorist situation here,” Chase finished for him. “And to not take every action possible would be negligent and, to be frank, stupid. Sir.”

  Chase held his breath as he waited for either compliance or a reprimand to come his way.

  Commissioner Pratt studied him for several long moments. “You truly believe this situation is that dire? That we can’t just—”

  Whatever the
Commissioner had been about to propose was cut off by the sound of an explosion.

  Alarms sounded in the distance and Chase’s radio and cell phone began to go off all at once.

  “All units be advised,” dispatch said through the loud speaker, “we have a 52e at the corner of Broadway and Fifth Avenue South. Medical teams are en route.”

  An alarm went off in the building and the Commissioner’s advisor, Louise, an attractive black woman who Chase had met briefly upon arrival, rushed into the room.

  “Sir, we need to move you. We have reason to believe this building may be one of the potential bombing sites.”

  “It wasn’t on the map we found, but she could be right. I need to get to my team,” Chase hollered over the clamor of panic coming from outside the office. “Sir?”

  His Captain nodded. “I’ll do what I can from the station. Get the streets secured as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir,” he promised.

  As soon as he exited the elevator on the first floor, he pulled out his phone and scrolled to Vivien’s number.

  There was no answer. He left several frantic messages before radioing his team about a rally point.

  His phone rang as he drove down the streets like a madman toward the heart of downtown.

  His heart leapt into his throat but it wasn’t Vivien. It was Annalise Gamble.

  “Where is she, Annalise?” was how he greeted her.

  If she minded his skipping a formal greeting, she didn’t say. “I don’t know, Chase. But I think I know what Lewis and possibly Campbell are targeting. Or rather, who.”

  “Who?”

  “Vivien,” she informed him. “Before you lose your mind, listen to why.”

  “Listening.” He was trying to at least. His head was spinning. A fire engine cut him off with a blast of their horn. He used all the self-control he had not to lay on his.

  “Last year Vivien and her team at the Bureau busted a militia group called Cop Block. It was a group of antipolice enthusiasts who regularly chatted online and met in person. Several attacks on officers have been linked to them but no one had been able to prove it until Vivien went undercover and busted the figurehead of the group in Cincinnati, Ohio. A Cassandria Murphy. African-American female, age thirty-six. Her husband was shot and killed ten years ago by a rookie officer while holding up a liquor store. Their twelve-year-old son, Malik, was in the car and ended up in the line of fire. He suffered a severe brain injury.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Murphy is serving twenty years with no parole due to her indirect involvement with the deaths of several officers but she has contacts on the outside.”

  “Lewis?”

  “Lewis and Edwards both. And probably some others from the group. After his stint in the brig and in the local jail, Lewis joined Cop Block. He filed several suits against the PD, claiming police brutality against nearly every officer he came into contact with but none against Campbell, who was a guard at that time. But no one would listen. I still don’t know if Campbell’s in cahoots with him or what, but there’s more.”

  “What the hell else could there possibly be?” Chase jumped out of the SUV once he couldn’t get any further down the street.

  “The background check on Lewis’s roommate, Tobias Edwards, the engineer who worked at the facility where Holston was shipping explosives, just came back. He’s been posting on multiple sites about burning the city to the ground for months. Guess who always likes his posts?”

  “Murphy?”

  “Yep. Her or someone using her profile. And Tobias Edwards has a record a mile long. Criminal trespass. Menacing. B and E. Assault with a deadly weapon. He did time in a few lockups between here and Knoxville. I don’t know if he’s the mastermind or just helping out behind the scenes but he needs to be picked up as soon as possible. Hopefully he hasn’t left town.”

  “Christ. Tell me there is some good news in here somewhere, Annalise.”

  “The explosion that went off downtown is small. No severe injuries have been reported so far.”

  Chase sighed. “Why do I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming?”

  “You already know the answer to that.”

  “It’s a decoy, right?” He slammed his fist against the steering wheel when the road he needed to turn on was blocked by an ambulance. “It’s the beginning. The explosion that makes us all look one way while they’re planting what they need in the opposite direction.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I need to find Vivien,” he bit out while shoving the gearshift into reverse.

  “Last I heard from her, she was trying to get eyes on Lewis. I don’t know if she did or not.”

  Chase’s heart pounded hard, causing the blood to whoosh like an ocean tide coming in behind his ears.

  He hoped like hell she got eyes on Lewis before he got eyes on her.

  “All available units please respond,” an urgent female voice demanded from the radio he wore. There was a blast of static before dispatch spoke again. “We have a 52e located on the corner of First and Broadway. I repeat, we have a 52e in progress.”

  First and Broadway. The main stage. So this was the main event and the reason why the other first responders had been pulled in at the opposite end of the street—so they’d essentially be in the way of attempts to get to those injured by the grand finale. Chase’s stomach tightened and his throat constricted. He’d taken an oath to protect the city and while he wanted nothing more than to make sure Vivien was safe and secure, he pressed the button and spoke into his radio. “This is 42-51, I’m en route now.”

  Because of the crowd, Chase knew he’d make better progress on foot. He radioed to make sure Officer Chan would meet him there. She confirmed within seconds. He tried Vivien also, but received no response.

  By the time he arrived to the main stage, several uniforms had already set up a perimeter around it. Aiden stood off to the side with an attractive woman who was quite literally shaking while handing someone her guitar for inspection. While Chase was being shown the location of the explosive device, right under the platform of the main stage, Officer Chan stepped out of the tactical unit she’d been patrolling in, and she and Chase set to work getting into light coverage suits.

  Once she saw the device they were attempting to disarm, she whistled low. “Someone isn’t kidding.”

  The device was military grade and, to the naked eye, mostly matched the other IEDs they’d found. Chase swore under his breath. Unlike the other devices, however, there was not an off-brand cell phone attached to the shell counting down the time. This time they were blind and Chase knew it was most likely set up to remote detonate. Which meant it could blow at any second. A small voice in the back of his mind that sounded a lot like his dad reminded him that he could fail at this. That it wouldn’t matter when it was set to detonate if he fucked this up.

  “Chan, I need you close. If my hands begin to shake, even in the slightest, you may have to take over.”

  The woman nodded her understanding. “I got you, Fisk. I’m right here.”

  Vivien’s face flashed behind his eyes and he reminded himself of the vow he’d made to himself. He would protect her. He would keep her and the rest of the city safe. While he badly wanted confirmation that she was all right, he knew that she’d want him to focus on the task at hand right now.

  He’d been taught in his training to block everything and everyone out of his mind and concentrate on the step he was on. It was the same thing he’d taught the specialists under his command. For the most part, he was successful blocking everything . . . except her. He didn’t think about his friends or his family or even the fact that Becca Chan was a single mother with a little girl at home. All of that faded into background noise, but Vivien’s face remained.

  “I wish we had some C-4 and could countercharge from above it,” Chan said even
ly.

  “In a perfect world,” Chase responded.

  But that wasn’t true. In a perfect world he’d be out of a job because people wouldn’t make improvised explosive devices out of rudimentary household items to maim and kill their fellow humans.

  Chase had only defused about a dozen or so live explosives over the years. Most of what he encountered overseas were artillery shells rigged with trip wires, which were easily handled by dealing with the wire then detonating safely with C-4. A shit-ton of C-4.

  He knew how this would go. He’d be hyperaware of every move he made until the IED was disassembled and the threat was removed. The moment he was done, it would all be a blur and he’d need a cigarette to calm down. It was really too bad he didn’t smoke.

  Thirty-one

  Vivien helped two teenage girls in cowgirl boots make their way to the nearest ambulance. Only one of them was visibly hurt—a gash in her leg that would likely need a dozen stitches or so. But the other was definitely shaken and seemed to be experiencing some hearing loss.

  “You’re bleeding,” the paramedic tending to the girls informed her. “From your head.”

  He pointed with a latex-gloved finger at her scalp. Vivien reached up to touch her hairline, and sure enough, there was a thin, warm trickle of blood heading south.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I can slap a few butterfly stitches on it. Have you good as new in no time.”

  Vivien nodded, knowing she didn’t have time to argue. In the chaos that had ensued after a commercial-sized Dumpster had exploded, she’d lost her phone. Chase would be worried enough as it was and the team needed her firing on all pistons.

  “Fine. Let’s do this.”

  The scent from the antiseptic wipe assaulted her nostrils, cutting through the acrid smell of burnt garbage. Something gooey oozed across her forehead and the next thing she knew, she was being told she was free to go. She thanked him and headed on foot down the alley the ambulance had blocked off.

  She wished she had her phone to tell Chase she was okay. She would bet that there were several panicked messages from him already. He’d been meeting with the Police Commissioner to brief him about the Music City Bomber case updates and to discuss canceling the festival or postponing it at least. She assumed this latest occurrence would’ve cut his meeting short but hopefully it made his case for him.