Tony and the Cowl drifted apart by perhaps half a yard, momentum carrying them upwards but at a rapidly declining pace. Gravity eventually won, robbing the pair of their speed. Tony and the Cowl reached the top of the curve, and, their bodies massaged into the most naturally aerodynamic position by the winds of the mesosphere, they fell to Earth.
CHAPTER TWO
Joe Milano was keeping his mouth shut, although – for the moment at least – this decision was purely academic. Sam Millar hadn't stopped shouting yet.
Joe eased back onto the hood of the unmarked Lincoln Town Car, folded his arms, and peered into the clear blue sky as he waited for his partner to calm down. This was going to take a while, because Detective Millar had started to go around in circles, spitting out a high-rotation greatest hits of what went wrong on the bank job. The bank job that had taken weeks to gather intel for. The bank job that was going to – finally – nab Sam her quarry, the Cowl. The bank job that was so important she put her own life on the line in a cheap brunette wig. The wig was still on her head; that and the bargainbasement drab gray suit and white T-shirt made her look like an underpaid paralegal.
Joe coughed, and Sam paused, arms mid-air, stream-of-consciousness rant interrupted. A few uniforms idled by uncomfortably as Sam set a murderous glare on Joe.
"Something to say, Detective Milano? Got an angle on the fuck-up of the century?"
Joe coughed again, and glanced around the mass of marked and unmarked police cars, half of which had their lights on a slow cycle. The intersection was still blocked off, and straddling the now-dark signal lights, the brilliant yellow of a school bus blazed in the midday sun. Through the windows he could just make out the hostages from the bank seated in the dark, cool interior, a few capped shapes walking up and down, notepads and radios in hand.
"Where the hell did we get that bus from?"
Joe's question was an unwelcomed distraction. If Joe had something to say, some theory to offer as to how their meticulous weeks of planning had got so totally screwed, Sam wanted to hear it. The requisitioning of a brand-new school bus to safely ship the hostages away from the crime scene was, in all honestly, the last thing on her mind.
One of the uniforms, Officer Braithwaite, nudged Joe discreetly, then backed off to a safe distance, head bowed so the peak of his cap hid his eyes from Detective Millar's glare. Joe sighed, realizing he'd picked the wrong opener, and tried again before Sam's face got any redder.
"Sam. Look, it… We were fine. We'd planned it out, our information was good, we had a solid. Perfect placement, perfect timing." He sighed and tapped the underside of his wedding ring against the hood of the car. "It was in the bag, Sam. But the only thing we didn't count on − couldn't have counted on − was the Seven Wonders screwing with us. Again."
Sam lowered her arms and stepped towards Joe, the anger melting away to be replaced by an uncomfortable anxiety. He was right, dammit. Joe knew that this operation had been an obsession of hers recently. In fact she'd lost track of the number of times he'd covered her ass, the number of times he'd fudged his reports and taken on various bits and pieces of unauthorized work that Sam passed to him. She'd taken quite a risk, using members of one of the Eastside Omega gangs as informants, although how they'd got the info was anyone's guess. All so she could finally take down the Cowl.
But he was right. Sam's work had been on the button, and the operation had been faultless in the planning. Yet again, the city's sworn protectors had dipped their oar in where it wasn't wanted.
"The Seven Wonders?" Sam almost hissed the name like an insult. She tilted her head, looking Joe in the eye like he'd just cast doubts on her mother's lineage. "So now the Seven Wonders go undercover, do they? I suppose that was Linear depositing pennies from an arcade machine?"
Joe shifted his backside on the car and adjusted his belt as he thought.
"Well," he began. "He's the only speedster. We've got reports from all over the city. Hundreds of people − hell, the whole damn city − saw this guy take the Cowl airborne over the bay. Must have been quite a struggle up there. Thirty seconds later both fall into the drink." Joe scratched his cheek. "Who else could do that, if not Linear?"
Sam sighed, and she let her body relax. Her whole posture sank, the fight sapped from her body. She swore and sat on the car's hood next to Joe. She pulled the wig off, and fiddled with the polyester fibers in her lap.
"We were close, Joe, real close. Screw the Seven Wonders."
Braithwaite slipped back into Joe's eye line. The officer mouthed something that neither he nor Sam understood, then quickly stepped away and stood smartly, if not quite to attention then damn close. From behind him came the voice of an older man who liked his cigarettes. Joe and Sam jerked into life, pushing themselves off the car simultaneously.
Captain Gillespie had decided to poke his nose in, in person. Which, in a situation like this, was entirely expected but exactly what they didn't need.
The chief of the San Ventura Police Department was a chain smoker who, over the course of a glittering career spanning more than twenty years, had carefully cultivated the kind of angry police chief persona normally found on cheap late night made-for-TV movies. It would have been hilarious, had both Sam and Joe not felt his cold temper on more than one occasion. It didn't look like today would be any exception; if anything, things were about to get very unpleasant indeed. Today Captain Gillespie was well within bounds to blow his stack.
The chief's walk was brisk from his newly parked car, a car exactly the wrong shade of turd brown that no civilian in their right mind would ever order, marking it as a police vehicle as clearly as any standard black-and-white paintjob, even without the nub of the Kojak strobing silently over the driver's side. The chief hadn't even bothered to close the door.
In the growing heat of a California summer's day, Captain Gillespie couldn't have looked more out of place. Sam often wondered whether he had a whole closet full of plain black suits, the color of which was just a tone darker than his skin. In the few short steps it took to reach his subordinates, he'd broken into a sweat, beads of sticky perspiration pebbling his bald head.
Sam self-consciously clasped her hands behind her back, an action to hide the brunette wig, but it was too quick, too obvious, doing nothing but making her embarrassment even more apparent. Sam felt her partner tense beside her and out of the corner of her eye saw him shake his head. It wasn't his fault, and not for the first time, Sam felt ashamed at the way she dragged Joe into her… obsession.
Gillespie took a long drag on his cigarette. The end flared as he pulled air through the burning tobacco, taking a long, deep lungful. He was making a point, and Sam knew it. He was in charge, and they would just have to wait until he was good and ready. End of story.
"No one dead, at least." When Gillespie finally did speak, it was quiet, calm, polite even. Sam and Joe looked at each other, unsure who should speak or what the response to the chief's inaccurate observation should actually be. While they fumbled for an answer, Gillespie dragged again, finishing the cigarette and tossing it to the tarmac where it lazily smoked like a spent shell. He held his breath for a moment and Sam watched, imagining the rush of nicotine and wishing she hadn't quit the habit six months ago. Then Gillespie exhaled over Sam's head and smiled.
"Oh wait, two civilians dead. One missing half her head, the other with brains turned to scrambled egg by the Freak. God knows how many fuck-ups are sitting in that shitty bus." He gesticulated at the glowing yellow transport. "Marriage break-ups. Suicides. Who can tell. Seeing someone's brains blown out at close range can do that to the average Joe. Did you know that? Shock. Post-traumatic stress, that kind of thing." He paused, eyes flicking to meet Joe's but quickly focusing back on Sam. "And for… what, exactly?"
Gillespie's voice remained low, quiet. The chief wasn't one to rule his department with loud voices and popping blood vessels. In fact, the quieter he got, the worse the situation. Right now it was looking pretty ugly.
&nb
sp; Gillespie sighed. "I don't want to see you guys in the precinct today. Consider it an unofficial half-day suspension." He looked the pair over again, head to toe, then took a step closer to Sam and turned so his back was to Joe.
"Go stew in your own juices and come back tomorrow with a damn good explanation as to why you made this poor sucker–" Gillespie jerked a thumb over his shoulder "–complete your reports and alter the department work plan for the last three months to fit this little party in."
Oh, shit. The chief knew. He knew all along. Sam glanced at Joe and saw him looking down at his feet, covering his eyes with a hand.
The chief knew about the swapping of work, about the screwy timesheets, about Sam neglecting her regular duties to pursue the "Freak", the chief's name for San Ventura's public enemy numero uno, the Cowl.
"Sir, I'm sorry," Sam began, "but this was a watertight operation. Our intel was right on the money, the Cowl was right there, and we had him. Dammit, almost had him." Sam's eyes joined Joe's on the tarmac. She gave up. "I'm sorry, sir, Joe was just helping a friend. I take full responsibility."
"Really?" To say the chief's tone was unsympathetic was one hell of an understatement. "You know how much this jazz all costs?" He waved his arms around, not really looking, but his point was clear. "The SuperCrime department's budget isn't unlimited. I might just have to start taking some deductions from your pay check, officer. Now, before you get out of my sight for the rest of this miserable day, tell me what happened. Why do I have a damn school bus full of terrorized civilians and not a single suspect in powercuffs?" The chief was already reaching for another cigarette. Joe folded his arms, sat back on the hood, and left it all to Sam.
She took a short, shallow breath, clearing the events in her mind before assembling them into some kind of order.
"Sir. 10.30am, two black SUVs pulled up and twelve combatants we assume are in the Cowl's employ entered the bank. Detective Milano and his teams were positioned in the area. I was embedded in the branch as a customer."
The chief snorted at her use of the term "embedded".
"With the raid in progress, Detective Milano established the police cordon as though it were any other armed robbery call-out. As expected, they required information from the branch manager, Mr Ballard…"
Gillespie held up a hand, and Sam stopped short, quickly, lips pursed in the formation of her next words. The chief made a show of dragging on his cigarette. This time he was less careful where he blew the smoke. Sam's eyes narrowed as the irritant cloud wafted around her face.
"What you didn't expect, detective, is that they'd start killing hostages almost immediately." He shook his head. "You, you of all people, should have known better. The Cowl is an evil, insane little man, and his hired help are usually the lowest form of sadist. Sure, they're trained, they're resourced, they've got the latest and the greatest, but they're lowlife, Detective Millar. You know this. So what the hell were you doing?"
In the bright sunshine, Sam's face was a flat gray. The chief was right. Joe knew it. Sam knew it. She'd known three months ago that people were going to die, but part of her shut it out. She wanted to take the Cowl down herself, and damn the consequences.
No, that wasn't true. Sam knew what would happen but was actually quite relieved that the bloodbath hadn't been even worse. But whenever it came to the problem of the Cowl, some cognitive center in her brain started to skip unpleasant but necessary details. She had known people would die, but she went ahead anyway.
She felt sick. The chief was right. But more than that, she had no right, no right at all, to serve the city making judgment calls like this one.
Sam reached into her seconds-store suit jacket and took out a small black rectangle of leather. Sewn into the stiff material was the badge of the San Ventura Police Department. On the reverse, a laminated photo ID card. Sam offered it to her boss.
Gillespie looked at the badge, shaking his head. "What do you think this is, detective? The Wire? You don't get out of it that easily. Stop making meaningless gestures because you feel bad, and tell me what happened."
Sam retracted the badge, glancing sideways, not at her partner but to see if any uniforms had been watching. She felt her face grow hot in embarrassment, but nobody was paying the trio any attention. She quickly pocketed the ID and cleared her throat.
"The Cowl entered the bank by unknown means, through our cordon. Probably some kind of teleportation. He killed the first hostage remotely − psychokinesis we assume. He then made threats against Mr Ballard, and ordered one of his men to shoot a hostage. Mr Ballard refused to cooperate and the Cowl was going to kill a third civilian himself when…"
Sam paused, hesitating.
"When what, detective?"
"When the Cowl was attacked by one of the civilians. It was impossible to see clearly, sir, it happened so fast. But the man charged the Cowl and carried him straight through the doors, and out into the city."
"And the mercenaries?"
"They must have been acting on standing orders. They immediately abandoned their hostages and their leader used some device. There was a flash… and I woke up on the floor. They were gone, along with Mr Ballard, the manager."
"Uh-huh." The chief turned his back on Sam and Joe, and walked a few steps around the front of the car, towards the bank. Almost the entire stretch of the plate-glass frontage had been shattered by the impact of the Cowl and whoever it was who ran him out of the building. On the right and left, in almost perfect symmetry, were the abandoned black SUVs. Police tape had been stretched around them, but they had been left otherwise untouched for the forensic team which was on its way.
Sam knew from past experience that the vehicles would not be booby-trapped, but she also knew that they wouldn't provide any data. The Cowl rarely left anything behind, but when he did, it was scrubbed clean. Just another couple of pieces of expensive non-evidence to take up space in a police storage warehouse.
Gillespie walked over to the first SUV, peered into the windows, then beckoned Sam and Joe over, away from the other police.
"If they had some kind of teleport facility, why did they make such a show of arriving in these things, waving guns around? Why didn't they just zap straight into the vault, take what they wanted, and zap out again. Why the theatrics?"
Detective Joe Milano considered for a moment. "Because the Cowl is an asshole, sir?" Sam sighed, but amazingly the chief allowed himself a small chuckle. Joe folded his arms and continued.
"It's part of his modus operandi; it's how he controls this city – with fear."
Gillespie's reflection loomed large in the SUV's tinted window.
"So what did the Cowl want here anyway? What's in the vault?"
But Sam was already shaking her head before the chief even finished. "Nothing of interest, sir. Cash, customer records, nothing else. But the Cowl didn't want the vault, he wanted Mr Ballard. The Seven Wonders had entrusted him with something. That's why they took him."
Gillespie turned from the vehicle and popped another cigarette into his mouth. "The Seven Assholes."
Joe nodded. "Yeah, the Seven Wonders. Since when do they go undercover? Their identities are secret, they make damn sure of that. We've got CCTV angles covering the whole branch, so we should have a good record of the guy that took out the Cowl and dumped him in the ocean. But… could it really have been Linear, on his day off, or something? We'll have his face on the tape, but he would have known his actions would reveal his identity. I don't see a member of the Seven Wonders pulling a stunt like that. They'd just sit tight and let people die before revealing their real faces. They've never acted like this before."
Sam laid a hand on Joe's arm, a dangerous thought sparking in her mind. "What, you're saying we have another superhero in San Ventura?"
Joe nodded. "Could be. The secrecy of their identities is paramount. Linear wouldn't perform on camera, even in the middle of one of the Cowl's schemes."
The chief sighed, a deep, hollow sound like wind ru
shing through an underground cave. "That, detectives, is all we need. Now, go. Ponder on what you are going to put on your reports. I don't want to see you until tomorrow. Let uniforms clear this mess up. I'll get them to send you the bill."
Dumping his unfinished cigarette to the sidewalk, Gillespie scuffed his shoes as he turned and headed back to his car. Joe unfolded his arms and walked off, leaving Sam alone by the SUV.
She felt her heart race. To come so close, to plan everything so perfectly, only to be foiled by something they could never have foreseen.
San Ventura had a new superhero.
Then she smiled, just a little. Because if there was one thing guaranteed to piss the Seven Wonders off, it was a new hero on their turf.
CHAPTER THREE
Tony had always been frightened.
A Friday, a couple of months back, and San Ventura at night was just as hot and muggy as San Ventura during the day, the only obvious difference being that it was dark. At 11pm the city was just hitting its stride, getting as busy as it was at midday with the surge of diners and drinkers, partygoers and clubbers, people hitting the night shift and people late leaving the office. At 11pm the night was young for a lot of folk.
Seven Wonders Page 3