The Chop Shop

by Heffernan, Christopher

  Chapter 14.

  The alarm went off at five-thirty in the morning. He sat up. Samantha groaned and covered her head with a pillow. “Turn it off, Mike.”

  Michael slid out of bed and hit the switch on the alarm. “I need some pick up some stuff from my flat. I'll be back in time for work with the car.

  She glanced out from the under the pillow, eyes partially shut with sleepiness. “Okay.”

  He was showered and dressed in his muddy clothes in ten, lingering to look at the old photo on the shelf that Samantha hadn't quite managed to hide the night before. She had her arms around David Brown, resting her head on his shoulder with a smile.

  Michael frowned and headed outside. He walked down a corridor of chipped blue paint, discarded food wrappers and neon graffiti. The pounding of dance music escaped from one of the flats, as he neared the staircase. He passed the heroin addicts in the stairwell who had crashed for the night, and their stench followed him all the way down to the ground floor.

  The cold air of morning blew against his skin outside. He saw black smoke rising from a distant fire against the back drop of a pillar. A handful of city blocks glowed bright with lights, and wild dogs gnawed at the corpse of a stab victim in the alley across the road.

  Michael weaved the car between the wrecks on the road. He slowed as the converted warehouse came into view. Light spilled from his bedroom window, and a silhouette moved inside. He turned his attention back to the road, swerving in time to avoid another abandoned wreck. The silhouette looked out onto the street.

  He kept one hand on the wheel, lifting the flap on his holster as he turned the corner and doubled back into the next road. Foxes scampered across in front of the headlights. He parked beside a bin overflowing with rubbish, and then jogged back down to his flat.

  The light was still on. Michael looked up and saw the silhouette was gone. He moved from wreck to wreck with his gun in hand. Nothing out here had changed; no new cars, no scrap metal removed, no debris disturbed, as if the person had walked here.

  He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, before moving up to the front door. The padlock he'd fitted recently lay on the ground amidst splinters and slithers of wood, and a chunk of the door frame was missing. He eased the door open. Darkness awaited him inside as he entered.

  Michael rechecked the replacement slide he'd fitted to the pistol. The sound of dripping water echoed off the walls, and the familiar smell of damp filled his lungs. He took the stairs in silence, pausing half-way up to listen. The foxes shrieked outside, and his stomach knotted with dread.

  He pressed his back against the wall, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and then leaned around the corner. Something clanked, echoing down the corridor from his flat. He smelt the rotting odour of his dead neighbour, and the door opened, as a beam of light pierced the darkness.

  Michael darted across to the other side, and then into the next corridor. He wedged himself into the nearest doorway and pressed his back against the door.

  Footsteps came down the corridor, disturbing a puddle of water, and he eased his finger over the trigger. The footsteps stopped. Michael edged his head out. The man was standing at the junction, back turned as he looked down the stairs. He wore a trench coat, and a trace of light lit the side of his shaved head.

  Michael held his breath, and he inched out further, just enough to raise his weapon. His hand wavered, as he tried to align the centre of the sights with the man's head. The man hurried down the stairs.

  He waited for him to hit the last step, and then padded softly to his room. The door lay on the floor, still attached to remains of its hinges, and fragments of glass and plastic were scattered amongst the remains of his possessions.

  Footsteps on the staircase. Michael stumbled out of the flat in time to see the man coming down the corridor. The main raised his gun, but Michael fired first. He emptied the magazine at the man's centre mass, lingering long enough to see him go down and then try to rise again.

  He hurled a chair through his lounge window, followed the by the mattress on his bed. A hail of bullets followed him as he jumped. Michael hit the mattress hands first, and pain ran the length of his arms. The man stuck his submachine gun out the window and fired off the last of the magazine. Bullets ricocheted off the concrete as he curled inwards.

  He opened his eyes to see the man falling towards him and rolled out of the way an instant before he impacted. The weight of him broke the springs in the mattress. Holes in his trench coat revealed body armour beneath it.

  Michael ran back out onto the street, and he slowed, fumbling with a fresh magazine, only for it to slip from his hands and clatter across the concrete. The man was gaining on him. Blood leaked from an injury to his temple.

  A stab of pain filled Michael's chest, and sweat broke from the pores on his skin. His run turned to a jog, and then a stagger that carried him into the street. The man had slowed too, bleeding visibly from multiple places now. Headlights approached through the dark, and the man fired again.

  Michael dove to the pavement, as bullets shattered the windows of the approaching car, punching holes into the red exterior and destroying a headlight. It squealed to a stop. The driver didn't move.

  He pushed another magazine into his .45 and unloaded it at the gunman. The man ducked behind a rusted car wreck, and Michael felt the slide lock in the open position, as he fired off the last bullet. He ran for the car. The driver lay slumped at the steering wheel; blood trickled from the man's ear and two holes in the skull.

  Michael wrenched the door open, hit the seatbelt release and dragged the corpse onto the road. Another hail of bullets struck the car. He slammed the door shut and bent low. The assassin jogged towards him, finger clenched tight around the trigger. His weapon ran out of ammunition again, but he didn't stop, and Michael floored the pedal.

  The car shook as the man leapt onto the bonnet. He braked long enough to send the man rolling onto the road, and then accelerated over his skull with front and rear wheel. Michael saw him still moving in the wing mirror. He tried to sit up, and then to stand. Each attempt ended with him collapsing on his side.

  He reached instead for his gun, then, and inserted another magazine, taking aim at the car. Michael turned the corner.

  Michael stood beside Major Harris in the reception waiting area. They watched footage of the burning chemical plant, and Harris fiddled with his unlit cigarette. A fire team passed by on their way out, carrying rifles and a can of ammunition.

  “I had a patrol look your place over. No body; a lot of blood, but no body. Somebody picked the guy up, or he walked out of there himself,” Harris said.

  “God knows how they found me. Nobody lives around there for a hundred meters,” Michael said.

  “If some reporter can find you then it can't be that hard. They'll probably keep your place under surveillance now. All they need is a camera with a long enough wireless range to watch it. You got somewhere else to stay?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Good. Don't go back; Corporal Hill grabbed what he could from your place. He got your medicine as well. It's sitting in one of the lockers whenever you get round to collecting it.”

  Michael nodded. He watched the fires rage on the television, and the reporter did her best to sound solemn, but it was impossible not to miss the inflection of excitement in her voice. He fought off a yawn with the back of his hand.

  “This whole thing is starting to drag out. Cut me loose so I can go and speak to this journalist. If they've got nothing then it doesn't matter, we can junk the case, but maybe I'm onto something if there are people turning up at my flat to kill me.”

  The major stayed silent for several seconds. “Fine. You'll have to operate on your own for now; I'm short staffed and I've got nothing to plug the gaps. Richard stays on with the fire teams.”

  “I need a car.”

  “Get operations to give you an unmarked vehicle from the car park. I don't want to hear from you until you'v
e got something,” Harris said. He lit his cigarette and walked away.

  Michael went up to the detectives' office. He found Richard crouched by the printer, trying to remove the shreds of paper jamming the rollers.

  “Nothing works in this place, Mike. Jesus. You ready to get going?” Richard said.

  “I'm not working up leads with you today. You're on your own,” Michael said. He slumped in his chair and picked up the phone. “I'm going to speak to that journalist and see what he knows.”

  “Did Harris clear it?”

  He nodded.

  “Shit,” Richard said. He picked up his coat and went outside.

  Michael waited for the door to shut, and then tapped in the phone number. The dial tone sounded, and it went on and on. No answer. He slammed the receiver down and sighed, and then the phone began to ring.

  “Yeah?” Michael said when he picked up.

  “Sorry, things are a tad hectic around here at the moment. I couldn't get to the phone in time,” the journalist said.

  “I know; it happens to me all the time. When can we meet?”

  There was a silence at the other end. “Like I said, there's a lot going on at the moment. Will five this evening do?”

  “Look, my time is valuable. I've got no personal stake in this case what so ever. If my commander scraps it, then that's fine, I don't care. We either deal over the phone, meet somewhere now or we don't meet at all.”

  “I thought you wanted to solve your case?”

  Michael exhaled into the receiver.

  “Okay, okay, getting frustrated isn't going to be beneficial to either of us. I'll talk to my boss. I can be down at the main entrance to the Wood Lane shopping centre in an hour and a half. Good enough?”

  “Fine, I'll see you there.”

  Part of the Upper London platform here was incomplete, revealing the grey-black skies above, and he paused to watch a helicopter gunship fly over the gap. Anti-tank missiles and flechette rocket pods hung from stub wings.

  A trio of military contractors sat on the roof of their armoured patrol vehicle, sipping bottles of water. He joined the flow of people advancing towards the main entrance, those too poor for the platform above but too rich to mingle with the commoners on the street. Bodyguards accompanied small time South African bank workers and Arab women in burkas and jewellery.

  Another contractor stood to the left on top of scaffolding, shouting commands into a loudspeaker, as he read from the script in his hand. He repeated the lines each time in a different language.

  “Hey, over here,” a man said.

  Michael looked back and saw the journalist beckoning to him with a hand.

  “Come on, there's a little café around the corner.”

  They pushed their way through the flow of the crowd until they got back out onto the street.

  “We were meant to meet at the entrance.”

  “It's not worth the hassle of clearing the security checkpoints. This place reminds me of the Middle East,” the journalist said, leading him down the road.

  “The Middle East doesn't exist anymore.”

  “But if it did, it'd probably look like this.”

  They crossed the road, then turned left into a pedestrian passage. A green-tinted glass roof shielded them from the elements, and small shops filled out the buildings either side of them. Just beyond was a café with outside tables and chairs that showed the first signs of rust.

  James went inside and motioned to one of the tables, where a woman with dark hair sat across from them, late thirties. She straightened her jacket as Michael pulled in his chair. James sat to the left.

  “I'm glad we could finally meet, Mr Ward. Do you want something to eat or drink? It's on the house,” she said. Her voice carried a certain confidence in it, smooth and slightly smug.

  Michael shook his head. “No, we've got business to discuss.”

  A thin smile. “That we do. Obviously you're somewhat acquainted with James here, so I'll get straight down to the matter at hand.”

  James waved one of the waiters over. “Can I get this toasted sandwich?” he said, pointing to the picture on the menu.

  “What can you offer me? It has to be something good if you want access to the Assurer police database,” Michael said.

  “We can get information from Eratech employees. Maybe from government civil servants as well, depending on how things go, but you have to provide a show of good faith,” the woman said.

  “None of that is useful to me. Give me something that will lead to the killer, otherwise, we have nothing to discuss.”

  The woman took a sip from her coffee. “What about your boss? People talk, you know, and I've heard he's pretty obsessive about this case. Anyone else would have dropped it, and yet here he is, still sending you on errands in the hopes of catching the killer. Ever wonder why?”

  “Do you know why?”

  She shook her head. “No, that's something I don't have an answer to. But it's odd, isn't it? We hear lots of things where I work, but neither of us can give you exactly what you want. We can help you, though, and you'll get further with us than without. This is the best chance you'll get. It might even stop your commanding officer from getting you killed.”

  Michael tapped on his thigh with several fingers, hesitating for a moment. “What do you want for an advance?”

  “Something low key, for now. We need your records on Jeremy Miller. You should have an entry in your database, as he's known to have been picked up for petty crimes in the past. None resulted in a prosecution.”

  James took a brown envelope from his satchel and slipped it across the table. “This should help you identify him properly.”

  “You've had weeks to come to me about this. Why now?” Michael said. He folded up the envelope and place it into his pocket.

  “We didn't need anything from the police until now,” James said, shrugging his shoulders.

  Chapter 15.

  A banging pipe echoed through the corridor. Michael breathed in through his nose. He watched Harris skim the rest of the letter, with a cigarette hanging out the corner of the major's mouth. Harris nodded to himself.

  “Come with me.”

  They walked down the corridor and took a left. Harris nodded to the two policemen standing guard. He unlocked the door and then locked it again behind them both once inside.

  The lights took few moments to come on, flickering and flashing, sometimes making a clicking sound that suggested they were about to shatter over their heads.

  Four computers occupied as many desks at one end of the room, built out of different branded parts with old CRT monitors nearly as big as the desks themselves. Cardboard boxes filled with paper lined the walls.

  “Take a seat. You haven't seen our records room?” Harris said.

  Michael shook his head. “My old station was a bit more high-tech.”

  “We make do with what we've got.” Harris tapped in a user name and password into the command prompt. Green text appeared, scrolling upwards faster than Michael could read it, until the display finally settled on another command prompt.

  The major glanced at the letter and began his search. A line of asterisks stretched across the command prompt. The line stopped, and a picture and profile flashed up on the monitor.

  “Bingo,” Michael said. He leaned closer to the monitor. “He's not exactly a crime kingpin. Minor drug dealing, soliciting and possession of a gun; plenty of bigger targets with better rewards to plug. Bored patrol?”

  Harris leaned back in his chair. The seat creaked beneath him. “He hasn't been tagged with a prosecution so he must have walked free.”

  “So, the tribunals have the option of sentencing him in return for a few kickbacks from the company who runs the facilities, or setting him free for no reason at all. They'd force an animal to do time in one of those units if they could,” Michael said.

  Harris hit the print button. “Something dodgy was going on, but it doesn't matter; you've got what you nee
d. Take my spare key. They'll probably try and pressure you for more stuff, so use some discretion when dealing with them. I don't need this coming back to bite me in the arse.”

  “Yes, sir,” Michael said.

  The major shut the door behind him, and Michael waited as the printer whined, shook and then finally spat out three sheets of paper. He stapled them together in the corner and used the phone to call James.

  “I've got what you asked for,” Michael said.

  A second of silence. “Give me forty. I'll be down the road from the checkpoint in my car, okay?”

  “I'll see you then.” He hung up and headed downstairs. Two fire teams pushed him aside as they ran out of the main entrance, and Michael followed after them. He stopped beside the pair of guards at the door. “What's happened now?”

  “Same old, same old. They're bringing casualties in.”

  “Why aren't they taking them to hospital?” Michael said.

  The policeman shrugged. “Trouble at the hospital with looters. It's quicker to bring them back here to the medical unit, but I doubt they'll make it, though. Sounded like they got shot up pretty bad on the radio.”

  “Shit,” Michael said.

  He walked out into the car park and found the two fire teams waiting with medical supplies and two medics.

  “How many men down?” Michael said.

  The corporal held up four fingers. “Routine patrol. They called in to report a sighting of the guy you rolled over this morning. Two minutes later and they're calling for back up. What a cluster fuck.”

  “Did they get him?”

  “No. Like I said, what a cluster fuck.”

  The entrance barrier lifted to allow a four-by-four and armoured personnel carrier to drive on through. Bullet holes decorated most of the vehicle's body, and a few shards of the windscreen remained on the bonnet. The driver motioned to the personnel carrier with his hand.

  Michael stood back as the carrier dropped its ramp, and the section raced forward to carry out the wounded with stretchers. One of the casualties lacked his jaw and was already dead; his eyes remained open, staring up at the platform above.