Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels)

by J. A. Konrath

  “No.”

  “Can you do a turnaround and show me?”

  I lifted my shirt up over my belly and did an easy three-sixty.

  “Pants too, if you don’t mind.”

  I hiked up my jeans on both sides, showing my socks.

  “Isn’t this the part where you tell me to get down on my knees, hands behind my head, and read me my rights?” I asked. I knew ten different ways to disarm a cop who tried to arrest me.

  “I haven’t decided yet. Right now I just want to talk.”

  “Tough to talk with a gun pointed at you.”

  “If I lowered the gun, would you relax a bit?”

  I nodded. She lowered the gun. I made myself appear more relaxed, but I was still a coiled spring, waiting to pounce.

  “I’ve had to deal with a lot of dead bodies on this shift,” Daniels said. Though her weapon was at her side, she still had her finger in the trigger guard. “Not just here at your place, but all around the city. I’d really appreciate your help sorting this out.”

  “You’re being awfully polite.”

  “Don’t confuse that with weakness.” She gave me a hard look, as if to illustrate her point. “Now please tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’ve had one heck of a day, Lieutenant, and I’m sort of in a time crunch.”

  “Call me Jack. What can I call you? There are no public records of Carmen Sawyer. No history at all. Your ID is bogus. We had a team in this room for three hours, couldn’t find a single thing about you. No pictures. No personal documents. Computer is clean. Not even a fingerprint in the place. What kind of person lives in an apartment for over a year and doesn’t leave her prints?”

  “Maybe I’m just exceptionally tidy.”

  Jack’s eyes crinkled a bit, but the smile didn’t reach her mouth. “You’re very much in demand right now, Carmen. My superiors want you. The feds want you. Some guys in black suits who won’t say who they work for want you. There are so many charges against you, you’ll need a busload of lawyers just to sort them all out. You also seem to be drawing the attention of a certain criminal element.” She paused, as if for dramatic effect. “Some of them look a helluva lot like you.”

  I gave her a one-shouldered shrug. “I have one of those faces.”

  “Actually, you have four of those faces. Three of them are currently in Cook County morgue.”

  I took a careful step forward, trying not to appear threatening.

  Jack instantly raised her gun back up, aiming at my center mass. Her hand was remarkably steady. “Please stay where you are, Carmen. I don’t want to shoot you, but people have a tendency to die in your presence, and I don’t want to be one of them.”

  Contrary to the adversarial nature of our current relationship, I was starting to like this woman. “So what do you want, Jack?”

  “To take you in.”

  I gave my head a small shake. “I can’t allow that.”

  “I can promise you protection.”

  “No. You can’t. They’ll kill me.”

  “I won’t let them.”

  “Then they’ll kill you, too. Besides, I have things I need to do.”

  “Who do you work for?” Jack asked.

  I let out a short, abrupt laugh. “Seriously?”

  Jack shrugged her shoulders, but her aim didn’t waver. “It was worth a shot.”

  “Let’s just say I’m a public employee, like you.”

  “That’s what I figured. And it’s the only reason you aren’t in handcuffs right now. Are you CIA? NSA?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “So far every corpse we’ve found appears to be a case of self-defense,” Jack said. “I could be wrong, of course. According to the FBI, you’re a dangerous terrorist, hell-bent on overthrowing the government. But to me it looks more like you’re being pursued. So why come back here? No one thought you would.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I had a hunch.”

  “Don’t you homicide cops travel in twos?” I asked.

  “My partner is close by. So why did you come back here, Carmen?”

  I didn’t answer, watching as Jack sorted it out.

  “There’s still something here,” she eventually said. “Something you need. What is it?”

  “Floorboards, beneath you.” I hoped she would look down. She didn’t.

  “What’s there? Top secret documents? Or are the fibs right, and it’s a plan to assassinate the president?”

  “Just my sniper rifle.”

  “What do you need that for?”

  My turn to shrug. “Sniping.”

  We stared at each other for a minute, then Jack lowered her gun again. “I want to help you, Carmen. But to do that, you’re going to have to trust—”

  On Jack’s last word I rushed her, coming up underneath the .38, chopping at her wrist with the heel of my hand. Either fatigue and pain had slowed me down or the cop was faster than she should have been, because Jack dodged the move and brought an elbow down on my shoulder, driving me to the left. I took an extra step to correct my balance and found myself looking at the wrong end of a spin-kick. I raised up my hands, taking the hit in the forearms instead of my head, and then Jack was dancing around my other side, raising the gun again. But I anticipated the move, striking the back of her hand. The gun went flying, and for a brief, eternal moment we watched it arc through the air, then land on the sofa on the other side of the room.

  Jack backpedalled, getting between me and the sofa, and then kicked off her shoes and struck a Dwi Koobi stance—a defensive posture used in tae kwon do, with one foot in front of the other and both fists raised.

  “I just want my rifle,” I said, blinking away some spinning motes.

  “You’ve killed enough people for the day,” Jack said. “I’m taking you in.”

  Since my days with The Instructor, I’d kept up with my combat training. I had black belts or equivalents in half a dozen martial arts. But more importantly, I also knew all of the restricted moves banned from competition. In a fight for your life, points didn’t matter. That was something the majority of YMCA practitioners didn’t understand, but something that Jack was about to learn the hard way.

  I leaped at her, figuring a tae kwon do practitioner wouldn’t know what the hell to do against a Muay Thai attack known as a hanuman thayarn—a flying knee.

  She leaned sideways, my leg catching her shoulder, and her footing was strong enough that I bounced off rather than took her down. I tried to clinch her leg, do a quick judo reversal, but she punched me in the side of the head hard enough to bring the stars out. I brought up a quick elbow and hit her in the crotch—decidedly not tae kwon do—and when she grunted and doubled over, I gave her a head butt in the chin, pulling it so I didn’t shatter her jaw.

  Jack stumbled away, fists still up but knees wobbly. It’s actually harder to knock someone out than it is to kill them, and I didn’t want to kill her, so I wasn’t quite sure what to do next.

  My hesitation cost me. The cop apparently wasn’t as hurt as she seemed, because she charged me with a flurry of punches and kicks. I deflected the first four, then had to take a step back and cover up because they were coming so fast. Expending that much energy usually wore a fighter out, leading to an opening, and when the punches started getting weaker, I struck my stance and began to push forward, waiting for them to stop so I could unleash.

  When a second went by without getting hit, I opened up, ready to jab.

  She tagged me under the chin with an uppercut.

  It knocked me backward and doubly surprised me. First, because I hadn’t expected it and thought she’d punched herself out. Second, because she’d pulled it.

  “You held back,” I said after finding my center and planting my feet.

  Jack was breathing heavily but still seemed strong. “So did you.”

  I spat blood from a cut in my upper lip. “Any chance you’re a crooked cop? I’ve got about twenty-five thousand bucks nearby. Y
ou let me have my gun, I let you have the money.”

  “Sorry, I don’t—”

  I launched again, another flying knee, but reversing it in the air to avoid her counter. I connected with ribs, basically hugging her body in a reverse piggyback. Then I brought my arms down, grabbing her around the neck, pulling her forward and flipping her over, onto her back.

  While she was stunned, I scooted around on my butt and went for the grapple. The move was known as an armbar, where I got my hips and legs under her and tugged her arm back by the wrist until it was fully extended, putting pressure on both the elbow and the shoulder. If I forced it, I could both break and dislocate her arm with only a minimal application of force.

  Finally I had her.

  Jack groaned. “How do I tap out?”

  “Do you have handcuffs?”

  “My purse. The Gucci bag in the kitchen.”

  “How does a homicide cop afford Gucci?”

  “Got a discount on the Home Shopping Network.”

  I applied a bit more pressure to her arm, prompting a high-pitched squeal.

  “I need to incapacitate you while I get my rifle,” I said. “I’d prefer using the handcuffs to do that, but snapping your arm in half would work, too.”

  “I vote for the handcuffs,” Jack squeaked.

  “I’m going to walk you into the kitchen. Any sudden moves, you wind up in a cast. And you know how long bones take to heal with older women.”

  “You beat me already. You gotta be mean about it, too?”

  I really did like her and hoped I didn’t have to blow her elbow out. Moving slowly, I released my legs and switched the armbar to a wristlock. Jack stayed compliant, letting me get behind her, not trying to fight as we both got onto our knees.

  “Stand up on three,” I told her. “One…two…three.”

  The move was smooth, and then it was just a question of leading her into the kitchen.

  “Grab your purse by the bottom, dump it onto the counter.” She did, and I watched, somewhat amused at all the crap regular women kept in their purses. Besides the obligatory makeup, tissues, cell phone, mints, brush, wallet, and loose change, there was a bottle of calcium pills. I smiled.

  “Those are for indigestion,” Jack said.

  “Really? The bottle says they help to fight against osteoporosis.”

  “The handcuffs are in the side pocket.”

  I knew it was mean, but I couldn’t resist. “It has one of those easy twist-off caps, for the elderly.”

  “It was the only bottle the store had, all right? You want to cuff me or talk about supplements?”

  I fished the pair out, Smith & Wesson, gunmetal black. I flicked a bracelet open, locked it around her wrist, and connected the other end to the handle of my refrigerator. Then I took two quick steps away.

  Jack looked annoyed and humiliated. She straightened up and said, “I’ll give you one last chance to surrender.”

  I had to smile at that. “You said your partner is nearby.”

  “He’s across the street, getting a meatball sub with extra cheese. And meatballs. And bread. It’s actually two subs he eats at the same time, one on top of the other.”

  “Is he going to burst in here and shoot me?”

  “With the elevator out? If he bursts in here, he won’t be holding a gun. He’ll be clutching his heart with a myocardial infarction. Herb and stairs are old enemies.”

  She didn’t give me any cues that she was lying, vocal or nonverbal.

  “You said you came back here on a hunch,” I said. I didn’t need to know, but I was curious. “What caused it?”

  “I saw your wardrobe. It’s lacking, and that’s being kind, but I found the money and wires sewn into the hems. I thought anyone who took the time to do that might have other things hidden around the place. Figured I’d poke around, see if I could find anything.”

  “Did you?”

  Jack frowned. “Yeah. I found a pain-in-the-ass spy who doesn’t respect those who came before her.”

  I went to the kitchen closet, took out my box of tools, careful to hold the handle by the palm so I didn’t leave prints.

  “I respect all of that old-school, old fogey stuff,” I told Jack. “Black-and-white TVs. Those huge computers with floppy disks. Paper books.”

  “Paper books aren’t old-school.”

  “Give me a break. They’re so 2008. Get an eReader, Jack.”

  Her gaze flicked down to my hand. “No need to hold the box like that, Carmen. I already lifted one of your prints.”

  I paused, a spike of adrenaline shooting up my spine. It was bad enough being wanted by different agencies and authorities. As long as they didn’t have my name, they wouldn’t find me. But once my prints were on file…

  “How?” I asked.

  Jack stayed quiet.

  “Don’t play around here, Lieutenant. If I’m in the system, I’m fucked.”

  “The gun you left on the roof,” Jack said. “Got a partial index on the trigger. Not enough to match it. But…”

  She let her voice trail off. I felt myself go cold.

  “But?”

  “The medical examiner is my friend. He’s doing the autopsies on those women you dispatched, the ones with your faces. He ran the prints on one. No matches in the system. But, for fun, I ran it through some POC software. Guess who it matched?”

  POC was points of comparison, and I knew who it matched.

  “Who else knows about this, Jack?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You think I’m an idiot, Carmen? That I’d offer up this information so I can get myself tortured and killed? I don’t know all the powers at play here, and I’m not going to wake up one morning with assassins in my room because I stumbled across some secret government experiment and blabbed about it. You know it’s statistically impossible for more than one person to have the same prints. Even twins—”

  “I know,” I said, interrupting. “Did the ME check the prints on the others?”

  “Not yet. I had a feeling and told him to hold off. He didn’t even finish the autopsy on the first one.”

  “You probably saved his life.”

  “A smart person would go to the morgue, make sure no more prints are taken. She might even find the previous autopsy records there as well.”

  “And what about the gun with my partial on it?”

  Jack smiled. “A smart person would have that locked away in a safe place, with a note to examine it if she died suddenly. I assume we’re both smart people.”

  “So you’re asking me to trust you?”

  “Yes. And to tell me what’s going on.”

  “If you know what I know, that might put you in even more danger than having that gun.”

  “I like to live on the edge.”

  I had a choice. I could give a little, or I could snap her neck. I sighed, then gave her the Reader’s Digest condensed version of the last few hours. I wasn’t sure why I decided to tell her, and I was even less sure why I felt better once I had, but when I finished, Jack let out a slow whistle.

  “That’s a lot to swallow.”

  “It is what it is.”

  “Your code name is Chandler?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s a pretty cool code name.”

  “This from a woman named Jack Daniels?”

  She rubbed her cheek, which was beginning to bruise. “So the only two left are Clancy and Hammett.”

  I nodded, taking my tools back to the living room. I opened the box and removed a short pry bar. “I’m going to go take care of Clancy now. I have to save my handler.”

  “She and Hammett look exactly like you?”

  “Hammett has a small scar on her chin. If you run into her, shoot first. She’s psychotic.”

  I measured off five paces from the far wall, then began to pry up floorboards.

  “This is a bit outside my normal jurisdiction,” Jack said. “How can I help?”

  With the information about the morgue, she alrea
dy had. “You can stay out of my way.”

  “Do you know why Hammett wants that transceiver thing?”

  “No. Only that it would be bad if she gets it.”

  “Where did you hide it in the Hancock building?”

  “That I can’t tell you.”

  Three more boards up, and I saw my rifle case. I wiped the prints off the pry bar using my shirt, tossed it aside, and pulled out the case. Then I caught Jack’s eye. “You know there are bad people, and even some good people, who will kill you if they find out what you know.”

  She gave me a brief arch of the eyebrows. “Interesting life you lead.”

  “Mostly it’s a lot of waiting around. You caught me on a busy day.”

  “Chandler…” Jack’s voice trailed off.

  “What?”

  “You should still consider turning yourself in. I could take you out of state, we could go to the media.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “How long can you keep functioning at this level? I can see you’re trying to keep it together, but right now I’m not looking at some special ops superspy. I’m looking at a breakdown waiting to happen.”

  “This breakdown still managed to handcuff you to a fridge.”

  Jack’s face softened. “They’re going to kill you, Chandler.”

  I paused. She was right, of course. Even with my training, the odds were very much against me. I doubted I had more than a five percent chance of surviving this, and that was playing fast and loose with statistics. Maybe that was why I felt OK about spilling my guts. “Have you ever faced death before, Jack?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did that ever make you quit?”

  Jack slowly shook her head. “No.”

  “I guess that makes two of us who like to live on the edge.”

  Then I tucked the rifle case under my armpit and got out of there.

  “When you’re undercover, you can’t pretend to be another person,” The Instructor said. “You must become that person. Your success depends on whether or not people believe you. Your life is at risk if they don’t.”

  Hammett surveys the chaos around her, the chaos she caused, and runs the tip of her tongue across her lower lip.