The Hidden Throne (Hazzard Pay Book 2)

by Charlie Cottrell

  “This is too big for you.”

  I was in way over my head. Major financial players, criminal masterminds, and a former mentor who had no qualms about stabbing me repeatedly. There was no way a single individual, no matter how snarky, could take them all on.

  “This is too big for you.”

  I was angry. I was frustrated. I was tired. And I was stuck. I couldn’t back out now, not with the fate of Maya and the city and who knows what else all resting on my shoulders.

  “This is too big for you.”

  “Bugger that,” I said, defiance and anger flaring up inside me. “I’m gonna make those jackasses pay.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  I kicked the door of Vera Stewart’s accounting warehouse open, dragging a couple of her thugs behind me. I was in danger of popping my stitches, but I didn’t really care. Adrenaline is such a useful chemical.

  “Vera!” I shouted as I tried to shake Thug A off my leg, “we need to have a talk.”

  “Detective Hazzard, what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Vera Stewart shouted at me as she stalked across the floor toward me in her secret identity getup. She waved the guards off, who let go sheepishly and stood on either side of me, looking rather embarrassed that they’d let me in. “Why are you shouting my name loud enough for folks Downtown to hear it? You know no one in the Organization knows who I am.”

  “We need to talk,” I replied, dusting my shoulders off and straightening my lapels. “You’re gonna help me fight a war.” Vera grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into an office. Closing the door behind us, she pulled her hat and vocal distorter off and shot me a glare that could have lit a fire.

  “You do remember what happened the last time we attempted a head-to-head battle against Kirkpatrick, don’t you?” Poison and barely-concealed anger dripped from Vera’s every word.

  “Quite well, as a matter of fact,” I replied, leaning on my cane. “That’s why they won’t be expecting it.”

  Vera eyed me like I’d grown a third arm from my chest. Or maybe my stitches had popped and I was bleeding out. Or possibly I was tremendously high on painkillers and wouldn’t remember much of this conversation the next day. Regardless, I pressed on.

  “Think about it. If you were Kirkpatrick, sitting on what could potentially be one of the most important technological innovations of the past fifty years, one that might make you the king of the city, and in a place of power and strength, well-defended and heavily-armed, would you expect us to attack?”

  “No,” she replied, rolling her eyes a bit at my impassioned speech, “because given all those facts, the first sign I saw of an attack, I’d be killing the attackers with all due haste.”

  “True, true,” I said, “even the element of surprise won’t win us this fight. That’s why the attack is just a distraction.”

  “It’s unlike you to sacrifice lives for some larger goal,” Vera said. There was almost a hint of admiration in her voice.

  “Oh, we won’t be sacrificing anyone,” I said, a gleam in my eye, “we’re gonna trick ‘em.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  I walked out of the warehouse with my head held slightly higher than it’d been at the start of the day. I had a plan. I had resources. I had a target.

  I was going to save the girl, defeat the bad guys, and save the day.

  Because what else can you do when you’re a hard-boiled detective?

  I.

  The next two days were a blur of planning, waiting, and whiskey. Though the initial idea was all mine, I spent most of my time on the latter two items on that list, letting people much smarter than me work out lines of attack, supplies, tactics, and things like that. In general, I was more of either a really big-picture guy or a very-tiny-fine-detail guy. If you wanted the big idea, I could do that. If you wanted to know how to deal with a single individual standing in your way, I could do that, too. Anything in between was a bit out of my wheelhouse.

  I also argued with Miss Typewell about her leaving town, for safety. “I don’t want you to be a target,” I reasoned. “If all of this goes bad, they might come after you.”

  “If all of this goes bad, running away will just mean I die tired,” she retorted, her mouth set firmly. I could tell this was an argument I was going to lose—as were most arguments with Miss Typewell—so I relented.

  “Fine, but at least keep an eye out for trouble. Maybe stay here in the office until this is over,” I said.

  “Sure, Eddie,” she said, humoring me even though we both knew that staying in the office wouldn’t protect her any more than running away would.

  I had several meetings and conversations with Vera Stewart during those two days. She kept bringing me into discussions of tactics, because this was my plan, after all, but I don’t know how much use I was to her.

  Given my lack of confidence in my own planning skills, I’d called in someone better suited to it: Walter Ellicott, the former military man and demolitions expert. He’d been a little hesitant at first, but eventually came around when I told him what all was at stake.

  “You’re crazy for taking on Kirkpatrick by yourself,” he said, his face twisted with concern in the vid window.

  “But I won’t be by myself,” I replied with a cockeyed grin, “I’ll have idiots like you and the Boss to back me up.” He’d been really resistant to teaming up with the Boss, but I pointed out that we would take all the allies we could get.

  Even more difficult was getting Vera to drop her stupid costume for our planning sessions.

  “Non-negotiable,” she said, arms folded, feet planted, eyes burning with the fury of a thousand-thousand suns. “I will not have some random soldier know my identity.”

  “He’s not just some random soldier, Vera. He’s a guy with special knowledge of the enemy and their weapons. He fought Kirkpatrick with me. He’s good people, and he says he’ll keep your secret. You can trust him like you trust me.”

  “I don’t trust you, Detective Hazzard. I’ve had the ninja surveilling your every move for the last six months, with orders to kill you immediately if they even think you’ll give away my identity.”

  I frowned. “That wounds me, Vera. Really. I thought we were friends.”

  Vera gave me a haughty look. “No. You are an ally, possibly, and a means to an end. But we are certainly not friends.”

  That stung, but I convinced Vera to agree to my terms by simply pointing out this was the only chance she had of getting her hacker back or ever getting her hands on the data for the mass accelerator. Thus, the planning committee became three, two of whom had some idea what they were actually doing, while the third—me—was mostly just in the way. If Vera Stewart was pretty solid with tactics, Ellicott was a master at it. He developed lines of attack, fallback positions, routes of retreat, and supply lines. I wasn’t particularly useful in any of these meetings; I didn’t know anything about tactics or strategy or any of that stuff. I was more of a “get in there and start shooting things until someone tells you what you want to know” sort of guy.

  “Eddie, you’re a rather infuriating individual,” Vera commented during our planning session Thursday evening. Despite her initial misgivings, she and Walter got along well, and worked together like they’d been doing it for years. I hadn’t had much to add to their discussion of the pros and cons of using hollow point versus armor piercing ammunition. Instead, I’d sat behind my desk, nursing the better part of a fifth of whiskey, and questioned every decision I’d ever made.

  I was not looking forward to tomorrow evening.

  “Eddie, are you even listening?” Vera asked, tapping my desk like an irritated teacher.

  “What? Yeah, no, I’m listening, sure,” I said, trying to focus on Vera. It was difficult, given that there were two of her and both were swimming around in front of me. “What kind of ammo are we gonna use?”

  Vera sighed and sat back down in the chair, folding her hands in her lap. “Detective Hazzard, are you su
re you are prepared to do what you must tomorrow night?”

  I stood up, or at least attempted to. I caught both thighs on the edge of my desk, yelped, and fell back into my battered desk chair, which squeaked in a way that would have done the hinges on the front door of a haunted of house proud. “Yeah, I’m sure,” I slurred, trying to rub life back into my thighs. “I mean, who else can do this but me, right?”

  The look in Vera’s eyes indicated that she figured there were dozens of people who could do this better than I could. Half of them were probably dead and could still do it better than me. “Eddie, if you’ve lost your stomach for this…”

  “No,” I said, more certainty in my voice this time. “No, it has to be me. You said it yourself. And even if that wasn’t the case, I’m not handing the information over to you to deliver.” I sighed, the wound in my gut aching. “It has to be me.”

  Vera stood, smoothing out her short skirt as she did so. “It is becoming rather maudlin in here, detective.”

  “I could do it,” Ellicott volunteered.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I need you helping to coordinate the assault teams. If someone’s gonna come pull my fat out of the fire when I get in there, it’s gonna have to be you, because I can’t do the same for you if our roles were reversed.”

  Ellicott didn’t seem particularly convinced, and neither did Vera.

  I grinned. “Well, could be worse,” I said, standing up and getting it right on the third try. Definitely at least by the third try. It didn’t take more than that for me to manage to get out of a chair.

  “You have enemies all around,” Vera said, ticking off the points against us one by one. “You are recovering from a serious wound. You are about to enter the lion’s den, Detective Hazzard, and you are following some ridiculous plan that will very likely get you and everyone around you killed. How, I dare to ask, could it possibly be worse?”

  “Well,” I said, still grinning sloppily, “I could be sober.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  The next twenty-four hours went by in a hazy blur. Plans were finalized, assignments were issued, arrangements to notify next of kin were probably made as well. Given my own social and familial isolation, I didn’t really have anything of that nature to take care of. Friday morning slid slowly into Friday afternoon, and Friday afternoon crept on toward Friday evening as the world turned on.

  Everyone was in position. Everything was as ready as it was going to get.

  I was sitting in my car, two blocks from my destination at the intersection of Infantino and Goodwin. I had two vid windows pulled up: one for Miss Typewell, and one for Vera, who was coordinating everything from an undisclosed location. Miss Typewell was mostly there for moral support.

  “Well, I can tell you one thing,” I said as I sat there, anticipation playing a samba on my rather frayed nerves.

  “What would that be, Detective Hazzard?” asked Vera.

  “I was right, this is definitely worse sober.”

  Miss Typewell sighed. She was bunkered in back at the office, a small team of ninja there for her protection. “Eddie, try to keep your mind on the task at hand,” she said. “The building is two blocks north of you.”

  “Yeah, I can see it,” I said, staring past the vid windows. The street ten yards ahead of me was blocked off with concrete road dividers, the sort they use when they’re doing construction. As far as I could tell, no work was being done on the street at this time. “I think they want me to walk it the rest of the way,” I said.

  “We expected this,” replied Vera Stewart, “just proceed as planned and try not to take too long.”

  “Is everyone in position?” I asked, steeling my nerves.

  “Fire teams are positioned and ready,” Ellicott called over the channel.

  “Support teams are ready,” Vera answered.

  “All right,” I said, putting my hand on the door handle, “wish me luck.” I closed both vid windows, but left an audio channel to Vera Stewart open. I tugged on the door handle, popping the door open and swinging my feet out into the street. As soon as I set foot on the pavement, trouble began.

  A chunk of concrete two feet to my left exploded. It wasn’t a big chunk, but concrete generally doesn’t do that sort of thing on its own.

  “Shot fired,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and level as I ducked back behind the car door. Another bullet pinged off the front end of my car, knocking out a headlight. “I think they were waiting for me.”

  “Abort the operation!” Vera yelled in my ear. “This isn’t worth the risk, they’re too well prepared!”

  “No!” I yelled back, hunkering down as more bullets peppered the front end of my car and the pavement all around. “If we don’t do this now, we’re just leaving Maya to die!” I leapt back into my car, pulling the door closed behind me with my foot. I squirmed around in the seat until I could work the steering and the pedals and turned the key in the ignition. The car roared to life, and I stomped on the accelerator, ducking low to avoid taking a hit from a stray bullet. The concrete barriers exploded as I pushed through, demolishing the front end of my car in the process. It sputtered and rattled on, taking bullets through the windshield and front grill as it proceeded. It was only a matter of time before they hit something vital and killed the car, but I pressed on until then.

  “All fire teams, begin phase one,” I heard Ellicott say over the audio channel. Suddenly, windows in the surrounding buildings opened up as members of Vera’s Organization launched an offensive. Guns fired, filling the air with smoke and the sound of bullets breaking the sound barrier. I was still being shot at, but not as heavily as before. I goosed the accelerator, eking out what little speed I could from my fast-dying car.

  The car finally coughed and sputtered to a stop ten yards from the front door of the building. I kicked open the driver’s side door, reaching into my pocket and taking out a small black box. I touched a button on the top of it, and the air around me shimmered a hazy blue for a second. I slipped the box back into my pocket as I stepped out of the car, and a bullet flashed against the personal force field I’d just activated. It would be good for about five minutes or until someone fired a shot or two at me point blank. Until then, I was somewhat invincible.

  Of course, it was all academic if they had another prototype of the rail gun. The original was tucked safely away in the waistband of my pants—for a given value of “safely,” anyway—so unless they had a second one no one had mentioned, I would probably be okay for a bit.

  I grabbed my cane from the passenger seat and started hobbling to the front door of the building. I could see that several of the windows were open, and flashing guns muzzles were sticking out of many of them. They were firing at my teams in the nearby buildings.

  Of course, what they didn’t know was that I didn’t have anyone in those buildings.

  No, my brilliant—if I do say so myself—plan was to set up holographic projectors in a number of buildings in the area prior to our assault. Vera had cleared out the buildings yesterday, had her guys install the projectors, and now everything was being managed using computers from some other location. We’d set up a couple of remote-controlled guns in a few of the rooms just to add realism, but I was the only piece on the board for our side at the moment. Even with all of her resources, Vera didn’t have what we needed to set up a full, massive assault on the building like we were pretending. It was all just a distraction to keep them off my back.

  I heard chatter over the audio relay between Ellicott, Vera, and the fire teams controlling the remote guns as I reached the front door of the building. Things were going as planned, from the sound of it. I muted the channel as I pushed the door open slowly, cane in one hand and popgun in the other. There was no one in sight so far, but that just meant more people I might have to deal with later. The exertion had already exhausted me; my wound was throbbing, and I had to lean against a wall for a minute to rest. When I got my wind back, I headed for the lo
bby.

  The building was a large residential construction, about forty stories tall. But I already knew that: this was the building Michaelson had hidden in just a few weeks ago. I guess Kirkpatrick probably owned the whole place, which explained all the structural reinforcement I’d seen in my last visit.

  Bodewell’s instructions had given me an apartment number—343—so I headed for an elevator and punched the up button. There was no way I was taking the stairs in my condition. The elevator took a minute to get down to the ground floor. When it finally arrived, it was filled with men with guns, just as I’d expected.

  Which is why I’d retreated to a stairwell, leaving a flashbang sitting in front of the doors. I triggered it remotely with a button in the handle of my cane. There was a loud sound and a flash of light that I saw even with my eyes closed. As soon as it went off, I jumped up and trotted to the lobby to find three men clutching their eyes and making rather pitiful sounds. I fired the popgun three times, and the three gunmen were encased in bubbles they wouldn’t be getting out of anytime soon. Kicking the bubbles to the side, I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the 34th floor.

  The ride up was stressful. I kept thinking I would be stopped at any of the floors between the lobby and my destination, and a group of gunmen would be waiting for me. But I ascended without incident, arriving at floor thirty-four uncontested. My force field beeped at me to warn that it was out of power, so I swapped out the battery before I stepped out into the floor’s foyer.

  There were no guards here, either, which I found rather strange. If this was where they were keeping Maya Janovich, this floor should have been crawling with Kirkpatrick’s men. Instead, I found the place completely empty. I unmuted the audio channel and heard static in my ear; the audio channel to Vera and Ellicott was out, probably jammed by Kirkpatrick. I made my way down the hall, passing apartment 341, where Florence Michaelson had holed up with Compound 16 a few weeks earlier. The next apartment down was number 343, my destination. The door had a peephole and an old-fashioned brass knocker. I tapped on the door with my cane, leaving an indentation in the cheap wood. While I waited for someone to answer, I reached into my pocket and reactivated the personal force field. The air around me shimmered briefly, and I was encased in a protective layer of science. Finally, a small vid window popped up in front of the peephole. “Is that you, Hazzard?” the person asked. I couldn’t really identify them; they were too close to the camera to be clear. It wasn’t Bodewell, I knew that much.