“You’re a coward, Pitt. You’d prefer some poor bastard to carry the guilt of shooting you to facing your punishment like a man.”
The roar from Pitt’s room would have done Liam proud. Liam leapt to his feet and joined Craig by the door.
“For God’s sake, boss, stop bear baiting.”
Craig shook his head. “I’m soldier baiting. Pitt’s no coward; he’s fought in too many battles to suck that up. I think I can get him out.”
“And then what? You think he’s just going to drop his gun and say ‘it’s fair cop, guv’? Get real.”
Craig swung round and the look in his eye told Liam he’d said enough. “What’s the alternative? We call in SWAT and they do exactly what we’re doing, or more likely they barge in there and Pitt gets blown away, taking one of them with him.”
Liam wasn’t giving up. “They can shoot to stop and they have more accurate guns than us. Just because you’re frustrated is no reason to have a death wish. I’ve seen more cops die than you have and I don’t want to see another one.”
They faced-off long enough for Caleb Pitt to speak again.
“You called me a coward, boy. I’m no coward.”
“Prove it. Throw out your weapon and take your chance in court.”
The old soldier laughed sarcastically. “Court? And spend my last days in some British shit-hole? That’s not happening so forget it.”
“What then? What do you want?”
Liam peeked around the corner of the office and saw something shift beneath Pitt’s door. He gestured to Craig.
“My money says he’s facing the door, so his back will be to the window. If I circle outside I can come up under it and check.”
Craig shook his head firmly. “And then what? You watch him facing the door, or he turns and blows you away? The M16 is automatic and he’s probably got it set on full. I’d rather take my chances face on.”
Liam was insistent. “If he turns I’ll shoot his gun arm.”
Craig thought for a moment then made a decision. “I’ll do it.”
“No.”
Craig was firm. “I’m the boss. I’ll do it.”
But Liam wasn’t budging.
“You can’t. Pitt’s talking to you. If you hand over to me now he’ll know there’s something up. It has to be me.”
At that he was out of the door on his hands and knees hissing “keep him talking.” Craig watched as he scuttled out of the ward and made a note to give him an earful when the case was done. He covered Liam’s exit by repeating his question.
“What is it you want, Pitt?”
The answer was swift. “Just this: the chance to go down fighting. You already know I killed that bitch nurse and her boyfriend. They were drug-dealing scum and they deserved to die. It won’t take you much longer to prove it and then you’ll find out about the rest. They deserved it, every last one of them.”
He was right; they had a serial killer on their hands.
“Why did you kill them? Because of your son?”
There was a lengthy pause before Pitt answered.
“Not only him. I did it for every poor kid in uniform who came back a junkie, and for the kids who never even had a chance at life because some whore dealer hooked them on that filth. If I’ve stopped even one life being ruined then I’m good with that. It’s a war, boy.” His next words surprised Craig. “I’ve made a list of everyone I killed. You’ll get it when I’m dead.”
Craig knew Liam must have reached the window by now. Pitt was still talking.
“I’m eighty-four-years-old; an old man in anyone’s book. I’ve got another two, three years maybe before the diabetes gets me. Do you really think I’m spending it in a UK prison or going back to the States to let some red-neck Governor execute me for votes?”
Craig had to admit he had a point; it wasn’t an attractive proposition either way. Pitt had no wife, children or grandchildren to live for, nothing but the here and now. Just then Craig’s phone flashed with a text. Liam. ‘Cooke facing door’.
But they’d reckoned without Caleb Pitt’s acute hearing. He heard Liam move outside the window and turned, roaring so loudly that Liam thought he was going to shoot him through the glass. As he ducked down Craig heard the roar and knew that Liam’s cover was blown. So much for surveillance. Craig readied to call armed response and then thought again; they still had no proof that Pitt had a viable gun. He called Liam instead, whispering.
“Did you see a weapon?”
“No. He turned too quick, must have ears like a bat.”
Craig decided to try one last thing. He shouted across the ward.
“Pitt.”
“I saw your man. He’s real lucky I didn’t shoot him.”
“With what? All you have is a decommissioned weapon.” Liam hadn’t even seen that. “Come out and we can talk.”
“No way. If I come out it will be shooting. If you don’t believe I’ve a live weapon, you come in.”
Craig smiled; did anyone ever fall for that? It was time for SWAT. He was about to hit dial when Pitt’s bedroom door suddenly swung outwards. Craig slipped out his Glock, waiting for him to appear.
For a few seconds nothing happened then a hail of bullets fired into the ward’s main wall and he knew that Pitt’s M16 was live. As the Vietnam veteran emerged from his room Craig ran the logic. Liam would have heard the shots and be on his way back in. Pitt needed one hand to wheel his chair and the other to hold his gun. If he could draw his fire, Liam could approach from behind and disarm him.
Liam had read his mind. He appeared at the rear door of Reilly and went to move into position, but once again they’d underestimated the combat Vet. Pitt swung his chair round and got Liam in his sights before he even had a chance to raise his gun.
In that second Craig knew that he’d run out of choices. If the M16 was on automatic; one touch of the trigger could end Liam’s life. If he shot Pitt’s arm there was no guarantee he would drop it and if he shot him anywhere but the head he might still set it off. He had to shoot to kill.
In the moment it took Craig to make his decision his whole career flashed in front of his eyes. A career where he’d drawn his gun plenty of times but never had to shoot, always managing to talk the man down before he did. He’d trained for this moment, attended regular tests at the firing range and he’d seen Annette shoot an assailant only six months before. Liam had killed men during The Troubles; he knew that, even though it was never discussed. Now it was his turn.
As Caleb Pitt got Liam firmly in his sights Craig got Pitt in his and with a double tap in what felt like slow motion, the elderly rogue warrior was dead. Then there was nothing; no feeling in Craig’s hand and no sound but his ears ringing, until Liam’s deep voice seeped gradually through the bells and he lowered Craig’s outstretched arm and eased his Glock gently from his grip.
Craig watched Liam’s lips move like he was watching a mime, only catching a word here and there. “Dead…headshots…” Gradually his hearing cleared and he fought the urge to throw up, until he walked over to Pitt’s slumped body and then he did, in a bin by the door. Liam was still talking, more audibly now.
“Thank God you took a headshot. He had me bang to rights. That bloody thing was on full automatic; one touch from Pitt and it would have strafed me to death.”
But Craig wasn’t listening. He was staring at an old man in a wheelchair who’d just died an ignominious death. A war hero who had come to this. He shuddered in disgust at what he’d done and walked off the ward without looking back.
***
It was almost midnight by the time the C.S.I.s had finished and Caleb Pitt’s body was on its way to the morgue. Liam and Annette helped settle the residents back on the ward, with instructions to Hazel Gormley on how to contact victims’ support. She’d have plenty of help with the shocked OAPs anyway; this was a hospital after all.
Liam searched the unit for Craig and then wandered back to Annette. “The boss is AWOL.”
She s
hook her head. “He won’t have gone far.”
Liam turned to start the search but she stilled him with a hand. “Let me look for him, Liam. I know how he feels.”
It was on the tip of Liam’s tongue to say ‘when he gets to his tenth dead perp he can complain’ then he realised that his Troubles’ hardened approach wasn’t necessarily right. When he’d killed his first man it had been nothing to do with The Troubles; it had been during a burglary and the lad had only been eighteen. It had hit him as hard as it was hitting Craig now.
Annette found Craig sitting outside the hospital on a low brick wall. He was smoking a cigarette he’d cadged off a passer-by. She perched beside him, smiling at the picture they must make. Her with her hand in plaster and Craig with his tie halfway down his chest, his black hair raked vertical and a cig hanging from his mouth. Northern Ireland’s finest.
When she finally spoke her voice was soft. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
Craig squinted down at the cigarette as if someone else had put it there. “I don’t. The odd cigar at weddings perhaps…”
His voice tailed off and Annette knew he was thinking of a happier day three months before, when John and Natalie had tied the knot. Anything rather than think of the man that he’d just killed. She kept her voice steady.
“Everything’s settled on the ward and we’re ready to go.”
Craig said nothing, just nodded and took another drag, exhaling the smoke in a perfect stream. She teased him gently.
“They’re thinking of banning smoking outside hospitals, you know.”
He stared straight ahead. “Quite right. Hard to enforce though.”
“Any law worth having is hard to enforce.”
Craig smiled at her smooth segway and rose to his feet, stubbing out his butt in the bin. He helped her off the wall and straightened his tie, then cast a last look at the hospital where he’d just killed a man, knowing he would re-run the events of that evening for a long time. Tomorrow the Ombudsman would question everything that he’d thought and done as well. Perhaps it would be therapy.
Chapter Seventeen
The C.C.U. One week later, 11 a.m.
Caleb Pitt’s identity had been confirmed and his prints linked to cold cases in two continents, as well as to the murders of Eleanor Rudd and Adrian Cooke. The residents on the E.M.U. were having counselling to deal with having a murderer living in their midst, and what’s more, being fond of him. Peggy Rankin was having particular problems reconciling things but, as Liam often said, the pragmatism of the elderly was a wonderful thing. When you’d lived through tragedy before it seemed to bring the calmness to help cope with it again.
Hazel Gormley and Brian Kirk had chosen the chaos as the time to go public with their affair, shamefacedly admitting that they’d used the fire escape two floors up for their illicit trysts, accessed via the stairs outside the clinical room. They’d lied about using the clinical room because it had sounded more respectable than al fresco sex. The outdoor venue explained their deafness during the murders, if not their distinct lack of taste.
Craig’s choices on that day had been successfully defended, with the Chief Constable weighing in on his behalf. Armed response would only have done what he and Liam had done. If they’d appeared at Pitt’s window he would have heard them and shot, and they’d have returned fire, killing him outright. Storming the room would have had the same result, putting even more officers at risk. That just left Pitt surrendering, which was never going to happen. Caleb Pitt had had no intention of dying in jail.
He was always going to go down shooting which left a choice of Liam, armed response or Craig shooting him, and it seemed that it was Craig’s turn this time. A fatal shot was the only option once he’d turned his gun on Liam and Pitt had known it; suicide by cop. He wasn’t the first and he wouldn’t be the last, but assisting his suicide had hit Craig hard.
Craig gazed out at the Lagan and watched as the warden’s boat sailed upriver on its rounds. He wondered what it was like to sail every day at work and made up his mind to visit the marina more often when he had time. His mind was restless; he knew the facts of the case but none of them were a comfort, neither was anything that John, Annette or Katy had had to say. Even Nicky forgiving him for snapping at her and mothering him all week hadn’t made a dent.
Caleb Pitt had been an old man and a decorated soldier, someone who’d deserved a death in combat when he was younger or a peaceful end in his own bed. He knew Pitt had given up his right to both once he’d killed his first dealer in New York but that didn’t stop him wishing it all the same.
A loud knock on the door interrupted Craig’s thoughts. He knew it was Liam without looking and yelled for him to come in. Liam took one look at the bottle of Bushmills on the desk and his boss staring soulfully out at the river and knew exactly what sort of mood Craig was in. Thankfully he had the solution.
“Stop thinking deep thoughts and writing sad poetry, or whatever it is you’ve been doing for the past week. We’ve a new case.”
Craig swung his chair round and gave Liam a ‘who cares’ stare. To Liam’s ‘I’m taking no shit’ gaze, he just looked like he was drunk. He gestured at the bottle.
“How much of that have you had?”
Craig held up his almost empty glass and Liam removed it briskly from his hand, ignoring his remonstrations.
“Sort yourself out, boss. We’re briefing in ten and Nicky’s got the coffee on.”
With that he exited as noisily as he’d arrived, leaving Craig with two choices: keep beating himself up or get his ass back to work.
He stood up and straightened his tie.
THE END
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The History Suite (#9 - The Craig Modern Thriller Series) Page 31