Post: The First Byron Tibor Thriller

by Sean Black

  The car stopped two blocks from the apartment building and he got out. He tapped the bottom of a fresh pack of cigarettes, ripped it open, took one out and lit it. The chatter of comms continued in his ear as he walked. The teams had reached the outside of the apartment. It had gone quiet inside. Harry could hear the tension in the voices of the team leaders as they coordinated final entry and clearance.

  Flashing his creds, Graves climbed the three steps into the Homeland Security Mobile Command Vehicle. He said hello to a couple of the guys and took a seat. A wall of screens relayed live feeds from the helmet cams of the various teams. Software linked to individual GPS units rearranged the images to provide a clearer overview of the live feeds.

  They were in place. A six-man team was in the corridor. Across the street, snipers covered the front window of the apartment from an elevated platform. The blinds were open but there were no lights on, as Graves would have expected with Byron’s night-vision capabilities.

  A small charge had been placed on the apartment door. As soon as it blew, they would go in. Graves doubted that the six men would all make it out alive. There were back-up teams in place to cover Tibor taking out all six. And the SEAL demolition team was en route.

  The team leader keyed his radio. ‘Ready.’

  Three seconds later, the charge detonated, the door flying backwards into the apartment, dust and smoke obscuring the view from the live feeds as the team moved in.

  Harry stalked out of the command post. The search was ongoing but he was certain that Byron Tibor was long gone. The only thing he could be certain of was that he had been there. An inventory had shown that nothing had been taken. The appearance raised more questions than answers. Had Tibor expected to find his wife? Did he even know she was missing? Surely Gillhood would have told him.

  Lighting another cigarette, Graves headed back to the car. He was dreading the next part, having to break the bad news. The last few hours had reignited fading media interest in the story, propelling it back to rolling coverage. Worse, there was a growing public sentiment of sympathy toward Tibor. All they needed now was for him to get in touch with the media, and share his side of the story, and they would be in a world of shit.

  With a sigh, he flicked his half-smoked cigarette away, ground it out under his heel, opened the door and climbed into the rear passenger seat.

  Beside him, Byron Tibor reached over and closed the door on them, trapping Graves inside as he pressed the muzzle of a gun into the back of his neck.

  SIXTY-NINE

  Byron

  I told the driver to get moving. He did as he was told. I took Graves’s cell phone and service weapon from him as the car rolled slowly toward the perimeter. He could only watch as we drifted past dozens of blue uniforms, none giving the car a second glance, the darkened windows ensuring our privacy.

  The car nudged through a gap. For a few seconds it was surrounded by a gaggle of press who had come to see the show. After a few moments we cleared it. I told the driver to head south on Riverside.

  ‘Where’s Julia?’ I asked.

  Graves turned to look at me. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Take this turn up here,’ I instructed the driver. We drove three more blocks. ‘Okay, pull in there.’

  The driver turned into an alleyway and stopped next to a couple of trash Dumpsters. I ordered him and Graves out. They gathered at the front of the car. Graves stood next to the driver. The driver’s hands were shaking. ‘Walk toward me,’ I told the driver.

  When the driver got within a few feet, I ordered him to turn around. I wrapped one arm around his neck. Realizing what was about to happen, he tried to wriggle his way out, but he was no match for me. With a sharp twist, I snapped his neck. There was a dull crack as the top of his spinal cord separated from his head.

  I lifted the man up with one arm and tossed him over the lip of the Dumpster. I turned back to Graves and tossed him the keys. ‘You’re driving,’ I told him. ‘You don’t know where my wife is, but you can find Eldon. He’s chipped. Just like I was.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about? Chipped?’

  I stepped toward him. I raised my left hand. My fingertips wandered to Graves’s neck, stopping at a point on the right side. I holstered the gun and reached for something else.

  ‘Speaking of which,’ I said, bringing up the blade of the knife.

  ‘I’m not chipped,’ Graves protested. He jabbed a finger at his skull. ‘Look, I’m not lying.’

  I smiled at him. ‘You think those trackers were just for the little people like me, Harry?’

  Graves nodded dumbly as I pressed the blade against his skin. ‘We’re all the little people,’ I told him, pressing down.

  I reached my fingers into the pouch of skin and pinched the tiny device between his thumb and index finger. I handed it to him. He cupped it in his open palm.

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ he muttered.

  I tore a strip of fabric from his shirt and pressed it against the wound. ‘Don’t feel bad,’ I told him.

  SEVENTY

  We raced down Fourth Avenue, the street numbers falling away with each block. Graves was deathly pale. I suspected it was more to do with the realization that he wasn’t running the game any more than pain from the neck wound. On the screen of his smartphone I could see a red dot pulse over a map of Manhattan as it tracked Eldon’s movements.

  ‘Why’d you pick Eldon?’ I asked him. ‘There are dozens of trained operatives you could have used.’

  ‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ said Graves.

  We were coming up on a rack of red lights that stretched for blocks. I motioned for Graves to pull over to the curb. ‘Be quick, and don’t do anything stupid.’

  Graves opened the door, leaned out and vomited. He closed it again. ‘Why’d you think we used Eldon?’

  Even without an implant, I knew the look Graves had just given me. He’d used Eldon because he was a throwaway. Plus he was so out there he could have told everyone he met about the operation and no one would have believed him.

  ‘Listen’ said Graves, ‘I didn’t tell him to go near your wife.’

  The lights flipped to green. Graves jammed his foot on the gas pedal.

  ‘You didn’t stop him either,’ I said.

  Graves swiped a trail of yellow saliva from his mouth with the back of his hand. He held up the other in a mea culpa gesture. ‘True.’

  ‘If he hurts her, I’m killing all of you,’ I told him. ‘Every single person in your department will be a target. Same goes for all those asshole politicians back in DC. I’ll burn the goddamn place to the ground if she’s been hurt.’

  ‘She’s safe. I’m sure she is,’ he said.

  ‘That what you said about Muir?’

  Graves looked taken aback. ‘We didn’t kill Muir.’

  I shook my head. ‘You sorry sack of shit. They didn’t tell you that either. They say it was me? It wasn’t me, Harry. I’ve done lots of bad things recently, but Muir wasn’t one of them.’

  As each second passed, Graves seemed more and more confused. He must have thought he was running the show when all along someone above him was pulling the strings.

  The rain was growing more intense. Heavy drops exploded against the windshield. I barely had time to react as Sasha stepped off the sidewalk in front of the car. I reached over and grabbed the steering-wheel, the car fishtailing violently across two lanes of traffic. A yellow cab blasted its horn as it drove round them.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Graves shouted at me.

  I ignored him. I looked out to see Sasha, her face covered with blood, walking toward us. I blinked, trying to clear my vision. I didn’t have time for flashbacks or ghosts from the past. I must have looked completely distracted because Graves chose that moment to open the door, and roll out of the car.

  I grabbed the wheel again, and scooted into the driver’s seat. The door still open, I raised the Springfield, capturing Graves’s hunched shoulders in the iron
sights. Graves was running as hard as he could between the traffic as horns blared. Sasha stood perfectly still, blood pooling at her feet, as she stared at me. My index finger closed on the trigger. Graves looked back at me with that bloodhound face of his, and something passed between us. His life was mine.

  I threw the gun back on the passenger seat, and picked up his cell phone from where he had abandoned it. The blip of red flashed, its position changing fractionally. I glanced back at the retreating figure of Graves, then across to Sasha. She was smiling.

  I reached over, slammed the door and took off again, leaving the blood-soaked child from Anash Kapur to fade to a speck of red dust in the rearview mirror.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  The red dot tracked south along the FDR. It updated its position every ten seconds. It was hard to tell whether Eldon was on foot or stuck in slow-moving traffic. As I turned on to the expressway, which ran alongside the East River, I had my answer. Traffic was gridlocked. Up ahead, near the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge that spanned the East River, linking Manhattan to Brooklyn, lay a tide pool of red roller bar lights from NYPD and other EMS vehicles.

  I grabbed the cell phone, the Springfield and Graves’s Glock, and bailed out of the Town Car, clambering over and exiting via the passenger door. Weaving my way through the vehicles, I broke into a run, Graves’s cell phone in one hand, his Glock in the other.

  The red dot was picking up speed. With each reappearance it ghosted further and further along the bridge. I looked up to see two NYPD cruisers parked side on across the top of the ramp that led to the bridge. A baby-faced cop leaning against the back of one of the cars was the first to spot me. He pushed off the car, shouting to another couple of patrol cops and drew his weapon. I kept the Glock by my side as I ran toward the ramp.

  The cop backed away as three more officers drew their guns and trained them on me. I slowed to a stop.

  ‘Stop right there,’ one of the other cops barked at me. ‘Now, put down your weapon on the ground.’

  I hunkered down. Behind me I could hear a couple of people getting out of their cars, no doubt hoping for a better look at the unfolding drama. Glancing over my shoulder, as I placed the Glock on the road, I saw the flicker of camera phones, red record lights flashing. One guy wearing a suit was holding up an iPad.

  ‘Okay, move forwards. Slowly,’ came the next instruction.

  I took six long slow strides.

  ‘Okay, stop there. Hands behind your head, lace your fingers. They move, you’re fucking dead, asshole. You hear me?’

  I complied. My eyes probed beyond the cops blocking my path. Up ahead I picked out the swooping curve of the steel cable that led to the first stone tower of the bridge. Halfway up I saw two distant figures picking their way slowly up the cable, using the auxiliary cables on either side as handrails. They had their backs to me but that didn’t stop me picking out Eldon and, in front of him, my wife.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  I lowered myself to my knees, eyes fixed on the two lone figures. I could make a plea to the cops arresting me, but it would do no good. They were on auto-pilot, following a procedure that allowed for no deviation. I keened my ears, picking up the chatter from inside the patrol cars that counseled extreme caution. Three cops were walking slowly toward me, two with guns drawn. I could hear more coming up from behind. From their whispers I gleaned that they were going to take me down hard. I picked out the squeak of leather as one picked his Taser out from his utility belt. The footsteps behind me stopped. I could hear the rustle of the cop’s jacket as he raised his arm.

  Don’t do it, I thought, as I heard the nitrogen propellant charges detonate in a puff and the Taser lines start to whip through the air, the two spikes embedding themselves in the back of my neck. My eyes locked on my wife as she stumbled, one foot slipping out from underneath her and under the steel auxiliary cable.

  Time slowed. I could feel the pulse of electricity moving along the wires to me. The first jolt hit, snapping hard into my neck and sending my muscles into spasm. It traveled through the tissue into the top of the spinal cord and pulsed its way along the nerve pathways into my brainstem, the part of the human mind known as the reptilian brain; the dark, base section that dragged us from the primordial swamp.

  Rather than falling forward, I felt my back straighten. One by one my fingers unmeshed. I rose to my feet, arms spreading wide. My face set like granite. I felt a rush of energy course through me. A spark of blue light flew between my fingertips as I reached back, and grabbed the two wires.

  The burly cop still holding the X26 Taser stared at me, his lips parting in shock as I yanked the wires hard to reel him in. Still mesmerized, his grip tightened around the Taser. By the time he let go it was too late. The Springfield drawn, I tucked the barrel under his chin. The other cops held their fire, unable to get off a clean shot without risking taking him out. I could see the flashes of yellow bubbling up inside their heads, signaling their fear.

  I ripped the two spikes from my back. I prised the Taser from the cop’s hand and tossed it away. He was mumbling a prayer to himself.

  ‘Tell your colleagues to lower their weapons,’ I told him.

  After a couple of stammered attempts, he managed to repeat the phrase. All but two of the cops lowered their guns. Overhead, I could hear the thump of rotor blades as a chopper flitted toward us.

  The snap of a single shot punched through the night sky. The round smacked dead center between the cop’s eyes. His head snapped back, the top of his skull hitting my chin. Still holding him upright, my face and upper body covered with blood and brains, I looked up to see Eldon, one arm around Julia, with a gun in his hand.

  ‘Officer down!’

  A babble of expletives and panicked instructions filled the air around me. Weapons that had been lowered mere seconds ago were raised again. I held the dead cop upright to shield myself from their fire.

  Glancing down I saw a tear in my jacket near my right shoulder. Eldon’s bullet must have carried on through the cop’s skull to punch its way into my shoulder. Because I was already covered with the cop’s blood, I had no way of telling whether it had penetrated the subcutaneous armor covering my torso.

  Dragging the dead man backwards, his shoes scuffing the asphalt, I retreated toward the steel cable and the edge of the bridge. To my right came the crack of another shot. I spun, drew down on the officer who had fired, and shot him. It was as perfectly executed as Eldon’s had been, smacking directly through the man’s forehead as he had tried to duck behind the open door of his cruiser.

  I dumped the dead weight of the man’s body, spun and ran for the cabling as more live rounds poured in. A bullet pinged against the metal trellis that separated the road from the suspension cable. I swung a leg over, stopped for the briefest of seconds and fired again. This time, I caught the cop in the throat.

  I started the climb. The slope of the steel started gently enough that I could run. Incoming fire pinged off the steel latticework. In a few feet I would be away from its protection and the cops on the bridge would have a clear line of fire.

  I tilted my head back and stared up. I could see Eldon pushing Julia ahead of him, toward the first stone tower.

  I had come to a suicide guard, a ten-foot-high section of fencing aimed at stopping jumpers. As I clawed my way to the top a round slammed into the small of my back. My stomach lurched with the pain of the impact and for a second I felt like I was going to throw up. I pressed on, hauling myself over the fence, and jumping down onto the narrow foot-wide span of cable. I grabbed the auxiliary cables on either side to steady myself. Beneath my feet I could see the dark churn of the river, the faintest crest of waves lit by the NYPD helicopter as it flew around the bridge.

  Sheer force of will powered me forward. I kept climbing, my feet skidding out from under me as I reached the next suicide guard. The muzzle flashes below me had stopped. I glanced down to see the regular patrol officers falling back along the bridge toward the city. A black para
military phalanx of bodies swept forward in their wake. There was no turning back now. This wasn’t going to end well. There would be no final-reel miracle, no windswept lovers’ reconciliation. All I could do now was save the woman I loved, even if that meant sacrificing myself.

  What would I have sacrificed in the end anyway? I was no longer fully human, but I retained enough of my humanity to feel the kind of emotional pain that undermined the efficient operation of a machine. I was an outlier, a step on the evolutionary ladder that the world wasn’t ready for yet.

  The climb grew steeper with every step. Eldon and Julia were on the ladder that led up and over the cornice of the neo-Gothic stone tower. Eldon’s back was exposed. I had a clear shot at him. A shot that I was sure I could make easily. But I couldn’t risk spooking Julia. If she lost her balance, or Eldon grabbed her as he fell, she would fall to her death.

  I pushed forward. My back throbbed. Julia and Eldon were out of sight, gone over the edge and onto the top of the tower.

  Thirty seconds later, I reached the bottom of the ladder. Eldon would be waiting for me at the top. But so would Julia. The thought of her spurred me on as I grabbed the steel rung of the ladder and began the short climb.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  My fingertips pulsed as they touched the top rung of the ladder. The helicopter was directly overhead, bathing me in its light. I pushed off with my feet and grabbed the stone lip. I waited for the crush of Eldon’s boots or for Eldon’s face to appear over the edge. I listened as hard as I could, filtering out the rush of air from the rotor blades.

  Nothing.

  Palms flat on the rough stone, I pushed myself up, crawling on my belly before standing up. The stone tower ran the width of the bridge. In the center the Stars and Stripes snapped tight in the wind. Eldon stood next to it, one arm around a terrified Julia, her mind burning yellow with fear. In his hand, he held a SIG Sauer 229, the barrel aimed at Julia’s head.