He cried out in pain as the baton cracked the sensitive nerves of the elbow. His finger jerked spasmodically on the trigger and a second deafening boom shattered the night. Inwardly, I cursed, knowing the shot would bring the third gunman, the large one. It might also bring the sniper or Hernandez. But I didn’t have time to dwell, as my baton was still in motion. The shot to the elbow might have been disabling—for that arm, anyway—but the bad guy was still on his feet and still a threat…and I didn’t have much time before his friends arrived. I slashed the baton down, striking a knee, pivoting at the hips and back to ensure the strength of the strike despite the tight quarters. Another bone-breaking crack sounded. Before the man could fall, I was swinging again, this time driving the tip of the baton upward, catching the assassin just beneath the sternum and driving the steel into his midsection. The sound that came out of his mouth was something between a scream and a sigh as the air was driven from his lungs.
I let the baton continue up, snaking it between the gun and the man’s torso, pushing it skyward until the butt of the baton had passed the man’s head. I used the butt to hook behind my assailant’s neck and then pivoted away, pulling down and toward my own body with the baton as I did so. The gunman spiraled down with astonishing speed—or he would have, if it weren’t for the fact that I directed his fall full-on into the metal container. The sound of his head hitting the steel wall was reminiscent of a watermelon dropped on a concrete floor.
No time to search this one, cuff him, or even make sure he was alive. I hoped he was—I would already have too much explaining to do once all this came to light with the department. But I had to survive it first.
I made no effort at stealth. I sprinted away from the unconscious man and the target that the gunshot had made of him. Within the narrow alleyways of the container yard and the bouncing echoes all the metal and concrete guaranteed, the source of the shot would be hard to pinpoint. I figured I had only a few more seconds before the third man—the big man I had already bowled over once—appeared. It would have been the perfect opportunity to set a trap of my own, except for the pesky sniper, who definitely heard the shot and, from his no doubt elevated position, might well have seen the muzzle flash. I couldn’t afford to hang out and risk coming into the long gunner’s crosshairs.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t take advantage of the situation, though. I dug into my pockets. There wasn’t much…some receipts, a pen, a couple of loose coins. It wasn’t exactly breadcrumbs, but I judiciously dropped bits of flotsam as I ran, leaving a trail until I found what I was looking for. Amid the towering walls of containers, some stretching fifty, sixty feet or higher, I found a lone container, a stack of one, but still surrounded by its much taller fellows. It stood ten feet tall, an imposing cliff of steel. There was probably a ladder built into it somewhere, but I didn’t bother trying to find it. Instead, I tucked my baton into my belt and sprinted toward the box. With an explosive leap, I was able to grasp the edge and pull myself up on top of the container, rolling over to my belly to watch back the way I had come.
It took longer than I’d expected, and that was a bad sign. A stupid adversary would have rushed to the sound of the gunfire and then followed my hastily laid trail at a sprint, angered by the injury to a friend and heedless of the danger. But the big man, it seemed, was far from stupid. He came cautiously, weapon advanced and at the ready, head sweeping back and forth in constant motion as he scanned for trouble. He was clearly a man expecting an ambush, and that made things a good bit harder for me.
I could have pulled my pistol and shot him where he stood. The soldier in me demanded it. But those same instincts that said shoot also screamed at me that this guy, the big, smart hunter, was the guy in the know, the guy that would be able to tell me how and where and why. Maybe even the mysterious Fowler himself. If I wanted answers, I needed him alive.
He padded forward, and I pushed myself up into a low crouch, moving back from the edge of the container as I did so, fading deeper into the shadows. With a few more steps, the gunman was in range. I took two quick strides and leapt, sailing out from the container. The man had enough time to turn, but I had caught him by surprise and he couldn’t bring his gun to bear. I crashed into him and together we tumbled to the concrete. The shotgun was torn from his grip and I heard it slide away into the darkness.
We went down in a tangle of limbs, and even though I was prepared for it, the impact stunned me for a moment. Then we were both rolling apart, coming to our feet in almost mirror-image stances. I stood with my feet shoulder-width apart, left foot forward, balanced lightly on the balls of my feet. My arms were raised before me, left hand out front, right hand, my collapsible baton firmly clasped therein, slightly back, fist canted so that the tip of the baton was in line with my sternum. My would-be assailant had rolled to his feet as well, with an enviable smoothness that spoke of long training. He, too, stood in a fighting stance, crouched low, hands before him, fingers splayed. Our rolls had put us no more than six or eight feet apart. For a long moment, we just stared at each other, weighing, measuring.
He had a sidearm holstered at his hip. He hadn’t tried to pull it. I hadn’t gone for my gun, either. In the time it would take me to drop the baton and pull the pistol, he would already be on me. He was, at least, probably thinking the same thing behind the obscuring mask of the balaclava. He had size on me—not a lot, but enough. He was probably younger. His eyes crinkled around the corners, suggesting he was smiling at me. I couldn’t see his lips, but I knew it would be an eager smile. Predatory. He flexed his fingers and I saw his legs start to bunch beneath him, readying for the forward surge.
I knew I was in trouble.
Chapter 21
“Right there!”
The shout, firm and authoritative, stopped both of us in our tracks. I recognized Hernandez’s voice, and wasn’t sure whether to rejoice or curse. She emerged from between two stacks of containers, pistol held firmly in a two-handed grip and leveled at the black-clad thug.
“New Lyons Police Department. You move, asshole, and I’ll put a bullet in your brain.” She looked past the man, watching me.
He hadn’t turned yet; I could see his eyes, and she couldn’t. Hernandez was concentrating on me, waiting for my cue on whether to pull the trigger. We needed the guy alive, but where was the sniper? I felt exposed, too exposed. I eased my pistol from its holster, leveling it at my would-be killer. “I’ve got him, Hernandez,” I said. “We need to find some cover. There may be a guy with a rifle out—”
I didn’t have time to finish the sentence.
There was no report. Just a sound like a hammer hitting a melon. I felt a wet, warm spray splash across my face and almost fired on reflex. Instead, I dove to the ground. I think I screamed for Hernandez, but everything was happening so fast that I couldn’t be sure. I hit the pavement and rolled, coming to a hard stop against one of the containers. Part of my mind, the soldier part, was still working, processing. Wherever the shooter was, he had a clear shot down the alleyway, which meant that he was likely at one end or the other of the “street” created by the stacked containers.
I low-crawled backward as fast as I could, keeping my body tight to the metal and feeling my way with my feet. When I found a break in the containers, I risked a half crouch and hurled myself around the corner. It hadn’t taken long, maybe five seconds, maybe ten. Long enough for a competent shooter to have gotten off at least one more round. “Hernandez?” I shouted. Stealth was out the window anyway. “You hit?”
“Fuck! No!” came the angry reply. “Whoever pulled the trigger shot the perp. He’s dead.”
Shit. So much for getting answers from him. “He wasn’t alone,” I called back. “I dropped two more. One’s cuffed. The other should still be out.”
“Great. Now how do we get to them without getting shot?” A pause. “My screen doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Mine, either.” We
couldn’t stay where we were. The shooter knew our location and if I were him, I’d be on the move already, trying to find a better angle to take one, or both, of us out. “We have to move. I’m coming to you.”
I didn’t wait for her to object, but put my words to action. I wasn’t, however, stupid enough to run right back out into the lane where my would-be assassin had himself been assassinated. Instead, I sprinted around the other side of the containers, my shoulder brushing the wall as I ran. I didn’t know exactly where Hernandez had taken cover, but I had a general idea, and I didn’t make any effort to be quiet. If the sniper wanted to get close enough where he could hear me running, then he’d be close enough for me to do something about.
“Campbell?” the hiss came from off to my left, and I turned down a narrow alley between two stacks.
“Here,” I said.
“This way.” It was a woman’s voice, but distorted by a strained whisper.
I had one fleeting what-if moment. What if that wasn’t Hernandez? What if the shooter was a woman who, in my agitated state, just sounded a little bit like Hernandez? Hell, what if Hernandez was somehow in on it all? I squashed that thought. She was a friend, and she hadn’t hesitated to help, even once she knew the truth.
I turned another corner, and there she was, crouched with her back pressed against a red shipping crate and her service weapon grasped in both hands. The barrel came up, just a bit, as I came into view, but then she recognized me and let it drop down. “You’ve got us in some serious shit, hermano,” she growled.
“Yeah, yeah,” I grunted. “Mea culpa. Can we maybe save that for a time when we’re not getting shot at?”
She chuckled at that. Actually chuckled. Pinned down by sniper fire—or at least the threat of it, operating without backup, a dead body on our hands, and very shaky ground from a legal standpoint, and she chuckled. Hernandez was a bona fide badass. “All right, Campbell,” she agreed. “But what do we do now?”
I shrugged, putting my back against the wall next to hers and sliding down in a crouch. She was keeping her eyes to the left, scanning the tops of the containers, watching for any kind of movement. I did the same, keeping mine to the right. Unless the bastard managed to come up on the container behind us, we had at least a chance of seeing him moving around. “Well, I was going to head out to sea and swim for it. But that was before I realized I had a real chance at interrogating one of these bastards.”
“How many are there?”
“At least four. The one you saw. Two more that I made go night-night. And the shooter.”
The reminder of the one she saw seemed to shake her for a moment. “Why would they gun down their own man?”
“We had him,” I replied. “Dead to rights. He wasn’t going to get away. I guess the shooter didn’t want anyone telling tales.”
“Then why shoot him? Why not us?”
I thought about that for a moment. “He’s smart. He knew he’d only get one good shot. Maybe he kills me. Maybe you. But the other one could still get away. And maybe keep the bad guy collared while they did it. This way, he guaranteed we wouldn’t get a chance to question him.”
“Shit. You know what that means, hermano? The two you took down...” She trailed off.
I thought a moment and then cursed. “They’re probably gone or dead already. Fuck. But I have to be sure. If there’s even a chance that we can talk to one of them...”
“OK. You’re the former supersoldier. This shit’s way out of the norm for G&G. You lead the way. And if you get me shot, so help me God, Campbell, I’m going to be pissed.”
Badass.
We moved quickly, keeping low and staying in cover. When we had to leave the relative safety of our positions pressed up against the container walls, we did so at a sprint. No sparking walls or powdering concrete indicated a near miss from an observant sniper as we made our way through the steel maze. I wasn’t entirely sure where my encounters with the goons had taken place—in the dark, with adrenaline pumping, and running for my life it was hard to be all that observant as to exactly which random turns I had taken. But, after a number of false starts, we made our way back to where I’d taken down the second guy.
There was nothing to be seen. A smear of drying blood where the bad guy’s skull had met the steel wall of the container. A few more crimson splashes on the concrete, barely distinguishable in the darkness. That was it.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“At least we didn’t find a corpse,” Hernandez quipped.
“We might have been able to get some information from a corpse.”
“Yeah. But not without some serious investigation from Internal Affairs. I don’t think we want that.”
She had a point. The dead guy lying somewhere amid the maze had a bullet in his head—what was left of it, but that bullet hadn’t come from a cop’s gun. Bad-guy-on-bad-guy action wasn’t likely to get me in any trouble, as long as I could come up with a reason for being here in the first place. Something better than “So, this synthetic was killed....”
I grunted. “Let’s go find the other guy. I cuffed that bastard to a crate. He’s not getting away so easily.”
We kept in cover, but I had the growing impression that it wasn’t necessary. My instincts told me that the shooter was gone. One bad guy dead. One disabled but missing. One shooter gone. And one that wouldn’t get away easily.
“It definitely wasn’t easy,” Hernandez said, looking down at the pool of blood.
My cuffs were still there. One ring was closed around a metal bar on the container. The other was empty, hanging from its short length of chain. Empty, but still closed. A puddle of slowly congealing blood pooled beneath it and a spray of lines and droplets ran down the side of the container.
“Christ,” I whispered. “He cut off his fucking hand.”
“And then took it with him,” Hernandez added, her eyes sweeping the ground around the container. “That doesn’t sound like ordinary corporate thugs or mercenaries, Campbell. I can understand—maybe—taking out the guy we had the drop on to prevent us from getting any information, but this?”
She had a point. The shooter had already demonstrated his willingness to kill his own men. Taking the shot would have cost the gunman only a few seconds, and left him plenty of time to make a clean escape. But coming down here, finding the cuffed man, and freeing him? That spoke of a level of confidence and discipline that few could boast. It also hinted at a pragmatism—eliminate the unrecoverable asset and rescue the recoverable at any cost—that sent a cold shiver rolling down my spine. We hadn’t even heard any screams—and we would have, unless they had timed things so perfectly that the crash of the cranes would cover them.
“What now?” Hernandez asked.
She wasn’t talking about how to get out of the maze alive—not anymore. She must have sensed, just as I had, that the danger was past. We could walk back to her cruiser and be on our merry way, none the wiser, but significantly less dead than our adversaries had hoped.
But that didn’t account for the body with a mostly missing head lying on the concrete in the midst of the container stacks. “We have to call it in,” I said with a sigh.
Hernandez nodded. Neither of us wanted to call it in, but we weren’t spoiled for choice. Even if Hernandez was willing to walk away—and I wasn’t sure either of us could do that—we didn’t have that luxury. There might not have been cameras among the electromagnetic wasteland inside the dockyards, but we went through the main gate. No one would buy the notion that we just happened upon a murder victim in the midst of some other kind of investigation.
Which meant that it was going to be a long night of questions and explaining. The captain was going to want to know why a Guns and Gangs detective and a Homicide detective were working together in the first place. If she found out that we were investigating the death of a synthetic, she’d blow a gasket.
And probably suspend me. And possibly Hernandez as well. I didn’t want to go down that path.
Some part of me—some dark part that I was trying hard to suppress—knew that my time on the NLPD was coming to a close. But I needed the authority the badge granted me to keep going on my investigation. Without that stamp of legitimacy, I worried that the scant leads I’d managed to wrap my fingers around so far would slip through my desperate grasp, dry up, and blow away. But what about Hernandez? Would she agree to get our stories straight before calling it in?
“So,” I asked, trying to hedge my way around the issue, “what’s our play?”
She was still looking at the handcuffs. She was quiet for a moment; then, as if making a decision, she reached out and pressed her thumb to the release pad on the cuffs. They clicked open, and she tossed them to me. “You may want to throw those in the ocean, hermano,” she said. “As for our play, we tell the truth.” I felt a sinking in my stomach, until an evil little grin split her face. “To a point.”
“And what point is that?” I asked, trying to keep the edge of nervousness from my voice.
“To the point that doesn’t get us kicked off the job.” She turned and started walking back toward the landward side of the container stacks. She wasn’t moving in the sprinting half crouch we used before. But she was staying close to the metal walls. We were fairly sure the shooter was gone, but there was no need to be too careless, after all. “We tell the brass we were reviewing footage from Manny’s shop, looking for new G&G contacts. I do that from time to time anyway. Suit guy came up and looked pretty suspicious—which he did. So I went down to investigate, see if maybe Manny was branching out to new customers, or if we had tumbled onto a gang lawyer or accountant. Those are always good for a bunch of arrests, since they think they’re too smart to get caught and don’t ever want their lily-white asses to see the inside of a prison cell. That lead took me here, and the guy at Translantic told us to meet him here. But all we found was a body.”
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