by Lee Winter
After three months had passed, over a dozen leading criminal identities from the underworld had been arrested. Half had come thanks to Natalya. The rest were due to Alison’s own efforts and research.
At month six, she snagged the first big shark, Santos—thanks to Natalya. Then almost immediately, Alison accidentally found Trioli by being in the right place at the right time and recognising, then following, his mistress.
Those arrests were reported on pages six and seven. The story included a quote from Detective Burns praising the hard work of the GOU. A newspaper editorial echoed his praise, speculating on what Santos’s arrest would do to the crystal meth trade in the state and the profound impact it might have on all parts of society.
Kinda cool, Alison grinned.
She looked up from the paper to see Detective Stan Polaski studying her, his eyes flicking to the headlines. “Nice,” he grunted, waving at the paper. “Tired of everyone thinking we’re bent or stupid.”
He returned to his sports results.
Her eyebrow lifted. It was the first non-sarcastic thing he’d ever said to her.
She went back to work. She couldn’t help but notice Fleet Crew members were never targeted in Natalya’s tip-offs. Her loyalty for Lola clearly ran deeper than Natalya believed.
At least, that’s what Alison thought until she saw the next post.
A photo of sweets from a store in London. Natalya was in England now?
And sweets? Sweetman? Lola!
This one came with a future date and an address. For the first time in months, it even included a time. 5am.
Alison knew this arrest would be the one that made all the difference. A woman with movie goddess looks, charged with running the most prolific, illegal gun-manufacturing operation in Australia? The salivating media would be all over it. The public would finally take notice. It would be national news. Possibly international.
She jotted down the date in her diary and sent Burns a warning of what was about to transpire in their backyard.
He shot her back an email. “I’ll let D know what we’re in for. If this is as big as it sounds, we’ll call in everyone. Good work. Again. Your informant network is certainly amazing.”
Network. Riiight.
She smiled. D was the Premier. And Burns, she’d decided, was officially an okay boss. He’d snapped the other detectives into line more than once when they’d muttered jealous crap about her under their breath.
In the old days, her former boss would have been leading the insults.
* * *
Operation Frontline took place just before dawn in West Melbourne. Alison had picked her spot carefully, asking to set up position away from Burns and the other team members. She was in an unmarked police car half a block away, remaining out of the fray but with an excellent view of members of the elite Special Operations Group as they swirled around the targeted warehouse complex Lola was supposed to be in, taking up position.
Alison explained to her boss why she’d chosen to hang back. “I want to see it go down widescreen. Forest perspective,” she added. “Not the trees.”
“Your choice,” Burns had replied. “Media’s due in at six, so be expected to front a press conference a little after that. Stay by the radio.”
The men and women took position. Almost all areas of Victoria Police had been called in. Members of the dog squad headed to the rear with a SWAT team.
The flash grenades smashed through the windows exactly at five and the splintering sound of doors being pushed off their hinges by handheld ramming tools shattered the silence.
Special Operations Group members, dressed all in black, with helmets and goggles, ran in, armed with M4 Carbines, shouting “POLICE.”
It should be all done in under ten minutes. She listened to the action crackling across her police radio. At the three-minute mark, Fleet Crew members started to emerge, hauled out with little struggle, straight into reinforced police vans.
At five minutes, a small female figure was docilely led away by one towering SWAT team officer. Alison frowned. The woman wasn’t even cuffed yet. She picked up binoculars to check her suspicions and reached for her car radio when she spotted one of her colleagues loitering nearby.
“Polaski. The Asian woman who just came from the west door, get extra bodies on her.”
“Pull the other one, Ryan—she’s a midget. Looks barely old enough to vote.”
“Listen, that’s Sonja Kim, Ken Lee’s former enforcer. She’s deadly and she WILL try to escape. She’s playing you right now with that weak act.”
“POLASKI,” Burns broke into the feed. “Put more men on her. And get that suspect cuffed ASAP. What the hell’s going on over there?”
“Yes, boss.”
She wanted to roll her eyes as Polaski’s bulky form ran forward. His detective ID badge, worn around the neck on a lanyard, slapped him in the face when he stopped too quickly in front of the suspect. A flash out of the corner of her eye made her turn.
The metal door to a small, run-down building on an adjacent block they’d dismissed as empty opened. A figure stepped out and walked quickly in Alison’s direction, turning to look over his or her shoulder every ten paces.
Alison watched closely and had to admire the elegance in the stride. Elegance? Around here?
The shape passed under a street light before turning into a small alley. Crap. She grabbed her radio handset. “Sweetman’s loose, heading north into the alley, uh…” She tapped a map on her phone. “Taylors Lane. I’m closest. In pursuit. Send backup.”
Her car’s radio came alive with squawks from multiple team leaders. She bolted after Lola.
Alison lengthened her stride and turned into the alley. The figure wasn’t far, and wasn’t walking fast. Which made sense—the quickest way to attract attention with half of Victoria Police swarming your neighbourhood is to run.
Lola glanced over her shoulder, spotted Alison, and then suddenly sprinted, zig-zagging away down another street. Alison turned, too, and saw Lola was halfway up a fence. Shit. Alison took an almighty leap, relieved when she made contact with flesh not air, and brought the mob boss to the ground.
She wriggled until she was sitting on Lola’s waist, pinning her down. It was only then she realised she had no weapon; no cuffs. She never arrested people in the raids. Why would she, when the state’s best of the best were brought in to do the job? Her status was that of observer only.
She could hold her off until her backup arrived. It probably wouldn’t be too hard. She had an expert knowledge of chokeholds and Lola had to be especially weak now, after her pale, thin arms had spent so long in double casts.
Blue, accusing eyes stared up at Alison.
“YOU! What the hell are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d subdue a suspect wanted for running an underworld gang family and ordering multiple crimes committed in its name. You have the right to remain silent,” Alison said. “I must inform you that you do not have to say or do anything but anything you say or do may be given in evidence. Do you understand that?”
“You’re a cop?” Lola spat, her sheen of confidence dissolving into shock. “You? You are kidding me.”
Alison stared evenly at her. “You may communicate with or attempt to communicate with a friend or a relative to inform that person of your whereabouts. You may communicate with or attempt to communicate with a legal practitioner.”
“Does Requiem know?” she asked. “Her trembling leaf? All this time? Oh my God. She loves a dirty little cop!”
Alison faltered. “Loves?”
Lola laughed gaily. “Oh, you didn’t know? Well, doesn’t that make it more delicious?”
“Requiem doesn’t do love.”
“I’ve no doubt she said that. But the sure sign she likes you is in the fact that she hasn’t tossed you down on the nearest surface and shown you all your failings in vivid, naked detail. She thinks I don’t know what she gets up to but I hear things. She lives for power plays in
all their forms.”
Alison blushed, remembering how Requiem had once tried to do exactly that.
“Oh,” Lola smirked. “She did do that? Well, well. Maybe I was wrong after all. So tell me: Did you like it? Did you want more?” Her voice was so mocking. Alison was taken aback at how much she sounded like Requiem.
She shot Lola a furious glare. “She did no such thing. Now do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you?”
Alison was suddenly flipped over with a strength she’d never have thought Lola possessed. She wound up on her stomach, her face being pressed into the dirt. She struggled but Lola’s entire length pinned her down and the angular woman had a good six inches on Alison.
“I understand perfectly,” Lola purred, wrenching Alison’s arm behind her back in a vicious hold. She leaned forward and whispered into her ear: “In fact I believe I understand everything now. For instance I understand that you most likely love my Requiem or you would have arrested her long ago. And I understand that she didn’t give you what you wanted. Maybe just gave you a taste, hmm? And then she left you for her one true love. Her music.”
Lola’s hand stroked against her cheek as she jerked Alison’s arm higher up her back with her other hand. Alison cried out.
“I understand you would love to be with her and she won’t give you that,” Lola said seductively. “Oh, she is charismatic, isn’t she, my Req? She’s delicious to watch when she kills, too. She’s like a raw, vicious, predatory panther, all power and sinew. A dark angel, come to steal your soul. And she is ruthless. She’s my greatest creation. She told you she doesn’t do love? She believes it. I taught her to believe it.”
Alison flinched.
“But I wonder if that’s true?” Lola asked conversationally. “I normally don’t dirty my hands but it might be worth it to snap your neck and send her a photo to see what she says. A little payback for daring to lay her hands on me.”
Alison couldn’t see her face but her voice left her in no doubt she meant it. The pain shooting up her arm was unbearable and she couldn’t believe the mistake she’d made in underestimating Lola.
She should have realised a mob boss would have been trained to kill at some point. Alison looked around for her backup. Where the hell was it? Did Polaski hate her this much to risk her life? The whole point of the raid had been to get Sweetman. Where was everyone?
She heard a series of gunshots, and they both paused.
“My, my,” Lola muttered. “It seems not all of Fleet is going quietly. Perhaps there could be some unfortunate loss of life on the constabulary side?”
Alison’s arm was suddenly released, but the bliss was momentary, then both Lola’s hands wrapped themselves around her head, preparing to snap her neck. Alison jerked her hips, kicked and wriggled wildly.
“Don’t bother,” Lola said. “My dear, late husband trained me too well. Time for night-night.”
The hands tightened and tears slipped out of the corner of Alison’s eyes from the exertion of trying to throw her off her.
Suddenly Lola’s entire weight was gone, as if wrenched off her by some giant, unseen force.
Alison gasped and lifted her face out of the dirt, turning in time to see Requiem slapping Lola so viciously her nose broke and her body was slammed to the ground. Blood gushed down Lola’s astonished face.
Requiem turned to look at Alison, her face thunderous. “Are you alive at least?” she asked.
Alison coughed and nodded.
“Well, that makes one of you,” Requiem said and turned back to Lola. “I appear to have gotten over my reluctance to hurt you.” She flexed her fist. “Which is convenient.”
She pulled a small wire from her pocket and uncoiled it.
Lola’s eyebrow arched in surprise, as she wiped blood away in irritation. “You wouldn’t.”
Requiem ignored her. She straightened it.
“No!” Alison pleaded. “The police are on their way. She’ll be arrested.”
“She will escape. Or talk herself out of a prison sentence. Everyone loves Lola,” Requiem sneered. “This is a permanent solution.”
Alison, now kneeling, reached up to grab her arm. “Don’t. She’s not worth it. You haven’t killed in months. Don’t start that again. Not because of me.”
“Ohhh, isn’t this lovely?” Lola laughed, getting up gingerly. “A lovers’ tiff?”
Requiem turned, took one menacing step towards her, and punched her again. The crunch of fist on jaw was sickening. Lola grunted in pain, falling back to her knees.
“Give me the cable,” Alison demanded.
“What? Why?”
“I’ll do it. If she’s going to die because you’ve made up your mind, I’ll do it. The net result will be the same but you won’t slip backwards.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Is it? No more absurd than you falling off the wagon over someone like her. She doesn’t deserve it.”
Lola laughed again. “Can you two hear yourselves?”
Alison ignored her. “Don’t you see, it’s the same principle? If she ends up dead either way then why do you care? It’s the same!”
“It’s not the same at all. You kill once, it stains. You don’t go back from that. You’re an innocent.”
“I’m a cop—hardly an innocent. I look at dead bodies all day long.”
“But you’ve never caused a death. Trust me, the first time will haunt you forever.”
“Like it did you?”
There was a silence.
“I got over it,” Natalya finally said.
“And so will I.” She reached for the cable, and Natalya slapped her hand away, hard.
“No. I won’t let you.”
“And I won’t let you,” Alison said.
“I know—don’t kill me at all!” Lola piped up cheerfully. “Everyone wins.”
“Shut up,” Natalya hissed. “You don’t get a vote.”
“A vote?” Lola mocked. “Since when is assassination a democracy? It’s a dictatorship. Or are you so cunt struck you can’t even see what she’s doing to you? She’s trying to rip the teeth out of a tiger. She is making you weak.
“I made you strong. Don’t listen to her. Get far away from this sly little thing. Look at her, playing you. She has no intention of hurting me—I can see it in her eyes. She’d crack if she even tried to kill a beetle. She wants to control you, Requiem. She has you so messed up you can’t even see straight.”
Natalya studied her former stepmother, then leaned over her. “I see perfectly straight. I know a manipulator when I see one. I know what ugly is, too. You are both.”
She leapt astride Lola’s waist and her hands shot forward, wrapping the cable twice around Lola’s neck. She snapped the ends out straight and hard. Lola’s eyes bulged and a choked cry died in her throat.
“NO!” Alison shouted and bounded forward, pushing Requiem off the prostate woman. With Requiem’s hands at Lola’s neck, she had nothing to stop herself from sliding to one side.
Alison immediately took her place astride Lola to prevent Requiem returning to the position. Her hands trembled for a moment before coming to rest on the cable. She neither removed it nor tightened it. She just stared, biting her lip.
“Kill her, don’t kill her? Make up your fucking minds,” came a mocking voice from behind them. “Because this shit’s getting boring.”
All eyes swung to see Sonja Kim sauntering towards them. The bruising on her face and arms looked like she’d put up a fight with someone. Or several someones. Her hand was spinning a kunai throwing knife with such skill that Alison knew none of them would have any chance if she decided to use it. The question was: Who she would kill?
“Finally!” Lola said with glee. “My lovely new lapdog proves her worth at last. Take them out,” she ordered. “And start with her.” She pointed at Alison. “I want Requiem to see what happens when she allows emotion to get in the way of duty.”
Sonja studied the blade of her kn
ife, running a thumb along its flat surface and then turned to eye the three women.
“No,” she said casually.
“What? I said KILL THEM!”
“No. I’m no one’s little lapdog. You should treat me with respect.”
Lola slumped. “Disloyalty is apparently catching.”
Requiem laughed. “Just not your day, is it?”
“You have no cause to laugh, dear. Love has made you weak,” Lola taunted. “Look at the three of you. Sickest love triangle in history.”
Alison and Natalya’s eyes met at the words and Lola used the moment to reach into her pocket.
She was not fast enough.
A knife flashed past them and embedded itself with a sickening thud into Lola’s neck pinning her to the ground. Blood gushed from her throat. A startled look was fixed on Lola’s face. The woman gave a gasp, before her eyes glazed over and her hand limply dropped. A gun slid out of her pocket.
Alison leapt off Lola and turned to Sonja, who had dropped to the ground.
“Thank you,” Alison said sincerely.
“I didn’t do it for you.” Sonja scowled.
Natalya lowered herself to her haunches, the act of making herself smaller before Sonja an unexpected show of gratitude. She did not offer words.
“She treated me like crap,” Sonja told her. “Not like Mr Lee at all.”
“But you had to know she was a scorpion,” Natalya said. “Why would you join her, knowing her nature?”
“I thought I’d get to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“Perhaps it does.”
Sonja looked down. “I wanted to know how you turned out the way you did. I wanted to be you for a little while. Wear your skin. See for myself.”
“Ah. What did you learn?”
“Nothing. All it did was make me hate everything. Hate myself. Hate feeling things. Hate everything that she told me to hate.”
“So you learned after all.”
Sonja nodded slowly, then winced and her hand went to her waist.
Natalya frowned and wrenched up the other woman’s black jacket and shirt. Blood covered her stomach.