by Matt Rogers
But it was vital for what was to follow.
D’Agostino pulled to a halt in front of the cell and hovered behind the door for a long beat, his chest rising and falling, his gaze boring into Slater. Slater remained deathly still, seemingly passed out, completely vulnerable to attack.
Silently, D’Agostino unlocked the door.
He let the bars swing inward, and he stepped through into the cell, quiet as a mouse. He planted one boot on the dusty concrete floor and advanced forward.
Still, Slater didn’t budge.
When D’Agostino came within a foot of the bench, Slater burst off it like a freight train, getting his feet underneath him before the bulky police commander could blink. D’Agostino jolted in place, suitably shocked by the sudden outburst, and made a wild thrust with the switchblade, stabbing forward in a kneejerk reaction. Slater saw it coming a mile away and twisted his body out of the way. The tip of the blade passed within a few inches of his spleen, then went sailing past.
And then Slater was in range.
And he was furious.
Game on.
He grabbed the back of D’Agostino’s skull with one hand, and used the other arm to deliver an elbow that carried all the rage he’d been building for the past few hours. The point of his bone punched the commander’s nose into the back of his head, completely destroying all the delicate tissue around the guy’s septum, and shattering the nose itself.
A gruesome injury, all things considered, but Slater couldn’t dredge up an ounce of remorse. Whatever this man was involved with in the dark heart of an unfinished skyscraper, it was worth protecting enough to kill any vagrants that stumbled across it.
That was reason enough to destroy the man’s life.
The break caused such a sickening crunch to echo through the holding cell that for a moment Slater feared the homeless man might wake up. D’Agostino stumbled back, arms flailing, swinging wildly with the switchblade, hitting nothing but empty air. Slater grimaced as the knife came swinging past his throat from a wild haymaker.
Too close for comfort.
He drilled the ball of his foot into D’Agostino’s gut, doubling the big man over as he tore a muscle in the guy’s torso. Slater seized hold of the commander’s head with both hands and smashed a knee into the side of his skull, targeting the soft skin above the ear.
Unconscious.
Like a switch being flipped.
All the energy sapped out of the man’s limbs and he went down like a rag doll, sprawling across the floor of the cell with his nose broken and his hands empty. In one fluid motion Slater snatched the switchblade off the floor and planted it in the top of D’Agostino’s skull, killing the man with a single downward swing. He wiped his hands on the man’s jacket, stepped over his bloody corpse, and shut the door of the cell behind him as he left.
He guessed D’Agostino was a man of painstaking preparation, in which case all trace of Slater arriving at the station had been wiped from the archives of footage to provide the commander with an alibi. Unfortunately, due to extraneous circumstances, D’Agostino’s whereabouts couldn’t be accounted for, but who else could have murdered Slater other than the homeless man in the cell with him?
If the footage had been wiped as Slater suspected, then it would be a simple process of breaking out of the station and disappearing into the freezing Chicago night.
He could do that.
As he hurried down white brick corridors, keeping his face to the ground, he thought of what he’d done. He could’ve left the man unconscious in the cell, but he knew that he would soon be approaching the construction site to investigate, and what he found there would inevitably send him straight back to the station hunting for D’Agostino’s head. It was easier to get the job done now.
Less messy.
Besides, all that moral trickery aside, D’Agostino had just tried to stab him to death.
That alone warranted an equal reaction on Slater’s behalf.
So he barely gave it a second thought as he hurried away from the cell.
He reached the end of the corridor as it ran into a locked door that required authorised keycard access, and was halfway through positing how to overcome that particular obstacle when the door burst open in his face and a moronic Chicago P.D. officer came hurrying through.
11
The guy hadn’t even looked through the foggy glass partition to check whether there was anyone waiting on the other side of the door. He might as well have handed Slater his freedom on a silver platter.
Then again, not many people on this earth could take advantages of weaknesses the way Slater could.
The officer — a plain-looking Hispanic guy in his thirties — was already in the process of fumbling for the sidearm in its black leather holster at his waist when Slater put him down with a right hook to the jaw. He knew he would need to knock the man unconscious to avoid getting ambushed from behind minutes later, so he put as much force into the punch as he dared, annoyed that he had to incapacitate an innocent man but aware of the implications of leaving him alone.
The guy collapsed in a heap, shut off at the neurological light switch by the strike. He bounced off the opposite wall and came to rest slumped over in a seated position, chin drooped to his chest, well and truly unconscious. He would come around in less than a minute, but it would take him far longer than that to get his bearings and piece together what had happened.
By then, Slater figured he’d be miles away.
He relieved the officer of his Glock 17 and hurried straight through the open doorway, ignoring the tiny red light blinking on the display to indicate that a body had passed through the security checkpoint without scanning their keycard. He considered turning back and fishing the guard’s pass out of his belt, but it simply wasn’t worth the effort — ahead he saw the corridor open out into a wide lobby at the front of the station.
There would be a officer on the front desk for the night shift, without question.
Slater figured he could handle that.
As he hurried straight toward freedom it surprised him how drastically his life had changed in the space of a couple of years. Some time ago, he would have considered arrest a death sentence. Now, it was a simple inconvenience. His heart rate had barely elevated at the thought of being thrust into the holding cell, because he had the subliminal confidence to know he could manoeuvre his way out of nearly any situation.
Like the encounter that followed.
Without breaking stride he burst out into the open, maintaining a brisk pace through the lobby. He had the Glock trained on the man behind the reception desk before the guy realised what was happening. A pale man in his late twenties with thinning brown hair styled in a dreadful combover, he looked up from his papers after a beat of hesitation. Fear speared through his bleary eyes, and he froze on the spot.
The lobby was silent, save for Slater’s thudding footsteps.
‘Don’t even think about moving,’ Slater said. ‘Stay right there and you’ll be fine. Nod if you understand.’
The guy nodded, but there was nothing he could do regardless. By the time Slater had finished his sentence he’d already made it more than halfway across the tiled floor. Out of the corner of his eye Slater noticed the bulky shape of a surveillance camera positioned in the upper corner of the lobby, and he turned his face imperceptibly away from the line of sight.
The CCTV footage would pick up nothing but a dark-skinned man flying across the reception area in a blur.
He kept the barrel of the Glock trained rigidly on the desk grunt, unwavering in his intensity. Having memorised the route to the entrance doors, he didn’t take his eyes off the guy. A cold sweat had broken out across the man’s forehead, and he sported the expression of a deer in headlights. Slater had seen enough tense situations to know there was zero risk of the guy putting up a fight. The Glock’s safety had been switched off by the mere act of resting his finger against the trigger, but he had no intention of actually firing his w
eapon. D’Agostino — as far as Slater knew — had been acting alone. If there were others, Slater would know soon enough.
The night was still young.
He shouldered the station door open and hurried out into the freezing darkness.
12
Movement.
It was the only thing on Slater’s mind.
He tucked the Glock out of sight as soon as he’d put a mile between himself and the station. Then he slid the same cheap smartphone out of the back pocket of his jeans — he couldn’t believe that, in D’Agostino’s haste to throw Slater in the drunk tank, the man hadn’t had the mental fortitude to conduct a simple frisk search. Probably because of the stereotypes associated with vagrants. Besides, the man wouldn’t have been thinking straight, internally panicking at the amount of knowledge Slater had about the construction site. Regular order and routine checks fell to the wayside when someone’s life was in danger of being turned upside down.
Which turned Slater’s attention to a vital point.
He had absolutely no idea what was happening inside the unfinished skyscraper.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. Whatever it was had warranted the murder of three homeless men found in the area, for the simple reason that they’d flown too close to the sun. D’Agostino had probably figured that, as commander for Chicago’s central district, he had the authority and technical know-how to pass their deaths off as simple accidents.
Or set it up to look like a wild homeless brawl, in Slater’s case.
And he’d paid for it with his life.
Slater hit dial on a number he’d memorised by heart and waited for the call to go through. Lars answered in seconds.
‘What have you found?’ the man said, understanding that Slater wouldn’t be getting in touch unless he’d made progress.
‘Ray D’Agostino.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s no longer with us.’
A pause.
A long pause.
‘I won’t lose my shit just yet,’ Lars muttered, ‘but how bad is it?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘You know that if you’re implicated, there’s nothing we can do—’
‘I said it’s fine.’
‘Where did it happen?’
‘At the station.’
‘Then it’s very far from fine.’
‘He came for me. Walked right into the holding cell with a switchblade. He was going to make it look like my cellmate stabbed me to death in a drunken brawl.’
Lars soaked that information in. ‘So he would have switched off the cameras?’
‘Exactly.’
The man breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Okay. Is there anything that can pin you to the scene?’
‘Maybe some murky CCTV footage from the exterior feeds. Nothing that’ll be a problem, though.’
‘We can probably make that disappear. I’ll pull some strings.’
‘How the hell are you going to do that?’
‘Do we need to go over this again?’ Lars said. ‘You’re the muscle. You don’t get involved with the bureaucracy. Leave that to me. I’ll take care of it.’
‘Good.’
‘Why’d he try to kill you?’
‘It’s the construction site. He’s picking up vagrants from a specific area and slaughtering them if it sounds like they know anything about what’s happening inside the skyscraper.’
‘I don’t know much about that place,’ Lars said. ‘I can start digging. I didn’t think it would be the geographical area. I was thinking more along the lines of D’Agostino getting his kicks from killing people who couldn’t fight back.’
‘And it helps if no-one misses the victims.’
‘Exactly.’
‘It’s not that. It’s something bigger. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s worth killing over.’
An uncomfortable silence unfolded. ‘And?’
Slater smirked, maintaining a vigorous pace through the darkened city. ‘You think I’m getting cold feet?’
‘I hope you’re not.’
‘Well, you’ll be happy then. That’s why I called.’
‘For permission?’
‘To sniff around.’
‘You should know by now that you don’t need permission.’
‘Oh?’
‘Slater,’ Lars said, his voice stern. ‘You just killed a police commander in his own station and I didn’t bat an eyelid. You think I’ll have a problem with you investigating further?’
‘So no matter what happens,’ Slater said, ‘there won’t be repercussions?’
‘Within reason. If it comes out that you’ve slaughtered innocent civilians we’ll need to take measures to prevent you from doing any further damage.’
‘I’d never do anything like that.’
‘We know. That’s why we recruited you.’
Slater had made it almost a mile away from the central district precinct when the echo of a distant police siren trickled down the open street. He threw a glance over his shoulder, suddenly paranoid. D’Agostino had been one corrupt bastard, but that didn’t change the circumstances. Slater had murdered an officer of the law in one of the most brutal fashions imaginable, and any kind of arrest would result in Black Force denying his existence. He would be left to rot in a prison cell for the rest of his life, or receive the death sentence for his endeavours. There would be no way to connect D’Agostino to a yet-unknown plot within an abandoned construction site, and Slater couldn’t see a path to successfully defending himself if he was apprehended.
So he ducked into the lee of a neighbouring alleyway, allowing the darkness to envelop him. He paused there for a long ten count with the smartphone pressed to his ear, eyes darting left and right in search of confrontation. At this point he wouldn’t shy away from barrelling straight through an army of police officers if it resulted in his own freedom.
But nothing materialised.
No-one came.
The street remained dark and silent and empty. The street lights spaced intermittently along the two-lane road did little to penetrate the night. In the alleyway itself, Slater could barely see his hand in front of his face.
On the other end of the line, Lars sensed that Slater had gone quiet. He didn’t respond, remaining silent until Slater opted to voice his concerns.
After a long beat, Slater muttered, ‘All clear.’
‘You being hunted?’
‘I can’t imagine D’Agostino’s body will go undiscovered for long.’
‘Anyone else get a good look at you on the way out of the station?’
‘One guy saw me for a couple of seconds but he won’t remember anything.’
‘Knocked him out?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re particularly good at that.’
‘That’s something you’ve observed?’
‘You just seem to have a knack for it.’
‘It’s not hard when you get the hang of it.’
‘I wouldn’t know. I’m a desk jockey.’
Slater smirked. ‘So just to clarify — I’m all clear to check out this construction site?’
‘I don’t think you understand the concept of the division you work for. You can do whatever the hell you want. You don’t exist.’
Slater twisted on the spot to glance down the alleyway, suddenly spooked. Finding nothing, he hunched over the phone. ‘I think I’m slowly coming to that realisation.’
‘Go knock some heads together.’
‘Happily,’ Slater said.
He ended the call and tucked the phone back into his pocket. Exhilarated by the sheer thrill of the operation, he strode straight back out onto the sidewalk and surged with purpose in the same direction he’d been heading.
Into the unknown.
13
Slater had only undertaken three missions for Black Force, but they had taught him more about the workings of the world than anything he’d experienced previously.
Th
ere were certain social cues and standard interactions that, if exploited successfully, resulted in phenomenal success in the field. Slater had been experimenting with a wide range of techniques over the last six months, and over time it had started to open his mind to the power of a proper approach.
Like right now.
He spotted the construction site in the distance, as dormant as when he’d first laid eyes on it. Its half-finished structure twisted into the night sky, dwarfed by the gleaming skyscrapers on either side but set far enough back from the street to go largely unnoticed unless you paid attention to it. The sidewalk in front of the site lay desolate, unpopulated.
There wasn’t a soul in sight.
Slater figured he would have spooked D’Agostino with all his talk, especially if the police commander imagined that Slater knew the truth about his business inside the site. Slater put himself in the man’s shoes, and figured he would have put his operation — whatever that may be — on lockdown until Slater was dead and D’Agostino could check the coast was clear and nothing was amiss.
Which would involve a trip to the construction site.
Which meant whoever dwelled within the structure would be expecting D’Agostino.
So Slater kept his shoulders straight and his chest out, refusing to allow any shred of hesitation to creep into his demeanour. It would be paramount in the coming moments. As he crossed the street he stared up at the gargantuan structure with all its dark walkways and crevices, and figured he was definitely being watched. He nodded up at the giant construction site, holding up three fingers in an arbitrary gesture. It meant nothing, but it made him look like he was in the loop.
And sometimes, in the world of crime and espionage, that was all it took to carve out an opening.
An opening was all a man of Slater’s calibre needed.
He stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of the skyscraper and strode straight into the site, squeezing through a narrow gap in the rusting wire fence. Gravel crunched underfoot, signalling his presence, but Slater had already made clear the fact that he wasn’t hiding. He made as much noise as he wanted as he ducked under low-hanging scaffolding and powered further away from the street lights until the darkness swamped him. He didn’t dare use his phone as a flashlight — he wasn’t sure what would be taken as a threat and what wouldn’t.