“Because you want to make a statement.” Lazar shook his head. “Goddamn it. That’s why you asked about eleventh floor?”
“Floor twelve houses the prosecutors that try serial killers and mass murderers. There are ten lawyers, a slew of paralegals and assistants, not to mention general office staff. If I remember correctly, floor eleven is the research department for floor twelve. Every time the SCTU or VCU captures a serial killer or mass murderer, a copy of the crime file goes to the research department for use in later cases. If they targeted floors, they targeted the three biggest departments in the building,” I told him.
“Why target the ninth floor?” He asked.
“General counsel for organized crime,” I answered.
“So you think they targeted those floors first and worked their way through the rest of the building after that,” Lazar said to me.
“Yes, once they breached the lobby, they only had seconds to hit their intended targets. The stairs would be too slow. The elevators are much faster and allow you to dispatch multiple people to multiple floors. Fill an elevator with thugs and guns, and send it up. Once the doors open, they open fire. People are still scrambling for cover because the alarm only started to sound a half minute or so earlier. It is why they used bombs on the lobby and garage.”
“Why take the twelfth floor hostage?”
“What better way to cripple the government than to take down the Serial Killer and Mass Murderer divisions of the law?” I looked at him.
“We take the door and they start executing people,” Lazar told me.
“Hence the elevator,” I pushed the button. The door instantly opened. “I can only hold this for about ten seconds, so you had better haul ass to get down to the next floor.” I stepped inside and pressed the door open button. Lazar swore and began running, directing everyone to the stairwells. They took the opposite one we had come up. I put my gun in the holster. A buzzer sounded. I pulled my finger off the button, the doors closed and I hit the 12. It lit up as the elevator began to move. It opened four seconds later.
A group of seven men in masks was staring at the elevator. They didn’t shoot me on the spot, which was surprising. I stepped out of the elevator. Several of the hostages looked up wide eyed at me. I didn’t hang out in the office, but I did come by from time to time. They all knew who I was.
“US Marshals Service,” I announced as the elevator closed behind me. “Put down your weapons, put your hands behind your head, and get on the floor and cross your legs at the ankles. Do you understand?”
“Not much of a negotiator,” one of the masked men said to me.
“I’m not a negotiator. I’m Aislinn Cain with the Serial Crimes Tracking Unit,” I told him. “Several minutes ago, I took control of this building and you are all in violation of the Serial Killer and Mass Murderer laws.”
“You are not in control. We want to talk to a police negotiator,” he said to me.
“There are only two options, so you do not need or deserve a negotiator.”
“What options?” He sneered.
“Surrender, put down your weapons, put your hands behind your head, get on the floor, and cross your legs at your ankles.”
“Or?” He asked.
“I kill all of you,” I answered.
He raised a gun and pushed the barrel of it against the head of a woman I recognized. She cried out in terror and pain. He cocked the gun, which was completely unnecessary on modern handguns, so it was done for effect. It was a wasted effort. I did not flinch or look away or take a step back as he expected.
“Why don’t you get down on the floor, or I blow her brains out and you can explain to your superiors why she died?”
“There will be nothing to explain. I’m sorry, Margaret, but one casualty, even three or four from this floor is acceptable to the SCTU,” I answered him. Margaret, the lawyer with the gun to her head began to blubber. The speaking man sized me up and decided I was not as big as he was. He raised the gun and pointed it at me. I stared back at him, making sure to maintain eye contact. He was not a psychopath, at least, not one with ASPD. Most likely, he was a sociopath, which meant he would feel the full weight of my stare and understand that I did not fear him.
“I said to get down on the floor,” the gun wavered just a little. His voice failed to have the command it had held a few seconds earlier.
“Fine,” I began to go to my knees and put my hands behind my head. He tossed Margaret to the floor. I pulled the knife from my forearm holster and stood up in one motion. The blade slipped into the fleshy palate below his tongue and traveled upwards, slamming against bone, then punching through it, continuing to travel until the hilt forced his mouth closed. Blood ran from his nose and closed lips. His throat made inhuman noises. The doors from the stairwells screeched, as they were yanked open. Hostages began to crawl away in the confusion. Guns swung wildly, bullets exiting the barrels as fast as the triggers could be pulled, but the aim was off. They didn’t know whether to shoot at me, the incoming agents, or the hostages. The man in my arms, his face still resting on my blade, jerked as a bullet tore into his back. The blade wasn’t long enough to pierce his brain from this angle, just his sinus cavity. He was bleeding to death, suffocating, and drowning all at the same time that his stupid thugs were shooting him. His eyes were wide with panic as he struggled to breathe, I held tight, making sure to watch his face. As it began to go slack, I jerked the blade out and tossed him to the ground. He coughed up blood. Near death could be worse than actual death. His coughing continued. Huge globs of bloody mucus slicked the floor beneath him. I pulled my Taser and hit one of the other six men with it. The volts stiffened his body. His teeth clacked as the jaws snapped shut. Blood began to run from his mouth. I ejected the cartridge. Most Tasers were non-lethal weapons; mine was questionable. Lazar dropped a guy near him without shooting him. I considered applauding. Maybe a few more living people to spill the plans and mastermind would be a good thing.
I drew my gun and fired a shot at a guy who was trying to shoot a hostage. The bullet entered his neck. He wasn’t going to make it to the interrogation rooms.
“Hold your fire!” Lazar shouted. I didn’t lower my gun, but I didn’t shoot anyone else. Most of the room was in hysterics. Officers began to wade through the terrified occupants of the twelfth floor to get to the bad guys that were all lying on the floor, most of them bleeding profusely.
“Jesus Christ,” a cop with a sheriff’s uniform said as he rolled over the guy I had hit with the Taser. He jerked back from him. The cop looked at me. I didn’t move, I just watched as the guy coughed out blood. He had bitten his tongue off from the Taser. I felt nothing for him. Lazar came over to me.
“Cain,” he said my name slowly.
“I’m good,” I told him, not looking at him. My gaze had drifted back to the guy I had stabbed. “He needs immediate medical attention. We do not want him to die. Tongueless could use it too. You can die from that injury.”
“Do you want to put away your gun?” Lazar asked.
“No, because I do not see Nyleena Clachan in this room and if I find her dead in her office, at least one of these men are going to die for it,” I turned from him and headed towards Nyleena’s office.
“She’s not here,” Margaret said, trying to compose herself. “There was a guy here and he took her.”
“He took her?” I looked at Margaret. Margaret looked down at the floor. “Took her where?”
“I don’t know.” Margaret shook her head. “They came for her. They went to her office first.”
“Was he wearing a mask?” I asked.
“Yes, but he was tall, really tall and skinny,” Margaret answered.
“Was there anything else about him?” I asked.
“He had a southern accent.” She looked sheepishly at me.
“So he spoke?” I said.
“Yes, he told the guy over there,” she motioned towards the guy I had stabbed, “that if you came looking for Nyle
ena that I was to give you a message.”
“What message?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
“Okay,” I answered. I turned to the guy I stabbed. His eyes were wide, his breathing labored, his face pale. He was on death’s door and he had a message for me. “I suggest you write down that message or death is not going to be able to come fast enough for you.” I handed him a pen and slipped a piece of paper under it. He stared at it for a moment, and then stabbed my hand with the pen.
I left it in and picked up another pen. I handed it to him and said nothing. He looked at me before writing down a few words. I picked up the piece of paper. Found The Boogeyman’s Weakness was written on it. I nodded and knelt back down.
“Write down where he took her,” I told him. He shook his head. I took hold of the ink pen still in my hand and pulled it out. I set it on the floor next to the piece of paper. “I assure you that I will torture you for this information and as a member of the SCTU, I can do that.” His eyes narrowed. I ejected the unused cartridge from my Taser. “It hurts just as much when it is a stun gun. Your friend bit off his tongue. What do you think you will do when it touches you?” He said nothing. I put it against his skin, and let the metal prongs dig into his flesh. His hand still didn’t move. I shook my head and put the Taser down. I stared at the paper for a moment. Then I grabbed his face in my hands and let my fingers slide into the knife wound in his chin. He attempted to scream as my fingers wiggled in the hole, but it came out as a strangled gurgle. His hand began to move.
“Thank you,” I removed my hand from his throat and wiped his blood on my jeans. “If I go there and she is not there, I’m going to come back for you.” I stood up.
“I can’t just let you go,” Lazar told me.
“You are going to stop me from attempting to rescue a kidnapped federal prosecutor?” I asked him.
“No, I’m going with you. I figure two of us are better than one.” He handed me a box of tissues. “I can’t tell if you’re bleeding or if it belongs to other people.”
“Both, I think,” I took a handful out of the box and pressed them to my leg. They instantly soaked through. “I will burn it in the car, so you get to drive.”
Four
Country music came from inside the building. It was being renovated, so I didn’t know if a builder had done it or if it was Nyleena’s kidnapper. Thankfully, it was just one floor. There would be no reason to stealthily to sneak up stairs and try to catch him off guard. If he was any good at his job, he already knew we were there.
“Cain, you can’t kill him unless he poses a threat,” Lazar told me.
“I do not see why not. He is holding a federal prosecutor against her will.”
“How will you live with yourself if you kill him in cold blood?”
“Sociopath,” I reminded him. “I will probably never think of it again.”
“Okay, how do you think I’ll feel knowing I let you kill him?”
“I do not know,” I answered and actually looked at Demetrius Lazar’s face. “The man attacked our own. He kidnapped our own. I’m aware that does not automatically warrant a death sentence, but perhaps it should. How will you feel if he is tried under the SKMM laws and released back onto the streets because we fail to build a case against him being a mass murderer?”
“If it comes to that, I’ll leave the room,” Lazar shook his head.
“Okay.” I pulled open the door. It screeched on its hinges, but no gunshots rang out.
The place had been gutted. Nyleena lay on the floor; hog-tied. She was either dead or unconscious; the latter was preferable. There were two men in the room, both sitting in chairs. One was relaxed in a folding chair. The second was not. He stared at me, duct tape that covered his mouth catching the light. His nostrils flared. He looked terrified and I did not know whether it was my presence or the other man’s.
The other man stood up. He was older, not unattractive, with a good jaw. A cigarette hung from the corner of his lips, with smoke curling up around his head. In some ways, he reminded me of Mickey Rourke.
“Apex,” I said.
“Do you prefer Dr. Cain or Marshal Cain?” He asked.
“Either,” I put my gun back in its holster. “This is US Marshal Demetrius Lazar. Since no one would describe you as tall, I’m confused by your presence here. I’m even more confused by his presence tied up and why Nyleena is hog tied.”
“I thought it best to wait for you,” Apex said. He had a slight accent and spoke perfectly. He could have been a CEO or motivational speaker. “If you hadn’t shown up soon, I was going to contact you.” His suit was from a rack, not the tailor-made ones that Malachi had to wear. Considering his net worth, I found that surprising. Contract killers, especially good contract killers, made a lot of money. However, he busted every movie stereo type I had ever built up around them. “Please, come in. You are free to release Ms. Clachan’s bonds first of course. I’m afraid she is unconscious, but I have checked on her and she is alive with minimal damage.”
I cut the ropes that bound Nyleena, and then checked her pulse. She was breathing and her heartbeat was steady. I sighed in relief.
“She is good,” I told Lazar. Lazar nodded. His gun was still out, but held at his side.
“Is he to be trusted?” Apex asked.
“The irony of that question,” I pointed out. Apex moved and got two more chairs, one with padding on the seat. That one was offered to me.
“I just mean is he going to have a problem with us having this conversation and not arresting me at the end of it?” Apex asked.
“I cannot answer that,” I looked at Lazar.
“If I say no, are you going to kill me?” Lazar asked.
“Not in the least, I think it is all hands on deck right now, Marshal Lazar. I believe we all have a problem, a very big problem. I’m unsure whether you know who I’m or not, but if you feel the need to arrest me, I will bind you for the duration of the conversation,” Apex told him.
“I’ve heard of you,” Lazar looked at the smaller man. “You warned Lucas McMichaels that his life was in danger. For that, I can overlook your current wanted status, at least for today.”
“You have loyal friends, Dr. Cain,” Apex smiled slightly. “However, I would expect nothing else from you. You command a certain air about you, even I feel the pull.”
“You are a sociopath, and we are drawn to our own. Considering I believe you may have saved my cousin from death as well as some other nastiness, you may call me Aislinn.”
“You have excellent manners,” Apex told me.
“Just because we are on opposite sides of the law most days, does not mean we are all the time. You have now saved two people I care very deeply for. It earns you respect and courtesy.”
“Thank you, I’m afraid I can’t give you a name other than Apex to use for me, maybe one day, but not today.” He looked at me. “You have a very peculiar way of speaking. I have never met someone who didn’t use contractions or slang.”
“I know,” I answered. I had been told that about a million times. “So, may I ask how you came to be here with my cousin and the man that fits the description of her kidnapper?”
“Right, I was scheduled to meet with her today. I had some information to pass along to law enforcement and as you can imagine, that is tricky for me. So, I made an appointment as Joe Citizen, so to speak. I arrived for my appointment shortly after they had overtaken the lobby. Realizing I might be of some use, I stayed to see what was happening. My prediction was correct and I followed this man here. He was expecting someone else. I don’t know who, but he wasn’t ready for me. I overtook him, made sure that Nyleena was safe and then I sat down to wait. Considering how easily he fell prey to me, I can’t imagine he was waiting for you either. Which is the other reason we are still here.”
“Your prediction?” Lazar asked.
“Lucas McMichaels was just the first. I have been contacted repeatedly in the last month
to take contracts on all members of the SCTU and VCU as well as their families. Then, about a week ago, all the contracts just disappeared. I put that together with the information in the news that serial killings were dropping rapidly and realized that there was something being planned to cripple the people who enforce the SKMM laws. I think today has proved me right.”
“These guys are not serial killers. They are not even good mass murderers.” I hooked my thumb at the man in the chair.
“That’s true.” Apex stood back up and walked over to the taller man. His hand lifted the man’s sleeve, revealing a tattoo associated with a drug running biker gang. “No one with an ounce of sense would take a job to eliminate members of the SCTU or VCU. We’ve seen how they dole out justice. Besides, it’s a suicide contract and I enjoy going home to see my family. Instead, I believe our mastermind or masterminds had to settle for lunkheads like these. They don’t run across either unit very often and were unprepared for the task. I believe they thought it was all hype and bluster. He should really be thankful I found him before you did. However, since you have a chaperone, he might have survived it.”
“They attacked all of us today. I can go make a phone call to get backup while he attempts to escape.” Lazar sneered at the thug in the chair.
“Oh, that is interesting,” Apex looked at him. “Solidarity. I don’t think that was the intended effect. I think this was meant to drive a wedge between the SCTU/VCU and the regular law enforcement officials who would be facing these jackals.”
“How?” Lazar asked.
“Because it was meant to be our fault,” I told him. “Our work, our recklessness is supposed to look like the cause of this uprising.”
“Marshal Lazar, were you around for the LA killings? I mean, were you a Marshal during that time?” Apex asked.
“No, I was a beat cop in LA.”
“What happened to crime just before the killings started?” Apex asked him.
“There was a slight decline all over the city. We all noticed it. It lasted about a month and then all hell broke loose.”
Fortified Dreams Page 3