Overkill

by Dylan Rust

  “You’re one of the wealthiest men in the city,” Jack said. “Why do you help him?”

  Lyle mumbled something in response.

  Jack placed the knife back to the base of his ear. “Your ear or the truth?”

  “He’s…” Lyle sobbed, a glob of spit fell from his mouth and onto the floor. He cried. “He’s got shit on me. Shit I can’t share! If I don’t help him…” A thin, clear stream of snot and blood leaked from his nose.

  “That’s what I thought.” Jack said. He shook his head. “It’s kompromat.”

  “Yes,” Lyle said. “He’s got hundreds of us. It’s what he does. He’s good at it. We have to obey him.”

  “You pervert,” Jack said.

  “I didn’t know how young she was.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Jack punched Lyle in the mouth. He didn’t want to hear excuses. This asshole was in Igor’s pocket.

  “Igor’s a psychopath,” Lyle said. “But he’s smart. You won’t be able to stop him. He’s got the every one in this damn city that matters in his pocket. You should just give up now.”

  “I’m not giving up.”

  “Then you’re an idiot.”

  “We will see.”

  Lyle laughed.

  “Do you really think you’ll be able to take him down. You’re just one man. He’s got an army of gangsters. He’s got a fucking entire police force. They all want you dead. They’ll stop at nothing.”

  Jack held the knife up to Lyle’s ear once more.

  “Fuck you,” Lyle said.

  Jack was going to knock Lyle out and leave the penthouse, but the lights suddenly went out.

  It sounded like an army was marching toward the penthouse’s front door.

  Lyle gave Jack a look of horror.

  “It’s too late,” Lyle said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. My life is over. It’s too late. He’s got eyes in here. I should have known.”

  “What do you mean?” Jack said.

  Lyle didn’t respond. He was inconsolable.

  The orange glow of the morning sun cast itself over the wealth of the penthouse. Fine china glowed, the gold shimmered, the diamonds cast rainbows of light in all directions.

  Jack dropped the knife and pulled out the Charter Arms Bulldog.

  He picked up Lyle and used him as a shield, holding the gun to the billionaire’s head.

  The front door exploded.

  An explosive breaching device flung a flurry of pieces from the front door in all directions.

  Two flash bangs followed.

  Jack covered his eyes, but the sound of the concussive grenades caused a ringing in his ears.

  Three NYPD ESU officers ran into the building. They were each wearing body armor and holding submachine guns. They burst into the apartment. They screamed for everybody inside to get down. They knocked over Lyle’s ornaments, statues, and crystals as they made their way in.

  Jack held Lyle up and faced the ESU officers.

  “You think we give a shit about him?” they said.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  They shot Lyle in the heart.

  Jack only had one option.

  He flung Lyle’s corpse in their direction. He knocked each of the ESU officers over.

  He ran toward the door and got out of the penthouse and ran toward the stairwell.

  He was fifty floors up.

  The ESU pushed Lyle’s body on the ground and ran after Jack.

  44

  The large glass roof atrium in Bellevue Hospital contrasted against the old red brick of the original building, but not in a way that made it feel too modern, too antiseptic.

  Bellevue was an institution in New York. It was, after all, the oldest public hospital in the United States, founded in 1736. Its history was wellknown in the medical world. A lot of firsts occurred within its walls. The countries first maternity ward opened in 1799 and in 1867 its physicians contributed in developing New York City’s sanitary code.

  The hallways inside were narrow and smelled of old wood and tile.

  Years of renovations and expansion had made them a confusing array of complex halls.

  Claire was lost.

  She was looking for the trauma operating rooms. That was where the nurse said they’d wheeled Tom off too. Making matters worse, the hospital was in full lock down.

  It was still being powered by the backup generators.

  It wasn’t until she made it to the atrium that she was able to get her bearings.

  Three doctors rushed by.

  One of them clipped Claire’s shoulder. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t even notice what he’d done.

  He looked familiar to her, though. He was one of the doctors that met her when she’d arrived. He was the one who had wheeled Tom away in his gurney.

  Wherever he was coming from was where Tom would be.

  Claire went down the hallway.

  She dodged nurses, doctors and madness. It reminded her of an anthill under attack. Every one scrambled from station to station. They were all doing whatever they had to do to get order restored, to protect the queen.

  She was confused by the hallway, however. Not by its layout, but because of where it headed.

  The morgue.

  She picked up her pace.

  At the end of the hall was an elevator. You had to take it down one floor to get to the morgue. She got inside and made her way down.

  She walked out of the elevator and down another long hallway and made her way to the morgue’s entrance.

  She opened the doors.

  She walked into the first room of the morgue. The room had a large window that overlooked the main area where the bodies were tagged and stored.

  It was dark inside the main room but she could see the shapes of the beds and the gurneys and discerned that the far wall held the storage units and dead bodies.

  The only light within both rooms came from the glow emanating from the four computer monitors that were still on and the exit sign above each door.

  She saw something in the main area move.

  She couldn’t tell what it was.

  She ducked below the window looking into the main room and pulled out her gun. If this was where the doctor who took Tom had come from, then she had to assume that Tom was somewhere in there.

  She took a deep breath. She had to get in there and find out what the hell was going on.

  She crawled to the door that led to the main room.

  She saw the shape again.

  It was a small man in a lab coat.

  “Freeze,” she said.

  She stood up and walked into the main room.

  The shape froze.

  “Who are you?” the man said.

  “I’m looking for a friend.”

  “You need authorization to enter the morgue.”

  “Is Tom Tom down here?”

  The man didn’t respond.

  Osgood repeated her question.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “You should leave. It’s dangerous. They’re going to be here any second.”

  Claire was only a couple feet from him. In the dim light she could see the shape of a gurney beside him. A body was on it. It looked like Tom. “Is that Tom?”

  “You should leave.”

  “Shut up,” Claire said. “I’ve got a gun pointed at you right now. If you move, I’ll shoot. I want answers. I’m a federal agent.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “This is Agent Tom Dunce.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “No.”

  “Then why is he in the morgue? What’s going on?”

  “Just leave,” the man said. “They’ll kill us both.”

  “Why is Agent Dunce in the morgue?”

  “I was given an order from a higher up.”

  “An order?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Just understand that this is out of my control. This is…”

  The glass window looking into the main room of the mo
rgue exploded. Fragments of glass flew in all directions and reflected the green glow from the computer monitors.

  Claire heard a thump.

  She dropped to the ground.

  The man she was talking to was dead.

  He was on the ground and was not moving, a thick river of blood poured from his body. She was close enough that she could feel it.

  The door to the morgue creaked opened.

  Claire hid behind one of the desks. She held her gun up to her chest and waited.

  The person who’d shot the man walked in. Their footsteps were cautious. They were only a couple feet away from her. They were going to find her.

  Claire crawled to another desk. She needed to see what she was dealing with. She needed a vantage point. She brushed up against a swivel chair on her way to the next desk. It gently spun and made a slight sound.

  She held her breath.

  The footsteps stopped.

  Claire scrambled. She crawled toward the wall that stored the bodies. It was out in the open, but it was dark. She’d be hidden.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are?”

  It was a woman.

  Claire stayed quiet, and slowly pushed herself up from the ground. She pointed her gun out into the dark. She was looking for the shape of a person.

  “You tried to save your friend upstairs,” the woman said. “And now you’re trying to save your friend down here. You should just be trying to save yourself.”

  Claire waited.

  “Are you scared, little girl? Don’t be. I’ll kill you and your friend quick. It won’t hurt.”

  Tom moaned. “Claire?” he said. “Is that you?”

  Claire wanted to smack him. She heard the footsteps of the intruder walk toward where Claire remembered Tom to be. “Stop,” she said.

  There was silence.

  “I’ll kill him now.”

  Claire ran to Tom’s aid, but had to stop. She’d run into something. A body.

  Fuck.

  The woman pushed Claire onto the ground.

  Claire’s head hit the metal beam of an autopsy table. She didn’t have time to check if she was bleeding. She scurried back to her feet and tried to run past her attacker.

  Her attacker grabbed her with both her arms and gave her a hug and squeezed.

  Claire felt the air escape her lungs.

  She elbowed her attacker in the gut and broke free and ran toward Tom.

  Her attacker pulled out a gun and fired two shots. She had a silencer. The shots hardly made a noise. Both missed.

  Claire dove on to the ground and slid under a desk.

  She was right beside Tom. She knew it because she could feel the blood of the man who’d just been shot. Tom was groaning her name.

  “You fucking bitch,” the woman said. “I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

  Claire stayed under the desk.

  The woman kicked a desk that was in her way over. No point in staying quiet now. She wanted the federal agent to be scared. “I’ll find you!” she said, laughing. “I’ll find you!”

  Claire panicked. She didn’t know what to do.

  If she got up and ran, the woman would spot her and shoot. If she stayed hidden, the woman would find her and execute her. No matter what she did, she was going to end up dead. She froze.

  “I can hear your breathing. I know you’re close. I know you’re scared,” the woman said.

  Claire closed her eyes. Her life was about to end.

  The woman sensed Claire’s anxiousness. She knew she had the power. She knew Claire wouldn’t shoot. She forgot about the hired clinician she’d just killed. She forgot that she’d shot him in his neck. She forgot that the pool of blood from the hole in his neck would be wide enough to form a small puddle.

  Her foot stepped on to the puddle. She slipped. She landed on her back. The force of the impact caused her to pull the trigger on her pistol.

  Pop.

  Claire closed her eyes. She felt no pain.

  She could hear the groan of the woman. She realized what had happened.

  Claire got up and aimed her gun at her attacker.

  The woman had hit her head on the edge of a table. She was in a lot of pain. There was blood.

  Claire didn’t have a silencer on her gun. She didn’t care about being quiet. She just wanted to live. “Freeze,” she said.

  The woman didn’t listen. Instead, she tried to aim her pistol at Claire. She was slow.

  Pop.

  The gunshot echoed throughout the morgue. The 9mm luger bullet borrowed a hole straight through the woman’s skull.

  Claire put her gun in its holster. She grabbed Tom’s gurney and pushed it out of the morgue.

  45

  Jack made his way down the stairwell.

  He could hear the ESU behind him. Their footsteps were heavy. They were wearing a lot of gear. The Heckler & Koch MP5s they were carrying were six to eight pounds each. The armor they were wearing added an extra fifty. The lactic acid building up in their muscles from carrying all that weight would be slowing them down.

  There were four floors between them.

  Jack was gaining ground.

  He jumped down as many steps as he could at a time.

  Twang.

  Twang.

  Twang.

  A dozen bullets rang off the metal railing in the stairwell. Jack ignored them. He just kept running.

  Three floors left.

  “He should be up here!”

  “Let’s go!”

  Voices from the ground floor echoed up the stairwell. They were coming at him from both directions.

  He was trapped.

  He didn’t have much of a choice. He opened the doorway to the third floor and checked each door as he ran past. He figured he was about twenty feet from the ground. If he had to jump from a balcony, he would.

  Locked.

  Locked.

  The third door opened.

  Inside was an old woman sitting on her couch watching day time TV. She was knitting. She didn’t scream when she saw Jack. In fact, looked kind of happy to see him. Maybe her fantasy had finally come to life?

  Jack ran past her and jumped over her three cats. He made his way to her balcony.

  The sounds of law enforcement sirens blared in the outside air. Jack looked over the balcony’s edge. He counted thirteen squad cars and two ESU vans.

  Just below the balcony was a tree. He climbed to the edge of the balcony and jumped. He missed the first few branches, but grabbed hold of the trunk. He slid down and landed on the sidewalk.

  He ran.

  On account of the large police presence, the streets were mostly empty.

  This made his escape more difficult.

  Am ESU sniper perched on the thirtieth floor of a building two blocks over spotted Jack running and fired. He missed.

  Jack ducked behind a newspaper dispenser.

  The sniper fired again.

  The dispenser bent out of shape due to the force and impact from the bullet.

  Jack got up and ran down the street.

  He figured he had two or three seconds before the sniper fired again.

  One. Two. Three.

  He ducked behind a red Chiron Sport 2018 Bugatti.

  The windshield shattered, the leather interior exploded.

  Jack got from behind the car.

  He counted three seconds, then ran down an alley.

  A puff of cement flew off a of a building. A big hole was left in the concrete.

  Jack ran down the alley. He was out of the sniper’s view.

  Avoiding the sniper’s bullets, however, gave the ESU time to catch up.

  They were just behind him.

  Jack checked every door in the alley. Each one was locked.

  There was a fire escape up one of the buildings.

  The ladder to get up to it was thirteen feet off the ground. Jack ran and jumped, his fingers grazed along the bottom rung.

  He ran and tried again. He grabb
ed hold of the bottom rung and pulled himself up.

  The officers were one hundred feet away.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  Sparks flew off the metal iron of the escape.

  Jack lost his grip and fell fifteen feet onto his back.

  He felt a shard of broken beer battle pierce his skin. He got up. The cops were in front of him, their Sig Saurer P226s drawn.

  “You’re making a mistake,” he said.

  “Shut up, you piece of shit,” one of the officers said. “You’re a cop killer.”

  “I didn’t kill the cop.”

  There were six ESU officers. They stood three feet apart. A helicopter was flying overhead. There was no getting out of this.

  Jack put his hands up.

  “Get on your knees.”

  Jack complied.

  The ESU officers walked up to him and put him in handcuffs. They checked him for weapons. They grabbed the gun he’d borrowed from Claire.

  Jack was captured.

  46

  There were three of them. Their guns were drawn and they were running down the hall toward the morgue.

  When she saw them, Claire pushed Tom’s gurney into a storage closet and jumped inside. She couldn’t trust anybody. Not now.

  She closed the door and waited for them to pass.

  They were talking.

  “The hospital power will be restored in fifteen minutes. We don’t have long.”

  “Has anyone heard from Sasha?”

  “Reception might be bad down here. Last we checked, she killed the agent upstairs. She should be in the morgue. She said that one of her men had failed to take care of the idiot.”

  Sasha? Wasn’t she the girl Jack played at the table in Dacha House? Is that who’d she killed?

  Tom groaned. Claire put her hand over his mouth. She needed him to be quiet.

  The voices faded.

  She needed to move.

  She wheeled Tom out and made her way to the elevator.

  “Hang in there,” she said.

  Tom groaned.

  She pressed the elevator button.

  She had to get up to the ground floor. The NYPD and fire department would be on scene. They would be safe. She’d also be able to hand Tom over to a nurse or doctor. She wasn’t sure if they’d operated on him or not.

  The elevator door chimed.