Diane reached for her sidearm, aching to get out there and put a stop to the gang’s assault on a row of storefronts. Two men leapt from a shattered display window clutching electronic gadgets. They held their loot close to their chests and ran away as another bottle struck the gaping hole they had passed through, sending flames rushing around the window frame.
Diane rolled her eyes and huffed. “We don’t really need backup. Look at them, they nearly torched two of their own guys. Instead of backing us up, the next wave can stack bodies or something.” She gave Hathaway a faint smile. Her partner wasn’t amused. Hathaway’s jaw dropped and he gaped at her in horror.
“Jesus, God, Pembrook, you’re a police officer, not a killing machine. We’re doing this by the book, period. Lethal force is the last option, you get me? We’re arresting every last one of these punks.”
“Arresting? I don’t know about you, but I’ve got three full clips and one pair of cuffs. I’m thinking that’s not by accident.”
Hathaway tapped his right temple with his index finger. “Hence, backup, Pembrook. And we have transport units for mass arrests. That’s no accident either.” He tapped his temple again. “Think.”
A flaming bottle struck Diane’s door, sending fire up the side of the car and blocking her view of the marauding street gang. “Plan B,” Diane said, and yanked off her seat belt. “Move.” She leaned toward Hathaway and pressed him backward into his door. He looked at the roaring flames and nodded stiffly. He grudgingly opened his door and exited the cruiser, gun drawn.
“Okay, Pembrook,” Hathaway said, “stick to cover. I’ll handle the pleasantries.”
Diane scrunched up her nose in disapproval. “You’re new here, meat. I’m pulling rank.” Before Hathaway could respond, Diane thumbed off her safety and barked, “Attention, hostiles. You are under arrest for assault, mass destruction of private property, arson, reckless endangerment, and larceny, for starters. Put your hands up and drop to your knees slowly. We are authorized to respond to any further aggression with lethal force if provoked.”
Hathaway gave Diane an impressed nod. “Where was all that yesterday?”
Another bottle sailed over the street and landed beside the cruiser. A circle of flames fanned out from the remains of the bottle. Diane smirked at her partner. “And now, we’re here.” She found the bottle thrower gawking from behind a delivery van and shot him in the neck. He left his feet and landed on his back amid shouts and screams from his fellow gang members. Diane glanced at her partner. “Want to cuff him?”
Hathaway released his safety. “Okay, smart ass. Lay low. We don’t need to go out there guns blazing. Backup will be here any minute, then we set up a defensive perimeter.”
Diane shook her head. “You can if you want. I’m done being a sitting duck.” She slipped away from the flaming cruiser and duck-walked to a parked sedan. She spotted the leader in the distance shouting orders to three underlings. She lined up a precision shot between his eyes and began to squeeze her trigger. Just before she fired, Hathaway bumped into her and pressed his back against the sedan.
“Never abandon your partner in the hot zone, Pembrook. What’s wrong with you?”
“I thought you were following some old rulebook from Buffalo or whatever. I’m cleaning up this street, one punk at a time. You just ruined my kill shot. I had the gang leader dead to rights.”
Three gang members jumped through a flaming storefront window casing. One was clutching a shotgun. Diane thought of Mister Leotis, and the shotgun he gave her on Arbor Day. She wondered if the store owner had been killed with his own weapon. She fired a shot into the man’s chest. The shotgun flew out of his hands as he crashed backward onto the sidewalk and was quickly snapped up by another gang member.
Hathaway glared at Diane. “How was that by the book? You’re on the fast track for command review.”
“He was armed and displaying aggression. Lethal force was justified.”
“That’s not what I saw. That was straight-out assassination. Watch what I do differently.” Hathaway stood up and trained his gun on a frenetic young man holding a shotgun. “Drop the weapon and put your hands over your head slowly.”
The man raised the shotgun to fire. Hathaway fired a single shot through the man’s neck. The shotgun clattered onto the sidewalk beside the man’s twitching body. Hathaway nodded to Diane. “My ass is covered if this ever went to command review. You get me?”
Diane sighed and nodded. “Give them the chance to surrender, then take them out when they don’t listen. Got it.”
“It’s a little more work than just blowing people’s heads off, but it’s worth it.”
Another flaming bottle struck the sedan, setting the roof ablaze. Diane shielded her eyes and dropped down for cover. “Noted.”
Hathaway crouched beside her and patted her shoulder. “I’m just looking out for you, partner. I’d hate to see you brigged over something preventable.”
“I appreciate it,” Diane said. “Now let’s end this nonsense.”
Hathaway shook his head. “Backup’s at least five minutes out.”
“Then you and me will have to surround them.” Diane checked her ammo count, then slammed the magazine back into her sidearm. “You go left. I’m taking down the leader.”
“Pembrook, wait. We need to—” Diane didn’t stick around to hear the rest of it. Hathaway lurched cautiously forward, then swore as Diane ran quickly across the street and ducked into an alcove.
CHAPTER TEN
Diane crouched beside the gang leader. She yanked the bandanna from his face and frowned at his stubble-covered cheeks. He wasn’t much older than twenty-three, she figured. She wondered why he wasted his life leading a dead-end street gang instead of getting a respectable job like her. She looked him over for a totem. He wore no jewelry. She patted him down, taking care to avoid the sucking wound in his chest. The gang leader’s blood trickled down the curb and into a nearby sewer grating. His face was a frozen mask of pain and sorrow, as if a moment of clarity had arrived as he took his final breath and realized how his life might have turned out differently with a few smarter decisions.
Pulling a knife in response to being told to drop to his knees and raise his hands slowly when Diane stood less than ten feet away was his last blown opportunity for self-improvement. Diane shook her head at the senselessness of his death. Hathaway couldn’t find fault this time, she mused. She unbuttoned the leader’s jacket pocket and found a scarred coin. Diane inspected the coin and puzzled over its significance. It was just an ordinary quarter, with one side scratched with deep gouges. Only the year was legible: 2017. She slipped the quarter into her front pocket and smirked at her slain quarry.
Hathaway hurried to her side a moment later. “Any ID?”
Diane shrugged and stood. “Nothing yet. He’s probably laying on it.”
“What was in his front pocket?”
Diane suppressed a surge of guilt. Until he came out and accused her of anything, she wasn’t going to give him the opening. “Just a piece of fuzz. It blew away.”
“That was shiny fuzz.” Hathaway eyed her suspiciously.
“Yep,” she said.
“Are you going to cuff him?”
“I, uh… sure. I’ve only got the one pair, but being that he’s the leader of this bunch, I guess he wins.” Diane fished her cuffs out of her utility belt and turned the leader over. Hathaway gestured to the wallet-shaped bulge in his back pocket.
“Grab his ID, too.”
Diane pulled the wallet from his pocket and handed it to Hathaway. She figured it would keep him busy and distract him from asking about the quarter. Instead, he held the wallet gingerly between his thumb and index finger like a soiled diaper. Diane shot him a questioning glance. “Problem?”
“Yeah, we need to bag this as evidence. We don’t need to cover this thing in our prints.” Hathaway looked around awkwardly, then gave a head-bob toward a gray truck that pulled up beside a row of cruisers. “Be ri
ght back.”
“I’ll be here,” Diane said.
Once Hathaway was safely out of sight, Diane pulled the quarter from her front pocket and slipped it into her left sock. She felt it slide down her ankle to the base of her foot. It felt strange… and thrilling. She liked having a secret trophy to remember her latest kill. Hathaway wouldn’t understand, she thought, and he damn sure wouldn’t approve. She decided he didn’t need to know about it. It was hers. She earned it.
Diane cinched her cuffs around the gang leader’s wrists and rolled him onto his back. She stood over him and shook her head. Newark needed better criminals, she mused; somebody who could give her a serious challenge. She thought of Lyssa and winced. She remembered she had that already: Sapphire. She’d give anything to have just one shot at her. Just one. She wouldn’t even take anything of value. Maybe a lock of her hair, she thought with a wry smile.
“Lester Boggs,” Hathaway said.
Diane snapped out of her daydream with a start. “Do what?”
Hathaway gave the gang leader’s body a general wave. “His name is Lester Boggs. Small-time crap, mostly. Rap sheet a mile long, but nothing like this. What the hell was he thinking?”
“Who cares? He’s dead. His stupid gang is toast. I’m not giving him a second thought.”
Hathaway patted Diane’s shoulder, then spun her around to face him. He gave her a stern glare that made her feel like a child. She wasn’t sure if she was frightened or aroused. “What did you take off of him?”
“Nothing,” she said, and looked down at his shoes.
Hathaway chucked her chin up and shook his head. “Don’t bullshit me, Pembrook. We’re partners, you get me? I can’t be riding with someone dirty. Cough it up.”
Diane looked him in the eye. “I told you, I didn’t take anything.”
“What’s in your pocket?”
“None of your damn business,” she said firmly.
Hathaway pushed her backward with both hands. “I’m serious, Pembrook. I can have the ACTF up your ass so fast. Don’t make me go there. Show me what you took.”
Diane felt her ears redden. She had no fear of discovery with the quarter in her sock, but she hated having to turn out her pockets like a kid accused of shoplifting. She remembered one of her father’s favorite jokes when she’d ask him to buy him something. She imagined the impish grin on his face as he’d turn out his pockets. She slipped her hands into her front pockets and grabbed the lining.
“You ever kissed a rabbit between the ears, partner?” She pulled the inner lining of her pockets out and held her arms outstretched triumphantly.
Hathaway’s face turned from surprise to disgust. “What the hell, Pembrook? What are you, in eighth grade?”
“You tell me, dad.”
Hathaway gave her a disgusted wave. “Fix your pants, Pembrook. Show some decorum. This is an active crime scene.”
Diane shoved her pocket liners back into place and glared at her partner. “Are we done here? I don’t appreciate being accused of petty larceny.”
Her partner nodded and called over a field technician. “Yeah, alright. Let’s bag this mess up and hit the road.” He began to walk toward the gray forensics vehicle, then stopped. “I didn’t accuse you of petty larceny.”
“The hell you didn’t.” Diane stared intently at him, then patted his shoulder. “But it’s cool. It was an honest mistake. No foul, no harm.”
Hathaway gave her an odd look. “That’s ‘no harm, no foul’.”
“That too,” Diane said, and walked away coolly.
Diane finished another report with a sigh. She sat at a workspace behind the duty sergeant’s desk. Griggs was filling that role more often after Sergeant Parcells was brigged pending command review. Diane gave her partner a dirty look. Everything was fine before he brought the ACTF here, she fumed. She caught sight of Kenner giving him a disapproving stare before slamming the door to his office and took it as a glimmer of hope that the ACTF wouldn’t be around much longer. Or maybe just Hathaway.
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head to dispel the thought. No, she assured herself, Hathaway was a crack shot. Panther needed the kind of firepower he brought to the table in order to clean up the streets once and for all after Arbor Day. Lieutenant Kenner might not have appreciated the ACTF butting in on the division’s business, but Kenner wouldn’t chuck Hathaway aside for that.
She glanced at her partner and felt a pang of doubt. He wouldn’t, would he?
A silent summons on her comm unit derailed Diane’s train of thought. The words TEN MINUTES flashed on the screen before returning the comm unit to its default setting. Diane closed out her session on her tablet and returned it to the charging stand for the next officer. Griggs cast a wary eye on her as she snapped the tablet into place. “Finished already, Miss Pembrook? I trust your reports meet Revision Nine standards.”
Diane suppressed a panic response. Nine? She hadn’t been informed of any changes since Rev Seven. She smiled and nodded. “Booked and cooked, sir.”
Griggs snapped up his own tablet and poked intently at the screen. “Is that so? I’m prepared to be impressed by your rigorous application of the latest protocols. I might even use you as a case study for the newest batch of cadets: how reports ought to be filed, as demonstrated by Officer Pembrook.”
Diane put her hat on and ran her thumb and forefinger across the brim. “All in a day’s work, Sergeant.” She walked briskly toward the locker room.
Griggs grunted, then raised his finger. “Not so fast, Miss Pembrook. I thought you followed Revision Nine to the letter.” He turned his tablet to her and pointed at the screen. “Wherein, it is mandatory for sections five, seven, eight and ten to be completed in full.” He frowned at Diane. “I find none of these to be the case in this report. Might this be the exception? A simple oversight, perhaps?”
Diane huffed. “I have to be somewhere. I’ll take care of it in the morning.”
Griggs shook his head emphatically and waved her over to his side. “On the contrary. Revision Nine is required for document standards compliance, and I expect this and all other reports to meet that standard.”
Diane gave Kenner’s closed door a plaintive look. She hated the idea of running to the Lieutenant to bail her out of fixing her stupid reports, but she couldn’t keep the Masked Man waiting either. She took a step toward his door. Griggs bellowed across the room, causing her to seize up. She resigned herself to getting Griggs off her back and shuffled over to him like a whipped puppy. She retrieved her tablet and set her hat on her workstation. Griggs constantly called out oversights and corrections before finally accepting her first report. She glanced at her comm unit. PATIENCE AT ZERO flashed on the screen angrily. Diane rolled her eyes and worked quickly on bringing the rest of her reports up to code.
To Diane’s chagrin, it took eight tries to meet the rigorous new reporting requirements. She cursed herself for only half paying attention to the announcement during a recent morning briefing. She didn’t like filing reports. She believed her job was primarily patrolling the street and making a dent in the city’s overwhelming crime problem. She figured if people wanted the details about any given day, they could review her body cam footage ‘til the cows came home, as Mabel liked to say.
At long last, Griggs grunted his approval to Diane’s final report. He gave her a stiff dismissal and set about to other tasks at his workstation. Hathaway gave her an annoyed stare before returning to his own reports. Diane gave him an apologetic shrug.
After being released by Griggs, Diane hurried to the locker room and hastily changed out of her uniform. She forgot the quarter she had pilfered from the gang leader she killed was in her sock. It pinged against the lockers to her right and spun on the floor. She scooped it up and tossed it into her locker, then slammed the door shut. She spun the combination lock dial and rushed to the main entrance.
Diane wasn’t sure what to expect. In her haste, she didn’t have time to guess at what the Ma
sked Man had in store for her tonight. She took a hard swallow and hoped for another session with Lady Diamond. A sleek black SUV awaited her instead. She groaned and sat in the back seat. The door closed automatically behind her and the SUV’s tires squealed as it departed the police station.
Diane held on to the overhead handle as the SUV darted and swerved through the evening traffic. The city was a blur; more so tonight than usual. She couldn’t make out where the SUV was taking her, but the landmarks she had picked out when she was shuttled to her session with Lady Diamond weren’t catching her eye. The SUV stopped abruptly beside a steel and glass building with only the number 900 over the main entrance. Diane exited the vehicle and proceeded directly to the lobby.
The lobby gave no hints as to the purpose of the building or its ownership. A security desk stood empty before an unmarked door. Diane stepped forward cautiously, remembering the Masked Man’s warning to always be aware of her surroundings. She spotted a sign-in sheet on the desk centered neatly on a clipboard. She leaned over it and read the only entry. It simply read LIGHTS OUT.
Diane cocked her head at this. Was that directed at her? She stood up and spun around. A hypodermic needle was inserted into her neck. The Masked Man pulled the syringe away and watched Diane drop to the glossy floor.
Diane desperately tried to crawl to the lobby exit in hopes of breathing fresh air and being spotted by a passing car, or bystander… anyone at all. The Masked Man calmly capped the syringe and placed it into a black carrying case, then snapped it shut with a loud click. The room was growing fuzzier. Diane couldn’t make out the doors anymore, or the walls, or her own hand as it slid weakly across the floor.
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