by G. O. Grason
Body Count Rise : Hell from Above
A Christine Halloway Thriller Book 4
G.O. Grason
Contents
About the Author
Stay In Touch
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
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Copyright © 2020 by G.O. Grason
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
About the Author
G.O. Grason was born on Nov 26 1964, the 3rd child of English immigrants.
Growing up in Ontario Canada, and having traveled extensively around the world, G.O. Grason has developed many friendships worldwide, enjoying learning about our many different cultures from customs to food to history.
G.O. Grason is an International Award Winning author, who has been writing since early childhood.
As a lover of suspense, your support is my inspiration. I am delighted and honoured to have you read my books, so we can step away from the everyday and continue to go on thrilling adventures together.
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Prologue
Detectives Christine Halloway and Brian Thompson barely made it out alive from Singer castle bringing an end to Sedah’s reign of terror.
Surviving in the darkness had never proven so difficult. Sedah and Cerberus were both vicious, evil monsters, yet Halloway knew they were hiding something more powerful and more wretched than themselves. However, all her and Thompson had to go on was a name - The Eyes of the Wicked. What did it mean? Who were they? When and where would they strike? In the city of New York, it was just another case in a sea of crime. To Halloway and Thompson, it was their life and they weren’t about to begin to think this was over just yet.
High up above Times Square in the heart of the theatre district, he lowered himself into the prone position. The hum of the traffic and the crowd of people below was louder then he expected. His focus after days of fantasizing about this moment, allowed him to minimize it to a minor distraction.
He flipped the cap cover up and peered through the scope, the targets were plentiful. He scanned the crowd and locked in on some suit yelling into his cell phone. “What a dick” he said to himself. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out as he squeezed the trigger.
The rifle popped and thumped against his shoulder; the suits chest opened up as he dropped in mid stride...centre mass…a good kill.
As the crowd screamed and scattered, he found his next target, POP POP!!
Chapter 1
“No way you’re going to beat my score this time,” Halloway laughed as she tied up her shoes.
The warm, New York morning sun struck the back of her neck and back. She had already completed a solid thirty minutes of yoga to stretch out her body and had drank a protein shake. On top of that, Christine had started taking a little CBD before bed to get to sleep quicker. Her recovery from her workouts throughout the day was improving, making her a meaner and more competitive athlete and detective. Thompson, who was just starting to get to Christine’s level, was huffing and puffing as he ran up to her apartment.
“Jesus Thompson,” Christine said. “You sound like you’re ready to quit!”
“Not at all,” wheezed Thompson. “I had a few drinks last night and my body is simply telling me it hates me.”
Christine laughed out loud. “If you aren’t up for our little five-mile run, I understand. Though, I may need to see about getting a new partner.”
An awkward tension surged between the two of them. Over their time working together, Christine and Brian had grown closer rather than apart. Both of them had experienced the opposite in the past, mostly due to differences of opinions or personality. Truthfully, neither of them could imagine doing the work that they did without the other. They needed each other, though they would never say it out loud. To admit matters of the heart in a job like theirs only showed weakness and weakness, by the data, meant death. Even worse, it meant the death of one’s partner. Their trust in one another usually revealed itself in the tiny, playful jabs the one’s Halloway made at Thompson. Sometimes, it was in the moments when the danger was at its highest, when the risk almost felt like it was about to overwhelm the care and admiration they felt for each other. This had not happened yet, and both of them worked every day to make sure it never would.
“You know you could never replace me,” said Thompson. He dropped to the pavement and did fifty clean push-ups.
“I’m impressed,” Halloway said nodding. “How many can I do I wonder?”
Christine was always ready for a challenge, even if it meant getting her hands dirty.
Halloway dropped to the sidewalk and barely completed 25.
“Only 25 Halloway!” Thompson shouted. “It looks like I’ve found one of your weaknesses and, as the saying goes, if there’s one, there’s more.”
“That’s definitely not a saying,” Christine said wiping her hands clean. “But you are right, I need some work on my upper body strength.”
Christine shot up onto her feet and punched Thompson in the arm. He winced, pain showing in his face. He let out a little yelp.
“Goddamn!” Thompson grunted.
“And that’s only half of what I got,” Halloway grinned. “You ready to go or what? I can tell you’re stalling.”
They started around east 106th street and crossed into Central Park. The air was cool and burned their throats, but both of them knew their bodies just needed to warm-up. They passed nanny’s walking babies, streetwalkers moving from one sleeping spot to another, and a few beat cops getting done with their shift. Thompson ran by a breakfast sandwich stall and felt his mouth immediately begin to water. What he would do for a double meat, double egg steaming hot croissant breakfast sandwich. Christine for the past month had been forcing him to drink a 128 ingredient nutrient rich drink every morning that tasted like rotten apples and dirt, and then fast until lunch. Thompson felt both the best he ever had and the worst. Was this what it would take to really get in shape?
At 86th Street Transverse, Thompson begged to take a break.
“I’ve barely even broke a sweat Thompson!” Christine chided. “You can’t be beat already.”
“Beaten…” Thompson managed to say. “But not beat. Just need a break is all.”
“Alright, alright but only five minutes.”
They found a small bench overlooking the Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis reservoir and took a seat.
“Though this is the hardest thing I’ve probably done in my life,” Thompson started to say. “Thank you for inviting me to participate. I had no idea what kind of shape I was in.”
Halloway patted Thompson hard on the back. Again, he winced in pain but felt a little bit of pleasure. A silent part of him wanted to do the same.
“You’re not that bad,” Christine said. “A little more training and you’ll be back in college shape. Do you remember that?”
“I was twenty pounds lighter with a fuller head of hair and better legs. Those were the good old days when I could drink twelve beers and feel
right as rain in the morning.”
“Those days,” Christine laughed, “Are good and gone.”
“But seriously Christine. “Thompson turned and looked into her eyes. “It means a lot to spend this time with you outside of the craziness of the world. This kind of exercise clears my head and lets me reset and focus on what’s really important. If I’m not able to do that, what’s the point, you know?”
A quiet hush fell over them. Both of their lives were so wrapped up in their work, that they both needed to remember that they weren’t their jobs. Before, they both had lives and dreams before being detectives. Thompson secretly wanted to be a writer or some kind of journalist, but wanted to make a real difference in the moment. Police work was the best way to do that. Christine wanted to be a professional athlete, but she never found her sport. Then, fighting crime and catching criminals came into her life and that became her world.
“I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else to be honest,” Christine said.
Thompson waited for one of her classic jokes, one that showed that she wasn’t interested in Thompson in that way. Instead, Christine stood up and let her words resonate with Thompson. Thompson stared at her, completely taken by surprise.
“Thank…uh…” Thompson stammered, unable to get the words out.
Thompson was about to say more when Christine was already off and running again.
“Idiot…” Thompson muttered underneath his breath. “Hey wait up!”
They continued through the chilly New York morning. A small wind was picking up, prickling the red and sweaty skin of their cheeks. Thompson’s lungs were on fire, his eyes were sucked tight into their sockets, yet he kept on. Pain took the back seat to his desire to show he was worthy to Christine. Every beat against the pavement was matched with a beat of his heart. Suddenly, a sharp pang shot through his leg.
“Ooo, wait a second,” Thompson said. “Think I pulled something.”
They were just passing the Heckscher playground, almost at the end of the park, when they were forced to stop.
“What is it now?” Christine asked.
She was breathing heavily, obviously winded, but Thompson still thought she looked beautiful. Maybe it was in the way her short brown hair fell ever so lightly onto her shoulder or the smirk of her mouth or the glint of contented disgust in her eye; maybe it was all of those things. Either way, Thompson, in all of his guilt and shame for being in such lacklustre shape, could not look away. Could he ever? Thompson wondered. Was this it? Was this who he would be chasing forever?
“My leg,” Thompson told Christine, snapping out of it. “Let me just rub it out.”
“Excuse me?” Christine chuckled.
Thompson got himself to a bench. “You know what I mean…”
A thick plume of curse words came out of Thompson’s mouth. He had not felt that kind of pain since he was a kid. It was the kind of strain that came from blindly pushing oneself to the absolute limits without concern for the past, without care for the future, and absolutely living in the moment organically. So often, Thompson felt as if he needed to force himself into this state yet, with Christine, he found himself there, without force or obligation. Thompson, simply was with her and in this case, he was with her in considerable pain.
“Oh,” Christine said seeing the grimace in Thompson’s face, “You’re really in pain.”
Thompson couldn’t help being manly and scoff. “yeah, but I think it’s just a tiny strain.”
He tried to stretch out his leg and felt a strong pinch.
“Ahh…” Thompson moaned, which was then followed by a shallow snap.
“I heard that,” Christine said. “That sounded bad.”
Thompson stretched his leg out back and forth. “Surprisingly feels better than before.”
“You are quite an anomaly,” said Christine. “If something like that happened to me, I would be out for a week.”
“Nothing like that would ever happen to you,” laughed Thompson. “You’re perfect!”
Christine chuckled. “Far from it.”
“Oh yeah? When was the last time you hurt yourself?”
Christine tipped her head back and tried not to think of all of the times she was scared, all the times she thought she was going to die, all the times when the terror of her job felt so overwhelming that she just wanted to be swallowed up by it so she didn’t have to feel that way anymore.
“Can’t say I remember,” Christine lied.
Thompson was about to say something when two loud gunshots echoed in the air. Halloway and Thompson knew immediately what direction the shots came from. Sweaty, disorientated, and sore, both of them understood what they had to do.
“That sounded like sniper fire,” Thompson said.
“Yep,” Halloway said, “.50 caliber. It came from the theatre district.”
“You think it’s some kind of performance?”
Halloway shook her head. “There’s nothing scheduled today. I know this city. Let’s go.”
Chapter 2
They sprinted through the rest of the park, through beeping and insane oncoming traffic, and into Union Square. Screaming civilians and more gunshots sounded in the air. People ran into shops for cover as police sirens echoed in the streets. It was absolute chaos. Halloway and Thompson felt like they had suddenly been thrust into a war zone. Gun smoke floated in the sky. Whoever was doing the shooting, meant business.
Running past a McDonald’s packed with terrified bystanders, Halloway and Thompson found a police officer huddled behind his car. He couldn’t have been more than 21 years old. He was horrified and confused.
“What’s the situation officer?” Halloway asked, flashing her badge.
“You’re a cop?!” the officer shouted. “You’re… you’re in jogging clothes!”
Halloway slapped him once hard in the face. “Officer! Pull yourself together. Tell my partner and I the situation.”
The glazed look in the officer’s eyes cleared. “Sorry…it’s my first week out of the academy. No one said there was going to be sniper fire my first week.”
“No one can prepare you for the shit of the street kid,” said Thompson. “What’s your name?”
“Kennedy,” the kid said. “Kennedy Jones.”
“You said there’s a sniper?” Halloway asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Kennedy said pointing at the big tv monitor overlooking Union square. “The crazy fucker is up there!”
Kennedy’s shaking finger revealed the tiny glint of a snipers scope between the rafters where a huge screen was showing a movie trailer with Clive Owen.
“I see ‘em,” Halloway said.
Just as she spoke those words a .50 caliber round whizzed by her head. Thompson grabbed her and brought her down to the ground to safety. Kennedy screamed and ran off in a trail of piss. In his cowardice, he dropped his pistol on the ground. Quickly, Halloway scooped up the gun and fired at the sniper until there was one round left. She would have cleared the whole mag but Thompson ordered her to stop.
“Why!” Halloway screamed., firing the last round and tossing the pistol to the ground. She waved her arms at the five dead bodies strewn on the streets, blood seeping onto the concrete. “So whoever is up there can keep killing?”
“You’re never going to take them down from here with that pea shooter!” Thompson shouted. “Think!”
Two officers ran up to where they were hiding behind their squad car.
“You guys detectives?” one of them asked.
“You know it,” Halloway said. “What’s the situation here?”
“One sniper that we know of,” the officer said. “By the looks of it, whoever they are has themselves set up pretty good. No idea how they got up there unseen.”
“And no idea how they are going to get themselves down,” Thompson muttered.
Then, the unthinkable happened. The sniper opened up on them again, blowing the plastic sirens clear off of the squad car. Everyone ducked for cover, tryi
ng to get away from the onslaught of bullets. There were five more booming shots, then a small hand glider appeared in the sky above. The sniper was on the run.
“Where the hell do you think he’s going?” Halloway shouted starting to run after the sniper.
Thompson grabbed her by the arm. “Where the hell do you think you’re going, you don’t even have your weapon?”
“I’m going to chase that bastard down!”
“You have no idea if they’re with anybody else. How many more times do you think you’re going to cheat death?”
Halloway ripped her arm away. “As many times as I damn well please.”
Halloway sprinted into Union Square, jumping over parked cars and dodging pedestrians lying flat on their stomachs to avoid the hell from above. Thompson, unable to control Christine, was forced to follow. Before he did, he turned to the two officers and confiscated their sidearms.
“Secure the scene and get the bodies off the street. You wouldn’t want your loved one laying out in the middle of the road like a dog, would you?”
Thompson gradually got shoulder to shoulder to Christine, running as fast as his already tired body could muster. His lungs burned, his eyes watered, but the pain if anything happened to Christine far outweighed the pain of his screaming body. They watched as the sniper floated down the street and landed on the roof of Chase Bank. Thompson and Halloway ran inside, ordering the security to take them to the roof.
“I’m not authorized to let you up there” the cowering guard said