Out of Exile: Hard Boiled: 2

by Jack Quaid

Sullivan knocked him out cold with the phone.

  Chapter Forty Three

  Sullivan didn’t want Masi calling ahead and warning Campbell. He also thought Masi had a whack coming to him so he didn’t feel bad about it.

  Sullivan called Lopez and got the address of The Facility: the third floor, 9 Niagara Lane. The liquor licence was in Deacon’s name.

  They had twenty-five minutes before the deadline was up, and the traffic around the city had loosened. They parked illegally in a taxi zone, climbed out, and walked up the footpath. Jones moved in a daze, slow and aimless. People bumped into him as they passed, and he didn’t seem to notice. Shit, Sullivan thought. If this thing was to all go pear-shaped, which is likely, I can’t walk into a gunfight with Jones like this.

  Sullivan wrapped his fingers around his arm, stopped him, turned him, and looked into his eyes. ‘Get yourself together. I can’t go into this thing with you only half there.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ Jones said. ‘Don’t worry about that.’

  Sullivan cocked his head, gauged the man. It was the best he was going to get from Jones and would have to do for now.

  They walked half a block in the sun to Niagara Lane. Sullivan slowed at the mouth of the alley and peeked around the corner. The city was full of shit-kicking laneways that, at first glance, looked to be full of nothing more than the rear entrances of the joints on the busier streets. But the lanes were all home to hidden bars and clubs. In wasn’t uncommon to wander down a dark alley in Detroit and into a warehouse and up three flights of stairs to find a joint. The Facility looked to be that kind of place. It was in a hundred-year-old building, five stories high and dwarfed by the ones on either side. The laneway was narrow, without many places to hide.

  ‘Are they in there?’ Jones asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Sullivan pulled his head in. ‘They’ll make us for sure if we step foot into the alley.’ He clocked the street. Suits on their lunch hour passed by while a couple of kids cutting school were trying to be tough, with cigarettes and bad language.

  Sullivan stepped over to them. ‘Who wants to make a hundred bucks?’

  A kid with a lip ring and a dumb look on his face stiffened. ‘This isn’t a gay thing, is it?’

  ‘There’s a building around the corner. I want to know how many people are on the third floor.’

  ‘Two hundred bucks?’ the kid said with a smirk.

  ‘Done,’ Sullivan said and turned to Jones. ‘Give him two hundred dollars.’

  Jones peeled off two fifties. ‘You get the rest when you come back.’

  The kid flaunted the money in his buddy’s face. ‘Guess who’s rich, now!?‘

  ‘Don’t go celebrating just yet,’ Sullivan said. He walked over to the rubbish bin and pulled out a box that someone had stuffed in it. He put the kid’s backpack inside, then shoved the whole thing into his hands.

  ‘Pretend you’re delivering this,’ Sullivan said. ‘Try and remember how many people you see and where they are. Don’t get fancy; just get in, look around, and get out, okay?’

  ‘It’s cool, man, I got this,’ he said. Too stupid even to ask what he was getting into.

  Jones and Sullivan watched as the kid bopped down the alley and into the building.

  ‘I hope we didn’t just get him killed,’ Jones said.

  For the first couple of minutes, it just seemed like the kid was doing his job. After five minutes, Sullivan began to worry. After six, seven, eight minutes, he shared Jones’s fear. Sullivan set fire to a cigarette, and the kid returned.

  ‘What did you see?’ Sullivan asked.

  ‘Gimme the other hundred.’

  Jones did.

  ‘It was just like you said. Third floor. A bunch of guys, maybe six or seven of them. An old lady and another chick.’

  Jones was relieved. ‘How were they?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The girls?’

  The kid didn’t care. ‘I don’t know.’

  Sullivan flicked the cigarette into the gutter. ‘Did they see you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, I said I was there to deliver a package.’

  ‘Did they believe you?’

  ‘Yeah. Should’ve given me an Academy Award, they should’ve, I was that good. The dude watching the TV did most of the talking, but I wasn’t in there that long.’

  Sullivan sent the kid on his way, and him and his mate were soon around the corner, in search of an easygoing bottle shop.

  Jones looked at his watch. There was less than ten minutes until Campbell’s deadline. ‘I’ll call SWAT.’

  He got on the phone, and Sullivan peeked down the alley. There was no movement outside number nine. The kid had slipped in and out, and sold his bullshit story so well that no one had noticed a thing.

  Jones pulled the phone from his ear. ‘We’re in trouble. SWAT are stuck in traffic. It’ll take them twenty minutes to get here.’

  ‘Uniforms?’

  ‘Mackler is sending every available unit, but today? In this traffic?’

  Sullivan cocked his head down the alley again. ‘We can’t go in there, close quarters like that. They’ll tear us apart.’ He took a step toward the gutter, closed his eyes while every shitty idea he had raced through his mind, and then stopped at the least-worst one.

  ‘We don’t go in there at all,’ he said. ‘We make them come out.’

  ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘Campbell is sitting in there right now, with his eyes glued to the television, waiting for you to confess.’

  Jones nodded.

  ‘Pass me your phone.’ Jones did, and Sullivan scrolled through his contact list. ‘Who do you know at the news divisions?’

  ‘The senior producer at Fox2: Clara Davis.’

  Sullivan found the name and hit call. The phone rang for a couple of moments before Davis answered.

  ‘The men responsible for the shooting at the Westin this morning are currently hiding out at a bar in Niagara Lane called The Facility—’

  Jones snatched the phone. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘In two minutes, that’ll be breaking news. A minute after that, Campbell will be exploding out of those doors and looking to get as far away from here as possible. We get them on the street, and we take them there.’

  Jones stood back. ‘Now we have no choice!’

  ‘I’m going to need a gun,’ Sullivan said.

  ‘Hell, no.’

  ‘I can’t walk down there with just my charming personality, can I?’

  Half a profanity leaked out from Jones’s lips before he pulled it back and shook his head. ‘I don’t know how you got us in this situation.’ He popped the trunk of the car. ‘But no matter which way this ends, you’re going back to jail.’

  ‘If we survive, you can jail me later.’

  Underneath the police-issued wet-weather gear in the trunk was a lock box. Jones cracked it with a key, pulled out a revolver, and slapped it in Sullivan’s hand.

  He looked the weapon over. ‘Where’d you get this, the gun museum?’

  ‘You can always use your charming personality.’

  ‘If I run out of bullets, I suppose I could hit someone with it. What are you carrying?’

  Jones shifted his jacket; a similar revolver sat on his waistband. He took it out, let it dangle by his thigh. ‘I haven’t fired one in years.’

  ‘If it makes you feel any better,’ said Sullivan, ‘neither have I.’

  Chapter Forty Four

  Sullivan crouched behind one of the vehicles parked against the wall. He had a clear shot at the front door and at anyone who walked through it. Jones took up his post twenty feet away behind a dumpster; he had the same angle and aim at the door that Sullivan did, only from the other side of the alley. They weren’t the best positions. The best positions would have been standing behind two SWAT teams behind a cordoned-off line with fifty uniforms surrounding the block. Instead, Sullivan had a relic in his hand and a gimp by his side.

 
The roar of a helicopter grew over the sounds of the city until it was all that could be heard. Sullivan looked up between the cracks of the building and saw a chopper hovering above. The news had broken.

  Sullivan poked his head over the trunk and saw Jones gripping his weapon too tightly. He gave Sullivan a little salute that came off nowhere near as cool as Sullivan figured Jones thought it would.

  The doors busted open.

  Deacon was first out, gun up and ready to get into the thick of it. God followed, in the same formation. They scanned the alley. From their point of view, it was clear.

  God waved and, from the darkness of the stairwell, Monique emerged with Campbell behind her, and most likely, a weapon buried in the small of her back. Her hair was a mess and her face puffy from tears. Sarah followed, with Pierce behind her.

  Sullivan waited until they were all out, then rose from behind the vehicle. He raised the revolver—it felt like a brick.

  ‘Don’t fucking move,’ he shouted over the chopper blades.

  Guns up on Sullivan.

  ‘I didn’t see you there, Angus,’ Campbell said. ‘I guess this explains why we hadn’t heard from Hogan and May.’

  ‘You’re surrounded,’ Sullivan said. ‘So let’s not turn this into a mess.’

  Campbell looked left and right down the alley. ‘I don’t feel surrounded.’

  Jones limped out from behind the dumpster. ‘Let them go,’

  Relief flashed across Sarah’s face. Jones smiled; a small gesture that everything was going to be all right.

  ‘Is this what you call ‘surrounded’?’ Campbell turned to Jones. ‘Shouldn’t I be expecting you on television any minute now? Or do I need to send you some more body parts?’

  ‘It’s finished,’ Jones said. ‘Drop your weapons, or you won’t get out of this alley.’

  Campbell looked up one end of the alley then down the other. ‘I’m tipping there’s only the two of you,’ he laughed. ‘If you had backup, you wouldn’t have waited for us to come out.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Sullivan said.

  ‘No,’ Jones cut in. ‘You’re right.’ As best he could, he bent at the knee. He placed his gun on the cobblestones, with his free hand open, to prove it was empty.

  ‘Jones, what are you doing?’ Sullivan yelled. ‘Pick up that gun!’

  ‘I’m going to reason with them.’

  ‘What? PICK UP THAT FUCKING GUN!’

  Jones wasn’t listening. He stepped forward. ‘You want me to say I did something I didn’t do? I can’t do that. You want me to say I went too far putting crooked cops in prison? I can’t do that either. We need a police force that is trustworthy; the people of this state deserve it. Put those guns down, and we can work this out together. Please,’ Jones said. ‘Nobody else needs to get hurt.’

  ‘You don’t get it,’ Campbell said. ‘This is about hurting people.’

  He raised his Glock at Jones and fired a round into his chest. The force of it sent him to the concrete. Jones gasped for air. He held his chest, tried to reach for his weapon, fingertips scraping the concrete, but it was too far away.

  Sarah screamed.

  Sullivan leveled his revolver. Fired. It sounded like a cannon. The crack bounced off the walls and reverberated far longer than the life of the shot.

  He fell to one knee, readjusted his aim.

  Campbell used Monique as a shied—no shot.

  He readjusted his aim again. Closest target—Pierce.

  Sullivan pulled the trigger. Pierce copped one in the neck, stumbled around in the alley, collapsed on the concrete, and would later bleed out.

  Deacon and Horse turned Sullivan’s way.

  Half a dozen rounds came at him. He dove behind the vehicle and heard bullets pound the steel body, take out the windshield, and hit the wall above his head.

  They paused to reload. Sullivan swung up.

  Squeezed the trigger.

  And hit Deacon in the arm.

  Sullivan realigned his aim. The revolver had so much kick that it was hard to get off a second bullet with any sort of precision. He fired off two more stray rounds, into a brick wall farther down the alley.

  Sarah whacked God in the jaw with her elbow, hard enough for him to loosen his grip. She hit the ground and crawled on her hands and knees to Jones. By then, he had reached his revolver and swung it in the direction of Campbell. He squeezed the trigger. The revolver kicked up half a foot and the round went nowhere—he was a shithouse shot.

  Sullivan reloaded. His bear-like hand fumbled as he slid bullets into the cylinders.

  A Fox2 news van pulled into the alley. The driver, hearing gunfire, screeched to a stop. The media had got there quicker than the police. Some idiot climbed out of the van with a camera on his shoulder.

  ‘EVERYONE OUT OF HERE!’ Campbell yelled. He yanked open the door of the parked Ford and pushed Monique inside.

  Sullivan tried to get a shot off, but Campbell ducked into the car and out of sight before he could. The engine roared to life. The left side of the Ford scraped a brick wall before Campbell straightened the bastard.

  Sullivan watched it hammer out into the street and pull a hard left.

  The rest of the unit had scattered. Deacon and Horse yanked the driver out of the Fox2 news van, climbed behind the wheel, and gunned the vehicle in reverse out into the street. Sullivan scanned the alley: God was nowhere in sight.

  Sullivan stepped to Jones. His shirt was open, and he was peeling off the Kevlar vest. The round had pegged him square and center. At worst, he would have a broken rib.

  ‘Get them,’ Jones coughed.

  Chapter Forty Five

  Sullivan took off, running down the alley, and busted into the street. Campbell’s Ford punched the wrong way down the one-way street. It mounted the gutter, took out a couple of street signs, bounced back onto the road, and swung a hard left into another street.

  The hand cannon weighed a ton, but Sullivan couldn’t ditch it. He kept it low by his thigh as he ran and dodged around the pedestrians who were shocked at the debris the Ford left. He took the corner wide. The traffic was a mess. Vehicles at a standstill. Everybody going nowhere.

  Campbell’s Ford scraped a row of cars. A cascade of angry drivers pounded on their horns; a few climbed out, their faces full of anger, but all they could do was watch. The Ford made it as far through the traffic jam as it could. Then Campbell climbed out, saw Sullivan running, and fired off three rounds in his direction.

  Everybody ate concrete.

  Sullivan didn’t skip a beat. He kept running. Campbell would have to be Lee Harvey Oswald to hit him at that distance. He pulled Monique out of the Ford, and they disappeared between a row of cars and out of sight.

  Sullivan slipped between two vans, emerging on the other side with his revolver up and ready. There was no Campbell, only scared pedestrians cowering on the ground.

  ‘Where is he?’ Sullivan yelled.

  A kid who looked like a university student pointed to the entrance to Detroit central station. Sullivan jumped the steps of the escalators into the subway five steps at a time. While his knees cushioned the shock of each landing, his left one was weak, and as he jumped off the final step, it gave way and he tumbled onto the dirty walkway. His revolver slipped and rolled across the floor.

  Sullivan stumbled to his feet, scraped his weapon off the floor, and followed a trail of scared commuters star-fished on the ground.

  A distant rumble came from the tunnel, then a rush of hot air and the sound of a horn.

  Sullivan reached the platform as the train pulled up.

  Campbell waved his weapon and pulled Monique onto the train, blasting a couple of rounds Sullivan’s way. Sullivan ducked.

  The thunder of gunfire sent the commuters into a mad panic. They rushed for the exits, yelling and screaming.

  Sullivan couldn’t hear the beep of the train doors closing but could see them sliding together. He rose to his feet and fought the mob to reach the train but did
n’t make it in time. The metal beast pulled away from the platform and a moment later was gone, with Monique and Campbell inside.

  ‘Freeze, buddy!’

  Out of breath, he did and turned to see two uniforms, both with their weapons out and zeroed in on Sullivan.

  ‘I’m Angus Sullivan. I’m a police officer. There’s a—’

  ‘I know who you are, sir, and you’re no police officer. Drop the weapon.’

  Sullivan wiped the sweat from his eyes. ‘On that train,’ he said, thumbing behind him, ‘is a—’

  ‘DROP YOUR WEAPON!’ yelled the other uniform.

  ‘Drop it.’

  Sullivan thought about getting on the train. He thought about running. Then he thought about the bullet he would probably cop for doing either one. He bent at the knees and placed the revolver on the ground. When he rose, he did so with his palms up and open, so that there would be no misunderstanding. ‘The man you are looking for is on that train.’

  Keeping one eye on Sullivan, the first uniform pulled his radio. ‘Better call this in.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Sullivan said. ‘You’re going to lose him.’

  The train doors started to close.

  ‘William Campbell has a hostage on that train!’

  ‘Sir, calm down!’

  ‘You’re letting him get away!’

  ‘If you don’t calm down, I will restrain you, sir!’

  Sullivan knew that any cop would think twice about shooting an unarmed man. He took a step toward the train.

  ‘Sir!’

  Took another step.

  ‘SIR!’

  Another step.

  ‘Shit,’ the uniform muttered to himself as he holstered his weapon.

  It was Sullivan’s chance. He stepped off into a run, but the uniform was younger, fitter, and stronger. After three giant steps, he tackled Sullivan to the ground.

  Knee in the back. Elbow to the head.

  Sullivan was pinned. He heard the whistle of the train, tilted his head and watched it roll away from the platform.

  Chapter Forty Six