Out of Exile: Hard Boiled: 2
Page 19
Her eyes darted around, looking for a way, any way, out.
Sullivan saw it coming.
Shit.
She pulled the trigger.
CLICK.
Shocked. Scared. Angry. She pulled it again.
CLICK.
CLICK.
CLICK.
CLICK.
The gun was empty.
Sullivan laughed, loud and long. The sound bounced around the hangar and back at them from all sides. ‘The weight of a pistol’s different when there’s no rounds in it. A street cop would know that.’
Monique elbowed Mackler high in the ribs, shook her loose and ran to her father. Jones caught her in his arms and held her tight, and probably would have never had let her go, if he had his way. For Sullivan in that moment, watching Jones with his daughter, the killings, the beatings, the shootings, and the heart attack were all worth it.
Jones held Monique at arm’s length. ‘I want you to get out of here and call the police.’ He turned to Sullivan. ‘Campbell?’
‘He’s dead as disco,’ Sullivan said.
He turned back to Monique. ‘It’s safe out there now. Can you go find a phone?’
She nodded, turned on her heel and headed for the door. Jones watched her leave, and by the time he slowly turned back to Mackler, the joy on his face had been replaced with a cold blankness.
‘Are you going to arrest me now, Officer?’ Mackler said coyly, her wrists out and ready to be cuffed.
Jones put his gun on her. ‘I doubt it.’
‘What the fuck are you doing, Jim?’ Sullivan asked.
‘What needs to be done.’
Sullivan took a step, got an angle on Jones’s eyes; they were full of rage and fury. ‘Think about this first.’
‘I’ve been thinking about it all day.’
‘This . . . what you are about to do is not what you want to do, trust me,’ Sullivan said. ‘I’ve been there. This is not what you want.’
A smile crept onto Mackler’s face. ‘It’s exactly what he wants to do. It’s exactly what he needs to do.’
Sullivan’s eyes bounced from Jones to Mackler and back again. ‘What the hell is she talking about, Jim?’
Jones was covered in sweat. He lowered his weapon, took a couple of steps from her, then a couple back toward her, and took aim again. ‘Shit,’ he mumbled to himself.
‘What the fuck is going on here?’ Sullivan asked.
‘Tell him,’ Mackler said. ‘Go on.’
Jones’s eyes were starting to glass up. He turned to Sullivan. ‘I did it. I stole Monique. Just the way Campbell said.’
Sullivan’s shoulders slumped forward, and his chest felt tight. ‘Shit.’
‘She wouldn’t have survived there,’ Jones pleaded. ‘She was close to death when I found her. We gave her a home. We gave her a family.’
For a moment, Sullivan couldn’t find the words. Then he stammered, ‘But you still stole a child from its parents?’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Jones didn’t sound sure about what he was saying. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘You’re no different from me, or Sullivan,’ Mackler said. ‘Just another fucking criminal.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Sullivan said.
‘Because he saved one little girl? Doing something bad for a good reason doesn’t justify doing something bad,’ she answered. ‘They’re going to take your daughter away from you. You’re going to go to jail, Jim.’
Jones stepped up and put his gun in Mackler’s face. ‘I did nothing wrong!’
‘Keep telling yourself that.’
‘Don’t,’ Sullivan said. ‘Don’t do this.’
‘He won’t,’ Mackler said. ‘He’s got some misplaced sense of honor. Killing me will go against his code.’
Jones gripped the weapon a little tighter. ‘I might make an exception.’
She shook her head. ‘We all know how this ends. Mayor Adams and O’Conner will talk it to death, and at the end of that discussion, they’ll do everything they can to avoid another scandal. I’ll retire quietly, and everything will be swept under the carpet and all the blame laid on Campbell.’
‘I can’t let that happen,’ Jones said.
‘You don’t understand,’ Mackler said. ‘You won’t have a choice.’
Jones tightened the grip on his weapon; his body stiffened, his leg planted more firmly. Textbook DPD shooting training. Sullivan had seen it before; Jim Jones was going to blast the police chief away.
Sullivan yanked up his Beretta, took aim at Jones. ‘Please, drop the gun.’
‘She’s Hailstrum! She ruined your life too!’
‘Shoot him,’ Mackler said.
‘Shut your mouth!’ Sullivan spat.
‘SHOOT HIM!’
Sullivan shifted his aim and fired. The bullet cracked through the air, followed by an awful silence. Mackler’s body fell to the ground and slumped in an awkward position.
Sullivan dropped his gaze to the weapon in his palm. His hands were steady, his eyes cold. He tossed his weapon to the ground and looked over the empty runways and beyond that: at the morning sun as it pushed over the city skyline. A breezed crossed his face. The cool change had finally hit. ‘Jones. . . You wanted to know what it’s like to kill somebody?’ he said. ‘It’s awful. Just awful.’
Police sirens faded up in the distance. Jones squinted across the runways, at the freeway, and the flashing red and blues hammering along it.
‘If they catch you, they will kill you,’ Jones said.
Sullivan took a step, paused, looked back over his shoulder, and gave Jones a crooked smile. ‘Then I better not get caught.’
With his body broken and his mind not far behind, he ran toward the sun.
The sirens cut. Tires squealed on the concrete. Doors opened and slammed. SWAT raided the hangar, hard and fast. Fanned out, weapons up, left-to-right sweeps, and when they discovered there was no threat, they relaxed.
O’Conner, shotgun in hand, made his way over to Jones and let his gaze settle on Mackler’s body. ‘What the hell happened here?’
Jones looked out into the haze of the sun and, for a brief moment, thought he could see the silhouette of his friend running in the distance. He blinked, and the silhouette was gone.
A special unit was put together and a nationwide search for Sullivan conducted. He was chased from Detroit to New York; vehicles were reported stolen and found abandoned; sightings were called in from every train station and airport on the east coast; and then, halfway through the third week of the hunt, the trail went cold.
Some believed he had escaped the country—others thought he had been killed. Jones didn’t believe any of the stories. He knew the only way Angus Sullivan was going to be found was if he wanted to be found.
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Dear reader,
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Pretty full on, huh? That book’s relentless. The first time I read that I read it in one sitting and I needed a glass of bourbon and a cigarette straight after. I figure that if I was ever in a tight spot, Angus Sullivan would be the guy I’d call to help me out.
* * *
If you’re looking to see what happens next to the human wrecking ball on these pages, check out the next installment in Jack Quaid’s Hard Boiled series, Extraction. In this one Angus wants nothing more than to clear his name. In exchange for a full pardon, Angus must go into the most dangerous part of Mexico and extract an FBI witness. What begins as a simple rescue mission soon descends into a desperate struggle to stop WMDs from reaching the streets of the Big Apple before disaster strikes.
* * *
To download Angus’ next rampage head straight here…
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And if you want to leave a quick review, head straight on over to Amazon.
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We hope you had fun! Thank you for reading! You rock!
* * *
Luke Preston
Who the hell is JACK QUAID?
Be
tween the years 1980 and 1999, American novelist Jack Quaid produced a series of fun and wild stories where anything could happen, and with Quaid behind the typewriter, they usually did. He called these books his Electric Mayhem series.
* * *
Jack Quaid was born in West Hollywood, California, in 1953. He won a scholarship to UCLA but dropped out after six months for a reason that, to this day, remains unknown. Two years later, he sold his first short story to Startling Mystery Magazine, but it was the publication of his novel The City on the Edge of Tomorrow in 1980 and the film adaptation starring Bruce Dern that set him on his way.
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Fearing his initial success would fade, Quaid wrote obsessively for the next two decades and published under many pseudonyms. It’s unknown just how many books he produced during this period, but despite the name on the jacket, savvy readers always knew they were reading a Jack Quaid novel within the first few pages.
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His books have long been out of print, and they now live on the dusty shelves of secondhand bookstores and in the memories of those who have been lucky enough to read them.
Quaid’s current whereabouts are unknown.
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www.jackquaidbooks.com
Also by JACK QUAID
World War Metal Vol: 1
World War Metal Vol: 2
World War Metal Vol: 3
Captain of the Universe
arcade squad
Star Defender
Game Over
Escape from Happydale
Escape from Bastard Town
Escape from Slaughter Beach
Exorcist 90210
The City on the Edge of Tomorrow
A Coin Operated Future
A Fist Full of Credits
For a Few Credits More
The Good, the Bad and the Artificially Advanced
Atomic Pussycat
Hard Boiled: Vigilante Reloaded
Hard Boiled: Out of Exile
Hard Boiled: Bullet Storm