The phone went dead and Brant looked up at Lloyd with a satisfied smile. “Well, I guess he won’t be phoning again soon. He’ll probably be working on his press conference speech.”
Lloyd laughed at the thought of the man rehearsing in front of a bathroom mirror. “Do you think that Armstrong is done?” she asked, concerned at the already high body count. Brant shrugged.
He hoped so.
THIRTY-SIX
Darius sat watching television in one of the back rooms. He was waiting for his favourite show to come on after the current boring cooking programme. He sat casually with his back half on the rear of the armchair and his front on the arm, while his right leg hung over the other arm. Besides him was a large bowl full of potato chips and he had a glass of beer in his hand. He was comfortable and ready for a lazy evening.
Darius grabbed a handful of chips and was about to shove them into his mouth when a newsflash stopped him midway, as he watched a large picture of Brian Armstrong come onto the screen. The chips fell back into the bowl and he sat up to pay attention to the broadcast.
“Yo, fellas, get your asses in here!” His yelling soon brought the others rushing in, just in time to see the report:
The police are looking for this man in connection with three murders. He is considered to be highly dangerous so do not approach...”
Tyrell turned quickly to find Armstrong standing behind them, his face emotionless. Tyrell grabbed him and pinned him against the wall, but Brian did not resist.
“What you done, man?” Tyrell demanded. “You brought this on all of us, you know that?”
Brian looked up at Tyrell, directly into his eyes. “You know I didn’t do this. Whoever set me up back then is doing this now.”
Tyrell let him go and stepped back. “Yeah, but the thing is, Teacher, where have you been goin’ nights? We seen you sneakin’ out. At first I thought what the hell, man’s in the free world and probably got an itch. But now? Tell us, where you been goin’, Teacher?”
Brian thought for a moment then shook his head. It was his personal business.
“You killed a friggin’ judge man! A friggin judge!” yelled Darius as he paced up and down.
“Everyone just stop and shut up,” Brian said, trying to make them see reason. “Look. The police are grasping at straws and my name fits, I don’t know why. It’ll be okay if we all stick together.”
Tyrell shook his head, and there was a disappointed look on his face: he was torn. He thought he knew this man, but what if he had done this crime? If so, then they would all go down for it.
“No, man,” Tyrell told him. “You ain’t bringin’ us or my brother into this shit, you’re on your own, man. I would rather go down as an escapee than a judge killer.”
Armstrong saw the look on their faces, and none of them could meet his gaze. Brian nodded. He understood that Tyrell was just looking after his brother and the rest of them. Hell, he probably would have done the same thing himself.
“I wish you all well, guys,” Armstrong said, “but just remember I didn’t do this killing. If they are willing to pin this on me they will be after you as well. Leave the country, guys—get the hell out.”
DC opened the door and they watched Brian disappear into the darkened hallway. DC quickly shut the door and bolted it before he tried to get back in.
“What if he was right, man?” DC asked, scared and confused. “What have we just done?”
*
Armstrong stepped out into the dusk air, noticing that the sky was full of purples and oranges as the sun began to fade into the horizon. He pulled up the hood of his top over his head, looked around to make sure he wasn’t being followed, then, sticking to the shadows, disappeared down the street.
“Yeah,” the detective in the unmarked car said into his radio. “Armstrong has just left the building. What do you want us to do? The others are still in there.”
“Stay on him,” he was told. “The others will follow later. Wait until they are somewhere public then we will move in.” The voice of Bennett blared from the cell phone’s loudspeaker.
The cop on observation detail ended the call and started his engine. Moving the car at a snail’s pace, he set off after Armstrong.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Tony returned to the precinct while Joshua Tooms attempted to locate the picture. Tooms had gone to the judge’s chambers first, since that was the closest and for all purposes the more secure location. If you’re going to hide something important you want it to be safe.
He stepped out of the elevator to find the room alive with activity. Something was wrong. He looked around and finally spotted Lloyd, who was at his desk using the phone. Tony waded through the crowds of uniforms and detectives and he made for her.
The detective drew in close to speak over the noise but was stopped by Lloyd, who placed a finger onto his lips to silence him.
“Yes, it’s important,” she snapped into the phone. “Look, I am an agent from the FBI. What do you mean you don’t care, he’s too busy to talk to me...Hello? Hello?”
Lloyd looked at the receiver with a shocked look on her face. “Bastard hung up on me, what an asshole,” she barked, taking her finger away from the confused detective’s lips.
“What the hell is going on?” Tony asked her.
She opened up the file and pointed to the arrest report pertaining to Brian Armstrong. “The arresting officers of Brian Armstrong were detectives Alan Carter and Jack Doyle.”
Tony shrugged, not getting the point. “Yeah? So we find them and warn them.”
Agent Lloyd shook her head but began to smile. “Easier said than done. One of them retired and lives God knows where and the other...” She pointed to a footnote signature from the new Chief of Detectives.
“You got to be kidding me!” Tony’s mouth fell open.
Lloyd filled Tony in on what she had found, via Steel’s instructions. She repeated what she had briefed the captain and the chief on, bringing Tony up to speed.
He had to agree it made sense. But who did Brian Armstrong know who had that much influence? That answer Lloyd found in a different background check. She had discovered that Brian Armstrong was once known as Michael Adams, a ‘company’ man until something made him get out. However, he still had friends in dangerous places.
Looking at the facts, Tony could see how the pieces now fitted together. He had to agree that the Chief could most certainly be the next target, but getting to him would be almost impossible, unless of course you happened to have been trained into becoming a ghost.
The smile faded from Lloyd’s face the more she thought of it, and Tony noticed his change of mood.
“What’s wrong, what did we miss?” Lloyd said in anguish. She went over the notes again and threw down the file on Tyrell Williams. “Damn it!” she screamed and rubbed her forehead.
Tony picked up the file, read through it, and then looked over at Lloyd.
“Tyrell Williams,” she said. “His brother has enough pull to get this done. Armstrong probably just used the escape to settle old debts. We need to find Tyrell’s brother Jacob.”
Tony nodded in agreement. “True. But nobody has seen the guy since the breakout. Hell, he hasn’t even been to his club lately.”
Agent Lloyd stood up and put her jacket on. “Someone knows where he is.”
*
A strange waist-high mist hung over the cemetery and the full moon gave everything an eerie glow. It was the sort of scene you would expect from a horror film, just before the undead hands started breaking through the surface of the earth. A lone figure made its way through the maze of headstones, moving slowly and carefully.
Brian Armstrong stopped and looked up at the clear sky. The blanket of a billion stars created such a beautiful scene. He took a deep breath and continued further in: he knew just where he was going. He had his goodbyes to say, and something in his soul told him that he may not get chance to say them ever again.
Armstrong walked up to a l
onely marble gravestone, the clear lettering picked out in black. He knew the words off by heart:
In memory of Julie Armstrong, loving mother and daughter. Taken from us too early.
Brian shed a tear, hurt that the words ‘loving wife’ had been omitted, as if they were trying to extinguish any traces of his association with the dead woman. However, he knew the truth, and one day he hoped everyone else would, including his daughter. He bent down at the foot of the headstone and placed a rose there, one that he had taken from the bushes near the entrance.
“So this is where you been coming?”
Armstrong did not turn around when he heard the voice behind him.
“Why didn’t you say, man?”
Somehow, Brian had known that he had been followed. He just hoped it was either Tyrell or Darius.
“I never got to say goodbye that night,” Brain told him. “Our last words were, well, not friendly, shall we say.”
Tyrell nodded as though he understood Brian’s pain and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “If you were right about what you said back there, we need to go. Your face is all over the place, man.”
Brian stood up and kissed his own fingers and placed them onto the stone, as if transferring the goodbye kiss to her. Tyrell put an arm round Brian’s shoulders like a brother and led him gently back to the parking lot at the front of the church, where a blacked out G wagon was waiting for them.
As the car sped off, a shocked Sam McCall sat open-mouthed in the parking lot.
“You have got to be kidding me!” she mumbled to herself. “That was Armstrong and the others.” She was disappointed to have missed them. She had seen the G wagon pull up but had waited in the shadows with the others in her car, just in case they were noticed.
“What? Who are you talking about?” Megan asked, looking confused at what McCall had just said.
“Never mind,” Sam told her. “We have to get after them.” She knew she couldn’t risk losing them, on the other hand she daren’t allow their tail to be seen.
“What about Steel?” Gabriel asked, from the back seat. “If we leave, he won’t know where to find us.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Gabriel, he always has a knack of turning up when he is needed.”
The two women looked at each other and nodded, with knowing smiles.
“Oh yeah, he sure does that,” McCall repeated, then she put the car into drive and sped off into the night.
*
Steel walked out into the parking lot and pulled his leather gloves on, his breath turning to mist as it came into contact with the cold of the night. The dirty cop had given him some information but it was very little, so Steel figured that’s how they played it: you were only told what you needed to know. But he came away with a name, one that didn’t really surprise him: Detective Bennett.
He looked around and smiled. McCall’s car had gone so that was something, for he wasn’t about to stop and answer questions, especially the reason why he had shot a fellow detective. Those answers could wait.
No, for now he had to find McCall and the girl, Megan, after which they had to locate and neutralise a killer. His long coat carried the wind like some demonic beast, with its military-style wool and leather arms, collar and shoulders. He pulled it closed and buttoned the crossover closing all the way up.
The street was empty apart from one unmarked car with two men inside that was parked next to a children’s playground. He could not really make out who the cops were from that distance, but he knew they were the backup for tackling the hero in the kitchen.
Some back up! he thought to himself. In fact he was surprised they were still there.
Inside the police car the driver looked across at his large partner, who was eating a sandwich like it would be his last. Pieces of chicken and mayo clung to his large fatty chin as he shovelled in another mouthful.
His thin partner watched with disgust. “You eat like a friggin’ animal, you know that?” he told him.
The large cop smiled and belched loudly, just to annoy his partner more.
In response, the thin cop shook his head and looked away towards the side window, just in time to see a fire extinguisher heading for it. The men ducked and covered their faces as the beads of glass covered both of them.
The thinner man felt himself being pulled back towards the door quickly, his head impacted with the side of the door frame and then the steering wheel, with a little help of course.
Half concussed, the cop didn’t feel Steel reach in and relieve him of his sidearm. The English detective tossed the hand-held fire extinguisher onto the ground and pointed the cop’s gun at them both.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “Now if you would be so good as to take out your weapons and throw them onto the back seat, using your other hand and holding it by the grip with two fingers, that would be great.”
The fat cop struggled to get his weapon but did as he was told. Steel backed away from the car but kept them at gunpoint. “Okay, gentlemen, what do you want with the girl?”
Steel didn’t really expect an answer straight away. One of the officers was half dazed, while the other looked as if he was about to soil himself.
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about!” the smaller officer told him. “Look, you idiot, we’re cops so you’d better put down the gun.” He nursed his sore head.
“It’s funny but your partner was a cop as well, and he told me you were waiting for him. So I’ll ask you once again, what do you want with the girl?” Steel’s words were full of venom, for he hated dirty cops but the ones who hurt kids he hated even more.
“Fuck you, buddy!” the thin cop snarled defiantly, as though he would rather die than talk. “What now? Are you gonna kill us?”
Steel smiled and shook his head. “No. We’re just going to have a little chat. Take out your cuffs, both of you. Now cuff yourselves through the steering wheel.” Steel gave his orders, all the while pointing the gun at the thin cop’s crotch.
“You have no idea who you’re messing with!” growled the thin cop.
“Oh, I have a fair idea. You see your friend was most forthcoming on a couple of facts. It’s amazing how compliant someone can be once you have found that one thing that makes them crumble.”
The two men looked at each other, their hands still raised.
“For instance,” the Englishman went on, “if you tell a guy you’re going to shoot him dead, chances are he will be a hero and think: ‘Go for it, it’s quick and it’ll soon be over’.”
The two cops looked at each other and an expression of fear crossed their minds as they realised he was some kind of homicidal nut job.
“But it’s different if you threaten a guy with pain. I am not talking about breaking fingers—pain like that comes and goes. No, I am talking about pain that stays. For instance with your friend I threatened to pour red-hot cooking oil over him. Now that is pain that stays.”
The fat cop lost control of his bladder, forcing the other cop to edge away.
“So, so, what are you going to do with us?” The sandwich cop stumbled with his words.
Steel walked forwards and smiled at him. “Let’s just try a little experiment, to see if my theory is right.”
The two cops looked at one another, fear gripping them both.
The detective walked back to the church, but soon returned with two large fuel cans and placed them down close to the vehicle that held the two men, who were now shaking with abject terror.
The thin man regarded the fuel cans and looked at the stranger, who was now sitting on one of them.
“So is this your plan?” asked the brave officer. “Scare the crap out of us then let the cops find us, right?”
Steel stood up and shook his head. “No, not quite. You see I don’t intend to kill you.” Steel picked up the cans and shook them individually to show the men that they were full of fuel.
The large man wet himself again.
“So this i
s how it works,” Steel told them. “I ask a question and you answer. Simple. However, if I think you are lying or you piss me off you get a soaking. Get it?”
The men nodded, just in case that was one of the questions.
“Great, so you said I don’t know who I am messing with. My first question is: who am I messing with?”
Fear paralysed the bent cops, and the two men shook their heads.
“We don’t know man, I swear,” begged the large cop. “We just know it’s someone big. We just get told what to do. I swear that’s the truth, so help me God.”
“Who tells you what to do? Is it Bennett?”
Fatty nodded, as the thin cop tried to kick him.
“What the hell you doing?” demanded the big man. “He’s not gonna kill us if we don’t talk. And he’s a cop, just like us.” He spoke with more confidence as he suddenly recognised Steel from Bennett’s description. He’d told them:
“Be on the lookout for a man dressed all in black with sunglasses on. You can’t miss him, he’s a British prick.”
The thin cop remembered the warning as if it was fresh in his mind.
Steel smiled, flipped the lid of the can and covered the men and the car in gasoline. The powerful fumes filled their nostrils, making them cough and causing their eyes to burn.
“Are you fuckin’ happy now?” Fatty yelled at his partner. “The guy is nuts and you want to provoke him!”
“Like I said, I won’t kill you,” Steel reassured them.
The thin cop smirked as though he knew this detective was too self-righteous for such a deed.
“However, I won’t stop you from killing yourselves.”
The men’s jaws dropped as Steel took out a flare he had gotten from the trunk of the cops’ car.
“The judge! She had files!” barked the large cop.
Steel moved forward with the flare in one hand. “What sort of files?”
False Witness (John Steel series Book 3) Page 23
