Shoot: A Crime Thriller (CJ Sheridan Thrillers Book 1)

by M. P. McDonald

  He photographed an alley, and empty lot and some broken down playground equipment at a corner park. Shaking his head, CJ exited the alley. He had filled the roll and knew that none of these photos would ever be framed. They were already ugly and if any turned into a future photo, they’d be worse than ugly-they would signal death or destruction for whomever was in the picture.

  After he finished, he headed back to the studio, but Mark had gone out somewhere. Jessie was there and she let CJ in to develop his film. He felt kind of weird coming over to use their darkroom and put getting his own darkroom set up high on his list of things to do. He couldn’t keep imposing. While waiting for them to dry, he chatted with Jessie and pulled his wallet out, handing over forty dollars. She looked at the money in his hand, puzzled. “What’s that for?”

  “Supplies for my photos. I know the chemicals and paper aren’t cheap.”

  “You talk it over with Mark first. He probably writes it all off on his taxes. He’s a stickler for that stuff being itemized. Secretly, I think it’s his own little way of getting back just a little bit for what he’s gone through at the hands of our publicly paid servants.”

  CJ smiled and put the money back in his wallet. “Geez, they should give him a lifetime exemption from taxes.”

  “You’re not kidding. Anyway, I have an appointment in thirty minutes.”

  “Oh! Sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you. I can come back later and pick the photos up then. They’re still wet.”

  Jessie gathered her purse and keys in her hand and waved at him. “No, that’s not what I meant. Stay as long as you need, just lock up when you leave. See you later.”

  CJ thanked her and returned to the dark room. He examined the prints. It figured. When he wanted future photos as proof, the camera produced none, but now, it held several. All one incident, but bigger than anything he had worked on before. So much blood.

  Bile rose in his throat and he swallowed hard and cleared his throat. There had to be at least five people dead in these images. More were probably injured.

  Chapter Nine

  “CJ, just wait a minute. We need to get more help on this.”

  “Wait?” CJ threw his arms wide. “There’s no time to wait. There’s a suicide bomber heading into a church in a few hours. If we don’t find and stop her, fifty-six people are gonna die, Mark. Fifty-six! Some of them just little kids.”

  “I get it, but we have to make sure we don’t make it worse. Have you spoken to your dad yet?”

  “I tried, but he was in a meeting and his damned secretary wouldn’t disturb him.” CJ paced the studio. “I have a gun. All we need to do is find her and…pow.” He made a gun with his first finger, pantomiming pulling the trigger. “Everyone is safe.”

  Mark’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Pow? You think you can just walk up and shoot someone point-blank? Who made you the judge, jury and executioner?”

  CJ stepped back, blinking in surprise. “That’s not how it would be. I’m not judging her, I’m stopping her. There’s a difference.”

  “Not much. Do you even know if it would prevent the bomb from exploding? What if there’s a timer?” Mark crossed his arms, his stance wide. “What if she doesn’t even know she’s wearing a bomb? You said she was young, maybe a teen. What if she was forced to wear it?”

  “Forced?”

  “Yeah, it’s been known to happen.”

  “Well, yeah, over in Iraq, but not here.”

  “What do you mean ‘not here?’ Do you think we have some kind of protective bubble around the U.S. or even just Chicago that would prevent something like this from happening?”

  “No, of course not. You’re twisting my words.” CJ rubbed a hand across his jaw to the back of his neck. He could see Mark’s point, but what were the chances that the woman was ignorant of the bomb strapped around her waist? He flipped through the pictures, finding one that showed the woman. The bomb was hidden in this view. It only was visible, just barely, in one image. He found that one and pointed it out to Mark. “Look at that. She had to have realized it was a bomb. It has a timer counting down right there.”

  “And you’re sure she’s a willing participant? Would you stake your life on it…or worse…stake her life on it? Bombs like that can and have been strapped on unwilling delivery people before.”

  “Yeah, I know, Mark. I was going to be a CIA officer like my father before all this came about, remember? I’m young, but not stupid.”

  Mark shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not saying you’re stupid. I’m saying you could be executing a victim.”

  “I don’t think so. I think I’d be saving several dozen people, many of them children.”

  “Where would you get a gun?”

  “I bought one.”

  “You did? How? Where?”

  CJ evaded Mark’s incredulous look. Getting a gun hadn’t been difficult. It was only fair. After all, the bad guys had guns.

  “Okay, forget where you got the gun for a minute, let me put it this way-do you think you can go up and just kill her?” Mark mimicked CJ’s finger gun. “Bam! You’re dead and I’m a hero.” He pretended to blow on the barrel of the imaginary gun and holster the weapon.

  “Yeah, right. I’m sure that’s how I’d do it.” He glared at Mark. “You act like I have a secret desire to kill someone and doing this is some kind of perverse wish fulfillment.”

  Mark sighed. “I don’t mean it that way, but you can’t go rushing into this as though it’s a video game. Even if this is a willing suicide bomber, she’s a real person and that makes her unpredictable. One wrong move, and it could literally blow up in your face. You need help. We need help.”

  “We don’t have time to make anyone believe us. Don’t you get that? You should-it’s not like you haven’t had the same problem before.”

  “I only had hours and I was a thousand miles away. We have only a few hours too, but we’re right here. We can get the police involved. We can get the FBI, Homeland security. Whatever it takes.”

  “And if the bomb goes off before then, will they blame us? Like they did you?” It was a low blow, but anger made him roll right into another sucker punch. “Maybe if you had actually gone to New York the day you developed the pictures of 9/11, you could have done something to stop it instead of waiting to dream, then trying to get someone to believe you over the phone.”

  Mark flinched. “I didn’t have connections. You do. Use them.” He turned and headed up to his loft without another word.

  Unsure what to do, CJ lingered in the studio, picking up the images and studying them again. It was so obvious what was going to happen. Why couldn’t Mark see it? What was he thinking?

  He memorized the woman’s face, puzzled at the lack of emotion. What was going through her mind? Did she care about the people she was planning on killing? Did she give any thought to them at all, or were they less than human to her? And why? Why commit such a horrible act? Was she on drugs? Had she been drugged? As soon as the idea occurred to him, doubt about his resolve to kill her first set in. What if she was a victim, like Mark had said? He stared at the image of her, willing the truth to reveal itself. In his dream, she didn’t act like she was on drugs. The opposite had been true, she had been meticulous, sitting in the most crowded part of the church. That wasn’t just dumb luck, it was planning. If she had been unwilling, she could have alerted someone to her predicament, but she had entered the church-had even genuflected upon entering the pew, crossing herself as though she belonged there.

  CJ closed his eyes and replayed the dream, swallowing bile at the sight of the broken, bloody bodies strewn about the church. A tiny patent leather shoe, its patina no longer shiny, but smeared with blood and dust, lay in what had been the center aisle. He didn’t search for the owner of the shoe, afraid of finding her. A shoe so little came from a very tiny foot. A baby foot. Resolve restored, CJ opened his eyes.

  The bomber had to have known what she was doing. He would stop her before she h
ad a chance to kill anyone.

  CJ knew he was a good shot and was confident he could take her out without hitting the bomb. If she was dead, she couldn’t press the detonator, but what if Mark’s suggestion about a timer was true? He’d seen the digital readout in the one image. Killing her wouldn’t stop the explosion, she’d just die sooner. There was probably a specific time for the bomb to explode. A pre-set time made sense and would prevent the woman from backing out at the last second. Once activated, it would count down until detonation and she wouldn’t be able to stop it even if she got cold feet.

  CJ had an idea. If he could plot the route the woman took to the church, he could stop her somewhere along the way, before she arrived at the church. If he could just find a location that would minimize risk to others, he could eliminate her there.

  Closing his eyes, he thought back on his dream, picturing her approach to the church. He’d been able to see a good portion of it. He supposed whoever had helped her had probably dropped her off, not wanting to risk anyone spotting the bomb prior, so that should rule out public transportation.

  It was a working class neighborhood and children played in the streets and several of the yards. Following her route, he found the place. At one point, she would walk past an empty garbage strewn lot. The property had attracted illegal dumping and there was no shortage of hiding places. He could get her there and if the bomb exploded, no one else would get hurt.

  The door to Mark’s loft clicked and CJ heard the thump of Mark’s footsteps descending. He gathered up the images and when Mark rounded the end of the stairs, CJ waved the prints. “I got it, Mark. I can take her out in front of an empty field. Nobody else will get hurt. I’ve thought about it, and replayed the dream in my mind. I can’t talk her out of it. I can see it in her expression and her actions. She’s determined and doesn’t give a shit about the people she kills. I think they have her brainwashed or something.”

  Mark barely glanced at the images and shrugged. “You have the camera now. Do what you gotta do.” He glanced at his watch. “I have a location shoot to do in thirty minutes and it’s going to take me at least twenty to get there. You should know that since you scheduled it.”

  CJ stared at him. “You’re not going to help me?”

  “It doesn’t sound like you need my help, and besides, I don’t want to screw it up like I did 9/11.” He grabbed the keys to the van from his desk and pushed past CJ.

  CJ trailed Mark to the van. “I didn’t mean what I said about 9/11. It came out all wrong.”

  Mark shrugged as he surveyed the interior of the van, checking the camera loaded for the shoot. “Whatever.”

  * * *

  Mark pulled away from the studio but once around the corner, turned into the first space he saw, jamming the van into park. “Dammit!” He thumped his hand against the steering wheel. CJ’s accusation had been like a spear thrust through the chink in his armor. The accusation stirred up guilt he’d struggled for five years to bury. He’d had to or risk destroying his sanity. The five-year anniversary of 9/11 was just weeks away, and like a skeleton bursting through the ground at a flooded cemetery, it didn’t take much digging for the guilt to emerge from the grave he’d buried it in.

  What if CJ was right? Maybe he should have gone to New York or Boston the day he’d seen the images. He might have been able to stop at least one of the hijackers and alert the authorities to the others. Several of his images had shown a location where he might have intercepted one of the nineteen.

  What if he had been more proactive? Mark stared ahead, seeing at first, the World Trade Centers, but it dissolved into a church spire. And a woman. He squinted and gave his head a little shake. He recognized her. She was the woman in CJ’s pictures. It took a moment for him to realize she wasn’t really there in front of the van and that he was having a vision. Accustomed to them now, once he knew what was going on, he waited patiently for the scene to play out so he knew what he had to do.

  As though watching a movie, he saw the woman, bulky beneath an oversized black sweatshirt, walk the block towards the church. Every now and then, she paused, sometimes checking her purse, or tugging on something beneath her sweatshirt. The action looked very much like a woman adjusting her bra strap and Mark wasn’t able to tell if that’s what she was actually doing, or if she was adjusting the strap of the belt that held the bomb in place.

  The purse was large, and she clutched it close to her side with her elbow, her other hand crossing her body as if whatever was in the bag was heavy. Her shoulder dipped under the weight.

  Granted, Mark knew plenty of women who hauled around everything but the kitchen sink, but he didn’t think this purse was loaded with make-up, combs, or a wallet and checkbook. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was packed with items intended to turn into deadly shrapnel upon detonation.

  The vision was incredibly detailed, so real, it was almost impossible for Mark to keep from acting on his instinct and leaping out of the van to stop the woman.

  Before he could act, CJ skidded up to the curb in Jim’s car. He jumped out and raced towards the woman. What the hell was he going to do? Tackle her? The kid was going to get himself killed. Mark watched, his body tense, as CJ approached the woman. He didn’t tackle her, much to Mark’s relief, but he raised his hands in a stop gesture. Mark opened his mouth to shout to him, but snapped it shut and reminded himself that at this point, it was just a vision.

  His view of the scene pulled in tight, like a close-up in a movie scene, and he heard CJ speaking to the woman. He was pleading with her to go back, but the woman just stared at him. Tears spilled from her eyes and she shook her head.

  “I have no choice. If it’s not me, it’s someone else.”

  She pushed past CJ. Mark watched, horror dawning as CJ pulled out a handgun and took aim.

  “I can’t let you kill innocent people.”

  The woman darted a look over her shoulder, then bolted in an awkward shuffle, too hampered by her purse and the weight of the bomb strapped around her to make it to a full on sprint.

  Mark cringed as he waited for the shot, but it never came. Instead, the air shimmered for a moment, and he flinched as a fireball erupted where the woman had been standing. His gaze flew to CJ and found the young man sprawled on his back, at least twenty feet from where he had been standing just the second before.

  Was he dead? The vision blinked out and Mark clamped his hands on top of his head in frustration. “No!”

  CJ’s words about 9/11 had been cruel but Mark forgot his anger. What did it matter what the kid had said in a thoughtless moment?

  He had to find a way to prevent this and had so many questions. Like why hadn’t Jim shown up? He figured he’d be there with a dozen FBI agents in tow, with backup from Chicago P.D.

  Had CJ told him about the bombing? He couldn’t see him withholding that kind of information, but there had to be something missing from his vision. That was it. Jim was probably waiting at the church for the woman to show up. The dreams showed so much more detail than the photos, and it was possible that CJ’s dream showed something that Mark couldn’t see. Something that made him balk at sharing the information with his father. There was only one reason he could think of that would warrant CJ refraining from mentioning the bombing, and that was if something changed after he told his dad. Something that meant death for CJ or his father.

  CJ said he hadn’t been able to speak to his father today. Was that true? Or had he avoided it because his plan was to shoot the bomber? No way Jim would go for that.

  Mark was still only used to having to deal with his own future dreams and visions. Having another person seeing the same event, but from a totally different perspective and angle, was mind-boggling. How the hell was he supposed to keep it all straight? He scrubbed a hand down his face, then pinched the bridge of his nose. Forget the confusing fact that none of this had actually taken place yet. Pretend it’s the past. Mark took a deep breath. Concentrate. The outcome is known, so just look
back and see what could have been done differently. That might help. Since he saw it all in a vision, it sort of was the past…for him. And everyone always said that hindsight was twenty-twenty. He just had to think this through.

  Just like Mark’s dream had changed for the Navy Pier incident. He couldn’t tell anyone because it would mean putting others at risk. Is that why CJ kept this quiet? Had he seen his own death? Had he known the woman’s bomb would explode there? Mark realized that his vision showed CJ’s plan, not the original bombing CJ had seen in his dream and photographs.

  Was he acting without any backup? And, it was obvious that CJ hadn’t been able to shoot the woman because otherwise he wouldn’t have pleaded with her to not do what she was going to do.

  What about what the woman had said? That if not her, then someone else? Who? Did that mean someone else would be the suicide bomber, or was she protecting someone? Had CJ realized too late that the woman was as much a victim as anyone else? The realization might end up costing the kid his life. He had to know if CJ had seen his own death.

  He called CJ but the call went to voice mail. Next, he tried Jim. His secretary answered and tried to tell Mark that Jim was too busy to speak to him, but Mark cut her off. With his cell pressed tight against his ear, he made a chopping motion with his hand other hand. “Look, I don’t care if he’s talking to J. Edgar Hoover himself, this is an emergency. You tell him that Mark needs to speak to him urgently.”