Broken Protocol (Smoke & Bullets)

by A. R. Barley

  “Parsons,” the captain snarled through his radio. “You’re moving slow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Luke repeated a little louder this time. He put a little hustle in his step, hurrying to catch up with Troy. Together they picked their way toward the back of the diner. The customers had all been cleared out after the fryolator blew, but there was still a prep chef unaccounted for.

  The manager said she’d been in the basement when everything went down.

  The odds weren’t good, but that didn’t mean they were going to give up on her without a fight.

  Troy held up a hand, signaling for him to stop. “Better put our masks on.”

  “Right.” Luke did as he was told. The fire was a bad one. The fry machine had gone off like a bomb. They’d been spraying Class-B foam directly onto the blaze, but in a few minutes it would jump to the clothing factory next door. It might even take out the whole block.

  “It’s up to you,” the captain said. “If you think you can make it, keep going.” There was a long pause. “No one will blame you if you come back now.”

  Maybe not, but Luke liked being able to look at himself in the mirror every morning. He nudged Troy’s arm. “I’m not turning back.”

  “Good to hear.” Troy adjusted his air tank. “Let’s move.”

  Troy and Luke had worked insertion together enough times that they didn’t need to talk. A few hand motions and a nod was all they needed as they picked their way through the kitchen, righting overturned shelving and pushing aside what was left of the second floor. The chef wasn’t there. Maybe he’d escaped in the chaos. Maybe he was standing on the street right now, waiting for his turn with the paramedics.

  Maybe not.

  Luke couldn’t take that risk, not if there was even a chance someone was still alive inside the restaurant. He took a deep breath and concentrated on the last possible location. The door next to the walk-in refrigerator. The one with half a dozen broken cinderblocks blocking the way. He held up a hand and gestured Troy over.

  Fire danced merrily around Troy as he walked, each step causing a fresh gust of wind that had it bubbling upwards or gusting outwards to join its friends. His boots made a heavy clomp-clomp noise.

  It was just like any other day on the job, any other fire, except for the bright colors made by the melting plastic and flaming spices. The fry oil wasn’t the only explosive in a kitchen. There were neat jugs of olive oil by the stove and bottles of whiskey at the bar. Any one of those could go off like a bomb—and some of them already had. Each one was a tiny factor adding to the complex equation in Luke’s head and the numbers weren’t looking good.

  “Let’s make this quick.” Troy’s voice was thick with unease. Whether he’d picked up on the same subtle details that were making Luke’s skin crawl or something else, the result was the same. He knew something was off.

  The fire was a bad one, and they were right in the middle of it. They took turns picking up cinderblocks and moving them over to the side, first Troy then Luke. Moving in an easy rhythm, it was only a matter of seconds before the blocks were gone and the door was clear. Luke yanked it open and raced halfway down the stairs.

  Unlike the first floor, the basement was still intact. There were racks of wine on one side and piled-up kitchen equipment on the other, but he didn’t see the chef.

  “Time to go.” He retreated up the steps and signaled Troy that they were heading out.

  They’d made it all the way to the swinging doors between the kitchen and the dining room when he had one last thought. “Wait here,” he said. He might be willing to risk his life on a wild guess, but Troy was another matter entirely. He reversed course and walked over to the walk-in refrigerator, opening the door with a solid thunk.

  Inside the walk-in the air was crisp and cold. The shelves were stuffed full of fresh produce and bloody meat. Near the back there was a blue-lipped woman in a white coat and sensible shoes seated on a three-legged stool. Frost glittered in her hair as she stood up. “Time to go?”

  “Definitely.”

  After that everything happened fast. They skeddaddled out of there as quick as their legs would take them.

  “Good work,” the captain said when they made it out to the street. The other staff from the restaurant cheered. Luke didn’t let it go to his head. The job wasn’t done yet, not until the woman was deposited into the open arms of the waiting EMTs.

  Alex was leading the charge, triaging customers with twisted ankles and the rest of the cooking staff. “We’ll get her taken care of,” he promised. “What about you guys?”

  “I’m fine,” Troy said.

  Alex gave his accident-prone partner a hard look. There would be questions later. Luke didn’t doubt that for a minute. Troy attempted to look sheepish. It didn’t really work. He was too big. Alex huffed.

  “I’m fine,” Luke offered. “In case either of you were wondering.”

  Neither of them paid him much attention. Jerks. Luke left the lovebirds to their feuding and dragged his tired ass back over to the fire engine. By the time they got back to the station he was half asleep and aching. He moved automatically, stripping off his turnout gear, taking a quick shower, and pulling on a fresh set of sweats.

  He needed a cup of coffee and something to eat.

  Eggs. He needed eggs. Maybe a burger. He could always put an egg on a burger with grilled onions and bacon.

  It took a full minute for him to notice Dante sitting on the cement steps in front of the captain’s office. Luke grinned happily, then he took a closer look.

  Dante was holding a plain manila envelope. He didn’t look happy. His brow was furrowed. His cheeks were pinched. The navy suit and sapphire tie—just a shade brighter than his blue eye—he’d put on earlier were rumpled almost beyond description.

  “Hell,” Luke said. “What’s the other guy look like?”

  Dante’s eyes flickered. He frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “You look like you’ve been in a fight.”

  “No fight.” He stretched his long legs out in front of him and sighed. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

  That didn’t sound good. Luke glanced around. There were firefighters as far as the eye could see. Captain Tracey was talking to Troy. He’d been doing that a lot recently, giving Troy more responsibility and debriefing him after fires. The man was in line for a promotion any day now.

  “Can we borrow your office?” he called across. No response. “Sir?”

  Dante dragged his badge out of his pocket. “Official police business.”

  After a long pause the captain nodded.

  Luke reached out a hand to offer Dante some help getting onto his feet. Dante didn’t take it. Instead, he grunted as he pushed himself upward.

  He opened the door and motioned Luke into the office.

  Not good. Not good at all. Luke held his breath that the playful lover he’d left only a few hours earlier would reappear as soon as they were in private. It didn’t happen. If anything the lines in Dante’s face deepened. His hands curled into fists, awkwardly crushing the folder.

  Luke leaned against the captain’s desk, crossed his arms and tried to remain calm. It didn’t really work.

  Dante closed the door. “You just came in from a fire?”

  “A steak restaurant. One of the fancy places over on the East Side.”

  “Any good?”

  “Pretty sure they had stars.” He cleared his throat. “Not anymore. Look, is there something in particular you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “You told us to not just look for earlier attacks in Manhattan. You said Brooklyn.” There wasn’t a flicker of emotion between his eyes, not the green one, not the blue one. “Want to tell me why you said Brooklyn?”

  Luke shifted a little farther back so he was sitting on top of the desk with his ankles crossed. He never should have said Brooklyn. There were enough incidents in Manhattan, he never should have ri
sked adding his own. Of course, he’d been a fool to think Dante would never find out. “Brooklyn’s got a lot of clubs in it, nice ones. If our guy’s finding his targets in hot spots, Brooklyn’s as good a place as any.”

  “Right.” Dante looked down like he was seeing the folder in his hands for the first time. He straightened it out. “Finn’s an idiot, but he’s going to make a pretty good detective someday. It took him less than a day to find this.”

  “And—”

  “You were mugged in Brooklyn two months ago,” Dante said.

  “Be glad your wallet and cell phone are all I want, boy.” The voice echoed in the back of Luke’s head, over and over again. Then the pause. “On second thought, I’ll take that purty necklace you’ve got around your neck.”

  Luke swallowed down a fresh wave of bile. The attack was over. It had been over for more than eight weeks, but he could still hear the words when he closed his eyes. He still dreamed about it. Hell, the only time he’d been able to sleep all the way through the night was when he’d been wrapped safely in Dante’s arms.

  It didn’t look like that was going to happen again anytime soon.

  Not if the expression on Dante’s face was anything to go by.

  Damn it. He should have told him the truth, but he couldn’t go back in time and—frankly—it was none of Dante’s business. “There’s no way to know if it’s the same person.”

  “You didn’t see any identifying markers?”

  “Nothing the officer thought was important.”

  “So, just the hoodie and ugly red shoes.”

  Luke’s eyes squeezed shut. It was a good thing he was sitting down, otherwise he might fall over. “She actually included that?”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Because she said it was nothing. She said it wouldn’t help identify the perp, and even if it did there’d be no way to get a conviction.” He could still feel the last lingering twinge from the bruise on his biceps where the attacker had slammed him back against the wall. The only reason Dante hadn’t noticed was because they’d spent most of their naked time together in the dark.

  “She blew me off,” he said.

  “She filed the report,” Dante countered. “It’s what she’s supposed to do. There was no way to think that it was anything more than a one-off—”

  “Not until we ran into Ryan and Liam.”

  “Okay.” Dante’s feet thudded against the floor. Luke opened his eyes. He watched him walk across the small office then turn and walk back, pacing. “That’s when you knew there might be something up. All that calling around you did; it wasn’t looking for a pattern. It was looking for confirmation, which is always easier to find.”

  “I just wanted to know if someone was targeting the community. I wanted to do something about it. I—” His voice was shaking. He tried to straighten up. It didn’t work. Not really. “When I reported the attack, I knew nothing was going to happen. I’ve spent enough time around cops. Most of the time nothing happens. I knew—”

  And he’d felt helpless.

  Completely and utterly helpless.

  “You should have called me,” Dante said. “I’d have done something.”

  “Right, because we were so fucking close. You were the one avoiding me, remember? Working through your feelings. At least you knew what the hell was going on. All I knew was that I’d been abandoned by someone I cared about. I was alone and afraid. There was nothing I could do.”

  And then there’d been the second attack and he’d thought it was his opportunity.

  His chance to fight back.

  “He sucker-punched me. Hit me from behind. All those years taking boxing classes, and I didn’t stand a chance.” He hadn’t even thrown one punch. “When I was on the ground, he took my wallet and—”

  “On second thought, I’ll take that purty necklace you’ve got around your neck.”

  Only the chain around his neck hadn’t been a necklace.

  It had been a St. Cristopher’s medal. Not that the Parsons family was religious. Hell, every time Charlie went to a wedding he joked about spontaneous combustion.

  “Your medal.” Luke put a hand to his throat. “He took your medal.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dante asked.

  “Your St. Cristopher medal. The one you gave me.” He’d been eleven years old, just a skinny kid getting into trouble every time he turned the corner. It had been a hard time. There’d been bullies and sports coaches. More importantly, there’d been a gnawing feeling deep in his gut that he wasn’t quite like all the other guys in the locker room.

  While other boys were talking about girls and plotting how to steal their first kiss, Luke always imagined he was the one being kissed. It wasn’t that he liked boys more than girls. He just liked everyone.

  And he liked being kissed.

  He hadn’t even known how to talk about it at the time, but one day he’d ditched baseball practice and run away. Dante had found him on the swings at the playground down at the end of the block.

  “Things really that bad?” Dante had asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he dug underneath his shirt and pulled out the little icon on the chain. “St. Cristopher,” he explained. “Patron saint of children, travelers, epilepsy, and toothache.”

  He’d dropped it around Luke’s neck.

  Then he’d sat down on the swing beside him and waited silently until Luke made the choice to go home.

  Luke had worn it for years before stowing it away in a box with the cuff links his father had bought him for prom and the watch he’d inherited from a crazy great-uncle. He hadn’t thought about it again until he joined the fire department. Every atheist was a believer when faced with a fire big enough to consume a city block. Most firefighters had some kind of good luck charm or pendant. Technically speaking, St. Florian was the patron saint of firefighters, but Luke figured if St. Chris was good enough for Dante and toothache, he was good enough for him.

  “I’m sorry,” Luke said. “I’m so damn sorry.”

  Chapter Twenty

  What St. Cristopher medal? It took Dante a minute to remember the good luck charm that had been pressed into his hands at his second—no, third—group home. He’d worn it out of habit more than anything else, until that day on the playground when it seemed like Luke needed all the luck he could get.

  “Fucker.” Dante spat the word. “Don’t worry. I’ll find him, and I’ll get your damn medal back.”

  “We’ll find him,” Luke corrected.

  Not a chance in hell. Luke might be strong enough to win at arm wrestling, but he’d held onto a little boy’s good luck charm for fifteen years. He wasn’t a fighter and he definitely wasn’t a cop.

  More importantly, the attacker might have been wearing a hoodie, but Luke had been out there in the open. The guy had seen his face, which made him vulnerable.

  Dante stopped his pacing and turned to look at where Luke was perched on top of an oversized metal desk. He was wearing the NYPD sweatpants Dante had loaned him earlier in the week and a mint-green T-shirt that matched his eyes when he was laughing. Only he wasn’t laughing now and his eyes weren’t green anymore.

  They were gray and washed out, the same nothing color as the cheap paint the city had used on the fire captain’s office walls.

  He wasn’t going anywhere near the investigation.

  Not again.

  Not if Dante had to handcuff him to the big metal bed frame in his apartment, for his own good.

  “Start at the beginning,” Dante ordered. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “You read the report.”

  “Yeah, well, now I want to hear it all over again. Straight from the horse’s mouth.”

  Luke’s nostrils flared, and he let out a little huff of protest, but when Dante didn’t respond to his defiance he gave in. “It was a slow night. I got out of class early, so I went to Toro.”

  “That’s some kind of club?”

  “It’s in B
rooklyn. It’s like The Golden Bow except everybody’s sporting flannel and beards, even the twinks.” He shrugged. “It’s not exactly my thing. I’m more into clean-shaven redheads with a closet full of NYPD-issued riot gear—”

  “You were at Toro,” Dante prompted him back on track.

  “I wasn’t looking for anyone, but there was a band I like in a watching-a-train-wreck way. It’s European. Death oompah. The lead guy plays a mean accordion. And when I bought my second drink there was this guy at the bar.” Luke leaned forward slightly, getting into the narrative. “Tim. We flirted.”

  Flirted. Dante’s teeth ground together. He’d watched Luke flirt with other men in the past. For him, it was a full-body experience.

  Not that Dante was jealous of some one-night flirt listening to bad music, but, fuck...

  If he’d wanted Luke before, it was nothing like knowing exactly how he’d feel in his arms, moving against him—inside him. It was nothing like spending the past few days smelling his scent on his sheets or running with him in the early morning light.

  His body ached to wrap itself around Luke and hold him tight. To promise him everything was going to be okay. Tim hadn’t meant anything. The mugger was only one mistake away from being caught.

  Instead, he waited patiently for Luke to finish telling his story.

  “He was cute, and—” Luke flushed “—easily impressed. Some guys are really into the whole fireman thing, you know?”

  There was something plaintive about the curve of his lips. Dante couldn’t help but nod. He knew exactly what Luke was talking about. “Nobody’s judging. I’ve had my share of fun with badge bunnies.”

  “Right. Well, Tim was into firemen. He wanted to know everything, and it was hard to talk because of the music.”

  “Death oompah isn’t exactly conducive to conversation?”

  “Death oompah is good for only two things, conversation’s not either of them.” Luke continued before Dante could ask what things death oompah was good for. He’d be willing to bet one of them was sex, and even if it wasn’t then he’d be willing to give it a try. He liked accordions as much as the next guy, which was not at all, but he’d like to see if he could make Luke moan loud enough to cover the noise.