by Davis Bunn
The black Chevy Cavalier was eight years old and universally loathed as the division’s worst ride. The car was filthy and normally left to rot in the basement’s back slot unless called out for undercover. The duty officer did not glance over as she burned rubber up the ramp and did a four-wheel skid onto the street.
Connie drove through the dismal quarter known as Downtown and headed for the medical examiner’s office. Whenever she could, Dorcas Schaeffer gave Connie files to deliver. These days, it was her only official ticket to get outside, at least for a few minutes. Connie handed the files to the ME receptionist, then meandered back uptown. She studied the dilapidated structures and the ruined lives outside the various soup kitchens and dollar shops. Taking her time, growing increasingly bitter as she pretended to be a cop.
Connie pulled into a cop slot in front of the new Education and Training Building. Upstairs, Connie dropped off more case files and logged in three fingerprint requests, all basic non-officer drone work. Anything to keep her outside the division building a little longer. This enforced lethargy was killing her inch by inch. She had joined the force for action. If not action, then at least forward motion. These days, each shift was ten years long.
Dorcas Schaeffer was doing her best to get Connie a transfer. But Connie was a rookie cop with less than a year on the clock. Her allies in Division One were too worried about their own jobs to stick their necks out for a rookie. What a records clerk could do in the face of a lieutenant with a death grudge was anybody’s guess.
Connie passed by the gym on her way back to the car. The place was open to all officers but used mostly by the high-octane TAC squads. Baltimore PD did not use the term SWAT. TAC stood for Tactical Unit. TAC included QRT, for Quick Response Team, Baltimore’s equivalent of SWAT. TAC also included K-9, bomb squad, mounted police, riot control, and emergency evac. Connie had lusted after an assignment to TAC since day one. TAC also liaised with Homeland Security, the only division to openly flout the commissioner’s directive to block out the feds. Connie assumed the ongoing feud between senior officers and the feds was the same male hyper-ego garbage that was basically shutting down her career. It was all the reason she needed to want things to take a different route.
The gym had a waist-high glass wall fronting the hall. ENT clerks called it Steroid Alley for the TAC guys who strutted in loose tank tops and cutoff sweats. Two female clerks walking ahead of Connie stared through the glass and hummed appreciatively at what they saw.
This time of day, the gym was empty save for two overweight recruits training hard for their upcoming physicals. And over to the other side, all by himself, was the federal agent Connie had met that morning.
Matt Kelly worked a leg machine and fought a whole world of pain. His left thigh was wrapped in a white bandage, but the muscle to either side writhed in time to his face as he pumped and released. He worked the one leg with maybe sixty pounds of weight and gasped through each extension. His sweatshirt was drenched almost black. He finished the reps and lay back on the bench, chest pumping.
These days, Connie would have loved to hate all men. When she lay awake at night raging at life’s injustice, the temptation bit at her brain with the force of a superheated drill. She did not give in only because of her father, a man she admired above all others. He had pointed out in his mildest voice that the lieutenant would then have won inside as well as out.
Matt Kelly began another set of reps with his damaged leg. Even with his temple burned and mouth gaping and chest heaving, the guy was incredibly handsome. He seemed boy and man in equal measure, with a remarkable air of fragility about his muscled frame. And so clean-cut he squeaked.
Not to mention the newspaper article Dorcas had shown her after Kelly had left, the one mostly about his mother. The article had left Connie wanting to weep, something she hadn’t done in years. Not on the outside, anyway.
Connie stood in the hall and debated. The smartest thing would have been to walk on, get in her car, drive back to Division One, and grit her teeth through the rest of the day.
She pushed open the door. “Yo, Kelly.”
He swiveled his head on the padded bench. The guy was so blasted from his workout he could not place her. Which she liked, in a slightly wacky way. Connie loathed how men flayed her with their gazes, as though they could claim her through intensity of looks alone. She said, “You drive over from headquarters?”
He gasped, “Walked.”
“Go shower down; I’ll give you a ride back. Long as you don’t ask about what I can’t answer.” She shut the door and strode down the hall, smiling at nothing. Definitely a bad idea, involving herself in a feud between the homicide chief and a fed. Which was reason enough to go for it.
Matt massaged his sore leg because it gave him something to do. The police officer next to him was a beautiful enigma. She seemed friendly but emanated a tension as strong as an electrified fence. “Why won’t you talk about the incident?”
“You were a cop. You know the rules. It’s against the law to discuss an ongoing police investigation with an outsider.”
“I’m not . . .” Matt frowned at a stench rising from the floorboards. “What is that smell?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Probably something vile.” Connie was driving slow enough to look over. “How’s the leg?”
“Better. I think I smell exhaust fumes.”
“Could be. This car was born bad and grew worse.”
“Why don’t you get another one?”
“Gee, Skippy. I never thought of that.” She ground the steering wheel between her fists. “So you’re a cop who went over to the feds.”
“Law school first.” They were driving pockmarked streets lined with buildings soot-washed of color. “Does it always take this long to drive to headquarters?”
Even the simplest question twisted her features. “So sorry. I didn’t realize you were fired up to get back and ride an empty desk.”
“I’m not.”
“Then relax.” She took a left. Matt was increasingly certain she was driving away from both the waterfront and headquarters. “So what’s it like working for the feds?”
“I have no idea. I just finished my training.”
“Fresh caught.” She turned another corner and doubled back. “Should’ve known. You have that raw look. Especially on your left temple.”
“Cute.”
“Was that a smile, Skippy?”
“My name is Matt.”
“I know . . .” Connie lifted her radio and listened intently.
To Matt the radio gave off nothing except verbal static. He could understand nothing. “What’s going on?”
“Probably nothing,” she replied and thumbed the volume control.
A woman’s voice rattled the tinny speaker. “One Baker forty-two, respond to base.”
Connie said, “Baker is day shift. That’s dispatch for Division One, my area. The dispatcher is trying to raise a car that’s not—”
“One Baker forty-two, respond.”
Connie slowed by lifting her foot off the gas. “Probably snoozing off a long lunch in some alley.”
A new sound came from the radio, a fierce electronic alarm.
“Simulcast,” Connie said. “Alert tone. Wake the guy up.”
Matt asked, “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“I thought you were a cop.”
The dispatcher repeated, “One Baker forty-two. Come in.”
Matt said, “I was the youngest rookie in a village force. The closest I got to being a real cop was hauling drunks out of après-ski bars. Or sitting behind a desk listening to other cops make a drug bust. You can’t imagine how that felt.”
Connie looked at him, her eyes open wounds. “You’d be surprised.”
A new voice came over the radio, a woman but deep enough for a man. “KGA. Where’d you last have Baker forty-two?”
“That’s the duty sergeant,” Connie said. She braked hard and swerved to the curb. A truck hug
ging their rear squealed and blasted the horn. Connie seemed not to hear.
Dispatch replied, “Baker forty-two last called in at fifteen-fifteen, doing business checks in the six hundred block of Stiles.”
“That’s Little Italy,” Connie said and keyed her mike. “Dispatch, this is one Baker thirty-six. I’m three minutes out. Over.”
Dispatch called, “Any officer in contact with one Baker forty-two?”
When there was no response, Connie said, “Dispatch, this is one Baker thirty-six requesting point. Over.”
“Roger that, one Baker thirty-six. Confirm you are point.”
“Thirty-six out.” Connie gunned the motor and peeled away from the curb. “All right!”
“What’s happening?”
“I get to be a cop.” She fiddled under the seat and brought out the portable light. “Clamp that to the dash.”
Matt studied the lovely face, saw pain that did not diminish with her new animation. She drove one-handed, holding the radio with her other as the dispatch repeated her request for one forty-two to come back. “Please, please, don’t answer.”
“You want him to be in trouble?”
“No, Skippy. I want to be a cop. Just for five minutes.”
Dispatch: “One Baker thirty-six, what’s your twenty?”
Connie answered, “Turning off Pratt, Dispatch. I’m coming ten-twenty-three. Will advise.”
They both heard it at the same instant. To Matt it sounded like banging on a metal door. Realization struck only because Connie ignited. She hammered down the gas pedal so hard her leg locked from hip to ankle. She shouted into her radio, “Shots fired! Shots fired!”
They entered Little Italy at warp nine. The Cavalier was not made for such speeds. It groaned and rocked hard enough to rattle Matt’s teeth. Connie clipped a bakery van parked illegally on a blind corner, then skidded through the turn.
And took a direct hit.
The windscreen shattered before Matt even heard the gunfire. The sudden webbing cost Connie her vision. She slammed both feet onto the brakes. Matt heard the second round of gunfire and felt the hood hammered by metallic fists. Then their right-front tire went down. The car veered left, jumped an unseen curb, and crashed through a storefront window.
“Get out! Get out!” Connie smashed open her door, flipped and rolled. Matt dived out his side as another drumroll struck the trunk. They scrambled under the car. “Are you hit?”
“No.”
Connie shouted into her radio, “This is one Baker thirty-six, I’m taking fire!”
It sounded to Matt like a dozen voices were all trying to scream through the radio at once. The radio garbled and popped until dispatch shrilled, “This is general twenty-three! Officer taking fire in the vicinity of Pratt and Stiles!”
“Over here, Skippy.” To his surprise, Connie was talking softly now. And smiling. She waved him toward the side wall. Matt winced as metallic hail tracked his progress under the car. “You okay?”
“I think—”
Dispatch said, “All officers are advised to keep this frequency free. One Baker thirty-six, report your status.”
She looked around and said to Matt, “I am never going to live this down.” She keyed the radio and reported, “One Baker thirty-six. Dispatch, I’m in the front window of a lingerie shop on Stiles.”
Matt’s heart thundered so loud it was hard to hear the gunfire. His hands and knees were scarred by glass shards. He was coated in dust and debris. His throat was so dry he couldn’t swallow. And the lady was laughing.
More bullets hammered the trunk. Bam-bam-bam. Matt thought the shots were coming from two different directions. But it might have been twenty.
Only then did he hear the women screaming from the back of the store.
Connie slid forward on her belly, scouted out the shattered front window, then came back and reported, “One Baker thirty-six. Dispatch, I spot two shooters. One is in the front door of Patrino’s Bank on the corner of Stiles and Exeter. The other is in the parking lot—” She paused calmly as metal rained down, and then continued, “Shooter two is in the parking lot across Exeter.”
“Roger that, one Baker thirty-six. Any sign of the other officer?”
Connie replied, “One Baker thirty-six, we have an officer down. I repeat, officer down. He’s huddled in a doorway across from me.”
The duty sergeant came over the radio, roaring now. “Where’s my backup?”
The shooter was angling now, driving them away from the window. Matt compressed himself more tightly up against the wall. And against Connie. To his right a beheaded mannequin smiled beguilingly. He asked, “Can you give me a backup piece?”
“Negative.” She flinched as their space was raked by fire. “You’re a civilian ride-along, Skippy. Move back into the store.”
“You just said it yourself. You have an officer in trouble.” The only reason he stayed calm was the coolness he heard in her voice. “Give me your backup. I’ll lay down cover fire.”
In response, she yelled out, “Yo, Jamie. You okay?”
A faint voice called back, “Leaking from the shoulder. They clipped my radio.”
“Hang in there! Help’s on the way.”
“I got their car; they’re not going anywhere except on foot. I’m keeping them pinned, but I’m running low.”
“Right with you.” She listened a moment. To Matt the sirens sounded a hundred miles away and crawling. She flipped onto her back, reached down, and unstrapped a lady’s-size Remington from her ankle. “This thing is accurate to a distance of about four inches.”
“All I’m doing is making noise.” Matt checked the rounds. “Just tell me when and where.”
Connie was already crawling forward and answered him with icebound intensity. “Bank entrance on the corner to your left. On my mark.”
He scrambled up until he was pressed in tight between the wall and her. He could smell the fresh soap in her hair. “Roger that.”
Connie gathered herself for the sprint. “Jamie! Aim for the driver!”
“Check.”
“Now!” She catapulted up and roared across the street.
Matt stuck his head and shoulder out into plain view, intending to confuse the shooters with two suddenly visible targets. The bank was a strictly local affair, an ancient stone low-rise crammed tight between row houses. Matt took aim at the shadows inside the entrance and fired. The police officer was pinned into a shallow doorway across the street and one house back. One glance was enough to know the man was hit. Matt fired according to procedure. Bam-bam, pause, bam-bam, pause. The would-be robbers ripped through automatic-fire clips. Across the way the wounded police officer fired steadily.
Just as Connie made the road’s opposite side, she faltered slightly and tripped over the curb. She fell into the doorway beside the other cop.
“Connie!”
“I’m good.” But the sound was weak and the shots were constant, raining down on their doorway. And the sirens did not seem any closer at all.
Matt clicked on an empty chamber. He dropped the gun and scrambled back. He fell out of the window display and yelled, “Where’s the rear entrance?”
Four women huddled behind the shattered glass counter, shrieking and looking at him in dusty terror. He started to ask again, then spotted the lace curtains and the doorway beyond. He ran out, booming through the door, blinking in the sudden light. He raced down the back alley, gunfire and sirens echoing in from all sides.
The bank’s entrance came into view the same moment he heard Connie scream something. He did not know what she said. The buildings formed a tight cavern that wrecked all sounds. He was afraid he heard pain in the voice. He saw the nozzle-flicker from the shooter in the bank’s entrance and kept moving. His entire body was clenched against the bullet he knew was bound to come.
Then he saw the second shooter. The guy was crouched behind a van with two flat tires and a shattered rear window. The guy spotted Matt an instant later. He sta
rted to bring his gun up, but in his haste the muzzle got caught by the corner of the van, which was all that saved Matt.
Matt charged forward and rammed the guy. The shooter’s gun went skidding off across the parking lot. The man was small and Asian and fast. He slipped under Matt’s blow and kicked. Matt saw the incoming strike and twisted enough to take it on his shoulder and not his neck. Even so the blow sent him reeling.
The attacker slipped a knife from his pocket and shouted a challenge Matt did not need to hear. He kept backing away, but the attacker was no longer thinking about anything except rage over a day gone extremely wrong. He feinted and sliced. Matt felt the wind past his face, then reached and slapped the man across the eyes. Another strike, this one slower, and Matt managed to grab the attacker’s wrist.
The attacker kicked Matt in the ribs. Matt held on to the knife-wielding wrist, though it was like trying to grip a steel python. He battered the man in the face, trying for the eyes again and failing. The man shouted a curse and ripped his knife-hand free.
Matt backed farther, hoping it was not just adrenaline fear that made the sirens sound closer. The attacker heard them as well, for he shouted once more and made a panic strike. Matt blocked with his arm and went for safety in the air. Even with his injured leg it was the highest leap he had ever made, an airborne attack that had him aiming down at the guy’s head. He spun in the air as the knife went wide, then slammed into the man with his bad leg. The pain was a white-hot flame from knee to gut.
The attacker stumbled back. Matt landed hard, with no strength for a second leap. He jammed forward into a tangle on top of the attacker, gripped the knife-wrist and punched hard at the throat. He knew the man was doing damage with his free hand but Matt felt nothing. His entire being was focused on the blade scraping against the pavement. Matt held on for dear life.
Then the first cop car came screaming up. Then a second.
Shouting arms reached in and grappled with them both. Matt released his hold only when he was certain the attacker’s knife was gripped by other hands.
