The only thing that stopped Roan from launching a barrage of questions was, at that moment, his phone rang. Holding up a finger, he answered it quickly. A few seconds of talking and he hung up, brightening slightly.
“They just brought in the guy from the scene. Decker had him stashed at the one-one-eight. He’s on his way down to head over there. He says you can ride over with him or follow him in a cab, but he ain’t getting in that thing of yours again. Period!”
Terry smiled at the memory of watching Decker contort his way into the front of his rental. He didn’t blame him. “Tell him I’ll meet him down in the lobby. Don’t feel like driving anyway. Take care of Mr. Jones.”
With that and a wave, Terry turned and headed for the door, but Roan gave into temptation. “Get anything worth the trouble?”
Terry turned and smiled, his eyes smiling even harder. “I got all I need. And probably a lot more.”
Roan shook his head. Whatever happened, he must have missed it. Either that or this Bridger guy was as full of shit as that FBI guy, Benin, said.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Charlie allowed himself to float inside of Terry’s mind. He had the data that Terry wanted, but he had questions of his own about it. Biner had been right in his assumption about the exotic compounds in the body of the man at the scene, but he hadn’t known what they were. Charlie wasn’t sure, because despite their abilities, the Chrliti couldn’t identify anything they weren’t familiar with, which Biner wasn’t. Charlie was.
The trouble was that there were facts to this that only Charlie, or another Chrliti, would understand. It wasn’t that it was that complex, it was just a matter that only concerned Chrliti. Or at least it did until Terry came along.
* * * *
Decker came down in a hurry. Their target had been sitting in his house, eating a pizza when the swat team burst in. According to the squad leader, he stared at them blankly, silently chewing the food in his mouth while he listened to the shouts for him to get on the floor and put his hands behind his head. He complied quietly. When they asked for ID, he did so without hesitation. They cuffed him and threw him in the back of a squad car. If all arrests went this smoothly, he thought, the police force would have a hard time asking for raises.
In the lobby, Terry was waiting, apparently, deep in thought. Decker had to call him twice to get his attention. Whatever happened, it looked like it bore some hard thinking.
“Let’s hit it.” Decker said when Terry finally came around. “They’ve got him on ice, but we still need to move fast before some clown with a past-due house payment decides he can get caught up with a phone call to channel nine.”
Terry nodded. “Okay. I’m riding with you. How far?”
“About fifteen minutes from here.”
As he spoke, he raised a massive hand and dropped it in a signal to a passing cab that slammed on its brakes as soon as it got close enough to recognize him. Apparently, there was still a need for cabs and clients. Whatever this bastard did, it hadn’t put the whole system off its game.
As it slid to a stop, Decker grabbed a door handle as Terry ran around and opened the other. As they slid in, Decker pulled out his phone and dialed a number, but instead of saying anything, he simply waited for a moment, then pushed in a few numbers and hung up. Seeing the look Terry gave him, he said quietly. “Just a coded response to an auto locator. One of Crane’s innovations. Makes sure we know where everybody is if they’re needed.”
Made sense to Terry, who nodded his agreement. Then, he sat back against the cushions. He debated for a moment whether or not he should try to contact Charlie. He knew it was hard on him when he made contact with one of his people sometimes, so he tried to give him a little space after such a meeting. This one, though, felt a little different.
In their time together, Terry had learned to read some of Charlie’s moods. He could sense them without working too hard. This one had a feel to it he didn’t feel too often. Like it portended of things to come. Some very bad things.
* * * *
It took them less than the fifteen minutes to get to the precinct. Decker had the cabbie drop them half a block from the station. He waited until he left then walked around to the parking lot. A minute later, they walked through the back door and were greeted by a patrolman that looked as if he had been waiting for them. They were quickly ushered into a room at the back of the building and told to wait there while the cop found the detective who was running the case.
Decker looked at the man in the room, pulled out his phone and took a picture of the man. Terry watched as he sent it to the room where Chans sat waiting.
Rich took the call expectantly. He had been waiting for it all night. Maximizing the picture, he showed it to Chans.
Moments later, Terry knew something was wrong. His fear was confirmed a minute later as Decker said quietly. “Chans says this ain’t the guy.”
For a moment, Terry was stunned. Then, the implication of what that meant came through. If it wasn’t the guy, it meant that there were at least two of them, providing this guy panned out. If he didn’t, they were back at square one. If he did, they were a lot further behind than they had thought.
Terry, though, was pragmatic. “The guy was there at the last scene. We know that. So whether or not he’s a perp or a witness, he still gets a talking to.”
Decker closed the phone after thanking Rich. “Agreed. So how do we play this?”
Terry shook his head. “Like we know what we are doing.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
In the room, the temperature was a little high, and the dehumidifier had been turned off. The object was to keep the subject of the interview as uncomfortable as possible. The trouble was no one told the guy sitting in the room, because he looked as though he was sitting in his living room waiting for a weekend football game.
Even when Decker and Terry walked in, his only response was a tilt of his head. Then, he returned to his former pose without a word.
Terry had Charlie make sure this guy had no Chrliti.
Charlie did so then scanned the man for anomalies like the ones Biner had described. There were none of the compounds he had listed, but there were residuals that let Charlie know this was the man Biner had seen that night.
“Good evening, Mr. Cole. My name is Decker. This is Mr. Bridger. We need to ask you a few questions about—”
The man cut him off with an eerie calmness to his voice that made the hair on both men’s necks stand up and dance.
“I don’t care what you want, I want my lawyer.”
Decker shrugged, raising his eyebrows, saying, “Why, Mr. Cole, you aren’t under arrest. We just need some questions answered, and we hope to prevail on your civic pride to—”
“Don’t have any civic pride. Got a lawyer.” He fished in his shirt pocket. “Here’s his number. You wanna talk, you start there.”
Terry found him almost amusing.
Decker found him infuriating, but he refused to let it show.
Charlie seemed a bit more excited as he told Terry, “The chemicals in his blood are reacting to the anxiety he seems to be feeling. His bio-fields indicate his adrenalin is up and still rising. It would seem he has been altered somehow, but I cannot tell the source or the extent.”
Terry noted all of this without comment as he watched the man for signs of distress. He found it almost comical the way he sat there so unconcerned. Almost as funny as the metaphoric steam he could see rising off of Decker.
Charlie noted that Decker’s fields showed he was not at all pleased with the way things were going, even though they had just started.
Decker, meanwhile, decided that this was going to go his way whether this guy liked it or not.
“All right,” Decker sighed, “if you’d rather do it the hard way, then by all means, let’s. You were seen at the site of a double homicide. We have witnesses and video of you, so denying it is a waste of my time and yours. Now, if that’s the way you want to play it
, fine. But all you’re doing is making it harder on yourself for no reason. Assuming, of course, that you aren’t involved.”
Terry noted the man’s eyes narrowed as Decker spoke. It was the first real reaction he’d given.
Suddenly, Charlie exclaimed in Terry’s mind, “Terry, be careful! His fields are spiking! He’s getting ready to—”
Even in Terry’s mind, Charlie couldn’t finish the statement as the man suddenly reared up, shoving himself away from the table and standing up so quickly, he caught Decker by surprise.
Even so, Decker wasn’t worried. Cole weighed in at about a hundred fifty pounds, carried on a physique so slight, the idea of him trying to overpower anyone was ludicrous. And under normal conditions, that idea would have been right.
This was not a normal situation.
Decker rose with him, ready to bellow a command for him to sit, but by the time both men made it to their respective feet, Cole leaped up onto the table and threw a kick directly into Decker’s chest, literally lifting the big man up and driving him into the wall behind him. The surprise that registered on his face was epic as he slid down the wall.
Terry was less shocked thanks to the warning from Charlie, but the sight of this frail man dropping Decker’s huge mass with such apparent ease was, nonetheless, disconcerting. There was no time to think, though, as Cole spun to attack Terry with the same ferocity.
Thanks to Charlie’s ability to speed Terry up as needed, he was easily able to block the attack and slip to the side, dropping in a jab that snapped the smaller man’s head back. In a normal fight, the blow would have most likely ended the fight at that point, but again, this was not normal. The smaller man displayed, among other things, an inordinate resiliency that belied his size and build. Where Terry should have been looking down at a semiconscious man, he instead was dodging a renewed attack that rivaled his own speed.
Not, however, his skill, as Cole’s attacks, though fast and powerful, lacked the technique to make them deadly. Any training in martial arts he had was rudimentary at best, but like a white belt in Karate, he knew enough to generate some force, if not how to control it. Given that, it was unlikely that in a protracted battle, he would have been able to take on Decker in a fair fight. And against Terry, his chances were even worse.
The trouble was that with this adrenalin-powered creature he faced here, Terry knew that there was no way a simple beating would suffice to discourage him. And knocking him out could prove a bit of a challenge. At least without killing him.
Decker was pulling himself off the floor with some effort. He decided this was, up to this point in his life, his least favorite twenty-four-hour period. Two different men had manhandled him, and one of them was close to half his size. It was time to take back some of his day.
He reached out and grabbed Cole by the scruff of the neck, folding his hand into the collar in a judo-clothes grip. By almost every standard, that hold was unbreakable. The trouble was that no one told Cole as he wriggled right then left, tearing the collar enough to let him rip free and fire another kick at Decker’s stomach, driving him back into the wall once again.
Terry moved quickly, taking advantage of his opponent’s distraction to lock a sleeper hold on Cole, shutting off blood to his brain. It was a dangerous move, given his condition, but it was a lot safer than trying to subdue him in an open brawl. All he had to do was to let him pass out, and with Charlie to monitor him, he would know exactly when to let it go to keep from doing permanent damage.
All fine in theory, but Charlie changed that a second later as he screamed in Terry’s mind, “Watch out, Terry! By his fields, he is still pumping adrenalin! His heart is reaching critical limits! If this keeps up he—”
Before Charlie could finish, Cole abruptly went limp in Terry’s arms. He didn’t even need Charlie to tell him what had happened. He had felt the pulse in his neck stop at the same instant. His first reaction was a simple, “Aw shit!”
As he laid the man down, his mind raced. “Decker, is there a portable defibrillator in the building? This guy just vapor-locked!”
Decker came back to reality at warp speed, leaping to his feet and heading for the door.
Charlie though was not optimistic about their chances.
In his mind, Terry was telling Charlie, “We can get his heart going again, he’ll be fine. If we can—”
“Can you restart his brain?” Charlie snapped. “His fields are gone. There is nothing left there but flesh and blood. From what I can tell, he had a cerebral hemorrhage. More than likely an aneurism caused by the excessive hormones in his body. Whoever was using him had no regard for his survival. The amount of amplification they used on him would have been fatal in any case, given time. Boosted that high, any flaw in his body would have been fatal if it came into play.”
Terry laid the man down and looked at him. Someone had killed him long before he had ever met him. The trouble was that he died in Terry’s arms, and for Terry, this did not bode well.
Decker burst through the door with the defibrillator and a pair of officers trained in its use to help.
Terry stepped back and let them try, even though he knew it was useless.
Decker too stepped to the side, asking Terry, “What happened?”
Terry shrugged. “When he went after you the second time, I grabbed him to try and take him down. Figured no matter what he was on, if I could slow him down, we could sit on him if we had to. Soon as I grabbed him though, he went limp. Whatever happened, however he got strong enough to take the both of us on, the strain must’ve been too much for him.”
Decker nodded absently. He had no problem with anything Terry had done, but he didn’t think his bosses would agree. Still, if this was their guy, and indications were that it was, no one would really give a damn as long as the killings stopped.
Almost in answer to Decker’s thoughts, the larger of the two officers looked up, his expression telling the story as he shook his head.
Decker sighed. As bad as this day had been, he had the feeling that the next one was going for a record.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Two hours later, Decker and Terry were sitting in Crane’s office. The events of the last day had taken a toll on them, but it was not over yet. Once the mayor had found out that there had been a death while in custody, his mind went immediately to spin control. And whom he could lay the blame for this on.
Crane had taken a more pragmatic view. If this was the one that had been doing the killings they had been trying to stop, then he was all for it. And in a mirror image of the mayor’s thoughts that he found distasteful, if they could leave the blame for his death on this Bridger character, it would keep the administration in the clear.
Benin had wrangled an invitation to the meeting on the basis of his status as an FBI agent. Smyth had done all he could to keep his access limited, but Benin refused to be denied, stating that as the senior agent in the area, he was entitled. And that he demanded the right to keep tabs on Bridger for some undisclosed reason.
Smyth knew he wanted to be there if Terry failed just to be sure and spread it around, so he wanted to be there as well just to be sure any success he had would go out on the wire as well.
Only with this latest development, it seemed Benin was ahead on points. With the death of a suspect in custody, as well as apparently at the hands of his boy, Benin could conceivably get Terry rousted from the case. Smyth didn’t have all the facts yet, but at the moment, it did not look good for Terry.
Terry, on the other hand, didn’t seem to know that as he turned to Crane while they waited for the mayor to arrive asking, “Since I don’t seem to have much to do, do you mind if I check my emails?”
Crane and Smyth looked at each other. This was either the coolest customer either of them had ever seen or he was just plain crazy. Either way, it couldn’t hurt, Crane decided. If the mayor shot down the whole plan, it was over, but if he didn’t, keeping Terry happy with the rest of them would keep him o
n the job, should there still be one.
For Terry, though, there was another reason. In the two hours since Cole had passed away, he had done a lot of thinking, and as in the case of most things, an answer had come in the form of an epiphany of epic proportion. Now, it was time to prove it.
He didn’t know how long it would take, or how long he had, but he knew he had to get it done before the mayor showed up. Otherwise, he had to lie, and the plain truth was that he wasn’t very good at that.
Crane simply smiled and presented Terry his computer terminal. “Have at it. If the mayor doesn’t can us all, we can get back to work when you’re done. And if he does, you got a leg up on getting your flight back to wherever.”
“That is if we don’t charge you with murder in Cole’s death.” Benin sneered.
Decker spoke up there.
“If he gets charged with anything, it’ll be stopping a crazy dope head. That guy was on some serious shit. All he did was try to stop him without killing him.”
Benin’s sneer deepened. “Yeah, says you. From the way it sounds, you were glad to see the guy dead after the way he kicked your ass! Funny how it seems everybody’s doing that to you today.”
Decker rose up out of his chair and glowered at Benin. “You want to give it a shot? I never made any claim to being tough, but I’ll take my chances against your ass!”
Crane jumped between the two of them, more for Benin’s protection than anything else. Decker was civilized on most occasions, but he did have a temper. And the way the tape showed this guy had taken him down, he had to be on something Benin wasn’t. In any case, Crane didn’t feel like trying to separate the two of them right then. Even though from what little he knew about Benin, he felt he might have enjoyed watching Decker take him apart for the hell of it.
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