Latency

by Blaze Ward

  She emerged a few minutes later, hair towel-dried and down. She almost always wore it in a tail or braid, so he tended to forget how long it was, or how much more she looked like a beautiful woman and less like a cop when she had it loose.

  Her body and face turned men on. It was the job she did that left them cold and maybe running for the door. But then, most men didn’t know how to deal with a woman who was tougher than they were, and probably smarter.

  Their loss.

  “Coffee?” he asked, holding out his mug like he did with Emmy.

  She grabbed it and took a sip, but handed it back quickly.

  “Yuck,” she offered as her usual commentary.

  He nodded and she sat next to him, already starting to braid her hair up and out of the way.

  “What’s your first step?” Redhawk asked finally.

  “I have probable cause to arrest Olek Zielinski,” Greyson said. “However, if we enter it into evidence or show it to a judge to swear out an arrest warrant, all hell breaks loose pretty damned fast.”

  “Why is that?” Edgar asked, leaning forward now, eye glittering with something. Maybe greed. Maybe revenge.

  Maybe gas.

  “Zielinski was blackmailing folks,” Greyson replied.

  Those eyes turned dead black now. Deadly black.

  “You have his files,” Redhawk said. It was not a question. “Does he have backups offsite?”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it, considering everything that we retrieved,” Greyson nodded to Rachel. “I’d like someone to take him into custody and haul him down to the Bureau like a regular prisoner. Throw him in a box for a while under the Official Secrets Act and then I’d like to have a conversation with the man. Just the two of us, plus whoever is on the other side of the mirror.”

  “Did he send the assassin?” Redhawk asked, maybe a touch confused now.

  “Circumstantial evidence suggests that he did,” Rachel jumped in now. “Nothing that will stand up in court, though.”

  “And you want to question him over…?” Redhawk asked.

  “I think I can get a confession out of him,” Greyson smiled. “At that point, everything else becomes irrelevant.”

  “Who was he blackmailing?” Redhawk asked, careful now.

  “Just about everyone, near as I can tell,” Greyson said. “Kwan and Owens close by, but there are a dozen other files filled with dirty secrets. I don’t want them public, if we can avoid it.”

  Redhawk studied his face now, trying to read him.

  Back when he’d been human, Greyson had known he had a poker face, not giving anything away. Now, he had such precise bodily control that he could probably go live in a casino at a card table and end up owning the place in a year.

  If he cared.

  About anything except revenge.

  Redhawk pulled his comm and dialed.

  “Yeah,” he said simply to whoever answered. “Locate Olek Zielinski, the former captain of the local Hunter Bureau. He’s probably at the hospital with Fred Jansen, or close by. Find him, and arrest him. Hard take down if he gives you any reason. Treat him like a common criminal, possibly armed, and haul him to the Bureau. Process him, fingerprint him, and drop him into the isolation cell. Yes, right now. I’ll be there in a while to explain, but I want him taken out of circulation immediately. Call if you screw up anything and I need to have you fired. Am I clear?”

  Long pause and Redhawk hung up, eyes never once leaving Greyson’s face.

  “I’m a little out on a limb here, Leigh,” Redhawk said as he put his comm away. “It better be good.”

  “Oh, it is,” Greyson smiled ominously. “You’ll see.”

  31

  Olek

  Greyson had never spent a lot of time down in the basement of the Bureau. If nothing else, Hunters either tended to find someone for the regular cops to arrest, or went in shooting and didn’t have prisoners to arrest afterwards.

  Sometimes, however, it was useful to put someone in a small, gray box, deep underground and let them stare at concrete walls for a while so they could contemplate their sins in privacy.

  He didn’t figure Zielinski had any introspective qualities to engage tonight, but the time spent in a cell would still do wonders for a control freak like Olek. Greyson smiled and considered what a small soul he might have.

  He and Rachel were in the observation room. Redhawk was there with them. Parsons, too. The rest of the folks that might have joined them had been instructed to remain elsewhere, including the folks with emergency medical training, if Zielinski went and had a heart attack on them or something.

  Parsons could call them back. If she wanted to.

  Greyson watched Zielinski get delivered into the interrogation room on the other side of the mirror and left in one of the two chairs still handcuffed in front. He was dressed in cheap blue chinos and a white sweater that had marinara stains on it, so they hadn’t busted him all the way down to a prison jumpsuit.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Zielinski’s face seemed pleasant enough, but that was a front. Greyson could almost smell the anger coming off the man in waves, like ozone.

  That also brought a warm spot in Greyson’s heart.

  But then, turnabout was a bitch, wasn’t she?

  “You safe in there alone?” Rachel asked.

  “You bet,” he replied, but he still pulled out the nerve scrambler and palmstunner, handing them to her.

  She slipped them into a pocket with a nod. Zielinski was handcuffed, but not bolted to the table. He could get up and walk around if he wanted. Or come across the table at Greyson and try to strangle him, maybe.

  Greyson had six centimeters on the man, and didn’t have the pot belly that Olek had started working on about four years ago, before getting serious about it down in Florida.

  Rage might give the man strength, but Rachel could come in and kick his ass if Greyson needed it. Parsons was probably looking forward to it, when Greyson looked down and saw the heavy boots peeking out from the Captain’s slacks. They looked remarkably like the ones Rachel wore every day, and the tall woman normally wore dressier shoes because she rarely went out in the field where they might get muddy.

  Today might qualify as a special occasion.

  “You folks pay attention,” Greyson said. “I might ask you a question as he and I chat, so it would be nice if you answered quickly.”

  Redhawk moved to an electronics console that controlled everything in both rooms and sat. He flipped a few switches and looked up.

  “Recording is live,” he said simply. “Medical scanners in Zielinski’s cuffs are tracking his heart rate and other vitals, in case something happens. We’re muted in here.”

  “Excellent,” Greyson said cheerily. “Showtime.”

  He exited the observation room and nodded to the two beefy jailers standing outside the other door. Again, not that he needed them, but it was nice to have back up for once.

  There had been too many instances of walking into a dark warehouse alone, with nothing but his pistol between him and somebody up to lethally-bad no good.

  Or bad men in foreign countries with Death Warrants sworn out and signed by both the President and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

  Greyson opened the door and stepped in, closing it behind him and hearing the door lock itself.

  Olek didn’t bother to turn and look, but he’d be all about playing little power games right now, like the middle school bully he’d never outgrown. And there was a mirror taking up one whole wall that let the man see everything without moving his head.

  Greyson walked around and pulled out the other chair, noting that the room was configured for two, so someone had taken the time to remove the third chair where a second interrogator normally sat.

  Setting this up to dance, as it were.

  Greyson sat, unable to help the shit-eating grin on his face as he stared at Olek’s sourness. He was leaned back, while Olek was forward with his elbows on the table.


  They held the tableau for perhaps a minute before Olek finally spoke.

  “So you think you’ve got something on me, fucker?” he growled angrily. “Think I won’t get you back?”

  Greyson could have said something. Could have engaged this punk-ass little bitch in a verbal dance. Olek had probably spent the last hour planning for such a scenario, and the last forty years training for it.

  Greyson wasn’t feeling like playing nice.

  The only better time to kick a man than when he was down was when he wasn’t looking.

  Greyson reached into an inner pocket and pulled a piece of paper from where he’d hidden it in his wallet earlier. While Rachel slept.

  Nobody used Imperial measurements anymore, but it was what had been a four by six inch photo when Greyson was a kid. The machines that printed photographs still spit them out at the odd size.

  He put his wallet away and reached into his pants pocket where he kept his change, pulling out the cheap lighter he’d picked up earlier.

  Greyson set the image down on the metal table between them just long enough for Olek to identify it with a blink of surprise, before Greyson picked it up again and set it on fire before the old cop’s hands could reach for it.

  The old paper and the inks seemed happy to ignite, as it went up pretty fast.

  Greyson still hadn’t spoken, his face turning serious with concentration as he worked on not burning himself. Olek had a bead of sweat over his left eyebrow when Greyson looked up.

  He dropped the burning picture on the table again and leaned back as it went up. Olek did the same, possibly fearing that his old, ratty sweater might catch.

  Greyson noted a fire extinguisher in a corner, if he decided he needed to put Olek out.

  Another long pause.

  “Where’d you find that?” Olek asked in a voice that strove for braggadocio and settled for reedy and thin.

  “Two Oh Seven,” Greyson replied simply.

  Greyson watched the little light bulb come on in Olek’s eyes. They both knew what 207 signified. On a variety of levels.

  Olek fell silent. Greyson watched the man chew iron nails with his lips closed, possibly spalling enamel off his teeth as he ground them.

  “And then we went out to a celebratory dinner,” Greyson mentioned off-hand before raising his voice. “Rachel, what did I eat when we hit that one diner after?”

  “Chicken fried steak,” her radio voice filled the room with warmth and a hint of coquettish giggles. She even added just a shade of southern twang, like a Texas belle.

  Olek didn’t manage to hide a flinch fast enough for Greyson to miss it.

  “Chicken fried steak,” Greyson repeated slowly, savoring the words like he had that meal last night. “Could have had the mashed potatoes and diced veggies, plus the little cherry turnover thing for dessert, but I’m not like you, Olek. I went all in on the breakfast instead. Eggs over easy. The really runny kind you mop up with some warm, sourdough toast because you want to clean the plate and enjoy life. Hash browns extra crispy with extra salt. And pork sausage and bacon gravy. Damn, but that was a nice breakfast. Thank you for suggesting it.”

  Zielinski might have growled under his breath. It was hard to tell. Probably quiet enough that the microphones in here didn’t pick it up. Maybe it was just in his eyes.

  “You think you got it all figured out, punk?” Olek finally responded in a low, dangerous voice.

  Almost as deadly as Greyson right now.

  But only almost.

  “I don’t have to, Olek,” Greyson replied.

  The picture had stopped burning. It was nothing but a pile of crumbled ash, like bacon badly overcooked the way his mom had always insisted on when Greyson was a kid. Dry and crumbly. Lacking passion. Also like her.

  Greyson tapped a finger on the table next to the ashes, drawing the other man’s eyes down.

  “I’ve got you other ways,” Greyson continued. “It’s not necessary to pin an assassination attempt on you, although when Jansen wakes up and finds out that your ass is going down hard, he might want to cut a deal with me.”

  Again, that growl. That flinch that was never more than a twitch of the eyes.

  “You understand, Olek,” Greyson decided to stick the knife in and twist it a little. Nick him again. Not like he didn’t owe this shitbird for a lot of things. “Buyer’s remorse. Maybe he can say he thought it was all in fun and nobody told him that he’d be indictable in a conspiracy to commit murder of a Metropolitan Law Enforcement Agent. That’s one of the few capital crimes still on the books, isn’t it?”

  “He won’t talk,” Olek muttered.

  “He doesn’t have to,” Greyson said. “I’ve got more on him than you had on me, when you got me fired and blackballed. Talking is what might keep him out of a small, concrete box for the rest of his life. Like the one next to you down the hall.”

  It was like goading the bull with a red cape. Flash it and hide. Motion and stillness.

  Taunt the fucker into making a mistake because he thinks size, mass, and motion mean something in this game.

  Greyson had spent the whole drive home thinking about Olek Zielinski and the twisted contents of those files. The lives that might be ruined if any of it came out.

  The year he had spent eating cut-rate udon, listening to his classical music, and drinking the cheap synth whiskey while he recovered from the PTSD of his entire life.

  Watching this son of a bitch walk out of the drizzle that day last fall and dangle something in front of him. Something Greyson had realized he really did want back.

  Yeah, he owed Olek Zielinski the sword that the toreadors used, hidden in the cape.

  “What do you want?” Olek asked.

  Greyson had watched the man walk himself all the way through the stages of death as they both breathed slowly.

  “I want to know the how, Olek,” Greyson replied.

  “The how.”

  “The why is pretty obvious to anyone with the sense God gave a goose,” Greyson said. “That chip is the only piece that I haven’t got solved at this point, but I also haven’t been engaged in that side of the case. After I’m done with you here, I’ll go have a chat about being made Lead Investigator. With your head on a stick, I’m pretty sure Parsons will be amenable.”

  “That’s all you think I’ve got to trade?” Zielinski asked.

  Greyson reached out again and tapped the table next to the crumbled pile of dead bacon.

  “It’s the only thing I want,” Greyson sneered at the man.

  Olek refused to take the bait.

  “I can do a lot of things when I walk out of this room, Olek,” he managed to reply without letting the snarl into his voice. The toreador’s sword. “I can hand all those files over to Parsons or maybe Upkins, since this office shouldn’t investigate itself, and let someone else handle it. Given what I have, you’re never getting out of jail short of a pardon from Upkins or one of her successors.”

  He smiled at Zielinski. Pure, shit-eating grin again.

  “Two: I can tell Parsons that I don’t have anything at all on you,” Greyson continued. “Nobody’s seen it but me and Rachel. What would happen if I told the entire world that I had burned all those files, destroying everything and they were free from you? With nothing to hold you, Parsons kisses you on both cheeks and you are free to walk out the front door upstairs and get on with your life.”

  He paused a beat.

  “How long until someone starts sending killers after you, Olek?”

  There. First blood. The taunted bull has charged, but they focus on color, charging the cape. The man or woman holding the cape slashes at the stupid beast. At least that’s what he remembered from the cartoons when he was a kid.

  Olek was bleeding, at least metaphorically. And they both knew it.

  Given the location, Zielinski might never make it back to Florida to pick up whatever emergency go-bag he had packed. Maybe he had a spare up here in Boston against such emergencies? C
ould he make it to a bank and his safety deposit box alive?

  Greyson wouldn’t interfere. Olek Zielinski was a private citizen now. There were no known threats against his life, so he didn’t need police protection.

  And they both knew it.

  “So we come back to the how,” Greyson continued, as if nothing had occurred. “You didn’t design that Synth Chip. Nor manufacture it. The gun’s easy. After all, lots of cops keep highly-illegal ghost guns at home, don’t they?”

  Another slash. Death of a thousand paper cuts was going to be the game, but only because literally tying Olek down and either waterboarding him or doing the ancient Chinese water torture was illegal.

  Greyson wasn’t going to inquire about the ethics of it today.

  “And the perp was just a middle-aged nobody with the right fetish, wasn’t he?” Greyson asked. “Plug him in on the right day and bang, he makes the evening news for killing a couple of cops before a Heavy Response Team takes him down.”

  Long beat this time.

  “You ready to talk yet, or should I start burning files?” Greyson asked. “I’ll do them one at a time, so each of your enemies is free. Then I’ll call them personally and let them know.”

  “Do you even care?” Olek growled.

  Greyson considered it.

  “No,” he replied. “You could have lived a long and angry retirement down in that dump in Southport. Gone fishing with your buddies. Played D&D with the local police chief and his wife. None of it would have bothered me at all, because we’d made a deal, you and I. You went away forever and I didn’t hunt you. You broke your end of the deal, Olek. So now you’re mine to destroy. I’m looking forward to it.”

  He didn’t mean for the way his voice dropped down to a ragged, rusty knife blade. Or the heat that boiled up from his belly, like a dragon’s fire about to ignite that cheap cotton, marinara-stained sweater and turn Olek into a torch.

  Olek Jan Zielinski appeared to finally discover fear, from the way his eyes got big for a moment. Like maybe he’d thought that he was protected. Insulated from anything anyone could do to him.