by Dylan Rust
She pushed Tom in and walked inside.
As the doors closed, she heard the men who’d passed. They were down the hall. They were leaving the morgue. They’d found Sasha’s and the technicians body.
“Someone’s down here! It must be them!”
“Stop!”
The men ran.
Claire pressed the button to close the doors. She heard their panting, their footsteps.
They were close.
She hit the button again.
The elevator closed in the nick of time. She saw on of their faces.
As the elevator rose, she checked on Tom. He was passed out. She lifted up his hospital gown to check his wound. They’d done the surgery. They’d sewed him up. He was going to be okay.
The elevator doors opened.
Claire pushed Tom out and made her way to the atrium.
The hospital was still in pure panic mode, although there seemed to be a bit more order. As she predicted, the fire department and NYPD were on scene.
She wheeled the gurney toward a group of NYPD officers. While Jack had warned her that the NYPD were in Igor’s pocket, she could not believe that every officer was loyal to him.
“Excuse me,” Claire said. “I need help.”
They ignored her.
“Hey,” she said, raising her voice. “I’m a federal agent and I need your help.”
One of the officer’s turned around.
Claire flashed her badge. “My name is Agent Claire Osgoode. There was a shooting in the morgue,” she said. “There should be two bodies down there. There is also a body in the medical wing.”
The cop looked confused. “What?”
“A shooting,” she said. “In the morgue. You should get someone down there. And the body in the medical wing is an FBI agent. He was injected with some sort of poison.”
“Slow down, slow down,” the cop said. “We’re dealing with a lot right now.”
“A federal agent was murdered.”
“You federal agents are all the same,” he said.
He put his hand up. He was wearing an earpiece. He was listening to something on the radio.
“Sorry,” he said. “What is it you were saying?”
“There’s a dead federal agent in the medical wing and two bodies in the morgue.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll send a team down there. We’re just having one hell of morning.”
“What’s going on?” Claire asked.
“Aside from this power outage, the NYPD ESU just had a shootout with the cop killer. The whole city is on high alert. All of lower Manhattan is in lockdown.”
“What?” she said.
Her face went white. They couldn’t mean…
“The cop killer just had a shootout with the ESU,” he said. “That’s why we were so late responding to this call. It’s nuts. Wait a minute. I’m getting something.”
He put his hand up to his ear so he could better listen to the radio chatter.
He smiled and fist bumped the air.
“We got him,” he said. “We got the son-of-a-bitch!”
The group officers cheered.
“Did they kill him?” Claire asked.
“No,” the officer said. “He’s under arrest. The men who pulled him in showed remarkable restraint. I would’ve shot that asshole in the face.”
Claire didn’t respond. It felt as though her heart had just been ripped out of her chest. She wanted to crawl into a little ball and cry. She walked away from the officers. They didn’t realize that she’d left.
She pushed Tom’s gurney against the wall.
The hospital power turned back on.
The nurses, doctors, and patients cheered. The NYPD and Fire Department dispersed.
Claire didn’t react.
Tom coughed and his eyes opened.
“You okay?” he said. “What’s going on?”
Claire shook her head. “I’m fine. The woman Jack played in The Dacha House, Sasha, tried to kill you in the morgue.”
“Why was I in the morgue? Did I die?”
Claire rolled her eyes. “No,” she said. “You didn’t die.”
“Last I remembered, I was in surgery,” he said. “Then I woke up and you were firing your gun.”
“Igor’s grip over the city is more expansive than we imagined,” she said. “He must have contacts in the hospital. The man who took you down to the morgue was a technician. He seemed to be just following orders.”
“Damnit,” he said. “Vasiliev is in here to, isn’t he?”
“He’s dead.”
“What?”
“When they took you into surgery, I went to check on him. That’s when the power went out. A nurse came into his room and asked me to leave. But she wasn’t a nurse. She was Sasha. Fuck. I shouldn’t have been so stupid.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Tom said. “There is nothing you could have done. It’s like you said, Igor’s grip over the city is larger than we thought.”
“I haven’t heard from the associate director since I came into the hospital,” she said. “I should call him.”
“You should,” Tom said. “Wright and Clarkson are in danger. If they tried to kill us, they’ll be trying to kill them, too.”
Claire pulled out her phone. She began to dial the associate directo’s number.
The cop who she had been talking to called her over.
“Fuck,” she said. “Here.” She handed Tom the phone.
He winced as he grabbed it from her.
She walked to the cop.
“Agent Osgoode,” he said.
Claire nodded.
“I have an officer here who can help you. It’s Code 4, so we’ve got some free hands. Can you tell me again? You said there were two bodies in the morgue and a dead federal agent in the emergency wing.”
“In the medical wing.”
“Right,” he said. “Officer Gimley can escort you to the medical wing. I’ll take everyone else down to the morgue.”
Officer Gimley nodded. He looked at Claire. “Come with me, Agent Osgoode,” he said.
His face was familiar.
He couldn’t have been.
No.
He was.
He was one of the men she saw as the elevator doors closed.
She tried to say something to the officer she’d been talking to, but he’d left. It was just her and Gimley. He knew she recognized him. He pulled out his gun. He aimed it at Claire.
“Take me to your dead friend,” he said. “Let’s have a chat.”
“Your an NYPD cop working for Igor Grekovitch.”
“Shut up.”
“You sicken me.”
“Walk or we kill your friend over there.” He waved his gun toward Tom. A group of cops surrounded his gurney.
“Fuck you,” Claire said.
“Walk,” Gimley said.
Claire reluctantly led him to the elevator.
She’d have to take care of this goon on her own.
47
Jack stepped out of the police van.
His hands were cuffed behind his back.
He wasn’t where he thought he’d be, though. He figured they’d take him straight to Rikers, to the pre-trial prison, where he’d be held until a judge handed down a sentence. But he wasn’t anywhere close to Rikers.
He was at City Hall Park.
The ESU officers pulled him out. They were still in their SWAT gear.
“What am I doing here?” Jack asked.
“Shut up.”
One of the officer’s grabbed Jack by the arm, and forcefully pushed him toward New York City Hall.
A group of reporters were on scene. Their cameras flashed and they spit a flurry of questions at the NYPD officers dragging Jack inside.
“How did you get him?”
“Did he resist arrest?”
“Can you tell us anything?”
The ESU officers said nothing.
Jack didn’t like journalists
. When he was a detective, they’d show up at his precinct and ask him questions. They’d twist every word he said to fit whatever narrative they’d already decided upon.
It made him sick.
Jack walked through the revolving doors and into the main lobby of city hall. He hadn’t been there in years.
It’d been renovated.
A tiny model city of New York was behind a glass case. It showcased new developments. More condos, more towers, less character, less heart. The city was losing its soul to the highest bidder.
The mayor was responsible for this change.
Jack’s jaw clenched when he thought about the corrupt man in change of the city.
The officers brought Jack to a small room and sat him down.
They watched Jack’s every move.
If he sneezed, they’d pull their guns on him. Their fingers were on the triggers of their submachine guns.
Jack looked around the room. Four boring paintings were hung on the walls. Abstract colors, shapes, and nothing. This looked like a briefing room. A place a PR person would take you before a press event.
“Am I being showcased?” Jack asked. “A prized lamb for slaughter.”
“The mayor is making an example of you.”
“An example?”
“Shut up, cop-killer.”
One of the ESU officers hit Jack with the butt of his sub-machine gun. He then raised his gun and aimed it at Jack’s head. “I pull this trigger and your little crusade against justice is over!”
“Crusade against justice?”
“You’re being charged for the death of Lieutenant Rivers and five federal agents and a civilian.”
“Five federal agents?”
“Yes,” the ESU officer said.
“Claire,” Jack said. He closed his eyes. They’d got her. Fuck.
“Shut up you sick fuck!”
“What happened to the agents?”
The cop responded to Jack with another hit to face.
Jack ignored the pain.
He didn’t care.
He stared at the cop who’d hit him. “How does it feel?” Jack said. “Being a corrupt, shallow pawn for some two-bit Russian gangster.”
The officer’s eyes went red.
He tensed up, and swung his gun at Jack’s head again.
Jack ducked this time.
The officer hit the wall. Drywall and dust flung in all directions. His gun was stuck. The other officers had to help him pull his gun out of the wall.
“Good one,” Jack said.
“You fucker! You piece of shit, motherfucker!”
The door swung open.
Three, tight-assed, PR types walked in. Two men and a woman. Their hair slicked back, their noses red from the line of coke they’d just snorted. They were all wearing makeup.
When the ESU officers saw the PR types they calmed down and stood back in their positions.
“Is he ready?” one of the PR reps asked.
“Yes.”
“Bring him in.” They noticed the hole in the wall of the briefing room. Please don’t hurt him.”
The officers snorted and grabbed Jack and pulled him up. They pushed him through the doors into a large room.
It was a PR stunt.
More reporters, more questions, more flashes.
The ESU forced him into a small cell at the right of the main stage. Two officers stood on either side.
The mayor spoke into a microphone. He walked with a cane from the shot Jack had given him in the leg. Half his face was bandaged up from the scratch he’d received from Sasha’s bullet. He took questions and smiled for the cameras and paraded along the stage like a circus performer.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got him.”
The crowd of reporters applauded the announcement.
The officers standing next to Jack cheered.
He was a trophy, a medal. Two days ago, he was a has-been, a nobody. No one would have been able to pick him out of a crowd.
“How’d you get him?” a reporter shouted to the Mayor.
“Thanks to the hardwork from the NYPD,” he responded. “And from the help of a civilian.”
Civilian? Who was the mayor talking about? Jack looked around the room. He didn’t see anyone he recognized.
The curtains behind the mayor flung open.
Igor.
“If not for the help of Igor Grekovitch,” the mayor said, “we would not have captured our man.”
Igor stood behind the mayor, he waved to the crowd.
Cameras flashed, reporters screamed. They ate it all up like a fat man at a buffet line.
The officer beside Jack had his pistol in his holster. The buckle locking the pistol in place was undone. If Jack grabbed the gun, he could shoot the officer in the gut, kneel down and grab the keys from his waist, and, if he was lucky, and everyone else was caught off guard enough, he could undo his cuffs and shoot Igor in the heart.
He had a clean shot.
That would end Igor’s reign of terror and influence over the entire damned city.
But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill the bastard cop, even if it meant saving the city.
Not every cop in New York was under Igor’s influence. The poor fool was following orders. Ninety-nine percent of the cops Jack knew were hardworking, honest, and good. Innocent until proven guilty, one of the pillars of the American justice system.
Jack believed in it. He always had.
“If not for the security footage Igor provided us,” the mayor said, “then we would not have our man.”
The reporters applauded.
“And brace yourself, folks. What you’re about to see is terribly graphic and ultra-violent.”
Jack smirked. It was all a show.
The mayor signalled to a man in a booth.
The lights in the room went dark, a white screen dropped from the ceiling.
A projector lit up the white screen.
A video played.
It was security footage from Lyle’s apartment.
Jack had turned off all the security cameras in the billionaire’s apartment. He was sure he had. Igor must have had his own installed. That’s how the ESU responded as quickly as they did.
The reporters gasped at the video.
It didn’t look good.
It ended just as Jack placed the knife at the base of Lyle’s ear.
“I can’t show anymore,” the mayor said. “It’s far too graphic. But what I can tell is that Lyle Cunningworth was found by our ESU swat team cut up in a million tiny pieces. The cop killer is the embodiment of evil.”
Jack clenched his jaw. He stared at Igor. Igor stared at him. The two men looked at each other for a good three seconds.
Igor turned away. He nodded and smiled at the cameras.
“Because of Mr. Grekovitch’s footage, we see no reason to hold a trial in the traditional sense. Jack Spade unequivocally is a killer. His trial has already been had. He has been sentenced to seven life sentences at Rikers prison. He is no longer a threat to our city.”
No trial.
Phoney evidence.
Jack was going back home.
Rikers Island Prison.
48
Claire kept her distance.
She didn’t want to get too close. She didn’t want to let her guard down.
As per Officer Gimely’s request, they took the stairwell. He was taking her to the emergency wing. He was taking her to Vasiliev’s room.
Officer Gimley was large, not overweight, but thick like a slab of tough meat. He had a big neck and greasy, curly hair. His blue uniform was one size too small and the gun in his holster wasn’t the standard NYPD carry. It was a Mark XIX Desert Eagle .50 calibre magnum with a gold finish. It was unusual for a cop to be carrying a gun that powerful. But he wasn’t a normal cop. He was crooked. He was working for Igor.
“Interesting gun,” she said. “Are the NYPD letting their boys choose their own gear now? Or is your captain al
so working for Grekovitch?”
Gimley turned around and smiled at Claire.
“You like it, bitch. You’ll be getting an up close demonstration soon.”
“Why not kill me now? Kill me here?”
Gimley laughed. “I’m not here to kill you. Don’t get too excited. I’m going to knock you out and take you to The Dacha House. New orders. We’re going to your comrades room so I can wheel you both out of the hospital on the same bed. Work smart, not hard, right?
Once they got to the third floor, Gimley held the door open for Claire.
She walked through.
The medical wing was empty.
Order was still being restored. While the power was back on, most rooms were still in lockdown. Their doors were shut, the nurses and other hospital staff were treating patients inside. Lockdown would be over in a couple minutes.
“Take me to the room?” Gimley said. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
Claire stopped.
She wasn’t going to let the asshole get away with it.
She pulled her gun.
He didn’t react.
“Freeze,” she said.
Gimley smiled. “Stupid, bitch,” he said.
He took a step toward her.
“Stay where you are! I’m serious.”
“Are you really going to shoot a cop? Come on, lady. Like I said, I’m not going to kill you.”
Lockdown ended.
A voice spoke over the intercom informing all hospital staff, patients, and guests that they could leave their rooms.
Every door in the hallway opened almost in unison.
Claire couldn’t fire her gun. She didn’t want to risk hitting a civilian.
She ran.
She had to get out of the hospital.
She looked into each room she ran by. Patients were connected to monitors, unconscious and lying on their beds. Their family members looked out of each room with the same worried expressions.
She ran to the end of the hallway.
Gimley couldn’t get a clear shot. The hallway was too cluttered.
He needed to clear the space. He fired three shots into the ceiling and pulled out his badge.
“This is the NYPD,” he screamed. “Everybody get down.”
People screamed.
Claire ran into a room.
Inside were two doctors and a patient. The patient was awake and the doctors were hiding in a closet.
