Blazer: Return of the Troubles: A Cop Thriller
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Blazer: Return of the Troubles
G.C. Harmon
Blazer: Return of the Troubles
Kindle Edition
© Copyright 2021 G.C. Harmon
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Wolfpack Publishing
5130 S. Fort Apache Rd. 215-380
Las Vegas, NV 89148
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wolfpackpublishing.com
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.
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eBook ISBN 978-1-63977-028-1
Paperback ISBN 978-1-63977-029-8
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This is for Daria.
Remembering our trip to England.
Remembering the good times.
Introduction
After the intense and brutal action of my last entry in the series, I decided to have a little fun with this story. In developing a character like Blazer’s father, I decided to incorporate my own Scottish heritage into the character. Awhile back, just for fun, I looked up the origins of the name Blazer. I was amazed to find that it actually had some old English roots, with a little bit of French influence thrown in. With Steve’s father being a Scotsman, I guess I wasn’t that far off. It is my sincere hope that the audience enjoys reading about Clan Blazer as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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As for the depictions of the Police dealing with the homeless…it may not be politically correct, but everything is based on personal experience.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
A Look at City On Fire: Five LAPD Thrillers
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About the Author
Blazer: Return of the Troubles
1
In the cavernous interior of the cathedral, every sound echoed, especially late at night when almost everyone had gone home. The tourist and business end of the cathedral ended late in the afternoon, and after that, the crowds dwindled to a trickle. As the evening wore on, the number of parishioners who had come to seek the council of a priest, or simply to pray and light a candle, had diminished as well. The Bishop had retired for the evening, leaving Father Fitzhugh in charge of closing everything up for the night.
His footsteps echoed through the darkened corridors as he toured the perimeter, the aisles, around the main chapel, called the Nave. He needed to make sure everyone had left. A short while ago, he’d seen an elderly woman who was kneeling in the pews in the Nave, and he wanted to make sure she had departed safely. Not that he would rudely kick her out if she truly needed the council of God’s servant. He was there to serve anyone. Father Fitzhugh had served at many of the Catholic churches throughout San Francisco. Throughout the worldwide Catholic Church, priests served wherever the church felt they were needed, often transferring between cities, traveling to a new church across the country, or even across the world. Through an arrangement that he no longer cared to think about, Father Fitzhugh had fled his native land and settled in San Francisco and had been permitted to stay there throughout his career in the priesthood.
“Another day practically cut short, Father?” a woman’s voice asked to his right. He turned and found Sister Elizabeth, one of the nuns that served here, approaching. She was in her forties, maybe a decade younger than him, and still radiated beauty. She did not wear a full habit, just the headdress that covered most of her dirty blond hair, and a long modest tan skirt and white blouse.
“A winter day tends to be, sister. I’m just closing down.” He saw her react again to the lilt of his accent. Was she swooning? He was a man noticing the beauty of a woman, but he forced himself to keep his mind on business. “There was a lady here for prayer—”
“I’ve just seen her out. I think everyone’s gone.”
“Excellent.” He sighed, with a smile on his face. “Well, I must pack for my trip down the coast.”
She smiled as well. “Some of us are envious, Father,” she said referring to the handful of other nuns that served here or visited from other parishes. “It’s not every person who gets to visit a real castle as part of their calling.”
“I live to serve, my child. And make sure you say ten ‘Hail Marys’ for that bout of envy you’re wrestling with.”
She chuckled. “Yes, Father.” With a twirl of her skirt, she headed for the main entrance and departed.
Down a short set of stone steps adjacent the Quire, he reached the Nave, and confirmed the pews were empty. He touched briefly the rosary of wooden beads sticking out of his trouser pocket, then fumbled in his other pocket for the set of keys. He was dressed rather casually for a priest, with a light colored sweater over his black shirt and Roman collar, and a black suit coat over that to guard against the chilly San Francisco winter.
“A moment of your time, Father,” said a new voice from the darkness behind him.
Fitzhugh grabbed his chest as he whirled around. A figure stepped out of the darkness. He wore a dark jacket, and had a hood spread across his head, obscuring much of his face. It gave him the brief appearance of wearing some kind of cloak, but that image ended at his blue jeans.
“You scared me, my son,” Fitzhugh said.
“Apologies, father. I simply need some councilin’,” the man said.
Fitzhugh had been trying to examine the man. He was not young, perhaps near fifty. He had a trim build, was tall, and appeared to be physically strong. But when he realized that the man spoke with a curt Irish brogue, his fright melted away. “Oh, it does me heart good to hear someone from the old country,” he smiled, letting his own accent be heard.
“Where do ye hail from, Father?”
“Oh, I grew up in many areas along the shores of Dublin Bay, but spent my formidable days in the town of Newry.”
“I believe we may have trodden some of the same battlefields, Father.”
Fitzhugh was momentarily troubled by the man’s use of those words. “I’m closing up for the night,” he said. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“I think a simple confession would suffice.” He nodded behind him to a pair of confession booths, at the foot of the steps just outside the Quire.
Fitzhugh let his consternation show. “Might it wait until tomorrow? It is getting late.”
“Again, my apologies, but my sins are weighin’ on me heavily.”
Fitzhugh finally nodded. “Come in when you’re ready,” he said, and stepped toward the booth on the right.
He closed the curtain to the confessional and sat patiently. He regretted for a moment that his evening rituals would extend this much longer. There was a large upcoming event that he needed time to prepare for, in the privacy of his quarters, and hearing one more confession meant that much more of a delay. But if he could help a member of his flock…
“Bless me, Father, for I am about to sin.”
Fitzhugh was suddenly caught by the words. Again, he’d phrased his words in a suspicious manner. “Why do you say it like that, my son?”
The lilt of the Irish brogue stayed, but the voice took on a new menacing tone. “It’s taken thirty-five years of my life to track down the man responsible for the death of me brother. But I finally found him.”
Fitzhugh’s heart was racing. “Who is it you seek?”
“Come now, Father, you must remember. During the struggles. A certain squad of freedom fighters were planning a raid on a military outpost, to steal weapons and food. Only they were one gun short. It was a bloodbath, with nine soldiers dead.”
Fitzhugh sat frozen in his seat, but his heart was racing, his blood boiling. In his mind, he was carried to another time, another place, where he fought in his mind the hatred and lust for violence that so many felt. “You must have been a child.” The statement slipped from his lips before he could stop it.
“Yes, Father, it was you,” the mysterious confessor went on. “If you had been there, the crew would have had an extra gun, and they might have survived. But you took the coward’s way out.”
“Conner,” the Priest breathed, but it was loud enough for the man to hear. “No, my son, it wasn’t like that,” he pleaded. “I’m a different man now. I am a man of peace, a servant of God. Even then, my spiritual journey was forming in my heart.”
“And now, you use a non-existent God to hide behind the fact that you forsake your brothers in the cause?”
“You don’t understand,” Fitzhugh said, “Please…”
“I’ve wondered just one thing for all these decades,” the man said. “Did you just abandon them to die, or did you actually betray them to the Brits?”
“It wasn’t like that, my son,” Fitzhugh pleaded. “You must listen—”
“No, Father. I’ve listened to their cries of terror for decades. They have screamed out to me for your blood. And tonight they shall have it!”
This was a moment that Fitzhugh had long dreaded, and for the last twenty years he thought he was free of the nightmare the man described. But his past had finally caught up with him.
He’d often wondered how he would react when he stared a violent death in the face as a man of God. As God’s servant on earth, he had always felt that he would utter a final prayer and accept whatever fate had in store, secure in the fact that he would be in God’s hands when the act was done.
But in that moment, his instinct was to fight for his life.
He jumped in his chair as the lattice to his right ripped apart. An arm plunged through. The man tried to shoulder his way into the priest’s side of the confessional. Fitzhugh grabbed the arm as soon as he saw it. When he saw the shape and shadow of a Bowie Knife aimed straight for his heart, he tensed with all the strength he could muster to push that blade away.
He felt the strength of the attacker falter for a moment, but not because he was weakening. In fact, the man was repositioning himself in the booth, trying to now push his upper body through the lattice window. Fitzhugh threw his body against the left wall of the confessional. The man tried to reposition his arm but couldn’t quite manage it.
From a new angle, Fitzhugh wrenched the man’s arm toward the seat the priest had just abandoned. The blade stabbed inches into the wood. The man seemed to slip and fall inside the booth and took a moment to regain his feet.
Fitzhugh didn’t waste that moment. He ripped the curtain aside and burst from the confessional. He turned immediately left and bolted up the steps of the aisle.
He didn’t dare stop, but behind him, he could hear the man struggling to free himself, breaking pieces of the confessional booth.
He ran. He passed the Quire until the church’s altar stood before him, shrouded in shadow. The Statue of Christ loomed over him, and Fitzhugh looked up with terror-filled eyes, as if waiting to be delivered from certain death behind him.
A gunshot echoed through the aisle. A bullet ricocheted off the stone pillar next to him. He dodged to his right, looking for any way he could to escape this killer from his past.
He slipped through the entrance into the Quire itself, running up the center walkway. The Quire was lined with a gallery on both sides, each gallery with benches for those who attended. To his left, a short stairway led up to a lectern that rose several feet above the Quire. He’d delivered mass from that lectern many times in his career, and his time at this cathedral.
A second bullet dug into the lectern a foot from his head. He found a door next to the stairs and burst through.
He found himself in the crossing and saw the closest exit just yards away. He crossed to that door, pushing on it.
It didn’t open.
He’s getting closer, Fitzhugh mind screamed. He needed to escape. He wanted to live.
Next to the door, he noted a small table covered in pamphlets related to church business. The table was lightweight wood, which clashed with some of the other wooden furniture nearby. He picked it up.
He heard the growl of the killer behind him. He hurled the table at him.
The running killer faltered for a second, threw his arm up as the table hit him, showering him with papers. He dropped his gun. He pushed the flying table aside and searched desperately over the darkened floor for his gun. He found it in seconds. He grabbed it and whipped it up, firing one bullet, which scarred the doorframe. But the door was already closing.
The would-be killer, who Fitzhugh had called Conner, raced to the door. He burst out onto the street. He searched desperately in both directions, before seeing a running figure to his left, ducking around the corner.
The man called Conner raised his gun as he started running that way, but the priest had already disappeared behind the building. He raced to that corner, hoping to beat the older man to the other end of the building.
As he rounded the corner, he found himself in an alley steeped in shadow. He was not alone. The sides of the alley were lined with people. The place was a massive homeless camp. There were no working streetlights here, but in a couple places, the transients had started campfires in metal trash cans. Several people were gathered around the fires to keep warm, but the flames also served to provide a light for the path through the alley. The fires illuminated the sides where the bums were curled up in their dingy tents, torn slabs of cardboard, or just a blanket, already damp with the growing fog.
Conner plunged into the filthy alley. A couple of the homeless men called out facetiously for him to slow down or made jokes about his rush. That is, until they saw the shape of the object in his hand. Was he carrying a gun? As Conner blew past them, some decided it might be a good idea to vacate that alley.
Even as he neared the other end of the alley, Conner believed he would not find the priest. He was fast on his feet for an older man. He reached the street at the other end of the alley. There were better streetlights here, but they showed him nothing. He searched the street in all directions, but the priest had disappeared.
Conner paused, searching the night for any movement. After several seconds, none were seen. He jerked his head in a whispered curse. He slipped the gun back into his waistband. With a final glance back at the massive homeless camp, he ran off and disappeared into the darkness.
2
Steve Blazer awoke with a start. It was already light out. He glanced at the clock on his nightstand. It was nearing seven-thirty. He then glanced at the other side of the bed. Suzy was not there. Then he remembered. His girlfriend, Suzy Wolf, had started a period of working graveyards. They were both cops with the San Francisco Police Department. She was a senior patrol officer, and Steve was a Sergeant who ran his own special team.
This was night three of them being apart, working different h
ours. She was still adjusting to the schedule and had complained constantly for forty-right hours. He was not liking the nights alone.
The SFPD was going through a difficult time, and in fact the entire city was reeling from recent events involving the police. Only a week ago, the city was nearly taken over by an army of outlaw bikers. They had taken a war of revenge to the Police Department, ambushing multiple Police officers, and in the end killing two. Steve’s team, known as Special Forces, was the tip of the spear that brought the outlaw bikers down. It was an extremely violent day that saw two major combat incidents, with thousands of bullets fired, a vacant building burned to the ground and nearly two dozen dead bikers. To top it off, Steve’s best friend, an ex-cop named Mark Powers, had been gunned down and nearly killed. He was currently recovering in the hospital from a chest wound. Steve’s mentor, Captain John Stanson had predicted that the two major crime scenes involved would take hundreds of cops to investigate. It was proving to be true. San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza was still closed to the public, the City Hall was conducting minimal business only. Because Special Forces was responsible for the killing of several of the biker suspects, they were put on paid administrative leave, something that happens when most cops have the misfortune of killing a suspect during the normal course of their duties. The one modification to their instructions were that they were to make themselves available if any inspector were to contact them about their investigation. Steve had actually instructed his men to call him if any inspector did contact them. He knew his men would be honest, but he wanted to make sure they would not be hung out to dry by a statement that was meant to be innocent but could be twisted to imply guilt or wrong-doing. So far, the investigators appeared to be running with the statements they’d already received.