Blazer: Return of the Troubles: A Cop Thriller

by G. C. Harmon

  I’m all alone, Liam realized. He glanced all around, and his dead crew, at where the cops were firing from cover, at the terrain all around him. He suddenly lunged away from the column, across the pool deck. Twenty feet away, he vaulted over the two foot concrete railing to escape the Neptune pool.

  Grunting against the pain in his hip, Liam slid down a short embankment. He reached a pathway lined with lush green bushes. The road down to the highway was just to his north, but in the distance, he spotted vehicles approaching—police cars with lit emergency lights. He turned south to try and make his escape through the grounds.

  All at once, the gunfire stopped. Steve played his rifle over the south pavilion, searching for any new threat. “Black, Miano? You guys OK?”

  “We’re good, boss,” A.J. shouted. “We’ve got tangos down.”

  “Cover me.” Steve waited one second, then broke from cover and marched across the pool deck, rifle tactically pointed at the pavilion. Moments later, he became aware of Scot following on his heels, his pistol out. Steve aimed his rifle at the first body he came across, a woman with an M-4 lying next to her. “Check her,” he said when he spotted the other two bodies nearby, both male. Steve checked the first one and confirmed his was dead. He gently kicked the rifle away.

  “She’s alive, Blazer,” Scot announced.

  Steve was checking the scene. Sirens sounded in the distance, the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office finally arriving en masse. “We’ll get an ambulance up here. We’ve got one in the wind.” He’d spotted a small splatter of blood on the ground, and a trail of red leading to the railing. “There’s one more. I’m going after him.”

  Conner blinked. He’d lain on the floor for several minutes. At first, his breath had frozen in his lungs where the rapier had run him through. But he was finally able to draw in a shaky breath. He was weak, could feel the severe damage to his lung. But something told him he couldn’t just sit here. He needed to get away. Finding the traitorous priest would be nice, but the sound of approaching police sirens filtered its way to his senses. Getting away seemed more appropriate right now.

  He rolled over, and pain gripped his entire body. His breath again froze in his lungs. But he willed himself to move. He slowly got to his feet. His vision swam as if he was about to pass out. He steadied himself against the wall, willing himself to breathe again. Then he stumbled to the door and outside.

  Liam stumbled across the grounds. He ran blindly through trees, skirting the south side of the castle. Maybe he could make his escape overland, and somewhere find his way back to the highway—

  Through the trees, he spotted something just outside the castle. Just visible on the Esplanade above, a man stumbled about. He immediately recognized Conner. He was shuffling as if in pain.

  Liam glanced about, then made his way toward the Esplanade. He found a stairway and mounted the steps. He met his compatriot near the top. “Conner!” he called out, hurrying up to the lad. He stopped just short, seeing the man’s chest covered in blood. Conner’s eyes locked onto him. He took one more step, and then collapsed into Liam’s arms.

  Liam nearly collapsed under the weight. “No, no. Keep your feet, lad. We need to get our arses out of here.”

  “I can’t breathe, Liam,” Conner said quietly. “The bastard…ran me through…with a bloody sword.”

  “We’ll find them again, lad. Right now, we need to live to fight another day.”

  Liam hoisted Conner fully to his feet, pulling his arm around his shoulder. For a moment, Conner simply dangled there, his body limp. Then he pushed himself up and they began to walk. Liam turned them toward the steps he’d just come from. They would take the path he had originally decided on, escape across the grounds and make the long journey down to the highway.

  As he turned toward the steps, two figures emerged from a rear corner of the castle. Liam stopped to check them. They wandered toward the two injured men as if having no care in the world. As they got closer, he saw a curious detail. They wore the Roman collars of Catholic priests. The men continued to approach, staring more at the ground than at the two injured men.

  Conner looked up, wondering why Liam was not walking. He saw the priests stop not twenty feet away. As soon as he comprehended who they were, Conner made a grab for the back of his pants, not recalling that he had no gun there.

  “No, lad,” Liam suddenly said, trying to grab the reaching hand. Conner froze, and Liam added, “It’s not him.” He nodded to one of the priests, an older man with receded gray hair. “Pardon us, Father. We’re both sufferin’, and I need to get my friend some help.”

  The older priest smiled at him and crossed himself. With an accent that said he came straight from Italy, he said, “Go in peace, my son.”

  Liam turned to the steps, dragging Conner.

  Both priests drew handguns from holsters tucked into the back of their pants. Two shots rang out, followed by two more. Both Irishmen collapsed and died at the top of the steps. The priests once again hid their guns away and walked away toward the castle.

  Just moments later, Steve happened upon the bodies at the top of a flight of steps. He’d followed Liam’s blood trail this far and seeing both dead men was a surprise. He recognized Conner Riordan, the man they had been tracking for his vendetta against the priest, as one of them.

  He looked up as Stanson came up the steps behind him. “Sheriff’s Deputies are here in force. I’ve got them securing the crime scene at the Pool.” He chuckled as he added, “They’re pretty blown away by the destruction.”

  Steve could only shrug and say, “I didn’t do it.”

  As they spoke, two Deputies hurried up the steps with guns drawn, and Stanson directed them to secure the scene around the two bodies.

  Steve and the Captain walked away toward the front of La Casa Grande. The rest of Special Forces was gathering there as well. Steve suddenly asked, “Has anyone seen my father?”

  Minutes later, everyone was reassembled on the north side of the Esplanade. Drew Blazer emerged from the castle with Brian and Father Fitzhugh. Father and son exchanged a look to assure each that the other was OK. Steve then saw Brian with blood on his clothing, and he called for paramedics. In moments, two ambulance workers had bounded up the steps and began to examine the rookie.

  Fitzhugh confronted Steve. “You found Conner?”

  “Yeah, Father, we did. He’s dead. We found him outside on the Esplanade, over there on the south east side.”

  “Outside?” Drew suddenly asked. “I left him in the reception room, just in there. He looked pretty dead after our sword fight.”

  “Sword fight?” Steve asked with no small amount of amazement.

  “Aye.”

  “Dad, Conner was shot.”

  It was Drew’s turn to be amazed. “I didn’t shoot the bugger.”

  Steve glanced down the steps at the driveway, where more event attendees were being ushered into a limousine for a trip down to the Visitor’s Center. He did a double take, seeing the last two figures getting in. One of them turned briefly to him and caught his eye. He recognized the receded gray hair and Roman collar. It was the mysterious priest that he had nearly pulled a gun on in his hotel yesterday. That priest smiled at him, got into the limo and disappeared.

  Yesterday, he’d assumed that those two priests had been part of some secretive order within the Catholic Church charged with protecting the Vatican’s secrets, even to the point of killing any threat that presented itself. Hell, he thought they considered him a threat and were about to kill him. Thinking of how Conner and Liam had died…could they have been responsible? Was his original assessment of them closer to the mark than he thought?

  Father Fitzhugh stepped away from the group, and both Steve and Drew saw the pained look on his face. Drew stepped away with him. “What troubles you, cousin?”

  Fitzhugh turned to face him, also facing the team. “What have we done here? You’ve all put your lives on the line for the likes of me. I don’t deserve it. B
ut it’s gone too far. People have died in the name of saving me. It’s as if I killed them myself.”

  “Nay, Father,” Drew said. “Everything that happened here, it wasn’t just for you. If you want to see yourself as some pathetic unimportant person, that’s fine. But you had a mission here beyond your commitment to God. You were here to do something important for the world, in name of God. These men risked their lives for that mission. And they saved a great many lives in the process, not just yours.”

  Steve stepped forward. “Father…you’re now free of the violence of your past.”

  Fitzhugh couldn’t look him in the eye. “No, my son. I fear I’ll never really be free.”

  Epilogue

  As darkness fell over San Francisco, Officer Susan Wolf rolled her patrol car up to an address in the Western Addition. Another patrol unit pulled up behind her, and its lights went out, so as not to backlight her. As Suzy stepped out, she was greeted by Officer Norris. “Here we go again,” she said, and both rolled their eyes.

  It was the same address, the same woman, Astrid Helfer, the one who had made such a big deal about racist insensitive cops regarding the plight of the destitute, the same one who had come to them desperately for help just that morning to get her now-unwanted guest out of the house.

  A third patrol unit arrived, and they greeted Officer Pak when he joined them. “We know this RP,” Norris said of the “reporting party.” “She invited a junkie transient home to help her out, and this morning she came to us begging to get her out. We came and had a talk with her, but it seems that the talk didn’t work.”

  “Maybe they’ll have some dope, and we can do a plain-view arrest,” Suzy said, rolling her eyes again. She led the way up the steps to the small bungalow.

  She froze at the top of the steps and signaled the others. She’d spotted the door slightly ajar. They heard some kind of soft noise inside. Someone was home.

  The others took up tactical positions on either side of the open door. When they were set, Suzy gently pushed the door open with her foot. With her hand on her gun but not drawn yet, she slowly stepped inside. “Police department!”

  To her left, she heard a grunt, and some kind of noise like liquid splattering. When she edged carefully around the corner, she was confronted by absolute horror.

  At the end of a short hallway, the bathroom door was open. She saw the legs of a body stretching through the doorway into the hall. The head of the dead woman leaned precariously against the toilet, and she recognized the resident, Astrid Helfer. She was now covered in blood. Crouched over her was a black man with his shirt off, covered in sweat. As she watched, he raised a large butcher knife, preparing to strike the body with it.

  Only now did Suzy draw her weapon. “Drop the Knife! Drop the knife!”

  Norris and Pak started to crowd into the hall with her. Norris then heard a noise in the kitchen just to the right of the entry hall. He found a black woman there, sitting on the floor, sobbing. He immediately recognized her as Deja, the junkie transient he’d been dealing with for the last few days. She did not show a weapon, and he said, “Stay right there, Deja.” He quickly slipped on a pair of neoprene gloves. He glanced down the hall, where Suzy still had the male at gunpoint. He recognized Deja’s boyfriend, as well as the dead resident.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them, and don’t move,” Suzy calmly ordered. The scrawny-framed black man looked up at her with absolute hate, but he stayed where he was. “Pak, glove up, then cuff this guy.”

  From a small pouch on his Sam Browne belt, Pak pulled on a pair of latex gloves to protect him from the blood. Suzy stepped aside as best she could in the narrow hallway. “I got him covered.”

  “Stand up,” Pak ordered. The suspect did so, automatically put his hands behind his head. Pak stepped in and grabbed the spot where his fingers interlaced. He quickly slipped on one cuff, then brought both hands down and put on the other.

  Norris was watching this as well as watching Deja. She didn’t move, just kept whimpering. Once the boyfriend was cuffed, he said, “Stand up, Deja.” She slowly complied, and he cuffed her.

  Both suspects were led into the living room. Rather than sit the blood-covered male on a couch or chair, he was directed to sit on the floor. They finally all got a more detailed look at him. Not only was he covered in the victim’s blood, both he and Deja had numerous scabbed sores from their constant drug use.

  “I’ll call to get CSI and Homicide out here,” Suzy said, and stepped outside to use her cell.

  The male continued to stare up at the two male cops, his face still radiating red hot hate. Both Norris and Pak stared down at him in disgust.

  “The bitch just wouldn’t shut up about us being here,” the male finally spat out.

  Norris shook his head with a muttered curse. It wouldn’t be worth the effort to try and explain the way the world was supposed to work for people who were not drug addicts. All he could manage to say was, “It is just really not worth the effort to try to help people these days.”

  A short time later, across town at the Hall of Justice, the two Special Forces unmarked SUVs pulled up in front of the building. Steve’s intent was to drop off the team so they could disperse and go home for the night, and he and Scot would put their SUVs away to head home as well. However, this became a moment to take a break from their long drive home and stretch their legs.

  The priest was safe, the man who sought to kill him dead. Fitzhugh had been turned over to the custody of the State Department team to continue the Brexit talks. There would be further investigation of the Irish crew of ex-pats. Steve had recognized Liam Hallahan from his picture. He suspected there was more than met the eye with that group, and his guess was that they were into smuggling weapons back to Ireland.

  They would later find that the others were employees of Hallahan’s small shipping company. When it came to the destruction of the Neptune Pool, Steve had seen the amazement on every Sheriff’s Deputy he’d spoken to or given a statement to. He was waiting for shoes to drop when it came to assigning blame for the destruction. But none of his actions had led to the bad guys deciding to crash their car into the Roman Temple façade.

  With the team gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Hall of Justice, Drew spoke up. “You all are an amazing bunch of blokes.”

  Scot said, “It’s been an honor meeting you, sir. Are you heading out soon?”

  “Aye, I should be getting back to the Missus. I’ll probably catch a flight out tomorrow.”

  Brian stepped forward. His shirt was still bloody, but there was a bandage underneath on his flank. “I gotta shake your hand, sir.”

  Drew pumped his hand enthusiastically, then solemnly shook the hand of every member of Special Forces.

  “So, we’re all really dying to know,” Brian said, “What the real story behind the name Blazer?”

  Drew leaned back a bit, and a smile crept across his lips. “The real story. Oh, a fascinatin’ tale, that. See, in the late 1800s, a great great grandfather of mine, by the name of Patrick Balaban tried to emigrate to the States. But Patrick, he was a bit of a scoundrel. It seems when he fled Scotland, he left ahead of the henchmen of a robber baron in Glasgow. This man had legit businesses there, and Patrick worked for him, but absconded with several thousand pounds, a good lot of money in those days. It seemed he wanted that money to start his fortune here. Only problem, word reached here of his misdeeds before he did.

  The robber baron had the local police in his pocket, and he set them after ol’ Patrick. When Patrick showed up at Ellis Island and gave them his name, they made him wait. Someone on staff had heard the name and found the report sent ahead by the bobbies in Glasgow. They confronted him with that report, but Patrick, he managed to escape their clutches. He ran from them, even dove into the waters of the New York harbor to escape them. He hid on the shores of the island the rest of that day. This was June fifteenth, 1897. Well, wouldn’t you know it, there was a massive fire that night, and it com
pletely destroyed the immigration building there on the island. Burned the bugger to the ground, destroyed everything inside, including any written report of Patrick Balaban’s misdeeds.

  Two days later, still in hiding, Patrick saw that they were once again processing immigrants at the Barge office, where they had previously done so. He cut his long hair and showed up in the line. All around him, the talk of the office was the fire at the other building, everyone was talking about ‘the Blaze.’ Things got so busy that when he reached the head of the line, the clerk didn’t recognize him. When they asked his name, bold as ever, he proclaimed that he was ‘Patrick Blazer.’ And no one questioned it. No one remembered him, and no one remembered the report of what happened in Glasgow. He made it through their lines and gained entry into the US with a brand new name.”

  “No way,” Brian grinned. “He set the fire that fire that destroyed Ellis Island?”

  Drew shrugged. “If the legend is true.”

  Steve had been standing by, smiling in amusement. He stepped forward. “Guys, go home. We’ll pick it up bright and early tomorrow. Scot and I will put the vehicles to bed. Come on, Dad, my car is in the garage.”

  Stanson had stepped aside to make a quick phone call. Drew glanced between his son and the Captain and said, “Do you mind if I wait here a moment. I could use the fresh air. Just come pick me up here.”

  Steve narrowed his eyebrows in suspicion. “You’ll be here? No more disappearing?”

  Drew could only smile. “Nay, laddie. I want to spend the evening with my son before I go home tomorrow.”

  Steve thought it over, then shrugged. “OK. I’ll be here in ten minutes.” With that, he and Scot returned to the SUVs and drove away.

  The team was dispersing to go find their cars. Stanson ended his call and turned toward the front doors of Hall of Justice. Drew hurried after him.