“Peterson got something!”
“Who’s Peterson?” asked Rook.
“Uniform officer doing desk duty because of a broken leg,” said Raley. “I put him on looking at all the ATM video from around the Tepes Club, looking for our guy. He got a hit at an ATM about two blocks away, half an hour before he entered the club. Our suspect now has a name.” He wrote “David Burke” on the whiteboard, under the photos.
“Did you get an address?” asked Heat.
“Would you believe Sunnydale, California?” asked Raley.
“No, I would not,” said Detective Heat. Ever since the town of Sunnydale had been completely destroyed in an earthquake a few years previously, it had become a favourite place for people with fake IDs to be from. “Do we have a local address?”
“He’s using the same credit card that he used in the ATM to pay for a hotel room.”
Heat pulled her Crown Victoria to a stop in front of the hotel. The Roach Coach pulled in behind her. “You!” She pointed her finger at Rook. “Stay in the car!”
“Yes, ma’am!” said Rook, which earned him a glare from Heat.
“I mean it!” said Heat. “This is a very dangerous man, I don’t want to be worrying about you getting in the way!”
“I signed that liability waver!” said Rook. Heat glared at him. “Okay! I’ll stay in the car!”
Heat didn’t believe him. He always said that he’d stay in the car, but he almost never did. She considered handcuffing him, but after the first time she’d done that he’d started carrying hidden keys. She settled for giving him a final glare before she checked her gun, and got out of the car to join Ochoa and Raley. All three of them checked the straps on their bullet proof vests, pulling them snug.
David Burke was staying in a room on the fourth floor. The hotel was relatively new construction, without external fire escapes, or windows that opened, so it was pointless putting someone outside the building to stop him escaping that way. The manager had given them a housekeeping key-card so they could unlock the door for themselves.
Heat stood to one side of the door, and Roach stood on the other. They all had their guns drawn. She used the card to unlock the door, before she banged on it. “David Burke! Police! Open up!”
There was a scramble of motion inside the room, and Heat heard the window breaking. She grasped the handle, turned it, and gave the door a push so that it swung open, but she didn’t move into the doorway immediately. That was a good way to get yourself shot.
She didn’t hear any motion from the room, now. She swung around, keeping low, with her gun pointing into the doorway. She could only see an empty hotel room, with a broken window.
She couldn’t believe that Burke had jumped. It was at least a thirty foot drop to the pavement below the window. She moved forward into the room, first looking left into the open bathroom. It was empty too.
She kept looking around, as she moved quickly down the short hallway. She still saw no sign of Burke, nor heard anyone moving ahead of her. The whole room became visible when she reached the end of the hall. It was empty. She moved to the window and leaned out, expecting to see Burke’s crumpled body below her. Even if he lived, a jump like that would likely have broken both his legs. All she saw was broken glass scattered across the sidewalk, and out into the street.
Roach had followed her into the room. They checked the bathroom, and the closet. They even looked under the bed. Burke had gone.
She looked down the street, toward where their cars were parked, and saw the back of a running man who had to be Burke. He went right past her car, and she swore, because she knew what she was going to see next. Sure enough, right after Burke had passed the cars, she saw Rook sit back up from where he had ducked down out of sight. Then he opened his door, got out, and started to chase after Burke. Rook’s brown overcoat flapped like a cape behind him.
Heat tore out of the hotel room, down the hall to the stairway, and down the stairs. She heard Roach scrambling after her. She dashed out through the hotel lobby, into the street. She didn’t slow down at all as she passed the cars, running in the direction that Burke and Rook had gone. She couldn’t see them ahead of her, so she kept running, up to the end of the block. She paused there, unsure which way to go.
She heard a whistle, off to her right, and looked. She saw Rook jumping up and down, and waving at her. At least he hadn’t gotten himself killed, or lost. She ran to catch up with him.
Rook was standing by a chain link fence, ten feet high, with strands of barbed wire along the top of it. On the other side of the fence were stacks of shipping containers. Nikki knew that they were near the river.
Rook was panting for breath. “He went over the fence. It hardly slowed him down at all! At first I thought he’d killed himself, when I saw him jump through that window, but he just got up, and ran. Then he went over the fence, and disappeared in between those containers over there.” He waved at the fence.
Heat looked both ways, up and down the fence. She saw there was a gate, about a block to the north, that actually seemed to have a guard on it. She looked back the way she’d come, and saw the headlights of the Roach Coach coming toward them. Raley and Ochoa had stopped to get their car, and had no doubt already radioed for more backup. “Come on!” she told Rook, and ran toward the gate. She surprised herself a bit by asking him to come along, but she knew he’d just follow anyway.
Roach caught up with them at the gate, while Heat was showing her badge to the guard, and getting him to let them in. She could hear the sirens of more approaching police cars. She told Roach to take charge of setting up a cordon around the yard to keep Burke from getting away. She didn’t know what he hoped to accomplish by going in there. Maybe he was just panicked, and running, and had managed to get himself trapped. On the other hand, this was a man who had just jumped out a fourth floor window, and scaled a ten foot fence like it wasn’t there.
Heat ran through the narrow canyon between stacked shipping containers. She reached an intersection and stopped. Rook stumbled to a stop behind her, panting for breath. “Oh god! I need to get more exercise!”
“Quiet!” hissed Heat. “I’m trying to listen!”
Rook shut up, and tried to pant more quietly. Heat listened. She could hear the sound of city traffic, and the lapping of water around the pilings of the pier. She could hear sirens, and shouting voices coming from behind her, on the side away from the river. Something clattered across the ground, out near the end of the pier. She hoped she wasn’t falling for the old ‘throw something to make a noise’ distraction trick as she sprinted toward the sound.
She saw Burke at the end of the pier, about forty feet from her, looking around for a way to escape. The sodium lamps lighting the area gave a yellowish cast to everything they illuminated. She raised her SIG Sauer pistol, in a two handed grip, and trained it on him. “Police! Freeze!”
Burke turned toward her, and held his hands out to his sides. Heat could see the knife in his hand. “Drop the knife!” she ordered. “Do it now!”
He laughed. There was something wrong with his face, but Heat couldn’t see it clearly. The lighting made his eyes seem to glow yellow. He bared his teeth at her, and she could see that he’d done something to them. She’d heard that some people, deeply into the goth scene, had dental work done to give themselves fake vampire teeth, but what this man had done went far beyond that.
He started to walk toward her. “I said freeze! Drop the knife!”
“Make up your mind!” said Burke, and he charged at her.
Heat squeezed off three quick shots, right into the centre of his chest, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down. She realized that he must be wearing a bullet proof vest under his jacket, and raised her aim for a head shot, but it was too late. He was already on her.
He didn’t use his knife. He knocked her gun aside with so much force that it came out of her hands, and spun away across the pier. He punched at her with a hay-maker that showed that he had no training in how to fight, but probably had lots of practice brawling.
Heat parried the punch, but it felt like she’d just warded off a blow from a heavy club, not a man’s fist. Burke’s momentum still took him past her, off balance, so she hit him with three quick blows: a kick to the side of his knee that should dislocate it, a chop to the wrist of his knife hand, to make him drop it, and a rabbit punch to his kidney, just because it was a good target of opportunity.
Burke should have gone down onto the ground in agony, but Heat felt that she’d probably done more damage to her foot and hand than she’d done to him. He seemed to barely even notice that he’d been hit as he spun around, and grabbed her by her throat. He lifted her off her feet, and slammed her back against the side of a shipping container. Heat saw stars.
“Oh, you’re a feisty one! I’m going to enjoy eating you!” Burke smiled, and Heat got a good close look at those teeth. There was no way a dentist had done that to him. The distortions to his face weren’t created by some sort of special effects prosthetic, either, and she didn’t think the yellow eyes came from contacts. She grabbed his hand with both of hers, and tried to pull his fingers away from her throat. It was like trying to bend steel. She knew that if he decided to squeeze, instead of just holding her still, he could snap her neck like a twig.
She tried to kick him in his family jewels, but the angle was wrong for her to get good contact. It still made him snarl, and his hand tightened around her throat. Heat’s peripheral vision started to cloud, as the flow of blood to her brain was constricted.
Rook roared with rage, and broke a six foot long piece of 2x4 across the back of Burke’s head. Burke pulled Heat away from the shipping container, and threw her, still using just one hand, at Rook. They both sprawled on the ground in a tangle of arms and legs.
Burke bent down, and picked up a broken end of the 2x4. “Just for that, I’m gonna make you die slow.” He stepped toward them. “I think I’ll start by breaking pretty boy’s legs, and then he can watch while I fuck you to death.” He raised the 2x4, about to smash it down on Rook’s leg.
Two guns started firing. Heat looked back and saw Raley and Ochoa coming toward them, their guns raised, and both of them firing over her and Rook. It was a risky thing to do with her and Rook being so close to their target, but under the circumstances, she couldn’t fault their decision to shoot. She pressed herself down, as low to the ground as she could, and looked back at Burke. Heat could see the bullet holes appearing in his jacket, but they didn’t have any more effect on him this time, then when she’d shot him. It just seemed to make him madder.
Raley and Ochoa came to the same conclusion that Heat had, and she saw their aim had moved upward. She saw holes appear in the shoulders of Burke’s jacket. A bullet scored the side of his face, and then they stopped firing, as both had emptied their magazines.
Burke laughed. “I’m gonna feast tonight!”
Something small, and blonde, smashed into Burke from the side, knocking him away from Heat and Rook. “I don’t think so,” said Spring. She attacked Burke with a flurry of kicks and punches that made him reel back.
The other girl, Bishop, appeared bending over Heat. “Are you okay?”
Heat managed to nod her head, and croak out “I’m good,” while rubbing at her throat. She could hear Roach running toward them.
Bishop gave Rook a quick look, and saw him struggling to get back to his feet. She looked toward where Spring was still fighting Burke.
Heat looked too. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Heat trained in unarmed combat with an ex Navy SEAL. Her instructor, Don, was bigger, and stronger than her, so her training focused on Heat’s quickness, agility, and fighting dirty. Don’s first lesson had been that the Marquess of Queensbury’s rules had no place in a real fight. Heat thought that Don would be impressed, and appalled, by Spring’s fighting style.
Burke still wasn’t showing anything like fighting skill, but after his initial surprise, he at least seemed to be putting up some sort of defence, using his superior size and mass to keep Spring at arms’ length. Spring was armed with something that might have been a knife. Heat couldn’t see it clearly in the poor light, and dark shadows were still floating in her peripheral vision. Spring looked to be trying for a centre of mass strike with her weapon against Burke, and from what Heat could see, passed up several good opportunities to make debilitating cuts to his arms.
Bishop ran toward the two fighters. “Hey! Leave some for me!”
Spring jumped up, and hit Burke with kick to his head that staggered him. Heat was both impressed with the athleticism required to pull something like that off, and unimpressed with the flashiness of it. It was the sort of move that looked good in an action movie, but didn’t belong in a real fight. If Burke had even the least bit of skill, he would have been able to dodge the kick, and for the second that Spring was in the air from her leap, she was vulnerable to any number of attacks from Burke. Fortunately for Spring, Burke was relying entirely on his strength. He had no ability to anticipate what Spring was going to do. He almost always reacted too late to block or parry Spring’s attacks. He never took advantage of any opportunities Spring’s showy style gave him.
Spring, on the other hand, always seemed to know what Burke was going to do, well before he did it. Heat realized that Spring was completely controlling this fight. She knew she could get away with moves like that kick to Burke’s head, and was putting on a show.
The kick also gave her half a second to step back from the fight, and let Bishop step in.
Bishop was amazing too. If anything, she was faster, and she was entirely ruthless in her attacks. Don would approve of her technique. She didn’t have Spring’s extravagant style. She didn’t pass up opportunities to do damage to Burke’s arms and legs when he gave them to her. Heat heard the sound of multiple bones breaking, and Burke’s cries of rage became cries of pain.
Spring had taken a couple of steps back from the fight, and was now just watching. Heat saw her give an approving nod when Bishop executed a particularly brutal strike to Burke’s elbow that left his arm bent in a completely unnatural way.
“Stake!” cried out Bishop, and glanced back at Spring just long enough to see her start to throw her weapon. Bishop’s eyes were back on Burke before the weapon had crossed even half the distance between them, and her hand flashed out to catch it without taking another glance. There was no hesitation between the catch, and Bishop’s hand plunging in, past Burke’s useless arm, and into the centre of his chest.
There was a whooshing noise, and Burke … disolved. He just disappeared. Everything vanished: his clothes, his skin, his muscles. For half a second there seemed to be a bare skeleton standing where he had been, but that disappeared too, into a floating haze of dust that was carried off by the evening breeze.
The night became quiet. Heat could hear more sirens coming closer. She could hear running feet. She saw Bishop brush dust away from her pants, and heard the clapping sound of her brushing off her hands afterwards.
“Come on,” Spring said to Bishop, and they came walking toward Heat, Rook and Roach. Raley and Ochoa had just finished loading fresh magazines into their guns, and were holding them, trained down at the ground, but ready to be brought back up at a moment’s notice. Spring looked at Roach, and just shook her head, and smiled.
She turned her attention back to Heat. “My advice for when the rest of your backup gets here: he must have been wearing a bullet proof vest…” She nodded toward Roach. “…one of those guys’ shots got him in the head, and he fell in the river. Send in some divers to look for him, but the tide’s running out. The body could be miles away by morning.”
She turned and started to walk away. “And we were never here.”
Ochoa’s gun came up. “Hold it right there!”
Spring stopped, and looked back at him. “I just saved your life, Detective, and telling my version of the story will let you keep your career. If you don’t let me and Alex go, it’s the version we’re going to tell. Which version do you think your superiors will believe? If you try telling them what really happened here, how long do you think it will take before you’re forced to take early retirement, for medical reasons?”
She looked down at Rook, who was still trying to get back on his feet, but having problems with his balance. “And if you try writing about it, you’ll find that you’ll only be getting published in the Everyone Thinks We’re Wackos Home Journal. You’ll never get your third Pulitzer.”
“Let them go, Ochoa,” said Heat.
“But—”
“She’s right. No one will believe the truth. I was here, and I don’t believe it.”
Spring smiled again. “This time tomorrow — if you haven’t convinced yourselves that he really did fall in the river, and got washed away — give me a call. I can fill you in on what’s happening. If you try telling the truth, and get fired for it, call me too. I can use people with integrity.”
Spring and Bishop disappeared between a couple of containers. A few seconds later a pair of uniformed officers came out from between the same two containers, with their guns up in the ready position. Heat wondered for a second how they could have missed seeing the two girls, but then caught a glimpse of two figures silhouetted against the New York skyline on top of the container stack.
She held up her badge. “Detective Heat, 20th Precinct! Cordon off the area. We’re going to need CSU, and a team of divers in the river, to look for a body.”
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