AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Meeting’s under way,” McNab reported through her earpiece. “Judge Lincoln’s presiding. They’re reading fucking minutes from the last meeting.”
“Let’s give them a couple minutes,” Eve ordered. “Get more on record. The more we have, the deeper we put them under.”
“Lieutenant?” Trueheart whispered, as if already in church. “I want to thank you for allowing me to be a part of this op.”
“You’re going to suck up,” Baxter told him. “You suck up to me now. I suck up to Dallas. That’s the food chain.”
“Opening to new business,” McNab reported. “Discussion on Greene termination. Wade termination called unfortunate systemic by-product. Jesus. Single objection from membership.”
“Sir?” Peabody’s voice came through. “Word just came in. Geller didn’t make it.”
Eight dead, Eve thought. It ends now. “This meeting’s over.”
“Locked and loaded,” Baxter said.
“All units, go. Go.”
She went in the door first, and down a set of old iron stairs. In her mind she pictured other units coming in the front, the side, streaming across the main floor.
Weapon drawn, badge held up, she swung through the doorway into the basement room.
“NYPSD! Nobody moves.”
There were some screams, some shouts. A few people scrambled, either for cover or escape. Secondary units poured in like ants at a picnic. Ants armed with laser rifles and twin-barreled stunners.
“Put your hands up. Hands up,” Eve shouted, “or you will be stunned. This building is surrounded. There is no way out. You are under arrest for terrorist acts, for conspiracy to commit murder, for the murder of a police officer, and other charges that will be made known to you.”
She moved forward, sweeping faces, movements. Some wept now, and others stood rigid in fury. Still more knelt, hands clasped like martyrs about to be fed to the pagan lions.
“On the floor,” she ordered. “On your faces. Hands behind your heads.”
She swung hard as she saw Judge Lincoln reach inside his jacket. “Do it,” she said softly. “Give me a reason.”
His hand dropped. He had a hard face, dark stone with features sharply carved. She had sat in his courtroom, given testimony there. Had trusted him to feed justice.
She took the weapon from under his jacket, patted him down.
“We’re the solution,” he told her. “We’re courageous enough to act while others sit and wait.”
“I bet Hitler said the same thing. On the floor.” She pushed him to his knees. “On your face, hands behind you.”
She clapped the restraints on him herself. “This is for Colleen Halloway,” she said softly in his ear. “She knows more about courage than you ever will. You’re a goddamn disgrace.”
She got to her feet. “Baxter, read this bunch of heroes their rights.”
It was two-thirty when she made it home. But it wasn’t fatigue that dogged her now but a weariness so internal it dragged at both body and mind.
She felt none of the rush of victory, the pumping energy from seeing a job through. When she closed the door at her back, she couldn’t find it in her to toss an insult at the waiting Summerset.
“Despite the lateness of the hour, am I to expect your houseguests will arrive with their usual desire for refreshments?”
“No. They’ve got homes of their own, and they’re using them.”
“You were successful?”
“They scored eight before I stopped them. I guess that would depend on your definition of successful.”
“Lieutenant.”
