Raw Vengeance (The Rich Fordham Series) (3 page)

Every officer ran for cover when they saw Wes lay cover fire with his Colt M4 Carbine as he jumped out the window and ran at breakneck speed toward the front door. The ten paces between him and the government building became a no-man’s land as he shot at anything that moved. In a fit of rage, he yelled like a madman as he tried in vain to open the all-metal doors that were chained shut.

Rhonda seized the opportunity to fire off several rounds. Two of her shots hit their target—one in his shoulder blade and the other in his lower back.

A burning, unfathomable pain erupted in Wes’s back as he struggled to stay upright. Seeing his options were limited, he ducked into the tight space between the Mustang and the cruiser with his back to the police. His head and vision spun out of control from the alcohol and adrenaline. He was surrounded. The people who once were his friends and drinking buddies suddenly had their sights trained on him. There had to be another way in. “I am not the enemy!” he shouted as he tried to stall. “My war is not with you, it’s with the people inside. They are the enemy!” Bargaining was his only hope. In a trained motion, Wes propped himself onto a knee, aimed, delivered another volley of bullets, and immediately ducked back down. He reloaded and waited.

The police made a drastic error by letting Captain Roy Tomke get on the bullhorn. Roy was the last person able to ease the tension. “Give it up, Wes. You’re surrounded,” he ordered gruffly. “You have five seconds to surrender, or we’ll open fire.”

“
Well, guess what, asshole? My gun’s bigger than yours.” Sometimes your best offense is a good defense. Wes plucked two smoke canisters from his belt and flung them to his left on the sidewalk leading around the building’s perimeter. Within seconds, the area became enshrouded in a dense haze. Then he made his first tactical mistake. Wes sprung from his hiding spot and sprinted north up the sidewalk along the building in hopes of remaining undetected. Unexpectedly, he popped from the smokescreen into the clear. He hadn’t thrown the canisters far enough to avoid being seen. The cops delivered an onslaught of bullets as he returned fire. He felt and heard the
pop! pop! pop!
of bullets as they pelted his entire body.

Rhonda adjusted her aim and fired, dealing the fatal blow. A mass of lead tore through the front of Wes’s head, exploding it into a distorted mess of flesh and blood. The wall beside him was splattered with bits of his remains. He died before his body hit the ground.

*****

Whenever the media broadcasts a live scene where there’s a chance something morbid may occur, they give the video anywhere from a three-to -five-second delay. Viewers of WSNO were spared the horror of seeing a cop, albeit a rogue cop, die on TV. Rich and Gabe took a moment to take in the grisly scene as the police secured the area with yellow tape.

“
Why did he do it?” Rich asked Rhonda, hoping she would see the implications.

“
What? Go after the mayor? He’s pissed he got the axe, that’s why.”

“
No, that’s not what I meant,” Rich said, trying to get his point across. “He posted a farewell message online and drove slow enough on the freeway for us to catch up. The Mustang could have done well over a hundred seventy-five, but he kept it at one hundred, and he wasn’t wearing any armor. Wes wanted this to happen. He wanted to kill the mayor, but this looks like a classic case of ‘death by cop.’ This was a message.”

She nodded without saying anything.

“
You know what the damnedest thing is?” Rich continued. “Mayor Cogan isn’t even in town.”

CHAPTER 3

A day after the police shooting, Rich found himself struggling to get back into his normal routine. Witnessing the officer’s death had given him a serious gut check; it was the first time he’d seen someone die. He knew if he was to reach his goal of becoming an international correspondent, he’d need to develop a thicker skin. Desensitizing oneself to death wasn’t something that happened overnight. That evening he worked out an extra hour, then stayed up until three in the morning polishing off a fifth of whisky in an attempt to get the images out of his head.

Rich’s medium-sized cubicle, located near the middle of an expansive room on WSNO’s third floor, felt smaller and more confined, although nothing had changed. Animated conversations from across the room and other extraneous stimuli dulled his senses. Being hung over didn’t help, either. He sighed heavily and wished he could transplant himself into the picture of Cancun on his computer.
Today blows.

He went to take a sip of coffee and realized his Styrofoam cup was empty. Rich chucked the handwritten message from his producer, Sarah Kinney, condemning his war-style reporting into the wastebasket. Although the network was obsessed with high ratings—and the ratings during his stunt quadrupled—the lawyers and sponsors controlled the network’s content. They didn’t want to pay for medical bills or lawsuits. The producers preferred watered-down material, because it wasn’t good business to scare viewers. For every murder story, they needed a human-interest segment to give people a warm, fuzzy feeling.

To take on the kind of gritty stories Rich wanted to cover wasn’t in WSNO’s best interest. After only a few months of working there, he recognized this invisible barrier. In his opinion, the network had potential, but lacked imagination and was stuck in its ways. If Rich were to progress as a journalist, he’d need to prove himself at the local level first.

A change of scenery and a recharge were in order. He stood up, glanced around, and made his way to the break area to get another cup of coffee. When he was almost to the coffee maker, Wayne Vale, WSNO’s senior investigative reporter and management golden boy, beat him to the pot. At forty-eight and single, he was the main obstacle between Rich’s ability to prove himself and his dream job at a more prestigious network. Wayne always took the meatier stories and left the scraps for Rich and the newbie reporters to fight over.

“
Rich,” he said coyly, with his southern accent, “great coverage on the death-by-cop story. Very compelling. That was epic reporting, truly epic.” Wayne’s condescending tone made Rich want to tear the other man’s guts out, but instead he smiled. Rich knew better than to react to what he had just heard. Competition among reporters at the local network television level was fierce, and Wayne sensed that Rich was a force to be reckoned with. To his credit, Wayne was a brilliant reporter; after twenty-plus years at WSNO, he was accomplished at everything from research and interviewing a subject to anchoring and writing.

“
Thanks, Wayne. I appreciate that. Coming from you, that means a lot to me. How’s life with Ashley? Is she treating you okay?” he asked straight-faced. Wayne had carried on an affair with the CEO’s wife, Ashley. She had spread a rumor that Wayne was impotent and lousy in bed after he broke up with her.

Wayne glared at Rich and mentally strangled him. He was used to people kissing his ass and bending over backward for him. This little ass needed to be put in his place. “You know, asking questions like that and having an attitude is going to get you nowhere except out the door. I have considerably more sway here than you do.”

The moment to finally debate with Wayne had arrived.
Challenge accepted.
“I think that was a threat, Wayne, and this whole time I thought you were a happy-go-lucky guy, someone who couldn’t care about a peon like me,” Rich said.

“
You’re right about the peon part, at least.”

“
What does that make you? A miserable, middle-aged prick who has to bed his boss’s wife to get ahead? I thought only insecure women sleep with their boss to get ahead.” Without giving him a chance to retort, Rich started to walk past him. Just as he was about to pass, Wayne put up an arm and grabbed Rich by the shoulder, nearly clothes-lining him.

“
Your ass is mine,” Wayne said, close enough to Rich’s ear that he could feel the heat and smell the remnants of Wayne’s morning breath. “If I so much as see you look in my direction, you’re done. Got that?”

It took every ounce of Rich’s mental strength not to break the man’s arm. Instead, Rich cocked his head at him and showed his toothy, shit-eating grin, then returned the penetrating stare. “Haven’t you figured it out yet, Wayne? You’re right where I want you. Great hair, by the way, very metro.” Wayne immediately released his grip. Rich patted him on the cheek and walked off.

CHAPTER 4

“
I told you ten times already, Mom. How many more times do I have to tell you? I don’t want and I don’t need protection.” Tyler Cogan’s assertion to his mother, Shantell, was more of a protest than a question. Because he was the son of a prominent mayor, she thought he should have two bodyguards with him at school, an idea that caused friction between the two.

The clock on the microwave read seven-fifteen a.m. He finished breakfast and got his textbooks in order. Today was the first day of his sophomore year at a public high school, and they were bickering like old times. Having gone to a private middle school, the transition back to a public school would be a culture shock for Tyler. Shantell had made the choice for him. When she formed an exploratory committee to run for the Presidency, she thought it would look better to the press if he went to a normal school like a normal kid.

Although Shantell was only in the second year of her first term as Chicago’s mayor, she dominated the straw polls. Her constituents and colleagues liked her tough talk on abortion, immigration, and healthcare. Her status as a business owner and an African-American single mother who was bringing up a child on her own made her popular with minorities and women. Being the mayor came easily, and she relished the power and media attention. As a regular commentator on conservative talk shows, her popularity skyrocketed. It was only a matter of time before Tyler would undergo media scrutiny regarding his sexuality—something for which Shantell had a plan.

Shantell was tired of the bickering and the power struggle between herself and Tyler. She had better and more important things to do than argue constantly—things like testing the waters for the Oval Office. “Tyler, damn it, why are you such an idiot sometimes? Why can’t you learn to do what I say and not question my authority?”

As the mayor, Shantell was used to everyone doing what she said and jumping when she gave an order. She thought her son was a lost cause. At twelve, he had come out of the closet and admitted to being a homosexual. Shantell had seen signs of his sexuality, but dismissed his effeminate behavior as a passing phase he’d grow out of. As a Baptist, it was her moral obligation to enroll him in an academy that specialized in converting gay kids to straight. Tyler lasted an entire week before he skipped out; to him, it was a condition that didn’t need fixing. He had male and female friends, but he found himself attracted to other male teens. When the feelings of arousal toward boys first surfaced, he had been in complete denial and told no one, especially not his mother, because he knew she wouldn’t approve.

His mother’s condescending remark did nothing but make him dig in his heels and want to fight. “If you weren’t such a bitch sometimes, maybe I wouldn’t be gay,” he screamed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you—”

She slapped his face with the viciousness of a rabid dog, leaving a dark bruise on his chocolate-colored skin. “Don’t you ever call me names again, you hear me? I’m leaving, and I don’t want any fuss from you. I’ll be on the road for a week, starting in Iowa. If I hear you’ve given the bodyguards trouble, I’ll get rid of you for good!”

After slamming the door, she vanished. No kiss, no hug, no “enjoy your first day of high school.” Just the coldness of a mother who did not love or accept her son. Tyler stared at a picture of them, smiling, taken at Disney World when he was five. It was a photo of happier times. Now he viewed it with contempt and loneliness.

Five minutes later, Tyler raised the garage door and fired up the Cadillac Escalade’s V8 engine. He turned on a local radio morning show, put on his designer glasses, and kept his speed within legal limits. A “DWB”— driving while black—was the last thing he needed to be pulled over for. By freeway, the drive to Loring High School took fifteen minutes. All the while, the two bodyguards trailed within two car lengths.

A half mile prior to the school, the traffic began to pile up, and his nerves and stomach jitters began to take control of him. The school itself was a mixture of cultures, races, and socioeconomic statuses. He knew being black, gay, and coming from an affluent background made him an instant target. The two stiffs only made him stick out more and would make his life miserable. The conga line finally made its way into the high school’s back parking lot, where he found a spot in the middle. After parking, he checked his appearance in the window. He wore black shorts with a blue-striped polo shirt and matching black leather sandals. He kept his hair close-cropped and his tall frame in lean condition.

Tyler swung his backpack over his shoulder and approached the spooks in the car; they looked bored, even though the day had barely begun. “Would you guys mind keeping a low profile? If people get wind that you’re with me, they’ll bust my balls.”

Peter Raines, the more senior and lazy of the two, replied, “You sure? Your old lady is paying us to make sure you don’t get your feelings hurt.”

Without responding to the patronizing remark, he replied, “I appreciate you guys being here, but really, I’ll be fine.” The two men looked at each other only enough to make it appear that they cared.