The Primal Connection (25 page)

Not, however, his skill, as Cole’s attacks, though fast and powerful, lacked the technique to make them deadly. Any training in martial arts he had was rudimentary at best, but like a white belt in Karate, he knew enough to generate some force, if not how to control it. Given that, it was unlikely that in a protracted battle, he would have been able to take on Decker in a fair fight. And against Terry, his chances were even worse.

The trouble was that with this adrenalin-powered creature he faced here, Terry knew that there was no way a simple beating would suffice to discourage him. And knocking him out could prove a bit of a challenge. At least without killing him.

Decker was pulling himself off the floor with some effort. He decided this was, up to this point in his life, his least favorite twenty-four-hour period. Two different men had manhandled him, and one of them was close to half his size. It was time to take back some of his day.

He reached out and grabbed Cole by the scruff of the neck, folding his hand into the collar in a judo-clothes grip. By almost every standard, that hold was unbreakable. The trouble was that no one told Cole as he wriggled right then left, tearing the collar enough to let him rip free and fire another kick at Decker’s stomach, driving him back into the wall once again.

Terry moved quickly, taking advantage of his opponent’s distraction to lock a sleeper hold on Cole, shutting off blood to his brain. It was a dangerous move, given his condition, but it was a lot safer than trying to subdue him in an open brawl. All he had to do was to let him pass out, and with Charlie to monitor him, he would know exactly when to let it go to keep from doing permanent damage.

All fine in theory, but Charlie changed that a second later as he screamed in Terry’s mind,
“Watch out, Terry! By his fields, he is still pumping adrenalin! His heart is reaching critical limits! If this keeps up he—”

Before Charlie could finish, Cole abruptly went limp in Terry’s arms. He didn’t even need Charlie to tell him what had happened. He had felt the pulse in his neck stop at the same instant. His first reaction was a simple, “Aw shit!”

As he laid the man down, his mind raced. “Decker, is there a portable defibrillator in the building? This guy just vapor-locked!”

Decker came back to reality at warp speed, leaping to his feet and heading for the door.

Charlie though was not optimistic about their chances.

In his mind, Terry was telling Charlie,
“We can get his heart going again, he’ll be fine. If we can—”

“Can you restart his brain?”
Charlie snapped.
“His fields are gone. There is nothing left there but flesh and blood. From what I can tell, he had a cerebral hemorrhage. More than likely an aneurism caused by the excessive hormones in his body. Whoever was using him had no regard for his survival. The amount of amplification they used on him would have been fatal in any case, given time. Boosted that high, any flaw in his body would have been fatal if it came into play.”

Terry laid the man down and looked at him. Someone had killed him long before he had ever met him. The trouble was that he died in Terry’s arms, and for Terry, this did not bode well.

Decker burst through the door with the defibrillator and a pair of officers trained in its use to help.

Terry stepped back and let them try, even though he knew it was useless.

Decker too stepped to the side, asking Terry, “What happened?”

Terry shrugged. “When he went after you the second time, I grabbed him to try and take him down. Figured no matter what he was on, if I could slow him down, we could sit on him if we had to. Soon as I grabbed him though, he went limp. Whatever happened, however he got strong enough to take the both of us on, the strain must’ve been too much for him.”

Decker nodded absently. He had no problem with anything Terry had done, but he didn’t think his bosses would agree. Still, if this was their guy, and indications were that it was, no one would really give a damn as long as the killings stopped.

Almost in answer to Decker’s thoughts, the larger of the two officers looked up, his expression telling the story as he shook his head.

Decker sighed. As bad as this day had been, he had the feeling that the next one was going for a record.

Two hours later, Decker and Terry were sitting in Crane’s office. The events of the last day had taken a toll on them, but it was not over yet. Once the mayor had found out that there had been a death while in custody, his mind went immediately to spin control. And whom he could lay the blame for this on.

Crane had taken a more pragmatic view. If this was the one that had been doing the killings they had been trying to stop, then he was all for it. And in a mirror image of the mayor’s thoughts that he found distasteful, if they could leave the blame for his death on this Bridger character, it would keep the administration in the clear.

Benin had wrangled an invitation to the meeting on the basis of his status as an FBI agent. Smyth had done all he could to keep his access limited, but Benin refused to be denied, stating that as the senior agent in the area, he was entitled. And that he demanded the right to keep tabs on Bridger for some undisclosed reason.

Smyth knew he wanted to be there if Terry failed just to be sure and spread it around, so he wanted to be there as well just to be sure any success he had would go out on the wire as well.

Only with this latest development, it seemed Benin was ahead on points. With the death of a suspect in custody, as well as apparently at the hands of his boy, Benin could conceivably get Terry rousted from the case. Smyth didn’t have all the facts yet, but at the moment, it did not look good for Terry.

Terry, on the other hand, didn’t seem to know that as he turned to Crane while they waited for the mayor to arrive asking, “Since I don’t seem to have much to do, do you mind if I check my emails?”

Crane and Smyth looked at each other. This was either the coolest customer either of them had ever seen or he was just plain crazy. Either way, it couldn’t hurt, Crane decided. If the mayor shot down the whole plan, it was over, but if he didn’t, keeping Terry happy with the rest of them would keep him on the job, should there still be one.

For Terry, though, there was another reason. In the two hours since Cole had passed away, he had done a lot of thinking, and as in the case of most things, an answer had come in the form of an epiphany of epic proportion. Now, it was time to prove it.

He didn’t know how long it would take, or how long he had, but he knew he had to get it done before the mayor showed up. Otherwise, he had to lie, and the plain truth was that he wasn’t very good at that.

Crane simply smiled and presented Terry his computer terminal. “Have at it. If the mayor doesn’t can us all, we can get back to work when you’re done. And if he does, you got a leg up on getting your flight back to wherever.”

“That is if we don’t charge you with murder in Cole’s death.” Benin sneered.

Decker spoke up there.

“If he gets charged with anything, it’ll be stopping a crazy dope head. That guy was on some serious shit. All he did was try to stop him without killing him.”

Benin’s sneer deepened. “Yeah, says you. From the way it sounds, you were glad to see the guy dead after the way he kicked your ass! Funny how it seems everybody’s doing that to you today.”

Decker rose up out of his chair and glowered at Benin. “You want to give it a shot? I never made any claim to being tough, but I’ll take my chances against your ass!”

Crane jumped between the two of them, more for Benin’s protection than anything else. Decker was civilized on most occasions, but he did have a temper. And the way the tape showed this guy had taken him down, he had to be on something Benin wasn’t. In any case, Crane didn’t feel like trying to separate the two of them right then. Even though from what little he knew about Benin, he felt he might have enjoyed watching Decker take him apart for the hell of it.

Terry was just grateful for the distraction. He had his theory online and set to work on getting it done. Charlie had been briefed on it and had found that he too was intrigued by the thought.

They had been at it for about fifteen minutes when the mayor stormed in, glaring at Terry, who smiled almost benevolently at him. The mayor turned on Crane and began his tirade almost at once.

“Dammit, Crane, I told you to keep this little fucker on a short leash. Now, we have a dead citizen and no clue as to what he knew about these killings! I have a good mind to send both of you packing. I knew I should have never let this twerp in here in the first place.”

Terry watched the whole display, secretly amused. He knew what the mayor was doing. He thought he could put the blame on somebody else and keep his skirts clean. Decker’s opinion of the mayor seemed justified at the very least, but he wasn’t finished yet. Apparently, there was more room left in his mouth for his foot.

“Well, I can tell you this much. As the mayor of Chicago, I am not going to stand for this. As far as I am concerned, this whole thing is your fault, and it is over! And I am none too sure about your career either! As a matter of fact—”

Crane had finally had enough. Promises or not, he couldn’t take anymore of this blowhard. It was time to let the air out of his sails.

“Shut the fuck up, you moronic cretin! I take my orders from
your
boss! You can no more fire me than you can fly! And as far as
I’m
concerned? You can take this job and shove it! Trust me, with what I know, it won’t take long for me to make you to wish you hadn’t! So be my fucking guest! As long as I never have to see that smirking, goofy face of yours again, I consider it a win!”

The room froze as the mayor boiled. He turned red and sputtered, unused to hearing unfiltered truth from anyone. His day was only getting worse as a new sound permeated the room. The sound of Decker’s applauding and laughing.

The mayor found himself with a new target for his ire. Only it was short lived, as Decker said simply, “Don’t bother trying to threaten me, Simon. I know where all the bodies are buried and I got the keys to the closets with all the skeletons. You start with me and nothing will make it through what I’ll do! So spare me your empty threats and bullshit, because I don’t want to hear it!”

Mayor Simon kept sputtering, but Smyth leaped up, trying to mediate the fight he saw coming.

The mayor was saying, “How dare you! I’m the mayor, and I’ll have all of your asses run out of town on a rail.”

Crane sneered now in his turn. “Go ahead. Just make sure you leave room to ride. Once the truth comes out, you'll be on the ass end of it!”

Benin sat back as the rest of them continued the fight. It made no difference to him as long as he could manipulate it so that Terry took the blame in the end. He felt pretty pleased with the way things were going. That is until he looked over and saw Terry smiling.

He was about to wonder what he knew when Terry picked up a paperweight and started beating the desk to get everyone’s attention.

“Gentleman, please. If you will all stop yapping long enough to listen, I think I can make everybody happy. Or at least close enough to pass for the moment.”

Simon pointed a finger at Terry with an air of indignation, shouting, “You be quiet! This is all your fault. I said from the beginning you were just another hustler out to fleece—”

Terry glared at him like a mongoose about to have its way with a cobra. “How many times do you need to be told to shut up before it sinks in, fat ass? Now, I already solved half of your problem, albeit a bit more permanently than I planned. Now, I’m just wondering if you want me to put a stop to the rest of it?”

For that one moment, Terry had everyone’s attention in a way unlike anything any of them had ever experienced. Each of them thinking that if Terry wasn’t crazy, he was going to earn a hellacious reward. All that is except Benin, who had the sinking feeling that somehow, he was going to watch Terry make a fool out of him once again.

Crane ignored the mayor as he turned to Terry, almost plaintively, and asked, “You found something?”

Terry smiled broadly. “Oh, I found more than something. I found it all. I just had to check out the few facts I was missing on this thing. Turns out, I had it right all along.”

Interested now, in true politician’s form, the mayor shifted gears again. “Well, out with it man! Or do you think we should wait to read it in the papers?”

Terry ignored him as he went on. “Once I realized that junior wasn’t the only one, I realized that the other one would be somebody he knew.”

Decker nodded his head. “That stands to reason. Not even a big leap actually.”

Terry continued to smile. In his mind, he could feel Charlie hanging on every word as well. Since he had been busy showing Terry the things in the computer that he wanted, he had been unable to monitor what was going through his mind. As a result, like everyone else in the room, he was in the dark as to Terry’s discovery.

Now, Terry went on. “True’s that. But since we didn’t know what the connection was, it did us no good unless I could find it. That was what I had a friend of mine do while I used your computer. Once they hacked a few systems to find the answers I needed.”

Now, it was the mayor’s turn to throw another fit. “You mean you let a hacker into our system? Why you—”

Terry’s smile fell as he looked at the floor and said quietly, “No, I did not let anyone into your system. I just found one that was already there.” Seeing the mayor’s eyes widen, he added, “Damn near every system on the planet has at least one hacker in it. Most of them are just there for fun and to see if they can get away with it. All I had to do was find him. Or, in this case, her.”

Decker stifled a laugh as he watched the mayor’s mouth open and close without saying anything. It was such a pleasure watching him squirm.

Terry went on, sure that there would be no more interruptions. “It seems our boy was a chef. I always thought whoever was behind this had some serious knife skills, but I leaned toward a surgeon. Or at least someone that was in medical school. Once I figured out that he was a chef, it made sense that his partner would also be in the same business. Or at least a related one.”