Out of Exile: Hard Boiled: 2 Read online

  The Stevoses were dragged into the room: Pete, by his elbow bent behind his back; Paula, by the hair. On their knees, their hands on their heads. Tears streaming down their faces.

  ‘No screaming. No yelling,’ Deacon said. ‘Are we clear?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘That’s a promise, and you can’t break a promise.’ Deacon tilted his head toward God. ‘Let’s get started.’

  Carefully, as if it were delicate, God placed his shotgun against the wall. He picked up the sledgehammer, held it high above his head, and swung the heavy beast into the wall. He swung with the timing and rhythm of a machine. Plasterboard tore away, and it didn’t take long for the wall to be destroyed. God tossed the sledge aside and cleared the debris with his hands, to reveal a safe hidden behind the wall.

  ‘Did you fuck with this?’ Deacon asked the couple, one finger pointed at the small metal box.

  They shook their heads.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  They shook their heads again, only faster and more insistently.

  Deacon turned to Hogan. ‘What do you think?’

  Hogan stepped away from Sullivan. Put his sidearm back in his holster and inspected the safe.

  MAXSAFE: 1765. 3X4 ROTOR DIAL ENTRY CRACK PROOF. It was built into the frame of the house, with the beams supporting its weight. Hogan checked the thing out from every angle, and his final conclusion was the same as his first.

  ‘Can’t be cracked,’ he said, with his crooked grin giving the impression that he found this amusing. ‘It’s got a failsafe on it. If we tamper with it, or even if it thinks we’re tampering with it, it’ll release sodium oxide, acid that’ll chew through the contents long before we’ll make it through the casing.’

  It was the answer the three of them were expecting. They shifted their gaze to Sullivan. ‘Time to earn your keep,’ Deacon said.

  ‘I think you boys must have misunderstood my skill set. I don’t know the first thing about cracking safes.’

  ‘You were Wilson’s boy. If anyone is going to know the combination to this big bastard, it’s you.’

  Confusion crossed Sullivan’s face. ‘You’re going to have to shoot me now because I’ve never seen that safe before in my life.’

  Deacon drew his shotgun on Paula. It sat inches from the bridge of her nose. ‘We’ll get to you. But we’ll start with her.’

  She vomited down the front of her pajamas.

  ‘Just open it, would you!’ the husband exploded, then shutting his mouth, so he wouldn’t be punished for his outburst.

  Sullivan took a breath. ‘I suppose I can give it a crack.’

  In the twenty years that Angus Sullivan had known Patrick Wilson, he never knew him to own a safe, let alone knowing what the combination of that safe may have been. Sullivan inspected it in much the same manner Hogan had, the only difference being that Sullivan had no idea what he was looking at. The safe required three sets of numbers. Typically, people used dates. Three sets of two digits felt a natural fit when configuring safe combinations. Sullivan knew Wilson was cunning, and that he was also terrible at recalling numbers. The combination would have been something that he already had an association with. A birthday, a wedding anniversary; something of personal importance to him. Sullivan’s mind cycled through all the numbers that marked milestones and exhausted them all, and after five minutes, was trying any number, in any order, just to look busy. With the dirty sleeve of his prison wear, he wiped the sweat out of his eyes and tried yet another number at random.

  ‘To hell with this,’ Deacon said. ‘What’s taking you so long?’

  ‘If he knew the combination, he would have opened it by now,’ God said. ‘Let’s do them and get the hell out of here.’

  ‘Wait,’ Sullivan said.

  The date would mean something. Sullivan closed his eyes and tried to recall the Wilsons’ lounge room as he had known it. He remembered the brown couch underneath the windows. He remembered the dusty bottles of scotch that sat on the bookshelf. He remembered the family photographs on the wall, and the framed commemorative 1954 Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup memorabilia.

  When Sullivan opened his eyes, the shooters were staring at him. Their weapons were drawn. ‘I know the combination,’ he said with a smile.

  Deacon sized him up. ‘Chop, bloody chop then.’

  Ten seconds later, the safe was open, and Sullivan was pushed aside. Hogan crowded it. Sullivan couldn’t see what was inside, and after God told him to get on his knees next to the hostages, he could see even less. Hogan pulled out a stack of manila folders. Each was filled with loose yellowing papers held together by thick red elastic bands. On every one of the folders was a name written along the spine in black marker. Hogan dumped the files on the coffee table, Deacon sat on the couch, and the pair rummaged through them. They read the names and tossed the discarded folders to the floor. Sullivan caught a glimpse of the names.

  GARY TYRON

  LORI REEVES

  PETER KING

  Two politicians and a cop.

  More folders fell to the ground. A couple more cops, a CEO, and another politician. They were Patrick Wilson’s personal blackmail files. Dirty secrets he hoarded until he needed somebody to bend the way he needed them to.

  Deacon reached the last folder, read the name, and threw it across the room. ‘It’s not here.’ He took a breath and fixed his stony gaze on him. ‘Where’s the file on Jim Jones?’

  In a split second, everything that had happened that day rushed through Sullivan’s mind. The parole hearing. Jones’s case. The two-hundred-and-fifty-million skim from the police budget. And now they wanted to blackmail him.

  ‘You’re working for Hailstrum?’ Sullivan asked.

  ‘Well, hello,’ Deacon said with mock surprise. ‘What have we got here? One of these smart types.’

  ‘We’re running out of time,’ God said with a peek out the window. ‘We should move to plan B.’

  ‘Plan B?’ Sullivan said.

  Deacon crossed the room, rethought it, then walked back to where he started from. ‘Jones is a family man. And a family man will do anything when his family has been taken.’

  That poor bastard Jones, Sullivan thought.

  Hogan motioned to him and to the hostages. ‘What about them?’

  Deacon took two steps into the middle of the room. He yanked out his sidearm and blew Pete Stevos’s brains all over his brand-new furniture. Before Paula could scream, Deacon shifted his aim and did the same to her. The muzzle swung toward Sullivan. Smoke drifted from the tip, Deacon’s finger on the trigger.

  ‘Wait!’ Sullivan yelled. ‘Let me help!’

  Deacon lowered his weapon and smiled. ‘You want to help kidnap the family of the head of Internal Affairs?’

  ‘I’ve been stuck in a cell for the last three years because of Jim Jones.’

  ‘Why do you think we need your help?’ Deacon asked.

  ’Because I’ve got nothing left to lose, and that’s always valuable.’

  Deacon holstered his weapon and stared down Sullivan.

  ‘Could be an idea,’ God said. ‘Could be good in a fight.’

  ‘It’s not our decision,’ Deacon said as he turned to Sullivan. ‘Come along for the ride, and we’ll see what the boss has to say.’

  Sullivan climbed to his feet and looked down at the bloody mess of the dead hostages. In the space of an hour Deacon, Hogan, and God had killed six people. They would have no problem adding to that number.

  On their way out of the house, Sullivan swiped a mobile phone from the sideboard and slid it into his back pocket.

  Chapter Three

  Sullivan rode up front on the ride out. He cracked the window, and warm air flowed through the inside of the car. It was the middle of summer, and it hadn’t rained in weeks. The leaves on the trees were dry and yellow, and the past nine days had seen the longest heatwave on record. Air conditioners had seized up and committed suicide. Businesses had closed, displaying such
signs in their windows as: BACK WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER & DETROIT HAS MELTED. The entire city had withered, and its temper was short. Those few souls still wandering the streets at three in the morning were dressed in as little as possible, in a small respite from the heat of yesterday and the sun of tomorrow.

  ‘Put your window up,’ Deacon said. ‘You’re letting all the air out.’

  Sullivan pulled up the button, and the window sealed them in. The air conditioner blasted in his face. After his time in a cell, he was tired of climate-controlled environments, and he closed the vent.

  They pulled up to a suburban house in Sterling Heights and climbed out of the vehicle. There were two cars in the driveway, one on the lawn, and a few others congregated on the street. Sullivan followed Deacon, God, and Hogan down the driveway and into the backyard. The house was dark, but the garage had light pushing out from its gaps, and the dull sound of voices drifted into the night.

  Deacon pulled the door back. ‘After you.’

  A thought crossed Sullivan’s mind that maybe what he was about to do wasn’t the best idea he had ever had. Two steps later, when he entered the garage, he was convinced it wasn’t. He scanned the room. Six men. Many of them had a weapon at arm’s reach, either on a table or bench or settled snugly into their holster. They were still in shock at the sight of him, or felt safe in their numbers, because no one took aim.

  There was Goldsberry, a top-notch wheel man from Traffic. Pierce and May, a pair of ghosts from undercover who had a reputation for being able to infiltrate any organization, anywhere. And Con ‘Horse’ Gracie. ‘He’s not hung like a horse, he pisses like one.’ Ex-bomb squad. Greek. Short, fitness freak. Had three fingers blown to hell when some fifteen-year-old smartass sent a bomb to his high school to get the week off. The instructions had come from the Internet, and he hadn’t fully understood them and installed the timer incorrectly. Horse had thought he had an extra couple of minutes and lost three fingers. There wasn’t a deadbeat cop in the group. They were all highly decorated, highly seasoned, highly capable, and highly dangerous men. At the head of the pool table, hunched over an iPad, was William Campbell. He pulled his body straight, and ash from the cigarette that dangled from his lips fell onto the lapel of his grey tailored suit. He had movie-star qualities and knew it. He was charming, smart, and wasn’t afraid to get into the gutter and scrape his knuckles if knuckle scraping were what it took to get the job done. He was a fifteen-year veteran and, like most recruits with brains and balls, had worked undercover straight out of the academy. With his pretty-boy looks, he was far too clean-cut for the street, so the PD put him to work foiling million-dollar confidence scams. He had saved Lindsay Packer, Kerry Fox, and Harold Smorgan a combined total of 1.4 billion dollars, and in doing so, he made friends. Still, his real talents lay not in policing but in policy, and after thirteen years, William Campbell began to make the transition from the VPD into the political game. With the support of his powerful friends, he was a shoo-in for the Congressional district seat of Rochester Hills until Jim Jones arrested his partner, Allan Wheeler, on conspiracy charges. And that was all it took to destroy Campbell’s political career. The powerful withdrew their support, and he lost in a landside. Six months later, Wheeler was found innocent of all charges, but by then, the damage was done.

  A couple of months later, Campbell was caught doing something a cop should never be caught doing. What not many people knew, was that he had a violent streak that came out when he drank. One Friday night, he had a couple of beers and was driving home drunk when a BMW cut him off. Campbell dragged the driver out of his car and proceeded to beat him until his face resembled a side of beef. But he was still owed a few favors, and the assault charge disappeared. The price: anonymity; he was dumped in Fraud. His days were now spent chasing down Nigerian con artists who would never be prosecuted from abroad.

  Sullivan didn’t take him, or anyone in the room, for Hailstrum. Sullivan had known most of them for years. They were good cops, or at least they were in the beginning. Rightly or wrongly, he figured Jim Jones’s relentless ‘Cleanout’ had changed their point of view on a few things.

  Campbell’s gaze shifted from Sullivan over to Deacon. He wanted an explanation, and Deacon wasn’t terribly forthcoming with one. ‘Don’t tell me he followed you home?’

  Deacon tried explaining. Campbell cut him off, and the other men inched out of his way as he walked past them and up to Sullivan. He was three inches shorter, but that didn’t seem to bother Campbell. ‘Do you know what we’re doing here?’

  ‘I doubt you’ve started a knitting club.’ Sullivan looked over to Deacon. ‘Well, maybe you have.’

  Deacon’s face reddened. He was about to have a crack.

  ‘Ease up,’ Campbell said, and Deacon seemed to cool down. ‘The question,’ he continued, ‘is what the hell to do with you?’ He paced the room, and his words were just as much to boost the morale of his men as they were for Sullivan. ‘Jim Jones’s cleanout destroyed lives. Honest, hardworking cops, persecuted all so that Jones could make a name for himself. And what do we really know about him?’ Campbell paused for an answer he clearly didn’t want or expect. ‘I say we don’t know the true Jim Jones at all. I say that there’s things about hero cop Jim Jones that we should know.’

  ‘Like what?’ Sullivan asked. ‘His favorite color?’

  ‘Jones is no better than all those cops whose lives he’s ruined.’

  Sullivan tilted his head. ‘What did he do?’

  Campbell turned to him. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to share that with you just yet. What we want, Angus, is Jones’s confession to the crimes he’s committed, followed by his resignation. Now, I only have one thing to ask you. Are you in, or are you out?’

  Sullivan had known Jones for close to fifteen years. They weren’t friends and didn’t have anything nice to say about one another, but Jones, corrupt? Sullivan didn’t buy it. But Campbell did and that was all that mattered.

  ‘So?’ Campbell asked. ‘I guarantee you will get to loose that famous temper of yours.’

  Sullivan shifted his gaze to meet his. ‘Count me in.’

  ‘Whoa, hold on.’ Goldsberry got to his feet and pointed a bulky finger at Sullivan. ‘I don’t know this fuckin’ guy.’

  Sullivan cocked his head to face him. ‘I lost everything because of Jim Jones. What I’ve got against him is a hell of a lot more than you or anybody else would have against him, that’s for damn sure.’

  ‘I can vouch for Angus Sullivan,’ Campbell said. ‘Does anybody have a problem with that?’

  Some of them didn’t like it, but nobody had the balls to challenge him, so Campbell’s word was final.

  A few minutes later, the unit huddled around the pool table while Campbell ran through the plan. Sullivan slid his hand into his pocket, fumbled around for the phone he had stolen from the hostages, and silently dialed Jim Jones’s number. He hoped it hadn’t changed in the past three years.

  Chapter Four

  When he was alone, Jim Jones didn’t conceal the limp his busted leg caused him. He let it shuffle down the empty hall of Major Crimes alongside his perfect right leg.

  He had been in the office for close to fifteen hours and eaten next to nothing, so he headed down to the vending machine on the third floor to get a couple of bags of crisps and a can of pop. Jones didn’t make it home for dinner much anymore; he rarely even called Sarah to let her know, and she had stopped calling to check if he was all right. And he had become nothing more than a ghost to his daughter, Monique.

  The crisps were gone by the time he got back to his desk, and he’d finished half the can of Coke as soon as he’d opened it. Jones slumped in his chair, stretched out his leg, and put the half-drunk can on the table next to his phone. The screen flashed: ‘1 missed call.’

  For a moment, he thought Sarah must have woken during the night, been worried and phoned, but the caller’s number was blocked.

  There was a voicemail message. Three minutes and
thirty-seven seconds in length, for the duration of which Jones didn’t move.

  Chapter Five

  Chief Mackler hadn’t been asleep when Jim Jones called her, and by the time she got to Major Crimes and caught the elevator up to Internal Affairs, the room was busy with high-end brass in their full-dress uniforms and with phones pushed to their ears, putting everybody on standby. Mackler hadn’t had time to change into her uniform. She lived farther out than the others did, so she’d grabbed her leather jacket and left in the jeans and T-shirt she was wearing.

  When they saw her, Mackler’s senior staff all got off their phones and spoke at once. She ignored them, scanned the room for Jones, and saw him leaning against the doorframe of his office. He was speed dialing his wife. It would click over to voicemail, then he would hang up and dial again. He had been at it for twenty minutes.

  Jones looked up at Mackler as she stepped over to him. ‘Sarah isn’t answering,’ he said.

  Mackler placed a hand on his arm and spoke more gently than usual. ‘We sent a car to your house. No one was there. Could they be staying anywhere else? Friends, family, anything like that?’

  Jones rubbed his face and tried to think. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw them?’

  ‘Yesterday. The day before?’

  Mackler let the air slowly leak from her lungs. ‘Maybe you should play me this message.’

  Ten minutes later, Mackler’s senior staff shuffled into Jones’s office. They were the youngest senior staff in the history of the DPD and had been given the nickname ‘the Brat Pack’ by the cops whose careers had been in policing. They were young and hip. Their minds were filled with university degrees, and their hearts with ambition and ego.