Lethal Rage (8 page)

“Stitches came out on days off.” Jack held up his hand. “Got my first work-related scar.”

“Good for you.” Another drag, more lazy smoke. “I said you have a level head and you can be trusted.”

“Trusted not to fuck up?”

Sy shook his head and wispy tendrils of smoke zigzagged through the air. “We all fuck up sooner or later. No, he wanted to know if you could be trusted
when
things fuck up.” Sy studied Jack. “I told him you could be. I wasn't wrong, was I?”

“No, of course not. I was just thinking about how this could go wrong and hoping I'm not the one to cause it.”

Sy snorted. “Like Rick said, if the plan lasts up to the door, we're laughing. Everything after that is a crapshoot. Just keep your head on straight and if you shoot anyone make sure it's a bad guy.”

“I don't think I'll have any problem with that. The MCU guys are a rather distinctive-looking group.”

“I think the term is ‘eclectic.'”

They stood in a companionable silence, Sy with his stogie, Jack with his Coke, faces upturned to the sun, enjoying the warmth. Fall was not far off and Jack meant to savour what was left of the summer.

“You and Jenny close?” he asked, not turning his head.

“She got you, didn't she?”

Puzzled, Jack faced Sy. “Got me? What do you mean?”

“Don't give me that innocent look, partner. I've seen it before and, trust me, you won't be the last.”

“What are you babbling about?”

“Jenny.” He sucked deeply on the cigarillo, flaring its tip. “She has this effect on guys. They take one look at her and they're tripping over themselves to get to her. For some guys, it's her eyes, others it's her smile. Some guys just can't explain it.”

“And what do
you
think it is about her?”

Sy took another drag, then watched Jack through the drifting smoke. “I think she has that effect on guys because she's just a very sensual woman. A modern-day siren.”

Jack huffed an indignant laugh. Almost a Sy snort. “She's good-looking, but I wouldn't go that far.”

Sy didn't bother to comment; his disbelief was plain.

“Taftmore seems a bit of a jerk,” Jack commented, draining the last of his pop.

“Nice change of subject. Real subtle.” Sy held up a forestalling hand. “All right, I believe you. You're not interested in her at all.” He picked a piece of tobacco from his teeth and flicked it away. “Taft's all right. He can be an annoying prick at times, but he's solid when there's work to be done. Rick wouldn't have him in the unit otherwise.”

“You ever work in Major Crime?”

“Few times. I was there when Rick brought Kris in. Helped train her, too.”

“Why'd you leave?”

Sy smiled. “Her tits were too distracting.”

Jack laughed. “You know they're not real, right? Anyone with body fat that low can't have tits like that.”

“Partner, when they look that good, it doesn't matter if she was born with them or bought them.”

Further discussion was cut off when Mason and his crew came out, all of them wearing their vests with POLICE across the chest and back in big white letters. Tank carried the key — a steel battering ram with four handles so two people could swing it — slung casually over his shoulder like a baseball bat.

Sy dropped the stub of his cigarillo and crushed it underfoot. “Well, grasshopper, let's get it done, shall we?”

Regent Park. A sprawling housing project divided into north and south by Dundas Street. A warren of townhouses, low-rise and high-rise apartment buildings, walkways and parking lots. South Regent had the high-rises; the northern buildings, greater in number, never climbed above six floors. A cesspool of drugs, violence and dead-end lives, Regent Park was an unfortunate mix of good, honest people and low-lifes.

North Regent was bisected by a service road — a glorified, over-wide sidewalk — running east and west through the complex. The two police cars carrying the entry team sped along the walkway and Sy pulled up sharply behind the unmarked car at the southeast entrance to 259 Sumach. The MCU team was already making for the door and Jack and Sy quickly joined them.

As they passed through the stairwell to the main hall, Jack could hear feet pounding up the stairs. So much for a quiet approach. No doubt word was flying through the building: cops were here and they had a ram with them. Someone's door was about to be punched.

Mason heard the runners as well and motioned for his team to hustle as quietly as possible. There was still the chance they could take the apartment unaware. The entry team hurried along a hall painted in what Sy called “off-white, off-yellow, off-government-cheap.”

They reached the apartment door: so far, so good. Sy and Mason framed the door, shotguns at the ready. Kris was behind Mason; Jack was behind Kris. His back was to the lobby entrance, a small wasteland of discarded cigarette butts, fast-food wrappers and dried puddles of urine. The halls weren't air-conditioned and the heat had baked the entrance into a fetid desert.

The faint sounds of a TV game show murmured behind the closed door. The rest of the building was surprisingly quiet, as if it were a living thing waiting expectantly to see if this sickness, this area of rot, would be successfully cut from its body.

Behind Jack, the front door of the low-rise opened, the broken lock clicking ominously in the stagnant air. Jack twisted to face the lobby, his Glock pointed at the floor. The team froze, a collective entity with Jack now as its head, waiting to see who stepped into view. A dealer coming for a pickup would be disastrous; a shouted warning could be the difference between a by-the-numbers entry and a gunfight. Jack readied himself to knock whoever came through the lobby senseless.

He blinked sweat from his eyes. What was taking the guy so long? He could hear someone moving across the tile floor, taking his or her sweet damn time.

Seconds later — Jack would have sworn it was more like five minutes — an elderly black woman shuffled into view, her sundress with its faded orange flowers a stark blast of colour against the utilitarian drabness of the lobby. A wide-brimmed straw hat — an orange flower tucked brazenly in the band — shaded her face as she crossed to the elevators. She pressed the call button and settled in to wait, her hands folded primly before her.

Jack glanced at Mason, who gave him a palm-down gesture.
Wait.
If the entry went bad, the last thing they needed was a civilian on the edges of a gunfight. Bullets tended not to care whom they hit.

The woman removed her hat and fanned herself with it as she glanced around the lobby, looking for friends, for dangers — just because you were a Regent Park resident didn't mean you were safe from its predators — and saw Jack staring at her.

He lifted a leather-gloved finger to his lips and she nodded curtly, as if to say,
What do you think I am? Stupid?
The elevator dinged and the doors wheezed open. The lady gave them a broad smile and a thumbs-up before stepping into the elevator. Jack blew out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding and turned to Mason, a grin fixed on his face. Mason grinned back.

Tank stood beside Sy, the two-man ram cradled easily in his arms. He nodded at Mason, who flipped the nod to Jack. Jack keyed the mike clipped to his shoulder, then whispered, “Go. We are taking the door. Go.”

Jack heard a scout car squeal onto Sumach; then he saw two bike cops sprint out from behind 260 Sumach. He signalled Mason, who then gave Tank the go-ahead.

The big man squared himself to the door, drew the ram back, paused for the briefest of moments, then drove it forward, using all his considerable mass and power. The heavy metal pipe tapered to a point beyond the handles, focusing all of its devastating power into an area no bigger than a quarter. Tank's aim was perfect. The ram hit the door right beside the lock and the door exploded inward.

The pipes were in first. Sy button-hooked around the door frame, the shotgun tight to his shoulder, and cut left to the kitchen, while Mason pushed to the right, both bellowing,
“Police! Don't move!”
Kris and Taft were right on their heels, guns following eyes as they swept the living room for threats.

Tank dropped the ram with a thunderous clang and Jack bolted through the doorway, driving to his right and through the living room to back up Mason in the bedroom hall. He was dimly aware of shouting as he ran, commands of “Police! Don't move!” mixed with screams of terror and shouts of rage. He didn't stop to look.

Then he was beside Mason, not remembering having run across the living room. If he had been asked right then to describe the living room, he would have drawn a complete blank. It could have been filled with dancing hippos in tutus and he wouldn't have noticed. But the hallway he could describe. It was his area of responsibility and he was damned if he was going to fuck this up.

The hall was short, no more than a dozen feet, and he was facing a closed door. The bathroom. The left side of the hall held two bedroom doors, also closed. The hall was too narrow for two people side by side, so Jack slipped in front of Mason, crouching below the level of Mason's shotgun. They edged forward this way, guns trained on doors, trigger fingers resting easily along the weapons' frames.

“I've got the hall,” Mason whispered. “The bedrooms are yours.”

Still crouched, Jack grasped the doorknob, turned it and flung the door open. It banged against the wall. “Police! Anyone in this room, I want to see your empty hands, now!”

Silence.

Didn't think it would be that easy.
Tucking his gun into his chest, Jack pivoted around the door frame, sweeping the room. Filthy yellow curtains filtered the afternoon sun and bathed the room in a putrid haze. A mattress, heavily stained and disfigured, lay amid the remains of countless take-out meals. The closet doors hung broken and sagging on their hinges. The closet held only more garbage.

“Clear!” was all he said as he slipped into position again with Mason.

The detective pushed himself as tightly as he could against the right-side wall, giving himself the greatest possible angle on the bedroom door. “I've got the second bedroom. Clear the bathroom.”

Jack called, “Police! You in the bathroom! Open the door and show us your hands! Do it now!”

No answer. No sounds of movement.

“It's never easy, is it?” Mason echoed Jack's thoughts.

“That wouldn't be any fun.” Jack stalked the bathroom door, trusting Mason to blast anyone in the bedroom to hell and gone if they stuck their nose out. There was nowhere to hide and his ass was hanging in the wind, so he figured speed was better than stealth right now. He aimed for the same spot that Tank had targeted to obliterate the front door and lashed out with his foot, putting all of his weight behind it. Bathroom doors are not the same as front doors and this one flew open with a satisfying shattering of wood.

Jack followed through on his kick and rammed his shoulder into the door, smashing it flat against the wall, eliminating that hidden danger zone while covering the rest with his gun. Empty. Of people at least. The bathroom was empty but made the bedroom look clean. The toilet was overflowing with dried human waste and it looked like the tub was pulling double duty. Jack forced down the urge to vomit.

Breathing as shallowly as he could, he turned his back on the filth —
How could people live like this?
— and faced the final door. Mason edged closer and Jack twisted his free hand, showing he would try the doorknob. Mason signalled Jack to wait. He cracked his neck to the left, then the right, settled the shotgun back into place against his shoulder and nodded at Jack. Keeping as much of himself tucked into the bathroom as possible, Jack reached out and gripped the knob. It turned easily in his hand.

Bullets ripped through the centre of the door and splinters and chunks of wood lacerated the opposite wall like grenade fragments. Jack snatched his hand back. As soon as the gunfire stopped, he kicked the door open.

In the instant it took to bring his gun up on target, Jack noted a box spring and frame; clothes littered the floor, and heavy drapes dimmed the room. The scant light silhouetted a man wearing only a pair of unbuttoned jeans. His bare scalp and black skin glistened with sweat as he frantically tried to work the action of the assault rifle he held.

“Drop the gun, motherfucker!” Mason's voice sounded strained, but his hands were rock steady. As was his shotgun. “Drop it or die!”

“Mason! What the fuck is going on down there?” Tank shouted frantically.

“We're good, Tank,” Mason called back, his eyes still on the gunman. “There's no room down here for anyone else.”

The gunman was frozen, his hands gripping his weapon and his eyes flickering between Jack and Mason.

“Just open your hands and let it drop. If it even twitches in this direction, you die. Just let it drop. Simple as that.”

The silence stretched out. Was the gunman working up his nerve? Sweat ran down Jack's face, into his eyes. He didn't blink — he didn't want to lose his target, even for a heartbeat. His shoulders were starting to ache with the effort of holding the Glock out at arm's length. How much longer would he have to kneel here?

A lifetime was crammed into every heartbeat.

Slowly, so slowly, the gunman drew himself erect, his gun pointed down. Defiance was bright in his eyes.

“Don't,” Mason warned. “Just drop the gun. Now.”

With a sneer, the gunman snapped open his hands and the rifle clattered to the floor.

“One of the key rules to policing: for every minute of excitement, there's at least one corresponding hour of paperwork.” Mason cast a satisfied eye across the empty apartment. “You did good work today, Jack.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Jack and the detective were alone in the apartment. The gunman had been cuffed and the bedroom searched; the hours of corresponding work had begun.