The Nephilim (17 page)

But it was worse than that. There was a presumption in the world that when people got themselves shot they'd been in the wrong somehow. Because normal, everyday people who stayed out of trouble didn't get shot. And the name Benedict had been mentioned a few times. So as far as the press were concerned, Garrick was still guilty of something. He might not have killed the agent – there might not even have been an agent killed if what he was hearing was correct – but he was still dirty.

Because of that, when the doctors had pronounced his leg strong enough to support his weight, he'd escaped the medical prison, thinking to find some peace in his home. But it hadn't happened. The press had followed him home. They'd obviously bribed someone to give up his personal details. The medical people still came to his door every day and inflicted their therapeutic cruelty on him. He was still being hounded by the agencies as they tried to explain what had happened. And he was still on a shocking regimen of drugs. The only thing that had changed was that thanks to some increasing mobility in his hip, he could sit up and so replace the hospital bed with a recliner. And the view of the hospital ceiling had been replaced with one of his walls.

The recliner was at least comfortable, but it was also a prison and Garrick hated it. He kept worrying that one day he was going to find himself permanently trapped in it, unable to lift himself out of the chair. He hated the very idea. But the reality was that for many nights since he'd escaped the hospital bed he'd slept in it, as he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV.

And while it was comfortable, it was hard levering himself in and out of it with one leg in plaster and one arm strapped to his side. To make things more tricky the crutches were always falling to the floor beside him. No matter how he tried they simply refused to stay propped up against the chair's arm rest. So every time he wanted to get up he had to go through a set of elaborate contortions as he levered himself over to one side to pick them up with one good arm before he even tried standing.

That however, was the price he had to pay for having discharged himself from the hospital against medical advice and he was slowly getting better at it. Of course. there was a good reason why the doctors had wanted to keep him in, and his current daily struggles bore testament to their concerns. But they didn't understand that he couldn't have stayed there. He couldn't lie in a bed for weeks and stare at a ceiling. It just wasn't him.

Life at home was boring – especially when you were stuck inside all the time. Garrick hadn't realised how bad it was until he'd found himself more or less confined to his home by his injuries, and on extended sick leave. The doctors were talking about months of recuperation, something he just couldn't imagine. Then again the fact that the bullet in his leg had shattered the femur and now the bone was being held together by titanium plates and bolts meant that he was inevitably going to find out what it was like. He'd seen the x-rays and knew that the damage had been serious. The heavy calibre slug had not just broken but shattered his bone and what remained was being held together by a titanium superstructure of girders. What had possessed them to use such heavy calibre weapons? The agents said they'd recovered a Desert Eagle fifty calibre from one of them. He suspected that that was what had torn his femur apart.

It would be weeks before he would be rid of the crutches, months before the cast came off, and even longer before he could pass his physical. As for his arm, well at least that was mainly muscle damage and was now starting to heal nicely. He'd lost a lot of strength and it might be a while before he was bench pressing any heavy weights, but the day was coming. The doctors kept telling him the prognosis was good, but always it seemed as if it was too far away.

After only a week at home the hours were starting to grate on his nerves. With the media still watching his home he felt more or less confined to the four walls of his house. Imprisoned. He itched to be working again. In the field hunting down bad guys. It was more than just a job. It was who he was. Maybe that was simply a part of being a hunter. That the gift also shaped your nature? He'd often wondered about that. Whether gifts and personalities went together.

Then again, maybe it was watching the news each night that upset him most. Even now, nine days after the fiasco in which he'd been shot – the “botched raid” as the press were calling it – was on every channel. It was being fed by Treasury for the most part. Whoever their press people were, it seemed that they simply couldn't keep their mouths shut as they desperately tried to explain the inexplicable. It didn’t help that they kept contradicting one another in public.

The good news was that he was no longer being charged with anything. In fact he was no longer suspected of anything at all. But that was the only good news there was. The bad news was that the Treasury agents were being charged. He wouldn't have thought of that as bad news all that long ago. In fact he would have welcomed it given what they'd done. But now it was turning out to be a disaster. They had been charged but he was the one being prosecuted.

The three agents had all hired lawyers to take them into battle with their own agency, and they were actually suing their employer – something he found almost impossible to believe. Agents just didn't do that!

But these ones did. In fact their lawyers were all busy preparing their own press releases and feeding them out every night to the reporters. Press releases that talked about how they had been brought together to form a special task force assigned specifically to capture him. About phone calls and text messages from their supervisors telling them that Garrick was armed and considered extremely dangerous. That he was considered responsible for the murder of another Treasury agent and many more deaths. That he was a stone cold killer and a criminal who had aided Armando Benedict for years, and probably a large part of the reason why the man was still free. And that his capture was top priority. That there had been official teleconferences and alerts about him sent to them by email. They claimed that their clients had been set up.

Of course they couldn't produce any evidence. Their SAIC Thomison was non-existent as was the supposedly murdered Treasury agent. Their phones weren't government issue and the calls hadn't been logged. There was no paperwork on any of it, as apparently Garrick might have seen it somehow. And yet the less evidence there was the louder the trio screamed “conspiracy”.

Whether any of their claims were true or just the lawyers telling lies as they tried to get their clients off, Garrick didn't know. But he couldn't see how it could be. For a start if there had been a general alert put out about him, his own agency would have heard about it and they would have picked him up themselves. As for the rest it sounded farcical. He didn't work for Treasury but in the FBI if there had been a special task force set up for anything there would have been numerous documented meetings and rigorous oversight all the way through. Not a bunch of teleconferences, emails and text messages. It made no sense.

The other thing he didn't understand was why he'd been targeted, be it by the three agents or their mysterious SAIC Thomison. There were plenty of people who wanted him dead, but for the most part they were already behind bars. And none of them as far as he knew had the resources to arrange this sort of plan. As for the three agents themselves, they weren't people he'd hunted, nor as far as he knew, were they related to people he'd hunted.

In response to the agents' charges of course their employer was battling them on the nightly news, saying that none of the messages and alerts had ever been issued. That there had been no such task force established. And that no agent had been killed. It was a shocking trial by media that seemed to grow worse every night. The lawyers' goal it seemed was to defend their clients by showing systemic failures throughout the department, while Treasury in turn was trying to show gross incompetence on the agents' part.

The lawyers had decided on another tactic as well. If they couldn't get Garrick charged with some sort of criminal involvement – and they really wanted to as it would get their clients out of the dog house to some extent – they'd try blackening his name instead. So night after night, instead of hearing an apology he heard himself indirectly being called incompetent and unprofessional, described as a rogue agent, and accused of everything from a poor work ethic to sexual deviance. It was a game of course. They were trying to discredit him as a witness before the trial. Make it look as though even if he wasn't a criminal his life had enough holes in it that he could have reasonably been mistaken for one. But knowing what they were doing and why didn't really help him deal with it.

He could perhaps sue them. But the lawyers were very careful about how they said what they did. It was defamation but with just enough substance to the claims to make it hard to prove. And in any case he did have secrets to keep. Secrets that would be better kept if this entire mess just went quietly away. And that was what he dreamed of.

He was used to a nice quiet life. He did his job well, and while he did keep a few secrets from his employers, the quid pro quo was that he caught a rather large share of the worst criminals in the country. And he had naturally hoped that one day he would get some commendations, and in time get promoted. That was the plan. It wasn't a hugely ambitious one, but it had seemed a good one. It had seemed achievable. And he'd enjoyed it.  

Now his career was in tatters. Though he was guilty of nothing, his face was front page news. He was both a hero and a villain. Hollywood was calling. So were the tabloids. There were book and film deals being offered for his story as the agent who hunted down serials. And there were tell alls as well, promising to expose his life of crime.

To add to his woes he had become an embarrassment to the bureau. While it might be six months before he could return to work, it would be years before he could go back on the street without being recognised.

Worse, questions were being asked about his methods. Official questions. He had been allowed a lot of latitude in his work because he got results. But that would change. His supervisor had checked in on him and hinted at the bad news. He would be given a partner, that much was certain. Probably someone who really loved rules. And someone who would ask questions about how he jumped from one clue to another. Paperwork would have to be done on time and not at the end of a hunt. There would be much tighter oversight of him. That would make it nearly impossible to hunt.

The world it seemed had become a three ring circus and he was the main attraction. His life was now spent trying to avoid the curious stares of his neighbours and the endless questions of the hospital staff helping him with his recuperation. He was constantly being asked for opinions and interviews, all of which he had steadfastly refused. It hadn’t stopped the reporters from hounding him in the hospital and then in his home when he'd discharged himself though. It had also led to worried calls from his mother most nights as she watched the news from her home in Florida. She was far from well, often needing week long stays in the various institutions after an episode, and living with the very real effects of post traumatic stress. This would not be helping her.

Maybe it was time to go private.

It was a thought that had been spinning through his head ever since his release from the hospital. After all, he didn't have to just hunt criminals. Though he could do that through the bounty hunting system, he could do other things too. And there were plenty of missing people with large rewards posted. He could hunt them down just as easily. It would mean a better class of people he would have to deal with – fewer criminals and less danger. Better hours that he could determine for himself. No more paperwork, no medicals and no more bosses. And probably better money. Other hunters had gone private and they all said it was good. And Cassie would want him to – which was a reason not to in his book.

But against that he would no longer be an agent. And he loved being an agent. He was proud of it. Whenever he put a bad man away he felt a sense of achievement. Cassie of course didn’t approve. She said he could be doing far more good finding missing children and that his being an agent was just a childish fantasy. But it was more than that to him. It was his life.

The chime of the doorbell interrupted Garrick's melancholic train of thought, and he was grateful for it. Lately his thoughts had been taking him down into some dark and strange places. Of course as Garrick started the complicated ritual of stretches and contortions as he tried to snag his crutches and get out of the chair, he knew he probably didn't want to see his visitor. It was probably another reporter. He'd kicked them off his property but they still kept trying every so often. The last one had collected his mail for him from the box and brought it to the door pretending that she was doing him some sort of favour. She hadn't been thrilled by his reaction.

“Coming!”