"A good name is better than precious ointment;
and the day of death than the day of one's birth.
It is better to go to the house of mourning, than
to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end
of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness
of the countenance the heart is made glad."
Ecclesiastes 7:1-3
This time it was bad. These bodies weren't neatly brain-fried; they were blown up. At least fifteen prominent members of the Skulls, a local street gang, had died in the carnage last night. Five people had lived through it, and the stories they told were . . . well, ludicrous.
"I'm telling you . . . a purple ski mask and a red cape," the punk said for the fourteenth time.
Tommy shook his head. "Humor me, and tell me again."
"This dude came through the door wearing a purple ski mask and a red cape. Big Jerry yelled Who the fuck do you think you are, weenie boy? He yelled back The Angel of Death! and BOOM! Jerry blew up, and then the dude just went around the room blowing people up."
"What did the weapon look like?"
"Man, for the thousandth time. There weren't no fucking weapon, at least nothing you could see. When he had finished he looked at us'ns and said, This is the only chance I'm giving you. Turn back from the course you are following or fry like the others."
The kid was scared—terrified and shaking. No doubt coming down off some drug, but he told the same story that the other four had. To the letter.
Tommy watched as Spider drove up. She got out looking more than a little perturbed. "What took you so long?" Tommy asked with a smile.
Spider looked back at him and snarled. At two o'clock in the morning she didn't feel like joking. Mostly she felt like sleeping. Carrie was trying to kill her; not that it wasn't how she'd always dreamt of going.
"What we got?" Spider asked.
Tommy pointed at the door. "You tell me."
Spider walked over and looked in. She took one look around and almost chucked. The smell, the look, the dark.
"Incoming! Oh God! It's gonna hit us!" she yelled as she ran. The others ran, too, but most of them weren't fast enough. The blast knocked her to the ground and sent her flying into the wall of the trench. Something soft and wet and sticky hit her in the side of the head. There was a glimmer of realization as the smoke and flames filled the air. That something that hit her was part of Becky. The rest of Becky was lying at her feet. She didn't have time for it to sink in; didn't have time to deal with it because then the bastards were in the trench with them . . . and it was shooting and stabbing and blood, so much blood—her blood, Becky's blood, the rag heads' blood. James came up beside her, trying to hold the bastards off. A bullet hit him, two, three. She hit the ground and rolled, finding a safe place behind a piece of a car.
"Spider, help!" He held a hand out to her. She reached for him, and something hard and hot hit her shoulder, throwing her back. She tore a piece of her shirt off and packed her own wound as she watched a bullet splinter James' skull. She grabbed her gun, got up and ran towards the enemy. It wasn't courage; it was rage that empowered her. Rage, and fear. Sarge screamed, "No Webb!" But she ran in, firing, and now he was dead and she was still alive. Another bomb hit. This time it hit behind the Iraqis line. The cavalry had come. Seven of her unit joined her, only four lived to see morning. Only the five of them waded through the blood and carnage and survived. It was idiotic. They gave them a medal for living, but then they gave everyone else a medal for dying, and how much more stupid was that?
"Spider!" Tommy screamed again. "Spider!"
She turned away from the scene towards Tommy. She must have looked as shaken as she felt.
"You OK, Spider? You're looking a little green."
"I'm . . . OK."
"You hear my question?"
She shook her head no.
"I asked if you thought it was the Fry Guy."
She didn't have to think about that one. It was a no-brainer. "Yes."
"Why so sloppy? Why such a mess?"
Spider thought about the mess he was talking about. Thought about what had happened to her in Baghdad.
"Killing Rage. This time he was mad. He didn't really think; he just struck out. Apparently—at least in his mind—they did something personal to him."
"He left five witnesses," Tommy told her.
She looked at him in disbelief.
"And this is what they all said." He punched up the data and showed it to her. She watched all five interviews, and then Tommy repeated the description. "A man of unknown ethnic origin wearing a purple ski hat, a red cape and leather work gloves."
"He knew there was a chance that not everyone here would be truly bad, evil if you will. The five he left alive he must consider redeemable. See if they had any previous records."
Spider seemed disconnected. Maybe she was just tired, but somehow Tommy didn't think so; there was something wrong. It was cold and she was sweating. He looked for the files anyway.
"You're right. None of those five have a record that includes anything harsher than shoplifting. Three of them have no record at all."
"And what do you want to bet that all those corpses do. Or if they don't, that they were deeply into the gang—totally corrupted. We should interview some of the families of both the victims and the survivors see if there are any similarities . . . "
Bodies, so many bodies, and somebody had to move them. No one ever thought about that.
The flies. That's what she remembered—the flies. Like black air they were so thick, and the smell—sweetly putrid. They sent them in on what was supposed to be a routine relief. They were to go in and take over the post; that was what they were told. Their sergeant never told them that everyone there had been killed by some biological or chemical weapon that they weren't at all sure had dissipated. Life was cheap to the boys at the top; that was a fact that never changed. Some dick way up the food chain was always willing to put someone else's life on the line to prove some stupid point.
She didn't sleep the first three days they were there, and any food she ate came right up. By the fourth day they had most of the corpses cleaned up and she had become desensitized, or at least that was what the military fucks like to call it. It was a nice clean way to explain that they had killed part of your brain. That they had stolen away part of your humanity.
Becky never did "desensitize," and it made things that much harder for her. Spider tried to make things easier for her and in doing so wound up making things harder for herself.
Who cleaned up Becky's body? Who cleaned up James's? What good was life when, in the end, you were reduced to nothing more than a mess someone had to clean up?
Body after body, day after day, the heat and the sand and the damned flies . . .
"Goddamn it, Spider!" Tommy all but screamed.
She looked at him, took a deep breath, and rubbed a sweaty hand down her ashen face.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
She checked first to make sure her comlink was off, and then took a quick look at Tommy's. He had apparently severed the link before he screamed at her.
She laughed nervously and started to lie, but she was shaking and felt sick to her stomach. She looked at Tommy, her teeth chattering, suddenly cold.
"Sometimes when you see things, Tommy . . . Things people shouldn't have to see . . . It changes you, and you're never quite the same again. You have to bury those things real deep or you can't even think to lead anything close to a normal life. But they're never gone, and when you least expect it, they'll jump right back up in your face."
She looked into Tommy's eyes. "You can see too much, Tommy." She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. "Things that will keep you up at night, things that won't let you sleep. I'm having a PTS episode. I'm going home, Tommy."
"You OK to drive?"
"Yeah, I'll be all right as soon as I put some distance between me and . . . that. You got things here?"
"Yeah. Sure, pard." Tommy watched her go. He saw her bend over to pick something up; he couldn't see what. Then she got in her car and drove off. He knew he shouldn't have let her leave alone, but he turned around and went back to work.
"You did what!" Laura screamed at him.
Tommy didn't want to do this. If he went back to bed right now he could get an hour's sleep before he had to get up and go back to work again. "She wanted to go home. I let her."
"Damn it, Tommy, she's your partner. It's not like this is the first time she's had one of these PTS episodes. You know she's not safe to drive."
"She's a grown woman. She's never had trouble driving before, she said she just needed to get away," Tommy defended.
Laura picked up the phone and dialed Spider's apartment. Carrie's sleepy voice answered.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Carrie, it's Laura. I'm sorry to call so late. Is Spider home?"
Carrie looked around. Spider wasn't in bed, and as far as she could see, not in the apartment. "No, why?"
Laura took a deep breath. "Ah . . . Tommy wanted to ask her something about the case, that's all."
"Is everything all right?" Carrie asked. "Is Spider all right?"
"Yeah, she should be home soon. Sorry I woke you. Good night." She hung up the phone and glared at Tommy.
Tommy dialed up Spider's private comlink number. He sighed a sigh of relief when she answered, then frowned when he realized she was in her car. "Spider, what the hell are you doing?"
"It's OK, I'm going home now. I just had to calm down, that's all."
"All right. Go straight home and call me when you get there."
"Will do."
Carrie gave the phone a weird look and hung it up. She looked at the clock, frowned when she saw the time, and rolled over to try and go back to sleep. It wasn't happening. About fifteen minutes later Spider came in. She looked up at Spider and patted the bed beside her. Spider shucked her clothes and crawled under the covers. Carrie snuggled around her.
"My God, Honey! You're so cold and sweaty. Do you have a cold?"
Spider turned around to face Carrie. "I had a girl friend in the service, you know."
Carrie laughed. "That's OK, Honey. This may come as a shock, but you're not exactly my first, either."
"No, Carrie, let me finish." Spider swallowed hard. "Becky and I were close. It wasn't like you and me, but at least we thought we were in love, we cared about each other. We were entrenched just outside the heart of Baghdad when a bomb landed in our trench. It literally blew pieces of her all over me. For just a second I thought about just standing there till something hit me, too. It was too horrible to imagine living through. But something inside me, somewhere deep down, some instinct took over and I just kept going. She was my lover and my friend, and I wiped her blood off my face and kept fighting. I never looked back."
"If you had, you'd be dead, too," Carrie said quietly.
Spider looked at Carrie. "Don't you see, Carrie? I never told anyone about her. About what she meant to me. She died, and God only knows who buried her—if anyone. I went on with my life, and I left her there—body and soul—in that trench."
"You want to talk about her?" Carrie asked carefully.
"That would be too weird," Spider said.
"Why? Because she was your girl friend? I'm not going to feel threatened. I am one cocky bitch, and I have an almost too healthy self-image. If you loved her even a little, she must have been pretty special, and I want to hear about her."
Spider hesitated for a second. "Becky had delusions of grandeur; going in, she wanted to be the first woman three star general. Two weeks into basic training she was trying to find a way out . . . "
"For the fifth time, what did you take from the crime scene, Webb?" the lieutenant boomed as he showed the damn comlink video from detective Levits' unit for the fifth time.
"And for the fifth time that is not—technically—part of the crime scene," Spider answered through clenched teeth. "Who says I'm picking up anything? The view is obstructed by a fucking car. I bent over to look at something. I didn't pick anything up . . . "
"Detective York said he saw you put something into your pocket."
"That's called my hand," Spider hissed.
"He makes a strong accusation, Webb. He says he thinks you took evidence. He says he believes you have been doing so all along. Did you take something from that crime scene?"
"No I did not," Spider gritted out. She looked at Tommy then. "Go ahead. Tell him."
"I didn't see her pick anything up," Tommy lied.
"Not that. Tell him about last night. What kind of shape I was in."
He looked at her for confirmation. Did she really want him to tell the lieutenant about the PTS episode? It would mean a trip to the department shrink at the very least—medical suspension at the most. She nodded at him. He looked at the lieutenant, but just couldn't.
"Ah . . . crap, Spider."
"Just tell him!" she nearly screamed.
Tommy took a deep breath and let it out, but still stammered when he started talking. He'd never had another partner, and he didn't want one now. "She, ah . . . she occasionally suffers from a minor form of post-traumatic shock syndrome. She had an episode last night after viewing the crime scene. She wasn't really out, but she didn't really seem to have a handle on present events, either. She wanted to go home, and I told her to do so. She certainly wasn't up for tampering with evidence."
The lieutenant gave Spider an angry look. "Why didn't you report this incident immediately?"
"It's not like it's not a matter of record that I have them. I need to work," Spider said pointedly. "I have debts, and I can't afford any time off. It's more unnerving than anything else. I've never put myself, my partner, or anyone else in danger. I don't think I should be punished for something I have very little control over. Truth is, I might have picked something up—a rock, a piece of broken glass. I don't really remember. But if I had picked anything of any significance up, I'm sure I would have found it by now, and I would have turned it in."
The lieutenant seemed to think about it. He took a deep breath and exhaled. "I'm not going to take your word for it that these episodes aren't dangerous. You'll be expected to go to the department shrink for evaluation and then treatments. If you fail to make appointments you will be suspended without pay. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Sir."
Tommy was surprised to see the relief cross Spider's face. It wasn't like her to give the bastard what he wanted. Then to his dismay the lieutenant turned his attention on him.
"The FBI seems to think that we are mucking up the crime scene. They are blaming this department for the fact that they have no leads . . . "
"They're blaming us because they don't want to admit that they are as stumped as we are," Spider hissed.
Tommy smiled. Now that was the Spider he knew and loved.
"This guy has some kind of weapon he probably stole from Uncle Sam. They know a hell of a lot more than we do, and they aren't any closer to catching him than we are. They're looking for a scapegoat."
"That may be so, but you two have made no bones about the fact that you think this guy is doing a public service . . . " They started to protest and he held up his hand. "You're on too much vid-tape to deny it. God only knows what you say when you've got your comlinks off. My point is this. This guy is breaking the law. He's killing people. He's a murderer. As cops we shouldn't care who he's murdering. If I find out that any of my officers, even one who has been decorated for distinguished service," he glared at Spider, "is tampering with evidence, I'll be the first one to testify against them. Do I make myself clear?"
They nodded silently.
"OK, bugger off then."
Tommy glared across the car at Spider. He couldn't tell what she was thinking, but then he rarely could. He had to look back at the road, because he was driving, after all.
"What did you pick up, Spider?" Tommy more hissed than said. He didn't like being left out to dry when he didn't even know he was wet. Spider started humming and stared out the window as if she hadn't heard him.
"What did you pick up, Spider!" he screamed.
Spider must have known he was about to scream, because she didn't jump even a little. She turned her head slowly to face him. "Nothing."
"Lying bitch," Tommy swore. "This isn't a game anymore. This guy is killing more and more people. Some of those gang members were just kids . . . "
"They were all hoods, every last one of them . . . "
"They didn't deserve to die like that. I'm not sure anyone does. This has got to stop; it's gone too far. At first I was right with you. Hell, it may have even been my idea. But we can't keep covering for this guy. We're going to have to start looking for him. Now, what did you pick up?"
She started humming again and continued staring out the window.
"Goddamn it, Spider . . . "
She spun on him, fast and hot. Tommy jumped at the fury in her voice when she started to talk. "I saw what he did last night. I saw it, too. It dredged up shit I thought I'd put to sleep. But that doesn't change the fact that everyone who got slammed had it coming. If they hadn't already raped, mutilated, or killed, they would have. He knows that. Somehow he sees men's souls. I understand that you don't want to cover for him anymore, and I won't ask you to, but don't ask me not to."
Tommy pulled the car over and parked so he could safely glare at her across the car. "Are you going to tell me what you picked up?"
Her silence answered his question.
"Damn it, Spider! You could burn us both with this shit. This guy is a loaded cannon. A man with a very powerful weapon he probably stole from the government. He is not some avenging angel sent to do God's work. Get that through your head."
Spider didn't look at him as she answered. "When I was in the military it was easy. We had one kind of uniform; they had another. We were the good guys, we knew who the bad guys were, and we killed them, even though we didn't really know why they were shooting at us or we were shooting at them, it was easy. All black and white—no grays. Now I'm here in the streets and I don't know who the good guys are any more. Everything is in shades of gray."
Spider turned to look at Tommy then, and the look in her eyes scared him more than a little.
"But not to this guy, Tommy. This guy sees evil. He sees it like you and I see color. I'm not going to do anything to stop him. I'm not going to do anything to help them stop him. I'll go through the motions, but that's it. It wasn't that long ago that you agreed with me. Sometimes the ends do justify the means. The end isn't a room full of mutilated corpses. The end is good kids that will be alive tomorrow because those bastards didn't live to turn them on to drugs or kill them outright."
Tommy nodded, not because he was sure he agreed, but because he knew there was no changing her mind, and no sense in trying.
"OK, but I'm not playing anymore."
Spider nodded back. "I wouldn't ask you to."
For some reason her answer bothered him. He got the idea that what she was really saying was that this was out of his league.
It had been a week since Robby had managed a good night's sleep. The scene in the crack house still haunted him, and the news and every paper was filled up with it. Everywhere you looked you saw something about it. Everywhere he went people were talking about it, and there were cops and G-men all over their part of town asking questions of every gang-banger they came across.
Evan had never done his chores so quickly or completely. Never been so eager to please. Robby blamed himself for Evan's short trip into trouble. He should have been watching him closer; he shouldn't have dropped his guard even for a minute. You couldn't afford to do that with teen-aged kids. Worse than the guilt and the fear was the knowledge that his brother now listened to him, not out of any sense of love or loyalty, but out of fear. Because he knew now that Robby harbored some terrible power.
Robby loaded the old air conditioner into the bed of his truck and collected his money from the man. The man smiled and thanked him, and Robby smiled back and thanked him for his business. He got in the truck and headed for his next pickup. Normally the pickup of an air-conditioner would have put him in a really good mood. Old conditioners could almost always be fixed and resold for good money. But today he couldn't stop thinking about how close he had brought the cops to his own door. He had let his anger get the best of him, but then what else could he have done? Written Evan off? Worse, let him bring that scum into his house to infect the other children? He had to stop it; he just wished he could have found another way. He frowned then. The evil never gave you any other way. They backed you into a corner where you could either kill them, or let them live to do what you knew they were going to do. Let them repeat the crimes of their past. And it seemed that lately there had been more of them than ever before.
He was sure that some people might call what he had a gift, but it was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, he had the power to make the world a better place. On the other hand, it meant he constantly had to make decisions he'd rather not make, and he lived in constant fear of being caught.
His family relied on him. He had a responsibility to them, a duty to feed, clothe, house, and love them. He couldn't do that if he was in jail. Every time he killed someone he ran the risk of being caught.
Mankind needed him. He had a responsibility to free them from fear, to protect them from the pestilence that would prey on them. To remove from their midst a danger only he could truly see.
He didn't take either responsibility lightly.
The Fry Guy hadn't killed anyone in three weeks, and things at work were getting more relaxed. Tommy and Spider were even able to work on some of their other cases.
Tommy drove at break-neck speed through traffic, the light on top flashing, the siren whaling.
Spider was eating a hamburger, not without some effort, and they were talking about the Fry Guy.
"So, why did he stop?" Tommy asked.
"He had to. He knew he'd pushed the envelope on that mass killing, and he knew it was time to back off. Maybe he made himself sick, or scared himself," Spider answered, breaking the rule about talking with your mouth full.
"So will he kill again? Or have we seen the last of him?"
"Oh, he will undoubtedly kill again," Spider said. "He won't be able to stop himself. Imagine that you had the ability to look at a man and know that he had killed and would kill again if given the chance. Could you let him walk away?"
"I don't know," Tommy said truthfully. "I wouldn't want to, but I might to save my neck."
"What if you realized that the person he might rape or kill was you or Laura?"
"I'd have to kill him," Tommy said without hesitation.
"Our killer sees every potential victim as if it were one of his loved ones. He feels responsible for everyone."
"Or he's just someone who found a really cool weapon and knows that as long as he's butchering gang members and baby-rapers no one's going to really come after him . . . "
"Except that the FBI is . . . "
"Which may be exactly why he's backed off now," Tommy said. "In fact, it makes perfect sense. He realized they were getting too close, and he did the gang-bangers the way he did because he wanted to go out in style. For all we know he may have thrown his weapon into the bay and is half way across the country right now."
"Hate to ruin your little theory, but we were nowhere near finding him, and neither were the Feds," Spider said.
"He didn't know that. Maybe he was smart enough to get out before we got close."
Spider shrugged, obviously bored with the conversation. She wadded up her hamburger wrapper and threw it into the bag her lunch had come in.
"Carrie asked me to move in with her."
"Are you going to?" Tommy asked.
"Do you think I should?" Spider asked.
Tommy stared at her for a minute. He hated this; she was asking his opinion on something that could change her whole life. What if he gave her the wrong answer? He could screw up her whole life! If he didn't answer then he was being a dick; it would seem like he didn't care. He stumbled in. "Ah . . . Do you love her?"
Spider seemed as shocked as he was that he was answering her, even if it was with a question. "Yes, I do. Very much."
"She's at your apartment all the time. She never gets a chance to relax; that's got to be a pain." He was proud of himself; this was easier than he thought.
"Yeah, it is that. Seems like I never get anything done, and I'm sure it's the same for Carrie. And with both of our schedules . . . I don't see her nearly as much as I would like to."
"Do you want to move in with her?" Tommy asked.
"Yes, I do," she said after a moment's thought.
"Then why the fuck did you ask me?" Tommy asked with a laugh.
"I guess I wanted to hear you say that I wasn't crazy. I mean, I've only known this woman a little more than a month."
"What's the worst that will happen? You'll have to look for a new apartment if it doesn't work out," Tommy said. He was good at this. In fact he was enjoying giving sagely advice.
"You're exactly right," Spider said. She slid across the seat and into him as they braked to a stop. They jumped out, slapped on the comlink intercepts, and drew their weapons. Five other cars were already on the scene. The captain was there, and so was the riot truck.
Five perps had held up the bank. Some fucking militia group—which meant they had kevlar and AK-47's. An idiot security guard had tried to stop them. Now he was dead, the robbers had nothing to lose, and fourteen hostages to use for shields.
"Fucking black and whites," Spider cursed as she crouched behind her open door.
Tommy knew why. Just once he wished the black and whites wouldn't rush in so quick. Let the bastards get into their cars and drive away. Chances were you'd catch them. Even if you didn't, it was just fucking money, not lives. The last thing you wanted to do was give the perps nowhere to run when they had a bank full of people.
More police cars roared in, followed by the DA's car. Spider saw DA Richards get out of the car, and Carrie got out right behind him. Spider's stomach churned, and her heart was in her throat. She'd never thought about this, and she didn't like it.
By the time Tommy saw the gunman in the bank move, Spider was already around her door and over the hood. Tommy opened fire on the gunman, and so did everyone else.
Spider ran across the hoods of the other cars as the bullets sprayed. Then she jumped. One arm hit the DA, the other caught Carrie, and she dragged them both to the ground with her.
"Stay the fuck down!" she ordered.
She jumped back up behind the door.
"Spider! No!" Carrie screamed.
Spider aimed and fired. The gunman went down with a hole through his forehead. As the captain screamed for a cease-fire, Spider dropped behind the door. It was deathly quiet. No one was firing now.
Spider looked at Carrie. She looked OK.
"Do you have to be here?" Spider asked.
Carrie nodded and moved to hide behind the door with Spider, as did DA Richards. He looked peaked and was breathing heavily. Spider noticed then that they were both wearing flak jackets; her heroics had probably been unnecessary. Still, better safe than sorry.
"Thanks," Richards said.
Spider just nodded.
"Tommy, you OK?" Spider asked over her comlink.
"Yeah, you?" Tommy came back.
Spider checked herself. Her leg was bleeding, but it wasn't broken. It wasn't bad. "I'm fine."
Carrie noticed the blood and temporarily lost it. "My God! You've been hit! You're bleeding! You're going to die!"
Spider laughed and shook her head. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Honey."
The Captain was talking to the perps over his loud speaker, but Spider was a little too concerned with her own drama to worry about what he was saying. The ambulance was there, and she was aware that they were taking a couple of the uniformed cops away. She reached out suddenly, took hold of Carrie's chin and turned her to face her. She had a scratch on her forehead, but other than that she seemed all right. Spider kissed her gently on the lips.
"I've got to go. Please keep your lovely ass down."
"Spider, you're hurt . . . "
"Not bad. Bye!" She kissed her again, released her and ran behind the cars in the direction of the captain.
Richards loosened his tie; his color didn't look good.
"You OK, Sir?" Carrie asked.
Richards nodded. "A little shaken, that's all." He smiled at Carrie. "So, was that the little woman?"
Carrie nodded with a smile. "That's the problem with avoiding the dinner party thing. Everyone winds up meeting your lover under the worst possible circumstances."
They had reached a very guarded truce. Richards was good at negotiating, but these guys weren't really into negotiating, so the best he could do was keep them talking.
The ringleader was screaming now, "We got one of yours, and you got one of ours. That makes us even!"
"Sorry, it just doesn't work that way, Peterson," Richards screamed back. "Why don't you just walk out of there? Give yourselves up, and no one else gets hurt."
"Because he's a fucking lunatic," Spider mumbled shaking her head. She was in the back of the riot truck, being fitted into a titanium kevlar jump suit—as was Tommy. Her leg had been field dressed. Spider put on her helmet to block out the sound of Carrie's protests.
Carrie addressed the captain. "She's wounded; she should be going to a hospital, not into that building."
"I'm sorry, Sir. But Detective Webb volunteered for this assignment, and she is part of our SWAT team. Her wounds have been adequately dressed, and it has been determined that the damage is minimal. She and detective Chan are the only members of my team who have ever done anything like this before. These guys have promised to start killing people in an hour, and since they've got nothing to lose, I can't imagine that they won't keep that promise. Unless, of course, we give them everything they're asking for, and I just don't see Richards doing that any time soon, do you?"
Carrie nodded, then turned her attention back to Spider.
Spider addressed the worry on Carrie's face with the biggest smile she could muster. "It'll be all right," Spider assured her.
Tommy looked on in disbelief as Carrie's expression changed from one of fear and anger to relief and acceptance. Tommy tested his direct comlink to Spider by saying, "Someday you've got to show me how you do that."
Spider smiled at him and shrugged.
"Are you up for this? Because if you're not, a lot of people could get killed," the captain warned.
They both nodded.
"All right. Everyone else is in position. The food should arrive any minute. They'll send one of their men out into the street to pick it up. That should cause a little chaos, and give you a window of opportunity. We'll try to keep you posted on where they are."
"Let's rock and roll," Tommy said. He was wired; this was why he had joined the force. Today he'd make a difference or die trying.
They started out of the truck.
"Spider, I swear to God . . . " Carrie started.
Spider turned, looked at her and smiled. "Yes, I'll move in with you."
They dropped them on the rooftop by copter. Not too conspicuous considering that there had been news and police copters flying around the scene for the last hour. After that, it was simply a matter of getting down the building without alerting the perps to their presence. Which also wasn't too hard, since they had a recent diagram of the building and all the keys. It was a credit to the people concerned, and the police department as well, that they had been able to empty the building so quickly and so nearly completely.
Using the elevator was out of the question, so they took the staircase.
They walked carefully down the hall towards the bank's back door that the diagram showed opened into a small storage room. From there it was a short trip down a short hall to the bank itself.
Spider focused all her attention on the space behind the door—not an easy thing to do with the captain barking the locations of the terrorists in her ear. There was someone on the other side of the door. Someone scared, wired, and crazy. She pulled Tommy back down the hall again.
"There is one just on the other side of the door. The bank has been taken off system, so the only real problem with the door is getting it open. But with the guy on the other side . . . "
"I didn't hear that," Tommy said.
"They can't see through walls. He's there, Tommy, take my word for it. If we start fiddling with the lock on the door, he's going to know we're here."
Tommy walked quietly forward and took a closer look at the lock and the door. Then he walked back to Spider.
"I can kick the door . . . "
"Are you sure? Because . . . "
"I'm sure," Tommy promised.
In their ears the captain said. "Don't take any chances, goddamn it!"
"I can do it," Tommy promised Spider.
She nodded and they moved back up to the door.
Again Spider focused all her attention on the air behind the door, but the captain was screaming. "Goddamn it, Webb . . . Chan, no fucking cowboy shit! We're talking civilian lives." When they didn't respond, he continued, "All units at ready! All units at ready! Get ready to move in on my word."
Spider reached up under her helmet and tapped the earpiece implanted just beneath her skin, turning it off. Without the captain screaming in her ear she could focus.
Tommy didn't question her. He'd been here with her too many times to do that. He didn't know how, but she would pull this off without the earpiece or apparent knowledge of the location of the terrorists.
"Can you take out the guy on the other side of the door?" Spider asked him.
Tommy nodded.
Tommy watched Spider for several breathless moments.
"Now!" she whispered.
Tommy kicked the door at the lock. It opened swiftly as Spider's body hurled into it. She kept running as Tommy landed a swift killing blow to the startled man's head. Tommy headed down the hall the way Spider had gone, his rifle at the ready.
Spider was in the room before the terrorists really had time to respond to all the noise. The leader was standing there, still holding a Burger King bag. She shot him first, one neat little hole right in the middle of his forehead. As fast as she could squeeze off four rounds, the other four terrorists fell—all killed with the same precision. One of them had a chance to pull his trigger, but the hail of bullets landed harmlessly in the wall and ceiling.
Tommy strode up beside her as the SWAT team rushed in and pulled up short, realizing that there was nothing for them to do.
The hostages who had been lying face down on the floor were all screaming, sure that they were about to be killed.
As Spider breathed in the moment, Tommy told them, "It's all clear; you're safe now. Please get up and leave the building in an orderly manner."
The comlink had already told everyone outside the building that the mission was successful.
Spider looked at him then and frowned. "Tommy?"
"Yeah."
"I'm gonna pass out." And she did.
She stared at the TV.
"I could go home," she told Tommy.
He nodded as he munched on an egg roll.
She grunted, and he handed her one.
"Stop being such a baby. They're just holding you for observation . . . "
"Cost a fucking fortune," Spider mumbled.
"Who cares? You're not paying."
"Oh, yeah! That's right," Spider said, relieved. She ate the egg roll and stared at the TV again. "But I'm so fucking bored, Tommy."
"What a little pussy baby you are, whining all the time." Tommy laughed and shook his head. "I'll be glad when Carrie gets here. Then she can listen to your crying."
"No one has to baby-sit me," Spider said hotly. "I'm perfectly capable of being bored all by myself."
"And listen to Laura bitch all night? No, thank you."
Spider laughed. "You have to go home sometime."
"But I'm delaying it as long as I can," Tommy said.
Carrie walked in. "How are you feeling, Baby?" She sat down in a chair beside Spider and took her hand.
"It hurts," Spider whined.
"Oh, my poor baby," Carrie cooed.
"I'm gonna hurl!" Tommy said in disbelief. He stood up then and grabbed his sack of egg rolls. "I'm going, and I'm taking my egg rolls, too. I'll see you tomorrow."
Spider laughed, then said on a serious note, "Thanks, Tommy."
Tommy smiled back. "Any time, pard."
Carrie waited till she was sure Tommy was gone. "What the fuck were you thinking? Are you fucking out of your tiny little mind? You never told me you were on the fucking SWAT team! Of all the stupid shit. And how dare you use that what-ever-the-fuck on me . . . "
"OK, I was right up with you till then. What are you talking about?"
Carrie glared at her. "You know damn good and well what I'm talking about—playing with my brain. I don't know what you did or how you did it, but I was a virtual zombie till it wore off at about three o'clock. If I'm mad, I prefer to be mad, and if I'm scared, I prefer to be scared."
Spider frowned. "All I did was give you a little push so you'd be less stressed. Everyone does it . . . "
"Everyone does it!" Carrie screamed. "You're kidding, right? Do you really think everyone does that? Because I'm here to tell you that they don't. They can't."
"They can't?" Spider could do it; it didn't even seem very hard. Not like feeling people out or knowing what they were thinking. It was just a little push; she didn't even have to focus to do it.
"Did anyone ever do it to you?" Carrie asked, calming down as she settled into the chair.
It was a good question. Spider thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "I don't know; I think so. People have gotten me to do things I didn't really want to do."
"Take my word for it, Spider, there is a difference between talking someone into something and that thing that you do. It literally altered my thinking. Made me feel perfectly all right with you walking into a building full of terrorists. Made me think the captain had made the right decision instead of hating his guts. I was perfectly calm through the whole damn thing."
Spider didn't understand Carrie's anger. "And that's a bad thing?"
"Yes . . . Yes it is. I'd rather be scared shitless and have my own feelings, thank you very much." She paused, seeming to calm herself down. "Don't you ever do that to me again." It was a warning.
Spider nodded and looked down at her hands. They had taken so much blood she had holes all over her hands and forearms, and then there was the damned IV. She swore it hurt more than the bullet wound, but right then there was something on her mind more important than pain. She couldn't even look at Carrie.
"Did I make you love me?"
Carrie laughed, shook her head no, and kissed Spider gently on the cheek. "Most assuredly not—this is not wearing off. I can't explain it, but this felt different. I wasn't myself. It was like part of me was shut down. It was creepy, and I hated it."
"I'm sorry that I played in your brain. I won't do it again."
"Good, now go to sleep. I need you fully functional as quick as possible. I have to admit that as stupid as it was, your climbing over three cars and hurling yourself through the air to save me was really a turn on."
He didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. Who the hell did these jokers think they were, shoving their fifth-level government security code in his face and dragging him down here at two in the morning to access his files?
"Download it," the bigger one ordered. Something in the hours of old vid-audio files they had just viewed had obviously pleased him.
"Excuse me?" The captain couldn't believe his ears. "This is her entire record, some of which even I don't have access to. Her psych profile, for instance, is supposed to be completely confidential . . . "
"We have the clearance, Wainwright," the bigger one said. The smaller one just seemed to sit and watch the door, his eyes jerking around in a squirrelly fashion.
"We're talking about a woman's personal life. An officer who just today put her ass on the line to save a bank full of people. Why the hell are you so interested in her, and what right do you think you have to peer into the most personal aspects of her life?"
"Mr. Wainwright, this is strictly on a need-to-know basis. You don't need to know, and believe me, you don't want to. As for Detective Webb's personal life . . . She lives in apartment 6R, Blue Rock apartments on the corner of 5th and Elliot. She's a lesbian who is currently doing the assistant DA. In fact, it looks like they may be setting up house. Her mother died when she was three. Her father was an abusive, overbearing alcoholic. She signed up for military service when she was seventeen, and was stationed to the Middle Eastern theater when she was eighteen. You probably know most of her service record by heart, but did you know that she had a lover in the war, and that the woman was blown to pieces right in front of her? Did you know that she was a prisoner of war for five weeks, and that she escaped from a camp that everyone else died in? She suffers from post traumatic shook syndrome. Her brother was murdered when she was still in the service. A Henry Chambers tried to save him from his attackers and wound up in a coma for his troubles. Spider Webb pays to keep this man in the finest rest home in the city. She visits him almost daily and has long talks with him, although he has never showed one sign of consciousness in sixteen years. She is obsessed with serial killers, mass murderers, and the paranormal, and has probably one of the largest personal collections of books on these subjects in the state . . . "
"Is there a point to all of this?" the Captain asked. "If you already know all that, why do you need the files?"
"The point is that we already know all about Webb's personal life. We're looking for something else in her files, and as I said, you don't want to know what."
"Is that a threat?"
The big one looked at the smaller one, and the smaller one smiled for the first time. The big one looked back at the Captain and smiled; an expression that chilled Wainwright to the bone. "Well, yes. Yes, it was. Now, download the fucking file, and I wouldn't tell anyone anything about any of this if I were you. People who fuck around with this particular—shall we say—problem the government is having, have a peculiar propensity for ending up dead."
"You can't threaten me!" The captain was more than a little flustered. "I'm fucking Captain of the Shea City police force."
The man and his colleague laughed, then the big one said, "Tell you what. File an incident report on us, and see if you still have a wife and kids by two o'clock tomorrow afternoon. This is bigger than you can imagine. The government doesn't care who they have to off. You, me, Webb, we're all way down on the food chain. People have been killed for knowing a hell of a lot less than you know right now. The best thing you can do for yourself and your family is download the fucking file and forget this entire conversation."
The captain downloaded the file.
He didn't tell anyone.
"The doctor has to sign your release, dear," the nurse said for the third time.
Spider looked at Carrie and swung her legs out of the bed. "Screw that; I'm going home."
"You'll play hell, too." Carrie pushed gently but firmly on Spider's shoulder. "Don't be in such a big-assed hurry. Another hour or two isn't going to hurt you."
"Don't you have to go to work?" Spider lay back down. She didn't want to admit it, but sitting up that fast had made her a little dizzy. Not to mention nauseous.
"Under the circumstances, Richards gave me the day off," Carrie said.
"I want to go home. Goddamn it! Where is the fucking doctor already?"
The nurse snuck quietly out of the room.
Carrie laughed and sat on the bed next to Spider.
"What's so damned funny?" Spider asked.
"You're the biggest baby." She leaned over and kissed Spider on the cheek. "Why can't you just calm down and relax?"
"I hate being in the hospital."
"Nobody likes being in the hospital."
Spider looked at her with a raised eyebrow, and Carrie laughed. "Well, nobody sane, anyway."
"It goes a little deeper than just normal dislike. Weird shit happens every time I'm in the hospital. Every time I have a fucking check up, any time I see a fucking doctor, the weirdness factor just shoots straight up there," Spider said.
"Superstition?" Carrie laughed in disbelief. "You're superstitious!"
"If you had my track record with medical personnel, you would be, too. Let's just say that I'm surprised that anyone will even look at me with the bad luck I seem to heap upon medical professionals."
The doctor walked in, then, his leg up to his hip in a cast. "Sorry I'm late." He laughed nervously. "I had a bit of an accident yesterday."
The doctor looked over her chart, checked her pulse, took her temperature and released her.
"How'd you break your leg?" Spider asked.
"Fell down the stairs at home. Damn clumsy of me." The Doctor turned and started to leave, but he turned back around at the door and looked at her for a little while. "You know, you . . . better stay off that leg for a couple of days anyway. Take it easy on it for a couple of weeks. A nurse will be up shortly to check you out." He left.
Spider smiled at Carrie. "What did I tell you?"
Carrie had to admit that was pretty weird. "You're cursed."
Spider wasn't sure that she liked this. She knew she'd told Carrie she would move in with her, but the idea that someone else had packed her things kind of creeped her out. Some of those things were personal, private. The thought that some strange moving company had packed her "stuff" . . . Well, except for the fact that she still had all her shit it was kind of like being robbed.
Then there was the other thing. She had never been to Carrie's "place" before. She had thought Carrie lived in an apartment, however nice.
She didn't. Carrie owned a house, and not exactly a very modest one. It was located in one of the best neighborhoods in Shea City. A house with a pool and "grounds," yet. As soon as she saw it, she felt instantly uncomfortable. She sat in an armchair that no doubt cost more than every piece of furniture that she owned, watching the forty-eight inch screen TV, and trying to take it all in.
"I can't fucking believe this," Spider mumbled. "I really am a kept woman."
She could hear Carrie in the hallway ordering the movers to take Spider's things into this room or that room. She barely won the battle, but she didn't scream, Put my shit back in my apartment, I'm going home!
This was all too fast, and it was scaring the hell out of her. Why had she agreed to this? Why hadn't Carrie given her a little time to think about it? Really think about it, not rush in blind. Hell, she'd never felt less comfortable in her life. Which was really saying something, since she had been a prisoner of war.
You don't move in with someone you've only known for five weeks. It's insane.
She liked to be in control, and now, suddenly she wasn't in control at all. Someone else was making all the decisions that affected her life. Where were her books, and why didn't she get to decide where they went? Because, birdbrain, this isn't your house! You don't have a house anymore! You don't have anything except a pushy, domineering woman who is going to take over your life, and make it a living tormentuous hell!
"Damn it, Carrie!" Spider screamed. When she didn't get any response, she tried to get up and couldn't. She fell back in the chair with a thump. Some sadistic bitch of a nurse had put a brace on her leg so that it couldn't bend at the knee.
"Goddamn it, Carrie!" There was still no response. She screamed still louder. "Goddamn it Carrie!" When there was still no response, she started to undo the brace.
Carrie ran into the room, out of breath. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"What does it look like? I'm taking this fucking shit off so that I can get up and move around. Where the fuck were you? Didn't you hear me?"
It didn't take a genius to figure out that Spider was mad. Carrie sat down across from her and tried to look at her.
Spider looked away.
"I was upstairs, I came as fast as I could. What's wrong, Baby?" She took Spider's hands to stop her from unwrapping the leg further, and to get her complete attention. "Honey, the doctor said not to bend your leg."
"Don't tell me what to do!" Spider screamed back.
Carrie looked at her and smiled. "I'm not telling you what to do, Baby. We decided to move in together, remember? We talked about it."
"But . . . "
"I admit it. I had your stuff moved while you were in the hospital, before you had a chance to change your mind, because I need you with me all the time."
"But . . . "
"You can put your stuff wherever you want it when you get better. Right now I'm just having them put it out of the way. And, no, I'm not going to make you part with anything. It's your stuff, and it belongs in our house."
"That's just it, Carrie . . . This isn't our house. It's your house. I couldn't afford a faucet in this house."
"My grandfather left me a small fortune when he passed away. It was either invest it, or lose the money to taxes. So I bought this house. And this is our house. I finished the paperwork this afternoon . . . "
"Don't do that, Carrie. I don't want you to do that."
"Why not?" Carrie smiled. "You going to leave and sue me for the house?"
Spider looked horrified. "Of course not."
"Then what's the problem? We're together, we're going to be together forever, so . . . Can't you just enjoy the fact that we are together? That we can afford a nice house and a pool? Do you have to worry about where it came from, whose money bought it? If it doesn't matter to me, why should it matter to you? Laura told me you put your death benefits in my name, and you don't see me bitching about it. I know that means commitment to you. Well, guess what, Baby. I'm just as committed to you."
"Tommy!" Spider hissed then muttered. "I guess he tells her fucking everything."
"That's what couples do."
Spider calmed down. She was glad that she was with Carrie, and she supposed she could learn to live in luxury. She forced a smile and nodded. "It'll take some getting used to, that's all. I'm not used to having someone else make decisions for me. You have to admit that it's pretty sad that the only way I can give you anything is if I die"
"You give me things I've never had before, Spider."
One of the movers walked in then. He made Spider immediately uncomfortable. He was on edge, worried or something. She looked right at him and he looked away.
"That's got it, Sir," he said to Carrie.
Spider, still hung over from the drugs they'd given her in the hospital, couldn't quite fix on the guy. She hadn't taken any drugs since she got home and didn't plan to. She'd rather have pain than be groggy. As it was, it was hard to say what might actually be bothering the guy.
Carrie paid him, and he and his partner left.
"I didn't like him," Spider said. "He was worried or something."
Carrie looked in the direction the two men had gone. "He seemed like a nice enough fellow. A good worker."
"I'm still so groggy. I can't be sure, but . . . I think he was hiding something."
Carrie laughed. "Welcome to the world of the mere mortals, my sweet. Imagine never knowing exactly how people feel. Having to trust what they tell you is true." She looked with meaning at Spider.
It took Spider a minute to get what she was hinting at. "You know I love you."
Carrie smiled. "Yes, I think I do. But the point is that you know how I feel about you, and yet you still question my motives."
"I guess I still have trouble believing that anyone as amazing as you could actually love someone like me."
"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I ask myself that same question? Why do you keep selling yourself short? You, my love, are amazing, and I am very fortunate to be loved by you."
"As long as you keep believing that I guess I've got it made."
Carrie would have a fit, but she was at work, and what Carrie didn't know wasn't going to hurt her. So Spider had taken off the offending leg brace and driven to the nursing home.
Spider fixed the pillows behind Henry's head. He didn't sound good today; his breathing was raspy.
"Hey, Henry! You don't sound so good, bud. I'm sorry I didn't get by for a couple of days, but I got a little shot. Nothing bad, just grazed, but Carrie's treating me like a fucking invalid."
She told him all about the hostage situation and moving in with Carrie. She told Henry things she couldn't tell Carrie; things she couldn't tell Tommy. As she always did, she looked for any sign that he might open his eyes and come back to the land of the living. There was nothing, just the raspy breathing. Yet she felt him, felt his presence, could feel his emotions as they changed during the course of their one way conversation and knew that on some level he heard and understood her.
When she was leaving she stopped by the nurses' station. "Henry sounds bad to me."
"He's had a bit of a cold," the nurse answered. "We all have. As long as it doesn't turn into pneumonia, he'll be all right."
All right. He was never going to be all right. Maybe it would be better for everyone if he just died. And maybe his soul lives a very full life in a world we never see or touch or feel, and maybe he needs this body to be alive to live in that world. Who could tell, who knew? Henry was not brain dead. Who knew what went on in his mind? Maybe his life was like one long dream, sometimes bad and sometimes good. Just like her life. She would rather be dead than be like Henry, because you just didn't know. You just couldn't be sure what his life was like. If it was like anything at all.
She had seen horrible things, lived through nightmares. But the unknown was the most terrifying thing of all.