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  Spree: Part Three

  The Big Kill

  Michael Morley

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  1

  Lawndale, LA

  Angie had been caught by surprise.

  The man in the mask had a baseball bat across her throat. His hands gripped both ends and he had her trapped against the back wall of Eva Hart’s house. She was eye to eye with him and his smell was all over her. Cheap cooking oil and southern fried chicken.

  If she didn’t act quickly she knew she’d pass out.

  Her FBI training kicked in and she kicked out. Drove her right knee into his testicles.

  The scumbag woofed in pain and the bat slackened enough for her to wriggle free. She shifted her balance and swung a low kick at the back of his legs.

  He stumbled into an even darker part of the yard.

  Angie followed with a crisp left-hander that clipped his right cheek.

  He was beaten and they both knew it.

  One hard punch with her right and this cowardly punk was going down spitting teeth.

  She stepped forward to swing and felt a blow from an unseen enemy—a trash can.

  Her balance went. She stumbled. Dropped to her hands and knees.

  The attacker kicked a supporting arm and sent her sprawling.

  Angie felt pain shoot from wrist to shoulder as she collapsed.

  He kicked at her head and body. Booted any part of her he could see.

  She slid the one good arm across her stomach to protect the baby.

  A foot rocked her head. She tasted salt and iron. Blood flowed over her teeth.

  Light cracked from the back door and fell on her.

  Angie’s heart sank. If the old lady was there he was certain to turn on her. Finish what he’d started.

  There was a gunshot.

  And another.

  Then a crashing sound.

  The noise of fence panels being climbed or broken.

  Another shot rang out.

  Then silence.

  She lay in pain. Fluttering fingers touched her face. They smelled of night cream. A hesitant voice asked, “Are you all right?”

  Angie struggled to sit upright. “I think my arm’s broken.”

  “Oh, dear.” The old lady waved the gun dangerously. “Are you police?”

  Angie could smell the weapon. “No, I’m not, I’m FBI, ma’am.” She stared down the barrel being shaken in her face. “Can you give me that gun, please, and call 911.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, of course.” She handed over the weapon and slipper-shuffled back inside.

  Angie got herself up and was able to sit on the back step. She spat out blood and got her breath back. A few feet away lay the overturned trash can she’d knocked into. Just to the right, half in and half out of the light, there was something else.

  A black rucksack.

  Involuntary grunts escaped as she got to her feet and wandered toward it. She was pretty certain she knew what it contained.

  His rape kit.

  2

  Murphy’s Ranch, Rustic Canyon, LA

  Jake had been hit by several rounds from the MAC-10. He lay stunned and waited for pain to erupt in various parts of his body. It never came, because layers of Kevlar had done their job.

  He rolled out of the blinding glare of the roof-mounted xenon and looked toward the derelict power station. SKU were still “sweeping” the rooms inside. Shouts of “Clear” broke the warm night air.

  Ruis Costas appeared, concern etched in his brow. “You okay, boss?”

  “I’m fine.” Jake’s voice gave away his disappointment. He got to his feet and saw at least two of his men had been hit.

  Chuck Warren had a hand on his right thigh and was pushing hard to stop a bleed. A copter blew up dust. Ruis had to shout above the noise. “Medic will be with you any second, just hang in there.”

  Jake knelt alongside Sammy Nicholson, a rookie who’d taken two in the helmet. Kid had been fortunate; neither had gone through, but he was sitting up in the dirt, his face white as a sheet.

  “You’ve been lucky,” said Jake, peering into his eyes. “A bit of concussion, that’s all. Tomorrow night you’ll be downing shots and bragging it up with your buddies.”

  “I don’t feel so damned lucky,” Nicholson managed.

  Jake left him and went over to the crashed motorcycle.

  Emma-Louise Bakker was dead. There was no need to even check for a pulse. She’d hit the tree head-first and broken her neck.

  He kicked the gun lying in the dirt alongside the corpse of Wayne Harris’s teenage girlfriend. It was a micro-Uzi. Fashion toy for the bad guys.

  Ruis joined him and wiped blood on his combat pants. “Harris is dead, too.”

  Jake shielded his eyes from the still glaring light of the giant xenon on the top of the old building. “Where the hell did that thing come from?”

  “Come and see.” He walked his boss toward the old power station. “There are two dead guys inside. Looks like they were filming here when Wayne rode up. The big light is part of their equipment.”

  The SKU men entered the building and Jake saw the bodies in a far corner. It was easy to work out what had gone down. The walls around them were covered in graffiti and blood. Harris and the girl had herded them over there with the guns. Paper handkerchiefs, discarded wallets, small photos and coins lay around their feet. They’d been robbed. Emma-Louise had taken their phones, cards and cash while her crazy boyfriend had pointed his machine pistol at them. Jake finished the last of his thoughts out loud. “Punk just killed them for the sake of it.”

  “Looks that way,” answered Ruis. “There’s a camera and tripod over there.” He pointed to the opposite corner. “I think the girl filmed it, snuff-movie style.”

  “Fuck.” Jake remembered orders he’d given. “Hadn’t we checked this area for filming permits and such?”

  “We had. Not everyone who films has a permit. They must have just winged it. Planned to save a few bucks because they were doing something cheap.”

  Jake saw a clipboard against the wall. He picked it up. Several sheets of paper flapped. It was part of a script. “They were filming something called The Big Scare. Names on the top are Luke Henrik and Joey J. Aston.”

  Ruis was bent over the bodies. He spotted a photo ID in a gritty pool of drying blood. “One on the right is Luke.”

  “Someone best find their next of kin and call the cops. Make sure that camera footage stays with us. I don’t ever want to see a frame of this on YouTube.”

  3

  Lawndale, LA

  Emergency services arrived at Eva Hart’s house within ten minutes of being called.

  The local cops hit the streets and got a copter with night sun lighting and thermal imaging to comb the area for the perp.

  Paramedics patched Angie up. She had dislocated her right elbow and there was a chance of a hairline fracture or chipped bone as well. She’d need an X-ray and possibly a cast or sling. Aside from that, there was extensive bruising to the shoulders and face. Her lip was split but no teeth were busted and she didn’t need stitches. Most important, they were confident the baby was unhurt.

  Angie refused a ride to the hospital and promised to go later. She wanted to c
omfort Eva, who’d gone to pieces after she’d been told the man she’d shot at in the dark was most likely the one who’d previously attacked her.

  Two female officers were helping calm her down when Cal O’Brien turned up. He stood in the back doorway talking to a CSI and gave Angie a look that said he wanted a private word.

  She excused herself and joined him.

  His eyes immediately roamed her torn clothes, bloodied face and bandaged arm. “Please tell me the other guy looks worse than you.”

  “He does. But that’s not thanks to me. Our brave old lady shot him.”

  “She hit him?”

  “There’s blood in the yard, so I’d say yes.”

  “Good for her.” He looked back to the yard. CSIs were bagging and tagging under a blaze of lights. “Maybe we’ll catch a break.”

  “Bad choice of words.” Angie lifted her bandaged arm and winced.

  “Sorry. Did the old girl see him?”

  “No. She just came out frightened and firing. She’s one plucky lady. From what I could learn, she’s got no one to come and stay with her. Can you fix protection and social support?”

  “Can try. Best protection is to catch this scum.”

  “I’ve got something that might help with that. Take a look at that rucksack; he left it.”

  O’Brien dug in his jacket pocket and pulled out gloves. The top of the sack was buckled down, inside tied with a drawstring and toggle. He opened it and tipped out the contents.

  The heap of objects included a pair of sex shop handcuffs, five or six lengths of cut rope, rolls of silver gaffer tape, a hunting knife, a pair of pliers and a thick roll of black trash can liners.

  O’Brien moved the bags.

  Underneath was a length of wood about eighteen inches long and two inches square.

  They both silently considered the stave and the lives that had been ruined with it.

  “Please God,” implored O’Brien, “let me find this lowlife, let him resist arrest and give me good cause to blow his fucking head off.”

  4

  Rustic Canyon Park, LA

  It was gone 3:00 a.m. when SKU finished at Murphy’s Ranch.

  As Jake drove to Angie’s he reflected on how they’d found the young filmmakers’ van parked at the back of the power station, out of camera shot and deep under a canopy of trees. Ruis Costas had been right. They’d cut corners and come filming without a permit. It had been a shortcut that saved a few bucks but cost them their lives.

  Jake hadn’t called Angie because he’d presumed she’d be asleep, so he was surprised to find the light on when he crept into the apartment. He was horrified to find her sitting in PJs on the sofa, with her arm in a sling and her face cut and bruised.

  “Jesus Christ, what happened to you?” He dropped his jacket and knelt down beside her.

  She put her head on his shoulder. “I got myself beaten up.”

  “What?”

  She knew he’d be cross. “I took a ride out to Lawndale to see where the rapist had failed during an attack, and he came back.”

  “You what?”

  “Please, don’t start up with a lecture.”

  “And you tackled this guy?”

  She sat up and grimaced. “I had no choice. I was checking out the old lady’s house and there he was in the yard, complete with freaky ski mask.”

  “I’m guessing from your injuries he’s now downtown having what’s left of him patched up?”

  “No, no he’s not.” She sounded tired and strained now. “I fell over a damned trash can.” She looked at him. “Don’t you dare laugh at me. I was just about to plant a punch that would have knocked him all the way to the bullpen when I fell over it and ended up taking an air shot.”

  “I wasn’t going to laugh.” The twitch in the corner of his mouth said otherwise. “How bad’s the arm?”

  “Not as bad as it looks. He kicked me and I thought he’d broken the elbow but he hasn’t. It’s a dislocation and bad swelling. O’Brien ran me to the hospital. Hurt like hell when they reset it.”

  He tweaked her bandage a little. “What’s under the sling? Plaster or splints?”

  “Splint—a neat little fiberglass number.”

  “You almost make it sound sexy.”

  She gave him a stay-away look. “Don’t even think of coming near me for the next few days.”

  “Not even to kiss away your bruises and bring you drinks and snacks whenever you need them?”

  “Yeah, I guess that would be allowed.”

  “Any other injuries?”

  “None to worry about, Doctor Mottram.”

  He put a hand tenderly to her face. “You know, pregnant ladies shouldn’t be fighting in the street.”

  She leaned into his big, safe hand. “Yeah, I’m sure I read something in the books about not fighting homicidal rapists late at night during the first trimester.”

  He kissed her head and stroked her hair the way he knew she liked it.

  Angie grew somber. “I scared myself tonight, Jake. Right in the middle of the fight I forgot all the training, all those years of martial arts I’d done. I just curled up in a ball to protect the baby and let him kick away. If this sweet old dear, Eva Hart, hadn’t come out shooting like Annie Oakley, God knows what would have happened.”

  “You were thinking like a mom, not a trained soldier, that’s only natural.”

  “I know. But it means the piece of shit escaped. Someone else is going to get hurt—maybe raped or killed—because I didn’t tough things out.”

  Jake shifted alongside Angie and carefully wrapped a protective arm around her. “You’re being stupid now. If anything, it sounds like your intervention saved an old lady’s life.”

  “Maybe.” She couldn’t help but feel sad and exhausted. “I just wish I’d got him.”

  “You will.” He prized himself free, stood up and offered an arm to help her off the couch. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

  Angie took it and made faces as she got to her feet. “How was your night?”

  “Eventful,” said Jake. “I’ll tell you when you’ve had some sleep.”

  5

  California

  Shooter had managed to finish work early.

  He’d started his shift faking a dose of flu, and after five hours of coughing, nose blowing and acting listlessly, his boss had sent him home.

  There had been good reason for wanting the time off, and it had nothing to do with feeling ill or simply swinging the lead like so many of his coworkers did.

  He had history to make.

  And making it required him to do something special.

  FOCUS.

  Right at the beginning of his mission he’d writ the word large. Cut his finger with an art knife and daubed the blood on a sheet of white cartridge paper until he’d completed the five letters.

  FOCUS.

  You could do nothing without it. Ask great athletes. Consult business gurus. Talk to spiritual and yogic leaders. They’ll all tell you the same thing.

  FOCUS is everything.

  So much of Shooter’s early life had lacked it. He’d wasted so many years of his life because of desperate rage that couldn’t be vented.

  Then he’d learned.

  The hard way, of course. The way the best lessons of life are drilled in and remembered forever.

  There’d been a teacher, a powerful bear of a man who’d made his life hell. He’d failed him on tests. Humiliated him in class. Threatened privately to “beat the living crap” out of him. For a whole year, this teacher had ground him down.

  Shooter had thought long and hard about what to do—how to clear the pain from his mind and assuage the anger eating away inside him.

  He’d waited two long months to put his plan into action.

  On the last day of term, art teacher Harry Hennessy had kissed his wife and kids good-bye. He’d driven his old Chevy convertible off the drive of their modest home and set out early to beat the traffic into school.


  A mile out he’d hit the brakes.

  A mile and twenty yards out he’d careered across an intersection and slammed into a wall.

  Hennessy hadn’t died.

  Nor had Shooter intended him to.

  He had been crippled, though. The impact had thrown him through the windscreen, broken several bones and blinded him.

  Shooter had seen the way Hennessy drove—fast, reckless, never buckled up. The thought of an art teacher not being able to see, not being able to criticize—well, that was too delicious to resist.

  So he’d focused on it.

  He’d waited until the night before the last day of school. Then he’d rolled under the car and cut the brake pipes. Not all the way through, of course, just enough for them to work once or twice before failing. He’d rightly figured that the teacher would be happiest and most careless on his last working day before the long summer break.

  That day had changed Shooter’s life.

  It had empowered him. Shown him the alchemy of taking base thoughts and turning them into golden memories.

  Now he was ready to focus again.

  Shooter showered and changed.

  There was no time for food or rest. He went straight to the room he called Death Row.

  He’d erected a shelf below the corkboard and placed electric candles there to create a greater sense of occasion when he opened the door. The effect was wonderful. Everything he’d hoped for. Little Amy looked so lovely in the flickering light. Gina, too. And Zach was handsome. Handsome and proud of the new ladies in his life. His afterlife.

  Sadly, the twelve newcomers, the ones from the mall, didn’t seem at home yet. They looked displaced. Awkward. Even uncomfortable at being there. Strangers in a strange land. But not for long. The world was getting to know them—to ask why they’d been united in death—and once he’d focused, truly focused and delivered what he’d promised himself, Shooter would reveal all the answers.

  6

  Douglas Park, Santa Monica

  Jake left Angie propped up on a pillow and sleeping while he showered and shaved.