Life as a New Hire Ch. 19

Fact digestion time for the two law dogs. Brewster recovered faster.

"But why was Ferko Nyilas murdered?" he asked.

"The men didn't come to kill him," Pamela kept talking about the tea and crumpets. "They probably showed up to escort him to a place where some far more important scumbags could talk with him."

"The all-girl squad was there and Ferko was caught in the crossfire," Lisa mumbled. "Why was there a firefight if his life was in danger and both sides wanted him alive?"

"Stupidity," Pamela replied. "Give any group of people guns and then surprise them, stupid shit happens - I apologize Cáel."

"I don't buy that," Brewster said. "They simply started shooting at each other - no."

"Okay Horace, let me break it down for you. The ladies were told to go there and guard the guy without being told why. The men who showed up were most likely told to grab Ferko without knowing why either."

"That makes no sense," Lisa protested.

"Congratulations. That is why Cáel can't talk to you anymore," Pamela smirked. "This is the sort of crap he has inadvertently been caught up with - no fault of his own. If he did any of this on purpose, I'd kill him myself."

"He is some poor schmuck who only wanted a 7-5 job, to make tons of money and bedding a different girl every night," Pamela teased me. "He's no criminal mastermind, or even a convincing criminal. If he has a failing it is that he tends to merely beat up people who deserve to have their spleens ripped out instead. I'm training him to be smarter than that."

"Who are you?" Brewster gawked. Pamela gave a sinister smile. Lisa looked at me.

"I've fought a woman with a twelve foot stick with a pointy bit of metal at the end with little thought to my personal safety. This lady (Pamela) scares me. She is with me because I have no means of stopping her and I put saving others a great deal of pain and suffering over my own unsettled nerves."

"Do you really think you are that good?" Lisa half-turned around to face Pamela.

"Do you want your gun back?" Pamela offered up a police issue Glock-22, grip first. My kind of gun. How sad. I was too depressed to seduce Officer Lisa. Brewster reached around to check is firearm. It was still there, much to his relief.

"How did you do that?" Lisa wondered as she retrieved and inspected her weapon. Pamela tapped Brewster's shoulder with the man's magazine. Brewster was aghast. She'd stolen his gun, taken out the ammo and returned it without him noticing.

"I found it on the floor. The truth is a bit more expensive than you are willing to pay at the moment, believe me," Pamela grinned.

Why had Pamela showboated? She was buying me some mental respite. She was also exhibiting to the two police folks that there might be some truth to her outlandish tale of criminal conspiracies. Unlike the other Amazons, Pamela knew we had to maintain friendly relations with some part of law enforcement if I was going to bury my Father.

(The Medical Examiner's Office)

So much happens in life we rarely put the timespan of events in context. Talking with a person in line who turns out to make your day better/worse, become a friend and/or a date. In a matter of a few seconds your life has been altered. Two minutes later and you would have missed getting the concert tickets where you meet your future - whomever.

Two minutes sooner and you get caught in the 'speed trap' instead of the other poor sap who you drive past as they sit on the side of the road keeping the patrol officer company. His/her insurance rate goes up while you have that extra money for later. Had we arrived two minutes earlier to the morgue - disaster aborted. Two minutes later would have equated to a frustrating mystery.

Life was not so kind. It was the same group as before; Detective Lisa, Investigator Horace, Rachel and I. We had just added an Assistant Medical Examiner who was going over information garnered from the autopsy with the two cops. Pamela was 'checking things out', whatever that meant. The key to it all was Rachel being Rachel.

Security Detail are more than simply elite fighting-women. They are also bodyguards, security specialist and normally stack a third specialty into the mix. When Rachel spotted five armed people in the hallway right outside the Medical Examiner's autopsy room, her alertness spiked. Only one was a uniformed police officer. Rachel was still gun-less.

The two EMS personnel rolling an occupied body bag out on a gurney shouldn't have had on their heavy jackets on a late June afternoon. The other two men were chatting about something. That wasn't unusual. Where they were standing was - to Lisa's experienced eye. Rachel's heightened anxiety made Lisa double-check everything.

Horace didn't know what was wrong yet when Lisa's hand came to rest on her piece, he put his hand on his Ruger SR45.

"Excuse me," Lisa called out. No one stopped moving. "Excuse me," Lisa demanded in a louder voice. "I am Detective Lisa Capella, Chicago Police Department - Homicide Division. What is going on?"

That was a reach. Bodies exit the morgue all the time. The two people with the body made sense. The two 'odd' fellows weren't breaking any law. In cop-talk, this was called 'gut instinct'. She produced her badge. There was a quick look by the two ambulance folk to the farther of the two 'talking' men.

That group were rather competent, just not competent conmen. The two EMS guys turned and tried to give Lisa a causal look.

"What can we do for you, officer?" the designated diplomat asked nonchalantly.

"Whose body is that?" Lisa inquired.

"I'm not sure; all we do is pick 'em up and take them to the appropriate funeral home," he shrugged.

"Take ten seconds and show me the release order," Lisa gave a chilly command. The cop at the far end of the hall - the one with the door that lead to the loading/unloading area, was starting to clue in that something wasn't right.

"Oh, by the Great Pumpkin, this is bad," Brewster muttered under his breath like a thousand other fathers who engaged in the daily struggle to not curse at work so they wouldn't curse around their children.

"Of course, Detective Capella," the diplomat nodded. "Is there a problem?" He carefully pulled out his smart phone and handed it over.

Lisa wasn't born yesterday. She handed the phone to me instead of looking at it herself. She was keeping her eyes on the guys with guns. They really did have an order to transfer my Father to a mortuary. Apparently I had requested this be done - without my knowledge.

"Cáel Nyilas requested his father be taken to the Green Meadows mortuary in Cicero," I informed Lisa, Rachel and Horace.

"I need to talk to Mr. Nyilas," Lisa informed them. "If I can't talk to him, I can't let the body leave this building. This is an ongoing investigation." The 'diplomat' was worried yet Lisa had given him an out. After I returned his phone, he called his off-site boss, who gave him a number which the diplomat gave to Lisa. Lisa called 'me' without my phone ringing.

Even so, 'I' confirmed the authorization. The four gunmen relaxed as Lisa hung up.

"One more question," Lisa pulled a 'Columbo', "was this a rush job, or are you all 'not ready for prime time players'?" The 'diplomat' made one last lunge at deception.

"Detective Capella, our work order is legitimate," he shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what you mean?"

"Funeral homes have their own uniforms; they do not dress as EMS," Lisa deconstructed their illusions. "The bodies of murder victim are not released by the Medical Examiner until a cause of death is known and that information is released to the homicide detective assigned to the case - that would be me, if there was any doubt.

Your two buddies down the hall could have read and critiqued the Magna Carta in the time it has taken for you to do your 'song and dance'," Lisa pointed out. "Oh, and the real Cáel Nyilas is standing next to me. Whoever talked with me on the phone is going to jail too. Now I suggest the four of you face the wall, put your hands over your head, palms against the wall and no one will get hurt."

Darwin check time - they drew their guns. Of course they drew their guns. Why would they not draw their guns considering the farthest enemy was all of 4 meters away and the only immediately cover was my Dad's horizontal corpse? Gurneys tend to be lightweight and mostly empty space.

The quickest on the draw was one of the two 'talkers'. He whipped out a .357 Magnum revolver and popped two shots into the police officer next to him - right in the center mass at less than 2 meters - ouch. Rachel was next, making a diving front roll between the two cops, toward the two fake EMS guys. I was right behind her, except my plan was to vault Dad's body and get at the second talker. I was not acting sanely.

The second talker went in the next split second. He had brought a sawed-off automatic shotgun to the fight. His first salvo blew a chunk out of the wall next to Lisa's hip. She was less than an eye-blink behind as she put two slugs into the 'diplomat's' armored chest. He was kind enough to drop his Mac-11 from his twitching fingers and into Rachel's hands.

Less than a single heartbeat later, the 'diplomat's EMS buddy revealed his own Mac-11. His mistake was not shooting his first target - Brewster. He was tracking Rachel and me instead, hoping to catch us together in a spray of lead. The general feeling was that, for all his law enforcement experience, Investigator Brewster had never actually shot at anyone before.

His cop instincts kicked into overdrive. The perpetrators appeared to be wearing body armor and possessed a small arsenal of illegal weapons. His aim tweaked up, he pulled the trigger and a .45 ACP round effectively decapitated his target - our first confirmed casualty. My encounter with the Latin Kings had been a lesson in poor tactical flexibility.

This time, by unspoken agreement, the two talkers were exercising their tactical acumen as they began withdrawing toward the exit. With the short range, width of the hall and lack of cover, being shot at by a shotgun, or a .357 didn't make much difference. I was trying to jump onto the gurney and launch myself at the two when my toe caught on the bottom of Dad's body, turning my heroic rush into a face-plant on Father.

The men's cover fire worked on Lisa and Horace. Lisa, being more exposed, had to dive flat. Horace crouch-ran to Rachel. Rachel, with her submachine gun, was firing a steady stream of bullets from between the gurney's top surface and bottom shelf. Her shots shattered shotgun guy's shins and blasted off his knee caps.

As that bastard screamed and toppled forward, Rachel emptied the magazine into both his thighs and his right hip. By the copious nature of the blood spray, an artery had been clipped, if not severed. Horace grabbed the back of my jacket and yanked me off the gurney, down to his side. Lisa fired off a few shots at the vanishing leader, but he was already out the door.

Rachel was rifling the closest EMS's headless body, looking for a fresh clip for the M-11.

"Don't," Horace cautioned her. Lisa was running to the door.

"Rachel, leave the gun and follow me," I commanded.

"Wait," Horace called out. He was in an impossible situation. The bold Assistant ME began looking for any survivors, starting with the diplomat.

Detective Capella was chasing after a possible cop-killer. I was already running after Lisa and Horace couldn't ride herd on Rachel, catch me and support Lisa all at once. Rachel muttered [OKH] 'dirty goat' at my fleeting form. I was sure its true meaning was far nastier.

"Da-darn it," Horace grimaced as he started rushing after the three of us.

I doubted it was any consolation to Horace that Lisa shot me an evil look when I caught up to her at the loading dock. There were no cars peeling away and had the bad guy fled out the huge doors 15 meters away, she would have seen him. Rachel arrived next.

"Secure my Father's body," I instructed. She wasn't pleased but she wasn't talking back either.

Horace showed up last of all. He was talking over his walky-talky, updating the Chicago PD on all the crazy, tragic crap that had gone down. Rachel slipped past Horace on her way back to Dad. The unspoken order was for her to re-arm and stay close, something she couldn't do under Horace's watchful gaze. Lisa and Horace were working out a plan to take their perpetrator down and it didn't include me. I was a civilian after all.

My thinking was traipsing in a different direction. They were thinking criminal evasion. I was thinking stone cold, bad-ass killer. He may have already killed one police officer in cold blood. Why not make it three? There was also the mathematics of it all. Two guns are more likely to hit a target than one - I had learned that bit of tactical insight from my time with Aya.

My disadvantage was my advantage. I didn't have a gun so I didn't have to position myself so I could shoot at anyone else.

"Here I go," I alerted the two officers. My body was flying onto the loading deck before they could stop me. My cockamamie idea saved my life.

Maybe he thought I stumbled and lost my piece. Maybe, at the last second, he saw through my deception. Maybe he was wondering what the last episode of 'Defiance' would be like. We'll never know. According to Lisa, he was tracking my fall with his .357 Magnum. He didn't shoot because he only had two bullets left, hadn't been able to reload yet and his Berretta 9 mm back-up pistol was on the other side of his body.

Two bullets - two cops, he was probably sure he could beat me to death. Anyway, when he figured out the sacrificial lamb was the unarmed me, he returned his aim to the entryway, Lisa and Horace. The guy wasn't behind any sort of cover. He was pressed against the wall so he wouldn't be able to bring his other pistol into play inside that first split second.

When Lisa shot him, it had to hurt, but didn't put him down. She shot again - missed. He shot, missed, shot again hitting Lisa and knocking her back and down. The leader pivoted off the wall, bringing his Berretta to bare on Investigator Brewster. A lifetime inside the blink of an eye - Horace's bullet hit the criminal - major brain splatter. Poor Horace.

Horace was falling onto his side, taking a wild shot and hoping to keep the gunman from shooting Lisa and I when he accidentally ended the man's existence. The lead bad guy's final shot zipped passed Horace's left shoulder, over my legs and ricocheted off the loading dock wall and into space.

Good old Lisa, she staggered to her feet then stumbled over to the gunman, seeking some signs of life. He was alive. Horace's .45 slug had 'only' removed the top half of his brain so the heart and lungs were still being told to beat and breath. As she was making her own call for Emergency Services, a piece of the man's skull that had been clinging to the wall plopped down.

That broke Horace. He began vomiting. I rolled over to a sitting position. Rachel peeked in then utilized her blue tooth to stop the rest of the SD team from swarming me in a public building. Cops began showing up. As soon as Detective Capella had made her initial report and dealt with the traumatic injuries among the survivors, she turned on me.

"Are you insane!" she screamed at yours truly.

"Yes," I muttered. "I've been trying to tell you that for over an hour now."

"This is not a joking matter," Lisa moved into my personal space. Was I really so far gone I didn't want sex? Nah...I could do her. "I could have killed people."

"To be fair," I stood up, "you didn't kill anyone." The policeman was clinging to life, the 'diplomat' had been saved by his body armor and the second talker's prospects didn't look promising. "Horace buried two and I'm betting the guy Rachel shot isn't going to survive having both his femoral arteries cut.

Two decades of Law & Order has taught me that some sort of Internal Affair's investigation is going to happen. I imagine there is a great deal of surveillance video so you should be vindicated quickly. We are still going to part ways for a while," I pointed out. "Take care." I made to leave.

"Where do you think you are going?" Lisa grabbed my arm. "You were involved in a gunfight in a major municipal building. You can't walk away."

"Yes I can," I grunted. "Horace, I've pointed you at the dead bodies," I told the Burnham investigator.

"Good luck," I patted him on the shoulder. The look he came back with wasn't one of resigned defeat. Oh no, he was going to figure out what the fuck was going on, or else. The rest of the Chicago PD wasn't letting to let us leave either, so off Rachel and I were taken to the closest Precinct where we were non-communicative.

(Back with the Feds)

Theodora rescued me and Rachel into Federal custody where we were equally useless. It didn't take me long to figure out that, compared to Rachel, I was being downright verbose. If me being a jackass was a bonus for the Feds, they didn't exhibit an ounce of appreciation. I really loved Special Agent John Rios getting all 'super ass-kicker' on me.

I was looking at 'serious' federal jail time. I was a 'domestic terrorist' and under the Patriot Act...then I fell out of my chair laughing. I was fatigued - my ability to separate desire from reality was fading plus I always fought back with my wits before my fists.

"I've been awake for thirty-six hours," I chuckled as I regained my seat.

"What is your excuse for being delusional?" I snorted.

"I trip up cocky bastards like you all the time," John sat on the table, hovering above me. "You think you've got all the angles covered. You don't, Mr. Nyilas. People like you take things for granted, screw up and then you are all turning on each other like rats."

"Ugh," I sighed. "Fine, Brainiac, what am I doing wrong? To clarify the question for you, what crime am I involved with that makes me a criminal, a terrorist, or a criminal terrorist?"

"Guns, Cáel Nyilas," John sneered. "With all the people running around with all those firearms, it is pretty freaking obvious."

"Wow...uh...John..." I started.

"Special Agent Rios," John interrupted.

"John, and I'm calling you John in the hopes that you will get pissy like a little school wench and storm out in a tantrum," I continued, "did my Father have any illegal guns on his premises that weren't brought in by one of his attackers?"

"Why did such heavily armed assailants show up unless they were expecting a nasty firefight?" Rios stabbed a finger at me.

"Ask Horace and Lisa," I grinned. "As soon as they finish their Internal Affairs investigation, I might help them figure that out.

They are honest, hard-working law enforcement agents, unlike you, you mentally-bereft catamite," I finished. "I want my lawyer. Now scoot and don't let the Patriot Act hit you in the fundamentals on the way out." John glared then left. Time passed, my Havenstone-hired lawyer sat down with me and we went over the case.

Winslow Pratt was from a nice law firm. He also knew nothing about what was going on, or he gave me no signal he knew jack about real events. He wanted to know the truth. I told him my Dad had been murdered, I had come from my home in New York City to Chicago/Burnham to bury him and settle his estate. What did I want? To see my family home, to get a good night's sleep and go home without being shot at again.

He encouraged me to trust him. I asked why. He said he was my lawyer. I repeated, 'why should I trust you'. He could only help me if I told him everything.

"If that's the case, you are clearly substandard and you are fired. Good bye," I dismissed him.

"Mr. Nyilas, you don't understand the serious nature of your case," Winslow kept at it.

"I'll make it easy on you," I shook my head. "What do the cops know?"