The Midtown Murderer (26 page)

Chapter 61

Trent
ran through the doorway. He hurtled down a metal staircase illuminated by a single yellow bulb that hung in the center of the sloping ceiling. At the bottom he found another open door. In front of him was a square of semidarkness. To his left was the MARTA boarding platform; to his right, at fixed distances along the concrete tunnel, neon strip lighting illuminated the soot-covered walls and twin ribbons of glistening track.

A shadowy figure appeared briefly
under a distant light. Trent dashed after him. It was then that a whoosh of air knocked him to his knees. He regained his footing and flattened himself against the cold wall.

An uptown train had pulled away from the station. The shiny steel cars roared by inches from his face
. Metal rollers screamed against the rails like snarling cats. He caught glimpses of faces and wall posters in the windows. A little girl holding her mother’s hand spotted Trent; she looked astonished and began to point, but the red taillights flickered and the cars disappeared into the void.

Guided by the dim lights, Trent
jogged into the snaking tunnel. A rattling noise echoed in the distance. He hoped like hell it was Butler.

The sound of an approaching train alerted Trent. He glanced behind
. Nothing on my track. A train highballed around a bend in front of him and flashed by in the opposite direction.

Trent
froze against the deafening noise. Suddenly Butler had him around the throat in a skillful choke-hold. “There’s no one here to help you now, Palmer,” he said between angry snorts. He tightened his grip like a maddened gorilla.

They were engaged in a battle
to the death as Trent jabbed his fingers hard behind his shoulder and hit Butler in the eye. That did the trick. Butler screamed and relaxed his hold. Trent twisted and elbowed him hard in the mouth; he felt teeth give.

Butler
cried out in pain and wrapped his arms around Trent’s shoulders. They punched, grappled, and gouged at one another like wrestlers. Trent slipped and fell flat on his back, and Butler came down on top of him.

Trent
kicked him as hard as he could in the groin. His timing was right, as was his judging the distance, and Butler immediately curled into a ball with his hands cupped between his legs. Trent ended up on top, and with both hands he smashed Butler’s head into the concrete with a bang loud enough to echo off the tunnel walls.

Trent
stood on wobbly legs over Butler’s prone body; he figured the man was unconscious or dead. Sweat rolled down his face as hobbled toward the exit. He felt like crying.

Then
he heard a scraping noise. Turning, he saw a shadowy figure staggering toward him. Butler lunged and threw a right hand at Trent’s face. Trent parried the blow then drove his fists into him over and over. Butler screamed, but the punches didn’t slow him. He faked with a jab, then kicked Trent hard on his bad knee.

The pain was blinding and
Trent went down again on his back. Just then a train rushed by; passing no more than a foot in front of him. A blast of wind tousled his hair and spit grit into his eyes. Butler tried to push him into the steel wheels, but Trent pinned his legs around Butler’s hips and lifted. He fell between two cars and was gone.

Trent could see
Butler’s torso and legs as the train rounded the bend. Then he heard a splat, and Butler’s fading scream was like the sound one would make when falling from a great height.

Trent
walked deeper into the tunnel. He stopped beside a vertical steel post that guided heavy-duty electrical cables from the ceiling into the tracks. The post had severed Butler at the waist. Trent flashed his dying light on Butler’s bloody hips and crumpled legs. The train had carried the upper half of his body God knows where.

Trent
climbed the metal stairs out of the underground and sat on the curb. He massaged the fingers of his right hand against the knuckles of his left, which were scraped, bloodied, and hot with numbing pain.

The wind was raw and tearing at his
wet clothes when a Crown Vic slewed to a stop at an angle to the curb. Priest popped his blue flashers and said, “Get in the car, Palmer; you’re going to catch your death.”

Trent slid onto the bench
seat and left the door ajar. He faced Priest and noticed deep lines etched into his brow, like the stress of the last few days had run razors across his skin.

“
Where is he?” Priest said.

“
In the tunnel. Half his body lying across the tracks.” He placed Radcliff’s dented badge on the seat beside Priest.

Priest
had a pistol aimed at Trent’s midsection. “Was Radcliff the Midtown Murderer?”

“I
have no idea,” Trent said. “He left me a message that he’d tumbled to Triple’s lab; said he had to get moving and that he tried to call you.”

“Where were you?”

“Down in Macon,” Trent said, showing Priest the gas receipts. “I found Chloe. She’s at the Lilly Orphanage.”

Priest
grabbed the microphone from a cradle that was bolted to the dash and called this vital information into headquarters. Then he said, “We were on our way to bust the meth lab when we got an anonymous call; did you report the fire?”

“No.
I was in a bar adjacent to Lynn’s when the fire broke out. When I came out I found Radcliff’s star on the pavement. That’s when I spotted Butler crawling out of a manhole cover.”

Suddenly
a man rose up from the back seat and seized Trent by his collar. He jammed his pistol in Trent’s ear and pulled him within inches of his face.

Swinging his gaze,
Trent eyed Butler’s raging expression. Good God, man, he thought. I had it all wrong!

Chapter 62

“Utah was an undercover DEA agent,”
Butler said with savage anger. “He was working with the Atlanta GID to bring down the Apostles; for kicks they hacked out his tongue and shoved his balls down his throat!”

Trent swung his head toward Priest. “Who did I
kill?”

“McClure,”
Butler shrilled in Trent’s ear. “You screwed us good, pal.”

Priest said to Trent, “Remember when Dana whispered
the word ‘but’ before he died?”

“Yes.”

“He was talking about Butch McClure. Not Butler.”

“When I drove you back from the convenience store shooting, why didn’t you tell me?”

“We’d been trailing McClure for weeks,” Priest said. “Earlier that day he finally led us to the lab; we needed him in place while we identified the main players and formed a game plan. We couldn’t allow him to know that his cover was blown.”

“The fight
at the Wire Tap lounge?” Trent asked, swinging his eyes to see where Butler was.

“Real,” Butler said
, his face constricted with anger. “Utah figured McClure would take another shot at you so he tried to run you out of town. Lost a damn good man because of you.”

Trent stared
into the distance at the burned-out property. Ashes were still rising from the ruins like shooting stars. He thought about his encounter with Butler outside the Men’s room. The blood. His determination to uncover Butler’s deceit. A sudden realization astounded and angered. Butler and Priest had set him up, knowing he’d suspect Butler and then call Garcia. That would give them time to move on McClure. Trent had been a step behind. And he’d been used.

“What nobody figured,” Priest said, “was that you’d get your hands on the GID report
; much less find a discrepancy that we overlooked.”

“Who switched the photos
?”

“McClure,” he said. “Butler took the pictures of the original site. McClure inserted the others.”

Trent looked at Butler. “You ought to proofread your work.”

“We’d have tumbled to the switch,” Butler said
bitingly, “but you just couldn’t keep your nose out of it, could you?”

“I gave Priest the information. That was my duty.”

“And he almost died!” Butler bellowed. “Then you killed Roe and Dana! We’ll never know if they compromised other sensitive undercover operations!”

“What about Butterson?”

“Dead,” Priest said. “We sent a team out to bring him in; he opened fire and went down in a hail of lead.”

“Why did McClure kill Ramsey separately?”

“Thanks to you,” Priest said, “that will remain a mystery.”

“
Radcliff will be Public Hero Number One,” Butler said, “and McClure will be credited with killing the Midtown Murderer. Back to the tunnel, Palmer; hands where we can see them or you get it now.”

Trent shook his head bitterly. “Priest,
I saved your life!”

“
We did our absolute damnedest to get you out of town. But no more cops are going down over your mass murders.”

“
You get the Amadou Diallo treatment,” Butler said as caustic a battery acid. “No arrest. No trial. And no questions asked.”

“
Dirty fucking cops.”

It was then that
Elwood slewed the BMW to a stop in front of the Crown Vic. Jake and Elwood popped out of the car and ran toward the Crown Vic with M93 Raffica machine pistols drawn like in a John Woo movie. Trent rolled to the asphalt as Jake and Elwood backed slowly toward the BMW while hosing the Crown Vic and its occupants with dozens and dozens of parabellum rounds.

Chapter 6
3

“Run to the Beemer
!” Elwood shouted, right before the Crown Vic went up in a white flash that bloomed into clouds of black smoke. The explosion was deafening, and an invisible fist knocked Trent to the ground. Jake helped him to his feet, and they dove into the BMW’s backseat while the Crown Vic made a hot-metal sprinkle in the general area.

Elwood
hit the gas like a sledgehammer, wheeling around the corner where they were gobbled up into the streaming traffic and confusion from the explosions. “Un-fucking-believable!” he said, glancing anxiously in his rearview mirror. “That was some wicked shit you pulled off back there.”

Trent
had wrapped his arms around himself and was rocking back and forth.

“Take it easy,
Mr. Bad-Ass,” Jake said, putting a hand on Trent’s shoulder. “We got your backside.”

“
Yeah, man,” Elwood said. “We got you covered.”

Jake
was staring at Trent with something like wonder. “Got to hand it to you,” he said, stashing the M93’s under the seat. He handed Trent a North Face down jacket and said, “You stuck it to those fuckers but good.”

When they
drove close to the downtown, Trent heard the chop of helicopter blades from several news-station helicopters stationed overhead. Smoke the color of dirty concrete poured from the crater that was once Lynn’s clinic. Hundreds of people were still watching from the sidewalks and streets. Fire engines and EMS ambulances were everywhere.

Elwood turned on the radio. The first words were “Atlanta warzone.” He flipped to CNN who was promoting a special,
“Chaos reigns in Atlanta.” Wolf Blitzer was broadcasting live from the scene of the deadly explosions downtown. “Long hours of fear . . .” Elwood turned off the radio.

Trent donned the coat and said,
“McClure, the crooked cops, and the gangsters are all dead.” He added, “I want this to be over now; I want to be a citizen again, like you promised.”

Jake was holding a Desert Eagle .45 casually in his lap.
“Elwood and I have a dilemma.” His eyes were flat on the other end of the barrel.

“
What dilemma?”

“You are just red
fucking hot right now; so hot it could raise the temperature on our employer. Smart move would be to ice you. Right Elwood?”

“Yeah, Jake, that would be the smart play
,” Elwood said nervously.

“After all I’ve done for you-”

“Wait a second,” Jake said, holding his hand palm out toward Trent. “Our dilemma is this: You are definitely a man of honor. That firefight could have turned to shit; but you showed courage and determination against overwhelming odds. You did what you said you were going to do.”

“
You kept quiet and kept the trust between us,” Elwood said over his shoulder. “And you never complained. Those are all points in your favor. Hard to find those qualities in a man nowadays.”

“
All that carries weight,” Jake said. “Truth is, you didn’t kill those crooked cops and gangsters; they killed themselves. Murdering bastards always get what’s coming to them.”

“
As far as I’m concerned, Trent, you’re golden,” Elwood said, steering with his knee and popping the tops on three ice-cold Heinekens. He set his on the teak dash, then handed two beers over his shoulder and said, “What do you say Jake?”

Trent caught a glimpse of
Elwood’s gold ring and the initials ‘L’ and ‘E’ on the face as he handed the beers over.

“You gotta be able to
honor and trust a man,” Jake said, sipping his beer. “I can definitely trust my back to Trent Palmer.” He chugged half his brew and patted a black duffle bag with red trim on the seat beside him. “Here’s one million in squeaky clean cash and traveler’s checks and several professionally tailored ID’s. All for a job well done.”

“It represents freedom, Trent,” Elwood said. “A chance to regain your
life. Start a new family.”

“Sounds
like a great Christmas present.”

“You
’re A-list material,” Jake said.

“Never did get your names,” Trent said, a
growing suspicion gnawing at his insides.

“Don’t see how it could hurt,” Elwood said, glancing
at Jake in the rearview mirror.

“I’m Jake Moore
; your driver is Leslie Elwood.”

Trent tipped his beer at them and said, “Pleased to meet you
guys.”

“
Hand over the merchandise and you’re on your way,” Jake said, scratching the bottle’s label with the large gold ring on his index finger.

As they sped under the sodium street lights,
Trent could clearly see the letters ‘J’ and ‘M’ inside the pentacle on the face of Jake’s ring. The tumblers were clicking behind his eyes as the face of the ring flashed repeatedly like a death star pointing the way back to Sylvia’s brutal murder.

“Drive to the Piedmont Secure Storage facility
,” Trent said, holding out the cyber key to Jake. “It’s on Juniper and Thirteenth. This key will get us into the unit; that’s where the weapons are stashed.”

“Is
all the merchandise there?”

“Twelve brand-new M
4 12-gauge combat shotguns with several cases of Magnum slugs. And twelve MANPADS loaded and ready for action.”

“
And just in time for Mr. Big who’s flying in from Miami this morning to collect his merchandise,” Elwood said, pounding the dash with his fist. “Way to go, Trent!”

“
You heard the honorable man, Elwood, step on it.”

“Yes, sir
!”