Life Goes On | Book 4 | If Not Us [Surviving The Evacuation] Tayell, Frank (classic books to read .TXT) 📖

car. That gave me cause to shine a light in his eyes and confirm, like we suspected, he was partaking of his own supply.

The comedown in an interrogation room broke him, and gave us the password to the email account. Forty-eight hours later, we had warrants to arrest twenty-eight people. It was the night of a shipment. We were going to seize the boat, arrest the crew, three customs officers, the harbour-master, two drivers, and the team who’d cut up and repackage the coke. We weren’t going to get the boss, but we figured someone would take a deal and turn on him.

My part in the op was to grab the accountant. Lincoln Eisenhower Washington was his name, but he was as Australian as a koala-shaped sunshade. He wasn’t one of the original four, but had been recruited soon after they began to expand. He was another university classmate, but he’d actually graduated. He’d worked for a hedge fund, then switched to arranging finance for charities. Except, really, he ran the gang’s money-laundering op. It was his name on the launderettes, pizzerias, arcades, and other can’t-be-profitable cash businesses.

Every night, he drove his limp-legged squinty-eyed poodle to an old factory for a walk. That was when we were going to pick him up. Me and Sergeant Fredericko Alberto Fermi. To his family, he was Albo. To our team, he was Faffy. To me, he was Fredo, but I was debating renaming him fiancé.

We were in the car, waiting for the go. Washington’s car drove up. Stopped. Parked outside the old factory gates. Washington got out, tugging at the dog’s lead until it, reluctantly, followed. We called it in. Waited. Got the go.

We got out. Approached. Washington ran.

Even now, I’m not sure why he bolted, leaving his poor poodle limping after him, but he ran so I ran. He drew a gun. Fired two shots. A .38 revolver. Compact. Custom made with a chrome finish and a teak handle, though I didn’t get those details until much later. That he carried a gun suggested he was expecting night-time visitors of a very different kind.

“Get the car! Cut him off!” I yelled, and didn’t slow, though I did, belatedly, remember to yell, “Police!”

A century ago, the factory had been built to make ceramics. Every few years, it’s changed owners and production. Most recently focusing on mid-range clothing, until economies of scale, and the falling cost of shipping, had made local production unprofitable. An application had gone through for conversion to apartments, so we knew it was empty. So did Washington.

He fired another random shot before diving through the metre-high gap in the solid wooden gate. I drew my sidearm, affixing the light, though I left it switched off. I listened until I was certain I heard footsteps running away from the gate, and followed.

It was an ill-lit street at the edge of an expanding residential district. Little illumination made it beyond the wall, leaving the litter of brick, wood, and broken glass a shadowy obstacle course over which I trekked, half-certain I’d lost my suspect. Until I heard metal clang ahead.

Again, I ran.

At the side of the building was a wrought-iron fire escape, complete with a pull-down stair-ladder up which Washington clambered. He used both hands. I could see that much.

“Stop! Washington! Police!” I yelled, but I couldn’t shoot. Not when he was clearly unarmed and running away. Or running up. What could I do but follow?

I was twenty seconds behind him when I stepped onto those steep metal stairs. Ten seconds when I clanked my way to the top flight. I thought he’d try for a door. Instead, he jumped, up onto the roof. I yelled for him to stop even as I ran, jumped, and hauled myself after him.

The roof was angled by five degrees, covered in wire-mesh, over which Washington scrabbled until he reached a narrow walkway, close to the ridge. He was a perfect target, brilliantly silhouetted by moonlight. But his hands were empty. I kept on running, gaining ground when I reached the ridge. Slowing when we both neared the end. But he didn’t slow. He accelerated. Jumped, off the roof, disappearing from view.

I thought it was suicide, until I got nearer. Between that building and the next was a drop of nearly three metres, and I felt every centimetre when my feet hit the leaf-coated tiles. Another run to the end of the roof. Another jump. Another roof, another jump, and I guessed his plan: to get to the other side of the factory complex, and the building site beyond, where he stood a chance of losing his pursuit among the construction machines.

I was wrong. One last jump, onto one last roof, this one further away than the last, and when I pulled myself to my feet, he’d vanished. I was atop a two-storey building. A decade old, made of concrete and cement with a scaffolding barrier around the exterior, a boxy glass skylight nearly opaque with dirt, and a hatch built into the floor. An open hatch.

He had to have gone through, so I followed. Down a set of steep wooden steps. At the bottom, I stopped. I knew he was close. I can’t say how, but I think it was that I’d stopped hearing him run. I had my gun drawn, but had the light off, and virtually none was making its way through the skylight. Just enough to see that this was one long room, nearly the length of the building, dotted with a few old tables, and some rotting cardboard boxes.

I let my gut take over, and swung my gun, guessing at his position, switching on the light. He had his own weapon raised, but the light threw his aim. His shot missed. Mine didn’t.

The knife bit deep into my side. Cold and hot at the same time. Shocking more than anything. Shocking