Apocalypse Read online

  Ethan Warner looked across at the courtroom.

  ‘Where’s the prosecution now?’

  Katherine pointed out to the street where Macy’s Pontiac had disappeared, and was about to speak when there was a sudden howl of a car engine followed by the rending screech of metal on metal. Screams erupted from the street nearby and Katherine whirled to see Macy’s bright-red car being broadsided by an old convertible. The Pontiac folded like an envelope under the impact as shards of sparkling glass exploded across the street.

  29

  Ethan saw the red Pontiac spin across the street and smash into a fire hydrant. A towering column of white water exploded into the air as the Pontiac hit the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians as it ploughed into the metal fences surrounding the detention center’s southeast corner.

  As Ethan began running he saw a battered old convertible swerve onto the sidewalk and smash again into the Pontiac. A thick cloud of acrid white smoke burst from beneath the hood. Ethan glimpsed an old man slumped across the front seats before the smoke obscured the vehicle and flames licked at the edges of the Pontiac’s crumpled bodywork. Transfixed witnesses began backing away from the two cars, some of them shouting warnings to get back.

  Lopez raced up alongside Ethan.

  ‘The impact must have ruptured the fuel tank!’

  Ethan nodded and looked back over his shoulder as he ran.

  ‘Get backup!’ he yelled to Jarvis.

  Through the fences and the swirling veil of choking smoke beyond he glimpsed the Pontiac’s passenger door swing open and a large figure lean inside the car before sprinting away down 13th Avenue.

  Ethan rounded the fences of the detention center and ran out between the traffic that was now stationary either side of the smoldering wrecks. He kept his eyes on the big man who was shouldering his way past stunned onlookers and glancing over his shoulder as he ran toward 14th Street.

  Lopez ran alongside Ethan, then jumped up and slid across the hood of a sedan toward the Pontiac.

  ‘The convertible’s on fire!’ she shouted.

  Ethan cursed and broke off his pursuit of the big man, changing direction toward the Pontiac as the flames engulfed both the convertible and the Pontiac pinned against the twisted metal fence. Lopez dashed in through the oily clouds of black smoke spilling from both cars, ignoring the searing heat of the flames as she grabbed the Pontiac’s door handle and pulled for all she was worth.

  Ethan shielded his face from the flames as he fought his way to her side, and together they hauled the warped door open. A young man in a suit lay slumped with blood pouring from a head wound that matched a spider’s web of shatter marks fogging the passenger window.

  Ethan leaned into the smoke-filled car and dragged the kid out, even as snarling flames reached out for him. Together with Lopez Ethan dragged him away from the car, the heat scorching his skin and drying his eyes as a stranger’s voice rang in his ears.

  ‘Get away from there!’

  Ethan was suddenly surrounded by dozens of helping hands, ordinary citizens flooding in to help them as the two cars were engulfed in a broiling frenzy of burning fuel. Ethan tumbled backwards, coughing as he watched the cars consumed by the angry flames. The sound of a fire truck’s sirens wailed from somewhere down the street, but with the nearest hydrant out of action he knew that the remaining victims in the cars were long gone.

  A hand tapped his shoulder. Ethan looked around and saw a kid of no more than ten years holding a cellphone, an image on the screen of a big man with short blond hair running from the scene of the accident.

  ‘He went that way,’ the kid pointed, toward the corner of the block.

  Ethan grabbed the kid’s shoulder and pointed toward Jarvis and the courthouse.

  ‘Take your phone to that man,’ he said. ‘They’re with me and the woman’s a lawyer, okay?’

  The kid nodded as Ethan leapt to his feet and broke into a run toward the corner of 12th and 14th. His lungs ached from the smoke he’d inhaled but he pushed on as a rush of thoughts whipped through his mind. The man was big, easy to spot in the crowds. Don’t rush it. He won’t have gotten far.

  Ethan turned the corner of the block and slowed to a fast walk as he scanned the bobbing heads of pedestrians crowding the sidewalks. Hundreds of people, turning into and out of shops, jaywalking, talking. Ethan spotted a streetlight and hurried across to it, clambering up until he was three feet above the shoppers milling around him. Traffic hummed on the nearby Dolphin Expressway and he could hear a metro rattling past on its elevated rails, the clattering of wheels on rails reminding him briefly of Chicago. He wrapped one arm around the pillar and made the shape of a box with his fingers, peering through it and sweeping the street. An old trick he’d picked up in the Marines – the smaller image seen through the frame of his fingers allowed his brain to process what it was seeing more easily, helping him locate his quarry amongst the confusion.

  A moment later he spotted the man with the blond hair walking swiftly away beneath palm trees on 12th and looking back down the street toward him. In an instant he spotted Ethan clinging to the post and broke into a run.

  Ethan let go of the post and hit the ground just as he saw Lopez race past him, already dodging deftly through the crowds like a gazelle. Pedestrians scattered left and right as they ran.

  ‘Is he armed?’ Lopez shouted.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ Ethan hollered. ‘Probably doesn’t need to be. You see the size of him?’

  Ethan saw the big man turn left onto NW Thirteenth Court, Lopez in pursuit and rapidly closing the gap. Ethan pushed harder, reaching the street into which the man had vanished.

  The street was narrow and quiet, lined with heavy steel fences on one side and rows of trees and a shabby chain-link fence on the other. Ethan slowed as he saw Lopez vault over the chain-link into an area of dead ground strewn with debris and wiry grass. Ethan leapt over the fence and came up short as he saw the big man facing them, his broad chest heaving.

  A cruel smile split the man’s heavy jaw as he waved Ethan and Lopez forward with a brief motion of one hand. His other was clenched into a fist the size of a football.

  ‘Ladies first,’ Ethan suggested.

  ‘What was it you said?’ she uttered back at him. ‘The bigger they are . . . ?’

  Ethan stepped forward and raised his fists, focusing all of his attention on the man’s eyes. Keep moving, keep out his grasp and make him keep swinging. He wasn’t able to keep running, so he’ll tire soon enough.

  The man raised both fists now, his biceps bulging, and without any warning shot a straight left directly toward Ethan’s face. Ethan dodged right and blocked the blow with his left forearm. The huge fist ploughed through his guard like a cannonball through a window and hit his left temple with enough force to send him reeling back four paces.

  Ethan’s vision blurred as he shook his head and blinked to see the giant rushing at him with both arms outstretched.

  Ethan dropped down low, twisting on his left heel and shooting his right boot out toward the man’s groin. His size-10 hit the man squarely between his legs with a satisfying steel-toe-capped thump, and Ethan saw him gasp, his vivid blue eyes widening with shock as he folded over and staggered sideways to crash into a discarded trash can. Ethan leapt to his feet and kept his guard up as he circled the stricken giant. The man straightened, tears flooding his eyes, but he growled with fury as he charged Ethan again.

  Ethan stepped left, locking his fists together and batting the huge arms aside with his own as he brought his knee up into the giant’s stomach. The big man folded again but it wasn’t enough to drop him. A pair of immense arms crushed Ethan’s waist as he was lifted bodily off the ground and hurled sideways.

  The breath blasted from his lungs as he hit the trunk of a tree, his head cracking against the unyielding bark. Ethan slumped onto the hard ground and struggled to get up as the giant towered over him and lifted one enormous boot. With a flourish of malice on his face he stam
ped it down toward Ethan’s head.

  A smaller boot flashed into view from Ethan’s left as Lopez’s sidekick slammed into the giant’s torso with a dull thud. The big man toppled over sideways as his boot flailed past Ethan’s head and into thin air.

  Lopez danced past Ethan as the giant turned to face her and swung an enormous right arm like a battering ram toward her head. Ethan struggled upright as he saw Lopez duck down beneath the blow and step fearlessly in, one tiny right fist whipping up into the giant’s eyes with a sharp crack. The man’s enormous square head did not flinch, but the skin above his right eye split into a wet, red tear as Lopez leapt back out of range and began circling him again.

  ‘Game’s over,’ Ethan rasped at him. ‘You’re outnumbered.’

  The big man reached behind him and grabbed the discarded trash can, lifted it into the air above his head and hurled it at Lopez. Lopez leapt aside and hit the ground as it crashed past her and bounced across the dusty earth. The big man turned to Ethan and from his jeans produced a long, broad knife that flashed in the light as he whipped the blade toward Ethan’s neck.

  Ethan lurched back out of range of the blade as it flashed past, just in time to catch the big man’s other fist square in the center of his chest. It felt like being hit by a train. Ethan hurtled backwards and tripped over Lopez’s legs as he slammed down onto the ground and collapsed them both into an ungainly tangle of limbs. Through his hazy vision he saw the giant turn and vault back over the rickety fence as a brown Lincoln raced alongside the sidewalk and screeched to a halt. The giant threw himself into the vehicle and it accelerated away out of sight.

  Lopez looked over her shoulder at him, her thick black hair plastered across her face.

  ‘You wanna get the hell off me?’

  Ethan rolled to one side, crawled to his knees and then got to his feet as Lopez dragged herself upright and swept her hair out of her face. ‘I’d have had him if you hadn’t got in the way.’

  Ethan managed a bitter chuckle as he rubbed his back and coughed. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Told you we could have done with Bryson,’ she suggested.

  Ethan, already somewhat deflated, felt a new and unexpected hollowness form in the pit of his belly.

  ‘Will you quit with the sailor worship? Captain Ahab’s not playing ball, so let’s just get back to the courthouse.’

  Together, they walked and limped back to the scene of the wreck. Fire trucks and police cars swamped the streets in a blaze of flashing lights. Smoke hung heavily on the air but Ethan could see that the fires were already out. To his dismay, the red Pontiac was now a mangled black cage scorched by the flames. The front end of the convertible was also charred to the color of ash, a hastily erected white canvas sheet hung over the corpse of the driver still slumped in his now burned seat.

  At the far end of the street, two television crews were avidly filming the carnage and setting up for the lunch-time broadcasts.

  Doug Jarvis spotted Ethan and Lopez and hurried across.

  ‘How the hell do you manage to get involved in these things?’ he asked Ethan in exasperation. ‘We only came here for a quiet chat with a lawyer. Now half the street’s on fire. You keep this up and you’ll be the ones facing jail time.’

  ‘This was a hit, Doug, pure and simple. I don’t suppose the prosecutor survived?’

  Jarvis shook his head.

  ‘No, and get this. She had the incriminating documents on her person when the accident happened. I just asked her assistant if she’d made copies before they took him to the hospital. But the documents were sent direct to her at the courthouse, so none had been made.’

  ‘Which means the case literally goes up in smoke,’ Lopez said without a trace of humor.

  ‘Along with the Uhungu family’s chances of a successful conviction against IRIS,’ Jarvis agreed. ‘Without those documents it’s unlikely any charges can be brought against the company.’

  ‘Which is a little too coincidental,’ Lopez murmured. ‘If Purcell worked for IRIS and decided to turn whistle-blower then it’s possible, however unlikely, that IRIS is responsible for the murder of both Purcell’s family and the prosecuting lawyer.’

  ‘Are you telling me that Charles Purcell never made copies of these incriminating documents?’ Ethan asked. ‘Surely, with what’s at stake, he would have covered himself for something just like this?’

  ‘We can’t know one way or the other,’ Jarvis replied, ‘unless we ask Purcell himself.’

  Ethan clenched his fists in frustration.

  ‘Damn it, how could that man we chased have known where and when these documents would come to light? He had to be in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time to know that he could destroy everything and make a decent getaway. Jesus, look at this place, it’s a courthouse and crawling with cops.’

  ‘I take it he did indeed get away,’ Jarvis said, taking in their slightly bedraggled appearance.

  ‘Not without a fight,’ Ethan replied. ‘But a kid with a cellphone got a shot of him at the scene which we can give to local law enforcement, see if they can’t identify him. He got picked up in a brown Lincoln.’

  ‘I’ve got the picture on my cellphone now,’ Jarvis said. ‘I’ll have the local uniforms check out the getaway vehicle, but it’ll most likely turn out to be stolen.’

  ‘What about Katherine Abell?’ Lopez asked. ‘This all happened right around her. Maybe it’s something that she might have arranged?’

  Jarvis gestured over his shoulder to where a small knot of police detectives led by Captain Karl Sears were questioning Katherine and her assistant.

  ‘The uniforms figured the same,’ the old man said. ‘I’m guessing that Katherine will be taken in for questioning, but I can’t believe that she’d have any involvement in this.’

  Ethan looked across at Katherine and made a decision.

  ‘Supposedly, neither should Joaquin Abell,’ he replied. ‘But right now the only thing that connects all of this is IRIS itself. We need to talk to Katherine right now. Trouble is she’s not going to just sing to us if her husband’s involved in this.’

  ‘I agree,’ Lopez said. ‘Let me handle it.’

  30

  June 28, 12:42

  Katherine Abell sat at a table in a waiting room inside the courthouse, two police officers guarding the door as Ethan and Lopez leaned against the wall opposite her. A knock at the door preceded Captain Karl Sears and Doug Jarvis, who closed the door behind them. Sears walked up to the table and looked down at Katherine.

  ‘Mrs Abell, I understand that the chief justice has asked you to remain in the courthouse for the time being?’

  Ethan watched as Katherine Abell nodded without looking up at Sears, her small fists clenched around a tissue and her eyes darkened where the little make-up she wore had smeared. There seemed little doubt that she was innocent of any involvement in the murder of Macy Lieberman but then again, beauty was often the veil that concealed hideous evil, and Karl Sears clearly saw just that.

  ‘We would like to understand,’ the detective asked her, ‘what you know about what happened.’

  Katherine looked up at him, speaking from behind her lawyer’s facade of calm.

  ‘I told the police outside everything,’ she said. ‘Both my assistant, Peter, and I saw it all happen from the courtyard. Macy got into her car and left, and then another vehicle crashed into her . . .’

  Jarvis moved forward and took a seat on the edge of the table.

  ‘That’s right,’ he agreed. ‘But is it not true that, before the accident, you and Macy were involved in some kind of argument?’

  Katherine sighed and nodded.

  ‘Macy came out at me, trying to suggest that I was involved in some kind of conspiracy at my husband’s company. She wound me up and I snapped.’

  ‘You hit her,’ Sears pointed out, ‘in front of almost a hundred witnesses, all of whom will be on the record once the uniforms finish taking statements.’

  ‘Then
I guess those of them that were close enough will have heard what Macy was saying, too, won’t they?’ Katherine shot back.

  Jarvis raised an eyebrow and glanced briefly at Ethan, who pushed off the wall and approached Katherine.

  ‘You were defending IRIS in a lawsuit case brought by the Uhungu family,’ he said. ‘You can see why the uniforms are suspicious when the prosecution’s star lawyer is killed just hours before she was due to deliver incriminating documents and evidence that might have resulted in convictions at IRIS.’

  Katherine leveled a steady, cold glare at him, clearly not intimidated.

  ‘Alleged documents, alleged evidence,’ she snapped, ‘and all of it brought to her by a man wanted for the suspected murder of his own wife and daughter. It meant nothing to the case unless whatever was in those documents could be verified.’

  ‘Which it now can’t,’ Lopez said from further back in the room.

  ‘No,’ Katherine acknowledged softly, as though recalling the horror of what had transpired.

  ‘IRIS has been accused of hoarding government funds instead of using them for charitable acts,’ Jarvis said. ‘Macy Lieberman was attempting to prove that accusation when she died. Do you know of anyone at IRIS who might try to do something like this?’

  Katherine shook her head.

  ‘No. IRIS is a charity and its employees are paid to help others, people in need. Going around killing lawyers isn’t exactly part of the company’s charter.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’ Katherine shot up out of her chair. ‘Do you think that my husband is involved in this?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Ethan replied curtly.

  ‘That’s right, you goddamned well don’t know!’ Lightning flashed behind Katherine’s eyes as she rounded the table to confront him. ‘I’m a lawyer. Do you think that you can just waltz in here and start tossing accusations around? My husband has done more for the needy out there in the last ten years than most people do in a lifetime. Why is it that some people seem so determined to drag others down to their own goddamned level? How much does IRIS have to do before people start realizing that it’s there to help, not to destroy?’