The Wrong Guy

Who: Brett and Danny
Where: Grey Market
When: Dawn

Brett had pulled up across the street from the boarded up garage. Boarded up - there was the first tip off that all wasn’t quite right. It might have been boarded up, but there were clear signs of life, even in the early morning. Light edged round the boards in places, and, in the time they’d been sitting here, at least two people had entered through the side alley entrance.

The tip off had come just shy of midnight, time that Brett should have been in bed. Bed was something that felt like it hadn’t happened in a very, very long time. Mostly he’d been substituting sleep with coffee. Strong, dark, sugary, godawful police department shit-for-coffee. For all that though, it seemed like a good tip. Group of guys, some with records, one with a dishonourable discharge from the military. Access to machinery through an apparently disused car garage. It ticked almost all of the boxes. The only one that remained stubbornly empty was any kind of a link to the Vladivostock murder. But that could end up just being some weird fucked up coincidence.

They couldn’t ignore it, they’d had to check it out. More than check it out. The warrant had been passed through the car window to them only minutes ago. Backup had been confirmed. The game was simple - go in, arrest everything that moved, clean up.

Brett looked over at Danny. “Ready?” he asked, checking the ammunition in his gun.

Ready was an understatement. Danny had been ready for a while, but they’d been waiting on protocol and whatever else. Sleep had been brief for him as well, but he’d been at home when the call came in, trying to see to it that Janey got the sleep he couldn’t get. Not that it had stopped him from leaving her side to take care of things as soon as the home phone rang with the update.

Danny had been bristling with anticipation for hours now, days even. Since he’d arrived at the station the day before he’d been itching to get his hands on someone, something, anything tangible to get them closer to who was responsible for things. He was out for blood. He’d take his gun with him when they went in, but he wouldn’t need it. All he needed were his fists to make the impression that he wanted. No one almost killed his wife, left her shaking and scared like he was without retribution. That wasn’t even tapping into his anger for the situation as a whole.

“Been ready,” he answered Brett, pushing open his door, gun already drawn and at his side. “Let’s get this sonnofabitch.”

“Then, what the hell are we waiting for,” Brett said as he left the car, signalling to the others he knew were in the neighbourhood, watching for their mark. He and MicKinnon had the lead on this one, everything that happened, happened on their say. They had it all down, they’d talked it through. He and Danny would go in through the front, others had the sides and the back covered. No way was anyone getting out of here. They were going down. This nightmare ended now.

That was exactly what Danny had been asking silently for the past hour. Danny had his gun at the ready, getting closer to the front stopping in front of it. He stopped for a moment outside the door, eyes darting to Brett to make sure he was ready and then kicking the door in with his foot, yelling with his gun drawn. “Police!”

Brett stood back, his pistol drawn and by his side as Danny entered first, Brett on his heels, covering him as they moved.

They’d caught them on the hop - that much was clear as a guy across the room swore, standing suddenly from where he’d been sat at a table, cleaning car parts. Another guy, who’d been across by a car, ducked and started running, heading for a rear exit, moving like nothing more than a frightened rabbit as the cops appeared.

Danny was quick, gun raised, yelling for the one at the table to freeze, passing the table to head towards the one who’d started running. That guy didn’t get far, meeting with their back up at the rear door and turning around, right into Danny who caught the man by his shirt dragging him roughly back towards the table, throwing him into it none to gently.

Brett in turn levelled his gun on the other. “Wouldn’t be a good idea, hands up, where I can see them,” he said, walking towards the guy, who raised his hands, keeping his eye on Brett every step of the way until the man was in range, and then he swung, right hook, aimed for his temple.

It was a move that Brett had expected and he ducked, twisting out of the way and following through, the threat of the gun not used, instead he grabbed the guy and twisted, bringing his arm up around against his back, enough that it was on the point of dislocation. “Told you - it’d be a fucking. bad. idea.”

Danny’s guy slammed into the table awkwardly, falling over it while Danny trained his gun on him. When he looked up he was looking down the muzzle which had him raising his hands. He wasn’t as daring as his buddy, but he’d also been the one to start the whole thing trying to run away. “Don’t even breath funny,” Danny told him sincerity in his voice. “I would like a reason to shoot you.” There was no doubting Danny was telling the truth, and he was a damn good shot.

Brett slapped his cuffs on his guys and handed him over to the uniform who had just appeared in the room. “How many of you are there?” he demanded.

“Fuck you - I’m not telling you nothing,” the guy spat back at him, daring Brett to do something about it.

Danny glanced up at the comment from the guy and turned to kick his partner in the back of his knee, enough to send the man to the ground. It wasn’t hard enough to do more than bruise, but throwing him off balance was disoriented. “You best convince your friend to learn some manners. I feel like taking his attitude out on you.” They’d see how closely linked the group was that way as well.

The guy winced as his knees hit the floor, scowling a little. “We’re the only ones here,” he answered the question not directed at him. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t brave.

Brett let his guy be hauled off by the uniform and headed over to Danny. “Either the guy’s lying - or he needs to tell us where his friends have gone then,” he said, loud enough for the kneeling man to hear them. “So - which is it? because we know about your buddies. We know about your military guy. If he’s not here, where the fuck is he - what’ve you got planned next?” he said, forcefully. If they really were here alone - did that mean that the others had gone out, maybe another attack?

Danny looked up, not seeing anyone else around so he figured the guy wasn’t lying for right now. When Brett was finished with his questions Danny punctuated them with a swift kick in the guy’s back. “The man asked you some questions.”

The guy’s face moved towards the table after the kick just missing it. He winced, biting his lip against a groan of pain. “They’re out,” he answered, not giving much more than that. Danny looked over at Brett, waiting for an okay to go ahead and kick the guy harder.

“Out where?” Brett asked, glancing at Danny, but not giving the okay. He’d never liked that, he didn’t hold with it. It was one thing to be a little rough with a bastard who was trying to run, but to kick a guy who was down, no matter what - no, he didn’t do that. that said, he wasn’t above a few judicious threats as he leaned in closer, his voice darkening, dangerous even though the role he was playing was tantamount to ‘good cop’. “And you’d better fucking talk fast, or I’m gonna walk out that door and leave you with Danny here - and you and your fucking gang put his wife in the hospital with that fucking shit you pulled at the park the other night,” he said, contempt filling his tone.

Danny had wanted the okay, but he took that threat enough. This time he didn’t kick the guy, just tapped his foot loudly and when the guy looked up at him he flashed him an evil grin that definitely led one to believe that he was not the person that someone wanted to be left alone in a room with.

The guy stammered, glancing around a little. “The park? We didn’t do anything in the park,” he said hurriedly, leaning away from both Danny and Brett.

“Wrong fucking answer,” Brett growled, leaning further in and never taking his eyes off the other guy. There was only one real problem with it - the guy was clearly fucking terrified, certainly a coward at heart. And with the stammer in his voice, the way he looked like a rabbit on a spit, either he was telling the truth, or he deserved some kind of acting award. “Try again,” Brett told him, keeping up the bluff. He might not believe in violence on the job, but Brett was big enough and intimidating enough to look very much like he’d follow through with each and every threat. Between the pair of them, they clearly had garage guy well and truly cowed.

“I’m serious!” The guy yelped, practically falling backward as his eye went wide. “We weren’t there! We steal cars, not shoot up people in the fucking park!” He looked like he wanted to scramble but Danny caught his shirt collar first. Danny flashed a look up at Brett, letting ‘good cop’ call the shot on whether or not bad cop got to bust this guy’s face in. Even if the guy didn’t do anything Danny was still in the mood to bust someone’s face inward.

Aww, fuck. they’d busted a fucking stolen car ring. And looking round the place - it fitted that as much as anything else. But, still... “Then you fucking tell our guys here where to find your buddies,” Brett told him, though he backed off a little, glancing at Danny and shaking his head, once. Enough to let him know that this wasn’t going any further. “You co-operate and we won’t tell the press that you’re being questioned in regards to a number of murders which include family members of both organised crime factions in the city. You do realise what it would mean, if word got out on that, right? Even if we don’t charge you. Really, if I was you, I’d be pleading guilty to car theft right away, just to get my ass in jail and to show we pinned you for something else.”

That didn’t settle well with Danny at all. They’d found another dead end and he didn’t have a good reason to hurt someone. Yanking the guy to his feet with his collar he drug him towards another uniform seeing to it that the guy was handcuffed. The guy was close to pissing himself which gave Danny some sort of vindication, but not enough. Coming back to Brett he was even more sour than he’d been before, slamming a fist down against the table hard enough for it to shake. “Fuck.”

“To damn right,” Brett agreed, no happier to see the guy hauled away than Danny was. “This is a fucking waste of fucking time. And we still got nothing.” The longer this went on, the more that fact ate at him, that black pit looming up before him. People were dying, chaos was starting in the streets and they had nothing to go off. A few pieces, odd and ends, suppositions and assumptions. And the one decent lead they’d had - turned out to be a fucking dead end.

Danny gripped the table for a moment, considering overturning it just to get control on something. Instead of that though he just reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the flask he had there. That was something he could control at least. “Where does this leave us?” he asked, too angry to go over the whole thing again.

Brett eyed the flask. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Danny with it, but right now, he couldn’t blame the guy. If it wasn’t for the fact it was dawn, he’d suggest they go hit the bar for an hour or two, just because right now, he could do with a drink. But, it was barely breakfast, and Brett had refused to become a drinker. It just made that dark blackness he never talked about that much darker. “Fucking square one,” he said, “It leaves us back and fucking square one. But we’re still gonna question those guys - and their pals when we find them. Fuck what word gets out. They fit the profile and if there’s any chance they could even slightly be involved. Or if talking to them gives us any more insight into who fucking did this. I don’t fucking care if we have to drag in every fucking citizen off the streets, if that’s what it takes, that’s what we’re going to do.”

Square one. Being back at square one was not where they needed to be. He took another swig off the flask and sat down on the table. “That’s not going to give us what we need. Whomever he is is buried deep, hidden. We need to lure him out.” They needed to do fucking something or Danny was going to get an ulcer and just punch Brett because he was usually closer.

“Hey, man - if you got plans, I’m all ears,” Brett told him, keeping an eye on the flask, though he still said nothing. And if Danny had some kind of game plan, then that was what they needed right now.

Danny capped the flask and tucked it away for now. “We need to figure out what the fuck he wants. There had to have been some reason for taking out that vigil. Once we have that...we give him another target. Or something.” That didn’t exactly play out too great out loud, but it was better than square one.

“Great - except what fucking reason is there for taking out a group of damn church goers?” Brett asked. “Unless you’re saying that our maniac has a thing against the church. Which - if that’s what you’re saying, no way is it gonna fly to set up any kind of a target like that. They’d crucify us. No pun intended,” he said, not even cracking a smile.

Danny thought about it, looking at the floor for a moment. “What about the churchgoers? We looked at the families. You used the families as threat just a moment ago.”

“What about the families?” Brett asked him, not sure where Danny was going with that. “You think this is all about the families? That whoever did this killed all those fucking people, just on the off chance that they could get some tainted blood?”

That sounded a little ridiculous, but where else were they besides ridiculous. “It’s the only way to get more than one at the same time. You said it yourself, that’s the only time they’re together...” Danny trailed off, looking up at Brett with a shrug. “You got something better?”

Brett shook his head. “No - I got nothing better. I just - it seems so fucking random. There could have been no guarantee that any of them would have even been hit, hurt - let alone killed. Sure, they were, but still...” He shook his head, then cringed. “Unless we’re dealing with some kind of psycho that just wanted to stir the hornet’s nest.”

“It’s somewhere to go,” Danny said. “It’s ridiculous. I know, but random is what it was, why not go with a random answer.” He hated it, that someone thought the way to get to the bottom of things was to massacre innocents, but what the hell else would it be? Who else did that?

“Then let’s go there,” Brett agreed. “So - back to the station, talk to organised crime, let’s get everything we can on everybody, cross check. Work it until something comes up,” he said, holstering his gun and heading for the door. Another coffee - that would keep him going for another couple of hours, on top of the adrenaline now pumping. Sure, he’d have to stop at some time, but not yet. Not when all he had waiting for him was that deep, black pit.