The Cold Light of Day (10 page)

Dredd reached out and grabbed Moeller’s arm, hauled him to his feet. “You’re hiding something.”

“I’m not, I swear!”

Still holding onto Moeller’s arm, Dredd kicked out at the man’s leg and forced him face-down to the floor. He planted a knee on the small of Moeller’s back and quickly cuffed his wrists behind his back. “Riley Moeller, on the charge of failure to report a potential crime, I sentence you to two years in the iso-cubes.”

Moeller tried to squirm free. “No! You can’t do that!”

“Struggling. That’s the same as resisting.
Three
years.”

“Damn you, Dredd—you’re a fascist!
All
you drokkin’ judges are fascists!”

“Sedition.
Ten
years.” Dredd grabbed hold of the man’s hair, and pulled up his head. He leaned closer. “Want to go for twenty?”

“I don’t know anything!”

“Why’d you go see Chalk?”

“Because I used to know him, that’s all! I heard he was out and I just thought it’d be the right thing to do, to check on him!”

“I’m not buying that, Moeller. No one else from Chalk’s old life came to visit him. Why you? You make it a habit of visiting ex-cons?” Dredd stood, and took a step back.

Moeller rolled onto his side, stared up at the Judge. “Look, I promise you I had no idea
what
he was planning!”

“But you knew he was planning
something
.”

“No, I thought he was just venting. I mean, yeah, he
said
that he was going to make amends, but people always say stuff like that when they think they’ve been wronged. They never
do
it.”

Dredd said, “Amends... Then his attack on the diner wasn’t random. He was targeting someone.” He activated his helmet radio. “Control—run a check on the victims of the Funex Eaterie shooting. Flag anyone who had a past association with Percival Chalk.”

“Sector Chief Mendillo has already ordered that, Dredd. No known connections. Though forensics are still trying to identify some of the bodies.”

“The victims of the concussion grenade?” Dredd asked.

“Right. They’re filtering the remains for teeth, came up with four upper-left canines so far. So that’s four victims at least. Still waiting on the DNA results.”

If Chalk was targeting someone
, Dredd said to himself,
it seems likely he’d use the grenade to make sure of the kill.
“Acknowledged, Control. Send a H-wagon to my location. We’re taking in Riley Moeller for a complete particle-scan and interrogation. He knows something, but he’s not talking.”

Dredd crouched next to Moeller. “You know what a particle-scan is, creep? You won’t enjoy it. Every square millimetre of your skin is probed right down to the subcutaneous tissue. Your blood is extracted, and while it’s being filtered, nanobots will crawl through your capillaries. Don’t worry—we have ways of keeping you alive while that happens. Your fingernails and toenails will be removed, every hair plucked at the root. Different nanobots will be injected into your lungs to scour the alveoli. And it’s all done without any anaesthetic that might interfere with the readings. The whole process takes
hours
, and they don’t stop looking when they find something. It doesn’t end until every foreign particle larger than an atom has been removed from your body.”

“You can’t do that to someone—that’s torture!”

“No, it’s investigation. And it’s the easy part. The hard part comes when you have to explain the purpose of every suspicious particle. Now, that can take
weeks
. We’ll do the same to your apartment, of course. Most of your possessions won’t survive the process. All those precious books will end up as nothing but powder. The good news is, if we don’t find anything suspicious we’ll let you
keep
the powder.”

Even as he was speaking, Dredd realised what it was that he’d missed. The gap in the bookshelves; the circular impression in the dust. It
could
have been made by a mug, as Moeller claimed. But it could have been something else, too.

He hauled Moeller to his feet, dragged him over to the bookcase, pushed his face close to the gap. “Explain!”

“I don’t under—”

“You’re going to tell me how Chalk got his hands on a concussion grenade!”

“How would
I
know?”

“Chalk contacted you when he got out. He wanted weapons. You’re the right man for that because you were one of his liaisons back when he was a scavenger!” He forced Moeller’s arms higher behind his back, and the man yelped in pain. “That void in the dust is the right size for a grenade. You sold it to Chalk—that makes you an accessory to murder.”

“You can’t prove that!”

“I’m a Judge. I don’t have to prove it. Suspicion is enough.” He pulled Moeller back from the bookcase and spun him around so that they were face-to-visor. “Weapons trading is a class-one felony, Moeller,” Dredd spat. “That means life without parole. And not in a cushy iso-cube. You’re looking at hard labour. The Cursed Earth, or a trawler in the Black Atlantic. Or maybe mining the asteroid belt. You’re strong, fit... You might even last a couple of years.”

Moeller’s face sagged. “I...” He dry-swallowed. “Promise to reduce my sentence and I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything.”

“No promises. No deals. Your sentence doesn’t mean you get to skip the particle-scan... After a few minutes of that you’ll be telling us everything anyway.”

“Chalk contacted me, when he got out. Tracked me down through a friend of a friend. He told me... Look, what happened five years ago in that town, well, it didn’t go down the way you thought it did. I don’t know
all
the details...”

“Tell me what you do know.”

“Chalk wasn’t just a scavenger. He was a gun-runner. His team smuggled old weapons into the city. You swear to me I won’t get the Black Atlantic and I’ll tell you the names of the assessors who helped them.”

“I told you,” Dredd said. “No deals.” He paused for a second, then added, “But it can’t hurt your case to cooperate.”

Moeller nodded. “All right. In that town—whatever it was called—Chalk was working with the mayor. Chalk always knew where the other teams of scavengers were. He’d tell the mayor and they’d send out raiders, take any guns the scavengers had found. Then every few months Chalk’s people would go to the town and load the haul of weapons onto their trucks, take them back to the city. But... I don’t know what happened exactly, but they had a falling out. Maybe the mayor wanted a bigger cut, or something. Either way, when you and the other cadets and that Judge went to the town, the mayor thought that Chalk had sold them out.”

Behind Dredd, the door to the apartment was pushed open and two Judges entered. “Dredd. You called for a H-wagon.”

“We’re not done here yet,” Dredd said. “Talk faster, Moeller.”

“Chalk killed the mayor with his own gun, right? You were there, you saw that. But what you didn’t see was that just before you got there, the mayor was about to kill Chalk. And that gun was part of Chalk’s weapons shipment. All the weapons were always cleaned, but Chalk had taken that one out of the crate to show the mayor. That was the real reason he grabbed it—because he knew that you’d be checking all the weapons for prints and DNA.”

“And Chalk didn’t want us to know that the reason his DNA was on the gun was because he’d
already
handled it.”

“Right,” Moeller said, nodding. “The others with Chalk... They were part of his crew. They’d sided with the mayor. They wanted Chalk out of the picture as much as the mayor did. But when you rescued them, none of scavengers could say anything about the others without implicating themselves. If you hadn’t arrested Chalk, he’d have taken his revenge on them a long time ago.”

“So that’s who he’s targeting. His former colleagues.”

Moeller was staring at the floor. “He asked me for weapons. The grenade was the only thing I had. I don’t deal weapons, never did. I had the grenade because, well, in good condition they’re worth about seventeen thousand credits to a collector.”

“I want the names and locations of the people Chalk is targeting.”

“And you’ll reduce my sentence?”

“No. But delay any longer and I’ll
increase
it. Only offer you’re going to get, Moeller. Start talking.”

Thirteen

I
N HIS OFFICE
in the Grand Hall of Justice, Chief Judge Clarence Goodman had one of his desk’s monitors tuned to the race—with the sound muted—while through the others he conducted the afternoon situation reports.

Standing on the other side of the desk, Goodman’s assistant Judge Brannigan read stats from a datapad. “Reported crimes are down on the average day, sir. Down quite a
lot
, actually.”

“A quarter of the population is on the streets watching the race,” Goodman said. “Same thing happened the last couple of years. When they get home and discover that their pockets have been picked or their homes have been burgled, we can expect a massive surge in reports. Instruct the call centres to double-up on staff for the next twenty-four.” Goodman turned to the screen showing Sector Chief Daniel Mendillo. “Where are we on the sector sixty-three diner shootings?”

“Judges Amber Ruiz and Joseph Dredd were investigating,” Mendillo said. “Ruiz has been injured, shot by an unknown sniper. Likely the same perp from the diner, but that’s not been established yet. She’s alive, but her condition’s still critical. Dredd’s carrying the investigation alone. He’s established that the killer’s targeting former colleagues. Right now he’s en route to the closest.”

Goodman sat back. “Dredd... Good Judge. What sort of back-up are you giving him?”

“Tech support, forensics... Nothing on the streets, if that’s what you mean. We just don’t have the helmets.”

Goodman glanced at the monitor displaying the race. “The killer picked the right day for it. Which makes me think that it’s not a coincidence.”

“Yes, sir. Dredd suggested the same thing.”

Goodman leaned closer to the screen showing Mendillo. “I’m the Chief Judge. Eight hundred million people rely on me to make good decisions. Do you comprehend that?”

“Sir?”

“You think this office is so far above the streets that I can’t still have my finger on the pulse? I know what’s going on. I’m not a drokkin’
idiot
, Mendillo. I see the reports before you do, and I know how to interpret them. A lot of other Judges are blaming Dredd for this. They think that Pendleton and Collins would still be alive if Dredd had executed Chalk five years ago.”

Mendillo hesitated. “He
did
have that option, sir. It was his decision not to exercise it. Any fallout from that is—”

Goodman thumped his fist on the desk. “Enough! I’ve looked at that case. Dredd’s judgement was sound then. Ruiz stood by him, and so do I. If a Judge can disarm and disable a perp without killing him, then that is the Judge’s first obligation. Joseph Dredd is no more responsible for Chalk’s actions than I am. I’m aware that our resources are stretched thinner than usual today, but you will make damn sure that Dredd receives all the support he needs. Even if that means we have to pull Judges out of crowd control and replace them with Sector Chiefs. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any Judge who knowingly hampers Dredd’s investigation will find themselves being interviewed by the SJS.
Any
Judge, Mendillo.”

Mendillo nodded. “Understood, sir. I’ll see to it personally.”

“Do that,” Goodman said. “Or
I’ll
see to it personally.”

S
EAMUS
“S
HOCK
” O’S
HAUGHNESSY
felt his pulse quicken as he pushed harder on the accelerator. His Blenderbike curved slowly but smoothly past Aposcar Kresky’s brand-new Honda-Davidson XM940 and slipped into tenth place.

Coming up was a section of the route that the riders had nicknamed The Crowbar. The name was coined by racing pundit Murray Strider, who—when pressed for an explanation--said, “this is the one that separates the men from the boys.” Strider’s comment had him immediately blacklisted by the Mega-City One Association For Wimmin And Grrlz Who Ride Bikes, but that had only served to boost his profile, which was why he’d said it.

The Crowbar was a thirty-kilometre stretch that wove through the blocks of sector 192, a zig-zagging mess of short runs connected by right-angled turns. Recommended maximum speed through The Crowbar was one hundred KPH, though most riders were expected to take it at less than half that speed.

This was where Shock intended to take the lead. Right now, Napoleon Neapolitan was eight positions behind him, and his custom-built two-wheeler was untested on such a tricky route. It certainly didn’t look like it could corner worth a damn: its wheels were too large and its centre of gravity too high. With a little luck, Napoleon would take a turn too fast and end up with his skull driven into his chest cavity.

Shock’s comm-link buzzed into life, and his race-planner Amanda Quisling asked, “You read me, Shock?”

“Loud and clear, boss.”

“Just heard that De Oro is going to try to take The Crowbar at full speed. He reckons his machine is up to it.” Jules Castel De Oro was in fourth position, riding a tank-tracked Vista Tachyon. “So, you know, watch out for flying debris and body parts.”

“Gotcha. How are the rest of the team doing?”

“They should be on your screen, Shock.”

“That just tells me where they
are
. What’s the mood like back there?”

“Gardiner and Clayton are going to pull in front of Sharry Bean in about four minutes. They’ll slow her down—that should give McHattie a clear run past her. He can open the throttle then and should be able to move into fifteenth.”

“Cool. What about Jaunty Monty? He disappeared off the list a few minutes back—haven’t had time to check.”

Quisling paused. “Jaunty’s gone, Shock. Mutie clipped him as he was taking Hangman’s Turn.”

“Damn... He’s dead?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I know you were friends. He left instructions... His winnings are to be divided up among the survivors on the team. That’s twenty grand apiece, right now. Small consolation, I know.”