War Machine (The Combat-K Series) (49 page)

Keenan watched the changing of guards in the prison below. The storm swept swiftly over him, blanketing the sky, clouds blocking out any remaining evening light. Rain smashed him, dripping from the brim of his black steel police helmet. Night fell. Behind him, the dead tox forest became an army of angular skeletal limbs. Below, water ran in rivers down gutters clogged with detritus.

It was the girl that finally did it.

The eight year-old girl, what was her name?

He couldn’t remember. Only picture her face: round, white-skinned, chalk white, oval grey eyes, full pouting lips. She had been pretty, beautiful. One day she would have made somebody proud, been a fine wife and mother. But not in this place, in this world, on this day, because some fuck had raped her and killed her, and dumped her gutted corpse in a skip. A woman walking her dog found the body. Keenan and Volt stood, staring down into the slag of burnt rubber on top of which the young girl lay, her belly spilling bowel, her throat opened wide like a second crimson grin. “Look what they did to me Mr. Policeman”, that opened throat seemed to say. “Look how they murdered me.” Her knickers were still twisted around her ankles, both legs broken and bent at impossible angles. Whoever had dumped her hadn’t even bothered to cover the young corpse. Such was the depravity in Burylesh-Ka; such was the arrogance and filth.

Volt steadied himself against the rust-smeared mass of the crumbling skip. Keenan glanced around, aware that everything was strangely fuzzy, unreal, even the corrugated wall of iron behind him, a platter of graffiti sporting illiterate hatred of race and sex, and religion. How did the world come to this? Was I blind? Or just protected? Yeah, protected by a rich step-mother and fat step-father with good jobs out of the city; and Mr. Policeman had come to play his sad little game helping the poor and the weak and the socially depraved. But look at you, just look at it: a fucking farce, a set-up, and Mr. Policeman, Mr. Richboy, Mr. Do-gooder just couldn’t do the righteous good in time and sweet little—Emily, that was her name—sweet innocent Emily became the plaything of some depraved fuck with a taste for little girls and a handy sharp razor.

Keenan reached forward; lifted the dead girl from the skip.

“What are you doing!” screamed Volt, grabbing Keenan’s arm. “Forensics need to tab her!”

Keenan shrugged off Volt’s grip with a snarl, laid Emily out on the pavement and rearranged her torn skirt. He smoothed back her hair, took a handkerchief from his pocket—fittingly, black—and tied it around her gaping throat.

“You’ll be in the shit, Keenan.”

“So I’ll be in the shit,” he said. “She deserves some dignity. I’m not leaving her like that.”

An hour later Keenan and Volt were pacing the floor outside Logistics; they had several matches on local scumbags, paedophiles with previous out on the loose in this good holy fair city of ours. One came up bright: DNA match, Jonathan Bird. The fucker hadn’t even tried to disguise his actions. Keenan’s square jaw set in a tight hard line as Volt followed him down to the Squad Shuttle.

“Let me drive,” said Volt.

“Fuck you.”

Volt didn’t argue; he’d never seen Keenan this way. He trailed behind, a limp puppy, aware that actions were running away with themselves but unable—maybe even unwilling
—
to halt the rollercoaster. Keenan would do what he had to do; his naivety had finally been burned to a fetid stump.

They sped through the rain-filled sky, mixed it with low clouds and smog-bursts. Keenan drove recklessly, and Volt placed his hand on his friend’s arm for the second time that night.

“I’m calm.”

Keenan met Volt’s gaze, and Volt saw a raging inferno in those eyes, like nothing he had ever seen. They landed in a quiet alley, checked weapons, headed for the apartment. A TV crackled lazily. Jolly Joker the Jolly Jokeman was playing one of his usual Prime-Time Tricks. Keenan led the way, kicked down the door, found the suspect lying masturbating on his bed.

“Hey, get the fuck out of here, I know my fucking rights!” he screamed as Keenan strode in, no warrant, no rights—as the scumbag pointed out—and put a bullet in the man’s abdomen. He thrashed around a lot, and there was a lot of blood. The Pazza Medics said he’d never use his cock again. Keenan had smiled at that, just before they cuffed him with Lazer Right and drove him to the SickCells.

“We’ll look after you, son,” said the Desk Sergeant. “You’re one of our own.”

Keenan nodded sombrely. And, he was only moved to solitary confinement after he’d cracked the third skull of some scumbag in on night-drill and out for police-kill.

Keenan was released, the Police Council saw to that; and the dirtbox rapist paedophile Bird went on trial, fully televised with constant updates from Jolly Joker the Jolly Jokeman. The trial lasted a week. For the entire proceedings, Keenan divided his animosity and open hostility between Birdy and his Barrister, a narrow man who walked with his arms pinned at his sides. Keenan could not believe how the Law protected such people: how the Law provided representation for such maggots, and how intelligent, educated, should have known betterLawmen stooped to defend the “rights” of such blatantly open sewer-rat shit.

Birdy was found guilty.

Keenan cried with relief; his brutal methods had nearly cost the Police Council the trial, but, thankfully, and for once in favour of the police, his actions had been put down to excessive emotional stress. He was allowed to walk free.

Not so Jonathan Bird.

He was sentenced to two years in Lakanek Prison: parole in ten months.

The press got some great pictures of his grinning face as he was led from court.

Keenan sat in the bar, sipping
Jataxa
; twenty-five year eyes stared back from rich honey depths in the back-bar mirror. He could hear the other Mr. Policemen around him.

“Bastard should have got at least six years, he was as guilty as fucking sin.”

“Yeah, but the Keenan lad didn’t do us any favours shooting the man’s dick from his body.”

[Laughter]

“Ain’t that right Keenan old boy?”

[Keenan snarled something incomprehensible]

“But still, out on parole after only ten months! Jesus wept! After what he did to that little Emily? What the hell is the world coming to?”

Those words still echoed and rattled in Keenan’s skull as he stood on the hillside, later that evening, and watched the grey van deliver Birdy into the prison’s depths. Three guards met the convicted paedophile—Keenan used military NVGs to confirm arrival—and then he checked his map. Getting into the prison would be easy. He was Skull Chipped, so the Lazy Towers would ignore his presence; he had clearance there. He also knew some of the guards, so he could probably even bluff gate entry. Keenan scowled. He would cross that bridge when he came to it. And, he smiled a nasty smile, there was always force
.
A bluff, of course, against his own kind, but he knew how to put on a good violent realisticshow all the same. Poker had taught him that. And, still remembering the feel of Emily’s dead stiff body in his arms, it gave him the fuel and determination he needed to see the job through.

Keenan returned to the tree-line and stepped into bleak undergrowth. Rain pattered from sculpted branches. Keenan knelt, lifted the tank, and strapped it to his back. He checked the hose, zip-tied it down his arm, then pulled a heavy rain-cape over himself. He knew from standing in front of his bathroom mirror several hours earlier that the cape disguised the slim tank on his back; square and matt black, it was a piece of decommissioned military kit, obtained illegally. But hell, in Keenan’s eyes, the whole fucking city was illegal: a haven for criminals. The only people who ever suffered were the good, the pure, the righteous. Keenan was sick to his stomach with it all.

He moved out into the rain, and it rattled on his plastic cape. He picked his way carefully down the hillside, aware of the highly dangerous and volatilecontainer he carried. Above, several Squad Shuttles swept by in close formation, and their ident.sweeps picked up his Skull Chip and they left him alone. At last! One privilege of power
,
he thought with a cruel sense of irony. And, here, now, was something Mr. Policeman could finally do: something that wasn’t the result of bribed police, corrupt lawyers, or judges with unrealistic fat heads up fat brandyport arses. This was something real, something right, something that Emily, ultimately, deserved... from beyond the desecrated grave.

Lightning split the sky. Thunder growled. Keenan stepped from the grassy slope, boots slick with mud, and stood on wet tarmac staring down the road. Darkness closed in. The rain increased, drumming his surroundings. He walked with long powerful strides, determination etched on the stubbled features shaded by his dripping hood. As he approached the guards—alert enough despite the late hour—they levelled weapons and scanned him; green registers flickered, and Keenan threw back his hood and gave them an easygoing smile.

“Hi guys.”

“You’re not on the list, Keenan,” said Graves, scanning the plastic document.

“I’ve got some questions for the one they’ve brought in: Bird, just committed; it’s nothing official, just something the family of the murdered girl asked me to do.”

“Yeah,” nodded Graves, “we watched the trial. Bad luck, that scumbag getting a piss trickle of time. Don’t worry, Keenan, we’ll give him hell in here.”

What, spit in his food?

Take away his books?

Bend over for the soap, fat boy?

Keenan smiled. That just wasn’t good enough, but he appreciated the sentiment.

“This way, mate.” Graves nodded to the other guard and led Keenan down a narrow poorly lit hall. Keenan dripped water, which ran into long polished drainage gulleys. “I’ll have to frisk you.”

“No problem, pal.”

They turned a corner, towards a large holding cell. It was deserted. “Bird in High Sec?” asked Keenan idly.

“Yeah,” laughed Graves, “to protect him from himself, know what I mean?” He turned to wink, only didn’t get that far. Instead, he stared into the stubby barrel of a Kekra 8mm Compact.

“Sorry, Graves.”

“What the hell you doing, Keenan? You’ll lose your job! Shit, they’ll lock you awayfor this!”

Keenan shrugged, and cuffed Graves to a nearby bar. “Honest, I like you Graves, so don’t raise hell. I’m only here to do the dirty work some anally retentive judge didn’t have the balls to finish. So...” He let the words hang, shoving the Kekra tight under Graves chin. “Be a good boy. It’s been a damned long night and I’m a little twitchy.”

He gagged Graves, took the guard’s keys, and moved back into the corridor. Lakanek Prison was running Graveyard Shift with Graveyard Staff; it wasn’t just quiet, it was deserted
.
A reasonably high-tech prison, it had a hundred sophisticated gadgets to stop prison breaks—or the interloping of foreign bodies—but, thanks to his Skull Chip implant, Keenan bypassed the nested High-bore machine guns, the laser wires and garrottes; he even sauntered past the Anti-ankle Mines, nasty little charges designed to remove a prisoner’s—or unauthorised entrant’s
—
feet.

He made it as far as the High Sec internal gate; the man there, Roberts, knew Keenan well—they’d even been out drinking on occasion—so it hurt Keenan to do it, but he did it anyway. With Roberts bound and gagged, and another bunch of digital keys in his hand, Keenan strode the dark halls of Lakanek Prison like some depraved Grendel seeking retribution. He used Roberts’s PDA to find the exact location of Bird’s cell; it was on the ASM Wing—the Area for Sexual Misconduct
.
Yeah, he thought, brain dark and nasty, like it’s some kind of fucking minor misdemeanour; not really their fault, right? Just something naughty we really need to
learn
to
understand
. That’s it! Understanding’s the key! Rape and murder a child, sure, all we’ve got to do is discover what social complexities have made this poor, poor criminal what he is: a victim of upbringing, circumstance, poverty. Poor bastard just couldn’t help himself. In fact, why not label the fucking child the criminal? That way, the Justice System can dispense with petty imprisonments altogether and blame the victim for the crime. Keenan smiled. Keenan’s mood could easily be described as
unstable.

His boots left a trail of dried mud pointing to Jonathan Bird’s cell. He accessed the door, and it slid neatly back on alloy rails. It was dark inside. “Lights,” said Keenan, and not just the cell—but the whole wing
—
was illuminated. He heard other, high-level sex offenders, stirring in other cells.

“Yeah?” said an arrogant snarl. “You’ve only just turned the fucking lights off, fucker!”

“
I’m here about a different justice,” said Keenan gently. He stepped to the doorway, his frame a dark silhouette. He threw back his still-slick rain-cape; an awkward and confused silence descended on the scene. He pulled free the long matt-black nozzle from where it was zipped to his forearm, and he held it like a hose.

Bird squinted, sitting up on his narrow pallet bed. He rubbed his eyes, and stared at Keenan without soul. “So it’s you,” he said, and then tried to peer past Keenan, looking for the rest of the guards. “More fucking questions you’d like me to answer, eh?” He cackled. “You can shove your questions up your arse. I don’t have to cooperate no more.”