Broken Steel

Chapter 3

THREE

It was three in the morning when the storm came. Bright purple forks of lightning lit up the night sky. The thunder sounded more like a massive explosion than the low rumble of the storm the other week. An impressive sight to behold for sure – if you were sitting in the safety of your home or office.

Detective John Steel stood on the roof of his apartment block. There was no rain, to begin with, just the impressive light show that Mother Nature had put on. Steel remembered a lightning storm he had seen in the Gulf conflict of 2003. That had also been an impressive sight. He had to admit there was a lethal fascination with thunderstorms. A beauty that undoubtedly could kill, but you couldn’t help but watch, like the Sirens of Greek mythology; their calmness drew you in before they killed you.

Steel’s nightmares had kept him up. The recurring memory the night his family had been killed, the day he had died and had been reborn. The wind began to pick up, but he felt little of the bitter wind as his tailored black suit protected his athletic, muscular body. A wool and leather trench coat enclosed the suit, but he preferred to leave it unbuttoned. The tail of the coat flapped in the wind like a mythical beast’s wings. There was another burst of lightning, followed by a bang; the strike had hit something. Steel looked around at the city. New York at night during a storm. He felt a chill of excitement run down his spine.

The bright flash of the forked lightning reflected in his sunglasses as he watched in awe. The glasses were a necessity due to their special function. More than a glamourous accessory, they were a tactical accessory. Their main function, however, was to cover Steel’s eyes. Since the shooting at his family’s estate that claimed his entire family, he had been cursed not only with six bullet scars, but soulless emerald-green eyes. A result of his saviour’s medication, or something else, nobody could say, but these eyes had come in useful for getting people to talk or get him out of situations. Besides, he liked the glasses; they gave him an even more mysterious look.

John Steel, son of a British Earl, ex-soldier, and now a cop working with the NYPD. Sure, it was more a temporary posting from his usual duties in Britain, but he was having fun. His father’s assassination had brought with it several things Steel didn’t really want the title of Lord, the CEO of the family’s company. He was never any of those things that had been his father, his grandfather, no, not him. He’d been a soldier, and now he was something else.

Steel smiled as he looked out over the view. A buzz from the cell phone in his pocket disturbed his moment. He took out the smartphone and checked the message: the usual place, half-hour. Steel replied with a thumbs-up emoji and closed the phone. His smile faded. The message had been from an old friend, someone he’d not heard of for many years. Steel looked back over at the landscape. There was another flash of lightning, and this time it hit something in Central Park that was in front of his building. Steel smiled as he swore; he had felt the electricity from the strike. He thought back to the message, and whatever his old friend wanted, it couldn’t be good or end well. He smiled at the challenge.

“I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror,” Steel said as he headed back inside his building. He had things to do, people to see.

Detective Samantha McCall peered curiously past the shower curtain and listened hard to the faint sound of her cell phone as it rang through the open door of the bathroom. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before because of a case she had wrapped up. The paperwork had taken her until two in the morning to finish. The case had been a*****e robbery, where the perp had shot the store owner over two-hundred bucks and a Snickers bar. McCall had always been surprised at people’s lack of empathy when it came to human life. Mr Jackson’s life was worth more than two-hundred dollars to his family, and the punk who had shot him – some sixteen-year-old teeth-sucking i***t – was about to learn how much the cost was going to be.

The new district attorney was hanging the kid out to dry, an example for the next wannabe gangster. Even though the kid was sixteen, he was going to be tried as an adult and be given an adult’s sentence. In the DA’s eyes, the kid was old enough to know what he was doing when he went into the store with a gun; he was old enough to know what he was doing when he laughed as he pulled the trigger five times, emptying the revolver’s cylinders into Mr Jackson. There was nobody with him, so the defence couldn’t argue coercion. The kid even laughed and joked in interrogation, saying how he was a minor so he would be out soon. How wrong could the kid be? The case was due in a week, and there was enough evidence to bury the kid four times over, a slam dunk. The DA was happy he was getting his time with the press at the expense of the kid and the victim’s family.

“You have got to be kiddin’ me!” She moaned at the inconvenient timing. Getting quickly out of the shower, she rushed naked through the apartment to the sitting room, leaving small puddles on the dull wooden floor as she went. McCall held a towel, which she was quickly attempted to wrap around her athletic form as she rushed for the cell phone.

“What’s up Tooms?” McCall asked in an irritated voice after looking at the caller ID. It was Detective Joshua Tooms, who was another detective at the 11th Precinct’s Homicide Division.

“Mornin’. Sam, the captain, wants all hands in on this one. There was an accident with a bus from Rikers. I’ll fill you in when you get here,” said Tooms. His voice was deep and had a natural growl to it. McCall often joked the man had been a brown bear in a previous life; he’d kept the voice but lost the fir.

McCall looked over at the clock that hung over a 32-inch flat-screen television and saw it was almost six in the evening. She grunted as her plans for a quiet evening at home were shattered.

“Okay, where are you?” McCall asked and picked up a pen that sat next to a large jotter pad and got ready to write. He gave the address as being downtown near the courthouse.

“Give me fifteen minutes. I’ll meet you there,” McCall replied. Placing down the cell, she blew out lungs full of disappointed air.

The address was at the junction of Kenmare Street and Lafayette Street. It was a large built-up area with a bend onto Lafayette. McCall had to park near Petrosino Square – which was a spacious concrete park where people could just relax from their day-to-day. Police tape and barriers closed off the road, meaning traffic had to be diverted to Broadway. The two lanes where full of debris.

“Holy s**t,” Detective Samantha McCall said to herself as she stopped for a moment, taking in the scene from a distance as she stood at the junction, McCall’s head moved slowly, thinking she had walked onto the set of a disaster movie. The rain had stopped, but the lakes on the road and sidewalks remained. Droplets of water fell from overhangs and store-signs, causing ripples in the motionless water.

McCall took out her small digital camera and began to take photographs of the scene, starting at the junction. Satisfied she had enough, McCall moved slowly towards the police tape where a tall uniformed officer stood ready to shun off the press or the over-interested public.

“Hey Tom, how’s things?”

The large uniformed officer smiled as he lifted the tape for her to pass under. “Hey, McCall. Things ain't too bad, and at least it’s stopped raining,” the big cop replied, looking up at the dissipating clouds.

She smiled back at him as she straightened and headed for a group of men who stood around a police vehicle, an unmarked black Dodge Charger.

The three men were Captain Alan Brant, Detective Joshua Tooms and Edgar Marks – who was the CSU tech in charge of this scene. McCall wouldn’t move up straight away but would stop and look at the surroundings, taking in notes of what she considered important. The police bus lay on its side, a large s***h embedded in the rear of the bus that went from left to right while the back door lay on the ground a couple of feet from the bus. Detective Tooms nodded to the others as McCall walked up towards the men, and Captain Brant and Marks turned to greet her.

“Captain,” McCall said, her eyes meeting Brant’s to try and find his mood. She could always judge his mood by his eyes; if they were crazy, then she would avoid conversation or seeing him altogether.

“McCall.” Brant nodded a greeting as he pulled up the collar on the heavy wool trench coat that covered his blue suit. He was a large built black man in his mid-fifties and had the build of a quarterback and the temperament of a pit bull.

McCall looked around at the c*****e that lay before them. “So, apart from the obvious, what happened?” She turned back to face them.

“As far as we can tell, the transport was taking ten prisoners to the Supreme Court for their meeting with the review board, it lost control, and skidded into that delivery truck.” Edgar Marks pointed out the route the bus must have taken with an outstretched index finger. Marks was tall, about six feet but with a slim build that made him look taller. The man was in his mid-fifties but didn’t look it. He had white hair which complimented his youthful face. Marks adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses.

“After it found itself on its side and heading towards that building, three of them got early release via the door,” Detective Joshua Tooms added as he pointed out the damaged backdoor. He pulled his coat tightly around his huge, quarterback build.

McCall looked over towards the bus, and long skid marks torn into the tarmac showed the distance it had travelled before the building stopped it. Pieces of white metal lay strewn across the ground, and the reminisce of the loading ramp lay next to the backdoor of the bus; the large metal ramp looked as though some wild beast had chewed it up and spat it out.

“How many survived?” she asked, shocked that anyone had come out of that mess alive.

“Three got away, and four were injured, five of them didn’t make it along with the driver and another guard,” Tooms reported, then flicked his notebook closed.

McCall looked back at Tooms with a puzzled look. “I thought they were all locked down by the floor lock?” she asked.

Tooms gave her an awkward look. “Apparently, the device unlocked due to the impact,” he replied, shifting his weight as he spoke. The massive detective was feeling the effects of standing outside in the cold and wet for over an hour.

McCall shook her head and laughed at the absurdity of it. “Unbelievable. So, do we know who got away, sir?” she asked.

Tooms flicked open his notebook and read the list of names. “Darius Smith. This guy is a real peach, been in and out of prison most of his life, burglary, attempted murder, murder, carjacking. The list goes on." He looked down at his notepad at the others listed. “Then we have Tyrell Williams. Now, this guy has a good résumé with armed robbery, attempted murder, and murder. He shot a guard, a clerk and two cops,” Tooms continued with a frown.

McCall stopped looking at the bus and turned slowly towards the men. “You said there were three. Who’s the third guy?” she asked, then saw the look on the Captain’s face, and froze. “What … what’s wrong, sir?”

“Armstrong, Brian Armstrong. The schoolteacher sent away for killing his wife,” Brant answered.

The men could see the anger in her face.

“McCall, it’s our job to take care of the dead; we are investigating the crash, not the breakout,” Brant stated.

McCall could feel herself become dizzy with rage. There were two violent men and a killer-schoolteacher on the run. Two of them would be up to their old tricks and probably disappear into the crowd, but McCall knew that it wouldn’t be long before they would be making more bodies for homicide to sort out.

Armstrong they would no doubt pick up, wandering the streets, looking lost and scared. She had seen it before: a onetime criminal finds an opening and goes for it, with no plan apart from getting out. Next thing you knew, they were trying to hold up a 7-Eleven or a gas station for quick cash. All they had to do was wait for either their capture or the bodies to start coming in; she didn’t want to chase these men. That was for the feds. But she did want to know how the men got free in the first place.