Nightfall Protocol

Chapter 13:Prison Bed

The inside of the fourth precinct was a controlled version of barely holding together.

Andrew clocked it all in the first thirty seconds. Roughly fourteen officers present, a mix of uniforms and plainclothes, moving with the particular energy of people who had defaulted to procedure because procedure was the only thing standing between them and the full weight of what was happening outside. Desks had been pushed to create a central working area. A city map had been pinned to the incident board with clusters of red marker dots that told a story Andrew didn't need explained. Two officers were working a communications console in the far corner with the focused desperation of people trying to raise signals that weren't answering back.

Captain Reeves — a compact, weathered woman in her fifties whose expression had apparently been set to granite sometime earlier in the evening and hadn't shifted since — stood at the centre of it all with a radio in one hand and a coffee going cold in the other. She met Andrew's eyes as he came through the door and gave him a single slow nod that communicated about seven different things simultaneously.

He'd deal with her properly in a moment.

First things first.

He found the nearest officer — young, female, name tag reading Vasquez — and spoke quietly and directly. "Ammunition. Nine millimetre for the sidearm and whatever you have compatible with this." He held up the M4 briefly. "Everything you can spare. I need it before I leave this building again."

Vasquez didn't hesitate. "I can get you two full magazines for the carbine and two boxes of nine mil. There's a weapons locker in the back corridor, we've been pulling from it all night."

"That'll do. Bring it to me."

She moved immediately.

Andrew set the carry bag on the nearest desk and rolled his neck once, feeling the pull of the head wound beneath the bandaging, and turned to find Jack Mercer had followed him inside and was standing a respectful distance back with his arms crossed and the look of someone with more to say.

"Radio," Andrew said. "A working one. Full range if you have it."

"We have four operational units left. Captain has one, comms desk has two —"

"That leaves one."

Jack paused. Then uncrossed his arms and unclipped the radio from his own belt, holding it out without a word.

Andrew took it. Checked the frequency, checked the transmit button — solid, responsive, the beep confirming a live connection. He pressed his eyes shut briefly at the small relief of it.

He was clipping it to his belt when he became aware that the ambient noise of the room had shifted. He looked up to find that several of the officers had drifted closer without making a production of it, the way people do when something is being said that they all need to hear but nobody wants to make formal. Vasquez had returned with the ammunition and was standing with it in both hands, watching him. Even Captain Reeves had taken a half step in from the periphery.

It was a young officer near the back — couldn't have been more than two years on the job, still carrying that rawness around the eyes that experience eventually sands away — who said what was apparently on everyone's mind.

"Sir." His voice was steady despite the rawness. "I want you to know — a lot of us in here, we don't believe it. What they're saying on the news." He glanced briefly at the others and seemed to find enough in their expressions to keep going. "We've seen what you've been doing out there tonight. The Crews family made it back because of you. And I've worked this precinct long enough to know your record." He straightened slightly. "We believe in you."

A murmur moved through the room. Not loud — these were cops, not a crowd — but present and unambiguous.

Andrew looked at the young officer for a moment without speaking.

"Thank you," he said finally. Quietly and without ceremony, because it deserved sincerity rather than a speech. He loaded the first nine millimetre magazine as he spoke, the mechanical click of it punctuating his words. "I'm going to find out who put my name on that broadcast and I'm going to find out what they know about how this started. There are signals going out in this city from people who are still alive and I intend to track every one of them down." He looked up. "I'll stay on this radio. Anything I find out there that you need to know, you'll know it. Anything you pick up in here that I need to know, you call me immediately." His eyes found Jack. "Mercer, you're my contact point."

Jack nodded once. "Understood."

Andrew slung the M4, picked up the carry bag, and took the ammunition from Vasquez with a nod of thanks. He looked at Captain Reeves last. She held his gaze with the steady, unreadable expression of a woman who had already made up her mind about something and was keeping it to herself for now.

He'd have that conversation when he had more answers to bring to it.

"Which corridor are the holding cells on?" he asked no one in particular.

Vasquez pointed left. "Down the back hall, third door."

Andrew walked the length of the room, pushed through the corridor door, and followed it to the cells. The third door opened onto a short row of four — all empty, gates standing open. He chose the second one from the end for no particular reason, pushed the gate to without latching it, and sat down on the narrow cot bolted to the wall.

He set the M4 across his knees. Placed the radio beside him. Put the carry bag on the floor.

The cot was thin and the blanket folded at its foot smelled of disinfectant and age and he had a head wound that a proper doctor needed to look at and a name that was currently being broadcast across every news channel in the city as a criminal.

He stretched out, boots still on, one hand resting on the carbine.

Within four minutes, Andrew was asleep.