The cameras were watching him.
Him specifically. He saw them pan after him as he moved. The concrete ceiling seemed incredibly far away.
Lionel began to sweat, and felt real terror. His heart seemed to race, trying to smash through his rib cage...
His hand, the one that didn't burn, began to drift toward the gun.
They were here, he could feel it, knew it with a certainty. The sharpness of the knowledge matched the razor clarity with which he saw the platform. Everything, the benches, the poster ads, the train pulling away, was torn out with a bold relief and colors bright enough for his eyes to ache.
And the people, everyone on the platform, stared at him with Davy's dead gray eyes.
Someone called his name, and Lionel knew it was death, come for him.
Gidion called out, "Lionel," again.
Lionel was normally nervous and shaky, but Gideon had never seen the guy looking this strung out. Gideon approached on his crutches, and made it a half-dozen steps before Lionel reacted.
When he did, he surprised the hell out of Gideon.
Lionel looked dead at him and shook his head, "No, no, man, you ain't taking me. Not like Davy."
After halving the distance between them, Gideon could see just how bad off Lionel was. Lionel was soaking with his own sweat, staring through pupils dilated enough to swallow the iris in a dead, black hole.
"I have your money—" Gideon started, hoping to calm him down.
Lionel scrambled backward and someone shouted, "Gun."
Gideon didn't know if it was one of the undercover cops on the platform, or one of the transit boys manning the cameras shouting over the PA system. But the crowd reacted, a sudden panicked rush of people running past Gideon, toward the exit.
Gideon fell backward, seeing Lionel waving an automatic, not seeming to know where to point it. As the civilians rushed for the exit, Lionel pointed it at Gideon, at the escaping people, and at the cameras.
One of the undercover boys had Lionel covered, pointing his weapon at him from behind a bench. In the chaos of moving people, Gideon heard a single gunshot. In response, a dozen other shots reverberated through the giant concrete chamber.
Lionel was cut to pieces as every undercover cop on the platform fired into him. He was probably dead before he slumped to the ground. Gideon watched, sickened, as Lionel spun, blood spraying from wounds in his chest, his throat, and his legs. It was like watching a replay of what had happened to Raphael.
The firing stopped when Lionel was motionless, facedown on the concrete. In the few moments of gunfire, the platform had emptied of everyone but cops.
"Fuck . . ." Gideon gasped as he grabbed his crutches and struggled to lever himself upright.
Eight plainclothes cops closed on the corpse, ringing Lionel with their guns drawn, as if he might still make a threatening move. Gideon, moving slowly, was one of the last to join the ring.
Gideon had nurtured a faint hope that Lionel might still be alive, but once he stood next to the body, he could see it was hopeless. The shot to the neck was final.
One of the detectives turned to Gideon. "You all right?"
"Yeah, damn it. He wasn't even aiming at me." Someone else said, "Bastard didn't give us a choice." Gideon nodded. Once they heard a shot, the only duty that remained was protecting the civilians on the platform. There was no way around it.
Gideon crutched around to the other side of Lionel and looked at the other cops. The transit boys would have the ambulance call in already. All they had to do was wait.
"Any of you have some gloves?" he asked the others.
One nodded, holstered his weapon, and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He looked at the body and asked, "What do you see?"
"Pick up the gun," Gideon asked. "See how many shots he fired."
The cop with the gloves bent over and retrieved Lionel's gun from the pool of his blood. He looked at the gun, shook his head, frowned. Then he pulled the clip and stared at it for a few moments.
Gideon didn't like his expression. "What is it?"
"This weapon hasn't been fired at all." He turned it around so the circle of cops could see the side of the gun. "He never even took the safety off."
1.08 Fri. Mar. 6
A T eight-thirty Friday morning, Gideon hobbled into Captain Davis' office. He had spent the last day sorting out the paperwork on Lionel's shooting and giving interviews to Internal Affairs.
His captain looked worse, as if he'd hadn't slept in the past week. His desk was piled high, as if he was trying to barricade himself in his office with paperwork.
Gideon leaned on his crutch and waited for Davis to notice him.
Eventually Davis looked up. He frowned and said, "So what are you doing here?"
"I want to know what was happening with Lionel—"
Davis looked at him, and Gideon could hear him sigh. "You're off duty, Gideon."
Gideon crutched up to the desk. "I have a right to know what's going on with that case."
Davis shook his head. "What the hell gives you that idea?"
"My brother—"
"This is a police department—not some freelance detective agency. Go home. Rest."
"All I want is—"
"All I want is a double-digit drop in the homicide rate and an adequately funded department. Who gets what they want? Get some rest and let this be."
Gideon stood there, debating whether to push the issue or not. He looked at Davis and decided not. The phrase "public relations disaster" went through his mind as he thought of the incident on the Metro. Shooting someone to ribbons on the platform of what was supposed to be the safest subway system in the nation could not be helping the PR situation.
He hobbled back out of the Captain's office and crutched over to one of the desks. Behind it sat Tamon Gardener, a homicide detective he knew from the academy.
Gardener was doing his best not to look directly at Gideon. He managed to avoid eye contact until Gideon had crutched up to directly in front of his desk.
"I'm sorry, man," he said. "We aren't supposed to talk to you about any police business."
"Christ, why—" Gideon was about to repeat himself, he had a right to know what was going on. He had a right because it was his case, his brother. He wasn't about to let some political bureaucracy in the department shut him out of the investigation.
However, it was obvious from Gardener's expression that word had come down from on high in the department. It would be pointless to voice his frustration.
Instead, he decided to try a little finesse. "Look, all I need is one thing for my report—"
"Look, I shouldn't even be talking to you."
"I just need the case number for the Metro shoot-out." Gardener looked up at him as if trying to decide if he'd be breaking any standing orders by giving Gideon that information.
This has got the whole damn department tied up in knots, Gideon thought.
Gardener scribbled on a pad. "Look, steer clear of this until things calm down. IA's breathing down the neck of anyone who touches this case."
"I'll put in a good word for you with Magness," Gideon said. He pocketed the slip of paper while balancing on his crutches.
"Don't do me any favors."
When Gideon got home, he crutched his way upstairs and turned on his computer. The old machine took a while to warm up. It gave Gideon a chance to find himself a comfortable position in his chair. It took him a little longer to get oriented, moving the mouse with the wrong hand.
Eventually he called up the department. The computer dialed, and soon he was hearing the whine of a carrier.
He hadn't used his account in the DCPD database since he'd been gunned down. He'd spent all his time on his own private account. He was hoping that all the folks who wanted him on vacation had overlooked his mainframe account. He logged in and waited.