Джеймс Паттерсон - Liar Liar

The operation was bigger than I had anticipated. The tactical vehicle was one I recognised from a tour I’d taken as a teenager, when I’d flirted with the idea of joining the army rather than the police. It was the kind that housed submachine guns and racks of rifles, night-vision gear and sniper scopes the size of baseball bats. They’d pulled out all the stops to find Regan, and it didn’t look like they were going to make his capture a priority. They were going to shoot to kill.

This was not Pops’s style. My chief was not a ‘blast them out of the water’ type but the kind of man who favoured small, smart teams and maximum safety for all officers involved. Knowing that I was out here looking for Regan, Pops would never have authorised a crew of special-ops guys running around in the dark shooting at anything that moved. It was probably Deputy Commissioner Joe Woods in charge, and he’d no doubt authorised necessary force protocols for both Regan and me.

OK. New tactic. I crouched in the dark and thought. The only way I was going to get to Regan and avoid capture by the specialist team was to be on an even playing field with them. I needed the same equipment they had. And there was only one way to obtain that.

By force.

Chapter

86

TOX WASN’T FEELING good. Every muscle in his body had been completely inactive during his two-week coma, the carefully built tissue slowly draining away, not helped by the three weeks he had then spent lying around after he had woken. He figured he’d worked those muscles to their limit just getting to where he was now, creeping through the darkened woods. He’d probably also torn or stretched something in the pit of his guts, which had barely been given time to heal after being severed by a kitchen knife. And yet it was Whitt who was lagging behind him, stopping every fifty metres and leaning against a tree. Tox went back to his partner. The two stood in the dark until Whitt had caught his breath.

‘I’m alright.’ Whitt straightened. ‘I can go on.’

He swayed a little. Tox put a hand on the man’s shoulder, inhaled deeply.

‘Why do you smell like hooch?’ he asked.

He’d taken all the Dexes from Whitt and flushed them, poured the contents of the bottles in the motel minibar down the drain. Yet he could distinctly smell whisky. A pungent odour he knew well.

Tox’s eyes widened as he remembered.

‘Is that the Blue Label from the back seat of my car?’

Whitt didn’t answer. He hung his head and drew the narrow, half-empty bottle from the pocket of his coat.

‘Do you know how expensive that shit is? Do you know how long I’ve been saving that?’ Tox raised a hand to smack his friend in the head again, but softened at the last minute.

‘You really have taken up right where you left off, haven’t you?’ he said.

‘I’m OK.’ Whitt’s eyes moved to him in the dark. ‘I just needed to take the edge off.’

‘You’re not OK.’ Tox took the gun from Whitt’s other pocket.

‘I have to keep going,’ Whitt said. ‘Harry’s probably out there. She needs all the help she can get. If I’d seen what Vada was doing, I could have –’

‘If!’ Tox spat. ‘If, if, if. You know how many miserable fucking losers have driven themselves into the ground trying to chase down ifs?’

Whitt shook his head.

‘Let me tell you something, Whitt,’ Tox said. ‘You can hunt your fantasies about what should or shouldn’t have happened in your life all the way back to your daddy knocking your mama up with a future rehab regular. But you know what? I’ve done you a favour. I’ve gone down that road already, and I can tell you there’s nothing at the end of it.’

Whitt straightened slightly.

‘We’ve all made mistakes trying to catch this murdering arsehole, Regan Banks,’ Tox said. ‘But sitting around crying about it isn’t going to make it happen.’

Whitt straightened completely. His partner’s words seemed to fill him with vitality. He looked at the whisky bottle in his hand, and seemed to make a decision. He threw the bottle down, shattering it against a lump of sandstone sitting nearby.

Tox stared at the glass shards in the dirt.

‘You could have just –’ He sighed. ‘Never mind.’

‘Give me back my gun.’ Whitt put his hand out. ‘You’re right. We’ve wasted enough time already.’

‘No chance, mate.’ Tox shoved him down against the base of a nearby tree. He wrenched the knife from Whitt’s belt and forced it into his hands. ‘You’re gonna be the standing sentry. Sit here and wait. If anything comes within five feet of you, close your eyes and start stabbing.’

‘But –’

‘You’re the one who’s got your heart set on the blame game,’ Tox said. ‘It’s not gonna be my fault you got yourself killed because you can’t handle your spirits.’

He patted Whitt on the shoulder, turned and left him alone in the dark.

Chapter

87

TWO OFFICERS ESCORTED Pops to the tactical truck, rifles up. He was led into the red-lit interior, where Woods was sitting at a fold-out table surrounded by maps and laptop screens, a group of men around him. He didn’t even look up when Pops entered. The crew inside the mobile unit appeared to be watching footage fed from a drone fitted with a heat-seeking camera.

‘Deputy Commissioner Woods,’ Pops said, drawing the uncomfortable attention of all of the men before him except the man he addressed. ‘I’m here to officially request that this operation be aborted for the safety of my officer, Detective Inspector Harriet Blue.’

Woods said nothing, still refused to look up from the screen that was casting a green light on his face. The officers behind him glanced at each other. Nigel Spader was standing in the corner, a headset clamped to his ears, looking at a sheet of numbers. When he spotted Pops he raked the headset off.

‘Chief Morris,’ Nigel advanced towards him, ‘I can help you with any enquiries you have. Let me escort you to the roadblock.’

When Nigel grabbed his arm, Pops shoved the junior officer in his narrow chest.

‘Back off, you brownnosing, coat-tail-riding worm,’ Pops sneered. ‘You’re only here because I clued you in to Banks’s plan.’

Woods was ignoring the entire exchange unfolding at the edge of his table, as though it wasn’t happening at all.

‘Jeez, the picture quality isn’t great,’ he said to one of the officers nearby, pointing at the screen before him. ‘What’s that? Is that a person or an animal?’

‘The drone camera is brand new tech,’ a young officer said, clearing his throat. ‘The one on the chopper’s better, obviously, but we don’t want to spook the targets by doing flyovers.’

‘The targets ,’ Pops said, putting his hands on the table. ‘Woods, have you briefed these men about the possible appearance of my officer? Is she considered a target? Because if she is, I’d like to know on what authority you –’

Woods glanced up at Pops and sighed. ‘Chief Morris, you’re a suspended officer interfering in an active police operation at this very minute. Can you say whatever it is that you need to say and then leave?’

‘Have you authorised the men out there for use of necessary force against Blue?’ Pops asked.

‘I have.’

‘You can’t do that without an arrest warrant!’

‘Just watch me.’ Woods smiled.

Pops looked around the room. ‘You all heard that, didn’t you? Harriet Blue has not been formally charged with a crime. Even if you did try to get a warrant now, all you’d have is resisting arrest at best, which doesn’t justify force. Harry’s wounded. Did he tell you that?’

The men shifted, looked away.

‘This man is endangering her life by setting up a sting for an innocent officer of the law.’