Tracking Shot by Colin Campbell (i can read book club .txt) 📗

to get his bearings. A very slow and painstaking move toward the front of the room. Hardly any noise, except for an occasional knock against the furniture. The odd footstep. McNulty thought he could almost hear the gunman breathing.

The clock ticked. Half-past midnight. Zero dark-thirty.

McNulty waited until the intruder was halfway to the bench, then he moved quickly, darting through the narrow door into the back room, leaving the door partly open behind him. There was no gunshot. There was no warning shout. Chairs were knocked over as the gunman charged across the courtroom and onto the raised platform.

McNulty veered right inside the room and dropped to a crouch. He turned to face the door and pressed the record button on his phone. It was all about timing and preparation now. He hoped the preparations had gone according to plan. A hulking figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the dull moonlight in the courtroom. He paused for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the dark, then one hand came up, pointing into the room.

McNulty clicked his fingers.

Two enormous arc lights came on behind him. The light was blinding and focused straight into the gunman’s face. McNulty had his back to the lights. The figure jerked a hand up to cover his eyes, obscuring his face. The other hand grabbed the doorframe for balance. The light had rocked him back on his heels.

McNulty lunged forward and rugby-tackled him to the ground. Something heavy dropped from the gunman’s hand and bounced across the floor. Momentum took both men back through the doorway where they tumbled off the platform. There were muffled words. A hand tried to grab McNulty’s throat. McNulty twisted it at the wrist and spun it around behind the man’s back, the pressure on the wrist and elbow forcing the man to go with it. Larry Unger stepped through the door and turned on the courtroom lights.

“Okay Vince, you got him. No need to break his arm.”

McNulty rolled the man onto his back and red-faced anger stared back at him.

“You just made a big mistake,” the man told him.

McNulty jerked back in surprise. Detective Jon Harris sat up and dusted himself off.

“A big fucking mistake.”

Larry supervised the lighting crew dismantling the equipment in the back room. They didn’t need supervising but he didn’t want to get between the detective and the ex-cop. This had progressed way beyond a pissing contest. This was borderline criminal. The detective was fuming.

“Withholding evidence. Reckless endangerment. Assaulting a police officer. You just screwed the pooch.”

McNulty picked up an overturned chair and sat down. “You going to read me my rights?”

Harris did the same and sat facing McNulty. “I’m going to read you the riot act. What were you thinking?”

McNulty shrugged. “False trail. Draw the guy out.”

Harris snorted a laugh. “Everyone in town has heard about this CCTV dump. You don’t think he could smell a trap?”

McNulty looked at the detective. “You came.” He nodded toward the windows. “And I take it you’re not alone.”

Harris raised the radio he’d dropped in the struggle and pressed transmit. “All units stand down. I repeat stand down.” Several squawks acknowledged the order. Harris turned to McNulty. “Which brings us to withholding evidence.” He waved toward the back room. “The CCTV download.”

McNulty sighed and slumped in his chair. “There is no CCTV. It’s a dummy.”

Harris looked up at the fake camera in the angle of the ceiling, then back at McNulty. He shook his head. “No. You’re the dummy.”

There was movement through the windows as SWAT units fell back to their vehicles. Engines started across the road. Harris stood up. “And you’re coming with me.”

McNulty didn’t move, looking up at the detective. “Am I under arrest?”

Harris didn’t get a chance to answer. There was a flash of light through the windows and a dull thump, followed by an enormous explosion. The concussion shattered the windows and the noise was deafening. Two hundred yards along Linden Street, the real District Court went up in a ball of flame.

TWENTY-NINE

The explosion at the District Court made the news all over Massachusetts but didn’t go national. Fox 25 and 7 News gave it plenty of airtime but local broadcaster WCVB ran with it the most. Kimberley Clark came out from the newsroom to be their face on the ground. She interviewed anyone she could get her hands on and even managed to grab a sound bite from “Hanging” Judge Reynolds, whose court had been disrupted. Being nicknamed the Hanging Judge put the fear of God into the defendants on trial, but it was somewhat misleading. Judge Reynolds was a keen horticulturist and favored hanging baskets over window planters. He didn’t look like he was thinking about hanging baskets when he spoke to Kimberley Clark.

“We will not stand for intimidation or be swayed from our path.” His voice boomed with righteous indignation. “Justice will prevail. And this trial will continue. As soon as they clear the crap out of my courtroom.”

Kimberley edited that last part out. The crap was all the debris the firefighters left behind after putting out the fire. Their main concern had been the Sunoco Gas Station just across the road at the junction with Main Street. Once they’d made sure there wasn’t going to be any crossover, they did what firefighters always did, destroyed anything that was on fire and stripped away everything that got in their way. The fireball and explosion took out the corner of the building and brought down part of the ceiling. The concussion smashed windows at the CVS Pharmacy, Petco and the Chester Brook Orphanage. More specifically, the part that had been dressed to replicate the District Court that had been blown up. Kimberley edited the next thing Judge Reynolds said out of the interview as well.

“They damage any more of my baskets,” his eyes were hard as stone, “I swear there’ll be a hanging for real.”

McNulty watched the interview the following morning in the police canteen at