“That.” Karnage’s legs flew up, grabbed a surprised Sydney by the neck, and slammed her into the floor. She was out cold.
Karnage’s neck buzzed. “Warning. Sanity Level upgraded to Strawberry Shortcake. Please refrain—”
“Shut up.” Karnage looked down at Sydney. “You gotta learn to control your temper there, Captain. No reason for you to lose your cool. Unless, of course, you object to mindlessly beatin’ on a man. Which I think you do. So fair’s fair, I guess. Your own moral code brought you down. Worse ways to lose.”
He pulled the pistol from Sydney’s belt, happy to finally have his hands on some serious hardware. He frowned. It felt far too light. He pulled the gun’s clip.
“Goddammit.” It was empty. Karnage tossed the gun away in disgust. Sydney had been bluffing him the whole time. “You got guts, Captain. I’ll give you that.” He tried hard to suppress a smile.
Karnage looked around the room. All three Dabneycops lay in varying stages of unconsciousness. The duffel bag lying by the furnace caught Karnage’s eye. He opened it, revealing handcuffs, chains, ropes, and other means of restraint, including—
“Hot damn.” Karnage held up the straitjacket. He smiled. “Looks like it’s my size, too.”
He slipped it on. The heavy canvas felt good against his skin. Like coming home. He cut down the sleeves with the bowie knife from Tiny’s belt. The cuffs were cut much cleaner this time. It felt more like a uniform than ever. He was growing to like this.
He cuffed Tiny and Chuckles to the furnace, and gagged their mouths with the cut sleeves of the straitjacket. Sydney was another matter. Karnage wrapped her in chains, ropes, and every bit of restraining material in the bag. He stared at the unconscious form of the captain. From the neck down she was wrapped in a cocoon of rope and metal. But he still wasn’t satisfied.
“Frankly, Captain, I think I’d have to encase you in concrete before I thought you were good and trussed up.” Karnage eyed the empty duffel bag. “Matter of fact, I think I’d rather keep my eye on you….”
Karnage slipped the mummified Sydney into the duffel bag. It was tight, but she just fit. Just as he was about to zip the bag over Sydney’s face, he was hit with a pang of guilt. She deserved better than this, a combat fighter like her. Definitely didn’t deserve to be trussed up like somebody’s badly packed luggage. He gave her a quick salute. “I hope you understand this ain’t personal, Captain.”
He zipped up the bag and slung it over his shoulder.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I want this son of a bitch caught.”
Riggs paced the front of the squad room. His reflection paced back and forth across the mirrored visors of the men’s helmets.
“He’s a trained killer and he’s going to kill again.”
A voice called out from the back: “This wouldn’t have happened if Sydney were in charge.”
A slight nodding of heads rippled out from the source. Riggs tried to pinpoint who it was, but all he saw was his own angry glare reflected back at him from the sea of mirrored visors. “Nobody’s happy with how things have gone,” Riggs said. “There are a lot of unanswered questions here. I’ve got three missing officers and two missing prisoners. Did they help the prisoners escape? Were they overpowered? Considering Captain Sydney’s skill as a fighter, that’s doubtful. What’s her role in all this? We won’t know how much she’s involved until we find her.”
An angry murmur coursed through the crowd. Riggs spoke over it. “But our focus here is Karnage. He must be contained at all costs. I want every available body on this manhunt. From disposal to dispatch. Deputize them. Terrorize them. Whatever it takes. If they got a pulse, they’re in on the search. Nobody rests until Karnage is found. Do I make myself clear?”
A hand shot up in the back. “Shouldn’t we leave a skeleton crew here, in case—”
Riggs exploded. “I will not have anybody sitting on their asses and playing pinochle while that bloodthirsty maniac is on the loose! When I say I want everybody after that sonofabitch, I mean everybody! Is that clear?!”
There was a begrudging murmur of assent from the officers.
“Good. Now get the hell out of here, and find me that bastard. Dismissed!”
The squadron filed out, some of them grumbling under their breaths. Their Dabby Tabby helmets seemed to mock Riggs with their mirrored visor grins. A couple of constables glanced up at Riggs as they left. He was sure they were giving him the evil eye. He tried to record their badge numbers, but their arms were conveniently covering them.
As the last of the men left the squad room, Riggs sighed. It was supposed to have been easier than this. But everything had gone wrong since he had accepted this assignment. No one had warned him about Sydney. And then there was Karnage. He was crazier than anybody had thought.
Riggs walked back to his office, thinking of his former commanding officer running around the desert, shooting at anything that moved while shouting about aliens. The poor bastard. Riggs felt a twinge of guilt. Maybe he could have done more to help. Maybe…
As he reached the door to his office, Riggs heard voices coming from down the hall. He ground his teeth. Nobody should have been left in this part of the building. They should be out on patrol, or packing their sorry butts into a patrol cruiser.
Riggs marched around the corner. A short, slovenly constable hunkered over the door to the armoury while a second taller constable leaned against the wall looking on, his foot resting idly against a large duffel bag.
“Just what the hell are you two doing?” Riggs barked.
The short constable stumbled back, tripping over the duffel bag. He fell to the floor. After picking himself up, he brushed off his illfitting uniform. “Uh, I—we, that is, uh… ah…”
The taller constable stepped forward and saluted Riggs. “Constable Zuniga, Captain. Don’t mind old Chucky, there. He always gets like this around Brass. Doesn’t stop him from bein’ the best mechanic in the motor pool. Ain’t that right, Chucky?”
“I, er, uh…” Chucky looked from Zuniga to Riggs and back again.
“Why the hell aren’t you two out on patrol?!”
Zuniga pointed to the bag. “Chucky here’s got this hockey game tonight, and he wasn’t sure if we’d have time to come back to pick up his gear, so we thought—”
“You thought?! Who the hell asked you to think? If I wanted thinkers, I’d be commanding a goddamn think tank! I do the thinking, you do the following. So when I say everybody goes out on patrol, I mean everybody! No exceptions! Are you listening to me, mister?!”
The only signs of emotion on Zuniga’s face was Riggs’s angry reflection scowling back at him. “Heard every word, Captain,” Zuniga said. He jerked a thumb at the armoury. “But before we go, sir, you might be interested in knowing someone’s been tampering with the lock. Sir.”
Riggs took a close look at the door. There was nothing left of the biometric scanner but a gaping hole and a mass of wires. Riggs ran his fingers through the tangle of wires. He pulled out a red and green wire that had been carefully braided together. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. “Stumpton.”
He rounded on Zuniga. “Is there anything gone? Anything missing?”
Zuniga shook his head. “Haven’t had a chance to look, sir. We were about to, but then you ordered us to—”
“Well look, dammit! Look!” Riggs kicked open the door and barged in.
Tasers, goober guns, and goober grenades packed the shelves, ripe for the plucking, yet entirely unplucked. Riggs let out a sigh of relief. “Thank god. Nothing’s missing.”