Mitch Helwig is a renegade on the street with some heavy-duty hi-tech weaponry and a not quite sane determination to get revenge--even if he has to go beyond death to do it.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Mitch Helwig is a renegade on the street with some heavy-duty hi-tech weaponry and a not quite sane determination to get revenge--even if he has to go beyond death to do it.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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Overview
Mitch Helwig is a renegade on the street with some heavy-duty hi-tech weaponry and a not quite sane determination to get revenge--even if he has to go beyond death to do it.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780312871192 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tor Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 04/15/1999 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Terence M. Green is a school teacher in Toronto.
Read an Excerpt
Blue Limbo
By Terence M. Green
Tom Doherty Associates
Copyright © 1997 Terence M. GreenAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8125-7134-9
CHAPTER 1
"You're going to be suspended."
Mitch Helwig stared at his superior officer, Sam Karoulis, without expression.
It had been coming.
Still, when it came, he was surprised at how he felt: like a depth charge had been detonated nearby.
"I think I'm next," Karoulis added. "There's going to be a complete overhaul." He walked to his desk, took a cigarette from the top drawer.
Mitch watched, still silent.
"Not supposed to smoke these things in here, you know. Smoke-free zone." He struck a match on the cardboard package he took from the same drawer, held it to the cigarette's tip, inhaled deeply. He let the smoke expel slowly. "Fuck it," he said.
"Captain—"
"That's another thing," interrupted Karoulis. "There was even talk of going back to the way it used to be. Twentieth-century stuff. Superintendents, inspectors, constables ... No more captains." He paused. After another deep draw on the cigarette, he met Mitch's eye. "They want me too."
"Names, titles, structures," Mitch said. "Big fucking deal. We know what's happening." He put his hands in his pockets.
Karoulis stared hard at Mitch. "Yes," he said. Then he nodded. "We do. Indeed, we do."
Mitch Helwig of the Toronto Police Force remembered it all.
All.
Mario. It had started when he had been killed. His partner, his best friend.
And with Karoulis's help, Mitch had ended it all. They had done what was necessary, used what was necessary, broken the rules.
But they had been right. And they had made a difference.
The Archangel was gone. Herrington Storage—the warehouse cover for it all —was gone. Closing his eyes, Mitch could see the flames blossom, smell the sulfurized smoke as it mushroomed into the darkness; he could still feel the explosions rocking him in his skimmer as the night swallowed him, drawing the poison from his heart.
Karoulis. The man had finally crossed the line to Mitch's side. The war could not have been won any other way. It had gone too far.
And now a new enemy. It was not over.
"Who?" Mitch asked. "Who's giving the order to suspend me?"
Karoulis met his eyes.
"Will it come from the top? From the chief of police?"
Karoulis shook his head. "Close, though," he said. "Galecki. He's the one."
Mitch was only mildly surprised. So, he thought. At last. One of the jackals steps from the shadows, sidles into the twilight. Joseph Galecki, one of the three deputy chiefs, was going to champion reform within the ranks, for his own dubious purposes.
Or was Mitch wrong? Was Galecki simply a bureaucrat?
"What do you think?" he asked Karoulis.
The captain shook his head. His eyes slid around the walls and ceiling of his office, deep in the core of Station 52 on Dundas Street, then back to Mitch's face. This, he implied, is no longer a place where such opinions should be aired. The world is more devious than we can imagine.
Mitch understood. He asked another question. "What do I do now?"
"You go home. You wait. I'll be in touch."
Go home, Mitch thought. Karoulis didn't know.
It was no longer that simple.
Huziak watched as Mitch Helwig left Karoulis's office. Everyone in the station, it seemed, could feel the vibrations—like aftershocks following the earthquake.
"Mitch."
Mitch turned to meet the face of the staff sergeant.
"You okay?"
Mitch nodded, smiled. "Thanks."
"What happened?"
Mitch was quiet for a moment, weighing words that he would never say. He studied the man behind the desk, listened to his somewhat asthmatic breathing, saw the buttons of his shirt pulled tight at the girth above his belt, and thought how he didn't know him as well as he should after so many years. Then he said, "I'm going to be suspended."
Neither of them said anything.
Mitch broke the silence. "What's new with you, champ?"
Huziak smiled softly. He shook his head, ran a hand through his thinning hair, and shrugged at the paperwork covering his desk. "All this stuff, I still got to wade through, and they want to take a good man like you out of service." He shrugged again. "Why don't they give you to me to use? I could use you." His hand passed over the clutter in front of him. "Help me clear up this stuff."
Unsure what to say, Mitch forced a smile again. "What's the big item today?"
"Big item," Huziak muttered. "Big fucking items." His big hands shuffled through the papers. "First it's lasers. Now it's zappers."
Mitch watched him, half listening, half lost in the tangle of his own thoughts.
"Guy who manages three Swiss Chalets in the downtown core has just armed his entire staff with zappers." He held a sheet of paper at arm's length. "One of his waitresses complained—isn't sure it's legal." He looked up. "Or," he continued, "there's the betting pool we've uncovered, which tries to predict the date of Toronto's next police slaying. Vice searched a house in Parkdale, found about five hundred grams of marijuana, and a pool chart with several names and eight columns numbered one to thirty-one. What do you think of that one?"
"Christ."
"My sentiments exactly. Organized crime here and in the States nets more than two hundred billion dollars profit, costs more than seven hundred thousand jobs, is bigger than the paper, rubber, and tire industries, and we've got zappers in our Swiss Chalets. Guys are betting when we'll get iced. And they come down on guys like you in their never-ending battle against the Bad Guys. Go figure."
Huziak seemed to have gotten it all out. They said nothing for a few seconds.
"If I can do anything, Mitch ..."
Mitch nodded. "Thanks. I just might have to take you up on it."
"What do you do now? Go home for a while?"
Without answering, Mitch turned his gaze very slightly toward the wall behind Huziak. His eyes focused on something very far away, something not in the room or the building, something he had lost and did not know how to find.
CHAPTER 2Phil Huziak waited fifteen minutes before taking in the morning's latest to Karoulis. He knocked gently.
"Yes?"
Huziak opened the door slightly and stuck his round head in. "Me, Cap'n."
"Formal this morning, aren't we?"
"Saw Mitch coming out earlier."
Karoulis nodded. Even with his mind elsewhere, he understood the necessity of maintaining routines. "C'mon in."
Huziak ambled in. "You want to do this now?"
"Sure, sure. Sit down. It doesn't matter. Coffee?"
"Yeah. I'll get it." Huziak walked over to the ancient Mr. Coffee maker in the corner. There was still lots left in the carafe. "You too?"
"Thanks."
"Got one you'll like, Captain." He poured into two Styrofoam cups.
"I never shoot the messenger."
"Says you."
Karoulis smiled, weakly. "What is it?"
Huziak handed him his coffee and sat down. "Bomb squad cleared the bus station on Bay Street this morning. Six A.M. Ticking sound from a trash can spooked everybody."
"And I'm going to like this one?"
"Well, the squad's used to finding clocks and stuff, but they tell me it's the first time they ever found an abandoned vibrator." He chuckled.
"Jesus."
"They were having a ball filling out the report when I came in this morning."
"Should get them through the day."
"And," Huziak hitched his pants over his stomach, rolled his eyes back in thought, "I've asked De-Marco, C.O.B., Homicide, to look into a rifle found wedged into a Goodwill box on Church Street. Some guy called last night. Was stuffin' clothes in and noticed it."
"What kind of a rifle?"
"Sanyo. Laser."
"Christ." No ballistics possible, he thought. As usual.
"We'll check it for prints. See if we can trace it."
They both knew it would most likely prove futile.
"And we picked up three teenagers last night. Tip came in. Frightening kids. We were able to lay sixty-four charges. One kid's charged with fifty-one counts of breaking, entering, and theft, four counts of robbery, and four counts of possession of stolen goods. They're responsible for dozens of break-ins, mostly in Riverdale. One of them had this on him." He reached in his pocket, took out what looked like a car key that had been honed to a point, and put it on Karoulis's desk.
Karoulis looked at it. "What is it?"
"A master key, for Japanese cars. It opens doors and starts ignitions as fast as the owner can with the proper key."
Karoulis had heard of them. Cars could be gone in thirty seconds. This was what was assumed to have been used in fifty percent of the thefts of Toyotas, Datsuns, Nissans, Mitsubishis, and Hondas in the greater metro area. It looked so simple, he thought. In the age of the microchip, everything could look so simple.
"I borrowed it from Evidence to show you. Thought you'd like to see one."
"Mmm." Karoulis held it at arm's length, thinking. It reminded him of something else he'd never seen. "The new zappers."
"What's that?"
"The new zappers. I've never seen one of them either."
"You're kidding. They aren't all that new."
"I'm a little slow sometimes, Huziak." He put the key down on the desk. "Sometimes I think it's all passing me by."
"I've got one tagged in my desk outside. Want to see it?"
"Sure." Karoulis started to get up.
"I'll get it, Captain. Don't get up."
"I want to get up. I'm a little restless."
Huziak smiled wryly, nodding. "Sure. C'mon." He led the way.
When they reached the desk, Huziak reached into a lower drawer and produced the item. Karoulis lifted it from his hand, turning it over curiously.
"That one's a Nova XR One Thousand. Weighs about two hundred grams. Uses a nine- volt battery. You hold it up against someone, it sends them sixty thousand volts. Manufacturers claim no permanent injury, unless you hold it against a person for several minutes. Stuns the muscles. Leaves the person conscious but immobile for about twenty minutes."
Karoulis knew that there was no decision yet on their legality. "Sixty thousand volts. Christ. Isn't that a lot?"
"The current generated is only point two or three or five milliamps, or something like that. It's slightly misleading, as I understand it."
Karoulis was studying it in his hand when the explosion shattered all the windows around them and blew them over the desk.
Seconds of silence followed, while smoke billowed and curled through the room. Then there were coughs, curses, a couple of shouts, as plaster and glass began to shudder loose from weakened moorings.
Karoulis lay on the floor, half on top of Huziak. It came to him slowly what had happened. At least, he thought, I'm alive. But he hurt everywhere he tried to move. Then his eyes began to sting.
Blood, he thought. And he could taste it in his mouth.
Huziak coughed. Then: "Christ."
Karoulis rolled off the sergeant, onto his side, lay there with his heart pounding. Part of his hearing seemed to be gone. Everything was ringing. With a concerted effort, he focused on Huziak. The sergeant's face was covered in blood.
Jesus, he thought. Jesus Christ.
Karoulis and Huziak sat in chairs, watching the team of officers and plainclothesmen sift through the rubble. Karoulis smoked a cigarette openly. Nobody said anything to him about it.
All the blood covering both of them had been caused by superficial cuts from the exploding glass. Simply put, it looked worse than it was. Karoulis had bitten his tongue badly when the blast's concussion bowled them over. The cut on Huziak's cheek indicated that he hadn't missed losing an eye by very much.
Two officers had not been so lucky.
Karoulis eyed the body bags, inhaled deeply on his cigarette.
Evans and Lim. In the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been anybody. It could have been me, he thought. He closed his eyes, imagining the horror of telling their families.
My office, Karoulis thought. It was in my fucking office. It was meant for me. Those poor bastards were just standing by the door, talking. If I hadn't come out with Huziak ...
There was a man standing in front of him. It was Polonich from the bomb squad. From a vibrator to this, he thought. A full day.
"Semtex, Captain," Polonich said.
"I'm listening." He exhaled a stream of smoke.
"Odorless, orange-colored plastic explosive, almost impossible to detect."
"Where was it?"
"Taped to the bottom of your desk, I'd say right now."
"How'd it get there?"
Polonich shrugged. "That's the million-dollar question. We'll need a list of everyone who was in and out of your office the past few days. Maybe the past few weeks, if that doesn't pan out."
"Is the stuff common?' Easy to get?"
Polonich shook his head. "State of the art. Manufactured by the Eastern Bohemian Works, a state-owned arms factory in the Czech Republic. It's the only substance that defies detection by bomb-sniffing dogs, X-ray machines. Government officials and terrorist experts claim Syria and Libya have used it. This is the first domestic use I've heard of. These guys knew what they were doing."
"Under my desk." Karoulis stared at the remains of his office.
"It can be placed in a suitcase and appear as a dense mass on an X-ray machine. It can also be shaped to resemble innocent-looking objects. It also has the advantage of being stable, meaning it does not go off in uncontrolled circumstances."
"Meaning that it went off exactly when someone wanted it to go off." Polonich nodded. "I'd say so."
Karoulis turned to Huziak. "I'd like to thank you."
From beneath a long bandage over his left, eye, Huziak squinted at him.
"I have a new fondness for zappers."
They stared at the body bags on the floor.
CHAPTER 3"The king of England got his annual six percent raise." Paul Helwig, Mitch's eighty-four-year-old father stared at his son as if the money had come out of his own pocket. He swiveled his head from the TV set, which was his constant companion, and held Mitch steadily with his weakening eyes. "His annual salary's now fifteen point two million dollars. Not bad for an old guy with a crown."
Mitch noticed that his father's sweater was buttoned up incorrectly.
"The whole family of inbred imbeciles have now got twenty million dollars a year to polish their crowns with. Wonder they can get 'em on their heads, the way they must be swellin' up." He shook his own head in disdain. "He's nearly as old as I am, for God's sake. Where did I go wrong? Eh? Where?" He continued to shake his head at the imponderable.
"Maybe next time you'll get it right." Mitch smiled at his father.
"Next time. Yeah. Right. Next time. I'll hold my breath."
Mitch sat down in the worn, green, cloth-covered chair in the corner of the apartment opposite to where his father was sitting. It was a chair that had been a fixture in the home in which he had grown up-the home that had been sold only last year. Paul Helwig had lasted less than a year in the house after Mitch's mother had died. Mitch's parents had been married for fifty-two years. His father still didn't know where he was. It had all happened too fast.
Mitch knew how he felt.
"How're you doing?"
The older Helwig gazed at his son. "This is a strange place. I guess it'll take some gettin' used to." He paused. "I know I'm old. But everybody here's old. Makes me feel weird. Don't think it's natural."
"You wanted to come here. You said you'd researched it, that it was the best spot."
"I know. And it is. Still—"
Mitch nodded. He understood.
"A ninety-nine-year-old Japanese guy reached the top of Mount Fuji yesterday. A record. Forty-five hundred meters. Guy used a cane. The other climbers all shouted 'Banzai.'" He gestured with his hand. "Nobody around here's doin' anything like that."
"Where do you get stuff like that?" Mitch asked.
"Where I get everything. Goddamn TV."
Sandy Zwolinski, the talk-show host with the exquisite white hair, blossomed to life on the screen as they sat there. It was ten A.M.
"Guy on Canada A.M. this morning confirmed what I always knew. Bald guys are sexy." He smiled under his shiny dome. Mitch smiled too.
"Scientists have found the missing molecular link. It's all tied to overactive male hormones."
"That one's been kicking around for years."
"It's confirmed. Scientists said so."
"Scientists where? Who?" Mitch continued to smile as he felt himself getting drawn in further. His old man could do it to him every time.
"University of Miami. Oil glands in the scalps of guys with pattern baldness—"
"Pattern baldness?"
Paul Helwig stopped for a second, stared, then continued. "They got molecules, called receptors, with fifty to one hundred percent greater capacity for binding the ingredients of testosterone. Receptors catch the hormones as they enter the scalp, convert 'em to testosterone, then pass 'em on to the gene structure in the cell's nucleus."
Mitch knew that he was getting exactly what his father had heard on TV. The old man's mind and short-term memory were as good as ever. As his eyes faded, the world came to him, as it did to so many others, via the Tube.
"Guess the babes around here better look over their shoulders when you come strolling down to dinner."
"Be like shootin' fish in a barrel. Couldn't even give me a good chase anymore.
It's ninety percent women here, you know."
"I know. You've told me."
"Most of 'em are Baptists, though. They subsidize the place. Don't know what to make of 'em yet."
"Just don't ask them to dance."
A corner of the old man's mouth finally smiled.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Blue Limbo by Terence M. Green. Copyright © 1997 Terence M. Green. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
What People are Saying About This
A real page turner. It's all here: beautiful writing, a breakneck pace, and characters you care about.
Green isn't the sort to flit among a thousand little ideas. He takes a couple of startling good ideas and develops them wonderfully well. His vengeful cop, Helwig, is a moralist in a Phil Dick world; no wonder he goes over the edge.
Terry Green is one of those hidden literary treasures.