Frank notices a little girl staring at him. Her stare draws a bigger hole in Frank’s sole than any other stare he had previously witnessed. The little girl who had plain features but stood out with her pale skin and bright red hair was still staring at Frank while accompanying a scornful smirk on her face, but distilled sadness in her eyes. The girl quickly turns to her mother who’s sitting right next to her and shakes her arm to get her attention. The mother who was busy talking to a passer-by turned around and asked her daughter what was wrong, not with words but a look. The littler girl turns to face Frank’s direction yet again, and then ominously points square in the direction of where Frank is sitting. The mother looks at Frank and as soon as her eyes meet his, she quickly grabs her girl and rushes out of the coffee shop, leaving Frank in shock of what he’s seeing.

‘What the fuck was her problem?’ He asks himself quietly, or so he thought, as a few dozen people stare at him in shock of his outburst. He shakes his head in frustration and downs his lukewarm late. He grabs his cigarettes that lay on the table next to his empty cup. Frank stands up and walks across the Starbucks seating area towards the men’s toilets, his hands are in his pocket rustling his pill container,  his sole’s succumbing to the seductive sound of rattling, he breaths in deeply as he reaches the toilet door and he stares at the stick man figure on it, his heart races hard and fast as he opens the door and enters the toilets. By now his pills have found their way to his hand, and as soon as the door closes behind him, they have found their way to his mouth.

Twenty Nine

Eddie smith is pacing up and down in his temporary office at the incident room. His pacing was being witnessed by Chief Shaw who was sitting down on a chair facing the DA’s desk. Eddie was pacing behind Shaw but the chief was catching the reflection of the DA’s nervous strides on a mirror that was stacked behind Eddie’s desk, on top of some large cardboard boxes that were acting as the mirrors support braces. The relentless pace of the DA carried on for a few more minutes while Shaw remained seated in silence. Eddie then stopped dead in the center of the room and shook his head firmly in disgust.

‘SHIT!’ Eddie yelled

His pacing continued

‘How the hell did this happen? How the hell did I not see he was unstable?’ Eddie yelled once more

Chief Shaw remained seated, by now he was looking at the DA’s reflection in the mirror, the anger in the DA’s eyes were evident in the brimstone tone that accompanied every word that came out of his mouth at that moment in time. The DA’s pace grew ever quicker, while Shaw just sat back in his seat letting Eddie vent out his frustrations.

‘I was good to him! I let him come back…. I insisted he came back…..To save him. Now I find out about his visit to Tasha’s bed today of all days! Is he that stupid to think that sleeping with a key witness would fly with me? Did he honestly think that I would just never find out? Obviously it pissed Connor Chase off something rotten and now I have to deal with the fallout. Guess it’s fitting, seeing the District Attorney of Boston Massachusetts has nothing better to do then file a warrant out for the arrest of Frank McKenzie, my best friend and the best detective working in this department! It’s not like there isn’t any other warrants needing my attention, because Boston has only had one crime in the past 38 hours.’  Eddie smith vents sarcastically

Chief Shaw smiles at Eddie as he turns around to finally face his distraught boss.

‘Has there really only been one crime since Chase stated this thing?’ Shaw asks

Eddie smith shakes his head in annoyance at the Chief of police’s question.

‘No of course there hasn’t! All violent assaults and robberies have been put on hold, orders from Chase and his followers! Don’t be naive Shaw. I’ve had over ten warrants being asked for since this case started. It’s all fallout from this shit storm of a case. The mayor wants to ask the president to issue a state of emergency, but I fear it will only make the situation worst. We have had seven murders in the past twenty nine hours. That’s ten per cent of what we usually get a year, murder wise we look at about three murders a fortnight even that is a heavy case load if you want to do right by the victim and their families by solving the case and giving closure to the associates of the victim. On top of the mindless assaults that have happened, we have had a tremendous amount of looting going on. This thing with Chase is causing more than a ripple now; it’s starting to strain our police force and fire and rescue teams. We need to lock down this thing now, or we could be in the shit.’

Chief Shaw gets up from his seat and faces the DA

‘We can’t do that sir.’ Says Shaw

‘Why not, I don’t see the big problem here. We go in, get them. That’s it. What’s the hold up?’

‘It’s a little more complicated than that sir. Our intelligence suggests that they have every exit booby trapped with explosives. Not to mention they have sentries stationed everywhere in the building, all armed with automatic weaponry and explosives.’

Eddie shakes his head disapprovingly.

‘Intelligence, what fucking intelligence would that be?’

Shaw turns back to face the mirror in the clunky office

‘Intelligence from the units stationed on the ground, outside of the M.I.T building.’

The DA starts laughing, much to the annoyance of Chief Shaw

‘How can they possibly know if there are sentries in the building, and that they have booby trapped the entrances and exits. Is there something you’re not telling me? Or cant my Harvard educated brain distinguish bullshit from ballistics?’

Shaw looks down at the floor intently as if to disguise something.

‘No sir. You know everything you need to know’ He says quietly

‘Well good, because I wouldn’t want to be in the position of the person trying to swindle a Washington appointed District Attorney out of valuable information that he has every legal right in knowing.’

The room goes silent; the DA smiles and walks out of the room as if his point was made more valid by the absence of his presence.

Chief Shaw remains seated, looking down at the floor intently trying to figure out something in his head. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone. He starts going through the phones menus until he reaches the SMS menu. He punches in a text. He quickly types out the words and hits send, all within about thirty seconds, as if he wants the message out there as quickly as possible. He stares bleakly at the LCD screen until it read “MESSAGE SENT”

He scrolls down to the sent box and re reads the message he just sent for clarity.

“Hourly report A.S.A.P”

Shaw puts the cell phone back in his pocket and gets up from his seat. He spots a pack of cigarettes on the DA’s desk and swipes a cigarette out of the pack. He lights it up and throws the pack back onto the mahogany desk and walks out of the office.

Thirty

A flashing light goes off accompanied by the unmistakable hum of the vibration that rattles the cell phone violently, nearly twisting it in a three hundred and sixty degree rotation on top of the operating table. Nathan quickly grabs the vibrating phone off the table and reads the text message on it. He looks around nervously and quickly shuffles the cell into his inside bomber jacket pocket. He looks down at John who had come through at the sound of the vibrating phone that’s near his head on the table he’s tied down to. He looks up at Nathan with a half-smile, his face covered in blood from the previous beating he had received at the hands of Nathan and the guard.