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THE RECKONING OF BLACKWOOD: A SHADOW IN CELL THREE

Chapter 8

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Deputy Bell gasped, scrambling backward across the floor until his back hit the desk. "Ray... what are you doing with the iron?! Put the gun away, Ray!""Silas Cole," Higgins mumbled, his eyes darting frantically from the ceiling to the door, sweat pouring down his cheeks in greasy rivers. "Silas has money. Silas has airplanes. Silas knows people in South America. If we have Vance... if we control Vance, they can't breach the building. They can't shoot through him!""Are you insane?!" Bell shrieked, scrambling to his feet. "You're talking about taking a federal administrator hostage?! That's treason! They'll put a sniper round through your forehead the second you step near a window!""I'm not going to a state penitentiary, Travis!" Higgins roared, his spittle spraying across Bell's face. "You think those cons will forget what I did to them?! You think I'll survive a week in maximum security?! We go down to that cell right now! We secure him! Move!"Higgins grabbed Bell by the collar, dragging him toward the heavy steel fire door that led to the subterranean dark.With a savage kick, Higgins slammed the door open, the metal crashing against the concrete wall with a sound like thunder, and dragged the weeping deputy down into the crypt.The basement corridor was freezing, the air heavy with the stench of stagnant sewer water and wet lime.CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.Higgins's heavy boots pounded down the sixteen concrete steps, Deputy Bell stumbling behind him like a condemned man being dragged to the gallows. The single bare bulb hanging over the landing flickered erratically, casting long, monstrous shadows across the damp foundation stone.They reached the iron gate of Cell Three.Inside the rusted cage, Marcus Vance sat on the hanging metal bench.He had not moved an inch. His hands were still tucked behind his back against the stone wall. His chin was lowered, his face obscured by the shadow of his canvas jacket.Higgins stopped three feet from the bars. His breathing was loud, wet, and ragged, his chest heaving under his sweat-soaked uniform shirt. He raised the Glock with both hands, the heavy black barrel shaking violently in the yellow light as he aimed it directly through the strap iron at Marcus’s chest."Vance!" Higgins screamed, his voice bouncing off the low concrete ceiling in a shrill, hysterical wave. "On your feet! Stand up! Hands where I can see them!"The man on the bench did not jump. He did not flinch.Slowly, with measured, effortless grace, Marcus Vance raised his head.In the dim light of the cellar, his grey eyes were terrifyingly clear. There was no trace of exhaustion, no sign of fear, and no hint of anger. There was only a profound, immovable authority that made the hair on Higgins’s arms stand on end."Sergeant Higgins," Marcus said, his voice deep, calm, and utterly devoid of strain. "You are twelve minutes behind schedule. I anticipated your arrival immediately following the Golden Eagle broadcast."Bell let out a low, whimpering groan and slid down the lime-washed wall, clutching his stomach as if he were about to be physically sick.Higgins’s finger spasmed against the trigger of his service weapon. "You... you bastards set this up. You came into my county... you baited me!""I did not bait you, Sergeant," Marcus replied smoothly. He remained seated on the rusted bench, his voice echoing in the chamber with the cold precision of a judicial verdict. "I obeyed every traffic ordinance. I signaled my turn. I provided no legal pretext for an interdiction. You chose to pull me over because my vehicle bore an out-of-county registration. You chose to steal four hundred dollars from my wallet. You chose to strike me with a four-cell flashlight. And you chose to slice your own flesh to manufacture a false felony indictment.""I didn't know who you were!" Higgins yelled, tears of rage and terror mixing with the sweat on his face. "You dressed like a goddamn bum! You didn't show your shield!""The Constitution of the United States does not require an American citizen to carry a gold shield to be protected from armed highwaymen wearing municipal badges," Marcus said, his voice dropping into a register that chilled Higgins to the marrow of his bones. "If I had been an actual laborer—a man traveling to see his children, with four hundred dollars to his name—you would have robbed him, beaten him in this hole, and handed him to Silas Cole’s kangaroo court to be sold into forced labor on the county road gang.""Shut up!" Higgins shrieked, taking a step closer, pressing the barrel of the Glock against the iron strap of the gate. "I have the gun, Vance! I hold the iron! You don't walk out of this basement unless I get an escort out of the county! You call the state police! You tell them to back off the bridge or I put a hollow-point through your skull!"Marcus Vance looked at the shaking barrel of the weapon with an expression that bordered on mild amusement."Do you know why I let your deputy put those handcuffs on me on Route 9, Higgins?" Marcus asked softly.Bell gasped from the floor. Higgins blinked, his vision swimming. "What?"Marcus brought his hands forward from behind his back.The heavy steel Peerless handcuffs were not locking his wrists.They hung loosely from his left index finger, swinging back and forth with a gentle, rhythmic clink... clink... clink."Because," Marcus continued, rising slowly to his full six-foot-two height, his massive shoulders filling the narrow dimensions of the cage, "I needed the chain of custody to be absolute. I needed every charge, every fingerprint, and every drop of stolen cash to be logged under your direct signature."Higgins’s jaw dropped. His brain, slow and rotted by years of unchecked authority, simply could not process what he was seeing."Don't move!" Higgins screamed, his finger tightening on the trigger. "I'll kill you! I swear to God I'll kill you!""You won't," Marcus said, taking one slow, deliberate step toward the bars. "Because you forgot to chamber a round after you wiped your weapon down this afternoon, Sergeant. And your safety lever is engaged."Higgins’s eyes instinctively flicked down to the slide of his Glock.It was an amateur's mistake. The final, fatal mistake of a backwoods bully who had never faced a true professional in his life.In the fraction of a second that Higgins looked down, Marcus Vance’s right arm shot through the iron bars like a striking timber rattler.His palm slammed into the front of the Glock’s slide, driving the mechanism backward out of battery, completely disconnecting the trigger bar. With his other hand, Marcus hooked his fingers through the iron strap, caught Higgins by the throat, and wrenched the massive sergeant violently forward.CRACK!Marcus drove Higgins’s face directly into the heavy strap iron of the cell gate.Cartilage and bone shattered on impact. Higgins let out a muffled, gurgling scream as blood exploded from his broken nose, spraying across the rusted bars. Marcus twisted Higgins’s right wrist with surgical, bone-snapping leverage, stripping the heavy Glock from the sergeant's grip in a single fluid movement.Marcus released Higgins’s throat.
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