Trilogy: Twilight's Last Gleaming

The chronological order of my stories is as follows:

Todd & Melina series, Interludes 1-5, Sperm Wars series, Russian Roulette series, Case of the Murdered Lovers series, Case of the Murdered Chessplayer series, The Swap series, Interludes 6-10, The Murdered Football Player Series, Case of the Black Widow series, Teresa's Christmas Story, Case of the Black Badge series, A Case of Revenge series.

The Trilogy.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, extreme language, and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial or racist language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

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Part 15 - Battle Lines

I was rocked inside, total shock in my soul. I had fucked up. I had not seen it all the way through. I had correctly guessed that Melina had been blackmailed by Ned into being one of my would-be assassins. I'd sent her husband after her to dissuade her, and he had been successful in doing so. I'd asked the Chief to loan Daniel the Chief's SUV, so that Daniel could get Melina and her rifle out of here, but somehow... somehow... Steven Ikea had gotten onto it and now had a warrant to search the car. Oh, shit! Fuck me!

Maybe this guy is just a bit smarter than I thought he was, I thought to myself, my mind desperately searching for a solution. Naah, he's an idiot, someone else is behind this- oh, of course... Of course.

"You're out of your tree, Ikea." roared the Chief, who had come up to the front right behind me. He had no idea of what was going on.

"It's a legitimate warrant, Griswold." called out SBI Director Jack Lewis, enjoying the moment almost as much as Ikea was. "And we are not leaving until that vehicle is searched."

Griswold looked at me, as if to ask what to do. I was trying hard to keep all emotion off my face, which wasn't hard if I let my exhaustion from this day come out a little bit.

I concentrated on my peripheral vision. I saw the SWAT team standing off with the SBI, their weapons pointed at the State agents. One word to fire, one little misstep, and a lot of people would be wiped out. I didn't really want that. Some of those guys were just following orders.

I saw Melina and Daniel, standing behind the crowd of police that had their guns trained on the SBI. Daniel had a scared look on his face. Melina just looked blank, a face I remember seeing back when we'd first brought Ned to this Town to be arrested. Whatever her emotions were, she was not showing them on her lovely face.

And then I saw, wearing a SWAT uniform and black baseball cap, her platinum blonde hair tied up under the cap, one Detective Cindy Ross. A bolt-action hunting rifle was held to her back by the sling on her shoulder, as if she'd walked out of the field after a day of deer hunting.

I made a mental note to reprimand the living hell out of her for being here when she was supposed to be resting and recovering from her ordeal earlier in the month, but I knew I had a much worse and more dangerous situation in front of me.

And then the miracle happened.

My mother Phyllis came out from the group, wearing her Police Auxiliary uniform. "Why Agent Ikea, by all means. Please do go ahead and execute your warrant and search that vehicle now!" She took the warrant from Ikea's hand and handed him the keys to the car. I'd later find out she'd picked Daniel's pocket of those keys without him even knowing.

As Phyllis looked at the warrant, she glanced over at me and winked. Despite my fear, I decided to trust my mother. All my life she seemed to know something that I didn't. I sure hoped that was the case today.

Ikea opened up the back of the SUV and searched. He found a shotgun, which he handed to Ferrell. Ikea then ran to all the other doors, opening them, frantically searching for the rifle that had killed Oldeeds, which would have Melina's fingerprints all over it, the rifle whose ballistics would match the bullet recovered from Oldeeds's head. After a thorough search, throwing radio equipment and everything else to the ground, Ikea stood behind the SUV, a look of shock on his face.

There was no rifle. It was gone.

"Oh good grief, Ikea!" I shouted so that everyone could hear, grabbing the shotgun out of Ferrell's hand, taking him totally by surprise. "Do you mean to tell me that this shotgun killed Jonas Oldeeds at a range of several hundred yards?" My officers laughed. The SBI agents were silent, their faces stone-cold with hatred.

"Hey Chief!" I yelled as I emptied the shotgun of its shells, "maybe you ought to load this thing with rock salt, and we can shoot a couple of charges up Ikea's ass!... just like Barry Bounel did, eh, Steven?"

"You fucking son of a bitch." Ikea breathed. Then he turned toward Phyllis, who was standing a few yards to my left. "This is your doing, you bitch!" He stepped forward and swung his left hand, punching my mother in the face!

A gasp erupted from every other officer on the scene... except me. I was yelling "Hey, you son of a bitch! That's my mother!" Needless to say, I attacked Ikea.

He tried to whirl and hit me with his right hand and fist, but the blow went past my head and I grabbed his arm and twisted it backward, forcing Ikea to his knees. As he dropped, I slammed my foot onto the back of his thigh near his hip, hoping to dislocate it.

"AAUUUGHH!" Ikea roared in pain. I continued twisting his arm back as I took him down, trying to tear it out of his shoulder socket. I drove my knee into his back, and then began hitting him in the face and back of the head with my fist, whaling away at him.

"You fucking piece of shit, I'll KILL you for hitting my mom!" I yelled as I drove blow after blow at Ikea. The SBI had trained their guns on me, but my officers had trained their weapons on the SBI. Carnage and bloodshed was about to happen.

Then Senior Patrolman Micah Rudistan jumped forward, putting his back between me and the SBI guns. He grabbed me in a full-Nelson and dragged me off of Ikea, moving me back towards my guys. The next thing I heard and saw was my mother in my face, yelling "Don! It's okay! I'm all right! Don, relax, calm down!" I finally caught my breath and let the fury inside me die down. Rudistan released me and I hugged my mom, asking if she was really okay.

Ikea was still on the ground, with serious hip and shoulder injuries that would require surgery to fix. The standoff was still going on.

"I am ordering every Town & County Police Officer to lower your weapons. I am placing your Chief and his bastard Lieutenant under arrest!" called out Director Lewis. No one moved.

"No you're not, Lewis." Chief Griswold replied. "No more of your shit. Your agent assaulted an Auxiliary Policewoman; he hit a woman, for crying out loud." An angry murmur rumbled through the TCPD. No one moved.

"Okay, SWAT Team!" growled Chief Griswold. "Take aim at the SBI agents. When I get to 'three', any agent still holding a firearm is to be shot dead. No further warning, no excuses. SBI agents, drop your weapons by the count of three, or you will be shot dead. One!"

"You wouldn't." hissed Director Lewis.

"Two!" Griswold shouted ignoring Lewis. The SWAT Team and other officers readied to shoot: they intended to carry it out.

"Okay, okay!" Lewis said. "All right guys, let's go. Back to your cars."

"NO!" yelled Griswold. "Those weren't my orders. Men, take aim! Thr-"

Weapons clattered to the concrete. Some SBI agent, possibly Ted Crenshaw, had given a signal for them to drop their weapons, and they did, to the great relief of everyone... except SBI Director Jack Lewis and me. Lewis would not have minded dying if it meant Chief Griswold would be imprisoned, and I was still angry at the physical assault upon my mother.

"Okay, frisk them and take all their weapons, every one." ordered Griswold. "Get some crates!" I don't know who in the Police Department carries crates around, but four were produced almost immediately. Chief Griswold ordered that all the SBI's ammunition be put into two of the crates, and they were rapidly filled. The guns were placed in other two crates. Most of the SBI agents had second weapons hidden on their persons, mostly in ankle holsters. That was illegal, by the way, but no matter for now: those weapons were now confiscated by the TCPD.

Dick Ferrell and other agents moved to help Ikea. "We need EMTs." Ferrell ordered. "And we need to get him to the hospital."

I said in a voice loud enough to be well-heard: "No EMT from this County is to help any SBI agent in any way! And Ferrell, Ikea will receive no help from University Hospital. Take him there and I'll follow you and finish the job on him... and you. Get that piece of dog shit out of my County. Do it today, Ferrell, do it today!" Ferrell looked at me in disbelief, then hatred, but I was beyond caring.

"Director Lewis!" called out Chief Griswold as he rubbed it in. "On behalf of the Town & County, I thank you for the SBI's contribution to the TCPD's ammunition cache. We'll be sure to get a lot of range practice with this ammo!"

I laughed, feeling more exhausted as the Chief continued; "Rudistan! You're in charge. Escort these SBI agents to the Nextdoor County Line. Not Coltrane County. Nextdoor County. You can return their weapons when they cross the County line. Stay at the County line, set up a road checkpoint if you need to. If any SBI Agent not named 'Crowbar' tries to cross back into this County, shoot him dead with no compunction. Are my orders clear, Rudistan?"

"Yes sir!" Rudistan shouted, happily taking the lead. "Okay guys, let's go. SBI Agents, get in your cars. Anyone who deviates from following my car will be stopped and you'll be shot dead." I watched, eerily fascinated as the car line was formed and then moved out. The SBI's weapons were thrown across the border into the dirt, and the agents scrambled to determine whose was whose as they collected their weapons. They left the county line without further incident.

Part 16 - The Party Never Stops...

It was 8:00pm and the sun was setting. It had been an incredible day.

I was at Headquarters, lying on the table of the small infirmary room that someone had had the foresight to put into the building's plans when construction started. Usually it was unstaffed, but today an EMT and my wife were administering an IV to me. The armored jacket I'd worn had been hot and, without realizing it, I'd sweated myself into dehydration. I had nearly collapsed at 7:30pm., when I finally allowed myself to relax, and all the tension of the Ned confrontation and then the SBI confrontation had abated.

Cindy Ross and my mother had vanished as the Chief had given stand-down orders and we began winding down from the Ned operation. Laura told me that she'd checked out Phyllis, who was fine though she might have some bruising from where Ikea had struck her under the eye. The Media was furious that we would not give them any information about anything that had happened, especially the altercation with the SBI.

I did get to my mother by cell phone at 6:00pm. Turns out she was back at the Psychology Building nursery, taking care of kids. She said she was fine, and she thanked me for taking up for her against the bully Ikea. I told her that I still had a couple of things to do that required her help. Then I made one more phone call to put a long-conceived plan into action.

Back to the present: The Chief came in to see me, and it was the first time I'd seen him in hours, as we'd both been busy. "Beautifully done, kid. The baby is okay. No one else was hurt... except Ikea, of course. Don't worry, scores of witnesses saw him hit your mother and you defend your mother. I'll make damn sure you have no issues over that."

The Chief continued: "Eleanor Burke is in Interrogation-1. She remembers everything up to the moment she began shooting, but doesn't remember anything about shooting Ned. She doesn't remember being tackled by Goth Girl Kathy, and only remembers being taken out of the building by policewomen. Any reason you can think of for that?"

"I think my own memory might be hazy about a couple of seconds there, Chief." I said. Then Griswold asked the EMT to step outside for a moment, leaving me and Laura alone with the Chief. He shut the door to the little infirmary room, then began telling us what had happened while I was at Ward Harvester.

"Commissioner Robinson and I took your advice." Griswold said. "We transferred Sarah Collins to the Campus Police jail this morning. There are only two cells there, and they're just temporary holding cells until they can get their prisoners to us here or to County Lockup. Then Robinson had his people lock up and secure everything of value, especially computers, then abandon the Campus Police building. Sure enough, while you were confronting your nephew, an armed, eight-man assault team invaded the building and took Sarah Collins with them."

"Anyone hurt?" I asked.

"No. And they didn't do too much damage to the Campus Police building, either." said Chief Griswold.

"What's this all about?" Laura inquired.

"Bartholomew Scott." I said, looking meaningfully up at her from my reclining position on the table. "I knew that they would not leave Sarah Collins behind. I got word that Scott's agents were preparing for a full assault on Police Headquarters to get her out, and that would've meant the deaths of a hundred police officers, at least-"

"Yes, dear," I said in response to the look on my wife's face, "Bartholomew Scott has no scruples, he would've gladly had hundreds of people killed just to get one criminal out of jail. So I asked the Chief to consider transferring her 'temporarily', citing the understaffed nature of the HQ building while we were all out surrounding Ward Harvester and a few of us inside there.

"When they came for Collins, they found an abandoned Campus Police building and I wonder if they've figured out the ruse yet. I figured if they destroyed the building, then Henry Wargrave would cough up the funds to rebuild it. As it is, nobody got killed."

"But that bitch Collins got away." Laura said.

"Not for long, my dear." I said. "Not for long. We still have work to do this night."

"What do you mean?" Laura asked.

"Ned expected a plane ride out of here." I said. "Scott and Corrigan's CIA cell was going to take Ned, Sarah Collins, and their rogue agent hit teams out of here. Well, Collins was there, but six of their agents died at Ward Harvester by the hands of my unknown buddies."

Chief Griswold said "Jack Muscone and I had FBI Agents and our police go to the airport to interdict any flights trying to get out, especially after Ned was killed and the baby recovered. But there were none. I suspect they were monitoring our activity and called off the flight. We also have roadblocks on all roads leading out of the County, besides the one Rudistan set up for the SBI." He laughed at the memory of what he'd done to Jack Lewis and the SBI.

"So what do you think will happen?" Laura asked, looking at the Chief, but knowing I'd be the one to answer.

"I think they'll fly the plane in later tonight." I said. "Quick pickup. No telling where they're hiding now, but they'll come out, and we'll be waiting for them. Laura, they tried to kill you today. Would you like a little piece of payback?"

"I sure as hell would." Laura said. "They were going to kill over two hundred people on that plane, just to get to me. You're right about Scott: he's a psychopath. And he's mine."

---

They were in the CEO's room of Acme Consolidated, the office in which Ned had first visited Tim Olivet when Olivet owned that company. Henry R. Wargrave sat behind the desk. At the little conference table were Jody Corrigan, Bartholomew Scott, and Sarah Collins, finishing up the Chinese take-out that Wargrave had ordered for them. It was 10:30 on the same night of July 26th.

"I can't believe how easy it was for the guys to break me out of that jail." said Collins, bringing up the subject for the first time.

"It was easy enough, but I didn't understand why they took you from the Town & County Police Headquarters to the Campus Police jail." said Bartholomew Scott. Jody Corrigan said nothing, his head downcast.

It had been a rough day for the CIA officer. He had approved Scott's plan to extricate Ned from the grip of the Iron Crowbar by having some of their now-defunct cell's snipers murder the Iron Crowbar. He still did not understand who it was that had so neatly snuck up on his snipers like ninja, slit their throats, and save the Iron Crowbar's life.

Then Ned had been shot by Eleanor Burke; Corrigan had not even considered that possibility. He'd expected the Iron Crowbar to do something 'active', but that fucking police Lieutenant must've been the luckiest man alive that Eleanor Burke had been able to act as she did.

"How did she get the gun, Jody?" asked the voice, which cut through his thoughts like a hot knife. It was Wargrave, who'd been watching Jody, knowing his thoughts as he thought them.

"I have no idea, Henry." said Corrigan. "Unless that bastard Lieutenant gave it to her before they went in."

"Yes. That must be it." said Wargrave. "The Iron Crowbar planned it very well, to a level of detail that you didn't even consider. And Miss Collins... don't get too excited about your escape. They knew Scott's storm-troops were coming after you. They put you in that tiny Campus headquarters and abandoned the building. They let you get away in order to save lives that would've been lost with a full-on assault." Wargrave then mused, more to himself, "Damned if that Iron Crowbar doesn't see everything a step ahead of us."

"The plane is going to touch down at 11:00pm." said Corrigan. "It's time to go." Everyone stood up. Jody Corrigan went up to Henry Wargrave and said "I might not be seeing you again for some time, Henry. We've had a lot of good times over the years, and I thank you for all you did for us, for me, in that time."

Henry Wargrave shook Corrigan's hand. Despite his irritation at Corrigan, he did acknowledge that they indeed had shared 30 years of collaboration on many CIA projects, as well as 'off the record' projects that had made them tremendously wealthy.

Sarah Collins came up to Wargrave. "Thank you for breaking me out." she said. Wargrave shook her hand politely.


Then Bartholomew Scott came up, hand extended. "Mr. Wargrave..." he said. Wargrave stared at Scott, not shaking the proffered hand. The air was filled with uncomfortable tension.

"Let's go, Scott." said Corrigan, trying to save his subordinate from further humiliation. They left the office. Henry R. Wargrave turned out the lights but did not leave. He sat in the darkness, going over in his mind what had gone so horribly wrong. It wasn't just Scott's incompetence, though that exacerbated the destruction of decades of work. No, Wargrave realized he'd come up against someone who was his intellectual equal, a foeman worthy of his steel...

Part 17 - Nightfall of Evil

County Airport was to the north-by-northwest of town, just on the west side of the River that flowed northwest at the base of the mountain range before peeling off to run directly south along the west side of Town. The airport was relatively big compared to small airports, due to the number of private jets that would come in for University football games, but it was nowhere near a commercial airport, even a smaller one such as Daytona Beach, Florida.