The Iris Collective - Chapter 32
The Last Survivor of the Mercy Protocol: Detective Reid
32
The Last Survivor of the Mercy Protocol
Detective Reid
“I don’t know, this sounds too good to be true. It’s got to be a setup.”
James was the first of the three men to speak after they ended the call with the supposed leader of the Iris Collective, and Reid was inclined to agree with him.
“Won’t know unless we check,” Captain Gibson said. “I’m giving you full resources. Take everyone the department can spare. I want this Eddie Blake arrested, and this Iris Collective dismantled once and for all.”
“Yes, Captain,” James said, opening the door to the office to leave.
Reid wasn’t so sure it was the right move.
“Captain, what about Senator Ross? This could be a distraction.”
“Could be…” Gibson contemplated the prospect. “What’s on the Senator’s schedule tonight?”
Reid looked to James, who pulled a notepad from his pocket, flipping through the pages until he found what he was looking for.
“He and his wife are attending the state dinner,” James read.
“Alright,” Gibson nodded, “They’ll be surrounded by hundreds of secret service there, especially with Wilkins in attendance. If the Collective wants to make a move, they’ll have no choice but to wait until after the event’s finished. I’ll send a car to watch for the Senator and his wife, and report back to us if they’re seen leaving the party early. Everyone else is on the raid. Setup or not, this may be the only window of opportunity we’ll get. Go catch these bastards.”
“Yes, sir”
“You got it, Captain.”
James pulled the car to a stop in front of an old building one street over from the address they had received from Eddie Blake. Reid got out of the car and followed James into an alley beside it. The back of each building on this street was connected to the back of the buildings that lined the Collective’s street. They followed the alley to the next building and entered a side door. The climb up the stairs to the fourth floor was especially exhausting with everything they wore. They were both dressed in black tactical gear, bulletproof vests, heavy boots, and microphones around their throats that were attached to their radios. A two-man reconnaissance team waited in one of the rooms that directly faced the supposed headquarters of the Iris Collective. Captain Gibson had sent this team ahead to scout the location while Reid and James busied themselves with rounding up and debriefing the other officers that would be participating in the raid.
“What have you got,” Reid asked the two men. They were in a room with no lights, save for what little glow of the street lamps could penetrate through the curtains
“Sir,” one of the men greeted him, handing him a small pair of binoculars. “Fourth floor, second window from the right.”
Reid directed the lenses through a crack in the curtain as he looked through them, finding the window the officer had indicated. The room in the window was bright, curtains open. A series of computer screens sat against one wall, and a kitchen in the back, but most importantly, there was someone inside the room. A blonde man in a wheelchair was in front of the window, gazing out at the neighborhood with no attempt to hide himself.
“Give me the file,” he said as he stared at the man, holding his hand out until the folder was placed into it. He looked down in the dim light, flipping through the documents until he came upon a picture. Pulling it out from under a paperclip, he held the image up to the light from the window, looking again through the binoculars at the man in the apartment across the street.
“Is it him?” James asked.
“I think so. The picture is a little old, but it looks like him. Here.” He handed the binoculars and picture to his partner.
James looked between the image and the man across the street several times. “Looks like him to me,” he said, handing the binoculars back to the reconnaissance officers.
“Me too.”
James sighed, his voice barely above a whisper. “How did this guy survive the purges of two different groups of people?”
“I don’t know,” Reid responded. He didn’t want to think of it. “His file said he’s dead, caught up in the Mercy Protocol.” Shame burned in his stomach. At the time he had tried to convince himself that he didn’t have a choice, even going as far as to tell himself that it was a good thing. The betterment of their society, and all that, like the government had told them when they were enlisted to round up the disabled population. It was all bullshit, of course. The betterment of society didn’t stop the images of their faces and the sound of their screaming from visiting him in his dreams. He had committed an untold number of horrors in the name of the country’s false image of strength, and he wondered if there would ever come a day when he said ‘enough.’ Could he ever be strong enough to rebel the way the man across the street from him had done?
“Do you think he’s really Eddie Blake, or is it just an alias?” James asked.
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” James said, rubbing at his face, the ginger stubble on his chin elicited a noise like sandpaper against his hand. “I guess… I mean,” he shrugged and his mouth turned up into a smile, only to immediately disappear again. “It would be something, you know, if one of them found a way to survive. That’s all.”
His voice was quiet, and Reid felt like an idiot as the realization hit him.
“Shit, James, you were in the sweeps.” He reached out and put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
James blinked a few times, the dim light reflecting off of his eyes, and cleared his throat. “Don’t worry about it. We all helped to create this world. Let’s just get this done before that party’s over.”
He walked out of the room, and Reid followed him back down the stairs and into the alleyway, moving away from the Iris Collective to the street where they had left James’s car. This road was now filled with half of their precinct, the other half being positioned on the street behind the Collective’s headquarters.
Reid climbed up on one of the cruisers so everyone could see him. Waving his arm int he air to get the attention of the officers, he tapped his right ear. The assembled men quieted as he turned on his microphone.
“Alright men, he said, the throat mic negating the need to yell to be heard, “we have confirmed the presence of Eddie Blake in the fourth floor apartment. We have no confirmation of any others that may be in the building, if any. We have no idea what we’re walking into. This is very likely to be some sort of trap. Keep your eyes and ears open. Each of you has a partner, so watch their back in there. As discussed, the first teams in will clear the first floor, the second teams the second floor, and so on. James and I,” he waved an arm to James, who raised a hand in the air so the men could see him, “will be taking the fourth team up the stairs, directly to the fourth floor of the building. Clear every room you can find. Open every door. Leave no possible hiding place unchecked, no matter how unlikely it may seem. Our objective is to arrest Eddie Blake, and any other members of the Iris Collective that may be here. We want them alive, so please, for fucks sake, try to rein in your baser instincts.”
The assembled men let out hushed laughs as Reid hopped off of the cruiser.
“Mics on,” he said, hearing the audio of several microphones clicking on in his ear in response.
James handed him a rifle. He tossed the strap over his head, fixing the butt of the gun against the front of his shoulder.
“Ok, it’s now or never. Move out.”
Dozens of black clad men with black rifles moved through the dark alleys between the buildings surrounding the Iris Collective, like an ant colony, trickling out and spreading on the asphalt in a flood of shadow. The building, and the several blocks surrounding it, was overcome in seconds by the black mass of the officers descending on the scene. The teams approached the headquarters quickly, a designated lockpick holding the entrance open for them by the time they reached the stoop. They filed into the building, pairs of men branching off to the left and right while the rest began to make their way up the central staircase.
Their footsteps weren’t as silent as Reid would have liked, but with this many men on a wooden staircase, they could only be so quiet while still maintaining speed as they climbed. His body was already drenched in sweat underneath his vest by the time they reached the third floor landing. The huffing breaths of James and the others filled his ear, along with a disjointed chorus of the men clearing the floors below them.
His phone began to ring as they reached the fourth floor landing, and he exchanged the earpiece of his radio for the one he had connected to his phone. Gibson was supposed to call if the senator left the party, and Reid wouldn’t miss it. He hit the button to answer the call.
“Captain?”
“Guess again, Detective.”
An officer in front of him knelt down and began to pick the lock to the fourth floor apartment.
“Operator.”
James’s head turned toward him at the mention of the elusive woman, his brows furrowed.
He shrugged at his partner in return.
“Where are you?” She asked him in an innocent voice.
“You know exactly where I am. You sent me here.”
“I guess I did.”
“You wouldn’t happen to be waiting inside with a fruit basket for our trouble, would you?”
She laughed. “I guess you’ll find out.”
The locksmith stood and moved to the side of the door, grasping the handle and looking at Reid.
“Yes, I will.”
He nodded to the man, who turned the handle and threw open the door before leaning out of the way as their team streamed into the apartment.
James and Reid moved straight into the room, while their men split off and explored every corner of the apartment that they could find. A series of ‘clears’ were shouted throughout the place, but Reid didn’t need to hear them say it to know that the apartment was empty. In front of him and James, in the center of the main living space, sat an empty wheelchair.
The curtains to the window were closed. “Why didn’t you update us?” he asked. “God damnit,” he whispered, grabbing the loose earpiece and placing it in his other ear. “Recon, why didn’t you tell us the curtains had been closed? Hello?” With no response forthcoming, Reid rushed over to the window, flinging the curtain open again. There was a small device on the windowsill, and it only occurred to him upon seeing it that there were no other voices coming through his radio from anyone else in the house. Across the street, the recon team were waving at him from their window. Picking up the device, he found the power button and switched it off. All at once, the voices of the recon team and the other officers in the building filled his ear.
The air grew thick, and his head grew light. Turning around, James was picking something up from the seat of the wheelchair, a card. He flipped it over to look at the back before looking up. James held the card out with a guarded expression.
Reid couldn’t feel his legs as he took the few steps back to the chair and accepted the card from James. It was exactly like the one he had found in the bottom of the evidence box several months earlier. The card that the Collective passed onto women who needed their help.
James nodded at the card with a pointed look.
Reid flipped it over to find a handwritten message on the back.
____
Better luck next time, Detectives.
– Eddie Blake
____
“No.”
The card crumpled in his hand, and he walked away from the chair, turned and stopped, then walked back to it again. His heart pounded in his chest and he felt dizzy, a blackness encroaching on the edge of his vision as he struggled to catch his breath.
“Sorry, Detective.”
He jumped at the sound of the Operator’s voice in his ear. He had forgotten that she was on the phone.
“May the gift of the Iris Collective headquarters keep your family safe a little longer.”
“No!”
The line went dead.
“God damnit!” He kicked the wheelchair. It raced backward in a wild zigzag for several feet before it tipped and fell on its side, the center of the chair collapsing as gravity forced the rigid sides to slam together.
“Reid…”
James reached out a hand for his shoulder, but Reid slapped it away. He looked at the officers around the room, all of whom were staring at him. His jaw ached from his clenched teeth.
“The suspect is not in the building,” he said, addressing all of the officers on the radio. “Repeat, the suspect is not in the building. He couldn’t have gotten far, he’s a paraplegic for fuck’s sake. Find him, and someone find out how he managed to escape from a building that we had completely surrounded!”
His phone rang again as everyone but James scattered to search for Eddie Blake and his route of escape. Reid ripped at one of the velcro pockets of his vest, and pulled his phone out to check the caller ID.
“It’s the Captain,” he told James, answering the call. “Captain. The building is empty.”
“No shit,” Gibson said in agitation. “Something’ is happening at the party.”
“We’re on our way.” Reid raced out of the apartment with James hot on his heels.
“What is it?” James yelled as they thundered down the stairs.
Reid ignored him and pressed his mic further into his throat. “Teams one and two, on me!”
As they passed by the second and first floor landings they were joined by two teams of six. Reid ran out of the building and across the street, slipping into the alley between the midrises to get to their cars on the next street over.
“The Iris Collective is attacking the state dinner! Teams one and two to the dinner with me and James, the rest of you keep searching for Eddie Blake! I want him found!”
He and James skidded to a stop at James’s car, along with three of the twelve officers that were accompanying them to the party. They piled into the car, and the rest of their team hopped into a few available cruisers on the street.
“Ah, what the fuck?”
“How can you live like this?”
The three men accompanying them shifted in the mess of clothes and empty fast food bags in the backseat of the car.
“Yeah, yeah,” James mumbled as he started the car, flipping the switch to activate the hidden siren and lights before putting it in gear. “You’re welcome to drive yourself next time, Ramirez.”
The car shot down the street, sliding with a high-pitched squeal around the corner at the end as they raced toward the state dinner.
Thank you for reading this chapter! Let me know what you thought with a like and comment. <3
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OH MY!! what a nice diversion by the collective!!
> Dozens of black clad men with black rifles moved through the dark alleys between the buildings surrounding the Iris Collective, like an ant colony, trickling out and spreading on the asphalt in a flood of shadow.
Oh, the imagery. A very tense scene!