Campanelli: Sentinel (28 page)

***

              Within the Daley Center’s parking garage, the dark blue police cruiser’s computer complied to its master’s call and set itself to ‘Condition Three’. Its emergency lights sent brilliant streaks of electric blue to smear the gray concrete walls as its engine ignited in a mechanical snarl of exhaust. The car backed from its parking space, making the tires shriek against the shiny concrete. As the car slipped along its path to the exit, the cameras guided it around parked cars and the garage’s walls and support beams.

              The twenty-one year old cruiser had been through almost every foot of the subterranean garages of Chicago in its day and thusly had every detail mapped in its computer memory. Despite this, the car fishtailed at the final turn before entering the exit ramp that would lead it to the ground level of Clark Street, cracking the corner of a taillight and inflicting a gash into its rear bumper cover. A mechanic had overlooked a hyperactive brake sensor on the left rear wheel, resulting in a premature locking-up of that hub which initiated the planned slide too early. Making a note of this, the automobile surged up the ramp in a sudden blast of acceleration, smoking all four tires against the slippery smooth surface.

              The cruiser erupted into the muted sunlight and immediately detected a multitude of pedestrian obstacles. It slowed and gave its sirens extra amplitude, adding to them several blasts of the authoritative horn. The car merged onto Clark and located its driver.

              Frank had found the DeSilva limousine on the GPS. It was heading south on State Street at a high rate of speed. Seeing his cruiser exit the garage like a submarine breaking the surface of the ocean, Campanelli turned toward it. The car lit the street with blue flashes and screamed its arrival as it came to a stop at the curb. The door popped open as he came close enough and the car swallowed the detective in one gulp.

              “Head south on Clark, now!” Frank bellowed as the seat restraints locked into place.

              The car surged forward, restraining itself enough to avoid impact with pedestrians. The cruiser weaved a path through the mass of humanity and, once it reached the intersection of Clark and West Madison and the pedestrian traffic thinned, the car to accelerated to pursuit speeds.

              Frank watched the traffic and the satellite display. DeSilva’s car was quickly approaching the District One Station, having just passed through the intersection of State and Ninth.

              “Dispatch, this is Unit Fifty-one-sixty-two,” Campanelli called out to the dash radio. “There is a limousine, white, heading south on State Street on its way past District One. I am in pursuit, but I’m on Clark Street just passing Van Buren.”

              “
Unit Five-one-six-two
,” the female dispatcher replied. “
Acknowledged
.”

              “I’m sending the tracking link to you now,” Frank added and thought the command to do so. The information and location of DeSilva’s car was relayed to the dispatcher’s computer terminal.

              “
Got it, Detective Campanelli
,” she confirmed. Alert tones followed her voice. “
All units within the vicinity District One Station. Sentinel priority pursuit. A white limousine is approaching the station on State Street, southbound. See dash displays for tracking info. Intercept
.”

***

              The great car’s internal combustion engine howled laboriously to get past the delivery truck and the taxi that had been travelling side by side for much of a block. As skillful as the driver was, there had been no way to get around them given the raised concrete islands dividing north and southbound lanes, the parked cars on the right and those going the other way.

              Maximilian and his bodyguard, Enos, sat and watched the news on the miniature HV set. The attempt on the mayor’s life had been thwarted by an overzealous and oversized police detective.

              “It appears your man was not as good as advertised, Steve,” DeSilva said with annoyed deliberation.

              “Sorry, sir,” Enos replied tightly. The assassin had been handpicked by Enos for his military background, but he had been stopped by one more skilled than he.

              “…
the downed detective, whose name is withheld for the moment, was struck in the upper chest by the bullet meant for Mayor Jameson
,” the anchor stated as the recorded video was run continually on a loop. “
This follower of Reverend Maximilian DeSilva’s Church of the Divine Intervention was the shooter, seen here being arrested by police
.”

              The arrest of Enos’s man had been captured in vivid detail. The man appeared insane as he fought with four officers. His face had turned beet red with strain and the DeSilva t-shirt had been prominently displayed in the tussle. The anchor went on to describe the escape of Reverend DeSilva and Mayor Jameson as video of the two men showed them running from the stage in close proximity, apparently oblivious of each other.

              Enos paused the transmission and began reversing it.

              “What?” DeSilva asked as he grabbed on to a handle above the door. The limo had suddenly rocked as the driver weaved it through traffic.

              Steve Enos found what he was looking for and zoomed in the view. He pointed at the face on the screen. “That’s Campanelli, isn’t it?”

              “Yes, it is,” DeSilva agreed. “That was his partner that stopped the bullet. We got one of them, at least. Hopefully, those other two idiots have done their job, so we will have leverage on the good Captain waiting for us.”

              Just as these words escaped Maximilian’s lips, the great car decelerated with stomach churning efficiency. The seat restraints for both men slapped into place, keeping them firmly set into the plush leather surfaces.

              The limo driver had attempted to go through the red light at the intersection of Fourteenth Street, but a driver of a westward automobile reacted to his green light all too quickly, putting the nose of his ancient sedan in front of the white leviathan, which outweighed it fourfold. The limo driver swerved to his right.

              The little car’s right front corner disintegrated in a cloud of metal and plastic as it was flung away from the offending limousine. The driver of the small car had been too surprised to react, even if he had seen the accident coming. Only the fact that his upper torso had been forced into the passenger side saved him from the impact with the light post on the southwestern corner of the intersection.

              “Goddamn it, Terry!” DeSilva screamed from the back seat. There was no reply. “Terry!”

              The driver of the limo had been shocked by the violence of the crash even though he had seen it coming. The air-filled restraints at the door and dash and the retracting steering yoke had done their jobs well, but the jarring collision and sudden deceleration had darkened the young man’s vision and had taken his breath away.

              “Ye-yes, sir,” Terry managed after a few seconds, “Sorry.”

              “Are we still mobile?” Enos inquired harshly.

              Terry pressed his foot down on the accelerator pedal and was rewarded by the sound of eight cylinders slapping not-so-happily away. He set the transmission for reverse and the car began to roll backward, removing its carcass from the foliage which had grown undisturbed on the center divider of Fourteenth Street.

              “I think we’re okay,” Terry called to his passengers.

              “We better be,” DeSilva grumbled loudly. “Get us to the church!”

              The chauffeur breathed an acknowledgment and begged the car to surge forward once again. With a severe tug to the right in the steering yoke accompanied by threatening vibrations at his feet, Terry pushed the giant along.

***

              Campanelli witnessed the limousine’s accident from the satellite display, but was ignorant of the details. The red dot halted at the Fourteenth Street intersection for several seconds and then continued on. The indication that there had been a collision was the message along the top of his internal display: “
Vehicle violation: Traf Lit. Impact!
”

              For a moment, Frank rejoiced, convinced that the HV preacher would be scraped out of the back of his ridiculous car. His celebration was squelched by the resumed movement of the red dot.

              It was here that Campanelli’s cruiser slowed from its one hundred mile-per-hour pace before entering the intersection of Clark and Polk. At this point Clark became a two way road. There were no obstructions in the way, so the cruiser was free to accelerate, its sirens howling and warbling as it left the last of the skyscrapers on Clark Street behind.

              Several gaping foundations lie along the road to Frank’s right. These were the last hints of the residential high rises that once lined the street. On the left, beyond a chipped and cratered concrete barrier were several apartment buildings, many of which he knew to be empty.

              Clark Street intersected with Roosevelt Road unconventionally as Roosevelt was an elevated roadway in that part of town. The cruiser followed Clark through the short tunnel to continue south.

              Frank saw no vehicles ahead and the car, at ‘Condition Three’, was free to explore the limits of its performance envelope. Thusly, the acceleration pressed him into the seat as the twin turbo chargers sang. He dared look down to the speedometer in the center of the display. His cruiser had just reached one hundred and forty miles-per-hour.

              He closed his eyes and cussed as the daylight could no longer wash across his face. The sounds of the engine and sirens bounced back onto the car from the short tunnel’s enclosure, making his lone police vehicle sound like a fleet of them.

              Opening his eyes, he found sunlight, apartment buildings to his left and long unused traffic signals perched above abandoned train tracks on his right. After a moment, he remembered to breathe and soon, mercifully, the car slowed as it approached Fifteenth Street and traffic ahead.

              Frank checked the satellite display and found that his cruiser had gone further south than DeSilva’s car. With luck, the limo would be stopped at District One and he could double back to the station. For the moment, however, he allowed the cruiser to remain on course at its mad pace.

***

              At the behest of his employer, Terry pressed the damaged limousine hard. The long vehicle had always been susceptible to lateral rocking while in a turn or lane change, but after hitting the small sedan, it rolled like a wooden sailing ship every time he corrected the monster’s path. Traveling at nearly fifty miles per hour, the car was testing the young chauffeur’s driving skills. From what he saw up ahead, it was about to get much worse.

              “Uh, sir,” Terry called frantically over his shoulder. “Cops have the road blocked!”

              Both men in the back left their seats and went forward to the divider above the liquor cabinet to get a view of the road ahead. There were three Chicago Police cars blocking their path at the next intersection. Beyond the center vehicle was yet another raised cement barrier adorned with trees and bushes. Terry counted five uniformed officers standing in front of their barrier, weapons ready.

              “Go through! Go through!” DeSilva hollered shrilly.

              “Sir?”

              “You heard the man!” Enos took up. “Pick one and ram it!”

              Terry felt his face flush at the command, but dropped his foot upon the accelerator pedal without deliberation, convincing himself that he had gone mad. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears and he stiffened his arms at the elbows as he tightened his grip on the yoke.

              Despite the immense weight of the armored limousine, it could not be regarded as slow. The battered V-8 still had plenty of life left and it propelled the battleship to a deadly ramming speed. The experienced chauffeur had little time to decide which of the cruisers to ram. At the very last second, Terry factored in the damage his car had already sustained and, with a sudden veer to his left which threw his passengers onto the carpeted floor, he angled the mighty vehicle back to the right, fought an unexpected fishtail and plunged into the front end of the police cruiser blocking the southbound lanes. The limo took the impact across the right corner of the front bumper, lifting the stricken police vehicle up and into the limo’s grill and hood, shattering the former into a million aluminum bits as the latter flexed and collapsed, tenting enough to block Terry’s view of the pavement.

              The limousine’s tortured frame twisted and buckled from the impact. The rear tires left the surface of the street and the great smoked glass moon roof which covered the lavish accommodations at the rear of the car dislodged from its frame and slid harmlessly away, left to shatter upon impact with the ground. The long windows along the great car’s flanks were meant to be flexible and were greatly tested. To the witnessing policemen who had retreated to safety, the windows waved like water within their frames.

              Throughout the ordeal, Terry left his foot pressed upon the floor and heard the scream of the engine above the massive noise of the collision. His hands remained upon the steering yoke as it retreated toward the dashboard, away from his chest. The airbags deployed in their efforts to keep Terry’s head from striking the dash and retreated into their hiding places once the danger had passed.