The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Chapter 21: The Other Side of the Coin

Detective Sergeant Tragedy 'Dee' McMaster frowned as she wheeled her beat-up hunter green Triumph TR-6 through the smoke and dust and into the already crowded street in front of her, pulling up behind a massive fire engine before slamming it into park.

"Holy shit," she exclaimed in a husky alto to no one in particular as she peered through her windshield at the carnage stretched out beyond the emergency vehicles clustered tightly in front of her low-slung car. "Did I just drive into fucking Bosnia or what??"

Her police radio abruptly crackled to life, tearing the detective's attention away from the destruction.

"Blue 21, this is dispatch. Respond," a tinny voice hissed from the radio's quarter-sized speaker.

"Blue 21," she said into the unit's handset in response as she lifted it to her mouth. "Go ahead, dispatch."

"The rest of the taskforce is still enroute to the incident scene, detective. You are advised to stand by until significant members arrive to take charge of the situation."

Dee snorted softly as she hung the handset back onto its clip without acknowledging.

"Fuck that. If they think I'm going to sit here on my ass and wait for Simpkins to show up just so she can walk around and look important, they've got another thing coming." Kicking open the door, she stepped out, closing the door behind her as she jerked her coat, a battered leather brown bomber jacket straight over her shoulders and shoulder holster. With a sigh, she made sure her police ID was clearly visible on her belt before she stepped forward, hands in her jacket pockets, to survey the damage.

Everywhere the lean detective looked there was an emergency vehicle of some kind. There, nearly hidden behind a gaggle of black and whites from the PD were several sets of grim bloodhounds and their masters in dark blue combat fatigues, the handlers wearing heavy flak jackets and equipment belts slung over broad and brooding shoulders, looking grim as they searched in the rubble for survivors. And over there were at least five fire engines, including a ladder truck and a pumper, their hoses pulsating arteries filled with cooling water as struggling firemen, faces coated with smoke grime and dust, desperately worked to quell the surging flames that licked in a handful of still-standing buildings surrounding the scene.

Mixed liberally with the rest were the ambulances loading their morbid cargo of body bags, the attendants as dirty and desperate as the firefighters and the police officers as they perspired heavily despite the cool of late October, trying to ignore the stench of charred flesh and seared bone. Indeed it was a scene ripped from CNN's coverage of the Yugoslav wars. All they needed now was a squad of blue helmeted peacekeepers from the UN to make it picture perfect.

Even the three helicopters flying close overhead suited the scenario's grim reality, their thudding blades cutting through the air with apocalyptic regularity. One of the three was a police helicopter, another an air ambulance, waiting to carry survivors to Foothills Hospital and one from a local news station, CFCN, cameras rolling as they panned over the carnage. It didn't surprise her a bit when, at first glimpse, the cameras looked like gun pods as they swung hungrily over the burnt scene, hunting for more victims.

That sight was enough to make Dee grimace tightly. It wasn't that she hadn't ever seen such destruction. Quite the opposite, actually. Both as a former member of the RCMP and CSIS, Canada's intelligence agency, she had been in more than one situation that had gone south, resulting in bodies everywhere. But none of those situations had been on Canadian soil, and none of them had the sheer scope and starkness of what had happened here. And, damnit, it wasn't the first time she had been called to face such obliteration.