Shawn has been hiding behind the tall glass building in the alley for some time now. His .38 Special is fully loaded and ready to blaze. His index finger is on the trigger as if he’s ready to shoot anything that moves, even the howling wind. He is on a life and death mission. Life and death! Failure is not an option. So, he must make sure every bullet goes to good use—to kill the two people in the black Audi 800 series, with NY state license plate number AXK9983. Those were all the instructions he was given. Just squeeze the trigger until all the shell casings kiss the ground. All of them, one by one.

He checks his Swiss watch with the brown leather strap on his sweaty wrist. It is ticking louder and louder every time he sees it. It is getting darker too. He is getting more impatient with each ticking moment.

It is a scorching hot summery night in July, yet, he feels so cold and terrified. He feels as if he’s been showered with ice water. Even the NYC potholes steaming out hot air haven’t been of any help.

Getting agitated and tired of waiting, his heart beats faster with each ticking second. He is not in the game with a clear head, because once he finishes this one job, he must hurry and run to save his own family. He thought of leaving all this behind and never looking back. But, he needs to do this job. He must do this job, for his family’s lives depend on it.

He brushes off the thought of quitting and gathers his energy. He’ll stay put and wait for the target, even if it takes forever. After all, he has no choice.

He is in complete chaos; it’s those kinds of predicaments, where he’s staring at a barrel of a gun to either shoot or be shot. He’s afraid that he’d screw up this mission because he’s put into a situation he knows nothing about. “Fuck it,” he says, “I am going to finish this!” When he thought about it, it shouldn’t really matter to him, because he doesn’t even know the targeted prey and shouldn’t care that much if they lived or died either, because his family comes first. Yes, family first!

Moments later, the target car was getting close by and approaching the hideout. “A black Audi 800 series,” he repeats to himself as if his memory suddenly got rusty. The car is slowly reaching the ambush territory. He recalls his precise instructions, “No hesitation, just get closer and squeeze the trigger.” First, shoot the passenger sitting in the back and finish off the driver afterward.

He was told that only two people would be in the car and the job would be easy as a walk in the park.

The car is now an inch away from him. It’s dark, only the light from the car lights the street alley. He gains his composure and runs as fast as he can towards the car. Once he reaches it, he inhales some air into his sponge lungs and pulls the trigger. Boom. Boom. Boom... 12 rounds of blast exited from his chrome black colt gun. The shell casings drop and drum the ground. After the first squeeze, his fingers just made love to the trigger. All he was thinking about was his own family.

He empties the gun and breathes heavily in relief. He likes the sparkling powder smell and power of the gun. There is something about holding a gun with a tight grip and letting the bullets just fly out of their cages. It feels good.

He completed his mission as requested. He just needed to make sure they’re both dead. He watched the car derail and stop when the driver lost control and crashed it into a nearby building. All airbags explode. The glasses from the windows shattered into tiny pieces.

The main target’s head is now tilted against the bullet holed door, blood running like a river from his weak body. The passenger’s head bumps on the inflated airbags of the steering wheel.

Shawn gets closer to check their pulses. He checks the driver first, a younger man in his late thirties, wore black suits with a white shirt and blue striped tie, confirmed dead. Shawn slowly goes around to the back of the car. The main target, a tall man with big jaws maybe in his fifties with grey hair, wearing dark grey suits with red tie and glasses, dead. Unresponsive.

Suddenly, Shawn’s eyes freeze. He gasps for air. His lungs begin collapsing. Blood of vomit filled in his mouth. He couldn’t believe what he sees. There was a third person in the back, struck by a bullet in the head. A little boy, his skull cracked open. Shawn couldn’t breathe. He drops on his knees on the ground. He cries like he never cried before.

He drops the gun and goes around the other side of the car, trying to help the little boy. He rushes to open the door. It’s jammed, so he kicks the door with a powerful move and the latched door opens. He pulls out the little boy and gives him breath into his mouth to mouth. He checks his pulse, nothing. The little boy is gone.

Shawn felt a sharp, twisting pain in his stomach; he was unable to muster it. Only tears filled his mournful eyes.

He was so upset now, mad beyond control. Blazing in rage, he picks up the gun and gets into his getaway car and drives faster to save his family, and to take revenge for the little boy too. He wants to punish those responsible for settings him up to strike the innocent little boy.

”Killing should be easy,” he says in a furry raged voice, and “Punishment is the only solution for these kinds of crimes,” he says.

Then, he speeds into the night.

Shawn thought he did a clean job. “Not bad for a rookie,” he says in his head, as if he’s bragging about it to a friend. He thinks that in that dark hour and alley, nobody could’ve seen him commit a crime. Thus, he can walk away a free-man without the guilty conscience. By the time he slips away, nobody could suspect him, when the manhunt is in motion by the NYPD Crime Units Task Force. He can basically slip through their fingers unnoticed.

“No evidence, no crime,” he hummed in confidence.

Now though, he needs to leave this area as soon as possible, for there is an urgent matter at hand, his family’s safety. He also wants to mastermind how to hand down a wrathful punishment. But, he must head uptown before the clock strikes midnight, and kneels to the nightfall’s sword. A warning alarm rang in his ears, “exactly midnight, not a minute late.”

The current situation can change at any moment. Downtown Manhattan will soon be a hot crime scene, and most major streets around Battery Park could be barricaded and closed. The authorities will be doing their preliminary investigations and collect evidences. So, before he gets stranded in an overnight halted traffic jams, Shawn must disappear into the thin air.

He needs to escape via the best route to be at Central Park West entrance on Columbus Circle, by midnight and pick up his family.

He can already hear the police task forces and ambulance sirens started blowing up the city, and closing in. “Holy shit!” he says, panicking, almost he got caught in the hot mess he’s created.

He is furiously growing worried losing his family over his paddy mistakes. His eyes are soaring in fear as he contemplates. For now, he won’t just yet meet the night without a fight. He has lots of messes to clean up, and unpaid dues to collect from sinners.

First though, he must find a quicker route for getting to Fifty-Ninth St. and Central Park West faster. The time on the dashboard says 11:32PM. And in a vibrant Saturday nightlife of NYC, it could take forever to get to uptown from downtown, because he’s in the intersections of Wall St. and Water St., anxiously fighting his own head, and calculating the best driving options.

He can either take FDR drive to exit at east Forty-Second or Sixty-First Street. Or he can take NY-9A North to Fifty-Sixth Street. Either way, time is burning faster than matchstick; therefore he must make a quick decision of his lifetime. The GPS says FDR takes 23 minutes and West Side Ave takes 26 minutes.

He looks left to right, rubbing off his worrisome from his forehead. The streets of NYC are gleaming with shimmering lights all around. Considering no highway trooper pulls him over, he heads North on Water St. and jumps in to FDR drive ramp. Once he entered the ghostly highway, he pressed the gas pedal on his tan white Ford Edge, V6, accelerating to its fullest speed.

Soon after, he caught a glimpse of the crime scene already being overtaken by the authorities. He kept the speed limit to its max, eyeing the roads, his head with his family ahead.

Meanwhile, a phone was blasting off for the last couple minutes in one of the evidence bins. An NYPD officer picks up the phone and answered the call.

“Hello, who is this?”

“This is Mallory Scott,” she replied with bewilderment. She was a bit surprised that someone answered her father’s personal phone. As puzzled as she got, she was also anxious and worried.

“Who is this?” she said worriedly.

“Yes, ma’am. This is Officer Parker, NYPD Crime Units from 1st Precinct.”

“May I speak with my father, please?”

“I am sorry to tell you this but...” Officer Park didn’t even finish his sentences.

“Did something happen to my father?”

“Is my father okay?” She could feel her heart beating faster and a ton of dark shadow waves weighing on her shoulders. She could feel her rib cages cracking open with fear, as her eyes were fighting the sun of raging tears.

“I am sorry to tell you this Mallory, but your father and brother were fatally shot to death near your dad’s office. I am sorry.”

“What happened to my brother and father?” “Shot...?” “Who...?

Mallory’s raging tears burst and flooded her round face.

She could not move her systems. She lost her equilibrium and fainted in her living room.

Seconds before Shawn vanished into the thin air, a phone call was made from downtown to unknown location in Long Island. An unidentified person made the call with a burner phone.

“Hello, boss?”

An unknown person answered the call with a secured flipped phone.

“How did the business meeting go?”

“It was concluded. All the papers were fully executed and signed boss.”

”Fantastic, that’s a great news. You come straight to the office right away!”

”Yes, Sir!”

That call only took less than a minute before it went battery dead. Meanwhile, an emergency call was in progress.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” said the call receiver.

”Hello, there was a shooting outside. “

“Are you okay, did anybody get hurt?”

The operator with a calm and soothing voice tried easing down the frantic young girl in her early twenties, who was screaming on the other side of the phone.

“I am fine, but I think someone might be really hurt. I heard lots of shots being fired, and I saw a black limousine crashing badly into a building.”

“I am glad that you’re okay young lady” - says the operator, as she crunches the voice data into the logging system from the keyboard with the speed of light. Then, she continued her lines of questions.

”May I have your name, please?”

”My name is Kerry Davis, with a K.”

”Okay, Kerry. Do you know the location of the crime?” asks the operator, trying to locate the coordinates from the NY state map displayed on her big screen.

“It was by the back entrance of the new courthouse, the intersection of Wall St. and Water St.”

”Alright, Kerry. Now, do you mind staying online? I need to put you on a brief hold so that I can send this information to the authorities.”

“Sure, I can wait. “

The operator pressed the hot emergency button from the main switchboard and radioed for assistance.

“All available units, this is the dispatch. We have a possible homicide by Wall St. and Water St. Any units in the vicinity, please respond?”

”Dispatch, this is 989. We’re in the close proximity,” said one of night patrol officers monitoring the area.

Once the operator is done radioing, she returned to the phone call.

“Okay Kerry, did you see how many people got hurt?”

″I am not sure, but maybe two or more?”

“Did you look at the person who fired the shots? Can you describe the individual?”

”It was kind of dark to make out the whole thing, but I think it was a man. He was like six-feet tall, wore dark clothes and hoody. He drove away with an SUV car.”

The call went on for a while until the operator logged in all information into the clouds. After the operator was done with her last data entry, she returned.

“Thank you for your civic duties Kerry. I am glad you’re not hurt. Police should be there momentarily.” The operator said, ending the conversation.

”Please hurry up,” said Kerry and hung up the phone.

The calls quickly went silent like the cold weather in winter time.

A few minutes later, the two miles radius of the new courthouse was flooded with authorities and streets were completely shut down, sirens and flashing lights buzzed like a war zone.

Few minutes after that, Detectives Jane Parker and Dana Reisse arrived at the crime scene. Jane wore tight black jeans with black flat shoes; her 9MM strapped on her side left waist and showed throw her brown blazer coat. Dana put on a business suit with white blouse, high heels, and thin red tie, and dark shades, her 9MM strapped on her back.

They both flashed their badges as they entered and began eyeing every corner of the area of the barricaded crime scene.

“What we’ve got here,” Jane asked.

“It’s Mr. Walter Scott and his son, ma’am,” says one of the officers holding the evidence bins, shaking his head in disbelief and anger.

”The Walter Scott of Meridian IT?” Jane asked. The officer nodded and moved into another area of the crime scene.

“Holy crap,” says Jane to her partner. “This is very bad and tragic. It is going to be very bad news for the mayor and the city.” Her partner that she had been working with for the past ten years nodded in agreement.

Walter Scott was the owner and CEO of Meridian IT. He was the most visionary person in the cutting-edge industry. He owned many IT companies, but most of his talents were invested into developing one of state of the art first ever fully automated computerized judicial court system in history. He created what most ordinary people envision and call a “true blind justice system.”

He developed unbiased computer algorithm that can detect and be used effectively and efficiently to scrutinize true criminals and innocent people. The algorithms were vetted and tested for almost ten years and proven to be a prime success of the future. He proved that once the Cobra Gravity System goes online, it could save lives and generate revenues when it gets sold to other states and countries. To compensate the human factors that were removed in the process, he used the revenue directly to their wages.

The implementation of the Cobra Gravity System was installed and officially went live in the new courthouse.

When he was in public service, Walter saw and witnessed many injustices due to human feelings. To reduce people who are wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for crimes they might have or never committed, the system must be fully unbiased; that can only be achieved by computer algorithms. So, in order to take emotions out of the courtroom, he lobbed and was finally granted unlimited resource allocations to build state of the art computerized court system.

When Mallory regained consciousness, she called her driver to take her downtown. As soon as she stepped outside, she met up with two NYPD officers, waiting for her.

“We’re sorry for your loss ma’am,” says one of the officers, taking off his hat and holding it under his armpit. “The chief ordered us to take you to the scene and downtown, ma’am.”

She nods and hops in the back of flashing police car. The officers turn the sirens on and cruise back to the station.

When Mallory arrives at the 1st Precinct, the two patrol officers escorted her directly to the chief’s office; the office’s located on the third-floor: Robbery and Homicide. As soon as she walks out of the elevator, she sees everyone standing up, in a way to show her their solidarity, utmost respect and deepest condolences for her loss. Under her red and weary tired eyes, she felt a sense of pride of her late father’s benevolence, and how much respect he has from NYC’s finest. This isn’t a kind of respect money or power can buy, but rather deeper than that, a different kind of respect that bonded her father’s reputation with the city.

Mr. Walter was everyone’s hero. He was a good citizen and a great Samaritan, to say the least about his character.

He was a pioneer of many charitable and nonprofit organizations. He was the main founder and donor of Bright Day NYC IT academy training school. The school’s main focus is teaching younger kids how to program at an early age, starting as little as six-years old. He believed that exposing children to the idea of technology earlier than later is very imperative, because it can change the course of their futures and our society.

Mallory wished, even if it’s for few seconds, she can tell him, how proud she is of him. But, she knows though, that was just such a foolish dream, and it was her grief talking, an illusion which shattered her entire hopes into pieces.

She thought of her little brother, too. He was just eleven years old. It still doesn’t feel surreal to fathom his death, especially his death, for a little boy his age, he was a rising star with lots of potentials.

He used to love computer programming, and was a good soccer player.

Mallory and the officers reach the Chief of Police Richard Gray’s office, which is on the end of the hallway, passed Jane and Dana’s desk.

His door is always open. But today, it’s closed, to contain his frustration of yelling on the phone all day long about the tragic news.

Richard jumps out of his seat, as if the knock on his door by the two officers startled him. He was on a phone, conducting inquiries about the Homicide. He looks pale and angry.

He ended his conversation, stating that he would call back at a later time, as he had another urgent matter to attend to. Then, he turns the phone off on his desk.

Following that, he goes straight to Mallory and hugs her like he is hugging his own daughter.

Her father and Richard were close friends, more like a family; like they were brothers; like he is better known as one of their best uncles.

She is the same age as, and best friends with his own twin daughters, which that even tightened their relationships further.

Their family’s friendship goes more than fifteen-years, and still counting.

“I am so sorry Mali,” he say, calling her by her nickname, and holding her tightly, and wiping off her tears.

“Thank you, Uncle Ricky,” she also calling him by his nickname.

They’re standing in the middle of his big office, still conjoined in grief and sadness.

“They didn’t deserve this Uncle Ricky, especially Patrick,” she says painfully sobbing.

From the corners of her jaded eyes, some tiny drops of tears rolled on her red cheeks, the only few tears left in her to shed.

“Patrick was just a little boy, and he had nothing to do with anything!”

Richard nods with agreement, and says, “I know Mali, I know!”

While still engulfed in Uncle Ricky’s arms, he outbursts.

“I promise you with my life, we’re going to get the son of a bitches who did this,” he says in a painful rage and agitation. Rage of furry still filled his eyes, he continues with a hurtful and saddened voice.

“Whoever is involved, even if it’s God himself, they’re going to pay for it.”

She knows he meant that with full confidence. He is very good at his job and keeping his promises

Before he became the chief of police, he was one of the best decorated detectives known to the city.

After almost twenty years of being in the law enforcement, he’s mastered all the skill sets needed, in addition to his naturally given instincts to crack any case, even the ones that went cold and dead.

She believes every word he says being true. At the same time, she also sees him trying to be a tough guy, and holding back his tears, which filled his eyes like a dam is about to burst.

She stares into his eyes, to tell him that he can let go of his tears.

But, he fought his tears hard, again and again with grits, like they’re Enemies of the State.

Then a moment passes by, as they were still standing.

After collecting his composure, he leads her to sit on the long dark brown leather couch in his office. Then, before he closes his door, he gazes at Jane and Dana’s cluttered desk.

He sees that they weren’t there. So, he shouts out for their immediate dispatch to his office.

“Where are Jane and Dana?”

“Downstairs Sir,” says officer Flint, who is sitting across their cubicle.

“Please, fetch them to my office, now!”

With that, Richard closes his door and sits next to Mallory.

Few moments fly by again as they moaned together. Then, silence fell in the room, like a dark shadow. They both understood what that meant, unwinding without saying any words to each other. So, they gave each other the breathing room, waiting for Jane and Dana.

Richard looks through the blindfolds, yet Jane or Dana haven’t reported to his office.

“You look tired Mali,” he breaks the ice. “When was the last time you ate or slept?”

She didn’t reply right away. She shrugs her shoulders and says, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe a day or two. Eating’s not been on my mind as of late.”

Mallory looks exhausted, and appears on a verge of collapsing, as she hasn’t slept or eaten for a while, since the bad news that altered her entire life.

As she leans back on the couch, he observes how tired she looks. He calls a nearby restaurant and orders some takeout food for delivery.

As soon as her head touches the couch, she begins thinking about taking the law into her own hands, and avenging her family. She wants to use her Cyber Security and Satellite technology, and find the killers herself.

But, then she thought about Uncle Ricky and interfering with the ongoing police investigation. Though she knows that she has all the resources to her disposal, she decides to let the police do their jobs first, at least for the first seventy-two hours.

One way or another, someone is going to pay for this dearly.

A minute later, officer Flint pushes away the piles of paper on his desk and rushes towards the elevator, to find the lead detectives.

He knows where Jane and Dana are, because he saw them earlier, when he came into the office. They met on the first-floor and talked a bit about the case. They told him they were heading down to the evidence room. He hopes that if they’re still there, he should able to catch them in time.

The summertime heat-wave dipped a bit and made the day breezier than usual. The ferocious weather had caged people inside their own homes for a while, and they were feeling suffocated, and getting irritated by the noises echoing from the window wall-unit air-conditioners.

At least they get to go out and soak up the fresh air, as much as they can take it.

Jane and Dana knocked on the chief’s door.

“Come on in and close the door,” says Richard, anxiously wanting to know what they have on the case. He needs to have something to report to the higher-ups.

For a man of his position, it’s hard dealing with politics. The public wants justice to be served on a platter overnight, especially when it involves famous celebrities, public figures, or people with statures like The Walters. Politicians want anything they can feed reporters, and take a picture, to attach their names next to a story. But both sides never understand how investigations work. Or maybe they pretend to ignore that fact. They don’t seem to want to know that police work is tedious, and mostly investigations move like a turtle when either the public or the politicians are on a rocket ship.

Richard sits back in his chair, behind the mahogany oak wooden desk. Waving his ballpoint in the air, he introduces the detectives to Mallory.

“Mallory, this is Jane and Dana,” he pauses a bit and continues.“They’re the lead detectives on the case.”

“Hello, nice meeting you,” says Mallory politely, tilting her head down almost forty-five degrees, and extending her soft hands for a handshake.

“We’re so sorry for your loss, Mallory,” each detective extending their hands and returning the favor, before they continue expressing their condolences, and jump into a briefing on the case. “We’re going to do everything in our powers to catch those responsible and bring them to justice.”

“I appreciate that,” repliers Mallory.

The chief interjects, “Do we have anything so far, any hint or clue, who did this heinous crime?”

Mallory’s eyes are now wide open and fixated on Jane and Dana’s lips, hoping to hear some good news.

“We’re still looking through all the surveillance footages and images. We’re also interrogating suspects, and speaking to witness Sir,” says Jane.

Dana continues, “We’ve got a description on the vehicle, and we’re analyzing it, searching through the DMV Databases, but nothing yet on the shooter.”

Malloy and Richard’s hearts sunk with disappointment.

Richard fumes with frustration. He bangs on his desk forcefully, unable to control his rage. “So, nothing?!” As he was about to say something else, the phone on the desk rings loudly.

“It’s the mayor,” says his assistant Cherry.

He glares at the phone for a second and picks it up. He knows what’s about to come because he has nothing to report to the mad dogs upstairs.

“Hello Mayor,” he says with a cold voice as if his sugar level just dropped to zero, messaging his stiffened shoulders like he’s warming up in the GYM for a fight.

“We’re preparing for a press conference in a few hours, and we need to give the public something, anything,” says the mayor, who was yelling from the top of his lungs.

Richard didn’t need to hold the phone close to his ears as everybody in the room could hear the frantic meanness of the mayor.

“I understand sir, but as of now, we don’t have any useful information.”

As Richard listens, he waits for the screaming voice to dial down. When the mayor kept yelling, Richard cuts him off. “I’m sorry, mayor, but I’ll have to get back to you as the lead detectives are here to brief me on the case.” Just like that, he slammed shut the phone.

Soon after that, a foggy silence filled the room.

Richard breathed heavily and sat down in his chair. He never felt small and clueless like this. Maybe he’s looking at this case with too much emotional attachment. As if he doesn’t know it already, he reminds himself about why conflict of interest laws are put in place.

“Cherry, please cancel all my appointments for the rest of the day.”

He grabs his coat and Mallory, attached to his arms, leaves the suffocating police station, to take her home.

When the SUV pulled in front of her house on 23rd and Madison Ave, on the way, he saw the damaged and looted stores, and suddenly he felt his lungs gasping for air.

The city is in turmoil. The atmosphere hasn’t changed much since the murder of a business mogul and his son that went viral on social media. Their deaths have submerged the city into chaos, still leaving many in disbelief and shock.

The crime rate has doubled, and vigilante justice seekers are popping up everywhere like grass weed.

The public is trying to find anything, which they could use to medicate their insanity and fierce outcries.

However, there isn’t any prescription found that eases anybody’s mental state or heartbreaks. As of yet, no information has been confirmed or released officially by the police about the suspect or suspects of the triple-homicide.

For now, the public has to dance in the shadows, feeding off speculations and hypotheses like you’re solving a calculus equation.

A group text message with a picture and full address beeped on Jane and Dana’s official Smartphone, from Becky, a senior crime analyst.

Becky:

The search is done, and the tan white Ford Edge vehicle belongs to Shawn Hardy. 15 Mark Street, Bronx, NY 10444.