Inconsolable

Part 4

Paul Blaisdell looked up when he heard his door open and was mildly surprised to see Kwai Chang Caine enter the office wearing his usual tan garb and sandals. What with the hard time Peter was having adjusting to the changes his father's renewed existence entailed, Paul found it remarkable how, at least in his eyes, everything about the priest seemed to remain more or less unchanged. He always carried about him the same encompassing sense of calm, with an underlying intensity of spirit. Paul labeled it restful alertness: all the tension released from the body, yet all the muscles poised and ready to react.

Paul took off his glasses and stood, coming around to the front of the desk. "Caine," he said, extending his hand, which Caine accepted and shook with a slight bow of the head. Then Paul leaned back against his desk and folded his arms across his chest. "I assume this isn't a social call. What can I do for you?"

"I am looking for Peter," Caine admitted.

Paul gestured for Caine to take a seat, then went back around to sit behind his desk. "He's not here. He's out making an arrest." Paul corrected himself, "Assisting with an arrest."

Caine nodded. "His murderer?"

"His murderer?" Paul frowned. "Oh. Yes, his murderer. He told you about that?" He smiled slightly. "Of course he'd tell you about that. You're his father."

"As are you."

An awkward silence ate up the room. Both fathers stared at each other.

"Look, this isn't a competition," Paul said finally, leaning back in his chair. He hoped it wasn't.

"No, it is not," Caine agreed.

"Good. Because that wouldn't be fair to Peter."

"No, it would not."

"I'm glad we agree."

"Yes."

Paul could understand why Peter found his father so frustrating to talk to. "Then is there something else I can help you with?" he asked patiently.

"You know Peter well," Caine started.

Paul immediately held up a hand and shook his head. "I won't talk about him behind his back. If you want to know something or say something, say it to him, okay? You need to talk to him before he--"

"Self-destructs?"

Paul paused with his fingers pressed against his lips. Then he folded his hands on his desk. "I wasn't going to say that." He looked down at his hands, then back at the Shaolin priest. "But you see things, don't you? Is that something you see in him? Is he in danger?"

"We learn from our suffering," Caine said, shrugging a shoulder. "My son is strong at the broken places."

Paul didn't respond. He was ready for the conversation to end.

"I did not come to make you uncomfortable or to worry you," Caine apologized. "I only wish to ask your help finding--"

Before he could finish the request, the office door swung open, and Strenlich leaned in, a grim look on his face. "Captain, Fisk just put in a call to dispatch. They've got shots fired. Suspect resisted arrest and fled on foot. Skalany and Caine are in pursuit, headed towards the wharf district."

"I'm on my way," Paul said, pushing his chair back from the desk. He stood, grabbed his coat, and went to follow the Chief out the door.

"Captain Blaisdell..."

Paul turned back into the office and found himself face to face with Peter's father. They scrutinized one another for a moment. Then Paul sighed. "You should come with us."

Caine nodded succinctly and followed.

"Peter!" Mary Margaret screamed.

The door slammed shut with a cruel smack of finality. She hadn't been able to fire a single shot for fear that she might accidentally hit her partner. All she could do was watch as Bradley struck Peter at the base of the neck and then dragged him out of the room. They should have waited for backup.

Mary Margaret's eyes darted from the locked door, to the dismantled control box, to the reservoir, and then to the cord hanging down from the middle of the ceiling. Peter hadn't managed to get the cord all the way over, and now Mary Margaret was stuck on the wrong side.

She ran to the wall and started tugging at another group of wires. She put one black shoe against the cement wall and pushed against it, while she pulled with both hands on the cord. It started to work loose, tearing apart from its connection to the box. After a few more good yanks, the cord broke free, sending a fountain of white and yellow sparks into the air and throwing Mary Margaret backwards and down to the floor. She lay there for a moment, catching her breath, her long dark hair dangling over the edge of the walkway. *They don't pay me enough for this.*

She pushed herself back to her feet and gingerly took hold of the wire cord. It didn't electrocute her, so she went to work tying a couple knots in the wire. Then she looped the end and tied it into a bowline knot.

"Peter, if I wasn't trying to put the moves on your father..."

Mary Margaret grimaced, climbing onto the railing. She brought her legs over and sighed. If Peter could do it...well...so would she have to as well. Besides, she didn't have a choice. It was either fester away in here until backup came and found her, or swing over to the other side now and get her partner back.

She grasped the cord with both hands above the knots and slipped her foot into the loop at the bottom. She paused a moment more, gazing down at the rancid pool below. Then she took a deep breath, pushed off from the cement and sailed toward the other side.

The wind blew Mary Margaret's bangs back from her forehead, and she braced herself as she saw the other walkway racing towards her. She took another quick breath and prepared to grab hold of the railing. She reached out, straining her fingers and wrist. But instead of catching the iron rail, she caught only a fistful of air, and she was suddenly moving back toward the far side of the room.

Mary Margaret's eyes widened in disbelief. She hadn't pushed off hard enough, and she ended up swinging fifteen more times before finally coming to a precarious standstill, dangling over the middle of the reservoir.

"Oh my God," she muttered, tightening her grip on the cord.

Somehow, this was all Peter's fault.

"I really hate you."

Peter clutched at his left side, blood starting to seep warm and sticky through his fingers. He felt as if there were an enormous, hot pressure being applied to his torso, just below the ribs. He brought his left leg up and leaned into the pain, staring up at Orin Bradley through dark, narrowed eyes.

"I believe you." Bradley lowered Peter's gun slowly. "But you know what? I don't hate you at all, Pete. I don't hate anybody. Honestly, I missed you on purpose. Well, I guess I nicked you a little bit," he admitted, squatting down and pulling a clean white handkerchief from his pocket. He tossed it over to Peter. "But I could've put a major hole in you. This one just stings, right?"

Peter closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, ignoring the handkerchief. He wondered how long he and Bradley had been hanging there, and how much longer Bradley would keep this up. For all practical purposes, Peter was a hostage, a position that didn't sit well with him. He would just close his eyes and rest for a minute, conserve his strength. Then if nobody turned up soon to help him out, he'd just have to deal with Bradley by himself.

Bradley watched the detective lace the fingers of his free hand into the chainlink and squeeze. That shot must have hurt more than Bradley thought it would. He stood back up and leaned his shoulder against the wall. He stared out at the empty air around them.

"Ever heard of a place called Pineridge?" he asked suddenly.

The question startled Peter's eyes open.

Bradley turned to him. "Well, have you?"

Peter nodded. "I lived there once, a long time ago."

Bradley looked at him and smiled, as if they were sharing a fond remembrance. "You did? Hey, that's some kind of coincidence, isn't it? Hell of a place, huh?"

Peter grimaced against the memory and the pain in his side.

"Well, anyway," Bradley went on. "A few of those Pineridge guys and I, sometimes we'd talk to each other, right? And I'm not talking any of that posturing shit, either. I mean real talking. Genuine stuff.

"We'd talk about the absolute stupidest things, like finding our parents and impossible shit like that. Not about going out and searching for them ourselves or anything. But like, if they actually put forth the effort to come and find us, we wouldn't've been against seeing them, you know?"

Peter stared back in silence. Bradley noticed something slightly raw in Peter's eyes, and he paused long enough to bend down and pull Peter's bloody hand away from his side. Bradley pressed his folded handkerchief against the wound, then placed Peter's hand back over it. Then he stood again and folded his arms across his chest. A line of thick black smeared from his hand onto his jacket sleeve.

"But then the craziest shit is, I grow up. I get out of there. I get a job, and a place, and I'm living my life. And *I* stumble across *him*!" Bradley threw his hands up and laughed. "Is that not one of the shit-ass craziest things you've ever heard in your entire fucking miserable life, Pete? I mean, I swear to god! Of all the places in all the world, you know?

"And you know how I knew it was him? It was the eyes. I mean, all this time alone in the world, and I'm walking down the street, and I see this guy who looks just like me! Can you even imagine that?"

Peter's eyes closed again.

"You wanna know what his license plate said? It was A-C-C-N-T-N-T. My father is an accountant." He chuckled and slid back down to a sitting position. "So I start thinking about all the things I could've learned from him. Like, he could've...he could've helped me prepare my taxes. Make sure I don't fuck 'em up and get screwed by the government. I...I could've asked him how I should invest my money, like do I go with stock or fucking bonds?"

He paused again and looked over at Peter, who was starting to go pale.

"You're not looking so hot over there."

"I'm fine," Peter muttered.

"Don't," Bradley said, holding up a finger. "Don't mistake my simple observation for concern." He frowned. "Those two kids..."

Peter gazed over at his captor. A sudden, desperate need to lash out consumed him and dulled his pain. The burning was replaced by a hollow, gnawing sensation in his stomach.

"They were my half brothers." Bradley smiled. "Can you imagine me, somebody's big brother?" The smile faded. "You think my father would be proud of me?"

"Are we talking before or after you shot him?" Peter asked venomously.

Bradley smiled again and blew out a puff of air. "Touche, man. Okay, before, I guess. I mean, I'm a fucking substitute teacher. I get paid 45 bucks a day to teach kids to dot their i's and cross their t's.

"Sometimes I'll assign them a short composition. I ask them to write me a page about why they love their parents. You know, like what do your parents do for you that you know you can't get anywhere else? But half the time they don't even do it. I'm a substitute. What am I gonna do, right? Instead, they sit there and read their little books. They write in their little notebooks, and they pass their little notes.

"What I want to know is, what's so all fire fucking hard about that assignment, Detective? I mean, they shouldn't have any kind of trouble with that whatsoever, you know? I just ask them to tell me something nice about their parents. But they don't get it. They...I just...I don't understand."

He took a deep breath and looked over at the cop. It was an open, honest gesture, and it caused Peter indescribable pain. Two days ago it was Scotty Thompson's tenth birthday. Two days ago, Peter yelled at his father. Peter had walked out on Caine, pushed Paul away. Fifteen years ago, the temple had burned. Both Peter and his father had perished. Three years later, Peter had found himself alive again in Paul Blaisdell's home. Scotty was dead. So was his father, mother and brother. Orin Bradley killed them, and Peter was next.

"I'm sorry," Peter mumbled, his eyes glazed over. "Why is this happening?"

Bradley furrowed his brow in confusion. "I don't know, Pete," he said. Then he leaned forward and glanced around at the emptiness, as if he were getting ready to divulge a heavy secret. He whispered, "I didn't go there planning to kill him."

Peter's eyes slid shut, and when he opened them again, they were very alert and very cold. "Then why did you take the gun?" he demanded quietly.

Bradley didn't know what to say. He stared at Peter for a moment, then stood up again and pulled out Peter's gun. "What? Like you've never killed anybody before?"

"In self-defense, Bradley. There's a big difference between what I do to people like you, and what you did to that family."

"You're a killer, cop!"

The sudden outburst made Peter jump.

"You're a killer. I'm a killer. And that makes us a lot alike, doesn't it? But you wanna know what makes us different? I'm gonna go down for it, and you're not. Now is that fair? Is that just? Is that right?" He paused, his breathing heavy and angry. "I'm gonna die tonight."

Peter slumped a little further against the wall. "They won't kill you."

Bradley laughed, and the cage swung. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "Do you even listen to yourself? Look at me! I've got a gun. I've got a cop. I've got a gun and a cop in a cage, and I shot you!" He sat down slowly and leaned his head wearily against the fencing.

"You grazed me," Peter muttered.

They were silent, staring at each other. Then Bradley cracked another smile.

"You're a cocky son of a bitch," he grinned. "I bet if you weren't scared shitless about being up here, you'd be bawling like a baby over that wound."

"How little you know me."

The smile faded again, lingering only at the very edges of Bradley's mouth. He sighed deeply, glancing around the large, empty room. He studied the walls and doors for a moment, then he reached over and put a firm hand on Peter's shoulder.

"I'm gonna let you go now," he said quietly, calmly. "I'm gonna get us both down, and then I'm gonna run." He pointed a finger in Peter's face. "But don't you shoot me, Caine. You let one of your buddies do that."

Peter closed his eyes. "No one has to die here, Bradley. You made a huge mistake, and you're going to jail, but you don't have to die in this place. You don't want to die here, and I don't want you to die here. Let's just do this right."

"Look, I know you can't understand this, Pete. But what you do, and what I did...well, to me, there's a very fine line between the two, if such a line exists at all. I mean, where you come from, and where I come from...well, we're both orphans. We do what he have to to survive. Another day, another time, and it could've been you in my place, and me in yours. You don't want to believe that, and I understand. You found a good path to follow." Bradley's eyes dulled a shade, and his shoulders slumped resignedly.

"But the man was your father," Peter whispered.

"Yeah, he was." Bradley handed Peter back his gun and looked the cop in the eye. "What does either of us understand about that?"

"Report."

Jake Fisk leaned his forearm against the top of Paul's sedan and joined his captain in surveying the exterior of the power plant. He knew Caine and Skalany had followed Bradley inside the deserted building, but there was no telling their exact location or what was happening.

"Point of entry...that door over there," Fisk said, pointing. "City cut power to the building immediately after final shut down, but there's still a generator powering some emergency lighting and several safety and security functions."

"Any cameras or alarms?"

"No, sir."

"So they could be anywhere."

Fisk nodded. "We've got fifteen units suited up and ready to go in, but we don't know what's going on in there. If they'd apprehended him, they would have already brought him out and reported in. Since they haven't, I feel like we've gotta assume either they haven't found him yet, or something's gone wrong. No further gunfire since we got here, but I don't think we'd hear it from our position even if there was."

Paul studied the building a moment longer, rubbing his thumb absently across his bottom lip. Then he pushed away from the car.

"Okay, we're going in. I want five units with me at this door, five on the east entrance with Roberts, and the rest with you on the north. Take a map and a headset and maintain radio contact. Let me know the minute you find any of them, and then wait for my order to proceed. He'll be expecting us, but there's no point in giving away our presence any earlier than we have to. What's Bradley's state of mind?"

"He's wound, Captain. I don't think he'd hesitate to take somebody out."

It wasn't what Paul wanted to hear. For the first time since they'd gotten there, he turned to Peter's father. He reached into the car and pulled out a hand-held radio. "Take this and wait here. You'll be able to monitor our progress--"

"I will accompany you," Caine said firmly.

Paul glared back. "Out of the question. You're a civilian, and this man is dangerous. Now, you've helped me before, and I'm grateful for that. But we have no idea what the situation is in there."

"Please," Caine said. "I must be there when you find my son."

Paul eyed the priest sternly, and a chill ran down his spine. Looking into Caine's eyes was eerily like looking into Peter's.

"Are you as stubborn as your son?" he asked finally.

Caine shrugged a shoulder and smiled slightly. "We prefer 'tenacious.'"

Paul shook his head. Why did he even bother? He already knew there was no stopping a Caine when that Caine had his mind made up.

"And here I thought he got that from me." Paul threw the radio back into the car and turned toward the deserted plant. "Okay, move out! Caine, you're with me."

Mary Margaret pulled back on the rope with both hands and pressed forward with her feet. She'd been at it for five minutes now and had almost worked up enough momentum. Her fingertips were only a foot away from touching the railing. Just a few more agonizingly slow swings, and she would be on the other side.

Finally, after three more tries, Mary Margaret felt the cool, smooth metal in her palm, and she clamped her fingers tightly around the rail. She let go of the cord and pulled herself up, then reached down and freed her foot from the loop. She brought both legs over and dropped lightly to the cement floor. She paused only a few seconds to catch her breath, then ran to the door and quietly, slowly pulled it open. She drew her gun, took a deep breath and threw herself into the hall.

Empty. Of course. What had she expected? For Peter to have left a bread crumb trail?

She hesitated for a moment, glancing down each direction of the dim corridor. The emergency bulb for this hallway was right above Mary Margaret's head, and either direction ran off into thick, uninviting shadows. Leave it to Peter to get lost in this mess.

Her heart was pounding, and her hands shook slightly from the adrenaline rush. Peter probably felt like this every minute of his day. She rolled her eyes. *Yeah, and look where it got him.*

Suddenly, above the muffled rumble of abandoned machinery, Mary Margaret thought she heard voices whispering. She slipped back into the room and stood poised with her shoulder pressed against the doorjamb, her gun raised so that the dark barrel nearly touched her flushed cheek.

The voices were getting nearer, but they were still too low to be understood or recognized. From the sound of careful footfalls, Mary Margaret could tell there was at least two of them, probably more. Bradley had no reason to move with such stealth, so maybe Fisk had finally gotten his ass in gear.

She took yet another deep breath, steeled herself, and flew around the corner, bringing her gun up with both hands.

"Freeze!"

Six weapons came up simultaneously, and somebody yelled out a desperate, "No!"

Mary Margaret quickly brought the gun back up near her cheek and searched the shadows. "Caine?"

"Skalany?"

"Captain Blaisdell!"

Paul Blaisdell hurried into the light, followed by Peter's father and five officers from the 101st. He put his hands on Mary Margaret's shoulders as she reholstered her gun.

"Are you all right?"

Mary Margaret nodded briefly. "I'm fine, but Bradley's got Peter. I don't know where he took him. They could be anywhere by now."

"They are...this way."

Both Paul and Skalany turned to see Caine start moving down the hall again, back into the darkness. He walked cautiously, but quickly. His sandals made no sound as they hit the grimy cement floor.

"I'm good with numbers."

Peter was so tired. His anger was ebbing, and pity was slowly taking its place. Pity for the Thompsons, who never knew what hit them. Pity for Bradley, who was royally fucked up. Pity for himself, because he was who he was, and that didn't seem to satisfy anybody.

Poor Peter, son of Kwai Chang Caine, never good enough. Poor Peter, set ablaze in the temple, couldn't save anyone. Poor Peter, lost in that orphanage, and then found by one father, only to rediscover the other and lose himself again. It was a deep, relentless feeling of loss and abandonment. And it ached...and it ached.

"So maybe I could've been an accountant, too, instead of an English sub. You think--" Bradley turned to Peter and saw that his eyes were closed again. He kept doing that. "Pete? Hey, Pete. Hey, don't leave yet, cop."

Bradley reached over and rubbed at Peter's cheek.

"See, Pete, you know me now. I swear, you know more about me than...well, than anybody. That is so fucked up, but sometimes the truth's like that, you know? Sometimes the truth's just one big old, fucked up mess, isn't it? So don't go dying on me or anything like that." He chuckled. "I mean, at least Thompson had his family with him. That son of a bitch."

Bradley leaned back against the fence wall and sighed.

"Look, I just don't want to die alone, and you're the only one who knows anything about me. So if you could just hold off on passing out on me a little while longer, okay? Seriously, is that so much to ask?" He smiled bitterly. "God! I mean, after all, won't that be so fulfilling for you? Knowing I'm dead? Won't that give you such a great sense of closure? I mean, that's the whole reason people become cops, isn't it?

"People are going to deviate. You can't stop that. But you become a cop, and you get to chase them down, make sure they get what they've got coming.

"So being a cop's all about fucking revenge, right? You feel like you deserve some kind of consolation from this big, bad, cock-sucker world, don't you? I know you do. The way you see it, it's commit the crime, pay the price, everybody feels better. So you see me die, and you get your ultimate revenge on a killer, right?"

Peter opened his eyes again, sheer will power and anger the only things keeping him conscious.

"What I want from this world and what I think I deserve are none of your fucking business," he said coldly. "Neither are my reasons for becoming a cop.

"You have to pay for what you did, Bradley. But what I want from you are justice and retribution, not revenge. Revenge doesn't bring closure. It just puts you in a cycle."

Bradley eyed Peter skeptically. "Justice and retribution, huh, Detective?"

"Justice and retribution, asshole."

Bradley leaned forward. "Then allow me to let you in on a well-known fact, Pete. When you go to trial, you don't get justice. You get a verdict. You get revenge. And you're right. It *is* a cycle. And it just goes on and on, perpetuated by people like you and me."

"That's not true...that's..." Peter didn't know how much longer he could take this. Nothing either of them said made any sense anymore. His eyes slipped shut again, and his voice took on a plaintive tone. "You killed them, Bradley. What the hell do you want?"

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