Demolition Man Read online

  Spartan's footsteps echoed in the dim interior, and he threw himself into the next chamber. He could tell by the smell in the room that he was close to Phoenix-not that the outlaw smelled any worse or better than anyone else, but because the entire room reeked of spilled gasoline, hundreds of gallons of it. Doubtless, it was one of Phoenix's ingenious defense mechanisms. Let the gas flow and blow to smithereens anyone who tried to fake him alive.

  Suddenly, what little light penetrated the murky room vanished as someone-and Spartan could guess who-hit all the circuit breakers, eliminating electricity to the complex.

  Spartan whispered into his lapel microphone. "Lamb? You read me?"

  "Yeah, Spartan, I read you." Lieutenant Lamb sounded annoyed. "What the hell is going on?"

  "I need you to shed some light on the situation," said Spartan.

  "Roger that."

  Spartan heard the helicopter engines distinctly as the chopper lost a couple of hundred feet and passed across the building. The thirty-two-million-candle-power lights mounted on the chopper skids kicked in. A split second later a great avalanche of cool white light poured through the tall windows, illuminating the interior of the building.

  The room became a wild mixture of burnished white light and where it could not penetrate, dark, dark shadows. The gas fumes seemed to be alive, rippling and refracting, the light bouncing off multicolored pools of gasoline.

  A heart-stopping sound came from the far side of the room. Simon Phoenix, half hidden in the shadows, lit a blowtorch and the sound of the roaring flame seemed to fill the gas-filled chamber. Nonchalantly, the criminal put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

  The blue flame of the blowtorch illuminated Phoe-nix's features. It wasn't the kind of face you saw every day. The master criminal was a tall, powerfully built black man, with a deep brown eye-the other one was blue. His hair wasn't black, but had been dyed a garish platinum blond.

  "Don't move, Phoenix," Spartan ordered. Both of his heavy weapons were trained on the bad guy.

  Phoenix's lips twisted into a smile. "Move? I won't move. I wouldn't want to get gasoline on my shoes."

  The flammable liquid was pooling all over the floor now, and the air was becoming thick with choking fumes. In spite of himself, Spartan's eyes flicked down to Phoenix's shoes and then back to his face.

  "You're under-"

  "Arrest?" Phoenix finished for him.

  "That's right."

  "Oooh," said Simon Phoenix laughing in Spartan's face. "I'm scared. And you are trespassing."

  Spartan did not have time for cop-criminal banter. "Where are the passengers?"

  Phoenix's phony good humor vanished. "Fuck you, Spartan!" His voice echoed to the rafters of the room. "The passengers? The passengers are gone, man. I told the city no one comes down here anymore."

  "You didn't tell me," said Spartan.

  "Why the fuck should I?" demanded Phoenix. "All the other cops figured it out, Goddamn mailman could figure it out. Damn bus drivers wouldn't listen."

  Spartan shrugged. "Doesn't matter. You're under arrest."

  Phoenix looked at the cop as if he had lost his mind. "Arrest me? You've got no jurisdiction here. You're in my kingdom now, Spartan. Fifty blocks in every direction. And it's all mine. Every square inch. Got it?"

  Spartan shook his head. "Wrong, Phoenix. Your rent is overdue and I'm your eviction notice."

  Phoenix laughed lightly. "Oh, I get it. You're gonna be my judge!" He drew on the cigarette and exhaled a long, blue stream of hot smoke.

  "That's right."

  "Seems like you're slumming to me, Spartan."

  "I've never been particular about the people I bring in, Phoenix. You can't be too choosy in my line of work. Scumbags sorta go with the territory."

  Phoenix shifted the blowtorch from one hand to the other, tossing it playfully in his large fist. "I'm not going to give up my kingdom to go back to living in a cage. You really want to bring me in, Spartan?"

  Spartan never took his eyes off Phoenix's face. "There's an option I would prefer," he said. "But the law says I have to arrest you before I kill you. Understand?"

  Phoenix nodded. "I understand. I understand that the only way you're gonna take me is to reach down my throat and tear out my heart."

  Spartan nodded, as if Phoenix were giving him an alternative he hadn't considered. "I ain't a doctor, but I'll give it a try. Tell me where the hostages are-and then you should prepare for surgery."

  "To hell with the hostages," Phoenix snarled. "This is about you and me, Spartan."

  John Spartan's guns had not wavered an inch. He could have blown him away at any moment, but the law said he had to arrest him, and Spartan had to admit that he would derive a curious pleasure from putting Phoenix in that cage he feared so much.

  Suddenly, Phoenix snuffed out the blowtorch, the blue flame slowly hissing dead.

  "Is it cold in here," Phoenix asked, with a smile, "or is it just me?" Without warning, he took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it casually at Spartan.

  A sheet of blue flame erupted and Phoenix screamed with crazy laughter. Spartan threw himself through the blaze, grappling with Phoenix, trying to drag him through one of the windows- Spartan figuring that it was better to take a chance in a fall than to stay inside and fry.

  But Phoenix was either stronger, crazier, or whatever drug he had taken made him invincible. He caught Spartan and smashed him into the wall, then catching him in the middle of the chest with his knee.

  The heat in the building was overpowering, and the loose ammunition on the upper floors was beginning to explode, detonating in strings like lethal fireworks. The two men squared off and traded blows, toe to toe, like boxers in the ring, bone-crunching, brain-rocking punches.

  Neither man could bring down the other until Phoenix broke out, aiming-and landing-a vicious kick to Spartan's head, as if trying to snap his head off his spine.

  "That feel good?" screamed Phoenix. "Let me take a little bit off the left..." He ripped another brutal kick, sending Spartan reeling.

  Spartan swayed on his feet, shaking his head trying to clear his mind.

  "Dizzy, Spartan? How many fingers am I holding up?" Phoenix held two long-nailed fingers under Spartan's battered head and then savagely rammed them into his eyes, sending him crashing to the ground. Phoenix raised his foot, ready to stomp Spartan's head into the concrete.

  But this time Spartan was ready for him. His legs swept out and slammed into Phoenix, whipping him to the ground, and suddenly Spartan was on his feet slamming and kicking, nailing Phoenix three times fast in the face and body. The skin on his cheek-bones split and blood flowed, pooling on the concrete floor.

  Spartan stood over his fallen enemy. "Where are they, Phoenix? Where are the hostages?"

  Simon Phoenix manage to pull himself up, half rising off the floor. He spat blood and teeth and flashed a gory, crooked smile at the policeman.

  "Oh, you want the hostages! Why didn't you say so?" He pantomimed patting his pockets, as if looking for his car keys. "Now where did I put them? I swear, I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached..."

  "I'll keep that in mind," said Spartan, moving in for the kill. Spartan hammered the bruised man with a mighty blow. The sound of his jaw cracking could be heard above the roar of the flames and the intensifying explosions of the loose ammunition rounds. Phoenix's head snapped back, and Spartan grabbed him by the collar and started dragging him from the building. He knew enough about explosives to realize that the whole building was just seconds away from detonating.

  It took fifteen seconds for Spartan to get his captive out of the building and undercover. Five seconds later the flames reached the grenades and other explosives on the third floor and ignited. The earth seemed to tremble as the explosion erupted and the heat surge washed forward like a fiery tidal wave. The roar was deafening, and the fire ball that blasted into the sky seemed brighter than the sun.

  The secondary explosion was just as devastating,
a great eruption of blazing power that blew out the walls of the building. In a matter of seconds Phoenix's fortress was a blazing ruin.

  For a city grown inured to explosions, this one was pretty spectacular. It might even make the evening news.

  John Spartan had blazed the trail in, so now the Los Angeles Police Department Hum-Vee units were converging on the scene. The air was alive with helicopter traffic, beams of light streaming from the sky.

  The dust began to settle, but flaming wreckage and embers still blew from the ruins. Fully armed firemen wearing bulletproof, gear were advancing into the wreckage, securing the area and searching for survivors.

  Spartan emerged from his cover, dragging his prisoner behind him, handing him off to the crowd of police officers who had rushed to the site. In the middle of the pack of cops was Steve Healy, Spartan's long-suffering superior and friend. He was shaking his head slowly . . . Spartan knew that was always a bad sign.

  "Do you understand the meaning of the word 'not', John?" asked Healy. "It's a simple word. Just three letters long." Healy was trying to keep his anger in check, but it appeared to be a losing battle. His face was getting red-another bad sign.

  "You were not supposed to-come down here," he said, his voice rising. "You were not supposed to attempt an arrest of Simon Phoenix single-handed, and you were not supposed to blow anything up!"

  Spartan shrugged. "Not this time, Healy," he said in his own defense. "He dumped gas and rigged the place to blow. Not my fault."

  Healy knew Spartan's penchant for blowing things up too well to be convinced by this lame excuse. "Yeah. Sure. You had nothing to do with it."

  "Really," protested Spartan.

  "Save it, John," said Healy. "Now I know you've been trying to nail this psycho for two years, but try remembering a little thing called official police procedure."

  Spartan winced and slapped his forehead. "Procedure! Damn! I always forget that."

  "I know. Now where are the hostages?"

  "Not here," said Spartan simply.

  Healy frowned. "What the hell do you mean, not here? You come in here, blow the shit out of the place, and you tell me that the hostages aren't here?"

  Spartan nodded. "That's right. Phoenix must have stashed them somewhere else."

  "You searched the whole place?" Healy demanded. "How do you know they weren't in there. How can you be so sure?"

  "We did a thermal check," Spartan explained. "We read only seven bodies-all part of his gang."

  "Wrong again."

  Healy and Spartan turned. Simon Phoenix was cuffed and trussed and just about to be lead away by a posse of heavily armed police officers.

  Spartan grabbed a handful of Phoenix's shirt front. "Then where are they, scumbag?"

  Phoenix just grinned.

  "Get him out of here," ordered Healy. "Now, Spartan, you and I are going to have a nice long chat-"

  Suddenly, one of the fireman rooting around in the wreckage called out. "Captain! Captain!" The man sounded shocked and sickened. "Over here! There are bodies everywhere. They must be twenty or thirty, they're everywhere!"

  Spartan stood stock-still, a sickened look crossing his face. Phoenix dug in his heels and turned to face Healy.

  "They were there and he knew it," Phoenix shouted. "I told him and he said he didn't care."

  Spartan lost it. He charged Phoenix, his hands out like claws ready to choke the life from his archenemy. A half dozen cops got between them.

  Phoenix laughed again. "See! He's crazy. How could you sacrifice innocent people for me? Huh, Spartan? What kind of man are you? I get the feeling we're gonna be spending a lot of quality time together, Spartan."

  "I'll kill you," vowed John Spartan.

  "Nawww," said Phoenix with a big grin. "We're gonna get to be good friends ..." The cops hustled him toward the armored Hum-Vee paddy wagon.

  Healy looked very grim. He turned to Spartan, real concern on his face. He knew that Phoenix, crazy as he may be, was certainly telling the truth. No one was going to sit still for a cop causing the death of thirty innocent people.-

  "I'm sorry, John," Healy said quietly. "But if you've got a lawyer, you better call him."

  3

  By 1996 one thing had improved-by necessity, the criminal justice system had been streamlined. Trials were brief, appeals were perfunctory, and punishment, for the few malefactors the police did manage to apprehend, was swift and appalling,

  State and federal penitentiaries had been crammed to the point of overflowing, and after a series of extremely violent prison riots and takeovers, the constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment had been abrogated. Thus an institution called the Cryo-Penitentiary was born.

  High-risk prisoners, incorrigible and violent criminals, were now sentenced to long terms of incarceration not in conventional prisons, but in high-tech establishments where prisoners were not just con-fined but frozen in suspended animation.

  Technology had advanced to the point that heart rate and brain activity could be slowed, putting criminals in an inert state of hibernation. The authorities called it "Sub-zero rehabilitation." On the street, it was known as "doing ice" or "ice time."

  After a kangaroo court convicted John Spartan, he got seventy years' ice time. He expected as much and hardly flinched when the sentence was read out in court. Spartan accepted that his own life was over-he had worked too long in criminal justice to actually expect justice-but he was sickened by what the stigma of his penalty might do to his family.

  On the day Spartan was due to begin his term of incarceration, the authorities allowed him a moment or two to say good-bye to his wife and little daughter. He was dressed in stark white prison overalls, and he did his best to hide his shame from the only two people in his life who mattered to him.

  Katie, his six-year-old daughter, was doing her best to be strong, but she couldn't fight back the tears that streamed down her face. Spartan bent down and embraced the little girl, kissing her warmly.

  "Daddy," she said, "please don't go."

  "It won't be long, Katie," he said softly. He opened his hand and showed her his Los Angeles Police Department badge. Then he pinned it to her lapel. "Take care of this for me, till I come back."

  Katie nodded solemnly. "Okay."

  "I'm going to be back," he said reassuringly. "I'll still be your dad. I promise." He kissed her on the cheek. "Take care of your mom. Will you do that for me?"

  The little girl nodded again. "Uh-huh. I love you, Daddy."

  Seeing his daughter trying to be brave and strong was almost too much for Spartan, and it was all he could do to choke back the sob that rose in his throat. His wife, Madeline, hugged him close.

  "Your mother told you to never marry a cop," said John Spartan over her shoulder.

  "I never listen to my mother," said Madeline Spartan, doing her best to smile through her tears.

  "I love you," said John Spartan.

  They kissed again and held each other in silence. Everything that could be said had been said.

  Behind them came the sharp rasp of the metal doors of the cell being opened. Two prison guards dressed in odd heavily insulated uniforms came into the room.

  "It's time, Spartan," said one of the men.

  John Spartan kissed his wife and daughter one last time and then turned and squared his shoulders.

  "Let's go."

  The guards, standing on either side of him, escorted him through the metal doors and into the prison proper. The Cryo-Penitentiary was a nightmare of sharp angles and barren white planes, like a pile of geodesic domes stacked one on top of another. It was an architecturally perverse collection of layers and levels with the ambience and all the charm of an industrial-size high-tech meat locker.

  The air was cold, and the breath of the few men gathered in the main chamber sent clouds of condensation drifting toward the exposed steel beams of the rafters.

  Spartan had never been inside the Cryo-Peniten-tiary before, but he was well awa
re of its fearsome reputation. On the lower levels of the space, embedded in the clear Lucite floor, were hundreds of circular units, every one containing the body of a prisoner, frozen within like an insect preserved in amber.

  The bodies had contracted into tortured, twisted crouches, grown men coiled into gruesome parodies of the fetal position. They lay with their eyes open, their pale faces hauntingly twisted into gargoylelike expressions of tortured terror.

  The operators of the Cryo-Penitentiary knew that it was pointless to try and fight the medication that reduced men to this piteous state, that struggling against it only intensified and made more painful the procedure. And yet, to a man the cryo-cons resisted, struggling against the state-sponsored waking death as strongly as they would the old-fashioned, more primal kind of extinction. It was in their nature to resist authority, even from beyond the grave.

  A small group of men waited for Spartan, and they were standing in a half circle around the edge of one of the exposed chambers, which gaped in the floor of the prison like an open" grave. A bank of monitors glowed nearby, and two supervisors stood over the instruments, checking and rechecking every stage of the operation.

  Called in to observe the proceedings were a couple of police officials, a medical crew, some technical operators, and a young man named Smithers, a rising star in the Bureau of Prisons-he had already achieved the distinction of being named the warden of the first Cryo-Penitentiary. A remarkable achievement, considering his age.

  A guard shoved Spartan into the pit and stepped back to let the technicians take over. Spartan knew the drill. Once in the cavity he started unbuttoning his white jumpsuit and stepped free of it, naked in the frigid air.

  A doctor stepped forward with a nightmarishly large syringe in his hands, the cylinder filled with a luminescent deep blue liquid. Spartan did not flinch as the needle sliced into his skin and buried itself deep in muscle tissue, nor did he react as the physician pumped the fluid into him.

  Technicians gathered around him, like mechanics working on a car, slapping sensor pads on his rapidly cooling body and, to accelerate the chilling process, sprayed him down with icy Freon mist. Immediately, the gauges responded, reflecting the sudden drop in John Spartan's body temperature.