As the door to basement restroom opened for the first time in what must have been years, the smell hit him like a wall, making his eyes water – yes it had to be the smell, real men don't cry, he had learned that early. He stopped for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the small amount of yellowy light that the street level window permitted to illuminate the room through all the dust and the cobwebs. As he moved further into the room he saw that the light gave everything a golden hue making the room appear almost piss-stained, though for all Jon knew it probably was.
On his left two, of the three cubical doors had been knocked, or kicked, off their hinges exposing dirty porcelain toilet bowls. On the right hand wall, electrical wires stuck out hap-hazardly where an enterprising looter had ripped the two hand driers from the wall. Leaving nothing but exposed brickwork and crumbling plaster behind. The old style garbage bin in the far right corner was on its side, its contents sprawled across the worn down linoleum flooring.
In the background he could still hear the hustle and bustle of the city getting on with its day to day life. Not caring about Jon or justice, just survival. Always survival. Get through today and your prize was to get through tomorrow. Hardly worth the effort Jon though. The dripping of a leaky faucet brought his attention back to where he was – strange, he thought, thought they would have turned off the water for this place.
Walking inside Jon stumbled slightly, forgetting that the floor sloped slightly towards a central drain, he kicked something as he did so only for it to go skittering across the floor to smash under the urinals on the far wall. Moving up to investigate, he saw it was a needle, probably used. So this building hadn’t been abandoned altogether then.
He turned to the left towards the offset wash area he noticed the other man for the first time, like a ghost from a bad dream, he looked like crap warmed up. They stood locked together, staring at each other refusing to blink, an iron test of wills that no one wanted to lose. Finally Jon broke the silence.
“Well?”
“Well what?! You know why we’re here.” Jon's mind was racing from 48 hours of far too little sleep and far too much coffee and sugary snacks.
“You left them to die!” The vehemence in the mans voice was almost palpable.
“No….No it wasn’t like that there was nothing I could do” said Jon his hands up, palms facing outwards in a sign of surrender.
“Pah – nothing you could do – you let a defenseless women and child die because you were to afraid to pull the trigger when you had the chance”
“I didn’t know he would have a gun, I didn’t know he would shoot…I didn’t know he was that unstable..I didn’t know………” Jon's voice faltered
“You knew, and you still ran” his tormentor continued, pressing home his advantage
“When he started firing I sought cover. Its procedure! I wouldn’t have been any use full of bullets”
“Like that lady and her child you mean”
“Yes…NO NO no…” Tears started to fall from Jon's eyes cutting new tracks in the grime and blood that hadn’t been washed off for the best part of two days.
“What is our motto…”
After a pause, Jon said “Populus Primitus” quietly. The tears were flowing freeing now, rolling down his cheeks and joining the leaky faucet with a constant drip drip drip onto the floor.
“Yes: People First. You put them in harms way by trying that stunt in the open, where was your backup, didnt you read the intel?! The guy was a phycopath”
Jon shook his head “The women shouldn’t have struggled when he grabbed her, he was desperate, she should have just done what he said”
“Would you have? It should have been you instead of them. Thanks to your incompetence their dead.”
It was all to much for Jon. Two days of running, of fighting, of killing, holding his emotions in check not letting himself feel anything until he was finished. The tidal wave of his grief came spilling out “IT WASN’T MY FAULT” he screamed, he didn’t know when it had happened but his pistol was out of his holster and pointing now at his accuser.
“I got him though didn't I!" Jon continued "I hunted him down, he was punished for his crimes. He won't hurt anyone else, not him, not his gang, not his family. I got them all.” As he was talking Jon started to notice the blood that covered his clothes. He started to grin, the desperate look in his eyes that had been there over the last few days was back.
Not seeming to care about the pistol, his accuser sneered and continued “What does that matter now? You acted too late, you always acted too late. It was your fault their dead and you know it was. Which is why you are here now, why you cant sleep, why if you do after 20 minutes you wake up screaming, covered in sweat and why everyone knows you for what you are. A miserable coward that when the pressure gets to high ‘sought cover’…you make me sick”
Jon screamed and the anger took control, squeezing the trigger he fired bullet after bullet at his tormentor but the more he did the more the eyes just stared directly into his soul casting their damning judgement. He stopped with one bullet left in the breach.
He stood rocking gently mumbling “Not my fault” again and again rocking back and forth , back and forth. At least his accuser was gone.
He didn’t even hear the door open off to his left, but a voice called out from the hall.
“Jon is that you, where have you been? The whole station has been looking for you. …Why did you want to meet me here? Jon...Jon maybe you should put the gun down and come with me”
Jon looked at the row of shattered mirrors above the wash basins and then turned to the doorway.
“No Sir, not anymore Sir” and he smiled a smile of acceptance. “I got them Sir. I got them all.”
Putting the gun under his chin, Lt Detective Jon P. Gerity of the Washington D.C Police Force pulled the trigger and ended his trial, finding himself guilty of failing in the line of duty and all other charges.
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