Wrong Time, Wrong Place
Summary: Lawson and Josh find themselves on a long night shift that quickly turns itself into a night mare.
A/N: I did have another Rush fic going on here, but I hit a brick wall with that one and it just went no where. But if I ever finish it, I'll repost it! :)
Rated: T – some coarse language (as usual!)
Disclaimer: The characters from Rush belong to John Edwards, Southern Star et al.
Chapter One
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It always felt strange for Lawson to see everyone leaving the Tactical Response station just as he was arriving there to work a night shift. Very strange indeed. He parked his car in the usual spot and walked half-heartedly towards the station's operations room with a permanent frown on his face; there, Leon was still sitting at the computer, staring at its screen as he typed frantically away, oblivious to everything and everyone around him.
"Hey Leon!" Lawson whispered into his ear, before a big, evil looking grin formed on his face.
The 'civilian' jumped up in his chair out of fright somewhat and swivelled around, "Shit Lawson!" he said to the Senior Sergeant who was still grinning, "Don't do that! Bloody hell! I thought you may have been TR's ghost for a second there!"
His eyebrows raised out of the smallest amount of curiosity, "It sounds like your imagination is getting the better of you Leon. I think you should go home," Lawson himself was the sceptical type and didn't believe in anything remotely supernatural. Even if he did, he wouldn't believe that there was a ghost haunting the station.
Leon grinned and Lawson rolled his eyes. Reasonableness started to get the better of him as he walked towards the locker room; maybe trying to scare Leon, or anyone for that matter, wasn't the best thing to do, particularly at 11pm.
In the locker room, Josh was sitting on one of the benches, getting his boots on.
"How's it going Josh?" Lawson asked, walking over to his locker.
Josh flinched slightly at the sound of his voice, something which Lawson fortunately did not see, "Hi Lawson," he replied to his mate, "You and me on tonight ey?"
"Uh huh," he grabbed his neatly ironed uniform out of the locker and sat down on the bench near Josh.
"Well I'll be glad when we get in the car. Ever since I got here, Leon has been crapping on about some ghost who walks the corridors of TR -"
Lawson glanced at him out the corner of his eye.
"- And it's starting to annoy me," Josh continued with the shake of his head, "Trust Leon to come up with shit like that."
The smallest smirk appeared on Lawson's face, Oh good, I'm glad I'm not the only one here who doesn't believe in ghosts.
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In the car finally at 11.30pm, Lawson and Josh headed out on patrol on a cold night in Melbourne. Spots of rain began to appear on the windscreen as they were driving along. Nothing of major trouble had come through the radio or the computer yet back at TR's headquarters. Leon however, was in a playful mood and was making strange noises through the radio, directly into Josh and Lawson's ears.
"Cut it out Leon," Lawson told him firmly.
"Oh yes master!" he replied in a high pitched voice.
Lawson shook his head and looked over at Josh, who had momentarily taken his eyes off the road to glance back over at him, "It sounds like someone has had one too many cans of Red Bull this evening."
Five minutes later, Leon's voice cut through the radio, "Hey guys, a couple of the blokes at the St Kilda precinct rang through. They need a negotiator outside the Cosmopolitan Hotel on Carlisle Street. Apparently there's a big commotion going on over there. I don't have all the details just yet."
Despite Leon's voice sounding rather serious, Lawson and Josh weren't quite sure at first whether to believe him or not. So, they decided to make some strange noises of their own through the radio.
Back at the station, Leon knew that he was getting a taste of his own medicine and tried to interrupt them as best as he could, "Lawson. Josh. I'm not joking this time!"
Lawson stopped abruptly, turning into his usual serious self, "Okay Leon," he looked down at their position on the GPS, "We're about seven minutes away."
Josh glared over at Lawson oddly, a questioning look in his eyes.
Lawson, who shrugged slightly, said, "I don't know that he's joking around this time, and it's better to be safe then sorry," he flicked the sirens and lights on, "Step on it Josh."
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The scene outside the Cosmopolitan Hotel was almost that of a TV show or a movie. People were scattered everywhere, standing on either sides of the road in a hush; some were merely passing by, wondering what was going on. Others knew all too well what had happened and had their hands covering their mouths out of shock. Three police cars were parked on various sections of the road within the vicinity of the hotel, creating problems for people in their own cars looking for a way to get through. An ambulance was there also, parked over to one side of the road.
When Lawson and Josh arrived they could already tell from the look of the place that they were probably not needed any more, "Something has happened," Lawson observed as Josh turned off the engine and took the keys out of the ignition.
Lawson got out of the car first and approached a fellow police officer, as he stood watching forensic officers going over various surfaces at the scene. As he introduced himself, he saw a blue body bag out the corner of his eye and raised an eyebrow curiously.
"Inspector Greg Chambers," replied the man, as he gestured Lawson to go with him on a small walk around the place to show him what had happened. He explained that initially, when they had called TR, a negotiator was needed as a small group of people were threatening patrons with a knife inside the restaurant section of the hotel. But the few police officers who were there managed to calm them down and made three arrests.
Lawson frowned at him, "Okay ... so ... you'll have to excuse my ignorance, but why is there a body lying on the cement?" he hinted with his eyes in the direction of the blue body bag.
"That's the unfortunate part of this night," Greg explained with a sigh as they continued to walk slowly, "Once the initial threat was over, officers were helping shaken patrons get back to their hotel rooms or back outside. One young man seemed to be a little agitated by the whole event, and when one of my officers was going over to help him, he appeared to put his hand in his pocket to pull something out of it ... and in the confusion I guess, he was shot dead."
Lawson continued to frown, "What, did he have a weapon on him?" when Greg finally shook his head, Lawson stopped walking and glared at the older man, "So someone was shot ... for what exactly? The sake of just being here?"
"You probably had to be here at the time to understand it fully," was all Greg then managed to say.
"Yeah, probably," he said a little sarcastically, spotting Josh walking over to them, "I think we can go now Josh. Nothing we can do here."
"Thanks for coming anyway. Sorry for wasting your time," Greg called out to them as they walked away.
Lawson muttered something to himself that was incoherent to Josh, who couldn't help but chuckle a little as he started the car. He always found it amusing to see Lawson even the slightest bit annoyed. He seemed to be so cool and in control of everything all of the time.
"What a waste of time that was. Let's get the hell outta here."
"Yeah," he agreed and as he started to reverse, they saw Inspector Chambers running towards the car, waving his hands about.
"Oh shit, what does this guy want now?"
Josh stopped the car, and wound down his window.
The Inspector panted heavily as if he had been running a marathon, "You're Tactical Response right? So you two would know Inspector Kerry Vincent?"
The pair glanced at each other before staring at the man inquisitively, wondering why he was asking them about Kerry, "Yeah ...?"
"The victim of the shooting is James Hansen. One of our officers just looked him up on the database. His next of kin lists Kerry Vincent as his mother."
Both Josh and Lawson raised their eyebrows at what they were hearing. This was very surprising news to them. They had absolutely no idea that Kerry had a son.
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To Be Continued.