Read The Cold Light of Day for Free Online

“Citizen on site will administer first aid to Judge Ruiz.”
    Trembling, D’Annunzio stared at Dredd. “What?”
    Dredd was already getting to his feet. “Seal her wounds until the medics get here. She dies, that audit is definitely going to happen.”
    “But I don’t know how to—”
    “Just don’t let her bleed out. Stick your fingers in the bullet holes if you have to.”
    D’Annunzio shouted something else, but Dredd didn’t hear it: he was already out of the apartment and pounding down the hallway.
    Dredd didn’t have time to wait for the elevator: he raced down the narrow stairway, taking the steps four at a time. “What do you have for me, Control?”
    “Med-team’s on the way. ETA six minutes. Spy-cams deployed. Back-up’s converging on your location, four helmets. All we can spare.”
    Dredd vaulted over a rail and landed on the level below. “Not good enough, Control!”
    “Best we can do right now, Dredd.”
    On the ground floor, Dredd raced toward the main door. It was one of the building’s newer features. Heavy, bullet-proof security glass. Opening the door would mean slowing down, and every second lost greatly reduced his chance of catching the sniper.
    Without breaking stride, he thumbed his Lawgiver to Hi-Ex and fired in one swift motion. The intact door was blasted from its frame by the high-explosive shell. It soared across the quiet street and crashed heavily into the wall of the building opposite.
    Dredd raced through the still-burning doorframe and out into the street.
    The building across the street was a newer block, ten storeys high, a high-rent block of the sort that attracted wealthy senior citizens: heavy security, fully-automated systems.
    “Control—Dredd. Immediately lock every door in Ralph Bellamy Block, freeze the elevators. Track my position—unlock and open each door as I approach, close and lock after me.”
    “Acknowledged. Alerting block’s manager and owner.”
    The main door opened in front of Dredd and he raced through, his heavy footfalls immediately muffled by the thick carpeting. As he pounded up the stairs, he figured this would be a fruitless chase: the sniper would be long gone by the time he reached the roof. A block like this, the sniper would have bribed or threatened the manager or one of the tenants to gain access. The doors and windows were totally—
    He abruptly stopped on the stairs between the eighth and ninth floors, turned and raced back down, feeling like a year-three cadet. “Control—release the block. Perp’s not here.”
    “Wilco, Dredd. Do you require a forensic sweep?”
    “Unnecessary, Control. He was never here.”
    Dredd reached the street just as two Lawmasters screeched to a stop outside Percival Chalk’s building. The Judges were Hayden and Oakes, each at least twice Dredd’s age.
    “After me,” Dredd shouted as he passed them, running back into the dilapidated block. As he raced up the stairs he called over his shoulder, “Fifth floor, apartment 20. Judge wounded, citizen attending. Medics en route.”
    He barely had time to hear, “Who the drokk does he think he—?” from Hayden before his own thundering footsteps drowned out the Judge’s voice.
    He heard movement above him, and unclipped a set of cuffs from his belt as he ran. He passed a young woman on the stairs, slapping the cuffs on her without slowing down or explaining what he was doing: the odds were good that she wasn’t the sniper, but he wasn’t about to take that risk.
    Another three flights, then he was shouldering his way through a thin wooden door and out onto the building’s roof.
    Nothing.
    A collection of rusting old lawn furniture, power and TV cables snaking from one side of the roof to another, half a dozen skylights spattered with bird-droppings, and a small plastic cage holding a pet rat—but no sniper.
    Dredd quickly circumnavigated the roof, and counted four places where the sniper could have climbed down onto the neighbouring