Double Image

by David Morrell

  “The police surveillance team?”

  “Were never called off. Did you really think we’d let you go in there without support?” McCoy demanded. “For sure, that would have been criminally stupid.”

  Coltrane was sickened. “You ruined my chance.”

  “Hey, he wasn’t there, Coltrane. He never showed up. We’d have seen him.”

  “Did you at least tell your surveillance team to shut off their radios?”

  “Listen to me. Pay attention. You’re a civilian. You don’t tell law-enforcement officers what to do.”

  “Answer me. Did they shut off their radios?”

  “Yes! For all the good it—”

  “Then there’s still a chance.”

  “To do what? This entire operation’s a mess. Thanks to you! If there was ever a chance to trap Ilkovic today, you blew it when you didn’t go back to where Nolan had a team waiting at the house.”

  “No, you blew it when you followed me here. If Ilkovic sees you, he’ll suspect a trap and back off.”

  “Hey, I know my job. I watched for anybody else following you. Nobody. Zilch. Both of us took a ride in the country for nothing. Ilkovic isn’t—”

  McCoy’s black-smudged blue suit suddenly had red on it. The next instant, Coltrane realized that the red was blood bursting from McCoy’s right shoulder. The echo of a gunshot rolled over them, about the same time that McCoy’s face turned gray. As the special agent groaned and dropped, Coltrane grabbed him before his face would have struck a rock. He tugged him backward. At once, a second bullet ricocheted close to McCoy, dirt and ash flying, the gunshot echoing. Frantic, Coltrane felt his right shoe slip over the gully’s rim. He dropped to his knees, lowered himself into the streambed, and dragged McCoy down out of sight after him. A surge of adrenaline made his hands and feet turn numb as blood rushed to his chest and muscles.

  “How bad are you hit?”

  “Don’t know.” McCoy lay among rocks beside the trickling stream. He shuddered, as if he was freezing. “Don’t feel anything.”

  “You’re going into shock.”

  “Did you figure that out”—McCoy shuddered harder—“all by yourself?”

  Coltrane stared toward blood pulsing from a jagged exit hole in McCoy’s right shoulder. “I have to stop the bleeding.”

  “Another bulletin.”

  But how am I going to do it? Coltrane thought. He had reached the limit of his first-aid abilities when he had used a tourniquet and a pressure bandage to stop the young girl’s arm from bleeding after the explosion that killed Greg. This wound was much worse. He tried to remember every makeshift treatment he had ever seen a battlefield doctor use on a wounded soldier.

  In a frenzy, he groped in McCoy’s pockets and found a handkerchief. He also found a key chain pocketknife, which he used to cut wide patches from the bottom of McCoy’s suit coat.

  McCoy groaned when Coltrane tilted him to press a half dozen of these makeshift bandages against the entrance wound in the back of his shoulder. Coltrane set a similar wedge of cloth in front against the exit wound. Rushing, he pulled off McCoy’s belt, cinched it around his shoulder, and tightened it.

  The pressure made McCoy groan again.

  “We have to get out of here,” Coltrane said.

  “Still more bulletins.”

  “My car’s about a hundred yards down this gully. Do you think you can stand?”

  McCoy winced. “One way to find out.”

  “I have to do something first.”

  Coltrane turned toward the gully’s rim. His stomach was so gripped with fear, he was sure he was going to throw up. What he did instead, the fiercest he had ever moved, was scurry up the slope, dive over the top, grab the shotgun where he had set it down, and roll back into the gully. As he dropped from sight, a richocheting bullet sprayed dirt across the back of his neck. The gunshot echoed.

  Coltrane rolled to a painful stop, bumping his right side against a rock next to McCoy.

  “Sounds like a rifle,” the special agent murmured.

  “It also sounds closer.”

  Struggling, Coltrane put an arm around McCoy’s waist and gripped his uninjured left arm, lifting. With a gasp, McCoy braced his legs and stood, leaning heavily against Coltrane.

  “Hang on to me,” Coltrane said. “I need a hand free to hold the shotgun.”

  They staggered along the gully. McCoy’s legs buckled, but he cursed himself and stayed upright, lurching farther along the stream.

  The Saturn came into view. Staggering toward it, Coltrane scanned the top of the embankment down which he had driven. Ilkovic might have reached here by now, he thought furiously. He might suddenly appear, aiming at us. Have to hurry.

  Coltrane leaned the shotgun against the car, yanked open the back door, and eased McCoy inside.

  “Cold,” McCoy said.

  “Stretch out on the backseat. I’ll cover you with this sleeping bag. Prop your feet up against the door. Keep them higher than your head.”

  “My fault.”

  Coltrane grabbed the shotgun and aimed toward the top of the embankment.

  “My fault,” McCoy repeated. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “No! It’s my fault.” Coltrane shoved the shotgun into the front seat, scrambled behind the steering wheel, rammed the car into gear, and roared out of the trough. The car bucked as it reached the crest, causing McCoy to scream in pain. Coltrane stomped his foot on the accelerator, racing along the barely defined road toward the charred ruins of the western town, throwing up a cloud of ash that he hoped would give them cover.

  “I should never have tried this! I should never have come here!” The rage that had brought Coltrane here was now the faintest of memories. His obsession with revenge had completely drained from him. In its place was an overpowering fear that surged through every portion of his body. It completely controlled him. “Who did I think I was? Going up against Ilkovic—what was I thinking?”

  The dust cloud of ash that the Saturn threw up behind it didn’t provide as much cover as Coltrane had hoped. A chunk burst from the rear window. As safety glass disintegrated into pellets, a bullet slammed through the passenger seat and walloped into the lower part of the dashboard. McCoy moaned.

  Sweating, Coltrane pressed the accelerator harder. The car sped to the crest of an incline and soared from the road, slamming down, Coltrane’s stomach dropping, McCoy groaning from the impact, toppling onto the floor. The chassis screeched. As Coltrane fought to control his steering, another bullet burst through the remnant of the rear window. It struck closer to Coltrane, shattering the radio.

  “McCoy?” Coltrane shouted to the back.

  “Don’t worry about me! Drive!”

  The Saturn left the road again, crashed down, veered, regained its traction, and sped closer to the charred remnants of the movie set. Needing to concentrate on his driving, Coltrane nonetheless risked a glance at the rearview mirror, seeing only a cloud of black dust behind him. He heard a metallic whack, a bullet striking the Saturn’s trunk. Or the gas tank, Coltrane thought.

  “The more shots Ilkovic fires . . .” McCoy’s voice was strained. “Someone will hear.” He gasped for a breath. “Maybe call the police.”

  “I don’t think so,” Coltrane said, the Saturn jolting over a bump as he urged the car closer to the scorched ruin. “This used to be a movie set for westerns.”

  “Westerns?”

  “The few people who live in the area used to hear shots in this valley all the time. They’ll probably think another movie’s being made.”

  “We’re screwed.”

  The road curved to the left. As Coltrane changed direction, he felt chillingly exposed, the dust cloud no longer providing concealment from where Ilkovic was shooting. Abruptly the Saturn lurched, as if it had struck another bump. But instead of jouncing off the ground, it leaned. The steering felt mushy. Distraught, Coltrane struggled to keep the car on the road.

  “I think he shot the front left tire!”
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  The Saturn’s back end fishtailed, then leaned more sharply to the left as another jolt shook the car, this time from the rear left tire.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to—”

  Coltrane couldn’t control the car. He stomped on the brake pedal, fighting the steering wheel, feeling the Saturn tilt even farther to the left. With a savage leftward twist on the steering, he forced the front wheels into a ninety-degree angle with the car, held his breath as the back end swung to the right, felt time stop as the car threatened to crash onto its side, and breathed out as the car slammed down flat.

  12

  T HE CAR WAS TURNED SIDEWAYS ON THE ROAD . The driver’s door faced the direction from which Ilkovic had been shooting. Move! Coltrane thought, a welter of impulses rocketing along his nerves. He grabbed the shotgun, slid across the passenger seat, shoved that door open, and leapt onto the ash-covered road, the Saturn giving him cover. A bullet blew a hole in the driver’s window, safety glass exploding into pellets that sprayed him. As he huddled next to the car, sweat streamed down his face and stuck his shirt to his chest. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

  McCoy groaned from where he had fallen onto the back floor. Coughing from black dust that drifted over him, Coltrane yanked open the rear door and peered apprehensively inside. McCoy’s blue suit coat was soaked crimson. His lips were thinner, his face narrower, squeezed by pain. His face was more slick with sweat than Coltrane’s. His eyes were scrunched shut. At first, Coltrane thought he had passed out, but then McCoy squirmed awkwardly onto his uninjured left side, slowly opened his eyes, and with effort tilted his head toward Coltrane.

  “I think you missed a few bumps,” McCoy said.

  “You’re going to feel more of them. I have to get you out of there.”

  A bullet burst through the far side window, hurling glass over McCoy.

  “Yeah, get me out of here,” McCoy said.

  Coltrane gripped his uninjured arm and shoulder, pulling as McCoy shoved against the floor with his feet, doing what he could to help. As gently as possible, Coltrane lowered him to the ashy road.

  McCoy whimpered.

  “Sorry.”

  “. . . Thirsty.”

  “The nearest water’s back at the stream where you got shot.”

  “I’d probably throw it up anyhow.”

  A bullet shattered the remnants of the driver’s window.

  “He took out two tires with two shots,” Coltrane said. “That good a marksman . . . If he wanted to, he could have killed you back at the stream.”

  “Occurred to me.”

  “Or he could have shot me instead of the tires.”

  “Toying with us,” McCoy said.

  “Save your strength.”

  Coltrane hadn’t shut the front passenger door when he leapt out. Glancing inside, he felt his heart swell as he saw the walkie-talkie that Nolan had given him at police headquarters.

  He grabbed it. “I don’t know what kind of range this thing has.” His voice shook. He was almost afraid to hope. “But we might be able to contact the state police with this thing.”

  McCoy nodded, guarded optimism showing through his pain.

  Coltrane examined the walkie-talkie. It was black, the size of a cellular telephone. He pressed a switch marked ON / OFF , held the unit to his ear, and heard a reassuring hiss. “This must be set to the frequency Nolan’s men are using. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have given it to me.”

  McCoy spoke with difficulty. “But that doesn’t mean . . .”

  Coltrane knew the nervous-making thought that McCoy was struggling to complete. “Right, it doesn’t mean it’s set to a frequency the police up here are using.”

  His pulse lurched as a bullet shattered more of the back window. It took him a moment to realize the implication. The back window? With the car sideways on the road, Ilkovic had been shooting at the side windows. He must have changed position. He was circling.

  Finger unsteady, Coltrane held down the talk button. “Can anybody hear me? Please, if you hear me, answer! This is a police emergency! An FBI agent has been shot! We need help!”

  Shaking, Coltrane took his finger off the talk button, the release automatically switching the unit to its receive mode. He pressed the unit tensely against his ears. His spirit sank when he heard only static.

  “Lousy . . .” McCoy murmured.

  “What?”

  “. . . technique. . . . Supposed to say, ‘Do you read me?’” McCoy groaned. “And ‘Over.’” His face was alarmingly pale.

  “And you’re supposed to save your strength.” Coltrane again pressed the talk button. “Does anybody read me? This is an emergency! An FBI agent has been shot! We need help! Over!”

  “There you go,” McCoy murmured.

  “But nobody’s answering.” Disheartened, Coltrane listened to the relentless static. “Maybe we’re too far into the hills. Maybe those bluffs cut off the signal to—”

  “Photographer, I can barely hear you.” A guttural voice crackled faintly from the walkie-talkie.

  Coltrane felt as if a fist was squeezing his heart.

  “There must be something wrong with your radio,” the faint, deep Slavic voice said. “Your signal’s so weak, no one outside this valley will receive it.”

  “How the hell—” Coltrane’s voice dropped. Immediately he knew the answer. “He must have a police scanner in the car he’s using!”

  “I warned you, photographer.” The gravelly voice was almost a whisper. Coltrane had to press the walkie-talkie hard against his ear. “What I did to your doctor friend . . . what I did to your grandparents . . . that was quick compared to what I’m going to do to you.”

  “Listen to me, you bastard.” But Coltrane had forgotten to press the talk button. Ilkovic couldn’t hear him.

  Besides, Ilkovic had not yet released the talk button on his own unit. His gruff voice continued to whisper. “I’ve been promising myself this pleasure for a long time. I’ll be sure to take pictures.”

  Furious, Coltrane pressed the transmit button. “My friends didn’t do anything to you! My grandparents didn’t! You didn’t need to kill them!”

  Suddenly his voice box didn’t want to work. He seemed to have been struck mute, straining to listen for Ilkovic’s response.

  Nothing.

  “The button.” McCoy groaned. “You’ve still got your finger on . . .”

  As if the button was on fire, Coltrane released it.

  “Photographer, you didn’t say ‘Over,’” Ilkovic taunted.

  You son of a bitch, Coltrane thought.

  “No, your friends didn’t do anything to hurt me,” Ilkovic said. “Your grandparents didn’t. But you did, didn’t you? It’s your fault for prying and meddling and taking pictures of things that aren’t your concern.”

  “His voice sounds . . .” McCoy took a painful breath, struggling to complete his agitated thought.

  “Louder. My God, he must be coming closer.” Coltrane glanced frantically around the car. “We can’t stay here. We’re protected only on one side. We have to . . .”

  His vision focused on the charred ruins down the road behind him. He had intended to drive past them and up into the hills on the valley’s far side. The road continued beyond them—to where, Coltrane had no idea, but he had hoped to find a town or a highway. Now the only town available to him was a jumble of fallen burned-out timbers.

  Fifty yards away. The distance could as easily have been fifty miles.

  “McCoy, do you think you can stand again?”

  “No choice.”

  In alarm, Coltrane saw a pool of blood when he gripped McCoy’s uninjured left shoulder and worked to lift him. Despite his trim body, McCoy seemed heavier, his body less responsive.

  “Here.” Coltrane shoved the walkie-talkie into a pocket in McCoy’s suit coat. “Hang on.” Coltrane grabbed the shotgun. “I hope you’re good at the fifty-yard dash.”

  It was more like a fifty-yard crawl. McCoy wavered. Coltrane lo
st his balance under McCoy’s awkward weight. The two of them collapsed on their knees, the sudden awkward movement preventing one of them from getting hit as a bullet zipped past at shoulder level, sounding like a bumblebee, the gunshot echoing. But Coltrane was absolutely certain that whomever the bullet would have struck would not have been killed. Ilkovic had been vividly clear about his determination to prolong this.

  That might work in our favor, Coltrane thought.

  “Leave me,” McCoy said.

  “No.”

  “Save yourself.”

  “Not without you,” Coltrane said.

  Their first effort had taken them about ten yards. They staggered another five before McCoy collapsed again. Sprawling onto the ashy road, Coltrane tried his best to absorb McCoy’s fall. Another bullet zipped over their heads.

  “Photographer.” The guttural voice came faintly, eerily, from the walkie-talkie in McCoy’s pocket. “I see you.”

  “Come on,” Coltrane urged McCoy, dragging him to his feet. “He can’t aim a rifle if he’s holding a radio.”

  Staggering, they managed another ten yards before a bullet nicked the left elbow of Coltrane’s denim shirt. He felt its hot tug and pushed McCoy flat.

  “He’s shooting lower,” Coltrane said.

  “Photographer,” the gravelly voice said in a singsong imitation of a child playing a game of hide-and-seek. “I see you. I aimed slightly to your left, but you twisted in that direction. I hope I didn’t hit you. Did I? Is it serious? I don’t want to spoil this.”

  Coltrane groped along his left arm, feeling the nick in his shirt, fearing he would touch blood. He became weak with relief when he didn’t find any. The weakness lasted barely a second—only until Ilkovic’s deep voice again sounded from the walkie-talkie in McCoy’s pocket.

  “Answer me, photographer! How bad are you hit? Describe the pain!”

  Coltrane tugged McCoy forward, urged him upright, and lurched forward with him. They were halfway to the jumble of scorched timbers. Two-thirds. Closer. The collapsed buildings loomed, filling Coltrane’s frantic vision. He had the disorienting sensation of seeing them through a lens. The illusion ended when McCoy stumbled and took Coltrane with him. Toppling forward, Coltrane tried to cushion McCoy as they fell over a tangle of blackened beams and crashed among scorched boards. He feared he would cough his lungs out from the thick layer of ash into which he landed. Feeling smothered, he thrashed to get onto his back. He coughed deeper. His eyes stung, watering.