The look of panic subsides, she raises the map on her knee.
Whicher focuses on the feel of the truck—the grip, speed, momentum—thinking like the armor officer he once was.
“How about fuel?” Lauren says.
He nods. “We got fuel.”
“What if we get stuck?”
Snow races sideways through the air, shot-blasted in the light of the pickup beams. “We ain’t getting stuck, we’re finding that highway.”
“What if we can’t?” She clicks on a reading light. “We should be getting close.” She stares at the map.
“Tell me about yesterday,” the marshal says, “you got on that train—where y’all start out?”
“Albuquerque.”
“You got on the train with Marshal Corrigan, just you and him?”
She nods.
“When?”
“Midday.”
The marshal thinks about it. “That’s twelve, thirteen hours back. What time you think the train hit that car in Fisherville?”
“Around five,” she says. “Five-thirty.”
Whicher peers out into the night, the wipers on the Toyota freezing up—starting to smear. He turns up the heat, dials air onto the windshield. “You get a look at the license plate on this? It's from Chicago.”
She reaches up, switches off the reading light.
“That's a thousand miles from here—seventeen hours, straight. They knew,” he says. “Ahead of time, they knew. How’d they know to come out all the way from Chicago?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Nobody on the WITSEC program ever got killed,” the marshal says. “So long as they did what they were told.”
He feels her eyes on the side of his face.
She says; “Don’t let me be the first.”
The gradient is changing, Whicher feels it, feels the pickup cresting a long slope.
Stretched out above the plains land is a smear of light—a broken band maybe half a mile ahead. “That’s highway.”
Lights are moving, lights just visible through the snow-filled air.
“Chicago’s north and east—I say head west, head the opposite way.”
Lauren eyes the dash, face lit up in the glow of the dials.
The marshal eases back on the gas, wary of the deep-looking white mounds at the sides of the road. “I was a scout,” he says, “in the army. Used to breaking a trail.”
She sits back, turns to stare out of the window.
“Lauren—that’s not your real name, is it?”
He glances at her.
“Lauren is. They told me to keep that part, I'd be less likely to mess up.”
“Tell me about Marshal Corrigan?”
She stiffens. “I didn’t know him...”
“You had any other close protection, anybody else know who you were?”
She shakes her head.
“So far as you know, there's nobody else?”
“There has to be somebody.”
“Why you say that?”
“If somebody came to try to kill me.”
No cars, he can't see cars. The highway is close now, just a hundred yards—but something is blocking the way—a white bank lit up in the pickup beams.
“What the hell is that?”
Whicher gets off the gas, the Toyota slows.
A dirty bank of snow is piled at the end of the road, across the intersection—where the highway crews have passed with their plows.
The marshal drives on toward it—the bank is big, the plow trucks must’ve passed and re-passed, each time adding to its size. Pin pricks of light show above it; the sides of a moving freight truck.
He drives to the end of the road, lets the pickup slow to a stop.
He shuts off the motor, grabs Lauren’s case. “Come on, get out.”
Pushing open the driver’s door, he steps out, leans into the wind.
He starts toward the piled-up bank, the snow already over his boots.
Glancing back, he sees Lauren out of the pickup, now.
At the foot of the mound he starts to climb—up six-feet of ice and snow.
Sinking to his knees, he throws the suitcase forward, scrambling, pushing with his hands, his elbows, the cold intense.
At the top he can see the highway stretched out—white-over. Cars are moving in the distance, a rig and trailer approaching.
He tosses Lauren’s case down the bank. Pulls at the zipper on the plaid coat.
With freezing fingers, he eases out his badge-holder, the Marshals Star on the front.
Staring at the oncoming rig, he scrabbles down to the roadway. He steps out into tire tracks on the hard packed snow.
“What the hell are you doing?” Lauren calls out.
Headlights are in his eyes, the rig lets out an air-horn blast.
He holds out the badge, locks his legs.
The truck lights dive, spray bursts from the sides of the wheels.
The rig slows as the marshal steps back.
The driver’s door opens.
A head appears. “Are you crazy?” the driver shouts. “You son of a bitch...”
“Peace officer,” Whicher calls out.
“You step in front of my truck—a night like this?”
“United States Marshal. Requesting you assist.”
Belaski sees the freight truck pull out.
He clambers up the bank, sees two big letters on the back of the trailer—an H and a T.
Nothing is on the highway where the truck was, no reason for it to stop—they’d flagged it down.
Memorizing the letters, he jumps back down to Jimmy’s Toyota on the snow-bound road.
Shaking from cold, he eyes the silvered chains on the law enforcement Ford.
Despite the shot-out passenger window and the holes in the rear-hatch, he gets back in.
He shifts to low, raises the revs. They couldn’t get Jimmy’s pickup over the bank—they’d ditched it, they didn’t have chains.
Steering the Ford into the mound of white, he feels the steel-links on the tires start to cut and grip.
All-wheel-drive; he can clear the bank.
He can clear it.
He can make it.
He can catch them.
Chapter Thirteen
High up in the cab of the Freightliner, the driver leans forward at the wheel. He’s bearded, skinny, wearing a woolen Broncos hat.
“Where you headed?” Whicher says.
“Pueblo.”
“How far is that?”
“Twenty. Twenty-five.” He pushes at the sleeve of his sweater. “God knows if the truck can make it. I been stopped in Lamar, again in Swink.”
“How is it further east?”
“The same. Like this.”
The marshal looks at him.
“You can barely see a hundred yards. I come out of Dodge City this afternoon, from Kansas. It's been bad all the way—snow and broken down vehicles. Only gettin’ worse.”
Lauren sits silent between the two men, arms folded.
The driver jabs a thumb over his shoulder at the sleeper cab. “If it gets too bad, I guess I can bunk down.”
The wipers beat back and forth on the windshield.
“Get us to Pueblo,” Whicher says, “we’ll get out.”
Belaski checks his driver mirror—a single set of lights behind him, nothing else out on the road.
Wind is streaming through the broken window, the muscles of his body starting to seize.
He eyes the freight truck in the distance, he can tail it, catch it. To stop it on the highway, to stop it and then to get to her—there’ll be the escort to get past, the driver of the truck.
He lets his speed drop, listens for anything on the police-band radio—still nothing, no report of anything wrong.
The Ford is shot up, if he pulls alongside the rig, they’ll recognize it.
The freight truck starts to pull away, he lets it disappear in the dark and snow.
Belaski eyes
the transceiver on the dash-hook, reaches for it—pulls hard, ripping it from its moorings.
Switching on the red and blue flashers, he steers out into the middle of the twin-lanes, lets his speed fall away.
He checks—sees the vehicle behind start to slow.
Belaski rolls the Ford to a stop.
He puts the suppressed SIG in the pocket of his parka. Watches for the car to come to a halt.
Pulling the keys from the ignition, he steps out, walks fast to the stationary vehicle—an old Chrysler sedan.
Inside, the driver's a young guy in a hooded sweat. Nobody with him.
“What's going on?” the kid calls through the window.
Belaski draws the gun from his pocket. He points it at the young man's face.
The kid's eyes go wide.
“Get out of the car.” Belaski steps to the driver’s door.
The young man folds forward, stumbles out.
Belaski gets in, points the gun at the kid’s midriff. But doesn’t fire. Robbing, not killing—two separate wires in his mind; different lines.
The kid’s jacket is on the passenger seat, his cell on a dash-mount.
Belaski tosses the jacket out onto the road. Puts the car into drive.
Three o'clock in the morning, downtown Pueblo is deserted. Ice at the banks of the Arkansas River, snow blowing thick in the air.
Ahead, along the sidewalk, a motel building is lit up. Whicher eyes the cars and trucks outside in the lot.
Beside him, Lauren buries her face in her upturned collar.
The marshal takes a hand from his pocket, points along the sidewalk at the motel lobby.
“Anywhere,” she says, “just get us out of this wind.”
Whicher scans a side-street, thick with snow, blurred halos at the street lamps.
Lauren slows her step. “Why do you keep on looking?”
He clamps his hat down on his head. “Army habit.”
“You think somebody will be out there?”
Two hours, now.
Millersburg, two hours back.
The woods, the cabin.
Thirty long miles behind.
Parked at the curbside in the stolen Chrysler sedan, Belaski watches a city police car make its way along the street.
The Chrysler’s covered in salt and snow—only its headlights showing—no way to see the make or model, no way for the cop see the plate.
Parts of the city are blacked out, the power down—law enforcement would be busy with a hundred things.
The patrol car reaches an intersection—makes a turn, continues on its way.
Belaski studies the building fifty yards off. A motel. One entrance. An eight-feet high wall in back.
They’d walked.
The two of them, after the truck set them down.
Half a mile into central downtown, they’d found a motel, they’d gone into reception. Five minutes later, a clerk opened them up a room. They’d gone in. They hadn’t come back out.
Wind nudges at the car, rocking it. Belaski huddles in the cold.
They’d feel safe, now. Finally. They hadn’t seen him. All he needed was to pick his moment.
He stares down at the SIG on the passenger seat, thinks of putting the can-like suppressor to Jimmy Scardino’s head.
Jimmy was dying, shot up, he was only going to slow it all down.
But still.
The son of a made man.
Belaski’s stock would be in free-fall, everything he’d worked for, year on year.
How to justify, how to explain?
Deep shit.
Deep, deep shit.
He thinks of the big bastard coming out of the cabin.
Your life is mine now, Belaski breathes in the silent car.
The terms of the deal on Lauren DeLuca were irreversible—killing the man who shot Jimmy Scardino would be personal accounting.
He checks his watch, checks the cell phone in the well above the shifter—it’s showing full.
Three o'clock in the morning in Colorado, four o’clock in Chicago.
He can’t call him, can’t call Coletti.
Cold rage roils in the pit of his belly, he clamps his mouth tight.
If he can get it done, only if he can get it all done, he tells himself.
He pushes back in the driver’s seat.
Only then.
Chapter Fourteen
Mounds of white bury the cars parked in the motel lot—through a gap in the drape at the window, Whicher studies a weak sun, hanging low.
From the bathroom, he hears the sound of running water. He rubs the stiffness from his shoulder, thinks of scant sleep in a motel chair, Lauren resting fitful on the bed.
He checks his watch. Seven thirty.
The sky is dense, gray—snow tumbling, spinning through the air.
He lets the drape fall, thinks of Guillory—only Guillory had known they were in the hunting cabin.
He pushes down the thought, crosses to the nightstand, lifts the phone from the cradle.
He listens to the sound of the shower starting up. Keys a number, hears it ring.
Lauren is moving around inside the bathroom.
The tone of the call changes—re-routing. It picks up.
A man’s voice comes on the line; “McBride.”
“Sir, this is Whicher. I need to talk with you.”
The inspector clears his throat.
“I’m on a fixed line.”
“Alright,” McBride says. “But don’t talk, just listen...”
The marshal catches the note in the senior man’s voice.
“Sheriff Dubois called last night, from Fisherville,” McBride says. “She had her people search the woods around the train collision site, had them search with dogs. They found Marshal Corrigan.”
Whicher swallows, feels a dryness in his mouth.
“He’d been shot in the back of the head. Close range. The sheriff said he’d been dragged into the woods, they couldn't see much blood.”
The marshal turns to face the door, sits heavy at the edge of the bed.
“It's snowing so damn hard, they can't exactly tell—they think he was shot someplace, dragged in after. Without the dogs, the sheriff said they never would have found him. I called the number you gave me last night,” McBride says. “I spoke with an Officer Guillory—he said you weren’t there...”
Whicher eyes the Glock laying flat beside the phone. “Sir...”
“I asked him to get word to you—Guillory’s now missing. He’s missing but they found his vehicle, shot up. With blood in the cab.”
McBride exhales long into the phone.
Whicher hears guests moving around in the motel, dull noise, the sound of muffled voices. From the bathroom, water drums in the shower.
“Somebody attacked us last night,” he says. “They were using Guillory’s unit...”
“I don’t want to know where you are,” McBride says. “Guillory’s vehicle was abandoned on a highway—some kid reported getting stopped, he thought it was a cop. The guy made him get out, he took his car.”
“Did you talk to him? This kid give a description?”
“Reporting officer was from another county,” McBride says. “He went off duty, they can’t raise him, everything's messed up on account of the storm.”
The sound from the bathroom changes, no water running in the drain.
“I don’t know how somebody could’ve shown up last night,” McBride says. “I don't know how that could’ve happened. Sheriff Dubois says she's sending the canine team...”
Whicher keeps his voice low. “Do I come in?”
“The trial starts in two days, weather’s predicted to remain severe. Flights are canceled, travel by road’s all to hell. I don't know where y’all are at, I don’t know how you’re going to get to Illinois.”
The water starts up again, Whicher hears movement, the shower in full flow.
“Anytime you get near anybody,” McBride says, “it seems like they
find out. I don’t want you coming in, I don’t want her around people.”
Whicher glances about the room. “I could get her to a US Marshals office?”
“We knew she was a risk,” McBride says. “When they sent her down from Chicago, they called her the-dead-woman-walking.”
The marshal stands, picks the Glock off the nightstand.
“Listen,” McBride says. “You got two days, I don’t know how you’re going to get anywhere, we can’t even get you on a flight. If you can’t move, if you can’t do it, y’all find the biggest police station or USMS office you can. Better yet, FBI.”
Whicher stares at his reflection in the motel mirror. Fits the semi-automatic in the holster at his belt.
An hour later, the diner on West Third is warm, lit up bright—half-full with working men in coats and boots.
Whicher eases in to the red leatherette of a booth where he can see the door.
Lauren slips in along the opposite side of the table.
The glass front of the diner is fogged, shapes moving beyond it, out in the street.
Whicher studies on the menu card.
A waitress approaches. She fills two china mugs with hot coffee.
The marshal takes off his hat, sets it onto the seat beside him. Orders huevos a la Mexicana, with corn tortillas.
“Ma’am?” the waitress says.
“Just the cinnamon pancakes.”
“Get something more,” Whicher says.
Lauren looks across at him.
The waitress taps her notepad. “If you want, I can get you the same?”
Lauren shrugs.
“We’ll take the pancakes too,” Whicher says.
The waitress writes up the order.
Lauren sips her coffee.
“We need to eat,” Whicher says. “I don’t know when we will again.”
He watches her eyes roam the faces of customers in the diner. Nobody close enough to overhear.
“McBride called.”
Her eyes come back on his.
Whicher lifts the chipped white mug, blows steam from it. “Guillory’s gone. He’s missing.”
He puts a hand to the window, wipes it down, checks along the sidewalk.
It’s empty—a city bus rolling along at the end of the street.
“We keep going,” he says.
An American Bullet Page 7