Mary holds up her gnarled hands. “I haven’t sewn in twenty years.”
“How about safety pins?”
Mary checks the first-aid kit, doesn’t find any safety pins. She has to go into her bedroom.
“Hold the towel,” she tells Harry. “Keep the pressure on. I’ll be right back.”
Mary takes the flashlight and hurries into the hallway, heading for her room. She finds the box of safety pins in her desk drawer. She also sees an inkjet refill kit for her computer printer and takes that as well.
When she gets back into the hallway, the shooting resumes.
Mary drops down to all fours, her old bones creaking with pain. Round after round hit the refrigerator, but none penetrate it. Mary guesses they’re using hollow points, or something similar. They must have night-vision scopes as well. And suppressors; the gunshots aren’t nearly as loud as they should be. Mary wishes she still had her father’s Winchester rifle — she’d be happy to show these men how to shoot.
The onslaught ends. Mary hopes that one of their neighbors heard the shots, called 911, but quickly dismisses the notion. Their neighbors all know that Jacqueline is a police officer. They won’t call the cops on a cop making too much noise.
Mary crawls back to the bathroom.
“Help me open these safety pins.”
Harry is almost as useless with his left hand as Mary is with both of her hands combined, and they drop pin after pin without getting one open. It’s an exercise in frustration, made unbearable because neither one of them is keeping pressure on Jacqueline’s wound, and the blood is just pouring out of her.
“Got one,” Harry says.
Mary grasps the open safety pin, holding it up like a rare jewel.
“Hold the light.”
Harry aims the beam while Mary goes to work on Jacqueline’s head. It’s slippery, hard to see, and neither the pin nor her hands want to cooperate. But Mary stays focused, fights the pain, and she gets the pin through both sides of her daughter’s gash.
Closing the safety pin is even harder than opening it. She pinches it, again and again, but it resists her every effort.
Jacqueline’s breath becomes shallow, weak. Mary wants to cry.
“Staples,” Harry says. “TV doctors use those all the time.”
That might work. Mary tries to stand, but she’s too weak. Harry helps her up.
“You can do it, Mom,” he says.
Mary nods, takes the flashlight, and heads into the hallway again, back to her bedroom. She has a senior moment, unable to remember where her stapler is, but sees it on the desk. She opens the top, checking to make sure it’s loaded.
A shot comes through the window, knocking the computer monitor off the desk. Mary considers dropping down to the floor, worries that she might not be able to get back up, and hurries for the door instead.
In the hallway, the fridge is once again being used for target practice, round after round dinging into it. Mary stays low, makes it back to the bathroom, and sits next to Jacqueline. The safety pin is still in her daughter’s head, pinching the ends of the wound together even though it isn’t closed.
Mary swings out the stapler base, presses the magazine to Jacqueline’s head, and pushes down.
It works. The staple holds.
She repeats the process eight more times, the bleeding slowing to a trickle.
“There’s witch hazel in the vanity,” she says to Harry.
“Witch hazel. Stat.”
He hands it down, and she pours it on Jacqueline’s head, hoping that’s enough to sterilize it. Then she towels off the excess and uses the medical tape to seal the wound completely.
“Once again, the day is saved by television,” Harry says. “Eat your heart out, George Clooney. I kind of look like him, don’t I?”
Mary lets out a long breath. “You’re practically twins.”
Now for the transfusion Harry mentioned.
“I don’t have any IV needles,” Mary says. “But this came with my ink refill kit.”
She reaches into the box and takes out a twenty-cc syringe, still in its package.
“Is that even sharp enough?” Harry asks.
“I’m going to find out.”
Mary bites the wrapper off. The needle is long, pointy. She stares down at her own arm, looking for a vein.
“What blood type are you?”
“Does it matter? I’m her mother. I should be compatible.”
Harry shakes his head. “That’s not how it works. What are you?”
“Type A.”
“What’s Jack?”
“Type O.”
“Type O is the universal donor. Jack could give you blood. But if you give her blood, you’ll kill her.”
Mary stares down at Jacqueline, watching her gasp for oxygen that her body isn’t absorbing. Mary almost starts crying again. Seeing her daughter suffer, and not being able to help, is the worst torture a parent can endure.
“I’m Type O,” Harry says. “She can have some of my blood.”
Mary touches his face and says, “Thank you, son.”
Harry smiles. The smile quickly falls away when she jabs him in the arm with the needle.
“Jesus!” He shirks away. “I think you hit bone!”
Mary pulls the plunger, filling the syringe with blood.
“You don’t have any diseases, do you?” Mary asks.
“Nothing that can’t be cured with antibiotics,” Harry says through his teeth.
Jacqueline has thin wrists, and her veins are easy to find. Mary’s hands are curled into painful claws, and the syringe is hard to hold, but she manages to give Jack twenty ccs of Harry’s blood.
“How many pints do you think Jacqueline has lost?” she asks Harry.
“Two, maybe more.”
“How many syringes is that?”
Harry turns very white.
“How many, Dr. Clooney?” Mary asks again.
Harry mumbles a number.
“Pardon me?”
“Forty or fifty,” Harry says, rubbing his eyes.
Mary takes his hand. “Jack and I won’t forget this.”
Harry yelps when she sticks him again.
9:56 P.M.
SWANSON
THIS IS TAKING FAR TOO LONG. The more time Swanson squats here, waiting for a shot, the more time he has to dwell on why this is the granddaddy of all bad ideas.
So far, he’s only killed one man — the one who attacked Jen. That scumbag deserved to die. It isn’t Swanson’s fault that Munchel went butternuts and wasted all of those cops. Swanson had nothing to do with that. But this — staking out a police officer’s house and trying to murder everyone inside — Swanson is a full participant in this colossal mistake. Prior to this, a savvy lawyer could ensure that he wasn’t charged with Munchel’s murder spree, and a sympathetic jury might even let him off for wasting the pervert. But he’ll get the death penalty for what he’s doing right now.
The temperature has dropped, the wind picking up. Swanson wipes the sweat off the back of his neck, finds it cold as a mountain stream. He’s on his stomach, legs behind him, and his right pants cuff has ridden up, exposing his calf to the cool night air. He wastes a moment reaching back, covering his skin, and his shirt untucks and bares his belly to the breeze.
Noise, to his right. Swanson tries to swing the cumbersome TPG-1 around, gets the barrel hung up on the ground. He moans in his throat, getting onto his knees, ready to run for it.
“Easy, Swanson. It’s me.”
Pessolano.
“Dammit! You scared the crap out of me! I could have shot you!”
“Hard to shoot while running away.”
Swanson thinks about correcting him, about insisting he was adjusting his position for a better shot. For some reason, even with everything going to hell, Swanson wants the respect of his men. He’s still team leader, still the one calling the shots.
But instead of making excuses he takes control, asking, “Why didn�
��t you contact me over the radio?”
“Didn’t come here to talk.”
Pessolano hands something to him. A scope.
“Night vision,” Pessolano says, “to see inside the house.”
Swanson takes it. Of course Pessolano has night-vision scopes. If everyone in the house turned into vampires, Swanson would bet that Pessolano also came equipped with stakes and garlic. “Did you give one of these to Munchel?”
“I went to his spot. He wasn’t there.”
Swanson frowns. “Munchel is gone?”
“Said he wasn’t there, didn’t I?”
“I heard shots coming from his direction a minute ago.”
“That was me. I put a few into that refrigerator. That’s a seriously heavy-duty appliance. I may pick one up for myself.”
Swanson feels like a kite in a high wind, his string unraveled to the end and ready to break.
“Maybe we should go too,” Swanson says.
Pessolano hawks up a big one, spits it in the grass where Swanson had been lying.
“I got the cop,” Pessolano says. “Head shot.”
Another cop dead. Swanson feels like cringing, but doesn’t. Pessolano is wearing those stupid yellow sunglasses, and Swanson doesn’t know if he can see his expression in the dark. So he forces himself to say, “Good work. Then we can get out of here. I bet Munchel got bored and went back to the bar.”
“We’re staying,” Pessolano says.
“Why? The cop is dead.”
“There are witnesses.”
“How can there be witnesses? They can’t see us. We’re two hundred yards away.”
“Munchel said the cop had an infrared scope.”
“Munchel’s gone!” Swanson yells. “How do we know he was telling the truth?”
“Vehicle approaching,” Pessolano says.
They both drop to their bellies. A dark sedan rolls into the cop’s driveway and parks behind the other three cars.
Pessolano begins unfolding his bipod, setting his rifle up.
“What are you doing?” Swanson hisses.
Pessolano pulls back the bolt and loads a round. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“We don’t even know who it is!”
“Who cares?”
Swanson stares, overcome with impotence, as Pessolano shoots out a tire on the sedan. The car shifts into reverse, but Pessolano puts two quick shots into the engine, forcing a stall. The driver parks the car, kills the headlights. Swanson uses the night-vision scope, sees a portly man get out on the passenger side, opposite the rifle fire. The man has a badge hanging around his neck.
Another police officer.
“It’s a cop,” Swanson hisses. “He might have called for backup.”
Pessolano slaps another magazine into his Alpine.
“He didn’t. I’ve been watching.”
“But he still can. I’m sure he has a radio in the car.”
Pessolano squeezes off another shot, and the sedan’s window shatters.
“Not anymore,” Pessolano says.
Swanson looks behind him, in the direction of their truck. He can still run for it. He’s only killed the one pervert. He’s still one of the good guys.
“I don’t have a shot on the fatty,” Pessolano says. “I’m changing position. Cover me.”
Swanson continues to stare off into the darkness, away from the mayhem going on around him.
Pessolano’s voice is soft, menacing. “During Desert Storm, we executed deserters.”
Swanson turns back, locks eyes with Pessolano. Though Swanson knows diddly-squat about the military, he’s pretty sure that they don’t kill the people who run away. They get court-martialed, or arrested, or something less serious. He wonders, not for the first time, if Pessolano has been lying about his war record. Or if the man has even served at all.
“Are you threatening me?” Swanson asks.
“We started this war,” Pessolano says. “We have to end it.”
Jen leaps into Swanson’s mind. His sweet, innocent, damaged wife. She isn’t aware of Swanson’s plan, has no clue he just killed the man who attacked her. It’s supposed to be a surprise for her birthday. He’s pictured the scene in his mind a thousand times: He shows her the newspaper, she sees that it’s finally over, that she can finally go back to the way she used to be, then he admits that he’s the one who pulled the trigger, and she embraces him, calls him her hero, and everything goes back to the way it used to be.
Will Jen still think he’s a hero if he kills a bunch of cops? Will she understand that the only way to see this thing through is if some innocent people die?
No. Jen will never understand that. She will never forgive him.
“Are you going to cover me or not?” Pessolano asks.
Swanson makes his decision. A decision Jen can never know.
“I’ll cover you,” he tells Pessolano. “Just show me how to change scopes.”
10:00 P.M.
HERB
SQUATTING IS NOT A POSITION that Sergeant Herb Benedict enjoys, and he enjoys being shot at even less. He doesn’t even have a gun to return fire, thanks to Internal Affairs. Not that it would do much good. The sniper is at least two hundred yards away, well out of range for a handgun. Herb can’t even pinpoint his location. The darkness, and the woods, make him invisible.
Though he realizes how dire this situation is, years of experience prevent Herb from panicking. Though his heart rate is up — more from surprise than fear — he keeps a clear head and is able to focus on survival.
He’s hiding behind the front wheel, on the passenger side, opposite of the shooter. Hubcaps and axles offer more protection than aluminum and upholstery, but he doesn’t know how much more. He needs to find better cover.
Herb tugs out his cell, can’t get a signal. He plays the hold up the phone and wave it around game without success, then tucks it back into his jacket pocket and fingers the plastic zipper bag full of high-fiber sugar-free weight loss shake — his allotted mid-afternoon snack and what he should have consumed earlier instead of all those power bars. He briefly considers cracking it open — he’s suddenly very thirsty — but he holds off. Being a career cop, Herb has contemplated his own death many times. He’s watched his own funeral in his mind’s eye, and doesn’t want the mourners’ chatter to revolve around: “Did you hear he died with a diet drink in his hand?”
Plus, the sugar-free weight loss shake tastes a lot like mud, with grit in it. His wife mixes one for him every morning, adding extra fiber per the doctor’s orders.
If she added something better, like grated cheese, then he’d drink the damn things.
Herb squints. There’s no light anywhere around. Jack’s house is roughly forty feet away, completely dark. Though hefty, and getting up there in years, Herb can move fast when he has to. But if the door happens to be locked, he’ll be stuck out in the open. And he knows he isn’t a terribly difficult target to hit.
He shifts his attention to Jack’s large bay window. If he got up enough speed, perhaps he could crash through it, though the possibility of being cut to hamburger doesn’t please Herb, even though he really likes hamburger. Besides, it’s likely Jack is just as pinned down inside as he is outside.
Herb is operating under the assumption that his partner is still alive, still okay. Why else would a sniper still be in the area?
He considers his options. The car is trashed, as is the radio. Jack’s car is ahead of his in the driveway, along with two others — a Corvette and a sedan — but he doesn’t have keys for them. There are no neighbors in sight, though Herb passed a house maybe a quarter mile up the road. Plus, there’s always the run away screaming possibility.
Herb guesses the sniper has night vision, and also guesses, from the previous angle of fire, that he will change positions to get a better shot. There’s also a good possibility that more than one sniper is on the premises. They could have followed Jack home from the Ravenswood crime scene. They may be lining
up their shots right now, as he squats here, knees aching, wondering what to do next.
Running away screaming is holding more and more appeal. Unfortunately, there’s no place to run. It’s thirty yards to the nearest tree, and it’s a sapling that won’t provide any cover. He’ll be picked off before he gets halfway there.
A shot impacts the driver’s door. Then another. Only three payments left, he thinks, ducking down even lower. He touches his pants. His stitches have ripped, and blood has soaked through. When the Novocain wears off, that’s probably going to hurt.
The tire he’s squatting beside explodes. He jerks in surprise, rocking backward onto his ass. Another shot plows into the side of his Chrysler, where he was only a second ago.
He’s in a crossfire. No place to run. Nowhere to hide.
Herb’s a practical guy, and he understands his chances of survival aren’t good. But he’s not ready to die quite yet. He and his wife were planning on visiting Italy for the holidays. He’s never been, and has heard the food is spectacular.
Thinking fast, he stands up, filling his lungs, and makes a mad dash up the driveway.
After four steps the shot comes. His whole body jerks to the left, bouncing hard into the rear fender of Jack’s car. Herb staggers, takes two zombie-like steps forward, a short step backward, and then drops to his knees.
He moans, just once, a moan of pain and surprise, and his hands seek out the sudden dampness soaking his right side.
Sergeant Herb Benedict thinks of his wife, pictures her kind smile. Then he stops breathing and falls onto his face, his eyes wide open and staring blankly into the dark night.
10:06 P.M.
PESSOLANO
PESSOLANO WATCHES the fat cop die.
It’s bloody.
Counting the woman cop by the window, this brings Pessolano’s death toll to three. Not the eighteen confirmed kills he lied to Munchel about back at the bar, but not bad for his first day as a real-life mercenary. Not bad at all.
He points the Gen 3 starlight scope at the large bay window, looking for number four.
10:11 P.M.
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