by Matt Hilton
He moved the final few feet and stood at the foot of the bed.
'Honey, it's me.'
Then he ripped back the blankets.
The knife was forgotten as his mind tried to make sense of what he found.
'What the hell is this?'
The woman in the bed was already a corpse.
Chapter 45
'Wait here, Rink. Anyone but me walks out of that room, just kill them.'
'Rather be coming in with you, brother.'
'Don't know what we're walking into. I'd rather one of us gets a second chance at him.'
'What about Hubbard's men? They come up, you want me to stall them?'
I gave my friend a wink and he shook his head, laughing deeply in his throat. 'Second chance, my ass; you just want Rickard to yourself.'
'If he gets by me he's all yours.'
Rink shrugged. After all, it was me that Rickard had originally targeted, so there was personal investment in it for me.
'Just be careful, OK?'
'I will.'
I left Rink at the head of the stairs and moved along the hall. My carbine was with Rink, as I'd chosen to go with the SIG that was such an integral part of me. The gun was held alongside my ribs, my elbow bent, finger on the trigger, ready for anything.
The intense feeling of deja vu struck me. The astringent smell of disinfectant was heavy in the air, just like when I approached Jimena Grajales' sickroom. Inside I would find Luke Rickard poised to strike. The only difference this time would be that Rink was watching my back so there'd be no one lobbing hand grenades at us.
Didn't mean that I'd walk away from this encounter alive, but I was more determined than ever that Rickard wouldn't either.
The irony wasn't lost on me that here again we were about to fight to the death alongside a woman's hospital bed, but at least the patient wouldn't attempt to shoot me this time. This poor soul, a Jane Doe with a passing resemblance to Alisha Rickard, had died from a drug overdose and had been brought here to pose as the killer's wife. Maybe the trap Walter laid was a little unethical but when it was weighed against the alternative I couldn't really argue. Alisha was out of danger, tucked up nice and safe at another medical facility to the north of the city.
The ruse would only last seconds after Rickard entered the room, which was why I now hurried along the hall. I expected the door to fly open, for Rickard to come out in a rage. The hall didn't offer much in the way of cover, just a couple of utility closets, and he'd cut me down in the enclosed space. I had to make it inside the room before he recovered from the shock of finding a corpse.
Running, I felt as if I did so through a nightmare. Each yard felt like a mile and the door seemed to recede away from me. But it was all a lie of my strung nerves, a result of adrenalin overdrive, and I almost careened through the door without stopping. At the final moment I did manage to slide to a halt and ducked low to the left of the door jamb. Briefly I glanced back, and I could just make out Rink's tawny features as he watched me from along the hall. I pumped my clenched fist in the air counting down from three, then grabbed for the doorknob and opened the door. At the same time, I went to my belly on the floor, training my SIG on the far end of the room, expecting a swarm of bullets to cut through the space above me.
The bullets didn't come.
Pushing with my feet I cleared the door frame and checked left and right.
No sign of Rickard.
With my worm's-eye view I could see under the bed. Rickard wasn't hiding there. The blankets had been pulled off the corpse and hung over one side of the bed, and I could tell that the only person on the mattress was the dead woman.
'Where are you, you bas…?'
I saw the black rectangle in the ceiling and knew.
The tricky son of a bitch.
Coming quickly to my feet, I moved into the room, gun now aiming high as I approached the bed. Now that I was much closer, the rectangle didn't look so black, just an empty space in the hung ceiling. Dust filtered down from above and I heard the subtle movement of a shifting weight. Glancing once at the woman was enough to cause an involuntary cringe. A dusty boot print was centred on the white slip she'd been clothed in. Rickard had used her as a step up while he clambered into the roof space above.
Clever. I'd used a similar escape once when cornered by sheriff's deputies who'd been misled into thinking I was a dangerous fugitive. The difference here was that I'd used a credenza as a stepping stone to an attic; using the woman like this was sacrilegious.
Then again, just about everything that Rickard did went against what was good or holy, so I shouldn't have been surprised.
A low noise from behind alerted me to Rink's presence. The lack of gunfire had brought him to the room to see what was going on. We shared a glance and I nodded up at the ceiling. 'He's getting away.'
'You going after him?'
'There's nothing else for it.'
'Of course there is. We could go outside and pick the punk off with rifles when he shows.'
'Where's the satisfaction in that?'
I waved him back out into the hall. Rickard had to come out somewhere and I didn't want it to be behind us.
Sweeping a jug of water and a glass off a wheeled table, I stepped up on to the bed, careful not to touch the woman, using the table to steady myself as I reached into the dark space. Hooking my left forearm over a roof beam, I hauled myself up with the power of that one arm. I needed the other free for my gun. It was like doing a one-handed chin-up at the gym, and I could feel the strain throughout my entire body, but I ignored it as I searched the crawl space for any sign of Rickard. It was too dark to see anything clearly, but I caught an impression of movement a good distance away. Animal, spook or contract killer, I shot at it.
My bullet didn't kill Rickard. That was instantly evident from the bullets that splattered against the beams next to me. The flash of his pistol marked his position more easily than did the dull cracks emitted from the suppressor. Vectoring in on the flashes, I held my nerve and took aim. I fired three rounds in quick succession. My reward was a throaty yell and the sound of something crashing down into the room below me. Quickly I lowered myself beneath the hung ceiling, but all that was scattered on the floor was more of the tiles and bits of aluminium framework. A boot was hanging from the new hole in the ceiling, but even as I looked Rickard tugged it back up inside the roof space. There then followed a dull rumble as he scrambled away.
I powered up into the attic, squirming so that I bent forwards over the joist beam, then swung my legs up and balanced there for a second. My night vision was beginning to kick in and the space didn't look as impenetrable now. I could make out arched beams above me and a sequence of horizontal joists that had formed the original support structure for an earlier ceiling. It was like being in the upturned hull of a ship.
Coming to my feet, I reached with a toe for the next horizontal. Couldn't quite reach it without jumping, but there was nothing else for it. Rickard was already a good way off and I couldn't see him, only hear the thuds as he hopped from beam to beam. I followed. Reaching the spot where he'd almost fallen through into the room below, I saw that a support wall actually extended into the attic here, making a tombstone-shaped bulwark between me and Rickard. He had to have gone up and over it and into the attic above the hallway where Rink was stationed. I went along a beam like a tightrope walker, found where the wall and the roof were conjoined. Large metal bolts strapped the roof beams to the brick structure but there was enough room between them to squirm through. First I listened to try to get an idea of how close Rickard was. I didn't want him to catch me halfway through the gap. Thuds resounded from a distance, then the unmistakable sound of someone kicking loose roof tiles.
Didn't matter how much sound I made now, I shouted at the top of my lungs. 'Rink, he's getting away. He's trying to smash his way on to the roof.'
I was rewarded by a couple of bullets fired at me, but Rickard was more intent on making an escape route than he was on hittin
g me. The bullets struck the wall, spitting shards of brick-dust at my face. I screwed my eyes tightly to avoid being blinded, and when I looked again I could see a spill of light cutting an oblique slash through the darkness about twenty yards ahead of me. Judging by the lack of movement within the light-spill, Rickard had already forced his way outside.
Mindless of the grazes I picked up, I eased my way through the gap and clambered upright on another beam. Then I loped through the attic, jumping from one beam to the next as I tried to recall what the building looked like from outside. I'd watched it for long enough from my limestone perch in the swamp, but now when my mind was working on overtime I could only dredge up an impression of a large mainly wooden structure of three floors with a crenellated balustrade around a peaked roof. As I hurried after Rickard, more details came to me. Chimney stacks stretched into the sky in at least four different locations along the length of the rooftop. I also recalled that at the back of the building more recent extensions had been added, with two annexe wings erected at right angles to the main structure. These wings stood two storeys tall, with sloping roofs abutting the back wall. It was a feasible escape route for Rickard to drop on to one of those roofs, then from there to the ground below. Maybe there was even a fire escape, but I couldn't remember.
Arriving at the exit hole, I found that Rickard had smashed loose the tiles and wooden lats and had slashed a hole through an asphalt inner lining. The hole was barely large enough for my head and shoulders. I was risking things by looking outside. I couldn't hear where Rickard was; he could be standing a couple of feet away for all I knew, waiting for my head to pop out like a target in a shooting gallery.
I had to go after him, nothing else for it.
Positioning myself next to the hole, I quickly lunged out, looking one way then the other. He could be above me, up towards the peak of the roof, and I twisted to get a look. No sign of him. The fact that my head didn't explode was a good thing too, meaning he was more concerned with escaping than finishing things between us. I clattered through the hole, dislodging more tiles that slid to the edge of the balustrade. I followed them, sliding on my backside, using my boot heels as brakes to halt me from pitching over the low wall and to the ground. From up here it looked a lot more than three storeys high.
We had come out on the roof towards the back left corner of the hospital and there was a chimney stack thirty feet to my left, another twenty feet to my right. Rickard had to be hiding behind one of them; I just wasn't sure which one. I chose to go right because the one on the left was too near to the side of the building. From below Rickard would be exposed to fire from the FBI men in the grounds.
There was a narrow catwalk on the inner side of the balustrade, a thin strip of lead flashing that acted as a drainage channel for the infrequent but tumultuous rain showers that hit the area. I could fit one boot in at a time which made me keep moving to avoid losing my balance. I jogged along, left arm extended from my side, my right busy with my SIG. Occasionally I had to steady myself with the butt of my gun striking the roof tiles. The sound was a giveaway, but then again so was the hollow thud of my boots. As I approached the chimney stack I raised my gun, expecting Rickard to pop out and take a shot at me. Thankfully I made it to the brick stack without being shot, and I jammed my back to the wall. I waited, steadying my breathing, then swung round the stack.
The son of a bitch wasn't there.
I'd picked the wrong hiding place.
Looking back the way I'd come I couldn't see him either.
Further on – a good fifty feet at least – was the next chimney stack, but there was no way he could have got that far without me seeing him.
I even looked over the edge of the roof. The two annexes were below but too far away for him to have jumped to the rooftops unless he was as agile as a spider monkey. The fire escape I expected wasn't there; it must have been on the side of the building. Rickard wasn't flattened in the earth below me so he hadn't fallen. That left only one place he could have gone: up and over.
Studying the roof tiles, I saw that there were indeed a number of scuff marks, a smear where a boot had slipped and dislodged a growth of algae. The peaked roofline was about twelve feet above me, on an angle of about thirty-five degrees. He must have scaled it, using the bricks of the chimney as handholds.
I was just about to start up when I heard shouts from down on the ground. Three troopers were down there, guns raised. In silhouette against the sky my clothing would be indistinguishable from any other and Rickard had a similar body type to mine so I suppose their mistake could be forgiven. They began firing at me. I plastered myself flat to the roof as bullets cut chunks from the brickwork and balustrade.
Pinned down, I had nowhere to go.
I shouted something, but my words were lost amid the racket of bullets and challenges from below.
Next second I heard a bellow like an enraged bull and the FBI guns fell silent. Chancing a bullet in the face, I leaned forwards and saw Rink stalking among the men, yelling at them and generally threatening to tear their heads off if any of them had hurt me. He looked up and I waved. He nodded back at me, but then turned on the men, shouting again. HRT troopers are very tough guys, but Rink's tougher. They acquiesced to his command, moving back to offer covering fire for me instead.
I'd been distracted for the last few seconds.
Those seconds had almost proven fatal, but the next few weren't that much different.
As I turned I caught a blur of movement from above me.
Instinct caused me to dodge and to bring up my SIG in response.
I fired at the exact same moment that Rickard did. Deja vu all over again.
This time there was no striking of my gun to put off my aim. My bullet hit Rickard in the chest and he slid back down beyond the peak of the roof. It was gratifying, but it didn't stop Rickard's bullet from striking me in my right thigh. My leg was knocked from under me and I crashed face first against the tiles, rebounded off and pitched backwards.
Three floors up, it looked a long way to the ground.
It looked a whole lot further when spilling head first over a crumbling balustrade.
Chapter 46
Being shot in the chest was just the latest in a series of shocks to his system that Rickard had to contend with. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't the worst.
Finding the corpse in lieu of his wife was the first. That had thrown him more than he liked to admit. It had made him realise how stupid he'd been. Walking directly into a trap that was simple to avoid had been an amateur's mistake. It slowed him momentarily as he considered his next move. He'd been led to the chamber with the intention of blocking him in. Any minute the FBI would come boiling into the room and he didn't expect to be taken alive. He decided that the hall was no way out; the room had no other exits, not even a window he could smash his way through, so that left him only one escape route. Decision made, he had no qualms about standing on the corpse while he dislodged a ceiling tile and swarmed up and on to a joist.
Discovering that Joe Hunter had survived the explosion and had tracked him back here was next. He had really believed that Guarapo's grenade had torn Hunter to pieces and he couldn't imagine how he'd got out of that room alive. He supposed that how wasn't an issue now, only that Hunter was there and firing at him in the attic space. Hunter had hit him, but the armour had kept him safe.
Breaking through on to the roof of the hospital maybe hadn't been his greatest plan, but it was all he had left to him. Hunter had shouted to someone down below, cutting off his escape that way. On the roof he was forced to run like a coward to avoid being pinned down by the HRT troopers at ground level. He'd gone up and over the peak, had only made it there before he heard machine gun fire. When he looked back over the roof, there was Hunter in all his glory, wide open for a killing shot. Hunter, unlike him, didn't have the comfort of a bullet-proof vest.
Hunter's return shot struck him in the chest, knocking him backwards, but not before he saw his
nemesis hit in the leg and tumbling towards the roof's edge. Nowhere for Hunter to go but down.
Biggest shock of all was that Hunter had died after all this by falling off a roof.
Rickard touched the spot where Hunter's bullet had hit him in the chest. The vest was punctured, singed stuffing poking out the hole, but the flattened slug must have fallen out as he slid down the roof. If he hadn't been wearing the vest he'd be a corpse, no doubt about it. Hunter's bullet had struck him dead centre. That was some shooting. Admirable in a way.
He wasn't going to dwell on it.
Hunter was dead but there were others out there who were equally dangerous. Jared Rington, for example; and who knew who else had been drafted in to bring him down?
He was at the front of the building now. Here the balustrade was taller and more ornamental, providing better cover from the troopers running round the front and taking up positions. If he'd had the sniper rifle with him he was confident that he could take them all out one by one. But the reality was it was now him who'd have to be careful not to fall into the sights of a sharpshooter.
He checked his weapons. He unscrewed the suppressor from his gun, then fed a fresh magazine into it. He touched his knife in its pouch.
Staying under cover of the balustrade, he began crawling towards the left front corner of the hospital. He couldn't stay up here forever because it was only a matter of time before gunmen made their way on to the roof, or the FBI called in air support. His best chance at getting away and re-establishing his plan for killing Alisha was making his way to the ground. If he made it into the swamp he was confident that no one would find him there.
Coming to the corner of the hospital, he found that a fancy embellishment of the balustrade allowed him to come to his feet, while still being blocked from two angles from those searching for him from below. He looked for a fire escape on the side of the building and found it, the problem being it was a floor lower than his current position and could only be accessed via doors from the building. An awning with latticed sides had been erected above the stairs to stop birds from nesting on the steps, but it looked a little flimsy and he doubted it would bear his weight as he climbed down. He could possibly grip the awning and use it to swing on to the stairs but as he did so he'd be open to a sniper on the ground. He didn't fancy his chances.