by Rick Boyer
I heard a long, drawn-out groan coming from across the roadway.
"Hssssst!" came a whisper. "Adams!"
"Over here. O'Shaughnessey?"
"Naw lad. It's him you hear. My friend's caught a couple too. Come over here. . .now!"
The whisper had the ring of authority. I had a feeling Thug Number One, the big guy in the Aitec ski mask, meant business.
"No. I can't. He'll kill me."
His reply was swift and direct. I heard the whang of a slug two feet above my head against an iron steam pipe I couldn't see.
."The next one will go through you. I don't have time to fook around, Adams."
I flung myself out from my little nest of safety and rolled along the ground to the opposite wall. I knew this was the safest way to do it. All Schilling would have a view of would be my clothes and my navy watch cap. And not rising higher than a foot above the ground, there would be no way he could detect a flicker of my silhouette. Rolling is also much quicker than belly crawling. When I hit the opposite wall I inched forward. Number One Thug was hunched behind a concrete abutment that sloped out from the wall, providing about two feet of immunity from those big bullets. He half-cradled a limp form in his left arm while he held his silenced Luger in the other.
"Check him."
I pushed my fingers into the man's neck under his jaw. I felt a faint and irregular bumping of the carotid artery.
"Well?" whispered the big man.
"Bad."
"Thought as much."
I pulled open his coat and drew up his sweater. There were four mean entry holes, dark and very wet and as big as dimes, that snaked their way up and around his trunk spiral fashion. He had caught the brunt of the quick burst, with four of those miniature shot-puts hitting him within the space of a tenth of a second. I was amazed he was still alive, and knew he wouldn't be for long. The first hole was in the left side, near the spleen. Then he'd taken one in the lower chest, one definitely in the lungs, and the last one up near the right armpit. He gasped, and I thought I heard him say something but I couldn't understand it. Then Number One leaned over and put his hand on the side of his head, as one does to a child who cannot sleep, leaned over, and said something very soft in the man's ear. It was Gaelic. I don't know what he said. The man whined a little, and I thought I heard a sob or perhaps it was just pure pain. The shock was wearing off now, the enormous energy—like getting hit by four defensive linemen at once—that had stunned him was ebbing. And so was his life. Then he shuddered and relaxed. He said.
"Ahhhhhh. . . "
I put my hand back into his neck.
"He's gone now," I told the big man.
He turned for a second, made the sign of the cross over the man's head, and said something else in Gaelic.
"Take the medal from around his neck and give it to me. Hurry."
He dropped the small chain and medal into his coat pocket. Then he asked me if I could use a pistol and I answered yes.
"Go get your friend, Adams. He's only about eight feet away. I'll cover you."
I heard O'Shaughnessey groan again and knew that if I didn't manage to get him pulled back behind the concrete he'd be cut in two by the next burst. I crawled around the abutment and hunkered down low. I saw a dark form on the ground, which told me how much lighter it had gotten. I grabbed the fallen man by the arms and dragged him back behind the shelter faster than I thought possible. Fear of getting blown away makes you amazingly strong and quick. I saw then how badly hit he was; there was a dark wet trail sliding out behind him. .
We propped him up against the wall. He was conscious, but spilling lots of blood. Way too much blood too fast. That told me a blood vessel had been. severed. Not an artery that would pump and squirt crimson, but a big saphenous vein.
He'd taken slugs from the beginning of the burst that had killed the other man, the burst that had raked across them both, sending each successive round higher as the tiny gun had bucked upward with recoil. O'Shaughnessey was hit square in the left thigh and had a deep crease along the small of his back. An inch farther inward would have taken away both his kidneys and his spine. The thigh hit was bad; the femur was broken clean in two with perhaps an inch missing. The main problem with a .45 is that it makes such a goddamn big hole.
They had taken away my knife, so I asked Thug Number One for his. With it I slit the pant leg and rigged a tourniquet with my shirt sleeve and an old piece of metal window frame I found after several minutes of feeling around in the dark. It stopped the flow pretty well, although I was also certain his blood pressure was down by this time too.
The big man worked in the dark, studying me. I heard metallic clacking and guessed he was reloading the big revolver. Then he made up his mind and handed me the .44 magnum belonging to his fallen comrade. It weighed slightly less than a washing machine.
"This will just about take yer hand off when ya fire it. . .and break yer wrist, too. Hold it with both hands, and tight."
I heard a brisk chatter, and ducked. But it wasn't the chatter of an automatic weapon; it was Stephen O'Shaughnessey's teeth. He was freezing to death.
"Now you hear me good, Doctor. I'm going to move around behind him, slow like. If we stay here we'll stay pinned down, don't yah know. You keep that cannon pointed right where the corner of that building is. Do you see it now? Give me ten minutes, then fire a few shots at it, hear? And listen, the both of you: any fookin' around and yer dead, quick as a wink, hear me?"
"Yes," I answered. O'Shaughnessey moved his head back and forth in pain and didn't answer.
"What time have you?"
"Four-thirty."
"At twenty of the hour I'll expect to hear the gunfire. Then I'll come on him like blazes—" He turned to go.
"And good-bye Stephen O'Shaughnessey. May you repair yourself. But, may we not meet again. Stay out of me fookin' business."
He was gone. And for a big man he moved with utter silence. He had removed the hood from the dead man before he left, presumably so the police wouldn't think of him as the terrorist murderer he was. I was shocked to see the face of a boy, perhaps only nineteen or twenty. Tony's age. He had pale skin but dark, bushy eyebrows. It was now light enough out to see that his eyes were open.
"Oh shite! Ohhhhhh," said Stephen O'Shaughnessey.
I realized that if help didn't come soon he'd probably die. Four-thirty. Was DeGroot awake? Had he seen the note? Couldn't count on it. I had to get out and make a phone call—flag down a car. Anything.
"Adams."
I went over to him.
"How bad is it?"
"What's bad is you've been losing blood by the quart. You've also got a broken leg but I'm not worried about that."'
"Now listen," he gasped, "I bloody well can't move and you know it. If I take the gun and cover you, could you find yer way out?"
"Yes."
"Well go. It's better than us sitting here and me bleeding to death, tourniquet or no our—ahhhhhh!"
He shivered with pain, but took the big .44, then aimed it square at my heart.
"Go, Doctor. These are orders. Head straight back and make a wide circle around the both of them—"
I pressed my back up against the wall and sidestepped along it. Ten yards. Twenty yards. Forty yards. I was home free. I began a slow quiet walk. At the next corner I would turn right and head for the old sea wall, then drop to the beach. and wade the shallow water right up to the road. No problem with fighting even the outer fence this time. Then heard it. A boat was coughing to life out on the pier. It was a smallish gasoline engine. A cruiser engine. It went into high revs right away and groaned into the distance, toward the mouth of the huge harbor. My watch said quarter to five. It was past the time Number One said he'd put the rush on Schilling. Had he been waiting for my shots, or had he taken the boat? My guess was the latter; he'd sensed the situation had gotten far enough out of control so that his capture was imminent. And now I worried even more about O'Shaughnessey's safety.
A big boom sounded behind me. It could only be the heavy .44 magnum. Almost immediately afterward I heard the hoofbeat sound of pounding slugs hitting brick. Then the deep boom of the pistol again. Then running feet and a scream. Unarmed, it would do me precious little good to hang around. I only hoped the scream was Schilling's, not O'Shaughnessey's. I ran fast now for the corner of the building. I heard a flight of bees off to the side of my head, and my legs almost turned to water from fear. Those were .45 slugs sliding by me, hunting me.
I rounded the corner full tilt. Once I reached the sea wall and swung over it I was probably safe.
But as I ran the next twenty yards it got darker up ahead, not lighter. Another twenty yards confirmed it, and I could hear the hollow echo of my feet against the walls. And then I saw the windows, six rows of them, looming up ahead of me. I had turned one corner too soon. The way to the beach and the sea wall lay one more building past where I had turned. I was in the last courtyard. Oh God, I thought. Why now? Why this way, after all I'd been through? Why now, when I'd been a1most— .
There is no panic as great as that which follows a sense of relief, no despair so acute as that which comes back after renewed hope. I ran to the end of the enclosed courtyard. I yanked at two window. They were barred. I searched madly for a ramp, a door, a fire-escape. . . .
"Adams!"
I turned and looked at the dim figure standing on the roadway at the open end of the courtyard. It was still quite dark. He was leaning a bit too much. He took two quick steps forward and bowed in my direction slightly, like a Japanese houseboy. He'd been nicked by O'Shaughnessey before he'd killed him. But even a nick from a .44 was serious. So God bless Stephen O'Shaughnessey. The late Stephen O'Shaughnessey. But a lot of good it would do me.
The man made two fast twists of his body, back and forth. A swarm of locusts sang above my head, and then came the terrible pounding and popping sound above me as pieces of old brick and mortar exploded out from the wall. They fell to the ground in clacks and tinkles, like old flowerpots, and fine dust sat in the air. But the gun was quiet.
He started walking into the courtyard. I heard a distinct, clean clung of metal hitting the ground and then saw him reach back with one hand into a hip pocket. New clip. Thirty more rounds. And at least one of them would finish me. He walked again and I could almost hear the scraping feet, the throat snuffle and sniff of Mr. X. He had failed once but not this time. He had a machine pistol and I didn't have a goddamn thing.
Including, most especially, a way out or a place to hide.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I DON'T KNOW what made me go looking in the far comer, except plain old bloody desperation. The same thing that makes a trapped rat hug the sides of buildings, or gutter pipes, or old cellarways. . .
In the very corner of the courtyard, behind a big dumpster bin and several discarded oil drums, was a fire ladder. Not a fire escape, an escape ladder. Vertical, with rungs and such. And it went all the way up the building: six stories high. It also had a barred metal casing around it—a cylindrical cage of steel strips to prevent people from falling off it backward. It was a way out, but not a good one. Inside the ladder cage I would be a sitting duck. A duck at a shooting gallery. And Jim Schilling, besides being a good shot, had a gun that couldn't miss. The rooftop was a long climb away, and time I was very scarce. But the ladder was truly invisible; it snaked up the side of the old building in the farthest, shadiest corner of the dank place, and the bottom rung didn't come closer than about nine feet from the ground. It was the ladder or nothing.
I grabbed an oil drum and placed it underneath the ladder and set it down quietly. Tired as I was I knew that a quick start spelled all the difference. In less than three seconds I was on the drum, then in contact with the rung, then climbing. I think that after about five seconds I was past the second row of windows, and heading for the third story. Please God. . .please give me one more minute—forty-five seconds—I almost stopped and fell back down the vertical cage when I heard the popping and grinding of the old wall coming apart. Silence. Then another short burst. Schilling was scouring out the far reaches of the old brick court, using the machine pistol as a water hose. He spat another burst, and I heard the deep timpani boom of metal. He'd hit the dumpster and some of the oil drums. With luck he'd also knocked over my stepping stone, the drum I'd placed underneath the ladder. But I climbed as fast as my cast let me. The ground, what was faintly visible of it, seemed a long way down.
"Adams!" '
Fourth floor. I thought. Please God please. . . just twenty more seconds.
I climbed by feel; it allowed me to go faster. I was panting hard now but keeping my mouth wide open. I looked down. Oh Christ. Christ Almighty: a light.
There it was, a pale yellow pencil beam snaking around on the asphalt far below. I heard the sound of an oil drum kicked over, and then a curse.
"Adams! Adams, you're dead!"
I could see the rooftop now against the pale gray sky. I could see the big tiles that lined the top of the brickwork. I looked down, the light was now snaking around the corner of the yard, right beneath me. Good God, don't point it up. Don't point it up-
Ten more feet. My body ached in every muscle. Eight feet. Seven. I think during the last three seconds of my climb my body slowed a wee bit, thinking the goal was reached.
And the next second I was flooded with light, just as I'd been in the old barn when climbing on another ladder. I didn't stop. I redoubled the effort and the pain. I thought I heard a grunt or bellow come from far, far below me. I had grabbed the smooth, slick tiling on top of the brickwork when the wall around me burst apart in a shattering roar. Bits of mortar and brick stung my face and eyes. I kicked my feet desperately, spastically, climbing up, like getting out of a swimming pool. As I fell over the tile I felt a monstrous kick on my heel, and then a deep burning.
I lay on the tar and gravel of the flat factory roof and breathed deeply for a few seconds, then crept to the edge. I could see without even leaning over that the light beam was shining up the ladderway. But at this height the beam was pretty faint. There wasn't much he could see from down there. I glanced around. If there was no way off the roof I would have to wait at the edge in hopes of jumping or hitting him as he neared the top. If he followed me, which I doubted. On the other hand, if there was any safe way off the roof, I was eager to take it. The light was off now. I hobbled over about twelve feet to the left of the ladder and peeped over. I didn't want to show my head near it. Jesus, it was a long way down.
Nothing. No visible motion. No sound. I scooted back as fast as the pain would let me, and reached out and down and felt the metal sides of the ladder. I grabbed and held. If he was waiting below and saw my arm, he could take it off with a quick burst. But I risked it; I had to know if he was on the ladder. Nothing. No vibration whatsoever.
Then where was he?
That made me nervous. Very. Because I knew Schilling knew the place well. He had to. If there was another way to the roof, he probably knew about it. Was there another ladder, fire escape, ramp, elevator. . .anything that would allow him to reach a far edge or corner of the big wide roof and come at me from behind?
I kept my fist wrapped around the steel, and turned and swept my eyes around the flat expanse of gray gravel, growing ever lighter as dawn came. A very big roof indeed. To think there was only one approach to its summit was foolishness. There had to be another. Where?
If I left my spot to roam about, would Schilling then come I up the ladder? If I stayed, would he come up another way? Was he in fact doing that very thing right now?
What if I went back down the ladder?
You've got to be kidding, Adams.
I decided on a test. I pawed the rooftop until I had a small handful of gravel. I held the tiny stones in the exact center of the round cage and let three or four of them fall. After what seemed an eternity, I heard the faint bong of the oil drum. Schilling wasn't on the ladder. This meant, if nothing else, that this appr
oach was safe for at least the time it would take him to make the climb, which was about ninety seconds, maybe more, since he'd been clipped by a slug. I had to risk a brief walk around.
I tried to stand and fell down again. I grabbed at my heel. The rubber sole of the Topsider was blown away, but my heel was intact. The slug had hit me obliquely but obviously caused some internal trauma. Perhaps a broken bone. Certainly a horrendous bruise. I hobbled about until something hit me square in the chest. I lowered my arm to chop at it. It was one of those iron steam pipes, snaking over the roof about four feet high set on concrete supports. I ducked under it, then quickly turned back. If that thing snaked down the side of the building, I was for sliding down it, even though it meant there was a big chance of losing my grip and splattering all over the asphalt six' stories below.
But I was in bad, bad shape; Two gimpy arms (the steam pipe chop had just decommissioned the right one), a shot up heel, busted nuts and guts, not to mention an extraordinary case of general fatigue.
But I needed off that bloody roof.
The pipe wound to the edge, and across a roadway to another roof. Shit. Twenty feet of horizontal, six-inch cast-iron pipe almost eighty feet up.
But if I could get across it I'd be safe. I thought of straddling it, letting my legs hang down both sides while I pumped along the length of it with my arms.
My damaged groin winced at the thought. . .
And then I noticed something else. I saw some big shiny cables and glass insulators right down next to the pipe. High voltage. Sitting there on the steel I would be connected to a natural ground. One stray swipe with arm or leg and I was gone, fried like a squirrel careless enough to skip the wrong way on a utility pole. I didn't like the look of the high-voltage wires at all.
So I returned to the ladder. I thought I saw a flash of light in the center of the steel cage. I approached the edge cautiously and peered over. The light beam climbed up at me. I drew back my head. Seconds later I heard the mean buzz of bullets in front of me, not two feet from my head, right where my face had been seconds earlier. Unlike a high-velocity rifle bullet, the .45 slug is a snail amongst hares. The average commercial jetliner can fly faster than this speeding bullet. It kills because it weighs as much as a golf ball and is almost as big. . . It never breaks the sound barrier, and so does not produce the tell tale crack, the sonic boom that warns the quarry that it is being shot at.