“Hit the wall,” Biaggi screamed at the driver. The man at the wheel hesitated but Burleson understood.
“Make a door,” he called, pointing with his machine pistol and waving the van forward. “Put a hole in it and back away.”
The van surged forward, grinding over the shrubbery until its bumper was flush with the wall. Then it surged again. There was a screeching, wailing sound as the glass resisted and stretched, then the crack of a giant bullwhip as an eight-foot section collapsed. Duncan Peck was out of the van before it could back away.
“Michael?” He glared.
“Baker's in there,” Biaggi said quickly. “Baker's daughter, the actress, Harrigan, everybody. I got Sonnenberg. I got Sonnenberg and I just got Stanley Levy.”
Peck wanted to slap him. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted to thrash Michael Biaggi.
“Baker's loose in there, sir,” Biaggi said quickly.
“Where's Chuck Graves?” Burleson asked. “The man on the other door.”
Biaggi shook his head. “He didn't come to the sound of the gunfire. I guess he's holding his post.”
Burleson jerked a thumb at Peterson. “Get back with Graves and go in from that side. Take him with you.” He pointed to the van's driver, a balding, long-armed hulk named Gorby. “Are you able to function?” he asked Biaggi, noting his hands and remembering those of Philip Poindexter.
“They still shoot,” Biaggi answered. He worked the action of his Uzi as if to prove it.
“Darts, Edward,” Peck snapped. ”I want Baker alive.”
“If he'll cooperate, sir.”
“You cooperate, Edward. I want him alive.”
Baker stopped inside the small dark foyer where the firearms were displayed. Breathing heavily, his head pounding from the raging inside, he lowered Tina to the floor. Tanner Burke dropped beside her, her hands over Tina's cheeks.
“Oh, Jared, look.” Tina seemed to be in spasm. Her eyes flashed excitedly and her body trembled. “She's terrified.”
“No she's not,” he hissed. Baker wiped at a well of tears that had formed in his right eye. He pushed to his feet and stepped back to the atrium entrance. Connor Harrigan, hobbling but moving quickly, almost knocked him aside.
Harrigan glanced at Baker but did not speak. Taking his weight off a punctured and bleeding leg, he fished into the pockets of his trousers. Grunting, he pulled free a handful of change and keys. In their midst he found three spare cartridges. Penlight and cartridges in hand, he hopped to the nearest display case and played a small beam on the cards describing the exhibits. Finding the caliber he sought, Harrigan half-turned and brought his elbow against and through the glass of the case. He seized a Walker Colt, .36 caliber. Close enough, he hoped. Harrigan thumbed the cylinder free and forced in the three cartridges, first lubricating their jackets with oil from the sides of his nose. “Let's go,” he told Baker. “Out the way we came.”
Baker shook his head. “They have three men coming that way.”
Harrigan didn't bother asking how he knew. He waggled the Walker Colt. “Three bullets,” he said.
Baker reached into the case and withdrew another pistol, which he cracked, holding the barrel up to the light. “Plugged,” he said simply. “It's an art museum, Harrigan.”
Harrigan checked his Walker Colt and cursed. He hefted it, weighing whether to discard the pistol, then jammed it into his belt. Good for a bluff if nothing else, he decided.
“Wait a minute.” He brightened. “Your gun, Miss Burke. The one in your purse.”
“Out there.” Tanner pointed. “Oh, my God!”
She saw her purse where she had dropped it when the first shots were fired. She saw it at the marble stairs leading into the Federal Gallery and she saw Melanie Laver.
Melanie was slumped against a ceramic urn at the bank façade's entrance. Her face was ashen, and she was looking down at blood-smeared fingers that she kept pressed against a spot low on her belly. Roger Hershey was holding her, rocking her. His rifle lay several feet away, across the atrium steps. To her left, the corner of her eye caught movement and she ducked back, it registering only then that the movement was more of a drunken stagger. She looked again. Harrigan saw it too. It was Stanley Levy.
He too had been shot, it seemed. Harrigan remembered the distant chattering sound the Uzi had made, a sound like the first the Uzi had made when it punched its gunport through the glass and unlike the booming roar that meant its muzzle had been thrust into the echoing room. Stanley had been shot from outside the window, he knew, which meant flattened tearing slugs like the single stray that had found Melanie Laver. Stanley had to be ripped apart inside and yet he was standing. Staggering. Reeling away from the jagged hole some vehicle had made and stumbling toward Sonnenberg's pulpit. He'd reached it now. He was groping blindly at its sides as if searching for an opening that would take him to its core. To where Sonnenberg had fallen. Sonnenberg was inside it someplace.
Harrigan heard voices now. Back toward the hole where the slaughter had started. He heard his own name. And he heard Michael Biaggi's voice. Harrigan cursed Biaggi in his heart but he cursed himself more. Now he knew what troubled him about entering the museum and what eluded him when he tried to question Baker about what Duncan Peck might have going for him. Peck knew something or he'd made a collar. Of either or both Harrigan was sure. The collars he was trying to make, the ones he'd identified from the numbers in Hershey's wallet, were all accounted for by the time Peterson ran down to the basement and wrote out his note. Baker was with him and Coffey was dead. He didn't know it then, but Notre Dame and the Laver woman were waiting up above on the other side of the fairway. That left the museum guy. Poindexter. Stupid. He was too goddamned Irish thick to remember the connection. And so goddamned cocky about figuring out this Sonnenberg and Tortora business that he waltzed everybody right into a trap an amateur should have smelled.
“We have to get out of here,” Harrigan said, his brain recalling the visitor's map he'd scanned when they entered.
“How?” Tanner asked, her horrified stare still fixed upon the carnage in the atrium.
“There are towns that are smaller than this place.” Harrigan looked over his shoulder toward the Hall of Armor. “We get out of this wing and there are more rooms than Peck's crowd can cover. We can hide out or take them one at a time.”
“Can you carry Tina?” Baker asked quietly.
“Me?” Harrigan asked. He looked down at the puncture wound in the flesh of his thigh. Better tie that up, come to think of it. He stripped off his necktie. “Maybe. Depends how far. What do you have in mind?”
“baker” It was Abel.
“Take my daughter, Harrigan, and take Tanner. Back past the stairs we used you'll see a bunch of English and French period rooms. It's like a maze. Hide there, Harrigan. Hide there and keep them safe until I come back for you.”
“Jared,” Tanner protested.
“What are you going to do?” Harrigan's face was skeptical. “Take this bunch on by yourself?”
“yes, baker, yes.”
“No,” Baker answered. “Go now, Harrigan.”
Tanner Burke started to shake her head in refusal but stopped. She stared into Baker's eyes, blinked, and then looked toward the pulpit. “No, Jared,” she whispered. “You don't even know if he's alive.”
“What the hell is this?” Harrigan asked.
“Get moving, Harrigan,” Baker said again. “I'm going to get Sonnenberg.”
“Who is?” Harrigan asked. “You or the beastie? Because even if it's him, he better damn well be bullet-proof, which he damn well isn't. The only reason Peck hasn't busted in here already is because he thinks we're armed. But if you make for Sonnenberg, you have to cross a clear killing ground. Even if you make it one way, odds are you'll find a stiff.”
Baker turned away without answering. He lifted Tina from the floor and carried her back to Connor Harrigan, who hesitated, scowling at Baker, then reluctantly took the weight that Baker held
against his chest. Baker looked once more into her eyes. He had to look away. “Take care of her,” he said to Tanner. “Take care of yourself.”
”i won't let you, baker, i won't.”
“Stuff it, Abel.” Baker lowered his head and charged into the atrium.
“It's Baker.” Biaggi tapped Burleson's arm and winced at the pain in his hand. He brought the Uzi to his eye.
“No.” Peck stepped from behind the safety of the van's open door and snatched away the weapon. “Darts, Michael. Darts, Edward. I want the man alive. Now, Michael.” He pushed the shoulders of both men closer to the breach the van had cut.
Baker was running almost blind. Thirty feet into the atrium's perimeter, he had to stop behind a planter and wipe away the tears that flooded his eyes. His head was pounding.
“why, baker? why are you doing this? I’m better at it, baker, I’ll help you.”
“Will you help Sonnenberg?”
“yes, baker, ill crush the men who hurt him. ill crush the men who want to hurt tanner burke and tina. go back, baker, and well wait for them in the dark.”
“That's what I thought.”
Baker wiped his eyes once more. The pulpit was still twenty yards away. Closer, at half that distance, sat Roger Hershey, his arms around Melanie Laver, both bodies fully in the open.
“Roger,” Baker called.
Hershey did not react. Melanie's eyes opened at the sound of Baker's voice.
“Melanie?” Baker whispered. “Can you move? Can you get back inside those doors?”
She shook her head, a sad smile on lips drained of color. ”I was going to have a bookshop, Jared.” She reached to pat Roger Hershey on his arm but pulled her hand back when she saw the wet blood on her fingers. “That would have been something, wouldn't it?”
“It still can happen, Melanie,” he said, not believing it. “What's wrong with Roger?”
“One killing too many.” She tilted her head and kissed him lightly. “He's just too sweet a man, Jared. You're both sweet men.”
“Yeah.” Baker crawled toward her and up the steps of the Greek Revival facade. He pulled open one of the double doors. There was a whistling sound, an insect sound, as a feathered dart thunked against the other. Baker grabbed Hershey, who held fast to Melanie Laver, and dragged him inside. Once there, he drew his hand back to slap Hershey sharply across the face but he couldn't. Instead he shook him. Roger blinked up at him.
“Pick a room, Roger,” Baker told him. “Can you get her to a bed?”
Hershey nodded slowly. “I'll be back, Melanie,'' Baker promised.
“Get away from here, Jared. Don't let them take you.”
“They won't shoot me, Melanie. I heard them.”
“Shooting's better than what they'll do with you, Jared. They'll take you apart piece by piece. Get away, Jared. Take Tina, Jared, and get away.”
“Like she is? What's wrong with her, Melanie?” Melanie didn't answer. Perhaps she couldn't. “I'll be back,” Baker said again.
Baker opened the door a crack. A shadow moved off to his left. Biaggi. Baker heard him. And he heard Burleson, the other one, moving low along the glass wall in the direction of the pulpit. He saw Stanley there, still standing, moving, trying pathetically to climb the pulpit's side. Baker couldn't watch. He dropped his eyes and they fell upon Roger Hershey's rifle. Baker flung himself through the door and dove for it.
“Freeze, mister,” Burleson's voice called. Baker swung the rifle and fired blindly at the voice. Something stung his shoulder. Baker tore the dart loose and ran to the narrow, winding steps of the pulpit.
Sonnenberg was lying there, eyes closed, his black Tortora hat crushed beneath him. Blood from a dozen wounds covered his face and chest. Baker's stomach fell. With his rifle covering the steps he'd taken, Baker felt blindly for a pulse at Sonnenberg's neck. “Come on, Sonnenberg,” he muttered, seeing Tina's half-wild face in his mind, “come on.”
A hand closed over his wrist. “You do choose the poorest times to chat, Jared.”
“Hold it.” Harrigan stopped near the far entrance of the Hall of Armor, just past the mounted knight and charger at its center. He'd heard a sound. A scraping of feet on bare marble. “The three guys,” he whispered to Tanner, easing Tina to her feet between them. “Sounds like they're moving in.”
The scuffing sounds were vague and he could not gauge their distance. Maybe far off. Maybe plenty of time to reach the period rooms. On the other hand, his leg was having enough trouble carrying his own weight without Tina's hundred pounds on top of it. Bet with the smart money, Harrigan. The smart money figures your handicap and gives three to one they'll nail you if you go gimping together in these halls.
“Can you keep the kid quiet?” he asked Tanner.
”I guess. Why?”
Harrigan hobbled to the armored horse and lifted a scarlet parade skirt that reached almost to its fetlocks. “Get under here.” He reached back for Tina to abort any discussion and eased her under the fabric. “Just stay quiet,” he told Tanner, who followed. “Stay there all night if you have to, no matter what you hear.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked doubtfully.
“Cut the odds a little, maybe.”
Harrigan backed away from the mounted knight, flicking on his penlight once to see that no hands or feet were too apparent. They'd be safe, he thought. The eye of anyone coming in would go up, startled by the lance, and then go past it once the guy relaxed. He kicked off his brogans and hid them on top of a display case before making his way into the darkest part of the corridor. They'd fan out, he knew. They'd have checked the same map and have seen at least three ways into the Garden Court. Harrigan chose the most direct route, the one he'd taken through the first Egyptian rooms.
Chuck Graves, the man Burleson stationed at the door Harrigan had forced, also picked that route. Peterson would take the Hall of Armor. The van's driver, Gorby, was assigned a passage through European Decorative Arts.
Graves picked his way slowly but not cautiously, his mind on the place with the glass wall and on blocking escape. With the barrels of pistols held in either hand he probed the first dark nooks he passed, but there were too many. Move. Keep moving. They're ahead of you, not here.
He reached a long, narrow hall where the lesser tombs of middle kingdom gentry were arranged among island cases that showed the minor treasures with which they were buried. Chuck Graves paused at one case, his eye attracted by a gleam inside. He wanted to ignore it. But a part of his mind wondered what would shine with hardly any light. Gold, maybe. Like the King Tut stuff. The opportunity tugged at him. Graves laid his dart pistol on the case, then fished for a Bic lighter and struck it.
“You want to die, kid?”
Graves went rigid, more surprised than fearful. He judged the voice to be ten feet behind him. His first instinct was to release the butane lever and roll to one side while the night-blinded gunman fired at nothing. But he also knew that the voice was probably Connor Harrigan's. He wouldn't be fooled. Harrigan would use one muzzle flash to spot him and the second to kill him. But maybe Harrigan didn't want the noise. Stay cool. Remember your training, he told himself. Remember Harrigan can't see the gun in your other hand. Talk to him. Get him thinking. Let him know that even if he makes the street he can't get out of the city. Tell him Duncan Peck's still willing to deal if he takes this last chance to come home.
“Harrigan?” He kept his voice even. ”I think we better talk, Harrigan.”
“Bullshit!” Harrigan's breath was suddenly at his ear. The heavy Walker Colt came down behind it.
Sonnenberg would be hurting, Baker decided, but his wounds did not look serious. Chips of stone, perhaps a bullet fragment or two from Biaggi's second burst. But they appeared serious and Sonnenberg knew it. A quick inspection, he gambled, and they might let him lie harmlessly while they rushed in pursuit of fleeter game. Which might surprise them nastily if they ran into Mrs. Kreskie in one of these dark hallways. To say nothing of fri
end Abel.
“You're not using him,” Sonnenberg whispered.
Baker waved him to silence. With his index finger he marked two positions flanking the pulpit. Sonnenberg understood. But that was all the more reason for leaving him at his game of possum and loosing Abel among them. But there was more. He saw it on Baker's face. Tina. Ah, yes. Tina. Sonnenberg resisted only slightly as Baker, rocking momentarily as if seized by a passing vapor, took Sonnen-berg's arms and gathered them over his shoulders in a fireman's carry.
“They'll shoot us,” he said into Baker's ear.
“Just darts.” Baker hushed him. “I'll pick them out of your butt later.” Sonnenberg bit back a groan as he felt his lacerated chest pulled tight and hoisted against Baker's back. Your butt, no less. Marcus Sonnenberg a shield, no less. Jared Baker was spending entirely too much time in the company of Connor Harrigan.
Biaggi saw them first. Baker and Sonnenberg. Two clean shots. He shifted his dart pistol into his left hand and drew out his service revolver with his right.
“Michael!” Duncan Peck's voice boomed from the rear of the room.
Maybe one shot. You want darts for Baker, you got them, but I want one insurance shot through that old bastard's ear.
Baker whirled as if he'd heard and raised his rifle in one hand, jerking the trigger. Nothing. He'd forgotten to chamber another round. A dart, Burleson's dart, struck him high on his chest. Unable to work the bolt without dropping Sonnenberg, Baker hurled the useless rifle toward Biaggi's head, ruining the aim of another dart that whistled harmlessly between his legs.
“Edward,” Peck's voice sounded, “shoot Michael if he raises that revolver again.”
Baker tore loose the dart that sprouted from his collarbone, glancing up along its line of flight. He saw Burleson, a reloaded dart pistol again leveled at his chest and a revolver aimed at a right angle in Biaggi's direction. Burleson hesitated, distracted.
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