*
Hope cajoled the sputtering overheating patrol car back to the Sacksville police station, right up to the front entrance. There was an ominous black coupe parked in the driveway: perhaps, unlike on his previous visit here, there were real FBI agents present.
He tightened his black handkerchief over his nose and mouth and strode up the steps, Browning rifle in hand, sure that with the racket of wheel rims on bitumen, his arrival could not have gone unnoticed. He kicked the door open and side stepped in expectation of gunfire. Its absence encouraged him further in; he found that the only place for him to point his rifle was at an ashen-faced young man occupying the police station’s cluttered desk. The young man, dressed neatly in a brown jacket and a white shirt, had his hands buried under reams of paper, and these began to shake as his eyes widened upon Hope like the suckers of the octopus tendril about to take hold.
‘Who are you?’ Hope murmured.
The young man nervously muttered something inaudible to which Hope responded, ‘You’d better speak up, ‘cause if you force me to take off the handkerchief blocking my ears, it will be the last face you ever see.’
‘I’m manning the phones,’ answered the young man in a loud but quivering voice.
‘Is that so? Because everyone else is out?’
‘Out looking for you.’
‘So who are you, son?’
‘Sergeant Rineheart’s nephew.’
‘You got a name?’
‘Jonathan.’
‘Are you even a cop?’
The young man shook his head.
Hope smirked. ‘They’ve got so many cops out there looking for me that they have to sequester some brother’s kid to look after their HQ. I don’t think they would make very good generals. And speaking of the army, they are out there keeping your uncle company, right?’
The return voice was starting to sound like it was in the throes of puberty: ‘The police, the FBI, the army, everyone is out looking for you.’
‘Fortunately, there’s no sea in Sacksville, so I don’t have the Navy to worry about. But I must be accused of something.’
‘They say you’re wanted for bank robberies in fifteen states. And they don’t even know your name. Now they’ve got you penned in, they’re not going to let you out.’ The young man swallowed painfully. ‘They also say you’ve just murdered four men. The Young Brothers.’
‘And why do they think I did that?’
‘You were taking refuge in their house. Things went wrong.’
‘Things went right,’ snapped Hope. He threw him back in his chair and lazily pointed his gun towards his chest. ‘Don’t think I’ve come here to give myself up. I want to know who’s in charge here. And don’t go talking up your uncle. Not if you want him to live. I’m talking about the out-of-towners. Who said what happened at the Youngs’ residence? Who’s been calling the shots?’
‘A cop,’ said the young man. ‘A big cop out of New York. Even the army general is wary of him. He has a team with him who aren’t any nicer. He wants you bad. He said you were dangerous and evil and should be shot on sight.’
‘On sight? Does he know what I look like?’
The young man pointed nervously at his masked face. ‘Just that you wear a black handkerchief.’
‘Well, I’d like to know more than that about what he looks like.’ Hope stepped back and lowered the gun. ‘Start with a name.’
‘I don’t know, I only saw him once,’ quivered the sergeant’s nephew. ‘And that was more than enough. He seemed the type you wouldn’t want to get too close to.’
The phone started to ring and the young man leapt out of the chair with the shock of it.
Hope caught him by the chest and pushed him back that way. ‘It’s your job, remember. Pick it up.’
The young man used both hands to get the phone receiver off the hook and to his ear. ‘Sacksville Police Station,’ he said to initiate the dialogue and that was all as he listened intently and nodded; finally he handed out the receiver for Hope. ‘It’s him. He wants to talk to you.’
Hope grinned. ‘Really? Well, how about this?’ He turned his rifle on the telephone and shot it to pieces. The young man dived to floor. Hope wondered if he had fainted. The young man, however, glanced up with tears in his eyes and said, ‘But they’re waiting for you outside.’
‘And I’d take you along as a human shield, only you’re so thin and gaunt the bullets would probably slip right passed you.’
He ran for the front door with a pang of excitement, wanting to keep his feet in time with his pounding heart; he flung himself outside, spinning over the front steps, crashing against the fender of the shot out patrol car and gunfire erupted from behind, showering him in windscreen shards and the stuffing from the seats. With his back against it, he began to roll out onto the street. Thighs and hips screamed with the torturous exertion. Hope was nonetheless able to keep the cargo bag in one hand while he discharged the Browning Rifle over the bonnet with the other. Keep moving. Keep moving. The police station had become a death trap and this was his only chance of breaking loose.
Bullets continued to fly in wild abandon. The rifle spent, Hope tossed it aside, replaced it with a Colt .41 out of his belt and emptied it into the surrounding houses without any more refined a target; then he dug out two more Mills bombs from the cargo bag and pulled both pins with his teeth through the handkerchief, one after the other.
He continued to push back the patrol car, holding his nerve till the last possible instant and then tossed the grenades under the gas tank. He dived away at the exact instant the car exploded in a ball of gasoline scented flame. Shrapnel hummed and whistled through the air. Hope picked himself up and ran low across the remainder of the street, heading between the houses from which at least some of the shooting had originated. The gunfire that emerged after the explosion, however, was more sporadic and uncertain. Hope had broken through the gauntlet.
Death of the Extremophile Page 42