"Good luck," he called as he passed Lucas.
Carr was hanging up the phone when Lucas got back. "More stuff coming in on the sonofabitch. Lot of stuff from Duluth. He resigned there, just like he told us, but if he hadn't, the cops were gonna get him for ripping off homes after fires. A couple of arson guys think he might have set some of the fires himself."
"Good. The more we can pile up, the better, if there's a trial."
Davenport, you got it right. He's coming, he's past us, he's on the hospital road, he's on the hospital road, we're running parallel down the highway… Goddamn, it's hard to see anything out here.
"Shelly, you know where to go. Weather, get your coat on. Tighten up the straps, goddammit." He pulled the adjustments tight on the body armor, helped her with her mountain parka. She'd be cold without her regular jacket, but it'd only be for a minute or two. "You know what we're doing now."
"Pace it out, take it slow, stay with you. As soon as anybody yells, get down. Stay on the ground."
"Right. And everybody knows the panic drill if he decides to come inside." Lucas looked at Climpt and Carr, and they nodded, and Carr gulped and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
"Nervous?" Lucas asked Weather, trying a smile.
"I'm okay." She swallowed. "Cottonmouth," she said.
Even on a blizzard day, there'd be twenty or thirty people in the hospital-nurses, orderlies, maintenance people. Unless Helper had freaked out, he wouldn't try a frontal assault on the building. And he knew that Weather had a deputy as a bodyguard. His only chance was to snipe her with a rifle or to get in close with a pistol or shotgun, shoot it out with her bodyguard, like he'd tried when he ambushed Weather and Bruun. They'd set up Weather's Jeep within a rough circle of cars, they'd given him places to hide, places they could reach with snipers on the roof. They'd show her to him, just long enough.
As soon as he flashed a gun, they'd have him.
He's thirty seconds out.
Anybody see a weapon?
Didn't see a thing when he went by. He didn't show a long gun on the machine.
He's ten seconds out. All right, he's slowing down, he's slowing down. He's stopped right at the entrance to the parking lot. Davenport, you got him?
Lucas put the radio to his mouth, stared through the waiting room window out to the parking lot. He was looking into a bowl of snowflakes. "We can't see a thing from in here, the goddamn snow."
He's still sitting there, can you guys on the roof see anything?
I can see him, he's not moving.
What's he doing?
He's just sitting there.
"Is he coming in?" Weather asked.
"Not yet."
Wait a minute, wait a minute, he's moving… He's moving past the lot, he's going past the lot down the hospital road. He's moving slow.
Where's he going?
He's going on past the hospital.
Lucas: "You guys on the sleds, he's coming your way, stay out of sight."
We're up in the woods, don't see him. Where is he? Still coming your way.
Don't see him.
He's on the road by that gas thing, that natural-gas pump thing, he's just going by.
Wait a minute, we got him, he's moving slow. What do we do?
"Stay right there, let the FBI guys track him," Lucas said.
He's passing us. Boy, you can hardly see out here.
The FBI man's voice came in over the others: He's stopped. He's stopped. He's two hundred yards behind the hospital, by that big woods.
"Janes' woodlot," Climpt said. "He's gonna come through the woods, sneak in through the back door by the dumpsters."
"That's always locked," Weather said.
"Maybe he's got some way to get in."
He's not moving. Somebody's got to take a look.
Carr, fifty feet away, by radio: Lucas, if he doesn't move in the next minute or so, I think the guys on the sleds ought to cruise by. If he's just sitting there, they can keep going, like club riders. If he's back in the woods, we ought to know.
Lucas put the radio to his mouth. "You guys on the sleds-cruise him. Stuff your weapons inside your suits, out of sight. And be careful. Don't stop, keep going. If you see him, just wave."
Lucas turned to Climpt. "We better get set up by the back door. If he comes through, we should be able to see if he's carrying."
You guys on the roof-we might have to turn you around, he may come in the back. One of you go out back right now, keep a lookout.
Got that.
"If we spot him coming in, we could have Weather just walk across the end of the t-corridor," Climpt said. "He'd be able to see her from the door, but he wouldn't have time to react. If he starts running down that way…"
They worked it out as they ran to the back of the hospital, Weather and Carr hurrying behind. Henry Lacey, palefaced, stood by the reception desk with his.38. The nurses had been moved down to the emergency room, where they had concrete walls to huddle behind.
Rusty: We just passed his sled. He's not here. It looks like he's gone up in the woods. Doesn't look like he's wearing snowshoes, Let's, uh…
There was a moment of silence, then the same voice.
We'll cruise him again.
"What are they doing?" Lucas asked Climpt. "They're not going back…?" He put the radio to his mouth: "What're you doing? Don't go back!"
Just coming back now.
There was a dark, abrupt sound on the radio, a sound like a cough or a bark, and a last syllable from the deputy that might have been…
He's…
Silence. One second, two. Lucas straining at the radio. Then an anonymous radio voice from the roof.
We got gunfire! We got gunfire from Janes' woodlot! Holy shit, somebody's shooting-somebody's shooting.
CHAPTER 26
Weather was the key, the Iceman had decided after Davenport and Climpt left, but he couldn't go running off yet. Had to wait for the cops to clear.
He opened the green Army footlocker, took out the top tray, full of cleaning equipment, ammunition, and spare magazines, and looked into the bottom.
Four pistols lay there, two revolvers, two automatics. After a moment's thought he selected the Browning Hi Power 9mm automatic and a double-action Colt Python in.357 Magnum.
The shells were cool but silky, like good machinery can be. He loaded both pistols with hollow points, stuffed thirteen more 9mm rounds into a spare magazine for the automatic, and added a speedloader with six more rounds for the.357.
Then he watched television, the guns in his lap, like steel puppies. He sat in his chair and stared at the game shows, letting the pressure build, working it out. He couldn't chase her down, he couldn't get at her in the house. Wasn't even sure she was still at the house. He'd have to go back to the hospital again.
Weather usually left the hospital at the end of the first shift. She'd stay to brief the new shift on her patients. The fire volunteers would be arriving a few minutes after five. If he were going to pull this off, he'd have to be back by then.
A two-hour window.
He looked down into his lap at the guns. If he put one in his mouth, he'd never feel a thing. All the complications would be history, the pressure.
And all the pleasure. He pushed the thought away. Let himself feel the anger: they'd ganged up on him. Bullied him. They were twenty-to-one, thirty-to-one.
The adrenaline started. He could feel the tension rise in his chest. He'd thought it was over. Now there was this thing. The anger made him squirm, pushed him into a fantasy: Standing in the snow, gun in each hand, shooting at enemy shadows, the muzzle flashes like rays coming from his palms.
His watch brought him back. The minute hand ticked, a tiny movement in the real world, catching his eye with the time.
Two-fourteen. He'd have to get moving. He heaved himself out of his chair, let the television ramble on in the empty room.
Weather would walk out to the parking lot. Through the swirling snow. With
a bodyguard. On any other day, a rifle would be the thing. With the snow, a scope would be useless: it'd be like looking into a bedsheet.
He'd just have to get close, to make sure, this time. Nothing fancy. Just a quick hit and gone.
The ride to the hospital was wild. He could feel himself moving like a blue light, a blue force, through the vortex of the storm, the snow pounding the Lexan faceplate, the sled throbbing beneath him, bucking over bumps, twisting, alive. At times he could barely see; other times, in protected areas or where he was forced to slow down, the field of vision opened out. He passed a four-by-four, looked up at the driver. A stranger. Didn't look at him, on his sled, ten feet away. Blind?
He pushed on, following the rats' maze of trails that paralleled the highway, along the edge of town. Past another four-by-four. Another stranger who didn't look at him.
A hell of a storm for so many strangers to be out on the road, not looking at snowmobiles…
Not looking at snowmobiles.
Why didn't they look at him? He stopped at the entrance to the hospital parking lot, thought about it. He could see Weather's Jeep. Several other cars close by; he could put the sled around the corner of the building, slip out into the parking lot.
Why didn't they look at him? It wasn't like he was invisible. If you're riding in a truck and a sled goes tearing past, you look at it.
The Iceman turned off the approach to the hospital, cruised on past. Something to think about. Kept going, two hundred, three hundred yards. Janes' woodlot. He'd seen Dick Janes in here all fall, cutting oak. Not for this year, but for next.
The Iceman pulled off the trail, ran the sled up a short slope, sinking deep in the snow. He clambered off, moved fifteen feet, huddled next to a pile of cut branches.
Coyotes did this. He knew that from hunting them. He'd once seen a coyote moving slow, apparently unwary, some three or four hundred yards out. He'd followed its fresh tracks through the tangle of an alder swamp, then up a slope, then back around… and found himself looking down at his own tracks across the swamp and a cavity in the snow where the mutt had laid down, resting, while he fought the alders. Checking the back trail.
Behind the pile of cuttings, he was comfortable enough, hunkering down in the snow. He was out of the wind, and the temperature had begun climbing with the approach of the storm.
He waited two minutes and wondered why. Then another minute. He was about to stand up, go back to the sled, when he heard motors on the trail. He squatted again, watched. Two sleds went by, slowly. Much too slowly. They weren't getting anywhere if they were travelers, weren't having any fun if they were joyriders. And there was nothing down this trail but fifteen or twenty miles of trees until they hit the next town, a crossroads.
Not right.
The Iceman waited, watching.
Saw them come back. Heard them first, took the.357 from his pocket.
He could see them clearly enough, peering through the branches of the trim pile, but he probably was invisible, down in the snow, above them. They stopped.
They stopped. They knew. They knew who he was, what he was doing.
The lifelong anger surged. The Iceman didn't think. The Iceman acted, and nothing could stand against him.
The Iceman half-stood, caught the first man's chest over the blade of the.357.
Didn't hear the shot. Heard the music of a fine machine, felt the gun bump.
The first man toppled off his sled, the second man, black-Lexan-masked, turning. All of this in slow motion, the second man turning, the gun barrel popping up with the first shot, dropping back into the slot, the second man's body jumped, but he wavered, not falling, a hand coming up, fingers spread, to ward off the.357 JHPs; a third shot went through his hand, knocked him backwards off the sled. And the gun kept on, shots filing out, still no noise, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth…
And in the soft snow, the bumping stopped and the Iceman heard the hammer falling on empty shells, three times, four, the cylinder turning.
Click, click, click, click.
CHAPTER 27
He's moving, he's moving, he's moving fast, what happened what happened?
The radio call bounced around the tile corridor, Carr echoing it, shouting, What happened, what happened-and knowing what had happened. Weather sprinted toward the emergency room, Lucas two steps behind, calling into the radio, Stay with him stay with him, we might have some people down.
The ambulance driver was talking to a nurse. Weather ran through the emergency room, screamed at him: "Go, go, go, I'll be there, get started."
"Where…?" The driver stood up, mouth hanging.
Lucas, not knowing where the ambulance was, shouted, "Go," and the driver went, across the room, through double hardwood doors into a garage. The ambulance faced out, and the driver hit a palm-sized button and the outside door started up. He went left and Lucas right, climbed inside. The back doors opened, and a white-suited attendant scrambled aboard, carrying his parka, then Weather with her bag and Climpt with his shotgun.
"Where?" the driver shouted over his shoulder, already on the gas.
"Right down the frontage road, Janes' woodlot, right down the road."
"What happened?"
"Guys might be shot-deputies." And she chanted, staring at Lucas: "Oh, Jesus, Oh, Jesus God…"
The ambulance fishtailed out of the parking garage, headed across the parking lot to the hospital road. A deputy was running down the road ahead of them, hatless, gloveless, hair flying, a chrome revolver held almost in front of his face. Henry Lacey, running as hard as he could. They passed him, looking to the right, in the ditch and up the far bank, snow pelting the windshield, the wipers struggling against it.
"There," Lucas said. The snowmobiles sat together, side-by-side, what looked like logs beside them.
"Stay here," Lucas shouted back at Weather.
"What?"
"He might still be up there."
The ambulance slid to a full stop and Lucas bolted through the door, pistol in front of him, scanning the edge of the treeline for movement. The body armor pressed against him and he waited for the impact, waited, looking, Climpt out to his right, the muzzle of the shotgun probing the brush.
Nothing. Lucas wallowed across the ditch, Climpt covering. The deputies looked like the victims of some obscure third-world execution, rendered black-and-white by the snow and their snowmobile suits, like a grainy newsphoto. Their bodies were upside down, uncomfortable, untidy, torn, unmoving. Rusty's face mask was starred with a bullet hole. Lucas lifted the mask, carefully; the slug had gone through the deputy's left eye. He was dead. Dusty was crumbled beside him, facedown, helmet gone, the back of his head looking as though he'd been hit by an ax. Then Lucas saw the pucker in the back of his snowmobile suit, another hit, and then a third, lower, on the spine. He looked at Rusty: more hits in the chest, hard to see in the black nylon. Dusty's rifle was muzzledown in the snow. He'd cleared the scabbard, no more.
Climpt came up, weapon still on the timber. "Gone," he said. He meant the deputies.
"Yeah." Lucas lumbered into the woods, saw the ragged trail of a third machine, fading into the falling snow. He couldn't hear anything but the people behind him. No snowmobile sound. Nothing.
He turned back, and Weather was there. She dropped her bag. "Dead," she said. She spread her arms, looking at him. "They were children."
The ambulance driver and the attendant struggled through the snow with an aluminum basket-stretcher, saw the bodies, dropped the basket in the snow, stood with their hands in their pockets. Henry Lacey ran up, still holding the gun in front of his face.
"No, no, no," he said. And he kept saying it, holding his head with one hand, as though he'd been wounded himself: "No, no…"
Carr pulled up in his Suburban, jumped out. Carr looked at them, his chief deputy wandering in circles chanting, "No, no," both hands to his head now, as though to keep it from exploding.
"Where is he?" Carr shouted.
"He's gone.
The feds better have him, because it'd be hell trying to follow him," Lucas shouted back.
The feds called: We still got him, he's way off-road and moving fast, what's going on?
"We got two down and dead," Lucas called back. "We're heading back to the hospital, gearing up. You track him, we'll be with you in ten minutes."
Lucas and Climpt took Carr's Suburban, churned back to the hospital. Lucas stripped off the body armor, got into his parka and insulated pants.
"Rusty's truck is around back, right? With the trailer?"
"Yeah."
"We'll take the sleds," Lucas said. "Right now we need a decent map."
They found one in the ambulance dispatch room, a large-scale township map of Ojibway County. The feds were using tract maps from the assessor's office, even better. Lucas got on the radio:
"Still got him?" he asked.
Yeah. We got him. You better get out here, though, we can't see him and we got nothing but sidearms.
Helper was already eight miles away, heading south.
"He could pick a farmhouse, go in shooting, take a truck," Climpt said. "Nobody would know until somebody checked the house."
Lucas shook his head. "He's gone too far. He knows where he's going. I think he'll stay with the sled until he gets there."
"The firehouse is off in that direction."
"Better get somebody down there," Lucas said. "But I can't believe he'd go there." He touched the map with his finger, reading the web of roads. "In fact, if he was going there, he should have turned already. On the sled, if he knows the trails, he probably figures he's safe, at least for the time being."
"So let's go."
They stripped the map from the wall, hurried around back to Rusty's truck. The keys were gone, probably with the body. Lucas ran back through the hospital, past the gathering groups of nurses, ran outside and got the Suburban. Climpt pulled the trailer off Rusty's truck, and when Lucas got back, hitched the trailer to the Suburban.
Ten deputies were at the shooting site now. The bodies still exposed, only one person looking at them; cars stopped on the highway, drivers' white faces peering through the side windows. Carr was angry, shouting into the radio, and Weather stood like a scarecrow looking down at the bodies.
Winter Prey ld-5 Page 27