by Seth Harwood
He slides his body out into the gap between the cars and gets into a push-up position. He hears the footsteps on the far side of the next row.
“Yeah,” Jack says under his breath, trying to fortify himself. This is the time, as he sees it, and there’s nothing to do but act on what’s here.
This is life.
53
Jack gets ready to raise himself for a look around. He moves up only enough to see through the back side windows. All he sees is more cars, the rows between him and the guy with the gun.
“Yeah,” Jack says. He’s starting to nod, getting into it now, his blood and adrenaline pumping. Do or die time, maybe do or do, he hopes. He’s not Mike Haggerty, but Jack Palms is ready for the task.
He makes a fast crawl to the end of the car and then cuts right toward the direction he saw the guy moving. The two cars he slides between are parked tighter, and he has to stand partially to get between them. He keeps his head down, expecting to hear the loud boom of the Barrett.
The windows of an adjacent car shatter in the spray of an automatic weapon, and Jack squeezes himself onto the ground.
“Fuck.”
He shakes the glass off his jacket. No sounds of Shaw, no footfalls or anyone calling his name. Nothing.
Jack gets down lower, flat against the cement floor of the garage, and looks under the car.
Not ten feet away from him, he sees the dark shoes—legs standing still, pointed in his direction. Then the AK-74. From a prone position, Jack jumps up onto a hood just in time to avoid a round of shots fired under the cars. He falls off the front of the hood and sees the shooter around the end of the second car in front of him.
With a quick shot from the revolver, Jack makes the shooter duck and runs around the car, closing ground.
As the shooter starts to stand again, Jack clambers onto the hood of the closest car and lunges at him. He hits the masked guy at his chest before he can raise the AK, and they both tumble back into the open space of the aisle.
Mask rolls and Jack lands on his shoulder, the hard bone hitting concrete and sending a shockwave through Jack’s arm. He knows it’s what has to be done; and if he’s alive to feel his shoulder tomorrow morning, it’s a great fucking world.
Jack switches the gun to his left hand as he comes up and then blocks himself into Mask again as the guy squeezes off a few shots that cut up a nearby car and ricochet off the ceiling as he loses his balance. Jack doesn’t stop, though; he keeps his legs pumping and driving through the guy’s body, knocking him back and horizontal over the garage floor so he has to use his hands to catch himself. Fuck if Jack’s going to let him keep his hands on that machine gun.
Mask rolls, and Jack jumps onto his back, driving him into the floor before he can get up. This second tackle knocks the guy flat and away from his gun. But as Jack tries his best to hold him down, Mask fumbles for something else along his belt, and Jack feels too much movement underneath him. Chances are he won’t be able to hold on long. Where’s Shaw? And who is this guy he’s fighting?
As Jack concentrates on Mask, the guy throws his head back, a move Jack’s got to learn to see coming, and catches Jack right in the nose—hard enough for him to see stars. Jack squeezes his eyes shut and open, trying to clear his vision against the tears. He takes an elbow to the head and a shot to the ribs as Mask rolls him off with a turn and a hard knee, and Jack winds up between the guy and the AK.
This is the luckiest thing to happen to Jack all week. He almost falls over the gun as he rolls backward—his eyes still teary from the pain in his nose—and before he knows it, the guy’s on top of him, punching him just as Jack gets his arm up to cover his face. The punch deflects off Jack’s forearm and hits him in the nose.
The good part about getting hit in the nose…there’s no good part about getting hit in the nose.
Jack’s eyes water and he loses sight of the guy again as he brings his gun up. Mask grabs onto the revolver, and the two wrestle over it, rolling over each other. Jack fights to hang onto the gun with both hands, gradually getting past the teary eyes to see Mask again.
He’s on his ass with Mask on top of him when he does.
Mask fires a left hook at Jack’s ribs, but he isn’t able to get enough on the punch to do any real damage. Jack tangles his legs with Mask’s, trying to hold him and hit him with the gun. They roll again and, in a moment of balance, Jack gets on top and shoves his forearm into Mask’s neck. He knocks the back of Mask’s head against the concrete once, hard, and feels the other’s grip loosen on his gun. Jack hits the guy’s head on the ground again, harder this time.
But then the hands on Jack’s are strong again, and they hold him steady as the guy knees Jack in the thigh with a strong leg from underneath. As the pain washes in, Jack remembers how much a charley horse can sting.
Oh, the lessons he’s learning.
Mask pulls the gun from Jack, and he can feel pressure on his finger in the trigger. Jack pushes the gun up, away from his body, but Mask keeps pointing it toward him. Then the gun goes off.
The gun’s right by Jack’s ear, and he winces from the sound, his eyes stinging from the flash.
Then Shaw’s there, his Beretta pressed up against the side of Mask’s head. With one foot, Shaw pushes Mask’s shoulder flat so he rolls off Jack and onto the cement to look straight up into the barrel of the gun.
“This clear enough for you?” Shaw asks, both hands on the gun and his finger on the trigger. He spreads his legs to push the gun toward Mask’s face.
Jack feels a growing warmth in his shoulder and knows something has gone terribly wrong.
“Okay,” Mask says in a voice Jack’s heard recently enough to recognize.
54
“Take this fuck’s mask off.”
Jack sits up. He looks at Shaw and then back at the guy. It takes him a few moments to steady himself, but he does. “I think I might be shot,” he says.
Shaw looks over at Jack, then goes for the mask, pulling it up over Tom Gannon’s chin to reveal his face.
Tom’s breathing hard.
Jack wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, sees the streak of blood it leaves along his wrist.
“A crooked Fed?” Shaw bends down at the knees and touches Tom’s face with the barrel of his gun. “You kill some cops with that cannon? You do my friend Mills?”
“Freeze. All of you.” The voice is female—and angry.
On the other side of the aisle, Jane Gannon comes forward holding a snub nosed service revolver, aiming it directly at Shaw. “What the fuck are you two doing?”
Shaw looks at the Gannons: first at Jane, then at Tom, and then back at Jane.
Jack slumps backward onto his butt, holding his good arm up by his head. He can feel his nose bleeding and taste the blood in his mouth. The pain from his shoulder starts to roll in now and it’s bad—an extra-large helping of hurt. It’s like a big thug just punched him in his shoulder muscle and gave him a charley horse as big as his thigh.
Still, having a gun pointed at him has a way of making everything seem crystal clear, as if a new light has come on in the garage and slowed the world.
Shaw stands and backs away from Tom, still aiming his gun at Jane’s husband.
“I’m shot,” Jack says.
Jane shakes her head. “What is happening here?”
“Your husband was shooting at us with a Barrett.” Shaw looks at her, waits to see how this will register on her face. “He killed Mills.”
She squints and wipes her hand over her face. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t listen to him, Jane.”
Jack wonders whether she took some time to get it together or kept on drinking after he left her. He knows she’s supposed to be ready at all times. He realizes that this—pulling a gun on them—means she’s ready.
Jack keeps his hand up. “This is your guy,” he says. “The one on the inside with Alexi. The one who killed O’Malley. He heard you set the meet when O’Ma
lley called.” “This is Tom, the father of my child.” She looks at Shaw again and points the gun at him more aggressively, shaking it at his chest. “Lower your fucking gun and stand down, Officer. Now! That is an order.”
Shaw doesn’t take his eyes off Tom or move his gun. “Full respect, Jane. But I can’t move this gun.”
Tom laughs. “Just shoot this asshole, Jane. He’s trying to blame me for shooting Hopkins. I came down here to help these guys and look what they did to me! They’re obviously crazy.”
Shaw says, “Jane, I apologize, but Jack is right.”
“Lower your weapon, Officer.”
“Look in that corner of the garage,” Shaw says, pointing. “Or look at the holes in the BMW over there.”
Jack squints to focus in on Gannon. “Jane, just take one look.”
Her eyes narrow as she regards Jack. “And I’m supposed to look back so you two can blindside me? That’s a good one, but it doesn’t work outside of the movies.” She shakes her head. “Fuck you.”
“Or look at this mask he was wearing.” Jack lets his head fall back against a parked car. “I think I need an ambulance, guys.”
Shaw turns to point his gun at Jane and steps away from Tom, who starts to gather himself to stand. Tom and Jack both see the AK on the ground at the same moment. It’s closer to Jack, about a yard from his feet.
Jack shakes his head. “Don’t do that, Tom.”
“Look,” Shaw says. He and Jane are in a standoff, less than ten feet apart. “We both lower our guns, you turn and look behind you. You’ll see a Barrett M107 mounted in the far corner of the garage, by the ceiling. You ask yourself how that got there and who shot it at our car. Ask yourself what that means.”
She doesn’t turn or lower her weapon; instead she sets her feet apart and squints one eye like she’s getting ready to shoot Shaw.
“It’s set up on the ramp,” he says, his voice still calm. “Ask yourself why your man’s got that, why that’s here.”
She opens both eyes again, doesn’t lower her gun.
Jack mouths words that come out as “I’m fucking shot here.”
Shaw rotates his gun in his hand, pointing the barrel straight up and removing his finger from the trigger, the weight of the gun resting against his palm, his trigger finger against the guard; he’s in no position to shoot. “I’m trusting you, Jane. Now you trust me.”
Tom looks at Shaw and then again at the 74. With his right hand on his shoulder, Jack pushes himself against the car with his feet, gathering his legs underneath him.
“Don’t listen to these idiots,” Tom says as he starts to get up. “They’re criminals. Look what they did to me. You going to believe them if they tell you I’ve been sleeping with Akakievich’s hookers too?”
“Oh, Tom,” she says. And she turns away, lowers the gun. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Tom.” She says this last word, his name, as if she’s just heard it all, seen through the curtains that have been there for however long in their lives, as if it’s all just come together. Her eyebrows knit together as she looks at her husband. “Please. Tom? Not that.”
“Jane. You can’t believe these guys.”
“You fucking asshole!” She starts to swing the revolver toward her husband. That’s when he makes his move for the AK, the move Jack’s been anticipating and dreading since they both looked at the gun. But he’s ready. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Jack pushes his body off the car and ducks his head. He falls on top of the AK like a suicide soldier saving his trenchmates from a grenade.
Tom Gannon falls on top of Jack, making hard contact with Jack’s left shoulder and knocking him into the ground. The muscle screams and Jack can feel the bullet inside him grinding against his bone.
But Tom can’t get to the gun because it’s underneath Jack.
A shot goes off right beside them. Jane Gannon lowers her gun at her husband. “Tom, get off him.”
Tom flops back onto his ass and raises his hands. His shoulders slump, a slight change in his carriage that says everything,
Jack feels as though he’s just been dropped off a small building.
55
A drop of blood trickles off Jack’s left hand and hits the floor by his side. Jack grips his shoulder tighter with his good hand, trying to restrict his loss of blood, hoping he won’t black out.
“What do you want me to do, Tom?” Gannon says.
Tom shrugs and gets to his feet. “Kill them?” he asks. “You can’t let me go down for this.”
“What?” Shaw says. He’s had his gun pointed up; now he brings his finger back to the trigger, aims it at Tom Gannon.
Tom takes a step toward his wife.
Jane shakes her head. “I’d have done anything for you, Tom.”
He steps toward her again.
Jack says, “I think I need a hospital here, people.”
Shaw glances over at Jack and laughs. “This boy’s actually never been shot before. We should get him to a doctor.”
Jane looks at Jack and that’s when Tom makes his move. He rushes at his wife and grabs her from the side, spins her so her body is between his and Shaw’s. They struggle for the gun, his hand over hers, both of them trying to control where it’s aimed. Shaw’s trying to get a clear shot at Tom—the clear shot there’s no way he will get.
Then Jane stomps on Tom’s foot with the heel of her boot and spins away, surrendering the gun in exchange for Shaw’s clear shot. In that moment, Shaw fires, clipping Tom’s shoulder. Then as Tom continues to raise and point the gun, Shaw shoots him in the chest, knocking him backward against a car.
Jane rushes to him and takes the gun away, feels under his chin for a pulse. A large bubble of blood comes out of Tom’s mouth.
“You pulled me back from going after the house on Prescott, didn’t you? Did you even call Dockery?”
Tom shakes his head. “Of course not. There was no way you were going in there.” Tom tries to say something else and more blood bubbles out of his mouth. He closes his eyes. “I got too far in, Jane.” She holds him up, props him in her arms. “I had to kill O’Malley. He was going to tell you.”
“That girl in the Chevy, then? The second girl was your whore?” She lets him fall back onto the ground and slaps him. Then she stands up, pointing the gun at her husband. “I should just kill you here,” she says.
“Do it.” Tom coughs and raises his hand to his throat.
Shaw says, “Jane.”
Gannon cocks the hammer. Her husband nods.
“No,” she says. “I’m not letting you off that easy.”
56
As Gannon stands over her husband, a phone inside his jacket starts to ring. He closes his eyes, his breathing coming in wheezes.
Hearing the phone, Jack feels in his right-hand pocket for his own. If no one else will, he’ll call his own ambulance.
Shaw still stands in the same position, his gun trained on Tom.
Jack can’t find his phone in the right-side pockets of his jacket or his jeans. “Fuck,” he says, trying to reach his left pockets with his right hand.
Tom’s phone rings again, and he smiles. “That’s him, you know.”
“Who?” But even as Jane says it, they all know who Tom means.
“He’ll be calling to find out where he can collect you. He’ll want to come and get his girls.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Jane says.
Tom reaches inside his jacket, wincing in pain from the movement. “You want to be the one to tell him?”
“Sure,” Shaw says. “Put the fucker on.”
Tom smiles, even through his pain. He clicks his tongue against the back of his front teeth in a scolding manner. “Better be nice, Officer.”
Jack finds his own phone in the inside pocket on his jacket’s left side. He takes it out and finds the screen smashed. He swears, pushes a button, and sees the screen light up with no reading. If the phone still works, he doesn’t need a screen to help him dial three numbers.
&nb
sp; Jane steps over to her husband, reaches into his jacket, and gets his phone. She flips it open. “What? Who is this?”
The phone beeps, a Nextel signal, and an accented voice says, “Thomas?”
It’s a voice Jack recognizes immediately. It’s the asshole from the Coast, the bald guy with the beard and the gun with the laser sight: Alexi Akakievich.
“No. He’s not here.”
“The other Agent Gannon? Then this means our charade is up, is it?” The phone beeps.
Shaw says, “Fuck this dude.”
Jack holds his phone against his ear but doesn’t hear anything. His shoulder has started to hurt less, and he wonders if maybe he’s going into shock.
“Is that Officer Shaw? From the Walnut Creek police?”
Shaw shakes his head, doesn’t speak. They wait for the phone’s second chirp and more from the Russian. “You have my girls. These are my property. Understand?” Alexi’s voice rises in volume and intensity as he speaks. “You have stolen them from me.” The phone chirps again. “You have stolen a car from André. He is also upset.”
Jack snorts. “Tell him he can have the car back,” he says.
Gannon looks at her husband. “Does this fuck know where we live?”
Tom grinds his teeth, nods.
Gannon swears. “Hold on Alexi, honey, douche bag.” She holds the phone against her leg. “We’ve got to get those girls out of here.”
“I’m on it,” Shaw says. He steps toward Jack, heading in the direction of the BMW and the girls, and takes Jack’s phone.
“Ambulance?”
Shaw hands Jack his gun, the Beretta. “I’m on that for you, Jack. Just keep an eye on Tom.”
Gannon moves to follow Shaw. “I’m coming too.” She heads right past Jack, dropping the phone into his lap. “Deal with this asshole, okay, Jack?”