Alpha Kill - 03 (21 page)

The knife twisted in Venn’s belly once more.

God. Was it
ever
going to get easier?

On an impulse, Venn went into the apartment’s single bedroom. He felt guilty, like a burglar, intruding on Beth’s most private place in the home. And the pain in his gut intensified, because just a few months ago her bedroom had been his bedroom too.

He glanced around, looking for traces of Paul Brogan. It wasn’t out of morbid jealousy. Brogan might have left something there, an item of clothing, which Beth may have overlooked, and which could contain some kind of a clue. His face burning with shame, Venn opened the closet doors and rummaged. No: only her clothes hung there. They were as familiar to Venn as his own, and he fought the urge to press them against his face, inhale the smell of her.

The buzzing of his phone wrenched him back to reality. It was Harmony.

“You okay in there, slowpoke?”

“Yeah. I’m on my way down.”

He turned out the lights, locked the door behind him and went down the stairs. The lobby was empty, and dimly illuminated by two rows of unobtrusive ceiling lights. Outside, through the glass entrance doors, the street was in darkness.

Venn pressed the door release button when a pair of headlamps washed across the lobby, as a car turned outside.

His hand was on the door, pushing it open. At that moment his phone vibrated in his pocket.

Venn’s thoughts caught up with his actions after only a brief lag.

His phone was ringing.

It was probably Harmony.

If Harmony was calling, only seconds before he would have joined her anyway, it had to be a warning.

Venn dove not out through the door, but back into the lobby and behind the wall to the side of the door, as the glass door exploded inward in a shower of fragments and the unbelievable chattering roar of automatic fire burst in through the sudden breach between inside and out.

He hit the floor and rolled and came up in a crouch with the Beretta drawn, averting his face involuntarily as the shots smashed into the walls and the doors and the desk of the lobby, ripping splinters of plaster and plastic and wood and punching great ragged holes. The noise was deafening, overwhelming, so that the yells and screams that followed from elsewhere in the building were in comparison as thin as insect hums. The firing went on, the angle varying as the lobby was hosed with bullets.

One gun
, Venn realized. There was one rifle firing. Though that didn’t mean there weren’t others out there.

He fumbled out his phone, which was still buzzing, and shouted into it, “Harmony -”

Her voice was barely audible over the gunfire and he had to press the phone hard against his ear to form a seal. “One car,” she yelled. “Driver and two passengers, front and back. The front passenger’s the one with the gun. I’m returning - ah,
shit
-”

And down the line he heard the shorter report of a handgun blast, once, twice, three times.

No
, his mind screamed at him.
Harmony.

Beth...

*

B
eth was in the backseat of the Jeep, Harmony behind the wheel where she’d shifted over when Venn had got out.

Through the windshield, Beth watched the SUV pull out of the side street and swing in a smooth arc until it stopped ten yards from the entrance to her apartment building.

The realization took a second to kick in.

That SUV. It’s the same one as before.

She opened her mouth to tell Harmony but even as she did so, the other woman said, “What the hell?” and Beth saw the window on the passenger side slide down and something poke through.

A gun barrel. A rifle of some kind.

Beth couldn’t see though the glass doors of the lobby from this angle, but she’d seen the lights go out in her apartment windows a few seconds earlier, and she knew Venn was on his way down.

Harmony grabbed her phone and hit the call key as her other hand brought out her gun.

The rifle began firing, the rhythmic chatter a cacophony, bouncing off the high walls of the buildings lining the street.

Beth put her hands over her mouth and stared through wide eyes as the SUV rocked with the recoil and the glass front doors to the lobby exploded.

“Venn,” she could only whisper.

Up front, Harmony was shouting into the phone, and Beth registered that that was good, it meant Harmony was talking to Venn, and he’d therefore been able to answer.

The understanding hit Beth that she needed to get down, get her head below the level of the windows, and she flattened herself on the backseat, her face pressed against the leather.

A microsecond later, the window above her burst inward, peppering her with nuggets of glass. This time, Beth screamed.

Another gun. And close by.

Her eyes had squeezed shut reflexively as soon as the shot had come, but they flicked open as she felt a hand, vise-like, grip her shoulder.

Harmony’s face was inches from hers, down in the gap between the front seats, and the cop was yanking her forward so that Beth tipped into the cramped space of the footwell.

An instant later she felt the impact of shots punching the rear door panel, heard the shriek of metal tearing and the ripping of the leather seat on which she’d been lying

From where she lay, crammed awkwardly between the backseat and the ones in front, she saw Harmony raise her head and her arm to the level of the window. The crash of Harmony’s gun filled the confined space of the Jeep, twice, three times, four and five. From outside, Beth registered the smash of glass, the squeal of tires against roadtop.

Then another series of shots, from further away, as a car’s engine revved.

The rifle fire had stopped, and through the ringing of the aftershock, Beth could hear voices, lots of them.

And, in the distance, sirens.

*

T
he firing had stopped, and in the sudden relative silence, pieces of plaster dropped off the walls, and a plant pot dropped off a ruined table to smash on the floor.

Two men appeared at the foot of the stairs, one after the other. From where he was crouched against the wall, Venn gestured frantically at them to get away, get back up the stairs. They stared about, uncomprehendingly.

“Get back up there,”
Venn yelled. This time he got through to them, and they disappeared once more.

Venn put the phone to his ear once more but the connection had been lost.

He raised himself to a fully standing position, edged over to the door frame, and risked a peek round.

The car, an SUV, was swinging away already. Along the street, lights blazed in every building and people stood huddled in doorways.

Venn stepped out and aimed the Beretta in a two-handed grip at the head of the man in the passenger seat.

He would have pulled the trigger, but something made him hesitate. Some sucker-punch of astonishment in his brain, before he had a chance to analyze it.

From the right, a woman came racing along the street toward Venn, screaming, a tiny lapdog clutched in her hands. Venn shouted at her,
“Get back,”
but the woman, in the grip of hysteria, kept coming.

The SUV pulled away as the woman drew level with Venn. She was right in his line of fire.

He threw himself sideways, trying to keep his aim steady. But the SUV rocketed round the corner and out of sight.

Venn didn’t waste a moment running after it. Instead, he turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, toward where the Jeep stood, shattered glass strewn around it.

Please,
he thought.
Please...

He slammed against the side of the Jeep, seeing the bullet holes in the door panel at the rear, and stuck his head in the gap where the window had been.

Beth peered up at him from the footwell, her eyes so still that for a moment he thought it was the stare of death.

Then he noticed the tremor, the way her whole body was shaking as if the very core of her was about to erupt.

He glanced into the front seat, saw Harmony leaning back, breathing hard through pursed lips. her eyes angled toward his, and he knew she was unhurt.

Venn turned and scanned the vicinity slowly, his gun extended. But there was no sign of anybody hostile. Just a growing horde of onlookers, emerging from apartment blocks and houses and side streets, drawn in fearful wonder by the noise, gazing at the debris on the street, the glass and the spent shell casings.

The first of the police squad cars screamed to a halt and Venn held up his arms, his gun in one hand and his shield, clearly displayed, in the other.

Only then, as the uniformed cops came running forward, their guns drawn and their eyes darting, taking in the scene, did Venn allow himself to think about what he’d seen a second ago.

No, not
what
he’d seen, but
who
.

The hair was wrong, and the shape of the face was a little different. But Venn had no doubt.

The man in the passenger seat of the SUV, the one who’d fired the automatic rifle, was Gene Drake.

––––––––

“S
on of a bitch,” Skeet shouted. “
Son of a bitch.
You had him. You
had
him.”

In the rearview mirror, Drake saw the flashing lights of police cars massing behind them. He said to Walusz, “Slow down a little.”

The Pole eased off on the gas pedal. He’d already put several blocks between them and the scene behind. They could afford to slow down, and thereby reduce the risk of attracting attention.

Skeet hovered in the gap between the front seats, whining like a bored child on a long family trip. “Whyn’t you finish him off, man? We coulda
driven
through those fuckin’ doors.”

“See those flashers behind us?” Drake said. “Hear those sirens? If we’d stuck around a moment longer, we’d be dead now. Is that what you’d want?”

“Yeah, but, man...” Skeet’s teeth were chattering. “A chance like that... there may not be another one.”

Drake knew that. And yes, he was pissed that he hadn’t hit Venn. After the cop had gone into the building and the lights had gone on in the Colby woman’s apartment a minute later, Drake knew he was up there. When the lights went out again, he knew he was coming down.

If he’d waited just a couple more seconds, until Venn was back out in the street, he’d have got him.

Still, there was no point wallowing in regret. The euphoria Drake had felt when he’d first recognized Venn hadn’t left him. He knew now that Joe Venn was in New York. That was the main thing.

Now all he needed to do was track him down, and finish the job.

Drake’s phone rang. Gudrun.

“What the hell happened back there?” he said.

“There were other people in the Jeep, as you suspected,” she said. Her voice was as matter-of-fact as if she was describing what she’d had for lunch. “Two women. I think one was Colby, though I couldn’t see for sure. The other was a cop. Herman pulled alongside and opened fire.”

“You kill them?” asked Drake.

“Maybe Colby. I can’t be sure. The cop was fast.” Gudrun didn’t sound embarrassed. “She returned fire. We saw you heading away, and decided to follow rather than duke it out.”

Drake couldn’t very well complain about that. “Okay.”

“Another thing,” she said. “Our car’s taken a hit. Nothing serious, but there’s a hole in the side. Very visible.”

“Ditch the car,” said Drake. “Tell me where you are and we’ll come collect you.”

He took the address, then hung up.

At his shoulder, Skeet said: “What’s the plan now?”

“We go back to the safe house,” Drake said. “Meantime, I’ve got a call to make.”

He found the number he wanted, thumbed it.

This time, the man answered more quickly than the last. “Yes.”

“You said to call you if I needed any help.”

“Surely.”

“I need you to find out about a cop. A guy named Joseph Venn.”

––––––––

T
he street resembled the aftermath of a war zone. Red, white and blue lights splashed the walls of the buildings into which an army of uniformed cops was corralling onlookers. The crime scene techs were already at work, collecting the shell casings and taking photos from multiple angles.

Beth leaned against a squad car, hugging herself. Venn and Harmony stood close by, along with the two detectives from earlier, Brady and Rich.

Venn ticked the numbers off on his fingers. “So. We’ve got at least four of them. Drake and his driver. The two in the car that shot at you, Harm. And I’m pretty sure there was another guy in the back of the SUV, which makes five.”

Rich was taking notes in an old-fashioned spiral-bound notebook. To Harmony, he said, “And you think one of the two in the car was a woman?”

“I don’t think it,” said Harmony. “I’m certain. Blond. Like the gunman. A good-looking pair. Guess they see themselves as Bonnie and Clyde or something.”

Harmony had already said she’d hit the station wagon with at least one shot, though probably not anywhere that would disable it. More importantly, she’d had the presence of mind to note the license plate. The number was already being run through the DMV.

Once enough cops were there to secure the scene, and Venn had made sure that Beth was okay, he’d called Rockford, and asked to be put through to Special Agent Dennis Yancy as a matter of urgency. Despite the late hour, Yancy couldn’t have been asleep because he came on the line in under a minute.

“Drake’s here,” said Venn. “In Manhattan.”

He gave Yancy a brief rundown. The man listened, punctuating Venn’s monologue with barked orders off to the side as he mobilized his people.

At the end, Yancy said, “Holy crap, Joe.”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell’s it all mean? You figured it out yet?”

“No,” said Venn. “But I will.”

“You need to watch yourself, Joe. He won’t stop, not now that he failed to kill you once.”

“I know that,” said Venn. “And I’m going to use that to our advantage.”

Yancy said: “What, like use yourself as bait? You gotta be nuts. No, man. Leave him to us. We’ll seal New York up tighter than an asshole.”