Sudden Prey (38 page)

''She's not his fuckin' wife,'' LaChaise said, when Martin hung up. ''Was she there?''

''She's scrubbing for surgery.''

''That's where we're going, then,'' LaChaise said. ''That motherfucker Davenport set the whole thing up. I wouldn't be surprised if that was him up in the hallway. Jesus, that was something . . .''

SANDY CAME BACK FROM THE BATHROOM, AND OVERHEARD the last part of the conversation. ''Where're you going?''

''Hospital where Davenport's old lady works,'' LaChaise said.

''You gonna let me go?''

''Something like that,'' LaChaise said, and he grinned at her. Her heart lurched: they were going to kill her.

''Turn over,'' she said. She dabbed his back with the wet towel, cleaning him up as best she could, isolating the biggest cuts, pulling a few pieces of glass out of his back and legs. ''I can't patch the ones under your hair,'' she said.

''Just get the rest.''

Martin had slid over to his travel bag, got a pair of camo jeans out, and pulled them on as he sat on the floor. ''We wait an hour, and then we head out: if we go right straight across to Washington Avenue . . .''

''Around that curve and down that ramp and across the bridge and the hospital's right there,'' LaChaise finished, remembering the recon.

''Five minutes from here,'' Martin said. He pulled on his boots and looked at Sandy. ''You about done with him?''

''About as much as I can do,'' Sandy said.

''We could use some coffee and eggs,'' Martin said. He found the TV remote and clicked it on. An announcer was barking something into the screen, and he fumbled a minute to get the sound up. ''. . . just a few minutes ago. They have been positively identified as . . .''

''I better get the rifles, in case they show up,'' LaChaise said. He stood carefully, groaned and started down the hall. ''Coffee and eggs,'' he said to Sandy. ''Toast.''

Sandy followed him down the hall and stepped into the kitchen. LaChaise went on, and she glanced back at Martin. He'd picked up his bow, but he was watching the television. Sandy stepped into the kitchen. She hadn't done this because she suspected that the cops would kill anyone with LaChaise: but now she had no choice. She took the phone off the hook, punched in 911. When it was answered, she said, quietly, ''Sandy Darling. They're here.''

She put the receiver down beside the phone, leaving theline open, and started banging around in the cupboard, looking for a frying pan. LaChaise came by a minute later, carrying an AR under his arm. He was pushing shells into a magazine as he walked, and he continued by into the living room. ''Where'd you put your rifle?'' he asked Martin.

''Aw, shit, it's probably on the floor in the backseat,'' Martin said. ''I just threw it . . .''

He stopped, suddenly, at the sound: breaking glass down the stairs, then pounding feet. ''They're here,'' Martin said. He pointed a pistol at the door, and LaChaise ran to the window and looked out. ''Nothing on the street.''

A man screamed through the door: ''LaChaise, they know you're here, they're coming . . .'' The screaming continued for a moment but they couldn't make it out, and the feet pounded back down the stairs.

''Aw, shit, aw, shit,'' Martin yelled. ''Down the back . . .''

Chapter
Twenty-five.

STADIC WAS UP, DRESSED BUT STILL GROGGY--HEWAS A hundred hours behind on his sleep, he thought--and thinking about breakfast cereal when he heard the screaming on the radio.

He threw on a parka and gloves, grabbed his gun, and ran for his car. He was five minutes from downtown: he made it in four. The parking lot outside the medical center looked like a used car lot, cops coming in from everywhere in their own cars. Light racks lit up the snowstorm.

He paused, looking at the chaos, then went on by, and took a turn down Eleventh. Yes: Lights shone down from Harp's apartment. Damnit: He went around the block, got a shotgun out of the trunk and loaded it. If he could flush them, unsuspecting, he could finish it. Dispatch said both men were hurt.

He decided to wait a few minutes: if they'd been shot, maybe the woman would be going out for medical supplies. He could take her at the door, and then go right on in. Otherwise, the place was a fort.

* * *

A DOCTOR CAME DOWN THE HALL TO THE PHONES AND said, ''Are you Davenport?''

''Yeah.'' Lucas was on the phone with Roux. He said, ''Hang on,'' and looked at the doctor.

''We got a picture, you might want to look at it.''

''OKAY.'' OUT THE WINDOW, HE COULD SEE THE MEDIA vehicles piling up down the street. Cameramen orbited the building, their lights like little suns illuminating the night. ''Gotta go, they got an X ray on Del,'' he said to Roux.

''I'll be there in fifteen minutes,'' she said.

Lucas followed the doctor back into the emergency room, where two other doctors were looking at an X ray clipped to a lighted glass. Lucas could see the outline of the Formica where it pierced Del's face.

''He got lucky,'' the doctor said, tapping the film. ''It just penetrated into the base of the tongue. Didn't quite make it through: we were afraid that it had penetrated the pal . . . the roof of the mouth, but it didn't. It's just sort of jammed in there. We'll get it cleaned out.''

''No damage?''

''He's gonna hurt like hell, but in a couple weeks, he'll be fine. He's gonna need a plastic guy on his neck, though. The thing looks nasty.''

''How about his wife?''

Cheryl had ripped some IV tubes loose when she'd crawled across to her husband, and had been bleeding. ''That's nothing,'' the doctor said. ''She's fine.''

''God bless,'' Lucas said. ''And Franklin?''

''He's okay.''

TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE FIREFIGHT, LUCAS was talking to a patrol captain, trying to figure out why theyhadn't found the car: ''Christ, they were no more than thirty seconds ahead of you guys.''

The captain was getting a little hot: ''Look, a fuckin' mouse couldn't have gotten out of here on its hands and knees. We're looking at every car parked in the loop, they must be in a parking garage, somewhere. We'll get them . . .''

Lucas was staring over his shoulder, his eyes defocused. He said, ''Stay put,'' and put his handset to his mouth and said, ''I need a run on Daymon Harp. That's first name D-A-Y-M-O-N, last name H-A-R-P. I need to know what he drives.''

The captain looked at him curiously; five seconds later, Dispatch came back, a different voice. ''Lucas, Sandy Darling just called. She's left the phone off the hook, she says they're there . . .''

''On Eleventh Avenue?'' Lucas asked.

''Yeah . . . how'd you know?''

Then the other dispatcher: ''Lucas, he's got a 1994 Lincoln . . .''

''A brown one,'' Lucas said.

''Yes.''

''All right,'' Lucas said, and he felt the rush, the lift that came at the end of a hunt. ''I want to do this right. They're at Harp's apartment on Eleventh, it's a two-story, they're up above a laundromat. There's a front stairs and a garage on the side. I want somebody down there now, and we'll need an ERU team . . .''

Behind him, the patrol captain broke for his car. He shouted back, ''I'll get some guys moving.''

AGAIN, STADIC HEARD THE SUDDEN RUSH ON THE RADIO. And the phrase, ''Down on Eleventh.''

He knew immediately what it was. He grabbed his phone,punched in Harp's number. Busy. Christ. He couldn't allow a siege: there'd be survivors.

The apartment would be surrounded, there'd be helicopters overhead . . . when it came to outright suicide, LaChaise and the other crazy fucker might change their minds. And once they were out, and behind bars, they'd deal him.

The fear clawed at him, propelled him out of the car door. He ran up the side street past the garage, around the corner, kicked in the glass on the bottom floor door and ran up the stairs. At the top, facing the pile of cardboard boxes, he screamed: ''LaChaise, they know you're here. They're coming now. Right now. You've got less than a minute. They've got Harp's car, they've got Harp's car. You hear me? Harp's car, they got it.''

And he ran back down, seeing in his mind's eye a cop car pulling up from across the street, leveling a shotgun at him, the questions . . .

The street was empty. Hell, the radio traffic hadn't started more than a minute ago. He ran back around the corner, jumped in his car, started it and rolled away.

And as he went, he noticed the utter silence of the night, the quiet in the snow. Every siren in town had been killed. But every cop car in town was rolling toward him.

He punched the car down the street, one block, two, and stopped: when the first cars came in, he wanted to be with them.

The first car came in as he thought, gliding in silence toward the laundromat on the corner.

Chapter
Twenty-Six.

LACHAISE RAN TOWARD THE BACK DOOR, SAW SANDY IN the kitchen, grabbed her, and she screamed, ''Let me get my coat, my coat . . .''

LaChaise ran back to the front room, grabbed his own coat and Sandy's. Martin had his bow in his hand, six arrows in the bow-quiver, a fistful more in the other hand, his coat gaping open. He hobbled after them as LaChaise hit the stairs and Sandy followed, pulling on the coat.

When Martin reached the bottom of the stairs, the garage door was halfway up. He heard LaChaise scream, ''Aw, shit . . .'' and LaChaise's rifle came up and began the stroboscopic flash and stutter, and then LaChaise, with Sandy a foot behind, was out in the snow.

Martin was ten feet behind. He looked left: a cop car, windows shattered, sideways in the street. LaChaise was already running to the right.

''This way, this way . . .'' LaChaise was screaming at him. Martin caught up and they turned the corner and Martin said, ''Give me the rifle.''

''What?'' LaChaise's face was white, antic, the skin stretched around his eyes. Sandy was running away from them, down the street. Let her go .

''I won't make it. I can't move, my leg's fucked, I pulled something loose again,'' Martin said. He fumbled at his waistband. ''Take my pistol,'' he said, handing it to La-Chaise. ''You got yours. That'll be enough. Grab a car, get moving . . .''

''Christ,'' LaChaise said. He tossed Martin the rifle, fumbled two spare magazines out of his pocket, passed them over, then caught Martin around the neck in a bear hug, held him for a half-second, said, ''I'm going for Davenport's woman. I'll probably be seeing you in a while,'' then turned and ran after Sandy.

Martin went back to the corner and peeked. Fifty yards down the street, a cop was behind a car door, looking at him. He fired a burst, then pulled back and hobbled away, across the street, a thin trickle of pink in the snow where he passed.

He could hear the sirens now, coming in from everywhere.

LUCAS AND AN OUT-OF-UNIFORM PATROL COP NAMED Bunne rode toward Eleventh in Lucas's Explorer. Bunne wore a baseball jacket, the first thing he'd seen when he'd run out of a locker room before heading down to the hospital on foot. They were six blocks from Harp's: one minute. A half-minute after they left the hospital, they got the choked call on the radios, almost unintelligible over the panicked, harsh, intothe-mike breathing, ''We got fire, we're shot, we're taking fire, Dick's shot, for Christ's sake, get help.''

''Goddamn,'' Bunne said. Lucas had been following the patrol captain. Now he put the Explorer on the wrong side of the slippery street and they roared along, side by side, sirens everywhere. At the same time, he was shouting, ''Where'd they go, you dumb shit?''

The cop came back, as though he'd heard, ''They're on Eleventh, they're on Eleventh heading toward the Metrodome, they're on foot.''

''Ten seconds,'' Lucas said.

Bunne drew his pistol and braced himself, white-faced, but at the same time showing Lucas a shaky grin: ''This stuff scares the shit out of me,'' he said.

Lucas, focused on the driving, said, ''The snow isn't that bad, it's the fuckin' night that's killing us.''

''Nah, it's the fuckin' snow,'' Bunne said.

A red car, a small Ford, pulled out of a side street and Lucas nearly hit it. The Ford jumped a curve and piled up on a street sign, and they went by, the ultra-pale face of a redheaded kid peering at them through the glass. ''Lawsuit,'' Bunne said, and they went around the corner, on the outside, and then they were on Eleventh on top of Harp's place, the patrol captain fifteen yards behind them. A squad was parked sideways in the intersection. A cop ran toward them, as Lucas and the patrol captain, in the other car, slid to a stop. The cop was pointing back past them: ''They're on foot,'' he hollered. ''We gotta get a perimeter up. They're not more'n a minute ahead. You must've come right past them . . .''

Lucas got out of the car and another plainclothes guy, Stadic, joined them, carrying a shotgun. Lucas got his own shotgun out of the car and tossed it to Bunne and said, ''Let's go.''

The three of them started off, and then another cop ran up behind, carrying another shotgun, and the four of them went off into the snow. The last cop, in uniform, said, ''Charlie said they crossed the street . . .''

Lucas led the way, said, ''Don't bunch,'' and the others self-consciously spread out. Lucas said, ''Everybody got a vest?'' Stadic and the uniform cop said yes; Bunne shook his head, he was bareheaded, barehanded, and wearing pennyloafers. ''Go back and get a vest,'' Lucas said.