Whistler's Angel (66 page)

Carla said, “Well, this ought to be interesting.”

Lockwood had to throw off his seatbelt. The space he had was too cramped; the silenced Glock was too long. He tried to line up his sights, but his cigar got in the way. He had to spit it out and start over. Whistler watched in near disbelief as Lockwood forced the muzzle against the Plexiglas window.
Lockwood fired. He blew a hole through the window. Now he could shoot through the hole.

The pilot, his face livid, was screaming at Lockwood.

“So much for its pressurization,” said Carla.

“It’s not pressurized yet.”

“But it will be.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Look at him,” said Carla. “He’s still trying to draw a bead.”

Whistler kept his eyes on the cockpit while calling out, “Claudia? Where are you?”

“She’s right behind you,” said Carla.

She was, and then she wasn’t. She came up and stepped in front of him. He hissed, “Claudia…get away. Behind the ambulance. Stay down.”

“Use my shoulder,” she said calmly. “Rest your rifle on my shoulder.”

Carla said, “Honey. That’s a good way to break it. That thing is no .22.”

Whistler told Claudia, “You’re not in this. Get back.”

Lockwood did fire. Whistler saw the Glock spitting. But he also saw that Lockwood couldn’t line up the barrel for more than an instant for each shot. He saw that one bullet kicked up a wad of tarmac a good sixty feet from the ambulance. But another created a second black geyser within inches of Claudia’s feet. She never moved. By the time it spat again, the jet was well past them, its engines now roaring to full throttle.

Carla said, “Um…Adam, now would be a good time. Let’s see you blow that cockpit apart.”

He said, “We’ll wait.” He walked back toward the ambulance.

Carla said, “Wait for what? They’ll be airborne in five seconds. And we shouldn’t hang around here all day.”

“We’ll wait until it’s high enough and far enough, Carla. There are homes

between here and the ocean.”

“You can do this?” Carla asked him. “You can hit him at that range?”

Whistler flipped the rifle’s bipod to its forward locked position. He adjusted two knobs on the rifle’s scope. He laid it across the roof of the ambulance and slowly, deliberately, took aim.

“We have lift-off,” said Carla. “About now would be good.”

He told her, “Be patient. Let it clear.”

In seconds, the big Hawker looked more like a distant toy. Whistler s
q
ueezed the trigger. The rifle jumped six inches. Carla watched the plane. She said, “Nothing. You missed.”

Claudia stood, rock still, staring at it as it climbed. She almost seemed to be in a trance.
Her lips moved. She made no sound.

Whistler opened the bolt and ejected the cartridge. He drew a second cartridge from a leather pouch that was strapped behind the trigger assembly. He inserted the cartridge, fully nine inches long, into the chamber and slammed home the bolt. He took aim again and he fired.

Carla watched. She said, “Damn it. Still nothing. You missed.”

“I don’t think so,” said Whistler. “Let’s pack up. Time to go.” Claudia still hadn’t moved.

Carla said, “Adam, that plane’s leveling off. You never scratched the paint. He got away.”

Now Claudia spoke in a soft quiet voice.
“
H
e didn’t
.
He
will not
get away.”

Carla asked them both, “Have I missed something here? I’m looking at a plane that’s still flying.”

Claudia took a breath. She said, “
It’s done.
He
will
never hurt anyone again.”

THIRTY EIGHT

The car that Crow drove had no muffler, no exhaust pipe, and it left a trailing cloud of blue smoke. It had a left front wheel that wobbled. It had lost its front bumper. Somewhere along the way, its right front door had fallen off. Yet he’d managed to drive it, unimpeded, all the way to the Medical Center. No side
roads, no detours, no attempts at evasion. He had driven straight down the island’s main parkway, watching for the signs with the big blue H that would show him the location of the hospital.

The only reason, later given, as to how this was achieved, was that virtually every police car on the island was, by then, converging on North Forest Beach. At least five, plus two fire trucks, must have passed him.

Crow, himself, had seen nothing remarkable in the fact that he’d reached his objective. He knew whose hand had cleared a path for him. And he was the instrument of that hand.

The journey, however, was not without further trials. He hummed loudly as he drove to keep his mind off the pain that he felt with every bump and nearly every touch of the brakes. His jaw had been broken and probably his cheek. The worst of it, however, was the pain from his buttocks. His buttocks felt as if they were on fire.

He had almost reached the hospital grounds before he thought to reach under him and try to relieve whatever was hurting him so badly. He knew that he’d been shot, and where he’d been shot, but the soreness seemed to have spread well beyond where the bullet and entered and exited. He found those wounds with his fingers, but he found something else. Some sort of metal, not a bullet, was imbedded in his flesh. The metal felt more like wire. He used his thumbnail to pry one piece loose. He examined it. A staple. And then he found another. He could not imagine how he’d been stapled.

The signs, and the aid of that guiding hand, led him to the emergency ward entrance. He pulled in and parked behind an ambulance. He got, still humming, for the pain hadn’t lessened, and reached into the Pontiac’s back seat. He pulled out the golf bag and reached into the pocket where he’d kept the third and last of his bombs. His fingers were trembling almost out of control, but he managed to press the right buttons on the timer. Next, he drew most of the clubs from the bag and these he left on the back seat. They had made his shotgun too hard to retrieve. But for that, he would surely have killed those two men who had said they’d come to help him, then betrayed him.

He would find them again. He would heal, and then he’d find them. Especially that Jew who was the first one to hurt him and who, before that, had done nothing but mock him. Well, God is not mocked. Nor is his instrument.

The Jew, however, might already be dead. He might have burned in the
fire of the bomb that he had thrown before he’d made good his escape. Crow tried to remember. Had he seen a truck? Yes, he had. Some sort of tank truck. Where could it have come from? No matter. A tank truck. More fuel for the fire.

The Jew might be dead but the big one was alive. That one had escaped before he did. The big one, Lockwood, had taken the van that Crow had borrowed from that family from Ohio. But he would find Lockwood, wherever he’d gone. It was that one, the bully, who had broken his jaw. He could feel the bones grind when he moved it. It was that one who attempted to choke the life out of him. It was that one who’d held him, using him as a shield, causing him to
be
shot.

But who were all these others? He’d seen two, perhaps three. And he’d heard the voices of still more. And now that he thought of it, he felt quite sure that one of them was Felix Aubrey. He hadn’t actually seen Aubrey. But he’d heard his name called. Yes, he had. Lockwood called it. Lockwood had cursed him. Therefore, Aubrey was no friend of Lockwood’s.

He would visit Stanton Poole. Poole would sort all this out. He would offer Mr. Poole a chance to explain why these men Poole sent to help him had betrayed him. He would ask Stanton Poole, “Was it you who betrayed me? Was I to be punished for Leonard’s mistake in failing to send Philip Ragland to hell? Well, I’ve remedied that failure myself, Mr. Poole. But you must still answer, nonetheless.”

Crow threw the lightened golf bag over his shoulder and limped to the emergency room entrance. A young doctor and a nurse saw him coming. They did not rush to his aid. They stood blinking, rather stupidly. Crow was fully aware that he must be a sight. His cheek was swollen, his jaw hung crooked, and he still had those Band-Aids all over his face and all over the backs of his hands. His powder blue golf shorts had a big wet spot in front. He feared that he had soiled himself while he was dangling. And the seat of his shorts was covered with blood, as were the backs of his legs. But the cause of his limping was not his wounded buttocks. His golf shoes had begun to cause blisters.

The nurse finally hurried toward him. She tried to take his golf bag. He told her, “No, I’ll need it. I haven’t finished my game.”

She blinked in disbelief. She asked, “What happened to you?”

He said, “Bees. Perhaps wasps. Bees, more likely.”

She cocked her head toward his buttocks. “How big were those bees?”

Then she said, “Come with me. We’ll have you looked at.”

He said, “I know. It’s like a bullet wound, isn’t it. But it isn’t. A broken branch did it.”

“If you say so.”

“But if a bullet had done that, where would you put me? Is there a particular section or floor where people with bullet wounds are kept?”

She said, “Three floors up. And I suspect that’s where you’re going.”

“And knife wounds to the head? Same location?”

“Same location.”

“Thank you. I’ll go up there now.”

“No, you won’t. You’re going to lie down right here until we have you examined.”

“May I first use your rest room? I’m in very great need.”

“Third door on the right. leave the golf bag.”

“No, thank you.”

She turned to another nurse. She said, “Security, stat.”

“I’ll be with you very shortly,” he said.

Molly Farrell had been patrolling the corridor while Olivia tried to keep Kate Geller occupied. Molly had been on the phone almost constantly for most of the past forty minutes. She kept a smile on her face and she chose her words carefully, but her mind was in utter turmoil. She kept that smile for the benefit of Kate Geller in case Kate should step out of Ragland’s room.

John Waldo had been the first to report. Adam had not shown up at the marina. Next came a report from Billy McHugh. He’d missed Adam and Claudia and Carla in her fuel truck. They had probably gone in after all.

She’d told Billy, “Don’t you go. Keep your station.”