“ Run!” he cried to Esterhazy and Helen.
Instantly, all hell broke loose. The two lovers on the bench leapt to their feet, pulling TEC-9s from their backpacks and firing at Esterhazy, who had taken off at a run, pulling Helen along by the hand. The automatic fire cut him down, Esterhazy clawing the air with a scream as he fell.
Helen stopped and turned. “ Judson!” she cried over the commotion.
“Keep running!” Esterhazy half choked, half coughed, writhing in the grass. “Keep—”
Another clatter of gunfire raked Esterhazy, flipping him over onto his back.
People were running everywhere, crying and screaming. Pendergast dropped one of the lovers with a shot from his.45 as he raced toward Helen; Proctor had leapt to his feet and, with a Beretta 93R that suddenly appeared in his hand, fired at the other lover, who had dropped down behind the bench, using her fallen companion as cover. As Pendergast tried to get a bead on her as well, out of the corner of his eye he saw the bum rise from his cardboard bed, extracting a shotgun from the bushes as he did so.
“Proctor!” Pendergast cried, “the homeless man—!”
But even as he spoke, the shotgun roared. Proctor, in the act of pivoting, was physically lifted off his feet by the impact and slammed backward, his Beretta clattering to the ground; he fell heavily, twitched, then went still.
As the homeless man turned to fire at Pendergast, the agent brought him down with a round to the chest, punching the man backward into the bushes.
Pendergast turned to see Helen, a hundred yards off, a low figure surrounded by fleeing people. She was still bending over her fallen brother, crying out in despair, cradling his head in her good hand.
“Helen!” he shouted, sprinting toward her once again. “Fifth Avenue! Head for Fifth Avenue—!”
The sound of a gunshot came from behind the bench and Pendergast felt a terrible blow to his back. The heavy-caliber round punched him to the ground, stunning him with its impact; his bulletproof vest stopped it but the wind had been knocked from him. He rolled over, coughing, and from a prone position returned fire at the shooter behind the bench. Helen had finally risen and was running toward the avenue. If he could cover her, suppress fire, she might just make it.
The bench shooter fired and a bullet kicked up a clout of dirt inches from Pendergast’s face. He returned fire, heard the shot ricochet off the metal frame of the bench. Another shot came from between the slats; he felt a puff of air on his cheek as the bullet whined past his head and buried itself in his calf. Ignoring the fiery pain, Pendergast collected himself, emptied his lungs of air, and squeezed off another round; it passed between the slats this time, striking the shooter full in the face; she jerked backward, arms flinging out in surprise, and fell.
The shooting stopped.
Pendergast swept the scene of carnage with his eyes. Six bodies lay motionless around him: the two lovers, the would-be yachtsman, the homeless man, Proctor, Esterhazy. Everyone else had fled the vicinity, shrieking and crying. In the distance, he could make out Helen, still running, heading for a stone entrance leading to the Fifth Avenue sidewalk. Already he could hear distant sirens. He rose to follow, limping on his injured leg.
Then he saw something else: the two joggers — who had paused, then altered course away when the gunfire erupted — were now making directly for Helen. And they were no longer jogging. They were sprinting.
“Helen!” he cried, hobbling past the boathouse as quickly as he could, blood streaming from his leg. “Look out! To your left!”
In the darkness beneath the trees, still at a run, Helen turned, seeing immediately that the joggers were going to cut her off at the gate. She swerved away, heading for a grove of trees off the path.
The joggers veered in pursuit. Pendergast, realizing he could not catch up, dropped on his good leg and aimed the.45, squeezing off a round. But the target was more than two hundred feet away and moving fast, an almost impossible shot. He fired again, and then in desperation fired the final round from his magazine, missing again. Helen was sprinting toward a grove of sycamores alongside the Central Park boundary wall. In a furious movement, Pendergast ejected the empty magazine, slammed a fresh one home.
A scream resounded as the two joggers caught Helen, one tackling her, the two of them wrestling her back to her feet.
“Aloysius!” he heard her cry floating back toward him. “Help! I know these people! Der Bund—the Covenant! They’ll kill me! Help me, please—!”
They dragged her back toward the gate to Fifth Avenue. With a groan of fury Pendergast staggered to his feet, stumbling forward, summoning the last of his ebbing strength, willing himself to stay on his feet. His wound was bleeding profusely but he ignored it, moving forward at a shambling lope.
He saw where the joggers were headed: a taxi, waiting at the Fifth Avenue curb. He would never make it — but the car at least was a good target. Sinking back down, head spinning, he fired at it, the round striking the side window with a dull thud, ricocheting off. Armored. He aimed lower, at the tires, squeezed off two more rounds, but the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off armored hubcaps.
“Aloysius!” Helen screamed as the joggers reached the taxi and flung open the rear door. They threw her inside and climbed in after her.
“ Los, verschwinden wir hier!” he heard one of the joggers shout. “ Gib Gas!”
The passenger door slammed shut. Pendergast stopped, took careful aim, preparing to shoot at the tires again — but the car screeched from the curb and the final round zinged harmlessly off the lower body.
“Helen!” he cried. “ No!”
The last thing he saw, as a black mist rose before his eyes, was the taxi disappearing into a sea of identical cabs moving south on Fifth Avenue. As darkness rushed in, amid the sounds of rising sirens, he whispered once again: Helen.
He had found Helen Esterhazy Pendergast — only to lose her again.
Authors’ Note
While most towns and other locations in Cold Vengeanceare imaginary, we have in a few instances employed our own version of existing places such as Scotland, New York City, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge. In such cases, we have not hesitated to alter geography, topology, history, and other details to suit the needs of the story.
All persons, locales, police departments, corporations, institutions, museums, and governmental agencies mentioned in this novel are either fictions or used fictitiously.
Dear Reader,
Earlier this year, we launched a new series of thrillers featuring an uncommon investigator by the name of Gideon Crew. The first book in this series, Gideon’s Sword, was published in February. We’re now hard at work on the second in the series, titled Gideon’s Corpse, due to be published in the winter of 2012.
We are happy to report that the Gideon books have been picked up by Paramount Pictures for what we hope will be a major series of feature films.
We hasten to assure you that our devotion to Agent Pendergast remains undimmed and that we will continue to write novels featuring the world’s most enigmatic FBI agent with the same frequency as before — beginning with an upcoming novel that continues the story from Fever Dream and Cold Vengeance.
Thank you again for your interest and support.
Warm regards,
Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child