The man seemed to understand. He knew. DeBolt’s obvious bewilderment made his victory complete. And maybe it was.
Then out of nowhere, an unexpected intervention. Freeman, who’d gone still on the floor, whipped out his arm. It was a feeble blow, striking the killer in the leg and imparting no damage. But it served its purpose. The big man reacted instinctively, arcing his gun low toward the downed Green Beret colonel.
DeBolt didn’t hesitate.
He grabbed the pot, took one step toward his adversary, and flung the scalding water. It splattered across the killer’s face and he screamed — only it wasn’t a scream at all, but rather a massive exhalation of air, surprise and pain venting from his body in a surreal hissing sound. His hand went to his face, and temporarily blinded he let loose a wild shot.
DeBolt was already moving. He swung the cast-iron pot with all his might, a blow that glanced off the killer’s shooting arm. This time he grunted in pain, but his movements soon organized, and he shoved DeBolt away with his other arm.
DeBolt stumbled as shots splintered cabinets above his head. He ran for the dining room, turned the corner, and dove straight at the big window with his arms outstretched. He was in midair when more shots came, grouped in pairs, and the window shattered the instant before he struck it. Crystalline shards exploded all around him. He landed in a heap outside, tumbling through dirt. DeBolt scrambled to his feet, pushed through shrubs, and ran for the road.
He passed the Explorer and saw Baumann and Stevens on the ground, blood pooled beneath their lifeless bodies. He looked back and saw the big man vaulting through the window. DeBolt had a fifty-foot head start — not much, but a difficult shot with a handgun against a moving target. He cut randomly left and right, like a halfback juking linebackers, hoping to make himself even harder to track. It seemed to work. No more shots came.
He ventured another look back and saw the man giving chase. His next glance, a hundred yards later, was more satisfying. The gap was increasing. The killer had every advantage but one — speed. DeBolt didn’t let up, his stride steady, his lungs heaving. Something splashed into his eye, and he looked down and saw his right arm covered in blood. He kept going, made a few turns, and soon the killer was no longer in sight. His pace slowed, but only slightly, survival instinct driving him forward. He considered whether Colonel Freeman might still be still alive. Doubtful, to be sure, but he had to help if he could. Then DeBolt heard a siren approaching, and he realized the colonel’s fate, for better or worse, was out of his hands.
He was a mile clear when his thoughts regained order. Only then did he realize that the message, the one that had set him reeling, was still fixed in his visual field. It was there because nothing had taken its place, but might as well have been branded for eternity. It was an answer to the question he’d spoken to the killer, a query intended as nothing more than a distraction: Who the hell are you?
Out of nowhere, a three-word reply had arrived. An answer so startling, so outlandish in how it had arrived, that it displaced the world around him. Delivered by META, three words DeBolt could never have imagined:
I AM DELTA.
40
DeBolt had no idea how long he’d been running. Fifteen minutes? Twenty? He kept moving in the same general direction, twisting through a labyrinth of neighborhood streets until he reached a dated commercial district. His pace was slowing, his body beginning to protest. Still, he couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder.
His left arm was covered in blood, and as adrenaline wore off the pain sank in. His arm, a battered shin, his ribs on one side — all had taken a beating somewhere in the melee. His lungs were straining, heaving, magnifying the ache in his rib cage. DeBolt at least took solace in the fact that he’d been here before, at the limits of physical endurance: in both training and real-world ops, he had pushed himself to the edge countless times. He knew his body and its signals. That being the case, when one leg began cramping, he knew it was time to let up.
He stopped in the shadow of a high wall, slumping against the stone and feeling the cold on his back. He closed his eyes, allowing his mind the same chance to reset. He had to think, had to recover. After a few minutes, with the world coming right, he opened his eyes. DeBolt took one cautious scan all around. He saw no sign of Delta.
Even better, he saw exactly what he needed a hundred yards up the street.
It was a typical convenience store, an older building with broad plate-glass windows across the front, crass advertisements for beer and lottery tickets displayed in every one. Best of all, a sign above the entrance attested that the store was OPEN ALL NIGHT.
DeBolt approached slowly, trying to time his arrival. Through the windows he saw the restroom sign, and he waited outside until the clerk had a line at the register. He wanted a straight shot down an aisle where there were no other customers. DeBolt wasn’t going to do anything illegal, but his appearance was bound to draw attention, and he didn’t want anyone calling the police.
When he saw three people in line, he made his move, keeping his back to the checkout stand and cradling his injured arm close to his chest as he made his way to the men’s room. Once inside, he locked the door and leaned over the washbasin. He paused there, once again allowing shock to run its course.
In the harsh fluorescent light he saw the wound, a deep gash on his left forearm. There was no way around it this time — he was going to need stitches. Was there a 24/7 clinic nearby? A place that wouldn’t ask questions? Possibly, if he paid in cash up front and created a plausible excuse. A broken window, he thought. When Freeman had returned his burner phone, he’d also given back the wad of cash they’d confiscated — done it without so much as a questioning look. DeBolt decided the colonel and his team were probably accustomed to working with rolls of cash. Or had been. Five experienced operators, all dispatched by Delta. DeBolt pushed that thought away, discomforting as it was. He tried to be glad for his foresight — since leaving the Calais Lodge he’d made a point of keeping cash in his pockets.
The lessons I’m learning.
He cleaned the wound at the sink using water and paper towels. When he was done, he looked into a blood-soaked trash bin and fleetingly wondered how much of it was Shannon Lund’s. He scrubbed his shirtsleeve until it was no longer red, but simply wet, and finally took stock: a few other cuts and abrasions, but nothing worrisome. He tested his injured arm, flexing and grimacing, but knowing it would heal.
DeBolt leaned into the basin and splashed cold water on his face. For the first time he looked in the scratched mirror. He looked haggard and stressed, which wasn’t altogether unfamiliar — it was how he usually looked after a long helo mission. The difference, of course, was that helo ops were finite, limited on any given day by fuel supply. The duration of his new assignment was measured in a far more fundamental way — how long could he stay alive? DeBolt recalled friends kidding him about being an adrenaline junkie. Backcountry skiing, rescue missions, big wave surfing. That all seemed laughable now, child’s play compared to being hunted.
He dried his face, finger-combed his choppy postoperative haircut as best he could. DeBolt then input a command: Emergency clinic nearby.
The answer came quickly, mercifully, and Delta’s unsettling three-word response was finally supplanted by something useful. An address and a map came into view. Six blocks east.