"The son-of-a-bitch came back," he said softly to himself with as much surprise as his composure would allow and then quickened his steps.
The guys at the police line had been unhelpful. We just showed up where we were told to show up, Detective. Looked like they had the place pretty buttoned up. Nobody was going to get close to the secretary without an invite.
Hargrave asked if any of them had seen Fitzgerald, but when they all shrugged, he knew it was worthless and headed back. Now Walker was coming back to work. Fuck it, Hargrave figured, I already warned the guy. It's on him to look after himself and it's not my problem.
He was about thirty yards away when Walker got out of his truck and then instead of going toward the shop the guy stepped out in the street. He appeared to be looking up into the sky. Hargrave kept walking but followed Walker's sight line and looked up as well. "Mike Redman!"
Nick yelled the name a third time and was now waving his arms, like he was signaling some kind of aircraft. Finally the gunman swung around from his prone position on top of the stairwell structure and the barrel of his rifle swung with him.
"Mike! You don't have to, man! It's not worth…"
There was a beat, no, three beats of silence that confused Nick. He was staring into the dark eye of a target scope and he thought, on the third beat, Jesus. Is he going to kill me?
Nick dropped his arms to his side in disbelief and then felt something swat his still-moving right hand just as it passed in front of his leg and the impact sent his palm slapping against his thigh. He did not hear the report of the shot or see any kind of flash, just the splat of the bullet as it ripped through the meat of his hand and burrowed deep into his leg.
The impact shut his mouth and he looked back at the sniper in disbelief. Redman. Dark, almost black eyes with an intensity that might have been anger, or maybe just pure focus. Then Nick felt himself dropping. Mike Redman was already pulling pressure on the trigger of his PSG-1 when the target did something unpredictable. Walker got out of the truck but instead of stepping toward the green door of Archie's, he moved the other way, out into the street, and looked up. Maybe at the helo, Redman thought and refocused. He shifted the sight and was aiming for the sideburn, just in front of the ear, and started his pull as an unexpected voice ripped the air behind him. His name. Being shouted from the rooftop.
"Mike Redman!"
The words cut into his concentration and his own reaction jerked one shoulder as he fired. He automatically swung the rifle around to the sound of a rear attack and instantly put a man's figure into his sights.
It was Nick Mullins. What the hell? The man who had become truth to him was looking directly at him, repeating his name, screwing up what had been a perfectly planned operation to gain vengeance against the man who killed Mullins's own family.
Mullins was gutless. Someone deserved to die. Someone had to carry it out. If you couldn't do it on your own, Mullins, take my gift and shut the hell up.
But now you don't deserve it, Redman thought. He watched Mullins's eyes flatten with confusion and then fear, and then Redman dropped his sight down to the reporter's thigh and fired.
Mullins stared at him for a second before his leg gave way and he sank to the roof. Redman instantly swung his rifle back to the street. Mullins was down, but as he put Robert Walker's face into the scope sight, a body stepped in to block the shot. Redman pulled back. Some bystander had already gotten to Walker and was covering him. Others, cops from the nearby barricade, were jogging down to the scene. Regress, Redman instantly thought. He gathered his shell casings and his rifle and backed out of the shooter's nest and swept down the ladder. At the door to the stairwell he stopped, looked across the roof at Mullins sitting with glassy eyes and his hands on a bloody leg and said, "Sorry, Nick," out loud, knowing the reporter could not hear him. "Maybe another time." Mo Hargrave was deeply confused. He was watching Walker looking up in the sky when the man suddenly crumpled and went down in the street. "Christ!" he said and started running, forgetting that he was now in a wide-open field of fire. "Goddamn Mullins was right."
He covered the last twenty yards and then bent over the downed man. Walker was now curled on the concrete, his back bent and his hands grabbing at his left thigh. Blood was already oozing between his fingers, but Hargrave grabbed him by the belt and the collar and dragged him like you might some wallowing drunkard in a bar fight until they were safely behind the bed of the truck.
Walker's eyes were squeezed shut and he was keening in a high pitch through his nose. Hargrave listened for a second rifle shot, fully expecting to hear a bullet wang against the fender, but heard nothing. In the distance he could see the boys from the cordon beginning to move his way, probably because they'd seen a fellow cop yanking some guy across the ground.
"Are you hit anywhere else?" he asked Walker, who had started breathing in those short bursts that come with intense pain. Walker didn't respond and Hargrave did a quick search of the man's head and shoulders and back. No sign of any other trauma. He then took a more studied look at the leg, which Walker was still clutching with both hands high at the thigh. Hargrave could see a puddle starting to form on the street surface, but it too confused him. It could be a through-and-through wound, he thought, but the consistency of the blood was too fast and watery. He pulled the man up by the armpits to put him in a sitting position against the truck wheel and when he inhaled with the effort he took the odor up into his nose. Whiskey, Hargrave thought. And it wasn't as refined as Maker's Mark. He reached down to Walker's hands and pushed them off the wound to feel it himself and when he touched the bloodied cargo pants he could feel the broken glass inside the thigh pocket. The bullet had shattered the newly purchased pint bottle and then ricocheted down into the man's leg. The blood-and-whiskey mix was now running a gravity trail out into the street and Hargrave made a note of it before standing and waving the arriving cops to the side of the buildings and pointing up. It only took seconds for the street to clear, but the officers continued to move up using the overhangs as cover until they were beside the truck and Hargrave stood up.
"Probably ought to call EMS," he said to the first man. "You've got one gunshot victim down on the street. And you also better get on the tactical channel to the Secret Service guys and tell them they might have a sniper working north of the barricades."
At that the officers all looked up at the same time as they crouched next to Walker. But Hargrave remained standing and answered a ring on his cell phone.
"Hargrave," he said.
"Detective, this is Mullins. I'm gonna need some help up here."
Chapter 34
Two weeks later, Nick was at home, lying on the couch on a Saturday morning, waiting to take Carly on a field trip. He'd had plenty of time at home, unemployed and without a deadline. At first he wasn't sure he was going to be able to stand the open time, the lack of schedule. The slow cocktail of pressure and adrenaline and approaching deadline that had consumed his life was now over for good. But he quickly found that he did not miss it, or its hangover, at all.
On the morning of the shooting he'd called Hargrave on the cell for help and directed him to the top of the Marsh Storage Facility. Hargrave had come alone and in his own stoic way took command. While calling for paramedics on his cell phone, he simultaneously spun his handkerchief into a rope, put a knot in the middle and then stuffed it like a plug into the palm of Nick's hand and then wrapped it in place. Then he crouched there and assessed the leg wound. He stripped his shirt and folded it to form a pressure bandage and then held it hard against the seeping hole and then watched as news helicopters filled the sky like carrion vultures until the rescue squad got there.