The range was seventy-five to eighty yards, close enough that Steadman could put a round through the center of a dime. Though Michaels’s head filled the sight picture, Sniper One concentrated on the single spot over his eyebrow where the crosshairs intersected: the no-reflex zone. He inhaled deeply, let out half the air and held it. He tightened his finger on the trigger guard.
“Pow!” he whispered, simulating the rifle’s recoil. Piece of cake.
“He’s the one, not me!” Nathan cried as he backed toward the circle of bystanders. “He’s the one who killed those policemen!”
Pointer felt his face flush red. He wasn’t used to performing his craft in front of an audience. He fought the urge to scan the crowd for its reaction, fearing that it would appear out of character.
“Get down on the ground, boy,” Pointer commanded, gesturing with the muzzle of his gun.
Nathan shook his head frantically and tried to worm backwards through the line of people. They wouldn’t let him through.
“I didn’t do anything!” he yelled, his eyes pleading for someone to help. “Don’t let him take me! He’s the guy I talked about on the radio! He’s the guy who killed the cops!” Still, no one made a move to assist. “You’ve got to believe me!”
A tall man dressed in a business suit stepped forward out of the crowd and positioned himself an arm’s length from both the police officer and the boy, taking care to stay out of the line of fire. He wore his thick mane of gray hair slicked back in a pompadour and sported a neatly trimmed white beard. Nathan saw kindness in the man’s eyes.
“My name’s Albert Kassabian,” the man said. “I’m an attorney. I think I have a solution to this problem:’
“So do I,” Pointer hissed. “Mine is for you to stay the fuck out of the way and let me do my job.” His eyes never left the boy.
“I don’t recognize your uniform, Officer,” Kassabian said smoothly. “Where are you from?”
Pointer felt his control slipping. These assholes were going to screw it up for him again. He should just take his shot now and make a quick getaway, but that would be stupid. If the crowd pounced, he wouldn’t be able to fight them all off. He decided to play the charade one step further.
“I’m from Braddock County, Virginia,” Pointer explained, “where this young man is wanted on a murder charge.”
Kassabian nodded pensively, as though he’d been sold on Pointer’s answer. “Tell you what,” the attorney offered amicably, “let’s just hold what we’ve got here until one of our own sheriff’s deputies can come and make the arrest. That way, we won’t have any jurisdictional improprieties.”
Nathan knew that Pointer was going to have his way in the end, and he knew that right now was the best chance he’d have to make a break. He bent low at the waist, pivoted to his left and squirted into the crowd.
Pointer saw the boy disappear before his eyes and snapped off a quick shot, splintering the kneecap of the lady standing behind where Nathan had been. The Hit Man cursed bitterly and turned to Kassabian, firing a round into his intestines. The intent was not to kill, but to inflict maximum pain. The old lawyer doubled over and fell to the sidewalk, spewing blood and vomit onto the white concrete.
Pointer brought the gun around again, and the crowd parted, dropping to the ground as though they, too, had been shot. In less than ten seconds, Nathan had gained a good fifty yards. Pointer took off after him.
The race was on.
“Oh, my God,” Denise gasped into her microphone. “The police officer has just shot two people! ning down the street trying to get away! The poor thing has been telling the truth.” She was crying, something she’d never before done on the radio.
“Run, sweetie!” she begged. “Where are the real police, dammit!?”
The 911 lines exploded at the Emergency Operations Center, giving frantic reports of people shot outside of Fisher’s Hardware Store. More than half of the callers took the time to explain that Nathan Bailey had been there, but that he hadn’t done the shooting.
In the command van, Petrelli hovered over Murphy’s shoulder as they watched the drama unfold live on television. At first, the sheriff was pleased with news of the arrest. Then he saw the strange uniform and watched two voters fall to the ground, and he knew right away that Michaels had been right all along. He also knew that all of his deputies were out of position, setting up a trap for the Bailey boy at the Lewis and Clark Memorial.
He issued orders for the dispatcher to move all units in the direction of the shooting, then countermanded them a minute later when he realized that Nathan was leading the chase toward the square.
Michaels considered the possibility that the first shot was a backfire. At the sound of the second report, he knew better. He drew his S&W snub-nose and took off in that direction.
It wasn’t until he saw the commotion on the street that he noticed two helicopters hovering low about a block ahead. He took a few seconds to hang his gold shield in his suit coat pocket, then sprinted toward the action.
God, it was hot!
Steadman was pissed. No one seemed to know what was going on. First he was told to set up the sniper’s post, then he was told to break it down, then he was told to set it up again. Shots had been fired, yet no one was authorized to leave their posts. Murphy insisted on commanding things himself, but he couldn’t make a damned decision.
From his position, Steadman couldn’t tell where the shots had been fired, so he followed Michaels with his scope, having to move from the front window to the side window to track his progress. The range had changed, though, and he couldn’t keep focus in the scope, so he looked away to get oriented to the full range of vision.
Steadman’s heart skipped a beat when he saw a filthy, tattered boy fitting Nathan Bailey’s description dart into his field of view. A uniformed cop he didn’t recognize was only a few steps behind.
He brought the rifle up into position and hurriedly adjusted the scope to the new range.
Nathan tried to speed up, but there was nothing left in his legs. He willed them to pump faster, and they would for a few steps, but they had gotten clumsy. He felt himself start to trip three times, and was able to recover, but he knew he’d lost valuable distance. The same heavy stride he’d heard in the apartment building was drawing steadily closer, and there was nothing he could do about it.
People all recognized him now as they jumped out of his way to avoid a collision. He didn’t have enough wind in his lungs to ask anyone for help, not that they would have given it anyway.
“That boy is a fugitive!” Pointer bellowed from behind him.
“Stop him!”
A huge high school kid wearing a football jersey emblazoned with a big “78” did just that, stepping in front of the boy and catching all of his momentum with his left arm. It was much easier than stopping quarterbacks, he thought.
Nathan didn’t have the strength left to fight the football player. When he felt Pointer yank him back by his shirt collar, he knew that he was dead. He swung wildly with his fists as he was spun around, but stopped when a powerful backhand caught him square in the face. He heard a snap as his nose broke, and his vision disappeared in a blur of tears and blood.
Action News caught it all, in extreme close-up. Alone in his apartment, Billy Alexander covered his eyes and cried.
Denise Carpenter wished she didn’t have to be on the radio anymore. “Oh, Jesus, no,” she pleaded. “It can’t end this way. Someone has to help that poor kid.”
Warren slowed his stride when he saw Nathan plunging through the crowd toward him, relieved that he was still alive, though the terror in the boy’s eyes told him that danger was right on his heels. He remembered Nathan telling him that the killer was a cop, and so he was. In a Braddock County uniform, no less!
The kid in the football jersey came out of nowhere, and really fucked things up. Before Warren could react, Pointer had wrapped a forearm around the front of Nathan’s throat and had begun to drag him off.