Deadlock (33 page)

Hutch's mind could hardly keep up with the situation. As Laura had, he had momentarily forgotten about the shooter two aisles over.

“Daddy!” Macie was leaning out from the spot where he had sent her. A car lay between them.

“No, baby, go back,” he said.

She ducked back between the cars, giving him a clear view of the wrecked taxicab. The man inside battered down the airbag and shoved his shoulder into the driver's door. It was crumpled and smashed up against the car it had struck. He saw Hutch looking and bared his teeth. The man's head mimicked a chicken's as he searched the interior for something—Hutch didn't have to be Stephen Hawking to figure out what.

Hutch pulled an arrow from the quiver and nocked it. He said, “Dillon, crawl under the car.” He nodded his head toward the sedan beside the XTerra. “Get Macie under there with you. Don't come out till I tell you. Got it?”

The boy dropped to the blacktop. He scrambled away, getting his entire body underneath the car. Hutch heard him calling to Macie.

The man inside the taxicab raised a pistol. Hutch saw the flash, a billow of smoke, and the windshield became opaque with cracks. Another shot and the glass fell away, cascading over the hood.

Hutch plucked at the bow's string. The arrow sailed into the glassless windshield opening. The man jerked his head sideways. The arrow pierced a headrest. A starburst of cracks appeared in the Plexiglas partition behind it.

The man glared at the eighteen inches of shaft and feathers vibrating a hand's-breath from his head. He disappeared beneath the dash. The passenger door swung open.

Hutch pulled out another arrow.

The man's feet appeared below the door.

Hutch positioned his fingers, raised the bow, and waited for a clean shot.

The soldier rose up behind the door, swinging his pistol over the window frame.

Hutch plucked the string back and—

The string snapped. The arrow pinwheeled into the air, sailing back over his shoulder. It happened in the field enough that most bow hunters carried extra strings.

But now? Now?

Behind a big pistol, the man at the car smiled and closed one eye.

Then man and car door exploded forward. Both flipped up and landed on the hood of a car that had plowed into them from behind. The door spun away as though it weighed nothing. The man hit the windshield, made a head-sized concavity in it, and kept tumbling—over the roof and out of sight.

The car screeched to a stop beside Hutch. Its tires coughed out smoke, which washed over the vehicle and drifted off. A single amber strobe flashed on the roof. Behind the glass of the driver's door an old black man looked as though he'd just been shot out of a cannon. A security company's patch had been sewn to the man's sleeve over his bicep.

The window slid down, and the man looked out at Hutch. He said, “You better be one of the good guys.”

FIFTY-THREE

“Get down!” Hutch said to the man in the security car.

“Wha—?”

Bullets pinged into the roof and took out the remaining amber strobe.

The security guard opened the door and spilled to the ground. He crawled to Hutch and said, “What the Sam Hill is happ'nin,' man?”

The machine gun kept firing—
pop-pop-pop . . . pop-pop-pop
—but Hutch couldn't see or hear what the bullets were hitting. Then they slammed into the cruiser's trunk, and Laura came crawling around the rear of the car. When she was close enough to be out of the gunman's line of sight, the gunfire stopped. She rolled onto her side and grabbed her shoulder. Her hand couldn't cover the swath of blood.

“Laura,” Hutch said. “Your shoulder.”

She bit her lip, but said, “Flesh wound.” Her eyes took on all the world's sorrows. “Hutch, Logan—”

“Larry told me.”

Their words came fast, rushing as they huddled closer together in front of the XTerra.

Laura frowned at the guard. “Charlie . . .”

“That your old man, the one with the machine gun?” the old man said, peering over the grille toward the gunman. “Hell's bells, woman, you should have told me!”

“Not my husband. These guys are professional soldiers,” Laura said.

Charlie shook his head. “Killers, not soldiers. Soldiers got more honor than what I seen here.”

She said, “You could have been killed.”

“No fooling. What's that guy
doing
?”

Hutch popped his head up. “Shooting from that van over there. I got a few shots at him. I think he was in contact with his buddy, the one you took care of. I don't know what he's going to do now that his backup is out of the picture.”

Charlie squatted low. “How many of them are there?”

“I saw two,” Laura said. “I think they're it.”

Charlie took in the bow. He said, “Haven't you ever heard you shouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight? I think that applies to a bow and arrow, too, my friend.”

Hutch nodded. “I'm better with this than I am with that.” He indicated the TMP at his feet.

“Whoa,” Charlie said. “Now you're talking.” He picked up the machine gun, pushed a button that released its magazine, looked into it, and tossed the magazine away. He pulled back on a small tab, which showed him the chamber. “Empty gun's worse than a knife or a bow,” he said.

“You know your way around those things?” Hutch asked.

“Two tours in 'Nam. Third Brigade, First Air Cavalry Division. Didn't have that weapon back then, but a gun's a gun, pretty much.”

“So you can shoot?” Laura said.

“With bullets I can.”

“How about that?” Laura said, pointing. The pistol the soldier had aimed at Hutch rested against the tire of the car under which Dillon and Macie hid; their wide faces peered out from the shadows.

“You kids stay right where you are,” Charlie instructed. He crawled a few feet, grabbed the gun. He checked it for ammo. He hefted it. “This I can use.”

“Hey!” The yell was muffled. It had come from
inside
the car.

Charlie and Hutch shared a startled expression. Crouched in front of the grille, Charlie wiggled like a cat about to pounce. He held the pistol in both hands.

Before he could spring up, Laura grabbed his shoulder. “It's one of the soldiers,” she said. “I got him tied up in the cargo area.”

“What?” Hutch said.

“I'll explain later.”

“Get me out of here,” the voice yelled. “Untie me. They're shooting at me!”

“Michael,” Laura yelled. “Stay down.”

Hutch looked at the van. He dropped down and scanned under the cars. “I don't see the gunman,” he said. “He might be out of the van, trying to get around to us.”

Charlie's head snapped around in all directions. He said, “Cops'll be here soon. I didn't have time to call it in myself, but I saw a lot of excited mouthin' into cell phones.”

“Shouldn't they already be here?” Hutch said. “I mean—” He realized only about three minutes had passed since the explosion. It seemed like ten times that.

“Airport's a few miles away,” Charlie said. “It's a bear getting here. You have to pass the lot, then circle back on the front road.”

Hutch snapped his head around. He swore. “He's on foot, I know it!”

“Wait, wait,” Laura said. “There.”

The man had reappeared above the door of the van. He lifted a black object and fitted it over his head. One of the helmets Hutch had seen at the motel.

Laura said, “Hutch, those helmets, I think they have all kinds of stuff that'll help him—”

“I know,” Hutch said.

“I don't like the looks of it, no matter what it does,” Charlie said. He rose straight up. Holding the pistol in his right hand, with his left bracing the butt of the gun, he raised it a foot in front of his face. Without pause he squeezed off a round.

The bullet struck the face mask—a white circle, dead center. The gunman's head snapped back. He grabbed the window frame to keep from toppling backward. He pulled himself up, shook off the shock, gave a final look at them, and slipped into the vehicle. The door shut.

Hutch slapped Charlie on the back. “Nice, man!”

Laura grabbed Hutch's arm. “Hutch, Logan might be in that van!”

Hutch felt a dumbfounded expression touch his features. His face tightened with determination. He brushed past Charlie and shot between the cars toward the gunman's vehicle.

“Hutch—” Laura called.

“Stay with the kids,” he said. Charlie fell in behind him. He reached the next aisle—still one away from the van. He cut across it diagonally, directly toward the van, which was pulling away. It headed for the back road, was already there.

Hutch slammed into a fender and ran between two cars. He reached the spot where the van had been. It turned right onto the back road, heading the opposite direction from the way Hutch had expected. Instead of going toward the exit, it accelerated the way it had been facing when it was parked—toward the destroyed Honda. Hutch reversed and ran between the parked cars, parallel to the back road.

He caught a glimpse of Charlie leveling the pistol off the roof, aiming at the speeding van. He waved at him.

“No!” he said. “Don't shoot! My boy's in there.” Of course he was. Where else would he be?

The van turned into the Honda's aisle, which was also where the XTerra was parked—the aisle with Laura and the kids.

Putting everything he had into his legs, Hutch pushed harder.

“Laura!” he yelled. “Run! Hide! Get away!” He didn't know what she should do, didn't know where she was.

The van picked up speed. It crashed into the upside-down taxicab, knocking it aside. But it didn't move enough for the van to get past. Its rear tires spun on the asphalt, generating plumes of smoke. Metal squealed. Stuck between the Corvette that boasted the Honda's engine as a hood ornament and the taxi, the van wasn't going anywhere.

As Hutch bolted around a car, into the aisle, the gunman kicked his door open and jumped out. He swung the machine gun and fired.

Hutch dived between two cars.

Hurrying, hunched over, Charlie came up behind him. He said, “Whaddaya want me to do?”

“If you can take the guy out without hitting the van, do it.”

They peered out. The driver was leaning into the van.

Logan
. What were the killers' orders? In the event of imminent capture, were they supposed to kill their hostage? Would Page consider that a victory? Tit for tat? Hutch's son for Page's?

“Wait! Wait!” he yelled at the gunman. “Just go! Don't hurt—”

The gunman stood. He threw the strap of a duffel bag over his head and pushed the bag behind him. He fired, hitting the bumper beside Hutch. He slammed his door, jumped and slid over the front end of the Corvette, and began running up the aisle.

The bag was big, loaded down—but large enough to hold a twelve-year- old boy? Could the man be strong enough to move that fast carrying so much weight?

Charlie pushed past Hutch. He reached the taxi—pushed into a parked car—and squeezed through. He tore after the soldier.

Hutch bolted for the van's rear doors. Locked. He looked in a window, cupping his hands around his face. For a moment he considered that another gunman waited inside, at that moment ready to fire through the glass. He could see nothing through the dark tinting. He beat his fist against the window. He turned to run around to the passenger side.

A single shot rang out. Then another. Charlie was shooting.

The machine gun returned fire.

Hutch skittered up to the van door. He could see the gunman now.

He was squatting down beside the body of his partner, his machine gun wavering back toward where Hutch knew Charlie must be. He draped the corpse over his shoulder and rose. Gun protruding straight out like a lineman's arm, he spun in a circle. Laying eyes on Hutch, he paused. He turned away, took a staggering step, got his balance, and darted away between two cars.

Hutch yanked the front door open. “Logan!”

Let him be alive.

He scrambled onto the seat. He pulled his feet up and pumped them forward, hopping into the space between the seats. He jumped into the back, squinting against the darkness, feeling, feeling. “Logan?”

The van was empty.

FIFTY-FOUR

Laura crouched beside the XTerra. The kids were still under the car beside it. The gunman had run past. Charlie was back the other way, exchanging fire. She stood to scope out the situation.

Now the gunman was running away, darting between cars. He carried a body over one shoulder. A duffel bag bounced against his back. He continually swung his face and machine gun around toward them.

Charlie came toward her at a fast clip. His eyes were on the gunman's. He held his pistol up, ready to squeeze off a shot.

As he passed, she grabbed his arm. “Don't,” she said.

He turned intense eyes on her. He looked at the man getting away. The gunman's head was just visible over the roofs of cars several aisles over.

Charlie lifted the pistol. “I can—”

“Don't,” she repeated. “He's leaving. Let him go.”

He stared at the retreating figure, almost longingly, she thought. He nodded and said, “Tail between his legs.”

She patted his shoulder. She slipped past him and went to the van. She leaned in, saw Hutch squatting in the rear. His head hung low.

“Hutch? Is—”

“He's not here.” His voice was flat, far away.

“I'm sorry.”

His breathing changed, and she thought he was crying, or trying not to.

Sirens reached her. They were in the distance, but growing louder. From the time she'd heard the explosion, seen the smoke from the backseat of the taxicab as it pulled into parking aisle S, no more than ten minutes had passed. So much had happened, so
fast
. She said, “We have to go.”