Blindside (31 page)

More movement sounded from within the flat. Irvine held her breath.

‘Does that mean you’re not armed?’ a man’s voice shouted from somewhere down the hall. ‘That there’s an ARV on the way?’

‘Mr Butler?’ Irvine said loudly.

‘How’s your partner doing?’

‘He’s alive.’

‘Pity. But I can fix that, you know.’

She heard him moving again. It sounded closer than the first time but she couldn’t be sure. Armstrong reached out with his good hand and tugged at Irvine’s sleeve. She looked at him. He pointed behind her. Irvine turned her head and saw an aluminium baseball bat resting against the wall by the bed. Self-defence for the criminal fraternity.

She stood and backed away from the door, reaching down to grab the handle of the bat. She went forward again and stood beside the doorway with her back against the wall. Her breathing felt hot and shallow, as though she couldn’t get enough oxygen into her lungs. Sweat formed on her forehead and her heart thumped loudly in her chest.

Irvine put both hands on the handle of the bat and raised it in front of
her. She saw that it shook in her unsteady hands, adrenalin buzzing through her system.

She bent her knees and pulled the bat around to the side, readying herself to swing at anyone who appeared in the doorway.

‘You’re out of options, Butler,’ Irvine shouted.

She heard him laughing.

‘I think you’re the one without options.’

The door frame splintered above Irvine as two bullets ripped into it. She turned her head away from it, feeling wood splinters bite at her cheek and head. She held that position as another shot sounded, the bullet thudding into the plaster of the wall outside the door.

He’s trying to shoot me through the wall
.

‘You counting bullets?’ Butler shouted.

She had not been. Tried to remember how many times he had fired now.

‘Don’t bother,’ he called out. ‘I’ve got plenty more.’

The woman who had gone outside was still screaming. Irvine thought that she heard distant sirens. Then nothing. Maybe she had imagined it.

Three more shots sounded, the plaster of the wall outside exploding under their impact.

Irvine looked at the window. It was front-facing. She could climb out and lower herself down, dropping the rest of the way. There was a risk she might break an ankle or leg in the drop and she would be a sitting target for Butler. Plus it would mean leaving Armstrong there alone. She decided against it.

Where’s that damned ARV?

14

The pick-up truck and sedan stopped outside Union Station at the north end of Seventeenth Street in Downtown Denver. The big sign on the building – ‘Travel By Train’ – loomed above them.

It was close to four in the morning.

The driver of the truck got out and walked across the road. He looked down the street, three blocks from the diner at the corner of Market Street where Raines was going to meet Matt Horn. There was little traffic on the streets and the air was cool on his skin.

The man went to the sedan where the driver’s window slid down silently.

‘So?’ the driver of the sedan asked the other man.

‘He said we wait.’

‘Then what?’

‘He’ll call when it’s time. When he’s about to move.’

The sedan driver nodded, looking past the other man and down the street to the diner.

‘After that we go in shooting?’

The pick-up driver nodded. ‘Everyone is a target.’

‘Just the way it should be.’

‘Okay, we can’t wait here. It’s too close to the diner. The Feds will be scoping the place out and probably holing up somewhere nearby.’

The sedan driver nodded.

‘Let’s park up somewhere else. Not too far. We need to be close when it goes off.’

The pick-up driver went back to his vehicle and got inside. He grabbed a baseball cap from the floor and pulled it on.

‘Let’s go find somewhere to hang. Get some sleep,’ he said.

His passenger looked at him solemnly.

‘What?’ the driver asked.

‘We’re really doing this? I mean, we could get out of this now. Before, you know …’

‘Chain of command. And we never leave a man behind.’

‘We’re not at war.’

‘Yeah, we are.’

15

Irvine’s thigh muscles started to shake from the effort of holding her position at the door. She eased back up and shook her legs to loosen the muscles.

‘You’re doing fine,’ Armstrong told her from the floor.

She looked down at him. He looked alert. Kind of.

‘You okay?’ she asked.

He held his injured hand up, dripping blood on to the carpet.

‘Right,’ Irvine said. ‘Sorry.’

Armstrong smiled. Or, at least, that’s what it looked like he was trying to achieve.

Irvine whipped her head around at the sound of more movement down the hall. Four shots sounded in quick succession, blasting through the door frame. Irvine threw a hand up to shield her eyes from the splinters.

Butler made his move.

Irvine heard the sound of his feet running. Coming at her.

She stepped into the doorway and swung the bat high. She knew from his army records that Butler was around six feet tall.

Her aim was good. The timing a little off.

Butler was almost past the door when Irvine completed her swing. The tip of the bat caught him on the ear and sent him thumping into the opposite wall. He stayed on his feet, dazed, and swung the gun round at Irvine.

She ducked and fell into the room as the wall where she had been standing evaporated, showering her and Armstrong in dust.

She threw the baseball bat full force out into the hallway.

Butler put a protective arm up in front of his face and fired again into the doorway.

Irvine closed her eyes and felt the snap of the bullets as they passed through the air beside her head, thinking:
Now he’s got us
.

The sound of the gunfire stopped.

Irvine heard Butler’s footsteps as he ran down the stairs and outside. A gunshot sounded and the woman’s screaming stopped. Other people shouted and screamed.

Irvine grabbed her mobile from the floor and went to the window in time to see Butler get into a car and drive off, the tyres screeching as he floored the accelerator.

This time she was sure she heard sirens.

16

They got up at five-thirty with a wake-up call from the hotel. Cahill picked up the phone in a daze and said hello before he realised it was automated. He grunted, slammed the phone down and went for a shower.

Logan got up straight away and opened the curtains because he knew that if he stayed in bed he would doze off again. He’d slept fitfully, his stomach flip-flopping at the thought of what the morning to come might hold for them. He boiled the kettle and used a sachet of branded coffee. Drank it strong and black.

Cahill spent a brief five minutes in the bathroom getting dressed then came out. Logan went to the bathroom and sank to his knees at the toilet, jettisoning the coffee and what was left of the food he ate yesterday into the bowl. He hacked out a cough when his stomach settled.

‘You shouldn’t go,’ Cahill told him, standing in the door of the bathroom and pulling his shirt over the holster fixed to his belt.

Logan stood and went to the sink to brush his teeth, knowing that the bitter taste in his mouth would persist no matter what he did.

‘I’m fine,’ he told Cahill, not sure if he meant it himself.

Cahill stayed at the door, flattening his hair with his hands.

‘I’m scared too,’ he told Logan.

Logan stopped brushing his teeth and looked at Cahill. He looked the same as always.

‘I’ve learned how to deal with it, that’s all.’

Logan finished brushing and rinsed his mouth.

‘Did you used to get nervous before?’ Cahill asked. ‘I mean, going into court or whatever?’

‘Different thing.’

‘Then you did?’

‘Of course I did. But there was no risk of me getting shot and killed, was there?’

‘Did you throw up the first few times?’

Logan didn’t answer.

‘Look, I’m not trying to embarrass you, Logan.’

‘I know what you’re doing. It won’t change how I feel right now.’

‘I’m only going to let you go with me if I can be sure you’re okay.’

Logan looked at his friend for a moment.

‘I’m going with you.’

Cahill nodded and went back to the main part of the room.

Cahill insisted that they eat something and walk down to check out the area around the diner. All that they could find in the room were a couple of biscuits so they shared them, Logan glad that he was able to keep them down.

‘Put on a jacket that you can pull down over your belt to hide your gun,’ Cahill told Logan. ‘Don’t want to be too obvious.’

Logan fitted the holster to his belt and when he had that in place around his waist he grabbed a light jacket and pulled it on. It hung long enough and loose at his waist. Cahill wore something similar.

‘Follow my lead,’ Cahill said. ‘If it gets nasty, shoot to kill.’

Logan nodded, his jaw muscles bunching as he clenched his teeth.

‘Try not to hit the Feds. Or the cops.’

Cahill smiled. Logan couldn’t manage one in return.

It was six-thirty. Ninety minutes to go.

17

The armed response unit screeched to a stop outside the flat, followed by a traffic car which had been in the area and responded to the call.

‘In the building,’ Irvine shouted at the armed police as they got out of their car. ‘Officer shot upstairs.’

She had time to see the body of the woman who had run from the flat lying on the grass. She had fallen face down after being shot, exposing the ugly exit wound in her back where the bullet had torn out of her after destroying her insides. Blood had soaked into the grass.

The driver of the traffic car, a powerful BMW, opened his door. Irvine shook her head and ran towards him waving him back into the car.

‘No. I’m coming with you. Let’s go.’

She got in the rear of the car and told them to go, pointing in the direction she had seen Butler drive off.

The cop in the front passenger seat got on the radio and asked for aerial support. He gave his position to the dispatcher, talking in short bursts.

Irvine tried to breathe, put her hand against her chest and felt her heart hammering inside.

She closed her eyes and listened to the radio chatter: more cars on their way to join the pursuit and then a voice from the helicopter. It was already in the air overhead. At the first report of an officer shooting, every spare resource had been deployed.

When she opened her eyes again they were racing down a ramp to join the eastbound carriageway of the M8 motorway. The passenger turned to look at her.

‘You okay?’

She nodded, not trusting herself to talk in a steady voice.

The helicopter pilot’s voice came on the radio telling them that Butler’s car was about a half-mile ahead of them. Irvine saw the speedometer press on past a hundred.

She realised that she didn’t even have her seatbelt on, grabbed at it and took three attempts to click it into place.

‘There he is,’ the driver said, pointing at a car weaving in and out of the traffic up ahead.

‘Boy doesn’t have the power to outrun us,’ his partner added.

He got on the radio and alerted all other cars to their exact location. Activated the lights and siren. It was louder than Irvine remembered.

Cars in front of them started to slow and pull out of their way and they gained quickly on Butler. He was pulling the car recklessly across the road, almost colliding with a big four-by-four.

‘He’s going to get someone killed,’ Irvine shouted.

‘So long as it’s only him,’ the driver replied.

They passed another on-ramp and Irvine saw two more police cars with their lights flashing get in line behind the car she was in.

They pulled to within fifty yards of Butler.

We’ve got this guy now, she thought.

He swerved hard towards the outside lane to avoid a car slowing ahead of him. Didn’t quite make it.

The rear panel of his car clipped the back of the other one. It sent Butler’s car spinning through the central barrier and into the path of a truck on the opposite carriageway.

Irvine watched smoke billow from the truck’s tyres as the driver slammed on his brakes. Thought she saw Butler’s face looking back at her.

Then the car was obliterated.

18

Irvine was sitting with her legs out of the rear door of the traffic car when an unmarked car drew up on the stretch of motorway that had been closed to deal with the accident. The place was crawling with emergency service vehicles and personnel. Irvine looked over and saw Liam Moore and Paul Warren get out of the car. She raised a hand and they walked over to meet her.

‘How’s Kenny doing?’ Warren asked. ‘I was told he got shot but didn’t get the details.’

‘He lost two fingers,’ Irvine said, holding up her hand and touching her own fingers. ‘Otherwise he should be fine, I think. I didn’t have time to wait around to find out.’

‘Butler was waiting for you when you got to the flat?’ Moore asked.

‘He must have been hiding out there after what he did to the accountants.’

‘What about the women at the flat?’ Moore asked.

He looked around at the carnage on the road and shook his head.

‘One dead for sure. Touch and go if the other one will make it. Both shot.’

‘Jesus,’ Warren said, shaking his head. ‘What a psycho.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Irvine said.

‘You don’t look so good,’ Moore told her.

‘Thanks. I feel as good as I look.’

She tried to smile at her own joke. Didn’t succeed. Couldn’t seem to get her muscles to do anything that she wanted. The constant chatter from the car’s radio sounded like white noise buzzing in her ears.

‘Let me get someone to drive you home,’ Moore said.

She nodded and rested her chin on her hands. Didn’t have the energy to know how she felt about it all now that it was over. Tears welled in her eyes and she wiped at them, unashamed to do so in front of Moore and Warren.