Deadfall (20 page)

She hit the fire door with all her strength. It arced out of her way. One foot hit a small concrete stoop, and she tumbled into the dirt beyond. Dillon crashed down with her. She rolled and rose, stopping only when the barrel of a gun pressed into her head.

26

The moment Declan turned
away from his fallen comrade, Hutch rose from his position and sprinted across a dirt road toward a big brick building. He was pretty sure that it was from here Declan and his gang had emerged. He angled away from Provincial Street toward the rear of the building. An explosion ripped at the world behind him, not near enough to be a strike on the position he had just left. Either Declan had aimed at a place from which he
thought
Hutch had shot or had aimed randomly, hoping to get lucky. Hutch took this to mean Declan had not seen him bolt for the other building. He figured he had only seconds to take cover in the shadows before Declan felt safe enough to search for him again.

He still didn't know what Declan was using to find his prey and shoot at it, but he was pretty sure Terry's suspicions were close: something was in the sky. The slapping feet of Terry and Phil pursued him. He hit the corner of the building, spun, and slammed his back against the rear wall. Terry tumbled into the dirt, scrambled into the shadow at the edge of the building, and stood. Hutch waited for Phil . . . and waited.

“Where's Phil?”

“I thought he was right behind me.”

Hutch peered around the corner, back toward where he had been. The explosion he had heard had taken out the opposite rear corner; Declan had guessed wrong. He could barely make out Phil standing out of the moonlight behind the building.

“He's back at the other building,” Hutch informed Terry.

“What's he doing there?”

“Just standing in the shadow. I think he hesitated to run until it was too late.”

“It is,” Terry agreed. “We've used all the time your distraction bought us.”

Terry leaned around the corner and patted the air in front of him, hoping Phil understood to stay. He thought he saw the man nod his head.

“So, one down?” he asked.

“Not really. I got him in the leg.”

“All that screaming for a leg shot?” They could still hear Bad moaning in the street.

Hutch pulled an arrow from the quiver, held the broadhead up to Terry. Unlike the simple aluminum-tipped arrows kids shoot at day camp, this thing was like four triangles of razors designed to come together a half inch from a chiseled tip. Hutch indicated the smaller two of the triangular razors.

“These are called bleeders,” he said. “The more he moves, the more they're slicing. By the length of the shaft sticking out of his leg, I'd say it didn't go all the way through, and the only thing that would have stopped it was his bone.The power of the arrow probably snapped his femur. If an artery is cut, he could bleed out.”

“Let's hope for small favors,”Terry said.

“There's at least one other gunman,” Hutch said, “but I didn't see him.”

“Should we keep our eyes on the guy writhing in the street? Get his buddies when they come for him?”

“I don't think anybody's coming for him. At least not until we're gone.”

Terry scowled. “What do you mean, gone?”

Hutch shrugged. “Dead, caught, out of the area.”

Bad yelled in agony. It might have been a word.

“Why wouldn't they rescue him?”Terry asked. “He might bleed out.”

“These guys don't strike me as all that altruistic. And I'm guessing that extends to one another.” He thought a moment. “Except maybe the young boy I told you about.”

Hutch looked along the rear of the building.Two bare bulbs under metal shades, set about nine feet high, cast weak yellow light on concrete pads below them. Because of the acute angle of Hutch's inspection, he could not see what he suspected: these lamps marked rear exits.They were situated near the ends of the long building, one only thirty feet from Hutch and Terry.

“Let's try to get inside.”

“'Bout time. But why this building?”

“I think this is where they're holed up. This is their headquarters. If we're going to find anything to help us, it'll be here.”

He stepped around Terry, then jogged into the anemic light. He jabbed his bow at the bulb and shattered it. The door was metal, dinged and scuffed—and utterly devoid of entry hardware. No handle, no deadbolt housing. He noted an illuminated doorbell on the wall beside it, and a peephole at a low eye level in the center of the door. If the administrators desired visitors through this door, they'd have to respond to the chime and let them in. Or, he thought, remembering the rec center in Morrison, Colorado, the small town of his childhood, they'd leave the door propped open during events, maybe as a matter of habit during the day, just to save people the trouble of walking around and to get a cross breeze.To satisfy himself, he tried to open the door with the tips of his fingers. No go. He trotted to the next pad, broke the light. Same security door. The killers had chosen well.

Terry came up beside him. “What now?” he asked.

“Gotta be a window somewhere,” Hutch said, but he knew there didn't “gotta be” anything. From what he saw on his short visit to the town's main street, the river was a few blocks from here. That meant this building was centrally located. It was also set farther back from the street than the businesses. Hutch hadn't been able to view its facade from the sidewalk or even the street, when he checked out the booted foot and leg. He'd bet that in the space between building and street, there'd be a flagpole or two, perhaps a bike rack, and a flight of wide steps leading to the front doors. He'd seen enough town halls to believe this was the one for Fiddler Falls, and since the community was too small to warrant this much floor space—even if it hosted the administrative offices, fire station, police station, and jail—it was mostly likely their rec center as well. Designers of multiuse buildings like this often avoided limiting potential uses by making them big boxes without windows—or at most, with windows high up near the ceilings.

Checking for accessible windows meant only peering around the corner, so that's the direction they headed. Gunfire rang out, and they ducked. It had been muffled, maybe far off. They heard it again and realized it was coming from inside the building.Terry reached behind him and pulled out his pistol.

“What are you going to do with that?” Hutch asked.

“Better than pointing my finger at someone.”

Hutch said, “That's not—”

The fire door beside them burst open, and two people spilled out. They tripped off the pad and into the dirt. A woman and child.Terry darted out, holding the pistol in two hands. As the woman clambered to rise, he pressed the barrel into the side of her head.

“Hold it,” he said.

The fire door banged violently against the outside wall and swung shut, too fast for Hutch to grab it.

Keeping his eyes on the woman, Terry asked Hutch, “Is this the girl you said?”

“No. I don't—”

The moonlight made the whites of her eyes seem radiant. They were wild eyes, rolling to take in everything at once—take it in and measure it against options, possibilities, actions. She had worked fear and panic into a rope of determination, but it was fraying.

Panting like a swimmer saved from certain drowning, the woman said, “Don't shoot. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. The boy's okay. Please . . .”

“Please,” the child echoed.

Terry gazed at Hutch, confused. Hutch swept forward and picked up the boy.

The boy let out a scared, frustrated whine.

“Shhh,” Hutch soothed. He stepped back into the shadows.

“No . . . please . . .” the woman said, reaching out for the child.

“Get her out of the moonlight,” Hutch said. “Hurry.”To the boy, he whispered, “It's okay. My name's Hutch.What's yours?”

The child searched Hutch's eyes, then said meekly, “Dillon.”

“Nice to meet you, Dillon. Is that your mom?”

Dillon nodded.

Terry had shoved the gun into the back of his pants and was helping the woman to her feet.

As he did, Hutch said, “Ma'am, we're not going to hurt you.We're here to help.”

Her open expression of hope, of not wanting to hope in vain, plucked a chord of sympathy in him.

“Are there people here trying to hurt you?”

She nodded. Her hair hung in dirty strings over her face. She pushed it back, hooking it behind her ear. “They kept us in a storage room.They killed . . .” Her eyes found her son. She changed direction. “I thought they were going to . . . they have others . . . the whole town . . .”

Terry guided her into the strip of shadows.

Two more shots rang out, louder than the ones before. Holes appeared in the exit door.

“They're after us,” she said to Hutch's shocked expression. “A girl. They held us hostage.We got out. I . . . I hit a boy. Knocked him cold. I think they're the only ones left in there.”

A girl. Hutch could not know if she was the one he had seen in the Hummer. In fact, the group that had pursued him could be only a small contingent of a much larger force.Why hadn't he considered that before? Wouldn't it take more than the half dozen people he'd encountered to take over a town? No, he rationalized, not with the cannonthing they had at their disposal.

Hutch assessed the situation. Someone with a gun was about to burst through a door they were standing beside. There was no way to block it. They couldn't run across the parking lot because doing so would expose them to Declan and his weapon. The only thing he could think of . . .

“Around the corner,” he said. “Go!”

But before anyone moved, the door banged open. The Hummer girl leaped through the opening. She landed in a crouch.The pistol in her hand seemed bigger than her head, both of which—the pistol and her head—were pointing toward the second rear exit, away from Hutch and the others. Pivoting at the hips, she swung her outstretched arm and the pistol in an arc that would eventually reach them.

The woman—Dillon's mother—rushed past Hutch. He reached for her, but she was gone. She hit the girl in a full-body tackle that knocked them both off the concrete pad and into the dirt. The pistol pinwheeled into the parking lot, its nickel plating sparkling in the moonlight.

Hutch reached out and grabbed the door before it could swing shut again. He glanced in, down a long corridor. Empty . . . for now. He closed the door until it was opened only enough to accommodate his fingers.

The two women rolled toward the gun.Terry shot out, scooped it up. He backpedaled away from the tumbling fighters. He pointed the pistol, trying to keep it aimed at the girl.

“Terry!” Hutch called. Hutch shook his head no. It would be too easy for Terry to shoot the wrong person, and even if he could hit the girl, Hutch wasn't so sure they wanted to. She was with killers, a part of them; she had been shooting at the woman and her son. No doubt she was troubled and possibly evil. But she was so young. He could not fathom killing a person that age and ever being able to look at his own reflection again. If he had seen her kill, then maybe. But he hadn't. Not yet.

Something rolled out of the girl's hand: a grenade!

“Terry!” Hutch yelled. Then he recognized the object as a gray walkie-talkie. His heart came out of his throat—but only a little.The communication device could prove as devastating as a grenade. Had she used it before exiting the building? Were the men even now converging on their location? Was Declan positioning his cannon on them at that moment?

The girl's small, tight fists hammered at the woman.They pounded against her face, her neck, her ribs.The woman gave it right back. She swung wide, roundhouse punches at the girl's head. Her knee rammed into the teen's hip and upper thigh. Again and again.

27

Dillon did not need to see
his mother fighting this girl. Hutch turned the boy in his arms away from the sight.

“Terry,” he said. He inclined his head at the combatants. “Do something.”

Terry approached them as hesitantly as he would have a stick of sweating dynamite.

Hutch backed into the corridor. He saw a wedge of wood on the floor—the doorstop he suspected they used to keep the place from getting stuffy and to allow entry from the back parking lot.

“You okay to walk?” he asked Dillon. He set him down and glanced out at the ongoing fight. Then he slipped the wedge between the door and the jamb as the door closed on it. He guided Dillon along the corridor. The woman had said she thought the girl and the boy she'd knocked unconscious were the only ones left in the building, but he didn't want to find out the hard way she was wrong. He whispered, “What's up this way, do you know?”

“An office . . . the room we were locked in . . .”

All the doors along the corridor were set into the right-hand wall. Hutch assumed the other wall separated the corridor from the big gymnasium-type room he believed was this building's
raison d'être
. He walked with Dillon to the first door and peered in. It was a break room with kitchen counters and cabinets, a refrigerator, microwave, sink, and one long table surrounded by plastic chairs. Hutch hoped to find where the killers had stashed the items confiscated from the townsfolk—satellite phones, weapons. Evidently, that place was somewhere else. He wondered if they would have time to check each room before Declan's gang returned.

“The next room is where they kept us,” Dillon said.

“Let's get the others before we go on.”

They took a step toward the rear door when an explosion knocked them off their feet. Hutch was momentarily disoriented. A chorus of voices came to him—an indistinct mumble punctuated by screams. He got to his hands and knees and shook the echoing blast out of his head.The voices were coming through the wall: Hutch suddenly realized why this building was Declan's headquarters and where all the townsfolk had gone.