Hit and The Marksman (27 page)

Clay is furious. “How many bystanders you want to kill?”

Vickers glares murderously at her …

In the multi-story garage the street floor is all quiet now. Two cops by the toll booths. The don't notice when a side door softly opens. They can't see into those shadows, and aren't looking for it, but then—

—SMASH of sound as the motorcycle lays down rubber, screams around the backside of the toll booths, up over curbs, through a narrow pedestrian walkway, out onto the street as the two cops belatedly open fire …

On the street Radford whips out of sight around a corner, the cops cease firing, squad cars roar out of the garage in pursuit …

That afternoon the boulevards are totally coagulated with multiple lanes of afternoon rush-hour traffic: nothing moving. Gridlock. Horns honking, angry commuters shouting “Assholes!”

Police cars come up against the tangle of traffic and are stymied, as—

Radford on the motorcycle threads a swift bold path through narrow openings—going the wrong way between a couple of stopped trucks—disappearing …

The stalled police get out of their cars, stand on tiptoe and climb on top of the cars to search for the fugitive. They can't find anything. They look at one another in baffled dismay …

Two joggers trot by in running suits. They look curiously at all the police activity—and they laugh …

Finally the rest of the motorcycle squad begins to arrive. There's a lot of pointing and shouting. Helicopters swoop above the buildings, searching.

And nobody knows which way he went.

The helicopter that lands on the City Hall helipad has no official markings.

Vickers climbs out, fuming, followed by two business-suited FBI agents. He's snarling to them: “I don't believe these fuck-ups.”

Then, seeing the press approaching, Vickers composes his features into a semblance of a confident smile. The agents break trail for him through the crowd, in which Vickers is not happy to recognize newspaperman Steve Ainsworth. Cameras and microphones are shoved at Vickers. He hears a babble of ad-lib questions. He fires responses: “No, we haven't got him in some secret hiding place. That's ridiculous … Don't spread rumors, Christ's sake. We know of no conspiracy at this time. We've identified one suspect and we're looking for him.”

He escapes into the building.

It's a busy hive. Ringing phones. Whizzing printers. Talk. Clay issuing terse orders to a group of cops, including Dickinson. Beside her is Dr. Trong, still in his medical corps uniform. Vickers enters with the two FBI agents, again talking to them: “Armed and dangerous. If necessary, shoot on sight.”

Dickinson overhears this last. He swings toward Clay. “That mean we can shoot on sight?”

“No, you may not shoot on sight. You may not shoot at all unless it's to save a life … Any fool can shoot people. You'll get no answers out of him if he's dead.” She's looking pointedly at Vickers. He reacts. She takes a pace toward him. “On notice, Colonel. Homicide investigation. My turf.”

“You think this is a two-bit murder case? A very important international figure has been assassinated. We've got a world-class political flap—they've sent these gentlemen and a lot more like 'em from the FBI. We've got the State Department on our backs and the Joint Chiefs have their thumbs on the buttons … The President himself—”

“You'll have to wait on line. It's our jurisdiction.” Clay isn't giving an inch.

Vickers glares. Then he decides to defuse things. He puts an arm confidentially across Dr. Trong's shoulders. “Look, doctor, the man snipes at VIPs … He seems to have a little attitude problem.”

Dr. Trong politely moves away, out from under the Colonel's arm, showing distaste for Vickers' old-buddy nonsense.

Vickers continues to thrust: “This is the same clown that turned traitor and did a propaganda broadcast for Saddam's goons. Now obviously his elevator doesn't stop on all the floors. You were his shrink …”

Dr. Trong says, “That mean you want my freehand diagnosis? He was an unacknowledged POW in an Iraqi torture camp. They messed with his head. And he's got a bullet lodged in here.” He points to his own head. “Poor son of a bitch is a mess. If he was a horse you'd have to shoot him.”

“The man committed treason, Doctor. And now assassination on top of it.”

“You trained him to be a killer, Colonel.”

“I didn't train him to go on TV for the enemy.”

“The man had a head wound. Indescribable pain. He had no resistance left. Sure he broke. Tell me you wouldn't have.”

Clay tries to calm things. “Iraq's a few years ago. We're dealing with right here, right now.”

Dr. Trong says, “For some people the blood still hasn't dried.”

In an alley there's a trashing of cans, bottles, empty cartons. Under the mess lies a motorcycle, almost completely hidden. Radford huddles in darkness. His police uniform is dirty and mussed. He's far beyond exhaustion. He can hear an approaching police siren but it doesn't bestir him. The sound dopplers down and fades. Radford drags the two nightsticks into his lap and slowly his face changes—anger and the beginnings of resolve—as purposefully he weaves the nightstick lanyards together …

There's a loading bay behind a boarded-up store. Radford coasts the motorcycle to a stop, leaves it propped against the building and walks away, stumbling a bit, rubbing his head. He holds one nightstick, and the other swings from it. He's made himself a nutcracker.

Outside Anne's apartment court he waits, hidden by the wading pool. Nothing stirs.

Old instincts make him cautious. He moves forward like a soldier in a combat zone, from cover to cover … Finally he reaches Anne's apartment. He warily eases close to a window and looks in.

It's empty, silent. The furniture's still in there but the place has been cleared out. No personal belongings remain. There are no sheets on the bed.

It's puzzling; he tries to think it out. He isn't tracking too well. This was his last hope; now he doesn't know what to do. He stumbles with pain and exhaustion. Finally he moves away …

Across from the wading pool, in the opposite direction from Radford's earlier angle of approach, Harry and Gootch wait in hiding, armed. Gootch is complaining
sotto voce:
“How the hell'd he get away from that fat cop?”

Harry whispers, “Son of a bitch must be able to handle a dose that'd put an elephant into a coma. Maybe built up a resistance from those pain drugs he takes … Maybe we should've thought of that.” Now he sees something; reacts; stiffens. “We got him, Gootch!”

Because that's Radford across the court, cautiously poking his head out to search.

Harry lifts his gun to aim it.

But Radford is skittish and ducks back out of sight.

“Get the car,” Harry whispers, and heads toward Radford's corner while Gootch wheels back toward the street.

Radford, passing under a half-open casement window, catches a reflection in it of Gootch running toward the parked car, the same car in which Harry drove Radford to the shooting range. Alerted, Radford fades from view.

Harry runs to the corner of the building and eases past it for a look.

It's a mess of back yard fences and narrow passageways. The guy could've disappeared down any of them.

Harry knows they've lost him for now. “Shit.”

Fading with exhaustion Radford returns on foot to the loading bay behind somebody's shuttered store. The motorcycle's still here—well that's not much of a surprise; even a Neanderthal knows better than to steal a police bike. “Which makes me a little sub-Neanderthal,” Radford thinks, not amused, as he gets the motorcycle started and gently pulls away into a street—down which is rolling Harry's car.

Harry and Gootch are in it. They spot Radford at the same moment he spots them.

Radford peels away—just inches ahead of Harry's car. The bike and the car squeal away as if welded together … Harry tries to run down the motorcycle. Radford zigzags just in time. The car fishtails after him … Gootch in the car is shooting at Radford … This is a terrific high-speed pursuit through alleys and sidewalks until—

The river. A deep wide concrete channel, bridged by a tubular pipe the diameter of an oil drum. Radford's cycle roars up onto the conduit and zooms across the span—a spectacular high-wire balancing act …

Harry's car slides to a stop. Gootch savagely keeps pulling the trigger of his pistol but it's empty …

The motorcyclist flies off the far end of the pipe, slams down on the frontage road beyond, nearly falls over but then rights himself …

The two men glare in frustration as, across the viaduct, the cyclist disappears …

At sunset Radford rides the motorcycle gently around behind a gas station and stops. The place is closed up—deserted—its pumps taped off from the street. Construction equipment stands around, parked for the night. Radford dismounts, his face weary with pain in the sunset glow. He sags back against the wall, nearly passing out with the pain. His head lolls back and his eyes roll up …

In sudden bright sunshine we're in the desert. Barbed wire and bomb-damaged huts.

Watched by Charlie and several Kurdish prisoners, all of them manacled hand and foot, a uniformed Iraqi aims his rifle at Radford, who sits on the ground shaking his head stubbornly “no.” The Iraqi begins to squeeze the trigger. Charlie is horrified. The rifle fires … The bullet slashes a streak across Radford's temple. Blood spurts. Radford drops. Charlie turns his head away in anguish.

A small crowd of officials and techs is swarming around the inside of Radford's flophouse bedroom.

Dickinson is looking at the illuminated screen of his handheld computer—scrolling down from Radford's photograph (a fairly old one) past fingerprint boxes and vital statistics. “What's ‘C.W.' stand for?”

“Nothing,” Vickers says. “Just initials.”

“Kind of got shortchanged,” Commander Clay observes.

Vickers is glaring at Dr. Trong, who's looking around the room with curious interest. Vickers says, “It doesn't fit. You claim the guy's practically catatonic but he went through that building full of officers like a chainsaw.”

Dr. Trong says, “He was a natural athlete. Under pressure it must've come back. But that's the operative term—pressure. An assassin cares about something, even if it's only his own rage … That profile doesn't fit C.W. He barely exists. Barely feels. He doesn't want to hurt anybody. He just wants to be left alone.”

Clay says, “Somebody's robot, maybe? Wind him up and put a gun in his hand.” She's reading the label off a prescription sheet. “Pain meds. You prescribed this.”

“I did,” Dr. Trong agrees. “And he's about due for a refill. Look, Commander, this just doesn't fit his pattern. One thing he'd never tolerate is someone trying to use him again.”

Vickers snorts. “The man's a traitor and a murderer. I'm going to nail him.”

Clay says, “Yeah. Well good luck, Colonel.” Then, to Dickinson, “Walk me out.”

Outside in the night Clay and Dickinson walk toward a car. Clay hands the prescription slip to Dickinson; she says, “He forgot this. If he's run out, maybe he'll look for a street retailer.”

Dickinson takes the slip of paper and turns back; Clay gets in her car and drives off. That's when the reporter, Ainsworth, intercepts Dickinson. “What's really goin' down, you old hairbags?”

Dickinson waves the sheet of paper in front of the reporter's nose, then pockets it too fast for Ainsworth to make out what it is. “A clue,” Dickinson says smugly.

Ainsworth muses: “The federal agent and the lady cop—I see a story in that. I mean aside from the story everybody's covering. I could use a sidebar byline.”

“Get out of here, pest. No press.”

Ainsworth poises a stylus over the screen of his palm computer. “Chief of Detectives, Commander Denise Clay is a legend. In some quarters she is regarded as incorruptible and virtually superhuman. And now, into her previously unchallenged realm, we see a potentially explosive conflict in the arrival of a new outside authority …”

Dickinson turns and, walking away, says cheerfully, “Blow it out your bottom, huh?”

In the cafe kitchen, Don the waiter prepares a tray. Charlie fries burgers. From outdoors, Radford enters in his mussed police uniform. He's exhausted—haunted—in great pain. He carries the tied-together nightsticks: the nutcracker.

Don sees him, is galvanized—reaches for a handgun hidden in an ankle holster. Radford reacts—at first sluggish, but he expertly tosses the nutcracker. It tangles in Don's ankles and trips him. Radford is on top of him at once—disarms Don, recovers the nutcracker, clamps it tight around Don's wrist and squeezes. He can see in Don's face the agonizing pain this device causes.

“Move one inch, you're dead meat.”

Radford's voice is like a tumble of coal down a metal chute: the new authority in it is enough to convince any tough guy that he means what he says. Don sweats, and lies still …

Radford picks up Don's revolver—a compact hammerless pocket .38. Radford says to Charlie, “What's he doing with a piece?”

“Beats shit out of me. Ask him.”

Don says, faint with pain, “Police officer. Wallet …”

Radford yanks out Don's wallet and flips it open. Sure enough there's a police badge in it. “And you're undercover in Charlie's place here for—?”

“Uh—drug enforcement. Vice.”

“Try again.”

Don begins to regain his bravado. “That's my badge. You don't question me, Radford. I question you.”

Radford gives the nutcracker a twitch. It sends beads of pain-sweat to Don's forehead. But he's tough enough. “You ain't on the need-to-know list, C.W. I can't tell you shit. Even if I did, where would you take it? They got a federal fugitive warrant out on you—know what that means? Dead or alive. Like John fucking Dillinger.”