Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3) (31 page)

Two
more punches opened a gash in his face.

He
doggedly slammed Cooper’s hand into the wall again, willing himself to ignore
the beating he was taking.

This
time he felt the man’s fingers splay open. The gun clattered to the floor,
seemingly forgotten by Cooper as he continued his vicious assault on Mike’s
face.

Mike
had had enough. He loosened the muscles in his legs and dropped immediately, disregarding
the pain radiating through the left side of his head. His left eye was nearly
swollen shut but that was irrelevant because so much blood had flowed into it
he couldn’t see anything, anyway.

But his
right eye was just fine – so far – and through it Mike could see
the Cooper’s gun where it landed and then taken one big bounce toward the door.
He crashed down onto his hands and knees and scrabbled after the weapon just as
Cooper/Amos kicked out viciously, catching Mike in the side of the head and
sending him sprawling onto his side on the dirty tile floor.

He
managed to grasp the gun as he was being kicked, and in one smooth motion, Mike
rolled onto his back, squinting through his now rapidly swelling right eye, aiming
carefully down Alton Ferriss/Wesley Krupp.

But no
one was there.

Ferriss
had anticipated Mike’s move the moment Cooper’s gun fell, and he had dropped to
the floor as well. Now, with his gun aimed at empty air, Mike felt the cold deadly
muzzle of Ferriss’s Glock as the FBI agent shoved it into the side of his head.

“Not
one fucking move,” Ferriss/Wesley said, his voice low and hard and furious. “Drop
it right now, or the last thing you ever see will be my smiling face.”

“Can’t
even see that,” Mike said as he released his hold on the weapon. For the second
time in a matter of seconds, it clattered to the floor. “Too much blood and
swelling, if you hadn’t noticed. I might as well be blind.”

The
statement was close to being true, with his left eye useless and the right one
swelling as well. But that eye wasn’t completely closed. He could still see –
sort of – through a tiny slit, like a suspicious homeowner lifting one
slat and peering through a drawn set of window blinds.

It
wasn’t much, but it was all he had left. Maybe he could convince the brothers
he couldn’t see at all and then take some kind of action if an opportunity
presented itself. The crazy bastards hadn’t shot him yet, surprisingly, and
until they did, he wasn’t about to give up.

Cooper/Amos
bent down and grabbed his gun off the floor, glaring at Mike as he did so. He
was breathing heavily, the air whooshing audibly in and out of his lungs as he
tried to recover from Mike’s shoulder to the gut, and Mike almost smiled.

Any
sense of satisfaction disappeared, though, as Cooper/Amos shoved the barrel of
his gun between Mike’s eyes. “Think you can find anyone else to put a gun to my
head?” Mike said drily. “I’m sure there’s room for one more. Barely.”

“Shut up,”
Cooper snapped. “Man, am I gonna enjoy this.”

Mike
had the crazy thought that maybe the two lunatics would shoot one another as
they were blowing his brains out. Their weapons weren’t quite pointed at each
other, but he could always hope for a ricochet.

Then
Ferriss/Wesley said, “Amos, we don’t have time for this.”

Cooper/Amos
hesitated and Ferriss continued. “That chick officer got away, which means any
minute now we’re going to have more company than we can handle. If we’re still
fussing around with one lawman who’s only trying to do his job when the cavalry
comes, we may not be able to finish what dipshit over there started so long
ago.”

Cooper
turned a black gaze in the direction of Healy, who was still cowering behind
the interrogation table. Ferriss continued, “Mr. Small Town Police Chief’s
helpless now, he can’t hurt us. Let’s stay focused and get this over with.”

For a
long moment nothing happened, and Mike feared Cooper/Amos was going to pick
this moment to finally disobey his brother. Then the pressure of the cold steel
barrel against his forehead vanished as Cooper pulled his gun away, and he
muttered bitterly, “You are one lucky son of a bitch, you know that, lawman?”

Don’t answer,
Mike thought,
but before he could stop himself, he said, “Somehow I don’t feel all that lucky
right now.”

To his
surprise, Cooper/Amos barked out a laugh, and then Mike felt himself being
jerked to his feet. “Get back in your chair,” Ferriss/Wesley ordered, shoving
him hard.

Mike
stumbled backward and bounced off the table before falling heavily into the
chair. He could feel his right eye continuing to swell, and knew he would soon
be as blind as a bat. He was lucky to be alive, but any chance of disarming the
two men and preventing the execution of Jackson Healy – and probably
himself, once the outlaws had completed the job they came here to do –
was slipping away.

And he
was out of ideas.

34

Sharon raced up the steps and
burst through the doorway leading to the police station’s main floor. “Gordie!”
she screamed, to get the attention of the older man she assumed would still be
sitting at the dispatcher’s station across the big room.

But
Gordie Rheaume had already started across the floor. He had made it nearly to
the door, and now he grabbed Sharon’s arm to slow her down and said, “What the
hell’s going on down there? Did I hear gunshots? Is anyone hurt?

She
ignored the question and snapped, “Call the State Police right now! Tell them
we have a hostage situation inside the station and we need a negotiator and
tactical response unit immediately. Then get every Paskagankee cop in here,
even the ones on their day off. We need people and we need them now!”

Gordie
stared at her for a moment, his grey eyes watery and uncertain. “Hostage
situation,” he repeated. “How could the prisoner have gotten the jump on Chief
McMahon AND the two FBI agents?”

“It’s
not the prisoner,” Sharon said. “It’s the FBI guys. They’re holding Mike and
the prisoner at gunpoint and I’m afraid they’re about to kill them both. That’s
enough questions, make the calls now!”

She waited
long enough to see Gordie hurry back to the dispatchers’ station and punch the
line connecting the Paskagankee station to the Maine State Police unit in Orono.
Then she ran to the weapons locker against the far wall, unlocked it, and
removed a Mossberg 590 riot gun and shells. She loaded the weapon quickly,
hefted it, and retraced her steps toward the back of the room. Just before
reaching the stairway she ducked into the chief’s office and grabbed a master
key off a small pegboard hanging behind Mike’s desk. Then she darted out of the
office.

Gordie
looked up in alarm and removed the phone from his shoulder. “Sharon!” he
shouted. “You can’t go down there alone. Wait for backup! The Staties are on
their way and I’m talking to Shankman right now. He was relatively close on
patrol and will be here inside of two minutes!”

Sharon ignored
him. She had by now reached the stairway leading to the basement and the interrogation
room. She paused just long enough to look back at Gordie Rheaume, who had
accumulated more service time with the Paskagankee Police Department than all
of the current patrol officers combined. Worry was etched on his craggy face.

“I
can’t wait, Gordie,” Sharon said, locking eyes with the kindly dispatcher. “Two
minutes will be too late. In fact, I might already be too late.” She pictured
Mike lying in a pool of blood and pounded down the steps.

At the
bottom of the stairs she sprinted the length of the hallway. Reaching the door,
she threaded the master key into the lock with shaking hands. Without time to
develop a workable plan and with no backup, she was counting on the element of
surprise and the superior firepower of the Mossberg shotgun to force the two
rogue FBI men to stand down.

Assuming
they hadn’t already killed Mike and Jackson Healy.

She
slid the key home and it rattled in the metal lock, sounding to Sharon like the
chatter of machine-gun fire.

She
cringed and sank to her knees, hoping that her previous strategy would work one
last time and the slugs would whistle over her head when the men started
shooting at her. She turned the knob as quietly as she could and eased the door
open slightly, then took a deep breath, steadied the shotgun in both hands, and
drew back her foot to kick the door open fully.

But
before she could, two nearly simultaneous gunshots blasted from inside the room,
the sound heavy and piercing even through the mostly-closed metal door.

She
spit out a curse and kicked at the door, her heart refusing to acknowledge what
her brain was telling her: that she was too late.

35

“It’s been a long road,” FBI
Special Agent Alton Ferriss/Wesley Krupp said to Jackson Healy, who was yanking
and jerking on the handcuffs in a desperate but futile attempt to escape.
Healy’s skin was raw and bleeding from his efforts, but he didn’t seem to
notice. His eyes rolled wildly in his head and his ever-present body odor had
seemed to intensify in direct proportion to his panic.

“But
all things come to an end, even for someone who’s been alive for nearly two
hundred years.” Ferriss stepped around the table as he talked, moving next to
Healy. He rested his pistol lightly against the side of the prisoner’s head.

Agent
Cooper/Amos Krupp now flanked Healy on the other side. He had sidled carefully
past Mike’s chair, training his gun directly on Mike’s chest as he did so,
being careful to keep the weapon out of his reach. Mike thought briefly about
going for it anyway, despite the fact he could by now barely see.

The
endgame had clearly begun. Time had run out. Mike thought he might be able to
take Cooper down by standing suddenly and bringing the crown of his head
directly up under Cooper’s chin. With luck, he might stun the agent enough to
make a play for his gun.

But the
problem with this hastily devised plan was obvious. Ferriss would need only a
half-second to pull the trigger on Healy, and there would be no way Mike could
demobilize Cooper that quickly, even operating at one hundred percent, which he
was not.

So he
reluctantly allowed the man to pass, and now Cooper held his weapon against the
other side of Healy’s skull. The prisoner had stopped struggling and sat
completely still, breathing heavily but unwilling to move a muscle, as if the
act of doing so might cause one of the men to squeeze off a shot.

Mike tried
one last time to reason with the men. “Guys, don’t do this. You don’t have to
kill him. You don’t have to kill anybody. With me as a hostage, you can get out
of here safely and get away clean. I’m law enforcement, there’s no way SWAT or
anybody else is going to risk shooting me. As long as you have me, you’ll be as
safe as a baby in its mother’s arms.”

“Shut
up,” Cooper growled, swinging his weapon Mike’s way and then immediately returning
it to bear on Healy.

Ferriss
shook his head.
 
He seemed almost
sympathetic. “Haven’t you been listening? It’s not about getting away. It’s
about finishing what this traitor started a hundred and fifty years ago. We’re
not interested in getting away clean, dirty, or otherwise. We sickened of this endless
life long before you were born, and we want nothing more than to end this
goddamn curse.”

Ferriss/Wesley
Krupp looked at his brother. “Are you ready?”

Cooper/Amos
Krupp nodded. “I’m way past ready.”

Mike
could see what was coming, and he started to rise from his chair. He would have
to make a play for Cooper’s gun, it was the only option left, and—

--And
he heard what sounded like a key rattling in the door’s lock just as the two
FBI men fired their weapons in near-unison, the criss-cross effect of the two
9mm slugs ripping into Jackson Healy’s skull in a spray of blood, bone and
tissue. The nearly headless corpse slumped back in the seat, an obscene
splattering of crimson gore striking the dingy wall behind the table as if
tossed from a bucket.

Mike
froze in open-mouthed horror halfway between his seat and the now-dead prisoner
as Agent Cooper/Amos Krupp swiveled smoothly and trained his gun on Mike.

The
door burst open and he heard Sharon’s voice, loud and amped on adrenaline. She
shouted, “Everybody freeze!” and he watched as Agent Ferriss/Wesely Krupp
lifted his gun and pointed it at the door.

36

It was a perfect standoff.

Sharon
leveled the shotgun at Ferriss, who pointed his Glock back at her with steady
hands. Cooper held his weapon in a two-handed shooter’s grip aimed directly at
Mike, less than five feet away.

For what
felt to Sharon like a long time nothing happened.

The two
echoing gunshots seemed to reverberate much longer than they should have, the
sound trapped by the concrete walls of the small interrogation room. In her
peripheral vision, she could see the devastation: the corpse of Jackson Healy, his
head hideously misshapen and bloody. The gore littering the area around the body.
The unidentifiable gristle dripping off the clothing of the two assassins.