Pursuit (2 page)

“Due respect, sir. I got caught in the middle of this, but now that I'm here, we have what looks like a security guard down in the center of the mall. I'm fairly close to him, probably safer here than trying to make my way back out. Hold, please.”

Across the X shape of the concourse she saw movement. Behind the counter of a fast-food stand, a man with one arm hooked around the neck of a screaming boy. The man's other hand held a sawed-off shotgun.

“Still there, Lieutenant?”

“Just heard from my captain. Listen, Trooper, he wants you out of there. Now.”

“Tell him I don't work for him. I just saw the suspect. Looks to be forty-five to fifty, white male, dark blue T-shirt, red-and-blue baseball cap. Heavy beard, long brown hair, five foot ten, one eighty. He's got a hostage; kid about fourteen. Suspect is armed with what looks like a sawed-off shotgun.”

“Hold tight.” The officer was on the radio, a garbled voice coming back at him. “State your name again, Sergeant.”

Before Julie could answer, a loud shotgun blast came from the fast-food stand. Broken glass rained hard on the terrazzo floor. A sign above the information booth knocked lopsided on a chain. Then a scream.

“Anybody around here better listen up! I'm gonna kill this little bastard!” He raised his voice.
“You listening?”

Julie tucked down low behind the window valance. If she crept along to just one more storefront, the information booth would hide her from view of the food stand on the other side. She whispered into her phone.

“Subject will kill his hostage. How long before SWAT?”

“Ten minutes tops.”

“Kid will be dead by then. I'm going in.”

“You are not to—”

She closed the phone.

The gunman's voice faded and then grew loud as he paced. She waited until the sound cut back; then she slid around the corner of the storefront and lay flat on the stone floor, pushing her way forward, ranger style, with her elbows. She smelled old floor polish and dirt from thousands of shoes. When she reached the next store, she turned 45 degrees to her right and continued to crawl across the open center of the concourse, toward the pagoda-like stall in the center.

The man in the security uniform, blasted in the face. Julie, still prone, searched for a pulse. None. A half door on the booth left open, describing someone's hasty exit. A sliver of light edged through the far side of the hexagon-shaped structure. She crawled in and surveyed the food stand from the top of the cracked board.

From somewhere, a woman cried out a prayer in Spanish. A dull thud came from the food stand. Julie peeked through the splintered board as a man with a head wound and blood-splattered white chef's gear stumbled out of the stand and fell to the floor.

Shotgunman still paced, his head bobbing, the young boy still secured by his crooked arm. Through the opening to the kitchen jutted three sets of hands, all stretched toward the ceiling. The man continued to pace and then stopped to slap the boy. He wrapped his arm back around the kid's neck.

Julie's phone vibrated against her pant leg. She whispered, “Go.”

“Where are you?”

“Kiosk.”

“We're at the end of the corridor. SWAT is on the way.”

“Hold.” She crawled into a corner where someone had left a jacket on the back of a chair. She bundled it up in front of her mouth, almost gagging from a heavy, perfumed scent. She pulled the phone under her makeshift muffler. “This guy's berserk, Lieutenant. He's beating the crap out of a kid; three other hostages are in the kitchen. If he sees you guys, he'll really snap. He's yelling. Wait.” Julie pulled the phone from the muffler.

“Somebody better hear what I got to say, or there's gonna be shit to pay!” he shouted even louder. “Get it, goddamn it?”

Julie once again wrapped the phone close to her mouth. “Hear that, Lieutenant?”

“Yeah, made out some of it. Nuts.”

“He whacked one of the cooks on the head. Needs help.”

“We can't see him from where we are. Can you?”

“He's about thirty feet from me. I've got an idea.”

“Don't do anything stupid.”

A loud slapping thud came from the food stand, followed by the boy's cry for help.

“Gotta go. I'm gonna stand up, so if you have your sniper scopes on the kiosk, I'll be wearing”—she held up the coat into the light—“a pale blue jacket. I'm in the middle of the concourse in the info booth. Pale blue jacket.” She slid the barrel of her Sig an inch to make sure a round
was chambered. Then she tugged the tight-fitting, wrinkled blazer over her broad shoulders and clipped the mall ID badge higher on her lapel. She grabbed a pair of tortoise-rimmed reading glasses from the counter and ruffled her hair. The front of the jacket lost its button, but she still concealed her pistol in her left waistband.

“I'll talk to you, sir!” she yelled. “Hey there! Help! Don't shoot!” If he was going to fire, it would probably be in the first couple moments.

“Who the fuck is it?” The man's head popped around the stand's swinging door. He still had the kid in a neck hold.

Julie took a deep breath, her hands high overhead. “Please, I have two babies at home.” The lie seemed to work; she had his attention. “Sir, can I just walk away? Promise I won't tell a soul.” Hands still overhead, she cleared the booth and got to within twenty feet of the food stand, in good pistol range. She gestured toward the corridor, which would bring her even closer. “If you'll just let me get to my car”—she pointed down the hallway toward the back of the mall—“I'll be out of your hair and on my way.”

“Hold up there! Damn it all and shut the fuck up! Come over here.” He let go of the boy's neck and pulled him in tight to his side. He brought the shotgun up to belt level, the short barrel and chopped-off stock piece looking like a stretched-out handgun. “I ought to blow your girly brains out—”

“I just want to get to my car.” She shifted from foot to foot. “I hurt my side when I fell down in the booth, and I have to call the babysitter to tell her—”

“Close your mouth, for Christ's sake. One more word, and I'll blow this shit-for-brains' head off.” He brought
around the sawed-off shotgun and pressed it against the boy's head.

Julie held up one finger as if asking permission to speak.

The man looked down both long corridors. “Take that jacket off, or I'll make a mess here. Wanna see if you're armed. Do it.” He turned on an evil grin and lowered the gun slightly, waiting for his show.

Julie slipped her right arm out of the jacket and took off the glasses. “What do you want to see?” She reached across and slowly pulled her left arm sleeve free of the jacket and pinned it against her hip. Her right hand now held the Sig behind the coat. She stood feet together, head bowed, submissive.

The man gestured with his 12-gauge weapon. “You work here with the rest of these bastards?” The end of the shotgun rested on the counter, pointing down the long corridor, away from Julie.

Without a view of the man's head and upper body, she would not have a shot, and neither would SWAT. She would have to draw him out. Julie dropped the jacket and glasses. Her weapon flashed across a short arc and leveled on the man's chest. “Police officer. Release the child and slowly take your hand off the weapon.”

His eyes turned into fiery red orbs. “I'll kill you, bitch! I'll—”

Julie secured her 9-millimeter with both hands, her left foot slightly in front—classic shooter's stance. “I'll say this for the last time. Take your hand off the shotgun.” She watched the air slowly drain from the suspect's body, his lips bunched into puffy regret.

His fingers began a slow retreat.

He's going to give it up.

The kid screamed and jerked away. When he did, the man's left hand flew toward the scatter gun, firing a round as he leveled the barrel at her.

He never heard the sound or felt the two .9s as they dug through his body. The third left a dime-sized hole in his forehead.

Julie saw the blood on her left leg, midthigh, and just below her knee before she felt the sting. She lifted the still-connected phone. “Scene secure. Shots fired. Subject down. Officer down.” She backed against the information booth and slid to the floor.

T
he Dragons will
do it this year. God is my witness.” Todd, aka Big Man, fancied himself a hot ballplayer.

Todd Devlin, Julie's partner, and several other troopers enjoyed a lunch of burgers and fries at Wing's Diner. A couple guys agreed about the local team's chances. Julie listened to their heated discussion but couldn't commit to the conversation except to say that she'd spank all their butts in a one-on-one and spot them
h,o,
and
r,
in a game of Horse.

There began a chorus of oohs and aahs, as if she were goddess of the court.

She made a quick fake to Todd's right and mimed a one-handed three-pointer. “Swish! She shoots and scores! Give it up, boys. You're outclassed.”

They enjoyed her performance, but her thoughts were on the lieutenant's words to her as she left the station for lunch. “Captain wants a word with you at one thirty.”

“What's it about? Any idea?”

“He seemed pissed. Wear your raincoat.”

After lunch, she had a half hour, so she decided to take
a slow walk back to the station. She had been lucky with the shotgun pellets. The skin was punctured, but no bones were struck, and no nerve damage. She just needed to keep moving.

“You sure you want to walk? A girl can't be too careful.”

It was her first day back, and Julie knew that Todd was more concerned about her injuries than she was, but she played along with him. She patted her hip, her short leather jacket hiding the Sig automatic tucked high on her waist. “I can manage, thank you.”

She liked Todd. He was a good worker and loyal to a fault. Maybe a bit too easy, as her father used to say.

A brisk fall day, she couldn't imagine a nicer afternoon—if only the threat of having to speak to Captain Walker in a pissed state wasn't looming over her.

“By the way, according to our beloved Dr. Crankenstein . . .”

Walker held a typed memo at arm's length for her to see. His wide shoulders sloped from years of heavy decision making, his lined face having tracked the many miles of police toil. “She says you never . . .” he scanned the paper to pick out the appropriate line. “Subject is not completing her psychiatric examination after the shooting incident. I deem this treatment crucial and necessary for the safety of said patient and others who may in the future prove to be at odds with the aforementioned patient. Miss Worth shows a combative nature when confronted. Dr. Heidi Cranstein.”

“She'd love hearing you call her ‘Crankenstein,' Captain.”

“Oh yeah? I hear she's a piece of work. The commissioner
thinks you're exploiting your newfound celebrity in order to get out of seeing this doctor. I don't agree, but there you have it.”

He gestured toward the door for her to leave. “Anyway, you have to go back and see her, fulfill your required number of visits. Help me out here.”

“Thank you, sir, for allowing me to speak.” She left his office and noticed the squad room listening in.