"Your call," Sampson repeated.
Then everything went a little crazy, to put it mildly.
Suddenly the Butcher whirled around – but not in our direction! The opposite way!
What the hell was this? What was happening now?
Sullivan was facing the thick row of woods to the east – not where Sampson and I were coming from. He was paying no attention to us now.
He fired off two quick shots – and I heard somebody grunt in the distance.
A man dressed in black appeared for an instant; then he fell to the ground. Who was it? Then five more men came running out of the woods to the north. They had handguns, Bull Pups, one Uzi that I could make out.
Who were these guys?
As if to answer the question, one of them shouted, "FBI. Drop your weapon! FBI!"
I didn't buy it.
"Mob!" I said to Sampson.
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
Then everybody started blasting at everybody else, as if we were in the streets of Baghdad rather than somewhere in rural Massachusetts.
Chapter 115
THE MOB HITTERS, if that's who they were, fired on us too. Sampson and I shot back at them. And so did the Butcher.
I hit a guy in a leather trench coat – the one with the Uzi, my first target.
The gunman spun around and dropped to the dirt, but then he raised the Uzi to fire again. He got hit square in the chest with a round, and the force knocked him flat. I wasn't the one who shot him though. Maybe Sampson?
Or was it Sullivan who'd shot him?
The darkness was a serious hazard to everybody. Bullets were flying everywhere, slugs of lead slamming into trees, ricocheting off rocks. It was total chaos and bedlam, hair-raising, death-defying madness being played out in the dark.
The Mafia thugs were fanning out, trying to create space between themselves, which would be even more trouble for us.
Sullivan had run to his left and was using the trees and shadows for some cover.
Sampson and I tried to hide ourselves as best we could behind skinny evergreens.
I was afraid we would die here; it felt like it could happen. Too many shots were being fired in too tight an area. This was a kill zone. It was like being heavily armed but up against a firing squad.
A Mafia hitter emptied his Bull Pup at the Butcher. I wasn't sure, but I didn't think he got his target.
He didn't, because Sullivan popped right up and shot the mob guy as he scurried back toward the safety of the woods. The shooter let out a scream, and then he was quiet. I thought that three of the mob soldiers had been shot so far. Sampson and I weren't hit, but we hadn't been primary targets.
Now what? Who would make the next move? Sullivan? John or me?
Then something strange – I heard a boy's voice. A tiny voice called out, "Dad! Dad! Where are you, Dad?"
Chapter 116
I SWIVELED MY NECK HARD and peered in the direction of the house on the hill. I saw two of the Sullivan boys running down the front steps. They were dressed in their pajamas and had bare feet.
"Get back!" Sullivan screamed at them. "Get inside the house, you two! Get inside!"
Then Caitlin Sullivan rushed out of the house in a bathrobe, trying to hold back her youngest son, then picking him up in her arms. She was screaming bloody murder at the two other boys to come back inside.
Meanwhile, gunshots were happening everywhere, loud blasts that echoed in the night. Bursts of light illuminated trees, boulders, fallen bodies on the grass.
Sullivan kept yelling – "Get back in the house! Get back! Caitlin, get them inside!"
The boys didn't listen; they just kept coming across the lawn toward their father.
One of the hit men turned his gun on the running figures, and I shot him in the side of the neck. He spun around, fell, and stayed down. I thought, I just saved the lives of Sullivan's boys. What did it mean? That we were even for the time he came to my house and didn't kill anybody? Was I supposed to shoot Caitlin Sullivan now as payback for Maria?
Nothing made much sense to me on this dark, bloodstained lawn.
Another hit man zigzagged in a fast retreat until he reached the woods. Then he dove headfirst into the brush. One final hit man stood out in the open. He and Sullivan faced off and fired on each other. The soldier spun and went down, blood rushing from a gaping wound in his face. Sullivan was left standing.
He turned to Sampson and me.
Chapter 117
STALEMATE – at least for the moment. A couple of seconds? And then what happens?
I realized that Sampson's car wasn't a shield between Sullivan and me anymore. His sons had finally stopped running toward him. Caitlin Sullivan had the two smaller ones wrapped in her arms. The oldest boy stood beside her, looking protective, looking a lot like his father. I prayed the boy didn't get into this now too.
"I'm Alex Cross," I told Sullivan. "You came to my house once. Then you killed my wife. Nineteen ninety-three, Washington, DC."
"I know who you are," Sullivan called back. "I didn't kill your wife. I know who I killed."
Then the Butcher took off on a dead run for the woods. I aimed at the square of his back – this was it – but I didn't pull the trigger. I couldn't do it.
Not in the back. Not with his wife and kids here, not under any circumstances.
"Dad!" one of the boys screamed again as Sampson and I took off after his father. "Keep running! Keep running!"
"He's a killer, Alex," Sampson said as we ran over uneven ground covered with high grass, jutting rocks, tree roots. "We need to put him down. You know we do. Don't show mercy to the devil."
I didn't need a reminder; I wasn't going to get careless.
But I hadn't taken the shot when I had it. I hadn't brought down Michael Sullivan when I had the chance.
The woods were dark, but there was enough moonlight to make out shapes and some finer detail. Maybe we'd be able to see Sullivan, but he'd see us too.
The stalemate continued. But one of us was going to die tonight. I knew it and hoped it wouldn't be me. But this had to be finished now. It had been building to this for so long.
I wondered where he was running – if he had an escape plan or if an ambush was coming.
We hadn't seen Sullivan since he'd gotten to the tree line. Maybe he was fast, or maybe he'd taken a sharp turn in another direction. How well did he know the woods?
Was he watching us right now? Getting ready to fire? To spring from behind a tree?
Finally, I saw movement – someone running fast up ahead. It had to be Sullivan! Unless it was the remaining mob guy.
Whoever it was, I didn't have a shot. Too many tree trunks, branches, and limbs in the way.
My breath was coming in short, harsh gasps. I wasn't out of shape, so it had to be the stress of everything going on. 1 was chasing down the son of a bitch who had killed Maria. I'd hated him for more than ten years, and I'd wanted this day to come. I'd even prayed for it.
But I hadn't taken the shot when I had it.
"Where is he?" Sampson was there at my side. Neither of us could see the Butcher. We couldn't hear him running now, either.
Then I heard an engine roar – in the woods! An engine? What kind of engine?
Headlights shone suddenly – two blazing eyes aimed right at us.
A car was coming fast, Sullivan or somebody else crouched at the wheel, down a track the driver knew well.
"Take the shot!" Sampson yelled. "Alex, take the shot!"
Chapter 118
SULLIVAN HAD STASHED A CAR in the woods, probably for an emergency escape like this one. I held my ground, and put one, two, three shots into the driver's side of the windshield.