Martin guy.''
''Martin's alive?''
''Yeah, but he's hurt,'' the cop said. ''He got hit in the legs and he surrendered. He'll be okay.''
''Martin?'' There was wonderment in LaChaise's voice. ''You gotta be shittin' me.''
''You got a radio or TV? They'll be carrying him into the hospital.''
''Ain't got no TV,'' LaChaise said, looking around the office. ''What about
Sandy?''
''Who?''
''Sandy Darling, she was with us.''
''Oh. Yeah. I guess they can't find her,'' the cop said. Then, ''Anyway, Chief
Davenport wants you to know that he's coming. He'll be here in five minutes.''
''Don't call back until he gets here,'' LaChaise said.
LACHAISE TURNED TO WEATHER AND SAID, ''THEY SAY Martin made it.''
''Good.''
''I don't believe them.''
''You can't tell what a person'll do when he's hurt bad enough. I've had all kinds of weird confessions when I was working in an emergency room. A person thinks he's going to die in the next couple of minutes… something changes,'' Weather said. She looked at his gun. ''I wish you wouldn't keep that pointed at me. I'm not going to beat you up.''
He shifted the muzzle of the gun, just slightly, and she said, ''Thanks,'' and thought, Maybe.
THE ERU TEAM INCLUDEDAYOUNGBLONDIOWANWHO was carrying a Sako Classic. 243 with a fat black Leupold scope. Lucas stepped away from the medical people, who were working out a floor plan, and said, ''How good are you?''
''Very,'' he said.
''You ever shoot anyone?''
''Nope, but I got no problem with it,'' the Iowan said, and his flat blue eyes suggested that he was telling the truth.
''You'll be shooting just about sixty feet, close as we can tell.''
''At sixty feet I won't be more than a quarter-inch off my aim-point.''
''You're sure?''
The kid nodded. ''Absolutely.''
''We need him turned off. He may be pointing a gun at Weather or me.''
''I got a low-power, wide-view scope. I'll be able to see his move-if he's got the gun right at her head, if the hammer's down, I can take him, and your wife's okay. If the hammer's cocked… then it's not so good, maybe fifty-fifty. If he's got the gun at her head, if you can get him to take it away, I'll be able to see it and I'll take him. You need to get him to take it away just a second, just an inch.''
''He can't have any time to recover-not even a millionth of a second.''
The kid shook his head. ''I'm shooting Nosler ballistic tips-I didn't want anything that'd go through and ricochet around the halls. So all the energy'll get dumped inside his skull. If I hit him anywhere on the face-and I will-he'll be gone like somebody turned off a switch. That fast.''
Lucas looked at him for another long moment, and said, ''I hope you can do it right.''
''No problem,'' the kid said, and he stroked the rifle like he might stroke his girlfriend's cheek.
Lucas nodded and went back to the medics and to look at the floor plan.
Basically, the suite was one long hall with double doors in the middle, dividing the operating rooms from the support offices. He'd put the sniper at the far end of the hall, open the doors himself and talk to LaChaise, who was in one of the offices at the other end of the hall.
''We'll put the gun on a gurney,'' Lucas said. ''We're gonna need an office chair… and then I'll call, and go through the doors… Will the doors stay open?''
''You've got to push them back hard,'' one of the doctors said.
A cop said, ''Lucas, the chief…''
''Tell her to call back,'' Lucas said. He looked back at the sniper and said,
''Let's do it.''
''… PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT,'' LACHAISE SAID. ''People don't understand how country folks get ripped around by the government. Christ, you start out just trying to get ahead…''
Weather was quietly amused at her own reaction: in some way, she liked the guy.
He was like two dozen high school classmates back in Wisconsin, kids who didn't have much to do if they stayed around home. You'd see them trying to put together lives with part-time jobs in the resorts, out in the woods, trying to guide… willing to work, but without much hope, afraid of the cities.
LaChaise was like that, but gone down some darker, more twisting trail. He hated his father; didn't much like his mother. Idolized his younger sister, and even his wife.
''Candy sounds like trouble, though,'' Weather said. ''Sometimes people push too hard.''
''Yeah, I guess. But she was so damn lively…''
LUCAS GOT THREE BIG STACKS OF SURGEON'S SCRUB suits, all green, from the laundry. The sniper took off his jacket and pulled one of the scrubs on, and tied a pair of pants around his head. They put one stack of scrubs in the middle of a low stainless-steel instrument gurney. The sniper sat in an office chair behind the gurney, and dropped the rifle across the top of the stack, and put a couple more scrubs on top of it. The other two stacks went on either side of the center pile.
Lucas walked down the hall toward the double doors and looked back. He could see the glass of the scope and the riflebarrel, but they made no visual sense. He couldn't tell exactly what they were, and LaChaise would be twice as far away.
The sniper himself was invisible with the green scrub pants tied around his head.
''Good,'' Lucas said, hustling back. ''If we can drop one more suit right here. ..'' He spread one across the barrel.
Lucas and another member of the ERU walked down the length of the hall again, and looked back a second time. The other cop said, ''This scares the shit outa me.''
''Me, too,'' Lucas said. He nodded at the sniper. ''But can you see him?''
''I can only see him because I know he's there. LaChaise… no chance.''
Lucas walked back. ''All right,'' he said to the Iowan. ''I hope to God you haven't been bullshitting me.''
The kid said, ''You wanta quit fuckin' around and get the show on the road? And stay to the right side of the corridor. The slug'll be coming right past your ear.''
THE PHONE RANG AGAIN, AND LACHAISE BENT OVER to pick it up: pain shot down his leg and he grunted, almost stumbled, caught himself, and lifted the phone.
Lucas said, ''I'm right down the hall from you. If you look out, I'll open the double doors, and you'll see me.''
He was that close? LaChaise put his eye to the door crack and looked at the double doors. ''Let's see you.''
The first of the two doors opened, slowly at first, and then quickly, pushed against the wall; it stayed open. The man who'd pushed it open was standing behind the other door. He peeked out at LaChaise.
''All right, here I am,'' Lucas said. ''We got a lot to talk about.''
''You killed my goddamn wife and sister,'' LaChaise said. ''And I say, 'Eye for an eye.' ''
''When your sister was killed, she was firing a gun at us,'' Lucas said. ''She went down shooting. We didn't just shoot her out of hand: we gave her a choice to give up.''
''Bullshit, everybody says it was over in one second, I saw the TV
…''
''Doesn't take long to have a gunfight,'' Lucas said. '' Anyway, what're we going to do here?''
''Well, we've been talking about that, your old lady and me,'' LaChaise said.
THE SNIPER COULD FEEL JUST THE LIGHTEST SWEAT start on his forehead, just a patina. Through the scope, he could see the crack in the door, and even, from time to time, LaChaise's eye. He thought about taking the shot, but he didn't know what Weather's situation was. He'd seen training films where the crook's gun was taped to the hostage's head, the hammer held back on the gun with thumb tension. Shoot the crook, the hammer falls, and the hostage is gone.
He wouldn't take it, yet. Not yet. He moved his eye a bit farther from the scope: he didn't want the glass to steam up.