Through the earpiece Tim heard “…under wraps until…then come back…”
The first shadow had his foot resting on Kindell’s back, as naturally as it had rested atop the sawhorse a few minutes ago. They seemed to arrive at some conclusion, for the second figure picked up Kindell and, swinging him once to pick up momentum, tossed him into the trunk of the Lincoln. He slammed the lid. Tim watched closely-no sign of either Masterson setting a booby trap in the trunk.
The two turned and disappeared into the maze of pallets and junked wood.
Tim crept out from cover and inched toward the two cars, but it wasextremely slow going since the sawhorses and heaps of building materials concealed myriad hiding places, and he had to zigzag back and forth to ensure he wasn’t leaving open a vulnerable angle. He reached the brink of the plateau and lay still in the waving foxtails, taking in the area in a long, slow sweep of the parabolic mike, earpiece snug in place, his right hand firm-gripping the. 357. He got nothing back from Betty but a tinny whimpering from the Lincoln’s trunk.
He popped up and did a quick run to the nearest cover, diving behind a mound of jagged metal refuse, the bulletproof vest and clayred dirt not softening his fall enough to keep pain from screaming through his stomach.
Still no sign of Robert or Mitchell. Plastic drop cloths fluttered everywhere-between stacked metal planes, beneath sawhorse legs, around corded bundles of boards. Tim scanned up the dark monument with the binocs, but it was hard to make out much more than the tree’s outline through the scaffolding. He could see the open hatch at the base of the trunk where the Sky-Tracker spotlight had been slid into the tree.
He low-crawled to a rusting sandblaster about ten yards from the two vehicles, close enough that he could hear Kindell’s desperate thumping in the car trunk. Again Tim surveyed the plateau, his eyes picking through the heaps of gnarled metal and discarded cuttings, the resting machinery, the boxy rise of scaffolding.
Kindell in the car trunk could very well be a baited trap. Tim rustled the Stork’s new Nextel from his pocket. Since Mitchell, as a demolition expert, was accustomed to keeping his cell phones turned off, Tim clicked the preset number to “R,” readied Betty, and hit “dial.” The faint chirping ring of a phone was immediately audible, and Tim fanned the parabolic mike back and forth, searching for the strongest signal. The cone climbed the trunk of the tree, fanned out over one of the branches. Robert was not visible, because the wooden platform of the scaffolding cut off almost the entire branch from view, but Tim got a strong ring through the earpiece. He figured Robert was probably up there preparing a noose for Kindell.
The expected rough voice answered. “Robert.”
Tim clicked the phone shut.
Robert appeared at the edge of the branch scaffolding, as Tim hoped he might. Raising his fingers to his mouth, Robert whistled a single harsh note. There was movement to the side of the monument, and then Mitchell’s head poked up from a throw of scrubby brush; he’d been walking a surveillance patrol around the base of the monument while Robert readied the branch above.
Blocked from their view by the stacks of metal, Tim dashed over and tried to open the trunk of the Lincoln, but it was locked. The doors were locked as well-no getting to the trunk release without breaking a window. His efforts led to invigorated thumping in the trunk, and Kindell’s muffled voice.
“Doan urt me. Please lee me be.”
Kindell’s loose, deaf enunciation brought fresh recollections, flooding Tim with revulsion.
He jogged back behind the sandblaster and aimed Betty again in Robert and Mitchell’s direction, catching the tail end of their shouted discussion. “…on the Stork’s phone…keep an ear on the scanner…get me Kindell…”
Mitchell started for the vehicles, his Colt glinting. Tim, crouched behind the blaster, was almost directly in his path. Mitchell drew near, approaching the car, and banged on the trunk with the barrel of the. 45. Kindell let out a shriek.
His face twisted with disdain, Mitchell dug in his pocket for the keys.
Tim braced himself, weapon up near his cheek, then stepped from cover. Mitchell caught sight of him breaking into the open, and at once both guns were up and aimed. Miraculously, neither one of them fired.
A Mexican standoff.
“Well,” Mitchell said. “Now what?”
“You tell me.”
The wind had picked up; Tim was pretty sure as long as no shots were fired Robert wouldn’t hear them from his position up high in the tree.
They drew a little nearer, Mitchell’s left hand supporting the hairtrigger. 45 in his right. His eyes jerked to the monument, betraying his urge to yell for his brother. Hands regripping the pistol, Tim shook his head, and the look on Mitchell’s face made clear he understood what the price would be for shouting. His thick hand was steady on the gun, his finger curled through the trigger guard. Tim pictured him sitting in a parked van watching Ginny leave Warren Elementary, his eyes calm, a notepad in his lap. Mitchell following her silently, shadowing her through the streets she took on her route home.
A Detroit cop, task-force member, explosive-ordnance tech. Stalking a seven-year-old girl who still used bunny ears to tie her shoes.
Mitchell’s mustache broadened with his smile. “Don’t suppose you want to drop the guns and go at it man to man.”
“Not on your life,” Tim said.
They circled each other slowly within the ring of metal stacks, blocked from the monument’s view.
“Let me tell you this,” Tim said. “I’ve fired nine shots in the line of duty, and they’ve all been hits. Eight of them have been kill shots.” He paused, moistened his lips. “If we throw down, you have no chance of surviving.”
Mitchell mused on that, his head bobbing. “You’re right. I’m not a shooter.”
He spread his arms wide, letting the gun dangle from his thumb. He tossed it to the left, aiming for the sandblaster. It bounced off the metal box, missing the “on” button by a few inches.
Mitchell’s eyes went to the metal stack to his side. If anyone could lift a five-foot pane of half-inch steel by himself, it was Mitchell. Tim wasn’t about to take any chances.
“On your knees. Arms wide. Turn around. Hands on your head now. That’s right. Not a noise.”
Tim slide-stepped in on him, both hands on the gun. At the last moment he saw that the toes of Mitchell’s boots were curled rather than flat against the dirt.
Mitchell pivoted and sprang. Tim laced his hand through the. 357 and hammered Mitchell across the face with a ball of fist and metal.
Bone crunched.
Mitchell staggered but did not drop. As he charged into Tim, his legs shoved against the ground, a linebacker gaining yards. He knocked Tim back into a stack of metal, jarring him, then the immense arms were a frenzied blur. The blows were even more devastating than Tim could have imagined. They were rapid and unremitting. They were car-crash powerful. They were rage and pain vented and embodied. Hunched protectively like a winded boxer on the ropes, Tim was wave-battered against the steel.
A haymaker brought him to his knees.
He’d have to shoot Mitchell or be killed. He brought the gun up, but then a shadow streaked toward Mitchell, flying up on his back, and Mitchell reeled, delivering a vicious elbow to the temple of his attacker. In the flash of an opening before Mitchell turned back, Tim delivered another gun-enforced blow, on the rise, directly between Mitchell’s legs. Mitchell expelled a hard gust of air, and then a dry heave pulled him down into a lean. Tim rose, blood running freely into his eyes, and hammered the gun down across Mitchell’s face.
Mitchell fell, his mouth open against the ground, his breath kicking up puffs of dirt. Bowrick stirred beside him, a lattice of broken veins coloring his left temple and upper cheek. Tim turned quickly, looking behind him for Robert’s approach, but there was no sound save that of fluttering plastic and wind drawing across the plateau. Tim studied the monument but spotted no movement, no trembling of the scaffolding to indicate Robert’s descent. Bowrick rolled over and shoved himself up on all fours, his forehead wrinkling with pain. He reached over, pulling Mitchell’s gun from the holster, the barrel pointing at Mitchell’s chest.