“That’s between me and Jessie.”
“No,” Gunderson said. “I’m between you and Jessie-you keep forgetting that.” He paused. “You ever think about death, Jack?”
“I’ve seen my share of it.”
“Haven’t we all. But I’m talking about your own mortality. Heaven and hell.” The fireball was getting closer. “The ancient Egyptians believed the road to heaven was more dangerous than any place on earth. That the newly dead had to go through a series of trials before they’d be allowed onto the Fields of Yaru. Kind of like a high-stakes cosmic reality show.”
“Good for them,” Donovan said. “And this affects me how?”
Gunderson smiled. “I know it’s cheating, you being alive and all, but this is one of your trials, Jack. Right here, right now. And when you’re done, you might just get that ticket to Yaru.”
Donovan’s finger brushed the trigger of the Glock. “Enough bullshit, Alex. Where is she?”
Gunderson said nothing. Remained perfectly still, every muscle in his body alert.
The fireball was only inches from Donovan’s leg.
Donovan’s eyes darkened. “I can hurt you without killing you, you know. It wouldn’t bother me in the least to listen to you scream. You ever seen what a power drill can do to a man’s scrotum? I really don’t think you want to find-”
The fireball let out a cry and rubbed up against Donovan’s leg. He flinched, the distraction lasting only a fraction of a second, but it was enough to give Gunderson the advantage he needed.
Gunderson lunged. Donovan’s eyes registered faint surprise, but he didn’t pull the trigger. They both knew that would be a mistake. Batting Donovan’s weapon hand aside, Gunderson tackled him and drove him sideways into the wall.
Donovan hit with a thud and slid to the floor as Gunderson rolled away and reached for the Walther he kept strapped to his ankle. He dove for the doorway, paying no attention to the shout behind him. Reaching the platform, he sprang to his feet, then vaulted the rail, nearly losing his balance as he hit the ground.
From the yard, someone shouted, “Hold it, Gunderson!” and floodlights popped to life, lighting up the front of the train car. The lights had artfully been concealed by darkness and surrounding train-yard rubble, a platoon of uniformed cops lying in wait. More lights came to life at the back of the car, and the cops began to close in on Gunderson, their weapons drawn, a fat fuck with a comb-over pulling up the rear.
But Gunderson didn’t slow down. Swinging his Walther upward, he let loose two quick shots. One of the floodlights shattered as the cops scrambled to take cover. Gunderson squeezed off another quick shot, then dove behind an adjacent train car just as the cops returned fire.
Bullets ricocheting around him, he scrambled to his feet and ran like hell, letting the darkness swallow him.
Donovan was already up and running when the gunfire started. Dashing to the train-car platform, he saw Gunderson dive to safety behind a broken-down cattle car as Fogerty and his men returned fire. Bullets ripped through the side of the car, splinters of wood flying everywhere.
Goddamned amateurs. He waved his arms. “Hold it! Hold your fire! We need him alive!”
A.J., Sidney, and the rest of Donovan’s team filed in from their hiding places, A.J. echoing Donovan’s command, signaling for Fogerty and his boys to stop shooting. As the gunfire died down, Sidney radioed the chopper: “The rabbit is loose! The rabbit is loose! Get your ass out here! Now!”
Donovan leapt over the platform rail and sprinted after Gunderson. Bringing out his flashlight, he shone its narrow beam into the maze of train cars. It looked impenetrable from this vantage point, and Gunderson was bound to know every nook and cranny in the place. But Donovan could not let him get away. Would not. Not again. Not this time.
He pushed forward into the darkness, sweeping the light from side to side, his Glock gripped tightly in his hand.
Instinct. Pure blind instinct. That’s what he’d have to rely on to find the bastard in this mess. Fortunately for Donovan, he and instinct had always been on close, personal terms.
22
Weapons and explosives had fascinated Gunderson for as long as he could remember. When he was thirteen years old, a year or so following the incarceration of his beloved aunt, he had been taken by his latest foster father into a special room in the family basement.
Its walls were lined with military weaponry. Amidst the AK-47s, Lugers, and shiny samurai swords was a shelf dedicated to a variety of Russian, German, and American land mines.
His foster father, an old prune named Vince, had picked up one of the mines-a German anti-personnel device complete with swastika on the side-and handed it to Alex.
“Careful,” Vince said. “It’s active.”
Gunderson figured he should be scared, but he wasn’t. He held the device with great care, captivated by the simplicity of its design.
Vince pointed to the detonator on top. “Step on that,” he said, “and this sucker’ll shred you into a thousand different pieces. You’ve never seen agony until you’ve seen what’s left of your buddy after he’s popped the cherry on one of these babies. If he’s still got lungs, he’s screaming like a six-year-old girl.”
Two months later, while Gunderson was busy ditching school, old Vince accidentally blew himself, his wife, and half his basement to smithereens. Gunderson was forced to move on to a new foster home, but he’d never forgotten Vince’s words, and the sense of power he’d felt with that precious baby resting on the palm of his hand.
All these years later, land mines continued to hold a special place in Gunderson’s heart. He had long ago learned to rig his own and had recently turbocharged more than two dozen North Korean APDs, adding computerized detonator controls. With the aid of a remote, he could activate and deactivate them at will.
In anticipation of tonight’s events, he had buried twenty-seven of these honeys around the train yard. Now, as he worked his way past an old caboose, he took the remote from his coat pocket and punched a combination of numbers on the backlit keypad-a global activation code.
Buried beneath a pile of rubble just twenty feet behind him, Shredder #1 (as he liked to call it) came to life with a faint beep. All around the yard, its brothers and sisters followed suit.
Come and get us, they said.
The fun’s about to begin.
Crossing a set of rusted tracks half-buried in gravel, Donovan paused, trying to catch his breath. His leg throbbed, dredging up memories of his last encounter with Gunderson. The outcome was bound to be more positive this time.
He brought his flashlight up to check his progress.
A collection of train cars in varying states of decay surrounded him. Weeds and tall grass grew out from beneath the cars and shot up between the tracks, showing no sign of disturbance. There was no way to know what path Gunderson had taken.
Police radios squawked in the distance. Fogerty and his trigger-happy bunch were all over the yard by now. If it had been up to Donovan, he would have left them all back at the bus, but phone calls had been made, and word from on high had reminded him that this was a joint effort that required both federal and municipal cooperation. Like it or not, that included Fogerty.
Donovan could only hope he’d keep his dick in his pants and not do anything stupid.
The squeal of another cat spun him to the right. The sound could mean a million different things, but he followed it anyway, heading toward an old caboose.
A moment later, a CPD chopper roared overhead and swept its searchlight across the yard. About goddamned time. A swarm of rats reacted in panic, surging up from beneath a pile of termite-eaten lumber,
