The goon D'Agosta hit refused to stay down. Now the man had rolled over and was firing on the van, the rounds whanging its side and sending chips of paint flying. A burst of fire came from its front seat; the Chinese goon went down again; and the van pulled away with a squeal of tires.
'Stop them!' D'Agosta yelled at the two agents. They were already up and running, firing futilely, their shots ringing off the van's armored sides.
Now the head Chinese had reached the black Mercedes. As it roared to life, the two agents turned their fire toward it, blowing out the back tires as the car swerved into the lane. A round hit the gas tank, and the vehicle went up with a muffled thump, a ball of fire roiling skyward as the car left the lane and rolled gently into a grove of trees. The door flew open and a burning man got out, took a few halting steps, paused, and slowly toppled forward. In the distance, the television van was careening out of the park, vanishing into the warren of streets to the west.
The park was bedlam: kids and adults scattered across the ground, cowering and screaming. D'Agosta rushed to where Pendergast had fallen, relieved beyond measure when he saw the FBI agent was sitting up. The two Chinese were dead, and the cameraman, who'd practically been torn in half, was obviously on his way out, too. But no civilians had been so much as scratched. It seemed a miracle.
D'Agosta knelt in the grass. 'Pendergast, you all right?'
Pendergast waved, face ashen, temporarily unable to speak.
One of the other FBI agents came running up. 'Wounded? We got wounded?'
'Agent Pendergast. The cameraman's beyond help.'
'Backup and medical are on the way.' And, in fact, D'Agosta could now hear sirens converging on the park.
Pendergast helped one of the children he'd protected-a boy of about eight-to a standing position. His father rushed over and clasped the child in his arms. 'You saved his life,' he said. 'You saved his life.'
D'Agosta helped Pendergast up. Blood was soaking through one side of his dirty shirt.
'That fellow winged me,' Pendergast said. 'It's nothing, a flesh wound. I lost my wind, that's all.'
Slowly, hesitantly, people began converging on the park from the surrounding houses, crowding around the burning hulk of the Mercedes and the nearby corpse. Newly arrived cops were shouting, covering the corners, setting up a cordon, yelling at the gathering crowd to keep back.
'Damn,' said D'Agosta. 'Those fuckers from BAI were expecting a firefight.'
'Indeed they were. And no wonder.'
'What do you mean?'
'I overheard just enough to learn Bullard's men were calling the deal off.'
'Calling the deal off ?'
'On the very eve of success, apparently. Now you can see the reason for the elaborate setup-the park, the children. They knew the Chinese would not be pleased. This was their attempt to avoid being shot to pieces.'
D'Agosta glanced around at the carnage. 'Hayward's gonna love this.'
'She should. If we hadn't run that wiretap and been here to take down those shooters, I hate to think what might have happened.'
D'Agosta shook his head and looked at the burning Mercedes, now being hosed down by a fire truck. 'You know what? This case just keeps getting weirder and weirder.'
{ 36 }
The Reverend Wayne P. Buck Jr. sat at the counter of the Last Gasp truck stop in Yuma, Arizona, stirring skim milk into his coffee. Before him lay the remains of his usual breakfast: white toast with a little marmalade, oatmeal without milk or sugar. Outside, beyond the flyspecked window, there was a grinding of gears: a large semi pulled off the apron, its steel tank flashing in the brilliant sun, heading west toward Barstow.
Reverend Buck-the title was honorary-took a sip of the coffee. Then, methodical in everything he did, he finished his breakfast, carefully cleaning the bowl with the edge of his spoon before setting it aside. He took another sip of coffee, replaced the cup gently in its saucer. And then at last he turned to his morning reading: the ten-inch stack of periodicals that lay tied in heavy twine on the far end of the counter.
As Buck cut the twine with a pocketknife, he was aware of a sense of anticipation. His morning reading was always a high point of the day: a trucker, whom he'd cured of fits at a camp revival several months before, always left a bundle of outdated newspapers for him outside the truck stop every morning. The papers varied from day to day, and Buck never knew what he'd find. Yesterday there'd been a copy of the New Orleans Times-Picayune in among the more common Phoenix Sun and Los Angeles Times . But his tingle of anticipation, he knew, extended beyond the selection of reading material.
Reverend Buck had been in the vicinity of Yuma almost a year now, ministering to the truckers, the waitresses and busboys, the migrant workers, the broken and wandering and uncertain souls that passed through on their way to some place and rarely lingering long. The work was its own reward, and he never complained. The reason there were so many sinners in the world, he knew, was that nobody had ever bothered to sit down and talk to them. Buck did just that: he talked. Read to people from the Good Book, let them know how to prepare for what was coming, and coming soon. He'd talk to the drivers, one at a time here at the counter; long-haul truckers just stopping in for a leak and a sandwich. He'd talk to groups of two or three regulars in the evenings, out back by the picnic tables. On Sunday mornings, fifteen, maybe twenty, at the old Elks lodge. When he could get a ride to the reservation, he'd preach there. Most people were receptive. Nobody had explained the nature of sin to them, the terrifying implacable promise of the End Days. When people were sick, he'd pray over them; when people were grieving, he'd listen to their problems, recite a parable or some words of Jesus. They paid him in pocket change; a few hot meals; a bed for the night. It was enough.
