The line fell silent. Finally, Mercy said, “Hemorrhagic… you mean like Ebola?”
“Yes.”
“Shit. Jack, I’m driving around. Am I…am I contagious?” That was Mercy Bennet. She’d just been handed her death sentence and she was worried about its effect on others.
“Probably not yet,” he said hoarsely. “My daughter has it, too. She was exposed by Copeland’s people. The doctors tell me she’s not contagious yet, so you probably have hours left.”
“I’m not going to the hospital yet.” She relayed Copeland’s final words to Jack. “I don’t know what he meant by ‘terror’ but I know who ‘she’ is. It’s Frankie Michaelmas. I get the feeling that girl makes Copeland look like a saint.”
A chill ran down Jack’s spine. He knew what Copeland had meant by terror. He had known all along. But still he couldn’t tell Mercy. Not while he still needed her.
“You should get to a hospital. Keep yourself safe,” he said. “Contact National Health—”
“Screw that,” Mercy said. “If I’m not contagious yet, I’m going to get that little bitch.”
“Mercy, there’s more here—”
“I’m going up to the Vanderbilt Complex. That’s what Copeland was talking about. I think she’s going to be there.”
“Mercy, wait, let me tell you—”
But Bennet had dropped the line.
“We have to go,” Jack told Jessi. “This whole thing is hitting the fan in the next couple of hours. Come on.”
12. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 6 P.M. AND 7 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
Jack half ran down Sunset Boulevard to reach the SUV with Jessi Bandison in tow. He had just reached the tail end of the big car when he saw the red Camaro parked across the street, the driver barely visible in the shadowy twilight, his body held steady and angled toward them.
“Down!” Jack grabbed Jessi and pulled her to the ground as something hissed lightning-fast through the air over their heads. He dragged her behind the SUV.
More dull thuds, but now from another angle, up the street instead of across. They were in a crossfire.
Jack drew his weapon, a double-stacked.45 Springfield, borrowed, like the phone. He stayed low and leaned around the tire, but the angle was bad, and all he could see was street. Cars zoomed by, oblivious. The snipers were equipped with silencers, and none of the cars realized they were driving through a gunfight. Jack slid to the tail end of the car and leaned around, switching the Springfield to his left hand and squeezing off four rounds. Unlike the snipers’ weapons, his.45 wasn’t silenced. The sharp report made Jessi shriek. The Camaro’s side window shattered. Jack rolled back behind the SUV and switched hands again, taking a kneeling position, looking to acquire the other sniper. But there was nothing to see except Sunset Boulevard, with dozens of buildings to hide in, parked cars, and cars moving along the street. A bullet chipped the concrete beside him, and he pressed himself tighter against the SUV.
More rounds hit the SUV from the other angle. The car was turning into a bullet sponge. But the angle of impact was changing. The shooter in the Camaro had relocated, improving his position. Jack fired two rounds into the air, just to make noise. Someone would call the police. If he could hold off the shooters until backup arrived, he’d have a chance. The gunfire brought shouts of alarm and screams from somewhere on the street.
Movement. Someone dashed from a building to a vehicle half a block up from the SUV, and Jack had his second shooter. But the first shooter put rounds into the SUV over his head, shattering the rear window, so Jack rolled in his direction and fired over the top of the car parked behind his. Commuters drove by, their startled faces flashing like subliminals in Jack’s eyes. He could not be worried about them now. The shooter from the Camaro stumbled and fell, but Jack wasn’t sure he’d actually hit him.
Jack was sure his sights hadn’t been on target. The man was still operating.
Sirens in the distance. That was good. But his slide had just locked back. He dropped the magazine out and popped in his second and last. Fifteen rounds left. Jessi made herself as small as possible as Jack moved closer to her position. The shooter up the street moved and Jack fired, shattering glass and ripping through a public trash can. A man walking out of a store yelled something and dived back inside.
These weren’t eco-terrorists. They were operators working in tandem — one drawing Jack’s fire, the other improving his position. It was a good plan. It was going to work. And the sirens were too far away.
The shooter up the street popped up, taking aim. Jack fired to keep the enemy’s head down; he had no cover or concealment from that angle; his only cover was to shoot. At the same time, car tires squealed to a stop on the street a few feet away. If there was a third shooter, Jack thought, this was going to get really difficult. But the shooter pivoted, sighting the newcomer, his rounds turning the windshield into a spider web. The driver jumped out of the car and fired at the shooter. Panicked, the shooter changed angles, and there he was in Jack’s sights. Jack dropped him and his gun went into slide lock again. With grim determination he thumbed the slide release and felt it snap back. Now it was a nice blunt object.
Twilight had turned to gloom but the streetlights hadn’t come on yet. Jack couldn’t see the driver’s face, but he saw his body swivel in the other direction. There was a hiss and a snap, and the driver cried out, his gun hand dropping. He fell away behind his car. Jack heard footsteps running onto the street. The shooter from the Camaro was closing in on the newcomer. Jack rolled around to the back of the SUV. He bolted into the street in time to see the shooter reach the new car, a silenced Beretta in his hands. The shooter saw him and tried to turn, but Jack was too fast. He grabbed the Beretta in one hand, holding it off his body, and punched the muzzle of his empty Springfield into the shooter’s face. He recoiled and punched his throat. The man dropped.
Without pausing Jack dropped the Springfield, tapped and racked the Beretta, and dropped to one knee, scanning the street. There was no movement. Cars had stopped passing by. The sirens were close enough to hurt his ears.
He looked up from his kneeling position to see the driver standing over him. “Hey,” said Kelly Sharpton.
“I’m going to kill him.”
Teri Bauer slammed the phone back into its cradle. It was her fifth call to Jack in the last half hour. Like all the others, it had gone straight to voice mail.
Kim sat at the kitchen table, one hand absentmindedly tracing the seams where the wooden leaves of the table met. She looked pale, and concern for her fueled Teri’s anger.
“He did it on purpose,” Teri said out loud. “He took you this morning, but he was on a case.”
“Mom,” Kim said in a tired teenage voice. “Something came up. The first thing he did when that trouble started was get me out of there.”
“And make you sit in a basement for three hours!”
Teri paced the length of the kitchen. The magic of the prior month had worn off. Her fear had been that it would vanish immediately; that Jack would dive right into some crisis. Instead, it had faded like a tan. She’d watched Jack’s attention turn slowly but steadily away from her and toward… whatever it was out there that called him. Teri had worried lately that it was another woman, and the thought had not completely left her. But it didn’t seem possible — Jack was driven by some desire that had nothing to do with sex.
It had nothing to do with disloyalty of any kind. She was furious Jack for leaving Kim, but she knew he loved
