“What is it you want from me?”
“I want you to cooperate. Give the DVD to my associate. Forget about Umberto. Forget about your friends here. Focus on yourself for a change, Nick. How involved is Ms. Coates?”
Nick felt a new flash of anger rip through him.
“You leave her out of this!”
“Maybe we will. Maybe; it all depends on you. You see, I can trust you if you say you’ll do something. Know why?”
“No, tell me.”
“Because I know everything. I know what people think. I know what they say before they even say it. I know when they break with my program. You could have asked your friend Phillip MacCandliss.”
“MacCandliss? What’s he got to do with this?”
“Nothing, now. You see, he went against his country. That’s when we had Mr. Koller pay him a visit.”
“You’re a sick, sick man.”
“Don’t feel sorry for MacCandliss, Nick. You can thank him for bringing us Umberto. And true, your friend was the right profile for our mission, but I also knew how much MacCandliss despised you. Umberto was his pathetic little way of beating a man that he couldn’t beat on his own.”
Nick clenched the phone, wishing he had the strength to crush it into tiny pieces. He closed his eyes, counting backward to slow his pulse. Turning his back to Koller, he leaned up against the workbench. For his plan to succeed, he had to get the killer even closer to him. Keeping his hands out of the assassin’s line of sight, Nick hoped it would be enough of a lure to get him to move for a better angle. In seconds, Koller had changed position, crossing the room and moving diagonally toward the bench.
“I don’t believe MacCandliss had anything do to with Umberto’s death,” Nick said.
“And I don’t care,” Ramsland replied. “Believe what you want. Both are dead. But you still have a choice. Give us the DVD and your pledge to be a patriot, and we’ll see about letting you move along with your life. Ms. Coates, too.”
“By patriot, you mean silent.”
“Call it what you will. We’re soldiers, Nick. You and I. I felt I owed you a chance.”
Koller was in the best position possible, directly to Nick’s right. Nick had served Ramsland’s purpose by even considering going in with him. There was absolutely no chance he was going to be allowed to survive this day.
His senses were heightened by another intense surge of adrenaline. The pungent, coppery stench of blood, noticeable before, was now overpowering. Koller’s empty left hand was the target. There was no way to get at his pistol.
He silently repeated the mantra, while praying Koller had not noticed his hand inching closer toward the tool bucket.
With Ramsland still on the line, Nick set the phone down on the middle of the workbench. His pulse was hammering in his throat. Chances were he was about to die.
“He wants to talk to you,” he managed.
Koller kept his weapon level. As his left hand moved to pick up the phone, his eyes left Nick for perhaps a second. It was just enough time.
The nail gun’s bright orange handle stuck out of the tool bucket holster like an outlaw’s six-shooter. It was a cordless model, not the compressor type Nick had used in his early teens to help his father frame a modest addition on their house.
The magazine on the Paslode gun was designed to be easily visible. Nothing upset a framer or roofer more than running out of nails mid-job. Nick had already noticed that the tool was full with what looked like three-inch nails. If the battery was charged, he had a chance. If not, he hoped it would be over quickly.
Koller’s gun hand dropped several inches as he looked down to locate the phone. In that moment, Nick went for the nail gun. Koller saw movement, but turned his head just before he raised his pistol. In that instant, Nick snatched the nail gun out of its holster and in a continuous motion drove the tip into the back of Koller’s hand with all the force he could muster.
There was a sharp pop, followed by a geyser of blood from the spot. Simultaneous with the sound, Nick heard the cracking of bone as the nail plowed through skin, then metacarpal, then nerves and muscle, and finally through skin again. The shaft shot down its full three inches, exiting the palm and entering the wood, impaling the killer’s hand onto the workbench.
Koller’s feral scream was more surprise and rage than agony.
Nick dove for the floor, clutching the nail gun with both his hands as he hit. He was positioned directly beside Koller, and hoisted the nail gun again, this time driving the steel nail into the top of Koller’s shoe. Koller’s scream, louder this time, reverberated throughout the office.
Koller remained cool enough to work his hand free and turn to shoot. The bullet tore through Nick’s upper right arm with the sensation of touching a hot stove. A second shot missed.
Crouching, Nick charged toward the windows, zigzagging sharply. He had considered the stairs, but those were to his back and turning around would have cost seconds he didn’t have.
Nick closed his eyes and lunged for the canvas flap hanging in front of the Dumpster chute, barely aware of the pain in his arm. The flap gave way, and in an instant, he plunged into darkness, flying downward three stories inside Noreen’s makeshift trash-can slide.
The trip down was bruising. The hard rubber of the barrels gouged at his face and chest as he sped toward the disk of evening light at the bottom.
The Dumpster itself was hardly a sanctuary. It was half filled with splintered boards, broken glass, jagged metal, and nails.
Nick shot headfirst from the end of the tube, dropping two feet into the potentially lethal trash, shielding his face from the impact. When he hit, it was into a blanket of pink fiberglass insulation. Glass fragments embedded in the insulation tore at his skin. He rolled to the right as he landed, gashing his scalp just above one eyebrow on a strip of rusty metal. Blood began pouring into his eye.
His thoughts were fogged and his vision blurred from the combination of pain, blood, and what he had endured in Noreen Siliski’s office. Partially by feel, he found the Dumpster’s edge and began to climb out, jamming an exposed nail through his sneaker and into his foot. He cried out, but kept on scrambling.
He hit the asphalt of the parking lot heavily, and immediately toppled over, pawing at the blood that was oozing down into his eye. Closing that eye, he looked up for any sign of Koller and saw him ripping down the canvas covering the window. It was too gloomy to see if the nail that had pierced through the man’s hand was still lodged there. But then, with a warrior’s pride, the killer held it out for Nick to see that it was.
“You look bad, Doc,” he called out. “Real bad.”
Koller hoisted his gun and Nick took off running. Two shots snapped harmlessly into the asphalt several feet from him. He clambered for the woods, blood continuing to blur his vision, and reached the tree line knowing that although he was still alive, he was not in the least safe.
Koller would follow.
CHAPTER 46
Weaving awkwardly, Nick hobbled across the parking lot. The impact of the asphalt on his injured foot sent jolts of pain up his leg. His upper arm was afire, and any number of lesser injuries were also making themselves known. Blood continued to flow down into his eye. It took most of a minute to reach the woods. He tangled with a
