Thumbing down the volume on their radios, the deputies reconvened at the end of the walk. They'd met briefly down the hill at the staging point with the chief and Tannino, who'd gladly slipped out of an extended-family engagement. Tim had pressed for an unorthodox entry plan to take into account Walker's unorthodox skills. They were going after a soldier trained to lead assaults of the kind they were trying to use against him. Walker could anticipate just about every angle. And probably had. He would've planned a number of escape routes from the house, maybe even leaving booby traps at the doors, windows, and halls. Rather than having the team barrel into a potential clusterfuck, Tim would slip in alone, move tactically through the house, and try to kill Walker or flush him out. The others would take positions of cover around the perimeter and wait for Tim's signal.
A few gestures and the deputies spread noiselessly around the house, their dull-toned flight suits blending into the darkness. Tim stood alone in the darkness before the silent house. A tingling at his fingertips signaled his nervousness. He tapped his belt, making sure the Mag-Lite slotted through the ring didn't give off a jangle.
He moved swiftly to the front door and worked the lock with his pick set, giving up little more than a click as he eased inside. The closing door shut out the moon, leaving him in the pitch-black interior. Crouching with his. 357 drawn, he waited maybe a full minute, breathing the faint scent of smoke and blinking frequently to stimulate his night vision. The flashlight would only broadcast his position.
He rose to search the family room, moving with excruciating slowness, stepping over a few boxes and an unzipped duffel bag. By the fireplace he found a collection of cans. Beans, mini hot dogs, tuna. He ran a finger along the inside of an opened can, and it came away wet. A heap of ashes, when stoked, hid a dying ember. A hobo camp pitched in an upscale family room.
Down the dark hall, Tim heard a thump, then the resistance of unseasoned floorboards.
Straight-arming his. 357, Tim pivoted around corners, making his way to the master bedroom. He slipped through the doorway, his back to the inside wall, sweeping with his revolver. Empty, save a translucent Japanese screen, a nightstand, and a bed centered on the bare floor. The window looked out on moonless, starless sky, so Tim sensed the furniture only as shadows within shadows. He'd just cleared the adjoining bathroom when he heard an undeniable creak behind him.
He swung, gun aimed at the darkness.
Under the bed.
He had to check beneath the raised bed frame, a move that wanted a partner to cover the space from the doorway. Another sound-scuffling, faint, but no question-cemented Tim's sense that he was in the room with Walker. Tim pulled his Mag-Lite from his belt, set it silently on the sawdust-powdered floorboards. Straightening up, he clicked it on by stepping on the button. A circle of light formed on the far wall. With his boot, Tim pushed the flashlight into a roll. It purred across the floorboards, parallel to the bed, drawing with it a twirling disk of light along the far wall.
As the flashlight passed beside the bed, a shadow stood out clearly against the opposite wall, cut from the beam of light passing beneath the frame. A man's silhouette, enlarged by the angle and the scrolling illumination. Boots pointed, frogged legs, and, finally, the alarmingly clear curve of nose and lips. When the screen of the wall passed into darkness, Tim heard a whoosh as fabric slid across floor, but Walker didn't pop up into his sights. The flashlight continued spinning past the bed, striking the far wall and rolling back, now wobbly, to reveal the suddenly empty space beneath the bed.
Tim stared, stunned at the magic trick, until the roaming yellow circle threw a barely raised ledge into relief- an offset square of floor.
The portable was at his lips: 'He's on the loose. Repeat: He's on the loose, under the house. Rear left quadrant. Let him slip past.' Grabbing the flashlight, Tim dove under the bed, sliding so his head and shoulders dipped into the recently buzzsawed hatch. He caught an upside-down view of a scrambling form moving like an ape through the cramped space. He aimed, but there were too many support posts and cross-beams severing the diminishing form.
Tim jerked himself back up and ran down the hall, wrists crossed so he could point gun and flashlight simultaneously. He flew through the kitchen door into the backyard. Caught off guard, a dark form pivoted, blocking out the low moon, legs braced and hips sunk in submachine-gun-wielding posture. 'Drop the gun! Drop the fucking gun!'
Through his surging heartbeat, Tim recognized the voice as Thomas's, and he realized he wasn't going to be blown to bits on the back porch. He held his revolver to the side. 'It's me.'
'Drop the gun. Now!'
The flashlight, Tim realized, was blinding Thomas. Tim dropped it and his revolver. 'Thomas, it's me. Rackley.'
In the background he saw a form streak past. He wanted to grab his radio but knew better given the razor edge that separated him from friendly fire. Thomas lowered his MP5, squinted, and raised it again, pointing at Tim's chest. 'Show me your fucking hands.'
Tim spread his hands farther. 'Thomas, it's Tim Rackley. Walker just slipped through. I gotta give the go command. Put your light on my face. Come on.'
With one hand Thomas retrieved a Mag-Lite from his belt, his head never rotating. He clicked it on, shined it on Tim's face, and then his muscles loosened. 'Jesus. Sorry.'
Tim snatched the radio from his belt. 'Okay, he's through. Fall in behind and run him to the fence.' He grabbed his. 357 and the light and sprinted upslope.
The others had already folded in behind Walker, a line of MP5s trained at his back as he labored up the hill, fifty yards ahead. Bear shouted after him, but he kept moving.
Walker was ten yards from the fence.
Tim raised the radio to his lips. 'Now!'
The ground vibrated, and then two LAPD helicopters flew up from the canyon beyond the fence, giant in their sudden proximity. Walker froze, trapped in the spotlights, raising an arm to shield his eyes. A sniper in each chopper, kneeling on one knee, viewed Walker down the length of a rifle. Tim could see the red dots pinning Walker, catching his arm, his face, his chest as he shifted, reeling under blasts of air. The deputies fanned to a half circle, keeping a good distance.
A voice boomed from the chopper bullhorn: 'Hands on top of your head!'
Walker spread his arms wide, brought his hands together over his head, laced his fingers. Wind shoved his hair on end and snapped his T-shirt. He staggered a few steps to the right, then a few steps more.
Tim started forward, picking his way up the vast rise of chaparral, Bear doing the same fifteen yards to his right. The helicopters hovered just over the fence line.
Walker turned slowly to face Tim, his front shadowed, the spotlights blazing around him. Gun steady in both hands, Tim tried to shout at him over the sound of the rotors to stop moving.
Keeping his hands laced above his neck, Walker dipped his head as if in acknowledgment of the shouted commands. He raised a boot and took a final step. A clang and he dropped from sight, disappearing into the earth, an upended grate popping into view.
The deputies sprinted up the hill, Tim in the lead. He kicked the grate aside and swung his gun barrel and flashlight over the black hole. A fifteen-foot drop, walled in concrete, a hot reek of sewage and nothing else. The other deputies huffed up behind him.
Bear recoiled from the stench. 'He jumped into the fucking sewage system?'
'You gonna go down there?' Maybeck asked, also yelling over the choppers.
'Not if I don't want to land on his gun barrel,' Tim shouted. 'I think it's a closed system. I want a schema of all the grates.'
Freed raised his phone and stepped away.
'Let's start getting bloodhounds and more men up here, just in case there's an outlet,' Tim said to the small huddle. 'He's trained in mountain nav, so we need to move. Maybeck-guard this hole. Let's sweep the property and see if there are any other pipes he could crawl out of.'
Freed was yelling into the phone with more animation than seemed necessary to be heard above the rotors' whomping. He slapped the phone shut and ran back over. 'The contractor said they fucking routed the sewer system to the storm-drain channels.'
'Goddamn it,' Bear said.
'Do we sweep the hills?' Maybeck asked.
