Springboard

“A tiger’s hard to keep in a cage,” Howard said.

Kent nodded. “Every now and then, Mike would somehow get out of his cage. Pranksters broke the locks off once, or somebody forgot to shut the cage. Mike got out, and naturally, he went exploring. Imagine how you’d feel if you were walking to the local market for a carton of milk and you looked up to see a four-hundred-pound Bengal tiger padding down the sidewalk toward you.”

Howard laughed. “I’d need new underwear.”

“Me, too. Luckily, nobody ever got eaten when the various Mikes took their strolls. Good thing, because if the cops or animal control people had ever had to shoot the big cat, the city would probably have lynched whoever pulled the trigger. Everybody loved Mike. The first one? After he died of old age, twenty-something, they stuffed and mounted him in the school museum, and you could listen to a tape recording of his roar. My brother took me to see him. Kind of spooky, that old stuffed tiger standing there.”

He paused for a moment, remembering. “The point is, when you have a wild animal, he’s only safe to be around as long as he’s under control. And it’s real easy to lose control of such a creature. One small slip, he gets you. Remember that magician who got attacked onstage in Las Vegas ten or twelve years ago? By a cat he had raised and trained?”

“Yes.”

“So, you always have to be careful.”

Howard said, “I hear that.”

And yet, here was Kent, three thousand miles away from that camper and conversation, being reckless. Waiting for a wild animal — one that could shoot back, no less — to emerge from his lair.

Killing Natadze would be easy: He steps out the door, you line your sights up, don’t say squat, and cook off two.45 auto rounds into the man’s heart, bam, bam, end of story. But that wasn’t how he wanted it to go down. He wanted the man alive and talking. It wasn’t about killing him, it was about defeating him—

Natadze’s door opened. There was no light behind him to silhouette him, but enough illumination from the parking lot and outside lamps to get a good view. He had the guitar case in one hand — his left — with his other hand free.

Kent frowned, liking this less and less. He couldn’t let the man get into his car, not and risk losing him. Where was he going at this hour?

Never mind that, Abe. Go!

He pulled his Colt and thumbed the safety off — he was already cocked and locked — put his trigger finger outside the guard, took a deep breath, and opened the van’s door.

Natadze spotted the motion immediately. He had taken several steps toward his car, was almost there, although he hadn’t dug his keys out yet. Kent would have been happier if the man had both hands occupied.

Kent kept his pistol behind his leg as he started toward Natadze. Still far enough away so the man might not make him—

At the back of his car, Natadze set the guitar case down, as if he was going to put it into the trunk, then straightened and suddenly broke into a sprint at a right angle to Kent, heading toward the open hallway to the north where the ice and soda machines were.

Kent snapped his pistol up, but Natadze was already ten feet farther away pumping fast and gaining speed. He hadn’t gone for his gun, and Kent didn’t want to shoot him. Plus a miss would put a round through a motel door or wall, and maybe hit somebody sleeping inside.

“Stop!” Kent yelled.

That was a waste of breath. Natadze sped up.

Kent ran, chasing the fleeing man.

The corridor opened up into another section of parking lot, around which there was a short chain-link fence. Too short a fence to slow Natadze down. He vaulted it, hit on the other side — another parking lot, for a fast-food place — and kept running.

All that training on the obstacle course paid off as Kent sailed over the fence without catching or breaking anything.

Natadze had twenty yards on him and was gaining more. Even full-out, Kent wasn’t as fast. If this kept up, Natadze would run away from him in a few minutes. He might have to shoot the guy anyway.

But Natadze doglegged to his left, into the parking lot of a small strip mall. Thirty yards back, Kent watched his quarry make a mistake. He rounded a corner, and when Kent reached it and glanced after the runner, he realized it was a dead end — windowless buildings on either side and a brick wall of a third building at the end.

Natdaze spun, and came up with a handgun—

Kent dodged to his left and took three steps, out of Natadze’s line of fire, behind the corner of the building. He didn’t want to shoot the man, but neither did he want to get shot himself—

Cover, he needed cover—!

Behind him was parked a pickup truck with a florist’s logo on the door. Kent backpedaled toward it, keeping the mouth of the alley covered.

Game over, Natadze. I have you now!

“It doesn’t have to be this way!” Kent yelled.

They were only half a block away from the motel where Natadze had been staying. Kent was behind solid cover, since even the cab of a full-size pickup truck was proof against most handgun rounds, to say nothing of the engine compartment. It was possible that Natadze might skip a round low, off the concrete, but a standard pistol bullet wasn’t going to have much steam — if any — after it ricocheted off the parking lot and went through two steel-belted truck tires, especially if it was a hollow-point, even semi-jacketed. But to try a shot that risky, he’d have to show himself, and Kent was ready for that.

“I’m afraid it does have to be this way!” Natadze called back.

He was behind the corner of the building, and Kent didn’t know what the walls were made of. It looked like adobe, but that could be a thin layer over concrete block, or styrofoam panels. The difference was concealment versus cover — you could shoot through the former but not the latter. Since Kent wasn’t sure exactly where the other man was, he wasn’t going to try and perforate a wall and hope that he hit the bad guy — and maybe generate a ricochet into some little old man five blocks away walking his Pomeranian.

Besides which, he wanted the man alive. There were a lot of questions still hanging, and Natadze knew the answers. Dead men told no tales.

More than that, dead was too easy.

Kent shifted his grip on his pistol. He was lined up, aiming over the hood of the truck, covering the corner of the building. There was one in the tube and seven in the magazine. He had two more full magazines, and if he needed more than two dozen rounds, he was gonna be in deep trouble anyhow.

Right now, they were in a standoff. The alley behind Natadze was a dead end; he wasn’t going anywhere unless he came out the way he went in, and that meant he’d have to get past Kent. On the other hand, Kent couldn’t go in after him, because there was no cover between the truck and the building — an animal clinic next to a dog-grooming shop and a Mexican restaurant — no concealment, nothing.

The first man to leave cover would be the first one exposed to the other’s fire. It was about twelve or fifteen meters from the truck to the building, and even a crappy shooter could make a body shot at that range; Kent had to assume that a professional killer knew how to shoot straight — thinking otherwise could get you dead in a hurry.

Time was on Kent’s side, though, and they both knew it. In a neighborhood like this at night, a little strip mall on the edge of a fairly upscale area, somebody probably would have heard the chase and the shouts. The local police would show up eventually, and while they might not be SWAT-grade officers, they would be cops with guns.

He could have called and warned them about how dangerous Natadze was — if he hadn’t left his virgil on the seat in the rented van. He should have had it on his belt.

Yeah. And if he had X-ray vision and superpowers, he could see Natadze and fly over there and capture him, too. No point in going down the “if only” road.