Sirens. Static from the radios. More sirens. Lots of them. Lucas crouched behind the car.

"Where's the shotgun?" he screamed. "Anybody see the shotgun?"

A cop was crying for help, the pain on him. Another was a lump in the dirt.

"Who's around back?" somebody called.

"Nobody. Get somebody around back."

A uniform dashed into the headlights, stopped next to the cop who was lying still in the dirt, and began tugging him out of the light. Lucas stood, aiming his pistol through the doorway, and squeezed off two suppression shots.

"He's gone," the uniform screamed, holding the dead cop in his arms. "Jesus, where are the paramedics?"

More lights in the lane, then Sloan coming up the driveway.

"Heard you on the radio," he grunted. "What have we got?"

"Maybe a shotgun inside."

There was a figure at the door, and two or three separate voices screamed warnings. t "Hold it, hold it," somebody shouted.

The girl appeared in the doorway, her eyes as wide as a deer's, shambling out of the wreckage.

"Who's in there?" Lucas called as she came across the driveway.

"Nobody," she wailed. She half turned to the house as though she couldn't believe it. "Everybody's dead."

CHAPTER 27

"I don't know what else we could have done," Lucas said. In his own ears, the words sounded like excuses, quick and chattery as if tumbling out of a teletype, harsh with guilt. "If we hadn't gone straight in, we'd have lost Clay for sure. We knew they weren't far in front of us."

"You did okay," Daniel said grimly. "It was that fuckin' Clay, sneaking out like that. The Crows must have known. They set him up, slicker'n shit. Fuckin' Wilson is dead, Bel-loo's maybe crippled, it's that fuckin' Clay's fault."

"It must have been Shadow Love with the shotgun," Lucas said. He was leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets and his head down. His shirt was covered with blood. He thought it might be Belloo's. He was missing the heel of one shoe. Shot off? He wasn't sure. That foot hurt, but there were no wounds. Not a scratch. A uniformed captain, his face pale as the moon, stood down the hall and watched them talk. "He did Clay and Wilson and Belloo, all three. One of the Crows must have shot Drake. But that motherfucker Shadow Love, he caught us with that shotgun…"

"The whole thing lasted no more than eight seconds," Daniel said. "That's what they're getting from the tapes…"

"Christ…"

"The main thing is Shadow Love," Daniel said. "He must have gone out the back. We've got the neighborhood blocked off. We'll get him in the morning; I just hope he didn't get out before we set up the line."

"What if he's in somebody's house? What if he went in somewhere and he's got somebody's family on the wall?"

"We'll be going door to door."

"Motherfucker's a fruitcake and he's carrying a shotgun and we just killed his fathers…"

They were standing in the antiseptic hallways of Hennepin Medical Center, outside the surgical suite, one set of doors closer to the operating rooms than was usually permitted. Two dozen family members, friends and cops were corralled one set of doors farther out, waiting for news.

And beyond the next set, a hundred newsmen, maybe more. Doctors and nurses shuttled in and out of the operating suite, half of them with no business there, but officiously correct in demeanor. They wanted to see what was going on.

Clay had been taken in, but he was gone; so was Drake, shot in the heart. The first cop shot was brain dead, but they had him on a respirator; the hospital was talking to his family about organ donations. The second cop was still on the table. A nurse had pointed out the doc working on Belloo, the same redheaded surgeon who'd done Lily. Two more surgeons joined her, and an hour after Belloo went on the table, she came through the doors into the waiting area.

"You guys are giving me more business than I need," she said grimly.

"What's the story?"

"It'll be a while before we know. We've got a neurosur-geon looking at some crap around his spinal cord. There's some bone splinters in there but he's still got function…"

"He can walk?"

The surgeon shrugged. "He's going to lose something but not all of it. And we had to get a urologist down. A couple pellets went through a testicle."

Lucas and Daniel both winced. "Is he going to lose…?"

"We're evaluating that. I don't know. He'd still be functional, even with one, but there's some plumbing in there… Do you know if he has kids?"

"Yeah, three or four," said Daniel.

"Good," said the surgeon. She looked tired as she dumped her mask and gloves in the discard bin. "I better go talk to the family."

She was headed toward the family waiting area when the automatic doors swung open. The mayor and one of his aides came through, followed by the FBI's agent in charge.

"We gotta do something for the TV," the mayor snapped.

"I think we need more investigation…" the AIC said urgently.

"Bullshit, we got Davenport and a half-dozen cops saw the girl and we've got her statement and his body. There's no question…"

"There's always a question," said the AIC.

"There's a videotape," said Daniel.

"Aw, Jesus," said the AIC. He turned to a hospital wall and leaned his head against it.

"We could deal," the mayor said to Daniel. "He was one of the administration's point men on crime. I don't know what we could get, but it'd be a lot. More urban renewal; new sewage treatment; our own air force; you name it."

Daniel shook his head. "No."

"Why not?" the AIC asked heatedly. "Why the fuck not? We stood down in that surveillance post after the fuckup with Bill Hood and we cut a deal. Remember what you said? You said, 'You always deal. Always.' "

"There's a corollary to that rule," Daniel said.

"What's that?"

"You always deal, except sometimes," Daniel said. He looked at the mayor. "This is one of those times."

The mayor nodded. "First, it just wouldn't be right."

"And second, we'd get caught," said Daniel. "You want to tell the TV, or you want me to?"

"You do it; I'm going to call somebody in the White House," the mayor said. "It's going to be bad, but there are levels of badness. Maybe I can cut a deal to make it less bad…"

The AIC argued that the mayor should talk to the president before any announcement; the aide suggested that they had nothing to lose. Daniel pointed out that the discussion they were having could already bring big political trouble: they were talking about a conspiracy to cover up a crime. The politicians began backing away. The AIC still wanted to talk. As tempers got hotter, the night seemed to close in on Lucas, until he felt he might suffocate.

"I'm going," he told Daniel. "You don't need me and I need to sit down somewhere."

"All right," Daniel nodded. "But if you can't help thinking about it, think about Shadow Love."

Sloan was coming in as Lucas left.

"You okay?" Sloan asked.

"Yeah," Lucas said wearily. "Considering."

"How's Wilson?"

"Dead. They're selling off his heart and lungs and liver and kidneys and probably his dick…"

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," Sloan blurted, appalled.

"Belloo's gonna make it. Might lose one of his balls."

"Jesus…" Sloan ran a hand through his hair. "You stop to see Lily?"

"No…"

"Look, man…" Sloan started.

He hesitated, and Lucas said, "What?"

"Do you feel bad about her now? With her husband here and all?" (Lucas thought about it for a second before he shook his | head. "No," he said.

"Good," said Sloan. '"Cause you shouldn't."

"Got my goddamn car shot up," Lucas said. "My fuckin' insurance agent is gonna jump out a window when he hears about it."