No point being coy. Ferguson slipped the Browning back into its holster, walked around the corner and across the blacktop toward the station. When he was still alive after the first two steps, he knew Fisher was gone. Ferguson remembered what Winston Churchill had said, that nothing was quite so gratifying as having been shot at and missed. Thing was, this didn’t feel real special. Used to. Sad goddamn thing when living through the day didn’t float your boat anymore.
Ferguson could see a man in a blue work shirt behind the counter. He could see the man’s eyes widen when he saw Ferguson. He could see the man pick up the phone and dial a number. Without breaking stride, Ferguson drew the Browning, brought it up, and snapped three quick shots through the window and into the blue shirt. The shots knocked the man backward into a wire rack of cigarette cartons. The man and the cartons tumbled down behind the counter.
The door had a bell over it that jangled when Ferguson walked in. He walked around the counter and stepped over the body. The receiver to the phone was on the floor, the cord snaking up to the wall unit. Ferguson grabbed the cord and put the receiver to his ear. Dial tone. He hit the redial button. Three tones. 911. He hung up and called Weaver’s cellular.
“Weaver.”
“He set us up,” said Ferguson. “Had a suppressor on the Dragunov. I just caught a sense, took a header off my hide. Radio’s smashed to shit. I’m on the land line from the station. Owner got a call in to 911 before I popped him. Gotta figure we got heat on the way.”
“What about the other three?”
“They’re dead. Either that or you’re betting Fisher missed two shots in one day.”
“Fisher bug out?”
“I had to walk across thirty meters of open asphalt to get in here. He’s gone.”
“OK. Chen’s on the way. Figure two minutes from the trailhead.”
“OK. Sorry, Colonel. I screwed the pooch on this one. Should have seen it coming.”
“Fuck, Fergie, we all should have. And seeing things coming is my job. You didn’t screw the pooch, just gave the old boy a hand job is all. See you at the hangar.”
Ferguson hung up the phone and walked back out the door toward the rock face. Figured he’d better get the Barrett.
Ninety seconds after Ferguson walked out of the station, Chen came around the rock face from the north and pulled into the lot. As Ferguson walked toward the black Suburban, a purple minivan pulled into the station from the south and rolled up to the pumps. A plump blonde soccer mom got out and reached for the pump handle. She froze when she saw Ferguson. Chen climbed out of the Suburban.
“Hi,” the soccer mom said.
Chen whipped her little .25 from behind her back and shot the soccer mom through the forehead. The woman slumped back against the side of the minivan and slid to the pavement. Ferguson heard a siren coming fast from the north. A sheriff’s car came around the rock face. The cop saw the body against the van, Chen with the gun in her hand, Ferguson in his cammies, blood on him. The cop pulled a perfect bootleg skid, sliding the car around to put it between him and the Suburban. Chen was already putting rounds through the cruiser’s windshield with the .25, but the cop had his door open and went out low, getting the engine block between him and Chen.
“Chen,” Ferguson called. He pulled the Browning from the holster and tossed it. Chen caught it with her left hand while she took the last shot in the .25 with her right. Then she started lighting up the front of the squad car with the Browning.
Ferguson grabbed up the Barrett, swung the barrel down, pulled the butt back into his damaged right shoulder (and wasn’t that going to hurt because the Barrett kicked like a couple hundred angry Rockettes), lined up the hood of the cop car, and cut loose.
The Barrett didn’t sound like a rifle. It sounded like the voice of God, and like God was really pissed off. Ferguson wasn’t aiming the first round. The .50 slug tore through the front quarter panel and into the engine block, rocking the cruiser on its suspension and ripping something loose that caused a jet of steam to shoot out the front of the hood. Metal scrap must have blown down into the tire, because it blew out and the cruiser settled toward Ferguson. Ferguson remembered the incendiary rounds. He swung the barrel toward the rear of the cruiser and fired.
The back of the cruiser erupted in a yellow-orange flash, the car leaping up on its front tires like a horse trying to throw a rider and then smashing back down. The cop rolled away from the front of the car, his clothes on fire. Chen took careful aim and put two rounds through the side of his head. Ferguson was ready to climb into the Suburban when he noticed Chen walking toward the minivan. In the back in a car seat was a kid, no more than two, pink coat. The kid was screaming.
Ferguson leveled the Barrett at Chen.
“Chen,” he called. “Leave the kid.”
Chen turned, saw Ferguson with the Barrett pointing at her across the hood of the truck.
“It’s a sterile mission, Ferguson. No contagions.”
“It’s a fucking baby, Chen. It’s not a contagion. Kid can’t even talk. Weaver wants the kid, he can come out here and do it himself. Release the clip, pull back the slide.”
Chen paused for a second. Then the clip fell to the pavement, and she ejected the round in the Browning’s chamber. She walked to the truck and put the Browning on the hood.
“Get in,” Ferguson said. “You drive.”
As she climbed into the truck, Ferguson set down the Barrett, picked up the Browning, slapped in a new clip, and chambered a round. He opened the rear passenger door and tossed the Barrett over the seat into the cargo area. Ferguson climbed into the back, sitting behind Chen, still holding the Browning.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Chen drove past the burning cruiser and the purple minivan, out onto the two-lane road and east toward the Interstate. A mile later, two sheriff’s cars shot past them, headed west. Ferguson felt the adrenaline starting to wear off and the pain setting in. His shoulder was the worst of it, but it had competition. He pulled the first-aid kit from the back and took out a bottle of painkillers. The bottle said two every four hours. He took four. By the time they cleared Moriah, he was starting to feel better. Hell of a thing. Three friends dead. OK, two friends and Richter, never did much like Richter. Killed some poor fuck just trying to run a gas station. Helped kill some soccer mom and incinerate a cop, and he was starting to feel better. He hoped they didn’t run into anymore shit on the way to Effingham.
CHAPTER 30 – ABOVE INDIANA
As the Gulf Stream streaked east toward Washington, Weaver sat back in the leather seat and swirled his Macallan around in the leaded highball glass. Chen had patched up Ferguson. He was sleeping in the back row.
Weaver remembered his first kill. Some Burmese agitator friend of Ho Chi Minh’s looking to expand Minh’s influence. Hot night. Alley behind the pussy bar in Bangkok littered with colored patches where neon reflected off the puddles. Smell of rain. Smell of fish. The feral look in the mark’s eyes when he’d seen Weaver, seen the knife. Slant fuck tried some of that chop-sockey shit, but the boys at the agency’s little spa out past Quantico had taught Weaver some chop-sockey shit of his own. And the mark only went about one hundred and forty pounds. It hadn’t taken long. Hadn’t really been his first, though. There were all those Chinese up and down the Korean peninsula, mostly around Chosin. But Korea was different. Korea was as stand-up fight.
Weaver had his highball glass most of the way to his mouth when he saw Chen standing next to him.
“Yeah, Chen?”
“Sir, I’ve extrapolated our line on the assumption that today’s action is a continuation of Fisher’s pattern. If so, his next stop will be between Memphis, Tennessee, and Huntsville, Alabama.”