Rules of Honour - 08, page 23
part #8 of Joe Hunter Series
At the stairs he paused.
Burglars didn’t normally break light bulbs on their way through a house. He looked up into the solid wedge of darkness above him, feeling a flare of excitement.
What if it wasn’t a burglar who’d found access to his home? What if it was someone else entirely?
He half expected to see the stranger appear from the gloom, as he had in his recent nightmare, the flashes of gunfire lighting up his features as he came at Markus. He almost welcomed the scene, because this time he was ready for him.
Knuckles pounded on the front door.
He was caught in a moment of flux: what should he do? Answer the door or check for the intruder? What if both were connected and the person banging at the door was a distraction to allow the one inside the house to steal up on him in the dark? He understood now why the bulbs had been broken – it was a deliberate act in order to confuse him.
He took a tighter grip on his gun, and placing his back to the wall next to the door, he kept an eye up the flight of stairs. Then he snatched his gaze away for the briefest of seconds to peer through the dingy glass in the door. A shape moved beyond the murky glass: a shadow only, cast by the headlights of a vehicle parked on the street.
The banging came again. ‘Charles Peterson?’
‘Who is it?’ Markus yelled.
‘Police. Open up.’
How the hell had the police made the connection to him? Whoever it was upstairs must have called them, he realised. They had seen the photographs, been horrified by their discovery and immediately telephoned the police.
There was more banging on the door. ‘Open up, Peterson.’
There was no possible way that he could allow himself to be arrested. Not yet. Markus had a single recourse, and it forced his hand.
He lifted his gun and fired, directly through the wood. He was wise enough not to shoot through the door, as the cop out there would not stand directly in the line of fire. He angled his shots so that they passed through the worm-eaten walls to either side of the door. He heard a yelp of pain, and the thud of someone going down hard on the porch. There was a corresponding shout from another person more distant. He knew the likelihood of other cops surrounding the house was very high, but he also doubted that they would have come in force based only on a tip-off. They would wish to investigate first, and then arrest Markus after establishing just cause.
Markus quickly pulled the door open a few inches, peering down at the cop rolling on the porch in agony. He saw a man in a navy-blue suit, with dark hair that had flopped over his pale face. Markus ignored him, seeking instead the source of the second voice. He spotted a large fair-haired man rushing towards the house, his gun held out in the two-handed grip as he sought to cover his fallen comrade, and to find a viable target at the same time. When the big cop caught sight of Markus it was too late. Markus fired directly at the cop and hit him high in the chest, knocking him down. The cop let out a yowl that was more anger than it was pain, and Markus realised he was probably wearing a bulletproof vest. He fired again, seeking to hit the man in a more telling place. The cop came up to his knees, and then scrambled for cover. He was yelling at Markus to drop his weapon, but didn’t yet return fire.
Markus stepped out of the door.
He quickly scanned around, seeking the hiding places of other cops, but saw that other than the one car drawn up at the rear of his own vehicle, no other cruisers were on the scene yet.
He smiled, the momentary concern of before replaced by savage satisfaction at having defeated the cops sent to interrogate him. They would definitely call in reinforcements, but not if he snatched that opportunity away from them. He looked again for the big cop and saw that he’d managed to place a shrub between them. The bush offered no protection from Markus’s gun, but did make targeting more difficult. Markus fired two rapid shots into the greenery, and saw the big cop throw himself flat. He wasn’t sure if he’d killed him or not, but immediately turned his attention to the nearer detective.
There was a gun lying out of reach of the man. In any case, he didn’t look capable of lifting it. Markus could now see that his shots through the wall had been deadly – or would prove to be so judging from the copious amount of blood pouring from the man’s neck. The cop had both hands on the wound, and his mouth was opening and closing in silent shock. His dark eyes were pools of despair as he stared up at his slayer.
Markus pointed the gun directly at the cop’s face.
He pulled the trigger.
The gun cracked noisily.
Aimed directly at the cop’s skull, the nine mm round would kill him, but Markus’s aim was knocked askew at the last second.
He did not see where the bullet struck, but it was not in human flesh from the resounding crack! Markus let out a shout of anger, as much at missing his shot as at the man who grappled with his gun hand. He felt his wrist twisted violently, somebody trying to tear the gun from his grip with such sudden violence that it tore skin from his fingers.
Rage struck Markus in a flash flood. He should never have taken his attention off whoever was lurking in his house. Now he’d allowed himself to be captured. Goddamnit, no! He would not give up. He struck out, throwing all his weight against his attacker. He rammed his elbow backwards, but though he struck, the body was too prepared to be hurt badly. Instead he pivoted, hard and fast, and head-butted the face of the man struggling with him. It wasn’t the stranger – it was Jared Rington. The man was momentarily dazed, and Markus plucked his hand free. He swung to gut shoot him.
Another gun blazed, someone coming down the stairs fast. Markus skipped back and on to the porch, almost tripping over the fallen cop, missing his opportunity to finish Rington. Thankfully the man’s large body blocked the doorway and thwarted his friend’s aim. But now Rington was going for his gun. He could still kill him and quite possibly the stranger as well. But then the fair-haired cop joined the shooting party. His shots were ill aimed, and punched into the walls of the house. Rington ducked back inside, swearing loudly, and Markus understood the notion of discretion being the better part of valour. Caught in the sights of three guns he didn’t stand a chance. He turned quickly and leaped from the porch, charging across the unkempt garden for the low wall. The cop had no clear target through the foliage and Markus capitalised on his blind shooting, knowing that it would also pin down the other two men.
‘Goddamnit, Jones!’ someone yelled. ‘Hold your fire. He’s getting away!’
The cop either didn’t hear or didn’t care. He fired again at the house, just as Markus went over the wall and landed on the hood of his car. He was inside it in seconds, the car squealing away from the kerb, leaving behind twin ribbons of rubber on the asphalt. As he forced the car round the first bend, Markus was grinning savagely. He was adrenalised, the blood raging though him. Now that was just the kind of warm up he required for the night ahead.
Chapter 35
The last thing either of us expected was Detectives Jones and Tyler arriving at the front door. Their appearance warned of untold problems to come, but there was nothing to do but follow through with our course of action and kill Markus. By grabbing Markus when he did, Rink assuredly saved Tyler’s life, but I wasn’t sure that would win us any brownie points in the eyes of the law. Tyler was too shocked to understand he’d survived such a near miss – let alone recognise us as his saviours – but Gar Jones was still alive and fully aware. Perhaps aware was a poor choice of words, because he was indiscriminately firing his weapon at the front of the house, causing us to retreat while Markus made his escape. It was a response born of shock and panic, and I wasn’t sure if he even realised he was allowing the murderer to get away.
The roar of his car peeling away from the sidewalk meant that we’d missed an opportunity to finish Markus. But not entirely. If we could follow him now, we could still catch the bastard. The only problem being, saving a life was always more important than taking one in my estimation.
‘Hold your fire, Jones. For God’s sake, your partner’s dying here!’
The bullets stopped punching through the open doorway.
Jones was considering my words, and I had to keep him thinking.
‘You know we’re not your enemy. The bastard who just shot Tyler is. He’s getting away, goddamnit, and Tyler’s bleeding to death.’
‘Show yourselves,’ Jones shouted back.
Rink was dabbing at a raw patch on his cheek where Markus head-butted him. By the look of him he was wishing he’d twisted Markus’s head back to front instead of going for his gun hand. ‘What do you think?’ I asked him.
‘Think I should’ve killed the fucker when I had the chance,’ he said. But then his gaze fell on the shuddering form of Detective Tyler on the porch, and his expression changed. He’d made the correct decision, after all. The man was severely wounded, but without Rink’s intervention he would have been dead by now. Tyler still stood a chance. ‘Jones. We’re coming out,’ he shouted. ‘Get over here and lend a hand with your buddy.’
We put our guns away, and moved outside, our hands empty so that Jones was under no illusion as to our intent. Jones approached us; he had a palm slapped to a wound on his outer left thigh, but in his other hand he held his service pistol aimed at us. He was a man torn by indecision. I hoped he’d be a friend to Tyler before he was a cop. His features showed a range of emotions as he checked us out: anger, rage, but something else too. It was the look of gratitude I was glad of, but it was not something we could rely on. The detective would have called this in and other uniformed officers would be descending on the house, and they would arrest us in a heartbeat. It made our need to get away more urgent.
‘Here, quickly,’ I commanded. ‘You must put pressure on the wound, or he’ll be gone in minutes.’
Jones had only one decision to make. Arrest us or not. If he did so then he’d miss the opportunity to save his friend. Thankfully he didn’t consider making one of us administer assistance to his fallen comrade. That was his duty, he understood. He placed down his gun on the porch while he pushed both palms down over Tyler’s hands. Blood still pulsed between all twenty interlaced fingers. ‘Hold on there, buddy,’ he said. ‘Help is on its way, OK. You’ll get through this.’
‘You called an ambulance, right?’ Rink asked.
‘Coming,’ Jones whispered, without taking his gaze off Tyler’s pale features. ‘It’s coming.’
‘Good,’ Rink said. He nudged me. ‘We’re leaving.’
‘You can’t. You have to wait here.’ Jones’s face was stricken, as if he did not want to be alone with him when Tyler slipped away.
‘We have to stop the bastard who did this. You know how it is, Jones,’ I said. ‘If your buddies arrive while we’re here, they’ll waste time arresting and processing us. There are still people in danger from that murderous son of a bitch. Do you want him to hurt others the way he has your partner?’
The big cop stared down on his friend. Tyler tried to say something, but all that issued from between his lips were scarlet bubbles. Even so his intention was emphatic enough. Jones turned and looked at us. ‘You’d best go out the back way, or else you’ll be stopped.’
We shared a moment, and for the first time our attitudes were ones of mutual respect. He mirrored my nod of acknowledgement. Then we fled round the side of the rickety house to where we’d left Rink’s father’s car. Rink had grabbed the sack and its contents we’d brought, and he slung them in the back. He got in the passenger seat, while I started the engine. Our original intention to grab and execute Markus somewhere far from prying eyes was now redundant. Now it didn’t matter how many witnesses there were, our hand had been forced and we had to take more direct and immediate action. First we had to get away from there.
I threw the car into drive and set off, but only made it as far as the side of the house before noticing the baleful wail of approaching sirens; over the rooftops of the houses opposite the stuttering gumball lights rebounded from the trees on the next ridge over. I hoped that one of the sirens and set of lights was from the ambulance on its way to save Tyler.
Jones’s warning to leave by the back made sense. If we went out by the same route I’d driven in, we’d be seen and chased down. There was nothing for it, then. I reversed quickly, popped a turn on the hard stand at the back, then angled towards the overgrown shrubbery. I caught a look of resignation from Rink reflected in the rear-view mirror, and I could only shrug. I battered through the foliage, hearing branches gouging the metal work, leaves and flower heads blizzarding over the windscreen as the car tore through. A sapling bent and snapped beneath the fender; I hoped it caused no major damage to the undercarriage. The next obstacle was a weathered wooden fence, but it was smashed to kindling, and I pushed the car unhindered now down a rugged slope of couch grass and plants I neither cared to identify nor worry about.
The drop off to the road was the trickiest manoeuvre to perform, and it was as much luck as skill that sent the car off the hillside at an angle, so that the two offside wheels found traction on the asphalt before I pulled at the steering and weaved off the embankment on to hard ground. As it was the resulting contact made the car slew and bounce like crazy, but I grimly held on to the wheel and forced it under control.
‘Good job we’re dumping the car after this,’ Rink said.
He was right. The chances were that I’d caused unthinkable damage to the chassis and the car would never be roadworthy again. As long as it took us to where we were going, though, that was all that mattered now. There was a whine from the engine that hadn’t been there before, as well as a rhythmical thud each time the front left wheel completed a revolution, but otherwise the car kept going. I pushed it as fast as I dared, taking us down a steeply sloping avenue towards lower ground, intent only on evading the police swarming towards Markus’s house. Nearing the bottom of the incline, I slowed, and drew up at a crossing. Waiting there we looked like any other car on the road – so long as no one made a closer inspection – and we didn’t receive as much as a glance from the cops in the marked cruiser that shot by with its sirens screeching.
‘So far so good,’ I said, clichéd but true. Once the cop car was out of sight around the next bend I pulled out, heading in the opposite direction, intent on gaining a route to Bridget Lanaghan’s house before the police cordoned us in. It was apparent to us both that Markus would have reconsidered his plans now that his identity had been discovered. With Parnell and Faulks safely out of his grasp that left only one other he could target. He’d be going for Yukiko.
The temptation was to drive fast, but that could attract too much attention, so much as it pained me I kept to the speed limit, heading across town to the Lanaghan house. Thankfully traffic was sparse by now, so there were no major hold-ups, and even the traffic lights fell in our favour. We made it to Bridget’s leafy neighbourhood in a little less than ten minutes. It felt like ten minutes too long. Rink was gritting his teeth, his features set rock solid the entire time. We didn’t concern ourselves with debating what-ifs, which would have been a waste of energy. Markus was very unlikely to have arrived before us, because his priority would also have been avoiding the police cordon. There were no guarantees that he even knew about the connection between Yukiko and Bridget Lanaghan’s home, but it wasn’t a chance either of us would take. Yukiko would have to be moved elsewhere. Probably it would be best that Bridget and the other members of her family were taken somewhere safer until this was resolved.
As I pulled up outside the well-kept garden, Rink was out the car and rushing up the path for the front door before I’d engaged the parking brake. As fast as he was, the door opened before he got all the way there, and standing in the opening was Bridget’s daughter, Judith. Even across the length of the garden I recognised the woman’s concern in the way that she plucked at her tie-dyed skirt. I couldn’t hear what she said, but their discourse lasted all of about five seconds before Rink was charging back towards the car.
‘My mom’s house. Now!’ he shouted even as he was lunging inside the car.
Without argument I hit the gas.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Why does my mom have to be so goddamn stubborn all the time?’ he demanded by way of reply. It didn’t explain, but I could read the subtext behind his words.
‘She has gone home?’ I asked.
‘Where else? The hard-headed old goat . . .’ Rink punched the dash. ‘Mom talked Mrs Lanaghan into driving her home. Judith phoned, to check that they made it there safely as she expected her mom home ages ago. She got no answer, Joe. Dear God, what if Markus went straight there and has hurt her already?’
Earlier my resolve to stay within the speed limit had been tested. Now it simply snapped as I floored the pedal, aiming to get to the Rington family home in record time. We had the idea that Markus didn’t know where Bridget lived, but the same couldn’t be said for Yukiko’s home. The bastard had been there before.
I tore along streets. I recalled Rink’s joke bemoaning the lack of opportunity to do a Bullitt when evading Chaney’s men that time, but we got it now. Andrew’s car wasn’t a super-charged Mustang like Steve McQueen drove in the iconic movie scene, but it did the job all the same, ramping off each intersection as we hit the downward slopes. Something had been knocked loose as I’d negotiated the hillside behind Markus’s house, and now it rattled and clanged and the engine was making a high-pitched shriek. I didn’t slow one bit. We cut across town and screeched on two wheels around the penultimate corner before reaching Yukiko’s street.
