Sudden Prey

cops were firing. Lucas reached the corner and peeked.
    MARTIN WAS FIFTEEN feet away, in an alleyway stairwell. On his right, he was protected by the building. Ahead of him, and to his left, all along the length of a vacant lot, cop cars blocked the route. The cops were returning fire, but they didn’t know he was below the level of the stairwell wall. With the snow, they probably couldn’t see anything but the muzzle flash.
    He crouched for a second, then popped up and fired another burst at one of the cars, aiming low, figuring the cops would be behind it.
     
     
     
    LUCAS SAID TO the handset, “Tell everybody to cease fire. Cease fire, for Christ’s sakes, you’re gonna kill me. I got him if you can make them cease fire.”
    Three seconds later, he heard yelling on the other side of the street, and the fire diminished. He peeked at the corner again. Martin had reloaded, and was about to pop up again, to hose down the line of cars.
    Lucas shouted, “Freeze!”
    Martin turned, and his mouth dropped open. He posed like that for an instant, looking at the shotgun, then said, “Fuck you,” and the AR came around. Lucas waited for a microsecond longer than he should have, then shot Martin in the head.

27
    LUCAS YELLED, “GOT him,” stepped out and waved, and a line of cops broke toward him. He stepped through the snow and down the steps to the body. Most of the top of Martin’s head was gone, but his face looked almost placid, his eyes closed, his lips turned up in a not-quite smile.
    There was little point to it—he was dead—but out of reflex Lucas patted the body, felt the solidity of the body armor under the coat. And something else. A pistol, Lucas thought, but when he touched it, it was rectangular and he slipped it out of Martin’s pocket just as Stadic arrived at the top of the stairs.
    “He’s dead?”
    Lucas said, “Yeah,” and stood up, a cell phone in his hand. Where’d they get it? Probably a street buy. He frowned at the phone, then stepped up the stairs toward Stadic: “Watch the muzzle,” he said. Stadic’s shotgun muzzle had drifted toward him as Stadic peered down the stairwell to Martin. “One down, one to go.”
    “One?” Stadic asked. “What about the woman?”
    “She’s been talking to us. We’re not sure about her status,” Lucas said.
    “Okay.” Stadic nodded, and he thought: Shit. They’re gonna talk with her.
    Lucas brushed past him on the way up the stairs and said, “So let’s find them.”
    The line of cops arrived and Lucas shouted, “There’re two more. They’re headed up the street toward the dome . . .”
     
     
     
    A PATROL LIEUTENANT trotted over and they began talking search techniques, and whether they should put it off until light: Lucas wanted to keep the pressure on. Stadic watched them as they talked. Lucas still had the phone in his hand, then unconsciously stuck it in his coat pocket. Had to get it. Stadic stared at the pocket. Had to get it, had to get it, had to get it . . . the chant rang through his mind like a mantra.
    “Come on,” Lucas called to him. Stadic, jolted back to the present, said, “I’m here,” and Lucas clapped him on the back and led the way back behind the building. He was six feet ahead, unsuspecting. Stadic had the shotgun: and there were more cops everywhere. But the temptation . . . an accident.
    Nobody would believe it.
    Had to get him alone. He had a piece-of-shit Davis .380 in his pocket. A piece of shit but it’d do the job, but he had to have him alone. Alone with either LaChaise or the woman would be best . . . But Christ, who knew what would happen in that chase?
    Davenport was electric, animated, and if you didn’t know what was going on, you might think Happy. Stadic thought about the arrows coming out of the snow, silent razors in the dark, the whack in the chest. If it’d been eight inches higher, it’d have carved a hole right through his throat and he’d be lying in the street with a plastic bag over his face. He shuddered, and followed Davenport.
     
     
     
    THE SEARCH GOT under way. Groups of cops swept the streets, parking lots and yards inside a perimeter thrown up in the first few minutes after finding LaChaise’s location. Any house that showed fresh tracks was approached, the door banged on, the occupants asked and warned. But there were few of them this early in the day.
    Lucas stayed along Eleventh, the billowing top of the dome a few blocks straight ahead, like the Pillsbury