Blaze. Part 23

Granger's head was flopping and nodding now, as if to say he understood, he was getting the message. His face had gone purple. His eyes bulged from their sockets.

They're coming.

Blaze stopped choking the guy and looked around. No one in sight. The woods were silent except for the wind and the faint hissing noise the snow made as it fell.

No, there was was another sound. There was Joe. another sound. There was Joe.

Blaze ran back up the embankment to the cave. Joe was rolling around, wailing and clutching at the air. The flying chip of rock had done more damage than the fall from the cradle; his cheek was covered in blood.

'G.o.d d.a.m.n d.a.m.n it!' Blaze cried. it!' Blaze cried.

He picked Joe up, wiped his cheek, slipped him into the envelope of blankets again, and stuck his cap back over the baby's head. Joe whooped and screamed.

'We gotta run now, George,' Blaze said. 'Full-out run. Right?'

No answer.

Blaze backed out of the cave holding the baby to his chest, turned into the wind, and fled toward the logging road.

'Where did Corliss leave him?' Sterling panted at Franklin. The men had paused at the edge of the woods, breathing hard.

Franklin pointed. 'Down there. I can find it.'

Sterling turned to Bradley. 'Call your people. And the c.u.mberland County Sheriff. I wanted that logging road plugged at both ends. What's past it if he slips through?'

Bradley barked a laugh. 'Nothing but the Royal River. Like to see him ford that.'

'Is it iced over?'

'Sure, but not enough to walk on.'

'All right. Let us press on. Franklin, take point. Short Short point. This guy is very dangerous.' point. This guy is very dangerous.'

They moved down the first slope. Fifty yards into the woods, Sterling made out a blue-gray figure slumped against a tree.

Franklin got there first. 'Corliss,' he said.

'Dead?' Sterling asked, joining him.

'Oh yeah.' Franklin pointed to tracks that were now little more than vague dips.

'Let's go,' Sterling said. This time he took point.

They found Granger five minutes later. The marks on his throat were at least an inch deep.

'Guy must be a brute,' someone said.

Sterling pointed into the snow. 'That's a cave up there. I'm almost positive. Maybe he left the kid.'

Two State Troopers scrambled up toward the triangular patch of shadow. One of them paused, bent, picked something out of the snow. He held it up. 'A gun!' he yelled.

As if the rest of us are blind, Sterling thought. 'Never mind the frigging gun, gun, see about the kid! And be careful!' see about the kid! And be careful!'

One of them knelt, used his flashlight, then crawled after the beam. The other bent forward, hands on knees, listened, then turned back to Sterling and Franklin. 'Not here!'

They spotted tracks leading from the cave toward the logging road even before the Trooper who had gone into the cave was out again. They were little more than vague humps in the fast-falling snow.

'He can't have more than ten minutes on us,' Sterling said to Franklin. Then he raised his voice. 'Spread out! We're going to sweep him out onto that road!'

They headed out fast, Sterling tromping in Blaze's tracks.

Blaze ran.

He went in stumbling leaps, crashing straight through tangles of brush rather than trying to find a way around, bending over Joe to try and shield him from stabbing branches. Breath tore in and out of his lungs. He heard faint yelling behind him. The sound of those voices filled Blaze with panic.

Joe was whooping and struggling and coughing, but Blaze held him fast. Just a little more, a little farther, and they would come out on the road. There would be cars there. Police cars, but he didn't care about that. As long as there were keys left in them. He would drive as far and fast as he could, then dump the police cruiser and switch to something else. A truck would be good. These thoughts came and went in his head like big colored cartoons.

He blundered through a marshy place where the thin ice surrounding the snow-covered hummocks gave way and plunged him into frigid water up to his ankles. He kept going and came to a head-high wall of brambles. He went straight through, only turned around backwards to protect Joe. One of them got under the cap Joe was wearing, though, and slingshotted it back toward the marsh. No time to get it.

Joe stared around, his eyes wide with terror. Without the enveloping hat to warm the air in front of his face, he began to gasp harder. Now his cries sounded thin. Behind them, the faint blue voice of the law was yelling something else. It didn't matter. Nothing did except getting to the road.

The land began to slope upward. The going became a little easier. Blaze lengthened his stride, running for his life. And Joe's.

Sterling was also going full out, and he had drawn thirty yards ahead of the others. He was gaining. Why not? The big b.a.s.t.a.r.d was breaking trail for him. The walkie on his belt crackled. Sterling pulled it but didn't waste his breath, only double-keyed it.

'This is Bradley, come back?'

'Yeah.' That was all. Sterling needed the rest of his breath to run with. The most coherent thought in his mind, overlaying the others like a bright red film, was the knowledge that the homicidal f.u.c.k had killed Granger. Had killed an Agent.

'County Sheriff has placed units on that logging road, boss. State Police will reinforce ASAP. Over?'

'Good. Over and out.'

He ran on. Five minutes later he came upon a red cap lying in the snow. Sterling stuck it in his coat pocket and kept running.

Blaze struggled the last fifty uphill yards to the logging road, almost winded. Joe wasn't crying anymore; he no longer had breath to waste on crying. Snow had clotted on his eyelids and in his lashes, weighting them down.

Blaze went to his knees twice, each time holding his arms against his sides to cushion the baby. At last he reached the top. And bingo. There were at least five empty State Police cruisers parked up and down the road.

Below him, Albert Sterling broke from the woods and looked up the incline Blaze had already climbed. And d.a.m.n, there he was. There the big b.a.s.t.a.r.d finally was.

'Stop, Blaisdell, FBI! Stop and put your hands up!'

Blaze looked over his shoulder. The cop looked tiny from up here. Blaze turned back and ran out into the road. He stopped at the first cruiser and looked in. Once again, bingo. Keys dangling from the ignition. He was about to put Joe on the seat beside the officer's citation book when he heard an engine revving. He turned and saw a white cruiser slewing up the road toward him. He turned the other way and saw another one.

'George!' he screamed. 'Oh, George!'

He clutched Joe against him. The baby's respiration was very fast and shallow now, the way George's had been after Ryder stabbed him. Blaze slammed the State Police car's door and ran around the hood.

A c.u.mberland County Sheriff's deputy leaned from the car that was coming from the north. He had a battery-powered bullhorn in one gloved hand. 'Stop, Blaisdell! It's over! Stay where you are!' 'Stop, Blaisdell! It's over! Stay where you are!'

Blaze ran across the road and someone fired at him. Snow puffed up on his left. Joe began to let out a series of gasping whimpers.

Blaze plunged down the other side of the road, taking gigantic leaps. Another bullet droned past his head, snapping splinters and bark from the side of a birch tree. At the bottom he stumbled over a log hidden beneath the fresh snow. He went down into a drift, the baby beneath him. He struggled to his feet and brushed Joe's face off. It was powdered with snow. 'Joe! You all right?'

Joe was breathing in hoa.r.s.e, convulsive gasps. Each one seemed to come an age apart.

Blaze ran.

Sterling got to the road and ran across it. One of the County Sheriff's cars had come to a skidding, veering stop on the far side. The deputies were out and standing there, looking down, guns pointing.

Sterling's cheeks were stretched and his gums were cold, so he supposed he was grinning. 'We got got the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

They ran down the embankment.

Blaze dodged through a skeletal stand of poplar and ash. On the other side, everything opened up. The trees and underbrush were gone. There was a flat white stillness in front of him, and that was the river. On the far side, gray-green ma.s.ses of spruce and pine marched toward a snow-choked horizon.

Blaze began to walk out onto the ice. He got nine steps before the ice broke, plunging him in frigid water up to his thighs. Struggling for breath, he lurched back to the bank and climbed it.

Sterling and the two deputies burst through the last clump of trees. 'FBI,' Sterling said. 'Lay the baby down on the snow and step back.'

Blaze turned to the right and began to run. His breath was hot and hard going down his throat now. He looked for a bird, any bird over the river, and saw none. What he saw was George. George was standing eighty yards or so ahead. He was mostly obscured by blowing snow, but Blaze could see his cap, slewed around to the left - the good-luck side.

'Come on, Blaze! Come on, you f.u.c.king slowpoke! Show em your heels! Show em how we roll, G.o.ddammit!'

Blaze ran faster. The first bullet took him in the right calf. They were firing low to protect the baby. It didn't slow him down; he didn't even feel it. The second hit the back of his knee and blew his kneecap out in a spray of blood and bone fragments. Blaze didn't feel it. He kept running. Sterling would say later he never would have thought it possible, but the b.a.s.t.a.r.d just kept running. Like a gutshot moose.

'Help me, George! I'm in trouble!'

George was gone, but Blaze could hear his hoa.r.s.e, raspy voice - it came to him on the wind. 'Yeah, but you're almost out of it. s.h.a.g, baby.'

Blaze let out the last notch. He was gaining on them. He was getting his second wind. He and Joe were going to get away after all. It had been a close shave, but it was all going to turn out okay. He looked at the river, straining his eyes, trying to see George. Or a bird. Just one bird.

The third bullet struck him in the right b.u.t.tock, angled up, shattered his hip. The slug also shattered. The largest piece hung a left and tore open his large intestine. Blaze staggered, almost fell, then took off running again.

Sterling was down on one knee with his gun in both hands. He sighted quickly, almost off-handedly. The trick was not to let yourself think too much. You had to trust your hand-eye coordination and let it do its work. 'Jesus, work Your will,' he said.

The fourth bullet - Sterling's first - struck Blaze in the lower back, severing his spinal cord. It felt like being punched by a big hand in a boxing glove, just above the kidneys. He went down, and Joe flew from his arms.

'Joe!' he cried, and began to haul himself forward on his elbows. Joe's eyes were open; he was looking at him.

'He's going for the kid!' one of the deputies yelled.

Blaze reached for Joe with one large hand. Joe's own hand, searching for anything, met it. The tiny fingers wrapped around Blaze's thumb.

Sterling stood behind Blaze, panting. He spoke low, so the deputies couldn't hear him. 'This is for Bruce, sweetheart.'

'George?' Blaze said, and then Sterling pulled the trigger.

Chapter 24.

Excerpt from a news conference held February 10th: Q: How's Joe, Mr. Gerard?

Gerard: The doctors say he's going to be fine, thank G.o.d. It was touch and go there for awhile, but the pneumonia's gone now. He's a fighter, no doubt about that.

Q: Any comments about the way the FBI handled the case?

Gerard: You bet. They did a fine job.

Q: What are you and your wife going to do now?

Gerard: We're going to Disneyland!

[Laughter]

Q: Seriously.

Gerard: I almost was being serious! Once the doctors give Joey a clean bill, we're going on vacation. Somewhere warm, with beaches. Then, when we're home, we're going to work at forgetting this nightmare.

Blaze was buried in South c.u.mberland, less than ten miles from Hetton House and about the same distance from where his father threw him down a flight of apartment house stairs. Like most paupers in Maine, he was buried on the town. There was no sun that day, and no mourners. Except for the birds. Crows, mostly. Near cemeteries in the country, there are always crows. They came, they sat in the branches, and then flew away to wherever birds go.

Joe Gerard IV lay behind plate gla.s.s, in a hospital crib. He was well again. His mother and father would be back this very day to take him home, but he didn't know it.

He had a new tooth, and knew that; it hurt. He lay on his back and looked at the birds over his crib. They were on wires, and flew whenever a breath of air stirred them into motion. They weren't moving now, and Joe began to cry.