The Sentry Part 38

Pike studied the van again. Dru was probably inside, but Vincent would be on the slope. The setup was easy. When Rainey turned onto the ridge, Dru would get out of the van so Pike could see she was healthy. Rainey would then get out of his car, and advance halfway with the money. Dru would walk out to meet him, check the money, and then Rainey would continue with the money to the van while Dru went to the Prius.

This was the plan Pike and Vincent worked out, but none of it would happen. Pike knew it, and Vincent knew it, too. Vincent would be looking for Pike, just like Pike was looking for Vincent. If Vincent won, he would kill Rose Platt, then torture Rainey until Rainey produced the rest of the money, and then he would kill Rainey. Everything in Vincent's history affirmed this. Vincent liked to torture and kill.

Pike studied the brushy area off Mulholland where Rainey would stop, then a gentle rise behind the van. Vincent would be in one of those two places. When Rainey turned onto the ridge, he would be facing the van. Vincent would be behind him, in a high position where he could see Rainey and also watch for Pike. Pike searched the two areas, but saw nothing, and returned to the phone.

"I'm moving. Give me eight minutes, and go. Ten, and be there."

Pike slid beneath a twisted scrub oak and down the crumbling hill. He carried his Python, a .45 Kimber, and a Remington Model 700 bolt-action rifle he rebuilt himself, along with a pouch for his binoculars and a FLIR thermal imaging camera. The FLIR read infrared heat images. When Pike was closer, the FLIR would let Pike see Vincent in the brush.

Pike moved fast down the steep slope, slipping between and around dry brush at a hard run, then climbed the next finger. He stayed low around the outside shoulder to keep Mulholland and the van above him.

He rounded the shoulder into the next canyon, and paused to take his bearings. The next finger was ahead and above him, with Mulholland to his left. He picked two scrubby oaks as navigation points, dropped down through a sea of gray brush, then up an erosion gulley until he reached the lip of the ridge. He could not yet see the van, but knew he was midway between the van and Mulholland. He checked the time. Nine minutes. Rainey and Cole were rolling.

Pike climbed the last few feet, creeping low in the brush until he crested the ridge. The van was thirty yards away. He broke out the FLIR and scanned the area. The FLIR wouldn't read a human through metal, but Pike wanted to see if Vincent was under the van.

The image in the view screen was a landscape of grays and blacks. The colder something was, the darker its image. The hotter, the lighter. The van was a shimmery gray shape, lighter than the background because of heat it absorbed from the sun. The sky above the horizon was black.

No one was hiding beneath or near the van.

Pike swept the FLIR toward the turnout. Nothing. He expected to find Vincent on the rise above the turnout, but no one was in the weeds.

Pike lifted out his cell, and whispered again.

"Give me three extra."

Pike changed position to try a new angle, but again drew a cold read. No one was in the brush by the road, or along the turnout.

Pike slowly examined the surrounding slope. He checked the ridge from Mulholland to the van, then the uphill rise in the background, and that's where Pike found him. The screen showed the bright gray shape of a man lying under a mound of sage, facing downhill in a p.r.o.ne sniper's position. Pike lowered the FLIR, then checked the sage with his binoculars. The man was invisible in the sage, but Pike soon found the unnaturally straight edge of a rifle barrel sticking out from beneath the branches. A lovely place for an ambush.

Pike lifted his phone again.

"He's on the rise above the van. Rifle."

Cole whispered back.

"How long do you need?"

"Two minutes."

"We're almost there. If we stop, he'll see us, and wonder why we're stopping."

"Two minutes."

Pike dropped back down the slope and crabbed fast along the finger past the van and up the back side of the rise. He glimpsed the Prius turning onto the ridge as he crested the ridge, but slowed to maintain his silence.

The gray mound of sage was now ahead of him. Pike lowered his rifle and pouch, and drew his .357. He eased closer, and finally saw a camouflaged leg beneath the bush.

I am here.

Pike quietly closed the distance until he was directly behind the man, then pushed the Python into Vincent's side.

Pike knew the man was dead by the stillness of the body, and realized in that moment the man was not Vincent.

Pike tensed, his muscles rigid against the bullet he expected, but the shot didn't come.

The corpse was an older man with matted gray hair and a small-caliber bullet hole in his temple. Fresh kill, still warm with life. Bait.

Then Pike heard Dru shout, and William Rainey call her name.

Daniel Daniel studied the distant slope through his rifle scope, whispering to himself.

"I got you, you sonofab.i.t.c.h. C'mon. Lemme see your lame a.s.s."

The van was one hundred sixty-two yards in front of him. Daniel had paced it off. He was wedged between two dying trees on the south side of Mulholland, high on a sharp slope with nothing but rocks at his back and a long, steep slide below. Pike would never set up in a s.h.i.tty, no-way-out spot like this, so he'd figure Daniel would avoid it, too. Which was why Daniel had picked it.

Daniel knew Pike was somewhere in the brush. Eight minutes earlier, he had caught a flash of gray movement on the next ridge, there and gone in a heartbeat. So now Daniel scoped the brush and the ridge and the area around the dead guy. Daniel wanted Pike to find the dead guy. Pike saw that rifle, he might take a shot, then Daniel would have him. Might try to get in closer, and Daniel would catch the movement. But so far, nothing.

Daniel had left the d.a.m.ned rifle sticking so far out of the bush, a cub scout could have found the stiff by now. Daniel was beginning to think maybe this Joe Pike wasn't as good as he had believed.

Tobey said, "The waitress, Daniel."

Cleo said, "Show him the waitress, waitress."

Tobey and Cleo were a couple of royal-a.s.s pains, but sometimes they had good ideas. If he brought the waitress out early, Pike might change his position. Bang.

Daniel eased out his handi-talkie and called her like he had told her he would.

"You hear me?"

Her voice came back all tinny with static.

"I hear you. Is Willie here?"

"Come out. You're gonna go home."

Tobey said, "Here he comes."

Cleo said, "There he is, is."

Daniel thought they were talking about Pike, but they weren't.

The Prius swung around a curve less than a quarter-mile away. Daniel thought maybe he should tell her to stay in the van, but decided to let her come.

He keyed the talk b.u.t.ton again.

"Get outta the d.a.m.n van, woman. I'm not gonna hurt you."

The back door swung open as Daniel scanned the brush for movement.

Elvis Cole Elvis Cole was scrunched so far down in the Prius's back seat he couldn't see anything, not even the back of Bill Rainey's head.

"You see the van?"

"Yeah, we're almost there. Don't worry."

The criminal with a Bolivian cartel after him telling Cole not to worry. Perfect.

"Make sure that gun is hidden. He sees the gun, you're history."

"Relax, for Christ's sake. I'm fine."

They had given Rainey a gun. They had also strapped him into a ballistic vest. They wouldn't put him in Gregg Daniel Vincent's crosshairs with nothing.

Rainey said, "We're here. I'm turning."

They b.u.mped off the pavement onto the ridge. A cloud of dust swirled in through the open windows. The windows were down in case Cole had to shoot.

Then Rainey slammed on the brakes.

"The f.u.c.k? She's already out. I was supposed to get out first."

Cole saw Rainey's head popping left and right, as if he thought Vincent would jump from a bush. Cole wanted to look, but knew Vincent would be watching their car.

"Take it easy. What's she doing?"

"Looking at me. She's waving her hands."

"Is anyone in the van?"

"I can't see."

"Check our sides. Look for Vincent."

"f.u.c.k this! She's running! She's trying to get away!"

Rainey suddenly kicked open his door, and pushed out of the car.

"Rose! Ro-"

Cole heard the first shot.

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Pike stood when he heard them shouting. Below him, Rose Platt ran toward the Prius as Rainey ran toward her, the two of them separated by almost one hundred yards.

Pike broke hard by a sage, trying to draw Vincent's fire. He cut back through the brush just as a sharp crack broke the twilight silence, rolling across the purple canyons. Pike heard the bullet snap past, then dove into the rocks, rolled, and kept running, breaking left and right down the slope.

Rose Platt and Rainey stopped at the sound of the shot. Then Elvis Cole came out of the Prius, and Rose turned back toward the van.

The second shot cracked into the slope at Pike's feet, but Pike saw the flash, and ran harder as he shouted to Cole.

"Other side. Trees up the slope."

Pike fired three times, long shots at the flash, hoping to flush him. Cole and Rainey turned to look for Vincent. Pike saw another flash, only this time Vincent wasn't shooting at Pike.

The bullet cut Rainey's left leg from under him in a spray of pink mist. He spun with his arms and legs out like a puppet and didn't scream until he was down.

Rose Platt screamed once, then lurched behind the van as another shot slammed into its fender.

Rainey sat up, shouted something Pike did not understand, then fired his pistol into the trees. Vincent flashed back. The bullet punched through Rainey's shoulder with another red cloud, but Cole had the flash now, and popped off five rounds.

Pike caught a flicker between the trees, Vincent moving downhill and gone.

Pike shouted again.

"Moving. Downhill."

Cole sprinted across Mulholland and disappeared down the far slope. Pike turned back for Dru, and saw her kneeling behind the van. He was torn in that moment, to go or to stay, but she was safe, so he ran to help Cole. Pike sprinted past Rainey, then up the steep slope on the far side of Mulholland into the trees.

47.

Daniel Tobey whispered in Daniel's ear, tickling him with furry lips, pleading and urgent.

"You can do this, boy. You can get'm."

Cleo scurried in a circle, spinning like a dervish.

"You can do this, Daniel-aniel. Just like a zombie, ombie!"

"Open your EYES, EYES, EYES!"

Cleo spun faster.

"Kill, kill."

The rocks and rotten branches cut into Daniel's back. He took a tentative breath, and heard a wet popping in his chest. He coughed, but all that came out was aborted vomit.

Daniel looked at the blood on his hands.

"I been shot."

Tobey said, "Takes more than that to kill a werewolf, my friend, friend, friend."