Howard Shrier - Boston Cream

“I’m coming with you. Like it or not.”

Ryan put out his hand and said, “Let me see.”

She paused, then handed the gun to him. From its flat black surface, I guessed it was another Glock. He racked the slide and handed it back to her. “There’s no safety on this,” he said, “so keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you’re ready to shoot. And if you do fire it, keep pressure on the trigger and it’ll keep firing. You have enough rounds in there to do plenty of damage.”

“Good.”

Ryan went out first and knocked softly on the door to Prep Room A. “Frank?”

There was a moment of silence, then we heard steps and the doorknob turned. The door swung open and Frank stood there, his pistol levelled at us. His eyes took in the three of us. He said, “Where’s Victor?”

“He didn’t make it,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Frank’s lips drew tight together and he looked down at the floor and shook his head. “Daggett get him?”

“No. One of his men.”

“Which one?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ryan said. “He’s dead too.”

Over his wide shoulders I saw Stayner and three other people in surgical masks, and Marc and Lesley McConnell. She was in a hospital gown whose sleeves came down to the elbows; below them I saw the angry fistulas bulging beneath her pale skin.

“It’s off, then,” McConnell said. “Lesley’s not getting her transplant tonight.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Bullshit. This guy’s not even the real donor”-pointing to Frank-“so you knew all along it wouldn’t happen.”

“I can’t argue this now. We have to find Daggett.”

“He’s here?” Frank said.

“Somewhere in the building. We’ll find him.”

“I’m coming with you,” Frank said.

“We need someone to stand guard here,” I said. “If he’s still inside, this is probably where he’ll come.”

“I’ll do it,” Jenn said. “As long as I’m not alone in that other room with that creep, I’ll be fine.”

“I was in the service before law school,” Marc McConnell said. “I can handle a gun.”

I knelt down and pulled aside the sheet draped over the operating table. The gun we’d given to Stayner was there.

“Put on gloves before you touch it,” I said. “You too, Jenn.”

The surgical nurse handed them each a pair. When they were on, I gave the gun to McConnell, who looked it over, hefted it and thumbed the safety off. Jenn also put on gloves, then used a cloth to wipe down the gun she’d been holding.

“Anyone but us comes in that door,” Ryan said, “don’t even wait for him to clear it. Squeeze the trigger and hold it till he stops dancing. Both of you.”

McConnell nodded.

“You be careful,” Jenn said. “All of you.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I didn’t spend all this time looking for you to get myself killed.”

“Does Daggett know that?” she asked.

We came to the main foyer where all the bodies were. Frank knelt beside Victor and touched his cheek; placed two fingers against the side of his neck, feeling for the pulse he knew would not be there. Then he stuck his pistol in his waist and picked up Victor’s Uzi. “Fucking Victor,” he said.

Ryan put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. He shrugged it off. “He was the late mistake, born fifteen years after me, when my parents didn’t think they could still have kids. I was the oldest of six, so I practically raised him. I never should have brought him along. I don’t mean tonight, I mean the life, but it’s all he ever wanted. All he could do. He was useless at anything else. And not even so good at this.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. But we had Jenn back; the gravity of other losses couldn’t hold me back.

“You have any burning need to take Daggett alive?” he said.

Ryan and I looked at each other. I said, “No.”

“Good. Let’s get him.”

“I’ll go out where he went out,” I said. “Come back in the side door. If he’s inside, that’s where he entered.”

“You actually see him go back in?” Frank said. “He could have made a run for the street.”

“And do what?” Ryan asked. “Hail a cab?”

“I don’t know, hijack a car?”

“Wouldn’t try that around here.”

“His knee is wrecked,” I said. “He was hobbling pretty badly. I don’t think he could have made it to the street.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “I don’t want to leave Victor. See if you can flush Daggett out. I’ll be here if he comes down either hallway.”

“I’ll check the offices,” Ryan said. “He could have made it into one of them.”

“Go in shotgun first.”

“Never mind me,” he said. “Don’t you try any humanitarian shit. No trying to wing him. Aim for the centre mass.”

“I know.”

I looked at both men. Frank’s face was grim and clouded over, his eyes black as wet stones. Ryan looked bright and alert, the hunter in him unleashed. We nodded at each other and went our separate ways.

I went out the garage door and made my way around the building to the side door. Now that I knew Jenn was safe, my head felt better than before. It hurt where Daggett had elbowed me, but I felt no nausea and my vision was clear. I had survived contact. I could do this. I opened the door slowly, sweeping the Colt barrel side to side, and went down the carpeted hall. I saw wet footprints ahead, but they faded after a few steps and told me no more. Portraits of company founders lined the walls: the first two generations that had built it up and the third that had run it into its present bankrupt state. A men’s room on my left, women’s on my right. I put an ear to each door and listened. Nothing. I eased the door to the men’s open and looked in the mirror over a pair of sinks. Nothing. Knelt down and looked into the stalls. Pushed open each door in case he was perched on a toilet. No one there. Same routine in the women’s. No one there either.

Back down the hall. No sound except my own feet rubbing against the grain of the carpet, my breath whistling through my nostrils, my heart beating a dull tattoo. The hallway took me back to the foyer; I knew I was getting close when I could smell gunpowder and coppery blood. I pressed myself against the wall as I got closer to the open space. I could see the man Victor had clubbed, lying beside his tipped chair. Then Victor himself, Frank standing over the body. His Uzi on the ground and behind him Sean Daggett, a gun pressed to the back of Frank’s head, his face twisted in an ugly sneer.

“That’s right,” he snarled. “I got your man. I know this place like none of you. He was looking the wrong way when I come up behind him. So what you gonna do, pal? Watch me blow his head off or lay down your gun?”

Just beyond him I saw Dante Ryan coming down the hall across the foyer. Daggett caught sight of him too, stepping back and pulling Frank with him so neither of us had a clear shot.

“You too, dago,” he said. “Lay it down.”

If we did, we were dead, all of us. And with our more powerful weapons, Daggett could storm Prep Room A and take out Jenn, Marc McConnell and everyone else. It would be a bloodbath, wholesale slaughter, and we all knew it.

“Don’t do it,” Frank said. “Shoot the fucker.”

Daggett said, “Shut up.”

Frank said, “Go to hell,” and bucked his hips back hard enough to force Daggett back, twist out of his grasp and throw himself forward. Daggett fired and blood sprayed up from Frank’s head and into the air as he fell face first. That was all Ryan and I needed. His shotgun bucked and blasted Daggett’s right shoulder and spun him toward me. Two three-round bursts from my Colt ripped his chest from lower right abdomen to left collarbone.