Gregg Hurwitz - Last shot

He called Bear. "Any of the guys cut themselves on the entry? Anyone bleeding?"

"Not that I saw."

"You'd better come back here."

"Why?"

"Found some blood."

"Where'd you find it?"

"On my hand."

"Okay. We're up in the office buildings checking out sniper roosts-be there ASAP."

Tim went back onto the landing and looked at the doorknobs of the apartments he'd checked. No blood. He jogged down the stairs, halting halfway. He ran his hand along the dark wooden rail. Toward the bottom, he hit a run of wetness.

He stared at it a moment, then started back up.

Sam's head lolled weakly on his slender neck. "I tried. I tried to be so quiet."

Kaitlin sat on bent knees, wiping the blood from his chin. "Why didn't you call for me?"

Sam's voice came strained through a seized-up voice box. "They would've got him."

Walker stood speechlessly, idiotically, his feet stubbornly planted since Kaitlin had shoved open the bathroom door.

Kaitlin scrambled over to her purse, dumped its contents on the bed, and grabbed the cell phone. Rushing back to Sam, she keyed in three digits. She sat in the blood, cradling Sam's head in her lap, and stared at Walker, her eyes blazing reproach. Sam swayed, a stream of blood spilling over the side of his mouth. His lips goldfished as he dry-heaved.

Sam's eyes rolled north, giving a prize view of his yellowed sclera, and then his body went limp in Kaitlin's arms.

Tim heard the complaint of a window forced open. He sourced the noise to the last apartment Thomas had checked. No one had answered Thomas's knock.

Pressing his ear to the door, he heard murmuring and what sounded like soft sobbing within. Directly in his line of sight on the worn-down sill, a single drop of blood stood out, flecked at the perimeter with tiny splash petals.

Tim stepped back, drew his Smith amp; Wesson, jerked in a breath, and kicked. He landed the sole of his boot beside the knob, picking up the resistance of the lock assembly so he wouldn't wind up putting his leg through the cheap door, leaving the rest of him trapped outside. The dead bolt ripped through the inner frame.

His eyes took in the dim interior in a sweep that matched the movement of his. 357. Blood, shockingly red against white bathroom tile. A little boy's legs and waist in view by the toilet, his torso blocked by the half-closed door. Kaitlin's sob-stained face looking up, panicked and helpless. A disposable cell phone pressed to her ear.

Directly across from the door, framed perfectly from the waist up by the open back window, Walker mirrored Tim, aiming straight back at him.

Tim remained two strides into the dark apartment, gunfacing his shadowed double through the open window. The faint light thrown from the hall encompassed only Walker's figure, suspended, an orb surrounded by darkness. A Weaver shooting stance, both hands firmed around the revolver's grip, head slightly canted for sight alignment.

Tim shouted to Kaitlin, "What's wrong?"

Kaitlin was rocking Sam's body, yelling, "He's dying! He's unconscious!"

Walker shifted his weight, and the fire escape creaked. Neither he nor Tim lowered his gun; neither barrel wobbled even slightly. Given their proximity and aim, one shot would mean two and the likely end of them both.

"Sammy's not breathing," Kaitlin sobbed.

Without the slightest movement of his body or turn of his head, Tim said calmly, "Have you called 911?"

"They're on the way. I don't know how long. The operator didn't get it. Sam's condition is too complicated. Don't die, baby. Please, breathe."

Tim felt his adrenalized pulse in his neck, the back of his throat. He took his left hand off the grip, showing his fingers, then rode the hammer home with his right thumb and turned the gun sideways. He tilted his left hand toward the bathroom, asking permission.

Walker nodded, pulled his gun back, and vanished, hammering down the creaky metal stairs of the fire escape.

The ambulance screamed toward the hospital, making Tim, Kaitlin, and the two paramedics dig their feet into the floor and brace against the walls. The cramped space reeked of stomach acid. Tim's pants and sleeves, like Kaitlin's, were stained red. Sam drifted in and out of consciousness. Bear followed, his Kojak light blinking atop his rig.

After Walker had fled, Tim had turned Sam on his side and fingerswiped his mouth, clearing any blockage. It had taken a few rounds of messy CPR to get Sam's heart back on line; finally he'd coughed and started to cry hoarsely. Tim had radioed the paramedics who'd backed up the raid; they were only a few miles away. Bear had hustled the other ARTists, setting them on Walker's trail. LAPD had been alerted as well, a good sweep of the neighborhood already under way.

Sam had lost enough blood to drop his hematocrit, the paramedics said, plus his advanced liver disease was impeding his ability to clear ammonia. The combination left him woozy and mildly disassociated. They gave him a few boluses of saline and called ahead to the pediatric intensive care unit at the UCLA Medical Center. Sam seemed to regain clarity, wearing a grim expression and offering the paramedics one-word responses. The ambulance screamed into the bay, and Tim and Kaitlin jogged beside the gurney as it banged through three sets of double doors and landed in a procedure suite. The ER doc declared Sam stable almost immediately, and Tim and Kaitlin rode up on the elevator with Sam, a nurse, and a resident, Sam looking up at their drawn faces as if he found the gravitas mildly amusing.

Kaitlin kept her hand balled and pressed to her mouth. Finally her worry got the better of her. "Why are you so calm, Sammy?"

Sam said, "Because there's nothing I can do."

They got him set up with a private bed in the PICU, Tim waiting outside in the hall while Kaitlin settled him in. An extensive Mexican family had gathered at the far end of the hall. The kids were playing jacks, and the adults spooned posole out of thermoses and ate it with crisped corn tortillas. Tim wondered how long they'd been there. He grabbed a doctor leaving Sam's room and got the rundown. Sam had significant coagulopathy and elevated ammonia, which meant he was now in full-blown liver failure. The liver team could put in a request to upgrade Sam's status on the transplant list, but there were already two Status Ones ahead of him. His prognosis looked ominous.

Bear brought Tim up a fresh shirt from the gift shop. They checked in with Guerrera at the command post, and then Bear went back to his rig to retrieve some information from the field files. Thomas and Freed showed up, having had no luck with the pursuit. They kept near the elevators, walking tight circles with their cell phones pressed to their ears. Tim sat some more, a set of matte black handcuffs resting against his thigh.

Kaitlin finally came out. She'd pulled her hair back taut into a ponytail and changed into scrubs. She took note of the handcuffs. "He wants to see you," she said.

Tim slid the handcuffs back into their belt pouch, stood, and nodded at Thomas and Freed. Thomas squared himself so he was facing Kaitlin.

"Don't go anywhere," Tim said.

Sam was sweating, sheet thrown back from his bloated legs. His skin, so dry in places that it had cracked, had darkened to an olive-yellow shade.

Tim sat bedside and said, "Hey, Sam."

Sam coughed a bit. He sounded dry and raspy. "Kaitlin's not being all dramatic still, is she?"

"She's doing okay."

Sam's upper lids were puffy, more jaundiced even than the rest of his face. "I was thinking…" he said. Tim waited him out. He coughed some more, then said, "If any of my other organs are any good, maybe some other kid could get 'em so his eyes don't have to turn yellow."