James Hayman - The Cutting

‘What’s the problem, mister? Car break down?’ He was a good-looking boy. Long blond hair. A cute little soul patch growing under his lip. He had broad shoulders and what looked to be a nice body. The shooter nodded and flashed him his best smile.

‘Yeah. That’s right. My car broke down. ’Bout a mile from here.’

‘Don’t ya have a cell?’ the boy asked.

‘Nah. It ran out of juice.’

‘Well, here, you can borrow mine. You belong to Triple-A?’ The kid held his cell phone out the open window. The shooter moved closer, as if to take the phone, then, in a single motion, pulled open the door of the truck with his left hand, grabbed the back of the kid’s head with his right, and slammed it hard against the steering wheel. Then he slammed it again. Blood spurted out of the kid’s nose. The boy was screaming, ‘You broke my fucking nose. You broke my fucking nose.’ Still holding the boy’s neck, the shooter unhooked his seat belt with his left hand and pulled him hard out of the truck. He threw him onto the road. ‘You broke my fucking nose,’ the kid cried again.

‘Shut the fuck up!’ said the shooter. He kicked the boy hard in the face. ‘Just shut the fuck up.’ Then he kicked him again for good measure, this time in the gut. The boy squeezed into a fetal position. He was sobbing and gasping for air, but, shit, that was no reason not to have a little fun.

The shooter knelt down and unbuttoned the kid’s jeans and pulled them down. His pink boxers were decorated with little rows of red hearts, which made the shooter smile. Cute, he thought. Maybe he’d get himself a pair like that.

The shooter went back to the truck, turned off the engine, and extinguished the headlights. In the distance he could hear a siren. More than one, in fact, and they were getting closer. Fuck it. He better haul ass. He walked over to where the rifle was hidden. He picked it up. The boy was lying on his side, sobbing quietly. Too bad wasting such a good-looking kid, but he’d seen the shooter’s face, and the area was crawlin’ with cops. The shooter placed the barrel of the rifle about an inch above the boy’s ear. He pulled the trigger.

Wednesday. 2:00 A.M.

McCabe stared across the room. His mind wandered. He remembered how much he hated hospitals. They were strange anonymous places where the people he loved died. He was fighting off the urge to doze when the sound of a man’s voice outside the room jarred him to full alert. The voice was coming from beyond his sight lines, down the corridor to the right. Keeping his hand on his. 45, McCabe rose and walked to the door and peered around.

‘Fucking sons of bitches, fucking sons of bitches.’ A dirty man who had bandages wrapped around the top of his head limped in McCabe’s direction, muttering the same phrase over and over again. He was a big man. Tough to tell what age. His face was bruised, and it looked to McCabe like he’d come out on the losing end of a bar brawl. He seemed out of place in the hospital, out of place in an ICU, but maybe he had a friend who was hurt worse than he was. He wore a dirty blue sweatshirt with a picture of a lighthouse and the words MAINE, THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE printed on it. The man glanced at the badge pinned to McCabe’s scrubs. It didn’t seem to faze him. He leaned in closer. ‘You got any smokes?’ he asked. McCabe noticed a trace of a southern accent in his hoarse voice. He didn’t answer.

‘I said you got any smokes?’ the man repeated. His breath carried the unmistakable smell of Altoids. McCabe hated Altoids.

He shook his head. ‘Sorry, pal. Even if I had ’em, you couldn’t smoke ’em. Not in here, anyway. Beat it. Take off before I have you escorted out of here.’

The man looked like he was about to argue and then thought better of it. ‘Aw, fuck it.’ He turned and limped off the way he’d come, presumably in search of someone with cigarettes. McCabe watched him leave, wondering how he’d managed to find his way into the ICU unit and if, in fact, there was a reason for him to be there. Had he been looking for Sophie? Maybe, but why come tromping in making noise and dressed in a way sure to attract the attention of every security guard in the place?

A chime sounded to his left and one of the elevator doors opened. Maggie stepped out, carrying a bag from Dunkin’ Donuts in one hand and a small overnight bag in the other.

She handed him the overnight bag. ‘You wear tidy whities,’ she smiled. ‘I always wanted to know.’ She looked at his scrubs. ‘Cute outfit.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, relaxing a little for the first time in hours. ‘I think the color brings out the blue of my eyes, don’t you?’ He let out a breath he realized he’d been holding in for a while.

‘Oh, definitely. Here. I’ve brought you some coffee and something to eat.’ She held out the doughnut bag.

‘Glazed chocolate?’

‘Of course, and Bavarian creme.’

He took a doughnut, and she handed him a large Styrofoam cup. ‘Why don’t you drink the coffee while it’s hot? You can change later.’

They sat down side by side in the darkened room and began sipping the coffee.

‘What’s in there?’ She pointed at the big plastic bag.

‘My clothes.’

Maggie unknotted the bag and peered in. ‘Jesus Christ. This woman’s still alive? How could she possibly have any blood left in her?’

‘She probably didn’t have a lot. It was a pretty close thing. If our friend had hung around and forced me into a firefight while we were waiting for the ambulance, she’d have bled to death.’

‘They think she’s gonna live?’

‘That’s what they tell me. I just hope she doesn’t clam up. She was pretty frightened before. She’ll be terrified now.’

Maggie nodded. ‘The bad guys are going to come after her again.’

‘I’m sure of it. Either here or as soon as she gets out.’

‘So we put her in protective custody.’

‘That’s what I’m thinking, but not in a cell. That’d just piss her off and make her less cooperative. Easy enough to organize round-the-clock coverage here at the hospital. This is where she’s most vulnerable. Afterward, maybe we find her a quiet, out-of-the-way motel. Register her under a phony name and have a female cop, maybe Davenport, bunk with her.’

‘She could stay at my place.’

‘I don’t think so. Too traceable. They know you’re working the case. Plus I’d rather have you in the hunt than playing bodyguard.’

‘Tell me again what she told you.’

McCabe repeated, more or less verbatim, what Sophie had told him in the car.

‘She told you Philip Spencer recruited her?’

‘That’s what she said.’

‘Why the hell would he give her his real name?’

‘Beats me. The only reason I can think of is it’s on his passport.’

‘He had to show her his passport?’

‘No. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s weird.’

McCabe’s cell phone vibrated against his hip. The caller was Bill Jacobi.

‘You up in Gray, Bill?’

‘Yeah, I’m at the site now.’

‘Anything?’

‘Yeah — quite a bit, actually. For one thing, we know how he followed you.’

‘I wasn’t followed.’

‘Yeah. You were. Only not visually. We found small GPS transmitters attached to the undercarriage of both your car and the woman’s car. All the shooter had to do was look at his screen to know precisely where you were and where to go for a clear shot.’

McCabe was annoyed with himself. He should have considered the possibility and checked out the Bird before he left Portland.

‘We traced the line of fire and pretty much pinpointed where he positioned himself for the kill. A little rise just off the road about five hundred yards in front of you. Looks like he used a post-and-rail fence as a firing platform.’