Jeff Abbott - Collision

Pilgrim had saved him from Kidwell, from the gunman on the roof.

Ben ran back to the edge of the garage and peered down the side. Pilgrim lay, a story and a half below him, in a row of crushed yaupon bushes, moving his arms, groggy, hurt, barely lifting his head.

Halfway down the incline to the ground floor, a crowd of college kids were laughing and piling into their cars, debating through the open windows which club to visit. Jackie guessed they hadn’t heard the sounds of the silenced shots or had attributed the bangs to festival noise. But the kids were taking their own sweet, slow time, calling from car to car while they inched out of the parking slots, blocking the passage. Jackie slammed on his brakes to keep from veering into them.

Jackie rolled down the window. “Move it, goddamn it!”

“Hey! Politeness, dude.” A boy his own age, sitting in one of the cars, slurred his syllables and gave Jackie a beer-soaked smile. Jackie wanted to shoot and knife them all, but the cars were full, six kids in each, and it was too many, it would take too long.

“Please,” Jackie said. “Please. Sorry I yelled. I’m in an awful hurry. Please move.”

“See, politeness works,” the loudmouth said. The car inched up enough to let Jackie roar past.

Jackie yanked up his pants leg, pulled the eight-inch steel knife from its sheath. If Pilgrim lay hurt on the ground, he’d dispatch him with the knife. Quiet and it wouldn’t draw the attention a gun would. If there were witnesses helping Pilgrim, the knife was fast-he’d killed a quartet of late-paying drug dealers in a small Dublin room once with the knife, in under thirty seconds.

Nicky, I’m going to make it right, he thought.

Ben sprinted down the stairwell again, hands skimming the railing. He hit the exit, and the cool night air washed over his filthy and bloodied face. He turned the corner and Pilgrim was trying to stand, favoring his leg. Bleeding, shot in the shoulder.

"C’mon.” Ben looped Pilgrim’s arm over his shoulder. Pilgrim was only a couple of inches taller than him but he felt much heavier. Pilgrim-hurt- leaned hard against him. They couldn’t run down the street; the van would be here within seconds, and the shooter in the van was bound and determined to be sure Pilgrim was dead.

“I’m shot…”

“I know, come on, come on.” Ben pivoted Pilgrim, half-dragged, half-carried him back into the garage. They needed to hide. Now. Or the maniac in the van would cut them both down.

The crash of a wooden barrier breaking boomed on the opposite side of the garage. They ran, Pilgrim gasping, for the elevator. Ben thumbed the up button. The doors slid open at once and the two of them fell into the open elevator.

Ben rose on his knees and jabbed the controls. The roar of a car approached, and he’d gambled wrong; they were trapped. He dragged Pilgrim into the far corner of the elevator, where they couldn’t be seen.

The elevator doors slid closed as a van powered past and onto the street, its headlights sweeping the broken bushes and the empty sidewalk.

Pilgrim was gone. Jackie Lynch circled the parking garage twice, peering at the entrances, letting his headlights spill along the streets, lighting the couples and singles walking along toward the restaurants and nightclubs. He could guess Pilgrim’s point of impact from the mashed bushes-but the bastard wasn’t there. Which meant he wasn’t hurt, and he was running.

He turned around to drive back into the garage, but a large crowd of pedestrians-festival-goers, he guessed-were pouring into the garage as a light rain began to fall again. Too many people there now, too many witnesses.

Maybe they hadn’t gone back into the garage.

He drove up and down the neighboring streets, rage building in the cage of his heart. He scanned the crowds for a limping, bloodied man.

Nicky wouldn’t have missed him, not that close. Hell, he thought, kick Nicky off the pedestal. Nicky sure as hell missed when it counted.

The phone rang. He put the knife on the seat and clicked on the cell phone.

“Report.” It was Sam Hector.

Damn.

“They’re dead, they’re all dead…,” Jackie started.

“You better mean Forsberg and Pilgrim.”

The name Forsberg meant nothing to him, but he said, “No, I mean your bloody Arab hired guns. All dead. Pilgrim killed them all.”

“It’s just you left?” Hector didn’t show any emotion; the iron control made Jackie dislike him more.

“Yes and I’m going to find that bastard and kill him… He’s gone; I hit him but he’s gone, he’s gone.”

“Get out of there. Now. Get Teach to my place. I’ll text directions to your phone.”

“But Pilgrim’s still-”

“Do what I tell you or I’ll forfeit your payment.”

Maybe I’ll just keep the woman, see how you like that, he thought in a blistering rage. But no. Sam Hector would be an extremely dangerous enemy to have. Better to deliver the woman. Get his money. Then see if there was any way to use Hector to find this Pilgrim bastard again.

Jackie drove until he saw the sign for I-35 and found an entrance ramp, heading toward Dallas, four hours north. Leaving the town now where his brother had died, and for the first time he wondered what would happen to Nicky’s body, where it would be buried, how he could ever get it home to Northern Ireland. He suspected he couldn’t. He started to tremble, not with grief. With rage.

Today wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Several blocks to the west a Volvo station wagon worked past the crowds.

“Pain is nothing,” Pilgrim muttered in agony. “Pain is a friend. If you don’t feel pain you’re dead.” He repeated it like a mantra.

“Pain says you need a doctor.” Ben drove west on Sixth Street, heading out of downtown, watching his rearview, trying to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He made a sharp turn, headed north for a few blocks, then turned east again. Brackenridge Hospital was on East Fifteenth Street-he could be there in a few minutes.

“No doctor. No hospital.” Pilgrim gritted his teeth.

“Don’t be a dumb-ass. You’re hurt.”

“No. I’m lucky. Haven’t ever been shot before. Haven’t ever fallen from a building. What a fricking day.”

“I’m taking you to a hospital.”

“No. Can’t go. We’ll be right back where we started. You’ll be in custody and I’ll be…”

“Where?”

“Hurts too bad to talk. Keep driving.” Pilgrim pressed his fist hard against his shoulder. “A federal agent pulled a gun on you and a killer had your name in his pocket and another killer just tried to shoot your head off. You might want to stay under the radar.”

“I’m still taking you to a hospital.”

“If you want to stay alive, get us to Dallas. If I pass out, get me into a motel, cheap, get a first aid kit.”

“First aid. For a bullet wound.”

“And a tool to dig the bullet out. Don’t forget that.”

“I’m not digging a bullet out of you. Get real.” He turned into the Brackenridge Hospital parking lot, the emergency sign a beacon.

Pilgrim grabbed the wheel. “No. I am begging you. Please. If you bring me here, we’re both dead men.”

Ben hesitated as he started to pull into the overhang by the entrance.

“We’re guaranteed dead. We have to get to Dallas.”

“Why do we go to Dallas?”

“Because the matchbook I found on the gunman is from a Dallas restaurant; Barker betrayed me and his driver’s license address is in Dallas. Those are my only leads.” And then he added: “The guard I knocked out had a Hector Global ID in his pocket. The back of the ID badge gave an address near Dallas.”

Ben tightened his grip on the wheel. “The guards weren’t Homeland agents?”