Dean Koontz - Blood risk

He fell and struck his head on the last rung of the metal ladder before he rolled up against the corridor wall. Strangely, the moment he'd been hit, he thought: Iron Hand, recalling the nightmare. Then he was too numbed from the shock of being wounded to think of anything. When pain began to replace the paralysis, seconds later, he thought the man at the bottom of the back steps had shot him, but then he realized, as he sat up in the middle of all that broken glass, that the shots had come from outside the house.

The shots were a signal to the man downstairs to try to come up now that their attention was diverted. Harris was prepared for that strategy, and he let out a long chatter of machine-gun fire down the main stairwell.

Shirillo came off the attic steps fast, drawing another shot from outside as he moved quickly past the window. "How is it?"

"The nerves are still mostly deadened from the impact, but it's starting to hurt pretty badly. I got it twice, I think, close together. Damn hard punch."

"Rifle," Shirillo said. "The garage roof connects with this end of the house. I saw him standing out there when I went by the window just now." As he spoke he removed the shattered walkie-talkie from Tucker's arm and threw it into the middle of the hallway. "I was going to tell you that you'd overprepared by bringing two of these, since we never needed to use them between us. Now I'm glad I kept my mouth shut."

"The damn thing didn't take both shots, did it?"

"No," Shirillo said. "There's blood." He probed the wound with a finger until Tucker was sweating with pain. "You only stopped one bullet," he said. "It passed through the back of your arm and out the top of your shoulder, right through the meaty part, then out again. At least, by the way your jacket's all ripped up, I'd say that's how it is. But I wouldn't want to swear to it until we have you in the copter and can get your clothes off. There's a good bit of blood."

Tucker winced at the pain, which, having held off for several minutes, now throbbed relentlessly, and he said, "It's easy enough to come down that ladder fast. But going up again is another thing altogether. He'll have enough time to pick us off like painted targets."

"Clearly true," Shirillo said. Even now he did not appear to be shaken. Tucker thought he could see in the kid's manner, however, his own kind of bottled-up terror below a facade of calm maintained at only the greatest expenditure of nervous energy.

Tucker said, "Now don't shout for him, but get Pete. Walk down there and ask him to come up here. I think, as long as there's one man on the garage roof, there isn't anyone else down there to come up the steps. Not unless they untied Keesey, which I seriously doubt."

"Be right back," Shirillo said.

He returned with Harris, who listened to Tucker explain the situation, which he had figured out on his own anyway. He assured them that he could use the rapid-firing Thompson to clear the garage roof while running little risk of getting hit himself.

"Just be damned careful," Tucker said. "You deserve your share after making it this far."

"Don't worry your ass, friend," Harris said, grinning. He got up and flattened himself against the wall next to the shattered window. He let a long minute pass, as if one unknown moment were better than another, then suddenly whirled around, facing the open window, the Thompson up before him, chattering away at the rifleman. No one screamed, but a moment later Harris turned to them and said, "He's finished. But one thing: it wasn't one of the gunmen. It was Keesey."

"The cook?"

"The cook."

"Shit," Tucker said. "Then there's still one of them downstairs, and he knows you're no longer guarding the stairs."

He got to his feet despite the thumping invisible stick that seemed to be trying to drive him down again. The pain in his arm lanced outward, crossed his entire back, over to his other shoulder, down to his kidneys.

"You make the stairs yourself?" Harris asked.

"I can. But Jimmy has to go first."

Shirillo began to protest, realized he was the one carrying the last walkie-talkie, nodded and scrambled upward into the attic.

"Follow me closely," Tucker said.

"Don't worry about that, friend."

Tucker gripped the stair railing with his good hand and climbed toward the square of darkness overhead which framed Jimmy Shirillo's anxious face. He felt as if he were with some Swedish mountaineering 'team, but he finally made it, with the kid's help.

"Move ass!" he called down to Harris.

The big man started up the steps.

Tucker looked at his watch.

7:28.

Norton would be waiting. He would.

After Harris drew up the attic steps, made certain the bottom plate was closed firmly over the trap opening and threw the bolt back to keep it that way, Jimmy Shirillo got out his walkie-talkie and, following Tucker's instructions, attempted to call up Paul Norton, the copter pilot.

The open frequency hummed distantly, an eerie sound in the warm confines of the attic.

Shirillo repeated the call signal.

"Why doesn't he answer?" the woman asked.

Tucker felt the future seeping away from him. He began to think of Elise, of the peace and quiet of the Park Avenue apartment.

Abruptly, Norton's voice crackled over the walkie-talkie, strange and yet familiar, acknowledging the summons.

"Thank God!" Harris said, his voice weak.

"How long will it take him to get here?" Miss Loraine wanted to know. She was sitting between the two largest suitcases, one arm draped over each of them, as if she were daring Tucker, or any of them, to leave her behind.

Tucker said, "Less than five minutes."

She laughed and said, "Hell, then we're home free." Despite her good humor, she hung onto the pair of suitcases.

"Hold the celebrations," Tucker said.

"You okay?" Shirillo asked.

"Fine," Tucker said. In reality, he felt as if he'd been dragged several miles from the back of a horse, aching in every muscle, exhausted, the pain in his arm spreading out until it was no longer localized but hard and hot throughout his body. To get his mind off the pain, he considered their situation and decided what must be done next. "You better go find the door that leads onto the roof," he told Shirillo. "According to those photographs your uncle took, it's down at the other end of the house."

Shirillo nodded, got up, hunched down somewhat to keep from cracking his head against the bare rafters and went down that way to have a look around. In a couple of moments he located the overhead door, worked it loose of its pinnings, shoved it out of the way and called back to the others.

"Let's go," Tucker said.

He felt as if he were always telling someone to move, in one way or another. It would be good to get home again, to pay back the ten-thousand-dollar loan and to relax, to take a couple of months off before seriously considering any proposals that were forwarded to him by Clitus Felton out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Maybe if he could set up a few good deals on some of his artwork he could take as much as half a year off, and he'd hardly have to move at all.

Pete Harris helped Merle Bachman the length of the low-ceilinged attic, while Tucker was able to make it on his own. He had a strong urge to grip his wounded arm and to stop the rapidly vibrating pain that made his bones sing, but he knew that would only make the pain worse. He let his arm hang at his side, and he tried not to think about anything but getting out of there.

The woman carried the smallest suitcase, while Harris went back to fetch the last two after depositing Merle Bachman under the door to the mansion roof.

Tucker stood over Bachman, swaying, needing to sit, refusing to allow himself that much. They were close, too close to stop being alert and prepared.