Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

The scaffolding made for easy climbing. Leaving Betty behind, Tim worked his way up as silently as he could, minding every creak and shift. When possible he climbed the metal branches, as they gave off less noise than the wood. Every few moments he’d pause and strain his ears, listening for Robert’s movement, but the wind, especially as he got higher, drowned out most noise-a factor that also worked to his advantage. Metal plates were missing here and there, dark, empty gaps looking in on the hollow tree interior.

About fifty feet off the ground, he paused, leaning against the cool metal of the trunk, drawing a deep breath, and hooking his fingers into a few of the monument’s myriad holes designed to beam out the spotlight’s glow. From this angle he had a clear view of the dirt path. The Lincoln drifted silently through the gate. He saw the lights blink on as the engine turned over, and then it pulled away.

Tim inched his way up, hugging metal and wood, drawing a few splinters. He wound up on the platform supporting the branch opposite Robert’s, about three feet lower. Crouching on a knee, he withdrew the Stork’s phone from his pocket and dialed again. The phone’s chirping ring sounded clear and loud, just on the far side of the trunk. Tim kept the call active, sliding the Stork’s Nextel into his pocket. Double-handing his Smith amp; Wesson, he drew back to the far edge of his platform so he could get three steps of a running start.

He timed two deep breaths, then thundered into his run. The trunk brushed his shoulder as he leaped, shoving off the platform hard and flying across a five-foot break of open air. Beneath him the drop stretched down seventy feet, broken only by metal branches and wooden crossbeams.

He hit the edge of the opposing platform and rolled evenly across his back, popping to a high-kneel shooting stance, one knee down, one up, the thrust of the gun an extension of both elbow-locked arms.

About six feet off the platform, dangling from a noose looped over the scaffolding above, was Robert’s Nextel. Ringing. It swayed gently, rocked by Tim’s hard landing on the platform.

He felt his insides go slack, the rush of panic. Keeping both hands firmly on the. 357, he shuffled two steps, careful not to trip over a stray two-by-four, and peered over the platform’s edge. On the ground Robert sprinted across the plateau, directly at the monument, sliding a curved Gurkha knife back into a hip sheath. He was coming from the direction of the parked car and the stacks of metal. Tim knew before he raised his eyes that next he’d see Mitchell, staggering twenty yards behind Robert, working the freshly cut cord from around his wrists. Though Mitchell moved unevenly, dizzied from Tim’s blows, his shoulders were firmed with rage, his legs moving in short, punching steps.

What alarmed Tim even more was that Mitchell had his black det bag looped over one shoulder.

Tim glanced down, trying to spot Robert again, but he had already disappeared underfoot. Before he had time to formulate a single coherent thought aside from the slapping awareness of how badly he’d been fooled, a reverberating clank announced the spotlight’s activation. Blinding light filled the core of the tree, shot in thin beams from the holes of the trunk and branches. A gap between metal plates below threw light up against the bottom of the platform; it streamed around the sides like a gold, twinkling river.

Squinting against the brightness, Tim glanced over the edge of the platform and saw Robert stepping slowly backward, peering up at him through the scope of a McMillan. 308.

A bullet cracked through wood, zinging past Tim’s head and embedding in a beam overhead. Tim threw himself flat against the platform. A second bullet punched through the platform inches from his face, throwing a spray of splinters past his cheek. He rolled toward the trunk, splitting beams of light. Two more shots penetrated the platform inches from his spinning body and ricocheted off wood and metal. Tim froze near the trunk.

The ping of metal and then the slapped-meat sound of slug smacking skin. Tim’s leg jerked as he heard the delayed report, and he cried out, more from shock than pain. His mouth cottoned instantly. Beams of light shot out from the tree branches all around him and through the bullet-riddled platform, one ray an inch off his nose, another just in front of the bend of his elbow; two he sensed rising between the split of his legs. He lay still, realizing that his movement made him detectable as he crossed over the fingers of light, making them blink out.

His thigh throbbed, numb and painless. He estimated that the bullet had entered just north of his right knee. When he heard movement down below, he risked rolling his head over to glance through one of the platform holes.

Robert, head down, chambered another round. In a clear stretch of plateau about twenty yards from the monument, Mitchell was on a knee, pulling blocks of C4 from his det bag. From this distance the blood staining his face looked like oil.

Tim strained his eye back to where Robert had been, found him missing, and jerked away just as another bullet split the wood where his head had been, enlarging the hole he’d been looking through. A remarkable shot, particularly given the angle.

Tim froze.

The silence was nearly unbearable.

Another bullet broke through the wood; another beam of light sprang up like a fast-growing vine between his neck and shoulder.

The stray two-by-four, about five feet long, was just within reach of his right hand. With a grunt he shoved it a few inches forward. The far end of the board crossed a hole in the platform, quashing the thin beam of light, and quickly two bullets hammered through the wood on either side of the existing hole. Tim covered his head, waiting for the ricochets to stop.

What Tim had gleaned at Rhythm’s indicated that Robert preferred a sitting shooting posture, an elevated tactical advantage, and a position offset right from a frontal view. Right now he was shooting from a standing position at a target directly overhead, and-despite those hindrances-firing with astounding accuracy. If Tim didn’t get off this platform, he was going to get picked apart piece by piece.

The mouth of a tube, about three feet in diameter, faced him across the length of the platform. Designed as a flexible safety trash chute for workers to clear scraps of material, the tube wormed over the edge of the scaffolding and dropped to the ground. The sturdy canvas would never hold Tim’s weight, and even if it could, the nearly free-fall seventy-foot drop would spit him out almost directly at Robert’s and Mitchell’s feet.

Blood soaked his jeans around the bullet wound; it was only a matter of time before a few crimson drops made their way down one of the holes near his right leg and gave away his position.

Even if his leg wasn’t injured, the tree trunk’s diameter was too wide for him to James Bond down the interior, spread-eagling to slow the fall. He couldn’t count on a rapid police response to such a remote site; even if the gunshots were audible over the rush of the freeway, at that distance they’d probably sound like little more than firecrackers. The only way off the monument was a tedious climb.

Tim shoved the two-by-four again to disrupt the light flow farther down the platform and risked a look through the hole near his head. Robert was repositioning himself. Mitchell had finished laying C4 around the tree trunk’s base and was storming back to his det bag.

To buy a few seconds, Tim pressed his gun barrel to a hole near his hand and fired four times, blindly. Then he rolled to his back and shot once at the rope tying Robert’s dangling Nextel to the scaffolding above. He hit the rope near the wood, pinching it off and causing the phone to drop straight down rather than swing off the platform’s edge.