Matt Hilton: Cut and run

'We just need to clear up a couple of things,' he said. 'You satisfy us, we'll kick you loose again in an hour.'

I'd done many things in the year I'd been living here and wondered which one of them had come back to haunt me. Nothing obvious came to mind: each and every one of them had been extremely violent – but, in my opinion, justified.

'Is there a parking ticket I've forgotten about?' I moved back, allowing the men to get up. Castle grunted as he helped himself stand with one hand propped on a thigh. Soames swarmed up and he wasn't impressed at my joke.

'You're a fucking piece of work, Hunter.'

It looked for the briefest of moments that Soames would go for his piece, but Castle grabbed at his elbow. 'I'm sure it's all a big misunderstanding. One we can clear up with Hunter's help.'

There was nothing I'd been involved in during the last couple of weeks that would attract the eye of the local police department, so I was sure that he was right.

'I'll follow you in.'

'Give me your gun,' Soames said.

Shaking my head slowly, I said, 'I'll check it in at the station.'

Soames wavered and I gave him a steady look. Castle cleared his throat, touched his partner on the elbow again. The older detective turned and walked away, but Soames felt he had something to prove.

'You might have fooled Castle, but I know exactly what you are.'

I didn't reply. If what he was suggesting was true, then it would have been the Special Response Team – Florida's version of SWAT – who'd come for me, not two detectives on a peacekeeping mission.

Grunting a curse, Soames moved quickly after his partner.

And I thought that was that. I'd go along to the station and answer a few questions, put things straight and be back on the street again in an hour. It was too lovely a day to be cooped up for long. Maybe there'd still be time to have the jog round the park at Cypress Point that I'd originally planned.

I should have known better.

A volley of bullets took out both cops' brains and they crumpled to the ground.

It went without saying that Soames and Castle were dead. Both men had lost a good portion of their skulls and there were twin fans of blood and brain matter spread across the gravel footpath next to them. My gun was up, but anyone studying the scene would notice immediately that the direction of my gun barrel and the spray of blood were at contradictory angles. Not that something so obvious would make a jot of difference. I wasn't going to stand there like a statue and wait for the police investigators to arrive at the scene.

I had to move.

Not to escape justice: I could prove that it wasn't my gun that had fired the killing shots. I had to move because whoever was out there could be adjusting their aim to put a round through my head.

As I raced off the path I was calculating the trajectory of the shots. The Marriott was a highpoint to my left, but the blood from the headshots had splashed towards the hotel. We had been hidden by shrubbery and trees from anyone on the road where we'd left our cars. The shots hadn't come from a boat on Garrison Channel behind me. There was only one place left where the shooter could have been stationed.

Placing a tree bole between me and the gunman, I glanced up at the nearby ice stadium roof. St Pete Times Forum was a huge oblong building, with glass-fronted galleries on the two sides that I could see. The roof was a shallow arch, and could be negotiated by a nimble person, but it didn't appear to have a walkway or any visible service ducts where a shooter could be positioned. At each corner of the building, forming support bulwarks for the galleries, were squat square towers with flat roofs bordered by low walls. My gaze fell directly on the one nearest to me.

From the corner of this tower came a flash and almost instantaneously a chunk of the tree I was hiding behind was blasted into splinters. The crack of a high-velocity round came to my ears in the next instant. The precise moment I'd seen the flash I'd moved, and the bullet that struck bark from the tree missed me, but I wasn't sure that I'd avoid a second round. The shooter was armed with a sniper rifle, and from this distance it could put a bullet directly through a tree trunk as flimsy as this one.

Dodging to my left, I immediately reversed direction and went right, throwing myself through bushes towards the slope leading down to the channel. I heard two reports of the rifle, but thankfully no rounds ripped through my body. I scrambled over the embankment, went down on my belly and placed the swell in the ground between us. He couldn't see me now, but I couldn't see him either.

My mind was racing with what had just happened. The police suspected my involvement in a crime I was innocent of, but now that the officers sent to bring me in were dead, no one would believe that. The man with the sniper rifle had seen to that. It also explained why he hadn't shot to kill. He hadn't missed me by accident but by design. I was being set up.

Someone must have heard the shots – in fact I could hear alarmed voices calling out from the nearby hotel – and the police would be coming any minute. The sensible thing to do would be to wait for the responding emergency vehicles, put down my gun and throw myself on the mercy of the justice system. But I was under no illusions; there was no way I was going to hang around, not when all they'd see was a cop killer. I'd be face down in the dirt, my hands cuffed and surrounded by armed men itching to blow me away long before I could argue my innocence.

There was only one way out of this that I could see.

I had to take down the shooter.

The shoreline was made up of stones and gravel, but gave way within a few yards to tufts of grass. If I stood up, or even crouched, I'd be an easy target. The trees and shrubbery in the park didn't offer much cover from the shooter with his high vantage either, so all I could do was belly-crawl along the shore, my knees and elbows propelling me along. I considered crawling into the channel and swimming, but decided against it. I needed my weapon dry.

Fifty yards on, I quickly raised my eyes over the embankment and saw that the shooter would have to lean out from the tower to get me now that I'd compromised his position. I didn't think he'd do that. I quickly raced up the embankment and into a small copse of trees. Crouching there, I pulled out my gun.

If I used it now, tests would show that the gun had been fired, I'd have gunshot residue on my skin and clothing: it would mean more questions if the police took me down, it would compound my guilt as a cop-killer. But I wasn't going to go against a man with a sniper rifle with only my bare hands.

Distantly I heard the first wail of sirens. The police were on their way. My window of opportunity had just been slammed in my face.

Got to move, I told myself. I have to take down this man or I'll never get the chance again.

Running as quickly as possible, I charged across the park towards the road that separated me from the stadium. When no bullets came my way I realised that the shooter had probably abandoned his position and was making his getaway. Apparently I wasn't the only one who could hear the approaching sirens.

My car and that of the dead detectives were way off on my left, but apart from them there were no other vehicles on the road. The ice stadium was a huge edifice looming over me. I was in the open, but no bullets were fired at me. Whoever was trying to set me up had many options for escape. If the stadium had been filled with Tampa Bay Lightning fans the shooter could simply melt amongst the crowds, but this was a day when the hockey team weren't playing. At most, the only people around would be a skeleton crew of staff. But that meant that the gunman could slip out unnoticed by any number of exits from the public areas or via service doors round the back.