Matt Hilton: Cut and run

He checked a second time.

No one.

At the far end of the long, narrow room was a bed. Someone was swaddled in blankets, tucked up high under the armpits. Arms lay flat to each side, intravenous tubes hooked up to bags and electronic monitors. Bandages covered much of the head – funny, because he hadn't shot her in the head. Maybe Alisha had banged her skull on the floor as she'd fallen down and had required surgery. He could just see a couple of locks of corn-coloured hair peeking from under the bandages. An oxygen mask covered the mouth and chin. A table had been wheeled alongside the bed, and a tray with a water jug and an empty glass tumbler had been twisted so it extended across the person's middle. A small wall-mounted TV screen had been positioned so that the patient could watch without having to sit up.

He couldn't clearly see the figure in the bed, but the hair was the correct colour.

He slowly closed the door behind him.

Walked forwards.

With each step he took, that trickle of unease he'd experienced earlier intensified.

He looked at his gun. Redundant for the time being. He tucked it into the holster on his utility belt. Transferred the knife to his right hand.

He was twenty feet away from the patient and closing.

Her face was hidden by the mask and by the bandages but even so she looked different than he remembered. Maybe it was the lack of make-up that made her skin look so pale and waxy.

Ten feet from the bed he paused.

'Alisha… it's me, babe.'

The woman in the bed didn't stir.

Had her unconscious mind grown accustomed to the droning voices on the TV?

'Alisha.'

He moved the final few feet and stood at the foot of the bed.

'Honey, it's me.'

Then he ripped back the blankets.

The knife was forgotten as his mind tried to make sense of what he found.

'What the hell is this?'

The woman in the bed was already a corpse.

'Wait here, Rink. Anyone but me walks out of that room, just kill them.'

'Rather be coming in with you, brother.'

'Don't know what we're walking into. I'd rather one of us gets a second chance at him.'

'What about Hubbard's men? They come up, you want me to stall them?'

I gave my friend a wink and he shook his head, laughing deeply in his throat. 'Second chance, my ass; you just want Rickard to yourself.'

'If he gets by me he's all yours.'

Rink shrugged. After all, it was me that Rickard had originally targeted, so there was personal investment in it for me.

'Just be careful, OK?'

'I will.'

I left Rink at the head of the stairs and moved along the hall. My carbine was with Rink, as I'd chosen to go with the SIG that was such an integral part of me. The gun was held alongside my ribs, my elbow bent, finger on the trigger, ready for anything.

The intense feeling of deja vu struck me. The astringent smell of disinfectant was heavy in the air, just like when I approached Jimena Grajales' sickroom. Inside I would find Luke Rickard poised to strike. The only difference this time would be that Rink was watching my back so there'd be no one lobbing hand grenades at us.

Didn't mean that I'd walk away from this encounter alive, but I was more determined than ever that Rickard wouldn't either.

The irony wasn't lost on me that here again we were about to fight to the death alongside a woman's hospital bed, but at least the patient wouldn't attempt to shoot me this time. This poor soul, a Jane Doe with a passing resemblance to Alisha Rickard, had died from a drug overdose and had been brought here to pose as the killer's wife. Maybe the trap Walter laid was a little unethical but when it was weighed against the alternative I couldn't really argue. Alisha was out of danger, tucked up nice and safe at another medical facility to the north of the city.

The ruse would only last seconds after Rickard entered the room, which was why I now hurried along the hall. I expected the door to fly open, for Rickard to come out in a rage. The hall didn't offer much in the way of cover, just a couple of utility closets, and he'd cut me down in the enclosed space. I had to make it inside the room before he recovered from the shock of finding a corpse.

Running, I felt as if I did so through a nightmare. Each yard felt like a mile and the door seemed to recede away from me. But it was all a lie of my strung nerves, a result of adrenalin overdrive, and I almost careened through the door without stopping. At the final moment I did manage to slide to a halt and ducked low to the left of the door jamb. Briefly I glanced back, and I could just make out Rink's tawny features as he watched me from along the hall. I pumped my clenched fist in the air counting down from three, then grabbed for the doorknob and opened the door. At the same time, I went to my belly on the floor, training my SIG on the far end of the room, expecting a swarm of bullets to cut through the space above me.

The bullets didn't come.

Pushing with my feet I cleared the door frame and checked left and right.

No sign of Rickard.

With my worm's-eye view I could see under the bed. Rickard wasn't hiding there. The blankets had been pulled off the corpse and hung over one side of the bed, and I could tell that the only person on the mattress was the dead woman.

'Where are you, you bas…?'

I saw the black rectangle in the ceiling and knew.

The tricky son of a bitch.

Coming quickly to my feet, I moved into the room, gun now aiming high as I approached the bed. Now that I was much closer, the rectangle didn't look so black, just an empty space in the hung ceiling. Dust filtered down from above and I heard the subtle movement of a shifting weight. Glancing once at the woman was enough to cause an involuntary cringe. A dusty boot print was centred on the white slip she'd been clothed in. Rickard had used her as a step up while he clambered into the roof space above.

Clever. I'd used a similar escape once when cornered by sheriff's deputies who'd been misled into thinking I was a dangerous fugitive. The difference here was that I'd used a credenza as a stepping stone to an attic; using the woman like this was sacrilegious.

Then again, just about everything that Rickard did went against what was good or holy, so I shouldn't have been surprised.

A low noise from behind alerted me to Rink's presence. The lack of gunfire had brought him to the room to see what was going on. We shared a glance and I nodded up at the ceiling. 'He's getting away.'

'You going after him?'

'There's nothing else for it.'

'Of course there is. We could go outside and pick the punk off with rifles when he shows.'

'Where's the satisfaction in that?'

I waved him back out into the hall. Rickard had to come out somewhere and I didn't want it to be behind us.

Sweeping a jug of water and a glass off a wheeled table, I stepped up on to the bed, careful not to touch the woman, using the table to steady myself as I reached into the dark space. Hooking my left forearm over a roof beam, I hauled myself up with the power of that one arm. I needed the other free for my gun. It was like doing a one-handed chin-up at the gym, and I could feel the strain throughout my entire body, but I ignored it as I searched the crawl space for any sign of Rickard. It was too dark to see anything clearly, but I caught an impression of movement a good distance away. Animal, spook or contract killer, I shot at it.

My bullet didn't kill Rickard. That was instantly evident from the bullets that splattered against the beams next to me. The flash of his pistol marked his position more easily than did the dull cracks emitted from the suppressor. Vectoring in on the flashes, I held my nerve and took aim. I fired three rounds in quick succession. My reward was a throaty yell and the sound of something crashing down into the room below me. Quickly I lowered myself beneath the hung ceiling, but all that was scattered on the floor was more of the tiles and bits of aluminium framework. A boot was hanging from the new hole in the ceiling, but even as I looked Rickard tugged it back up inside the roof space. There then followed a dull rumble as he scrambled away.