David Morrell - Double Image

The engine stopped. A door opened. Footsteps crunched on the ash. Ilkovic had evidently decided to circle the trough where Coltrane’s car had disappeared. He was coming at it from an angle, which was leading him toward the gully in which Coltrane aimed the pump-action shotgun.

The footsteps crunched closer. Coltrane’s finger tightened on the shotgun’s trigger. Lining up the sights, focusing along the barrel toward the sound of Ilkovic’s approaching footsteps, Coltrane had an unholy sensation that he was concentrating through a viewfinder, about to press a shutter button, when a face appeared above him, so startling that Coltrane was barely able to jerk the barrel away, recognizing the surprised, lean, thin-lipped features of FBI Special Agent James McCoy.

“JESUS CHRIST!” McCoy gaped at the shotgun barrel and lurched back. His feet slipped from under him, his momentum throwing him to the ashy ground. He landed with a groan. “Damn it, put that thing down!”

By the time Coltrane scrambled to the top of the gully, McCoy was squirming to sit up. His blue suit was covered with black ash. He stood awkwardly and swatted at his clothes, belatedly realizing that he was only spreading the grit. He stared at his hands, which were totally black. His face was smudged. He recoiled when he saw that Coltrane still held the shotgun. “I told you, put that thing down!”

His surprise deepening, Coltrane obeyed.

“Look at this suit!” McCoy said. “Look what you’ve done to-”

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here? As if it isn’t obvious!” McCoy stepped angrily closer. “You might have fooled Nolan and your girlfriend, but this self-serving jerk, as you called me, didn’t believe for a second that you were going to try to make Ilkovic follow you back to the house where you were hiding.”

Coltrane didn’t flinch.

“Not to the house!” McCoy emphasized. “Somewhere else. I saw that look in your eye. I could tell you had something else in mind. In case you haven’t noticed, you wandered a little off track – about ninety minutes from where you’re supposed to be meeting Nolan in the Hollywood Hills.”

“You were at the cemetery?”

“Hell, yes. You were so convinced Ilkovic was going to be there, I thought I’d be criminally stupid if I didn’t show up, on the chance I’d spot him.”

“The police surveillance team?”

“Were never called off. Did you really think we’d let you go in there without support?” McCoy demanded. “For sure, that would have been criminally stupid.”

Coltrane was sickened. “You ruined my chance.”

“Hey, he wasn’t there, Coltrane. He never showed up. We’d have seen him.”

“Did you at least tell your surveillance team to shut off their radios?”

“Listen to me. Pay attention. You’re a civilian. You don’t tell law-enforcement officers what to do.”

“Answer me. Did they shut off their radios ?”

“Yes! For all the good it-”

“Then there’s still a chance.”

“To do what ? This entire operation’s a mess. Thanks to you! If there was ever a chance to trap Ilkovic today, you blew it when you didn’t go back to where Nolan had a team waiting at the house.”

“No, you blew it when you followed me here. If Ilkovic sees you, he’ll suspect a trap and back off.”

“Hey, I know my job. I watched for anybody else following you. Nobody. Zilch. Both of us took a ride in the country for nothing. Ilkovic isn’t-”

McCoy’s black-smudged blue suit suddenly had red on it. The next instant, Coltrane realized that the red was blood bursting from McCoy’s right shoulder. The echo of a gunshot rolled over them, about the same time that McCoy’s face turned gray. As the special agent groaned and dropped, Coltrane grabbed him before his face would have struck a rock. He tugged him backward. At once, a second bullet ricocheted close to McCoy, dirt and ash flying, the gunshot echoing. Frantic, Coltrane felt his right shoe slip over the gully’s rim. He dropped to his knees, lowered himself into the streambed, and dragged McCoy down out of sight after him. A surge of adrenaline made his hands and feet turn numb as blood rushed to his chest and muscles.

“How bad are you hit?”

“Don’t know.” McCoy lay among rocks beside the trickling stream. He shuddered, as if he was freezing. “Don’t feel anything.”

“You’re going into shock.”

“Did you figure that out” – McCoy shuddered harder – “all by yourself?”

Coltrane stared toward blood pulsing from a jagged exit hole in McCoy’s right shoulder. “I have to stop the bleeding.”

“Another bulletin.”

But how am I going to do it ? Coltrane thought. He had reached the limit of his first-aid abilities when he had used a tourniquet and a pressure bandage to stop the young girl’s arm from bleeding after the explosion that killed Greg. This wound was much worse. He tried to remember every makeshift treatment he had ever seen a battlefield doctor use on a wounded soldier.

In a frenzy, he groped in McCoy’s pockets and found a handkerchief. He also found a key chain pocketknife, which he used to cut wide patches from the bottom of McCoy’s suit coat.

McCoy groaned when Coltrane tilted him to press a half dozen of these makeshift bandages against the entrance wound in the back of his shoulder. Coltrane set a similar wedge of cloth in front against the exit wound. Rushing, he pulled off McCoy’s belt, cinched it around his shoulder, and tightened it.

The pressure made McCoy groan again.

“We have to get out of here,” Coltrane said.

“Still more bulletins.”

“My car’s about a hundred yards down this gully. Do you think you can stand?”

McCoy winced. “One way to find out.”

“I have to do something first.”

Coltrane turned toward the gully’s rim. His stomach was so gripped with fear, he was sure he was going to throw up. What he did instead, the fiercest he had ever moved, was scurry up the slope, dive over the top, grab the shotgun where he had set it down, and roll back into the gully. As he dropped from sight, a richocheting bullet sprayed dirt across the back of his neck. The gunshot echoed.

Coltrane rolled to a painful stop, bumping his right side against a rock next to McCoy.

“Sounds like a rifle,” the special agent murmured.

“It also sounds closer.”

Struggling, Coltrane put an arm around McCoy’s waist and gripped his uninjured left arm, lifting. With a gasp, McCoy braced his legs and stood, leaning heavily against Coltrane.

“Hang on to me,” Coltrane said. “I need a hand free to hold the shotgun.”

They staggered along the gully. McCoy’s legs buckled, but he cursed himself and stayed upright, lurching farther along the stream.

The Saturn came into view. Staggering toward it, Coltrane scanned the top of the embankment down which he had driven. Ilkovic might have reached here by now, he thought furiously. He might suddenly appear, aiming at us. Have to hurry.

Coltrane leaned the shotgun against the car, yanked open the back door, and eased McCoy inside.

“Cold,” McCoy said.

“Stretch out on the backseat. I’ll cover you with this sleeping bag. Prop your feet up against the door. Keep them higher than your head.”

“My fault.”

Coltrane grabbed the shotgun and aimed toward the top of the embankment.

“My fault,” McCoy repeated. “I shouldn’t have-”

“No! It’s my fault.” Coltrane shoved the shotgun into the front seat, scrambled behind the steering wheel, rammed the car into gear, and roared out of the trough. The car bucked as it reached the crest, causing McCoy to scream in pain. Coltrane stomped his foot on the accelerator, racing along the barely defined road toward the charred ruins of the western town, throwing up a cloud of ash that he hoped would give them cover.