T. Parker - Cold Pursuit

Martin Axelgaard handed the slip back up to his brother and waved him through.

McMichael thought: here we go.

Rawlings sauntered toward the Mack. Hatter and Barbara stood, loosened the serapes and fell in behind him, heads down.

The Mack's engine groaned and a blast of fresh exhaust spilled from the pipe and into the air. A white panel van moved away from the inspection area and cut a slow angle across the asphalt, stopping a few yards in front of the Mack. Mason Axelgaard hit the horn. The van didn't move and nobody got out of it. He hit the horn again- a nerve-rattling airhorn that made McMichael flinch even this far away. The gunmen on the catwalk unshouldered their carbines.

Golden-haired Martin Axelgaard strode from the Customs booth toward the panel van while Rawlings rounded the front of the Mack, headed for the driver's side.

The back of the van flew open and three FBI men spilled out, sidearms drawn at Mason Axelgaard in the truck. Rawlings drew from under his corduroy jacket and backed off, holding his badge up high with one hand and his automatic at his side with the other, yelling something up at Mason as Barbara and Hatter shed their serapes, drew their weapons and ran to the front of the rig.

Bland's head quickly vanished from the bottom of McMichael's round, binocular view. He was in the Crown Vic and rolling. McMichael stepped away from the building as the Ford sped down the street, Bland's cell phone bouncing to the pavement, and when he got the glasses back up McMichael saw Mason step down from the cab with his hands submissively behind his head while Rawlings shouted something up at Victor.

Out on the driveway Martin raised his hands as the FBI men swarmed him.

Victor tumbled down out of the Mack, trying to keep hold of his CD player. Mason looked back sharply at him, then turned again to Rawlings, and at the same time his hands came together in front of him and a comet of orange flame flashed from his weapon a full second before McMichael even heard it.

Rawlings went down hard, his badge holder suspended for a split second in midair before it dropped to the ground beside him.

Hatter and Barbara, the cab blocking their view, flew around the front. Victor stumbled between Mason and the Bureau men.

McMichael ran into the street and pointlessly yelled "NO!" He was almost to the first fence when Hector blew past him on his short, thick legs.

McMichael saw Hatter round the truck ahead of Barbara.

Axelgaard shot him, too.

Barbara dropped, rolled and got off three, but Axelgaard climbed back into the truck just as an ear-splitting alarm went off and a bank of emergency lights flashed on. The truck lurched forward.

McMichael caught up with Hector at the line of vehicles waiting to leave the country, sprinted along while he dug out his badge and his nine millimeter. They held their badges high as they ran into the inspection area, McMichael half expecting a bullet to find him.

The INS vans screamed uselessly past them, and one of the catwalk gunmen fired down, but another one shot him off the scaffolding and he tumbled down through the lights and shadows and hit the asphalt with a smack. Victor dove away from the rig and the FBI men opened up. McMichael watched the overhead gunman pitch headfirst into the trailer of new cars, his automatic chattering away as he fell.

Martin Axelgaard broke away and sprinted for the Mexico-side fence but the Bureau men cut him down before he got close.

McMichael ran hard, wondering why he couldn't go fast enough to help anybody. He saw the Mack accelerating toward the panel van as Barbara and a staggering Mark Hatter pulled Rawlings to the Customs booth. Victor was crawling in the same direction, head low and butt high. The Bureau agents dove away from the truck and fired, and McMichael saw one of the SWAT snipers place three quick shots in a tight group through the windshield. The Mack slowed and Mason staggered out, wheeling and shooting wildly as McMichael and Hector and Hatter and the FBI men and the SWAT snipers up in the catwalk took him down in a brief, horrendous fusillade of small arms fire. One of the FBI men swung into the truck and killed the engine.

Gunsmoke lingered and slowly rose to join the exhaust and the lights and the darkness. The alarm screamed but for a moment no one moved- thankful prayers or just shock.

The calamity had taken thirty seconds.

McMichael trotted over to Rawlings, who was unconscious and bleeding hard from his ears and mouth while Barbara sat astride him and tried to pound his heart back into action. His cowboy hat lay a few feet away, up on its crown.

"You hang in there, Captain. You're hanging in, Captain. Don, Don? Hang in there with me now!"

She pounded and grunted and looked up at McMichael with hopeless eyes as the blood, sweat and tears ran down her charcoal-smudged face.

"Bland," said McMichael, taking Hector by the arm.

Silence in the family van as McMichael hit the emergency flashers and tried to gun it onto the freeway and Hector called ahead for the backup. Taillights came toward them at a steadily accelerating rate and McMichael laid on the horn to clear the fast lane.

"He got it in the head," said Hector. "All that armor and he gets it in the head. Fucking Axelgaards. Fucking Bland. Fucking Jimmy."

"Hatter's armor saved him."

"Rawlings looked bad. Oh, man."

McMichael sailed on, hands jittery and his eyeballs strangely heavy in his face, the weight of his own heart beginning to register through the dimming rush of adrenaline.

The lights were on in the back rooms of Bland's house. Two black-and-whites were waiting at the nearest corner and they fell in behind the van.

Four uniforms jangled up the walk behind the detectives, two of them carrying riot guns with the ten-shell magazines. McMichael felt alert again, light on his feet and ready. He thought he smelled something burning, wondered if it was the gunpowder from the border still alive in his nose.

He held the search warrant in one hand and his automatic in the other. Hector took the right side of the door and knocked sharply.

The porch light came on and Jerry Bland, dressed in a plaid bathrobe and slippers, opened the door. "What?"

"We've got a warrant, Bland," said McMichael. "This is it."

Bland's face looked ancient in the porch light. He stared past McMichael at the uniforms. "For my home?"

"Here," said McMichael, handing Bland the warrant book. "You can sign off or not. We're coming in."

"What are you looking for?"

"Read the damned thing, Bland. You like watching Rawlings get it tonight?" McMichael held up Bland's cell phone, then slid it back into his pocket.

Bland's mouth opened and his small eyes registered comprehension. "Come in."

McMichael pushed through, followed by Hector and the uniforms. One of them greeted Bland with a "good evening, sir. Sorry to bother you."

"You are not sorry," said Hector with a sharp glance. He shook his head in disgust and patted down the assistant chief, who raised his arms compliantly. Hector then cuffed him, hands behind his back. "You guys are not sorry. Stay with him. Don't let him out of your sight, not for one second."

Bland looked helpless with his robe and slippers and the stunned expression on his face. "I can help you guys find whatever it is you're looking for."

"Cash in a leather briefcase," said McMichael. He smelled smoke again.

"I've got one of those. But there's no cash in it."

Mitzi came into the room from the hallway. "Jerry, what's this?"

"Just a department thing, hon."

Bland padded across the floor and bent so she could hug him. She was a slight woman, short gray hair and a round, pleasant face. Wrapped in a heavy terry robe, she peered at McMichael over her husband's shoulder. She didn't look like she'd been sleeping.