Джеймс Паттерсон - The Red Book

A moment of quiet, the after-hum from the gunfire, nothing more.

They’re reloading.

I aim my Glock toward the other shooter, the gunman at ten o’clock, and let off a few rounds. Then a few rounds to my right, two o’clock.

Then my clip’s empty.

With my free hand, I reach to my belt, every movement of my fingers reminding me of the bullet that just entered my forearm.

I don’t reach for a new magazine for the Glock.

I reach for the flashbang and toss it somewhere toward the center of the room.

Close my eyes, cover one ear with my free hand, push my other ear against my shoulder. Duck my head behind Sergio’s body.

The grenade drops and goes off, a thundering blast of sound, searing light coloring my eyelids, even with my face pressed into Sergio’s back.

Two men wearing night-vision goggles, suddenly blinded.

And immobilized, disoriented, at least for a few seconds, from the blast.

My only chance. I pry myself loose of Sergio and stumble backward, squinting through the harsh light at the door I just entered.

The light from the flashbang suddenly gone, dark again. The flashbang did a number on me, too, no matter how ready I was for it, so I’m not so coordinated, either. I stumble forward into darkness, my chin bouncing on hard tile, my Glock falling to the floor.

Bullets spray the wall near me. They’re doing their best, but they’re disabled by the blast.

That won’t last much longer. They’ll recover, and then I’m a sitting duck if I don’t make it through that door.

I try to get back up, my head ringing, in total darkness.

More gunfire spray, hitting the door I’m going for.

Then a banging sound somewhere behind me, followed by a loud, efficient hum, and suddenly bright light surrounds me. Not grenade-caliber light but LED lighting. Someone flipped on the overhead lights.

I close my eyes instinctively as fresh gunfire erupts, but different gunfire, in a different direction. Some of the heavy rifle fire, but also some poppy gunfire.

Shots from a handgun.

I force my eyes open, squinting in the overhead lighting, and look to my left. Rafters, just like a gymnasium, at the top of which one of the men drops his rifle, his throat splayed open, and falls backward.

That’s the other guy, the taller one, the one who shot at me in Shiv’s house, the driver in the 4Runner in K-Town.

I reach for the backup at my ankle and turn, squinting in the direction of the other set of rafters on the other side, my two o’clock, where a man is adiosing the scene, going through some door, some escape hatch, at the top of the rafters. I don’t get a look at him, just his back, a heavy limp as he exits.

What, the one guy shot the other? With a handgun?

No, of course not.

I shake my head, get myself together, keeping my backup piece high just in case, and focus. I’m inside an old gymnasium, and a door is open on the other side of it.

With a body leaning against it. A woman’s body. A body still moving but wounded, a streak of blood against the door she’s propping open.

I jump over Sergio’s corpse and run the length of the gym toward her.

She’s been hit, but she’s still trying to clear the scene.

“Oh, no,” I whisper.

The wound is up by her left shoulder, high and wide of the heart, but still a threat to bleed out.

I pull out my cell phone.

“Don’t call it in,” Carla says through a grimace. “Neither one of us wants to explain this.”

Chapter 95

“I’M…FINE,” Carla says through gritted teeth.

“You’re not fine.”

“You’re bleeding, too. Your arm.”

I yank off my shirt, buttons flying everywhere, and rip it roughly in half. I tie one half around Carla’s shoulder and armpit, the best I can do to put temporary pressure on her wound, Carla crying out in pain as I do it.

She’s losing color. Shock is a real possibility as she loses blood.

I tie the other half of my shirt, best as I can with one hand, around my left forearm, which has an entry and exit wound, a clean through-and-through.

I pick Carla up and carry her like a bride across the gym, Carla keeping her weapon out just in case the surviving shooter decides to make a return appearance. We must be quite a sight.

She’s toughing it out, but she’s in excruciating pain, wincing with every bounce as I run as fast as I can with a hundred pounds in my arms.

The first guy, who called himself Sergio, has been shot so many times he looks more like a broken piñata than a human being. The guy on the rafters hasn’t moved an inch after Carla put one through his throat. I don’t have time to confirm it, but he’s down for the count.

I scoop up my original Glock. Can’t leave that here. This place was chosen because it’s out of the way. Nobody would hear anything; nobody will be looking around here. This was the perfect ambush site. Also helpful for me, now, buying me some time before anyone knows what happened here.

Just before we’re out of the gym, we both hear it behind us. The entrance on the other side, where I found Carla, the gym door banging open again, footsteps bounding on the gym floor toward us.

Carla calls out, in a weak voice, “Don’t move,” before I spin around and see her.

Sadie, in her tank top and shorts, sandals long gone, in bare feet.

The girl who set us up. She sees Sergio and stops, freaks out, pedals backward. Looks up at the rafters at the other guy.

“Sadie!” I shout. “Look at me! Don’t move and look at me!”

She does, though she looks like it wouldn’t take much to send her running the other way.

“Come with us. We can help you.”

She slowly shakes her head.

“You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” I say. “We can help you. Will you trust me and come with me?”

She doesn’t know, stares at me with doe eyes.

“You can help your friends, too, Sadie. Evie’s gone, but you can help the rest of them. They need your help!”

She starts to cry.

“My friend is hurt,” I say. “I have to take her to the hospital. You have to decide right now. Will you come with us?”

I can’t wait any longer. I turn and get through the door with Carla. It’s a long trip to my car, but I do the best I can, running with her, the pain it causes her. Her moans and cries are growing weaker. She’s losing blood.

Finally, sweat burning my eyes, my body all but giving out, we reach my car, parked down the street. I put Carla in the back seat.

“Billy,” she says to me, her voice growing fainter, as I’m reaching over to fasten the seat belt. “Billy, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for saving my life? I forgive you.” I close the door and get around to the other side. I know there’s more, much more to that apology, but now’s not the time.

I put the car in gear. Grab my phone and dial it. Patti answers on the first ring.

“Meet me at the ER at Little Company of Mary, Evergreen Park,” I say.

I punch out the phone and start driving.

Just as Sadie comes running out of the industrial park toward my car.

Chapter 96

DISCO BOUNDS down the back stairs from his escape hatch in the rafters, the pain in his foot screaming out, pure torture with every step.

They will catch him. As slow as he’s moving, hobbled as he is, unable to take a step without lightning shots of pain. If they run up the rafters, go through this door, and come down the stairs, they’ll catch him within seconds.

Adrenaline pounding through him. Blood oozing through the bandage and dressing with such force that his foot squishes inside the boot.

He reaches the bottom of the stairs, opens the door into a long underground tunnel connected to the next building.

His escape route, part of the plan. The tunnel runs beneath the entire length of the industrial park, nearly half a mile with all the turns and angles, at the end of which he will merely walk up the steps to the exit and find his car.