The Kingdom - Peter Collinson

Something was moving in the snow. It looked as though the snow itself were moving, something rippling beneath its surface like a worm beneath the skin — to the left of the nest of trees hiding the semiautomatic gun. Rebecca risked another long look and saw a patch of snow creeping along the front yard. A stray shot spat through the glass and Rebecca flinched but could not turn away. She was transfixed. The shape moved behind the trees.

The prisoner reared up with the small Uzi-like weapon in his hands and then something else reared up behind him. Two white arms wrapped the con’s chest and yanked him backward, the gun wasting rounds into the highest branches. The snow form rolled on top of the convict and a bright metal blade flashed.

At first she thought it was Kells. The figure turned on all fours and glanced up momentarily at the house, and Rebecca saw small, dark eyes, a bleached-white coat, and a bloody knife blade. The thrill of victory dropped away.

It was Jasper Grue. He released the dead convict and returned to the blankness of the snow.

The moment possessed the awful inevitability of a dream. She understood now that she was his to hunt and no one else’s.

The other con rose hesitantly, eyeing the other cluster of trees. He had heard the automatic fire. He saw the ripped branches and snow clumps falling down. He was calling his partner’s name.

Footsteps on the hall stairs. A voice, Tom Duggan’s. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

She ran to the top step, and for a moment the staircase was all white, her eyes stinging with the brightness of the early morning snow. Tom Duggan materialized at the bottom and she hurried down.

“You saw him?” she said.

He nodded. “We have to get away while they fight it out. Now or never.”

Mia was there and they grabbed their things in a frenzy, Rebecca throwing her computer case over her shoulder as another gunshot cracked outside. She hurried to the kitchen and Polk was sitting on a chair near the door. He appeared oddly relaxed. Rebecca yelled at him, “Come on!”

Dr. Rosen entered from the bathroom with a roll of gauze and a handful of Muppet bandages. He knelt next to Polk and Rebecca stopped and took a closer look at the old man.

She saw the bloodstain on his shirt, spreading over the lower left side of his gut.

“Damned lucky shot,” he said, wincing with disappointment.

Dr. Rosen was frantic. “This won’t work. I need real medical supplies.”

Tom Duggan rushed in. “Where?”

“A hospital, a clinic. A doctor’s office.”

Tom Duggan shook his head. “Nearest hospital’s in Beckett.”

Rebecca said, “What about an animal hospital?”

“There’s the vet. Dr. Chalbee.”

Dr. Rosen nodded quickly. “We should go there.”

Tom Duggan said, “I know the way.”

He buttoned Polk’s jacket over the wound and helped him to his feet. Outside, he loaded the old man onto a sled and sat in front.

Rebecca mounted the other two-man sled as Mia stood by. “Get on!” yelled Rebecca, and Mia did, clasping her hands around Rebecca’s waist. Dr. Rosen took the one-man sled and they pulled out after Tom Duggan.

They rounded the house the long way, riding in tandem along the tree line. Mia’s hug tightened as they crossed into the front yard.

Grue was working over the prisoner in the second clutch of trees. The sled noise turned his head. Rebecca opened up her throttle. She wanted as much distance between her and Jasper Grue as possible. She crouched closer to the handlebars and Mia gripped her tight, the laptop pressed between them as they raced across the yard to the field beyond, gathering speed.

She looked back once. Grue was distinct against the dark trees, watching them go, the second convict lying dead at his feet. She saw something in Grue’s hands: a hunting bow. He was in no rush. The town was a trap and Rebecca’s sled tracks left a long thin shadow she would not outrun.

Coe danced the two-man sled along a Hunter’s path through the crowded wood.

The kid obeyed every instruction Kells yelled into his helmet. He held on to Coe’s midsection with one hand, reaching back to fire with the other. But Kells could not get off a clear shot, even as bursts of gunfire chipped the tree trunks around them.

They jumped free of the tree cover, hopping a curb of snow onto a meadow road, the rear track fishtailing until the treads bit and the sled straightened out. The road was clear and rising and Coe surfed it hard. The cons’ sled broke out of the trees and Kells aimed for the headlight. He noted that the second sled did not follow.

Coe topped the incline and the land up ahead opened around them, too widely. They would be an easy target there. The kid was driving for the lower hills where the road rejoined the trees, but they weren’t going to make it. Kells heard cracks over the growl of the sled engine, then a sound like a rock striking his helmet. He saw the cons’ sled in the shaky side-view mirror, two road dips behind them and closing.

Then the view in the mirror went white. Coe had peeled off the road in a wild, skidding turn, nearly tossing an unprepared Kells, hurtling them down the steep face of a bluff. Kells’s stomach floated as they dipped, coming up short and hard at the bottom. The other sled followed them off the road, gaining over the slower track, firing. Snow chunks popped around them like white corks. They rejoined the winding road on the far side and hit another straightaway and Coe got them back up to speed. But the sled behind them was still gaining. Kells turned and fired three more shots, to no real effect.

The cons were closing the gap on their left wing. They were within shooting range but the kid kept his head down and pushed the sled. Kells turned to fire. He saw the rear passenger on the con sled fooling with his Micro Uzi, trying to reload and hold on at that speed.

Kells barked an order into Coe’s ear and the kid braked obediently, immediately, fishtailing a bit as the cons’ sled burst ahead, coming even with them suddenly, not more than an arm’s length away. Kells looked over at the surprised criminals, the con in back working frantically to reload.

Kells’s revolver was in his left hand now. He fired at the sled, picking holes in its side and biting the driver’s leg, who twisted away. The sled began to wobble. The con driver was losing the skid and the sled ran nose-first into the far shoulder of the road, momentum carrying the machine and its passengers cartwheeling away.

Coe pulled to a stop and Kells jumped off and ran fifty yards back to the cons. The passenger was dead. His neck was wrenched at an impossible angle, his body crumpled at the base of a tree. The driver lay on his stomach, half-buried in the snow, moaning.

Kells dug the man out and rolled him over. He pulled off the con’s helmet and tossed it into the snow. It was a white guy in his early thirties, still reaching for his bloody thigh. The gun in his face did nothing to ease his grimace. The con cursed in pain and rage.

Kells unzipped the man’s coat and found a police radio on his belt.

Kells told him, “Say what I tell you to say.”

The man cursed and gripped his leg, trying to look at his wounds.

Kells kneeled on the man’s chest, pressing the muzzle of his Astra .357 against the con’s Adam’s apple. “Say what I tell you to say or I’ll kill you.”

The man was settling down, breathing through bared teeth.

“Give them your handle,” Kells said. He turned on the transmitter with his free hand and held it to the man’s mouth.

“Dog Two,” said the con, his eyes fierce on Kells.

“Dog Two, come in, over.”

Kells told him what to say and the con’s voice was strained as he repeated it into the radio. “Clock is running,” he said.