Deadline

by John Sandford

  There was a truck in the boat launch parking area, and Virgil said, “Well, I’ll be damned. That’s Vike’s truck. Jenkins, you probably just saved your own life.”

  “Or yours,” Jenkins said.

  “No, I always make you go first,” Virgil said. “I’m going to block his truck in, and then let’s see if we can locate Mr. Laughton back in the weeds.”

  “This could be a little delicate,” Jenkins said. “It’s darker than a black cat’s ass in a coal mine, when you get back there.”

  “There’s some light around the house,” Shrake said. “We know he’s got to be close to the house—probably around in front, so he’d have a clear shot at the porch when Virgil crosses it.”

  —

  VIRGIL CROWDED HIS TRUCK up next to Vike’s until the bumpers touched; the nose of Vike’s truck was nestled in the riverside brush in front of it, and there was no way out. Virgil killed the truck lights, and they got out with their weapons, patting the armor back in place.

  Shrake said quietly, “Sound carries along the track, we could hear you talking on your phone in the cabin when we were a hundred yards out. Then maybe a hundred yards in, give or take twenty or so, there’s a low spot that’s full of water—you can go in up to your shins in mud. Stay close behind me, off on the right side of the track, and I’ll get you past that. You can’t see much left or right, but you can see the stars overhead when you’re on the track, so watch the stars.”

  Jenkins: “I’ll lead the way in. He’s gotta be out front, I think, or maybe where we set up, off to the side, although that’d be taking a chance. There’ll be some light when we get close, so don’t go waving your arms around, swatting mosquitoes. Just let them bite.”

  “And don’t shoot me in the back,” Shrake said.

  They started down the track, single file, moving slowly, not so much out of caution as blindness: the black cat/coal mine problem; the strongest sensory input came through their noses, which told them that there were lots of dead carp somewhere close. A hundred yards down the track, Virgil could sense Shrake but not really see him, and then Shrake reached back and pushed him to the right and whispered, “Puddle.”

  Mosquitoes were bumping off Virgil’s face and the exposed part of his neck, and he flipped his shirt collar up and followed, keeping the muzzle of his shotgun pointed up and to the left.

  They moved on, almost silently, then saw the light from the cabin, yellow against the gray/blue of the night. Virgil walked into Shrake, who’d bumped into Jenkins. Jenkins whispered, “There’s another truck in the driveway. My car, and it looks like a black pickup.”

  “That’s Johnson,” Virgil whispered back. “Jesus, I hope he hasn’t hurt Johnson.”

  “Could be a hostage deal,” Shrake suggested.

  Virgil said, “No. He can’t afford a hostage deal. He can’t afford anyone be left alive to know he was involved in this . . . so he’s either in there with Johnson, or he’s outside.”

  “Okay. Keep an interval . . . ten yards,” Jenkins said.

  Virgil: “I’m going first. I can see now, and I know the layout better than you guys. No argument. Ten yards, I’m going first.”

  He led the way in, Jenkins staying almost in the brush on the left side of the track. As he got closer, he had to make a decision: Would Laughton be behind the cabin, or in front? He stopped, and crouched, and let Jenkins and Shrake come up. As he waited, Virgil noticed that he was sweating.

  “What do you think?” Virgil asked.

  “It occurred to me that you should send a cell phone message to Johnson, is what occurred to me,” Jenkins said. “Tell him we’re here, that Laughton is here, and to lay low.”

  Virgil said, “Why didn’t I think of that? Wait here for a minute. I’m gonna crawl back behind that bush and send one.”

  They squatted in the dirt, a few yards apart, and Virgil eased backward, pulled his shirt up over his head, stuck his hands in under the front, with his cell phone, and tapped out a quick message. “Think Vike Laughton’s outside the cabin with gun. I’m coming for him. If you okay, not hostage, send me my girlfriend’s first name.”

  Twenty seconds later, he got “Frankie.” And then, “I’ll break him out.”

  Virgil tried to type “No!” but he’d only gotten the “N” typed in when a side window on the cabin flew open and Johnson bellowed into the night, “Hey! Vike! You’re surrounded! Everybody knows you’re out there. Give it up, you fuckin’ cocksucker!”

  There was a moment of dead silence, then a six-inch flame reached out toward the cabin and blew out a window, and Jenkins and Shrake opened up on the muzzle flash, and were rolling away from their own flashes when there were three fast shots from the same point, or a little left, then a woman started screaming, and Jenkins and Shrake and Virgil opened up on the muzzle flash point, and the woman kept screaming, and Shrake screamed at Jenkins, “He’s got cover, go to slugs,” and Virgil emptied his shotgun at the point of the incoming muzzle flashes and rolled off behind a tree, and the woman kept screaming, and Virgil wished she’d stop doing that and wondered in a very thin stream of curious thought in the middle of a gunfight if Johnson and Clarice had been getting it on in the cabin. . . .

  —

  JENKINS’S FIRST SLUG knocked a hole in the bottom of the boat that Laughton and Barns were using for cover, and also took a piece of Jennifer 1’s ass, and she dropped her shotgun and started screaming for help, and Vike said, “Sorry about this, Jen,” and he slid backward on his belly down the bank toward the river and then scuttled away in the dark. Incoming slugs were knocking holes in the boat and Jennifer 1 began screaming, “No no no no no . . . I give up give up give up . . .”

  Virgil shouted, “Stop, stop, stop . . .”

  —

  WHEN THE SHOOTING STOPPED, Virgil shouted, “Vike, throw out your gun. There are a whole bunch of us here. All you’ll get is killed, if you keep shooting.”

  A woman’s voice: “Vike ran away. I’m shot, I’m hurt bad, I’m dying. Get me help, get me an ambulance, help me . . .”

  They took a good two minutes closing in on her, and found her hiding behind Johnson’s upturned jon boat. She was bleeding heavily from a wound in the buttocks, and Virgil said to Jenkins, “Get an ambulance.”

  Jenkins stepped back to call, and Virgil moved around behind the boat and picked up a shotgun and put it out of reach, and asked, “Who are you?”

  Before she could answer, a light hit her in the face, and Johnson, standing behind the flashlight, said, “Hey, it’s Jennifer Barns, the honorable school board chairwoman or -person.”

  “Where’d Vike go?” Virgil asked.

  “He went down the river . . . down the bank,” she groaned.

  And Johnson said, suddenly louder, “Hey, hey! That’s my boat. Jesus Christ, look what you assholes did to my boat. It’s all—”

  “Shut up!” Virgil shouted.

  Johnson shut up, and Jenkins came back and said, “Ambulance is on the way. They said they know the place, they’ve been here before.”

  “I’m dying,” Barns screamed. “Get me a doctor. I’m dying . . .”

  Jenkins said, “I got a little issue here myself. I might have caught some buckshot.”

  Virgil: “Aw, shit. How bad? Where’re you hit?”

  “Right in the calf. Could be gravel or something, but there’s some blood.”

  Shrake said, “Let me look, get up on the porch . . .”

  —

  JOHNSON STAYED WITH BARNS, and Virgil and Shrake followed Jenkins up to the porch. Jenkins sat down and pulled up a pant leg. A trickle of blood was flowing from a hole in his calf, but there was no exit wound.

  “The red ones down low are where that fuckin’ Chihuahua bit me, but that big one—”

  “Ah, you’re shot. Now we really need that fuckin’ ambulance,” Virgil said.
/>   “It’s not that bad,” Jenkins said.

  “They’re all fuckin’ bad,” Shrake said. “You know what that’s going to do to your downswing? You’ll have no fuckin’ follow-through for a fuckin’ month, and then the season’ll almost be over.”

  Barns screamed, “Where’s the ambulance?”

  Virgil got on the phone to the sheriff’s office, in eight crisp sentences told the duty officer what had happened, told him to get some deputies to the cabin. When he was sure the duty officer understood, Virgil rang off and asked Jenkins, “You got a problem with shock?”

  “No, I’m fine, although my leg’s beginning to annoy me.”

  “Could you stay with what’s-her-name? And talk to the deputies?”

  “Sure. You going after Laughton?”

  “Yeah—he’s running downriver, but he’s got no place to go. Half-mile from here, he’ll be hitting the town lights. It’s just a matter of flushing him out.”

  “Take off. I’ve got it here,” Jenkins said.

  Barns screamed, “I’m dying, I’m dying, where’s the goddamned ambulance?”

  She sounded like a blackboard being run through a table saw.

  —

  VIRGIL RAN INSIDE for ten seconds, got his jacklight, and then he and Shrake started downriver in a measured jog, shotguns at port arms, Johnson following behind. Virgil called, “Go away, Johnson, we don’t want you.”

  “Fuck you, you shot my boat. I’m coming.”

  “Go away!”

  “Fuck you!”

  —

  SO THEY WENT DOWN the track, slowly, until they came to an artificial harbor with a half-dozen barges inside, small lights at the corner of each barge, and three brighter pole lights scattered down the waterfront. The levee was coming in from their right, pinching them against the river, and Johnson climbed up the side of it and walked along the top as they got closer to town, and then Johnson shouted down, “There he is, the fuckin’ rat. He’s going for the marina.”

  Virgil searched the waterline up ahead, and though there was some light, and the lights were getting brighter, he didn’t see Laughton until the fugitive made a sudden jog down a catwalk that led behind a row of boats, probably five hundred yards ahead.

  Virgil, Shrake, and Johnson broke into a trot, and Virgil shouted, “Don’t forget, he’s got that shotgun.” He was almost instantly proven correct when they saw a flash and heard a BOOM from the marina, and Johnson shouted, “He shot someone.”

  They were running hard now, and thirty seconds or so later they heard a buzzing noise, and Johnson shouted, “He’s got a boat. He’s running in a boat.”

  Another half-minute and they were at the marina, which was basically an indentation in the shoreline with a rambling dock that ran alongside it, with a few finger docks attached. They found no bodies, but did find the remnant of a boat’s bowline that appeared to have been shot in half.

  They could still hear the buzzing from the fleeing boat, and Johnson yelled, “This one, get this one, get the rope, get the line . . .”

  He’d jumped into a jon boat with a small engine on the back.

  “We need a faster boat,” Virgil shouted.

  “Can’t. They all need keys,” Johnson shouted back. “This one’s just a rope pull.” To prove the point, he yanked on the starter rope and nothing happened. Johnson said something that would have embarrassed the entire state of Minnesota, had the entire state overheard it. He whacked the motor a few times, pulled again, and the outboard sputtered to life. “We’re good: get in.”

  Shrake and Virgil jumped in the boat, and Virgil unwrapped the dock line, and Johnson backed the boat away from the pier and they took off, more or less.

  “This is really fuckin’ slow,” Shrake said. “Can’t we get more speed?”

  “You could jump overboard,” Johnson suggested. “That’d lighten the load.” And to Virgil: “Hey, Virgie, put your jacklight on that sucker.”

  They couldn’t see Laughton’s boat, and they couldn’t hear it anymore, over the buzz of their own small engine, but had an idea of where he was. Virgil turned on the jacklight. Laughton was already a long way out, but the light pinned him, three or four hundred yards ahead, pointed out into the river. He was also in a jon boat, and also had a small engine on the back.

  “All right,” Johnson shouted. “The chase is on.”

  Virgil and Shrake were looking at Laughton’s back, trying to keep it in sight. Johnson, who was standing in the stern, pulled his Para-Ordnance .45 out of his beltline and fired two shots so quickly they almost blended into one, and almost inspired both Virgil and Shrake to jump over the side.

  Virgil screamed, “Johnson, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Chasing him,” Johnson shouted back. “Is this a great country, or what?”

  26

  NOTHING LIKE a slow-speed chase on a pleasant summer night on the Mississippi. They could see a towboat, but it was far upriver, and no immediate danger; far downstream they could see a hint of the lights on the lock and dam, and across the river, on the far bluffs, radio towers sending flashing red light out into the ether. Halfway across, Laughton fired a shot at them, but he was far enough away that they didn’t even see the shot hit the water.

  “Wonder what the maximum range for shot is?” Virgil asked.

  Shrake said, “There’s a range I shoot at in Wisconsin, they say four hundred yards to be safe. But everybody says not even buckshot carries much further than three hundred.”

  Johnson said, “My .45’ll carry a lot further than that.”

  Virgil: “Johnson, I swear to God, if you take that gun out again, I’ll throw both of you in the fuckin’ river.”

  —

  SHRAKE: “I WONDER if he thinks if he makes it to Wisconsin, we won’t be able to follow because we’re Minnesota cops?”

  “Only if he’s got his head up his ass,” Virgil said. “Though we probably ought to call the Wisconsin sheriff’s office, whichever one it is, and tell them we’re coming. Maybe we could get a little help.”

  Virgil got on the line to Purdy’s office, and when the duty officer answered, gave him a quick explanation, and he said he’d call the sheriff across the river: “But don’t expect them too quick, this time of night, they’ll be coming all the way from Viroqua.”

  “Call them, and have them call me, and I’ll tell them about it,” Virgil said. “They’re gonna have to take custody, anyway, I can’t just haul him back across the river.”

  Virgil hung up, and Johnson, who was still standing up in the back of the boat and steering with occasional foot nudges on the tiller, said, “You see that tiny gold speck of light straight ahead?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s the Schlitz beer sign hanging outside of the Rattlesnake Golf and Country Club. They’d be closed by now, but there might still be somebody around. He could hijack a truck, maybe.”

  Virgil went back to the phone, and after some fooling around, found a phone number for the club, but nobody answered: it clicked over to the pro shop’s answering machine. “No answer.”

  “How much longer?” Shrake asked.

  “At this speed . . . four or five minutes.”

  “When we see him land, we can’t go straight in after him, we’ve got to unload either downstream or upstream, or he’ll take us all out with one shot,” Virgil said.

  Virgil took a call from the Vernon County sheriff, and explained quickly what was going on. “We’re in hot pursuit,” he said for the sheriff’s recorder. “We’ve got him pinned in a spotlight. He’s coming up to the Rattlesnake golf club. We’ll keep you posted on what happens.”

  “We’ll start a car that way, but we don’t have a hell of a lot of resources available to come that way, at this very minute.”

  “You tell your people to be careful—he’s armed, and he d
oesn’t have anything to lose.”

  “I’ll tell ’em.”

  —

  THIRTY SECONDS LATER he took another call, this one from Davenport: “Yeah?”

  “You busy?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I’ve got a couple things going on right now,” Virgil said.

  “Is that an outboard I hear in the background?”

  “As a matter of fact it is, Lucas. I’m chasing a guy with a shotgun across the Mississippi River, because he and a woman ambushed me and Shrake and Jenkins at Johnson Johnson’s cabin, and Jenkins took a shotgun pellet in the leg, and the woman was shot in the butt, and they’re waiting for an ambulance—that should be there by now—so I’m a little fuckin’ busy and I gotta go. Talk to you later.”

  He clicked off, and Shrake asked, “Think he believed you?”

  Virgil’s phone chirped, and he pulled it out and looked at the screen. A message from Davenport that said: “OK. Call when you get a minute.”

  Virgil said, “Yeah, I guess he did.”

  —

  JOHNSON: “Vike’s right at the shoreline.”

  Virgil said, “You know the golf club, what do you think—upstream or downstream?”

  “Down. It’ll be faster, and there’s a track that runs out to the river,” Johnson said. “We can tie up there and we can follow the track right into the clubhouse, even without light.”

  Johnson started angling south, and a few seconds later Shrake said, “I think he just hit land.” In the light shaft from Virgil’s jacklight, they saw Laughton scramble up the riverbank.

  As they got closer, they could see Laughton’s empty boat turning in the river, just offshore. “That’s Larry Gale’s boat. He’s gonna be pissed if it goes over the lock and dam. We oughta try to get it back,” Johnson said.

  “You get it back,” Virgil said. “Shrake and I will go after Vike. I don’t want you there with a gun if the Wisconsin cops show up. At this point, we can just tell them you were the boat driver.”