Sorrow's Anthem

by Michael Koryta

  “Mason and Dean?”

  “Yeah. They’re in Berea.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t say. Just told me to get to Berea City Hall.”

  “City Hall?” Berea was a small, middle-class suburb just southwest of us, home to Baldwin-Wallace College. I wondered what had brought a Cleveland homicide detective and members of the corruption task force together there.

  “Uh-huh. He didn’t explain it other than to suggest we haul ass down there. He didn’t sound particularly happy with us.”

  “Pissed off that I didn’t call him after the fires, probably.”

  “Could be.”

  I’d turned to go back out the door when I saw Joe had taken the snub-nosed Smith & Wesson he favors out of his desk drawer and slipped it into a shoulder holster. While I watched, he pulled a light jacket on over that. The rain was beginning again, pattering against the window.

  “Planning to shoot a cop today?” I said. Joe always avoids wearing a weapon when he can, so to see him putting one on before we went to meet with police was damn strange.

  “I’ve been put in the backseat of a van by an asshole with a gun in his hand once too often today. That kind of got under my skin.”

  He led the way out of the office and shut the lights off behind us. The stairwell was filled with an eerie green glow. When we opened the door and stepped out into the parking lot, the air seemed to hum with the building storm’s energy, greenish clouds skimming across the gray ones as raindrops splattered against us. Joe moved to his Taurus, but I took my truck keys out of my pocket.

  “I’ll drive.”

  “No, thanks,” he said. It was a control thing, for both of us. Anytime we were heading into unknown circumstances, we both wanted as much control of the situation as possible. Driving didn’t give a whole lot of that, but it was better than nothing. Joe slid behind the wheel of his Taurus without allowing a chance for further debate.

  He drove out of the parking lot and across Rocky River, hung a right on Lorain, heading west. Instead of following Lorain as it headed over the bridge, though, he slipped off onto Old Lorain Road, a two-lane offshoot that wound down into the park, past Fairview Hospital. It was the same route we ran together several nights each week. This road would tie into the Valley Parkway down in the river basin, and we could take that all the way into Berea. The speed limit was reduced, but there weren’t the stoplights or traffic delays you’d get on the main roads. The rain was falling harder, and Joe clicked the wiper setting up a few notches, the blades sweeping rapidly across the windshield. The soft patter of raindrops abruptly turned to a harsh clatter.

  “Hail,” Joe said. “Great. Probably put dents all over the car.”

  His voice was almost drowned out by the pounding of the rain and hail on the car. Rivulets of water rushed alongside the road. A roll of thunder began with a slow rumble and built into a harsh, clattering crescendo, like sheet metal passed through the gears of a powerful machine. A strobelike flash of lightning followed, and for a moment the tree-lined road was bright. I saw that the leaves on some of the trees had rolled upside down, the way they will when responding to the energy of a severe storm. Then the thunder and lightning faded and the world grew darker again. This time, the darkness was heavier, though. The clouds were shifting again, the green glow gone in favor of blackness.

  “Hell of a storm,” Joe said. “Car behind us doesn’t even have its lights on yet.”

  Joe’s headlights had turned on automatically, the sensor telling them it was night even though it was midday. We wound down a series of S-curves that would eventually straighten out and point us at the river. Behind the trees outside Joe’s window was one of the MetroParks golf courses, brief glimpses of bright green fairways showing when the lightning flashed.

  “What the hell,” Joe said, twisting around to look behind us as he eased the car around one of the steep curves. The car that had been running without headlights had suddenly swung into the opposite lane, just off our rear bumper. Now the driver hit the accelerator hard, and the car, a black sedan, pulled close.

  “Shit,” Joe said, then he pressed down on his own accelerator while I reached behind me and freed my gun from its holster.

  The sedan had the head start, and the Taurus was no race car. Before we made it out of the last curve, the sedan pulled up beside us, and a clatter of automatic gunfire rang out. The sound was deafening, even over the rain and the hail. Glass and metal exploded around us as bullets tore through the car. I got the Glock up but didn’t fire, because Joe slammed on the brake and if I’d managed to hit anyone, it would probably have been him.

  The pavement was soaked, and we’d been accelerating just before he hit the brake. The Taurus was a sure-footed car, low and wide, but even it couldn’t take that sudden adjustment. We fish-tailed as we shot out of the curve and toward the straightaway that led to the bridge, the back end of the car whipping first one way, then the next, as the black sedan slid ahead of us. The driver tried to spin the car around and block us, but he soon discovered, as we had, that these weren’t good conditions for fast maneuvering. Before the sedan could get sideways, it skidded across the wet pavement, popped over the curb, and plowed into one of the supports at the front of the bridge. The hood crumpled and the windshield ruptured and spiderwebbed, but that was the last I saw of it, because we were spinning off the road ourselves.

  Joe’s abrupt braking had put us out of control, but he’d also done it just early enough to keep us from sliding into the bridge, as the sedan had. Instead, we slid onto the steep embankment on the opposite side of the road. Joe’s foot was still on the brake, but it didn’t matter now—any end to our slide was up to physics, not the car.

  We scraped down the embankment at a dramatic angle, and I was sure the car was going to overbalance and roll. Outside my window I could see only grass. Below us was a shallow pool formed by excess river water. Before we went into it, though, we thumped against the slender trunk of the one young tree that stood on the hill. It bowed but didn’t break, holding us perched halfway up the hill.

  “You okay?” I said, turning to Joe. I saw then for the first time that he’d been shot.

  He was slumped back against his seat, his head at an angle, his face a mask of pain. Blood was running down his jacket, spotting his tie underneath.

  “Joe!” I unfastened his seat belt and leaned across the console, trying to see how badly he was hurt. Blood seemed to be coming from his left shoulder and his chest. It was flowing quickly from the chest wound, and his eyes were distant, his face white.

  “We’ve got to get out of the car, Joe. They’re going to come down here and kill us if we don’t.”

  His answer was a ragged, shallow gasp. His head rolled sideways.

  “Shit!” I took off my own seat belt and twisted in the seat, keeping my gun in my right hand. Leaning across Joe, I peered out of his shattered window, up at the road. I saw nothing but a glistening curtain of rain. They’d be on their way, though. I couldn’t imagine that the crash would have killed the car’s occupants, and if they could move, they’d come down here to make sure their task was complete.

  I lunged over the center console and into the backseat. There were bullet holes through the door, and the back windows were broken. This entire side of the car had been riddled with gunfire. Joe’s demand to be in the driver’s seat when we’d left the office was the only reason I hadn’t taken the shots instead of him. I didn’t waste time trying to open the door, but just rolled onto my back and kicked at the remnants of the window, knocking the jagged glass away. Then I braced my hands—one still wrapped around the butt of the Glock—against the seat and pushed my legs through the window. A piece of glass raked across my ass, but then I had my feet on the ground and twisted my torso out of the car.

  For a moment I paused, leaning against the side of the car and looking up at the road. I could see the wrecked sedan now, crumpled against the far side of the bridge, and I heard a bang. Someone closin
g a door, or kicking one open. I spun and grabbed the handle of Joe’s door. It had been shot up, but it was intact and should open. When I tugged, though, it stuck. I reached through the broken window, ready to try to pull him out of it, but then I saw the lock was down. I pulled it up and tried the door again. This time it opened.

  The door immediately began to swing shut because of the angle we were on, but I got my hip in front of it. Then I slid the Glock back into its holster and put both arms around Joe. He groaned when I lifted him, but I couldn’t take the time to worry about being gentle.

  Lurching backward, I got his upper body out of the car. His knees hit the edge of the steering wheel and stuck, though. He shifted, kicking weakly against the seat, and then he was free, falling out of the car and onto the hill. I set him down as gently as possible, then let the door swing shut. There was more noise from the wreck on the bridge, and when I looked up, I saw a man moving through the rain.

  I got my gun back in my right hand, then wrapped my left arm around Joe. He wasn’t heavy, maybe 170 at best, and I could drag him easy enough with one arm. His blood ran over my biceps as I pulled him, and he let out a gasp of agony. Slipping and stumbling down the muddy decline, I pushed us into the trees. As soon as I’d heard the door open up on the bridge, I’d known there was no point in attempting to use the car as shelter, or in trying to find a secure position around the trees. The guys on the road had automatic weapons. If they were in good enough condition to climb out of the car, they’d be in good enough condition to sit at the top of the hill and strafe us until there was nothing left for them to worry about.

  We had to get into the river.

  CHAPTER 26

  The rain was still pouring down, turning Joe’s blood from crimson to pink as it flowed over my arm and slid down his jacket. His heels plowed furrows through the mud as I pulled him toward the river. Behind us, a burst of gunfire opened up, shredding the Taurus. The sound was tremendous, so loud I wanted to drop Joe and cover my ears. There was nothing discreet about this hit; the men on the hill cared about nothing other than the efficiency of their murder attempt.

  The muddy bank was slippery, and the river shallow close to it, maybe three feet deep at best. The only deep water here would be in the pool out in the center, where the current was strongest, but any attempt to hide in the river was going to be suicide. They’d stand at the top of the bridge and fire down on us. Our best chance—only chance—was to use the bridge against them, get directly beneath it and force them to come down to the bank to have a shot at us.

  I lowered Joe onto the bank, dropped to one knee, and turned to face the bridge. Then I fired six shots as quickly as I could get them off, shooting up at the car. I couldn’t see the gunmen, so I had little hope of hitting them, but I wanted them to hesitate as long as possible before crossing to the other side of the bridge where they’d have a clear shot at us. We needed every precious second if we were going to stay alive.

  As soon as I got the shots off, I dropped to the ground beside Joe, pressing my cheek against the mud. It was a good decision. Hardly had I gotten prone before another burst of automatic gunfire, long and sustained, tore through the trees above us, blasting bark loose and shredding the leaves. When it was done, I counted off five seconds of silence before I sat up again. I put the Glock back in the holster but didn’t fasten it, then turned and lifted Joe in both arms. His face was ashen, but he grimaced and hissed between clenched teeth when I lifted him. It was as good a sign as I could hope for. You have to be alive to feel agony.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. “But I don’t know another way to do this.”

  That said, I used my heels to push us both off the bank and into the river. It was a clumsy way to enter the water, but we needed to stay low. I moved in a sort of backward shuffle, crablike, holding Joe with one arm and using my heels and free hand to push down the river bottom, staying in the shallow end close to the bank. I’d gone only ten feet when I sank into a pool, the water rising dramatically without warning, and Joe floated free from my grasp. I tried to kick my way back to the surface, but by the time I made it, he was several feet away, out in the deeper water, and sinking. I floundered toward him, going with the current, my soaked clothing and shoes dragging me down. My hand found his jacket. I heaved him upward and rolled onto my back, using my legs to kick against the soft bottom, and one arm to pull. I rolled Joe so he was on his back, too, his mouth and nose clear, and then I concentrated only on keeping him above water as I struggled for the bridge.

  The torrential rain had the river rushing faster than normal, but it was still wide and sluggish here, the current lazy, and that meant it took a hell of a lot of effort just to get us under the bridge. We passed under the shadow of it just as gunfire riddled the trees where we’d been before. Joe wasn’t even attempting to kick or use his arms. He simply floated along, kept above water only by my efforts. That troubled me, and not just because his dead weight was making my struggle more difficult. Faced with disaster, instinct forces you to respond. You fight to stay alive, to the absolute limits of your physical ability. Joe’s complete lack of effort told me he was close to dead.

  Gunfire again. This time I could hear only the reports, no sounds of impact. That meant they were shooting into the water. I’d pulled us back to the same side as we’d started from, and now I regretted that. When they realized we’d gone under the bridge, they’d make their way down the bank, and this side offered an easier approach. The opposite bank was much steeper, lined with trees and heavy underbrush, and coming down it would be difficult. After a moment of hesitation, I decided I had to try to get us across while they were still up on the bridge.

  I pushed my heels hard off the river bottom and sent us back into the current, using my free arm in long, sweeping strokes. Halfway across, the water deepened so that I could no longer touch the bottom, and the strength of the current took me by surprise. What had seemed like such a sluggish water flow had some real power, and with Joe limiting my mobility, I was having trouble fighting it. If we got swept out from under the bridge and into the open on the other side, the decision to move for the other bank would become fatal.

  I sucked in a breath of wet air and swept harder with my right arm, the muscles in my shoulder screaming, pulling us back against the current and toward the other bank with everything I had. Several weeks without much rain were all that saved us. Had the water been deeper, I wouldn’t have been able to pull us across before the current swept us into the open, but because it was shallow, I was able to cross the deep part of the pool and find footing on the bottom again. Once I could plant my feet, we were fine. I slogged us through the shallows until we reached the other side of the bridge, leaned against the cold stone, and gasped for breath.

  Above us all was silent. I wrapped my left hand in Joe’s shirt and tugged him through the water, edging out a bit so I could get a look up at the bridge.

  I saw them through the steady, shimmering rain—two men in black jackets, ski masks over their heads, weapons in their hands. They’d come down from the bridge and were standing behind the wrecked Taurus, searching the nearby trees. The only thing keeping us alive right now was the storm. It was always dimmer down here in the bottom of the valley, and with the heavy black clouds, it was especially dark. They couldn’t stand on the bridge and see the tree-lined banks well enough, so they’d been forced to come down to shoot accurately, and they’d started with the side where we’d wrecked, as I’d expected. Once they cleared that bank, though, they’d be coming this way.

  Colored lights danced across the dark water around us. I rolled to my left slightly, and for a moment Joe’s face dipped beneath the water. That was enough to let me see the source of the lights, though. A Crown Victoria with an overhead light bar had pulled off the Valley Parkway and crossed the bridge, heading toward the wrecked cars. I got a glimpse of the side of the car as it passed and saw the MetroParks Ranger logo on the door. MetroParks rangers weren’t naturalists or park securi
ty—they were cops. They went through the state academy just like the city police, worked assaults and drug cases and the occasional murder like any other cops, but their jurisdiction was limited to the thousands of acres of parks in the system. He’d have a gun, and a radio.

  Coming out from under the bridge was a gamble, but this was the time to take it. I braced my hand against the rough edges of the stone wall that bordered the bank, then pulled my body upright. I slid my right hand under Joe’s arm and pulled him toward me, clearing him from the water and dropping him on the muddy bank.

  Now I had a good vantage point to see across the river, but the gunmen were gone. A crackling, rushing noise from the trees told me someone was on the move. I squinted and peered through the rain. One of them was running away from the bridge, stumbling through the trees. I couldn’t see the other. Maybe they’d both fled.

  The ranger was out of his vehicle now, trudging across the bridge toward us. His head was down, his full-brimmed hat shedding rain. Water splashed with each step he took. I looked away from him and scanned the opposite bank again, searching for the shooter who hadn’t been running away. I didn’t see him. The rain fell harder, stinging my face, rivulets of water running into my mouth as I took gasping breaths. Fighting the current and Joe’s clumsy bulk had taken a toll.

  The ranger was close now, halfway across the bridge. He was searching the water and talking into a radio. By now he’d seen the wrecked cars and found them empty. But had he heard the gunfire before he’d arrived? It had been so loud, I couldn’t imagine him not hearing it, though if he had heard it and had made the decision to walk out in the open like this, he was either a courageous son of a bitch or a damn fool.

  Closer still he came, and now I could see that he held a gun in his right hand, down against his leg. He’d heard the shots, all right. And he was no fool, either, just brave. He hadn’t waited for backup, because he’d known someone might be in the river. Maybe close to dying.