11th Hour

by James Patterson

  The risk was building. But Will had already passed the point of no return.

  Tonight was the night he’d been working toward for the last three months, the night when he would take his most personal revenge. He pulled the Impala out onto the street and headed for the Lower Haight.

  Chapter 97

  JIMMY LESKO HAD BEEN in bed when he’d gotten a text message from Buck Barry, who was desperate to make a buy. It was a pain in the butt, but Lesko needed the extra cash.

  He parked his sparkling new Escalade on Haight, a two-way commercial corridor, crowded in on both sides by peeling Victorian houses. All of them were shades of gray at this time of night, mashed together with single-story concrete utility buildings and bars and shops and more residences after that.

  Sitting in the driver’s seat, Lesko watched the entrance to Finnerty’s, a bar between Steiner and Fillmore known for its cheap suds and oversize burgers. Buck would be waiting for him in the men’s room in about five minutes.

  A UCLA film-school dropout, former up-and-coming protégé of the late Chaz Smith, Lesko traded in good-quality dope, had protection from the cops, and sometimes, like now, could make good money.

  Lesko anticipated a quick transaction and an equally quick return to his house and the delicious young medical student who was asleep in his bed. He looked at the time again and got out of the car, then locked it with his remote.

  He was crossing the street when someone called his name.

  He turned and saw a man coming up Haight on Finnerty’s side of the block. The guy was dark-haired, about forty, looked happy to see him.

  “Jimmy. Jimmy Lesko.”

  Lesko waited on the sidewalk for the guy to reach him, then said, “Do I know you?”

  “I’m William Randall,” the guy said.

  Lesko searched for some recognition. The name. The face. An association. Something. Nothing came up. Lesko had a good memory — but he didn’t know the guy.

  “What’s this about?” he said.

  “I want you to see this.”

  The guy took his hand out of his pocket. He was holding something weird. It was a plastic bag covering what looked to be a gun.

  Shit. A gun.

  This was not happening. This was just not on.

  Jimmy jerked back, but he was hemmed in by the clots of boozed-up pedestrians on the sidewalk and cars at the curb. He went for his gun, stuck into the waistband at the back of his pants. But this fucking asshole Randall had pushed him back onto a car and pinned him there. He put the gun right up to his forehead.

  Lesko threw his hands up. Dropped his keys. Wet his pants.

  What was this? What the hell was this?

  Didn’t anybody see what was happening?

  Lesko screamed, “What do you want? What do you want? Tell me what you want, for Christ’s sake!”

  “I’m Link Randall’s father,” the guy said. “Any idea who that is? Doesn’t matter. You ruined my son’s life. And now I’m going to ruin you. Totally.”

  Chapter 98

  AS WILL RANDALL pulled the trigger, he was jostled by a lurching bum in a woman’s coat who grabbed on to his arm to steady himself, saying, “Whooaaa.”

  Will’s shot went wild, and Lesko took the split second of confusion to get away.

  Will stiff-armed the bum and knocked him aside, then he aimed at Lesko. Jimmy was now a moving target in the dark, running like he was carrying a football under his arm, smashing into a couple of kids holding hands, ramming into a homeless grandma with a shopping cart. He knocked both the cart and grandma to the sidewalk, and she lay there with her limbs splayed out, her cart’s wheels spinning, garbage everywhere.

  Forward motion blocked, Lesko took the clearest path, bounding up steps that led to the front deck of a house.

  Will fired at Lesko’s back — and missed. And now Lesko crouched on the deck one story above him and shot at Will through the wrought-iron railing.

  Will took to the street, then popped out from behind a van and got off six shots. But Lesko returned fire and Randall realized he had to corner this bastard and kill him at close range.

  Pedestrians screamed and fled as Will charged toward the stairs, and then tires squealed and voices came from behind him.

  “Freeze. Randall, put down your gun. Drop your gun now.”

  Will turned his head. He saw cops — cops that he knew. The blond guy with the ponytail — Brady. And the other two. Conklin and Boxer, who had brought him into the Hall.

  How had they found him?

  They’d been inside the unmarked car on Golden Gate Avenue and had seen him, followed him, that was how.

  There was screaming on both sides of the street, Lesko yelling for help, pedestrians freaking, cops shouting, “Drop your gun! Hands in the air!”

  Will turned toward the cops, waved his gun, and shouted, “I know what I’m doing. Clear out of here. Don’t make me shoot.”

  A cop yelled, “Drop your gun now!”

  And then the cops fired at him.

  He felt a shot hit his left shoulder and it enraged him. Adrenaline surged. He was right. They were wrong. He had told them to leave.

  He fired toward the cops, watched them duck and cover.

  Someone shouted, “Officer down. Officer down.”

  Cops were down.

  It was happening so fast. The blood left Will’s head as he realized, with an almost calming clarity, that he wasn’t going to leave this street alive. But he still had to do what he had come to do.

  Lesko was pulling the trigger on his empty gun. He pulled again and again, looked at the gun, swore, then dropped it.

  Will took the stairs and advanced on Lesko, the good-looking kid with blood staining his expensive clothes, blood dripping down his pants. He had his hands in the air, was backing up against the side of the house.

  Lesko shouted at Will, veins popping in his neck and forehead, “You’ve got the wrong person! I’m Jimmy Lesko. I don’t know you. I don’t know you.”

  Will said, “I feel sorry for your father. That’s all.”

  He fired two shots into Lesko’s chest, then turned with his gun still in his hand. He felt the blow of a shot to his gut. His legs folded.

  Will was on his belly, fading out of consciousness.

  Lights flashed. Images swam. Voices swirled around him.

  He got Jimmy Lesko.

  He was sure. Almost sure. That he’d got him.

  Chapter 99

  CINDY WAS AT the half-moon table in the corner of the living room, what she liked to call her home office, when the phone rang. She glanced at the clock in the corner of her laptop screen, then snatched up the phone.

  “Ms. Thomas? This is Inspector May Hess, from radio communications. I have a message for you from Sergeant Boxer. There’s been a shooting. Go to Metro Hospital now.”

  “Oh my God. Is it Richard Conklin? Has he been shot? Tell me it’s not Rich. Please tell me.”

  “I just have the message for you.”

  “You must know. Is Inspector Conklin —”

  “Ma’am, I’m just supposed to deliver the message. I’ve told you everything I know.”

  Cindy’s mind slipped and spun, then she got herself together. She phoned for a cab, put a coat on over her sweatpants and T-shirt, stepped into a pair of loafers, and headed downstairs.

  She paced in front of her apartment building, calling Richie’s phone, leaving messages when the call went to voicemail, then calling him again.

  The cab came after five minutes that seemed like five hours. Cindy shouted through the cabbie’s window, “Metropolitan Hospital. This is an emergency,” then threw herself back into the seat.

  She was trying to remember the last thing she’d said to Richie. Oh God, it was something like Not now, honey, I’m working.

  What the hell was wrong with her? What the hell?

  Her body was running hot and cold as she thought about Richie, about him being paralyzed or in pain or dying. God, she couldn’t lose
him.

  Cindy didn’t pray often, but she did now.

  Please, God, let Richie be okay.

  The cabdriver was quiet and knew his way. He took Judah Street past UCSF Medical Center, made turns through the Castro and across Market, all the way to Valencia.

  Cindy was lost in her thoughts, came back to the present only when the cab pulled up to a side entrance of the hospital.

  “Faster for you if I drop you here,” the driver said. “Twenty-Second is jammed.”

  That’s when Cindy found that she didn’t have her purse, her wallet, had nothing but her phone.

  “Tell me your name. I’ll send you a check and a really good tip, I promise that I will.”

  “That’s great,” the driver said, meaning the opposite. “No, listen. Forget it. Don’t worry about it. Good luck.”

  Cindy had been to this hospital many times before. She walked through the lobby, passed the elevator bank, and headed down the long hallway, past radiology and the cafeteria; she followed the arrows pointing toward the ER.

  The waiting room outside the ER was dirty beige and crowded with people with all kinds of injuries. She found Yuki balled up in a chair in the corner of the room. Cindy called out to her, and Yuki stood up and flung herself into Cindy’s open arms.

  Yuki was sobbing and Cindy just held on to her, dying inside because she couldn’t make out anything Yuki was saying.

  “Yuki, what happened? Is Richie okay? Is he okay?”

  Chapter 100

  IT HAD BEEN a night like no other I’d ever experienced. It felt like a military firestorm, gunshots cracking, bullets flying in all directions.

  A sixty-year-old shop owner fell at my feet; never said a word, just died.

  A drug dealer had been shot dead at point-blank range by an active cop who’d gone completely fucking rogue, and then there were other cops, my friends and my partner, who’d been injured in the line of duty.

  I’d fired my gun, shooting to kill.

  Maybe I was the one who brought Randall down.

  I came out of the ER and found Cindy, Claire, and Yuki huddled together in the small, crowded waiting room. Cindy looked stunned. Yuki had been crying and now seemed distracted, as if she’d turned entirely inward.

  Claire had the worn-down look of a person who hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours and had not yet gotten a second wind.

  My clothing was blood soaked. I wasn’t injured, but I was scared, and I’m pretty sure I’d never looked worse.

  When Yuki saw me, she jumped out of her chair and asked, “What did they tell you?”

  Brady had caught a bullet in his lung and had taken another through his inner thigh. That shot had hit an artery, and thank God the EMTs had arrived as fast as they had. Still, Brady’s condition was grave. He’d lost a lot of blood.

  “He’s in surgery,” I told Yuki. “Claire, you know Dr. Miller.”

  “Boyd Miller?”

  “That’s him.”

  Claire said to Yuki, “Miller is a fantastic surgeon, Yuki. The best of the best.”

  Yuki said to me, “They told me that it’s touch and go. Touch and go!”

  “He’s strong, Yuki. He’s young,” Claire was saying.

  Conklin came into the waiting room from the hallway. His left arm was in a sling. He opened his right arm to Cindy, who threw herself at him. He hugged her hard, kissed the top of her head as she wept, then said to me, “I put Randall’s wife in the chapel.”

  I left the waiting room and went down the corridor to the chapel, a sad-looking place that tried to give solace on a financially strapped city hospital’s budget. An ecumenical altar was backlit with subdued lights, and comforting sayings had been written in script along the walls.

  Becky Randall sat in a pew with a little girl in her lap, three other kids hanging on to her arms, waist, and legs. She disentangled herself from her children, stood up, and said, “Willie, you’re in charge.”

  She and I walked together into the hallway.

  “No one will tell me anything,” she said. “Please, Sergeant. What happened? Tell me everything.”

  Tell her everything?

  I didn’t know everything yet myself, and considering what I did know, I had to edit my comments with compassion.

  Could I tell Becky Randall that it looked like her husband had shot several people before he shot Chaz Smith dead in the men’s room of a school with a hundred kids all around? Could I tell her that following the shooting of Chaz Smith, her husband had shot and killed even more people and that because of him my lieutenant might lose his life?

  Could I tell her that some of the five bullets inside her husband’s body had probably come from my gun?

  Will Randall was alive, but he was on a ventilator and going into surgery. If he survived, he was looking at multiple charges of murder in the first degree.

  Even if he lived, life as he had known it was over. “Your husband shot a drug dealer tonight, Becky. The man’s name was Jimmy Lesko. Does the name mean anything to you?”

  “No,” she said. “Why did he shoot him? It must have been in self-defense.”

  An hour later, all I knew from Becky Randall was that she had no idea about her husband’s secret life and in fact denied that he had one. What was it Joe had said?

  Do we ever really know anyone?

  I’ll never forget that hour in the corridor outside the chapel. Kids skated on the linoleum hallway on socked feet, asked for quarters for the vending machines, fooled around with wheelchairs while Becky sat in shock, denial, disbelief.

  “Will is a wonderful, decent man,” Becky told me. “What’s going to happen if my husband dies?”

  Chapter 101

  THE TV WAS on in the waiting room.

  Jason Blayney was on the screen, standing outside Metropolitan Hospital in a smart jacket and tie, telling the network news what had gone down on Haight Street.

  He looked and sounded authoritative, as if he knew what he was talking about. But Blayney was doing what he always did. He didn’t know what happened, so he made up the facts.

  As Blayney told it, the cops had come onto Haight Street and started firing.

  “William Randall, a ten-year veteran in Vice, was pursuing a drug dealer named Jimmy Lesko,” Blayney said. “Lesko was a small-time drug dealer, and according to witnesses, Lesko was unarmed. Randall fired at Lesko without provocation, kept firing until Lesko was dead.

  “Homicide detectives were alerted to the shooting and tore onto Haight Street, where they began firing at anything that moved.

  “Sergeant Randall was seriously wounded and is now in surgery at Metropolitan Hospital, fighting for his life.

  “Nicholas Kiernan, age sixty-two, was a resident of the Lower Haight, an innocent bystander who stepped outside his home and was caught in the cross fire,” Blayney went on. “Mr. Kiernan, father of three, died at the scene.

  “Two other police officers were shot in the blistering hail of gunfire. Lieutenant Jackson Brady, head of the Southern District Homicide Division, and Inspector Richard Conklin are in surgery right now, their lives hanging by threads.

  “This is a shameful night for the San Francisco Police Department, which can truly be described as the gang who couldn’t shoot straight.”

  It was a nasty story, the worst of Blayney. There was no mention of Randall’s being a bona fide rogue cop, no hint that the SFPD had warned Randall to drop his weapon, no indication that the police had fired on him only when he refused to drop his gun. And Blayney’s biased reporting was now flashing around the world as truth.

  I grabbed the remote control and turned off the set.

  Randall was still in surgery, and from what I’d been told, the odds were against his coming out of the OR alive. Brady was also fighting terrible odds. As he was being cut and stitched, a whole lot of prayers came his way from the waiting room.

  At around two in the morning, Cindy took Richie home to bed, and Claire let me walk her out to the parking lot. She made me pr
omise to call her when Brady was out of surgery.

  After that, Yuki and I sat together surrounded by Homicide cops who had come to show support for Brady. Lieutenant Meile arrived in street clothes and apologized to me in front of a packed waiting room.

  “I’m sorry for the things I said to you, Sergeant. And I’m sorry for a few things you didn’t hear me say. I’m a dumbass, but I believed in Will Randall’s innocence. He’d better not die before he tells me what the hell he was thinking. Damn him. I have to know.”

  Chapter 102

  I WASN’T THINKING about Randall.

  I sat close to Yuki, thought about Brady, and revisited some pretty deep memories of the months I’d known him.

  The first time I saw Brady was his first day with Homicide. I’d noticed the hard-eyed, suntanned looker who was sitting in a folding chair at the back of the squad room.

  I got up and gave an update on a case I was working. It was a bad one: a madman had just shot a mother and her little kid and had left a cryptic message behind.

  I was almost nowhere on the case, but I presented what I had with confidence.

  When the meeting was over, Brady introduced himself, said he was transferring to our squad from Miami PD. Then he told me that what impressed him about my presentation was that I was sucking swamp water.

  His blunt assessment didn’t endear him to me, but days later, there was a standoff in front of the madman’s house. A bomb went off, a diversion, and the madman made it to his car. Brady stepped in front of the car and emptied his gun into the windshield in an attempt to bring the bad guy down.

  I had been impressed with his bravery.

  But I still didn’t like him.

  When Brady started dating Yuki, I was shocked and I was worried. Yuki’s a fighter, don’t get me wrong, but she’s got terrible judgment when it comes to men, and I couldn’t see her with a badass cop like Brady.