by Lyle Howard
With his legs powerless to support his own weight, Gabe finally collapsed to the floor, falling into a fetal heap at Shayla Rand’s feet.
“If I were to break every bone in your body,” she bristled, “it still wouldn’t offset the pain and humiliation you have caused me.” She walked over and picked up the paperweight that had landed across the room. “I will carry the mark of our encounter long after you’re dead and buried, Mr. Mitchell. So what I want is for your son to hear you plead for me to spare your miserable life.” She looked over at the boy. “If you grovel enough, then perhaps I’ll just let Captain Williams put a bullet into your brain, saving your child the brief, but gruesome, memory of my bashing your skull into bone meal with this stupid curio.”
“Enough!” Williams yelled. He had his gun raised and was pointing it at Shayla Rand. “This has gone far enough, Shayla. You’ve taken your pound of flesh, so what more do you want? Let me finish it now so we can get out of here.”
Shayla juggled the paperweight in her hand, all the while never taking her eyes off Williams’ weapon. “Most people end up regretting aiming a weapon in my direction, Captain.”
Williams moved to his right, his pistol never wavering, his back now to the large window. “Lady, don’t threaten me. All the kung-fu in the world ain’t never stopped a .38 caliber bullet.”
“Alright, Captain,” Shayla said calmly, setting the glass block down on the desk and stepping away from Gabe’s motionless form. “Since it seems you’re holding all the cards, I see no real reason to prolong the inevitable any longer. Be my guest…”
51
As Williams lowered his gun to line the barrel up with Gabe’s head, the room suddenly began to vibrate. It was a low, thumping bass sound that reverberated inside the office like a kettle drum. Seconds later, the room was filled with brilliant white light. Instantly diagnosing the situation, Shayla dove for cover, but Williams had turned to face the window and was frozen like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
Two helicopters slowly rose into position. They were painted white with black lettering on the side that read “City of Miami Beach Police.” A sharpshooter sat perched in each open doorway, an automatic rifle trained on the slightest movement inside the office. Instinctively, Williams raised his weapon hand to shield his eyes from the blinding glare. It was only a slight twitch of his arm, but an aggressive gesture nonetheless, and one that would be his last.
The window exploded into a million pieces. Williams never got a shot off as a hurricane of bullets and flying glass riddled his body. To his right, the wall of television screens Bock used to monitor his potential targets shattered and sparked like a Fourth of July fireworks display. The gun flew out of Williams’ hand as he was catapulted across the room like he had wires attached to his back. He landed with a lifeless thud, his dead fingers clutching at the thousands of tiny slivers of glass that had impaled his face.
Shayla Rand was on all fours, scrambling for the protection of Bock’s massive desk. Her hands and knees were bleeding freely from the broken glass scattered on the floor.
Gabe had opened one eye just as the pair of helicopters had come into view. This was one time he thanked God that Nathan Waxman hadn’t listened to him. Just as the sharpshooters opened fire, Gabe reached over and yanked the legs out from under the chair Casey was strapped to. The boy crashed to the floor, but the minor injury to one of his shoulders would be nothing compared to what might have been.
A rush of cold wind roared into the office along with the deafening drone of the helicopters’ engines. All the lights had been blown out in the room, leaving only the spotlights from the helicopters dancing across the office.
Once there was a break in the shooting, Shayla Rand was on the move. She sprinted across the office, her shoes crackling on the broken glass, a fresh stream of bullets trying to keep up with her. Like an Olympic gymnast, she vaulted over the back of a plush leather couch to safety, the bullets plugging harmlessly into the seat cushions.
“Are you alright, son?” Gabe screamed over the howling noise.
The youngster was dazed but seemed to be physically fine. “I … I’m okay, Dad. But you…”
Gabe put his hand on his son’s cheek. “Don’t worry about me, tiger. As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters.”
“What happened, Dad?”
Even though it hurt like hell, Gabe still managed a faint smile. “It seems a good friend couldn’t take no for an answer.”
Casey didn’t understand, but just seeing his father’s grin was enough to settle his nerves.
“Now, son,” Gabe said, trying unsuccessfully to loosen one of the straps on Casey’s ankles, “it might take me a few minutes to find a way to cut you free.”
Casey shook his head. “Go Dad. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
The young boy gritted his teeth—a trait he had inherited from his father. “I said I’d be fine; now don’t let that bitch escape!”
Gabe was visibly taken aback. “Do you kiss your grandparents with that mouth?”
Casey shifted his weight so that he was lying on his side facing his father. “Hey, you can punish me later, alright? Now, go!”
Gabe and his son turned to see Shayla trying to make her way toward the office door. “Those guys in the helicopters know we’re the good guys, don’t they, Dad?”
Gabe crossed his fingers. “I sure hope so, son.”
The gale from the rotor wash was unrelenting. Loose papers swirled around the office like they were caught in a tornado. The steady tremor from the helicopters turbine-driven blades shook most of Bock’s oriental sculptures free from their pedestals where they smashed into piles of stony rubble upon striking the marble floor. The offices of Worldwide Dispatch Incorporated had been turned into a war zone.
Shayla Rand peeked out from behind the couch and her eyes locked with Gabe’s. There was no hint of fear in her expression, only cold calculation. To her, Gabe was merely one more obstacle blocking her path to the roof.
During the initial barrage, when Bennett Chase’s pistol had been blasted out of Leon Williams’ hand, the gun had skidded to rest halfway between the desk and the sofa. Gabe and Shayla both spotted the weapon at the same time. For what seemed like seconds frozen in time, they both stared at the gun. Gabe dove for it, but Shayla was quicker. Gabe rolled to his right, hiding behind a large pedestal in an effort to evade the shots he was expecting would surely follow … but they never came. Instead, Shayla Rand was lying on her back, firing out the window at the helicopters. She was shooting sparingly into the light, until she heard the sound of shattering glass and half the office went dim. Gabe wasted no time using the shadows to crawl toward Leon Williams’ lifeless corpse. Oblivious to the fragments of broken glass that were piercing his arms and legs, Gabe finally reached his captain’s body and peeled open his blood-soaked jacket. Like any good cop, Williams always packed his service revolver. Gabe released the gun’s cylinder and held it up in the meager light. Now he stood a chance.
52
The helicopters began to rise out of the line of fire. Electric sparks continued to arc and crackle from the wall of short-circuited television monitors, their brief flares of light creating a flashing strobe effect inside the darkened office. Shayla used the shadows to her advantage, just as Gabe had. Once she found a darken spot that concealed her, she raised her weapon in both hands and started to scan the office in 90-degree increments. As badly as she wanted Gabe Mitchell dead, she knew her window of opportunity was closing rapidly. Shortly, the building would be crawling with the local police, if it wasn’t already. She had to make a decision. Was a washed up cop and a seven-year-old boy really worth her own freedom … or possibly worse? For someone who had spent most of her adult life appreciating the rewards that her unique skills afforded her, the prospect of plastic utensils and cold concrete walls made her choice an easy one. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to call this round a draw, Mr. Mitchell,”
she yelled, her voice echoing inside the enormous office. “But you know the old adage, ‘She who fights and runs away…’”
Shayla knew Gabe couldn’t see her shrouded in the darkness, but he fired a single shot in the direction of her voice. The bullet sliced through the air, missing her by a good thirty feet. She heard him call out from behind the cover of the pedestal. “Give yourself up, Shayla. There’s no place to run!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Mitchell,” she shouted, “my ride’s waiting for me on the roof.”
Grimacing at the glass wounds that etched her body, she quickly evaluated her situation the way a quarterback improvised on a broken play.
“Do you really think Bock’s still up there with all those police choppers buzzing around?” Gabe continued. “Face it, Shayla, your boss is long gone. He’s saved his own hide and left you behind.”
Shayla inched along the far wall toward the office door, making sure she stayed in the shadows. She wanted to respond to Gabe, to tell him that he didn’t know August Bock the way she did, but experience told her that the slightest sound would tip off her position. Shayla tore open the door and bolted for the roof as light flooded into the office.
53
Gabe was momentarily blinded, and, by the time his eyes had become acclimated, she was gone.
He pulled himself to his feet and limped clumsily toward the door. Every muscle in his body was working on overtime. With his hand on the doorknob, he suddenly paused. “Casey?”
“I’m okay, Dad.”
Hearing the courage in his son’s voice was reassuring. “You sure?”
“I’m fine. Don’t let her get away!”
Gabe straightened up, his paternal pride working like a shot of adrenaline. “I love you, son.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
First left, then right, he pointed his weapon around the doorway to the outer office. No sign of her. The floor lamps above both elevators were out, which left her only one egress to the roof … the stairwell. How tall was this building?
Gabe found the entrance to the stairs at the end of a small corridor, which also led to a pair of restrooms. Although he doubted Shayla would have chosen to hide there, he had no choice but to investigate them. His quick search ended up nothing more than a waste of valuable time.
Hobbling down the hallway, Gabe closed in on the metal fire door leading to the stairs. The door had a window in it, mounted just about eye level. He strained to see inside, but the opening was too small to give him much of an advantage. Just as he was about to push the door open, the hair on his neck bristled to attention. This had ambush written all over it.
Gabe kicked the door open, stayed low, and moving out onto the landing. A large, black number “15” was painted on the wall opposite him. Inching cautiously toward the stairs, he paused and listened, but heard nothing. If she was running up the stairs, he should have heard something. One at a time, Gabe began the long ascent upward, stopping every few steps to listen. Something wasn’t right. He should have heard her.
A shot rang out, reverberating through the stairwell. At the same instant, the metal handrail sparked just ahead of Gabe, and a searing pain ripped through his left shoulder. He had been struck by a ricochet. He fell backward, a red smear appearing on the wall as he slid slowly to the ground. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Gabe pulled off one of his sneakers and yanked off his sock, stuffing the sock underneath his shirt to stem the flow of blood. From deep within some neglected well of courage and strength, Gabe dragged himself to his feet. With one arm hanging uselessly by his side, he wiggled his bare foot back into his shoe. Even in perfect health, Gabe would have had difficulty scaling these steps, but in his weakened condition and with blood pouring out of his shoulder, every step would be an endurance test.
Keeping his back pressed to the outer walls, Gabe braved onward. Reaching the next landing, he discovered how Shayla had been moving so stealthily. She had discarded her shoes and was now running barefoot. Carefully, Gabe stepped toward the railing and darted his eyes upward into the coil of stairs. He caught a flash of red and pulled the trigger, his shot errantly sparking off the landing three levels up.
Shayla leaned over the handrail to return Gabe’s fire, and a running gun battle ensued that advanced unrelentingly up the 12 remaining flights of stairs to the roof.
* * * * * *
With her lungs on fire, and her leather skirt sticking to her overheated body like a second skin, Shayla burst through the final metal door and out onto the roof. In that crucial moment, when she ran out into the freezing wind, and only moonlight filled the empty helipad, Shayla Rand experienced an emotion she hadn’t sampled in nearly 20 years—betrayal.
Now, with nowhere to run, and the pair of police helicopters hovering overhead, Shayla had to take refuge behind one of the two colossal air conditioning units that were positioned at opposite ends of the roof. Trying to stay out of the glare of the searchlights, she scampered across the roof, her feet getting torn up by the loose gravel that covered the roof’s surface.
Moments later, Gabe crossed the open threshold, his weapon raised with his good arm, first pointing left, then to the right. A searchlight caught him in the doorway and followed his movement as he prowled guardedly across the roof.
The wind at this altitude, combined with the downdraft from the helicopters’ rotor wash, buffeted Gabe with almost hurricane force velocity, at times making it nearly impossible for him just to stand his ground. As he rounded the corner of what appeared to be an air vent, a bullet struck the vent’s metal housing and sent out a shower of sparks. Two more inches to the right, or one infinitesimal second later, and Gabe would have been dead on the spot.
Shayla was having no problem tracking Gabe’s movements. Thanks to the searchlight, he was lit up like a movie star at a Hollywood premiere. Blood flowed freely from the shredded soles of her feet, but she never felt a drop of it. In her present state of heightened awareness, Shayla Rand was oblivious to pain. Trained from her youth, her brain had merely clicked into another mode of operation—one best described as survival instinct. Checking her gun, she knew she was running out of ammunition and needed to make every remaining shot count.
Having to keep her eyes shielded from the perpetual cloud of dust being whipped up by the helicopter blades, Shayla crept closer to the beam of light that silhouetted her target. She was so intent on narrowing the gap between herself and Gabe that she was uncharacteristically startled when she suddenly found herself ensnared in the second searchlight’s beam. Staring up into the intense glare, she could just make out a flak-jacketed sharpshooter pointing his automatic rifle directly down at her. With ingrained accuracy, she fired a salvo of shots, the first hitting the exposed sharpshooter in the neck, two more rounds piercing the undercarriage of the fuselage. Black oil spewed from the belly of the helicopter as a trail of black smoke marked its spiraling nosedive to the street below. Only through his trust in a higher power and his expert proficiency did the pilot manage to land the burning craft safely on the sidewalk below.
* * * * * *
The floodlight from the remaining helicopter began to patrol the roof as Gabe bolted for the cover of another air vent. Flying gravel tore at his skin as the helicopter made a loud, sweeping pass directly overhead. Gabe protected his face with his good arm as he knelt down behind the second air conditioning unit. His breathing was coming in short, labored gasps, and he could feel his energy draining out through the hole in his shoulder. All he could do now was to hope and pray for one clean shot…
* * * * * *
Easily evading the focus of the lone searchlight, Shayla circled around the perimeter of the roof until she finally spotted Gabe. She found him cowering behind an air vent with his back to her. This was almost too easy. She could see that she must have hit her mark at least once already, from the telltale dark brown stain on the back of his windbreaker.
* * * * * *
Gabe never actually saw her slithering
up from behind, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught the edge of a shadow … then his cop’s instinct took over. He fell to his left and fired what proved to be his last remaining round. Over and over again, his finger continued to pull the trigger, even though the hammer was clicking on an empty chamber.
Shayla Rand laughed as her hand came away from her thigh soaked in blood. “Not even close,” she yelled, as she limped into point blank range and leveled her pistol at Gabe’s forehead. Before she could fire the fatal shot, the roaming searchlight captured her again, temporarily blinding her. She covered her eyes with her hand and Gabe quickly seized the opening. He rolled for her legs, sending her sprawling to the rocky surface; her gun was jarred loose and swallowed in the shadows.
Knotted like lovers, Gabe and Shayla wrestled across the rough pavement with the hovering helicopter illuminating their struggle. Hanging out of the open hatch, the sharpshooter hesitated, unable to get off an unobstructed shot.
Trained in hand-to-hand combat and torture techniques from the time she was a young girl, Shayla twisted her thumb deep into Gabe’s wound, making him wail in agony. With one arm absolutely useless, Gabe had to throw the Marquis of Queensberry rules out the window, kicking and clawing, and doing just about anything he could to inflict damage.
Closer to the precipitous ledge they battled, with Gabe never having the slightest misgivings about using his one good arm to pummel this good-looking woman to a pulp. Waiting for her opening, Shayla ducked low, using a sweeping leg kick to knock Gabe’s legs out from under him. Falling awkwardly onto his back, Shayla moved in and straddled his body, wrapping her hands around his throat. Gabe struggled beneath her, his body bent backward, hanging halfway off the edge of the building. With both her hands digging into his neck, Gabe turned his head toward the sidewalk and spotted the shot-up helicopter 28 stories below, its blades still rotating. Shayla noticed it at the same exact moment and cackled wildly. “It may not happen tonight,” she growled menacingly, applying even more pressure to his head, “but I want you to go to your grave knowing that, someday, I will be paying my respects to your son.”
