Even before the other man spoke, Schaefer knew he'd done something stupid. He didn't know why he'd done it, exactly-usually he had more sense than to turn his back on an enemy, no matter how beaten the enemy looked. Maybe, he thought, he just wasn't thinking straight-or maybe he was just so blown out he didn't care anymore.
Whatever the reason, he'd turned his back on Eschevera's boy, and the Colombian had immediately rolled over and grabbed the AK-47.
"Hey, pig," he said, grinning, as he got to his feet and aimed the gun.
Schaefer turned, knowing he'd done something stupid, knowing he was probably about to be shot, knowing he'd be lucky just to get off a few rounds himself before he folded . . .
He heard a burst of automatic fire, like a gigantic steel zipper, and he didn't even have time to tense .
And he saw the blood blossom from the Colombian's chest and realized that it hadn't been the AK 47 that had fired.
The man who had wanted Eschevera's job wasn't going to get it; he folded up and fell to the ground, the AK 47 beneath him, blood soaking the smooth metal.
Standing behind him was General Philips, a smoking gun in his hands.
"Whatta ya know," Schaefer said, marveling. "The goddamn cavalry."
Philips frowned: He was in no mood for attempts at wit. This had been too damn close-he needed Schaefer alive if he was going to trade him to the aliens.
He should have just picked him up at the crater, instead of getting fancy with the separate rendezvous and pickup-both parts had gone bad on him.
At least it hadn't been the aliens who took out Decoy-Niner and got Schaefer.
Philips didn't know just who it was, and he didn't much care-the important thing was that he'd been able to track Schaefer down, and Schaefer was still alive.
But the aliens were back there at that camp, looking for Schaefer, and they could be along any minute.
Hell, they could be all around right now, with their damned invisibility screens. There was no time to waste on idle chitchat.
"You want to live?" he shouted at Schaefer. "Then shut up and follow me!" He turned and started dogtrotting through the jungle, not bothering to look back to see if Schaefer was following.
Schaefer was following-he wasn't stupid enough, or exhausted enough, to pass up a miracle like this.
A moment later, as blade-like leaves whipped against him, Schaefer caught a flash from the corner of his eye; he turned his head and saw flames and white fire erupting somewhere in the direction of Eschevera's fortress.
The roar came a second later.
"Hear that racket back there?" he shouted to Philips. "Your foreign friends are taking down Eschevera's drug empire piece by piece!"
Philips glanced back at Schaefer, then at the mounting column of smoke. "Drugs?" he said.
That made sense-who else would have a base like that out here in the middle of nowhere?
Schaefer nodded. "Hell, I'd put them all up for departmental citations if I could figure out where to pin the medals."
"They don't give a damn about drugs," Philips said. "They don't give a damn about this Eschevera, whoever the hell he is. They don't give a damn about anything . . . ." The two men burst through a final wall of brush into a clearing, where a helicopter waited, rotor turning slowly. Philips slowed to a walk and turned to Schaefer.
"Except you," he finished, raising the gun.
* * *
27
Rasche got up from his seat on the fold-out bed-he couldn't keep still.
This had been a recurring problem for some time; he just got so fucking bored, sitting here in this midtown apartment with these goddamn G-men. He'd been held prisoner here for days, without so much as a change of clothing-they'd given him a white terry-cloth bathrobe to wear when he wanted his clothes washed, and every couple of days one of the three made a run to the laundromat. Meals were all take-out-the kitchen was dark and empty Which of the three went to pick it up varied, but it was always just one who went out, whatever the errand; there were always two of them there guarding Rasche.
They'd given their names as Smith, Jones, and Miller. They hadn't even smiled when they said it.
At least Rasche didn't have to share the bedroom with them; they slept out here on the folded-out couch, never more than two at a time, taking turns sitting up on watch.
There was a phone, but they didn't let Rasche use it, and when he sneaked out of the bedroom one night at two A.M., when the on-watch agent was in the can, and tried it, he couldn't get a dial tone; watching the feds the next day, he saw that they were punching in a four-digit code before dialing, and that the code changed with every call.
Rasche wasn't a cryptographer, and they didn't like him watching when they dialed; he couldn't crack the code.
There was a TV, but the reception was so bad even Rasche wasn't desperate enough to watch it, especially because it was a constant reminder of why the reception was bad.
Those goddamn ships were still out there, cruising over the city.
The helmet, or mask, or whatever it was, sat on the same desk as the trick phone; that was another reminder. Rasche didn't know for sure why they hadn't turned it over to their scientists, but so far they hadn't; they kept it right there, which seemed stupid.
He'd asked bout it, but for days they wouldn't give him an answer. Finally one of them said, "It stays with you until Philips gets back; you had it when we found you, so it's part of the package."
That was just stupid enough that Rasche figured it was probably true, but it opened up a slew of other questions-like where the hell was Philips, and when would he be back?
Naturally, they wouldn't tell him that. They wouldn't answer any of the important questions. If he asked how long they were going to keep him, they just said, "Until we're told to let you go."
And that was one of the more responsive answers.
Still, it was pretty clear what was going on here. They wanted to make damn sure that Rasche didn't tell anyone about the ships.
Which means they knew about the ships, had known all along, just as he had thought.
And Schaefer was tangled up in it all, though Rasche didn't know how. It was more than just that he'd gone after the killer and come away with the mask, Rasche was sure.
And the whole thing might be more complicated than he had thought. Those spaceships out there--that didn't look like any mere hunting party, but if it was an invasion fleet, why weren't they taking out whole neighborhoods, instead of slaughtering individuals or small groups and then leaving?
Was that thing Schaefer had fought an escaped criminal the aliens were hunting, perhaps?
Or did the ships belong to some other species entirely, a different one from the hunter? If so, who was on which side? Were the ships friend or foe?
And what was the government's relationship with those aliens? With the killer?
What the hell had happened to Schaefer? Was he still off in Central America somewhere, or had he come home? Was he sitting in some apartment somewhere with a bunch of federal agents, eating bad Chinese take-out because these dweebs were too lazy to hike down to Mott Street for the good stuff?
Rasche doubted a mere three agents would be enough to hold Schaefer. They probably had a dozen guarding him.
Rasche frowned at that. He wasn't as young as Schaefer, and he'd never been as big as Schaefer; he'd never had Schaefer's insane ability to handle violence. But he wasn't a wimp. He'd taken on tough guys in the past.
"This sucks," he said.
Miller was out getting lunch; Smith was leaning by the door, while Jones had a batch of papers spread on the desk.
"This really sucks," Rasche said. "How long do you think you can keep me here?"
"As long as we have to," Smith replied without moving.
Jones didn't even look up; as far as Rasche could tell, he was so involved in his paperwork, whatever it was, that he hadn't heard.
And the chain lock and dead bolt weren't locked, since they didn't want to ma
ke things hard for Miller; maybe, after all these long, boring days, these guys were getting sloppy.
"Hey, Smith," Rasche said, "your shoe's untied."
"Get serious, Rasche," Smith replied. He didn't look down, didn't unfold his arms. "We're trained professionals. That ruse only works on Cub Scouts."
Rasche glared at him, then turned away in disgust. He marched over to the desk and glowered over Jones's shoulder at the papers.
"What the hell is this, anyway?" he asked. "Doing your homework?"
"Doing my taxes," Jones replied without looking up.
"In August?"
"I missed the deadline and got an extension, okay, Rasche?" Jones put down his pencil and glared up at the detective.
"Oh, great," Rasche growled. "I'm stuck here with a fucking accountant!"
"Hey," Jones said angrily, pushing his chair back, "I don't like this, you know. I don't like this assignment, I don't like you, and I don't like doing my goddamn tax returns, but I can't afford a fancy accountant, I was busy on a real case in April, and I've got some investments, so I can't use the short form, okay? You got a problem with any of that, Rasche?"
"Well, jeepers, you're a regular Eliot Ness . . . ," Rasche began.
"Lay off, Rasche," Smith said, standing up straight.
The phone rang.
Rasche started at the sound; this was the first time it had rung since he had been brought there.
Jones snatched up the receiver and listened; Rasche tried to listen, too, but Smith wasn't having it.
"You just watch that mouth of yours, Detective Rasche," Smith said. "We've been trying to make this easy, but we can give you a hard time if we have to. You give us any grief, maybe when this is over, you'll find the IRS taking a look at your taxes-they'll audit you and have you hunting receipts and check stubs back to your goddamn paper route . . . ."
"Suburban boy, aren't you?" Rasche growled. "I never had a fucking paper route."
Jones hung up the phone and announced, "That was Peterson. Schaefer's due in six hours. They'll chopper him straight to the MetLife building and make delivery there-"
"Wait a minute," Rasche demanded, interrupting. "What do you mean, `delivery'?"
Jones didn't answer.
Neither did Smith.
They both just stared silently at Rasche.
And Rasche put it together.
That gadget on Schaefer's neck, the invisible spaceships cruising over the streets, General Philips telling them to just stay out of the whole thing, Schaefer's brother disappearing eight years ago . . .
He didn't understand all of it, there were pieces that didn't fit yet, but that delivery-. . .
"Jesus," he said, "you're going to give Schaefer to those aliens, aren't you?"
Smith and Jones didn't deny it, and Rasche's temper snapped. "You lousy bastards . . . ," he began.
Smith pulled his pistol and shoved it under Rasche's nose. "Back off!" he bellowed. "One more move and I'll cuff you to the damn toilet!"
Rasche backed off; he backed over to the sofa bed and sat down.
"Yeah, yeah," he said, trying to sound harmless. He could feel his heart hammering with fury, but he kept his voice down. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm just a little tense, after all that's happened, waiting here and everything. You have to understand, Schaefer's a friend of mine ...."
Smith stared at him for a moment, then relaxed and holstered his automatic.
"Sure," he said. "No problem. Six more hours and it'll be over, and you can go home to the wife and kids."
"Yeah," Rasche said. "Thanks."
He wondered whether the wife and kids had come home yet. Were they still up in Elmira? Or had they come back and found him gone? Shari must be panicking, not hearing from him for so long-had anyone thought to tell her what was going on?
Or at least tell her a comforting lie of some kind?
The bastards probably hadn't bothered.
That pumped his anger up further, but he refused to let it show.
He sat for a long moment, letting the tension clear from the air, letting Smith and Jones relax, letting them think he had relaxed; then he stood up again, as restless as ever. He wandered to the window and looked out.
He knew where he was, of course; if he could see the street, he could tell where he was, just about anywhere in Manhattan, and this one was easy. The Lexington Avenue subway was only a block away. If he could once get out of the apartment and the building . . .
He wandered away again back toward the desk.
Smith was back by the door, not moving, his pistol tucked away.
Jones was back at his tax forms.
Miller was still gone, taking his own sweet time at the deli.
Rasche leaned over Jones's shoulder, feigning friendly curiosity.
"Hey," he said, "isn't two plus five seven, instead of eight?"
"Wha . . . ?" Jones looked where Rasche pointed, startled--and Rasche's, other hand grabbed the back of Jones's head and slammed his face down onto the desk, hard.
Rasche heard the distinctive crunch of a nose breaking.
Taking a page from his partner's book, Rasche snatched up the alien mask from the desk and smashed it down on the phone, shattering plastic and circuitry; that would slow these two down when they tried to call in. Then he flung the mask sidearm at Smith.
Smith instinctively warded it off, costing himself a second or so in his attempt to reach for his automatic.
Then Rasche launched himself at Smith, slamming the G-man up against the wall.
Charged with adrenaline, Rasche picked Smith up completely and rammed him headfirst through the door. Wood splintered and a hole opened, giving Rasche a view of the hall's wallpaper; Smith went limp.
"That's what you get for insulting the Cub Scouts, you son of a bitch," he said, dropping the G-man. "My younger son's a Wolf."
He snatched up the mask with one hand, yanked out Smith's pistol with the other, then smashed his way through the broken remnants of the door.
"Shoddy modern construction," he said. "If you'd picked the Dakota for your hideaway, I couldn't have done that."
Then he ran for the stairs.
"MetLife building, six o'clock," he said as he heard Smith moaning and Jones cursing behind him. He took a final look back in time to see Jones step into the hallway, clutching his nose as blood streamed down his face, his 9mm in his other hand.
Jones got one shot off before Rasche was safely through the fire door and down the stairs, but it wasn't even close-it chipped plaster from the ceiling.
Rasche knew he might not have a chance; those two could call in the whole federal government. If he'd taken the time to tie them up or something . . . but Miller could be back at any time. That was why Rasche had taken the stairs instead of the elevator.
His only chance was that they might not expect him to do anything other than run and hide, and might not bother coming after him. Searching for a rogue cop in New York would be hard to keep quiet, and these guys desperately wanted to keep whatever they were doing a secret. They might just let him go.
After all, they needed only another six hours, and it would all be over.
* * *
28
The feds hadn't moved the rental van-Rasche found it still sitting just around the corner from Police Plaza. He supposed they hadn't thought it was important, or maybe they hadn't realized it was his. It had been sitting there untended for days, but miraculously it still had all its tires, no engine parts were missing, and the only graffiti was WASH ME! written in the greasy dirt on the back door.
He'd obviously picked the right neighborhood--one with plenty of cops corning and going at all hours.
Rasche had never planned to keep the rental this long. The bill when he turned it in was going to be a real killer.
He needed it a little longer, though.
He drove the streets for a while, planning, trying to figure out just how he could keep the feds from turning Schaefer over to those monsters from oute
r space.
He didn't know enough. He didn't know whom he could trust, didn't know what it would take to stop those things.
Well, he'd just have to go up there ready for anything, and he thought he had an idea how to do that.
He left the van double-parked while he ran into the police academy building on Twentieth.
The firing range was still closed, but Salvati was back on duty upstairs, despite the fading bruises that made one side of his face look like an oil slick. He looked up at the sound of the door.
"Jesus, Rasche," he said, "where the hell have you been? People have been trying to reach you for days, Brownlow and those guys . . . "
"I was doing my taxes," Rasche said. "Look, Sal, I need a favor."
"I dunno, Rasche," Salvati said nervously. "I don't need McComb after my ass."
"I'm after those bastards who trashed the range," Rasche said.
Salvati's expression changed abruptly.
"What do you need?" he said through clenched teeth.
"Firepower," Rasche replied. "Whatever you can get me. And no paper trail-this has to be off the record."
"The feds?" Salvati asked. "Are those bastards trying to cover up?"
"Something like that, yeah."
"I knew it! Goddamn it, Rasche . . ."
"So what have you got?"
Salvati thought for a moment, then said, "Anything you want from the cases downstairs that didn't disappear, plus the stuff we took from those Jamaicans-you were in on that, remember? It's all still in the lab, the boys got pretty backlogged with all that shit from the Beekman massacre and the mess downstairs. There's all kinds of heavy stuff there-the Somalis got a bit carried away on the deal."
"I remember," Rasche said, smiling grimly.
This was better than he had expected. Chances were half the stuff wouldn't work, since most criminals were too stupid to take proper care of their equipment, but Rasche remembered how extensive that arsenal was. You could lose half of it and still have enough to take out damn near anything. Not just machine guns, but grenades, rocket launchers, everything.
Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Predator 01 Page 17
