Eye of Vengeance

by Jonathon King

  Redman saw the movement out of his peripheral vision just as Walker stepped out of Archie’s Tool. The man had only been at work for thirty minutes, but it was past his regular time and he needed that taste. So predictable.

  Redman swung the scope over and watched Walker move to his truck, climb in and drive north. He took a right just as he had the last time. If he went to the same liquor store, he’d return in twenty minutes, Redman thought. When he gets back. When he steps out of the truck. When he stops to open the door to the tool shop and becomes stationary, that’s the shot. It will be just like when Michaels had opened the probation office door. He’ll be a still target for one special second.

  Redman was running the scene through his head, rehearsing like he always did, when his ear picked up the whumping sound. He took his eye away from the scope and looked to the south. Helicopter. Whatever the gig that was going down inside the barricades was warming up and Redman took up his binoculars and checked the helo. It was a small two-man craft and did not carry the logo of any news channels that the media shitbirds always carried.

  There was the possibility that it belonged to the feds who were parked below. Who else used spotter helicopters? Redman’s head was clicking. He knew that the Secretary of State was in town. He’d read the newspaper’s front page. But that was supposed to be at the convention center, well south, down near the port. There was no way they would expand a circle of security this far. He knew the federal protocols wouldn’t even spread a sniper sweep more than eight hundred yards. He shifted his mind to other scenarios and came up with the only possibility: a political field trip.

  The goddamn publicity machine, he thought, is taking the secretary on some baby-kissing visit and it’s going down near my goddamn kill zone.

  “I know that, Lieutenant,” Hargrave said, keeping his voice in check. “But if nobody’s seen Redman, and none of his SWAT friends have heard from him, it’s impossible to put a motive on this guy so we can predict what he’s going to do next.”

  Hargrave had badged his way past the police cordon and followed Walker’s F-150 into a neighborhood of industrial businesses. When Walker pulled up in front of a corrugated steel warehouse and went inside someplace called Archie’s, Hargrave parked across the street. First he tried to get Mullins on the reporter’s cell. He was immediately forwarded to some message service. Then he called Canfield and for the next thirty minutes found himself trying to explain why he was following Walker around. Who the hell even cared?

  “Wait a second,” Hargrave said into the cell. “He’s leaving again.” The detective watched as Walker came out of the shop, looked around and then got back into his truck and drove north, away from where Hargrave now knew there was an “official visit” going down at a nursing home only a few blocks away.

  “Look, Mo. Like I said, you do what you think needs to be done with this asshole Walker. To tell you the truth, nobody here in command— and not Fitzgerald either—gives a damn about yours and Mullins’s theory. The priority has shifted to the Secretary of State and not on solving the deaths of a few cons that probably deserved to die in the first place,” Canfield said when the detective came back. “I know how that goes against your ethic, but like I said, you’re hanging your own ass out there.”

  “I appreciate the help, Lieutenant.”

  Hargrave pushed the end button and stared out his windshield as Walker’s truck disappeared around a corner.

  “I might add,” he said to no one.

  The detective opened his car door and stepped out. His inclination was to go back to the office and again try to track hotel and motel registries for Redman’s name even though he knew that was fruitless. Instead he locked his door and started walking south toward the cordon that was set up a couple of blocks away. Maybe he’d shoot the bull with the uniform guys doing duty. Ask if the feds were any more antsy than usual. Try to spot Fitzgerald somewhere.

  Nick made it down again, thinking like a sniper. He’d always heard the SWAT guys talking about taking higher ground and the philosophy moved him to the three-story building next door. He crossed the alley that ran straight south, looking for some kind of box or board to get within reach of the first ladder rung, and settled on an old shipping pallet with the nailed crosspieces and leaned one end up against the wall and used it as a makeshift stepladder. He had to stretch to get a grip on the first rung and hauled himself up. Again, the metal had not been touched, probably in years.

  But he climbed. Thirty feet up he slowly came over the roof edge. Again, there was nothing to see but tar and air-conditioning vents, though over to his left a square bunkerlike access room protruded up. From his angle he could see two sides of the structure. One side had a door.

  Great, he thought, I should have just walked in, flashed my press credentials and walked up the damn stairs. His cynicism was back, along with his doubts that he had any idea what the hell he was doing up here. But he still moved low along the roofline to get a look around the third side of the access room.

  He was circling when he saw, or heard, the beat of a helicopter and raised his eyes to the sky. It was a small craft, not the big Channel 7 chopper shooting pictures of his ass again. But as he watched the aircraft slide to his left, his line of sight crossed the top of the access room and from this new vantage point he noticed a stepladder leaning against it, and then an odd platform on top. It looked as if someone had mounted a sheet of corrugated metal across two sawhorses. Nick looked behind himself for space and then stepped backward, forgetting to stay low and going up on his toes to gain a few more inches of view. Between the open legs of the sawhorses he could now make out the dark curve of a man’s head, bent, absolutely still, over the top of a black rifle barrel.

  Maybe Nick panicked. Maybe he should have taken a minute to think it through. But he didn’t.

  “Redman!” he shouted. “Mike Redman!”

  Mike Redman was sweeping the rooftops with his binoculars and keeping his ear tuned to the sound of the helicopter in case it should expand its circle and come his way. He had cover in the form of a sheet of metal that he’d rigged to hide his shape from the sky. He was tracking left to right, and then back behind himself, using time to pick up anything odd in the landscape, and he stopped on a sight that was new. Three buildings north he spotted on a container about the size of a squared-off suitcase near the edge of the roof that had been kicked over. The sun glanced off its surface and drew his eye. He remembered it from his earlier reconnaissance, a rain cover for a video surveillance camera. Some owners used the covers to keep the pigeon shit off the units. But this time the cover lay on its side and the difference bothered him. In his experience, few people visited the rooftops in South Florida, too damn hot, unless they had a reason. He swept the rest of that building’s roof, but saw nothing, no human, no evidence of one. He set the binoculars aside and was shifting the rifle scope to take a closer look when he picked up movement below and saw Walker’s blue F-150 turning onto the street. He knew that son-of-a-bitch would be back and silently congratulated himself for that knowledge. He let his sights follow the back window of the truck and tracked it to the spot in front of Archie’s. He could feel his breathing start to settle and become deeper and slower. Every shot, he reminded himself, is a study of concentration and focus. Excitement only gets in the way. When the truck stopped, he kept the crosshairs on the back of Walker’s head and watched the man who killed Nick Mullins’s family knock back one more hit from the pint of liquor he’d just bought. Walker shifted in his seat, one shoulder dipping, and then got out. Redman took one more breath and then let the air pass slowly through his nostrils and began to pull pressure on the trigger.

  Detective Hargrave saw the truck up ahead of him as he was walking back from the cordon.

  “The son-of-a-bitch came back,” he said softly to himself with as much surprise as his composure would allow and then quickened his steps.

  The guys at the police line had been unhelpful. We just showed up where we we
re told to show up, Detective. Looked like they had the place pretty buttoned up. Nobody was going to get close to the secretary without an invite.

  Hargrave asked if any of them had seen Fitzgerald, but when they all shrugged, he knew it was worthless and headed back. Now Walker was coming back to work. Fuck it, Hargrave figured, I already warned the guy. It’s on him to look after himself and it’s not my problem.

  He was about thirty yards away when Walker got out of his truck and then instead of going toward the shop the guy stepped out in the street. He appeared to be looking up into the sky. Hargrave kept walking but followed Walker’s sight line and looked up as well.

  “Mike Redman!”

  Nick yelled the name a third time and was now waving his arms, like he was signaling some kind of aircraft. Finally the gunman swung around from his prone position on top of the stairwell structure and the barrel of his rifle swung with him.

  “Mike! You don’t have to, man! It’s not worth …”

  There was a beat, no, three beats of silence that confused Nick. He was staring into the dark eye of a target scope and he thought, on the third beat, Jesus. Is he going to kill me?

  Nick dropped his arms to his side in disbelief and then felt something swat his still-moving right hand just as it passed in front of his leg and the impact sent his palm slapping against his thigh. He did not hear the report of the shot or see any kind of flash, just the splat of the bullet as it ripped through the meat of his hand and burrowed deep into his leg.

  The impact shut his mouth and he looked back at the sniper in disbelief. Redman. Dark, almost black eyes with an intensity that might have been anger, or maybe just pure focus. Then Nick felt himself dropping.

  Mike Redman was already pulling pressure on the trigger of his PSG-1 when the target did something unpredictable. Walker got out of the truck but instead of stepping toward the green door of Archie’s, he moved the other way, out into the street, and looked up. Maybe at the helo, Redman thought and refocused. He shifted the sight and was aiming for the sideburn, just in front of the ear, and started his pull as an unexpected voice ripped the air behind him. His name. Being shouted from the rooftop.

  “Mike Redman!”

  The words cut into his concentration and his own reaction jerked one shoulder as he fired. He automatically swung the rifle around to the sound of a rear attack and instantly put a man’s figure into his sights.

  It was Nick Mullins. What the hell? The man who had become truth to him was looking directly at him, repeating his name, screwing up what had been a perfectly planned operation to gain vengeance against the man who killed Mullins’s own family.

  Mullins was gutless. Someone deserved to die. Someone had to carry it out. If you couldn’t do it on your own, Mullins, take my gift and shut the hell up.

  But now you don’t deserve it, Redman thought. He watched Mullins’s eyes flatten with confusion and then fear, and then Redman dropped his sight down to the reporter’s thigh and fired.

  Mullins stared at him for a second before his leg gave way and he sank to the roof. Redman instantly swung his rifle back to the street. Mullins was down, but as he put Robert Walker’s face into the scope sight, a body stepped in to block the shot. Redman pulled back. Some bystander had already gotten to Walker and was covering him. Others, cops from the nearby barricade, were jogging down to the scene. Regress, Redman instantly thought. He gathered his shell casings and his rifle and backed out of the shooter’s nest and swept down the ladder. At the door to the stairwell he stopped, looked across the roof at Mullins sitting with glassy eyes and his hands on a bloody leg and said, “Sorry, Nick,” out loud, knowing the reporter could not hear him. “Maybe another time.”

  Mo Hargrave was deeply confused. He was watching Walker looking up in the sky when the man suddenly crumpled and went down in the street. “Christ!” he said and started running, forgetting that he was now in a wide-open field of fire. “Goddamn Mullins was right.”

  He covered the last twenty yards and then bent over the downed man. Walker was now curled on the concrete, his back bent and his hands grabbing at his left thigh. Blood was already oozing between his fingers, but Hargrave grabbed him by the belt and the collar and dragged him like you might some wallowing drunkard in a bar fight until they were safely behind the bed of the truck.

  Walker’s eyes were squeezed shut and he was keening in a high pitch through his nose. Hargrave listened for a second rifle shot, fully expecting to hear a bullet wang against the fender, but heard nothing. In the distance he could see the boys from the cordon beginning to move his way, probably because they’d seen a fellow cop yanking some guy across the ground.

  “Are you hit anywhere else?” he asked Walker, who had started breathing in those short bursts that come with intense pain. Walker didn’t respond and Hargrave did a quick search of the man’s head and shoulders and back. No sign of any other trauma. He then took a more studied look at the leg, which Walker was still clutching with both hands high at the thigh. Hargrave could see a puddle starting to form on the street surface, but it too confused him. It could be a through-and-through wound, he thought, but the consistency of the blood was too fast and watery. He pulled the man up by the armpits to put him in a sitting position against the truck wheel and when he inhaled with the effort he took the odor up into his nose. Whiskey, Hargrave thought. And it wasn’t as refined as Maker’s Mark. He reached down to Walker’s hands and pushed them off the wound to feel it himself and when he touched the bloodied cargo pants he could feel the broken glass inside the thigh pocket. The bullet had shattered the newly purchased pint bottle and then ricocheted down into the man’s leg. The blood-and-whiskey mix was now running a gravity trail out into the street and Hargrave made a note of it before standing and waving the arriving cops to the side of the buildings and pointing up. It only took seconds for the street to clear, but the officers continued to move up using the overhangs as cover until they were beside the truck and Hargrave stood up.

  “Probably ought to call EMS,” he said to the first man. “You’ve got one gunshot victim down on the street. And you also better get on the tactical channel to the Secret Service guys and tell them they might have a sniper working north of the barricades.”

  At that the officers all looked up at the same time as they crouched next to Walker. But Hargrave remained standing and answered a ring on his cell phone.

  “Hargrave,” he said.

  “Detective, this is Mullins. I’m gonna need some help up here.”

  Chapter 34

  Two weeks later, Nick was at home, lying on the couch on a Saturday morning, waiting to take Carly on a field trip. He’d had plenty of time at home, unemployed and without a deadline. At first he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to stand the open time, the lack of schedule. The slow cocktail of pressure and adrenaline and approaching deadline that had consumed his life was now over for good. But he quickly found that he did not miss it, or its hangover, at all.

  On the morning of the shooting he’d called Hargrave on the cell for help and directed him to the top of the Marsh Storage Facility. Hargrave had come alone and in his own stoic way took command. While calling for paramedics on his cell phone, he simultaneously spun his handkerchief into a rope, put a knot in the middle and then stuffed it like a plug into the palm of Nick’s hand and then wrapped it in place. Then he crouched there and assessed the leg wound. He stripped his shirt and folded it to form a pressure bandage and then held it hard against the seeping hole and then watched as news helicopters filled the sky like carrion vultures until the rescue squad got there.

  “Goddamn snipers aren’t such good shots after all,” he said.

  The next day’s headline had read:

  SECRETARY OF STATE SAFE, TWO CIVILIANS WOUNDED

  DURING SHOOTING NEAR OAS CONFERENCE IN LAUDERDALE

  The Daily News and other media jumped all over a speculation that the shooting had been an attempt on the secretary’s life gone awry and that when the
sniper was interrupted by two civilians and sensed capture, he fled.

  The Secretary of State immediately flew back to D.C. and a spokesperson issued a statement that the incident was “troubling” but that they would have no comment until the Secret Service had done a full investigation.

  When Nick was interviewed by the feds he simply told the truth. On a news hunch, he was looking for someone on the roof when he inadvertently surprised the sniper, who turned and fired at him. The bullet was deflected when it sheared through his left hand and then struck his leg. He could not say that he heard another shot, and he saw no one else on the roof until Detective Hargrave arrived.

  Later in the week it was directly from Hargrave that Nick learned that FBI crime-scene technicians had taken over the scene and confirmed his story after finding that the round that pierced Walker’s leg and his whiskey bottle matched that found in Mullins’s thigh.

  Both the detective and the reporter had their own theories on what happened. If they ever sat down and compared scenarios, their versions would not have been much different, but they never did.