Assassin's Express (4 page)

“Ohh, yeah—just a minute, old friend and pal,” Frost cracked. He fished into his pockets, found a Cross pen and looked at it—Bess had given it to him.

“Damn it,” Frost cursed, throwing the pen onto Deacon's sheet-covered lap.

Frost pounded his right fist into his left hand—he wanted a cigarette, but the oxygen tank in the corner made him think better of it. He lit the cigarette anyway—if he blew up the hospital room, Frost decided, he couldn't be any worse off.

“Yeah, Boyd, I'll be right back—you and Deacon talk there,” Frost shouted, the door into the hospital corridor half-open as he said it. Boyd was still unconscious, but Frost decided that wouldn't prohibit Deacon from having an animated conversation with the man. Many was the time, Frost reflected, that Deacon had been talking to him about a Diablo Protective Services job and for all intents and purposes Deacon had been talking to an unconscious man. Deacon had a certain quality that endowed everything with a kind of unanimity, the power to make a report about Martians landing in an active volcano and kidnapping naked women sound like a supply report.

Frost closed the door, the matchbook with the location of the woman—Jessica Pace—and the contact route for reaching Plummer written inside it stuck inside the cellophane outside wrapping of the half-smoked pack of Camels in his coat pocket.

Frost turned, starting past the policeman.

“Just a minute, sir.”

Frost turned around, smiled as pleasantly as he could. “Yes, Officer Friendly?” He couldn't help it—he laughed.

“What the hell is so funny?”

“Nothing,” Frost enthused. “Not a thing! Honest!”

“Before you go, sir,” the young man began, his voice deep-sounding. “I'd just like to take a look inside that room.”

“Sure,” Frost answered, his palms sweating.

As the young policeman started to turn, Frost's right hand snaked under his coat, ripping the Metalifed High Power 9-mm from the leather, the gun already cocked and locked, his right thumb swiping down the manual safety.

“Freeze, Officer Friendly,” Frost snapped.

The policeman started to move, then stopped, his hands inches from the butt of the stainless-steel revolver in his hip holster.

“What's that—a Model 67?”

“Yeah—Combat Masterpiece Stainless. What's it to you?”

“Well, you just take that Combat Masterpiece Stainless .38 out of that holster nice and slow—break it through the lips there nice and easy and don't let me see your hand go on that trigger guard or anywhere near it. Capiche, Officer Friendly?”

“The holster—it—”

“I know,” Frost smiled. “You gotta break the gun out the front, down and forward, but do it slow. I've got no reason to smoke you, but I will—promise.”

Frost never took his eye off the young black policeman's eyes as the man started the gun from the leather. “Now—hand it over.”

The policeman—Officer Friendly—looked at him angrily. “And what if I don't?”

Frost said nothing, just inched the muzzle of the Browning closer to the policeman.

Officer Friendly eased the gun butt down and passed the gun ahead of him, Frost taking it around the black Pachmayr grips in his left hand, then shoving it in his belt.

“The gun'll be down the stairwell someplace—you' ll find it. But don't follow me—right?”

“You know I gotta,” the man said, his voice deep-sounding, tight.

“Yeah,” Frost rasped. “I know—but it didn't hurt to try, huh?”

“Yeah—I know.”

Frost edged back, away from the black cop—Officer Friendly. The young man's body was coiled like a spring, ready to pounce at the slightest chance, the kind of kinetic energy, Frost thought, that you saw in actors in 1930s movies. The simple thing, the one-eyed man realized, would have been to get the young police officer to turn around, then pull the light switch on him as he had done with Boyd, the FBI man. But something inside Frost—which he promptly labeled as stupid—kept him from doing that to this intelligent-seeming young man with the abysmally absurd name—Officer Friendly.

Frost saw the nurse at her station, out of the corner of his eye, start for a telephone. “Give me a break, huh—make it sporting and wait to call for help until I hit the stairwell, huh?”

Frost winked at her. She smiled, almost looking embarrassed that she had.

Frost stopped, his back beside the stairwell door—Three floors down, he thought. The elevator would be quicker, but also easier to trap him in. He wondered just how fast he could make it down six half-flights of stairs, taking into account that as soon as he was through the door, the nurse would be on her telephone and the young police officer would be right behind him.

“Bye!” Frost smiled, shoving through the panic-locked door and into the stairwell.

He stood right beside the door, expecting the police officer to charge through, to figure Frost was now running down the stairs for his life.

Frost waited, almost holding his breath.

Frost set the young officer's gun down on the landing in the corner, emptying it first and pocketing the six rounds of ammo.

The door creaked open, then burst wide, and the young black officer was streaking through it and onto the landing, starting for the first step before Frost rasped, “Officer Friendly?”

The young man spun half-around, starting to reach out for Frost. Frost's right foot came up, the toe smashing forward into the policeman's stomach—something made Frost feel like not seriously hurting the guy. Friendly doubled forward, Frost's right fist hooking up. The one-eyed man rasped, “Hope you got a strong jaw, pal,” and Frost's knuckles impacted against the tip of the policeman's chin. The man started to fall back, into the stairwell; Frost grabbed at the officer's shirt front and tie, hauling him back, feeling the young policeman's legs buckling. Frost shook his head—the man was still conscious, his hands swinging, attempting to fight.

Frost laced him once across the jaw with his left and wheeled him around, letting him sink to the floor in the corner of the landing beside his gun.

“You're a good man, Officer Friendly,” Frost snapped, starting down the stairs now as fast as he could. Frost had always secretly admired the guys he'd seen throughout his lifetime who could take steps two or three at a time on the way down—Frost just wasn't that coordinated, he realized.

He was on the second-floor landing by the time he heard the sirens starting outside the hospital. He smiled, hoping nobody was sleeping. “The hell with it,” he rasped, flipping the railing from the next stair flight to the flight below that, almost twisting his right ankle. “Won't try that again,” he snapped, hitting the next landing, swinging around it, and starting to the first-floor stairwell door. On impulse, he pulled it open fast—two police officers were starting through it to cut him off. Frost grabbed for the first man, again not wanting to kill, blocking a swinging right from a fist holding a dark wood night stick. The stick cracked hollowly against the wall beside Frost's head. Frost lashed out with his right fist and clipped the policeman across the jaw. The second cop was starting for him and as the first man went down, Frost grabbed the night stick from the limp right fist of the first man. As the second cop's stick crashed down, Frost half-rolled to his right, blocking the night stick blow with the stick from the first policeman.

Frost edged back as the cop swung the stick in his right hand like a scimitar. The night stick Frost held was in both his hands and when the police officer recovered and started crashing the night stick down again, Frost blocked it, then took a half-step in, toward the man's body. Frost's left knee smashed upward; the police officer half-turned to avoid the blow. But Frost's knee hadn't been aiming for the abdomen or groin. Frost's left leg stopped halfway to the target, his foot kicking out, into the policeman's right knee. There was a rush of air and a groan from the copy as he started to buckle back. Frost snapped the butt of the night stick he held forward, into the tip of the policeman's jaw, letting the man fall, and turned to the doorway.

There were at least six police officers—that was all he had time to count—storming toward him. Frost shouted at the top of his lungs and hurled the borrowed night stick. All six policemen ducked, one of them going for his gun.

Frost started to run toward the main hospital doors, but two policemen blocked his way. He knew better than to expect them to use their guns in the crowded hospital main floor. He rushed them; the two men—one of them bigger than Frost by a good thirty pounds—stood shoulder to shoulder between him and the door. Frost extended his hands and shouted, a karate-type yell. Both men raised their guards, expecting, he guessed, a martial-arts attack. Frost drew his pistol; both men started for theirs, but their raised hands were too far away from their belts to make their draws.

“Out of my way or I croak ya'—so help me,” Frost snapped. The smaller of the two cops stood his ground a moment longer than the larger man—short guys were like that sometimes Frost thought—and he edged between the men and started through the glass doors into the circular driveway. Then he started to run hard—outside the hospital there'd be nothing to stop the police from shooting.

“Get him!” Frost heard somebody yell from behind him as he hit the sidewalk on the far side of the driveway—he mentally bet it was the short guy. There was a gunshot behind him; the pavement beside his feet was chewed up from the impact of a slug. Frost jumped like a runner in a track meet—but instead of a hurdle it was a hedgerow. He cleared it, hearing another shot from behind him, then dived to the ground into a roll, the Browning High Power still in his right fist. He snapped off two fast shots, aiming high, hearing the sound of glass shattering, then shouts from some of the policemen pursuing him. “He's got a gun!”

Frost wondered what they thought it was he'd been shooting. He fired two more shots, then scrambled to his feet, starting in a dead run across the grass fronting the hospital main building and flanked on his left by the driveway leading past the emergency room and out into the street.

“Get that son of a—” Frost snapped two shots over his left shoulder half-wheeling, intentionally shooting high. He glanced from side to side, trying to determine where to run. Far along the grassy area, beyond the furthest extension of the hospital building itself, he could see a long greenway, almost like a golf course. He laughed as he started to run—it had to be the perfect hospital, the doctors could play golf while they were on duty. He started running for it, his hands low at his sides, his shoulders thrown back, his lungs already starting to ache, his shins cramping.... He thought of the time he'd spent in London going around the bars, the pubs, hanging around the offices of New Scotland Yard, searching for a lead on the terrorist bombing.... Bess, he thought, his mouth wide open, panting for breath as he ran, feeling the tightness in his throat that wasn't from the running . . .

He could hear more shouting behind him. Wheeling, he snapped off two shots at a phalanx of pursuing policemen; the officers almost dutifully ducked to avoid his gunfire. He ran again, crossing past the far corner of the hospital building and into the greenway, temporarily out of their line of fire until the police crossed into the greenway as well.

Frost stopped, bending double, his belly aching, his breath coming in short gasps. Sweat streamed down his brow, under his eye patch; his hair was plastered to his forehead. He looked ahead of him, felt a breeze cooling him, then started running again, across the greenway and into what looked almost like a park beyond it, tree-studded; a small wooden bridge loomed up ahead of him.

The police officers were rounding the corner of the building; Frost dived for cover in a depression in the grassy ground as they fired. Still trying not to connect, not to kill a policeman, Frost fired—two rounds, then two more—firing low into the ground in front of the dozen police officers, then into the air as they dived for cover.

Frost looked around the greenway—there was no cover. He'd still have to run, he knew. Pushing himself up on his hands and knees, then to his feet, he took off in a low, dead run, toward the small wooden bridge.

“There he goes,” Frost heard someone shout. Instinctively, he dived toward the base of the bridge, gunfire from the police service revolvers hammering around him, into the ground and the rough wooden bridge supports. Frost rolled down a small embankment, sliding in the dirt; his feet stopped at the base of the small grade. He looked down. “Damn it,” he rasped. His sixty-five-dollar shoes were awash with water. He mentally shrugged—if you were going to have a bridge, it only made sense to have it be a bridge over something. He pumped two rounds toward the police officers, the dozen or so men firing back almost in unison. The ground in front of Frost's face was torn up, pieces of dirt and sod spraying against his face and his hands. Frost fired again. The Browning's magazine wasn't empty yet, but he took the moment to swap for a full magazine anyway, dropping the partially spent Metalifed magazine into his side jacket pocket. Fourteen rounds in the pistol, he pushed away from the embankment, following the shallow water away from the shelter of the bridge; his feet sloshed in the stream.

It was a small stream, and at the far end there was another low embankment. Above it he could see a low, wrought-iron fence, more ornamental, he thought, than for security. He started running again, along the water's edge and toward the embankment, clambering up the side, his feet slipping because his shoes were wet. As he slid down, his face grated against the gravel embankment; Frost pushed himself up with his hands. His palms felt as though he were pushing against broken glass. He squinted his eye against the sun and looked below the fence through an opening in the hedgerow. “Naw,” he rasped. Frost pushed himself up over the lip of the embankment, then half-stumbled toward the fence. He could hear the sounds of voices behind him, the sounds of someone thrashing through the shallow stream, as he pushed through the hedgerow. His trouser leg caught on a thorn, ripping. Having shoved the Browning into his belt, he grabbed the fence with both fists, and started to haul himself up. The side of his jacket caught and tore on one of the ornamental spikes; then Frost dropped over onto the other side.