First to Kill (32 page)

“Did she see you?” Nathan asked.

“No, she was looking in the other direction, toward the gas pumps.”

“This complicates things,” Nathan said.

* * *

Amber Sheldon grew more and more annoyed by the minute because she couldn’t keep a constant eye on the gas pumps. Janey was watching them, but she might not recognize Ernie. Between seating new customers, waiting and bussing tables, and acting as the cashier, she was earning her pay tonight. When a lull in her duties came, she asked her supervisor if she could take a smoke break. He reluctantly agreed, giving her five minutes. She walked over to Janey’s table, informed her she was going out for a cigarette, and told her to stay put.

* * *

Nathan’s radio earpiece crackled to life. It was Grangeland. “
Sheldon’s on the move, she’s walking out the front door.
”

“Copy,” Nathan said.

“You see her?”

“She’s lighting a cigarette and walking toward the rear of the building,” Nathan said. “I’ve lost sight of her. Can you pick her up?”

“No, she might make us.”

“Can you make it look like you’re using the bathroom?”

“
No,
” Grangeland replied, “
it’s the wrong direction
.”

“Okay, go through the convenience store in case Janey’s watching. Go the opposite way around the building. Watch yourself, Ernie might be back there.”

“Copy.”

Nathan watched Grangeland exit the convenience store and turn right. She disappeared from his line of sight. “Grangeland, report.”

Five seconds went by. Silence.

“Grangeland, do you copy?”

A few seconds later, her whispered voice came through the radio. “
She’s leaning against the rear wall smoking. She’s alone.
”

“Okay, hang back and stay in the shadow of the building.”

“If anyone pulls in the main driveway, their headlights will light me up.”

“Get out of there then. Harv will take over from this side. He can use the landscaping and block wall for cover. Wait thirty seconds, then head back into the restaurant.”

“
Copy,
” she said.

Nathan estimated the light fog had reduced visibility to just under two hundred yards. It was thinner in some areas and thicker in others. He knew as the dew point and temperature closed in on each other, it would only get worse.

Harv slid out of the passenger seat and stayed low amid the parked cars. Nathan peered out just above the passenger windowsill and watched his friend work his way to the north edge of the property and dash across the driveway, where he vanished in the shadows of a head-high concrete block wall screened by mature oleander bushes.

“Harv, report,” Nathan said.

“I can smell her cigarette, wait one.”

Nathan waited through a long fifteen seconds of silence.

“She’s leaning against the rear wall of the restaurant with her arms crossed, smoking. She keeps looking left and right.”

“Okay Harv, stay with her. Grangeland?”

“I’m back inside with Ferris. Her daughter hasn’t moved.”

“Copy,” Nathan said.

“She’s on her way back,” Harvey reported. “Grangeland, I’ll lose sight of her as she rounds the corner. Let me know if you don’t see her within the next five seconds.”

“Copy,” Grangeland confirmed. “I’ve got her. She’s reentering the restaurant through the convenience store.”

Using field glasses, Nathan watched Grangeland approach the convenience-store checkout counter. She was purchasing something to cover her absence from the table, a DVD or paperback book, he couldn’t tell which.

Nathan conducted a 360-degree sweep of his surroundings with the handheld thermal imager. The HHTI could pick up the heat signature from a vehicle at over 2,200 yards or a man-sized target at 800 yards. The HHTI used in tandem with night vision became an extremely effective combination. Although a person could hide from the night-vision scope, they couldn’t hide their thermal signature. The HHTI nailed them every time. Sure enough, it had no problem seeing through the light fog obscuring the area. The truck parking area shone extremely bright from all the heat signatures of the engines. In the open field behind Nathan it picked up eight to ten cattle lying several hundred yards distant. As he turned the device off, he keyed the radio.

“Harv, you on your way back?”

“Affirm.”

“Grangeland, what’s Sheldon doing? It looks like she’s just standing at the door.”

“She keeps looking at her watch, she seems irritated. Wait. She’s going back outside. You see her?”

“Affirm. Where the hell’s she going? Oh shit, she’s heading for the trash can at the island. Grangeland, Ferris, stop her. Don’t let her approach that island.”

* * *

Amber Sheldon was thoroughly pissed off, more at herself than anyone else. She felt like an idiot. Ernie Bridgestone would never give her any cash, let alone a 100,000 dollars as payment for setting up Nathan McBride. She must’ve been out of her mind to believe anything that jackass said. The lure of money had clearly blinded her. The one thing she did believe was Ernie’s desire to kill Nathan McBride. He’d made that quite clear. An image of the devastation in Sacramento flashed in her mind. She shivered. Coming anywhere near this damned place tonight was stupid. Stupid and crazy.

It was time to leave.

Ignoring the trash can, she marched across the gas-pump island on the way to her car, but suddenly remembered Janey was with her. She started back toward the restaurant, back across the island.

* * *

Grangeland stepped through the restaurant’s door at the same time Amber reached the island.

Nathan’s voice buzzed from her radio. “Grangeland. Get down!
Now!
”

She dropped to the concrete.

Amber Mills Sheldon disappeared in a bright flash.

For an instant, the air shimmered. Grangeland’s mind registered the explosion and something else. Something hideous. Charred and smoking, Sheldon’s upper torso smashed into the brick wall right next to her.

* * *

Every window along the storefront shattered inward, showering the occupants in a horizontal hail of glass. Car alarms sounded from every corner of the property. The SUV fueling at the northern part of the island was lifted into the air and flipped onto its roof. Its gas tank exploded two seconds later. A huge mushroom of burning gasoline roiled into the air.

* * *

“Son of a bitch,” Henning hissed as the Expedition’s windows shattered inward.

Then Nathan heard something chilling.

Children screaming.

The burning SUV had children in it.

Nathan dashed across the pavement, tearing off his shirt as he ran. He wrapped it around his hand and used it on the door handle of the overturned SUV. After two hard yanks, the passenger door opened. Hanging upside-down, two small girls were strapped into car seats, screaming bloody murder as flames licked at their skin. Nathan reached into the SUV and singed his arms unclipping the seat belt holding the first girl’s car seat. It fell into his grasp and he yanked it out of the flames.

Harvey and Henning sprinted over.

“Get the other side,” Nathan yelled, and hauled the car seat away from the burning wreck. He set the child down and rushed back to the SUV. Ferris was running from the convenience store with a fire extinguisher. He pulled its pin and flooded the interior of the SUV with carbon dioxide gas. Harvey reached into the cloudy discharge and freed the second car seat. When Harvey pulled back from the interior of the SUV, his shirt was smoldering. Ferris nailed him with a discharge of CO
₂
. Grangeland ran around the island and grabbed the first car seat. She sprinted for the restaurant and disappeared inside. A few seconds later, she returned for the second little girl and ran her into the restaurant. Nathan looked for the SUV’s owners but didn’t see them. He suddenly realized he hadn’t checked the front seats.

Nathan yelled over the crackling of flames, “Ferris, nail the front seats.”

Ferris stepped forward, stuck the nozzle through the broken driver’s-side window, and pulled the trigger. White cloudy gas filled the cab, starving the flames of oxygen. The reddish-orange glow from the interior winked out. Nathan grabbed his shirt and used it on the door handle. It wouldn’t move. With a roar of anger, he pulled with all his strength and the door screeched open. A woman was crumpled into a ball on the SUV’s ceiling, which was now the floor. Her clothes and hair were burned and smoking. Fortunately, her skin wasn’t too bad. As Nathan and Harvey dragged her away from the SUV, she cried out for her daughters.

“We got them out,” Nathan said. “They’re okay.”

Running from window to window, Ferris continued to spray the SUV’s interior.

“Get the tires.”

Ferris aimed high and dowsed the flaming wheels. He hurried to the opposite side and sprayed those tires as well.

Nathan looked up and saw the blacktop moving all around him. No, not the blacktop. SWAT teams. What the hell were they doing here? Lansing….

MP5s at their hips, at least ten SWAT agents were advancing toward their position, some of them fanning out to cover the property’s exterior boundaries.

At the exact moment Nathan turned back toward the SUV, he heard the supersonic arrival of a bullet combined with the boom of the discharge.

His right arm jerked. Shit! “Sniper!” he yelled.

Harvey scooped the woman up from the pavement and dashed for the restaurant.

Grangeland, Ferris, and Henning crouched down, but they were out in the open.

Nathan dived for the cover behind the smoldering SUV as another shot cracked through the air. The bullet missed. It careened off the asphalt three inches from his head. Just above his elbow, warm liquid ran down the bare skin of his arm.

The entire SWAT team had hit the deck. “Dowdy, Collins,” he yelled, “did you see a muzzle flash?”

“Behind you, five o’clock, plus thirty.”

“Give me some cover fire.”

Bursts of MP5 fire hammered the air as Nathan scrambled up and dashed for the safety of the restaurant. A giant bullwhip cracked again as the third bullet whizzed by him. He sensed it miss his torso by less than an inch as he entered the building. The floor was littered with broken glass. Janey was screaming. The other server cringed behind the counter, shaking glass out of her hair. Harvey knelt near the rear wall tending to the injured mother and her little girls. Nathan looked back and saw Henning, Grangeland, and Ferris running in a full sprint for the door.

A fourth rifle report echoed across the pavement.

Twenty feet from safety, Henning tumbled.

Nathan ran back toward the door. “Henning’s down.” He slipped past Grangeland and Ferris as they rushed inside.

“Nathan, wait!” Harvey yelled. “I’ll get him.”

“No time.” Steeling himself for the bullet that would end his life, he raced across the asphalt, bent down, and hoisted Henning’s two hundred-pound body over his shoulder.

More bursts of MP5 fire echoed off the surrounding trucks and buildings.

A fifth shot tore the air.

This one found its mark. Shit! Nathan’s right calf jerked with the impact, but he kept his balance and made it back inside. Harv took Henning from Nathan’s shoulder and laid him against the rear wall with the other wounded. Grangeland had grabbed a first-aid kit from the convenience store and was about to apply a large bandage to the flesh wound on Nathan’s arm.

“Later,” he said.

“You’re bleeding bad.”

“There’s no time, we have to get Bridgestone.”

“You’ve got two gunshot wounds, you may not have time.”

“Ferris, can you handle Henning?”

“The bullet went through his vest, but it missed his lungs. He’s still in a bad way.”

The convenience store’s supervisor said, “I called nine-one-one. An ambulance is on the way.”

“Harv, Grangeland,” Nathan said. “Bridgestone’s on the roof of the building north of the property. We’ll use the rear exit and stay against the perimeter wall for cover. When we get to the driveway, Harv will retrieve the SUV. Ferris, let your SWAT teams know what we’re doing. Tell them to hold their fire until we’re in the SUV. We’ve got to hurry, let’s move.”

The three of them passed through a stockroom and burst through the rear door facing the freeway. They hugged the wall as they traversed to the northwest corner of the property. All of them heard it. An engine started, followed by the squeal of tires as a vehicle accelerated toward the east. Nathan was limping but kept up with Harv and Grangeland as they ran toward the SUV. Blood had already soaked his sock and shoe.

“Harv, you drive. Grangeland, follow us in the Crown Vic. Let’s move.”

Just as Nathan closed the passenger door, another deafening explosion rocked the night.

The island under the diesel pumps vanished in a white flash. The freight truck parked at the island was blown ten feet sideways from the force of the blast. Lying on its side, one hundred gallons of diesel fuel in its cab tanks ignited, sending a fiery mushroom up to the bottom of the metal canopy covering the islands. Eerie flame spread along the underside of its surface and shot skyward at the edges. Some of the truckers parked in the transient area began driving their rigs out of the danger zone. Men and machines were going every direction. People were screaming and running for cover. Like black ants against a red background, the SWAT team sprinted for the protection of the convenience store, two of them dragging a wounded comrade.

Harv turned right out of the parking lot. With the windows of the SUV gone, they could hear the roaring headers of Ernie’s retreating vehicle. It was running east with its lights out.

“That’s him. Punch it, Harv.” He flipped on the thermal imager and immediately saw the heat signature of the fleeing vehicle’s exhaust. “Straight ahead, four or five hundred yards.”

The Expedition’s engine answered the call. Within ten seconds, they were doing eighty miles an hour. Harv stomped the accelerator and brought their speed up to 110. “Stay with him, Harv. Wait one. He’s slowing, turning south. I’ve still got him. We’re coming up on the turn in five hundred yards.”