The Innocent: The New Ryan Lock Novel (23 page)

The wolf froze. Either it had heard them or it had picked up their scent. It turned its huge head toward them. For a magical second it stared straight at Jack. The eyes of boy and beast met, and Jack felt a sudden, perfect peace. He knew exactly what the man was talking about. It was his choice. He could be prey or he could be a wolf.

The wolf stuck its muzzle into the snow, then took off with long, bounding strides. In a few seconds it had faded into the pine trees.

The man reached down and flipped open the locks of the hard plastic gun case. ‘Ready to get some target practice in, Jack?’

‘We’re not going to shoot the wolf, are we?’

‘No, Jack, we’re going to kill the sheep.’

The snow made navigating the rough terrain tough. Lock was at the end of a line of local people who had turned out to look for Jack and Eve Barnes. They had been assigned an area of woodland near to the cabin where Tromso had taken Ty. Kelly Svenson was co-ordinating the search as part of a joint college/town police operation, with advice from the FBI, who already had their hands plenty full. Still, there was something about the search that made Lock feel like it was busy work.

The people of Harrisburg, including a large section of the student population, had turned out
en masse
. Beneath the somber mask that the searchers felt duty-bound to wear, like so much makeup, Lock detected a certain giddiness. Finally, Harrisburg could prove that it cared, when all along at least two, and possibly three, serial child molesters had been going about their business under the town’s nose.

Lock didn’t believe that people here hadn’t known about the activities of Becker, Reeves and the third man. In Lock and Ty’s job of close protection, Lock knew that most people walked around with their eyes wide shut. They looked but they were too lazy, or distracted, to see, and when they did see, it was often too late. And of those who saw, few chose to make the connections. Of those who did join up the dots, very few then took the next step and confronted what was taking place.

Individuals like Becker and Reeves weren’t invisible. They had wives, partners, colleagues, workmates, relatives and neighbors. Since the truth had surfaced, more and more people had revealed to the media that they had seen Becker ‘hanging out with young boys’ or that they’d heard ‘a lot of screaming’ one night from Reeves’s home. And no one had pursued it. No one apart from Malik Shaw. An outsider.

Lock was at the end of a line of about a dozen people. To his left was a beefy frat-boy type, who looked like he was no stranger to a Big Mac or ten, to his right a blonde coed who was wearing enough makeup for Lock to suspect she had recently run away from a circus. The two kept shooting glances at each other as they inched over the snowy slopes toward the tree line. Love or lust was in the air among the misery. Never one to stand in the way of true romance, Lock tapped the frat boy’s elbow. ‘Switch with me. I’ll take the end.’

He shuffled over as Lock stepped around him. ‘Thanks, bro.’

‘You’re welcome.’

As the two fell into conversation, Lock looked back down the slope. Officer Svenson was waving at a small group of newly arrived townsfolk to join the line.

Lock shook his head. Unless Jack and Eve Barnes were dead, and the woods had been chosen as a burial site, which was possible, there were two chances they would find the boy and his mother here – zero and none. For a start, if Becker and Reeves had used the cabin with the third person involved, after what had happened that location was now dead. A kidnapper wasn’t about to hole up anywhere close to it. It was too obvious, and if this person had eluded capture so far, they weren’t dumb.

He started back down the slope toward Svenson. Maybe there was something she knew about this location that he didn’t.

Lock was about ten yards from her when the first shot rang out. A sharp crack followed by an echo. He looked back up the slope to see the frat boy he had switched places with moments before fall forward. His face was planted in the snow. The coed next to him screamed. Everyone else in the line started looking around, startled and unsure of what had just happened.

As a second shot rang out, Lock powered back up the slope. In the confusion it was next to impossible to tell where the gunfire was coming from. He threw a glance down the slope to Svenson. She was still standing by her vehicle, rooted to the spot. Lock shouted to her: ‘Help me here.’

She seemed to snap out of it. Most of the search party of a dozen people were scrambling down the slope. An elderly man tripped and fell. Lock ran toward him, and helped him back to his feet.

The tree line was about forty yards ahead. The road at the bottom of the slope was about ten times that distance. Lock was close enough now to see that the shot had hit the frat boy in the back. Unless there was another shooter, the gunman was up on a ridge to the left of where they were standing.

The contours of the immediate landscape meant that the slope and the road beneath it were directly exposed and within range. The only cover available was in the woods, yet people were spilling back down the slope where they could be picked off easily.

The elderly man was back on his feet as another shot cracked, missing them by feet. A puff of snow marked the entry point to their right. Lock shouted at people to head for the woods. They were still in shock, overwhelmed and disbelieving.

Lock reached down for his SIG. He fired off a round in the direction of the ridge where he thought the gunman was. At the very least, incoming fire would give the shooter something to think about. It would also draw fire to him rather than to the unarmed civilians, who had slowly begun to change direction and head for the line of pines.

Lock began crawling toward the frat boy, who was still down. The blonde coed was kneeling next to him, asking if he was okay, as the snow around them turned red. The frat boy’s eyes were flickering. He was starting to lose consciousness. Lock took off his jacket as the rifle cracked one more time from the ridge. This time, Lock saw the muzzle flash nice and clear. The shot slammed into a man with grey hair, who was helping the stragglers into the woods. It caught him in the right thigh, spinning him off balance. He went down with a yell. Lock handed his jacket to the coed as he sat the kid up, and slashed at his clothing with his Gerber.

‘Okay, see the wound,’ Lock said to the girl. ‘Take my jacket and press it against it as hard as you can. You understand?’

She nodded and jammed it against the entry point. The frat boy yelped in pain. ‘And keep him conscious,’ added Lock. ‘Keep him talking. Make sure his eyes don’t close.’

Glancing back over his shoulder, Lock saw a pick-up truck with a serious gun rack pull up. Two townies in hunting gear got out of the cab, each hefting a Bushmaster, the gun that had done so much damage at the school in Newtown. By the way they were carrying the guns, safety off, muzzles pointed out at waist height, fingers on the triggers, something told him that these individuals had not been trained for such a situation.

The sniper must have sensed the same thing because, as the driver of the pick-up stepped off the road and onto the slope, he took a single shot to the head. It smashed into his mouth. His body jerked, as if he’d been plugged into the power grid, and he fell. As his buddy went to his aid, another shot rang out. This one caught him in the shoulder, spinning him round. He duck-walked behind the truck, crying with the pain.

‘Lord, give me strength, and save me from amateurs,’ Lock muttered, under his breath, looking back up toward the ridge, where it had fallen quiet. Hunkering down, he ran over toward one of the fleeing search party, his eyes never leaving the ridge. He had noticed that one of the searchers had a pair of binoculars. He took them from the man’s neck, and ran in a zigzag from the group, drawing fire from the ridge as he moved.

He found a bump in the terrain, and lay belly down, using the contour of the ground to provide him with cover. As he raised the binoculars to his eyes and racked the focus wheel, a muddy, battered SUV pulled in behind the truck. The driver’s window slid down, and the business end of a semiautomatic popped out and let off a three-round burst toward the ridge.

Lock used the haphazard and unwelcome covering fire from the ridge to take a peek. He narrowed his eyes to make sure that he really was seeing what he thought he was. Next to the sniper, whose face was covered with a ski mask, was a young boy with a fringe of brown hair that fell over his eyes.

All four doors of the SUV were flung open, and four men in hunting gear, each wielding an assault rifle, began to rake the ridge with gunfire. Lock waved at them, shouting to be heard over the barrage of rounds. ‘Hold your fire! There’s a kid up there!’

Either they didn’t hear him or they were past caring. They moved forward in a line, each taking it in turns to launch a fresh barrage of random gunfire at the ridge.

Lock saw the sniper began to scoot backwards. He tapped the boy, whom Lock was sure was Jack Barnes, on the shoulder as Lock got to his feet, still screaming at the four idiots to stop firing until he had to draw breath.

Lock ran for the ridge, the binoculars dropping from his hand. That was when he saw the boy make an amateur mistake. Rather than staying on his belly, and snaking down the other side of the ridge, with his elbows and knees, he stood up.

The sniper grabbed for him, but it was already too late. At least two of the four vigilantes had noticed the movement, and the figure silhouetted against the sky. They sighted their weapons, finally drawing down on an identifiable target. There were two separate cracks, separated by less than a second.

The shots were followed by a cry, sharp and high, and the boy fell forward. The four vigilantes stopped in their tracks, and Lock saw two of them exchange a high five. It was as much as he could do not to kill them where they stood.

Lock continued his charge toward the ridge. His heart sank as he drew closer. He turned back to the road and waved down Svenson, who had finally slunk out from behind her police cruiser.

On the other side of the ridge, where the road curved round, he heard a truck engine roar to life and a door slam as the sniper took off. He crested the top of the ridge.

The body of Jack Barnes lay in the snow. He was on his front, his head twisted to one side. His eyes were open, the pupils wide with shock. Next to the boy lay a dozen shell casings. There was no one else to be seen. The weapon was gone. In the distance, through the shimmer of the quickening snowstorm, Lock caught the red brake-lights of a truck as it careened down the mountain road back toward Harrisburg.

Sounds came and went. Lock brushed a lock of brown hair from the boy’s eyes. ‘Jack? Can you hear me?’

His eyes opened. That was good. Lock got in close and listened to the boy’s breathing: shallow but steady. The shallowness could be down to shock, the second main danger, after loss of blood, when it came to a gunshot victim.

He scanned the boy’s body. He had been hit in the leg — that much was clear from the blood that had soaked through his clothes, turning the snow crimson.

Because of the boy’s history, Lock knew he had to be careful about touching him. Any extra anxiety would elevate his heart rate and deepen the shock he was in. At the same time, he had to figure out where he’d been hit.

He spoke quickly, keeping eye contact, trying to discern if the boy was taking in any of what he was saying. ‘Jack, listen to me. I’m a trained trauma medic. I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve been shot and I haven’t let one die on me yet.’ That last part was a lie. Lock had seen more than one victim of a gunshot wound die in front of him. But right now the truth didn’t matter. ‘You understand me? You don’t have to talk, you can nod if speaking’s too painful.’

‘Yeah,’ Jack said, his voice high and strained.

‘That’s great. Okay, so I have to take a closer look to see where you’ve been hit. In the left leg, correct? It’s sore there?’

Jack nodded. ‘And the arm,’ he said, clenching and unclenching his left hand with a grimace.

‘You’re doing great, buddy,’ Lock told him. ‘Now, I’m going to sit you up, see if we can’t slow the bleeding a little. If anything else hurts, you tell me. Okay?’

He reached under the boy and helped him sit. Jack winced and grimaced but he made a lot less fuss than most adults. Kids could be like that. Where adults screamed blue murder over a hangnail, some kids approached pain with fortitude.

Lock unzipped the boy’s jacket, talking to him the whole time, telling him what he was doing and why. His torso was clear of any trauma. That was about as good as it got in a situation like this. Lock ran his hands over the boy’s scalp, and down his neck. Clear. Head wounds from a bullet or fragment were usually pretty damn obvious but it was better to make sure.

He eased off the boy's jacket, ripped out the lining and began to tear it into strips. Down on the road an ambulance had pulled up and two paramedics had decamped. They waded through the snow toward the survivors and got busy doing basic triage, establishing who was a priority. Meanwhile, Lock rolled up the left leg of the boy’s pants. He must have been hit side-on because the bullet had gone straight through his calf, luckily missing the bone and, by the look of it, the popliteal artery, damaging only muscle. There was a nice neat exit wound on the other side. As getting shot went, the kid had been lucky.

Lock tied a strip of jacket lining just above the wound, pulled it tight-ish and tied it off. He wanted to staunch the flow of blood without cutting it off entirely and perhaps doing longer-term damage by depriving the lower leg and foot of oxygen. The kid had been through enough without having to face an amputation.

Behind the paramedics, Lock could see Kelly Svenson striding toward him, issuing orders over her radio as she walked. Now that the shooter was gone, she seemed to have snapped into something approaching a professional mode.

The paramedics arrived. One knelt next to Jack. Lock brought them up to speed on the boy’s condition, gave him some final words of reassurance, then went to speak to Svenson.