The Sketcher's Mark (Lara McBride Thrillers Book 1) (26 page)

“White van just turned right at the end of the street.  Brouchard, we have to go mobile.”

Lara jumped down off the Peugot as the Inspector came out of the courtyard.  They raced across the street to Brouchard’s car, Jason keeping pace with them. 

“Gimme the keys,” Lara demanded and Boruchard handed them to her.  She jumped in the driver’s side, keyed the engine as Jason got in the passenger side and Brouchard found himself in the back seat of his own car.  Lara gunned it through the thinning crowd, people jumping out of the way, the car so close to them they were able to reach out and hit it, making the Inspector wince and silently pray nobody was injured. 

Seconds later, they had the white work van in their sights.

Chapter Fifty Four

Guillotine drove with precise, controlled movements. He was good behind the wheel, knew how to handle the bulk of the van.  It wasn’t slow, either, since he had made some modifications to the Mercedes engine. It could now hit sixty in a matter of seconds should he need the extra kick.  Right now, he needed it.  He weaved the van out on to the main boulevard, checked the rearview mirror and, sure enough, saw a pursuit car bolt out of the street behind him.  He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a woman at the wheel.  Lara.  His heart jumped and he felt his pulse began to hammer faster with excitement.  What a night this was turning out to be. 

He knew where he was going, knew the best route at this time of the evening and hooked right down a side street, flooring the accelerator and dodging left at the corner, looking in the rearview and seeing the headlights of the pursuit car coming round the top of the street behind him.  He needed to be heading west.  Brouchard didn’t feel like this was a pursuit.  Instead, he felt they were being led somewhere.

Lara drove with skill, keeping the van in sight, moving through the traffic with skill.  She almost collided with a container truck, swerved left and clipped a mini van in the on coming lane before she got the car back under control.  Guillotine’s vehicle had gained a good lead on them and she was fast approaching a red light.

“Shit! Shit! Inspector?!” she shouted.

“Go through!  Go through!” Jason responded before Brouchard could even assess the situation.  He saw the red light approaching and pulled his seatbelt on, snapping it in to place just as they sailed through the intersection.  He looked left and saw a Volvo estate wagon barreling towards him.  He closed his eyes and covered his face, bracing for the impact.  A few seconds later, he realized he was still holding his breath and looked up to see they had cleared the light, now off the main boulevard, the van having gained another fifty yards ahead of them.  He looked around the streets, recognizing the neighborhood.  He knew this place.

“I think I know where he’s going.”

Chapter Fifty Five

Guillotine gunned the van off the main road and punched it through the chain link fence of the train repair yard.  He hit the brakes in the main yard, right outside the office.  There was nobody in there, everybody had gone home for the night and the place rarely had security that was worth worrying about.  After all, nobody could steal a train car. The yard was huge, based in a lot on the outskirts of the city.  It was an industrial area and at this time of night, there were few cars on the street and even less people on the pavements.  The tires had thrown up a nice dirt cloud as the vehicle slid sideways to a stop and Guillotine was already out the door and headed in to the rows of metal and glass, light and shadows, where the city’s Metro train cars slept in various states of repair.

Lara rolled the sedan up beside the van a few moments later, then threw the car in to reverse and spun it out sideways so it was blocking the exit, should Guillotine make it back to his van and try to make a break for it. Now, they had him boxed in.  Brouchard stepped out of the car and withdrew his pistol.  He was nervous, second guessing his decision to come out here on his own without the Tactical Team.  They had the GPS locators on both him and Lara, but he had not given them any instructions to follow.  The ear piece receivers were well out of range now, but he could radio them on his handheld. 

“One moment,” he said as Lara and Jason got out of the car.  Lara looked at him, ready to pursue their quarry in to the darkened yard.

“We’re wasting time, Inspector,” she said, not sure what he was doing.

“We need to be very careful.  This man is a killer.  You and I are professionals.”  He nodded at Jason. “He’s not.”

“I can handle myself,” the Englishman said.  Brouchard believed it, but he didn’t want to risk letting a civilian in to the maze of train cars where a killer was waiting for them, somewhere in the dark.

“You should stay here, watch the car in case he doubles back.”

“He won’t do that.  He wants us to follow him in there.  You think he just found this place while we were chasing him?” Lara said, sure she was right.

“That’s what worries me.  He brought us here.  He knew exactly where he was going,” Brouchard said.

“Jason, stays close to me. Radio the Tactical Team our location and let’s find this bastard.”

Before he could object, she was gone, the Englishman following her.

Lara left Brouchard to follow her instructions and jogged to the first row of train cars, Jason right behind her. She crouched behind the back of the first train car at the end of the row.  There were six rows in all; she calculated about eight cars to each row.  Too many places for him to hide, too many surprises.  The yard’s lights were off, the only light coming in from over the walls from the street lights, creating deep pools of inky black darkness all over the yard, impossible to see beneath the cars. The interiors of the cars were only dimly lit by the amber haze bleeding through the train car windows.  She cursed him for being so smart.  She clicked the safety off the pistol, looked back and saw Brouchard approaching.  He had a flashlight in his hand, the beam piercing the perfect dark that lay ahead like an inky black fog. 

“They are on their way.  We should wait for them,” the Inspector asked, knowing what Lara’s response would be.

Lara pulled out her cellphone and turned on the flashlight mode, then moved forward, careful to stay between the train cars, checking the areas beneath and the windows above with the light from her phone.  She heard Jason behind her, feeling a little safer someone else was there.  He had pulled out his phone and done the same, giving them more light on either side.  The doors on the two train cars flanking them were closed.  Lara tried one.  Locked.  They moved on to the next car, Lara looking for movements, silhouettes, anything.  She could feel him in here, waiting patiently for them.

Brouchard had moved on to the next row of train cars, shining the Maglite beam through the windows on either side of him.  He kept moving, the old instincts of a beat cop coming back to him like sense memory- never stay in one place, moving targets were harder to hit and he knew he was a target right now.  His heart was racing, a cocktail of excitement, fear, and determination.  The rear door on the train car up ahead was open.  He thought he saw movement inside but he couldn’t be sure, might have just been the way the shadows moved when he took the flashlight beam away. In the doorway, he smelled the musty odor of the train compartment.  There were seats in neat rows on either side, muted light seeping through the windows.  He stepped inside and moved sideways in to the shadows, his back pressed against the wall.  He let his eyes adjust to the gloom and listened.  He had learned that was the best way to find those who would hide in the dark.  He heard nothing except his own heart pounding in his ears.  Gripping the pistol tighter, he moved down through the train car until he found the door at the end.  There was nobody in here.  He hurried out, hoping Lara and the Englishman would have better luck.

Jason followed Lara as they moved along the brick wall at the far end of the yard.  They had already cleared one row.

“Anything?” she asked.

“I can’t see shit.  And frankly, this is fucking terrifying.”

“Man up,” Lara said. “You wanted to come and it’s too late to go home now.”

They moved down to the next row, checking the doors on the train cars as they worked their way back up to the other side of the yard.  An open door on the compartment up ahead caught Lara’s attention.  Jason sensed what she was thinking and spoke first. “I’ll go to the other side. If he’s there I’ll push him back to you.”

Before she could object, Jason was already running ahead.  She cautiously approached the open door, sweeping the phone back and forth.  She entered the train car, holding the pistol close so it couldn’t be easily taken from her.  She looked down to the far end of the compartment and saw Jason walk in through the open door.  She signaled for him to stop and he did, framed in the doorway. She moved methodically down the aisle, checking each row of seats, finding nothing but shadows and thick dust floating in the air. When she had cleared the car, she turned and called out to him in the gloom.

“Keep moving,” she said, then hurried outside to the next train car.

Jason began to follow her out, seeing her through the window moving over to the next car. He walked through the open compartment door and in to the night air, ready to jump down in to the dirt.  He felt something cold and sharp coil around his neck from above, catching him as his feet were in midair.  Guillotine looked down on the Englishman from his prone position on the roof as he pulled the cheese wire tight, Jason’s weight doing the rest of the work for him.  He felt the muscles in his arms strain as he lifted the Englishman up and off his feet, the razor sharp wire slicing through his throat.  The Englishman jerked and shuddered like bait on a hook.  Arterial blood sprayed across the cold metal of the train. As the oxygen supply to his brain was cut off, Jason fell slack and hung in the cold night air, trails of steam coming from his neck where the hot blood was jetting out of his body and dousing his shirt. Guillotine released him, hearing the body thump down on the ground and sag like an abandoned rag doll.  He cursed himself for not being more delicate, knew the noise would give away his position.

Lara heard the noise and turned.  She saw movement on the roof, the silhouette of a man scurrying back in to the dark like a spider running from a light.  She fired a single shot, the bullet sparking off the metal roof.  She ran over to the end of the car and saw Jason slumped in the dark.  She bent down, reaching for his neck to check his pulse and pulled her hand back when she felt the mangled flesh and warm blood where his throat should have been.  There was nothing she could do for him.  He was already dead and she was struggling to contain her rage and guilt for allowing him to come with her.  She pulled herself up on to the roof of the train compartment and saw Guillotine drawing himself up out of the dark to stand tall on the roof of the next train car. She aimed for his chest.

“Don’t move!!”

Guillotine put his hands in the air, the cheese wire still in one hand like a sick trophy, wet and gleaming from where it had done its work on Jason.  He stared right at her, with that twisted jagged face, daring her to shoot him. He smiled, happy to see her.

“You know you can’t shoot me,” Guillotine said.  “How would you find your sister then?”

“Stay right there!”  Lara approached the edge of the compartment, saw the gap between the train cars was roughly eight feet.  She would need a run up to make the jump.  She looked around for Brouchard, couldn’t see him anywhere.

“Brouchard!!!” she called.  Guillotine watched her, almost out of pity.  Then he simply turned and walked across the roof and leaped to the next the train car.

Lara saw the beam of Brouchard’s flashlight slicing through the dark at the other side of the yard, the light dancing crazily back and forth as the Inspector was running in her direction.

“He’s on the roof!  Brouchard! Watch the rooftops!”

Lara saw Guillotine was heading back towards the entrance- and his van- running up the row of train cars.  He had six left to go.  She lost her footing, rolled down on her shoulders and felt the breath knocked out of her.  Gasping, she launched herself back on her feet and kept moving, tracking Guillotine, now two cars down.  She kicked out in to the air as she sailed across the space between this car and the next, landing hard on the metal.  She gathered herself, kept moving, couldn’t let him escape again.

Brouchard’s had given his position away with his flashlight.  Guillotine wasn’t surprised by the Policeman’s clumsiness, but he was pleased the situation had been tilted back in his favor.  He pulled the knife from his pocket, honing in closer on the flashlight beam as it made its way towards him, roving over the roof tops ahead, trying to seek him out.

The Inspector checked the top of the train cars to his left, still moving.  He grasped the pistol in his hand, keeping it low and ready, unaware Guillotine was moving up fast behind and above him on the right side.  He heard movement, footsteps thudding over the metal above. He moved the flashlight beam over and saw something coming at him from the dark.  It was so fast, the motion so blurred, that he had little time to react.  He pulled the pistol up, but not fast enough. The shape hit him square in the chest and he was on his back in the dirt, hearing the gun go off, a bullet hitting the train car beside him and suddenly he couldn’t breathe.