24 Hours (43 page)

Cheryl sat down in the trees on the ridge that divided the northbound and southbound lanes and tried to catch her breath. The scene below was like something out of a Spielberg movie. It was like watching a parade from the roof of a building. Cheryl had done that once as a child. With her real father. But this parade had gone terribly wrong.

The doctor ’s plane was still burning, throwing up a column of black smoke like a refinery fire. The driver of the log truck was stumbling back toward the fire, to see the damage his truck had done, she supposed. Cars were lined up behind the plane as far as she could see, and hundreds of people were beginning to get out of them. By the plane, though, there were still only a few, as if the spectators sensed that the show might not be quite over. At least the little girl was okay. Cheryl had seen the doctor carry her up onto the road.

She needed to get moving, if she wanted to stay out of jail. Her best bet was probably to go down to the northbound lanes and hitch a ride with some horny salesman. She probably looked rough after the crash, but the truth was, men didn’t care. Not when you were twenty-six and had a body tailor-made for the Victoria’s Secret catalog.

Cheryl was standing up when when she saw Joey rise from behind a parked car and walk toward the knot of people that had gathered around Dr. Jennings and his little girl.

Will was stunned by the reaction of the people on the shoulder. They all talked at once, and he could only catch fragments of their conversations. A couple of guys slapped him on the back, but another yelled, “Where’s the stupid son of a bitch who was flying that plane? Somebody needs to arrest his ass!”

Will just held Abby tight and asked someone—anyone—to call the state police and the FBI. Three men detached themselves from the crowd and trotted back toward the line of cars, presumably to use their cell phones.

“Daddy, your
plane,
” said Abby, pointing at the mangled wreck.

Will heard himself laugh. “That old girl did what I needed her to do. That’s all that matters.”

“Look at my bear, Daddy. Huey made it.”

Abby held out an intricately carved figure of a bear holding a little girl. Will was no art expert, but he was an experienced collector, and there was something in the little figure that moved him deeply.

“EVERYBODY BACK!” screamed a male voice.

Will thought it was a cop until the men around him began to scatter, half of them sliding down the shoulder behind him, the other half running back to their cars. Among the running bodies, his eyes picked out a man standing still as a pole, thirty feet away. He had dark hair and black eyes, and one of his pant legs was soaked with blood from groin to ankle. As Will watched, he raised his arm. A revolver gleamed blue-black in the sun.

Hickey.

There was nowhere to run. He and Abby were caught between the burning plane and the steep shoulder. If he made a dash down the hill with Abby in his arms, Hickey could simply take a few steps and shoot them as they tried to reach the trees.

“Who’s that man, Daddy?”

“Shh, punkin.” Will had thought he might remember Hickey from the time of his mother’s operation, but the man’s face was a cipher. It was hard to comprehend, facing a total stranger who hated you enough to kill you and your children.

“Where’s my money, Doc?” Hickey asked, his eyes smoldering like coals.

Will pointed at the burning plane. “In there.”

“You’d better be lying.”

“I’m too tired to lie.”

“Where’s Cheryl?”

“I don’t know.” He wasn’t so tired that he couldn’t lie a little. He wasn’t going to tell Hickey that his wife had burned up in the plane with the ransom money.

Keeping his gun trained on Will and Abby, Hickey backed to the edge of the shoulder and looked down.

“That’s the way, Huey!” he shouted. “Come on, boy! You can do it!”

Will looked around for signs of help, but he saw none.

“You know what happens now?” Hickey asked, focusing on Will and Abby again.

“What?”

“This.”

He fired, and Will felt his right leg buckle. He almost collapsed, but he managed to keep his feet long enough to set Abby down and move in front of her. She was screaming in terror. He considered telling her to run for it, but he doubted she would, and any such move might cause Hickey to shoot again. He felt her clutching his pants from behind.

“Shot by your own gun,” Hickey said. “How does it feel?”

Will looked down. The bullet had caught him in the meat of the thigh, but on the lateral side, away from the femoral artery.

Hickey yelled back over his shoulder: “Come on, Buckethead! Train’s leaving! Show me you’re not a wheelie-boy!”

“Get out of here while you can, Joe,” Will said.

Hickey laughed darkly. “Oh, I’ll be gettin’ on soon. But you and me got an account to settle. And that little girl behind you is the legal tender.”

He took a step closer, then another. Will was about to snatch Abby up and try to run for it when a female voice stopped Hickey in his tracks.

“I got the money, Joey!”

Cheryl was standing on the far side of the road, by the median. The smile on her face was as forced as an Avon lady’s on a poor street, but she was making an effort. “Let’s get out of here, Joey. Come on!”

“Well, well,” Hickey said. “The prodigal slut.” He shook his head. “Gotta finish what you start, babe.”

Her smile cracked, then vanished. “There’s no reason to hurt that little girl, Joey. Not anymore.”

“You know there is.”

“Killing her won’t bring your mama back.”

His eyes blazed. “He’ll feel some of what I’ve felt!” Hickey lowered his aim to Will’s legs, which hardly shielded Abby at all.

“Joey, don’t!” Cheryl opened the ransom briefcase, took out her Walther, and aimed it at Hickey’s chest. “It wasn’t even his fault! Let’s go to Costa Rica. Your ranch is waiting!”

Hickey looked at Will and laughed bitterly. “Turned her against me, didn’t you? Well . . . she always was a stupid cow.”

He turned casually toward Cheryl and fired, blowing her back onto the median and spilling hundred-dollar bills across the grass. Then his gun was on Will again, his aim dancing from head to chest to legs. As he played his little game, a strange beating sound echoed over the slab of the interstate. Will recognized it first: the
whup-whup-whup
of rotor blades. Hickey soon understood its meaning, but instead of bolting, he took two steps closer to Will.

“What do I want with a ranch in Costa Rica? I can’t stand spics anyhow. This is what I came for. What goes around comes around, Doc.”

Will felt a hard tug on his pants. “Daddy,
look.
”

As Hickey steadied his aim, Will threw himself on top of Abby. Then, just as Cheryl had done before the crash, he turned and looked death full in the face.

He expected a muzzle flash, but what he saw was a bloody forearm the size of a ham slip around Hickey’s neck and lift him bodily into the air.

“You can’t hurt Abby, Joey,” Huey said. “You can hurt Huey, but you can’t hurt Abby. She’s my Belle.”

Hickey’s eyes bulged with surprise. He tried to bring his pistol far enough back to shoot his cousin, but the first shot didn’t come close. The bloody forearm just lifted him higher, closing off his windpipe like a clamp. Hickey’s legs kicked like a badly hanged man’s, and his gun barked harmlessly into the sky. He somehow managed to choke out four words, but they were poorly chosen.

“You—god—damn—retard—”

Will watched in fascination as Huey choked the life out of his cousin, his face as placid as that of a mountain gorilla at rest. Hickey’s last bullet tore off part of Huey’s ear, but then the gun clicked empty. By the time the sharp snap of cervical vertebra reverberated across the road, Hickey’s face was blue-black.

His limbs went limp as rags, and his gun clattered onto the concrete. After a few seconds, Huey set him gently on the side of the road, sat beside him, and began to pet his head. Then he shook him gently, as if he might suddenly wake up.

“Joey? Joey?”

The beating of the helicopter was much louder. Will rolled off Abby and unbuckled his belt, wrapped it around his wounded thigh, and tied it off.

“Look,” Abby said in a small voice. “Huey’s crying.”

Huey had knelt over Hickey and put a hand over his mouth to feel for breath. When he felt none, he started mewling like a baby.

“Why’d you want to hurt Belle?” he sobbed. “It’s not right to hurt little girls. Mamaw told us that.”

“We’ve got to help him, Daddy.” Abby started across the road, but Will limped after her and brought her back.

“I need you here, baby. We’ve got to find Mom.”

“I’m right here,” someone said from behind them.

Will turned. Karen was standing on the median side of the road, an automatic pistol in her hand. It was Cheryl’s Walther. She was pointing it at its owner, while Cheryl crawled over the grass stuffing loose packets of hundred-dollar bills back into the briefcase. Both women looked like air-raid survivors, dazed beyond reason but still trying to function, their brains pushing them down logical paths without any larger perspective.

Abby started to run to Karen, but Will caught her arm and pulled her back. Karen was not herself. If she was, she would have run to Abby as soon as she sighted her.

“Bring me the gun, Karen,” he said.

She seemed not to have heard. She kept pointing the Walther at Cheryl’s head, which was only two feet from its barrel. For her part, Cheryl seemed not to notice. She just kept stuffing bills into the briefcase. Will saw blood on her shoulder, but apparently the bullet had not done major damage.

He limped to within three feet of his wife. “Karen? May I please have the gun? I need it.”

“
She’s one of them!
” Karen cried suddenly. “Isn’t she?”

“It’s over,” he said, holding out his hand. “Hickey’s dead. And she’s not going anywhere.”

Karen jerked the Walther out of his reach. As she did, Will saw a large bloodstain on her upper abdomen.

“What happened?”

“He shot me,” she said, still following Cheryl with the gun.

“DROP THE WEAPON!” shouted a male voice. “STATE POLICE! DROP THE GUN AND LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND!”

Will turned and saw two uniformed state troopers pointing long-barreled revolvers at Karen.

“Hold your fire!” he yelled. “She’s in shock!”

“DROP THAT WEAPON!” one trooper shouted again.

Karen turned toward them but did not drop the gun. Will knew they might fire at any moment. He stepped forward and put his body between their guns and Karen, but even as he did, a fierce wind sprang up, driving gravel and cinders across the road in a punishing spiral.

A Bell helicopter with “FBI” stenciled in yellow on the fuel tank flared over the road and set down near the dwindling fire that had been Will’s plane. Two men in business suits leaped out of the cockpit and ran toward the state troopers, their wallets held out in front of them. A hurried conversation resulted in one of the troopers lowering his gun, but the other did not seem impressed by FBI credentials. One of the agents interposed himself between the stubborn trooper and Karen, and addressed himself to Will.

“Are you Dr. Jennings?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Frank Zwick, Doctor. I’m glad to see you alive.”

“I’m
damn
glad to see you. Can you help us? My wife has been shot, and she’s disoriented.”

“Can you get her to put down the gun?”

Will turned to Karen and held up his hands. “Honey, you’ve got to give me the gun. These people are here to help us. You can’t—”

Karen wobbled on her feet, then crumpled forward onto the ground.

Will ran forward and knelt beside her. Her radial pulse was weak. As carefully as he could, he rolled her over and unbuttoned the bloodsoaked blouse. The bullet had struck her in the left upper abdomen, probably in the spleen. He leaned over and put his ear to her mouth, listening and feeling for breath, watching her chest expansion. Her airway was open, and her lungs probably okay, but he could already see some distension in her belly from internal bleeding.

“What’s wrong with Mom?” Abby wailed. “Daddy, what’s the matter?”

“She’s all right,” he assured her, though the wound could be fatal if not treated quickly in an operating room.

“We’ve got paramedics about five miles out,” Zwick said. “They’re coming up the shoulder in an ambulance. I’d estimate fifteen to twenty minutes.”

“I want her in your chopper,” Will told him. “You can have her on the helipad at University Hospital in ten minutes.”

“That’s not an air ambulance, Doctor. It’s just a row of seats.”

“It beats waiting. Make it happen, Frank.”

The SAC nodded and ran over to talk to his pilot.

“Abby?” said Karen, her eyes fluttering.

“We’re all here,” Will said.

“
Where’s Abby?
” Karen struggled to rise. “
Where’s my baby?
”

“Right here, Mom.” Abby knelt beside her mother.

Karen seized her hand, then raised her head, looking right and left like a lioness guarding her cubs. “Where’s Hickey?”

“Dead,” Will told her again. “We’re all safe, babe.”

It took a few moments for this to register, but at last Karen sighed and closed her eyes again. Will estimated her blood pressure by checking her various pulses, carotid, femoral, and radial. Then he checked her nail perfusion. She was going into shock. They needed to get moving.

“Daddy’s going to make you all better, Mom.”

Karen smiled a ghostly smile. “I know, baby.”

“Does it hurt a lot?”

“With you holding my hand, nothing hurts.”

Abby laughed through tears.

“All set,” Zwick said, coming over from the chopper. “Ready to move her?”

“I’m a little under the weather,” Will told him.

“My dad got shot in the leg,” Abby said proudly. “He was trying to save me.”

“Whose money is this?” called a state trooper from the median. He was holding up the ransom briefcase. Beside him, his partner was cuffing Cheryl’s hands behind her back.