Until Judgment Day

W
EDNESDAY
, N
OVEMBER
27, 5:30
P.M.

“
E
VERYBODY ON THE FLOOR
!
Close your eyes and cover your heads with your hands.”

Silhouetted by a bright neon light in the parking lot that read
BAY LIQUOR EMPORIUM
, a gunman dashed into the store and slammed the door behind him. “Get down, now!”

He quickly checked out the situation. Stuffed with unopened cases of beer, wine, liquor, and food, along with Thanksgiving decorations, the store had barely enough room to walk through the aisles, much less hide someone from view.

Except for a lone customer—a pudgy bald man in a business suit who looked like an accountant—and one clerk, it looked empty.

The clerk behind the cash register looked up, startled. “What the hell—”

“I said drop to the floor!”

The clerk's hand inched toward the edge of the checkout counter but before it reached the silent alarm button, the bandit squeezed off three quick rounds from his old nickel-plated .45-caliber military automatic. They reverberated through the room like a howitzer.

The first slug shattered the beer cooler's glass door, launching a foamy yellow wave of pressurized Corona Extra that spewed over the beancounter who was studying the champagne selection.

The second bullet hit the snack display like a freight train, pulverizing a chest-high stack of canned nuts and a couple dozen bags of pretzels and chips. The remnants rained down on the head of the terrified man who dived to the floor, rolled behind the wine rack, curled up in a fetal position, and clasped his arms over his head.

The third slammed into the clerk's sternum, driving him backward into the whiskey display, killing him before his body slumped to the floor.

The bandit sprinted around the counter and spat on the clerk. “Tol' you to get down, you dumb asshole.”

He punched the No Sale button, yanked the cash drawer open, scooped up a handful of bills, and started to flee. Then he turned around and licked his lips.

“What the fuck.” He grabbed a pint bottle of Wild Turkey, twisted off the top and took a deep swig, then vaulted the counter and bolted for the door.

Before he got there, another clerk ran in from a storage room in the rear carrying a 12-gauge shotgun. “Stop, you son of a bitch.”

Before the clerk could raise the scattergun's muzzle the robber fired again. The bullet tore through the clerk's left shoulder, spun him around, and knocked him to the floor. The shotgun discharged and obliterated a set of shelves full of cognac and brandy.

The bleeding clerk moaned. When he heard the engine roar, he climbed to his knees and crawled to the door just in time to see the getaway vehicle fish-tail into the early evening traffic.

S
ANTA
R
ITA
C
OUNTY
S
HERIFF
David Granz flipped the wipers to high speed and squinted through the wet windshield to watch the narrow, steep, pitch-black road. Above the trees, he could make out the faint glow of Felton Village five miles ahead.

A tinny female voice crackled through the police radio that was tucked under the dashboard of his unmarked motor pool Ford Taurus and, startled, he swerved slightly into the oncoming lane. “Shit!” He corrected, grateful that old Highway Nine was deserted on Thanksgiving eve.

“All units, all units.” The County Communications Center dispatcher's voice was tense but controlled. “Stand by for an all-points bulletin.”

Granz reached under the dash and twisted the radio's volume-control knob to drown out the rhythmic slapping of the windshield wipers.

“All units, Comm Center—Santa Rita P.D. reports an armed robbery at Bay Liquor. Shots fired. One store clerk dead. Second injured. Suspect is a lone white male, late twenties, fled in a late-model white Ford minivan, California license 4-S-L-R-7-2-9 reported stolen this afternoon in San Jose.”

Although the CHP patrolled major highways into and out of Santa Rita, the old road over the mountains into San Jose no longer carried much traffic. And, Granz lamented, cuts to the Sheriff's Department budget had necessitated severe reductions in the Valley's police coverage. He was alone.

He grabbed the radio mike and keyed the Transmit button. “Comm Center, One-A-One.”

The tinny voice came back immediately: “Go, Sheriff.”

“I'm northbound on Highway Nine south of Felton—how long ago did that two-eleven at Bay Liquor go down?”

“The clerk called 911 seven minutes ago—at five forty-two
P
.
M
.—immediately after the suspect took off.”

“I left the County Building at five-thirty. If the shooter's headed this way, he's not very far behind me. I'll—What the hell!”

A white minivan slid around a sharp curve on the wet pavement, recovered, then roared up close to the rear of the Taurus, bumped it hard, blasted its horn, and blinded Granz with its high beams.

The minivan swerved into the southbound lane, sideswiped the Taurus, accelerated, and pulled back into the northbound lane a few car lengths in front of the unmarked police car.

Granz cranked down the driver's window, grabbed a magnetic portable red light off the floor, dropped it onto the roof of the car, and plugged the cord into the lighter socket. The flashing red light lit up the rear of the van as it tried unsuccessfully to open up some distance between itself and the police car.

“Comm Center, One-A-One.” Granz steered with one hand and keyed the radio mike with the other. “A white Ford van just passed me going like a bat outta hell.”

He speeded up to within a few feet of the van and read the license plate: “License 4-S-L-R-7-2-9. I'm in pursuit of the two-eleven suspect three or four miles south of Felton Village.”

“Copy, One-A-One.”

“My Valley substation closed at five o'clock. Ten-twenty-one the resident deputy, and advise.”

“Ten-four, stand by.”

The van sped up to seventy, lost control on a sharp turn, skidded, knocked down a 25
MPH
speed-limit sign, then recovered.

“One-A-One, Comm Center.”

“Go,” Granz answered.

“I contacted Deputy Smith by landline. He's ten-seventeen from home to Felton.”

“That's—”

Suddenly, an arm extended from the van's driver window and a flash erupted. Granz ducked instinctively, momentarily blinded. The bullet shattered the Taurus' windshield, showering him with glass shards, and plowed into the seat back. A second bullet knocked out the police car's left headlight, but a third missed.

“Comm Center, ten-thirty-three, ten-thirty-three,” Granz shouted into the mike. “The son of a—the suspect's firing at me.”

The tinny voice dropped into a matter-of-fact, professional monotone: “One-A-One, copy that shots are being fired. Stand by while I dispatch backup. All units, ten-three—switch to channel C. Communications Center will direct radio traffic on this channel.”

A brief pause was followed by another calm radio call: “One-A-One, all available units are ten-seventeen to your location. Ten-twenty-six, five minutes.”

“Copy ETA of closest unit five minutes, Comm Center, but that's gonna be too late. If I don't stop this guy before he gets to Felton, a lot of people are gonna get hurt.”

Granz tailgated the van around another curve. When it opened into a short straightaway, he kicked the Taurus into passing gear. The big V-8 surged the car forward. He pulled into the left lane and eased alongside the van, aligning the Taurus' right front fender a few inches from the van's left rear.

When the van started into another left hand turn, Granz jerked the steering wheel sharply to the right. The Taurus' right front fender smashed into the van just beneath the left rear side window.

As if in slow motion, the Ford van spun counterclockwise and flopped onto its right side. Sparks flew from under the sliding van. Then it rolled again, teetered on the soggy shoulder, and toppled over a steep embankment. It crashed into the bottom of a deep ravine and exploded into a fireball, but the rain-swollen San Lorenzo River doused the fire almost instantly.

Meanwhile, realizing his own car was out of control, Granz pulled the steering wheel to the left, but it was too late to countersteer into the high-speed spin. Before the Taurus could regain traction, it slammed into the southbound guardrail, caving in both left-side doors.

Granz' momentum drove his skull into the door post at sixty-plus miles per hour, opening a huge gash over his eye.

The car careened back across the road, and when it hit the opposite guardrail Granz' head smashed into the driver's window. The car slid backward along the guardrail for about thirty feet, finally slamming into a huge oak tree. The front end lifted slightly into the air, then settled back into the mud, engine racing and red light flashing.

Granz kicked open the front passenger door and staggered from the car, shaking his head. His vision was blurry. He pulled his off-duty weapon, jacked the slide back to cock it, and glanced around quickly, unsure where the suspect was. Seeing nothing, he grabbed a four-cell Maglite from inside the car but he couldn't see anything in the flashlight's beam except thick, slanted sheets of driving rain.

Before he could make his way back to where the van had flown off the road, he heard a siren coming from the direction of Felton Village. The police car rounded a turn, its high beams lighting up the scene, then skidded to a sideways stop beside Granz' Taurus.

Deputy Sheriff Douglas Smith threw open the car door and sprinted toward Granz, gun drawn.

“Where's the suspect?”

Granz pointed toward the river.

Smith aimed his flashlight at Granz: “Man, your head looks like it went through a meat grinder, Sheriff. You all right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Granz touched his forehead and pulled away bloody fingers. “Damn, I think I'm—”

He collapsed onto the wet pavement and rolled onto his side, a bloody pool spreading from his head and running into a culvert.