The Twelfth Card

But then: No. He’s not getting away. She looked around the corner, low, fast, and saw Boyd drop out of the hall window into the side yard.

Sachs hesitated, looking back at the woman. She’d passed out, and her hand had fallen away from the terrible wound on her leg. Already, blood pooled under her torso.

Christ…

She started toward her. Then stopped. No. You know what you have to do. Amelia Sachs ran to the side window. She looked out, fast again, in case he was waiting for her. But, no, Boyd expected that she’d save the woman. Sachs saw him sprinting away from the apartment down the cobblestoned alley without a glance back.

She looked down. A six-foot drop to the ground. Her story about the pain from the fall she’d told to Sellitto twenty minutes ago was fake; the chronic pain wasn’t.

Oh, brother.

She scooted up onto the sill, clear of the broken glass, and swung her legs out, then pushed off. Trying to ease the shock of the landing, Sachs kept her knees bent. But it was a long drop and as she landed her left leg collapsed and she tumbled onto gravel and grass, crying out at the pain.

Breathing hard, she struggled to her feet and started off after Boyd, now with an honest limp slowing her up. God gets you for lying, she thought.

Shoving her way through a row of anemic bushes, Sachs broke from the yard into an alley that ran behind the houses and apartments. She looked right and left. No sign of him.

Then, a hundred feet ahead of her, she saw a large wooden door swing open. This was typical of older parts of New York – unheated, stand-alone garages lining alleys behind row and town houses. It made sense that Boyd would keep his car garaged; the Search and Surveillance team hadn’t found it anywhere on the surrounding blocks. Jogging forward as best she could, Sachs reported his location to the command post.

“Copy, Five Eight Eight Five. We’re on our way, K.”

Moving unsteadily over the cobblestones, she flipped open the cylinder of Sellitto’s Smittie and grimaced to see that he was among the more cautious gun owners; the cylinder beneath the hammer was empty.

Five shots.

Versus Boyd’s automatic with three times that many and possibly a spare clip or two in his pocket.

Ru

Boyd finished the maneuver and, with the garage door as a shield between him and Sachs, accelerated away fast.

Sachs dropped hard to the cobblestones and saw that the only target she had was under a narrow gap at the bottom of the garage door: the rear tires.

Prone, Sachs sighted on the right one.

It’s a rule in urban-combat shooting never to fire unless you “know your backdrop,” that is, where the bullet will end up if you miss your shot – or if it penetrates your target and continues on. As Boyd’s car peeled away from her, Sachs considered this protocol for a fraction of a second, then – thinking of Geneva Settle – came up with a rule of her own: This fucker’s not getting away.

The best she could do to control the shot was to aim low so that the bullet would ricochet upward and lodge in the car itself if she missed.

Cocking the gun to single action, so the trigger pull was more sensitive, she aimed and squeezed off two rounds, one slightly higher than the other.

The slugs zipped under the garage door and at least one punctured the right rear tire. As the car lurched to the right and collided hard with the brick wall of the alley, Sachs rose and sprinted toward the wreck, wincing from the pain. At the garage door she paused and looked around it. It turned out that both right tires were flattened; she’d hit the front one as well. Boyd tried to drive away from the wall, but the front wheel was bent and frozen against the chassis. He climbed out, swinging the gun back and forth, searching for the shooter.

“Boyd! Drop the weapon!”

His response was to fire five or six shots toward the door. Sachs responded with one shot, which struck the car body inches from him, then she rolled to her right and rose fast, noting that Boyd was fleeing from her into the street beyond.

She could see the backdrop this time – a brick wall across the far street – and squeezed off another round.

But just as the gun fired, Boyd turned aside as if he’d been expecting this. The slug sailed past him, also inches away. He returned fire, a barrage of shots, and she dropped hard to the slimy cobblestones again, her radio shattering. He disappeared around the corner, to the left.

One shot left. Should’ve used only one on the tire, she thought angrily, as she rose and hurried after him as best she could on the painful leg. A pause at the corner where the alley met the sidewalk, a fast glance to the left. She saw his solid form sprinting away from her.

She grabbed the Motorola and pressed transmit. Nope, it was gone. Shit. Call 911 on the cell? Too much to explain, too little time to relay a message. Somebody in one of the buildings had to’ve called in about the shots. She continued after Boyd, breath rasping, feet slapping on the ground.

At the far intersection, the end of the block, a blue-and-white rolled to a stop. The officers didn’t climb out; they hadn’t heard the shots and didn’t know the killer and Sachs were here. Boyd looked up and saw them. He stopped fast and leapt over a small fence then ducked underneath the stairway of an apartment building leading to the first floor. She heard kicking as he tried to break into the basement apartment.

Sachs waved toward the officers but they were looking up and down the cross street and didn’t see her.

It was then that a young couple stepped out the front door of the apartment directly across from Boyd. Closing the door behind them, the young man zipped up his vest against the chill day and the woman took his arm. They started down the stairs.

The kicking stopped.

Oh, no…Sachs realized what was about to happen. She couldn’t see Boyd but she knew what he was going to do. He was sighting on the couple now. He was going to shoot one or both, steal their keys and escape into the apartment – hoping again that the police would divide their forces to look after the wounded.

“Get down!” Sachs shouted.

Nearly a hundred feet away, the couple didn’t hear.

Boyd would be drawing a target on them now, waiting for them to get closer.

“Get down!”

Sachs rose and limped toward them.

The couple noticed her but couldn’t make out what she was saying. They paused, frowning.

“Get down!” she repeated.

The man cupped his hand behind his ear, shaking his head.

Sachs stopped, took a deep breath and fired her last bullet into a metal garbage can about twenty feet from the couple.

The woman screamed and they turned, scrabbling up the stairs into their apartment. The door slammed.

At least she’d managed to -

Beside Sachs a block of limestone exploded, pelting her with hot lead and bits of stone. A half second later she heard the loud pop of Boyd’s gun.

Another shot and another, driving Sachs back, bullets striking feet from her. She stumbled through the yard, tripping over a foot-high wire edging fence and some plaster lawn ornaments, Bambis and elves. One slug grazed her vest, knocking the breath from her lungs. She went down hard in a planting bed. More slugs slammed home nearby. Boyd then turned toward the officers leaping out of their cruiser. He peppered the squad car with several rounds, flattening the tires and driving the officers to cover behind the car. The uniforms were staying put but at least they’d have called the assault in and other troops would be on the way.