Storm prey

"Second screw is in… as my girlfriend said to me last night," the neurosurgeon said. The women in the room booed him, and he said, cheerfully, "Just trying to speak truth to power."

Weather moved back up and stretched the loosened scalp over the cap.

Maret asked, "Is there enough?"

Weather said, "Of course. I'm even better at topology than Rick," and Hanson, the bone-cutter, who had been sweating the fit on the caps, made a rude noise. Out of the corner of her eye, Weather saw Kristy push out of the OR and into the scrub room.

Weather thought, He might have a hand grenade. Oh my God, don't let him have a hand grenade, then put it out of her mind and began suturing the scalp.

Maret asked, "Hearts?"

"Ellen is looking shaky. She's been worse," a cardiologist said.

"Sara's good," said another.

Weather was tying as she went along the suture line, adjusting the skin as she went. Some of the edges were drying, and since she had a bit extra, she snipped it off and sutured the more viable scalp.

She did a knot, couldn't help herself, and glanced up again:

No Lucas, no Virgil, no skinhead. He'd gone.

19

CAPPY SCOUTED the halls from the back of the hospital down toward the operating rooms. He'd spent enough time cruising the various wards that he knew most of the ins and outs of the place, but still got lost from time to time.

The storage closet was the center of his explorations. If he hadn't been there to kill somebody, he might have thought about moving in. Nobody ever came to the closet, and he rarely saw anybody in the adjacent hallways. There were plenty of toilets and showers around. Hell, maybe he could have gotten a job. He'd spent quite a bit of time pushing patients around the hallways, was begi

But, he was there to kill somebody.

He didn't mention it to Barakat, but he'd put two grenades in his jacket pocket on this last day, along with the Judge in his belt.

Made him feel weird; like a suicide bomber.

On the other hand, he'd had a vision, the last time he'd been in his bed. The vision was simple enough: he'd been ru

Only trouble was, he always seemed to be ru

He'd hit Karki

With the two-by-four in place, he went back to the observation room, squeezed through the door, quietly as possible, looked down, and saw the woman in the center of the OR, straight below him.

A man next to him, in a doctor's jacket, was watching so intensely that his mustache seemed to bristle. Cappy asked him, quietly, "Where are they?"

"Almost there. Five minutes," the man said.

Cappy checked the observation room: no cowboy. He could hear the people talking below, but it was so cryptic, so medical, that he understood very little of it. He took a seat.

Then the woman said, "Cap," and Cappy stiffened. Had she said his name? What? There was some shuffling around, and she looked up at him, and then away. The guy who moved in front of her was large, and all he could see was her head. He sat back, watching, tense. Nothing happened. Had he misheard?

She never looked back up. Still, he was uneasy. Then the other doc said it: "Cap." This time, he was sure of what was said, "Cap," but not what it meant. Nobody was looking at him.

What was happening? Maybe nothing. Still: maybe take a quick look in the halls, then come back and wait until she left the OR. Karki

Lucas and the other man never spoke to her, but both sprinted to the stairwell, the long-haired man pulling a pistol from the back of his coat as he went through the door, and then they were gone. Kristy stood in the empty hall for a moment, wondering what had happened, and whether she should go back in the OR or… hide. LUCAS STOPPED at the top of the stairwell and asked, "You set?"

"Go," Virgil said.

Lucas pushed the door and peeked. A man was walking away from them, a hundred feet down the hall, a skinhead, he thought. He was afraid to call out, because the actual skinhead might still be inside the observation room. Instead, he pulled back and said, quietly, "I think he's in the hall, but I'm not sure. I'm going after him. You check the observation area."

"Okay."

Lucas stepped out in the hallway and they both walked down toward the observation room. The man ahead of them looked back, as he turned a corner, a kind of double take, and Lucas said, "Fuck it, that's him," and shouted, "Hey!"

The skinhead disappeared around the corner, ru

Lucas shouted, "Stop," feeling stupid, because the guy wasn't going to stop, and then they were after him again, a hundred feet, clearing the next corner in time to see the skinhead clear the next corner, going after him again.

At the next corner, the skinhead was in the open in a long hall of locked doors, and the skinhead turned and looked back at them and his arm came up with a pistol, and he fired once, a deafening boom, and they both jumped back behind the wall as buckshot broke plaster at the T of the intersection of the hallways.

"Holy shit," Virgil said, "that's a shotgun or something," and he cleared the hallway and fired a single shot after the skinhead, missing, and the slug popped into the brick wall thirty feet down the corridor.

"Ricochets," Lucas shouted, and the skinhead turned another corner, and then they were both half jogging, weapons extended in front of them, and Lucas said, "Can't be much more of this," and Virgil said, "Easy, easy, he could ambush us at one of these corners, take it easy…"

They eased up to the next corridor, did a peek, and found the adjoining hall empty. "He's in a stairwell," Lucas said. He'd spotted the door, and they hurried up to it, pulled it open carefully, heard the clattering of feet on the stairs below them, and Lucas started down. Virgil held back, hanging over the rail looking down, his pistol dangling in front of him, and two floors below, the skinhead stopped to look up. Virgil could see his face, leg, and foot, and fired another shot.