Tracking Shot by Colin Campbell (i can read book club .txt) 📗

now was the getaway money and he’d make good his escape. He had two out of the three mercenaries left to protect him and a five-year-old girl for insurance.

McNulty stopped outside the patio doors and held the bags out to either side, as high as he could, given the weight. Ten million dollars is a lot of paper. The bags strained the muscles of his shoulders. The door clicked open and he lowered his arms. A gun poked out through the opening, waved McNulty forward, then withdrew inside the office.

Birds sang a dawn chorus in the trees and the boundary hedgerow. A squirrel darted across the lawn, paused mid-stride like a frozen statue, then disappeared into the shrubbery. McNulty took a deep breath of sweet morning air, nudged the door open with his foot, and went inside. The office was more like a wood paneled library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along two walls. Tilly was sitting in a big, ornate chair in front of the fireplace. Despite it being July, a tangle of logs blazed in the hearth. The second gunman stood behind her with one hand on her shoulder, the other hidden behind the carved wood and fancy cloth of the backrest. The first gunman stepped behind McNulty and shut the patio door. One eye was bloodshot and the side of his face was grey with smoke damage.

McNulty winced and sucked in his breath. “Ouch. That must sting.”

The man raised the gun from McNulty’s chest to his face. “You want to find out?”

McNulty shook one of the bags. “You want to make sure I brought the money first?”

Smoke Face lowered the gun to center mass. “I want to make you squeal like a pig.”

McNulty smiled. “Duelling banjos. Takes me back to the Cloverleaf Boys.”

Smoke Face didn’t return the smile. His face hurt too much. “And look how that turned out.”

McNulty let the bags dangle from each hand. “They didn’t have the money.”

DeVries stepped away from the bookcase where he’d been watching the pissing contest and stood beside the chair, careful not to block the girl or her captor’s aim. “We didn’t have the girl.”

McNulty let out a sigh and looked at the man responsible for his sister’s adoption. The businessman with fingers in many pies and tentacles that spread all the way to Crag View Children’s Home and McNulty’s childhood. Somebody had once asked McNulty to describe his childhood—a psychologist or mind doctor or the like. “Short,” had been the answer. Cut short had been the truth, with the swing of a Bible and a broken nose; the last time he’d seen his five-year-old sister, before he’d even known she was his sister. Until Harlan DeVries brought her to America and McNulty followed. Too late to save her childhood. Too early to form a special bond. And here he was again, with another five-year-old girl in another headmaster’s office.

“The girl’s the only reason I brought the money.”

DeVries kept the strain out of his voice. “Then all is right with the world.”

The security lights clicked off as daylight triggered the sensors and dawn became daytime. Two miles west of the I-95 three SWAT teams breached the Linwood Country Club and secured the premises—the wrong place to rescue Tilly Carter but the right place to distract the entire Waltham PD. McNulty glanced at the daylight streaming in through the patio doors, then turned to face the man whose nose he wanted to break. “Not yet it’s not.”

DeVries took another sideways step so McNulty had a good view of the girl in the chair. The gunman squeezed her shoulder but kept his other hand behind the backrest. Smoke Face moved in front of the fireplace and waved his gun at the sports bags.

McNulty tightened his grip on the handles. “You don’t get a penny until the girl’s out the door.”

DeVries looked disappointed. He shook his head. “This is America. We don’t deal in pennies.”

McNulty braced himself. “And I’m a Yorkshireman. I don’t deal.”

DeVries tilted his head and sighed. “Two against one might not be terrible odds. But bringing a sports bag to a gunfight makes them seem a whole lot worse.”

McNulty hefted the bags to show their weight. “Two bags.”

DeVries nodded and both gunmen brought their guns to bear. “Two guns.”

McNulty glanced at Smoke Face but focused on the other gunman. He still had one hand squeezing Tilly’s shoulder but now the other hand rested on top of the backrest. The gun was the same as his colleague’s. Both were out in the open where McNulty could see them. He did an exaggerated sweep of the room as he looked from Smoke Face to the man behind Tilly. He made a quick detour to take in Harlan DeVries then focussed on Smoke Face. He was the main threat. He was the nearest, and after having been shot in the face with a blank cartridge, he was also the most committed. This time Smoke Face didn’t wave the gun; it was pointed straight at McNulty’s chest.

“The bags.”

McNulty tried to keep calm but his heart was pounding in his chest. The pulse sounded so loud he was sure everyone could hear it. He wondered briefly if they could hear it down the other end of the line, if the sound on a video call was different to a voice call. He glanced at the phone in his breast pocket to make sure the camera lens was still visible. Smoke Face stepped forward and raised his gun.

“Bags.”

McNulty let his shoulders sag. The sigh was full of resignation and surrender. He held the bags out in front of him and dropped them on the floor. Both guns were pointing at him. Nobody was aiming at Tilly. That was good. Kind of. He wanted to keep them pointing at him but would prefer to reduce them by one. “I suppose you want to count it.”

DeVries nodded. Smoke Face lowered his gun and knelt between the bags.

SIXTY

This was the awkward part. McNulty didn’t want Smoke Face