Wicked Prey

it, did a peek at the corner and saw a tall man in a dark suit all the way at the end of a long hall, at the foot of a red-carpeted stairs, and the man saw him and fired three or four shots that zinged off the wall, and Lucas was about to peek again when a man called to him from a side room, “Help us, we’ve got a dead man here,” and Lucas saw a dry country face close to the floor, a man on his hands and knees under a gold plaque that said “Nondenominational Chapel,” and he said, “Help’s coming,” and he did another peek, saw a clear hallway, and launched himself into it.
    Shrake came up and shouted, “Where’d they go?” and Lucas shouted back, “Up the stairs.” He stepped into the hallway and there were two quick gunshots from the open ground-level door and two bullets smashed plaster off a pilaster next to his head and he went down and somebody from the doorway shouted, “Police!” and Shrake screamed, “Hey-hey-hey-hey, we’re police, police here, for Christ’s sakes,” and then Larkin came up and waved his hat around the corner, and then out with his hands up, and they heard more shouting outside.
    A uniformed cop came in, his face white and scared, clutching his gun like a hammer, and he shouted, “You got them?”
    Lucas shouted back, “They went up, they’re in the skyway,” and they heard another gust of shots from up above, and Lucas and Shrake ran up the stairs, following their pistols.
    * * *
    COHN, CRUZ, and Lane made the top of the stairs, breathing hard, paused in a niche of a wall. Lane slapped another magazine into his Uzi and Cohn asked Cruz, “Where’d they come from?” and she said, “I don’t know—but it’s the same guy we saw on television. The big dark-haired guy.”
    “Okay.” Cohn looked both ways. “We got a fifty-yard run to the parking garage. If they’re in the garage, we go down the side stairs and out the side and go for the street car.”
    “They won’t let any cars out of the garage,” Cruz said. “I think we gotta go for the street car. Right into the ramp, then down the stairs. That’ll bring us out on . . .”
    “We know. Let’s go.”
    They ran then, sprinting, Lane still carrying the bag, but he heard clinking sounds as he went, and looked back and saw a trail of gold bars, like Hansel’s bread crumbs . . .
    They ran through the glass tunnel of the skyway, across a street; as they were coming to the entrance, a cop opened the door and stepped into the skyway, saw them, ducked back as Lane let loose another volley with the Uzi, and then they were at the entrance and they could hear the cop running down the stairs that led to the street—the stairs they were going to take.
    “We go down the entrance ramp, the car ramp,” Cruz gasped out.
    They were at the ramp when the big dark-haired cop popped through the door behind them, fired a shot, and Cruz felt it hit her in the small of the back, felt a ripping wound at her stomach, and she went down and gurgled, “I’m hit . . .”
    Lane fired a burst from the Uzi over her head, and then ran on down the ramp. Cohn was ahead of her, fifteen feet away and lower, already going down the ramp, and she saw him lift his gun, thought he was shooting at the cop. She never saw the muzzle flash.
    Cohn shot her in the forehead and followed Lane down the ramp.
    * * *
     
    WHEREVER THEY were, they’d left the skyway—Lucas and Shrake could see sixty or seventy yards of it, and it was empty. “Parking garage,” Lucas said. Shrake shouted at Larkin, who was coming up behind with his radio: “They’re in the parking garage, the Clayton Ramp, get your guys outside . . .”
    “There’s gold bars,” Larkin gasped. “There’s little gold bars all over the place . . .”
    Lucas ran toward the door, waited until Shrake caught him, then Shrake yanked the door and Lucas, ready to fire, saw the three of them just disappearing down the parking ramp and fired once, twice, and saw one of them go down. Another one opened with the Uzi and they both dodged back into the hall, behind the concrete blocks, and the slugs banged off the door and went God-knows-where, but neither one of them was hurt.
    “I think I hit one,” Lucas grunted. “They’re running down the entrance ramp.”
    Shrake nodded and peeked around the door. “They’re gone. You ready?”
    “Let’s go.”
    Using cars as cover, they made it to the mouth of the down-spiral as quickly as they could, found the woman lying on her back,