The Hunted

62

Jonathan Waller had run right by his partner, who was writhing in pain on the sidewalk and simultaneously trying to catch his breath. Waller sprinted up the street and heard the discharge of a handgun in the middle of the intersection of George and Charles Streets, twenty-five yards ahead of him. Boom, boom, boom. Three shots.

And suddenly Waller’s heart was in his throat. There was simply no other way of describing his fear at that instant — a pulsing, choking fullness that prevented him from breathing.

As he came running around the corner onto Charles, his eyes immediately locked on the police officer crouched next to a body that was laid out face up near the Masonic Cemetery’s front entrance. The torso was on the blacktop, the head against the curb.

In the darkness it was difficult for Waller to see. He held out hope that the victim who was sprawled across the road was the leather-jacketed man he had wounded only a short time ago. But if it wasn’t the perp, the alternative was too painful to consider. As he approached, he saw a Glock forty caliber handgun lying in the street.

At that moment, his heart, having appeared to drop down out of his throat, lost its rhythm for a second. A mere flutter in his chest.

Despite the cold air, Waller instantly began to sweat and suddenly became aware of how truly exhausted he was. And as he stood now in front of the fallen man, he heard the officer calling for an ambulance over his two-way.

That’s when he finally gathered the nerve to look at the victim, when he saw the face of Harper Payne.

For the first time in his life, Jonathan Waller was frozen, unable to think, unsure of what to do.

“He had the gun in his hand and he turned toward me with it, it looked like he was bringing it up to fire…”

The cop’s voice was somewhere in the background, in some far-off place, where Jonathan Waller wished he could be.

Away from here. Anywhere but here.

Scott Haviland’s ribs were aching something fierce, and every breath reminded him of the blow he had taken moments before. With his left hand strapped across his torso as if holding his chest would lessen the pain, he came limping up to Charles Street and tried to size up the scene with one quick glance at the dark roadway, which was now illuminated by a quarter moon poking through the thick cloud cover. His eyes darted from one figure to another: perp on the ground, cop barking into his two-way, partner standing over the body.

But something was wrong. Waller’s posture was depressed: his shoulders were drooping and his arms were hanging limply at his sides.

“Jon?” Haviland asked as he puffed toward him.

As Waller turned, Haviland’s first impressions were confirmed: this was not good. It was then that Haviland saw the face of the man lying on the ground. It was then that he again heard the screams of sirens approaching in the distance.

“It’s Harper,” Waller managed.

Haviland crouched down to slap a couple of fingers against Payne’s neck to check for a pulse. Blood was accumulating beneath his head, pooling in a puddle against the curb.

The cop knelt next to Haviland. “I didn’t know the guy was one of us, I’m really sorry.”

Waller bent down and grasped Payne’s hand in his own. “The man says he’s sorry,” Waller said wryly to no one in particular.