The Marksman

A Middle…

The office building is a high-rise with a multi-story parking garage connecting to one side of it. Inside a fourth-story office, vacant of all furniture, Conrad and Wojack stand at the window looking down at the street below. Both wear surgical gloves. Wojack looks like a bright Ivy League college senior dressed for a job interview. He has a suction cup against a lower corner of the window; he’s working around it with a glass-cutter. Finally he pops the glass disc loose and sets it aside on the windowsill, leaving a neat, open hole in the window. We notice he leaves the glass cutter and the suction cup on the sill. He picks up that familiar 308 rifle and screws a ’scope sight onto it. Conrad doesn’t smoke here — he’s too professional for that. He wears a headset-and-mouthpiece cell phone. He listens to his headset and talks back to it: “Affirmative.” He turns to Wojack: “It’s on. It’s a ‘go.’”

Conrad looks at his watch. Wojack aims his rifle down through the hole in the glass at the street below. Conrad steps forward beside him to look down out the window. Wojack says, very dryly, “Do I get fifty points for a little old blind lady in the crosswalk?”

Down there through crosshairs he’s peering at the steps of the government building across the street. On the fringes of the ’scope’s image he can see a gathering of cops, officials and reporters with their TV cameras and microphones, all waiting for the limo to arrive…

Now Conrad and turns to look past Wojack into the darker recesses of the unfurnished office. He sees Gootch and Harry bracketing the unconscious Radford. Harry is pasting his phony beard back in place.

Conrad says to Harry, “Time to give him the upper. Wake the son of a bitch up.” Then, to Gootch, “Lock the elevator and go start the van.”

Obeying, Gootch exits.

Conrad watches Harry take a disposable syringe from its package and begins to fill it from a phial.

At the window Wojack, sighting down through the hole, tightens his aim.

In the ’scope sight he can see the windshield of the limousine — the one with the foreign flags — as it pulls up, escorted by cops on motorcycles. Reporters crowd against a cordon of cops; a wedge of security people surrounds the man emerging from the limo — that same vaguely foreign VIP from the plane. Wojack’s practiced grip zeroes in the crosshairs on the center of his torso and there is the sudden sound of the shot: the image jerks upward in recoil and then settles down again as the VIP falls dead on the steps.

By the time the VIP has fallen dead to the steps, Wojack has already wheeled back away from the window and is jacking a fresh cartridge into the chamber of the rifle.

Conrad and Harry drag Radford across the room, stooping to remain below sill-line, dragging the groggy man directly beneath the window.

In the street there’s a crowd around the body; people are pointing up this way. Cops rush across the street toward the building.

Quickly and efficiently, Wojack and Conrad prop Radford against the wall and place the smoking rifle in his hands. Harry takes a quick look out the window.

Conrad murmurs, “Let’s go…”

The three run to the door.

Radford stirs — a twitch…

In the fourth floor corridor, an elevator stands open. Gootch waits there, holding the door. Conrad, Wojack and Harry run into it. Conrad turns a key. The doors close…

Down on the ground level several cops swarm across the lobby and up the emergency stairs. Two or three stand guard in the lobby, watching the elevators. The indicator of one elevator shows that it’s descending from the 4^th floor… 3^rd… 2^nd…

In the vacant office Radford struggles to wake up.

Cops thunder up the echoing stairs, guns up.

In the lobby, cops watch while the indicator of that descending elevator passes the ground floor. A cop punches the button in angry frustration. The indicator stops at “B.” The cops look at each other; suddenly two of them bolt for the stairs and go running down the stairs out of sight…

In the vacant office Radford lurches to his feet, dazed.

In the garage Conrad’s van roars past a doorway, heading out the exit. Its license plates, smeared with mud, are unreadable. A split second after it disappears up the ramp, the two cops come running out of the stairwell in the office building next door. They see nothing.

In the vacant office the fat cop Slade busts the door in and drops to a two-handed crouched shooting position. He sees:

— no Radford.

Nothing.

Slade has just enough time to be amazed before Radford jumps him from behind the door, slamming the buttstock of the 308 rifle against the back of Slade’s head. Slade goes down. Radford drops the rifle, scoops up Slade’s revolver and nightstick, and bolts out of the office…

Out in the corridor, he lurches groggily and stumbles out of sight around a nearby corner just before two cops come racing out of the stairwell. As they run forward, elevator doors open, decanting several more cops into the corridor. All of ’em squeeze into the vacant office, because it’s the one whose door stands open — the cops go in fast, guns up, and the first ones trip over the stunned Slade, who lies clutching his injured head.

Even more cops enter; they part to make way for a veteran sergeant, Dickinson. He takes in the scene with a quick look around. Then he makes a face; it expresses volumes.

Below, in the lobby, there’s a willy-nilly darting of cops. A uniformed bald cop, having lost his hat somewhere, burrows into a crowd of officials and reporters and cops. Among them is Dickinson. There’s a babbling racket of simultaneous conversations. The bald cop approaches Dickinson. “Who’s catching?”

“All the way to the top. Commander Clay.”

“Oh shit.” The bald guy immediately straightens his uniform and examines his brass and shoe polish.

Up in the unfurnished office the scene is very busy. A technician threads his way through the throng, struggling to reach Commander Denise Clay, forties, a black woman in immaculate uniform. She is homicide chief of detectives. She’s talking to an officer: “… Probably still in the building. I want double security on every exit — doors, windows, roof, basement, every rathole. Go.”

Now she turns to face a handsome business-suit gent — Colonel Vickers. He’s near 50 — very youthfully so. A uniformed cop is talking on a walkie-talkie.

The officer behind Commander Clay talks into a cellular phone: “… Got the outside exits covered. She wants to start a sweep in the basement, work your way up—”

Vickers grabs the officer. “What’s going down?”

“Who the hell are you?”

Clay and Dickinson approach on collision course just as Vickers swings violently around in anger. They nearly butt heads. Vickers is roaring now: “What the fucking hell’s going on? You let him get loose?”

Dickinson snaps, “Who’re you?”

And Clay says to the officer with the cell phone, “Officer, show this gentleman out.”

Vickers shows his ID. “No ma’am. Not me. Colonel Vickers…”

Clay gives it a glance. She does a take and examines the ID. “White House?”

The officer with the phone is on it again. “I said he’s loose in the building! Bottle him in…”

Down there, outside the building, squad cars and motorcycles squeal into sight, bringing massive reinforcements… Cops push a growing corps of press and TV back across the street, farther from the building…

In a law firm’s low-partitioned bullpen typists at computer terminals watch as cops, with guns up, search methodically. Corners, closets, under desks.

The lobby now is utterly still. Armed police stand guard at the entrances in silent tableau… The elevators… Paramedics carry Slade out on a stretcher…

And in the multi-story garage a sudden deafening noise precedes the appearance of white-helmeted cops on motorcycles who come roaring up the ramps.

And up in the unfurnished office Clay is barking at the uniformed officer with the cell phone: “Shut down every elevator…”

The officer begins to relay the instructions into his phone…

In the elevator shaft Radford clings to a narrow perch high up inside the shaft. He’s got a firm grip with one hand; in the other he holds Slade’s service revolver. Several elevators are at various levels; two or three are moving. Then suddenly, jarring the cables, all the elevators stop. Radford reacts to the sound of men’s footsteps in a nearby corridor. He can hear voices but can’t make out the words.

On the double doors nearest him is stenciled the legend “7^th floor.” Abruptly the point of a crowbar appears, sliding through between the doors. It begins to pry the doors apart…

Radford reacts. Reaches out, nearly loses his balance, gets a grip on one of the thick cables, swings out into space…

The revolver falls from his grasp, tumbles down into darkness; after a significant and scary length of time he hears the sound when it hits bottom.

The crowbar has slipped, allowing the doors to close again, but now it’s prying them open again…

Radford clings to the swaying cable…

No choice. He allows himself to begin sliding down the cable. He goes faster and faster, dwindling downward…

The crowbar has pried the doors open enough for a cop to stick his face through; several hands hold the doors apart for him. He looks up, around, down.

All the cables are swaying.

And after a moment the cop speaks. “Nothing. Let’s go.”

In the dark at the bottom of the elevator shaft, Radford picks himself up slowly. His hands are bleeding. He lurches to one side, finds his balance uncertainly, begins groggily to feel his way around the concrete walls, searching for a way out…

In the unfurnished office frantic activity continues: Clay, Vickers, Technician. Vickers now holds a CB radio; he’s trying to listen to it while he badgers Clay: “What’ve you got on the assassin?”

The technician talks to Clay, overlapping: “Remington 40-XC National Match. Caliber 308.”

Vickers scowls. “That’s a target rifle.”

The technician says, “Yeah. We’re trying to raise the serial number. Acid.”

Vickers says into his radio, “You can assure the director we’ve got the lid screwed tight.” He cups the mouthpiece and glares daggers at Clay. “The United Nations Secretary General wants to know what the fuck’s going on here.”

Clay hasn’t got time for him. She’s tagging Dickinson: “How many men on the roof? Where’s that chopper?”

In a basement corridor a cop prowls with a nightstick past a large metal ventilation grille in the wall — a return-duct for the air-conditioning system, through which Radford, hands bleeding, filthy and grease-stained, peers out while he tries to dry the blood from his palms on his shirt. He sees the cop open a door on the opposite side of the hall and looks in: glimpse of a utility-furnace room. The cop shuts the door and comes toward Radford’s grille and turns; he posts himself on guard, his back to the wall, half blocking the grille.

Radford looks up… the inside of the duct is constricting, claustrophobic.

He’s sweating.

The cop beyond the grille doesn’t budge.

Dickinson and the bald cop walk into the unfurnished office with a uniformed Army medical corps major — Dr. Huong Trong. Dickinson walks the doctor up to Clay. “Commander — this is Major Trong… Doctor Trong.”

Clay is glad to see Trong. “Okay!” She takes the doctor by the arm and steers him toward the cut-glass hole in the window. “C. W. Radford. One of yours, I think.”

“Used to be,” Dr. Trong concedes. “Belongs to the V.A. now… You believe he’s the assassin?

“Smoking gun — literally, Doc — his fingerprints all over it — and the injured cop gave us a positive make on his Army photograph. Doesn’t leave much reasonable doubt.”

Dr. Trong says, “Did anybody actually see him do it? Because if they didn’t, you might want to keep an open mind.”

Vickers scowls at Dr. Trong. “What’re you, Major? Japanese?”

“Korean.”

“Yeah.”

The cop stands with his back to the grille. Two SWAT officers jog quickly past, toting riot shotguns; they nod to the cop; he nods back. They jog out of sight… Abruptly the grille comes slamming out from the wall, knocking the cop off his feet, and behind it Radford explodes from the duct, elbow-chops the cop and drags the insensate man (including nightstick) through a doorway into the utility-furnace room… When the door closes behind them the corridor is empty and silent…

Dickinson is bitching to Clay. “Reinforcements getting jammed up in the afternoon rush hour.”

Clay says, “I called a shift for traffic control…”

Vickers is menacing now. “Commander Clay — if you let the scumbag get away—”

Clay tells him, “If you’re upset about something, maybe you should call the police.”

“Ho, very funny. Do you have any idea the international repercussions—?”

“You people can play global politics,” Clay snaps. “I don’t care if the stiff was left or right, east or west… Colonel Vickers, I know what the situation is, here. You are not helping.”

A uniformed cop with two nightsticks climbs the stairs from landing to landing. At each floor an armed cop is posted. The cop with the two sticks waves a careless hello to a cop on duty, and turns to climb the next flight.

It’s Radford, in cop’s uniform.

On a higher landing there’s a fire emergency station with a coiled high-pressure hose. Beyond it is another uniform standing guard. When Radford climbs into sight the cop starts to smile and greet him, then scowls — recognition. Something not quite right in the way Radford wears the uniform.

“Hey—!”

The cop draws his gun… And on other landings the other cops hear his cry… And—

Radford kicks the revolver from the cop’s hand, takes the nightstick away from the cop, then — all this with lightning speed — busts the fire-hose loose, opens the valve and just as cops start shooting, he uses the high-pressure blast from the hose to drive ’em back above and below.

Bullets ricochet… He hears a cop cry as he tumbles downstairs… The cascading flood obscures his view…

On an upper floor of the garage near the top of its spiral ramp, half a dozen police motorcycles are parked on their kickstands. A helmeted motorcycle cop stands guard over the bikes, and watches everything at once. He can hear a lot of activity — distant voices; sirens in the city; running feet…

Now a uniform approaches from some distance away. He carries two nightsticks. The helmeted motorcycle cop sees him coming, but is not alarmed until Radford walks up and abruptly slams him upside the helmet with the two heavy nightsticks. The blow knocks the cop to his knees. In a flash, Radford is bestride a motorcycle.

He kicks the stand out of the way… switches on the ignition… jumps on the starter… doesn’t start…

Alerted by something somewhere, several cops come pouring into sight, chasing him…

And on the ground the helmeted motorcycle cop clears his head and reaches for his sidearm…

One last kick… Radford finally gets the motorcycle started and roars away… The motorcycle cop snatches up his walkie-talkie and barks into it…

Skittering down the hairpin turns of the spiral garage ramp, Radford can see the point several floors below where two squad cars slither into place across the foot of the ramp, blocking it — a fly couldn’t get through there, let alone a man on a bike…

To one side he sees double doors open and two cops on foot appear. They stop, amazed, with guns lifting to aim at Radford on the speeding bike… Nothing to lose now. He aims the screaming motorcycle straight at the open double door — and goes through it like a bullet, scattering the two cops… All the cops react — astonishment…

In a building hallway Radford on the motorcycle comes roaring through the hall. Several gaping civilians flatten themselves back against the side wall as the juggernaut roars by…

The motorcycle thunders through the law office bullpen, smashing glass doors, and roars down the aisle between rows of desks. Typists leap for safety.

Another hallway — and at its far end a solid closed door, and an armed cop lifting his revolver in both hands, as…

Radford on the speeding bike sees the obstacle and slithers to one side, crashing the bike through double glass doors that disintegrate to let him into—

A designer furniture showroom — and the man on the motorcycle wildly plows through the place, knocking over lamps and statuary, making a shambles of the place—

— Then he’s descending one of the building stairwells — zooming downstairs, bumpety-bump…

Vickers bulls his way out of the unfurnished office in time to see a man on a motorcycle heading straight toward him. This is very fast. Vickers gets off two wild shots but then his nerve fails and he stumbles back into the doorway as the motorcycle roars past. Vickers pushes forward out of the doorway to take aim at the dwindling fugitive, ignoring several cops and civilians who are in the line of fire, but now Clay comes out in time to knock Vickers’ shooting arm up. The bullet goes into the ceiling.

Clay is furious. “How many bystanders you want to kill?”

Vickers glares murderously at her…

In the multi-story garage the street floor is all quiet now. Two cops by the toll booths. The don’t notice when a side door softly opens. They can’t see into those shadows, and aren’t looking for it, but then—

— SMASH of sound as the motorcycle lays down rubber, screams around the backside of the toll booths, up over curbs, through a narrow pedestrian walkway, out onto the street as the two cops belatedly open fire…

On the street Radford whips out of sight around a corner, the cops cease firing, squad cars roar out of the garage in pursuit…

That afternoon the boulevards are totally coagulated with multiple lanes of afternoon rush-hour traffic: nothing moving. Gridlock. Horns honking, angry commuters shouting “Assholes!”

Police cars come up against the tangle of traffic and are stymied, as—

Radford on the motorcycle threads a swift bold path through narrow openings — going the wrong way between a couple of stopped trucks — disappearing…

The stalled police get out of their cars, stand on tiptoe and climb on top of the cars to search for the fugitive. They can’t find anything. They look at one another in baffled dismay…

Two joggers trot by in running suits. They look curiously at all the police activity — and they laugh…

Finally the rest of the motorcycle squad begins to arrive. There’s a lot of pointing and shouting. Helicopters swoop above the buildings, searching.

And nobody knows which way he went.

The helicopter that lands on the City Hall helipad has no official markings.

Vickers climbs out, fuming, followed by two business-suited FBI agents. He’s snarling to them: “I don’t believe these fuck-ups.”

Then, seeing the press approaching, Vickers composes his features into a semblance of a confident smile. The agents break trail for him through the crowd, in which Vickers is not happy to recognize newspaperman Steve Ainsworth. Cameras and microphones are shoved at Vickers. He hears a babble of ad-lib questions. He fires responses: “No, we haven’t got him in some secret hiding place. That’s ridiculous… Don’t spread rumors, Christ’s sake. We know of no conspiracy at this time. We’ve identified one suspect and we’re looking for him.”

He escapes into the building.

It’s a busy hive. Ringing phones. Whizzing printers. Talk. Clay issuing terse orders to a group of cops, including Dickinson. Beside her is Dr. Trong, still in his medical corps uniform. Vickers enters with the two FBI agents, again talking to them: “Armed and dangerous. If necessary, shoot on sight.”

Dickinson overhears this last. He swings toward Clay. “That mean we can shoot on sight?”

“No, you may not shoot on sight. You may not shoot at all unless it’s to save a life… Any fool can shoot people. You’ll get no answers out of him if he’s dead.” She’s looking pointedly at Vickers. He reacts. She takes a pace toward him. “On notice, Colonel. Homicide investigation. My turf.”

“You think this is a two-bit murder case? A very important international figure has been assassinated. We’ve got a world-class political flap — they’ve sent these gentlemen and a lot more like ’em from the FBI. We’ve got the State Department on our backs and the Joint Chiefs have their thumbs on the buttons… The President himself—”

“You’ll have to wait on line. It’s our jurisdiction.” Clay isn’t giving an inch.

Vickers glares. Then he decides to defuse things. He puts an arm confidentially across Dr. Trong’s shoulders. “Look, doctor, the man snipes at VIPs… He seems to have a little attitude problem.”

Dr. Trong politely moves away, out from under the Colonel’s arm, showing distaste for Vickers’ old-buddy nonsense.

Vickers continues to thrust: “This is the same clown that turned traitor and did a propaganda broadcast for Saddam’s goons. Now obviously his elevator doesn’t stop on all the floors. You were his shrink…”

Dr. Trong says, “That mean you want my freehand diagnosis? He was an unacknowledged POW in an Iraqi torture camp. They messed with his head. And he’s got a bullet lodged in here.” He points to his own head. “Poor son of a bitch is a mess. If he was a horse you’d have to shoot him.”

“The man committed treason, Doctor. And now assassination on top of it.”

“You trained him to be a killer, Colonel.”

“I didn’t train him to go on TV for the enemy.”

“The man had a head wound. Indescribable pain. He had no resistance left. Sure he broke. Tell me you wouldn’t have.”

Clay tries to calm things. “Iraq’s a few years ago. We’re dealing with right here, right now.”

Dr. Trong says, “For some people the blood still hasn’t dried.”

In an alley there’s a trashing of cans, bottles, empty cartons. Under the mess lies a motorcycle, almost completely hidden. Radford huddles in darkness. His police uniform is dirty and mussed. He’s far beyond exhaustion. He can hear an approaching police siren but it doesn’t bestir him. The sound dopplers down and fades. Radford drags the two nightsticks into his lap and slowly his face changes — anger and the beginnings of resolve — as purposefully he weaves the nightstick lanyards together…

There’s a loading bay behind a boarded-up store. Radford coasts the motorcycle to a stop, leaves it propped against the building and walks away, stumbling a bit, rubbing his head. He holds one nightstick, and the other swings from it. He’s made himself a nutcracker.

Outside Anne’s apartment court he waits, hidden by the wading pool. Nothing stirs.

Old instincts make him cautious. He moves forward like a soldier in a combat zone, from cover to cover… Finally he reaches Anne’s apartment. He warily eases close to a window and looks in.

It’s empty, silent. The furniture’s still in there but the place has been cleared out. No personal belongings remain. There are no sheets on the bed.

It’s puzzling; he tries to think it out. He isn’t tracking too well. This was his last hope; now he doesn’t know what to do. He stumbles with pain and exhaustion. Finally he moves away…

Across from the wading pool, in the opposite direction from Radford’s earlier angle of approach, Harry and Gootch wait in hiding, armed. Gootch is complaining sotto voce: “How the hell’d he get away from that fat cop?”

Harry whispers, “Son of a bitch must be able to handle a dose that’d put an elephant into a coma. Maybe built up a resistance from those pain drugs he takes… Maybe we should’ve thought of that.” Now he sees something; reacts; stiffens. “We got him, Gootch!”

Because that’s Radford across the court, cautiously poking his head out to search.

Harry lifts his gun to aim it.

But Radford is skittish and ducks back out of sight.

“Get the car,” Harry whispers, and heads toward Radford’s corner while Gootch wheels back toward the street.

Radford, passing under a half-open casement window, catches a reflection in it of Gootch running toward the parked car, the same car in which Harry drove Radford to the shooting range. Alerted, Radford fades from view.

Harry runs to the corner of the building and eases past it for a look.

It’s a mess of back yard fences and narrow passageways. The guy could’ve disappeared down any of them.

Harry knows they’ve lost him for now. “Shit.”

Fading with exhaustion Radford returns on foot to the loading bay behind somebody’s shuttered store. The motorcycle’s still here — well that’s not much of a surprise; even a Neanderthal knows better than to steal a police bike. “Which makes me a little sub-Neanderthal,” Radford thinks, not amused, as he gets the motorcycle started and gently pulls away into a street — down which is rolling Harry’s car.

Harry and Gootch are in it. They spot Radford at the same moment he spots them.

Radford peels away — just inches ahead of Harry’s car. The bike and the car squeal away as if welded together… Harry tries to run down the motorcycle. Radford zigzags just in time. The car fishtails after him… Gootch in the car is shooting at Radford… This is a terrific high-speed pursuit through alleys and sidewalks until—

The river. A deep wide concrete channel, bridged by a tubular pipe the diameter of an oil drum. Radford’s cycle roars up onto the conduit and zooms across the span — a spectacular high-wire balancing act…

Harry’s car slides to a stop. Gootch savagely keeps pulling the trigger of his pistol but it’s empty…

The motorcyclist flies off the far end of the pipe, slams down on the frontage road beyond, nearly falls over but then rights himself…

The two men glare in frustration as, across the viaduct, the cyclist disappears…

At sunset Radford rides the motorcycle gently around behind a gas station and stops. The place is closed up — deserted — its pumps taped off from the street. Construction equipment stands around, parked for the night. Radford dismounts, his face weary with pain in the sunset glow. He sags back against the wall, nearly passing out with the pain. His head lolls back and his eyes roll up…

In sudden bright sunshine we’re in the desert. Barbed wire and bomb-damaged huts.

Watched by Charlie and several Kurdish prisoners, all of them manacled hand and foot, a uniformed Iraqi aims his rifle at Radford, who sits on the ground shaking his head stubbornly “no.” The Iraqi begins to squeeze the trigger. Charlie is horrified. The rifle fires… The bullet slashes a streak across Radford’s temple. Blood spurts. Radford drops. Charlie turns his head away in anguish.

A small crowd of officials and techs is swarming around the inside of Radford’s flophouse bedroom.

Dickinson is looking at the illuminated screen of his handheld computer — scrolling down from Radford’s photograph (a fairly old one) past fingerprint boxes and vital statistics. “What’s ‘C.W.’ stand for?”

“Nothing,” Vickers says. “Just initials.”

“Kind of got shortchanged,” Commander Clay observes.

Vickers is glaring at Dr. Trong, who’s looking around the room with curious interest. Vickers says, “It doesn’t fit. You claim the guy’s practically catatonic but he went through that building full of officers like a chainsaw.”

Dr. Trong says, “He was a natural athlete. Under pressure it must’ve come back. But that’s the operative term — pressure. An assassin cares about something, even if it’s only his own rage… That profile doesn’t fit C.W. He barely exists. Barely feels. He doesn’t want to hurt anybody. He just wants to be left alone.”

Clay says, “Somebody’s robot, maybe? Wind him up and put a gun in his hand.” She’s reading the label off a prescription sheet. “Pain meds. You prescribed this.”

“I did,” Dr. Trong agrees. “And he’s about due for a refill. Look, Commander, this just doesn’t fit his pattern. One thing he’d never tolerate is someone trying to use him again.”

Vickers snorts. “The man’s a traitor and a murderer. I’m going to nail him.”

Clay says, “Yeah. Well good luck, Colonel.” Then, to Dickinson, “Walk me out.”

Outside in the night Clay and Dickinson walk toward a car. Clay hands the prescription slip to Dickinson; she says, “He forgot this. If he’s run out, maybe he’ll look for a street retailer.”

Dickinson takes the slip of paper and turns back; Clay gets in her car and drives off. That’s when the reporter, Ainsworth, intercepts Dickinson. “What’s really goin’ down, you old hairbags?”

Dickinson waves the sheet of paper in front of the reporter’s nose, then pockets it too fast for Ainsworth to make out what it is. “A clue,” Dickinson says smugly.

Ainsworth muses: “The federal agent and the lady cop — I see a story in that. I mean aside from the story everybody’s covering. I could use a sidebar byline.”

“Get out of here, pest. No press.”

Ainsworth poises a stylus over the screen of his palm computer. “Chief of Detectives, Commander Denise Clay is a legend. In some quarters she is regarded as incorruptible and virtually superhuman. And now, into her previously unchallenged realm, we see a potentially explosive conflict in the arrival of a new outside authority…”

Dickinson turns and, walking away, says cheerfully, “Blow it out your bottom, huh?”

In the cafe kitchen, Don the waiter prepares a tray. Charlie fries burgers. From outdoors, Radford enters in his mussed police uniform. He’s exhausted — haunted — in great pain. He carries the tied-together nightsticks: the nutcracker.

Don sees him, is galvanized — reaches for a handgun hidden in an ankle holster. Radford reacts — at first sluggish, but he expertly tosses the nutcracker. It tangles in Don’s ankles and trips him. Radford is on top of him at once — disarms Don, recovers the nutcracker, clamps it tight around Don’s wrist and squeezes. He can see in Don’s face the agonizing pain this device causes.

“Move one inch, you’re dead meat.”

Radford’s voice is like a tumble of coal down a metal chute: the new authority in it is enough to convince any tough guy that he means what he says. Don sweats, and lies still…

Radford picks up Don’s revolver — a compact hammerless pocket .38. Radford says to Charlie, “What’s he doing with a piece?”

“Beats shit out of me. Ask him.”

Don says, faint with pain, “Police officer. Wallet…”

Radford yanks out Don’s wallet and flips it open. Sure enough there’s a police badge in it. “And you’re undercover in Charlie’s place here for—?”

“Uh — drug enforcement. Vice.”

“Try again.”

Don begins to regain his bravado. “That’s my badge. You don’t question me, Radford. I question you.”

Radford gives the nutcracker a twitch. It sends beads of pain-sweat to Don’s forehead. But he’s tough enough. “You ain’t on the need-to-know list, C.W. I can’t tell you shit. Even if I did, where would you take it? They got a federal fugitive warrant out on you — know what that means? Dead or alive. Like John fucking Dillinger.”

Radford doesn’t have time to spar with him. He looks up at Charlie. “D’you know he was undercover?”

“No.” Charlie is scowling at Radford as if he doesn’t like what he sees.

Radford says to him, “Hey. I didn’t shoot anybody. They put the rifle in my hands.”

Don scoffs. “Sure. They. Who’s ‘they’?”

“Wish I knew. Some people — gun club in a building on Broadway…”

“Yeah,” Don says. “I hear you sayin’ it.” He looks up at Charlie. “Son of a bitch told a bunch of lies before. On Eye-rakky TV.”

Charlie leans over Don. “You’d have done the same thing, Donny boy, and you’da done it a lot sooner than he did.”

Radford drops the snub-revolver in his pocket and gets Charlie’s eye. “You want to keep this character on ice a little bit? I’ve got to get some answers. Want to know why… Who did this?… Look, I got to hit you up for some moving-around money. A razor… Pair of scissors… And let me borrow your jacket.”

Radford comes out the side door from Charlie’s Cafe, wearing a leather jacket that hides the police uniform. He’s clean-shaven and he’s cut his hair shorter, but he stumbles a bit. He’s disoriented and in pain — that headache: again, still… always.

Charlie looks both ways from just inside the door. “You belong in a fucking emergency ward.”

“I could be putting you out of business here, Charlie. Undercover narc idiot could run you in, aiding and abetting.”

“Maybe he knows me better’n to try that.” Charlie’s deadpan gives way to a wicked unamused grin.

“Yeah… If I’m still alive sometime I’ll pay you back.”

“When’d we start keeping books on you and me?”

Charlie shuts the door and Radford trudges away.

He reacts when he sees—

The redheaded dealer. Still wearing those camouflage combat fatigues. Radford asks, “What outfit were you with?”

“Huh?”

“In the service. What unit?”

The dealer frowns. “Man, you got a problem or what?”

“Never mind. I… uh… I just want to make a buy.”

The dealer looks down at Radford’s cuffs and shoes. Police blue and black.

Radford continues, “I need a painkiller bad.”

The dealer’s gaze very dryly climbs back up from the police Oxfords and the blue slacks to Radford’s face. “My man, I got nothin’ for you.”

“Come on. I really need…”

“Don’t they tell you guys about entrapment?” He turns away laughing. “Next time try to remember — eighty-six the pig shoes.”

Radford says, “Hey, you’re wrong…” — and in his desperation he thinks about knocking the dealer over with the nutcracker — but now something stirs in the corner of his vision and he turns to see a cop coming in sight, a block away. The cop looks this way, and Radford shuffles away into alley shadows…

Later in the night the redheaded dealer crosses a silent downtown street and stops in a doorway to see if he’s being followed. When no one appears, he walks on. Then, out of sight one turn behind him, Radford emerges from the shadows and dodges forward, cautiously following the dealer…

Inside Union Depot it’s so late there’s very little activity. The dealer stands at a magazine rack near the bank of lockers and pretends an interest in the magazines while he has a look around. He doesn’t spot Radford, who watches him from a distance. The dealer turns, produces a roundheaded key, opens one of the lockers and takes a package out.

Radford is about to move in when—

The baldheaded officer and two other cops converge from three different directions upon the dealer.

Radford fades back just in time; in harsh disappointment he watches it go down.

The dealer sees he’s trapped. Knowing the routine, he sighs and turns to spread hands and feet and lean against the wall. A cop frisks him. A cop unwraps the package and finds a thick bankroll. The bald cop takes it. He shows a picture of Radford to the dealer. The dealer says, “I know only one thing. My lawyer’s phone number.”

“Okay, then.” The bald cop takes out a cigarette lighter and sets fire to the bankroll. The dealer looks on in horror as his money burns up.

Radford lurches through the dark streets, hammered with pain.

Under a sudden, hard, white light, a younger bloodstained Radford lies on a table in a spartan prison hospital — primitive; rudimentary. Iraqi soldiers watch a doctor probe Radford’s head wound, look up at the soldier who interrogated Radford, and shake his head “no.” The doctor discards the probe, wraps a bandage carelessly around Radford’s head and walks away…

Charlie moves forward and cradles Radford’s bloody head in his hand. And now, to Charlie’s amazement, Radford, horribly cut and bruised, opens his eyes to look at Charlie. He’s alive on sheer will power, everything raw and bleeding. We see Charlie’s tears as he reaches out gently to touch Radford’s cheek.

Under a street lamp in the silent city Radford lurches on — afraid, confused, in pain — blindly into the night…

Conrad’s parked van stands at the curb in front of a suburban house on an ordinary street. Inside the house, in the kitchen, Harry — clean-shaven now — takes two beers from the fridge and tosses one to Conrad. Anne is watching a TV newscast. She’s worried. She glares at Conrad. She fidgets. “I want to talk to Damon.”

“Grow up.” Conrad pops the beer top.

Harry says, “We’ll see Damon sooner or later… You’re gonna stay here right now. Radford running loose, shit, God knows what may be going on in that messed-up brain of his.”

Anne says, “The poor son of a bitch.”

Conrad points a finger at her. “He’s a trained sniper. A killer, and by now he’s madder’n hell. He gets his hands on you, you won’t feel so sorry for him… You just worry what happens if they get him alive and he talks. He ID’s you — you’re an accessory.”

Anne shows a flash of heat. “So are you, Conrad baby.”

“Yeah. Well you just sit here quiet till he’s dead.”

“Jesus,” she says. “And I was once an honest-to-God fevered zealot.” She points at the TV. “Wasn’t supposed to be this way!”

“No, it wasn’t,” Conrad agrees. “Your buddy Radford was supposed to get dead.”

Harry tries to embrace Anne possessively. She pushes him away. “We started as good people. What happened to us?”

Harry says, “Hell, honey, you can’t make an omelet without—”

“Oh spare me. I hear that breaking-eggs shit enough from Damon.”

Conrad says, “This country and the tree-hugger crazies were getting too close together. It had to be stopped.” He heads for the door. “I’ve gotta go.”

Anne won’t let it go. “I bought the philosophy, Conrad — but I’m starting to think it’s a hell of a way to preserve freedom and justice for all.”

Before dawn in a scuzzy downtown park — place of business for felons; home for the homeless — a cop prowls, exploring. A few derelicts sit at trash campfires, eating scraps, drinking out of brown paper bags. Others sleep under trees or in makeshift shelters or on benches. The cop gently straightens an overcoat over a sleeping woman with a small child. He walks on, past a huddled shape under rumpled newspapers. It lifts a corner of paper stealthily to watch the cop depart — It’s Radford, shaking with a fever of pain. When he moves, his head hurts so bad he can’t stop the groan.

In the bright light of an interrogation hut the younger Radford — his face an ugly half-healed scar — peers up without interest into a TV camera. An Iraqi woman clumsily paints pancake make-up over his scabs while a soldier holds up cue-cards beside the camera. On a black-and-white monitor Radford can see himself, and on the TV screen the make-up doesn’t show; he looks puffy but not seriously injured.

He speaks straight into the camera with what seems to be peaceful calm. His eye movements betray that he’s reading from cue cards.

“I’m sorry that the leaders of my country have picked the wrong side this time. I’ve seen the terrible destruction that’s been visited on this little country by American bombs, and I feel ashamed. Ashamed of my leaders, ashamed of the petroleum imperialists who’re promoting this war on innocent civilians. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I just want to come home. I’m asking my government to reconsider — and to get out of this place where they have no business being.”

When he finishes talking, he simply stares unblinkingly into the camera. He doesn’t stir. The monitor’s screen slowly goes to black.

In the city park Radford lies in the night, hopeless amid the homeless. Something draws his attention and he turns sluggishly to see several cars drawing up over at the edge of the park. A dozen men in suits get out of them. Most of them carry shotguns or rifles.

Vickers gets out of the back of one of the cars. Behind him are the two FBI men and reporter Ainsworth. Vickers makes rapid hand-signals. The dozen armed men fan out into the park.

Radford, moving with agony, crouching to stay out of sight, staggers across a street threading traffic… and takes cover by a parked truck, and looks back at the park where the dozen men brutally roust the homeless people, shining flashlights in their faces.

Vickers and Ainsworth watch the search.

“Colonel Vickers, you really think this is going to find him?”

“Only if they get real lucky. The idea’s to give him no chance to rest. Keep him tired out. A tired man makes mistakes… He’s up there all alone without a net. He only has to slip once, and I’ve got him.”

Radford watches from behind the parked truck across the street. A government agent comes up behind him. Radford turns, looks at him. The agent deliberately takes a photo from his pocket and looks at it, comparing it with Radford’s face.

That mug-shot of Radford shows him as he looked in a previous life. The agent isn’t sure whether this is the man or not. “Mind if I see some identification?”

Across the street the dragnet is working its way toward them. In no time at all, somebody in that lot will be close enough to recognize Radford. Knowing that, he moves quickly as he takes out a wallet (cop’s wallet) and flashes the badge at the agent, and feigns exasperation. “Move on, man, you’re fucking up my stakeout.”

Embarrassed, the agent moves on. Radford reacts to the near-miss, and fades back into the shadows just before Vickers comes across the street and collars the agent.

“Who was that?”

“Some cop on a stakeout.”

“Shit. You idiot! Radford stole a cop’s ID along with that uniform.” Vickers looks in all directions, fuming with frustration.

A big illuminated sign emulates a green beret. Sure enough its lettering spells out “GREEN BERET BAR.” On both sides of the door are glass-covered shadowboxes protecting posters of soldiers, guns, combat action. Radford looks up at the “bar” sign and hesitates, and goes in. His head is killing him.

Inside he walks past a hand-lettered sign thumbtacked to the wall: “WET PANTY COMBAT NIGHT!” He goes on to the bar. The place is crowded and very noisy — a lot of exuberant shouting. Several scantily-clad women seem to be dancing in some fashion on an elevated stage, and over the sound of heavy metal music he can hear men shouting:

“Commence firing!”

“Play guns! Come on, play guns, guys!”

“I said — Commence firing!”

At first Radford can’t tell what’s going on and doesn’t care. He pays no attention to the raucous uproar. He gets a barmaid’s attention and grits out the words in pain between his teeth: “Double vodka. Straight up.”

Then he waits, enduring his pain until after an eternity the barmaid sets the drink before him. Radford slugs it down fast and waits for a hint of surcease.

There’s a tumult of enthusiastic yelling — finally he turns to see what’s going on.

Up there on stage four women are dressed in tight T-shirts and skimpy bikini panties. They’re wet. He sees bursts of water drops, and thin streams of water, coming at the women from the audience, soaking them. Not understanding, he shifts his gaze to the men in the audience — all ages; rough clothes mostly; blue collar guys. They’re having a wild time shooting at the women on stage with water-guns that are look-alike models of real submachine guns and rifles and pistols. The guys aim and shoot — some with gleeful enjoyment, some in combat stance with deadly grimness.

“Shoot ’em in the crotch, guys — Right in there between the legs!”

Not believing what he’s seeing, Radford squints.

On stage three of the women thrust themselves forward, pelvis first, grinning at the guys; streams of water soak them. The fourth woman — a little shy, scared — hangs back.

“I wanta see some wet pussy! Man, she’s hot! You see that? I got her — and she likes it!”

Here and there in the audience Radford can see a few women, most of whom obviously have been dragged here by their men and would rather be anywhere else.

“Come on, Francine, you can’t win prize money if you don’t make like a good target!”

The fourth woman gives it a game try, pushing herself forward, but somebody’s spray hits her in the face and she flinches.

The streams of water are zeroing in with increasing accuracy on the four women’s crotches.

“All right! You guys shot like this in Vietnam, we wouldn’t of lost the war!”

Unable to take this, Radford shoves away from the bar and flees out of the place.

He stumbles outside and looks back at the Green Beret Bar. “Jesus H. Christ.”

He disappears.

At some ungodly hour of the morning in the kitchen of Charlie’s cafe, Denise Clay is interviewing Charlie while Dickinson examines Don the waiter’s ID. Don is explaining, “I been working out of Vice…”

“Yeah,” says Dickinson, “so what do you know about this Radford son of a bitch?”

Charlie is saying to Clay, “Said he didn’t do it. Said they put the gun in his hand after the shooting. And I believe it. I know him. If C.W.’d killed the guy, he’d say so.”

Don says to Dickinson, “He’s a loony, man. Beat three guys damn near to death — right here in the dining room.”

Charlie says to Clay, “Said something about a gun club in a building on Broadway.”

Clay and Dickinson come out the side door of Charlie’s Cafe and walk toward their car. Dickinson yawns, big. Clay tells him, “That waiter — talk to Vice, find out who sent him down here. Something funny there.”

“Yeah. Gotta tell you I am whipped… If we don’t nail this turkey fast—”

Commander Clay says, “What if he didn’t do it?”

“Come on. You’re not buyin’—”

She indicates the cafe. “That guy’s his old Army buddy. Knows him better’n we do. And — why is it the murder weapon had his fingerprints all over it — but there’s no prints on the ammunition?”

They get into the car…

The Army base is asleep, its drab military buildings and parked vehicles silent. On a company street a couple of enlisted soldiers walk by a sign that indicates the way to the dispensary. Radford, emerging from shadows, goes in that direction. At the dispensary door he looks all around, then tries to open it. It’s locked; it won’t budge. In a sweat, trembling, he fades back around the side of the building.

There’s a high window at the back. Radford strips off his jacket, wraps it around his fist and punches in the window. He uses the jacket to sweep slivers of glass from the frame before he crawls in through the high opening. If he sees the small red light glowing on a keypad panel he disregards it; how’s he to know the light was green until he smashed the window?

Dr. Trong and his wife are awakened by a strident buzzing noise. Dr. Trong fumbles for a switch, finds it and silences the alarm buzzer. He gets into his robe and slippers, and takes a revolver from a drawer. At the door he pauses and smiles at his wife. “Yes, dear, I’ll be careful.” When he goes out, his wife yawns and goes back to sleep.

In the back room of the dispensary Radford paws with increasing desperation through cabinets. He finds a bottle of tablets and tries to read the label — “Aspirin” — he stuffs it in his pocket and searches on…

Dr. Trong arrives on foot outside the place, in bathrobe and slippers, carrying his revolver. With absolute silence he unlocks the front door and enters, cocking the revolver.

In the back room Radford opens a cabinet door and discovers — a big steel safe, like a half-size bank vault. And a sign on it in great big printing: “In here, stupids. The narcotics. Don’t break in. It’s booby-trapped.”

Radford reacts: hopelessness. He’s trembling violently and soaked with sweat. He looks ghastly. And now he glances around and for the first time really notices the glowing red light on the alarm keypad. As he gapes at it he deflates even further. He seems paralyzed. Then — did he hear something or is it his imagination?

Dr. Trong moves cautiously through the corridor toward the door that leads into the back room. He moves through the dark without sound, and the cocked gun is ready in his hand.

He slowly enters the back room, silent, gun up. He flips the light switch. Lights come on. And just then—

Radford jumps him from on top of a steel filing cabinet.

Dr. Trong starts to struggle, then recognizes him and relaxes. It requires little effort — too little — for Radford to wrestle the revolver away from him.

Radford stands back, holding the cocked revolver, and gestures toward the safe. Dr. Trong obeys: twirls the combination dials. “You look god-awful, C.W.”

When the vault door begins to open, Radford pushes the doctor back, pulls it wide and looks in. Vials, bottles, papers. He rummages among them.

Dr. Trong says conversationally, “Where’s it hurt? Your head?”

“No. My big toe, you asshole.”

Radford finds a syringe, loads it from the vial, rolls up a sleeve, prepares to inject himself — all this while keeping the revolver close at hand and one eye on Dr. Trong across the room.

“I didn’t assassinate anybody.”

“All right,” Dr. Trong says. “Who did?”

“We didn’t get formally introduced.”

“You saw a face? Faces?”

Radford makes no answer; he’s distracted, reading the label of a vial. He puts it back and tries another. This one satisfies him.

The doctor says, “Between them and the police, it must feel like Kurdistan all over again — you can’t see them but you know they’re coming back to nail you again, maybe now and maybe next week, and it’s got you all bent out of shape.”

Radford says, “I don’t need your sympathy.”

“My sympathy won’t kill you.”

“Don’t mess with me. I don’t want people messing with me any more.”

He injects — and unexpectedly the injection hurts.

“Oww!!” He bends over with pain; rocks in agony, finally fumbles for the revolver. He points it accusingly. “What’d you put in this stuff?”

“What’s it say on the label?”

Radford holds his arm in pain. “Don’t lie to me!”

Dr. Trong shrugs. “Morphine… A little oil.” He grins amiably. “Hurts like a son of a bitch, don’t it.”

“You bastard.” Radford’s just about mad enough to shoot him; he’s doubled over — his arm is in agonizing pain.

The headline on the paper at the corner newsstand is a bold banner: “Assassin Escapes — A Loner? Or Part of Intricate Plot?”

Wojack, the shooter, buys a copy and while the news agent fishes for change Wojack remarks in a supercilious Yale drawl: “Every time some politician gets assassinated, people just can’t settle for the simple obvious facts — not good enough to have some homicidal maniac out there — always got to be some far-fetched theory about a sinister conspiracy.”

The news agent nods agreement. Wojack walks to the corner — just as Conrad’s van pulls up. Wojack gets in, and the van pulls away, hardly having stopped at all.

At the wheel Conrad lights a cigarillo. Wojack fastens his shoulder harness. He hands the newspaper to Gootch, who sits in the plush custom room behind the seats.

Gootch glances at the headline and folds the paper; he’s got more urgent things on his mind. He says to Wojack, “Timetable’s moved up. It’s today.”

Wojack considers that, then nods with satisfaction. “While Radford’s still on the loose. That’s very bright of someone.”

Gootch agrees. “He’ll get blamed for this one too.”

Conrad puffs smoke. “Doesn’t matter. These things have to be done — if somebody doesn’t exterminate these vermin, this world won’t be fit to live in. I’d be proud to take the blame if I didn’t have orders to stay covert.”

Wojack says, “Your orders don’t amuse me very much, old sport. Your money does. I want the next installment tonight.”

“It’s waiting. What else you need?”

“High-speed ammunition and a twelve-ex scope.”

“You got it,” Conrad says, and the van turns a corner, running for a green light.

Radford leans against a wall in Trong’s dispensary as the painkilling narcotic takes effect. His arm still hurts. He holds the revolver and watches the doctor suspiciously.

Dr. Trong is saying, “—saved all this trouble if you hadn’t been too stubborn to die way back then.”

Radford says gloomily, “I should’ve died.”

“Oh for God’s sake quit being so absurdly macho. Learn a little humility, C.W. Get rid of that thousand-yard stare… All right, you felt like the worst fink in history — you thought you were the only man who’d ever been tortured to the point where he broke the code of conduct… You know, we’ve found out a lot of them broke. You’re not so special after all… Hey. Hear what I’m saying. The only thing you did wrong was you were there illegally in the first place and they had no right to send you in there. You didn’t do anything.”

Radford broods at him, absorbing it.

Dr. Trong sees he’s got an opening. He leans forward. “Wars are fought by old men using young men’s bodies. Now somebody’s doing the same thing to you all over again. Somebody’s used you.”

“Shut up.”

“Come on, then. Get mad. It’s all right. Getting mad — it’s the first step in getting even.”

In the kind of shop where you can buy any weapon that’s legal and — if you know the secret word, some that aren’t — three men enter from the parked van out front: Wojack, Gootch and Conrad. A clean-shaven man unlocks the side door to let them in to the shop. The main thing that makes him recognizable is his bad tooth when he smiles: Harry Sinclair. Otherwise he’s changed his appearance again — a regular Lon Chaney.

The gun shop is a motley cluttered arsenal. Harry locks the door. Gootch takes an immediate childlike interest in a tripod-mounted machine gun and plays with it — a kid with a toy. Conrad unlocks a steel drawer, takes out an envelope and hands it to Wojack, who leafs through the money inside it, rapidly counting. He says to Harry, “Let me have forty 308s with one-ten-grain soft-points.”

Conrad asks, “Forty cartridges?”

It makes Gootch look up. “You fixin’ to start a war or something?”

Wojack says, mock-gentle, “I’d like to burn up a few sighting it in — if you don’t mind.”

Harry digs out two boxes of rifle shells and hands them to Wojack. Conrad turns on a TV set, but gets only snow.

Harry says, “These’ll give you a minus nine-point-three trajectory at three hundred yards. Or I can give you a boat-tail soft-point that’ll give you eight-point-four…”

“These’ll do.” Wojack yawns. “They’ll kill the man — dead enough.”

Radford holds the revolver. He looks up through the smashed window at the dawn sky. Dr. Trong watches, unafraid. Radford rubs his arm, trying to think.

The doctor says, “Call the police. You haven’t got a chance on your own.”

“They’d put me in a hole. I can’t take that any more.” Radford examines the revolver.

Dr. Trong says mildly, “I don’t think killing yourself is a sensible alternative.”

“Not right away anyhow. It’s not me I want to blow away.”

“I see. But you do want to go after someone? That’s progress, for you.”

“Now you think it’s progress to want to kill people?”

“It’s progress for you to want something.” Then Dr. Trong picks up a phone. Radford moves, as if to stop him — then stops, and after a long beat decides to trust him; he nods permission. Dr. Trong reacts — a profound moment — and then dials.

The doctor says into the phone, “Hi. Me… Any danger of us getting a bite of breakfast?”

On an outdoor shooting range at dawn, with a scrubby hillside for a backstop. Wojack sits at a bench-rest table and sights in his rifle on a long-range target. Conrad smokes. He and Gootch watch from nearby while Wojack fiddles with the weapon — the same kind of .308 rifle as before, with a ’scope mounted on it. He fires a shot and then studies the target through the ’scope. Through its lenses he can see one hole a bit wide of center. He adjusts a set-screw and aims again. When he squeezes it off he can see the image jerk a bit with recoil; it settles down — and the second bullet hole is dead-center in the bull’s eye.

On the indoor shooting range — the target range where Radford first met Harry. Several men and women are shooting at targets. An elderly supervisor looks up as Clay and Dickinson enter. They show him their IDs. And ask him a question or two.

He’s puzzled. “Sunday? Wasn’t anybody here Sunday. I’ve been closed Sundays for eighteen years.”

Dickinson asks, “How many people have keys?”

“Well gosh, I don’t know for sure. Too many, I guess, after all these years. I keep meaning to change the locks, you know, but—” He gives them an apologetic look.

Dr. Trong and Radford sit at the dinette table, having toast and coffee. In the middle of the table is that same morphine vial, and a packet of disposable syringes. Mrs. Trong, in houserobe and slippers, absently kisses her husband’s cheek and turns to go. Her husband touches her sleeve. “See if I’ve got any clothes big enough for C.W.”

She flaps a hand in acknowledgement and exits.

Dr. Trong says, “She’s used to my patients dropping in at weird hours… That injection still hurt your arm?”

“Stings like holy hell.”

“Good.” He indicates the vial and syringes. “Take ’em. I don’t want you busting into any pharmacies. Your burglary technique, you’d getting caught for breaking-and-entering.”

“Right. You got a cellular phone I can borrow?”

Trong looks at him. “You want to call her on the phone?”

Radford just watches until the doctor shrugs and hands him a flip-phone. It slides into Radford’s pocket. Then he winces. “You put something in there. To make it hurt.”

Dr. Trong gathers the dishes and begins to wash them. “It’s harmless… Look, C.W., you just think you need drugs for the pain. You healed a long time ago. The headaches are psychosomatic. You don’t need drugs.”

Wojack studies the consulate through his rifle ’scope, sliding the view across the forbidding fences and walls and the imposing building behind them, then down past uniformed guards to a brass plaque on the gatepost — “consulate” but he can’t see which country’s — and he continues to shift his aim up past the wall to an upper-story window. Through it we see a man sitting up in bed with a pad in his lap, writing. Something foreign about him. He looks powerful; important. The man is smoking a cigarette, deep in thought. The ’scope’s reticule centers on his chest. Wojack speaks softly: “Don’t smoke in bed, you twit. Hazardous to your health.” He squeezes it off and the image jerks with recoil; when it settles the man in bed is dead, his chest blown apart in blood, the cigarette falling from his limp hand.

Wojack runs, stooped over, to the back of the rooftop and swings himself out over the back of the building onto something that looks like a miniature window-washers’ scaffold. It’s supported on a system of pulleys and lines. It lowers him, swiftly and smoothly like a high-speed elevator, to an alley floor where Gootch matter-of-factly recovers the lift-lines and tosses the apparatus into the back of the van while Wojack and his rifle climb into the passenger seat; Conrad puts it in Drive as Gootch jumps into the back and pulls the rear door shut, and the van pulls away at a sedate speed, breaking no traffic regulations.

An Army Jeep pulls up opposite the vast lawn of a house that exudes solid establishment wealth, where a very attractive woman in her thirties, wearing shorts and T-shirt but very well groomed, is snipping roses, collecting flowers. This is Dorothy, depicted in the photograph that was in Radford’s room; it was taken when they both were younger.

Dr. Trong, at the wheel of the Jeep, says, “She waited for you. Even after you cracked. When everybody else gave you up for a traitor, Dorothy waited. I think she may still be waiting.”

Beside him Radford wears windbreaker, khakis — newly borrowed clothes. The engine idles and they continue to watch the estate across the street. Dr. Trong says, “She could accept it even when you couldn’t. She had faith.”

Radford says, “She should’ve married some guy.”

Dorothy, cutting roses, is unaware she’s being watched.

Dr. Trong says, “She understands why you ran away — why you dropped out. I think she’s more understanding than I am. You were on your way, C.W. You’d have been a chairman of the board or maybe you’d have taken over her father’s seat in the Senate.”

“What’re we doing here? Come on. Let’s go.”

“Dorothy loves you, you know. She’s waiting, C.W.”

“Yeah. Well your timing’s terrific. I’ve got nothing to offer her but a death watch.”

By a culvert along the edge of a country road Dr. Trong stops the Jeep. Radford gets out. The doctor says, “It may not be just a death watch. We may just get this thing turned around. If we do, what happens after? I don’t want to see you washing dishes again.”

“I’ll give it some thought when I get the time.”

“Promise?”

“Get the fuck out of here.” Radford waves Dr. Trong away and watches the Jeep drive off. Then he climbs down to the overgrown culvert under the road. He uncovers the hidden motorcycle. And goddammit he’s got a headache again.

In the culvert there’s plenty of reading material. Graffiti, including: “To hell with tomorrow,” printed with surprising neatness.

The headache is too much for Radford. He unwraps Dr. Trong’s medicine and prepares an injection — hesitates but finally shoots up. At first there’s blessed relief. He switches on the bike’s police radio to listen to the calls and hears mostly scratchy dispatch broadcasts that he can’t understand. Then there’s a dreadful pain in his arm. He doubles over, clutches the arm, dances around.

“Holy shit. SON of a bitch!”

And then after a moment he is distracted by sound of the police radio; he crosses to the motorcycle to listen. It’s a woman’s voice, crackling with static: “… State police requested to assist. Subject C. W. Radford. New assassination seven a.m. this morning, same M.O., same kind of rifle. Cancel all leaves and passes. Off-duty personnel report in for overtime assignment.”

Radford stares. He just doesn’t believe this.

Police headquarters is crowded with intense activity — noise, arguments, cops and officials, everything moving busily. Commander Clay hurries toward her corner office. Reporter Ainsworth trails her. “Commander Clay…”

“Later.”

Clay swings into her office and turns to slam the door in Ainsworth’s face. Dickinson squeezes in past both of them.

Ainsworth pleads. “Hey, how about it?”

Dickinson slams the door, shutting Ainsworth out. “Shitfuck. No witnesses, no physical evidence except the 308 softpoint ammo — you can buy it anywhere.”

The ringing phone interrupts him. Clay grabs it up. “Commander Clay. I trust it’s important?” Then Dickinson sees her react. “You’re kidding! Put him on — and trace it.”

Radford stands by his motorcycle around the blind side of the boarded-up filling station. He’s talking on the flipphone he borrowed from the doc. “I don’t have to make this call. I’m taking a chance, right? So listen to me. I didn’t even know about this new killing. I just heard about it on the radio. I’m not the one you want. I’m telling you because I want you to look for the real assassins.”

Clay’s voice reaches him as if from far away in the stars. “They out there with the real killers in the O.J. case? Well hell — describe for me the people you say you saw.”

Radford gives a thumbnail description of Harry, the way Harry looked the last time Radford saw him. He adds, “He knew the club — he knew the range. And there was a woman. A blonde. Natural blonde.” He describes Anne.

Clay says, “C.W., I want you to come in here. We can protect you. I give you my word, we’ll look for them.”

“Some other time, Commander. You find ’em first.”

“You haven’t got a chance.”

“You can’t always go by that. Anyway you’ve got rules. I haven’t.”

“Oh, we’ve all got rules, C.W. Even you… We’ve traced this call and I’m going to nail you.”

Radford clicks the END button, gives the cell phone a quizzical look, then sets it down gently on the lid of a trash can and gets on the motorcycle and rides away, not in a hurry.

He arrives at the back-road culvert on the motorcycle, stops, looks all around, and when he knows he’s unobserved, rides the bike down the embankment and hides it in the culvert under the road. He sits down in his hidey-hole, holding his aching head, talking to himself: “Okay, smart ass. Now what?”

This pain is unbearable in his head. He takes out the syringe kit and gets ready to inject himself. Then he looks at the painful needle — and finally puts it back in the case without using it. He puts the stuff away. Then he bends over — way over, nearly upside down, holding his throbbing head in his hands. And from that angle he’s looking at the culvert wall and he sees, upside down, the graffiti “To hell with tomorrow.” He reacts, because upside down, the “To hell” part looks like “7734 OL.” He sits up, staring at the graffiti. He’s remembering that cafe window reflection of the upside-down backward reflection of the van’s license plate.

Aloud, he says, “To hell.”

Slowly, relishing this discovery, he settles astride the motorcycle, starts her up, smiles, and — lets ’er rip.

At speed on the highway he thrusts his face into the wind and — he’s enjoying this…

Sign on the counter: “Department of Motor Vehicles.”

Radford casually shows his badge to a clerk, who then brings out a book. Radford looks through it, searching for a number — and with sudden triumph he jabs his finger onto the page.

There it is — the 7734 OL license plate — on Conrad’s van. It waits parked in front of a high-rise apartment house.

Radford rides his police motorcycle past it. His eyes study everything at once. He makes one pass, hangs a U-turn and comes back. Finally he parks the cycle. The van has just been washed; it sparkles.

Radford studies the polished van, then looks up at the apartment house above it. Balconies up there. Posh.

He takes a small object from the saddlebag and walks around, pretending to admire the sparkling van. Near the back he “accidentally” drops something in the street. He crouches to pick it up — it’s an all-steel one-piece ice pick. While he’s crouched by the rear bumper of the van he reaches out underneath and thrusts upward several times with great strength.

Fluid begins to drip from the punctured gas tank. It starts to form a pool. Without hurry Radford gets to his feet and, carrying his nutcracker nightsticks, strides purposefully around the side of the apartment house.

The service door is locked of course, but it’s only a spring-lock. He pries his ice pick in against the face-plate, works it hard and finally gets the door open and wheels inside toting the nutcracker.

Conrad is in the front room of his apartment talking on the phone and smoking a cigarillo. An open pack, and a lighter, are on the glass coffee table by the phone. The flat is a modern well-appointed masculine place on an upper floor. Glass doors, leading out onto the balcony, stand open. He’s saying into the phone, “Okay, we had an uptick; go ahead and execute the short sale.” He’s interrupted by the sound of the door buzzer. “That must be Gootch. Gotta go. I’ll talk on you later.” He hangs up and goes to the door.

When Conrad begins to open it, the door slams in against him, knocking him off balance, and a very angry Radford swarms in violently, kicking the door shut behind him, bashing Conrad to his knees and wrapping the nutcracker around Conrad’s neck all in one smooth coordinated move.

“Okay, Mr. Conrad. You can talk to me, or you can die.”

Conrad hacks, half choking, “Get this fucking thing off me.”

One-handed, Radford frisks him. He takes a revolver out of Conrad’s belt from where it was hidden under the shirt. Then he whips the nutcracker away from Conrad’s throat. “Don’t move a whisker.”

Radford does a quick search to make sure no one else is in the apartment: keeping one eye and Conrad’s own gun pointed at the motionless Conrad, he hurries from door to door, peering into rooms and closets. At one trophy cabinet he pauses to look at a couple of photos that are matted on the wall among various golf and fishing trophies. It includes a photograph of a group of rifle competitors at an outdoor meet. Mixed amid half a dozen strangers in shooting jackets and vests, he recognizes Harry (no beard), Conrad and Gootch. Harry, front and center, is holding a trophy and smiling. We see the bad front tooth.

“Hey Conrad. Tell me about your little shooting club.”

Conrad is still hoarse from the nutcracker. “How the hell’d you find me?”

Radford happens to be looking at the adjacent photo — this one showing Conrad standing proudly by his shiny new van, and favoring a banner: “Custom Van Show — FIRST PRIZE.” Radford returns to the photo of the shooters. He rips it down and stuffs it in his pocket. He looks at Conrad, then goes swiftly out to the balcony, looks around, looks down over the edge. From here he can see the street below and, straight below, the polished top of Conrad’s van. He can see the glisten of the spreading puddle of fluid behind the van.

Radford re-enters the apartment. Still holding Conrad’s revolver, he sits down by the phone, studies the photo of the shooting team and contemplates Conrad as if trying to figure out how to handle this. He reaches for the open pack of cigarillos; puts one in his mouth and lights it.

Conrad says, “Thought you didn’t smoke.”

“Why? What gave you that idea?”

“We’ve got a file on you — Look, I’d be sore too, in your shoes, but don’t mix that cigarillo smoke with melodrama, old buddy. I’m just a sub-contractor. A voice on the phone, that’s all I know. You can try bamboo under the fingernails but I still won’t know anything that’d help you.”

Radford goes out onto the balcony. He looks down, judges the wind against his moistened finger, then drops the lit cigarillo and steps back, looking deadpan at Conrad. A moment later they both hear the sound of a major explosion. The blast unsteadies Radford on his feet and as he rights them he sees Conrad’s eyes go wide as Conrad, peering past him, sees recognizable pieces of the van soar up past the window in a graceful arc.

Conrad leaps to his feet, runs to the balcony, stares down. Disbelief — astonishment. “You son of a bitch!”

Radford glances down over the edge as what’s left of the van is consumed in a conflagration.

Conrad is beside himself. Radford shoves him back inside. He shuts the glass doors and speaks:

“Now I’ll ask. Just once.”

Conrad walks away gathering his composure; he’s trying to think. Radford readies the nutcracker and begins to walk forward. Half the length of the room separates them.

Conrad says, “I’ve studied you inside and out. I memorized that file. I know you.”

He swings back in his pacing. Walks toward Radford — not hurrying, and not approaching too close. “You got brainwashed someplace between sniper school and coming back from Iraq. What happened, you get hypnotized by some Zen priest? You had a chance to kill those guys in the cafe the other night, but you wouldn’t do it. You had ’em dead to rights, you let ’em go. So you’re not going to kill me now — I’ve got no gun and anyhow I’m no use to you dead… You won’t shoot me in the back.”

And abruptly Conrad leaps to the door, yanks it open and dives through. Radford throws the nutcracker but it’s a fraction of an instant too late; it clatters against the closing door. Radford races to the door, picks up the nutcracker, exits on the run…

He races along the hall, looking every which way… And sees — a door sighing shut on its springs. Red sign above it: “EXIT.” Radford flings it open, plunges through…

He’s on a landing. The stairs go down several stories and he can hear the clattering sound of racing footsteps down there, Conrad fleeing toward the bottom, and Radford leaps down the stairs, half a flight at a bound, pursuing…

On the avenue the racket of fire and police sirens approaches the burning debris of what used to be Conrad’s van, as Conrad comes out of the building at the dead run, racing, reaches the bottom, crosses to an exterior door, exits…

Radford emerges from the back door just in time to see Conrad disappear around the far corner of the building. Radford gives chase, running full-tilt. Around two, then three sides of the building — and then just as Conrad runs out into the street, a police car and a fire engine arrive at the flaming wreckage of the van. Radford stops in cover — sees Conrad running across the street; sees two alert cops pile out of the police car… sees firemen start hosing the van fire… sees one of the cops look at the fleeing Conrad, and the other cop look straight this way, almost as if he’s looking at Radford but actually he’s just trying to see what Conrad’s running away from.

Radford reluctantly gives it up and slips back into the alley.

In Commander Clay’s office, Dr. Trong and his wife face Denise Clay. Dr. Trong is angry. Clay is impatient. “Doctor — Major — whatever, get to the bottom line. I’m busy here.”

“Bottom line, Commander, he couldn’t have done the second assassination because he was right in our kitchen eating breakfast.”

Mrs. Trong gives her husband a dry look.

Clay is stony. “Who’s going to believe that? They know you’re on his side.”

“I don’t care what they believe. I’m telling you to believe it.”

Clay nods. “I could buy him for the first one. But this second murder — it’s political and it’s organized… But he’s our only lead, and we’ve got to get him… If you’re telling the truth, you harbored a capital fugitive and you could do time as an accessory.”

“Not if he’s innocent, I won’t. And some people will have a lot of egg on their faces.”

Dickinson bursts in. “They spotted him…”

Dr. and Mrs. Trong hold their breath. Clay whips toward the door; Dickinson restrains her. “—And they lost him…”

Clay reacts — big exasperation — and Trong smiles at his wife, and she makes a face at him.

Outside a sporting goods store Radford parks his cycle and takes out the photo from Conrad’s apartment — the group photo of shooters, emphasizing Harry and the trophy. He takes it into the store and shows the picture to a saleswoman, asks questions, gets an answer: “Sure, I know that guy. Lives out on Highland…”

In Harry’s kitchen Anne talks on the phone with repressed fury. “It’s too far, that’s all. How many more wet operations are you people setting up?… I don’t care. Don’t talk to me like that. You find Damon. Find him right now and tell him either he calls me tonight or I go to the police.”

She hangs it up violently and that’s when she looks around and sees Radford, standing frighteningly near her.

“‘Wet operations’ — I thought that one went out with the Iron Curtain.”

Anne tries to shrink away. Radford moves in on her. “Or is it what you do under the covers with guys you’re setting up for a frame?”

“C.W. — I didn’t know. Oh God, how can I explain this? They just wanted your fingerprints on the rifle. They said they were going to give you a head start.”

Radford whips the nutcracker around her throat.

“Head start to where?… Where’s Harry?”

She doesn’t comprehend. “Who?”

He whips out the now-crumpled photo of the gun-club group and shoves it in front of her, forcing her to look at it.

“Your husband.”

Anne goes weak. “He’s not my husband. And his name’s not Harry.”

“This is his house. You live here.”

“I… I got a divorce. From my fourth husband. I had no place to go. I never really had any kind of a home — you know? He offered, and I moved in here with him — I never meant to stay.”

“They sicced you on me. I was the perfect sucker, wasn’t I?”

“C.W., I—” She’s very scared. “What do you want?”

Radford taps the photograph. “For openers — him.”

After nightfall behind his gun shop Harry is showing a sleek new limousine to a customer in a chauffeur’s uniform who looks like a bodyguard for a crime boss. “Yes sir, state-of-the-art. Three eighths-inch Teflon armor plate.” He moves around, pointing out features on the new luxury limo. Not far away is parked an older limo. “All bulletproof glass. Not just the windows. Even the mirrors.”

Radford watches this, from concealment in a doorway down the alley. He’s got Anne, not gently; he holds one hand around her mouth.

Harry kicks a tire. “Bullet-proof steel cord in the sidewalls and tread. I’m tellin’ you it’ll take an anti-tank bazooka to stop this mother.”

The customer says, “Okay… When?”

“She’s all gassed up. I’m just waiting on that upholstery. Be in tomorrow, for sure Friday.”

“Well then you call me and I’ll come pay the balance. Right?”

“Right. Sure. You got it, my man.”

The customer goes to the older limo and drives away while Harry takes the keys out of the new limo’s ignition and pockets them — Radford particularly notices this action — and then Harry goes into the shop’s back door.

Radford, carrying the nutcracker, pulls Anne with him, approaching the same door.

Inside the gun shop Harry crosses to the front window. He pulls back a slat of the blind to peer suspiciously out into the night, cupping his hand around his eye to see better.

Out there a police patrol car slowly cruises forward.

Harry lets the blind fall back into place and turns, and that’s when he sees — Radford, looming, moving silently forward — almost on top of Harry — nutcracker lifted… Harry reacts: recognition; dread…

Two cops are in the slow-moving patrol car. The cop in the passenger seat sees something, switches on the car’s swivel spotlight and swings the beam around until it reveals — a motorcycle parked in the deep shadows of the alley.

“Hey.” Softly.

The car stops. The cops get out and approach the motorcycle, with flashlights. One whispers to the other with suppressed excitement: “We got it! Put in a squeal!”

Harry is backing up, flustered, with Radford pursuing him, not hurrying, keeping within arm’s length, swinging the nutcracker at his side, holding it by the end of one stick, holding Anne’s arm with his other hand. Harry nearly falls over the tripod-mounted machine gun. He’s talking very fast:

“You get nothing out of me, hear? You spilled your guts out, but you don’t get a thing out of me. Go ahead. Chickenshit bastard. Fucking traitor.”

Radford swings the nutcracker underarm. Hinged on its lanyards, the nightstick flicks up into Harry’s crotch… Harry’s eyes bug out; he doubles over in shrieking agony… Falls down by the machine gun… Radford stands above him, swinging the nutcracker gently like a pendulum. Harry slowly focuses on it, his eyes hypnotically following it back and forth. When it begins to swing toward him he yells: “No! Hey!”

The pendulum stops. Radford waits, looking down — patient as a Buddha.

Harry licks his lips. After an interval Radford says quietly, “Okay. The hard way.” The nutcracker begins its pendulum swings again.

“All right, all right. Wait. You want to know — the next assassination. Next target… It’s Clay. Commander Clay.”

Anne looks down at him, still able to be shocked. “Oh, Jesus Christ. You bastard.”

Radford says, “Commander Clay. Sure. She’s a real cop. She can’t be bought, so she’s in the way.” Abruptly he crouches and gathers Harry toward him. Nose to nose.

Harry’s glance breaks away.

But Radford isn’t letting up. “Who are you people?”

“We’re just trying to—”

“Give me a name. The head man. Who’s on top of the shitpile?”

And the nutcracker whips around Harry’s throat and begins to tighten. Harry tries to pry it away with his hands but the choking leverage continues to tighten…

Anne makes an abrupt decision. “Damon.”

Radford looks up at her.

She says, “It’s Damon Vickers.”

Harry coughs. He’s relieved now that it’s out; he’s got nothing to lose by going along. His whisper is hoarse. “Yeah. Colonel — Colonel Vickers.”

It takes a minute for Radford to absorb this. “The White House?”

“He ain’t the White House, Christ’s sake. He just works there.”

Radford looks at Anne, then at Harry. They both have the exhausted look of people who’ve given up their most dangerous secret; he’s got to believe they’re telling the truth. “Where does he live?”

Several police cars silently roll up and stop, forming a perimeter around the gun shop. Quietly, cops on foot steer pedestrian passers-by away. As cops barricade themselves, surrounding the gun shop, Commander Clay gets out of her car and meets Dickinson. They talk in hushed voices.

She says, “We’ve had trouble with him before. Automatic weapons, illegal sales.”

“We think Radford’s in there with him. They’ve got a real arsenal in there. Keep your heads down.”

Harry is on his knees. Anne fidgets. Radford flexes the nutcracker. “Tell me about it. Tell me about your outfit.”

Harry hesitates; Anne begins to speak; and they all stop, frozen by the sound of Commander Clay’s voice amplified on a bullhorn outside: “This is the police. You in the gun shop — we have you surrounded. You’ve got one minute to come out with your hands in the air.”

Radford’s eyes dart from front to back. He settles back hard on his heels, his face bleak. Harry’s grunt overlaps the bullhorn speech: “Holy shit!” Anne doesn’t know which way to turn. Radford finally swings toward the front, where the bullhorn sound comes from, and in that instant while his back is turned, Harry swiftly feeds a belt of ammunition into the tripod-mounted machine gun.

Radford catches this corner-of-the-eye action just in time and dives to one side, knocking Anne protectively to the floor just as Harry begins to shoot — full-rate automatic fire — the bullets shattering the big levelor blind and the front plate-glass window…

Cops cover their heads and hunker down as machine gun bullets from the shop spray the street, ricocheting everywhere, smashing car windows, creating havoc…

Commander Clay is rock steady. “Tear gas — now!”

And Dickinson simultaneously shouts, “Open fire. Fire at will. Son of a bitch!”

Clay’s angry “No!” and her sharp look are too late to stop the chaos. Cops open up with revolvers and shotguns. One of them fires a tear gas grenade from a flare pistol into the store.

Inside, the grenade explodes in a puff of evil smoke near the front of the shop. Harry is blazing away, having lunatic fun, overheating the machine gun. Police bullets return the fire, banging around inside the shop, and Radford shoves Anne toward the cover of the counter and scrambles to follow. Tear gas rolls back toward them. All three begin to cough. Radford growls at Harry: “You gun-happy son of a bitch!”

A blaze of police bullets shatters glass everywhere. Anne goes down, shot. Radford tries to protect her. “Give her a hand here!”

Harry ignores him — maybe doesn’t even hear him; must have adrenalin pumping so loud he can’t hear a thing. His machine gun swivels back and forth, raking the street. And runs empty.

Radford lowers Anne gently to the floor.

Harry with deranged glee yanks open a hidden floorboard compartment, heaves out a goddamn flame thrower, ignites the sumbitch and starts to shoot a long spout of deadly flame out through the smoke toward the street.

Under the smoke Radford is trying to rouse Anne but he sees that she’s dead. Finally — coughing desperately — he’s driven back, stumbling back into the fog of tear-gas and smoke.

The roaring blast of flame hoses out from the smoky smashed front of the shop. Cops fall back, desperately seeking cover. And the idiot’s flamethrower has set half the shop on fire; it’s blazing dreadfully.

Inside the thick smoke, coughing, Radford pounces on Harry and wrestles the flamethrower away from him and turns it off.

Harry shoves him away. Both men are coughing hard. Harry yells like a spoiled child whose toy has been taken away. He jumps up and down, throwing a tantrum.

Radford yells at him. “Get down, you stupid—”

But the warning is too late. Harry goes down, cut to pieces in a fusillade of police gunfire.

Amid ragged aftervolleys of police gunfire the smoke billows from the smashed front of the shop. Finally Clay, very weary, stands up. “Cease fire, for God’s sake.”

Total stillness now. An expectant hush. Cops begin to peer out from behind cover…

Now several cars in convoy arrive — Vickers and his G-men get out of them; Vickers deploys his troops with hand motions. Vickers as usual is dressed like a suit mannequin in an expensive shop window.

Dickinson says dryly to Clay, “Cavalry to the rescue right in the nick of time, like always.” As the feds approach, Dickinson gets up and greets them in some disgust, addressing his insult to Vickers: “Here’s Ken. Where’s Barbie?”

“Don’t fart around with me, cop.”

Clay ignores him; she says to Dickinson, “Put another tear-gas round in there. I want to be sure.”

Another tear-gas grenade lobs into the smoke. There’s the muffled puff of its explosion inside the inferno.

Vickers stands with his hands in his pockets, looking dubious. “You sure he’s in there?”

Clay says, “Let’s wait and see.”

Dickinson says, “Nothing alive in there by now but maybe a few cockroaches.”

Vickers thinks a moment, visibly. Then he pulls a riot shotgun out of the nearest cop car and, carrying it, circles around toward the back of the shop. The smoke thickens. Flames appear; the building is a goner. Everyone waits…

Behind the gun shop the armored limousine stands near the back door and Vickers sees cops farther back, in a rough perimeter around the back of the shop, watching nervously. Vickers moves in closer to the building, shotgun in hand, working from cover to cover. Smoke pours from the building, beginning to obscure it, but Vickers can make out the back door. It stands wide open.

Radford comes out on his belly, holding a wet towel across his mouth and nose, snaking under the smoke. Billows envelop the armored limo, hiding it, and he slides through it into the driver’s seat of the limo.

Vickers is squinting against the smoke and flames, trying to see the back of the shop. He peers intensely, then suddenly reacts as, like a monster from hell, the armored limo comes roaring out of the smoke straight at him.

Vickers blasts it with the shotgun.

It has no effect.

He drops the shotgun and now stands with feet spread, revolver lifted in both hands, fearlessly shooting at the windshield as the limo roars straight at him.

The limo roars forward. Bullets bounce off the glass.

It veers at the last minute and slithers past Vickers, fishtailing into an alley. Vickers swivels and pulls the trigger again but his revolver is empty…

Around him, cops are blazing away at the fleeing car. Hit but unscathed, the limo skids away, bullets ricocheting off its armored body.

All around the burning shop, police cars and government cars begin to peel out in pursuit. Vickers leaps into one of them, and it nearly collides with arriving fire engines…

Radford flees in the armored limo, pursued by an army whose bullets bounce off the armored metal and glass and rubber.

Into a six-point intersection, late at night, police cars converge from every street and alley until they create a tangled gridlock. Everyone stops. Cops and feds emerge from cars — some furious, some simply bewildered.

Clay and Vickers get out of adjacent cars. Clay on her cellular phone. She’s looking up at a helicopter that swoops overhead; she’s talking to its pilot. “Which one?” She gets an answer, glances at Vickers and points to a parking garage.

Solid buildings all around the intersection. No way out except the streets, which are clogged with cop cars. Various stores (closed for the night), office buildings, restaurants, a theatre with surprised patrons at the front door watching the Keystone Kop activity.

Vickers and Clay walk slowly toward the garage, ushering cops in with arm signals. Heavily armed, the detachment deploys into the building.

In the garage, on a second-level ramp by the Disabled parking slot, crouches the limo. A sad, silent, bullet-smeared mess, but nonetheless intact.

Dickinson walks over to it, uses a gloved hand to open its door — he’s ready to shoot if somebody’s in there but he doubts it and he’s right; it’s empty. He raises his voice in weary summons: “Over here.”

From the hallway of a restaurant-bar on the top floor of a high-rise, Radford has a splendid view of the city. He’s on a pay phone by the rest-room doors. “Like to leave a message for Commander Clay… I know she’s not in her office right now—”

Down through the plate glass he can just make out Commander Clay as she emerges on foot with Dickinson from the ramp-entrance of the garage. Radford says into the phone, “This is C. W. Radford. So take this down and get it straight.” He sees Clay and Dickinson cross to a police car; Clay takes out its radio mike and begins to broadcast.

Into the phone Radford is saying, “Tell Denise Clay she’s the next target for assassination. Tell her the boss honcho behind the assassinations is Colonel Vickers. That’s not a mistake. I don’t give a shit if you believe me. Colonel Damon Vickers. Tell her I said it.”

Down below, he sees Vickers join Clay; Vickers says something — probably sarcastic — and Vickers and Dickinson get into an angry shoving match, with Clay trying to calm them down.

Radford walks away from the phone.

The Vickers house at dawn is secluded to the point of isolation, manicured, exurban, surrounded by flowing meadows. From a hedgerow of trees Radford studies the place. It’s just past dawn. Nothing stirs.

While the sun rises, Radford waits with infinite patience, moving a few inches around the bole of his tree each time the sun begins to reach around to him. He’s not doing anything at all — just watching the house.