Under a Raging Moon

ELEVEN

Thursday, September 1st

Graveyard Shift

2215 hours

T-Dog checked that both pistols were loaded with full magazines and a round in the chamber. Everything had to be perfect. Morris was getting very touchy lately, as their nightly searches for the cop came up empty. He assured Morris that it was only a matter of time before luck would take a hand and they’d find him. He’d been rewarded with a slap upside the head and a ten-minute tirade. Now, he remained silent while Morris groused.

“Gonna get that cracker bitch motherfucker,” Morris muttered as he sipped from his forty-ouncer. “To-night!”

T-Dog didn’t respond, but handed him the small black.380. Morris shook his head. “Gimmee the other one, dumb motherfucker.” He reached out as T-Dog handed him the one with the brown grips. “The poker gun, too.”

T-Dog handed him the small, two-shot derringer, which Morris liked to carry at card games.

Morris snatched it from his hand. “Stupid fuckin’ Wonder Bread,” he said. “Wannabe motherfucker.” He shook his head at T-Dog and slipped the guns into his pockets.

T-Dog swallowed the insult dutifully, raging at it inside. Man, he was a brother. He hung with the bangers. He kept their secrets, he did their dirty work. What did it take to be accepted?

Stroking the smooth metal of the pistol’s slide, T-Dog found his answer.

Friday, September 2nd

0049 hours

Woodenly, Stefan Kopriva patrolled his sector. Five days had passed since Karl Winter’s funeral, and the impact of the shooting on the department had not subsided. His death had not officially been pinned on Scarface, though every officer in town remained convinced it had been the elusive robber who shot Winter.

Kopriva reviewed the facts that Major Crimes finally gave to patrol at that evening’s roll call. The license plate of the car Winter stopped came back to a 1972 Ford Maverick, but the tire marks at the scene suggested a much wider mid-to-early seventies car, like a Caprice or something similar. So, either Winter put out the wrong plate when he made the stop or more likely the plates had been switched. No shell casings were found at the scene. One of the bullets that struck Winter had been recovered. Forensics stated it was a.38 caliber, the weapon formerly used by every cop in America.

The only other clue was a driver’s license at the scene belonging to Carla Dunham. River City PD showed no record of her locally, and her Department of Licensing address was in Seattle. Her picture circulated at the roll call tables. She was the best lead they had, but the detectives had been unable to locate her. Now they were asking for help from the patrol officers.

Business continued as usual. The calls just kept coming. Burglaries, DV’s, accidents, drunks. People constantly asking about the shooting. Did you know the cop who got shot?

Scarface had been busy, too. Three more robberies since the night of the shooting. Strangely, he had not hit on the night of the funeral; something Kopriva didn’t know what to make of, if anything.

He remembered Katie at the funeral and her sculpted beauty. She hadn’t cried, remaining strong in the presence of her brethren police officers. She’d caught his eye and held it for a long time while the bugler’s notes floated over them. He hadn’t been able to read her face.

He should have spoken with her. Hell, he wanted to. He’d wanted to be with someone very badly that night. To make love frantically with someone, and especially with her, to prove he was still alive. Maybe that was why he hadn’t spoken to her. They’d had enough bad timing already.

He stopped at an intersection just in time to see a car bust the light northbound. He watched it go. The driver, a single Hispanic female in a two-year-old compact, didn’t even notice him in the marked police vehicle. She looked like a worker bee to him. Kopriva saw no other cars in the area. He let the car go, turning southbound and continuing his patrol.

0234 hours

“Was that him?” Morris asked as they passed a police car.

“No,” T-Dog answered. “That was some bitch.”

“Are you sure?”

T-Dog nodded.

“Man, you are a no-finding motherfucker, you know that?” Morris took a slug from his forty-ouncer. “Couldn’t find your dick to piss with it,” he muttered.

T-Dog ignored him. Morris would treat him differently after they found the cop. They’d take care of business. And then it was down to Compton. He’d come back, beat in and proud.

0349 hours

It had been a slow Thursday night, now a slow Friday morning. Units made stops all night long and most cleared with no citation. That usually meant the car they’d stopped was a civilian car instead of a criminal car. Most patrol officers didn’t bother writing normal citizens for minor infractions. You could tell when pickings were poor, though, by the number of those stops and clears that came across the radio.

Calls for service were also very few and tapered off completely around two in the morning. At three-thirty, units began to request sevens. Radio had no reason to refuse and by three forty-five, the first unit had checked out at Mary’s Cafe for breakfast. Most of the Adam Sector cars quickly followed and after a short time, most of Baker, too.

That left three cars in each sector still on patrol. Down in the radio room, Janice Koslowski felt no alarm at the thinness of patrol. She could have run the whole north side with two cars tonight, much less the six that were still out there. As long as at least one car stayed in service on each side of Division, she didn’t see a problem.

0353 hours

Thomas Chisolm heard the sevens begin and decided to stay in the field and shag any calls that popped up. He’d stopped at some Mexican drive-through around midnight and eaten slowly while sitting up at Haven and Illinois, gazing out over the Looking Glass River and the southern half of the city. He loved that view, but now the burrito sat in his stomach like lead shot.

He’d heard yesterday that Payne was reviewed by the Probationary Officer Board at Bates’s recommendation and fired. He hadn’t been lucky enough to see Hart since the announcement, but he didn’t care. The arrogant prick had been wrong and now he had to know it. He wondered briefly if he could force Hart to reinstate him into the FTO program and knew he would probably not have to.

Simply asking nicely would be enough.

Chisolm smiled and turned up the stereo as the Rolling Stones came on singing something about satisfaction.

0404 hours

Kopriva considered going to Mary’s Cafe, but he didn’t like the fact it was in the extreme northwest of town and almost all the city’s units were already there. The only other option at this time of night was the Denny’s at Division and Wabash. He headed that direction until he heard Katie’s voice over the radio.

“Adam-116, I’ll be seven and paperwork at Division and Wabash.”

Kopriva frowned. He wasn’t ready to deal with Katie yet, if he ever would be. Not that hungry anyway, he decided to stay in service and drive around. He rolled down the window and turned up the stereo, trying to drive the foggy sleepiness out of his eyes.

Some coffee would be nice, though.

0406 hours

Chisolm stopped in a dry cleaning parking lot and backed his car right up to the windows. The lot was at the eastern edge of his sector here, but he could respond to any call quickly enough. Especially on a slow morning like this. He remembered the unofficial graveyard motto. “You know it’s a good night when you get to drive fast, point your gun at somebody and take them to jail.”

Well, he made a warrant arrest on a stop earlier that night, but it had all gone off pretty low-key. So he stood one-for-three. Of course, some officers were one-for-three as they ripped out of the basement sally-port and raced to the city pumps for gas.

Chisolm removed the folded burglary report from the visor above him. All that remained to do was to write a brief narrative, one he had written almost verbatim hundreds of times before.

Complainant left at 0700 hrs and returned home at 2200 hrs to find the front door forced open with some sort of generic pry tool. The residence had been ransacked. Refer to property sheet for missing items. Complainant had no suspects. No physical evidence beyond the damage to the point of entry was found. End of report.

Chisolm still felt sorry for these people, even after all these years of taking similar reports. Most were law-abiding folks whose only contact with the police was when he showed up at their burglary, looking concerned but unable to do much. He wished he could do more, but most of the time he couldn’t.

So he wrote the report.

0409 hours

“That’s him,” T-Dog said.

Morris snapped straight up in his seat, where he’d been reclining glumly. His beer ran out an hour ago and the effects of the alcohol had worn off. He’d considered dozing, but didn’t trust T-Dog to spot their target. Maybe he’d been wrong about the guy, after all.

He saw the cop roll by slowly in his marked car. Sure enough, that was the motherfucker.

“Follow him. And not too close.”

T-Dog pulled in behind the police car, shadowing it from a block and a half back.

0410

Kopriva rubbed his scratchy eyes. The far southeast part of his sector was usually full of activity, but not tonight. Hardly any cars moved and the airwaves were dead. He pulled down Market and decided he would get his coffee at the Circle K at Euclid. He needed to stretch his legs.

0411 hours

“Remember, bitch, this ain’t no drive-by,” Morris told T-Dog. “I want to be sure on this motherfucker. So get your white ass out of the car with me and walk up. Got it?”

T-Dog nodded. The police car, now three blocks ahead, signaled and turned into a convenience store parking lot.

Morris reached down for the fifteenth or twentieth time and felt the cool metal of his.380.

“This is it,” he said, his voice high-pitched with excitement. “He’s stopping.”

0412 hours

Kopriva shut off his headlights out of habit as he swung into the Circle K at Market and Euclid. As he pulled up to the front of the store, just to the north of the doors, his mind did a double-take.

A short, slender white male with long black hair was holding a gun on the clerk inside.

“Holy Christ,” he whispered and reached for his mike. “Baker-123, robbery in progress at Market and Euclid.”

Janice sat upright in her chair, dropping the novel she’d been reading. She punched the alarm tone broadcast as she adjusted her headset, then cleared her throat before depressing the foot petal to make the city-wide broadcast.

James Mace heard the loud, shrill tone burst from the small radio behind the counter.

“What the fuck is that?” he growled at the clerk.

“P-police scanner,” the terrified woman stammered.

A stoic female voice came over the radio. “Dispatch to all units. Armed robbery in progress at Market and Euclid. Further information to follow.”

“You hit the fucking alarm?” Mace yelled, infuriated.

“No, I didn’t hit any-”

He raised the gun and fired twice, shooting the woman in the face. He didn’t even blink as wet scalp and skull splattered against the wall behind her. He grabbed the money and headed for the door.

Linda Anderson had waited tables at Mary’s Cafe for three years. Never before had she seen every cop in the place empty out for a call. Their sudden exodus forced her to slide into a booth to avoid being trampled as they rushed out and caused her to drop the huge tray laden with breakfast food, covering the floor in a mixture of eggs, bacon and French toast.

Kopriva stood behind the door of his patrol car, one leg on the pavement, and one leg against the doorjamb. He wedged his back squarely against the car frame. That protected the majority of his body behind the cruiser’s engine block. The radio mike sat on the driver’s seat, within quick reach.

He witnessed the robber shoot the female clerk in the head and had to resist the urge to run inside, knowing she was already dead. Instead, he drew a bead on the robber inside the store and waited patiently. He felt suddenly very grateful that the department had transitioned to the.40-caliber auto-loaders the year before. They were virtual cannons compared to the.38’s the police used to carry.

He was so intent on the distant wail of sirens in the cool morning air, that he did not hear the sound of two car doors being opened behind him.

Mace burst out through the glass doors of the Circle K and saw the cop and his car.

“Police! Don’t move!” boomed the powerful voice.

Mace didn’t bother with a reply, answering with two quick shots.

“Police! Don’t move!” Kopriva’s voice sounded thin and squeaky to him. No authority. No wonder the robber’s response was to shoot.

Kopriva returned fire without conscious thought, believing he was firing blindly. He barely recognized the mechanics that his body and mind went through routinely as they had been trained.

Focus on the front sight.

Light bars level and equal.

Center mass on the fuzzy target.

Squeeze the trigger. Don’t jerk it.

In one second, Kopriva snapped off three shots and watched as the bullets threw the robber backward into the outdoor ice cooler.

Mace slammed into a hard wall and lost his wind. He felt the gun slip from his hand and clatter to the concrete as he slid slowly down to his buttocks. He took two shallow breaths. He heard more shots, but felt nothing.

With an effort, he forced himself to his knees, then erect, leaning on the ice cooler for balance. His right hand on the cooler, then the wall, he forced himself to flee in a staggering, shuffling gait.

Move it, Ranger!

In his left hand, he clutched the paper bag, still full of money.

As if in answer to his own three shots, Kopriva heard more shots. But the robber had dropped his gun and was sliding down the ice cooler. Echoes?

Behind! These shots were coming from behind him.

In the same instant, he felt a hot pain enter his upper back and explode out his chest, causing a shattering pain in his left collarbone. Wetness bathed his face as he rocked forward, then pitched violently backwards as a smashing force struck behind his left knee. He hit the pavement with a sickening thud, cracking his head on the hard asphalt. He felt hot air and heard a whizzing sound as pavement was chipped away and showered his face.

The morning is so dark, he thought to himself.

Morris and T-Dog emptied their magazines, firing at the cop in tandem. Gun enthusiasts called the method “spray-and-pray” and looked upon it with disdain as the only refuge of the poor marksman. Morris didn’t care about that shit, though. All he cared about was what he saw-that punk cop went down and went down hard.

T-Dog saw the same thing and felt a sense of exhilaration shoot through his body. He looked at the small, black auto. The slide was locked to the rear and smoke curled slowly out of the now-empty chamber.

They’d done it. Now all they had to do was get away with it.

He gave a victory whoop, turned and trotted back to the car. He was surprised to see Morris walk swiftly toward the fallen cop.

Of course, T-Dog realized. He wants to be sure.

Morris stood above the cop and looked down. He tried to be smug, but he was too jacked up.

“You aren’t such a bad-ass after all, are you, cracker?” He spat in the cop’s face and raised his pistol to finish him off.

A headshot, Morris decided, so the casket would have to be closed.

Kopriva heard words as if he were underwater. Something wet splatted against his face. He forced his eyes open.

Morris stood above him, aiming a pistol at his face. It had to be a.45, the barrel looked so huge.

Kopriva didn’t hesitate. He pushed himself to the right using his good leg, turning like a top. Morris fired and the bullet crashed into Kopriva’s left arm, just above the elbow.

He lifted his own pistol. It felt heavy. He knew it wavered as he fired. He fired as many times as he could. The gunfire sounded liked tiny pops. He counted five pops before his strength gave out and his gun hand fell to his lap.

Kopriva took shallow wavering breaths and gathered his strength.

He knew the fight wasn’t over yet.

“Fuck me!” T-Dog watched as the cop blasted away at Morris, huge booming explosions that threw Morris back several yards to the ground, where he lay crumpled and broken.

T-Dog saw the cop lay still and thought for a moment that they were both dead. Then he heard Morris moan in pain. The cop twitched and then struggled onto his right elbow.

“Fuck this!” T-Dog ran to the car, jumped in and floored it, heading south on Market.

Kopriva heard the squeal of tires and knew the other shooter was gone. All he’d seen of that suspect was his white skin. He set his gun on his lap and pulled himself into a sitting position, his back pressing hard against the running board of the open door. He reached for the mike on the driver’s seat, watching Morris moan and writhe in pain.

Morris had never been shot. A lot of gang bangers had, especially in Compton, and they all said it only hurt for a minute. Morris decided that they were all liars. All his wounds were in the hip and groin area. He knew bones had been shattered. It hurt so bad that he couldn’t sit still, but every movement only caused him to scream out in pain.

Morris wondered if he were dying.

He saw the.380 lying several feet in front of him. He began to crawl painfully toward it, away from the officer.

If I’m gonna die, that motherfucker is going with me.

“Goddamn this bucket of bolts!” Chisolm cursed, flooring the patrol car. With a hundred and seven thousand miles on the engine, it had little power left. Chisolm asked for everything it had, which wasn’t much. He felt the wheels slip in the corners and the transmission clunk as he shifted manually to get the best speed he could.

“Come on,” he urged. He was still at least a minute away.

Kopriva keyed the mike. “Baker-123. Signal-99. Shots fired. I’m hit.”

He dropped the mike back onto the driver’s seat, his head swimming.

Janice felt her lip tremble as she repeated the signal-99. “All units respond, Euclid and Market. Shots fired, officer down. Channel is restricted for Baker-123 only. All other units use data channel.” She motioned to another dispatcher, who plugged into the data channel and began sending units, even though it wasn’t necessary. Any police car within radio range was running balls out to Kopriva’s location right now.

“I need medics at Euclid and Market, now!” she called out to her supervisor, Carrie Anne, who was already on the phone.

Hold on, Kopriva, she thought to herself, then keyed her mike.

Morris reached the gun, clutching it hard in his right hand. The slide wasn’t locked to the rear. That meant he had at least one shot left.

One for you, motherfucker.

He took a couple of short breaths. He realized that could feel both his legs all the way to his toes. Good. At least he wasn’t crippled.

Morris rolled over and took aim.

Kopriva fired one-handed, the gun barking in his strong hand. He saw a spray of blood in Morris’ right forearm and knew he’d hit his target. The gun in Morris’ hand flew backward as Morris rolled completely over once and ended up facing him again.

Kopriva lowered his gun. The stabbing pain had subsided to a dull throb. He mused that everyone had been right, after all. This is what he got for being such a code-four cowboy.

“Baker-123, your status?”

He placed the gun in his lap and reached for the mike again. “Two suspects down. One fled. White male. Brown Chevy.” He took several shallow breaths while Janice re-broadcast the information.

“Who is it?” he croaked at Morris.

“Fuck you,” groaned Morris.

Kopriva swallowed and noted the coppery taste of blood. “Hear those sirens? Nobody here but me and you till they get here.” He placed the mike on the driver’s seat again.

“Fuck. You.” Morris repeated. It came out as a low moan.

Kopriva lifted his pistol from his lap, steadied his aim and fired. He watched with satisfaction and the bullet exploded through Morris’s calf. A shrill screech escaped the gang banger’s lips.

“You want to be alive when the ambulance comes?” Kopriva asked wetly, his breath coming in ragged breaths. “Who’s the other guy?”

Morris moaned weakly.

Kopriva raised his pistol again, feeling very weak.

“T-Dog,” Morris told him.

“Baker-123. White male. Moniker T-Dog.”

“Copy,” Janice said, typing furiously.

“Medics en route,” Carrie Anne called.

“Copy,” Janice said, noting the time in the computer.

She slid over one terminal and ran the nickname T-Dog with a white male. The computer accepted the entry. It seemed to take an eternity searching through the database, flashing the message “Checking” over and over again.

She got a hit. She did a display entry and read quickly, then keyed the mike with the foot pedal.

“Baker-123, I have a white male, Gerald Anthony Trellis. Is that your subject?”

“Trellis?” he tried to shout at Morris, but his voice was getting weaker. Morris surprised him by answering.

“Yeah.”

Kopriva keyed the mike. “Affirm.”

“Copy. -123, medics are en route. Hold on.”

Kopriva clicked his mike and let it fall to the seat.

Morris used his left hand to ease the two-shot derringer from his back pocket. He’d only told the cop about T-Dog to buy time. What did he care about that dumb motherfucker, anyway? White bread piece of shit left him to die. What a pussy.

The derringer felt heavy in his hand. He lay across his arm and realized he would have to roll back to free it. He tried to but failed. The pain in his legs was gone, but so was the feeling. Did that mean he was going to be a cripple after all?

He tried to flop his right arm down in front of him. Maybe he could push himself backward.

The sirens were getting closer, Kopriva could tell. He watched Morris for a moment as the gang member seemed to shudder and twitch. He thought about covering him with his gun until backup arrived, but realized he didn’t have enough strength left to lift the pistol.

His head lolled back, resting against the driver’s seat. He looked up in the sky at the moon. It hung in the early morning darkness, a tinge of yellow cast over it.

We live and work under that moon every night, Kopriva thought, his thoughts becoming disjointed now. And now I will die here, under a raging moon.

Kopriva drew a wet, shuddering breath and let it out slowly.

Chisolm took the corner hard. “Hold on!” he whispered, knowing that Kopriva couldn’t hear him. The rear end of the car swung out from under him. He punched the accelerator. The tires struggled for a grip on the pavement, then lurched forward.

Morris lay motionless. He’d tried three times to get his left arm out from underneath him, all without success. Impotently, his left fist clutched the derringer, while his right arm hung useless, his fingers resting on the pavement. He felt the wet warmth of his own blood there.

With great effort, he looked up and saw the cop wasn’t moving.

Good. Maybe the motherfucker was already dead.

The sirens were very close now, and Morris found that he was glad to hear them.

Chisolm slammed on the brakes and put the car into park. He made it out of the car before it even stopped rocking. Pistol out, he approached the scene. He saw the downed suspect lying motionless, eyes closed. As he drew near the police car, he spotted Kopriva seated on the pavement, leaning back into the open driver’s doorway. The officer’s gun lay in his lap. Chisolm noticed empty casings on the pavement near him.

Chisolm trained his gun on the downed suspect and moved forward quickly. Once close enough, he rolled the suspect forward onto his stomach and put his knee across his neck.

Then he saw the derringer in the suspect’s left hand.

The hand twitched.

Chisolm’s free hand shot down, grasping the suspect’s wrist. A low moan escaped the injured man’s lips. Chisolm holstered his pistol and removed the derringer from the suspect’s grip. There was no resistance. Either the man was too weak to put up a fight or he simply surrendered. Chisolm quickly cuffed the wounded man behind the back and made his way to Kopriva.

He set the derringer on the ground next to Kopriva. He pulled the uniform shirt back and examined the officer’s wounds. One through the upper back. Looked like it entered where the vest panel was thin and exited at the collarbone. The bone stuck out of the wound, a compound fracture.

“Try not to move,” Chisolm told Kopriva softly.

Kopriva’s only reply was a cross between a grunt and a moan.

Chisolm continued to check for wounds. Another one in the left arm, just above the elbow. Blood coursed from that wound. There was a third injury in his left knee, a huge hole in the kneecap. Painful, but not life-threatening.

Chisolm rose and ran back to the handcuffed suspect. Rolling him over, he searched until he found what he wanted. Hanging from his right front pocket was a blue bandanna. Blue, the color for all Crips. Chisolm took it without a hint of irony.

Kopriva’s eyelids fluttered and he groaned when Chisolm wrapped the bandanna tightly around the wound in his upper arm. The pain had probably roused him.

“Tom?” he whispered weakly.

“Yeah, Stef, it’s me. Hold tight. You’re gonna be fine.” He forced a smile. “You’re just lucky that bangers are such terrible shots.”

The corners of Kopriva’s mouth twitched, as if he were trying to return the grin.

“Scarface,” he whispered, coughing blood. He pointed toward the store.

Chisolm looked up and saw matted slide marks smeared on the ice-cooler by the door to the convenience store. A small revolver lay on the pavement. A moment later, he saw the trail of blood that lead to the corner of the store, where the light ended. He looked back to Kopriva.

“Scarface.” Kopriva mouthed the word more than said it. With his right hand he held up four fingers. Code four. “Go.”

Chisolm considered for a moment. Kopriva was badly hurt, but he knew of nothing more he could do for him. The suspect lay handcuffed and barely conscious himself. But what if Kopriva died? He couldn’t let the man die alone.

Chisolm hesitated. In all his experience, he’d learned that most men could sense when they were going to die. Without exception, they did not wish to die alone. It was a true test that he had used on more than one occasion. Especially if the man had stones. Kopriva was a tough kid. If he wasn’t asking Chisolm to stay, he probably wasn’t going to die.

Chisolm grabbed Kopriva’s four fingers and squeezed. “Medics are on the way, cowboy. You’ll be fine?”

Kopriva nodded.

Chisolm nodded back and set off in the direction of the blood trail.

Kopriva felt his confidence fade as soon as Chisolm left his sight. He’d often morbidly wondered what, or who, he would be thinking about as he lay dying. He found his mind strangely empty.

He blinked slowly and stared up at the moon that raged in the night sky above.

Matt Westboard used Illinois, a wide road that ran diagonally from Perry to Market. He hit one-hundred and ten miles per hour before he had to slow for the upcoming curve onto Market.

Then he saw a white four-door Chrysler at Haven and Grace, one very short block to the north. He locked up his tires. A small, single driver. Probably female.

Westboard whipped through the empty restaurant parking lot, lighting up the car from the front. A single, white female sat in the passenger seat, her eyes wide with surprise and terror. He recognized her immediately as a skinny version of the woman in the photo from the driver’s license that had been found lying next to Karl Winter. He also noticed that the driver’s rear window was rolled down, even though the front window was up.

Westboard gave his location to channel two and requested a thirteen as soon as Kopriva’s scene was secure. He exited his patrol car smoothly and took a knee at his vehicle’s front tire. In one fluid motion, he rested his elbows on the hood of his car and pointed his gun directly at the woman in the car. Westboard put his laser sight right on her forehead. He decided he would give her one warning, which was one more than Karl got.

“Do not move,” he yelled over the sound of his rotators. “Keep your hands on the steering wheel or I will blow your head off.”

The small field to the south of the Circle K should have been an easy escape route for James Mace. All he had to do was run three short blocks and he could hop into the trunk through the rigged back seat of the car.

But it wasn’t as easy as that when you’ve been shot.

He’d staggered a few feet after letting go of the store wall. Then he had fallen.

Never quit, he had told himself.

Once a Ranger, always a Ranger.

He crawled, pulling with his arms, pushing with his legs. The paper bag tore and he knew some of the money was falling from his grasp, but enough remained. Enough to get some underground medical attention and still get a fix.

He moved another two feet, paused, breathing. He hoped Carla kept her cool and waited.

The sirens were very close, all around now.

Never quit, he muttered soundlessly and continued to crawl.

Chisolm rounded the corner, gun in hand. He saw no running figures and no trees to hide behind.

He followed the blood smears down the wall several yards, where they ended. He turned to the south and spotted a police car in the distance, rotating blue and red lights and a flood of white.

Did they have him up there?

Chisolm took several steps, then saw the drag marks in the grass. He hesitated, remembering ‘Nam and the ambush at Bai-trang in the Mekong Delta. He’d followed those drag marks for over a mile before finding the wounded sniper. He hadn’t seen any need for interrogation, not after having watched Bobby Ramirez’s head explode right next to him and shower him with his best friend’s blood. With a crazed smile on his face, he’d pumped all eight rounds from his.45 into that VC’s head.

The drag marks went due south.

Chisolm followed them as he squeezed the gun in his hand.

Katie MacLeod screeched to a stop and exited her car, weapon drawn. She surveyed the scene and saw the handcuffed suspect.

Then she saw Kopriva, still and unmoving.

James Mace knew he was going to make it now. His bleeding had slowed, almost stopped, and he felt strong enough to make it to the car.

Go, Ranger! Never quit!

He kept crawling.

The grass, swaying with the early morning breeze, still showed traces of blood as Chisolm tracked the injured man. The blood appeared black in pre-dawn light combined with distant street lights, but flared red when his flashlight illuminated the thin streaks in the grass. He could tell by the drag marks that the suspect was not frantic yet, that he kept a cool head. Chisolm pointed his weapon ahead of himself, always at the threat.

He passed a black wig and kept walking.

Stray, crumpled bills marked the trail. He followed, his jaw set.

Twenty yards from the edge of the field, over two blocks from the store, Chisolm spotted him. He moved slowly now, but steadily, always forward. He clutched a wad of bills tightly in his left hand. The right hand was empty, grasping at the ground in front of him and pulling.

Unarmed.

Maybe.

Chisolm thought for a moment.

Probably. He’d seen the gun back at the store.

Chisolm holstered his pistol and slid his flashlight into its holder. The blood streaks were smaller now, almost nonexistent in the suspect’s trail. The bleeding had almost stopped and Scarface was still moving… which meant he would probably live.

Which meant he would stand trial. And possibly be acquitted.

This sonofabitch gunned down Winter! Chisolm felt a surge of rage. He reached for his pistol, but stopped. He couldn’t shoot an unarmed man. All the wounds the robber had were from Kopriva’s gun. There would be no justification for Chisolm to shoot.

Gun dropped back at the scene. .

Chisolm made his decision in an instant. He moved as soundlessly as possible up behind the suspect and fell upon him.

Katie took Kopriva’s hand and squeezed it as hard as she could. “Stef?”

She thought for sure he was dead until he groaned and weakly opened his eyes.

“Stef? It’s all right.” She squeezed his hand again. “I’m here. It’s Katie.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m here.”

Chisolm drove his knee downward toward the nape of the suspect’s neck. He was rewarded with a sickening snap. The man went motionless.

Chisolm grabbed a handful of hair and rotated the man’s neck. The floppy, circular motion told him all he needed to know. He took a deep breath and yelled, “Police! Don’t move! Don’t resist!”

Forcing the suspect’s limp hands behind his back, Chisolm keyed his mike.

“Adam-112, I’ve got a suspect at the south edge of the field-” he let the mike button up and counted two seconds. “He’s resisting.” He let the button up again and cuffed the dead suspect with his second pair of cuffs.

His report would read that the suspect had resisted arrest as he attempted prone-cuffing. Everyone in the department knew that prone-cuffing was the proper procedure to use with a dangerous felon. Sometimes the felon was injured.

He keyed the mike, forcing himself to breathe heavily as he spoke. “Adam-112, one in custody. I’ll need medics here, too. Injured suspect.”

Radio copied his transmission. Chisolm looked down at the motionless suspect.

Sometimes the felon even died.

Chisolm thought about Bobby Ramirez and he thought about Karl Winter and he resisted the urge to kick the unmoving robber until there was nothing recognizable left.

Kopriva slowly blinked. He tried to say her name but could only mouth it.

“I’m here, Stef,” she told him over and over. “I’m here.”

The sound of her voice gave him strength, and he held her hand tightly. Medics arrived and worked on him at a frenetic pace, tearing and cutting clothing, bandaging, applying pressure. Kopriva would not let go of her hand, and she seemed to be doing her best to stay out of the medic’s way as she held his grip.

A second ambulance arrived and began to work on Morris. He heard medics ask her to unlock the handcuffs. She handed them her cuff key, refusing to leave Kopriva’s side. He stared at her as they slid him onto a backboard, ignoring everything around him. She walked with him to the ambulance and got inside with them. His eyes never left hers, oblivious to the work the medics were doing. He didn’t feel the I.V. go in, didn’t see anything they did to him.

The ambulance doors slammed shut and he heard two hard taps on the back door. The ambulance lurched forward. The medics did not pause in their efforts.

He continued to stare at her until everything melted into a gray mist and his eyes closed.