Manhattan Is My Beat (Rune 1)

He leapt toward the phone. A stream of bullets followed him; upstairs the killer would be watching on the video camera, knowing exactly where Gittleman was.

Gittleman pressed himself flat against the wall. The gunman fired another shot. A single. It was close. Then two more. Inches away. Teasing him, it seemed like. Nobody would hear. The only sound was the cracking of plaster and wood.

More shots followed him as he dodged toward the bathroom. Debris flew around him. There was a pause. He hoped the killer had given up and fled. But it turned out that he was after the phone--so Gittleman couldn't call for help. Two bullets cracked through the ceiling, hit the beige telephone unit, and shattered it into a hundred pieces.

"Help!" he cried, nauseated with fear. But, of course, the rooms on either side of this one were empty--a fact so reassuring a few moments ago, so horrifying now.

Tears of fright in his eyes ...

He rolled into a corner, knocked a lamp over to darken the room.

More bullets crashed down. Closer, testing. Trying to find him. The gunman upstairs, watching a TV screen of his own, just like Gittleman had been watching Charlton Heston a few minutes ago.

Do something, Gittleman raged to himself. Come on!

He eased forward again and shoved the TV set, on a roller stand, toward the window. It slammed into the pane, cracked it, and blocked the view the video camera had of the room.

There were several more shots but the gunman was blind now.

"Please," Gittleman prayed quietly. "Please. Someone help me."

Hugging the walls, he moved to the doorway. He fumbled the chain and dead bolt, shivering in panic, certain the man was right above him, aiming down. About to pull the trigger.

But there were no more shots and he swung the door open fast and leapt into the hallway. Calling to the marshal at the elevator--not one of the Sons, an officer named Gibson. "He's shooting--there's a man upstairs with a gun! You--"

But Gittleman stopped speaking. At the end of the hallway Gibson lay facedown. Blood pooled around his head. Another puppet--this one with cut strings.

"Oh, no," he gasped. Turned around to run.

He stopped. Looking at what he now realized was the inevitable.

A handsome man, dark-complected, wearing a well-cut suit, standing in the hallway. He carried a Polaroid camera in one hand and, in the other, a black pistol mounted with a silencer.

"You're Gittleman, aren't you?" the man asked. He sounded polite, as if he were merely curious.

Gittleman couldn't respond. But the man squinted and then nodded. "Yeah, sure you are."

"But ..." Gittleman looked back into his hotel room.

"Oh, my partner wasn't trying to hit you in there. Just to flush you. We need to get you outside and confirm the kill." The man gave a little shrug, nodding at the camera. "'Causa what we're getting paid they want proof. You know."

And he shot Gittleman three times in the chest.

In the hotel corridor, which used to smell of Lysol and now smelled of Lysol and cordite from the gunshots, Haarte unscrewed the suppressor and dropped it and the Walther into his pocket. He glanced at the Polaroid picture of the dead man as it developed. Then put it in the same pocket as the gun.

From his belt he took his own walkie-talkie--more expensive than the Marshals' and, unlike theirs, sensibly equipped with a three-level-encryption scrambler--and spoke to Zane, his partner, upstairs, the one so proficient with automatic weapons. "He's dead. I've got the snap. Get out."

"On my way," Zane replied.

Haarte glanced at his watch. If the other marshal had gone to get food--which he probably had, since it was dinnertime--he could be back in six or seven minutes. That's how much time it took to walk to the restaurant closest to the hotel, order take-out, and return. He obviously hadn't gone to the restaurant in the hotel because they would just have ordered room service.

Haarte walked slowly down the four flights of stairs and outside into the warm spring evening. He checked the streets. Nearly deserted. No sirens. No flashing lights of silent roll-ups.

His earphone crackled. Haarte's partner said, "I'm in the car. Back at the Hilton in thirty."

"See you then."

Haarte got into their second rental car and drove out of downtown to a park in University City, a pleasant suburb west of the city.