Hell's Corner (Camel Club 5)

there.”

“And what will our move be?” Annabelle asked.

“Still thinking of it. Just drive. And hit the curve fast. I want the driver focused on the road, not me.”

Annabelle accelerated and drove into the bend in the road at speed.

“Punch it more,” instructed Reuben.

She did so, fighting to keep the car on the road.

Reuben had turned in his seat and was looking back. He pulled a large handgun from his pocket and aimed it out the window.

“I didn’t know you were armed,” Annabelle said.

“Well now you do.”

“Do you have a permit for that thing?”

“Yeah, but it expired about fifteen years ago.”

“Wait a minute, what if those are cops back there?”

“We’re about to find out.”

The SUV came into view. There was a man hanging out the side of the truck holding a submachine gun.

“Don’t think they’re cops,” said Reuben. “Keep it steady.”

The submachine gun fired about the same time Reuben did. The sub was aimed at the car. Reuben was aiming at the front tire. The sub hit its target, blowing out the back window of their car. Annabelle hunched forward and down, her head near the steering wheel.

Reuben fired once, twice and then a third time as the guy holding the sub reloaded. The front tires on the SUV shredded. The car shot across the road, hit the shoulder and flipped on its side.

Annabelle sat back up. “Jesus.”

Reuben turned back around. “Look out!” he screamed.

A second SUV was coming from the opposite direction and heading right for them. Annabelle cut the wheel hard and her car lurched across the road, cleared the shoulder and landed in the dirt. She gunned the engine and steered the car toward a stand of trees. They reached it. She slammed the car to a stop and they jumped out and ran for the trees as the SUV bore down on them.

Reuben turned and fired a few shots in the truck’s direction, causing it to veer off. The second they reached the trees, bursts of submachine-gun fire hit. Reuben grabbed Annabelle’s arm and threw her into the cover of the woods.

He wasn’t as fortunate. A round slammed into his arm.

“Shit!”

“Reuben!”

He wheeled around and fired at the now stopped truck. The windshield splintered and the men inside took cover.

Reuben turned and stumbled into the woods along with Annabelle. She held on to his other shoulder and helped him along. Between gritted teeth Reuben said, “Now might be a good time to call the cops, Annabelle. I’d rather have to explain things to them instead of lying in a box after these guys finish with us.”

She slipped the phone from her purse and hit 911. Nothing happened.

“Damn it. No bars.”

“Great.”

“But I had reception around here before.”

“Maybe they’re jamming the signal.”

“Who the hell are they?”

“People we do not want to meet up close.”

They heard running feet behind them.

They took cover behind a tree. Reuben fired off the rest of his ammo in the direction of their pursuers. A volley of automatic fire came back at them.

“Load my pistol for me,” said Reuben between gritted teeth. “Extra clip in my right pocket.” She did so and handed it back to him. He studied the terrain around them. “Submachine guns against a pistol only has one outcome,” he said.

“So we’re dead?”

“Didn’t say that.”

“I wonder what Oliver would do.”

“What Oliver would do is the unexpected.”

“So exactly what does that mean in this situation?”

Reuben fired three more shots, then they took cover behind a large oak as the machine-gun fire raked across it.

Reuben said, “When the rounds stop, you run that way.” He pointed behind them. “Cut to the left and get back to the road. You should be able to make a call there or flag down a car.”

“And what about you?” she said fiercely.

The firing stopped as the men reloaded.

Reuben grabbed Annabelle’s arm and pushed. “Go.”

“There has to be another way.”

“There is no other way. We can’t con our way out of this.”

“Reuben, I can’t leave—”

He gripped her arm so tightly that she winced. “You will do what I tell you to do. One of us has to get out of this.”

“But—”

The next moment he was running flat-out right at their pursuers.

Stunned, Annabelle turned and ran in the opposite direction. Tears streamed down her face as she heard the firing start up again.

Annabelle ran. But she couldn’t outrun the tears as the gunfire continued.

CHAPTER 45

IT WAS DARK IN THE CITY. Stone watched carefully from a spot he’d chosen in Lafayette Park. He checked his watch. Ten seconds to go. He counted down in his head. The light started blinking from a distance. This was a little demonstration he and Chapman had come up with. She was clicking a high-powered red-beamed laser off and on to simulate the muzzle flashes of a weapon.

She was standing in the rooftop garden of the Hay-Adams. The light was barely visible from where he was standing. And the trees were blocking any real sightline. He called Chapman and told her the results of his observations. She moved to the next spot in their experiment, a building behind and to the left of the hotel.

Stone had chosen that building using the hotel as a base marker, because of the bullet pattern in the park and also because the windows in that building actually opened. He had recalled that all the markers denoting found slugs were on the left-hand or western side of the park. That didn’t seem unusual at first, but now coupled with the revelation that the shooters had not been at the Hay-Adams, it was not simply unusual; it was enlightening.

While Stone was waiting for Chapman to reach the next location, he felt a presence behind him. He turned. It was Laura Ashburn, the female FBI agent who had interrogated him over the slaying of Tom Gross. She was dressed all in black except for her blue FBI windbreaker with the gold lettering on the back. She wore an FBI ball cap and was staring at Stone.

“Agent Ashburn,” he said. “Anything I can do for you?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” she said.

“All right.”

“We filed our report.”

“Okay.”

“It wasn’t very flattering for you.”

“After our meeting I didn’t expect it to be. Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

“I’m not sure,” she said hesitantly.

He smiled.

“You think something’s funny.”

He said, “Let me tell you what I think is funny. After all the assets that have been thrown at this case no one knows what the hell really happened here or why. You’re all running around pointing fingers at everyone else, withholding information, spying on your own people.”

“What the hell are you—”