Hellbent

Through a jetting arc of water, they watched the Suburban ease into a parking spot a half block behind their minivan. Evan did a full 360. Nothing but kids on the grassy expanse, the weaving faux river, more trees. Van Sciver and Candy weren’t showing themselves.

They didn’t have to.

All around the park’s periphery, parents were picking up their kids, the Suburban just another SUV. Its doors opened, and the three men got out. They stood at the curb, scanning the park.

Joey said, “How?”

“His forearm,” Evan said.

She looked down at the four-inch seam sliced through David’s flesh.

“Wait,” David said. “What do you mean?”

“They chipped you.”

Thornhill’s stare moved to the fountain.

And locked onto them.

He rocked back on his heels, a small display of delight, and said something to Delmonico and Shea. All three sets of eyes pegged them now.

They were about a quarter mile away. The spray beneath the bent spurt of fountain caught the fading sunlight, suspending a rainbow in its web of drops. Evan glared through the gauzy veil of color. The men glared back. Except Thornhill.

Thornhill was grinning.

They stepped forward in unison, cutting through groups of students. Delmonico and Shea wore trench coats. With each step the barrels of their M4s nosed forward into view beside their knees. Thornhill angled away from them behind one of the gnarled tree trunks, opening up a second front.

Evan slid his hand through the gap of his shirt, clenched the grip of the ARES, and readied to draw.

56 Crimson Firework

As Delmonico and Shea started for the fountain, Thornhill sidled farther to the side, dividing Evan’s attention. Even from this distance, Evan could see that his lips were pursed. Was he whistling?

Evan tightened his hand around the pistol. David bristled at his side. Though the men were still way across the park, Joey had instinctively slid one foot back into a fighting stance.

There were countless students before them. And countless behind them.

Evan would have to thread the needle.

Three times.

He unholstered the ARES, held it low by his thigh, let a breath out, tried to relax his clenched jaw.

All at once scores of cop cars erupted onto the block.

There was nothing gradual about it; one moment they were absent, the next a half-dozen units had morphed into existence on the street behind Delmonico and Shea, sirens screaming, lights strobing. Officers sheltered behind car doors and spread across the sidewalk, aiming shotguns and Berettas at the two freelancers—180 degrees of firepower.

The kids bucked and surged, going up on tiptoes, straining their necks, the murmur of their voices heating to a low boil.

A captain had a radio mike snugged beneath his gray mustache, barking orders over the loudspeaker.

Delmonico and Shea halted and raised their arms. Their trench coats gaped wide, revealing the slung M4 carbines.

A few of the kids screamed, those close to the action going skittish. Anxious excitement rippled across the park as a vanguard of cops pressed forward and took the freelancers down.

Evan barely watched them. He kept tabs on Thornhill, lingering by the perimeter of the cop cars, watching him right back.

Evan gave him a What can ya do? shrug.

Thornhill smiled good-naturedly and threw his hands up, like a magician tossing cards. The legion of officers faced the park, Thornhill mere feet behind them, unnoticed. He heeled backward across the street, which had been conveniently cleared for him, then turned and strolled up the wide steps of the school.

He started jogging as he reached the top stairs, building steam. Then he leapt from a planter onto a doorframe, pinballed his way up a crevice between a concrete pillar and a wall, and flipped himself onto the roof. His jacket flared like a cape, his powerful wrestler’s build momentarily silhouetted against the sky.

“Holy shit,” David said. “Did you see that? The guy’s friggin’ Spider-Man.”

Instead of fleeing, Thornhill took a seat at the lip of the roof above the school’s entrance, legs crossed. He curled over his lap like weeping Buddha, the muscles of his shoulders undulating.

Across the park the cops hauled Delmonico and Shea onto their feet and steered them at a diagonal away from the high school. They angled across the grass to where a police van waited on the neighboring street, clear of the traffic jam of responding cruisers. The freelancers shuffled along compliantly, hands cuffed behind them. Though a good number of students had scattered, others remained, rubbernecking from what they considered a safe distance. Many of the parents were out of their cars, rushing to their kids, pulling them away.

Up on the roof of the high school, Thornhill straightened up, and Evan saw what he’d been doing.

Screwing a suppressor onto the threaded barrel of his FNX-45.

“How far away are we?” Joey said.

Evan squinted, assessing. “Just under five hundred yards.”

“It’s impossible for him to hit us.”

“He’s not aiming at us.”