he lands on top of me, gunfire erupts outside the warehouse and echoes through the metal building. Two shots, I think. Then a third, the sound quick and flat.
“Get off,” I grunt, unable to draw breath with Ike on top of me.
He rolls off and up into a kneeling position, his pistol pointed through the warehouse door.
“What happened?” I ask.
“There’s two guns out there. One silenced.”
“I’ve got a man out there, Ike. Maybe one of the guns was his.”
He whips his head around. “What man?”
“A private security guy. From Houston.”
He peers into the darkness the way he must have done in Vietnam, with absolute concentration. “I can’t see shit,” he hisses. “But some lardass ex-cop ain’t gonna help us one bit, I know that.”
“He’s not what you think.”
After a minute of silence, he works his way toward the edge of the door.
“What do you see?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
A boom like a cannon shot shatters the silence, reverberating through the warehouse for at least four seconds. Ike hits the floor with his pistol still aimed at the door.
“That’s a deer gun,” he says. “Stay down. We got serious shit going down out there, and it ain’t all got to do with us.”
“How do you know?”
“Ain’t but one bullet come into this warehouse.”
As I lie facedown on the floor, breathing accumulated dust and oil, the seconds drag past. There are no more shots, but the instinctual voice that warned me during the fire that killed Ruby is not comforted by this fact. It knows that silence is the cloak of the approaching enemy.
“How long we gonna lie here?” I whisper.
“Till I tell you to get up.”
Another five minutes pass.
“Penn Cage!” yells a man from beyond the warehouse door. “It’s Kelly! Daniel Kelly.”
“That your guy?” asks Ike.
“It’s Kelly!” shouts the voice again. “Come out! And bring your friend. We need some law out here.”
I scramble to my feet and trot to the edge of the door.
Daniel Kelly stands forty feet away, an MP-5 submachine gun slung over his shoulder.
“What happened?” I ask, walking into the parking lot.
“Somebody tried to whack you. Or the cop. I couldn’t tell which.”
Ike steps into the light, his pistol aimed at Kelly. “Who shot who out here?”
Kelly holds up his hands. “Take it easy, Deputy. I’m a friendly. I was out here covering your meeting when I saw a muzzle flash from over there.” He points at the levee, a dark silhouette fifty yards away. “It was a silenced rifle, and it was firing subsonic rounds, because I didn’t hear the bullet crack. I started running toward the flash, whipping out a spotter scope as I ran, trying to get within range and see at the same time. The shooter was firing from the prone position, already setting up for his second shot. I yelled just as he pulled the trigger, and as he swung around to deal with me, I double-tapped him on the run.”
“Is he dead?” Ike asks.
“Definitely. I put one through his head to be sure, and it’s a good thing, because he was wearing a vest.”
“What about that deer gun I heard?”
Kelly points into the darkness south of the warehouse. “The deer gun belonged to the guy over there. Who is also dead. The shooter on the levee took him out. That was the first muzzle flash I saw. He fired across my line of sight, at a right angle to you guys. The other guy must have fired off that deer slug as he was dying. Pure reflex, probably.”
“I don’t get it,” I say. “Why would they shoot at each other? A falling-out among hit men?”
Kelly shakes his head. “I don’t think these guys were together. They’re dressed different, and their equipment’s different. I think the guy with the deer gun was just in the way.”
“Who knew you were coming to this meeting?” Ike asks.
“My father and Kelly. That’s it.”
“What about you?” Kelly asks Ike.
“Nobody knows where I’m at. How did these guys get so close if you were covering the meeting?”
Kelly scratches the side of his nose, as though to emphasize his calmness. “First of all, they’re not that close. Second, the curve of the levee blocked my line of sight to the guy with the deer gun, but not his line to you. Third, the sniper on the levee followed you in. He probably drove with his lights off and parked well back, then moved up on foot.” Kelly pauses, his cool blue eyes level with Ike’s. “And fourth, if I was in with those guys, you’d be bagged and tagged right now.”
Ike snorts and turns toward the levee. “Show me the dead guys.”
Kelly unslings his MP-5 and starts jogging toward the levee. We follow him across the lot, trying to stay with him as he pounds up the spongy grass on the side of the levee. The odors of cow manure and bush-hogged grass weight the humid air. At the crest, Kelly points at a black shape lying at the edge of the gravel road that runs atop the levee.
“No wallet,” he says. “No ID at all. Car’s clean too. A rental.”
“That’s risky,” Ike remarks. “He gets stopped at random without ID, he’s gonna get run in.”
“Unless he’s willing to do the cop.”
Ike walks to the corpse, bends over, and takes a long look. “Never seen him. Take a look, Cage.”
I walk over and glance at the dead sniper. He’s dressed from head to toe in black, and looks like he stepped off a film set. His face is pale and placid in the dark, as though he were shot while sleeping. A dead face can be difficult to identify, so I give it long enough to be sure.
“I don’t know him.”
“Here’s his weapon.” Kelly holds out a long, bolt-action rifle to Ike. “Rank-Pullin starlight scope. Fourth-generation passive amplification. Expensive toy.”
“Guy’s definitely out of town,” Ike declares. “Nobody around here uses shit like this. Caliber looks awful small.”
“It’s a special twenty-two magnum. Chambers subsonic rounds. An assassin’s gun.”
“Christ,” I whisper. “Where’s the other guy?”
Kelly
