Текст книги "The Naked Edge"

Автор книги: David Morrell

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^{"She has a point," Jamie said.}

^{"Or maybe that's part of her cover story."}

^{"I'm into the files. Tell me what you need," Kim said.}

^{"All the GPS assignments Carl Duran was on." He watched Kim intently, checking for a hesitation, a slight narrowing of her eyes, anything that might indicate that the name meant something to her. "He was fired three years ago."}

^{"Does the first name have a C or a K?"}

^"C."

^{Cavanaugh still detected nothing to suggest that the name was important to her. No pursing of the lips. No tightening of the cheek muscles. In his experience, most dopers couldn't repress telltales when they were under stress.}

^{"Sorry," Kim said. "Carl Duran doesn't have a file."}

^{"Doesn't . . .? You must have made a mistake."}

^{"When it involves computers, I don't make mistakes."}

^{"But GPS always keeps records about former employees."}

^{Kim tapped more keys. "Nope. No assignment list. No photograph. Nothing."}

^{"Duran must have deleted it," Jamie said.}

^{"Couldn't have. At least, not on his own. Only three people know the codes to get that far into the system. Gerald, Ali, and–"}

^{"You," Cavanaugh said.}

^{"Another nasty mark against me, right? But before you get judgmental again, watch this ." Kim tapped more keys. "The purging was so thorough, I can't retrieve Duran's file. But I can search every assignment we've ever had and tell the computer to isolate any that Duran worked on." Kim touched a final key. "And here you are."}

^{The printer came to life, flipping out pages.}

^{"Plenty of trouble at GPS," Kim remarked.}

^{"Yes," Cavanaugh agreed. "Frank Tamblyn's the latest casualty."}

^{"I mean new trouble."}

^{The phone rang.}

^{"And I'm afraid," Kim said, "that this'll be more."}

^{Chapter 9.}

^{The agent made sure his weapons were in place before leaving his house: his .45 semiautomatic on his hip under his suit coat, his 9 millimeter subcompact in his ankle holster, his tactical folding knife clipped to a pocket concealed by his suit coat, and another knife on a breakaway chain around his neck under his shirt.}

^{Uneasy, he glanced back toward his wife whose eyes were filled with equal unease as she held their baby boy.}

^{"Meg, believe me, I'll be careful."}

^{"But what about us ? I don't mean to make it seem like the risk you're taking doesn't matter. But . . ." The baby squirmed under Meg's left arm. He had a slight fever. "What if whoever's doing this starts attacking . . ."}

^{"Not just operators but their families?"}

^{"I couldn't bear it if something happened to the baby."}

^{"Stay inside. Keep the doors locked."}

^{"I need to take Bobby to the doctor."}

^{"There's a gun on the top shelf in the closet."}

^{"Right. I'm going to hold the baby and blast away like in that John Woo movie you watched last night where the hero's in a nursery in a hospital with kids in his arms and guns in his hands. I kind of doubt it."}

^{"Why don't you go to your mother's? I'm off this assignment in a week. When I get back from New Orleans, we'll take a vacation, someplace we feel safe."}

^{"Wherever that is."}

^{"Maybe I should take a pay cut and get a less dangerous job."}

^{"If it was just the two of us . . ."}

^{"What a joke. I'm a security specialist, but I can't make my wife feel secure."}

^{Outside, a car beeped.}

^{"The taxi. Listen, the client's got his jet waiting. He's obsessive about maintaining a schedule. I'll call you en route to the airport. We'll try to figure a way to handle this."}

^{Meg nodded, unconvinced.}

^{"Love you," he said.}

^{"Love you."}

^{As the taxi drove away, the agent glanced back at his house. He felt encumbered by his numerous weapons, but he knew agents who'd responded to the recent attacks by carrying three guns instead of his two.}

^{He pulled out his cell phone and called headquarters for updates. While the phone on the other end buzzed, he continued gazing through the taxi's rear window toward the third house from the corner, the one with the bright flower boxes.}

^{A huge fireball roared, chunks of walls, floors, windows, furniture, and bodies spewing from the churning core. The neighboring houses burst apart from the force of the blast, flaming debris hurtling across the street.}

^{The taxi wavered to a stop. A brick struck the window, bursting through, but all the agent cared about was shoving the door open, lurching onto the street.}

^{"Meg!" he shouted, running. "Bobby!" He felt the heat of the blaze but ignored it, charging closer. "No!" His shriek threatened to tear his vocal cords. " Nooo! "}

^{Chapter 10.}

^{Kim's knuckles whitened as she clutched the phone. All the while she listened, the shocked look on her face made Cavanaugh and Jamie remain absolutely still.}

^{"Yes, Ali," she said. "Yes, I understand." She took a breath. "Nothing will help him, of course, but you're right–we need to do what we can."}

^{She set down the phone.}

^{"Another agent's been killed?" Cavanaugh asked.}

^{"His family," Kim answered.}

^{"His family ?" Jamie looked stunned.}

^{"Jim Driscoll. Word about what happened to his wife and child got around fast. Now our agents are calling their duty officers to say they're sick. We hear the same thing's happening with the U.S. Marshals, the Secret Service, and the Diplomatic Security Service. Only a few so far, but the trend's not hard to predict. Why should agents protect strangers when they themselves are the targets? And their loved ones. Those reporting for duty are either unmarried or else insisting on protection for their families while they're not home. They also want twice the operators they normally have on an assignment. The system's falling apart."}

^{Kim nervously scratched her arms. Her brow glistened with sweat. Through the open bedroom door, she saw her gym bag on the living room floor. The bag of white pills was on it.}

^{For a moment, Cavanaugh thought Kim would move toward it. His own move was toward the Global Protective Services information that she'd printed.}

^{Continuing to stare toward the bag of pills, Kim asked, "You think this Carl Duran has something to do with what's happening?"}

^{Cavanaugh took the pages from the printer's tray. He tried not to allow his emotions to tighten his voice. "At the moment, he's the only lead we have."}

^{"Well, if you're willing to allow a doper to help–" Kim turned from staring at the pills. "–we'll all see if we notice anything."}

^{They slid to the floor in the nearly bare room, their backs to a wall, reading the material: all of Carl Duran's assignments.}

^{"Nothing about the clients he protected draws my attention," Cavanaugh noted.}

^{"What about where the assignments took place?" Jamie asked.}

^{They scanned the pages.}

^{"Washington. New York. Paris. The same places I was usually assigned," Cavanaugh said. "Nothing suspicious."}

^{"What about incidents on his assignments?" Kim asked. "I see there was something about a female rock star and an obsessive fan he stabbed."}

^{"That's what got him fired."}

^{"And here." Jamie pointed. "A client died on one of his assignments. A Russian oil tycoon."}

^{"I heard about that, but I had no idea Carl worked on it." Frowning, Cavanaugh explained to Jamie, "It happened four years ago. The tycoon was in Rome, negotiating to lease oil tankers. He believed some of his Russian competitors were conspiring to have him killed. It turned out he was right. A sniper got him." Cavanaugh scanned another page. "Who was Carl's team leader?"}

^{"And who were some of the other operators he worked with?" Kim drew a finger down a list. "Shit," she suddenly said.}

^"What?"

^{"Ali," Kim said. " Ali was the team leader when the tycoon was assassinated. That was before Ali got promoted to running our personnel department."}

^{"That's not the only time Ali worked with Duran," Jamie said. "Here." She pointed toward the middle of a page. "And here." She pointed toward the top of another.}

^{"And here," Kim said. "Duran and Ali worked together on several long assignments."}

^{"The tycoon was hit by a rifle bullet that went through a window in his hotel suite," Jamie said, reading. "Ali was in the room with him, and then Duran hurried in from standing watch outside the suite."}

^{"When an assignment ends that badly, we send an investigator to learn from our mistakes," Kim said. "The report concluded that nobody was at fault."}

^{"Who ran the investigation?"}

^{All three read the summary of the incident.}

^{"Gerald Brockman," they said at once.}

^{"Okay, okay, let's not jump to conclusions." Cavanaugh stared at the page. "These could all be coincidences. It doesn't mean something's wrong."}

^{"Who else was on the team?" Kim asked. "Is there anyone we can ask who'll either confirm Brockman's report or insist it was a cover-up?"}

^{"Four of them." Cavanaugh scanned the names, his stomach sinking as he read each of them. "Most are dead."}

^{"What?" Jamie asked.}

^{"Over the years, they–"}

^{"Not most of them," Kim said. "I recognize these names. Leaving out Gerald, Ali, and Carl Duran, all the operators on that team are dead."}

^{Kim hurried to the computer, set down the page she held, and typed names that were on it. She stared at the monitor. "One was shot on an assignment. The others . . . car crash, scuba accident, altitude sickness while climbing . . ."}

^{"Mt. Everest," Cavanaugh said. "I was invited on that expedition. A job kept me from going. Carl went, though."}

^{"Guy gets around," Jamie said.}

^{"But if Carl was involved in a cover-up that Gerald and Ali were part of, Carl would never have allowed GPS to fire him," Cavanaugh said. "He'd have put so much pressure on Gerald and Ali, blackmailing them, that they'd have persuaded Duncan to let him stay."}

^{"Good point." Kim scratched her arms.}

^{"Are you okay?" Jamie asked.}

^{"Couldn't be better." Kim's brow was beaded with sweat.}

^{"Right. If you need it, chew more Oxy. This isn't the time to make another attempt at withdrawing."}

^{"Just a little longer," Kim said. "When Duran was fired, Gerald was Duncan's second-in-command. He had the authority to stop Duran from being dismissed."}

^{"But since Gerald didn't intervene, that suggests Carl didn't have any way to blackmail him," Jamie pointed out. "That leaves Ali. When was he promoted to running the personnel division?"}

^{Kim's fingers tapped the keyboard. "A year after Duran was fired."}

^{"He couldn't have suddenly demanded that Carl be rehired," Cavanaugh said. "It would have looked suspicious."}

^{"But if Ali couldn't get Duran rehired, how else could Ali have been useful to him?"}

^{"By giving Carl information about GPS assignments. We–"}

^{A noise made Cavanaugh pause.}

^{"What's the matter?" Jamie asked.}

^{Cavanaugh glanced from the bedroom toward the front door.}

^{The noise was repeated.}

^{"Get down!"}

^{Chapter 11.}

^{The lock and the hinges disintegrated, presumably from thermite cord. As the front door crashed inward, three men charged in, firing muffled automatic rifles.}

^{In the bedroom, Cavanaugh grabbed Jamie and dove to the floor. Chunks of the wall erupted. He and Jamie drew their pistols, but before they could shoot, the gunmen veered out of sight. Kim astonished him by squirming across and slamming the bedroom door, locking it.}

^{"Stay down, Kim! They'll shoot through the door!"}

^{"It's metal!}

^{With a ringing echo, the bullets struck the door but didn't come through.}

^{The shooters returned their aim to the wall, firing holes in it, their sound-suppressed weapons no louder than sewing machines. Given enough time, they could level a portion of the wall and step through to finish their job. But they didn't have time. They counted on surprise and massive firepower to give them the advantage. Now they had another obstacle to overcome, and despite their muffled weapons, the din of bullets bursting through walls would alarm the neighbors. Cavanaugh prayed that someone would phone the police, that sirens would converge on the building. The shooters would worry about that. They would soon need to run.}

^{The sudden silence in the living room supported his logic. They were leaving.}

^{No. He was wrong. He heard a noise against the hinges and locks on the metal door.}

^{"They're using thermite cord on this door also!"}

^{Cavanaugh fired three times at the wall, not expecting to hit the attackers but wanting to make noise, hoping to panic neighbors into calling 911.}

^{"Let's go!" He hurried toward the bedroom window, shoved it upward, and stared at a fire escape he'd noticed earlier when he'd closed the draperies.}

^{Waving Jamie and Kim through, he squirmed to follow.}

^{A dark, narrow alley was three stories down. A brick wall across from Kim's apartment had prevented the shooters from establishing a sniper's post.}

^{"Faster!" Cavanaugh yelled, hearing Jamie and Kim scramble down ahead of him. The clang of their impact on the next landing was followed by the crash of Kim's bedroom door falling inward.}

^{They realize we've gone , Cavanaugh thought. They used all their time. They need to run before the police arrive.}

^{To assure himself, Cavanaugh spun and peered up, dismayed to see a face and a rifle barrel at the open window. The slots of the fire escape deflected the gunman's bullets, the ricochets loud in the confines of the alley.}

^{"Go, go, go!" he yelled to Jamie and Kim.}

^{He heard Jamie's desperate breathing as she surged down ahead of him. Kim's martial arts training allowed her to vault the railing, dangle from the bottom of the platform, and drop to the next landing. Cavanaugh rushed down next to her, seeing her straighten, an expression of pain tightening her face.}

^{He stared up. The face was gone from the window.}

^{We're two floors below them, he thought. But there might be other gunmen on the street. We don't know what we'll be running into.}

^{He noticed that the windows next to him were dark.}

^{"Look away! Protect your eyes!" he warned Jamie and Kim.}

^{He kicked the window, glass flying.}

^{Jamie reached through, freeing the lock, raising the window.}

^{"Go!" he urged.}

^{He crawled in after her. As glass crunched under his shoes, Kim gripped the inside of the window frame and swung in behind them.}

^{Eyes adjusting to the dark, Cavanaugh hurried from a kitchen into a living room, put his ear against the door, heard footsteps thundering down stairs, unlocked the door, yanked it open, and slammed against a man with a rifle who tried to charge past. The impact knocked the man's breath out. A railing snapped when he struck it. As the man dropped his rifle and almost plummeted into the stairwell, Cavanaugh grabbed him, dragged him back, and gripped him in a restraining hold. Leverage pried Cavanaugh's gun from his hand.}

^{Abruptly, more thundering footsteps made Cavanaugh spin toward where the stairs led upward. A second gunman charged into view. As the man raised his rifle, he lurched back, his eyes going blank, Jamie's bullets–two to the chest, one to the head–dropping him.}

^{At the end of the landing, a door opened, an elderly woman peering out.}

^{"Stay inside!" Cavanaugh shouted, struggling to keep the man in a restraining hold. "Call the police! Where's the third man? " Cavanaugh yelled to Jamie and Kim.}

^{"There!" Kim shouted, pointing downward.}

^{The last of the gunmen aimed from the bottom of the stairs. Cavanaugh lurched back as bullets disintegrated what remained of the railing. At once, a metallic scrape indicated he was reloading. Jamie leaned into the stairwell and fired repeatedly. The man groaned, slumping.}

^{"There might be others! Get into the apartment!" Cavanaugh yelled, continuing to restrain the first gunman. As Jamie and Kim hurried toward the dark kitchen, Cavanaugh forced the man across the shadowy living room.}

^{He winced when the man slammed a thick-soled shoe onto his right foot. Holding him from behind, Cavanaugh applied a strangle grip, feeling him squirm, hearing his labored breathing.}

^{The man tried to reach behind him and grab Cavanaugh's testicles. Cavanaugh strengthened his grip and stomped the man's left foot.}

^{The man grunted, lurched backward, walloped Cavanaugh against a wall, and rammed an elbow into his ribs. As Cavanaugh's grip loosened, the man charged free and suddenly had a knife in his hand. Cavanaugh blocked the exit from the apartment. The man pivoted toward the kitchen, where Jamie aimed her pistol toward him.}

^{"No!" Cavanaugh said. "We need him alive!"}

^{"I don't care!" Jamie told the man, "Take one step toward me, and I'll–"}

^{The man swung toward Cavanaugh, jabbing with his knife. Cavanaugh leapt back and threw a lamp. While the man avoided it, Cavanaugh unclipped his knife from his pocket. By design, the hook on the back of the blade snagged against the edge of the pocket, the motion causing the blade to open as Cavanaugh yanked the knife out.}

^{Kim jabbed the light switch. Cavanaugh saw her doing it, but the man did not. Surprised by the light and by how quickly Cavanaugh had produced his knife, the man thrust again. Cavanaugh parried, slicing the back of the man's hand, and now the crucial element was who acted faster. No staring at one another. No assessing. No calculating a clever move. Most knife fights took less than five seconds. Flick, flick, flick. Now you're bleeding. Now you're dying. Overwhelming primordial power would win. Cavanaugh believed that the term "martial arts" was a self-contradiction. When it came to combat, there was nothing artistic, nothing smooth and graceful about it.}

^{As adrenaline dumped into Cavanaugh's system, his blood vessels expanded. His heart sped. Martial arts students claimed to be able to use Zen techniques to control their pulse during combat. But in Cavanaugh's experience, his adrenaline took charge, and as sure as death followed life, his heartbeat went ballistic. Fine motor skills, which use dexterity and hand/eye coordination to perform precise movements (accurate shooting, for example) disintegrate at 115 heartbeats per minute. Complex motor skills, which help muscle groups perform a series of blunt movements (kicks and punches, for example) disintegrate at 145 heartbeats per minute. But most hand-to-hand combat causes the heart to surge to 200 beats per minute. In that frenzy of adrenaline, the combatant becomes one of two large furious deadly animals charging one another.}

^{Along with burnt gunpowder, the smell of testosterone filled the living room. Musk. A man smell of fierce power. Everything seemed fast and yet terribly slow. Sounds faded. Vision narrowed. All of this happened in an instant as Cavanaugh screamed, flicked his knife back and forth and up and down with a violent speed that the eye couldn't follow, and charged his opponent, using a buzz-saw technique against which his enemy couldn't defend unless he too used his knife as a buzz saw. But it was all happening so fast, so overwhelmingly that the opponent jerked back, screaming–not as Cavanaugh screamed, in massive aggression, but instead in abject terrified surrender. As blood flew from the man's arms and his chest, as the man tripped and fell backward, Cavanaugh was on him, kicking.}

^{"No!" Jamie yelled.}

^{But Cavanaugh couldn't stop kicking.}

^{"You'll kill him!" Jamie shouted. "You said we need him alive!"}

^{Cavanaugh's frenzy snapped, Jamie's urgency reaching him. He stopped. He stood over the unconscious man, breathing frantically. His clothes were soaked with sweat.}

^{He was suddenly aware of sirens.}

^{A voice yelled, "I told you to drop the knife and put your hands up! Lady, drop the gun! Don't make me shoot! Everybody, hands up !"}

^{Chapter 12.}

^{Chest heaving, Cavanaugh turned slowly and saw two policemen in the living room, their pistols aimed at him, Jamie, and Kim. In the open doorway, an intense man in a suit aimed a pistol also. Outside, more sirens joined the commotion as the man in the suit yelled, "For the last time, drop your weapons!"}

^{Cavanaugh let go of his knife. It clattered onto the floor.}

^{"My gun might go off if I drop it," Jamie told the man.}

^{"Gently," the man said, aiming, "set it down."}

^{Jamie obeyed, then carefully straightened, both hands in the air. Kim raised her hands, also.}

^{"Get the paramedics up here," the man told someone behind him. " You three ," he said to Cavanaugh, Jamie, and Kim. "Over against this wall! Lean forward! Spread your legs! Get a police woman up here!" he shouted down the stairs.}

^{"We were defending ourselves," Cavanaugh maintained as he leaned forward with his hands against the wall.}

^{"Sure you were."}

^{"They attacked us in my apartment," Kim said. "The third floor."}

^{"Check that," the man told a policeman. He studied Kim. "So if you live up there , how did you get down here ?"}

^{"Lieutenant," an officer said, peering into the kitchen. "We've got a broken window."}

^{"I think we're going to be a long time sorting this out," the lieutenant said. "Just so we don't have any misunderstandings with a judge and a jury, you have the right to remain silent. You know the drill?"}

^"Yes."

^{"Do you want an attorney?"}

^{"Seems like I don't have a choice."}

^{"You got that right." The lieutenant searched him from behind, lifted Cavanaugh's jacket, and found his empty holster. "Where's the gun that goes with this?"}

^{Cavanaugh nodded toward where it had fallen. "Near the door."}

^{"You better have a permit for this."}

^{"I do."}

^{"Why do you need it?"}

^{"I'm in the security business. Global Protective Services."}

^{"Yeah, I saw how you were protecting this guy on the floor, leaving impressions of your shoes on his kidneys. Global Protective Services, huh? I'm impressed all to hell."}

^{Cavanaugh decided the conversation had just about come to an end. "How do I contact my attorney?"}

^{"Unless you've got a supply of carrier pigeons, I suggest using this ." The man pulled Cavanaugh's phone from his jacket.}

^"Now?"

^{"When I'm finished." The man patted Cavanaugh's chest and found his claw-shaped knife in a plastic sheath suspended by a break-away chain around Cavanaugh's neck.}

^{Meanwhile, a policewoman arrived and searched Jamie, removing her knife from her hip.}

^{The man glanced from it toward the pistol and the knives on the floor. "Between these and the automatic rifles on the stairs, we've got enough weapons to outfit the military of a Caribbean country."}

^{"Lieutenant," a policeman said at the door. "The apartment upstairs is shot to pieces."}

^{"Just your normal Saturday night in Greenwich Village," the lieutenant said. "Sit on the floor," he told Cavanaugh.}

^{Cavanaugh obeyed.}

^{"Cross your legs."}

^{Cavanaugh did.}

^{"Here's your cell phone. Tell your attorney to be quick. Tell him Lt. Russell can't wait to talk to him."}

^{Ambulance attendants crouched next to the man Cavanaugh had subdued.}

^{"Is he going to live?" Russell asked.}

^{"He'll be able to answer your questions. My, my, he's got a pistol under his jacket."}

^{"And there'll be another knife somewhere," Cavanaugh said.}

^{"Yeah," the ambulance attendant said, "on a chain around his neck." The attendant pulled it from under his shirt. "Looks like a claw."}

^{"Like the one that was around your neck," Russell told Cavanaugh. "Are you guys making some kind of fashion statement?"}

^{"And what's this ? Another fashion statement?" Using forceps, the attendant probed the man's left ear and removed a flesh-colored object.}

^{"An earbud radio receiver," Cavanaugh said. "If he's got one of those, he's also got a miniature microphone." Cavanaugh studied the man's blood-spotted turtleneck. "Probably pinned to the front of his collar. A mike the size of a dime."}

^{"Damned if there isn't," the attendant said.}

^{Lt. Russell yelled down the stairs, "Does the wounded guy down there have a microphone on his collar? And something in his ear?"}

^{"Just a second, Lieutenant, while I . . .Yeah!"}

^{"Same with this guy!" someone shouted from the upper stairs, where the third gunman lay dead.}

^{Russell inspected the microphone and pried off its back. Just before he pulled out a tiny battery, he asked Cavanaugh, "Who the hell did you take on? The CIA?"}

^{Chapter 13.}

^{" The CIA? "}

^{Sprawled on a dark rooftop across the street, Carl listened to the radio transmission crackle and die. Like the men in the apartment building, he had an earbud and a miniature microphone. Un like them, he had a small black box the size of a pack of cigarettes. This box, a radio receiver and transmitter, had a switch that allowed him to communicate with each man separately. For the past fifteen minutes, until the microphone had failed, he'd been able to eavesdrop on the conversation.}

^{He hadn't heard Aaron's voice in several years. It filled him with a welter of emotions: anger, regret, bitterness, a fond need to be able to return to that long-ago summer when they pretended to be soldiers caught behind enemy lines and hid among bushes, watching men and women holding hands as they strolled through the woods.}

^{Concealing himself behind a chimney, Carl raised an AR-15, sighted through its holographic scope, and waited.}

^{Chapter 14.}

^{The cell-phone numbers Cavanaugh pressed were for the landline at William's safe site. As the phone buzzed on the other end, he heard more sirens outside. Red and blue lights flashed beyond the window.}

^"Hello."

^{"This is Cavanaugh. Put William on."}

^{"Maybe he'll talk nicer to you than he does to us."}

^{The phone made a bumping sound. Then William's voice said, "I hope this means everything's back to normal and I can get out of here."}

^{"Afraid not," Cavanaugh said. "There's been some shooting and–"}

^{" Some shooting?" the lieutenant said in the background. "I was with the Marines in the first Iraq war. I think we used less ammunition."}

^{"Why don't I let Lt. Russell explain it to you so I don't say anything I shouldn't."}

^{"Name, rank, and serial number," William's voice cautioned. "Nothing else. Put him on the phone."}

^{Cavanaugh handed the phone to the lieutenant, then looked at Jamie and Kim against the wall. Jamie impressed him with her composure, as if she'd been an operator all her life.}

^{But Kim was another matter. The pupils of her eyes resembled pencil points. Her brow was beaded with sweat, her withdrawal symptoms accelerating.}

^{Cavanaugh gave her a firm nod of assurance.}

^{"At the precinct in half an hour," Russell said to the phone, then gave it back to Cavanaugh.}

^{"Yes, William?" Cavanaugh asked into it.}

^{"Name, rank, and serial number. No exceptions."}

^{"I want you to call somebody." Cavanaugh gave William a name and a phone number. "Tell him I need help."}

^{When William heard the name, his response was, " He'll get their attention."}

^{"Okay, we're ready to move this guy," the ambulance attendant said.}

^{The attendant and his partner lifted the semiconscious man onto a Gurney and wheeled him from the apartment. Below, a clatter of equipment indicated that the gunman Jamie had wounded was being lifted onto a similar Gurney.}