Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(75)

Before he could pull and kick the books aside so he could emerge, he saw Deputy Schuster run from the conference room. He could see him clearly because all of the shelves in that wing of the library had fallen over.

The deputy had the red-bound album under his arm and he was headed toward the back door. Marybeth and Griffith appeared on the other side of the glass in the conference room, gesturing frantically. Schuster had obviously snatched the book right in front of them. Joe was relieved they were both safe.

As the deputy reached for the door bar to exit, he was greeted by Bass, who entered with a What’s going on in here? expression on his face, which changed into a horrified grimace when he was shot point-blank in the chest by Schuster and he fell away. The shot was incredibly loud inside the closed environment of the library and it bounced down from the high ceilings.

Joe scrambled to get free. He pointed to Marybeth and Griffith and said, “Stay in there. Don’t move.” Then he keyed his handheld.

“This is Joe Pickett from inside the library. Watch for a Campbell County deputy either on foot or in a cruiser. He’s got the album.”

Joe ran around the ocean of books via the center aisle. As he reached the back door, he caught a glimpse of Sheriff Tibbs’s legs sticking out from under a large pile of books. Bass had fallen into the building and he writhed on the floor in a fetal position. Joe noted that Bass had been wearing body armor, and he hoped the bullet from Schuster’s weapon hadn’t penetrated it.

He drew his Glock and threw open the back door in time to see a Campbell County Sheriff’s Department SUV scream down the alley and exit onto the side street. The passenger door closed as the vehicle drove away, meaning Schuster had a driver waiting.

“There he goes!” Joe hollered into the radio. “We’ve got two officers down inside. Call an ambulance.”

“I’ve got him,” one of the town uniforms replied. “He’s going south on First.”

Toward downtown and the bank, Joe knew.

“We see him coming,” Chief Williamson cried out with undisguised glee. “We’ve got the son of a bitch.”

The MRAP!



* * *



—

    Joe exited the library through the foyer, ignoring Deputy Steck’s pleas to stop and tell him what was happening. He ran across the lawn toward his pickup in the employee lot on the side of the building.

As he did, he could see the Gillette SUV racing away on First Street. Then the huge squared-off snout of the MRAP emerged from the alley behind the bank onto the street itself.

The driver of the SUV hit the brakes, and tires squealed as he did so. A town cruiser following the SUV nearly rear-ended it because of the sudden stop, but it veered away at the last second and careened into the parking lot of a saddle and tack shop.

Joe climbed into his truck and started the engine, but he kept his eye on the SUV, which was now doing a three-point turn in the middle of the street. The driver reversed course and was going to come back toward the library. Right at him. Joe quickly fastened his seat belt.

The SUV accelerated and roared closer right down the middle of the street.

As Joe pulled out of the lot, he could see two men inside the SUV, but he couldn’t yet see their faces. Joe turned toward them and floored it.

The SUV closed fast, the MRAP looming behind it but losing ground.

Joe realized he didn’t really have a plan. He’d been operating on adrenaline alone. All he knew was that he was roaring toward a head-on collision unless the SUV turned sharply in either direction. Or he did.

At the last possible second, Joe wrenched his pickup hard left. Unfortunately, the driver of the SUV turned hard right.

The crash rocked his pickup and threw him toward the passenger window, but the seat belt bit and prevented him from flying through the glass.

Both his vehicle and the SUV were motionless. A green-tinted cloud of radiator steam rolled from the SUV and into Joe’s cab through the broken windshield and he could hear a loud hiss.

Joe found the seat belt buckle and unlatched it. His Glock was on the floorboard of the passenger side and he grabbed it and opened his door and his boot heel missed the running board and he tumbled out onto the pavement in a heap. He gathered himself to his hands and knees.

Through a groggy haze, he watched what happened next from his vantage point beneath his truck.

There were the big feet and boots of the driver of the SUV on the ground. He’d emerged from the damaged vehicle and was shouting in a language Joe didn’t understand. Then the distinctive BOOM of a shotgun blast. Followed by a cacophony of pop-pop-pops from at least three different directions.

A second later, the driver was down and his shotgun skittered across the blacktop. Joe could see him clearly because he was a big man and they were eye to eye at the same level.

The gargoyle.

The same man Joe had seen behind the wheel of the green SUV.

The gargoyle saw Joe and for a moment they locked eyes. Then the gargoyle closed his.

Forever.

The next thing Joe saw was Schuster striding out of the SUV in the ill-fitting uniform with his hands up, shouting, “I surrender! I give up! I surrender! Don’t shoot me, please.”

A few seconds later, a very skinny white man wearing only boxer briefs emerged from the back seat of the cruiser. The man hopped up and down in a clumsy kind of end zone dance, hooting, “Damned right! Damned straight! Good shooting, boys!”