He wanted to die.

  But he wanted to kill Sarge first.

  That bastard . . . Sarge wanted to have his own little most dangerous fucking game. All right, Jake would give him one.

  But where .>

  The worst place would be right here where Sarge had left him. Sarge probably expected one of two things: Either Jake would wait for him here, or start running west, away from him, hoping Sarge would never catch up.

  Well, Jake had learned a few things from Sarge, and one of them was never do the expected. He was going to heed that lesson.

  Jake picked up the AR-10 and began loading the Hi-Shoks into the magazine. When it was full, he checked the Mauser and chambered a bullet. Then he shoved it back into his shirt and began trotting east. Toward the sun.

  Toward Sarge.

  A mile or so along the path he found another clearing, one with a yellowing maple tree at its western end. The leaves were turning but they hadn't fallen yet. The spindly pines were worthless as perches—their sparse needles provided no cover even if you were lucky enough to find one sturdy enough to support you without swaying like a drunk on a high wire. But the maple was perfect.

  He climbed the trunk, found himself a saddlelike perch, and setded into it. He braced the AR-10 on a branch and sighted through the scope. Sarge would be coming down the rutted path

  F. PAUL WILSON .ND STET LYON

  that wound into the clearing. That was when Jake would take him. Blaml A single .30-06 into the eye. The Hi-Shok would take off the back of his head.

  Senx the bastard right . . .

  Jake began to tremble. He didn't know if he could do this. He knew Sarge could. No problem for Sarge. But Jake ... to quarter Sarge in his sights and pull the trigger ... he didn't know . . . didn't know . . .

  As he lifted his head and leaned back from the rifle he heard a crack. He jumped and almost fell as a bullet tore through the leaves and branches to his left and whizzed past his face.

  Savffe!

  Jake lurched forw^ard and jammed his eye to the scope of his rifle. He switched it to low^ powxr to get the widest field and scanned the area around the clearing to his left.

  Where was he.'

  Sarge had followed his own rule and done the unexpected. He hadn't followed the path back. He must have come through the brush. But how had he spotted Jake up in this maple.' The leaves were thick and Jake was wearing camouflage. Was Sarge that good.^

  Despite the cool breeze flowing around him, Jake was sweating. Even amid the encircling tangle of leaves and branches, he felt exposed. Naked. And blind. He couldn't see a damn thing moving out there, with or without the scope.

  In desperation, he fired half a dozen rounds into the brush around the clearing, then crouched on his branch, watching, waiting for the echoes of the shots to clear from his ears.

  Nothing. The birds that hadn't already flow^n oflF were silent. Even the insects were silent. Was it possible.' Could he have got Sarge with a luck}^ shot.^

  Just then there w^as another crack and splinters of bark exploded from the trunk next to his face. Jake recoiled and lost his grip on the AR-10. As it slipped from his fingers he grabbed for it and missed. The move overbalanced him. His weight off center, he reached for a nearby branch to steady himself but it snapped in his

  NIGHTKILL

  6/

  hand and then with a terrified yelp he was falling from his perch, tumbling ass first, the small, leafy branches slapping his face, the larger ones catching his clothes and ripping his shirt as he twisted and turned, grabbing for anything that would hold his weight. A branch as thick as his thigh caught him across the back. He heard ribs crack and the world went gray as white-hot bolts of pain shot through his chest. He slipped off that branch and tumbled the rest of the way to the ground, landing next to the AR-10. The impact knocked the wind out of him and sent another shock wave of pain through his chest. Gasping for breath, he rolled to a sitting position, picked up the rifle, and emptied the magazine into the perimeter of the clearing. When the hammer fell on an empty chamber, he reached into his pocket for the box of shells but stopped before his fingers touched it.

  Sarge was walking toward him from the edge of the clearing. Eyes bright, red hair burning like fire in the sunlight, mouth a tight line, he looked like death.

  "I'm really disappointed in you, Jake," he said in a low voice. "You forgot everything I told you."

  "Sarge—," Jake began, and had to stop. Every breath was a knife wound.

  "What kind of wild shooting was that.> And this tree—it's the most obvious spot in the area to set up a perch. Hell, I was sitting in the brush back there watching you climb it. Do the unexpected, damnit! Don't you listen.^ I spent two whole years training you so's you could give me some kind of fight and what do you do.> You screw up!" He bared his teeth and thrust the butt end of the Ruger at Jake's face. "Christ, I'm so mad at you right now I've a mind to cave your skull in with the wrong end of this."

  Jake could tell he meant every word of it. He was nothing to Sarge—nothing more than a homemade target who'd shoot back. And now he was going to kill his homemade target.

  Jake couldn't repress a sob, and the sob sent another stab of pain through the left side his chest. He rolled on his side and reached under his shirt to splint the painful area. His hand brushed

  UD F. PAUL WILSON AND STEVE LYON

  the broomhandle stock of the Mauser Sarge had given him. He clutched it.

  "You make me sick, crybaby," Sarge said. "I shouldn't even waste a round on you. Should leave you out here to starve, though I wouldn't even do that to a dog." He retracted the bolt on the Ruger and chambered a fresh round. "But there's that one chance in a million someone might come along and find you. And then you'd be spilling your guts about me. So I guess it's good-bye, Jake. Don't worry. I'll make it quick. I ain't no sadist."

  He began to raise the rifle.

  He^s really £foin£[ to do it!

  Jake fired the Mauser through his shirt. The first shot missed. Shock was just beginning to register in Sarge's eyes as Jake pulled the trigger again. The second shot caught Sarge in the right side of his chest and he jerked right; the third caught him in the left shoulder and that jerked him back square with Jake who pulled the pistol free and put the fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds into the center of Sarge's chest, each one driving Sarge back with outflung arms, the rifle dangling by its sling from his left hand. He sat down heavily on the sand and stared dumbly at Jake.

  "You bastard!" Jake's lungs allowed him only a whisper. "You filthy, lying bastardT'

  He put the seventh round into the middle of Sarge's face, snapping his head back into a halo of red and laying him out fiill length on the sand. Jake struggled to his feet and staggered the two steps that took him to Sarge's side. He stood over him and pumped the last three rounds into Sarge's head, and then the magazine was empty but he kept pulling the trigger, sobbing, crying, cursing.

  And then he turned and found the maple trunk and leaned against it and cried for the last time in his life. Sarge was dead. And so was a part of Jake.

  m mi

  Jake nuzzled against the cool green plastic of the SSG's stock and fitted his eye to the rear of the scope. Ten stories below and two blocks downtown, at street level, the mayor's distinguished gray head floated into the field. Jake read the mayor's lips as they finished his introductory remarks and announced the ceremony's principal speaker. United States senator Stanley Weingarten. The mayor's smiling face backed out of the field and the target's wine-sap head bobbed in to replace it. Whiny's face was shiny with sweat; it gleamed so brighdy in the sun Jake considered fitting a UV filter on the scope. Whiny's artificial turf was looking especially artificial today, what with the heat and humidity curling the natural hair around his ears and neckline but leaving the toupee stiff and straight.

  '^'^As soon as he starts talking — -£[et him with the first sentence. ^^ That's what Fredo had said his uncle wanted. Okay. For a million, that's what he got.

  Jake settled more snugly against the rifle. No sense in drawing this out. No sense in making those poor folks down there suffer in the heat listening to fatso any longer than nccessar'. He

  F. PAUL WILSON AND STEVE LYON

  quartered Whiny's head in the crosshairs, fixing the zero point on his right temple.

  Outside, on the street direcdy below, a truck backfired loudly.

  Jake allowed himself a smile. Thank you, truck. Do that again. No one'U have the faintest idea where the shot came from.

  He took a full breath, let it out, then began the trigger squeeze. . .

  . . . slowly . . . slowly . . . any second now . . .

  Something slammed against the room door with terrific force. Jake started. The rifle fired. Before he could check to see if he'd hit the target, a voice began shouting from the far side of the door.

  "Police! Open up! We know you're in there! Open this door or we'll break it down!"

  Again something slammed against the door. Jake didn't hesitate. He thrust his head out the window and looked around. The window was set back with a sill of twelve-inch granite block. A ledge, slimmer maybe by half, ran along the flank of the building. With mad pounding and muffled shouts reverberating through the room behind him, Jake climbed out on the sill and eased himself onto the ledge to the right. He faced the wall— don^t look down! —and inched along toward his other room. Just two windows and around the corner, you can make it.

  What the hell happened?

  Cops. Someone had tipped them off. That was the only explanation. Who.> How.> Why.>

  The questions pursued him along the ledge to the end of the wall. He blocked them out as he approached the corner. Getting around the right-angle bend was going to be hairy. But he couldn't slow. As soon as they broke into his room and found it empty, they'd be at the window, looking for him. If he got around the corner . . . and if no one in the neighboring room spotted him going past their window . . .

  If, if, if... a lot of ifs.

  Jake snaked his lefi: arm around the corner, then his lefi: foot, then began to shuffle the rest of himself around. He had a bad

  NIGHTKILL

  71

  moment at the halfway mark when the corner of the building was bisecting him and his weight was centered somewhere over the sidewalk. A gust of wind came out of nowhere and nudged him away from the wall. He almost shouted in fear, but gritted his teeth, flattened his cheek and palms against the granite, and kept moving.

  When he made it to the north side of the building, he had an insane urge to take a breather. Why not.^ a deranged part of his mind seemed to say. You're out of sight of room 1017, and out of sight of the rally area as well. You deserve a break.

  Like hell, Jake thought. He kept moving, holding his breath as he passed 1019's window. But the room looked empty. He shuffled on toward 1021. As he reached it he prayed he hadn't relocked the window after looking out last night. He didn't think he had, but he couldn't remember for sure. He almost laughed when the sash slid up. He dove through the opening and lay gasping and shaking on the floor of Jake Nacht's room.

  Now he could take a break, but only for a few seconds. Only long enough to compose himself

  As he lay there on the carpet he wondered if he'd made the liit. He'd never missed before, but he hadn't seen Whiny go down. He had a lingering impression of ftirious, chaotic movement around the podium after the shot, so maybe he'd been on target. But had it been a kill.> Damn! If those bastards had hit the door a second later there'd be no question about it.

  He sat up, stripped off the black driving gloves, and tossed them out the window. Then he slammed the window and peered out at the surrounding buildings. Most of them were offices, dead and empt^—this section of the city was a high-rise ghost town on a Sunday morning. Had anybody seen him.> Probably not. It had seemed like a lifetime out there but he'd only been on the wall a little more than a minute. And since when did New Yorkers look out their windows.^ What was there to see besides other buildings.^

  Yet it was still possible someone had caught his human fly routine.

  n

  F. PAUL WILSON AND STEVE LYON

  Jake shrugged. If so, t±iere was nothing he could do about it now. He'd have to proceed under the assumption that no one had.

  He turned and stepped to 102rs door. He didn't have to press his ear against it to hear all the commotion out in the hall.

  Okay, he thought, straightening his shirt and brushing off his jeans. Time to play the outraged hotel guest. He unlatched the chain, opened the door, and stepped into the hall.

  Three uniformed cops in bulletproof vests, pistols and shotguns at the ready, stood outside 1017. Jake gathered from the excited, angry voices echoing through the open door that there were more within. As he watched, a fiftyish guy in a blue blazer and gray slacks stormed out of the room waving a pistol. A detective's shield flapped from the breast pocket of the blazer. His face was lined and tan with a grim, jutting jaw. His full head of silver hair sported a fifty-dollar cut. He looked like an aging yuppie bulldog.

  "Son of a bitch! " said the blazer. "Where'd he fucking ^6??"

  "Maybe he wasn't even in there," said a uniformed sergeant following him.

  "Gimme a fucking break, will you, Harry.> You saw the way that door was barricaded. He was in there. He went out the window. And unless he parachuted, he's still in the building. Seal the place. I don't want anyone leaving this hotel until they've been checked by me. And I want every goddamn room searched, one by one, starting at the top floor and moving down to the basement."

  Jake figured now was as good a time as any to deliver his line. He put on his best irate expression.

  "What the hell's going on out here.>"

  The sergeant named Harry turned to him. "Police business, sir. Please get back in your room."

  "Can't you hold it down.>" Jake said.

  The guy in the blazer spun on Jake, eyes narrowed, lips twisted in a snarl, looking like he was going to chew him out. Instead he froze, stared wide-eyed for a second, then raised his pistol.

  "That's him!"

  NIGHTKILL

  n

  He fired.

  Jake was already ducking back into the room. He heard the shot, felt an impact like a Louisville Slugger against the back of his head and neck, and that was it. Ever^^thing went away—the cops, the hotel . . . everything.

  B

  DEAD MEAT

  Jake remembered a few fade-ins and fade-outs, light coming and going, and voices, lots of voices, but this was the first time he actually got his eyes open and focused. He was looking at a white ceiling. In pretty good shape as ceilings go; only a few cracks.

  His head throbbed like the aftermath of a two-botde bender. His tongue tasted like someone had mixed a yard of cement on it . . . two days ago.

  He tried to turn his head to see where he was but couldn't. His neck was fixed in some sort of brace. He could feel it pressing against his chin and jaw. He explored his surroundings with eyes only.

  He was in a bed. With side rails. A plastic bag of clear fluid was suspended on a pole to his right, a clear plastic tube running down toward—

  A hospital. He was in a hospital bed. Why?

  Then he remembered.

  Thafs him!

  The detective in the blazer.

  Thafs him!

  Recognizing him.

  F. PAUL WILSON AND STEVE LYON

  Thafs him!

  Pointing the pistol.

  Thafs him!

  Firing.

  No question about it. The guy had recognized him. He had known what Jake looked like. He hadn't been in 1017 looking for Elliot Guyer. He'd been looking for Jake Nacht.

  How the hell was that possible.> Only Mr. C and Fredo had known he'd be there. They'd hired him to kill Whiny. Why would they tip off the heat to stop him.> Made no sense.

  Had to be someone else. Who, damnit.^

  A voice . . . coming from his left. Out of the corner of his eye he could see someone standing near the head of the bed. Wearing a blue blazer. The silver-haired plainclothes detective bastard who shot him. He was on the phone, talking low. . . .

  "... Nah. He's gonna make it. . . . Yeah, he'll be able to talk. Won't be able to do much else, but he'll be able to do that. Whether he will talk, 1 can't say. You know him better'n 1 do. . . . Uh-uh. No can do. I've got him under guard here. You want that, you send one of your boys. If they can do it, fine. But 1 can't. No way."

  Jake heard a door open beyond the blue blazer. The detective mumbled, "Gotta go," and hung up.

  Jake closed his eyes.

  "Detective Danziger," said a new voice, male, soft, assured. "Would you mind waiting outside while 1 examine Mr. Nacht?"

  "I don't know. Doc—"

  "He's not going anywhere, I assure you."

  "Yeah, but if he wakes up and starts talking, I want to hear what he says."

  "If he wakes up, you'll be the first to know."

  "Okay. I'll be right outside the door."

  Jake's thoughts ranged wildly in all directions behind his eyelids as the doctor puttered around the bed. Obviously, this cop Dan-

  NIGHTKILL

  11

  ziger was bent, and just as obviously somebody was worried about Jake spilling what he knew about the Weingarten hit. And that somebody was looking for a way to shut him up for good.

  Jake had to get out of here. He opened his eyes. A guy in a white coat with pale skin and thin, receding hair was standing at the end of the bed with Jake's foot in his hand, rubbing something along the sole. An icy wave of shock and alarm rolled through him.

  "How come I can't feel that.>" Jake said.

  The doctor dropped Jake's foot and stared at him. Then he smiled.

  "Ah, Mr. Nacht. I see we're awake."

  "Damn right, we're awake. And how come I didn't know you were doing that?" Jake tried to raise a hand but nothing happened. He tried to figure out where his hands were and realized he couldn't even be sure he had hands. "How come I can't feel any-thing.>