COOPER REMEMBERED exactly where the service driveway led: to a side street that took you to either Sansom Street or Walnut Street, depending on which way you turned. As he approached the driveway’s end, he flipped a mental coin, then hung a right toward Sansom.
It was the correct move. Cooper caught sight of the shooter as he raced to the left, headed west down Sansom.
Whoever this guy was, he had the speed of an Olympic sprinter. Cooper was surprisingly fast too, especially given his height. But he had to ignore the pounding of his heart and the screaming of his muscles to keep pace with the shooter.
Cooper hoped this guy would hop into a car at some point so he’d have a legitimate reason to give up the pursuit. But no. The shooter continued to run. So, what, had he taken public transportation to the hit?
By the time the shooter reached Twenty-Second and Market, Cooper realized that he might have done just that. The guy was headed down a set of concrete stairs to the underground trolley line.
Cooper skidded to a halt just before the stairs. Could be a trap. Shooter could be waiting at the bottom for Cooper’s silhouette to appear, and then blam-blam-blam—slaughtered Lamb.
He waited. The seconds piled up again. Cooper hated this. The shooter was probably catching a trolley right now.
Except…wasn’t it too late for that? These lines ground to a halt around eleven p.m. Most likely, the shooter was down there waiting for him.
Screw it.
Cooper crouched and peered down the stairs, Browning in his hands. Fluorescent lights flickered on the grime and litter. There was no shooter.
He bounded down the stairs, ready for an ambush. Where are you? He listened carefully.
The tiled walls of the station echoed with a peculiar sound. Something slapping. It was faint, but it was fast and consistent in its rhythm. Cooper turned the corner and saw that he was right, the station was closed. But there was enough room above a security gate for someone very determined to scale it and jump down to the other side.
Down to the tracks. And that’s when Cooper understood the slapping sound. They were footsteps.
The shooter was escaping through the trolley tunnel.