Cutter almost lost his grip on the pulley when he felt the first blow on his back. Before he could comprehend what had happened, something smashed into his left thigh and sent him falling into the backyard of the house.
He rolled instinctively to absorb the impact of the twenty-foot fall.
Someone shot me!
His armor had saved him from the first round, but the second had found the fleshy part of his thigh.
He grimaced when he felt the stickiness on his leg and traced the wound gingerly. It burned, but it seemed like it was a flesh wound. Got to move!
He winced and got to his feet. Thanked his luck that the residents of the house hadn’t woken up. Tested his leg, gritted his teeth against the searing pain and hobbled to the fence. He hauled himself up clumsily and fell over it into the garden of the third house, on whose roof his cable had landed.
He groaned and got to his feet. That rear wall leads to the alley—I can get away from there.
He took two steps, just as a dog started barking.
‘He flew over the houses on a cable,’ Sight whispered to Armando as the two men ran down Malabar, guns in their hands. A neighbor came out, woken by the blaze and the commotion from the Street Front house. Took one look at them and disappeared inside hastily.
‘Cable?’
‘Yes. I shot him. If we get him, just you and me, we’ll be rewarded.’
‘But how did he—’
‘Stop talking,’ the sniper snarled. ‘I’ll explain everything later.’ He drew up in front of a house three doors away from the burning building. ‘He fell in the backyard,’ he whispered.
He was about to go down the driveway when a dog started barking in the neighboring house.
‘HE’S IN THAT ONE!’ Sight hissed loudly and raced to the next yard.
Cutter hustled to the wall as fast as he could, cursing, sweating. He got his palms on the fence. Had wrapped his fingers on its top when the backyard door slid open and a light came on.
‘WHO ARE YOU?’
He turned cautiously to check if the speaker had a gun.
An old woman in her robe. Her husband behind her, holding the leash of their pet, which was straining, barking, at the stranger’s intrusion.
No weapon in their hands.
‘I mean no harm,’ he replied. ‘I’m going—’
Something crashed at the front of the house.
The couple turned at the sound. The woman screamed, the man yelled, and before Cutter could react, two hoods appeared. Both of them armed, one of them with what looked like a Remington, the other, a handgun.
‘THERE HE IS!’
‘GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!’ the elder man roared. ‘YOU HAVE NO RIGHT—’
He fell when Handgun Man slashed him across the face with his weapon. His wife shrieked and rushed to his aid. The dog yelped when a boot struck its ribs and resumed barking as it leapt around, trying to attack, but hindered by its leash.
The throbbing in Cutter’s leg faded as the animal in him took over.
Twenty-five feet from where he was, to the back door, where the hoods were.
‘YOU!’ Sniper ordered. ‘COME HERE. SLOWLY. DON’T REACH FOR A WEAPON.’
‘Please don’t hurt us. Please. We don’t know who he is. We—’
The woman’s pleading turned into another scream when Handgun Man slapped her. The force of the blow felled her to her knees, and her husband joined her. They cowered in fear as they held each other, blood streaming down from cuts on their faces. The man reached out to his dog, which climbed into his arms and kept yapping at the strangers.
‘Let them go,’ Cutter told the hoods softly.
‘You hear that, Armando?’ Sniper laughed. ‘See how calm he is? He is telling us, not asking, as if—’
Cutter wasn’t conscious of his draw. One moment he was heading to the back door, the next, his Glock was bucking in his hand.
His first shot caught Sniper in his chest. The second was a dollar bill apart from the first, and the third was in his face.
Armando gasped as his partner fell. The hood’s eyes widened. He had thought he and his friend had the upper hand. He yelled and had just brought up his gun when Cutter shot him twice.
‘Please …’ the woman sobbed as she turned blindly to him. ‘Don’t kill us. Please—’
‘I won’t, ma’am. MA’AM!’ He shook her gently and stood as unthreateningly as he could as she and her husband focused on him.
‘I’m not here to kill you. I was looking to get away when they shot me and I fell. Tell the cops everything that happened. What happened, how I arrived. Don’t—’
‘You need to get away.’ She grabbed his hand as sirens wailed in the distance. ‘Go. Leave us.’
‘You’re hurt, ma’am. You and your husband. You need—’
‘GO!’ she insisted fiercely. Her grey eyes burned into his. ‘You don’t need to jump over the fence. There’s a door that opens into the alley. Go down it, between the houses. You’ll get to Boulder Street. Jim’s got an old car there. A Ford. Keys are in the glove box. It’s so old no one will steal it. It works and there’s gas in the tank. Take it.’
‘Ma’am—’
‘Son,’ her husband interrupted. Blood streamed down his face and had colored his shirt to a dark red. He was smiling, however. ‘When Em orders, no one protests. Do it.’
‘Why?’ Cutter shook his head dazedly. ‘Why are you helping me?’
‘Why did you save us?’
He loped out into the alley, his head bowed. He knew he looked conspicuous in his EMT uniform, with his gear over his back, his face darkened with paint and sweat.
The neighborhood was awake, alive with the sounds of cruisers and fire trucks and the voices of residents. No one was in the alley, however, and when he peered cautiously into Boulder Street, it wasn’t busy. All attention is on the burning house and perhaps that couple’s house.
Jim’s Ford was easy to spot. It was in a sorry state, with its peeling paint, dust and grime-laden windscreen and nearly bald tires. The engine turned smoothly, however, when he tried it.
Cutter rolled out without drawing any attention, turned left on Evergreen Avenue and went down to the intersection with Malabar. He parked between two cars and got out cautiously. Straightened his walk as smoothly as he could, as he bit his lips against the burning pain.
He turned the corner and breathed a sigh of relief. Police vehicles and fire trucks at the far end of Malabar, where the house was burning. Two cop cars in front of Jim and Em’s house. No one was near his ambulance.
He went to it, opened the rear door, lobbed his last thermite grenade inside, then returned to his getaway vehicle and drove down Evergreen.
He was a block away when he heard the escalation in sirens and knew the ambulance was on fire.
He had escaped. He was alive. The Street Front’s house was destroyed.
It doesn’t even matter if there were no drugs in it. Covarra’s got the message. His business isn’t safe as long as I am around.