Behr tried to give chase, but found his legs wouldn’t respond anymore and he stumbled down to his knees again. Back in the kitchen he scrabbled around on the floor for the Bulldog and the shells he’d dropped when he made his tackle, but he was weak, uncoordinated, and light-headed and he hadn’t fitted a single one into its chamber before Dwyer was out of sight. Decker lay there, his gun still up, but there was no one left to line up on. Behr crawled for the kitchen phone, yanking it down and putting it to his ear, only to find it dead.
He made his way, on hands and knees, toward Decker, grabbing a wadded-up dishtowel from the floor on his way. Behr reached him and pressed the linen hard onto the wound, which was a wickedly clean seven-inch laceration that went clear down to the bone and ran the length of his jaw, and was still gouting blood. Another inch lower and it would have been his jugular and an early good night.
That’s when a low-grade explosion erupted outside and a compressed whump rocked the kitchen. A kind of smile creased Decker’s face. His teeth shone bright white against the dark blood around his mouth for a moment.
“Mud cutter,” he said, “made it myself,” his back sinking against the floor in something resembling satisfaction. Behr understood he’d set off some kind of booby trap near the back door on his way in.
The two of them lay there breathing raggedly for a moment. Behr dialed 911 on his cell phone and pressed Send over and over. The last thing he saw was a signal bar flicker into place and then his head dropped and blackness came.