The distance between the fountain and the line of benches was the longest hundred feet of Marcus’s life. After throwing the grenade, he took off in a sprint toward cover. But with every shot that Stupak fired, Marcus wondered whether the next one would come from the sniper and would tear through his body and shred his internal organs.
Four seconds passed, and the grenade exploded just after Marcus reached the benches and shrubbery. He didn’t look, but he felt the jolting wave of pressure shoot through his body. His ears rang from the gunfire as the wind and snow pelted his face.
He wasted no time in heading across the walkway to the relative protection of the trees. Then he weaved in and out among the bare elms until he reached the back of the Fountain Cafe. He hugged the wall of the green and gold structure and edged around to the other side. Stupak was still laying down covering fire at the cafe’s south end and, with any luck, the sniper might not even have seen Marcus’s dash from the fountain.
The north side of the cafe, where Marcus now stood, had one window near the building’s front edge. He peered inside. There was a deli counter and chairs, but there was also a man directly opposite him at another window.
Schofield was nowhere in sight, and that worried him. Last he had seen, the killer had been limping off in this direction. Schofield could have been inside the building, guarding the entrance. Or he could have kept on going right past the cafe while Marcus was sprinting to the trees. There was no way to know for sure. But, in either case, he didn’t have time to stand around.
The sniper’s back was to him as the older man leaned over the cafe’s sink with the rifle at his shoulder. Marcus took aim and opened fire through the glass.
Several .45 caliber bullets tore into Raymond’s legs, and the man dropped to the ground, screaming in pain. His rifle clattered to the floor, and he made no attempt to reach for it.
Marcus wasted no time. He raced inside the building and secured the older man. “Don’t move,” he said. Raymond didn’t seem to hear him. The floor was slick with blood, and Marcus could see that his shots had struck Raymond’s femurs. He would pose little threat. Still, Marcus pulled out a pair of plastic cuffs, secured the older man’s hands, emptied the rifle, and tossed it into the corner.
Then he yelled out the open window. “Stupak! You’re clear. Get up here.”
He watched Stupak climb over the fountain’s lip and move toward the cafe. Schofield’s grandfather rolled around on the tile floor and banged his head against the ground from the pain. The bullet impacts had probably broken both his legs and the projectiles’ collision with the bones would have fragmented the rounds, causing more tissue damage. They needed to get him to a hospital, or he could easily die from blood loss.
“Where’s your grandson?” Marcus said.
“Go to hell,” Raymond said in a harsh whisper.
Marcus clenched his jaw and swore. He hadn’t gone through all this just to let the Anarchist escape. Maybe Andrew had been right? Maybe they should have taken Schofield at the hotel?
Then Marcus thought of the way Schofield had been limping, and he bolted toward the door. Stupak was just approaching as Marcus burst outside and started to scan the ground. He could hear police sirens growing closer. The noise echoed through the park in a Doppler effect and made it impossible to determine from which direction the cops were approaching or how far away they were. The grenade blasts must have finally drawn some attention.
“What’s going on?” Stupak said.
“The grandfather’s in there. He’s down. He needs an ambulance.”
“What about Schofield?”
“He couldn’t have gone far.”
“He got away?”
“Just cover the grandfather and get him some help. I’ll find Schofield.”
And then Marcus found what he was searching for. The ground was a bright white, and the trail of crimson showed up like a neon sign. He followed the small drops of blood down a set of steps to a path that cut through the park. It led off to the east, toward Lake Michigan.
Marcus stared ahead as he ran down the path, trying to see through the snow flurries. Bare elms and cast-iron lamp-posts bordered the walkway. The sirens were growing closer.
He heard a frenzy of angry honking coming from the road ahead—and then he saw him. Schofield was two hundred feet ahead, hobbling through nine lanes of traffic on Lake Shore Drive. Cars were skidding to halts and sounding their horns.
Marcus weaved his way across the busy road, trying to avoid getting run down. A white Chevy S10 screeched to a stop just a few feet from him, and the wind from a passing semi took his breath away. But then he was across and scanning for his prey.
Schofield was only thirty feet away now, hobbling toward the waters of Lake Michigan. Marcus wondered where the man thought he was going. Did the killer still have another trick up his sleeve?
Pounding through the snow with his Sig Sauer aimed at the killer’s back, Marcus closed the distance between them and said, “That’s far enough!”
Schofield stopped, and his shoulders took on a defeated hunch. But he didn’t turn around. Marcus could see his body shaking as his lungs dragged in short ragged breaths.
“It’s over, Schofield. Put your hands up and turn around, slowly.”
Schofield complied, and when he turned, Marcus could see a large gash in his right thigh and holes in his coat where small pieces of shrapnel or chunks of concrete had struck him. All in all, it didn’t look like anything life-threatening.
“I won’t let you take me alive,” Schofield said. His voice was eerily calm, like a man who had accepted that he was about to die and the world couldn’t touch him. “I know what it’s like to have a parent locked away somewhere, and I won’t put my family through that. Right now, the best way I can protect them is by dying.”
“Where are the missing women?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me!”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s the Prophet?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he have the women?”
“Yes. He has a small antiques shop on the north side of town, but I doubt that he’s there. You need to understand. I’m not his partner or his accomplice. I’m his pet. He expects me to do as I’m told. He doesn’t share his plans with me. I wish I’d had the courage to kill him a long time ago.”
“It’s not too late. Help me find him, and I’ll make sure that he never harms another soul.”
Schofield laughed, but there was no humor in it, just regret. “I tried to kill him once already, but that woman stopped me. Hell, they would have killed him back at the compound when I was a child. The others were turning on him, but he was too smart for them. You have no idea what he’s capable of. He—”
“What woman are you talking about? The one who stopped you.”
“Yesterday I tried to burn him alive, just like he ordered me to do to all those women. Just like he did to my friends when I was a boy. But this blonde stopped me.”
The gun trembled in Marcus’s hands. He hadn’t understood why Schofield had attacked the old man, but now it all made sense. And Maggie’s kindness and sympathy for someone she had thought to be a victim had placed them all in danger. She had delivered the Prophet to his next sacrifices. A vision of Maggie burning alive filled his mind and made him feel suddenly nauseous.
Schofield must have sensed his unease. “What’s wrong?”
“Conlan is your neighbor?”
“Yes, he’s always stayed close to me. Like my own personal devil watching me from the shadows.”
Marcus kept his gun trained on Schofield but managed to pull out his cell phone. “I think Conlan might have your family.”
Schofield took a step forward. “What are you talking about?”
Marcus’s heart thundered with every ring of Maggie’s phone. She didn’t answer. It went straight to her voicemail, and he hung up after leaving a clipped message.
To Schofield, he said, “Your family is in terrible danger, and if you really love them, you’re going to help me put that bastard in the ground. Now, what was your escape plan?”