Last Shot Read online

  His finger hovered above the mouse for maybe a full minute.

  Lentidra had been ready for Phase I human trials months ago, but Dolan had slept through the backstage machinations that had removed it from the production line and sealed it behind a wall of secrecy. The cost of its delay was paid in human lives, as would be the cost of its continued captivity. All because Dolan had acted feebly, even in the face of his own suspicions.

  He thought about Tess Jameson, with so much less to her name and more on the line. Up against vastly more powerful corporate muscle, she’d done everything to orchestrate her son’s survival. And just when she’d gotten it within reach, her conscience wouldn’t let her seize it. She’d fought to bring a cure to others, even knowing that Sam could die as a result. And now here Dolan was, Vector’s principal investigator following the case laid out by a mother with limited resources, education, and opportunity.

  The monkeys still hadn’t calmed in the test suite, jungle cries echoing around the hard lab surfaces. The din ringing in his ears, Dolan clicked the mouse, sending the e-mail.

  The icon spun as the data uploaded. Biting his thumbnail and waiting for the chime, he heard instead the sound of glass shattering in one of the accompanying suites.

  A jumble of fears coalesced. Likely Dean had installed cameras inside the lab. So either Dolan had been spotted or soon would be. Maybe Chase’s guest access card had called up an alert on some remote security computer.

  Slowly, he eased away from his bench, passing back through the production room, the heat of the incubator making his neck sweat. He groped around on the wall, finding the light-switch panel and disabling the motion-sensor feature before stepping fully into the test suite. The monkeys hopped around, their cages banging on the lab counters, but there was no sign of any guards. And no shattered beakers to explain the noise he’d heard.

  The access card failed to open the exit in the back of the test suite. Numb with disbelief, Dolan tried again. The proximity reader gave him another flashing red light. Security had locked down the building.

  The fire-escape door toward the end of the corridor was by law manually operated. Guards might be waiting for him outside, but he’d rather risk a public confrontation than wait in the dark for whoever broke the glass and was likely stalking him. He now had concrete evidence of what he’d sensed all along—his father was capable of anything.

  Dean’s painted face stared down as Dolan slipped through the sliding glass doors. Before proceeding up the corridor toward the exit, he turned off the motion sensor on the overheads. The window at the end of the corridor, normally lit by passing headlights, was a black square. Plotting each footstep, he crept along the tile. The monkeys had finally silenced, but the quiet was proving equally sinister.

  A faint rustling in the vector-storage room stopped him dead. Through the vast internal window, he caught a partial view of the room. A refrigerator door hung open, casting a faint light across the floor. The freeze-dried Xedral vials, normally neatly lined on the shelves, had been pulled down. A few lay shattered on the concrete. A number of Styrofoam shipping containers had been knocked over, dry ice misting up from the floor.

  Why would a guard ransack the vector-storage room?

  Before he could flatten to the wall, the door kicked open and Walker solidified from the dark, shrouded in wisps of vapor.

  The gunmetal, when pressed to Dolan’s neck, felt like ice.

  Chapter 77

  Using his left arm to cradle twenty or so vials of Xedral against his stomach, Walker pressed the Redhawk to Dolan’s throat. Calmly, he stuffed the vials and needle kit into his pockets.

  Dolan said, “Listen—”

  “Turn around.”

  Dolan pivoted haltingly. His spread fingers trembled.

  “What did Tess get on you?” Walker said.

  “She found out about a second viral vector I designed for AAT. More effective but less profitable, so my father and brother buried it. They lied to me about it, told me it was less viable than Xedral, and covered the trail with false data.”

  “Get on your knees.”

  “I just figured out—”

  From behind, Walker kicked out Dolan’s leg, and he hit the floor hard, his kneecaps knocking tile. Walker pressed the gun to the back of his head. He expected Dolan to cry, to plead, but he didn’t. He just sat there, sagged over his folded legs, shoulders slumped.

  Walker thought about Kaitlin in the apartment, steering his gun to her own belly so he couldn’t aim at the deputy pounding on the door. He summoned his anger. “You were there. When Tess was raped.”

  “Yes.” Dolan didn’t move. His voice was quiet, resigned, almost peaceful. “And I did nothing to help her. I’m sorry.”

  Walker’s finger tightened on the trigger, but then a spotlight struck the window at the corridor’s end. Squinting through the glare, he made out a row of incoming flashing blue lights.

  He hit the floor.

  The Dodge actually caught air flying off the 405 at Wilshire. Tim’s Nextel vibrated, and he snapped it off his belt. “Almost there.”

  Miller said, “Jameson’s inside with an unidentified hostage. The perimeter’s airtight, and a traffic-control team’s locked down the surrounding blocks. We’ve got men at all the exits and windows and up on the second floor at the stairwells. The command team and negotiating team are en route, but we got the LAPD crisis negotiator in place already. We blocked the phone lines from the building, so if Walker calls out, he’s talking to us. The negotiator’s on with him now, obtaining proof that the hostage is okay. Guerrera’s rounding up Jameson’s mother and father and getting no cooperation. His platoon-mate—guy in the VA?—is too sick to be moved.”

  As Bear swept around the exit loop, a blanket of parked cop cars drew into view, the strobing reds and blues projecting false movement all around. The desolate run of street beyond the vehicle barricade looked bizarre; Tim had never seen Wilshire devoid of traffic. Freed whistled through his teeth. A spotlight blazed off the closed venetian blinds blotting out a window on the ground floor of the Beacon-Kagan Building.

  Tim said, “Contact Kaitlin Jameson—she’s three blocks over at the UCLA Med Center. And find Dolan Kagan.”

  Bear slowed at the sawhorses, flashing his badge to the cop. Up the block, in the eye of the spotlight, the venetian blinds flashed open, revealing a silhouette bound to an office chair, an arm reaching into view to press a gun to his temple. The blinds snapped shut again.

  Miller said, “Unfortunately, I think we just did.”

  Bear steered slowly, threading through the parked cars.

  “Walker said he won’t talk to the negotiator anymore,” Miller said. “Only to you.”

  Tim said, “We’re here. Look west. Bear’s rig? Have someone meet me with a cordless.”

  Bear slant-parked beside a fire engine, and Tim hopped out. A guy in a SWAT windbreaker trotted over and tossed Tim a cordless. Tim headed to the front of the barricade, pressing the phone to his ear. “Rackley.”

  Acrylic packing tape secured Dolan at the forearms, ankles, chest, and thighs, adhering him to the office chair. Gripping the back of his neck, Walker rolled him down the corridor on well-greased casters. He spoke into the cordless phone he’d swiped from one of the lab benches. “Bring Sam here now, or this fuck dies.”

  Through the phone Tim sounded slightly winded; he was jogging. “We can’t move Sam. He’s in full liver failure.”

  “Full liver failure? Then you’d better get him here quick.”

  “We can’t do that,” Tim said. “He’s in bad shape.”

  “I have the Xedral shot. It’ll make him better. Send Sam in to me. I give him the shot, then I let Dolan go free.”

  “There’s a better vector. That’s what Tess found out. That’s why they had her killed.”

  Walker halted, Dolan grunting as his grip tightened. “That’s what my hostage told me. You think we should believe him?”

  “Tess got ahold of eviden
ce. I’ve seen it.”

  “So there’s another shot. A better shot.” Walker pressed the Redhawk to the hollow of Dolan’s eye. “Do you have it here?”

  Dolan tried to recoil but had little room to move. The chair slid a little, and Walker moved with it, applying pressure to Dolan’s face. The glass sliding doors hissed open, and they drifted into the test suite, the monkeys sending up a racket.

  “Lentidra,” Dolan said. “Yes, it’s here. But it’s too late.”

  “What do you mean it’s too late?” Walker said.

  “He’s in liver failure? Sam?”

  “So we give him the good shot. We fix it.”

  “Viral vectors can’t work if the target organ is in failure. The administration of the transgene’ll just damage the liver further. Gene therapy has to start earlier—it’s not a late-stage cure.”

  A long pause. At the end of the line, Tim was silent; he’d been listening, too.

  Walker tensed his mouth, scratched his head with the barrel of his gun. He said, into the phone and to Dolan, “I don’t believe you. Put me through to Sam’s room.”

  Tim said, “I can’t do that.”

  Walker fired a shot across the suite—a computer monitor jumped, the bullet embedding in its side. The monkeys, bizarrely, silenced.

  Tim said, reasonably, “Everyone okay in there?”

  “Put me through to Kaitlin at the hospital, or so help me God I’ll kill this motherfucker.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  A few seconds later, Walker got a ring, and then Kaitlin’s voice. He said, “Kaitlin, it’s very important you answer me straight right now. Did Sam’s liver give out?”

  “He’s in a coma, Walk.” She sounded deadened, on the far side of a sobbing jag. “I want to hear his voice. Just one more time. But they said I’m not gonna get to.”

  Walker felt his forehead crinkle. “How long’s he have?”

  “Morning. Maybe.”

  He waited until whatever was fucking with his throat subsided. “I’m sorry.”

  An indelicate nose blow. “You didn’t do it.”

  “No,” he said. “For being a coward. Like you said.”

  Her voice took on a note of suspicion. “Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “Are you high up? In the building?”

  “Third floor.”

  “Get to a south window.”

  Sounds of Kaitlin running. She jerked in a breath. “Oh, honey.”

  “When the kid comes to, tell him I said he did good.”

  “Walker, they don’t think he’s gonna come to.”

  He hung up, crouched, and lowered his head, palming the back of his skull. Dolan started to say something, and Walker raised the Redhawk so it aimed at his face. His voice came low, gruff. “Do not say anything right now.”

  Between his feet the cordless rang. He picked it up.

  Tim said, “You’re a straight shooter, Walker. Here’s how it is: We don’t have anything to give you. You don’t have anything to get. Dolan can’t do anything for you anymore.”

  Walker started pulling Xedral vials from his pocket and throwing them against the far wall, one after another. A few of the monkeys reacted with anxious little calls. “How do you know I won’t just kill this motherfucker anyway?”

  “I don’t. But you’d be killing the wrong guy. He wasn’t in on Tess’s murder.”

  “He was in on the rape.”

  “He was there.”

  “Being a coward don’t buy you a pass.”

  “Sounds like Kaitlin just gave you one.”

  Walker threw another vial, finding the tinkle of breaking glass oddly pleasing.

  “You’re boxed,” Tim said. “There’s no way out that doesn’t wind up at a dead end.”

  Walker said, “Dead ends don’t scare me.”

  “You’ve got one move left. You let Dolan live, you walk out of there, we sit down with the AUSA and have a long talk about extenuating circumstances.”

  “Like they did for you.”

  “Like they did for me.”

  Walker laughed. “Somehow I don’t think I’ll get the same treatment.” He set down the phone and turned to Dolan. “All you fucking people. When the chips are down, you hide behind them.”

  Dolan said, “You’re right. But I had nothing to do with killing your sister. And I never would have. Stop and think what your sister put her life on the line for. I didn’t see it until I came in here tonight. Sam was going downhill fast. She risked everything that mattered to her to give him something to die for. This drug my father and brother were trying to bury, she was gonna ransom with her own blood. For three hundred thousand people. This could be what Sam did with his life. Which is a lot more than my brother did with his. Or my father’s doing with his fucking companies. With my company. Tess died trying to get the right AAT vector to the market. Now I’m the one who knows what it is and how to do it.” His jacket had fallen open, and a few wet splotches appeared on his T-shirt at the stomach. He bucked his head to wipe his nose against his shoulder. “Just give me a chance to set things right. Give me a second chance.”

  Walker killed the cordless phone. “No one ever gave me one.” He leaned forward. Dolan recoiled, but Walker just reached into Chase’s leather jacket and removed the cell phone from the inner pocket and set it on the counter. “People like me end up answering for your mistakes. We work your jobs, we take your falls, we fight your wars.” He released the wheel of the Redhawk and spun it, watching the primers blur into a ring. “Assholes like you make big fucking messes. But it’s guys like me gotta clean ’em up for you.”

  He jerked his wrist. The cylinder slammed home, and the gun stilled, its sights centered on Dolan’s forehead. A dark voice spoke to Walker, a distant song.

  A temptation, not a curse.

  A return to what had always been natural.

  A cold wind riffled the vinyl SWAT jackets and blew a swirl of trash into a minicyclone at the bus stop. Behind the three-vehicle-deep barricade, the crisis negotiator paced back and forth, tapping a black cordless against his thigh, the members of his team giving him space. At the makeshift command post behind two giant armored personnel vehicles, Tim and Bear huddled with Miller, Tannino, and the LAPD SWAT lieutenant. The other ARTists were arrayed around the building and in the stairwells, their olive drab flight suits standing out among the SWAT members with their black balaclavas, goggles, and Colt CAR-15s. Snipers from SWAT’s D Platoon had rolled, regarding the various entrances through the three-by-nine scopes of their bolt-action Remington 700 .308 cals. The firepower assembled on site reminded Tim of a military operation; they were equipped to take down a small army.

  Still pacing, the negotiator raised the phone to his face. Tim watched him walking and waiting as the phone rang and rang.

  “What the hell’s he doing in there?” Tannino said.

  A movement on the blocked-off stretch of Wilshire caught Tim’s eye. A blue-and-white ambulance motored up the center of the empty street. He watched it as the SWAT lieutenant and Miller crunched endgame scenarios. The ambulance approached the LAPD officer working the sawhorses a half block up. Tim pivoted, regarding the two fire department rescue vehicles parked on the far side of the fire engine.

  “Who called for a civilian ambulance?” His question went unanswered amid the banter, so he repeated it, louder.

  The lieutenant said, “No one. Ours are right there.”

  The cop waved the ambulance through. Tim said, “Then you’d better have someone stop that vehicle and ID the driver.”

  The lieutenant spoke into his radio, and two black-and-whites lurched forward, halting the ambulance’s progress. It screeched, banking off the skid, the familiar shield drawing into view on its side: UCLA MED CENTER, EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES.

  Tim’s breath caught. “Damn it, Walker.”

  He shouldered past Tannino and the lieutenant, sprinting toward the Beacon-Kagan Building. An instant later, on cue, Walker kicked
through the exit beside the revolving doors. Three spotlights zoomed over, casting the building front in daylight. Walker wore a ballistic vest over his T-shirt, and he held his Redhawk at his side. He was without Dolan. A piece of paper, pinned to his vest, fluttered in the breeze.

  Tim hurdled two cop cars, parked hood to hood so the headlights kissed. He banged past an open car door, yelling, “Hold fire, hold fire!”

  Walker halted. Tim stood alone in front of the blockade, mist rolling through the spotlights’ glare. Walker faced him from about twenty yards, revolver dangling. Tim’s gun was still at his hip, though the holster strap was thrown. His right hand was fastened around the stock, his elbow pointing back. His feet slid, found a shooting stance, but still he didn’t draw. Around him Tim could hear puzzled murmurs and shouts.

  Tim said, “Don’t. We can figure something else out.”

  The SWAT sergeant yelled that he was blocking their angle, but Tim didn’t move. He stayed frozen, his eyes on Walker’s, the heat of the spotlights baking his back, the snipers ready with their armor-piercing rounds. Walker’s lips moved, resignation taking shape as the faintest of grins. He gave Tim a little nod and raised his arm.

  Tim drew and shot him through the forehead.

  A chilled moment of silence, and then ART and SWAT lumbered out from their various posts, making tactical advances on the body, though there was no way there was still life in it. Thomas cleared the weapon, and the two fire department paramedics crowded the body.

  Tim could make out the first few lines of scrawled writing on the paper safety-pinned to Walker’s vest.

  Last Will and Testament

  I leave to Sam Jameson my

  The sergeant said, “Why the hell would he show us he had a vest?”

  Tim didn’t slow his pace past the body. “So I’d know where not to shoot.”

  A paramedic unsnapped the vest, and a pack of ice fell out the right side. “This for his bullet wound?”