Blindside - By Gj Moffat Page 0,96

his other hand to point a gun at Horn.

Logan reached for his gun. Knew he wouldn’t make it in time. No one else was watching.

‘I loved you like a son,’ Seth Raines told Horn.

Then shot him in the face.

Horn toppled back off his chair, blood, bone and brain matter splattering the wall behind him.

Raines turned in a sweeping motion towards Hunter, pulling the trigger of his gun.

Hunter had flinched when Raines shot Horn, the movement saving his life.

Raines fired twice at Hunter as he turned, the motion taking his aim just a little off and Hunter’s flinch bringing his head down under the trajectory of the bullets.

Raines kept on turning and firing.

Cahill shouted out in pain and went down.

Logan saw blood on Cahill’s head.

Raines aimed at Logan.

Logan raised his gun and fired.

The bullet tore through the layers of cloth on Raines’s gun arm, grazing a shallow track along the flesh of his forearm. Raines dropped the arm to his side.

Danny Collins shot Raines three times.

Part Ten:

Blood

1

Logan sat on the kerb as blue light strobed around him, the place awash with cops and paramedics.

It had been an hour since Collins shot Raines.

Randall Webb walked to Logan and stood over him on the sidewalk. Logan looked up at him.

‘The next thing you’re going to do,’ Webb said, ‘is go back to your hotel, pack and get on the first flight home.’

Logan frowned.

‘What about the guns? Our guns.’

‘What guns?’

Logan nodded and bowed his head.

Webb walked away from him.

Logan stood, his legs still unsteady. He wasn’t sure if they would hold him. They did.

He walked to the far side of the street to an ambulance which was parked with its rear doors open. As he came around the doors Cahill looked up from the ambulance steps and smiled at him.

‘How’s your head?’ Logan asked.

‘Feels like someone hit me with a hammer,’ Cahill said, touching the padded dressing a paramedic was securing on the side of his head.

‘He’ll be fine,’ the paramedic told Logan. ‘Bullet just grazed him. But he should get it looked at when you get home.’

Cahill thanked the man and stood.

‘Webb told us to go home,’ Logan told him.

Cahill shook his head. ‘I can’t. Not yet.’

Logan stared at him.

‘I need to ask Webb a favour.’

‘Don’t you think that we’ve used up all our goodwill already?’

‘Maybe. But I need a favour anyway.’

‘You are a stubborn—’

Cahill waved him off and started walking across the street to find Webb. Logan didn’t have the energy to follow him so he sat on the steps of the ambulance and watched.

Jake Hunter and Danny Collins walked over to the ambulance from the chaos of the diner.

‘How is he?’ Hunter asked, looking at Cahill.

‘He’s got a hard head.’

Hunter laughed.

‘I noticed. And you?’

‘I’m okay. But if you don’t mind I won’t stand.’

Hunter reached out a hand. Logan took it and they shared a firm handshake. Collins did the same.

‘You probably saved someone’s life in there,’ Hunter told him. ‘We owe you a thanks.’

Logan didn’t know what to say, so said nothing.

‘I heard that Raines is still hanging on,’ Collins said. ‘Tough son of a bitch. Took three slugs.’

‘And the rest of his crew?’ Logan asked.

Collins shook his head.

‘That guy Grange,’ Hunter said. ‘He’s some cowboy.’

‘Still an asshole,’ Collins added.

Logan wanted to laugh but found that he couldn’t.

‘Take care,’ Hunter said.

They turned to leave Logan at the ambulance. Hunter stopped halfway across the street and turned back to Logan.

‘They got the guy over in Scotland,’ he shouted. ‘Shot a cop before he went down.’

The words rattled around in Logan’s head like a bullet, tearing through the delicate tissue of his brain.

Shot a cop.

Becky.

2

Cahill found Webb outside the door of the diner talking to an FBI press officer.

‘Is he dead?’ Cahill asked. ‘Raines.’

Webb turned to look at Cahill and told the press woman to give him a few minutes. She headed off to a wooden barrier where the massed ranks of the press had already assembled, their flashbulbs popping as she approached.

‘No,’ Webb told Cahill. ‘Not so far, anyway.’

‘Will he make it to trial?’

‘Initial indications are that he will.’

Cahill looked back over at the ambulance where he had been treated and saw Logan walking away from it frantically punching a number into his phone.

‘Why did he do it?’ Webb asked. ‘The suicide mission. I mean, walking into a place full of men with guns and opening up.’

‘Maybe he got tired of it all. It happens.’

Cahill scuffed his feet on the sidewalk. ‘Sorry to hear about your agent,’ he said.

Webb nodded.

‘I appreciate that,’