Gamma Blade - Tim Stevens Page 0,11
suspicious activity wherever he saw it.
He’d been walking slowly, with his arm still across Beth, slowing her too. Now he stopped.
He took out his cell phone.
“Venn,” said Beth. “What’s going on?”
His computer guy back at the Division of Special Projects in New York, Fil Vidal, had sent him a text message earlier that day. It read: Boss. Sorry to be a pain in the ass on your vacation, but I figured this might come in useful. It’s the numbers of the local police department divisions in Miami. Feel free to delete if you like. Have a great weekend.
A list of phone numbers followed, together with a map of the city identifying which number applied to which district.
Venn’s thumb hovered over the numbers, as he tried to work out which was the closest station to where he was now.
Then commotion broke out to his left, and he whipped round.
Chapter 6
Venn’s first impression was of the man teetering toward him on Beth’s side.
He grabbed her and dragged her back, as the man fell, face-down, onto the sidewalk.
The sidewalk running along this stretch of the marina was broad, and the man was probably ten yards away. He hit the sidewalk with a fleshy thud.
Beth recoiled, pressing against Venn.
A second later, Venn saw, on the periphery of his vision, on the right, the five men along the jetty turn their heads.
His right hand slid into his jacket and his fist gripped the Beretta. As he drew it, he shoved Beth halfway behind him with his left arm.
He shouted: “Police.”
Behind the fallen man to the left, a dark figure stood in silhouette, shadowed by the streetlights. It was a male figure, and from its posture, Venn could see it was holding a handgun, and aiming it downward at the man on the ground.
Venn extended his gun arm, centering on the silhouette’s chest area. With his left hand behind him, he pressed down on Beth’s shoulder, forcing her to the ground.
“Police,” he yelled again. “Drop the weapon. Drop it, dammit! Raise your hands above your head!”
The figure hesitated for a fraction of a second.
Then it turned, and Venn saw the man sprinting toward the buildings lining the sidewalk.
He glanced round at the pier.
The five men there were gone. It was as if they’d melted into the night.
The calculations flipped through his mind in a matter of microseconds.
He couldn’t fire at the running man’s back. The man hadn’t apparently committed any crime that justified stopping him with lethal force.
On the other hand, the guy had just assaulted somebody, knocking him to the ground, and was fleeing from the scene despite the express orders of a police officer who’d identified himself. That meant Venn couldn’t simply ignore him.
But Venn had Beth with him, and there were five suspicious-looking men who’d been lined up on the pier a moment ago and had now disappeared, and that meant he couldn’t just leave Beth there and go after the running guy.
In the end, Beth made the decision for him.
She broke free from beneath Venn’s restraining hand and began running toward the man lying on the sidewalk.
Venn shouted: “Beth! Stay back!” But she continued running, as fast as she could on her kitten heels, until she reached the prone body and knelt by it and began slipping her hands over its back, its head.
Venn raised his eyes and saw the figure heading down an alley between and apartment block and an office building.
His cop instinct kicked in. The hunter’s instinct.
He began to run, homing in on the receding figure, inwardly cursing the too-tight new shoes on his feet, the restraining effect of his suit jacket and pants. As he passed Beth on the ground, he heard the man she was attending to groan faintly. And as he reached the mouth of the alleyway and plunged into the darkness between its walls, he heard Beth’s voice, loud and authoritative, as she spoke into her cell phone: “I need an ambulance...”
It meant there’d be an ambulance crew with her in minutes. She wouldn’t be alone and exposed then.
In minutes...
A lot could happen within that time frame.
Venn shut out the thought, ignored the image his wild, fanciful brain was trying to send him - the five men from the pier closing in around Beth, their guns drawn - and doubled his pace, feeling the adrenaline kick in and spur him on as he dodged a dumpster halfway down the alley and leaped over a pile of empty cardboard boxes and saw the other end of