Gamma Blade - Tim Stevens Page 0,14

of injury was apt to reduce the toughest, meanest bastard to a state of blubbering infancy. It was the reason the IRA had employed the technique so effectively during Britain’s so-called ‘Troubles’.

Slowly, with the shroud of humiliation and defeat settling over him, Venn lowered himself to first one knee, then the other.

His ears listened past the pounding of his pulse and detected the faintest whisper of the man’s sneakers as he came closer.

Venn kept his head still, but his eyes flicked around, surveying the immediate environment. A half-brick lay off to the right, within lunging distance. But a lunge wouldn’t be fast enough to beat a bullet. And even if he did manage to grab the brick, he’d have to turn, aim, and hit the man in the head.

It would take a couple of seconds, at least. Too long.

Fatally, too long.

Venn had come close to death many, many times in his life, both as a Marine and as a police officer. But on all those other occasions there’d been a suddenness about the danger. This kind of slow-burn, impending doom was something new.

Never before, when Venn had found himself on the brink of extinction, had his life flashed before his eyes, as the cliché had it. He didn’t believe that ever really happened to anybody.

And it didn’t happen to him now. But, rather than his mind being filled with crazy ideas about how he could conceivably escape, turn the tables upon the man behind him, he found his consciousness filled with Beth.

Beth, who’d dropped into his life out of nowhere, in the most bizarre and frightening circumstances imaginable.

Beth, who had given his life a meaning he’d thought he’d found in the Marine Corps and in the police, but hadn’t.

Beth, who’d agreed to spend the rest of her life with him - with him, big dumb Joe Venn from semi-rural Illinois, a hick who’d never even dreamed he’d meet anybody as beautiful and intelligent and wonderful as her, still yet persuade her to marry him.

Beth, who was carrying his child. Their child.

And Venn understood, with the force of a divine revelation, that he couldn’t die now. The cosmos couldn’t permit it.

It wasn’t meant to be.

He found that each of his senses was heightened.

The hardness of the concrete against his knees through the thin fabric of his suit.

The brightness of the streetlights ahead, beyond the mouth of the alleyway.

The faint, sharp tang of urine from the dark recesses of the alley.

The swarming noise of traffic and yells and music from the city above and around him.

The copper taste of dryness in his mouth.

He said, enunciating very clearly: “You’re making a big mistake, asshole.”

The man’s reply was delayed by a couple of seconds. Two seconds in which Venn tensed his neck, in anticipation of the bullet that was about to come ripping through it.

The voice, when it came, was interested. Conversational, almost. “You think? How so?”

“Because I’m wired,” Venn said. “Check my jacket, if you don’t believe me. Right now, everything you and I are saying is being transmitted. Recorded. The wire will pick up the shot. And you’ll be a cop killer, on the run from a department which has your voice on tape.” He felt his tone growing bolder. “You a gambling man? I sure am. But even I wouldn’t put money on your chances after that.”

A flash of blue light swept down the alley from behind Venn, and he felt a flicker of hope. But whatever it was, a cop car or an ambulance, it had passed by.

The seconds ticked by, taut as a thread stretched to breaking point.

Then the man said: “You’re lying.”

Again, the soft footfalls. He was close to Venn now.

Venn sensed the gun being raised. He pictured the pistol held at arm’s length, as the man drew a careful bead on the curve of his cranium at the back.

And he knew he’d lost.

Venn closed his eyes.

Not because he was scared.

But because he could see Beth better that way.

He smiled at her image.

Take care, Beth, he murmured silently. Of yourself. And of the baby.

Above him, behind him, so close that in the final seconds Venn thought he might have a chance at lashing backward and doing some damage, the guy said, in a voice that was barely above a harsh whisper: “Nighty night, cop.”

The pain exploded in Venn’s head a nanosecond before he was consumed by darkness.

Chapter 8

Beth glanced over her shoulder, saw the flaring lights of the ambulance, its flasher strobing on top as it pulled up,