hell he’d let two uniforms die up there because he was a little nervous about heights. “Stay down here and call for more backup. Tell them to bring tranqs.”
Fifty-first level. Shit. The lift rose through a few completely finished floors, then onto floors that were nothing but open beams and catwalks.
Diego had been chasing criminals through towering hotels for years; no need to get squeamish about it now. Hell, he and the sheriff’s department had followed one idiot high up onto a cable tower two hundred feet above Hoover Dam five years ago, and Diego hadn’t even flinched. A bunch of cop-hating meth dealers hang him over a balcony, and he goes to pieces.
It stops now. This is where I get my own back.
Diego rolled back the gate on the fifty-first level. The sun was rising, the mountains due west bathed in pink and orange splendor. The Las Vegas valley was a beautiful place, its stark white desert contrasting with the mountains that rose in a knifelike wall on the horizon. The visitors down in the city kept their eyes on the gaming tables and slot machines, strippers, and celebrities, uncaring of what went on outside the windows, but the beauty of the valley always tugged at Diego’s heart.
Diego drew his gun and stepped off the lift into eerie silence. Something flitted in his peripheral vision, something moving too quickly and lightly to be Hooper, who was a big, muscular guy who liked big, muscular guns. Diego aimed, but the movement vanished.
He didn’t fire. No sense in wasting ammo. He didn’t feel like having to balance on a catwalk five hundred feet above ground while he reached for an extra magazine.
Diego stepped softly, keeping to shadows. A soft sound came from behind him. He swung around, stepping into the deeper shadow of a beam, making himself a lesser target. The catwalk groaned under his feet.
Something pinged above his head. Diego hit the floor instinctively, trying not to panic as his feet slid over the catwalk’s edge.
What the hell was he doing up here? His heart was pounding triple-time, his throat so dry it closed up tight. He should have confessed his secret fear of heights a while back, gone to psychiatric evaluation, stayed behind a desk for a time. But no, he’d been too determined to keep his job, too determined to beat it himself, too embarrassed to admit the weakness. Now he was endangering others because of his stupid fear.
Shut up and think.
Whatever had pinged hadn’t been a bullet. Too soft. He got his feet back onto the catwalk and crawled to find what had fallen to the boards. A dart, he saw, the kind shot by a tranquilizer gun.
Perfect. Put the nice cop to sleep, and you can do anything you want with him, including push his body over the edge.
Diego moved in a crouch across the catwalk to the next set of shadows. The sun streaked across the valley to Mount Charleston in the west, light radiant on its snow-covered crown. More snow was predicted up there for the weekend. Diego had contemplated driving up on Saturday to sip hot toddies in a snowbound lodge, maybe with something warm and female at his side.
Once he finished here, he was requesting leave. It was long past time. He’d go to Mount Charleston and then stay at his mom’s house out in Baker and fix all the things she kept complaining about. She’d be glad to see him.
On the other side of the next girder Diego found Bud Hooper and Maria Jemez. Maria was fairly new, just out of the academy, too baby-faced to be up here chasing a crazy perp. They were slumped together in a heap, still warm, breathing slowly, out cold.
Footsteps, running. Diego swung around. Something moved upward in the middle of the building, not bothering with the lift. The shadow detached itself from the catwalk and rose in a graceful leap to the next level.
Another ping sounded beside him.
Diego let his instincts take over. He rolled, returned fire.
He heard a grunt, but he couldn’t tell if he hit his mark. Then someone barreled at him, a second perp, not the thing that had so easily leapt to the floor above. Diego dodged out of the way and went down, landing on his side, but he didn’t lose hold of his gun. He brought it around, but there was nothing to aim at.
“Drop your weapon and get on the floor,” he bellowed.