But that"s what she wanted, everyone out of the way, now that she had us together. These were no ordinary bullets she was firing; they were large-caliber and incendiary.
In other words, just right for exploding a propane tank.
The third shot would"ve killed us all if it hadn"t been for someone b.u.mping the bed as he dropped to the floor. That jostled the tanks just enough. The sh.e.l.l ripped through the box springs, but didn"t hit a tank.
I lunged for the queen-size mattress. I could feel the st.i.tches in my shoulder ripping apart as I lifted as fast and hard as I could.
The tanks went flying, clanking onto the hardwood floor, rolling in every direction.
"Everybody out!" I yelled. "Now!"
The next shot echoed amid the mad dash from the bedroom, but there was no blast. She hadn"t hit one of the rolling tanks.
The entrance to the hallway was like a narrow, unforgiving funnel as we tried to clear the living room outside the bedroom. Feet scrambling, arms flailing, everyone was literally running for their lives.
I was last in line, Sarah right in front of me. If we could just make it out of the apartment before the next shot, then maybe, just maybe, we might be okay.
KABOOM!
Chapter 98
THE FORCE OF the explosion knocked me flat against the floorboards, and a fireball swept over my back. The heat was so intense I could feel my shirt melt into my skin.
It hurt so much I wanted to scream, but I was too busy being thankful. A blast like that? The only way I wouldn"t be in pain was if I were dead.
"G.o.d, that hurt," moaned Sarah.
More good news. She was alive, too. A little better off than me.
I wish I could say it was my intent to shield her. I was thrown right into her and gravity did the rest. She was faceup and I was looking down at her. Our noses were practically touching.
"You okay?" I whispered.
"Think so. You?"
"A little toasty on the back. I"ll live."
She didn"t say anything more. She didn"t have to. I could see it in her eyes. It was really important to her that I was okay.
Off in the distance I could already hear sirens. The curtains in the living room were on fire. So were the couch and rug. There was a chance at least one of those propane tanks hadn"t exploded.
Yet.
"C"mon," said Harris. "We"ve got to get out of here."
The street outside Macintyre"s building was chaos central. Fire trucks and more police cruisers were honking their way through traffic, swirling lights everywhere.
Tenants and neighbors spilled out to the sidewalk en ma.s.se, looking bewildered and scared. I glanced around, finally catching my breath. Breathing. An old woman in a red robe was clutching rosary beads and saying a prayer. Next to her was a young Hispanic mother holding her baby boy.
Sarah was ripping through a description of Cole, sending off a dozen officers to push the perimeter in every direction. The rest followed us as we searched the buildings behind Macintyre"s, from bas.e.m.e.nts to rooftops.
Meanwhile, Harris was on his radio, getting officers out to the surrounding subways.
"Over here!" I yelled on the very first rooftop we reached. On the tar paper next to the ledge overlooking Macintyre"s apartment, propped up by an attached bipod, was an FN SPR, one of the sniper rifles I knew by name because it was used by the Bureau"s Hostage Rescue Team.
"An SPR," said Sarah as soon as she laid her eyes on it. "Talk about irony."
She was right. SPR stood for "special police rifle." It sat there, along with a few scattered casings, taunting us.
"Every door!" shouted Harris. "We knock on every door!"
We were funneling again, this time off the roof and down the stairs, when Harris"s radio crackled. Calling in was an officer on the street. He"d found a witness. Or, rather, the witness had found him.
It was a man who lived on the top floor of a taller building behind Macintyre"s. Looking down, he had a perfect view of Martha Cole after the explosion.
"What did he see?" asked Harris.
The officer paused, the radio falling silent.
"You"re not going to believe this," he said finally.
Chapter 99
MY FIRST CYNICAL thought was, You wanna bet?
After everything I"d seen over the years-let alone over the past few days-was there really anything out there I couldn"t believe, anything left that could still surprise me?
But I had to admit, this sort of did.
Same for Harris. "Say again," he said into his radio.
We listened for a second time, the officer accenting every word. Especially the last ones. "The witness claims he saw a woman running across the roof after the explosion," he said. "She was wearing a wedding dress."
Harris didn"t skip a beat. Nor was he taking anything for granted. He was about to broadcast this to every cop in the area code and beyond. The details mattered.
"The wedding dress," he said. "The color-was it white?"