Split Second

"I have a guess, but it's a pretty educated one. The Stonewall Jackson Room. It's an interior room right off the lobby. There's one door going in and a set of elevators inside."

"Why are you so sure they're in this Stonewall Jackson Room?"

"This is an old hotel, and there are lots of creaks and groans and rats and creepy things. But when I was in that room and the door was closed, I didn't hear anything. It was quiet, too quiet. But when the door was open, you could hear all the normal sounds."

"I'm not getting your point."

"I think the room's been soundproofed, Jefferson."

He stared at her. "I'm starting to see where you're going with this."

"Are your men in position?" He nodded. Michelle checked her watch. "It's almost midnight but there's a full moon. There's an open stretch of ground we have to cover before we reach the fence. If we can direct the main attack from inside, we might have a better chance of not losing anybody."

"Sounds like a plan. But you lead the way. I don't know the lay of this land." Parks spoke into his walkie-talkie and ordered his men to move their perimeter closer in.

Michelle started to sprint off but he grabbed her arm.

"Michelle, I was a pretty good athlete when I was younger, but I was no Olympian. And now my knees are shot, so could you just slow down enough so I can keep you in sight?"

She smiled. "Not to worry, you're in good hands."

They darted through the trees until they came to the open ground they had to cross to get to the fence. They paused there, and Michelle looked at the hard-breathing Parks.

"You ready?" He nodded and gave a thumbs-up.

She jumped out and ran for the fence. Behind her Parks did thesame. As she hustled along, Michelle focused at first on what was in front of her. And then her attention moved to what was behind. And what was there was suddenly chilling.

Those weren't the sounds of normal strides; they were the same disjointed lunges she'd heard outside her bedroom window at the inn-the ones made by the person who'd tried to kill her. She'd been wrong. It wasn't the painful jogging of a wounded man. It was the arthritic loping of a man with ruined knees. And he was now wheezing too.

She jumped behind a fallen tree a split second after the shotgun was racked, and the blast hit right where she'd been. She rolled, pulled her weapon and fired back, scattering shots in a wide, lethal arc.

Parks cursed at his miss and threw himself down, barely avoiding her fire. He fired again.

"Damn you, girl," he yelled. "You're too quick for your own good."

"You bastard!" Michelle screamed back as she scanned the area both for an exit and any accomplices Parks might have. She aimed two shots at Parks that blew chips off the large rock he was hunched behind.

He returned the favor with two blasts from his shotgun. "Sorry, but I had no choice."

She eyed the line of thick woods directly behind her and wondered how she could make it there without dying. "Oh, thanks. That makes me feel a lot better. What, doesn't the Marshals Service pay good enough for you?"

"As a matter of fact, they don't. But I made a big mistake a long time ago when I was a cop in D.C., and it's come back to haunt me."

"Care to enlighten me before you kill me?" Keep him talking, Michelle told herself. Maybe she could figure a way out of this.

Parks hesitated and then said, "Nineteen seventy-four ring a bell?"

"The Nixon protest?" Michelle racked her brains, then she seized upon it. "When you were a D.C. cop, you arrested Arnold Ramsey."Parks said nothing. "But he was innocent. He didn't kill that national guards-" The truth hit her in a blinding flash. "Youkilled the guardsman and pinned it on Ramsey. And you were paid to do it."

"Crazy times back then. I was a different person, I guess. And it wasn't supposed to be that way. I guess I hit the kid too hard. Yeah, I was paid off all right, and as it turns out, I wasn't paid nearly enough."

"And whoever you were working for back then is blackmailing you to do all this?"

"Like I said, it's cost me big. No statute of limitations on murder, Michelle."

She wasn't listening now. It had occurred to her that he was employing the same strategy she was. Keep her talking while they outflanked her. Now she was trying to recall the exact model of shotgun Parks was carrying. Okay, she had it. Five-shot Remington. Or at least she hoped. He'd fired four times, and it was so quiet out here she was sure she would have heard him reload.

"Hey, Michelle, you still there?"

In answer she fired three rounds at the rock and received a shotgun blast in return. As soon as the buckshot sped by, she leaped to her feet and raced to the woods.

Parks jammed fresh shells in, cursing the whole time. But by the time he took aim she was too far away for his buckshot to do any damage, and accelerating fast. He yelled into his walkie-talkie.

Michelle saw him coming. She cut to the left, hurdled a log and went flat to the ground just before the slug slammed into the bark.