The predawn glimmer gave enough light for Kurtz to see Andrew running heft-bent-for-leather toward the wire fence along the east side of the lot. Sighing again, Kurtz lifted the M4 into the open gap in the wall and used the optic sight to pick up the running figure. He took a breath, but before he could squeeze the trigger, there came the pop and rip of automatic-weapons fire, and Andrew was batted down as if a huge, invisible hand had smashed him away.
Kurtz swung the sight toward the line of cars across the street. Movement. Several dark figures behind the vehicles there.
Kurtz could feel his heart pounding. If Malcolm's men came after him now, he was in a bad place. Kurtz never liked Alamo scenarios.
One of the men jogged forward, crawled through a cut in the wire, and came out onto the lot as far as Andrew's sprawled body. The shooter raised a radio, but it wasn't tuned to the frequency Warren and his pals had been using. The man went back to the line of cars and several men got into the back of an Astro Van parked at the curb.
Kurtz used the telescopic sight to read the license tag.
The van pulled away and drove out of sight.
Kurtz waited at the gun slit for another thirty minutes, until it was light enough to see easily. He listened very carefully, but the icehouse was silent, except for water dripping and the occasional rustle of torn plastic on the mezzanine.
Finally Kurtz dropped the M4, stepped over the bodies of Douglas and Darren on his way to the stairwell, and went down to the sixth floor. He'd left nothing in his little cubby except an old cotfound in a Dumpsterand an untraceable sleeping bag. But he'd been in here without gloves, so there was always the risk of fingerprints and DNA sampling if the cops got too earnest about solving this multiple murder.
Kurtz had been keeping a five-gallon jerrican of gasoline in a closet. Now he poured gas over his sleeping area and the bathroom, dropped the Kimber.45 onto the cot, and lit a match. He hated to give up the.45he trusted that Doc was telling the truth in saying the weapons were absolutely coldbut there were at least seven depleted slugs in or around Warren's Kevlar vest that Kurtz did not have the time to retrieve.
The heat and flames were intense, but he had little worry that the whole icehouse would burn down. Too much concrete and brick for that. Kurtz also doubted that the bodies would be burned.
Backing away from the flames, Kurtz turned and jogged down the north stairwell to the basement. The tunnel there was closed off by an ancient steel door that was secured by a new chain and Yale padlock. Kurtz had the key.
He came out in another abandoned warehouse half a block away. Kurtz watched the streets for another ten minutes before stepping out onto the sidewalk and walking away quickly from the icehouse.
CHAPTER 27
Kurtz opened one eye as he lay on the sprung couch in their office. Arlene was hanging her coat and setting a stack of folders on her desk. "Where'd you get that terrible army coat? It's about three sizes too big" She paused and looked at the bundle of straps and optics on her desk. "What on earth is this?"
"Night-vision goggles," said Kurtz. "I forgot that I had them in my pocket until I tried to lie down here."
"And what am I supposed to do with night-vision goggles?"
"Put them in a drawer for now," said Kurtz. "I need to borrow your car."
Arlene sighed. "I don't suppose there's any chance that you'll get it back by lunchtime."
"Not much," said Kurtz.
Arlene tossed him the keys. "If I'd known, I would have packed a lunch."
"There are places in this neighborhood where they serve lunch," said Kurtz. "Why don't you eat around here?"
As if in answer, Arlene turned on the surveillance monitor. It was 8:30 a.m., and already there were half a dozen men in raincoats looking at racks of XXX-rated videos and magazines upstairs.
Kurtz shrugged and went out the back door, making sure that it locked
behind him.
While driving on the state road toward Darien Center and Attica, Kurtz listened to the morning news on WNY radio tell of a fire in an old Buffalo icehouse and four bodies found by firefighters, all four men killed in what authorities described as "a gangland-style slaying." Kurtz was never sure what constituted a "gangland-style slaying," but he suspected it did not involve plummeting seven stories with seven.45 slugs embedded in one's Kevlar vest. He turned up the radio.
Authorities had not revealed the identities of the four dead men, but police had announced that all of the military-type weapons recovered had been stolen in the previous summer's Dunkirk arsenal raid and that the Erie County District Attorney's office was now looking into the involvement of several local white-supremicist groups.
Kurtz turned off the radio, stopped at a roadside rest stop, and left the army jacket draped on a bench at a picnic table. If he'd owned a cell phone, he would have called Arlene and told her to get rid of the night-vision goggles. Kurtz had considered using the goggles as a calling card for Malcolm, but now he just wanted to lose them. He made a mental note to take care of that later.