Authors: Christopher Valen
He detected no fear in her voice, no trace of doubt. He wondered if this was the courage she had displayed as a young girl years ago, crossing the border.
“Be careful,
señor
.”
“You, too,” he said, giving her a smile for reassurance.
Santana stayed in a crouch as he ran across the flat, lifeless ground with its patchwork of snow and multi-layered shadows toward the tree line at the southern edge of his property. He was thankful that the eclipse had deadened the light from the hunter’s moon, left it looking as if it were bleeding from a wound. Still, he kept waiting for a bullet to rip into him as he moved low and fast, holding the Glock firmly, hoping he could surprise Kehoe by coming up behind him.
He made it safely to the trees and turned west, running hard to the stone wall and the shadow-draped evergreens that were silhouetted against it. A sudden gust blew through the branches giving him cover as he crossed the driveway and squatted behind a thick evergreen to catch his breath. White plumes of exhaled carbon dioxide condensed in the air, and the wind whispered in the tall trees.
He parted the branches and stared into the blackness looking for Kehoe. Though his vision had adapted to the dark, he knew shadows could play tricks with his sight. Still, he saw no furtive movement in the ebony pool beneath the oak about fifteen yards in front of him, only what his eyes perceived as a dark shape.
He raised the Glock to chest level. Gripped the barrel with both hands and moved quickly in a crouch away from the evergreen and toward the oak dead ahead.
It took him less than three seconds to cover the distance between the evergreen and the oak and even less time to realize that the dark shape he had seen beneath the tree was Anderson, not Kehoe.
His partner lay on his stomach, one hand underneath him, the fingers of his other outstretched hand still wrapped around the butt of his Glock.
“Rick,” Santana whispered, kneeling beside him. “You all right?”
Santana rolled him on his back and knew immediately by the low moan that Anderson gave that he was badly hurt. He took a small flashlight from a coat pocket and flicked on the switch.
Anderson’s pale hand was pressed against his abdomen just below the vest, like a leaking damn trying to contain dark streams of blood oozing between his fingers.
“Fuck,” Santana said softly.
He moved the beam of light up to his partner’s face.
“It hurts like hell, John.” Anderson tried to make a smile behind gritted teeth. “He caught me by surprise. Used his knife.”
“Hang on, partner.”
“I will. You get the bastard, yet?”
“Soon.”
“Listen, John, if I don’t make it, I want you to promise me you won’t blame yourself.”
“You’re going to make it.”
“It was my idea to cover your back. Not yours. Promise me, John.”
“All right.”
“What about the girl?” Anderson asked.
As if in reply, Santana heard Angelina cry out his name.
He looked to his right down the long driveway at the dark outline of the Escort where she waited.
In the light from the Escort’s open driver’s side door, he could see that Kehoe was directly behind her. He wore camouflage fatigues and had a gun pressed against her temple. A dark patch appeared to be expanding just below his right collarbone.
“Don’t try anything stupid, Santana, or I’ll kill the girl.” Kehoe’s voice was loud and racked with pain.
“Give it up, Kehoe. It’s over.”
“Fuck you!” he yelled.
Kehoe forced Angelina into the front seat, climbed in and started the car.
Santana looked down at Anderson.
“Get the asshole, John.”
“You’re sure?”
“Hell, yes.”
By the time Santana got the Crown Vic out of the garage and onto the road, Kehoe had a thirty second head start.
Santana held the steering wheel with one hand and with the other he buckled his seatbelt. He jammed his Glock into a pocket in his ski jacket and zipped it shut. Then he grabbed the portable bubble flasher. Swung it out the driver’s side window onto the roof and switched on the light. He reported an officer down at his address and that he was in pursuit of a felony wanted, armed and dangerous, driving a light blue Escort.
The small car had to be doing at least sixty, but it was no match for the Crown Vic, which rapidly closed the gap between them as they raced down County Road 18.
Kehoe made a wide right turn onto the freeway entrance ramp, and the Escort’s back tires careened off the curb. In the glare of the Crown Vic’s headlights, Santana could see him fighting to regain control as he sped up the ramp toward the bridge over the St. Croix River.
Santana radioed dispatch that the suspect’s car was heading east on Interstate 94 toward the Wisconsin border.
Orange and black signs at the ramp entrance warned that the westbound lanes over the river were closed due to bridge construction. Traffic was down to one lane in each direction and drivers should slow down and use caution.
A highway patrol car with its siren screaming and red lights flashing streaked by as Santana came off the entrance ramp and onto the bridge. Invisible hands from the wash of turbulence grabbed the Crown Vic’s steering wheel and nudged the car toward the curb along the pedestrian walk.
Santana let up momentarily on the gas until he was able to regain control.
Up ahead, he saw the patrol car veer into the westbound lane as it overtook the Escort and tried to force the smaller car against the curb.
Kehoe suddenly slammed on the brakes sending the Escort into a skid.
The patrol car darted ahead of the Escort as though hurled from a slingshot. The officer braked and his car began fishtailing. The rear end slid right. When the officer overcorrected, his car went into an uncontrollable spin, skidding into oncoming traffic where it was broadsided by a semi truck going in the opposite direction. The impact sliced the patrol car in half and sent its rear end whirling back across the eastbound lane, gasoline spewing from its shattered tank, directly into the path of the slowing Escort.
Kehoe swerved sharply, trying to avoid the wreckage, but he was too close to the pedestrian walk. Sparks flew as hubcaps ground against cement. The sparks ignited the gasoline just as the Escort rammed the remains of the patrol car. The collision lifted the wreckage over the pedestrian walk and sent it hurtling through the guardrail. For a moment the rear half of the patrol car appeared to hang in the air, as if suspended by a chain, before it exploded in flames and plummeted into the fog-shrouded blackness and river below.
Santana had hit his brakes at almost the same instant as Kehoe, but the Crown Vic’s momentum still carried him forward, straight toward the Escort. He knew that hitting it at his current speed would most certainly send the small car through the gaping hole in the guardrail.
He pulled the steering wheel hard to the left, trying to avoid the Escort, only to realize in one horrifying moment that he had turned the Crown Vic directly into the path of the semi’s jackknifed trailer, which had swung across the two open lanes of the freeway like a huge metal gate. Tires screaming, hands gripping the wheel, he stood on brake pedal. Knew immediately he couldn’t stop the Crown Vic in time.
He released his seat belt and shoulder harness and in one quick motion opened the driver’s side door and leapt out. His feet hit first and catapulted him forward. He heard a loud crunch of metal and glass, the whine of the Crown Vic’s engine, and then silence as he hugged his chest and tucked his chin and let momentum carry him forward. He hit the concrete hard. Felt the air rush out of him as he rolled, once, twice, three times before he landed on his back and stopped.
The sky dimmed above him, and a momentary flash of panic overcame him as he struggled to breathe. Then his diaphragm relaxed and his lungs began filling with air again. He moved his feet, his hands. Lifted his legs and arms. Hoped that his heavy jacket and jeans had cushioned the impact, kept him from breaking anything. He got up slowly.
Debris from the patrol car lay scattered on the freeway amidst serpentine ribbons of burning gasoline and black smoke. The Crown Vic was halfway under the semitrailer. Its roof had been ripped back like the lid on an aluminum can. Somewhere in the fog that blurred the light from the street lamps and swept over the bridge like a fast-moving glacier, distant sirens wailed.
Santana took a step. Wobbled for a moment. Saw spots in front of his eyes. He stopped again and got both feet planted firmly under him. He took a deep breath, cleared his head. Then he drew his Glock from a pocket in his ski jacket and moved cautiously between the flames toward the Escort.
The driver’s side door fell open. Kehoe staggered out, a gun in his right hand. Blood soaked his camouflage shirt, and a deep gash ran across the bridge of his nose.
When he saw Santana coming, he reached into the front seat with his free hand and dragged Angelina Torres out as he would a body bag. Clamping one arm around her chest from behind, he held her in front of him.
“She’s still breathing, Santana.” He pressed the muzzle of the gun to her temple, and Angelina moaned as if in reply. “But she won’t be if you come any closer.”
Santana was within ten yards of Kehoe and Angelina. He held the Glock with both hands, the barrel pointed at the two of them, as a cloak of thick fog suddenly dissolved their features into shadows. The milky vapor misted on his face and eye lashes.
The fog, the bridge, the flaming river, and the two shadows before him were oddly familiar. As heat from the small fires along the freeway burned away the haze like the parting of a curtain, Santana suddenly remembered his recurring dream. Now he understood why he felt he had known Angelina before, and whom it was he had felt lurking in the shadows.
Kehoe said, “Drop the gun, Santana.”
It was Angelina who had been on the bridge in his dream, not his sister, Natalia. Ofir could have helped him see that it was a premonition of the future and not a dream of the past.
“Drop it, Santana, or I swear I’ll kill the fuckin’ spic.”
“Let me,” Santana said, and fired a round into Angelina’s chest.
Kehoe’s jaw dropped. “What the fuck?” Letting Angelina Torres go, he watched in stunned silence as she slid down his body and lay still on the ground. Eyes wide with astonishment, Kehoe stepped back from her as though she was suddenly lethal.
“Drop your weapon, Kehoe, and get down on the ground. Now!”
Kehoe shifted his gaze from Santana to Angelina, and then to Santana again. The expression on his face slowly changed from shock to understanding.
“Don’t do it,” Santana said.
Kehoe’s face split into a crooked grin. The barrel of his gun moved in Angelina’s direction.
Santana shot him.
The impact dropped Kehoe to his knees. His gun clattered to the pavement as he pressed both hands against his stomach in a futile attempt to stop the blood loss before he toppled over and lay curled in a fetal position.
Santana walked over and stood beside him.
Kehoe’s breathing was quick and shallow as he slipped into shock. He gave a sideways glance and coughed up blood. “You gut shot me you prick.”
Santana said, “
Solo se capa al marrano una vez
. You only cut the balls of a pig once, Asshoe.”
“I need a paramedic,” he rasped.
Santana waited. The sirens he had heard earlier were louder now and much nearer.
Kehoe opened his mouth to speak, but then his body convulsed, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he released a final breath.
Santana holstered his Glock and went to Angelina Torres. She lay on the cold pavement with her eyes closed, still as a corpse. He knelt down beside her.
The night suddenly came alive with the sound of doors slamming, men shouting and feet slapping on concrete. Then two paramedics appeared and dropped to their knees, one next to Kehoe, and the other opposite Santana.
“I’ll need you to move back, sir.”
“I’m a cop,” Santana said.
“Hey!” the paramedic kneeling beside Kehoe said, “this guy’s been shot.”
The paramedic kneeling next to Angelina Torres appeared to be about twenty-five. He peered at Santana through a pair of dark framed glasses and pointed to the bullet hole in her parka. “This one’s been shot, too.”
Santana unzipped Angelina’s parka and looked at where his .40 caliber slug had lodged. “Give her a moment.”
“She’s wearin’ Kevlar,” the paramedic said to Santana, with a questioning look.
“Angelina,” Santana said.
When she remained motionless, Santana feared something had gone terribly wrong. But then her eyelids fluttered and opened, and her honey-colored eyes gazed up at him, as if she had awakened from a long, deep sleep.
“What happened?” she asked.
“There was an accident.”
She placed a hand on her chest, palm down. “It hurts here.”
“You’ll have a bruise for a while, but then the pain will go away.”
“And you?” she said, grasping his scarred hand in both of hers.
Santana could see the sky and stars clearly now that the fog had lifted, but not the hunter’s moon. A cloud had slipped across it, and shadows fell like dark spirits around him.
Epilogue
W
INTER LINGERED LIKE AN ILLNESS
until mid-May when the temperature finally started climbing, the spring rains came, and the grass changed from dull brown to bright green.
Construction was progressing on the new Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center on the lower east side after the city council became convinced that the SPPD would not have to merge with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department and would have as much space as they had now.
Santana spent his free time working out and walking in the woods along the riverbank with
Gitana
, the golden retriever he had left at the pound after finding it in Rubén Córdova’s house. While
Gitana
clearly enjoyed the walks, she stayed close to him, whether they were in the woods or the house. Often, Santana caught her looking at him with her big doe eyes, wondering, perhaps, if he intended to leave her again.