“We have to go.”
“Are. They. Dead?”
“Maybe,” Detillier said, his face dropping. He looked for a moment like he himself might collapse. “Maybe some. I don’t know. I don’t want to say.” He looked over her shoulder. “It’s a mess. It’s a fucking mess. We can’t talk here.”
Maureen saw his eyes lock on to something behind her. Whatever he saw rallied his focus. “What kind of car was it the Watchmen used to shoot up your house?”
“A white van,” Maureen said. “A commercial van. One with a door on the side that slides open.” She turned around and saw what Detillier had spotted. “Just like that one coming up the street. Motherfucker.”
A dingy white van idled at a stop sign three blocks back toward Rampart. The afternoon haze threw the shadows of the trees across the windshield. She couldn’t see the driver. Maureen ran her tongue over her front teeth. Okay, then. She drew her Glock. She checked the safety. She’d already racked a bullet into the chamber. She spoke to Detillier with her eyes locked on the van. “I didn’t see it myself, I was away from the house, but that’s what the report said.”
The van sat at the sign, a blue-gray plume of exhaust billowing behind it. Traffic had died on Esplanade, the afternoon after-lunch lull setting in. Or was the city on lockdown? Maureen could hear Detillier breathing over her shoulder. Might be an ordinary van, she thought. City was full of them. Every fly-by-night contractor and his brother drove an old, beat-up white van. But the timing, she thought. The timing. The right front headlight was busted. A fender bender? she wondered. Or shot out in the getaway?
“The reports from the shootings,” she asked, “they say anything about a van? Any of our guys get any shots off?”
“Not that I heard about,” Detillier said. “The shooters walked into restaurants where the officers were eating and opened fire. One guy was killed at the scene, the other pair fled in the panic. That’s what we know. This is an ongoing situation. We haven’t found anyone yet who saw what they drove.”
Maureen swallowed hard. Time to focus. “Okay. We need to get away from the restaurant right now.” Or I do, she thought. Since I’m the target. The guys who’d shot up her house, they’d fired hundreds of rounds from some pretty heavy weapons. She had to draw fire away from the café. That was priority one.
“Get everyone inside Dizzy’s into the back,” she said. “Get them into the kitchen and away from the windows.”
The van started rolling again in their direction. She walked quickly toward it, her gun hanging at her side, loose in her hand. She could get to the van before it reached the restaurant. The crepe myrtles on the neutral ground, the parked cars and trees and garbage cans along her side of Esplanade gave her cover. She didn’t care if people in the van saw her coming. She wanted them to see her coming. She wanted their full attention. She sped up to a trot.
A car came up behind her, the engine revving. She nearly screamed at the sound of it. She drew her weapon. This was no cat in the graveyard. She ducked behind a big plastic trash bin, landing hard on her knees. Stupid, she thought, stupid, stupid fucking girl. She waited for the bullets to fly. She’d have no shot at them. Stupid girl, the van was a decoy and you fell for it. She’d left her back completely exposed, and let herself be drawn out into the open. Two fatal mistakes at the same time. Never let them get behind you, one of the first things Preacher had ever taught her. She could hardly believe there weren’t bullets in her back already.
From her knees, her armpits soaked with sweat, looking from behind the trash bin she peeked around the back bumper of a parked VW bug. She watched a noisy old Buick rattle by, an old woman at the wheel barely tall enough to drive. That was her assassin. She emptied her lungs. “Jesus fucking Christ, Maureen. Get a grip.”
She wondered what the driver of the van had seen. Did he know where she was? Had he seen where she was hiding? She crept behind the bug, crouched, leaning her hip against its bumper, her gun in front of her in both hands.
The van continued up Esplanade in her direction. Slowly.
Now she could see the dark form of the driver behind the wheel. She couldn’t make out his face. Was he wearing a ski mask? Looked like it. Or was his face darkened in shadow? The windshield was cracked and the driver’s-side windows were filthy. She couldn’t tell anything for sure. She watched the side door of the van. If that door moved, if it twitched, she would let loose. She wished she’d brought an extra clip. Who knew how many bullets she would need? Where the fuck was Detillier? How long did it take to move a handful of civilians to safety? Why wasn’t he backing her up? Had he called for help? Why wasn’t he flanking the van? This FBI motherfucker was a trial. She raised herself away from the car into a standing crouch.