Chapter 114
SAMPSON AND I WATCHED the Butcher approach the car. He was being stealthy all right, but maybe he wasn’t as good as he thought he was. He moved in quickly, bent low in a shooting crouch, ready for resistance if it came.
He was about to find out that he’d shot up a pile of propped-up clothes and throw pillows from the local Wal-Mart. Sampson and I were crouched in the woods less than thirty yards behind the car he’d just ambushed. So who was better at this game? The Butcher or us?
“Your call, Alex, how it goes from here,” Sampson whispered out of the side of his mouth.
“Don’t kill him, John,” I said, and touched Sampson’s arm. “Unless we have to. Just take him down.”
“Your call,” Sampson repeated.
Then everything went a little crazy, to put it mildly.
Suddenly the Butcher whirled around ? but not in our direction! The opposite way!
What the hell was this? What was happening now?
Sullivan was facing the thick row of woods to the east ? not where Sampson and I were coming from. He was paying no attention to us now.
He fired off two quick shots ? and I heard somebody grunt in the distance.
A man dressed in black appeared for an instant; then he fell to the ground. Who was it? Then five more men came running out of the woods to the north. They had handguns, Bull Pups, one Uzi that I could make out.
Who were these guys?
As if to answer the question, one of them shouted, “FBI. Drop your weapon! FBI!”
I didn’t buy it.
“Mob!” I said to Sampson.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Then everybody started blasting at everybody else, as if we were in the streets of Baghdad rather than somewhere in rural Massachusetts.