The SWAT group bursts from the back of the van, one man deploying south and another north, a third heading for the rear of the building. Dewey revs the engine to reverse the van: a squeal of rubber. The movement of the vehicle, the rapid motion of men on the ground, tree trunks obscuring lines of sight—it’s like a street tornado. When a black-clad jogger vaults a low fence in front of the building, the newly arrived cops draw their weapons fast.

“Hold your fire! Hold your fire, it’s me!” The SWAT jogger’s hands are raised, his face pale.

“This is S5, I do not have a visual on target, say again, I do not have a visual—”

“Where’s the goddamn target?” Dewey roars over comms. “CP, we do not have eyes on the target!”

Far left of the throng, a black-dressed figure breaks away from the side of the building, weaving through trees and sprinting for the road.

“S5 has the visual! Target heading east—”

“What the fuck is going on out there?” Cooper yells into his mic. “Somebody grab this guy!”

“Get the fuck out of the way!” Dewey’s going ballistic.

“CP, no clear shot, too many bodies—”

The target flies past the Dodge Ram, close enough to skim the paintwork. He jumps through the bushes in front, dodging tree trunks, and disappears onto the pedestrian pathway on the near side of the hospital’s front parking lot.

“Fuck!” Martino yells. “He ran right by us!”

“We’re losing him,” Cooper says. In that moment, his instinct overwhelms all his higher intelligence. He snatches up a handset, flings open the van door, and for the first time in nearly thirty years of distinguished military and law enforcement service, Ed Cooper breaks cover.

Taking the same route as the target, bolting through underbrush and past trees, swapping the handset to his left hand, and drawing his weapon, Cooper spills onto the hospital’s concrete pathway. The Butcher has a lead of twenty yards, running left, Cooper’s ten o’clock, heading for the shaded side of the hospital wall, the secondary delivery area and a service door.

“Stop right there!” Cooper aims, realizes he can’t guarantee an accurate shot with the target weaving like that. He runs and yells into the handset at the same time. “CP1, I have the visual. Target on hospital grounds, hospital grounds west service side, CP1 in pursuit.”

There’s a squawk in reply and Cooper sees the Butcher wrench open the service door, thrust straight through.

Not wasting his breath in curses, Cooper sprints harder for the door. He shoves his left hand with the handset into the shrinking gap, his fingers almost crushed against the doorframe but not quite—he’s caught it.

The brick that had kept the door cracked open for lunchtime smokers has been kicked aside—if he hadn’t caught the door, it would’ve been all over—and Cooper realizes that the Butcher knows the hospital. That awareness flicks his training synapses back on. He yanks the door open. Diagonal entry, check the corners, one-two, gun forward and aimed, left hand with the handset supporting from beneath.