While Galileo Preys by Joshua Corin Page A

to wait in line.”
    Any second now…
    “He’s had a lot of visitors, sir,” said Sgt. Baynes. “We only let immediate family in to see him. And the lieutenant governor.” Perhaps he was just trying to occupy the silence. Perhaps he was crowing his achievements. Tom didn’t care.
    “Thank you, Sergeant.”
    “There was one reporter who tried to see him a few minutes ago,” Baynes added. “Rude little bastard. Even tried to take a picture of Catch with his camera phone. We got rid of the scamp right quick.”
    “Thank you, Sergeant.”
    Any second now…
    The rude little bastard Sgt. Baynes was referring to was now on floor four of the hospital, in the men’s room. Underneath the sink was a briefcase, secured there with duct tape. He peeled the tape away and hefted the briefcase into his arms. It was not light.
    Back on the fifth floor, the door finally opened. Four doctors filed out.
    “Two minutes,” the eldest doctor warned. “He’s still weak.”
    Tom nodded eagerly and, with Darcy in tow, entered Room 526.
    Room 426, in the primary care ward, was occupied by two patients. One was off having tests. The other, a rotund fellow with red mullet named Curly McCue, was watching Jerry Springer on the TV fastened to the wall.The rude little bastard entered Room 426 and wedged the door shut with a small piece of wood from his pocket.
    “Hi there,” said Curly, happy to have a visitor, “can I help you?”
    “My name is Special Agent Tom Piper,” Tom said, one story up. Although the room’s blinds were drawn (safety precaution), the fire chief’s hazel eyes seemed to glow with daylight and vitality.
    “I saw him,” he told the agents. His voice was raspy. He took a sip of water from a paper cup the doctors must have given him. “He was on the roof of a building across the street.”
    Tom kept his ever-bourgeoning excitement in check. This was a man who had almost died, whose team of firefighters had been murdered. “Did you get a good look at him, Chief?”
    Catch nodded.
    Back in Room 426, the rude little bastard was assembling his M107. From barrel to stock, it was twenty-nine inches long and weighed almost twenty-nine pounds. A certain symmetry, that. It could accurately fire .50 caliber rounds at a distance of 6,561 feet, or over one mile. His target today, though, was only twenty feet away. Vertically. Galileo double-checked the snapshot he’d taken on his cell phone to verify the corresponding location in the room of his prey.
    Curly McCue didn’t budge. His bed was soaked with urine. On TV, two scantily-clad pregnant women were wrestling. Curly McCue tried to recall the words to the Lord’s Prayer.
    Tom leaned into the bed. Catch’s parched voice made his words difficult to understand. Darcy mimicked her boss and stood at the other side of the bed and also leaned.
    Catch swallowed down another gulp of water. Smiled at the agents. And then his heart splashed Valentine’s Day blood against the ceiling of the room, across Tom and Darcy’s faces, and the world.
    Tom and Darcy recoiled from the bed. Catch’s face still displayed that patient smile, frozen now in time and spattered scarlet. The plastic cup was squeezed in his left fist. Water trickled down the side of his hand and drip-dropped against the tiled floor below. Blood soon joined.
    The Rangers burst into the room, pistols at the ready.
    “Seal the exits!” Tom demanded. “Go!”
    BAM! Catch’s body jumped again. The assassin had taken a second shot, just to be sure. The bullet angled off a rib and nabbed Tom in his left shoulder.
    “Stay here,” he ordered Darcy, who was leaning against the wall. Possibly in shock. “Keep everyone outside the room.” In case the shooter fired again.
    Darcy nodded, catching her breath. She was wiping Catch’s blood from her nostrils and irises when she noticed Tom’s wound. With his right hand he unsheathed his Glock from its shoulder-holster and dashed out to the nearest stairwell to intercept