The Prophecy

11

In the summertime, the Cathedral lawn was like a city park, filled with coeds in bikinis and frat boys throwing Frisbees. But on this night it resembled Siberia. The arctic wind was howling, and the snow was drifting high. In some places, it was over two feet deep. But none of that mattered to Payne, who sprinted across the flat terrain with reckless abandon.

With the Cathedral on his left, he followed the shooter’s trail for nearly 200 feet. The entire way he ran parallel to Fifth Avenue, which glowed on his right and provided just enough light to see the footprints. Cars and buses occasionally passed, as did salt trucks and snowploughs. Somewhere in the distance he heard the shrieking of metal as ice was scraped from the asphalt. Other than his breath and his pounding heart, it was the only sound he heard.

Bigelow Boulevard was straight ahead at the bottom of a small hill. The road ran left to right, just beyond a row of hedges that marked the end of the Cathedral grounds. To slow his forward momentum, Payne went into a controlled slide. He thrust his legs in front of him and slid down the icy embankment, stopping a few feet short of the shrubs. He quickly popped into a crouch and scanned his surroundings, using the bushes for temporary cover.

Payne cursed when he realized the sidewalk and the four-lane road had been recently ploughed. From this point forward, he was on his own. No more footprints to follow. Nothing but a vague description of a man in a trench coat. Even if he spotted a possible suspect, Payne couldn’t just shoot him. On a large city campus, there was no telling how many men met that description. Payne would have to approach him and confront him, face to face.

Glancing to his left, he saw nothing but parked cars all covered in a thick blanket of snow, meaning they had been there for a while. With no exhaust fumes in sight, he knew none of the cars were running. On his right, three students were sitting inside a bus shelter, huddling together for warmth. They were dressed in jeans and ski jackets, not trench coats.

Across the street was the William Pitt Union. At one time it had been the Schenley Hotel, a glamorous facility that had housed several celebrities over the years — including Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Babe Ruth — but now it served as the student union, one of the major social hubs on the Pitt campus. Despite the blizzard, Payne knew the place would be swarming with students.

If the shooter went in there, things could get ugly.

With no suspect in sight, Payne searched for a gap in the hedges. He found one near the bus shelter and squeezed his way onto the sidewalk. Not wanting to startle the students, he tucked his gun into his pocket and approached the shelter.

‘Excuse me,’ Payne said, ‘have you seen a guy in a trench coat?’

‘Why?’ said the smartass in the middle. ‘Are you hoping to get flashed?’

Payne wasn’t in the mood for jokes. He took a step closer and stared at the kid, half-tempted to pull out his gun in order to stress the urgency of the situation. But the last thing he wanted to do was to threaten them, especially with the news he was about to share.

‘Listen very carefully,’ he said calmly. ‘There was a shooting near Heinz Chapel. The suspect is wearing a trench coat and he fled this way.’

‘What?’ shrieked the female on the left. The others sat upright.

‘Do you have a phone?’

All three nodded their heads.

‘Contact the Pitt police and tell them what I said. Have them send a warning message on the campus system. The less people outdoors, the better.’

Ever since the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, most American universities had implemented a text-message alert system that could notify students and faculty of impending danger. With the touch of a button, more than 30,000 phones would receive the warning.

‘Do you understand me?’

They nodded their heads in unison.

‘Make the call on your way to the Cathedral. Go right now and spread the word.’

‘Why the Cathedral?’ the smartass asked.

‘Because the shooter just passed the Cathedral and was headed this way. There’s no reason for him to backtrack.’

‘I think I saw him,’ said the girl on the right.

‘Where?’ Payne demanded.

‘He crossed the street towards the union a few minutes ago.’

‘Did he go inside?’

She shook her head. ‘He was heading towards the quad.’

‘Did you see his face?’

‘I only saw his coat. It was long and dark brown.’

Payne thanked her, then jogged across the street towards the main entrance of the student union. Three sets of doors sat under a large portico on his left. Just beyond it was a split set of steps that led up to Schenley Quadrangle, a cluster of five residence halls that housed more than 1,000 students. On most nights, the quad would be swarming with foot traffic — students heading to class or hanging out with friends — but Payne knew the basketball game on the far side of campus would reduce those numbers, as would the cold.

He darted up the steps, hoping to find an empty quad.

Instead, he found himself in the middle of a war zone.

More than fifty students were in the midst of a massive snowball battle. Everywhere Payne looked, people were running, and throwing, and howling with laughter. Not only in the courtyard between the buildings but also in the windows above. Minutes earlier, a few devious students had dumped buckets of water on the participants down below, and now their room was the main focus of the attack. Snowballs were flying at all angles: up, down, and across the quad. All of it was good, clean fun — students blowing off steam at the end of a semester.

Little did they know, a killer was lurking nearby.

A female student, wearing a knit cap and matching mittens, spotted Payne in his tuxedo. She hustled over to warn him. ‘If I were you, I’d go another way. It’s not safe in here.’

Payne smirked at the irony of her statement. ‘Are you on guard duty?’

She smiled. ‘Something like that.’

‘Did you see a guy in a brown trench coat?’

She nodded. ‘He ignored me and kept on walking.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Thirty seconds. You can catch him if you hurry.’

‘Which way?’ Payne demanded.

She pointed to the right. ‘Just past Amos Hall, heading toward Fifth.’

‘Thanks,’ Payne said as he sprinted across the courtyard. Snowballs whizzed past him like enemy fire, but he wasn’t the least bit concerned. His sole focus was catching the man in the trench coat, stopping him before he killed again.

A few seconds later, Payne reached the end of Amos Hall. He skidded to a stop on the slick pavement and pulled out his gun. With his back against the wall, he inched his head round the corner and searched for his target. Unfortunately, the shooter was waiting for him behind a parked car. His muzzle blast sounded like thunder as it echoed off the surrounding buildings. His bullet struck the edge of Amos Hall, less than a foot from Payne’s head, producing a tiny wisp of debris. Behind Payne, the collective sound of laughter turned into shrieks of terror as students scattered in all directions, some diving indoors, others running towards the union.

Payne didn’t flinch. He stood perfectly still, gun in hand, waiting to make his move. A moment later he poked his head into the alley a second time, and once again the shooter fired. This time the bullet was even closer, missing Payne’s head by less than six inches.

‘Shit,’ Payne mumbled, realizing he was at a tactical disadvantage.

As a right-handed shooter, Payne knew he would have to expose his entire right flank in order to get off a clean shot. Due to his opponent’s accuracy, he knew that was a dangerous proposition. With that in mind, he moved his gun into his left hand. Although a kill shot wasn’t realistic, he figured he could pump a few rounds into the car that was shielding his target. If his opponent got flustered and ran, Payne could charge forward and take him out.

Payne took a deep breath and inched his gun round the corner. He calmly squeezed the trigger, and the passenger window exploded. Payne made a small adjustment to his aim and fired again. This time the bullet entered the front passenger window and exited the driver’s side. Shards of glass rained down on the killer, stinging him like a swarm of angry bees. The man howled in agony as a piece of window pierced the corner of his left eye.

It was the sound Payne had been hoping to hear.

With his shield destroyed and his vision blurred, the assailant ran towards Fifth Avenue, hoping to reach his vehicle on the other side of the street before Payne shot him from behind.

A few seconds later, his escape attempt ended in a puddle of blood.