“Sir—”
“I didn’t ask you to contribute, son. Now, this last part is very important. I will not negotiate with anybody but Carter Blake or Elaine Banner; they’re on the
FBI
task force. Anybody else tries to do it, I kill a hostage. I want Blake and Banner—just them—to enter the building. If they try to talk to me from outside, I kill a hostage. You got all of that? Good.”
Wardell ended the call and tossed the phone over his shoulder. That ought to do it. He reached to pick up the gun from the top of the packing crate, and as he did so, the angle of his right hand, the one over the kid’s mouth, shifted. Wardell grimaced as a sharp pain gripped his hand. The little shit had sunk her teeth into the webbing between his thumb and index finger. He felt the teeth meet in the middle, piercing all of the way through. He grasped at her as she started to wriggle loose, managed to slam her against the wall so that her jaws relaxed. The kid cried out and Wardell backhanded her across the face with his wounded hand, spraying his own blood over her and the wall.
“You goddamned little whore!” he yelled, wincing and realizing the strike had only made the pain in his hand worse. After the lights had gone out, he’d changed his mind about killing the kid before Banner got here. Now he was changing his mind back again.
The girl was scrabbling to her feet, sobbing. Wardell lunged for her as she fled, catching the edge of her flouncy costume dress with his good hand and tugging it so that she fell down. He dragged her back across the dirty concrete floor and hauled her to her feet, wrapping his left arm around her midsection—making sure to keep his hand away from those goddamn sharp teeth this time.
Out of breath, he carried her bodily back to the packing crate and reached for the gun. As his fingers closed around the grip, he heard another gun being cocked from above him.
He raised his head to see Carter Blake at the top of the metal stairs—a lot earlier than expected and drawing a bead on Wardell’s head.
“Drop the kid and put your hands on your head.”
Wardell froze; then the surprise abated and he hugged Annie tighter to his body. A grin broke out on his face. Maybe the situation called for a poker face, but he couldn’t help it. Blake had nothing. Okay, he had the gun, but he wouldn’t use it, not with the brat this close. Slowly, he shook his head.
“Second time you’ve made that mistake, Blake. Second and last.”
Wardell’s fingers closed around the butt of the gun on top of the crate. Blake tightened his grip on his own gun but did not fire. He was less than fifteen feet away: literally a can’t-miss. Wardell moved in one smooth, practiced motion without hesitation: He raised the gun, pointed it in the middle of Blake’s face, and fired.
82
7:37 p.m.
Instinctively, I lunged forward. But even as I did it, I knew it was futile. There was no way he could miss me, not from this distance. The crack of the gunshot was fierce in the low space. I saw the muzzle flash as I fell forward and wondered how long it would take me to feel the pain.
But then the pain didn’t come. I continued my tumble forward, losing height as I dropped from the top of the metal stairway. Wardell was wincing, and I registered that his right hand was covered with blood. He’d missed me. He’d actually
missed me
. He’d hurt his hand somehow and it had thrown his aim off. Not by much, maybe just enough to foul the last-moment adjustment he’d made as I jumped—so that my reflexive lunge had let me pass under the path of the bullet. He was still holding Annie, though, and still holding the gun, despite his obvious pain. But I was still falling forward, and I wasn’t about to stop.
My left foot landed square on the third step from the bottom and I sprang off it, diving right at Wardell as he brought the gun to bear on me again. I caught him high and to his right side, contacting my shoulder with his head and grabbing his wrist with my hand, so that the second bullet went high too, the gunshot just about rupturing my eardrums as it did so. The momentum knocked Wardell over backward, and he let go of Annie to free up his other hand to try and break his fall.
We slammed onto the concrete floor, me on top. Annie rolled as she landed and scampered back from us as though distancing herself from two wild animals fighting over a piece of meat. My right hand was trapped beneath Wardell’s back. The impact had made me drop the gun. My left hand kept hold of his wrist. With both of our other hands pinned, it turned into an arm wrestle. I dug my fingers into the flesh of his wrist and tried to lock my arm. He pushed back, edging the gun back down toward my face. It was a fairly even match. Fairly, but not exactly. I was in good shape, but Wardell had spent the last five years with little else to do but build muscle. Little by little, quarter inch by quarter inch, I was losing the struggle. I felt the muzzle of the gun bob against my hair. Wardell’s face, a mask of concentration up until now, started to twitch into an anticipatory leer.
I relaxed my grip on his wrist abruptly and simultaneously smashed my forehead into Wardell’s nose. I felt rather than heard the crunch of bone, and Wardell roared in pain. I took advantage by sliding my hand over the muzzle of the gun and yanking it down. Faced with a split-second choice between letting go of the gun or retaining his grip and allowing his trigger finger to be broken, Wardell chose the first option. I yanked the gun back and started to pull my right arm out from under Wardell as I adjusted the gun in my left, intending to turn it on its former owner.
I didn’t get the chance. Wardell brought his knee up dead center toward my groin, causing me to roll to the side to avoid an injury that would take me out of the fight. He balled his fist and batted the gun out of my hand sideways. It flew from my fingers and sailed into a pile of machine parts beneath the metal stairway. We broke apart and staggered back a couple of steps, like boxers. Our eyes locked for a heartbeat, and then as though choreographed, we both looked down, remembering my gun. It lay between us, equidistant. We came together again, more like sumo wrestlers this time, pushing against each other hard, neither giving ground.
Wardell tried my own trick on me, dropping one hand so that I lurched forward, then bringing the hand back as a fist. I angled my body to catch his forearm between my arm and ribs and used his momentum to swing him into one of the steel pillars. I relaxed the grip so that I could bend for the gun on the floor, but Wardell was already countering, slamming his fist into my back and knocking me off course. I ignored the sharp lance of pain in my lungs and pivoted, grabbing him at the shoulders and blocking his lunge for the gun. Over his right shoulder I saw Annie backed into a corner and staring at the scene, wide-eyed. That made up my mind: I liked my own chances better with the gun in play, but I couldn’t risk a stray bullet finding her.
I feinted as though I were going to pull the head butt move again and then renewed the pressure and kicked the fallen gun hard with the side of my shoe. It skittered side-on across the floor, disappearing beneath a stack of wooden pallets. Wardell laughed and pushed back off me, dancing away and wiping blood from his broken nose with the back of his hand. I took a step back, feeling more than a little unsteady on my feet. I hoped it didn’t show. Wardell looked entirely unruffled, despite the blood flowing from his hand and his nose.
“Better this way,” Wardell said, nodding in the direction the gun had gone. “You know, I don’t usually like to get my hands dirty. With you? I’m glad to make an exception.”
I shook my head. “Bring it on, psycho. I know you can’t handle it up close.”
He didn’t respond. Not with words. He took a step toward me, feinted, and then nailed me on the shoulder and the side of my head before I saw his hands moving. It felt as though I’d stuck my head out in front of a subway train. I shook the starburst out of my eyes and resisted the temptation of a blind charge. I hung back and let the shock drain out of the head blow, allowing the pain to rush in to fill the void. I grinned it out. “Weak. Don’t give up the day job.”
Wardell returned the grin, saying nothing. He came close again, feinting with the left this time. I was ready for it, blocked the true swing from the right and drove my fist into his gut. It hurt him, but it hurt my fist almost as much. It was like punching a car tire. I took a lucky gamble on a right cross from Wardell, blocked it with my forearm, and slammed my elbow hard into his already-broken nose. The cry of pain was louder this time and angrier. He fell back a step, coming up short against a low workbench. His right hand fell back to steady himself and, too late, I realized I’d pushed him back into a virtual hand-to-hand armory. His fingers swept over an array of hammers, saws, and chisels. I charged him as his fingers closed around a heavy monkey wrench.
He was too fast for me, already swinging it at my head by the time I got anywhere near. I ducked, the cruel mouth of the wrench just clipping the top of my scalp. Continuing on its swing, the wrench crashed into one of the steel pillars, making a noise like the dinner gong in hell.
Wardell moved while I was off balance, sweeping his right leg across the backs of my knees and dropping me onto the concrete. He grabbed the wrench two-handed and raised it above his head, as though intending to cut me in half with it. I rolled to the side and felt a sting on my arm as the wrench smashed a concrete chip out of the floor. Every cell in my body told me to roll again, get as far away as I could from the next swing of the wrench. I stayed put. I might dodge the next one, and maybe even the one after, but sooner or later, the realities of my position dictated that I had only one tenable defense.
Wardell brought the wrench down again, launching his follow-up strike with supernatural speed. I saw the blunt, rusty steel head of it closing in on my face and knew that if I didn’t have perfect timing, I wouldn’t have anything at all. I heard the beginning of Annie’s scream. I brought both hands up from each side and caught the wrench between them, feeling the jolt travel all the way up to my biceps. A flicker of confusion crossed Wardell’s face, and I milked it to the full, pulling him off balance with the wrench and kneeing him hard in the solar plexus. He wasn’t ready for it this time, gagging as the breath was forced out of him.
I kept pulling him down and got up on one knee, bringing the wrench across his throat and pulling his body back against me. He coughed and gagged again, fingers scratching at mine. I pulled harder. His body convulsed and he tried to shake his head from side to side. I grunted and increased the pressure. From somewhere far away, I heard somebody screaming. It was Annie. I felt Wardell’s fingers relax a little on my grip on the wrench and felt the beginnings of relief myself, knowing that the last of his strength was beginning to ebb away.
I was wrong.
Wardell’s right hand dropped to his side, and a heartbeat later I felt a white-hot pain in my thigh. Although I couldn’t see it, I knew I’d been stabbed. Stupid. I should have known he’d always have a backup. I gritted my teeth against the pain and increased the pressure again. The gash in my leg sang out another chorus of agony as I felt the blade twist and draw out. Wardell’s hand swung dazedly outward, and I saw the steel of the blade winking out from under a thick shroud of my own blood. He brought the knife back toward us and I felt a stab in my right side.
This one didn’t feel white-hot, just the opposite: like a perfectly formed sheet of ice had been slid into my abdomen. I felt a sickly numbness and was aware of my own blood soaking into my clothing and running down my leg. My grip on the wrench relaxed just enough, and Wardell was able to squirm out from under.
I fell back, holding my side. A second later I realized with surprise that I’d fallen to the ground. Wardell was still on his feet for now, but he didn’t look like he’d be far behind me. He was staggering in a circle, holding his throat with one hand, the blade in the other. His breath rasped out. It sounded like I’d broken something important in there. I didn’t feel any remorse. He looked down at himself and saw dirt, sweat, blood—his and mine. His face contorted into a mask of revulsion. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if he might save me some trouble and die of fastidiousness.
I struggled to one knee and tried to get up, pressing harder on my side and feeling blood seep between my fingers. Wardell looked at me, then at the blade in his hands. From between his teeth, he issued one word: “Kill.”
“Freeze,
FBI
.”
The shout from behind Wardell stopped both of us as though we’d been flash frozen.
“Mommy!”
I looked at Annie, then followed her gaze to see Banner edging down the stairway, her gun gripped in both hands and aimed squarely at Wardell.
“Drop it,” she said.
Wardell turned slowly to face her.
“Last warning,” Banner snapped before he’d completed the rotation. “I will shoot you.”
Will you?
I wondered.
Because I really think you’re going to need to, Banner
. Something about Wardell’s movements told me he was thinking the same thing. It didn’t reassure me in the slightest when Wardell appeared to comply, dropping the knife to the floor, where it made a dull clink.
Banner was at the bottom of the stairs now. Wardell was opening his hands in a gesture of surrender. I didn’t buy it for a second.
I tried to say, “Shoot him,” but I couldn’t seem to get it out. My lips were moving, but there didn’t seem to be anything left in me to force the sound out. The room was starting to spin. The neon tubes on the walls were casting out rainbows that I was pretty sure hadn’t been there before.
I knew I couldn’t pass out now, because somehow I had to stop what was going to happen next. I knew what Wardell was going to do because we both knew what Banner was going to do, and in this situation it was entirely the wrong thing to do: follow the rules, follow procedure.
If you carry a badge, you’re trained to observe certain rules of engagement in situations like this. Rules like not discharging your weapon unless you are absolutely certain there is a threat to your life. Like not shooting an unarmed suspect. Like ensuring you give him time to surrender. Those rules were about to get Elaine Banner killed, because despite his injuries, a moment’s uncertainty was all Caleb Wardell would need.