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Michelle Spivey.
The scientist had been abducted a month ago. She had worked at the CDC.
Not an explosion from a gas leak.
An attack.
“All right,” Hank shouted at Will. “I need you to slowly get your head out of the car and put your hands up.” He had taken a gun out of his pocket: PKO-45. The muzzle barely extended past his finger, which was placed above the trigger guard the way a cop would hold it. The extended magazine peeked out from the bottom of his fist. Tiny, but powerful. It was called a pocket cannon because it could blow the brain out of a woman’s skull.
Sara’s skull.
Because that’s where the gun was pointing.
Will felt a physical illness rack his body. He did as he was told, his hands slowly going into the air. He looked at Sara now. Her bottom lip trembled. Her eyes filled with tears. Her fear was so palpable that he could feel it like a fist squeezing the blood out of his heart.
Merle jammed his revolver into Will’s side. “We got no beef with you, big guy. Just need to borrow the doctor. You’ll get her back eventually.”
Will’s eyes found the blood dripping down between Michelle’s legs. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t draw air. Sweat streamed down the sides of his face. He looked down at the Smith and Wesson revolver that was prying apart his ribs. If he was shot in the gut, could he still grab one of the guns? Could he give Sara cover so that she could run?
From four armed men? Across open space?
Broken glass filled his throat, his chest, his lungs.
They were going to take Sara.
They were going to kill him.
There was nothing Will could do but watch it or make it happen faster.
Clinton loaded Dwight into the back of the BMW. Dwight was still out, slumped over to the side. His holster was empty. Vince was too far away for Will to take his gun. He had already slipped behind the wheel of Sara’s car. The key fob was inside, so he was able to turn on the vehicle by pressing the button. The battery turned on, but not the engine.
Vince laughed. “Stealing a hybrid. We’re owning the libs.”
Will forced his shaking hands to still. He flooded out the fear with rage. This could not happen. He would not let them hurt Sara. He would eat every bullet in every gun if that’s what it took to stop them.
“Careful, bro.” Clinton’s palm rested on the butt of his Glock.
“I’m a cop,” Will said. “You’re cops. This doesn’t have to go sideways.”
“We need a doctor,” Hank called across the chasm between Will and Sara. “No offense, brother. Wrong place, right time. Let’s go, lady. Get in the car.”
Hank tried to pull Sara up, but she wrenched away. “No.” Her voice was low, but she might as well have shouted the word. “I’m not going with you.”
“Lady, that wasn’t a gas main that exploded at the campus.” Hank glanced up at Will. “We just blew up dozens, maybe hundreds of people. Do you think I give a shit about having your blood on my hands?”
Will could see the anguish on Sara’s face. She was thinking about the hospitals, the sick patients, the children, the staff who had lost their lives.
Will did not care about any of them. All he cared about was Sara. These men were cold-blooded murderers. If they took her, she would be dead within a few hours. If she refused to go, she would be dead where she knelt on the ground.
“No,” Sara repeated. She had already made the same calculations as Will. Tears ran down her face. She didn’t sound scared anymore. She was clearly resigned to what was going to come next. “I won’t go with you. I won’t help you. You’ll have to shoot me.”
Will’s eyes burned, but he would not look away from her.
He nodded his head.
He knew that she meant it.
He knew why she meant it.
“How about I kill her?” Hank pressed the gun against Michelle Spivey’s head.
The woman didn’t flinch. She didn’t cry out. She said, “Do it. Go ahead, you spineless piece of shit.”
Clinton laughed, though the woman sounded as resigned to her fate as Sara.
“You still think you’re a good man.” Michelle turned her head toward Hank. Her hands had clenched into fists as they held up her pants. “What’s your father going to say when he hears about who you really are?”
Hank’s calm composure started to slip. Michelle’s words had hit their mark. She had spent a month with these men. She obviously knew their weak points.
“I heard you talking about your dad, how he’s your hero, how you wanted to make him proud,” Michelle said. “He’s sick. He’s going to die.”
Hank’s jaw clenched.
“His last breath, he’s gonna know what kind of monster he helped bring into this world.”
Clinton laughed again. “Damn, girl, the way you’re talking makes me wonder how tight your daughter’s pussy is.”
There’s always a moment right before bad things get worse.
Split second.
Blink of an eye.
Will had been in enough bad situations to recognize when it was coming. The air changed. You could feel it when you breathed in, like your lungs were getting more oxygen, or that percentage of your brain that was never used was suddenly awake and processing and preparing you for what was coming next.
This is what came next:
Hank’s finger slid from the trigger guard down to the trigger.
But the gun wasn’t pointing at Michelle Spivey when he pulled back. Neither was it pointing at Sara. Hank’s arm had swung in an arc toward the man who had joked about raping an eleven-year-old girl.
Then—
Nothing.
Just a metallic click-click-click.
Here was the big problem with pocket cannons: pocket lint.
The gun had jammed.
Clinton screamed, “You son of a—”
Everything got slower.
Clinton jerked the Glock out of his holster.
Will felt the sweet relief of the Smith and Wesson revolver being excised from between his ribs as Merle reached out to stop him.
Will grabbed the revolver. It was almost easy, because that wasn’t the gun Merle was worried about.
The Smith and Wesson didn’t jam. The six-shot was one of the most reliable weapons on the market. As far as accuracy, that depended on the shooter and the range. Will was a good shooter. A three-year-old could kill a man at close quarters.
Which is exactly what Will did.
Merle dropped, opening up the space so Will had a clear line on Vince, who was reaching for his ankle holster when Will shot him. Wounded him. The fucker fell out of the car.
One dead. One wounded. That left Dwight, Hank, Clinton—
Will caught a blur out of the corner of his eye.
Clinton tackled him down to the pavement. Will lost the revolver. His head cracked against the sidewalk. Clinton didn’t go for Will’s face. You didn’t kill a man by breaking his skull. You killed him by breaking open his organs.
Will’s muscles clenched against the fists pile-driving into his belly. The breathless pain threatened to immobilize him. But this wasn’t Will’s first beat-down. He didn’t use his hands to ward off the blows. He reached into his pocket. His fingers found the folding knife. He pressed the release. The blade flicked open.
Will slashed out blindly, opening a ribbon of flesh in the man’s forehead.
“Jesus!” Clinton reared back. Blood filled his eyes. His hands went up into combat position.
Fuck combat. There was no such thing as a fair fight.
Will jammed the four-inch blade straight into the man’s groin.
Clinton sucked air. His body seized. He rolled onto the pavement. Coughing. Spitting. Wheezing.
Will blinked his eyes, trying to clear the stars. Blood rolled down his throat.
He heard car doors slamming. The sound echoed like a kettledrum.
Did Sara call his name?
Will rolled to his side. He tried to stand. Vomit erupted into his mouth. Every part of his gut was on fire. He could only make it to his knees. He fell flat. He breathed into the pain coursing through his body. He tried again to get up to his knees.
That’s when he saw a pair of work boots in front of him. The steel toes were spattered with blood. Will watched the boot swing back. He waited for the downswing, then bear-hugged the leg.
Drop and roll.
They both hit the ground like a sledgehammer.
But it wasn’t Clinton.
It was Hank.
Will managed to pin him down. His fists windmilled into the man’s face. He was going to punch Hank’s fucking eyes to the back of his skull. He was going to kill him for putting a gun to Sara’s head. He was going to murder every fucking one of them.
“Will!” someone screamed.
Sara’s voice, but not her voice.
“Stop it!”
He looked up.
Not Sara.
Her mother.
Cathy Linton held a double-barreled shotgun in both of her hands. He could feel the heat from the muzzle. One of the triggers had already been pulled. The second was cocked and loaded.
Cathy stared up the road.
The BMW squealed around the curve. Will fell to the ground. His brain was still swimming. Vomit still burned his throat. He tried to count the heads in the car.
Four?
Five?
He looked behind him, expecting to find Sara’s body. “Where—”
“She’s gone.” A sob came from Cathy’s mouth. “Will, they took her.”
3 (#ulink_360b8772-ee6c-52a0-be48-23f4126cc7fd)
Sunday, August 4, 1:33 p.m.
Faith Mitchell checked her watch as she pretended to study the diagram of the Russell Federal Building on the giant video monitor at the front of the classroom. The tedious asshole from the Marshals Service was running through the prison transport plan, which the previous asshole from the Marshals Service had run through an hour ago.
She looked around the room. Faith wasn’t the only person having a hard time concentrating. The thirty people assembled from various branches of law enforcement were all wilting behind their desks. The city, in its wisdom, turned off the air conditioning in all government buildings over the weekends. In August. With windows that didn’t open so that no one could jump out just for the pleasure of the wind in their face as they plummeted to their death.
Faith looked down at her briefing book. A drop of sweat rolled off the tip of her nose and smeared the words. She had already read through the book in its entirety. Twice. The asshole marshal was the fifth speaker in the last three hours. Faith wanted to pay attention. She really did. But if she heard another person call Martin Elias Novak a high-value prisoner, she was going to start screaming.
Her eyes rolled to the clock on the wall above the video monitor.
1:34 p.m.
Faith could’ve sworn the second hand was ticking backward.
“So, the chase car will go here.” The marshal pointed to the rectangle at the end of the dotted line that was helpfully labeled chase car. “I want to remind you again that Martin Novak is an extremely high-value prisoner.”
