Side by Side

45

“Oh my God,” Click pleaded, “don’t shoot me! Please, please. .”

Winter turned the corner and aimed at the back of the person who stood aiming a gun down at Click’s upturned face. The young man lay on the hallway floor on his back. In one hand he held the unloaded Smith, and in the open palm of the other, a pair of bullets. Click had been stopped from loading the handgun by the unblinking eye of a large-bore FBI-issued Glock.

“Shoot her!” Click yelled when he spotted Winter.

“I thought you left,” Winter said, putting his SIG in its holster.

“Did you see who did this?” Alexa asked.

“One was Max Randall. The other shooter was too large to be Sarnov.”

Alexa snatched Click’s gun away from him, slipping her own into her shoulder bag. She looked into the den and shook her head slowly. “What the hell were they using?”

“Where did you come from?”

“I found your truck empty and I was standing at the front door when I heard glass breaking. I came in and found Ferny Ernest here loading his piece.”

“A pair of MP5s firing subsonic rounds, noise suppressors. That the sort of weapons the good colonel was dealing?”

Alexa nodded.

“So, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I had an epiphany. I doubled back.”

“I didn’t see your car on the street.”

“Parked on the next street and cut through the Lathams’.”

“What was this epiphany?”

“I figured you planned to do something insane and that I should be with you so I’d know what you didn’t do in case I’m ever asked officially. I thought about what you said about this guy’s value weighed against the Dockerys’ lives.” She winked at Winter and smiled. “You were right. I was wrong. This is new territory for me.”

“It was Max Randall?” Click asked, from the floor.

Winter nodded. “Yes, Click, I saw his face clearly.”

“Why would he shoot me?”

“I’d bet he came back to cancel the job offer Sarnov extended to you earlier this evening.”

“Why would he do that?” Click demanded.

“Because Sarnov as much as told you that he was planning to wipe your family out, and Max probably decided it was too much information too soon. He knows nothing you can do with a computer is unique enough to jeopardize his ass after Bryce is free.”

Click said, “You saved me-so I know you aren’t going to hurt me.”

Alexa laughed and shook her head slowly. “Boy, for a genius, you do not know Shinola.”