Third Degree

Chapter 17

Five men and four cowboy hats were jammed into the mobile command post around Danny: Sheriff Ellis; TRU Commander Ray Breen; Detective Rusty Burnette; Carl Sims (wearing a black baseball cap); and Trace Breen, who was supposedly there to facilitate communications. Each passing minute had made it clearer that the tiny trailer had been designed to accommodate only half their number with comfort.

On the positive side, the architect’s plans for the Shields house had finally arrived and now lay spread across a Formica dinette table half the size of the blueprints themselves. One page showed the landscape contractor’s plan, and on this Carl had marked the surveillance and sniping positions now occupied by TRU officers. Sheriff Ellis stood like a bent tree over the table, and Ray Breen leaned against the door to keep out unwanted visitors.

During the time it had taken to gather everyone in the trailer, Danny had formed a pretty clear picture of how each man felt about the situation. The Breen brothers believed Kyle Auster was dead and were ready to assault the house with flash-bang grenades immediately. Detective Burnette favored delaying the assault until they had more information about where everyone was inside the house. Only Carl Sims kept close counsel.

“All right,” Sheriff Ellis said, bringing the meeting to order. “Two things. What we know, and what we don’t.”

“Three hostages in the house,” said Ray Breen. “One probably dead already. The subject is armed and dangerous, which his own son told us. And we’re losing light fast, quicker because of this storm coming up.”

“Thank you, Ray,” said the sheriff. “What don’t we know?”

“We don’t know if Dr. Auster’s alive or dead,” drawled Detective Burnette. “We don’t know what part of the house they’re in, which it’s a damn big house, by the way. We also don’t know exactly how the subject’s armed, though he’s well-armed for sure. And most of all, we don’t know why he’s done any of this. He claims he’s gonna come out when he gets done with this computer program he talked about. Told Ray he’d come out quiet and peaceful.” Burnette glanced over his shoulder at the door. “Right, Ray?”

“That’s what he said. Don’t make no sense to me, though. What’s a guy doing messing with a computer when he’s already shot somebody and his own boy’s running from him?”

“We don’t know,” Burnette said doggedly. “That’s my point. Considering what I heard that government fellow yelling about, I’m thinking our two doctors might be up there destroying evidence while we sit out here jawin’.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Ellis said. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

Danny watched the faces, his gut aching with guilt. He could answer several of the most important unknowns, but he had no intention of doing so. Not yet. If he revealed his secret link to Laurel, the consequences were impossible to predict, but he doubted that many of them would be positive.

Ellis looked at Carl. “What’s the shooting situation?”

“Not good. I don’t know where they are yet, obviously. I’m thinking they might be in that great room. Three reasons. The blinds are shut, there’s a phone in there, and the blueprints show a hardwired Internet connection in that room. But the blinds and curtains are drawn all over the house, and he’s got cordless phones and Wi-Fi in there.”

Danny couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to ask Laurel what room they were in. At this point he wasn’t about to wait. He took out his cell phone and keyed in the message. Trace Breen watched with suspicion but didn’t challenge him.

“You all heard Agent Biegler,” said Sheriff Ellis. “We need to end this thing before we get the FBI crawling up our backsides.”

“Amen,” said Ray.

“How are we going to pinpoint them in the house?” Burnette asked.

“Directional mikes should tell us which room they’re in,” said Ray. “Exact position’s going to be tougher. If the supervisors would’ve coughed up for the FLIR unit we been begging for, we’d be sitting pretty.”

“FLIR couldn’t see through those blinds,” Danny interjected. He had extensive experience with the miraculous technology known as forward-looking infrared radar-he’d had a state-of-the-art unit on his Pave Low-but while FLIR could detect humans in absolute darkness (and sometimes through glass and water) it couldn’t “see” through an opaque solid.

“What about our little private-eye video camera?” Ellis asked, referring to a tiny camera on the end of a flexible tube, often slipped by detectives beneath doors to film couples in flagrante delicto.

“On the blink,” Ray groused. “That’s what you get when you buy cheap. The mikes’ll be enough. All we need is to know which room he’s in. We’ll come in from six different points at once, and so fast he won’t know what’s hit him.”

Danny made a soft cluck of disapproval with his tongue.

“What is it, Major?” asked the sheriff. “You have a better idea?”

“When I first moved back to town, I saw a story about a rich guy who’d lost a grandkid in a fire. If I remember right, he was going to donate a couple of thermal imaging cameras to the fire department, to let firemen see through smoke. I don’t know how good they are, but-”

“I don’t think they’ve been delivered yet,” Ray said. “And the ones they have now are real low quality.”

“Call Chief Hornby and make sure, Trace,” ordered the sheriff.

The younger Breen hurried outside with a cell phone to his ear.

Danny tried desperately to think of another way to locate Shields within the house; he didn’t want to reveal his link with Laurel simply to answer the question of position.

Ray Breen said, “We could slip up to the windows and have a look. You can probably see around the edges of those blinds.”

“They looked pretty flush through my scope,” Carl told him.

“Shields would see you coming,” said Danny.

Ray looked skeptical. “How you figure that?”

“Through his cameras.”

“Cameras!” cried a chorus of voices.

Danny tried to look nonchalant. “Sure. I assumed you’d seen them. They’re hidden by ornamental woodwork, but you can see the lenses if you look close.”

Ray pushed up to the blueprints and started riffling through them. “Well, I’ll be damned. There they are.”

“Shields has probably been watching us ever since we got here,” Burnette said.

“No probably about it,” said Carl. “I’ll bet he’s got those cameras networked to his computer. With a laptop and a rifle, he could move from window to window and pick us off without breaking a sweat.”

“He could have shot us before now,” reasoned Burnette. “But he hasn’t shot anybody.”

“We haven’t moved in yet,” said Sheriff Ellis, studying Danny. “You’ve got sharp eyes, don’t you, Major?”

“I pay attention.”

“What else have you noticed?”

“Nobody’s saying anything about the safe room.”

“The what?”

“That house has a safe room in it. A panic room, whatever you want to call it. A steel box with a reinforced door, stocked with food and water.”

“I know that ain’t on the blueprints,” Ray said in a suspicious tone.

“Maybe they added it later,” Burnette suggested.

“How do you know about that room, Danny?” asked the sheriff.

Because I made love to Shields’s wife in it once. “Dr. Shields told me about it when I was teaching him to fly. I think they did add it near the end of construction.”

“That goddamn architect,” Ray grumbled. “Useless.”

Sheriff Ellis was rubbing his chin, his eyes seemingly fixed on some distant tragedy. “If Shields drags his family into a room like that, we’re screwed, blued, and tattooed. He could execute ’em one by one and we couldn’t do nothing but stand outside and listen.”

The trailer door banged into Detective Burnette’s back, and Trace Breen squeezed inside, panting with excitement. “Chief Hornby says they got those new thermal cameras last week. Two of ’em. They’re still in the boxes, but Jerry Johnson’s been reading the manuals, and-”

“Can they see through glass?” Ellis cut in. “Or window blinds?”

“The chief thinks they can. He said the two of ’em together cost more than a used fire engine.”

Sheriff Ellis pumped his fist like a weary gambler catching a break at last. “Get them over here, Trace. Jerry Johnson with them. Tell the chief if they’re not in a car and on the way in two minutes, I’m sending Danny in the chopper.”

Trace nodded and went back outside.

“Okay,” said the sheriff. “Let’s say we’ve pinpointed Shields and his family in the great room, and negotiations fail. How do we proceed?”

“Blow out the windows and go in with flash-bangs,” said Ray. “Dr. Shields will be bleeding from the ears and blind as a bat. He won’t be able to pull a trigger even if he wants to. Then-”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Carl said quietly. “I know the tests say people can’t pull a trigger after a flash-bang goes off, but I know guys who’ve done it.”

“Shit,” Ray scoffed. “Marines, maybe. Not some civilian doctor.”

“I’m just telling you it can be done. Don’t assume that he can’t do it.”

“That’s why we’re gonna take him down in that first second. Double-tap him and it’s all over.”

Danny closed his eyes. The prospect of Ray Breen and his men firing automatic weapons in a room with Laurel and her daughter in it was unthinkable, especially in the chaos that would follow the detonation of grenades designed to shock terrorists senseless. But this was standard operating procedure once negotiations had failed. It wouldn’t be enough to oppose Ray Breen’s plan based solely on fear of collateral damage; he’d have to come up with a better one himself.

“The house is pretty exposed,” Detective Burnette observed. “How are we gonna get close when he’s got those security cameras?”

“Spray paint,” Ray answered with a grin. “There’s a line of trees running up to the back corner of the house, where the kid got out. I’ll take two guys up that way with some black spray paint. No more cameras.”

“What if you spook him?” asked Burnette. “He might panic and start shooting.”

“We’ve got to kill those cameras, Rusty. What if we cut the electricity to the whole house?”

Danny sensed an opening. “Shields told you he was waiting for his computer to tell him something. If he’s fixated on that and we cut the power, we might really push him over the edge.”

Sheriff Ellis nodded in agreement.

“A laptop would have battery power for a while,” Burnette pointed out.

“We don’t know he’s using a laptop,” Danny said. He looked over at Carl. “Do those blinds go all the way to the top of the great room windows?”

Carl shook his head. “Not quite. There’s some open glass right at the top-a little arched pane-but that’s like fifteen feet up, and no trees tall enough to get the right shooting angle.”

“Could you use the chopper as a shooting platform? I could get you a perfect angle on those high windows.”

The sniper’s dark face seemed to darken even more with skepticism. “Helos are too unstable for precision shooting. Plus, that’s double-paned glass. I wouldn’t want to guarantee my shot from a moving platform.”

“Understood,” said Danny. “But I’ve seen it done. I had a Delta sniper shoot prone from the belly of my ship. He didn’t like doing it, but he hit his targets.”

Carl looked around at the faces of the other men. “I’ll give it a try. But add in the deflection of the glass, and that’s a tricky shot. If my target’s alone, okay. But if there’s a hostage close, she could get hurt.”

Ray was watching them incredulously. “What do you two experts think Dr. Shields is gonna be doing while Carl’s hanging up there trying to shoot him? He’s gonna blow your asses out of the sky, that’s what! He could shoot down that helicopter with a deer rifle.”

This was true, Danny knew. “I don’t think he’ll be expecting a shot from the chopper. If I turn on the searchlight, he’ll think we’re trying to get a look at him.”

“And if Carl misses the first shot?”

“Then you guys would bust in like you want to.”

Sheriff Ellis was the kind of man who talked to help himself think. “If Carl saw Shields holding a gun in his hands, especially in a threatening manner, we could definitely justify taking him out.”

“What if we go in and we don’t see a weapon?” asked Ray.

“Fire to disable?” said Ellis. “Don’t you train for that?

Ray shook his head. “Double-tap. Two to the body, one to the head, makes you good and dead.”

“Jesus. What happened to surgical strikes?”

“That’s just not practical in close-quarters combat,” said Carl. “Things happen too fast, once you go in. There may be a weapon you can’t see. Body armor you can’t see. Once things go that far, you have to shoot to kill.”

Ellis nodded. “I’m glad to hear that from you, Carl. Ray seems a tad eager today.”

Danny noted with some relief that the closer they got to the moment of truth, the less cavalier the sheriff was about ordering an assault.

A soft but persistent buzz drew several pairs of eyes to Danny. With hot blood flowing into his cheeks, he held up a hand in apology. Then he took out his cell phone and, after making sure no one else could read the screen, read the newest text message: Me lying on sofa n grt room. W n study atdesk. Bth lying on study sofa. Here was the very information that the TRU was using every available resource to try to discover. The best thermal imagers in the world couldn’t give this kind of detail. Danny considered telling the sheriff that he’d simply tried to text Laurel Shields (whose cell number he might reasonably have, since she was Michael’s teacher) and had gotten lucky. But sooner or later they would discover that the cell phone Laurel was using was not registered to her, but to a friend of Danny’s. No, he decided. I’ve got to keep this ace up my sleeve until the last possible moment-

“I thought we wasn’t supposed to be talking to nobody on the outside,” Trace said from behind Danny. “Who’s he talking to?”

Sheriff Ellis said, “Major McDavitt has a family emergency. So how ’bout you shut up and focus on your job?”

Trace ducked his narrow head. “Yessir.”

Thinking of Laurel’s message, Danny moved closer to the blueprints and said, “I was actually in this house a couple of times, back when I coached soccer with Dr. Shields.”

“Really?” said the sheriff.

“Yep. And if I remember right, Shields has a computer sitting on the desk in his study, which is right off the great room.” He pointed. “Right there. If Shields was telling the truth about working at his computer, he might be sitting at that desk to do it. And if I’m not mistaken, the study windows are just like the ones in the great room.”

Carl nodded. “They are.”

Danny looked at the sheriff and let his voice take on its pilot’s authority. “I think I see a surer way to end this thing. It was your idea to start with, Sheriff.”

Ellis stood a little straighter.

“If the thermal imagers pinpoint Shields in that study-or in the great room-I should take the chopper up as a diversion, just like you suggested on the way here.”

The sheriff nodded to confirm that this had, in fact, been his idea.

“We put Carl on the ground with his rifle scoped on those windows and the thermal imager beside him. When I turn on my searchlight, Shields will come to those windows like a moth to a candle. When he does, Ray can blow the windows out with plastique-all the back windows. Shields will be silhouetted like a duck in a shooting gallery. And that’s when Carl takes his shot.”

The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “Carl only?”

“There’s your surgical strike. One shot, one kill. No collateral damage.”

Ray Breen was winding up to argue, but Ellis silenced him with an upraised hand. The sheriff’s eyes bored into those of his sniper. “Will you make that shot, Carl?”

Carl looked back steadily. “No problem, sir. There’s a pecan tree forty-three meters from the back windows. I ranged it with my laser. I can set up behind that. The doctor won’t even know I’m there.”

“I didn’t ask if you could make the shot,” Ellis growled. “I asked if you would.”

The sniper’s face tightened as he realized exactly what was being questioned. “Understood, sir. I’ll make the shot.”

“No wounding, nothing like that.”

Carl nodded once, his jaw set firm.

Sheriff Ellis didn’t look convinced, but he finally turned away and gazed at the semicircle of faces pressed close around him. “All right, listen up. I like Major McDavitt’s thinking on this. But my first plan is to talk Dr. Shields out of there.”

Ray Breen snorted, but he tried to make it sound involuntary.

“I know Shields has stopped answering the phone, but that doesn’t mean he won’t answer the next time we call. If he won’t answer, I’ll go to the bullhorn. But-at the rate we’re losing light, our options are going to shrink mighty quick.”

“Storm’s coming up fast,” Burnette noted.

“And maybe the FBI, too,” Ray intoned.

Ellis grimaced. “Ray, set up your directional mikes.”

“They’re being set up now.”

“Good. The second those thermal imagers get here, I want ’em up and running. I want to know where every person in that house is and hear every word they’re saying. Once I’ve got that intel, I’ll make my tactical decision.” Ellis dug into his pocket for something-chewing tobacco, Danny figured-but came up empty. “Anybody else got anything to say?”

Nobody did. Except Danny, who throughout the meeting had been haunted by an image so vivid that it might be a premonition: Ray Breen charging into the great room with an MP5 submachine gun on full auto-and one solitary slug finding its way into Laurel’s heart-

“I’d like to say something,” Danny said quietly. “What I’m about to tell you is only what I’ve heard Delta Force and SEAL commanders tell their men before an assault. Don’t ask me what assaults, because I can’t tell you.”

The room went silent as a prayer vigil, just as he’d intended. He looked Ray Breen in the eyes. “This is no training exercise. And it’s damn sure no movie set. If you men assault that house, you’re as much a threat to the hostages-and to each other-as you are to Dr. Shields. You have no way of knowing how Mrs. Shields or her daughter will react to your intrusion. The little girl might bolt for her father the instant those windows go down. You’ve got to know what you’re going to do in that event before you go in.”

“What would you do, Ray?” asked the sheriff.

“Depends if he’s holding his gun on the little girl, I guess.”

“That’s no time for guessing,” Danny said. “You think he’d hold a gun on his own daughter?” asked Burnette.

“Who the fuck knows?” Ray snapped. “He’s the nutjob taking people hostage.”

Sheriff Ellis looked down at the blueprints, his eyes clouded with doubt. “If Dr. Shields is holding his little girl when the windows go down, Carl is the only man authorized to shoot.”

Half of Danny’s fear left him in a single sigh.

“Jesus!” cried Ray. “A million things could screw up Carl’s shot. We need to be able to do whatever’s required to get the job done.”

“A sniper ain’t no better than we are up close,” Trace argued.

Carl looked at the younger Breen with barely disguised contempt. “You want to put a thousand dollars behind that mouth?”

“Any day, boy.”

“You’d have to borrow it to pay me.”

“Shut up!” bellowed the sheriff. “My order stands. All this is hypothetical right now anyway. Everything could change in five minutes. Danny? Anything else?”

“Only this. I never knew a real hero who wanted to be one. We’ve got one objective: the safety of those people inside. Keep your minds on that, and maybe we’ll end this night without killing anybody.”

“Which is exactly what we want,” Ellis concluded.

A soft beeping sounded in the trailer.

“Shit fire!” Trace exclaimed, his eyes on the comm rack. “That’s him!”

“Who?” asked the sheriff.

“Him. Dr. Shields! His house, anyway.”

“Answer it!” snapped Ellis.

Trace picked up the phone and, after trying to swallow his bobbing Adam’s apple, said, “Hello? Deputy Breen speaking.”

Everyone watched his rodent’s face bunch in concentration. “No, that’s my brother. Is that who you want to talk to?…Okay. Wait a minute, please.”

Sheriff Ellis stepped forward, expecting to be handed the phone, but Trace put his hand over the mouthpiece and shook his head.

“He’s asking for Danny, Sheriff.”

Ellis looked nonplussed. “Danny?”

“Um, ‘Major McDavitt’ is what he said. Ain’t that Danny?”

The sheriff turned and looked back at Danny.

Danny shrugged, unable to guess what Shields wanted with him. Unless he’d somehow forced Laurel to confess their involvement, that is-

“Major, do you want to talk to Dr. Shields?” Sheriff Ellis asked stiffly.

“We’d better think it through before I try that.” Danny looked at Trace. “Tell him you’re going to find me, and I’ll call him back.”

Trace was about to do this when Ellis said, “Ask if he’ll talk to me instead.”

Trace followed his orders, then hung up, looking embarrassed. “He said Danny or nobody, Sheriff. Then he hung up.”

Ellis rubbed his strong chin. “Okay…everybody get into position. Stay on the secure radio net, but keep the chatter down.”

The trailer emptied fast. Soon only Trace Breen remained with Danny and the sheriff.

“Where are you supposed to be?” Ellis asked Trace.

“Right here. This is my post.”

“Well, clear out for a minute.”

Trace looked happy to oblige.

After he’d gone, Ellis gave Danny a penetrating look. “What do you make of this development?”

“I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Are you and Shields pretty tight?”

“Not at all. We coached ball together, like I said. And I taught him to fly. But he’s not the kind of guy who makes friends easy. There’s always a distance there.”

Ellis nodded. “That’s my feeling, too. So what does he want with you? I don’t get it.”

Danny shrugged again. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

“Somebody needs to. Or the next thing that’s gonna happen is him getting shot.”

“I’d hate to see that happen. But I’d hate to see an assault even more.”

“You’ve made your point.” Ellis spat in the little sink against the wall, then grabbed a pot of coffee off the counter. After sniffing it, he poured some into a Styrofoam cup. “Take a short break, Danny. I need to think for a minute. There’s something we’re not seeing here.”

“Seems like it,” Danny said, wondering if Ellis was smarter than he was given credit for being.

“I need to pray about this, is what I need to do.”

“I’ll leave you alone, then.”

“Don’t stray far. I may call you any second.”

Danny nodded. “I’ll be right outside.”

Grant Shields was sitting on the sofa in the Elfmans’ TV room, trying and failing to focus on the first Harry Potter movie, which Mrs. Elfman claimed her grandkids loved best of all of them. Grant had seen all the Harry movies so many times that he could recite the lines with the characters. The bad thing was that Harry was always thinking about his dead parents. The lady deputy sitting beside Grant didn’t seem to notice, but he could feel himself clenching his fists and bouncing his feet up and down. He had no idea what was happening at home. All he knew was that something very bad could happen, and soon. The way his dad had been acting worried him, but not nearly so much as all the cops and guns he’d seen outside.

“How’s our little man doing?” Mrs. Elfman asked, poking her head into the room for the fifteenth time.

“He’s doing fine,” said Deputy Souther.

Mrs. Elfman walked in and set a big orange bowl beside Grant. It was filled with tortilla chips and bright green paste.

“Guacamole!” she announced. “I know you love it, because your mom told me so.”

Grant nodded and mumbled thanks, but he didn’t want any guacamole. He did like it, most of the time, but only his mom’s. Mrs. Elfman’s tasted funny. Too much lemon, or something.

“You call me if you need anything else, young man,” she said.

Grant nodded and kept his eyes on the TV, so Mrs. Elfman wouldn’t see how worried he was.

After she left the room, the lady deputy said, “She’s kind of pushy, huh?”

Surprised, Grant nodded and stole a glance at his babysitter. Her first name was Sandra. She was younger than his mom, but not by much. She seemed nice, too, and not fake nice. As he looked back at the movie, he felt her warm hand cover his.

“I know you’re scared,” she said. “But it’s going to be all right. They’re going to get everybody out of there safe. Your mom, and your sister, and your dad, too.”

Grant’s eyes burned, then filled with tears. Deputy Sandra sounded like she believed what she said, but he wasn’t sure. Not at all. And right then he decided that he couldn’t just sit there while whatever happened, happened. He had to see it for himself. There might even be something he could do to help. Since he’d turned nine, his mom had been relying on him more and more for physical things. He was almost as strong as she was, and he could already outrun her.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” he said, holding his belly as if he had a stomachache.

“I’ll ask Mrs. Elfman where it is,” Sandra said, starting to get up.

“That’s okay, I already know.” Grant got up and walked out of the room, his mind already racing through the Elfmans’ backyard and down to the creek, where no policeman would be able to see him.

Sandra stood and followed him to the hall door, where she could watch him go into the bathroom. She smiled the way his mom did when he was sick, and Grant sensed that she might be able to read his mind a little, the way his mom could sometimes.

That was okay.

Mrs. Elfman’s bathroom had a window.

Deputy Willie Jones was tired of manning the roadblock. Gawkers just kept coming, more and more every few minutes. They came on foot and in cars, the neighbors on foot, the townspeople in cars. Willie didn’t know how the rumor spread so fast. Probably cell phones. Turning back the cars was no trouble, but the foot traffic was another matter. Fifty people were standing along Cornwall Street, most in little groups of five or six. Some had tried to walk up Lyonesse, but Willie had nipped that in the bud. They had some nerve, though.

Several men had tried to question him, but he’d kept as quiet as one of those guards outside Buckingham Palace. The things they said, though. Half the people out here believed that Dr. Shields had already murdered his whole family, and some thought he’d taken his neighbors hostage. From what Willie had gathered, though, not much had happened since he’d arrived.

He’d been keeping a close eye on Agent Biegler, as Ray Breen had instructed. Biegler and the two men with him had spent most of their time huddled around the trunk of a black Ford Crown Victoria parked a little way up from the roadblock. Then a couple of minutes ago they’d climbed into the Ford and driven off toward town, which suited Willie fine.

He was thinking of calling Ray Breen and asking to be relieved when a young white woman with dark hair walked quickly up to the roadblock. Another white woman about her age was trying and failing to keep up with her. Willie started to hold up his hands, but something in her eyes stopped him. She looked like the witnesses he’d spoken to after bad highway accidents, pale and shaken, with eyes like a wounded deer’s.

“Can I help you, miss?”

The woman looked nervously over her shoulder. “I hope so. I need to see the sheriff.”

“The sheriff’s kind of busy right now.”

“I know, but I think he’ll want to talk to me.”

“Why’s that?”

“I was at the fire today. At Dr. Shields’s office.”

This got Willie’s attention. “Are you a patient of his or something?”

“No. I work for Dr. Shields. I met you when you came for your physical. It was my sister who almost got killed in that explosion. I’ve been trying to talk to you for a while, but that Agent Biegler’s been watching the roadblock. He just drove off, so I came right up. Can we hurry? If he sees me, he’ll arrest me for sure.”

Willie thought about calling Ray for an okay, but then he realized he could kill two birds with one stone. “Hey, Louis!” he shouted, waving to one of the deputies who were turning back the rubbernecks in cars. “Get over here and man the barricade!”

As soon as Louis started toward him, Willie took the woman by the arm and led her to his cruiser.

Danny found Carl Sims sitting on a camp stool beneath a pavilion tent someone had set up outside the command trailer. The sniper was putting a light coat of oil on the long, gray barrel of his rifle, a Remington 700 with a custom stock. The air out here felt twenty degrees cooler than the musty air in the trailer.

“Rain’s almost here,” Carl said. “Got to maintain your equipment.”

“Amen,” Danny agreed, glancing at the chopper sitting in the open space beyond the trailer. He thanked his stars yet again for Dick Burleigh’s Vietnam experience.

As Carl wiped down the gun, his dark, corded arms rippled. He looked like a teenager preparing for a deer hunt in the dawn light. Danny had seen hundreds of boys like him over the years, seemingly too young for the jobs they were asked to do, but maybe the only ones resilient enough to do them and survive.

“You been in the shit, ain’t you, Major?” said Carl. “Overseas, I mean.”

“I’ve been in a few places I wouldn’t want to go back to.”

Carl smiled, his teeth bright in the false dusk. “I know what you mean.”

Danny reached into an Igloo on the ground and pulled out a can of Dr Pepper. “Something on your mind, Carl?”

Sims held the rifle at a right angle to his body and looked down the length of the barrel, checking something Danny couldn’t even begin to guess at.

“That guy at the bank,” Carl said. “The one whose hand I shot?”

The one the sheriff’s hung up on. “Yeah.”

“I recognized him from grade school. Soon as I saw him in my scope.”

“I thought it might be something like that.”

Carl lowered the rifle and began working at it again. “Wasn’t just that, though.” He looked around to make sure they were alone, then spoke in a softer voice. “I killed a lot of people in Iraq, Major. More than the twenty-seven they credited me with.”

Danny waited for whatever was coming.

“I knew why I was killing those people, you know? Most of ’em, anyhow. But this stuff here…I don’t know. In a few minutes, I’m going to have my mama’s doctor in my crosshairs. And it just don’t feel right.”

“I know.”

Carl looked confused. “But inside the trailer…you were talking like you want me to shoot the man.”

Danny sighed heavily. “I’m not in command here, Carl. If it were up to me, the FBI would be running this scene, and you and me would be waiting for word somewhere dry. But that’s not going to happen. Not with these boys.”

The sniper nodded dejectedly. “I heard that.”

“There’s exactly two professional soldiers here tonight,” Danny said with quiet conviction, “and they’re both under this tent. If the sheriff reaches the point of ordering an explosive entry, you are the best hope that Mrs. Shields and her daughter have of surviving this night. You alone. Do you understand?”

Carl stopped wiping the gun. “You’re saying I should knock down the doctor before Ray and them screw things up.”

Danny moved closer to the sniper, then squatted so that their eyes were level. “You want my opinion? If we’re within two minutes of an assault, and you have a clean shot…take it.”

Carl’s eyes widened. “Without waiting for authorization?”

“Sheriff Ellis thinks you’re slow on the trigger, right?”

The sniper nodded resentfully.

“Prove him wrong.”

The trailer door popped open behind them. Danny looked around and saw Sheriff Ellis walking toward them.

“Danny,” Ellis said, “I think you need to talk to Dr. Shields. We’re losing our light. If we have to go in, I don’t want to wait till dark to do it.”

Danny took a swig of Dr Pepper and held it in his mouth till it burned. If he was going to talk to Warren Shields, he needed to be awake and alert.

“Sheriff!” someone called. “Sheriff Ellis! I got somebody you need to talk to!”

Danny swallowed and turned. Willie Jones was hurrying up with a pretty, young woman beside him. As they drew closer, Danny saw terror in the woman’s face.

“Who’s this?” asked the sheriff.

“Nell Roberts,” Willie said. “She works for Dr. Shields. She was at the fire today. She’s been trying to avoid that Biegler dude. He tried to arrest her earlier today.”

Ellis motioned Nell under the pavilion tent. “What are you doing out here, miss?”

“I didn’t know where else to go! I’m worried about Dr. Shields.”

“Worried about Dr. Shields?” Sheriff Ellis gave Danny a look that said, What did I tell you? “Are you and Dr. Shields personally involved, miss?”

Nell’s cheeks reddened. “No! He wouldn’t do anything like that. And I wouldn’t either. He’s not like Dr. Auster.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That’s what I came out here to tell you. Dr. Auster is a liar-a liar and a crook. He’s gotten Dr. Shields in trouble, but it’s not Dr. Shields’s fault. Dr. Shields is a good man. Ask anybody. I don’t know what’s going on out here, but I can promise you Kyle Auster is behind it.”

Sheriff Ellis took a long breath, then slowly expelled it. “So, if I told you that Dr. Shields is holding his family hostage in his house, and he maybe killed Dr. Auster, what would you say?”

Nell shook her head as though this were an impossibility. “I’d say Dr. Auster asked for it somehow. He probably tried to kill Dr. Shields.”

Danny recalled Laurel’s text message: KA dead by W. Self-defense. Nell Roberts apparently knew her bosses well.

The sheriff turned to Danny. “What are we going to do with this young lady? I don’t want Biegler to get ahold of her.”

“Why don’t you put Willie with her, and keep her close to the trailer? If I’m going to talk to Shields, I may want to ask her some questions. Psychological stuff.”

Ellis nodded. “You heard the Major, Willie. You’re Miss Roberts’s babysitter from now on. Stay right outside the trailer.”

“Yes, sir,” Willie said with a grin.

“You ready, Danny?” Ellis asked. “This may be our only chance to end this thing without casualties.”

“Ready.”

“Oh, shit,” said Carl. “Sheriff?”

Danny and Ellis turned together. Flanked by two subordinates, Paul Biegler was marching toward the pavilion, and he was marching like a man in charge. He brought the rain with him. Before he reached the edge of the tent, a staccato rattle of heavy drops sounded on the nylon overhead.

“I don’t need this,” said Ellis.

“Bad omen for sure,” Carl muttered, a note of superstition in his voice.

Biegler stopped outside the pavilion and stood in the rain like a visiting captain awaiting permission to come aboard a ship.

Sheriff Ellis offered the opposite of hospitality. “I thought I told you not to come back here unless you had information that would improve our tactical situation.”

Biegler nodded. “That’s exactly why I’m here. Mind if we get out of the rain?”

As Ellis took a slow step back, Danny sensed a subtle shift in the balance of power at the scene. From the moment Biegler and his men stepped under the protection of the tent, everything changed.

“What have you got?” the sheriff asked. “We don’t have much time for talk.”

“Warren Shields is dying,” Biegler said.

Ellis’s mouth went slack. “Say what?”

“He’s got an inoperable brain tumor.”

“Lord have mercy,” Carl breathed.

“How do you know that?” Ellis asked. He turned to Nell Roberts. “Did you know that?”

Nell shook her head, clearly in shock. “I knew something was wrong, though. He’s been acting different for a while now. Oh my God…oh, no.”

Biegler’s voice gained authority as he spoke. “Shields was diagnosed eleven months ago at the office of a neurologist at the Stanford Medical School. One month later, he applied for a life insurance policy in the amount of two million dollars. He was approved.”

“How?” asked Danny.

“The neurologist at Stanford recorded Shields’s office visit and tests as something else. The two of them went to medical school together. Roommates.”

“Jesus,” said Danny, realizing that he and Laurel had begun their affair at about the same time her husband was diagnosed.

“How did you find this out?” Ellis asked.

Biegler drew himself to his full height. “Unlike some people, I cultivate contacts outside my own agency. I’ve had everybody I know running Dr. Shields through national computer databases. When the neurologist’s name came up, I called him. It didn’t take much pressure to get the truth out of him.”

“How could Dr. Shields keep something like that secret?” asked Carl.

“He’s essentially treating himself,” Biegler explained. “With steroids mostly. Every three weeks or so he flies out to Stanford, under cover of going to a bicycle race.”

Ellis shook his head in disbelief. “Are you saying his wife doesn’t even know?”

“Nobody knows. Nobody but Shields and his neurologist. The guy said Shields has only one mission in life now: providing for his wife and kids before he dies. Nothing else matters to him.”

In the silence that followed this remark, Nell Roberts began to sob, but the sound was mostly covered by the rain.

“Well, hell,” said Sheriff Ellis. “That’s a shocker, and no mistake. But I’m not sure how it changes anything.”

Biegler’s eyes went wide in wonder. “Are you kidding? It changes everything.”

The trailer door banged open again, and this time Trace Breen jumped out, shielding his eyes with his hand. “It’s him again, Sheriff! Dr. Shields. He’s still asking for Major McDavitt!”

Biegler gave Danny a long look. “Why is he asking for you?”

“Let’s go find out,” said the sheriff.