by Greg Iles
“He’s got one of every kind. A shotgun and a deer gun and a pistol.”
The sheriff smiled. “You’re a smart boy, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about you? Do you have a .22 or anything?”
“No, sir. Dad says I’m not old enough. I am, though.”
“I believe you are.”
As Ellis slid his chair closer to the boy Danny’s cell phone vibrated against his thigh. He took it out and read the new text message with an accelerating pulse. W mentaly unstable. Handgun & shotgun close. Rifle n safe room. Stocked for days. Intent uncertain, but W not n hurry. Trancelike. Bth asleep & close 2 him. PS B careful! He can c u! secuty. cams! Danny replied, Understood. Take care. I love you, knowing as he did that the contents of these secret messages were almost certain to be read by the sheriff one day.
“Grant?” said Ellis. “Have you ever seen your daddy as upset as he got today?”
The boy’s eyes started to glisten. “No, sir.”
“Close even?”
Grant shook his head. “He was like a different person or something.”
Ellis nodded, then glanced up at Danny. “You want to ask anything?”
Danny squatted in front of the boy that he had once believed would become his stepson. Grant had his father’s face and sandy blond hair, but his eyes were Laurel’s. “Is there anything else you want to tell us, Grant? Anything at all?”
Grant shook his head, but then without warning two rivers of tears washed down his cheeks. “Please don’t let them hurt my daddy, Mr. Danny. He didn’t mean any harm. He’s sick, that’s all. He’s not thinking right! That’s what my mama told me.”
Danny took hold of the boy’s hands and squeezed. “Don’t you worry, son. We’re going to make sure everybody gets out of there safe and sound.”
Grant wiped his face and nodded. “Okay.”
Danny started to get up, then added, “Your mom’s a strong lady. She’s going to do whatever she has to do to get back to you.”
Grant looked unsure. “I don’t know. She acts that way, but sometimes I see her crying when she doesn’t know I’m looking.”
Danny nodded as though this were part of his everyday experience. “All grown-ups cry sometimes. I’ve seen some of the toughest soldiers in the world cry. That doesn’t mean anything bad.”
“Do you cry, Mr. Danny?”
He felt his throat tighten. “Sometimes I do, Grant. You just wait here and try to think about something else. You’ll be back with your mom before you know it.”
“And my dad,” Grant said firmly.
Danny nodded again.
“We’d better get moving,” Sheriff Ellis said brusquely. “We’ve got that ops meeting to get to.”
Danny squeezed Grant’s hand once more, then stood.
“Sandra?” said Ellis. “Why don’t you find this boy a soda pop or something?”
“He said he didn’t want anything.”
“All boys want a soda pop.”
Danny forced himself to walk out of the room, thinking that on a night like this, Grant might be luckier to be like Michael, just for a while.
• • •
“Slow down, Missy! There’s a bunch of cars up there.”
Nell Roberts was barely holding herself together. She’d felt some relief after talking to Dr. Shields, but it hadn’t lasted long. She’d called her second cousin Missy Darden to pick her up and run her downtown to Dr. Shields’s lawyer’s office, but the office had turned out to be closed. Nell got the lawyer’s home number from information, but when she called it, she got an answering machine. After convincing Missy to drive her out to the man’s house, she’d worked up her nerve to knock on the door, but no one answered. Throughout this odyssey Missy had questioned Nell endlessly, but Nell remained evasive, unsure how her cousin would react to the news of Vida’s injuries.
“There’s some kind of roadblock up there,” Missy said, pointing to Dr. Shields’s street. “You want me to stop here or what?”
“No, keep going. But slow.”
“What the heck is going on, Nell? Why are they guarding Dr. Shields’s street?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s something to do with that lawyer, isn’t it?”
Nell scanned the lawns and grassy lots beyond the lines of cars parked along Cornwall, Avalon’s main street. Knots of people were gathered along the curb, many of whom she recognized. Most wouldn’t know her anywhere but in the window of Dr. Shields’s office, but some would. A white deputy standing in the road ahead was turning cars back toward the highway. A young black deputy stood at the roadblock, talking to a couple of men in polo shirts. She was pretty sure he’d been to the office for his departmental physical.
“What do I do?” Missy asked, easing her Mustang forward. “Come on.”
“I’m going to get out. You go on back to work.”
“No way. It’s too late for that anyway.”
Nell had her hand on the door handle when she saw Agent Paul Biegler less than fifty feet away. He was standing behind a black sedan, talking to his two assistants. He had a pressure bandage on his right cheek.
“Uh-oh,” Nell said, sliding low in her seat. “Get out of here!”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Just back up and park somewhere!”
“Okay, okay, calm down.”
Nell shut her eyes and tried not to freak out. She’d known something bad was happening out here. Dr. Shields had pretended different on the phone, but she knew his voice too well to buy that. He was trying to protect her, rather than himself. God only knew what kind of trouble Dr. Auster had caused out here.
“Missy, I need your help. Will you come with me?”
Her cousin shrugged. “Why not? Maybe I’ll finally find out what all the fuss is about.”
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 c
orner 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?”