Third Degree

by Greg Iles

  “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 woun
ded 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.”