by Mason Cross
“You know how to put a guy at ease, Agent.”
I ignored the assumption. “I don’t want you at ease, Hatcher. People at ease take things for granted. They don’t look over their shoulder when they walk down the street.”
He walked over to a couch pushed up against one of the walls, then changed his mind and paced the other way, scratching behind his ear angrily.
“I gotta get out of here,” he said suddenly, turning and heading for the stairs.
Castle put a hand on his left shoulder. “You’re staying here.”
Hatcher tried to shrug the hand off, then pushed Castle back when that didn’t work. “Get the fuck off of me.”
A scuffle broke out, Castle trying to restrain Hatcher as the other man tried to connect with a couple of wild swings. I moved to intervene as one of Hatcher’s swipes connected with Castle’s nose and he yelled in pain. I didn’t expend too much effort, just put a couple of smooth, practiced moves into action, and all of a sudden I had Hatcher pinned against the rough concrete wall with his right arm twisted up between his shoulder blades. Hatcher had fifty pounds on me, but he was the one who was doing the yelping.
“Do what we tell you,” I said, speaking slowly and deliberately, “or you’re dead.” It sounded more like a direct threat when I said it, but I figured that wouldn’t necessarily hurt.
Banner approached from the side. “I don’t want you dead, Mr. Hatcher. It looks shitty on the report.” She glanced at Castle, who was holding his bloody nose between thumb and index finger. “You okay?”
Castle nodded. “I hope that fucking hurts.”
“Okay, okay, just let me go,” Hatcher said.
I held him another few seconds and let him yell again before, warily, I relaxed my grip.
Hatcher stumbled over to the couch and slumped down on it. Then he did the last thing any of us expected. He put his head in his hands and started to cry. There was an uncomfortable silence, broken only by Hatcher’s muffled sobs.
“Why me?” he said, then raised his head to look up at Castle, who was still tending his nose. “Why me?”
Castle glanced up at the ceiling, above which the million-dollar house sat. Nobody spoke. Outside, the sound of the rain hitting the ground seemed to get louder, as though the elements were stepping up their assault. Then there was a dull sound like something heavy being dropped, and all of us looked up.
“What was that?” Banner asked.
“Nothing good,” I replied.
A minute later, the door at the top of the stairs was flung open.
“We’ve got to clear the building,” yelled one of the big agents from the top of the stairs.
“What the hell is going on?” Banner demanded.
“Fire.”
They weren’t kidding. You could smell the smoke halfway up the stairs. “What happened?” I said, addressing the agent who’d opened the door as we ascended.
“North side of the building’s on fire. We need to get the hell out of here ASAP.” He held the door as we emerged into the entrance hall, which was already filling with smoke. As I watched, part of the ceiling at the far side of the room gave way, a shower of flaming debris raining down from above.
I grabbed his arm. “What the hell happened?”
“Looks like a fire broke out in the shed containing the gas cylinders. Agent Wetherspoon’s out there. He says it went up like the Fourth of July. We have to clear the building, sir.”
“That’s just what he wants. That’s why he started the goddamn fire,” I said.
“We secured that shed, right?” Banner said, addressing Castle.
“We had two guys right outside, orders not to move no matter what.”
“They’re dead,” the agent at the door said abruptly.
“What?”
“Park and Cole,” he elaborated. “Wetherspoon says they’re both down.”
“That’s impossible,” Castle said. “That’s inside the ring. If he’d gotten that far, we’d know about it. He’d have engaged one of the teams.”
“Looks like he got past them,” I replied.
“Sir, we need to—” the agent started, trying to herd us toward the front door.
Castle ignored him. “Something’s wrong. This is all wrong.”
He was right. A hundred and fifty armed men protecting the building, and Wardell had managed to get close enough to give himself his only realistic chance of acquiring the target, by smoking us out. There was something more at work here. But we would have to worry about that later.
At that moment we had two pressing concerns: to get out of the building before it burned down around us, and to make sure Hatcher didn’t leave by the main door. I opened my mouth to say as much, just as a door at the other end of the hall exploded off its hinges, a dragon’s breath of fire billowing into the corridor in its wake. Beyond the doorframe was an inferno. The entire north side of the house was ablaze, and it was spreading fast.
The agent who’d led us out of the basement was at the main door, yelling for us to follow.
“Hatcher,” I yelled. “Are there any other exits?” Wardell had played an expert hand, but there was still only one of him. He’d be forced to play the odds and cover the main door. Hatcher had a glazed look on his face, as though the fire on top of everything else had caused a sensory shutdown.
Castle looked at the main exit, saw what I meant. He grabbed Hatcher’s shirt lapels and pushed him back, slamming him against the wall.
“Hatcher! Another way out?”
Slowly, he got the words out. “Master bedroom. Stairs down from the deck.” He started toward the big spiral staircase.
Just then, one of the exposed ceiling joists collapsed directly above us with a shrieking, bansheelike noise. I wrapped my arms around Banner’s waist and dived for the floor, just scraping under the falling beam. Flaming debris showered down after it like confetti. A spark ignited the sleeve of my shirt and I managed to pat it out with Banner’s help, but not before sustaining a long burn on my right forearm.
“You okay?” she asked.
I nodded, wincing. “Good thing I’m allergic to polyester,” I said, turning to look at the long bonfire that now divided the wide entrance hall. I looked down the length of the beam and saw that the bulky agent was lying dead under it, his skull crushed by the beam.
Castle and Hatcher were on the other side of the flaming beam, both unharmed. The collapse seemed to have snapped Hatcher out of his daze, and he was looking around for an exit. The beam had landed roughly diagonally across the space. Banner and I could reach the front entrance, but not the spiral staircase that led to the mezzanine. Castle and Hatcher were faced with the opposite situation.
Castle pointed at the door. “You go. I’ll get him out by the bedroom.”
I grabbed Banner by the arm. Front entrance it was, then. Especially since the only other option was going back down to the basement and slow-roasting. I only hoped Wardell wasn’t feeling like a consolation prize, because we were about to present ourselves as candidates. As we headed for the door, I glanced up and saw Castle and Hatcher reach the second-floor mezzanine that overlooked the hall. A lone agent appeared from the south corridor, beckoning for them to follow. I turned away and then did a double take. The agent was thin and was wearing glasses. Even through the smoke and the heat haze, there was something familiar about him. Then it clicked. It was the man I’d seen in the crowd in Fort Dodge.
I yelled out Castle’s name, but the sound was lost in the roar of the flames as the three men disappeared along the second-floor landing.
“Come on,” Banner yelled, tugging at my arm.
“You go,” I said, unstrapping my Kevlar vest and handing it to her. “Hold it up like a shield and run like hell for cover.”
“What about you?”
I didn’t answer. Castle an
d Hatcher were in trouble, and being trapped in a burning building was the goddamned least of it.
46
12:19 a.m.
I lingered long enough to see Banner bolt through the front door, then waited a couple of seconds. There were no shots, none that I could hear. Encouraged, I turned back to attempt to get past the bonfire, quickly realizing there wasn’t a way. The flames had spread rapidly, and the big Oriental rug, together with much of the wooden hall floor, was ablaze. I’d have to circumvent it. There was a big antique cabinet below the mezzanine level, only inches away from the flames spreading from the doorway at the far end.
I took a breath and ran for it, pushing off my right foot, landing atop the cabinet with my left, and then slingshotting myself upward. The mezzanine was a good twelve feet off the ground, so I barely made it. My left hand found the polished wood floor and slipped off, but my right hand caught the bottom of one of the banisters and found purchase. I hauled myself up and over.
The mezzanine was empty—smoke seeping from beneath the doors on the north side. I touched the back of my hand to one of the brass door handles and instantly pulled it away. It was like touching a griddle. The whole place was a time bomb waiting to explode. I ran in the direction Castle and the others had gone, rounded a corner, and saw Castle lying prone on the wood floor.
I rolled him over onto his back to check for a pulse, but he saved me the trouble by groaning and opening his eyes. He touched a hand to the back of his head and winced. “Blake. What . . . ?”
I started to ask which way they’d gone, then remembered there was only one direction possible—straight ahead. There were three doors at the far end of the hall: one on the left, one in the middle, one on the right. The one on the left was closed and faced north, so it would be a backdraft death trap. The one on the right was open.
I hauled Castle to his feet and we made for the door. Behind us, I heard a whump as one of the landing doors exploded outward. I was first through the open doorway and instinctively raised my arm up to cover my eyes from the blinding light flooding the room. Someone had removed the plywood from the big plate-glass window, and a searchlight from one of the choppers lit up the room like Las Vegas. I blinked the flash out of my eyes as the helicopter’s beam angled away and was able to make out two blurred figures by the window.
“Hatcher, get down!” I yelled, not sure which of the figures was him.
Just then I felt Castle’s shoulder slam into me and knock me off my feet. I heard three shots from a pistol and a yell of pain and anger. As I blinked the last of the stars out of my eyes, I saw Castle charge at the thin gunman and football-tackle him to the ground. Hatcher was standing by the window, watching the two men on the floor. I suddenly realized that this room faced the front of the building. There was no deck out there, which meant it wasn’t the master bedroom. The thin man had brought Hatcher in here for the very reason I had avoided bringing him out the front entrance.
“Get—” Before I could finish, part of Hatcher’s head seemed to vanish, and there was a puff of vapor that was bright red in the concentrated light. His legs buckled and he dropped to the floor.
I scrambled to my feet and ducked as I heard another shot, realizing quickly that this one had come from within the room. The two men on the floor had stopped moving. The thin man was on top of Castle, slumped and unmoving. They looked like a couple who had just finished lovemaking. I pulled the thin man off, knowing he was dead from the bloody stain over his heart. Castle was still breathing, but it didn’t look like he would be for much longer. The vest had stopped one of the rounds, but another had hit between the top of the vest and his throat.
He blinked and coughed blood when he saw me. He said, “Hatcher?” having difficulty getting the word out.
I looked at Hatcher’s body, looked back and shook my head.
“Get the hell out of here, Blake,” he said, closing his eyes.
I ignored him, busying myself with reaching inside the thin man’s jacket. My fingers closed around a leather ID case. There was no time to examine it, so I slid it into my pocket. I looked up at the window with its single neat bullet hole. I heard more shots from outside, but not from a rifle. A pistol this time, maybe more than one. I looked back at the hallway. The shadows of flames danced along the wall. The middle door had to be the master bedroom, the one Hatcher had talked about.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. You need a tissue, asshole?”
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry because this is going to hurt like a son of a bitch.”
I grabbed Castle under the armpits and dragged, knowing I was stretching his wound as I pulled him across the floor, keeping low and out of line of sight of the window. He kept screaming at me to leave him until I reached the door; then he passed out.
The corridor was ablaze, the flames having advanced to within a couple of feet of us. Beyond was an inferno. I dropped Castle long enough to touch the handle of the middle door; it felt cold. I got the door open. The flames behind us lit up a large bedroom that might well have been the last area of the house untouched by fire. Directly across from us was a boarded-up French door. It had to lead out to the deck Hatcher had mentioned. I dragged Castle into the room, one leg of his suit catching fire as the flames reached us, and slammed the door shut to give us another minute or so. I kicked out the flames on Castle’s leg and made for the boarded-up door. Three good tugs ripped the board loose from its screws and now the door handle was accessible. Locked, of course. I picked up a small armchair by the window in both hands and swung it. It splintered into firewood against the double-glazed door.
I heard a crackling behind me as the varnish on the bedroom door began to bubble and peel. Reaching into my shoulder holster, I drew my Beretta and fired six rounds in a wide circle as I walked back toward the glass door. Six neat holes appeared in the double glazing, but it held. I kicked the middle of the circle and both panes of glass gave way. The cold night air flooded into the room like the breath of an angel. I ran back to where Castle lay, grabbed him under the arms, and started dragging him toward the outside world.
47
12:24 a.m.
The big house on the lake was dying.
The heat on Banner’s face was uncomfortable even twenty yards distant from the house. The blaze vaporized the rain above and around it, creating a fog that drifted out from the building. God only knew how much more quickly the building would have burned without the rain. The scene reminded her of a painting of hell she’d seen years before, in the Louvre on her honeymoon. Watching the flames dance in every window, the intermittent explosions of glass and metal, it seemed difficult to believe she’d ever see Castle or Blake again. And then, of course, there was the danger outside.
Banner tore her eyes from the flames to take in the surrounding area. It wasn’t easy; the incandescence of the blaze made everything surrounding it darker. The personnel who’d been inside the house were all outside. The ones who’d made it, anyway. There hadn’t been a lot of time: The fire had begun and spread with a vicious enthusiasm. There were around forty agents forming an even semicircle around the entrance at the closest distance bearable. Banner guessed the tac teams were holding their positions around the perimeter. Not that it would do any good, because the perimeter had manifestly been breached. Banner was suddenly aware that the agents watching the blaze presented a target even easier than the crowds on Main Street earlier that day.
She unholstered her Glock and fired three quick shots in the air. That got everyone’s attention, reminded them of the other clear-and-present danger.
“People, we are in a shooting gallery right now,” she yelled. “Fall back to the trees.”
The agents surrounding the blaze snapped out of it, started moving quickly toward the greater shelter afforded by the woods. If Wardell was on this side of the building, he could pick any of them off any old time he wante
d.
Where the hell is he? The question returned with renewed intensity as Banner reached the tree line and backed up against the trunk of one of the pines, watching the blaze. Wardell had slipped through the net, flushed them all out. Was he really going to wait around and see if Hatcher appeared before he made any kind of move? It was starting to look that way. But where would he be? How could he be sure of being in a position to see Hatcher? She scanned the faces of the agents around her, hoping Blake or Castle might be among them, that they’d found another way out, but to no avail. Not everybody had retreated as far as the trees. The mobile command center was still parked on the gravel driveway, thirty yards from the house’s front entrance. She could see a couple of men silhouetted in the vehicle’s cab; another had scaled the side and was crouched on the roof, probably doing the same thing she was: looking for a sign of life.
Something about that thought brought Banner up short. She pushed off the tree, at first walking briskly, then jogging, and then flat-out running toward the command center. She opened her mouth to address the man on the roof, and then she saw the muzzle flash as he fired into a room on the second floor.
“Son of a bitch,” she said to herself. Then “Drop your weapon” loud, as she leveled her own piece. The gunman didn’t miss a beat, didn’t even swing the rifle around to point it at her, the way she’d been half expecting. Instead, his left hand dropped from the barrel of the rifle, brushed his side, and came back up with a pistol. It looked impossibly instinctive, like breathing in and out.
Banner saw more muzzle flash even as she felt her own gun kick. She felt the slipstream as a bullet passed within an inch of the side of her face. She ducked and kept firing. There was a grunt of pain and the figure dropped to the roof and slid off on the opposite side. Banner kept the gun level, watching both ends of the command center as she moved toward it. They had him now; no way he could outrun—