It smashed open like it hadn’t even been latched.
Bonnie was through the door before he could even let go of the bar.
The guard had been shoved head over heels away from the door by the force of Craig’s kicks.
Bonnie was around the open door and over the guard by the time the guy even started to get up. One very hard smack against the side of the head with the wooden hanger and the guy went back to sleep.
“He’s going to have one massive headache when he wakes up,” Bonnie said, smiling at her husband.
“Remind me to never get you mad at me.”
Craig grabbed the guy’s rifle, a semi-automatic with a dozen rounds in the clip. The guy had one in the chamber, ready to fire.
Bonnie dug around in the guard’s pockets and pulled out two more clips for the rifle and a 44 caliber pistol with extra rounds. Then she took an earplug from the guard’s ear and a small communications device from his front pocket of his vest.
She handed the communication equipment to Craig.
“Better find out what his name is,” Craig said, “so we can answer a call to him.”
Bonnie quickly flipped the guy over and dug his wallet out of his back pocket. She flipped it open and then snorted. “Dwight. His name is Dwight.”
A security guard named Dwight. No wonder he had fallen asleep.
She stuck the wallet back in the guy’s pants and stood.
“Keep watch,” he said.
He grabbed the guard and pulled him back into the closet, then tied his hands and feet with the rope they had been tied with.
The closet door, with a little work, almost looked like nothing had happened to it by the time Craig got it closed again.
“Now what?” Bonnie asked.
Craig glanced down the corridor. There was a security camera trained on the corner about fifty feet away. And another one in the other direction down the hall. It looked like they were between them at least.
“There’s got to be a major security system in this place, as well as at least twenty guards, if not a lot more,” he said. He pointed at the cameras as he stuck the earplug in his ear.
“Damn,” she said, “we move from here at all and they’ll know we’ve escaped.”
“So when we do move, we make the best of it,” Craig said, “and move fast.”
“Until then we wait here?” Bonnie asked.
In his ear Craig could hear the sudden excited talking of the front guards, as well as others along the perimeter of the estate. They were all reporting in that a large number of police had suddenly moved up into position.
“Exactly,” he said, smiling at her. “But I don’t think we’re going to have to wait long. We’re about to have the cavalry come to the rescue.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Monday, April 10th
4:27 a.m.
“ARE WE READY?” Maxwell asked Hagar.
“My people are,” Hagar said, nodding as he listened to the last of status reports in his ear.
“So are mine,” Maxwell said. “Let’s do it.”
Maxwell picked up a bullhorn as the two of them stepped around the police car and walked ten feet out into the middle of the road in front of the main gate of the Robins estate. Above them the stars were shining and the air was crisp and almost cold. Maxwell could see a dozen men in different positions inside the gate, guns all at rest. As long as they stayed that way, everything would be fine.
“Attention. This is the FBI,” Maxwell shouted through the bullhorn, his voice echoing over the estate and into the rock hills behind it. “Open the gates and throw down your weapons. You are completely surrounded.”
Nothing.
He knew that he had the horn set loud enough that anyone inside the buildings beyond those wall would be able to hear him as well. He would give good old Robins a moment to think about things, and then try again.
The silence of the late desert night seemed intense as Maxwell and Hagar waited. Inside the gate no one moved.
“This is the FBI!” Maxwell repeated through the horn. “Throw down your weapons and come out.”
Again the silence seemed to crawl down over him like a giant bug trying to smother him. He could feel his own heart beating and the fear choking him. But he stood there, in the middle of the road, and waited for a response.
Then through the gate there was movement, but it took Maxwell a fraction of a second to realize it was the wrong kind of movement. One of the men just inside the gate to the right was raising his gun.
Another behind him was doing the same.
“Get down!” Hagar shouted and turned to get to cover.
Maxwell spun and ran, the ten steps between him and the shelter of the patrol car seemingly a thousand yards.
The air suddenly echoed with the sounds of gunfire. For an instant it was only a few shots, all coming from beyond the walls, then there was more and more until it was impossible to tell how many, as if strings of firecrackers were being shot off in a closed space.
Maxwell’s agents were now returning fire, trying to cover him as he and Hagar got to shelter.
A bullet smashed into the car just beyond him.
Close!
Way too damned close!
He tried to dive for the shelter of the front fender of the car.
He didn’t make it.
The burning feeling of the bullet cutting through the flesh of his back wasn’t as bad as he expected. But the impact flipped him completely over, smashing him to the concrete. The fall hurt like hell, and he banged his head, knocking him into blackness for a moment.
He came to in time to feel Hagar’s hands grab him and drag him beyond the car and over into a shallow ditch beside the road.
There was no pain.
That surprised him.
He just couldn’t move.
That also surprised him.
He should feel pain, he should be able to move. It was as if the wind had been knocked out of him and all his energy taken.
“Damn!” Hagar said. “Officer down here!”
Two other men swarmed into the ditch beside him as the gun battle continued, the quiet of the night now a continuous roar of explosions.
Maxwell noted it all like watching it from a distance. For some reason he knew that things were not going well, but a part of him just no longer cared.
“Hang in there,” Hagar yelled to him, but it was like the cop was shouting down a long tunnel.
Maxwell felt himself smile.
He had been shot and it hadn’t really hurt.
And now he was going to die. He knew that as clearly as he had known anything in his life.
And that was all right as well.
This experience was not at all what he had expected death to feel like.
He looked up at the pained expression on Hagar’s face and knew exactly what the cop wanted him to say.
How he knew, he wasn’t sure, but he just knew.
He used one hand to pull Hagar down closer, then in his ear he said, “Get the damned son-of-a-bitch for me, would you?”
“I will,” Hagar said.
Maxwell really didn’t care, but he knew that Hagar did. And if the situation was reversed, Hagar would have said it for him as well.
Maxwell felt he was floating now, sort of watching what was happening to him like an observer from a distance. He was both in his body and watching them around his body.
There was no pain.
Just a wonderful sense of floating.
“Maxwell!”
The voice sort of pulled at him, but he ignored it. He liked the floating.
“Maxwell!” Hagar shouted. “Maxwell, stay with us!”
But Maxwell could see no point in staying.
And with that he died.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Monday, April 10th
4:32 a.m.
CRAIG WAS STUNNED when the shooting began.
“What the hell is going on?” Bonnie asked, clearl
y as afraid and as stunned as he was. They had both heard the faint demands of Maxwell as he told Robins’ men to lay down their guns and come out. At the time the voice had cheered them.
Then in his ear Craig had heard the command come from Robins directly. “Keep the FBI out at all costs.”
A moment later the shooting had started.
“The stupid ass ordered them to fight the FBI,” Craig said, shaking his head in amazement. “What the hell is he thinking?”
“Maybe that’s our problem,” Bonnie said. “We keep expecting the man to think.”
“Well, we need to stop this,” Craig said. “There’s a lot of good men out there getting fired on.”
“And just two of us in here,” Bonnie said. “You got any smart ideas?”
“Sure,” Craig said. “We capture the head of this snake and tell him to shut things down.”
Bonnie nodded and glanced down the hall. “I can remember how to get back to his study, but we’re going to have to do it fast and without stopping.”
“Agreed,” Craig said. “I’ll take the lead and you cover my back.”
She pinched his butt. “I’ll make sure this doesn’t get shot off if you take care of that guy in front.”
“Deal,” he said.
Outside the gunfire was becoming even more intense. It was a war out there and unless it stopped quickly a lot of people were going to get hurt or killed.
He kissed her and then turned and headed down the hall, knowing she was right behind him.
At that moment what he really wanted was to lock them both in a closet and only come out when the shooting was over, but he knew neither one of them could do that.
They were cops. It was their lives.
And right now a lot of other cops were getting shot at. If they had the best chance of stopping it, they needed to take it.
They had to take it.
With the rifle leveled and ready to fire he went around the first corner under the camera. There was no one in the hallway.
He kept moving at a near run.
Bonnie stayed close behind, the sound of her footsteps almost matching his.
In about fifty paces the hallway opened up into a wide foyer with plants on one side and a door leading outside to the right.
The door into Robins’ study was to the left and down another short hallway.
There was a guard poised, facing the exterior door, as if waiting for someone to come through.
Craig shouted, “Drop the gun!”
The guard was too stupid for words.
Instead of dropping the gun he spun and tried to fire.
Craig cut him down with a short blast, almost ripping the guard in half with the tight pattern of his bullets.
“To the left!” Bonnie said behind him and Craig headed that way.
Ahead of him a guard poked his head out of a door and Craig fired through the edge of the door and wood of the wall, aiming at where the man’s midsection would be.
The guy jerked and fell out into the hallway, clearly dead. Any good cop knew that the wood and plasterboard of regular house walls didn’t stop most bullets. This guy clearly had watched too much television thinking he was safe behind that door.
“Grab his rifle,” Craig said as he checked the room the guard had been in for anyone else, and then moved on down the hall.
Robins’ study was two more doors away.
Bonnie grabbed the rifle and kept guard behind him as Craig stared at that office door.
There was no doubt that there was someone on the other side of it waiting for him to come through.
And the minute he did, he was dead.
He didn’t want to be dead just yet.
But there was a guy here that already had that distinction, and wouldn’t mind a few more holes, Craig figured.
Craig went back and picked up the guy he had just killed, keeping the rifle in one hand as he did it. The dead guy wasn’t that heavy, or the adrenaline in Craig’s body was working overtime.
The guy’s blood got on his hands, but Craig ignored it.
“Get on the floor and cover me,” he said to his wife and rushed at the study door, the guy’s body a shield ahead of him.
Just before he reached the door he tossed the body as hard as he could, using his running momentum to get the body to hit the door halfway up and at a good speed.
Then Craig dropped to the carpet, rifle pointed ahead.
The body smashed open the study door and was instantly peppered with bullets, making the dead man jerk and flip his arms as he dropped.
Craig had his gun up and firing before the body was out of the way.
Almost instantly the gunfire from inside the study stopped. A moment later there was the sound of a gun hitting the floor.
Craig dove over the dead man and rolled, coming up with his rifle facing Charles Robins’ scared face and his shaking hand that was holding a small pistol.
To Robins’ right was the guard who had been firing, now slumped in, and bleeding all over, an expensive leather chair.
“I would suggest you drop that gun now,” Bonnie said, moving to cover her husband. “I would love to pull this trigger and blow those tiny brains of yours all over your desk.”
Charles glanced at her, then dropped his gun like it was suddenly too hot to hold.
Craig used the barrel of his rifle to kick the gun onto the floor.
“Now,” he said to Robins, “tell your men to drop their weapons and surrender.”
Robins hesitated until Craig raised his rifle and pointed it at the man’s head. Then Robins picked up a small communications unit and said, “Attention. This is Robins. Drop your weapons now. Cease fire.”
Slowly the noise of gunfire died off, replaced by a wonderful silence filled only by distant sirens.
“Tell them to put their hands on their heads and walk toward the nearest cop until told otherwise,” Craig said.
Robins hesitated.
“Oh, please let me shoot him,” Bonnie said, moving up and putting her gun against the side of his head.
“Oh, I kind of like this side of you,” Craig said, smiling at her.
“Let me pull the trigger and see how hot it gets me,” she said, winking at him.
Robins instantly moved to do as Craig had ordered, repeating his words exactly. He clearly believed Bonnie would kill him.
“Now what?” Robins asked as he finished.
“Now we shoot you,” Bonnie said, raising her gun again.
“She’s just kidding,” Craig said, smiling at the sick look on Robins’ face. “But I won’t hesitate. So come on out from behind there and sit at the feet of your dead man there.”
Robins did as Craig told him until he stood over his dead guard. Then he turned and shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“You caused his death,” Craig said. “Seems you owe him a little company. Now sit down.”
Craig jammed his rifle into Robins’ chest and the man dropped to the floor.
Craig took the dead man’s arms and placed them around Robins’ neck, as if the man was giving his boss a hug from behind. Blood dripped down the front of Robins’ shirt from the man’s hand.
“Now isn’t that sweet?” Bonnie asked Craig.
Craig couldn’t think of a better thing to have happen to the man who wanted Senator Knight dead. And who had ordered his men to fire on police.
Charles Robins looked as if he might throw up at any minute, but with Bonnie’s rifle leveled on his chest, he didn’t move.
Ten minutes later Hagar and a dozen others swarmed into the room. Once they saw that Craig and Bonnie had it under control, they stopped and all but two of them moved off to finish checking the house.
“I was wondering why they suddenly stopped firing and gave up,” Hagar said.
Craig pointed at where Robins still sat with the dead guard’s arms around his neck. “He just needed a little convincing is all. And Bonnie is a real good convincer.”
Craig
smiled at his wife as she nodded her thanks.
“Does he know about Senator Knight’s press conference yet?” Hagar asked.
“When is that scheduled?” Bonnie asked, smiling at the startled look from Robins.
“Eight eastern time,” Hagar said. “Just about any moment now.”
“Well,” Craig said, “Bonnie turn it on while someone reads Mr. Robins his rights.”
Hagar got down on one knee in front of Robins, and without moving the dead man’s arms off the guy’s shoulders, read Charles Robins his rights.
A moment later, on CNN, the serious face of Senator Knight appeared and began to talk.
For a short moment Charles Robins just stared at the screen, then slowly he closed his eyes.
“Ain’t justice wonderful?” Craig asked, listening as Senator Knight thanked him and Bonnie for saving his life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Monday, April 10th
6:36 a.m.
THE LIMO PULLED through the gate and out onto the tarmac of the Scottsdale airport, stopping beside the two private jets just as the sun was breaking over the hills to the east. A moment later the man Charles Robins called Bill finished his last phone call. He hung up the phone, then flipped closed the laptop computer he had been holding on his lap.
“Well?” Grant asked.
Bill looked across the private area of the limo at his old friend Grant and smiled.
“Done?” Grant asked.
“Done,” Bill said. “We’ve just moved over sixty-seven million of Charles Robins’ company’s money to varied accounts, and then on to other numbered accounts. It will be moved automatically another hundred times, in varied amounts, before it finally settles in our accounts.”
“As always no one can trace it?” Grant asked.
“Trust me,” Bill said, “if someone does try to trace it, it will look like Charles did it himself. And the money will be gone. Hell, it will take a team of auditors years to find everything that’s missing.”
Grant laughed, the sound filling the limo. “The man was just too stupid for words.”
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