“That, Sheriff, is exactly what I intend,” Jeffery said. “This has gone on far too long.” His eyes strayed to Dent as he spoke the last.
Dent had had many men on the business end of his gun, but not a single one of them had acted as rational as the man before him. Most people looked for a way out, a promise or a plea for their lives. Irrational bargaining in the face of an absolute outcome. But this man, hands still clasped behind his back, did none of those things. It did not sit well with Dent. But then again, once he killed the man, it would no longer be relevant.
Right index finger teasing the trigger of his Glock, Dent sighted Jeffery’s forehead.
“I wouldn’t,” Jeffery said in a flat voice, as if he could sense Dent’s intent.
“For Kasumi, I would.”
Jeffery cocked his head slightly to the side, like he’d heard something in the distance. That false smile came back. “Speaking of the girl, perhaps you should think twice about your next move.”
Pressure maintained on the trigger, Dent merely stared at Jeffery. A minute move of his finger and this would all be over.
With a heavy sigh, Jeffery unclasped his hands and let them fall to his sides. He took his eyes from Dent. When they settled on Bobseyn, he said, “Maybe you can talk some sense into him, Sheriff. That is what you’re paid to do, right? Protect innocent people from harm?”
“Son, you are far too gone to be considered innocent, even in my book,” Bobseyn replied.
Dent hadn’t expected such a response from Bobseyn. It was likely that the sheriff had finally seen too much, done too much, to fall back on social niceties. Bobseyn’s reply was something that Dent himself would have given. Dent gathered that the sheriff had just given him permission to kill Jeffery.
“And what about her?” Jeffery looked to his left, to where three people walked from behind a grouping of partition screens.
One person Dent recognized. Cherry, Bobseyn’s daughter, had her hands on the shoulders of a boy perhaps a bit older than Fifth. The third person was a man, mid-thirties, close-cut dark-brown hair, dressed as the rest of the security team Dent and Bobseyn had dealt with.
“Cherry!” Bobseyn said, his daughter’s name coming out somehow as both a scream and a whisper.
Dent didn’t waste time trying to see how the woman reacted to seeing her father here in the building. He was too intent on the security guard’s right hand. The man was gently tapping the gun holstered at his hip.
This added a new factor into the equation. Jeffery was unarmed, an easier kill, but Dent would have to drop the guard first as he was now the biggest threat in the room. Dent shifted his sights to the guard.
“No,” Bobseyn whispered to Dent. “Don’t you dare risk hurting my girl, Dent!”
For all the time the two had spent together, Dent had to wonder why Bobseyn was doubting his skill with firearms. “I won’t,” he told the man.
“But I will,” Jeffery said. He held out his arm and the young boy shuffled over to him. Once the boy was at his side, Jeffery nodded to the guard, who slowly drew his firearm and held it ready at his side. Cherry seemed oblivious to the fact, as she stared not at her father, but at Jeffery.
Through that false smile Jeffery said, “We don’t want any harm coming to Cherry, now do we?”
That was a mistake on Jeffery’s part. Dent wasn’t concerned about the woman. He was here for one thing only.
“I don’t care,” Dent said, informing Jeffery of his vital error.
“And I wasn’t talking to you,” Jeffery snapped.
Bobseyn lowered his weapon, looked to Dent. “Please, Dent …,” he said in a low voice.
“If you won’t listen to him, Dent,” Jeffery said, “then perhaps you’ll listen to her.” At that moment, the door along the right wall opened. A man dressed in black fatigues backed in and turned.
Dent froze.
Fifth, held tight around the back of her neck by the guard, looked up at Dent from across the room. Her eyes were red and watery and she held her right wrist as if she’d been injured.
Dent’s vision wavered and for the span of two heartbeats everything went silent, as if all the sound of the world had fled. Everything else disregarded, Dent stepped toward the girl. She tried breaking free of the guard’s grip to get to Dent, but she was clearly no match for the man. Dent’s muscles twitched at the sight, urging him to put a bullet in the guard’s head.
Somewhere in a different world, Bobseyn’s voice tried breaking through. “Dent, don’t.”
Dent raised his gun even as he passed by the sheriff. It would only take one tap, one drop. One bullet, one death. Then he and Fifth could leave this place. Let the sheriff deal with the fallout.
Again, like a persistent gnat, Bobseyn’s voice came again. “Stand down, Dent. Please!”
Jeffery said something to the boy at his side, but Dent ignored that as well. He started to squeeze the trigger.
Fifth shook her head, mouthed, “No.” Her eyes went wide, shooting to the left of Dent.
Something cold and hard pressed up against that side of Dent’s head. He stopped in his tracks. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt it. Every time he’d felt it he figured it would be the last time.
“I won’t let you do anything to harm Cherry,” Bobseyn said from the other side of the gun he held pressed against Dent’s head.
Careful not to turn — it was highly important not to force someone in an excited emotional state to act — Dent said, “I’m not hurting Cherry.”
Why the fool didn’t see that was beyond Dent. And why had the fool raised his weapon against Dent? Nothing from what Dent had gathered spending time with the man hinted at this type of action, this betrayal.
“If you don’t give up, you will hurt her,” Bobseyn stated.
“Not my problem.”
When the barrel pushed in harder against his skull, Dent realized that he may have spoken … incorrectly.
“I will do whatever it takes to keep my Cherry safe, Dent.”
Dent wondered if the word ironic would fit this situation.
---
Cat-man dragged her backwards into Jeffery’s lair and turned.
Kasumi gasped and the hand at her neck tightened, keeping her from running forward to Dent.
The look that came over Dent’s face was like nothing she’d seen before. His eyes were dead set on hers, his mouth went tight and small, and she could see a flush creep into his cheeks. It told her one thing — Dent was about to do something dangerous, to himself as well as everyone else in the room. She needed him to stay calm, if that was even a thing for Dent. For once in all her time spent with the man, she wished him to be his unemotional, robotic self.
But Dent didn’t grant wishes.
He took a few steps toward her and Cat-man pulled her closer in, bruising her neck even more. She shook, cursed, even tried clawing at Cat-man’s arms, but he held firm. She needed to get control of the situation, get control of the room. As hard as it was, she looked away from Dent.
Cherry was there, near the shoji screens. One of Cat-man’s lackeys stood behind her, probably to keep her in check. Connor was at Jeffery’s side, looking at his shoes. Jeffery had a stupid smile on his face, one that made his eyes look like an eagle’s — no, more like a vulture’s eyes. Eagles were too majestic for Jeffery. And then there was the sheriff, who had let his gun fall to his side when Kasumi was dragged into the room.
Dent stepped her way and she heard the sheriff say, “Dent, don’t.” Kasumi doubted Dent even registered the sheriff’s soft voice.
Maybe, just maybe, the sheriff could help her. He was trained for these situations. At least, that’s what she’d hoped. In all the movies she’d watched, the sheriff was the one who diffused tense situations, talked the bad guys into surrendering, saved the kidnapped woman from the creeps.
Yes, she and Sheriff Bobseyn would have to somehow work together to get them all out of this. It was just a matter of reaching him, maybe giving hi
m a signal. Dent stepped past Sheriff Bobseyn and pointed his gun at Cat-man.
No, no, no! she thought. If Dent did something stupid now, they’d all end up screwed. Sheriff Bobseyn thankfully was thinking the same thing as her as he said, “Stand down, Dent. Please!”
Maybe they had a chance to get out of this. If the sheriff could get to Dent, could convince him to—
What the hell?
Her eyes threatened to pop out of her head as she stared. Sheriff Bobseyn was raising his gun again, but this time it was pointing toward Dent. What was Sheriff Bobseyn doing? Was it some type of diversion?
“No,” she gasped out, realization hitting her like a truck.
Sheriff Bobseyn pressed his gun to Dent’s head.
Dent finally stopped.
Kasumi watched motionless as a test of wills began. Dent determined to save her, Sheriff Bobseyn equally determined to save his daughter. But the deciding factor was the gun pressed to Dent’s head.
Jeffery gave a small laugh when it seemed Dent gave in.
Kasumi’s breath caught in her throat. Even Cat-man behind her seemed to tense up.
All went silent, making Jeffery’s steps as he walked toward the middle of the room all that louder. Connor, like a brainless puppy, shuffled along in front of him.
“Do you know what the strongest drug is?” Jeffery said, to no one in particular, to the entire room. “Love. Devotion. That desire to connect. Nothing can be so powerful, can be so,” he looked at the sheriff, at the gun pressed to Dent’s head, “compelling.”
He stopped near the miniature rock garden, Conner a small shadow at his side. He patted the boy’s shoulder.
He went on. “At birth, chemicals in our brains make a mother and child bond. Without those chemicals, mothers would not bother feeding their children, children would not come to rely upon their mothers. Humans would never have evolved to be a dominant species. That feeling, that love, is in all of us, hardwired into us.”
Now Jeffery looked directly at Kasumi. “By manipulating that primal need in our brains, one can facilitate the mother-child bond between any two people. It takes time, and, like any other drug, can become a dependency for an individual. Especially those who actively seek out that type of bond that they have been denied in their lives.”
He looked to the sheriff. “People like this, like your Cherry, are the easiest to manipulate. The want, the need, is there, and all I have to do is provide a taste. After that, well, you’ve seen how far people are willing to go to protect that bond they feel toward me. Threaten a mother by taking her child, and that mother will stop at nothing to keep her child safe.”
He gave a wicked grin. “Or should I say a father would stop at nothing for his daughter’s safety?”
“You have no right manipulating something as special as that!” Kasumi yelled at Jeffery.
“And you, of all people, have no right condemning what I do.”
“I don’t make people kill.”
Jeffery’s gaze strayed purposefully toward Dent, who stood unmoving, gun held out and down to the side. “Don’t you?”
Kasumi knew where the man was going with this. She’d even had the same thoughts of her own on the subject. But this deranged idiot had no clue what Dent was. She smiled at how wrong Jeffery was.
“You think I can control him?” Cat-man squeezed her neck, probably trying to shut her up, but she sucked up the pain. “Have you not been paying attention to anything? God, you are as stupid as you are twisted.”
When that made Jeffery’s fake smile turn into a genuine frown, Kasumi wanted to high-five herself for the small victory. But another squeeze of her neck again made her want to fall to the floor in pain.
“Knock it off,” she snapped over her shoulder, or at least tried to.
“You knock it off,” Cat-man snapped right back.
She was about to tell Cat-man how childish he sounded when Jeffery spoke again.
“You want to see control?” he said, pulling Connor in tighter to his side. The young boy looked up, his large eyes full of eagerness to please. Jeffery smiled down and then looked up, to Sheriff Bobseyn.
“Sheriff,” he said smoothly. “It would please me if you would convince Dent to lay down his weapon.”
Emotions suddenly washed over Kasumi. She could feel an overwhelming need to make Jeffery happy, to make herself happy by doing so. Her knees went weak, both as she fought the forced emotion and as she realized the source.
They had been completely wrong the whole time. There was no eTech in this place.
She could see the sheriff’s eyes glaze over, no doubt wondering if Cherry would be safe if he did what Jeffery asked. The fact that the sheriff was showing some hesitance to Jeffery’s intrusion amazed Kasumi. If only he could fight it long enough for her to find a way to counter it, then there was a chance. Now that she knew what she was up against, she could stop it. She had too.
“Don’t give in to him, Sheriff,” she said, trying to stop the emotional intrusion while lacing her words to the man with a sense of friendship, bolstering the feelings with memories of the short time she and the sheriff had spent together.
Jeffery shook his head like he knew what Kasumi was trying to do. “Remember your daughter, Sheriff.”
The sheriff’s gun still at his head, Dent stared into Kasumi’s eyes. Any other person would have seen a blank page, but Kasumi knew Dent, could read him like a book. A book that only had a few words written in it, maybe, but she knew those words. And what she read in his eyes right now was, Screw it. He wasn’t going to give up. The stubborn man would die if he she didn’t stop him from acting out.
Don’t, she pleaded with both her mouth and her eyes. “I can do this,” she whispered to him, praying beyond anything that he would listen.
She saw Dent’s shoulders sag just a bit, saw the fire in his eyes dim. She’d gotten through to him, but immediately felt like she’d betrayed him because that was when the sheriff drew back and slammed the butt of his gun down on Dent’s shoulder.
XLV
As Jeffery and Fifth waged a war with their words, a different type of war had been waging in Dent’s mind.
Two options, he thought. Two options, three scenarios, one unavoidable outcome.
He could rush to Fifth, in the process either getting a bullet to the back of the head from Bobseyn or, if the guard holding Fifth was quick, get a bullet in the forehead. Second option — he could do nothing, hope that his refusal to move would buy Fifth some time to figure how to do whatever it is she does, which would likely earn him a bullet in the head for his trouble anyway.
Seeing Fifth, no more than a dozen large strides away, stop her struggling against the guard had decided his mind. Dent would not go down easy.
His right arm tensed, his index finger itched. He was about to move — step forward to the left, drop his right shoulder, pivot, slam his elbow back into Bobseyn, and attempt to get at least one shot off in Jeffery’s direction — when Fifth focused her eyes on him and told him to stay his hand.
She had that look, that steady, unwavering look that told him arguing would be as pointless as attempting to walk on the ceiling. And when she whispered that she could do this, he believed her. He had to.
Against everything he’d ever been trained or taught, Dent forced himself to do nothing, forced himself to have faith in someone else. He felt the gun to his head pull away, and knew there was a third option now.
Option three meant trusting in her.
When Bobseyn brought the gun down hard on his shoulder, Dent fell to a knee. His body screamed to move, to avoid the next blow — which he knew would be a left fist to his jaw — but he held back.
As Bobseyn delivered that exact blow, Dent rolled with force, keeping his eyes on Fifth. Blow after blow, Bobseyn beat Dent down, though it seemed the man was holding back. And still, through the pain of it all, Dent struggled to look to Fifth.
Trust in Fifth, he repeated over and over in his mind like a mantra
.
His vision wavered, both from the blood streaming down from a gash just above his eye and from the concussive blows Bobseyn kept delivering. He lost both his gun and sight of Fifth after Bobseyn began using his knees and feet as well as fists and elbows. At least Bobseyn had dropped his gun to the floor after the initial blow. If the man had held on to it, Dent would have either been dropped cold or would have been forced to fight back.
Somewhere in the distance, at the end of a tunnel of his battered consciousness, Dent heard Fifth’s voice. He couldn’t make out her words, but he knew it was her. She was talking to the guard behind her.
Bobseyn drove his knee into Dent’s ribs, knocking the air from his lungs and gobs of blood-tinged phlegm from his mouth. Bobseyn followed up with a downward punch that clipped Dent’s jaw, knocking him flat to the floor.
Dent wouldn’t be able to take much more without risking permanent damage. His gun was somewhere off to the side, down near his feet. The next time Bobseyn shifted his weight to kick, Dent would roll aside and go for his gun. Fifth had her chance. Now it was his turn. And if that meant putting a bullet in Bobseyn, then he would.
---
It took everything she had to tear her eyes from Dent as Sheriff Bobseyn punched and pounded him. There was no doubt in her mind that Dent could kill the sheriff in five seconds with one hand tied behind his back and she briefly wondered what it took for a man like Dent to get his butt kicked and not fight back.
Sooner or later, Sheriff Bobseyn would go too far and no amount of pleading on Kasumi’s part would keep Dent at bay. She needed to work fast.
Dent would probably go on about assessing the situation, finding the quickest way to neutralize the threat. Problem was, she had no clue who was the biggest threat. Sheriff Bobseyn was knocking Dent around, but the sheriff was a friend, only a threat because of Jeffery and the fact that Cherry was in danger. Then there was Cat-man behind her and the guard behind Cherry.
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