XIII

Russ had just pulled into his mother's drive when his cell phone rang. Hell. He checked the number. The ant-sized hope that Clare might be calling was squashed when he saw it was the station. He flipped the phone open. "Van Alstyne here."

"Chief." The usually unflappable Harlene sounded stressed. "We have an officer under fire."

His heart stopped. "Who?" Images of Kevin, a robbery, Paul, a traffic stop gone south.

"Hadley Knox."

Oh, Christ, no. The rawest person on the force. He threw the truck in reverse and rolled down the window. "Where?"

"The Christie place."

What? He pushed the crowd of questions away. Reached up and clamped the light to the top of the truck. "Give me a sitrep."

"Gunfire from a three-fifty-seven Magnum. Other weapons unknown. There may be another man inside, she couldn't say for sure."

He rolled the window back up. Flicked on the light and siren. Tromped on the gas. "Unknown number of women and children inside as hostages." Harlene raised her voice to be heard over the siren's whoop. "Kevin and Lyle are on their way. Eric's coming from the jail, SWAT team's scrambling."

"I'll be there soonest." He thought of Hadley Knox, with her threadbare tote filled with criminal law texts. Her panicky voice: I haven't practiced with a shoulder holster! "Harlene," he said. "Send an ambulance."

XIV

He didn't know you could get speeds like that out of a Ford 250. He went airborne on the Christies' drive, bounced, ground against the dirt and gravel, and there was the house, and there was Knox's unit, and there was Knox, sprinting across the side yard-no vest on, for chrissakes-and there, in the broken and whole glass, an outline, and a hand, and a gun.

He slewed the truck to a stop and tumbled out the door, his gun already in hand, and fired at the porch roof. It was a wild shot, unaimed, but the guy inside ducked out of sight and Knox rolled safely to a stop against the house's foundation. He took a better stance behind the hood, figuring his engine block would stop even a.357.

"Millers Kill Police," he said loudly. "Put your weapon down and walk out with your hands on top of your head." This suggestion was greeted with a torrent of obscenities. From the corner of his eye, he could see Knox flopping around. "You okay, Knox?"

"Yeah. I mean, yes, sir."

"Stay right there. Don't move." He could see something behind the window. It was hard to make out in the shadow of the porch. Then he saw an eye, the side of a face, the gunman scoping things out. Russ dropped an inch lower, sighting him.

"You shoot one more time and I swear I'll cap one of 'em here," the man screamed. "I'll blow one of these bitches' heads off!"

O-kay. He did his best work talking, anyway. He waved his empty hand in the air and ostentatiously laid his sidearm on the hood. He heard the rumble and whine of an engine, and Kevin's unit popped over the horizon, coming in too fast, screeching to a stop in a cloud of dust next to the truck. Lyle shoved Kevin out the driver's side and crawled over him. They were both, thank God, in their tac vests.

Lyle scanned the barn, the house, the side yard, the trailer. "Just in the house?"

"Looks like," Russ said.

Lyle glanced at his empty hands. "Forget your piece?"

"He's threatened to shoot hostages if we fire."

"What's going on?" the gunman yelled.

"Sounds Latino," Lyle said.

He hummed in agreement. Then spoke loudly. "My deputy here says the state SWAT team is on the way. They're not interested in talking to you. But I am."

"Screw you!"

"C'mon, man, talk to me." He started his patter. The first thing was to get him talking. A guy who's talking isn't shooting. The second was to be his friend. I'm on your side. We're in this together. "C'mon," he said. "You put your gun down, I put my gun down, we'll call it drunk and disorderly." He tried to remember how many kids were there. Donald had five or six by a string of girlfriends, bouncing back and forth between homes. His oldest had a kid of her own, though, and she lived with him. Plus the foul-mouthed fiancée's bunch.

The gunman had moved away from the window. He-or was it another voice?-was yelling at someone in the interior of the house. He needed more info. He caught Knox's eye, signaled her to check out the back. She nodded and rolled to the ground, belly-crawling away from them like a marine in an obstacle course.

"Why doesn't she just duck down and walk?" Lyle said. "They can't see her if she sticks close to the house."

"Probably taught her that at Basic."

Lyle huffed. "We'll be another year unlearnin' her after she's through there."

If she survived the afternoon. "Any way to get her a tac vest?"

"Two in the trunk of her cruiser."

They both looked at her squad car, maybe ten yards from where they were parked and another fifteen from the house. Open ground. No cover.

"Get Kevin to the tail of your unit. If I can distract this guy, he can sprint to her car, grab the vest, and meet her at the side of the house."

"And what about you?"

He twitched the question away. The shooter reappeared in the window. "Hey!" Russ said. The third thing was to get him to say yes. Didn't matter to what. One yes leads to another. "It's hotter'n hell today, isn't it?" The shadowy figure stared at him. "Hard to keep things cool when it's ninety degrees."

"You think this is hot? This ain't nothin'."

"For you, maybe. Me, I'm dying out here." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kevin taking up position at the back of his unit. "I could use something cold and wet. What about you? You want a cold beer? I can bring a six-pack up to the porch, and we can talk."

The guy laughed. "You think I'm an idiot? Whadda you take me for?"

Russ spread his hands. "Okay. You know what we want. We want everybody here to walk away unharmed. We want a win-win solution. You tell me what you want."

The shooter ducked away from the window for a moment. Russ glanced at Lyle. Lyle held up two fingers. Two guys. At least.

"You know what I want? I want our property back. These rednecks stole something from us, and I want it back."

Russ got that sensation in his head, like bottle rockets popping off, one after the other. "The directory of dealer names," he said, tossing out another wild guess.

The man-the Punta Diablos foot soldier-hissed in surprise. A hit, a palpable hit. "What you say?" the shooter asked after a moment. He'd be a lousy poker player.

"We arrested the Christie brothers this morning. You know how it goes. Any valuable information goes on the bargaining table."

"Son of a bitch monkey-balled mother-" Russ let the guy rave on. He'd be a good match for Donald's latest fiancée. He almost smiled, until the last bottle rocket went off, and he realized it was the Punta Diablos, and not the large and thugly Christies, who had done those horrible things to Amado Esfuentes. These guys are junkyard-dog vicious, he'd told Clare. And now they had an unknown number of women and children at their mercy.

The shooter was going on about how you couldn't trust anyone. Russ wasn't sure if the rant was directed at him or at the unknown accomplices inside, but he was getting worried. These guys were trapped. That's when dangerous animals attacked. Where the hell was Knox? Had something happened to her?

Then she appeared from the back of the house. He kept his face forward, fixed intently on the Punta Diablo point man, who was working himself up in a major way. He slipped one hand off the hood of his truck and signaled to Kevin. Nothing. He signaled again. No long tall streak of red loping toward Knox's squad car.