Rick Riordan - Southtown

Stirman’s jaw tightened. “Be careful telling me what I can and can’t do.”

“Listen to Jem,” I said. “Listen to what he wants.”

“I want my mother back,” Jem managed.

“Your mother…” Stirman’s eyes drifted, as if looking at Jem had suddenly become painful. “Boy, if you knew about your mother.. .”

At that moment, Stirman looked very much like Sam Barrera-like a man whose lifelong focus had started to unravel.

“Put down the gun,” I told him. “Surrender to the police.”

Stirman exhaled, a humorless laugh. “That’s your advice, huh? Death Row?”

“You won’t survive another day on the outside. If you want any time to make amends, if it’s really not about revenge, then prison’s your only choice. It’s the only place you belong now.”

Stirman’s face had gone clammy. His bandaged shoulder glistened with new blood. The simple act of holding the gun to Barrera’s head must’ve been torture for him.

“Tell me where the money is,” he said. “Maybe I’ll let you and Barrera go. But the boy comes with me.”

Sam Barrera said, “Like hell.”

He started to get up.

“Sit down, old man,” Stirman ordered, pushing Barrera’s collarbone with the gun.

Barrera ignored him. He got unsteadily to his feet. “I didn’t come this far to let him run, Fred.”

I said, “Sam-”

“Go ahead and shoot me,” Barrera told Stirman. “You think I don’t remember? I shot your wife. Don’t take it out on Fred and this little kid. You gonna shoot somebody, shoot me.”

Stirman stared at Barrera in disbelief. “But… it was Barrow. .. I saw him. Why are you-”

“Shoot me,” Barrera ordered. “Last chance. I got the whole goddamn FBI surrounding this place.”

Stirman took a step back-a deeply ingrained human instinct: Get away from the crazy person.

Barrera grabbed the gun.

It discharged, cracking the glass wall behind Barrera’s head.

I yelled, “Jem, run!”

He followed my orders too well. With perfect eight-year-old single-mindedness, he ran toward the nearest restroom, which happened to be the wrong way-directly past Stirman, in the East Tower.

“No!”

Another shot drowned out my voice. A tube of red neon exploded. Stirman shoved Sam Barrera against the glass, which buckled, shattered, and Sam Barrera went backward into the void.

Stirman turned as Jem brushed past him. He tried to catch the boy’s shirt. I tackled Stirman. The butt of his gun slammed into my ear.

The next thing I knew I was on the carpet. A photograph was stuck to my cheek.

I got up, my vision doubled. I leaned against the railing, now open to the wet night air, and I saw a pale human shape fifteen feet below, sprawled on the lower gallery roof. Sam Barrera’s body.

I didn’t have time to think about that. Stirman hadn’t stayed to finish me off.

He had gone after Jem.

Just as she heard the shot inside the warehouse, Ana DeLeon’s phone vibrated against her Kevlar vest.

The SWAT team was too well trained to react to gunfire, but they all looked at her to see what was rattling.

She ripped the phone out of her pocket and stared at the display.

Ralph Arguello.

He never called her at work. She imagined the baby in the emergency room, the house burning down-what would it take for him to call like this?

There was nothing she could do. She stuck the phone back in her pocket and took out her sidearm.

The lieutenant in charge waved the team forward. Four guys in body armor moved into the warehouse, DeLeon in the rear, the unwelcome guest.

She wasn’t worried about her own safety, or about capturing Stirman.

SAPD had the whole area ringed with snipers, cordoned off with a double perimeter, two helicopters on standby. If Stirman was inside, he was screwed. The problem was getting Erainya out in one piece.

They secured the first floor in twenty seconds. Stairs led up, exactly where the schematics said they should. The shot had come from above-third or fourth floor, about where long-range mikes had zeroed in on voices.

Sixty-three seconds later, the team was in the fourth-floor corridor. DeLeon was melting from the heat and the Kevlar. She forgot about that when she heard Erainya’s voice-yelling for help.

There was an open doorway at the end of the hall.

Smaller voices-two men in conversation.

“In here!” Erainya yelled. “Anybody?”

It wasn’t the voice of a woman being held at gunpoint. But something felt wrong to DeLeon.

The SWAT lieutenant looked back at the entry team-not a question, but a silent warning. He, too, sensed the wrongness of the situation, the team’s uneasiness. But his look made it clear they would be following the plan.

Their point man moved to the doorway, threw in the flash grenade.

The subsonic boom shook the plaster. Anyone within twenty feet would be knocked senseless.

The team moved in.

Their laser sites made a cluster of red dots on the source of the men’s voices-a portable radio.

Under the window, next to an overturned table, Erainya Manos lay stunned, her legs bound and a duct tape gag half peeled off her mouth. Her hands had been tied behind her, but one of them was partially free. That hand gripped a pistol.

DeLeon scanned the scene with disbelief. Erainya had crawled from the pile of filthy blankets in the corner, managed to kick over the table, where her captor had foolishly left a gun. She’d gotten her fingers free enough to grasp the pistol and fire a shot for help.

That was what had happened. No doubt. But where the hell was Stirman?

The team checked the rest of the floor. The rooms were empty. The lieutenant radioed the situation. Within thirty seconds Major Cooper was inside with a second team. He ordered a sweep of the roof.

By the time Erainya was coherent enough to speak, DeLeon knew there was no one else in the building.

“Left,” Erainya said. “About… I don’t remember.”

She was clearly confused, dehydrated, scared out of her wits. She said there had been two men, Will Stirman and a young Latino Stirman had called Pablo. Stirman had left to get ransom money. As soon as he was gone, Pablo disobeyed Stirman’s orders to guard her and fled. She didn’t know where either of them went. Her son was in danger. Stirman wanted to kill him. That’s all she cared about.

“Damn it,” the SWAT lieutenant said.

Major Cooper looked equally miffed. It was all fine and good to rescue a hostage, but with no capture, no blood, DeLeon knew it was a wasted evening for him. They had a whole city to search now. Their energy had been directed the wrong way. Sam Barrera and Tres Navarre. .. she would be having a serious conversation with both of them. She hated private eyes.

Her phone rattled again. She had completely forgotten about Ralph.

She stepped to the window and answered the call.

“I found him,” her husband said.

“What? Is Lucia okay?”

The baby was fine. Ralph told her about Tres’ visit earlier in the day.

She felt the old resentment building-the near-panic that fluttered in her chest whenever Ralph got close to his old life, his old habits.

She controlled her voice. “You went out looking for Stirman?”

“No, just some calls, mi amor. But that’s not the thing. I know where they’re supposed to deliver Stirman’s money.”

“We’re already at the warehouse. Stirman isn’t here.”

“You’re a couple of miles off. I called Tres-”

“You gave Navarre information first?”

“Just listen, will you? I called to tell him I’d had no luck tracking Stirman. I got Tres’ machine. I was worried, so I figured what the hell, I’d retrieve his messages, see if he’d gotten anything-”