Steven James - The Knight

All around me, blurred sounds, elastic words that somehow slowed as they moved through the air, in between the creases of time. Screams

… shouts… the frantic scuffling movement of people diving for cover… I felt like I was in a scene from a movie where the bullet slides in slow motion through the air, only this time the bullet hadn’t been fired yet. And I had the chance to stop it.

The judge had disappeared behind the bench, and Richard Basque had risen from his seat and turned toward Sikora. Standing as still as death, he watched Grant sweep the gun in an arc toward the officers who were shouting at him to drop his weapon.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ralph on his way toward the gunman, plowing through the crowd of people seated in the gallery. But I was closer. A lot closer.

Priscilla Eldridge-Gorman’s shrill voice cut through the room calling for Basque to get down! Get down! She threw herself beneath the table, but he didn’t move. Just remained stoic and still.

I was almost to Sikora.

The two officers leveled their weapons. One of them fired and the bullet whirred past my face and shattered the wooden railing of the witness stand behind me.

I reached Sikora, but before I could grab him, he squeezed off a shot, and one of the officers wrenched backward with a sharp cry and crashed to the floor. The female officer who’d closed the courtroom doors earlier hesitated, glancing momentarily down at her partner.

Grant Sikora stared down the barrel, looking stunned that he’d actually pulled the trigger.

And then I was on him.

I snagged his arm and went for the gun, but he slithered free, whipped around, and leveled it at my face. “Out of the way.”

Time caught up with reality and froze. I’d had guns aimed at my face before, but it doesn’t matter how many times it happens, you never get used to it. I felt my heart slamming against my chest. Easy, Pat. Easy. I raised my hands to show I meant no harm.

“Put down your gun!” the uninjured officer yelled. Only then did I realize I was in her line of fire. She didn’t have a clear shot at Sikora, only at me.

Out of my peripheral vision I could see the other officer laying sprawled on the floor, blood from the gunshot wound soaking through his shirtsleeve, but it was only his arm. It didn’t look life-threatening. Good. That buys us some time.

“Drop your weapon!”

“Shut up,” Grant shrieked. “Everyone, shut up!” He took one step closer to me. The officer on the floor was slowly drawing his weapon. “Drop your guns,” Sikora yelled to the officers. “Or the FBI agent dies.”

Three meters to my left, Ralph silently slid into position beside the prosecution’s table. Everyone else except Basque either lay on the floor or knelt low to the ground. A few people peered over the edges of chairs and benches to watch things unfold. Neither officer dropped their guns. Basque still stood calmly watching everything unfold.

“Put them down!” Grant hollered. “Slide ’em here!”

I saw his finger on the trigger and felt my heart twitch. There was no way he would miss me from there. No way.

“Drop ’em!” Ralph bellowed. “Do it!”

Sikora didn’t seem to care that someone else had yelled the words, he just kept his eyes glued on me. Kept his gun steady.

The two officers gauged the situation for a moment, and finally both of them shoved their guns toward us.

“Nobody else move!” Sikora yelled, then glanced toward Ralph. “And you. Back off. Now!”

“Easy.” Ralph raised his hands and shuffled one step away from us toward the wall. “I’m backing up. OK?”

“Farther!”

“I am.” One more step.

“Go on.”

Two steps.

Sikora glanced at the officer standing beside her partner. “Get outside the door! No one comes in here. If anyone tries to, I mean anyone, if that door opens, Bowers is dead.” He tipped his head to the left. “The bailiff and the judge, you go with her. Go!”

After a moment, the judge appeared from behind his bench where he’d been hiding. His face was etched with anger, but he said nothing. He and the bailiff followed the officer out the door, and then she swung it shut behind them.

Ralph and I still had a chance at diffusing things if only we could get close enough to take Sikora down, but to do that I needed to focus the man’s attention on me. “It’s Grant, right?” I said. “Your name is Grant Sikora? I met with you after your daughter’s death?”

He eyed me, didn’t answer. Took in two choppy breaths.

I pointed. “The officer you shot, he’s going to be OK.” I spoke slowly, trying to calm him down. “End this now. I understand you’re angry-”

“No.”

“You have a right to be angry-”

“No!”

“But shooting people won’t help to-”

“Quiet!” Rage in his voice, but his jaw was quivering. A tear escaped the corner of his left eye.

He’s sorry, so sorry.

“No one else needs to get hurt.” I edged toward him. “You’re not a killer.”

He shook his head violently. “He killed her. He killed my Celeste.”

Are there other agents in here? Where are they?

Sikora shouted past me, into Richard Basque’s general direction, “You killed my daughter, you son of a-”

“Did she believe?” asked Basque, cutting Grant off.

“What?”

“The Lord said that those who live and believe in him shall never die. Did your daughter believe?”

“Shut up.” Grant was shaking, possessed by grief and rage. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

His eyes locked on Basque again. He’d made his decision.

He swung the gun away from me toward the man who’d tortured, killed, and eaten his daughter.

My chance. My only chance.

Now or never.

Now.

I lunged toward Sikora and grabbed for the gun, locking my fingers around his wrist and pivoting at the same time. I pulled the barrel away from the crowded courtroom and toward the empty northern wall. And this time I made sure Grant Sikora couldn’t jerk away.

He must have slipped his finger off the trigger because the Sigma didn’t discharge. With strength fueled by adrenaline, he tried to pull free again. I twisted his arm around his back, trying to control him, to disarm him, but with his other hand he snagged something from the evidence table and slammed it against my side; a crushing heat, a burst of pain cruised through me and I wondered if he’d broken my rib.

Whatever he’d grabbed, Grant pounded my side again, but I wouldn’t let go.

A flash of movement-Ralph on his way toward us, but it would be a couple seconds before he could help me.

Then I realized Grant was holding the hatchet Basque had used on three of his victims. Thankfully, he’d only been able to swing the handle at me and not the blade, but still, it hurt enough to make me gasp for breath.

As he swung the hatchet handle at me again, I sucked in a breath and chopped at his forearm, sending the hatchet clattering to the floor.

Now, for the gun.

We were facing each other with the Sigma between us. As we wrestled for it, Grant pivoted and we smashed into the witness stand.

“Drop the gun!” Ralph flipped the evidence table aside, scattering its contents. Rushed toward us.

Grant Sikora’s face was set with determination, and I realized that if Basque had slaughtered someone I loved, I would have been just as determined, just as enraged as he was. “He…” His teeth were clenched with the effort of fighting me off, but he managed to speak through them. “He… killed… her.”

“Please,” I said. My side was throbbing so much it was hard to breathe. “Don’t-”

“He ate her,” Grant said. “Ate my Celeste-”