Greg Iles - Third Degree

“Can they see through glass?” Ellis cut in. “Or window blinds?”

“The chief thinks they can. He said the two of ’em together cost more than a used fire engine.”

Sheriff Ellis pumped his fist like a weary gambler catching a break at last. “Get them over here, Trace. Jerry Johnson with them. Tell the chief if they’re not in a car and on the way in two minutes, I’m sending Danny in the chopper.”

Trace nodded and went back outside.

“Okay,” said the sheriff. “Let’s say we’ve pinpointed Shields and his family in the great room, and negotiations fail. How do we proceed?”

“Blow out the windows and go in with flash-bangs,” said Ray. “Dr. Shields will be bleeding from the ears and blind as a bat. He won’t be able to pull a trigger even if he wants to. Then-”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Carl said quietly. “I know the tests say people can’t pull a trigger after a flash-bang goes off, but I know guys who’ve done it.”

“Shit,” Ray scoffed. “Marines, maybe. Not some civilian doctor.”

“I’m just telling you it can be done. Don’t assume that he can’t do it.”

“That’s why we’re gonna take him down in that first second. Double-tap him and it’s all over.”

Danny closed his eyes. The prospect of Ray Breen and his men firing automatic weapons in a room with Laurel and her daughter in it was unthinkable, especially in the chaos that would follow the detonation of grenades designed to shock terrorists senseless. But this was standard operating procedure once negotiations had failed. It wouldn’t be enough to oppose Ray Breen’s plan based solely on fear of collateral damage; he’d have to come up with a better one himself.

“The house is pretty exposed,” Detective Burnette observed. “How are we gonna get close when he’s got those security cameras?”

“Spray paint,” Ray answered with a grin. “There’s a line of trees running up to the back corner of the house, where the kid got out. I’ll take two guys up that way with some black spray paint. No more cameras.”

“What if you spook him?” asked Burnette. “He might panic and start shooting.”

“We’ve got to kill those cameras, Rusty. What if we cut the electricity to the whole house?”

Danny sensed an opening. “Shields told you he was waiting for his computer to tell him something. If he’s fixated on that and we cut the power, we might really push him over the edge.”

Sheriff Ellis nodded in agreement.

“A laptop would have battery power for a while,” Burnette pointed out.

“We don’t know he’s using a laptop,” Danny said. He looked over at Carl. “Do those blinds go all the way to the top of the great room windows?”

Carl shook his head. “Not quite. There’s some open glass right at the top-a little arched pane-but that’s like fifteen feet up, and no trees tall enough to get the right shooting angle.”

“Could you use the chopper as a shooting platform? I could get you a perfect angle on those high windows.”

The sniper’s dark face seemed to darken even more with skepticism. “Helos are too unstable for precision shooting. Plus, that’s double-paned glass. I wouldn’t want to guarantee my shot from a moving platform.”

“Understood,” said Danny. “But I’ve seen it done. I had a Delta sniper shoot prone from the belly of my ship. He didn’t like doing it, but he hit his targets.”

Carl looked around at the faces of the other men. “I’ll give it a try. But add in the deflection of the glass, and that’s a tricky shot. If my target’s alone, okay. But if there’s a hostage close, she could get hurt.”

Ray was watching them incredulously. “What do you two experts think Dr. Shields is gonna be doing while Carl’s hanging up there trying to shoot him? He’s gonna blow your asses out of the sky, that’s what! He could shoot down that helicopter with a deer rifle.”

This was true, Danny knew. “I don’t think he’ll be expecting a shot from the chopper. If I turn on the searchlight, he’ll think we’re trying to get a look at him.”

“And if Carl misses the first shot?”

“Then you guys would bust in like you want to.”

Sheriff Ellis was the kind of man who talked to help himself think. “If Carl saw Shields holding a gun in his hands, especially in a threatening manner, we could definitely justify taking him out.”

“What if we go in and we don’t see a weapon?” asked Ray.

“Fire to disable?” said Ellis. “Don’t you train for that?

Ray shook his head. “Double-tap. Two to the body, one to the head, makes you good and dead.”

“Jesus. What happened to surgical strikes?”

“That’s just not practical in close-quarters combat,” said Carl. “Things happen too fast, once you go in. There may be a weapon you can’t see. Body armor you can’t see. Once things go that far, you have to shoot to kill.”

Ellis nodded. “I’m glad to hear that from you, Carl. Ray seems a tad eager today.”

Danny noted with some relief that the closer they got to the moment of truth, the less cavalier the sheriff was about ordering an assault.

A soft but persistent buzz drew several pairs of eyes to Danny. With hot blood flowing into his cheeks, he held up a hand in apology. Then he took out his cell phone and, after making sure no one else could read the screen, read the newest text message: Me lying on sofa n grt room. W n study atdesk. Bth lying on study sofa. Here was the very information that the TRU was using every available resource to try to discover. The best thermal imagers in the world couldn’t give this kind of detail. Danny considered telling the sheriff that he’d simply tried to text Laurel Shields (whose cell number he might reasonably have, since she was Michael’s teacher) and had gotten lucky. But sooner or later they would discover that the cell phone Laurel was using was not registered to her, but to a friend of Danny’s. No, he decided. I’ve got to keep this ace up my sleeve until the last possible moment-

“I thought we wasn’t supposed to be talking to nobody on the outside,” Trace said from behind Danny. “Who’s he talking to?”

Sheriff Ellis said, “Major McDavitt has a family emergency. So how ’bout you shut up and focus on your job?”

Trace ducked his narrow head. “Yessir.”

Thinking of Laurel’s message, Danny moved closer to the blueprints and said, “I was actually in this house a couple of times, back when I coached soccer with Dr. Shields.”

“Really?” said the sheriff.

“Yep. And if I remember right, Shields has a computer sitting on the desk in his study, which is right off the great room.” He pointed. “Right there. If Shields was telling the truth about working at his computer, he might be sitting at that desk to do it. And if I’m not mistaken, the study windows are just like the ones in the great room.”

Carl nodded. “They are.”

Danny looked at the sheriff and let his voice take on its pilot’s authority. “I think I see a surer way to end this thing. It was your idea to start with, Sheriff.”

Ellis stood a little straighter.

“If the thermal imagers pinpoint Shields in that study-or in the great room-I should take the chopper up as a diversion, just like you suggested on the way here.”

The sheriff nodded to confirm that this had, in fact, been his idea.

“We put Carl on the ground with his rifle scoped on those windows and the thermal imager beside him. When I turn on my searchlight, Shields will come to those windows like a moth to a candle. When he does, Ray can blow the windows out with plastique- all the back windows. Shields will be silhouetted like a duck in a shooting gallery. And that’s when Carl takes his shot.”