Catherine Coulter: Whiplash

She saw blood oozing sluggishly through his fingers. Too bad she hadn't hit an artery, but it was a start. Should she dare try her only other bullet? She was tempted, she was a good shot. Just maybe-

Suddenly he grabbed a still limp Jane Ann, dragged her behind a leather sofa, then pulled her up in front of him like a shield. "You want to try again, Agent? Well, go ahead, this slut is no loss to the world." Without the pressure of his left palm, blood snaked down his neck into his jacket.

She didn't know where she found it, but she laughed. "Hey, Andy, what do you call a male slut in German?"

He fired once, lower this time, but still well above her head.

She laughed at him again. "You're not in such good shape now, are you? You're bleeding all over the place. Hey, who knows? Maybe you'll bleed out. Talk about no loss to the world, but hey, I'm willing to make you a deal, Andy. You leave Jane Ann alive, and I'll let you walk out of here. No one else has to die today."

" You will let me walk out of here? To run for the rest of my life? That's not going to happen. I'm the one in charge here, not you. When all of you are dead, my problems are over. You've figured that out, haven't you? All of you are going to hell. Where are you? " He raised his gun and fired two quick rounds. One was no more than six inches from the top of her head. Too close, way too close.

She could hear rage simmering in his deep voice now, whipping up a mad brew. "You are nothing but a dried-up butch cop! What you are is dead, do you hear me?" She watched Jane Ann's head loll against his chest as he shifted her, clumsily trying to keep her in front of him so he could press his palm against his neck again. Holding Jane Ann with his gun arm hampered him, not that it mattered, Sherlock wasn't about to risk shooting Jane Ann.

"To be honest here, Andy, at first I thought you were like a sore thumb-just sticking out there, this jerk foreign cop with nothing to do, bumbling around, but you had your own agenda. You only wanted to find out what we knew. You didn't spend much time with your assigned FBI buddy, did you? Nope, you had too much to do, too many places to go, people to see, bombs to plant.

"You better deal with me, Andy, or you won't come out of this alive. You've got to ask yourself, is time on your side, or mine? You want to be sent back to Germany in a metal box? Does it matter? Is there anyone back in Germany to mourn you, anyone to care at all if you're dead or alive?"

It was a disappointment when he called back, calm and controlled, "I will deal with you, Agent Sherlock, and it's going to be on my own terms."

Jane Ann moaned.

Be quiet, be quiet, for heaven's sake, Jane Ann, be quiet!

"Let me tell you my terms here, Andy, something you must believe-if you shoot Jane Ann Royal, I will kill you. Do you understand?"

A moment's silence, then he spoke, his voice indifferent, "You can try, I suppose, with that little pea shooter of yours."

"Won't you tell me how you murdered Helmut Blauvelt when you didn't arrive in the U.S. until the day after he died?"

He giggled. It creeped her out, the conceit in that giggle, the unmistakable whiff of madness. She felt his arrogance, his dismissal of her, when he said, "I was already here on a forged passport. After I killed Blauvelt, I quickly returned to New York and left on the red eye back to Frankfurt."

"Now you've depressed me. I guess we're just too trusting of our foreign counterparts. And I must say you arrived with a reputation as a straight-arrow cop, Agent Kesselring. Who would have thought you're really a stone cold murderer?"

"One does what one must." He sounded calm again, and it scared her. The last thing she wanted was to have him thinking clearly.

Push him, push him . "Sounds to me like Schiffer Hartwin had a great duo working for them, you and Blauvelt. How many people did you kill between you? How many officials did you bribe to run Schiffer Hartwin's illegal tests? Africa is a particularly nice drug testing ground, isn't it? So what happened with Blauvelt? Why'd you kill him? What did he do?"

She heard him snort, but he didn't answer.

"Come now, what does it matter? Inquiring minds want to know, Andy. Hey, had Blauvelt simply had enough of the intimidation and killing? Maybe the Culovort scheme finally got to him? That's why he wanted out?

"Did Dieffendorf know he'd become a liability? Did he send you over here to make sure Blauvelt was dead and buried, no longer a problem? What, Andy?"

He said something to her in German, something low and vicious. He'd probably sent her right to hell. Was he about ready to boil over?

"You're afraid to talk to me, aren't you, Andy? You, the big hollow cop in the expensive Armani suit-you're actually afraid of a butch cop half your size? You've told me everything else, why don't you want to tell me why you murdered Blauvelt?"

Jane Ann moaned again.

Sherlock heard the slap of flesh against flesh, knew he'd struck Jane Ann with his open palm. Better than his fist.

She shouted, "You're a psychopath, Andy, but I didn't figure you for a coward, too."

Hallelujah, that did it. He yelled, "The break-in, you idiot! The pathetic little man found out too much. Once that damned Erin Pulaski stole the information on Culovort right off Royal's computer, I knew he'd tell the one person who could cut the cash flow. Blauvelt would not listen, so I had no choice. I would have been exposed. To him I was nothing.

"Well, I showed him he was nothing. Less than nothing. I even erased his damned face. He always liked to say he was the big fish. Well, he got himself devoured by a bigger fish, didn't he?"

"You didn't want him identified, did you?"

"Of course not, at least not until I was safely back in Germany. But once I started smashing his face, I realized I rather enjoyed it. Then I cut off his fingers, left the rest for the local yahoos to try to identify. I didn't know Van Wie Park was federal land. It was just bad luck Agent Richards realized Blauvelt had foreign dental work, and you found out who he was like that-" Kesselring snapped his fingers. "It was a much quicker flight back than I expected. I've always found that to be true. Going home is always faster.

"Still, it should have worked, all of it, except for Royal. He was the weak link, ready to roll over on us."

"Who could have stopped it all?"

He laughed. "Good try, Agent, but I will keep that close to my vest, isn't that your American slang?"

"You nailed it, Andy. Is that when you decided to visit Jane Ann?"

"Ah, Jane Ann. Now she was a surprise, I'll admit it." He gave that insane giggle again. "She was something in bed, I'll tell you."

"A match made in heaven. You and Jane Ann and Mick Haggarty?"

"Was that the boy's last name? What a waste he was, no guts at all. He was shaking so hard when I shot Royal I thought he would piss his pants."

"Then you and Mick were waiting for us, and you were careful not to hit us since we were Jane Ann's alibi."

Sherlock wondered if she could shoot above Jane Ann's head with her precious second bullet and miraculously strike him in the forehead. Time was running out. She had to bring him out, she had to bring him closer to her, she had to end it.

"Schiffer Hartwin isn't paying you what you're worth, are they, Andy? Not a share of the real profits like others are getting, you know, a big slice of the windfall profits from Laboratoires Ancondor? Sounds to me like you're the one who makes everything work. What good are they without you, these men you work for? Surely the whole company isn't in on this? Who's running this show? Who could put a stop to it?"

"They will pay me now, every single penny I ask for. Enough, Agent! There is no more reason to talk."