Catherine Coulter: Whiplash

"I've got a surprise for you, Andy. Jane Ann forgot all about my cell phone. I've got it in my pocket, and not only is it recording our entire conversation, it's giving out a nice sharp signal. We've talked so long now, there are probably FBI agents and local police officers in position around this place right now, just waiting for you to come out. Best not to kill Jane Ann, Andy, or you'll go down so fast you won't even know you're dead. You know how good our snipers are, don't you? Right through the forehead, and you're gone.

"You want to die here, Andy? Or do you want to deal with me and live another day?"

He dropped Jane Ann, jumped over the sofa, and ran toward the sound of her voice, and he didn't stop firing until the clip was empty. Then he pulled her SIG from his belt and kept coming, firing with every step.

"Kesselring! Stop right there or I'll shoot!"

It was Bowie. Thank you, God, thank you, God. She had a chance now. Her SIG had to be nearly empty, but he didn't stop, it was as if he couldn't-and he was looking her right in the face when he took his next shot. Sherlock felt the bullet whistle not an inch from her right ear, felt the sting of it, and smelled the cordite. She had no choice but to rise up and try for a kill shot with her only bullet. Then there were two quick shots from the door, and thank the merciful Lord, Kesselring fell hard to the floor.

There was a moment of dead silence.

Sherlock shouted, "Bowie?"

"Sherlock, you all right?"

"Miracle of miracles, I am."

"Sherlock?"

It was Erin.

Sherlock called out, "Is Kesselring down for good?"

Erin said with a good deal of pleasure, "Yeah, looks like Bowie shot out his hip. He's lying on his side, panting and moaning. Blood on his neck, too. Did you do that?"

"Yeah." Sherlock stood up slowly, glad her legs held her, and watched Bowie drop to his haunches beside Kesselring. He took his collar between his two hands and shook him hard, saw he wouldn't resist, and searched him for weapons.

"Bowie? Everything okay in here?" It was Agent Cliff.

He said over his shoulder, not looking away from Kesselring, "Yeah, we've got things under control. Call a couple of ambulances, would you, Dolores? Tell everyone outside it's over." He looked over at Mick Haggarty. "And call Dr. Franks, too."

Sherlock stared down at Kesselring's pale sweating face. His jaw was working. She knew he was in major pain. She saw his hand hover above his right hip, as if he was afraid to touch it. Kesselring was finally down and out.

It was a lovely sight.

She called out, "Jane Ann? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," came a faint whisper from behind the sofa. "But my brains feel upside down."

Now you know how I felt after Mick clocked me in the head. "Just lie still. Agent Cliff's getting an ambulance for you."

Bowie saw Kesselring had passed out. He said to Sherlock, "We found you all because of Erin. She saw an award on Mick Haggarty's wall for his performance in Hamlet , and she remembered coming here to see some plays. She remembered how isolated this place is." Bowie paused a moment. "So Haggarty is dead."

"Yes, Kesselring shot him when he tried to help Jane Ann. He planned to kill all three of us, make it look like we shot each other."

Erin stared down at Mick Haggarty. "They played him. He didn't have a chance."

"Mick Haggarty was old enough to know exactly what he was doing," Sherlock said. "Jane Ann made sure he was up to his neck, though. She was also using him for insurance, to protect her from Kesselring."

Jane Ann whispered, "It was the only smart thing I did. Poor Mick."

Sherlock said, " Poor Mick was there when Kesselring shot Caskie, just as both of them were at the top of the stairs, firing at us, not to kill us but to make us Jane Ann's alibi. That means Mick was up for first degree murder along with this clown. Jane Ann too.

"Thank you, Erin, for finding me. I owe you a prayer every single night for the rest of my life."

Sherlock looked down at Kesselring. "If he'd gotten off one more shot, I think I'd be singing with the angels. Did you guys happen to bring my cell phone?"

"Sure did," Bowie said, reaching into his jacket pocket. For once, he came out with his own cell. He tried his pants pockets. Nothing.

"Just a moment," Erin said, reaching into her bag and pulling out Sherlock's cell phone, bowing slightly as she handed it to her.

"Thank you. It turns out Kesselring murdered Blauvelt, too, after you, Erin, copied the Culovort papers off Caskie's computer. There's more. I just hope Andy here will repeat it all again."

"Andy?" Erin repeated, eyebrow arched.

"I wanted to push him," Sherlock said, looking down again at Kesselring. "Jane Ann called him Andy and it enraged him. He hates it."

The huge room was now filling with FBI agents and local cops. Sherlock heard sirens in the distance. She realized her heart was slowing, as her brain finally accepted that she'd survived. She wondered when her hands would stop shaking.

Kesselring moaned and opened his eyes to look up at Erin standing above him. She said, "You tried to blow me up. My Hummer's in the junkyard because of you." She kicked him in the knee.

He jerked and moaned again. He was panting as he said, "You are responsible for this, you interfering bitch, you're nothing more than a stupid girl."

"Yeah, right," Erin said. "What does that make you, Prince Charming?"

Kesselring was panting with the pain now. "I need a doctor, now."

Erin smiled down at him. "You didn't answer my question, Andy."

He said with pain-dulled eyes. "I'm a man, a man."

Sherlock went down on her knees next to him. "Look at me, Andy."

"Damn you, don't call me that!"

"Okay, Andreas," she said, her voice soothing, gentle. "Look, I know you're in terrible pain, but you've got to understand, you're headed for death row unless you cooperate. Tell me who's paying you."

He tried to spit in her face.

"There's an answer," Sherlock said.

Kesselring looked up at the two people who'd beaten him. He had failed. Through his roiling, unspeakable pain, his hatred of himself was nearly as great as his hatred of these American FBI agents. Odd how failure tasted sour in his mouth, how it made him want to vomit.

He suddenly saw himself as a little boy, his grandmother bending over him, bundling him up in the middle of winter so he could go build snow forts in the backyard. She was telling him over and over not to hurt his sister.

The pain was coming so hard and fast now it was hard to think, hard to even know what was happening to him. No matter what he said, no matter what he did, Kesselring knew there would be no deal that would ever allow him to walk free again.

He said to the faces above him, all of them blurred now into the haze where the god-awful pain pounded all the way to his soul, "My grandmother is in a nursing home outside of Frankfurt."

He saw his grandmother wrap two coats around his little sister Lisle so she could go outside and play with him. He was so excited, so impatient, and he really didn't want to play with her, she was too little, and she always tripped over everything, and whined-she still whined too much now and she was twenty-eight years old. "I'll never tell you anything," he said, and closed his eyes.

Sherlock stood aside to watch the paramedics, two young men with grim faces, work on Kesselring. "Good grief, Agent, you shot him up pretty good. Neck wound too? How did that happen?" He craned to look up at Sherlock.

"It was quite a shoot-out, let me tell you, I'm very happy he lost."

"He lost, all right," the other paramedic said as he passed pressure dressings to his partner and untied the straps on the gurney. "I think he's going to pull through but he ain't going to be happy for a good long time."